Friday, September 30, 2005

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Comes Out Against Archeology

Yesterday's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette had an editorial on the teaching of intelligent design. The editorial illustrates a series of problems not only with many people's thinking on issues of origins, but also on other issues, such as separation of church and state. The editors claim that intelligent design brings "shame for educated minds". I think that the archeologists and forensic scientists who read the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette might want to send the editors of that paper a letter to explain to them that there is no shame in believing that the work of an intelligent agent can be detected.

On a related note, the Discovery Institute's Evolution News & Views web site is reporting that Eugenie Scott recently repeated the common objection to intelligent design on the basis that intelligent design hasn't been published in peer-reviewed science journals. The objection is false, as anybody who has made much of an effort to follow this controversy ought to know, but Eugenie Scott took the error a step further. She used this objection to intelligent design during a television appearance with Stephen Meyer, who recently authored an article advocating intelligent design for a peer-reviewed science journal.