Gross on Brockman's Book

Paul Gross has written this useful review of John Brockman's recent anti-ID anthology Intelligent Thought: Science Versus the Intelligent Design Movement. I intend to do some posts relating to specific essays in the book, but Gross' overall assessment is the same as mine:

This collection is helpful but not because it provides the primary knowledge base for the current effort to limit the impact of the IDM - a politically potent hoax with an excellent public relations machine and adequate funding. The necessary primary sources on the IDM and on the relevant science are already available in excellent recent books and in a rising stream of papers in the relevant scientific literature and on the Internet. Nothing coming from these reliable scientific sources constitutes or implies the existence of a “conflict” of “theories.”

There is no scientific conflict. ID is not a theory in the ordinary sense of science, and it is certainly not a reputable “alternate view” of the planet's life. It has no unique content other than its claim for the existence of a designer. It is not worthy of the time it would take away from real science in the schools, where the time is already far too short. It is in fact the denial of theory, supported only by unsupported claims of flaws in Darwinism. No positive scientific evidence has ever been offered for ID.

Well said, but I'd go a bit further. It is not simply that the alleged flaws in Darwinism pointed to by ID folks are unsupported. It is that they are demonstrably false.