The blog that had used to be on the Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe web site had a post which talked about possible logical problems when criticizing intelligent design and did a good job of explaining why such criticisms are not illogical. I left a comment tangential to the question the blog post talked about, and then I thought I might as well include it in my own blog since it’s a rant that stands by itself:
I would have a little respect for intelligent design proponents if they actually managed to scientifically explore and expand their ideas. For example, let’s say that they manage to show that life has been designed (they haven’t even managed this first step), then the next step would be to find out attributes of the designer and how the design occurred with a mix of theory and experiments.
They don’t even do the first step properly, though, and despite this they crow about how much intelligent design is a viable scientific theory. And this is despite the fact that they have absolutely no positive experimental evidence for their claims and that their usual approach is to poke the same supposed holes in evolutionary theory over and over again, even when said holes have been refuted or filled a long time ago.
Intelligent design proponents don’t even manage to find new weaknesses in evolution that might point to new avenues of research for biologists (it feels like the last time this happened must have been a century ago, although I do wonder if there are any recent examples). No wonder I have no respect for intelligent design.