Wednesday, August 10, 2005
ID's Last Gasp?
President Bush's "teach both sides" answer to a reporter's question, coming, as it did, on the heels of Cardinal Schonborn's New York Times Op-Ed favoring intelligent design may seem, on the surface anyway, to have given a boost to intelligent design's flagging fortunes.
In reality -- and yes, this is a reality-based blog -- these two events may be seen in the light of later events as ID's last gasp.
From all indications, Cardinal Schonborn's Op-Ed have generated a furious opposition from progressive forces within the church, who have no problem reconciling deep faith with modern science. In RSR's view, the Op-Ed gave the boys at Discovery a short-term public relations coup, but will offer nothing of lasting value in terms of a change in church policy.
The statement by President Bush generated an enormous amount of publicity. For a time, intelligent design was reported by Technorati to be the most popular search term on the Internet.
The endorsement by Mr. Bush may, in the end, prove only a mixed blessing. After all, the president is still more likely, by several orders of magnitude, to find WMD in Iraq than the fellows at the Discovery Institute are to find scientific evidence backing their "theory."
In reality -- and yes, this is a reality-based blog -- these two events may be seen in the light of later events as ID's last gasp.
From all indications, Cardinal Schonborn's Op-Ed have generated a furious opposition from progressive forces within the church, who have no problem reconciling deep faith with modern science. In RSR's view, the Op-Ed gave the boys at Discovery a short-term public relations coup, but will offer nothing of lasting value in terms of a change in church policy.
The statement by President Bush generated an enormous amount of publicity. For a time, intelligent design was reported by Technorati to be the most popular search term on the Internet.
The endorsement by Mr. Bush may, in the end, prove only a mixed blessing. After all, the president is still more likely, by several orders of magnitude, to find WMD in Iraq than the fellows at the Discovery Institute are to find scientific evidence backing their "theory."
