More From the Lovers of Reason and Science

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Okay okay, I know there are plenty of Bible-thumpers who say silly things regarding Darwin, but c'mon, this Alter piece in the August Newsweek is just ridiculous. After explaining that intelligent design theory is "unscientific" (presumably because it makes no falsifiable claims), he says that it performs worse in the lab than medieval alchemy. (Apparently it was demonstrated in someone's laboratory that the universe was not designed by an intelligent creator.) But my favorite argument is from the beginning, where Alter shows that intelligent design proponents threaten national security (duh):

Lest you think this is merely of academic interest, consider the stakes: the Pentagon last week revealed that it is spending money to train certain scientists how to write screenplays for thrillers related to their specialties. Why? Because the status of science has sunk so low that the government needs these disciplines to become sexy again among students or the brain drain will threaten national security. One of the reasons we have fewer science majors is the pernicious right-wing notion that conventional biology is vaguely atheistic.

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