What I Think of ID

Rod Dreher, in his beliefnet blog, writes about Farrell on ID and the Conservative Press, in which he describes a "fiery post" by John Farrell in which "he tears into conservative journals and journalists who have, in his view, given unmerited aid and comfort to ID backers."

Rod himself says he doesn't think much about ID at all, and says that while his sympathies are with IDers--often because of their reasonableness and the way they are sometimes trashed by anti-IDers--that doesn't mean he agrees with ID.

But, he wonders, "I'd love to know how the guys at Touchstone, which has been a big supporter of ID, respond to Farrell's post."

I simply lack the time to write much at all today (and this week), but let me say that the current slate of senior editors here have a range of opinions about ID taken as whole. Part of the problem, I would submit, that there are various sorts of IDers and any group is going to have many fringes, people identifying themselves as IDers whom other IDers don't accept. (Just as there are scientists embarrassed by the anti-religious ravings of Dawkins the scientist.)

What I am coming to find frustrating is how politicized things have become, as well as how imprecise some of the vocabularly is. What, for instance, does someone mean by "evolution"? You really have to ask.

And then, IDers are suspect because most of them are religious believers, while scientists such as Dawkins can speak about theology as much as they wish. I sat and listened to a lecture by Steven Weinberg that was mostly about religion (and wasn't supposed to be) while his ID opponent talked nothing but science.

As to Farrell's post, I am not sure what reasonableness it adds to the situation; my preference would be to hear lots of science debated head on. That's why I've been interested in ID in the first place, because I find science fascinating. Not polemics, but real science.

Farrell may be adding fuel to the fire. He describes Avery Cardinal Dulles's piece in First Things as "otherwise thoughtful" because he gave "a crumb of credibility" to ID. You can't give any space to ID, you see. Much of the opposition is bluster.

Well, I've given space to ID. It's a reasonable position to argue that blind natural mechanical pathways proposed in the past for the rise of life and conscious mind are  inadequate--and I believe the evidence for the inadequacy is mounting--and that a design inference is reasonable. There is a growing though quiet acceptance of a stronger anthropic principle, I would argue, and some scientists are simply retreating into multiverse theories, which means you can avoid the impression of any cosmos specially designed for man.

Things are getting very interesting from where I sit. I'll rest here for the time being and watch what comes next.