Sholes, Pinker, Respond to Meyer

Blogging will continue to be sporadic around here for a while longer while I struggle to finish up a few projects that for some reason aren't getting finished on their own. In the meantime you can have a look at two letters to the editor in response to the Meyer editorial on which I reported last week. The first comes from Owen Sholes, a professor of biology at Assumption College. The beginning and the end sum things up nicely:

IT'S TIME for the intelligent-design folks to pack up their revival tent and leave town. But here is Stephen C. Meyer using every kind of phony rhetoric to pretend ID has validity.

Here's the ending:

Intelligent design is nothing more than a Trojan horse for replacing science with religion. But it isn't science, it's fraud.

Well said! The stuff in between is good too, but one must leave some suspense.

Steven Pinker also weighs in with some worthy thoughts:

In a year in which other serious publications are celebrating the bicentennial of Darwin's birth and the sesquicentennial of “Origin,” the Globe sees fit to resurrect his long-buried opposition.

The advantage that traditional newspapers have over the Internet competition is quality control. If the Globe repeatedly gives its imprimatur to the latest nonsense from an anti-science lobbying organization, what's the point of going to it for reliable, intelligent commentary?

Zing!

Alas, I do have to correct one thing in Pinker's letter. He writes:

The judge referred to the theory's “breathtaking inanity,” which is a fine description of Stephen Meyer's July 15 op-ed.

I certainly agree with Pinker's assessment of the op-ed, but it was not ID theory that was breathtakingly inane according to the judge. It was actually the Dover school board's policy that was described in that way.