Let's say someone told you the following.

* The existence of rational, intelligent creatures like human beings is tremendously unlikely. Not specifically human creatures (4 fingers and a thumb on each hand, reproducing through sex, etc), but merely "intelligent, moral" beings.
* In fact, under the assumption of "Darwinian evolution", the arrival of "intelligent, moral" beings is regarded as so unlikely that a single universe – even a single universe with the right "fine-tuned" laws – can't reasonably be expected to do the trick.
* We are thus faced with a prospect that makes our existence so unfathomably a fortuitous event that our only available options are either to reject Darwinian evolution, or embrace the existence of multiple universes.

I doubt this is going to sound like a new argument to anyone who's been following ID for any length of time. It conjures up images of Dembski's talks about probability bounds, or Behe's edge of evolution.

So, who's making this argument?

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I believe this is a slightly dramatized reenactment of Jerry Coyne's first biology job.

Previously I've discussed the problem – particularly the modern problem – of finding much meaning in words like natural, naturalism, and supernatural. Instead of tackling that problem head-on, though, I'd like to go about it in a more roundabout way.

Let's say I have a cosmological theory: The universe is only, say.. 6000 years old. Year 0 marks the sudden appearance of planets, galaxies, species, environments, humanity, and time itself. I'm sure this sounds like a familiar story to you – it is (at least a popular variant of) the young-earth creationist position. But as I've just described it, there's another way to tag this idea.

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Back in 2004, Robert Wright had an interesting interview with a well-known philosopher. What made the talk very interesting, though, was that Wright apparently caught this philosopher in the act of admitting that evolution – not the mere products of evolution, but evolution itself – did have some appearances of being a purposeful process. Maybe even a designed process. And that this appearance of design was owing to some evident directionality in evolution.

A familiar theme in some corners of the internet.

Naturally, this led to controversy immediately. The philosopher insisted he didn't really mean that there was evidence for design in evolution – lest, I suppose, he be placed with the Intelligent Design camp – while Wright stood by his story and thought the protests were unreasonable in light of the interview, and there was a small blogstorm for a while.

So who was this philosopher who stood accused of ID sympathies? Some theistic evolutionist, stumbling while trying to walk the line between ID and mainstream evolutionary theory? Maybe a creationist who was afraid the flock would think he was suddenly going soft on the evolutionists?

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Richard Dawkins' Inferior Design is published in the New York Times Sunday Book Review. I'll take a page from the Dawkins playbook and respond to selected points. Dawkins:

For a while, Behe built a nice little career on being a maverick. His colleagues might have disowned him, but they didn’t receive flattering invitations to speak all over the country and to write for The New York Times. Behe’s name, and not theirs, crackled triumphantly around the memosphere. But things went wrong, especially at the famous 2005 trial where Judge John E. Jones III immortally summed up as “breathtaking inanity” the effort to introduce intelligent design into the school curriculum in Dover, Pa.

With hindsight we know that the judge copied from what plaintif attorneys had submitted to him. Citing this as "immortally summed up" has unintended irony.

Behe simply asserted without justification that particular biological structures (like the bacterial flagellum, the tiny propeller by which bacteria swim) needed all their parts to be in place before they would work, and therefore could not have evolved incrementally.

Deceitful. What Behe actually said:

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How could I resist an article with so tempting a title?

But Newsweek decided to run with it, so let's see just what they have to say about that. Minimal commentary and some highlights below the click. Right out of the gates, let's start with this one:

In any case, Sam Harris [...] concedes he believes in something certain people would call “God.”

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Is November some kind of national "Pile on Darwin" month? Because I thought that was January.

Anyway, this time we have New York University Geologist Mike Rampino claiming the geographical record skunks Darwin's ToE for Patrick Matthew's. As usual, some highlights with minimal commentary below the click.

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Sight of Meat Puts People at Ease, Study Suggests

Short version: Psychologist researchers, apparently dabbling in a bit of evolutionary psychology, exposed people to pictures of meat and observed their reactions.

