Intelligent design gets even dumber

[Machiavelli]

Jerry A. Coyne
The Washington Post
March 8, 2019

Jerry A. Coyne is a professor emeritus in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago. He is the author of “Why Evolution is True” and “Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible.”

The notion of “intelligent design” arose after opponents of evolution repeatedly failed on First Amendment grounds to get Bible-based creationism taught in the public schools. Their solution: Take God out of the mix and replace him with an unspecified “intelligent designer.” They added some irrelevant mathematics and fancy biochemical jargon, and lo: intelligent design, which scientists have dubbed “creationism in a cheap tuxedo.”

But the tuxedo is fraying, for intelligent design has been rejected not just by biologists but also by judges who recognize it as poorly disguised religion. Nevertheless, its advocates persist. Among the most vocal is Michael J. Behe, a biology professor at Lehigh University whose previous books, despite withering criticism from scientists, have sold well in a country where 76 percent of us think God had some role in human evolution.

Behe does not rely on the Bible as a science textbook. Rather, he admits that evolution occurs by natural selection sifting new mutations and that all species are related via common ancestors. Where he parts company with other biologists is in his claim that the important mutations producing new types of organisms are not random accidents but are deliberately installed by a designer with a plan.

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