[mjolnir]

Unlike the Creationists of 20 years ago, proponents of ID no longer refer to biblical passages. Instead, they invoke skepticism and cite alleged faulty evidence as reasons to teach students alternatives to evolution. True, they produce little or no evidence to support their own position... Their target is the millions of onlookers and voters, for whom the battle is as emotional and symbolic as it ever was.

This is so true of the Id'ers... and I have told a number of ID'ers on FR that pushing ID is going to open a Pandora's box to "other theories" being pushed (well funded cults like Scientology). They don't care nor do they think it is a real issue.

To say that pushing ID is going to lead to other theories being pushed as well isn't much more than an unsupported slippery slope argument. The author admits that guided evolution is an old alternative and Lee Smolin's ideas about evolving universes has also been talked about for years, as has the idea that the universe is cyclical and I fail to see the harm in that, just as I fail to see the problem in his atheism inspiring Stephen Hawking to solve the problem of apparent fine-tuning with top-down approach to cosmology... nor have I heard of any ID proponent complain about any of these ideas being discussed as live options.

[trashcanbred]

To say that pushing ID is going to lead to other theories being pushed as well isn't much more than an unsupported slippery slope argument.

Good. Fine. Please by all means make a joke and laughing stock out of science. Also open the door for the Scientologists to push their ideas in, since they have as much proof for their beliefs as those who push ID do.