Intelligent Design is Bad Theology


Looks like a fun book (Saving Darwin: How to Be a Christian and Believe in Evolution
):

Seeing and Believing: “Miller brilliantly exposes ID for what it is: a farrago of theological assertions and discredited scientific claims designed to inveigle a religious view of life into the biology classroom. IDers have no defined program of scientific research. Although they spend huge sums of money on public relations, they have not produced a single scientifically refereed paper supporting the empirical claims of their ‘theory.’ Miller correctly concludes that ‘the hypothesis of design is compatible with any conceivable data, makes no new testable predictions, and suggests no new avenues for research.’ One of Miller’s keenest insights is that ID involves not just design but also supernatural creation. After all, the designer has to do more than just envision new creatures; he must also place them on Earth. And if that is not creationism (a label that IDers loudly reject), I do not know what is.

For Giberson, ID is not just bad science (or more strictly, not science at all), it is also bad theology:

The world is a complex place, and there is much about the universe that we still don’t understand. We are centuries away from closing the many gaps in our current scientific understanding of the natural world…. But it is the business of science to close gaps, and it has long been the central intuition of theology to find a better place to look for God…. Promoting ‘design’ in isolation from God’s other attributes is a dangerous and ultimately self-defeating way to get God back into science.

Rather than reconciling religion and science, then, ID puts them in further conflict, damaging both in the process. That is why so many theologians as well as scientists have testified against ID in court.”

Read the whole review from Jerry Coyne at The New Republic.

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