Amba's response to Bush

I keep following what has to say on Intelligent Design because she represents people in the middle of the debate. I know I'm not going to win over Michael Behe, but I also know I have persuaded some who simply sit outside, not knowing much about it. (The match up isn't perfect, Amba is far from outside). So I see this. prompted by Bush's ID remarks:

More and more, I think it's too bad that Intelligent Design was first proposed by Christian thinkers with a religious and cultural agenda (some of whose real sophistication as thinkers gets eclipsed in this emotional debate). If the idea had come from demonstrably unbiased scientists, who thought they saw evidence of a creative and responsive rather than blind mechanism at work in life's intricate variation and adaptation, then religious people could have welcomed the new theory without being suspected of having cooked it up to comport with their faith. And secular-minded people might have given it some real mind-time, and thought about how it might be tested, and appreciated its salutary challenge to evolutionary theory -- as Dean says, "If they're proven wrong, then doesn't that just strengthen Darwinism?" -- instead of dismissing it out of hand.

The problem is that scientists gave it "real mind-time," couldn't find any way to test it, and didn't see proponents trying to do so. ID does little beyond say we haven't explained everything in biology, and explaining one thing won't be counted disproof, because it will just cause proponents to focus on a new mystery.

Its worth rehashing this point because the question is open in many people's minds, but it isn't dogmatism to occasionally take the reasoned conculsion of the vast majority of scientists for granted. Dawkins can be an arrogant prick at times, as in the interview where he said, "My American friends tell me that you are slipping towards a theocratic Dark Age. Which is very disagreeable for the very large number of educated, intelligent and right-thinking people in America. Unfortunately, at present, it's slightly outnumbered by the ignorant, uneducated people who voted Bush in," but to complain he's being dogmatic about evolution makes about as much sense as denouncing heliocentric domga when Galileo is discussed. Its not as if he never explains the problems of ID.