Why You're a Big Poopyhead

The misleadingly-named Tech Central Station is running an awful article entitled Why Intelligent Design Is Going to Win.

Here are the bullet points the author structures his article around:

1. ID will win because it's a religion-friendly, conservative-friendly, red-state kind of theory, and no one will lose money betting on the success of red-state theories in the next fifty to one hundred years.
   
   Note that he has nothing to say about the merits of ID. But he's convinced that the popular will of people who breed quicker should be enough to make sure ID "wins" ("... families that reproduce people tend to reproduce ideas, as well" he says later). Well, popularity is pretty lousy way to measure the scientific merit of an idea. But, ID is a pretty lousy idea, so maybe that's its best bet. At least he's not hiding the fact that this is primarily a political issue for the IDers.



2. ID will win because the pro-Darwin crowd is acting like a bunch of losers.
   
   No, really. He wrote that.
   
   
3. ID will win because it can be reconciled with any advance that takes place in biology, whereas Darwinism cannot yield even an inch of ground to ID.
   
   What on earth can he mean by this? Let's read on:
   
   
   So you've discovered the missing link? Proven that viruses distribute super-complex DNA proteins? Shown that fractals can produce evolution-friendly three-dimensional shapes? It doesn't matter. To the ID mind, you're just pushing the question further down the road. How was the missing link designed? What is the origin of the viruses? Who designed the fractals? ID has already made its peace with natural selection and the irrefutable aspects of Darwinism. ...It must dogmatically insist that it will resolve all of its ambiguities and shortcomings...
   
   
   Or : science will never stop looking for answers; but no matter what the question, ID already has the answer (hint: it's the bearded guy in the sky). Grrrrrreat.
   
   I wonder, though; since ID already has the answers, can we assume it has had the answers all along? That is, should we throw out all the advances in biology that have occurred in the past 150 years thanks to Darwin's insights ? They can't have any value, if ID's "God Did It" is the real answer. Or should we just stop now and keep what we have so far ? How much do you suppose he values, oh I dunno, vaccinations and antibiotics ?
   
   
4. ID will win because it can piggyback on the growth of information theory, which will attract the best minds in the world over the next fifty years.
   
   And the best minds in the world will be satisfied with "God Did It"? That kind of thinking went out of fashion about 700 years ago.
   


5. ID will win because ID assumes that man will find design in life -- and, as the mind of man is hard-wired to detect design, man will likely find what he seeks.


Yeah, he really wrote that. This, too:
Hammers tend to find nails, screwdrivers tend to find screws, and the human mind tends to find design.


Bafflingly stupid, he continues:
Of course, the propensity to see designs doesn't mean that the designs aren't actually there. But the quintessential human perception is one of design -- and, to the extent that perceptions define reality, a theory built on the perception of design has a huge advantage over its competitors.


The human mind also prefers to group people into Us and Them, giving Us the attributes of angels and Them the tendencies of devils - call it tribes, teams, clubs, nations, religions, races, etc.; and the mind is perfectly happy explaining things it doesn't easily understand with nonsense superstitions. Now if I could take those two things and use them for political advantage... why, maybe I could write for Tech Central Station!