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TP referenced a letter written by Thomas Jefferson and originally alluded to at TT by Jared Jammer in the comment section. The letter had been the subject of an entry at the DI site. I'll focus on the claims relevant to ID. Not being a Calvinist I'll not delve into that matter. But others are free to do so. Jefferson:

Indeed I think that every Christian sect gives a great handle to Atheism by their general dogma that, without a revelation, there would not be sufficient proof of the being of a god.

Christian doctrine on revelation is focused on the character of God. God's character (justice, mercy, love etc.) is revealed to us but his power is revealed through his creation. First Romans is clear on the latter point:

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If I understand it, the new version of neo-Darwinism (which I have dubbed "neo-neo-Darwinism"), gives a (much?) smaller role to natural selection, and a (much?) larger role to random mutation. I'm trying to understand it and would appreciate informed input (not the usual "Those Darwinists are really desperate or stupid" comments ID proponents come up with. I'll be deleting all of those).

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Philosophical and biological conundrums show up everywhere these days. This from Industry Market Trends.

The research team discovered that the formation of eggshells is only possible due to a protein found solely in a chicken's ovaries. The protein, called ovocledidin-17 (also known as OC-17), speeds up the development of the hard shell, which is essential for protecting delicate yolk and fluids while the chick grows inside the egg, the report said.

"The protein in the chicken is needed to make the eggshell," Dr. Colin Freeman, from Sheffield University's Department of Engineering Materials, told ABC News. "You don't get the chicken egg unless you have the chicken."

Yes, but how did the chicken get there? The report, titled Structural Control of Chrystal Nuclei by an Eggshell Protein, does not determine how the protein-producing chicken existed in the first place.

They are not permitted to reveal the chicken was designed.

The following statement is taken from a recent blog entry:

Steve does not detail why he considers the organizations named- Reasons to Believe and the Discovery Institute- anti-science.

A trail which began with information from the Reasons to Believe site ended up with Multiple General Relativity Tests Affirm a Creator. True, it contains the c word but it also has the names of some legendary baseball players and this:

Looking to the stars and beyond, Christians have marshaled arguments of their own through the centuries to contend for the existence of the God of the Bible. In terms of scientific relevance, the cosmological and teleological arguments (or “causal argument” and “argument from design”) represent the two most potent lines of reasoning.

These two classical arguments have received a modern boost as the scientific community’s understanding of the theory of general relativity grows. A wealth of recently published research affirms the validity of this powerful theory and further solidifies the apologetic case for God’s existence.

Challenging orthodoxy is a mark of an open society. Establishing extraordinary claims with extraordinary evidence comes to mind when demands are made to fundamentally alter our way of life and lower our standard of living. Gotta be sure about the evidence in such circumstances.

Dianna Cotter wrote Blacklisted scientist challenges global warming orthodoxy. The article links to this by Ferenc Miskolczi:

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Recently there have been questions of ID Research programs. Now while I believe strongly in arguments for design, I don't believe ID, or not-ID, is science. Science has many uses, but when it comes to metaphysical and most philosophical questions – and I believe design on the level most ID proponents mean is one – it's a helpless discipline. Hell, if you believe Stephen Hawking as of late, it doesn't do that good of a job at revealing truth, even about physical reality.

But let's say I accepted ID as science. What, then, would ID research look like to me?

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Remember when NewScientist magazine published an article entitled "Why Einstein Was Wrong About Relativity"? Remember how prominent scientists around the world were outraged and called for a boycott of the magazine?

If you don't remember, it's because it didn't happen. Sure, Einstein is revered and his theories are the foundation of lots and lots of research and innovation. But Gnu Atheists don't have a ton of metaphysical baggage in Einsteins trunk. If you really want to make a herd of Gnu Atheists stampede all you have to do is whisper "Darwin was wrong" and they turn into a slobbering, galloping, frenzied mess.

Nowadays, you don't even have to take it that far. All you have to do to set them off now is suggest that natural selection might not be as powerful as it was once thought.

Apparently, Jerry Coyne didn't like an article by Keith Bennett in NewScientist which dared to "question the power and ubiquity of natural selection".

"That’s like a chemist coming to your magazine and doubting the existence of atoms." – Jerry Coyne

NewScientist editor responds:
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