Today's NYTimes has a good
Krugman editorial on Intelligent Design and the politics of obfuscation. The basic gist of it is that proponents of ID don't have to win the day scientifically, but only to create enough uncertainty to confuse the issue in the minds of politicians, the public and press.
I think he's spot on as regards the overall pattern of inculcating confusion over politically important scientific issues, as epitomized by the campaign to blur the widespread scientific consensus on global warming. However, I think he misses the boat somewhat on ID.
As I discuss on the flip...
This subject has been the subject of at least one absurdly hateful and illogical diary lately, so I'm expecting to get slammed a bit for asserting that the motivation behind at least some part of the ID movement isn't pure evil. I'm not defending any theory or theorist - in fact, I'm more or less completely unfamiliar with the output of the ID crowd. My point is only to say that the philosophical and political issue behind ID is being widely ignored.
As I attempt to explain in this letter to Prof. Krugman:
Mr. Krugman,
Thanks for your recent editorial on Intelligent Design. While I think you're correct about the general pattern of inculcating confusion for political purposes, by reducing ID to purely another instance of that pattern you overlook the deeper issue that it genuinely represents for many people. That question, obviously enough, concerns the existence and nature of God.
Not all scientific issues are created equal, and it's misleading to suggest that they are. The roundness of the Earth is more concretely comprehensible than the complex dynamics of climate change, which in turn are more concretely comprehensible than the ultimate nature of existence. As we move from concrete comprehensibility we approach the edge of science proper - The edge, that is, beyond which propositions are not susceptible to falsification. What many religious (and even some non-religious) people find off-putting is the tendency among scientists to treat the limit of what might be experimentally falsified as if it were the limit of reality.
I forget who it is that said, "The final proof of God's greatness is that he doesn't need to exist in order to save us." The idea of ID can be similarly salvaged, and not necessarily illegitimately, by reframing the fundamental concepts of 'intelligence' and 'design.' The sophistication that differentiates ID from 'Creation science' can be extended - and I don't believe that the motivation for doing so is always in error. Beyond all formulations, and all partisan hackery, there remains a set of profound questions about the nature of reality and humanity. To deny these questions is not only, in my view, a sort of philosophical blindness, but a political mistake. By depriving people of relatively sophisticated ways of integrating Divinity into their cognitive lives you increase the potential appeal of cruder and more virulent forms of religion.
appreciatively yours,