Why I signed on "against Intelligent Design" as a "conservative"

Gene Expression
By Razib Khan
Jun 2, 2006 8:43 PMNov 5, 2019 9:15 AM

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Some people have wondered if there is any point in signing petitions. Well, sometimes it is important to declare you exist, to stand and be counted. With all due respect to Ed, evolution's connection with "Culture Wars" is not a good thing, and, more importantly (to me) it saps genuine discourse on this topic that engages the science instead of focusing on meta-politics which will never go anywhere. There are many things in the world to be "against," and I would not say that Intelligent Design/Creationism is the most important, but, comments like this are fucking scary. On this blog I get a steady stream of ID & Creationist bullshit and talking points which I delete. Basically, they are intellectual robots, and sometimes it almost seems like those of us who promote and love the science of evolution are Americans who are standing on the Yalu beginning to see the first "human waves" of massed Chinese crossing the river. They just keep coming and coming and coming, and they do not follow the implicit Geneva Conventions of scientific discourse. In the end, I do think we will win the war because reality has our back! I suspect to a great extent Intelligent Design/Creationism is a wide but shallow opinion held among the public, and its lack of elite critical mass will always be a problem. Nevertheless, passivity has a way of making the improbable inevitable. Sometimes one must declare one's existence and face the absurd to dismiss it. P.S.: Props to Derek Lowe for getting the word out, and John Derbyshire for a link from The Corner. And shout out to brown gaucho for starting this all, it's about time.

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