Posted by Paul Burnett in Alameda, California @ 15:15 on Nov 6 2010

Noble is certainly correct about one thing: Intelligent design creationism is indeed not a theory in any scientific sense. Every actual scientific organization in America has rejected it as being religious pseudoscience. It was developed by creationists to dodge a Supreme Court ruling that its previous incarnation, "creation science," was also an attempt to get around the legal restriction of teaching the Book of Genesis in secular school biology classes.

The only support for intelligent design creationism in America is in the willfully ignorant and scientifically illiterate religious community - it has no support or legitimacy whatsoever in the scientific community.

And indeed, Professor Michael Behe is one of the iconic figures in the world of intelligent design creationism. In a famous Federal court trial in 2005, he admitted under oath that for intelligent design creationism to be defined as "science," the definition of science would have to so dumbed down that astrology could also be defined as "science."

Professor Behe has been disowned by his University's entire Biology Department for his anti-evolution stance - see http://www.lehigh.edu/bio/news/evolution.htm - which states "intelligent design has no basis in science, has not been tested experimentally, and should not be regarded as scientific."

Posted by Robert Saunders in Milton Keynes @ 14:13 on Nov 6 2010

Unfortunately for Alastair Noble, Intelligent Design is really nothing more that creationism under a new cloak devised by the Discovery Institute in the USA to evade constitutional separation of church and state in public classrooms. Search Wikipedia for 'Wedge Strategy". The C4ID has fundamentalist religious motivation, and Intelligent Design is not scientific and had no credible scientific support.
Visit the British Centre for Science Education (http://bcseweb.org.uk/) for more background on C4ID and Intelligent Design.