Well, I just started reading The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design. All in all, I find Wells fairly lucid at the beginning of this book and I agree with most of the definitions he offers about what "evolution" is, what "creation" is, and so forth. In short, Wells starts out a lot better than Tom Bethell, his fellow author in the Regnery Politically Incorrect Guides series. However, I don't agree with the following from Wells' page 8:
...since intelligent design relies upon scientific evidence rather than on Scripture or religious doctrines, it is not biblical creationism. Intelligent design makes no claims about biblical chronology, and biblical creationists have clearly distinguished their views from ID... ID does not tell us the identity of the designer. Although most proponents of ID believe that the designer is the God of the Bible, they acknowledge that this belief goes beyond the scientific evidence. Thus ID is not the same as nineteenth-century natural theology, which reasoned from nature to the attributes of God. Instead, ID restricts itself to a simple question: does the evidence point to design in nature? The answer to this question--yes or no--carries implications for religious belief, but the question can be asked and answered without presupposing those implications.
Among other things, I thought natural theology reasoned to the existence of God. But leave that aside. Here's your first chance to critique Wells' on substantive grounds--no attacking of religion--so let 'er rip...
P.S.: Wells may misrepresent evolution historian Ronald Numbers in his first chapter, writing that Numbers "says it is inaccurate to call ID creationism--though it is the easiest way to discredit it." Compare that with how I described Numbers' view in my own book on p. 174: "Discovery's philosophical critique of modern science is probably the main thing that sets it apart from older forms of antievolutionism according to creationism historian Ronald Numbers." Those don't seem the same thing to me, but I'll look into this further...
