Evolutionary Biology Is Over ... it Was Fun While it Lasted

Posted by PZ Myers, Pharyngula at 5:02 AM on June 24, 2009.

We only have a month or two left. I have been reminded of a prediction made in the July/August 2004 issue of Touchstone magazine. Brace yourselves.

Where is the ID movement going in the next ten years? What new issues will it be exploring, and what new challenges will it be offering Darwinism?

Dembski: In the next five years, molecular Darwinism—the idea that Darwinian processes can produce complex molecular structures at the subcellular level—will be dead. When that happens, evolutionary biology will experience a crisis of confidence because evolutionary biology hinges on the evolution of the right molecules. I therefore foresee a Taliban-style collapse of Darwinism in the next ten years. Intelligent design will of course profit greatly from this. For ID to win the day, however, will require talented new researchers able to move this research program forward, showing how intelligent design provides better insights into biological systems than the dying Darwinian paradigm.

Man, I'm glad I'll be on sabbatical. It'll give me a year to patch up the radical changes I'll have to make in all of my courses after the ID revolution comes. The rest of you are going to be coming back to rubble in September.

Although, I should also mention that the very next paragraph in that article is the one credible paragraph Paul Nelson ever wrote.

Nelson: Easily the biggest challenge facing the ID community is to develop a full-fledged theory of biological design. We don't have such a theory right now, and that's a real problem. Without a theory, it's very hard to know where to direct your research focus. Right now, we've got a bag of powerful intuitions, and a handful of notions such as "irreducible complexity" and "specified complexity"--but, as yet, no general theory of biological design.

Almost five years on, still no theory.

Tagged as: evolution, intelligent design, stupidity, creation

PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris. He runs the science blog, Pharyngula.