In today's editorial, Timing of evolution gripe little helps its shaky case (what happened to concise headlines?), Rocky Mountain News editorial writer Linda Seebach revels in her intolerant and narrow-minded bias against creationist theory of any type:
The Discovery Institute (discovery. org on the Web) is a Seattle-based think tank which is in fact quite sound on a number of issues. I think I've even quoted them on occasion. Not any more, though, because its section on science and culture is largely devoted to promoting the idea of intelligent design, and that is a sufficiently odd preoccupation as to cast doubt on everything else they do.
Seebach admits that the Discovery Institute is sound on some issues. However, because of her hatred for the idea that this amazing world could be the result of anything other than blind chance, she'll refuse to quote the Discovery Institute on any topic at all. One struggles to find the consistency in her claims that their creationist outlook taints everything they do, even though she finds them "quite sound" on some issues. If they're "quite sound," can they be tainted? If the position on some issues is doubtful in its quality, how can it be quite sound?
She continues:
Young-earth creationism is so incompatible with all modern science, not just evolutionary theory, that essentially nobody would believe it except out of religious necessity.
This pontification on young-earth creationism is offered without any delineation of the scientific credentials possessed by Ms. Seebach that would qualify her to denigrate the numerous scientists with Ph.D. degrees who undertake scientific research despite the supposed aburdity of their views (Click here and here for examples). Notice also the slur against people of faith--apparently "religious necessity" drives people to believe the ludicrous in the face of contrary evidence.
Seebach, with a little help from a Jason Rosenhouse, insists that ID is not scientific:
Intelligent design is not so obviously wrong, but it's not scientific either. Jason Rosenhouse (at evolutionblog. blogspot.com) says, "What does relegate ID to the land of religion is its reliance on supernatural forces to explain aspects of the natural world. Until they can tell us how the action of the supernatural designer manifests itself in the world in some predictable way, ID will not be scientific."
Surreptitiously appealing to methodological naturalism rules out ID by definition. Since methodological naturalism a priori rejects anything supernatural, even if the actual evidence overwhelmingly favors design, adherents must emotionally insist that their complex brains and minds are the cumulation of nothing at all becoming everything through no fault of its own. If in reality there is an intelligent design behind our universe, methodological naturalists like Seebach are barred from ever finding the truth by the close-minded intolerance of their narrow worldview. We are reminded of the anti-faith portrayed by staunch atheist/evolutionist Richard Dawkins in his book The Blind Watchmaker:
Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.
When one's faith in nothing cheerfully flies in the face of all evidence, the honest pursuit of knowledge stagnates.
