Two Noted Scientists Respond to Meyer's Intelligent Design Column in the Daily Telegraph

Last week Stephen Meyer had a piece published in the Daily Telegraph in London, "Intelligent design is not creationism." As sometimes happens with the appearance of a an article advocating intelligent design, there was a flurry of anti-ID letters. However, there were also two letters worth noting.

Sir - Most readers of books by Michael Behe or William Dembski find intelligent design a rational, but not necessarily correct, idea (Letters, January 30).

Darwinists clearly think they can refute the idea that complex structures need a designer; others think they are wrong. All this is fine - we call this scientific debate.

However, for taking this line, I have been called a creationist (when I am an agnostic) and anti-evolution (despite having provided an addition to the theory of natural selection).

From this, I conclude that most of the debate is not about science, but is a battle between the creationists and atheists to determine who will set the present, and future, cultural agenda. Those of us who are not involved should make sure that neither side wins.

Sir - Stephen Meyer's article (Opinion, January 28) on intelligent design was a thoughtful and calm outline of the background to the debate.

In my own research area of evolutionary algorithms, intelligent design works together with evolutionary principles to produce better solutions to real problems.

Sometimes the results are novel and surprising, but, on reflection, they were always inherent in the initial formulation. Without the initial activity of an intelligent agent, the evolutionary mill has no grist to work on.

As molecular biology advances, the Darwinist dogma becomes ever more implausible as an explanation for the sort of complexity that Meyer describes.

Here is Professor Colin Reeves' homepage. He is Professor of Operational Research in the School of Mathematical and Information Sciences (MIS) at Coventry University. His research focuses on genetic algorithms.

Here is Dr. Milton Wainwright's homepage. Prof. Wainwright is a professor at the Molecular Biology and Biotechnology department at University of Sheffield.

Odd how only the semi-pro-ID letters from 1/31 are presented, and the rather more negative letters from 1/30 are omitted.

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Intelligent Design lacks intelligence

Sir - Intelligent Design (Opinion, January 28) is merely a dishonest attempt to repackage a literal interpretation of the Bible as science - and so sneak it into the American school curriculum, where religion is banned.

To argue from "Gosh, living things are complicated" straight to "Therefore they must have been put together by an intelligent entity" is (to quote the conservative judge who recently threw it out when adopted by the school board in Dover, Pennsylvania) "a breathtaking inanity". Besides, if you believe the free market came up with a better economic system than Marx, you don't believe in Intelligent Design.

Matt Ridley, Blagdon, Northumberland
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Sir - Stephen Meyer, in explaining the difference between ID and biblical creationism, fails to mention the recent findings of Judge John Jones in the Pennsylvania school-board case: that the first is a mere re-labelling of the second.

Steve Jones, University College London
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Sir - Prof Meyer may have caused some confusion by stating that ID is "an evidence-based scientific theory". This would only be true with a new definition of "scientific". At the trial in Dover, ID proponent Michael Behe went as far as to suggest that science should be redefined in a way that would include astrology.

Bob O'Hara, University of Helsinki
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Sir - As the state of the art in creationism, by all means teach ID in religious education classes. But it has no place in any scientific forum, especially that of the school science lesson.

Peter Risdon, Soham, Cambs
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Sir - Prof Meyer's explanation of ID as evidence-based science provides an interesting contrast with many media reports. I cannot help but note that the scientific methodology promoted by figures such as Richard Dawkins cannot handle intelligent agency (beyond human causation). Indeed, it excludes it as a matter of principle.

There is a science that accepts only material causes and a science that has material causes plus intelligent agency. Both these science methodologies seem to have metaphysical roots that have religious implications.

Intelligent Design challenges the positivist assumptions underpinning much modern science. This issue is not "is ID faith-based?" but "can science be practised with a diversity of metaphysical roots?"

Dr David J. Tyler, Manchester Metropolitan University

Odd how only the semi-pro-ID letters from 1/31 are presented, and the rather more negative letters from 1/30 are omitted.

But you must understand -- these people are like Baghdad Bob. They don't care about accuracy, or justice, or truth. They have a different motivation in life, and only their goal matters to them. To that end, they'll spout their selected talking points all day long, and they'll omit, deny, and denounce everything else. In their minds, they have integrity, and I guess they do, when you consider their single-minded devotion to their ideological cause. They also argue from a single standard to which they scrupulously adhere. It's just that they have a different standard -- "whatever furthers the cause." In their own way, their conduct is highly virtuous. Different worldviews, different notions of virtue.

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Intelligent debate