Cheesehead, ID is not a scientific theory. It makes no predictions and can’t be falsified. It’s propaganda, plain and simple.

And there are no peer-reviewed books on ID.

1) To say that ID is not science sounds like a doctrinal statement. It is a theory, the implications of which could conceivable be tested and falsified. (For instance, to mix nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, and other elements in whatever proportions the “primordial soup” may have been and then subject that mix to energy addition; were it to yield a simple life form, this would falsify the theory that life forms have a “design” which requires and intelligent designer. However, our inability thus far to suceed with this experiment does not falsify evolution, because we may not yet have designed the experiment properly. So while not disproving evolution, this experiment as done so far tends to bolster ID theory.)

2) “Peer review”: I believe (but am not positive) that Dembski’s book was published by Cambridge University, hardly a bastion of anti-scientific fundamentalism. If I am wrong on this point, I will gladly stand corrected.

I agree that the excerpt you quoted above represented a political rather than a scientific view about origins. But at the end of the day any theory about origins is and will always be theory, not observed phenomena. There have been peer-reviewed books about ID (Dembski springs to mind) and a least one peer-reviewed article about it. I realize these raised a lot of controversy, but if credentialed scientists want to explore the theory of ID, the more sunshine the better. If evolution is the theory that comports better with reality it will easily withstand any assault ID or any other theory can throw at it. Every new theory ever propounded by scientists at their inceptions were out of the mainstream. Some went on to collapse under the strain of lack of evidence; some went on to become pretty much universally accepted.

OT: did Mummon banish you from his comments? If so, a little more sunshine there would help, too.

You know very well I’m not taking the ID side; in fact, I’m hoping that by drawing distinctions between ID and evolution, we’ll be able to teach students the difference between what is science and what is not.

I do NOT propose that ID be given equal weight as a scientific theory. It is no such thing. Nor to I suggest giving it significant time. But I do think that it raises very interesting questions about what is the proper purview of science, and it ultimately argues against itself as science, and so belongs elsewhere, where materialism and metaphysics are on equal footing, intellectually speaking.