James F. McGrath writes:

Let's imagine a hypothetical (and admittedly implausible) scenario, in which some new information comes to light - whether through scientific investigation, or from a booming voice from a burning bush - showing that in fact the intelligent design crowd, or even the young-earth creationists, were right, and it turns out that evolution is utterly inadequate as an explanation for the development of life on this planet.

The Design Matrix:

The concept of Intelligent Design need not contradict anything science has discovered about evolution. If design at the hands of an intelligent agency intersects with our biological reality, this does not mean that mutation and natural selection would not exist.
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The final way in which the Traditional Template shapes the design debate is with the very familiar evolution versus design paradigm where it is assumed that the two explanations somehow contradict each other and are mutually exclusive. In fact, in the debate between evolutionary scientists and creationists, the only place there ever seems to be agreement is with the claim that evolution is incompatible with design.
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Evolution itself is needlessly set against design as if we could not exist in a reality where both are true.

McGrath:

The YECs and cdesign proponentsists, on the other hand, should be ashamed even if they turned out to be right. Because in the realm of science, and in the realm of honest discourse in general, it isn't whether your opinion or conviction happens to be right. It is how you reached your conclusion that matters.

The Design Matrix:

In the process of characterizing the fingerprints that signal design, the context I have provided in the previous chapters becomes more important than ever. In Chapter 2, we decided to steer away from the traditional approach of looking for some extraordinary marker that would unequivocally"prove" design. We are not looking for data that scream "Design!" Instead, we adopt an incremental approach and systematically gather clues to determine if they converge on a signal of design. We surveyed some of those clues in Chapters 3-5. But then, in the following chapters, we encountered obstacles. Our attempt to infer design was clouded by the existence of natural selection acting as a designer-mimic (Chapter 6), and further by the possibility that an intelligent designer may indeed make use of the designer-mimic (Chapter 7). If we assume designed things carry with them some residual trace of their history of being designed, can it ever be strong enough to break through all the noise?

McGrath:

If someone picks a view of the universe because it makes them feel good, and doesn't care about the evidence, the fact that they happened to pick the one that was right doesn't mean for a moment that they made an intelligent, honest, careful, well thought out choice. The ID and YEC proponents have engaged in trickery and deceit, sleight of hand and misrepresentation of the facts. These things are utterly shameful behavior, even in the service of a viewpoint that happens to be correct.

The Design Matrix:

It is not uncommon for people to approach the topic of design from a myopic perspective, thinking that " Intelligent Design" is an American idea invented back in the 1990s by sneaky creationists with a socio-political agenda.

Throughout the years, I have noticed a pattern that occurs when arguing with various critics "“ rather than focus and deal with the actual argument I am making, they are arguing against a point that they anticipate I will make later down the line. To argue like this, I assume they think they are relying on their foresight, but more often than not, they are simply relying on stereotypes. So what would it be like to play chess with someone like that?

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An article of The Times entitled Professors discuss intelligent design vs. evolution shows interviews of Michael Behe and William Dress, an assistant professor of science who teaches biology at Robert Morris University. Their viewpoints contrast with each other. Here's some snippets:

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Since some of you have read The Design Matrix, or are in the process of reading it, I thought I would use this time window to wink at y'all. And to facilitate my friendly winking, I will use a recent essay from Mac Johnson. Johnson a writer and medical researcher in Cambridge, Mass. and is a regular contributor to HUMAN EVENTS. The title of his essay is Intelligent Design, and Other Dumb Ideas. If you have read the Design Matrix, I encourage you to read Johnson' s essay and come back here to survey the terrain.

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A New York Times editorial entitled Evolution and Texas is a practical illustration of a teflon movement that avoids labels indicating existing political and financial motives. The ousting of Christine Comer sparked the editorial response. Comer's departure is not applauded but neither is the spin attached to the incident. From the linked article:

Is Texas about to become the next state to undermine the teaching of evolution? That is the scary implication of the abrupt ousting of Christine Comer, the state's top expert on science education. Her transgression: forwarding an e-mail message about a talk by a distinguished professor who debunks "intelligent design" and creationism as legitimate alternatives to evolution in the science curriculum.

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I think the thing I like best about the Intelligent Design debate is watching highly educated and highly respected thinkers criticize ID. I enjoy this because it quickly becomes clear that many of our culture's leading intellectuals are simply reacting, often reflexively, to popular and sensational claims rather than demonstrating a reflective approach born of independent, critical thinking. The latest example comes from Mary Midgley.

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The Irrationality of Science is a Viewpoint article which comments on the recent op ed piece by Paul Davies. A quote from the Davies article is followed by the author's response. My comments follow that.

Davies:

Science, we are repeatedly told, is the most reliable form of knowledge about the world because it is based on testable hypotheses. Religion, by contrast, is based on faith….In science, a healthy skepticism is a professional necessity, whereas in religion, having belief without evidence is regarded as a virtue.

Viewpoint author:

The last sentence is an irritatingly common misrepresentation of faith. Faith is not believing despite the lack of evidence, faith is believing despite the fact that the evidence falls short of proof. Anyway, Davies is going to argue that science, like religion, is ultimately based on faith:

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Bradford posted about Paul Davies' op-ed in the New York Times on the thread Science and Faith. Which quickly went downhill as our live-in critics decended like vultures to put a quick stop to any real discussion.

The SciBlog community wasn't hampered by such tactics, so came out hot and heavy in defense of their ideology against Davies' observations. Anti-theist PZ Myers insisted that Faith is not a prerequisite for science, but only managed to demonstrate laughable ignorance of the relevant science. My favorite excerpts…

When someone says that life would not exist if the laws of physics were just a little bit different, I have to wonder"¦ how do they know? Just as there are many different combinations of amino acids that can make any particular enzyme, why can't there be many different combinations of physical laws that can yield life?

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Ian Musgrave of the Pandas Thumb has chimed in on the exchange between Behe and Caroll, in which he makes this point (among many):

As well, pyrimethamine resistance develops very rapidly, 6 years from the first appearance of resistance to fixation of 3 or 4 mutation-bearing enzymes is typical (Sanderfur et al., 2007, Talisuna et al., 2004). This is not consistent with the need for simultaneous double mutations (Talisuna et al., 2004).

However, I don't see how that conclusion follows. It seems that once the triple+ mutants arrive in the population and the drug is used extensively, it spreads quickly through the population. But how long they took to develop is an open question. In fact, according to this paper it seems that they evolved long before they arrived in Africa, despite the already existing double-mutants and pressure from the drug.

Gordy Slack authored The evolution of creationism by which he tried and failed to support the tired cliche about an assault on science. Some corrections are in order.

1. There is much more to ID arguments than the simplistic "evolution is not up to the task" depiction. Either Gordy has not looked into the matter extensively or he is mindlessly repeating standard memes.

2. IDists do not avoid mentioning God. However, they do avoid alleging that which is not subject to empirical evaluation. That's why we discuss genes, mutations, biological systems and things along these lines. That's why design is assessed in the context of experimental data. There is no need to make an end run around the First Amendment when scientific data is the subject of discussions.

3. Gordy is right in thinking that IDists are not about to give up their world views because of Judge Jones. Who would expect otherwise in a democratic system. Give up your world view? Sounds like the demands of an Adolf or a Saddam. It's not in keeping with western ideals.

4. The evolution is under serious attack mantra appeals to the true believers but is belied by the facts. Most IDists criticize the notion that biological change is non-telic in nature or analogous to a blind watchmaker.