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Somewhere in that self-masturbatory intellectual narcissism that Stuart posted (Stuart: I'm not saying that about YOU, but rather about the writer, who troubles us to explain the old Oxonian tutorial system as though he were describing seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time) there is a grain of geniune wisdom: There are HUGE arguments to be made about tributaries off Chuck D's original premise, like path-dependence (why are we still typing this on a QWERTY keyboard), Darwinian medicine, etc.

But the critical point is that these discussions are only carried on after we've gotten over the fact that the THEORY of EVOLUTION has been validated by all of the available biological record, from fossil days to the peppered moth. It's the starting point for everything.

The whole ID canard reminds me of a hilariously funny part of one of the Douglas Adams books, where he's describing the Babel Fish. The Babel Fish, when placed in your ear, translates all the Galaxy's languages into your language. Such a fish is considered to be too complex to have evolved merely by chance, and therefore is held up as proof of divine creation.

Says G_d, "I refuse to prove that I exist, for proof denies faith, and without faith, I am nothing." "Ahhh, but what about the Babel fish, which is clear and uncontrovertable evidence that you DO exist, and therefore faith isn't necessary, and therefore, you don't exist!" "Oh, I never thought of that" says G_d, who promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

Anyway, if you want to explore ID, the proper place is in the Theology department, where it is the big kid on the block. Can you imagine the first day of "Theories of Human Origins 401" in which we all sit down to debate ID vs. Evolution? Out comes Darwin looking like the Scots at Bannockburn. Now, where is the scientific evidence for ID?

Sound of crickets chirping. Cough.

And let's not start perverting the rules of science. I have never SEEN the inside of a Bohr Atom. But that didn't stop us from leveling a couple of cities.