I, for one, have religiously ignored the topic before now. [Meaning, until the present, I have had no real idea what it was all about] I have done this partly out of a sort of professional courtesy to its supporters, with whom I share most other beliefs (and in many cases a personal affection), partly out of a belief that the idea was too obscure to argue over, [ an idea which he has just finished saying that he had religiously ignored until now] and partly because the idea is so patently ridiculous to me [patently ridiculous based on his studied ignorance of anything to do with it] that I felt that pointing this out would be somewhat akin to telling a friend that they have really, really bad breath. I mean - it would be an uncomfortable moment for both of us. But then how will they ever know, if I don’t tell them?His piece isn't informative of anything but his ignorance and prejudice. It's a screed that uses his supposed conservative identity as a way of saying, "hey, pay no attention to that thing over there. You can believe me because I'm a conservative.
So in light of the issue’s new prominence and with a desire to improve the mental hygiene of others, I would just like to say that Intelligent Design is a really, really bad idea --scientifically, politically, and theologically. I say this as a dedicated conservative, who has on many occasions defended and espoused religion and religious conservatism. I also say it as a professional molecular biologist, who has worked daily (or at least week-daily) for years with biological problems [meaning he was born and bred in a particular theory and everything else looks ridiculous. Sort of like kids first realizing that meat was actually muscle or that it was sex between their parents that got them started] to which the theory of evolution has contributed significant understanding -- and to which Intelligent Design is incapable of contributing any understanding at all [all said, of course, on his professed ignorance of the subject and predisposition to discount it completely--and I, as a professional biologist who did his Ph.D. thesis work in the field of molecular neurobiology, can say that any of the mechanisms, genetics, and physiology of that field can be described, understood, and manipulated without any reference at all to its supposed evolutionary history. The most a discussion of evolutionary history contributes is on the level of "Hey, we see this cool gene here and it's so important to development, it must be evolutionarily conserved (an act of question-begging), so let's see where else it shows up! Hey, it shows up here and here and here, too! Wow, these things must all share a common ancestor or they wouldn't have this common feature (another exercise in question-begging)]
Scientifically, attributing every aspect of biology to the arbitrary design of a divine tinkerer [again he shows his ignorance of the subject as well as his prejudice] explains as much about biology as attributing the eruption of volcanoes to the anger of the Lava God would explain geology [Like Dawkins, he argues from a false analogy based on question-begging].
I also say it as a professional molecular biologist, who has worked daily (or at least week-daily) for years with biological problems
What amazes me (and I'm speaking as someone familiar with the relevant journal literature), is how question-begging so much of the evolutionary aspect of biology, especially evolutionary biology and molecular biology, really is. In many cases, the author(s) will present their entire work, and then as an after-though throw in the obligatory "oh yeah, and evolution did this" nonsense at the end. So much of the time, evolution is simply an add-on, and it's obvious that evolution is irrelevant to the actual, evidentiary science which they've presented. Evolution is not science, it is a philosophical worldview through which actual evidence is interpreted. Science is a process, evolution is an interpretation. Calling evolution "science" is like calling literary criticism "playwriting".