Wednesday, September 28, 2005

The Stubborn Pull of Dogma

The Stubborn Pull of Dogma
David P. Barash (Los Angeles Times)
Thus, current promoters of “intelligent design” generally accept the power and primacy of natural selection to generate small-scale evolutionary change. (The evolution of antibiotic resistance among bacteria, for example, is beyond dispute.) Ditto for the biochemical and genetic similarity of closely related species. But when it comes to their fundamental belief system, advocates of intelligent design aren’t really very intelligent at all. Or rather, like Brahe, they have checked their intellects at the door, clinging desperately to the illusion that human beings are so special that only a benevolent god could have produced them and, therefore, the material world—like Brahe’s sun and its five planets—must revolve around them.

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