The fruits of evolutionary theory are disseminated in thousands of research articles in dozens of journals every year. Obviously, the people charged with the responsibility of entering their labs and solving problems find it useful. Numerous complex systems have been studied and the major steps of their evolution revealed. Where data are copious, they are all in accord with Darwinian expectations; where mysteries remain, the problem is a lack of data, not a lack of theoretical robustness. -JASON ROSENHOUSE
Because he cannot get his hands on the steering wheel, Mr. Berlinski reaches for the brakes, asserting that a large domain of interest is or should be permanently exempt from scientific inquiry. This has been a standard plea of the religious for the last several centuries, and Mr. Berlinski’s formulation—that the search for “the ineffable inimitable” is fruitless—is a classic of the genre. History has not been kind to those who predict an end to scientific progress, and declare God to be the sole possible explanation for the remaining mysteries. -CLAY SHIRKY
Intelligent-design theory can be summed up, as best I can determine, by two propositions: there is a creator and evolutionary theory is false. Its advocates do not believe the creator is sophisticated enough to have created our universe in such a complex way. It appears they would prefer a magician, waving a wand and shouting magical words of creation. -S.L. BACCUS
It is the Nature of the Game that any chosen set of Conditions necessarily exempt large domains of interest from inquiry.