Why intelligent design proponents are wrong.

.... If humans had evolved from apes, there wouldn't be any more apes. ...

why not?

Wouldn't you expect that apes adapted for the jungle and those adapted for the savanah to both be able to survive?

I'm not familiar with that name, and don't know a lot about WWI. My understanding, however, from various secondary sources, is that the Germans consciously pursued a policy of brutality early in the war, on the theory that it would make the war shorter. Apparently the military class seized on a superficial Darwinism as at least part of their rationalization of this policy.

Which just goes to show that brutes will appropriate anything, often dishonestly, to justify their brutality. There is not the slightest evidence that they would have behaved any differently if evolution had never been discovered. I also suspect that despite their aggressive responsibility for the war (and I speak as someone whose grandfather died at 3rd Ypres) stories of German brutality in WW1 were probably largely allied propaganda.

Agreed. What is clear, however, according to biographers of Bryan (and the testimony of the man himself) is that the book Headquarters Nights was an influence on Bryan in deciding to initiate an antievolution crusade. This was my initial point.

I think that it is important to infuse the study of science with more spiritual affairs - a strong theme of the article, I think. Instead of turning spiritual people away from science, it would invite them in, to better understand the tools and methods of the creator - eh?

One can posit that physics is devoid of supernatural events, all is explained by a mathematical TOE to be discovered, no room for mystery - but how interesting could that be to a being with an apparent transient existence, involved and more deeply concerned with other such beings evolving and dissolving in time?

What motivates people to study things? The article opens up describing the religious faith of some great scientists. It may be a necessary facet of the study to attract the interest of great thinkers. How many would be sufficiently interested in a sterile physics to invest great amounts of time and effort to figure out, perhaps, how to make a bomb to blow up lots of people?

Taking the vital things out of physics, ethics, society, etc. can make such a thing simply evil.

"Note that I'm not saying something silly like one will be as successful in forming hypotheses by casting the I-Ching as by ruminations based in sound craft knowledge and broad familiarity with applicable data. Nor am I denying that there is obviously a filtering process whereby scientists use insight and instinct to decide which hypothesis are worth pursuing. I'm just saying that the origin of hypothesis is logically irrelevant to their validity.)"

Well now, there's the rub... one man's "filtering process" becomes another man's personal biases...thus carrying the arguments concerning inspirational cognitive epistomology out of the realm of science and into the realm of speculative philosophy...

Psssst...danger! Here be dragons!

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