Here’s a link to a 2005 Charles Krauthammer column on Intelligent Design (via Little Green Footballs). Presented as a followup to my post of July 8.
Phony Theory, False Conflict
…Let’s be clear. Intelligent design may be interesting as theology, but as science it is a fraud. It is a self-enclosed, tautological “theory” whose only holding is that when there are gaps in some area of scientific knowledge — in this case, evolution — they are to be filled by God. It is a “theory” that admits that evolution and natural selection explain such things as the development of drug resistance in bacteria and other such evolutionary changes within species but also says that every once in a while God steps into this world of constant and accumulating change and says, “I think I’ll make me a lemur today.” A “theory” that violates the most basic requirement of anything pretending to be science — that it be empirically disprovable.
Well put. Worth reading the whole thing.
To be sure, Intelligent Design has been made a political issue – a trait shared with global warming hucksterism. The difference is that despite the religious fervor of the Warm-mongers, their theory is falsifiable. For example, the debate on anthropogenic climate changes is not over. See also, Evans: No smoking gun for CO2 and Proved: There is no climate crisis
Of course, the other thing neo-Creationists share with global-warmists is that both groups are damaging the reputation of science. In both cases the method is to insist their theory cannot be disproven. The former rely on reference to the supernatural. The latter have recreated the inquisition complete with dogma, and the indulgences of carbon credits. Anyone who disagrees is a heretic and a “denier.”