I'd appreciate it. I like the article, but if there are too many threads going on all at once on the same topic it gets confusing.
You've got that backward!
With lots of same-topic threads,
they'll support themselves,
and order will form
spontaneously among
all the ideas . . .
BTW, all this political debate is about evolution, but my understanding is that Intelligent Design was a concept developed for astrophisics. They were considering why the universe came trogether with just the right mix of forces, particles, etc. to hold it all together and permit everything, including life ultimately, to exist.
Had the universe taken slight turns in different directions, it would never have formed in the way we experience it. The proponents were not pushing religion just asking questions. They immediately met with resistance by scientists who were upset the theory might introduce some First Principle or God behind everything.
This is the real stomping ground for ID, not evolution. Although I know there are some weaknesses in evolutionary theory, I believe evoilution takes place. The question is whether this is a ll random chance or are things "designed" in some way for some reason, to reach the results we see.
As much as scientists fight to "prove" randomness they simply are nowhere near unraveling the workings of nature enough to answer these questions. Indeed, almost all avenues of deep scientific research reach a fuzzy dead end at this point.
Examples are quantum theory, the inside of a black hole, the universe before the big bang, etc. At a certain point scientists become "religious" in tone. We can never know what happens inside a black hole, or before the big bang, and so there is/was nothing there and it doesn't matter, and this unknowability begins to sound like religious, not scientific mystery. Science admits it can't see beyond that veil, says we never will be able to, and then ignorantly says it doesn't matter.
The belief by a scientist that nothing preceded the big bang is at least as "silly" as any religious notion.