Intelligent design: Please, shrinks, do not waste any more of your time - oh, but you will, won't you, that's your job ...

From British physicist David Tyler's blog on a recent social science research study:

It would be good practice for researchers to spend a bit of time talking to ID advocates. They could learn first-hand that ID does not perceive its arguments as "God of the Gaps", but as 'inference from evidence'. The argument proceeds from knowledge, not from ignorance.

Furthermore, ID advocates perceive their inferences as part of a scientific process: causation can be according to natural law, stochastic processes or intelligent agency. Science should not be in the business of declaring what the world is like before it has fully explored the solutions space; rather it should identify and test alternative hypotheses for observed phenomena. ID theorists are troubled by the behaviour of some fellow scientists, who do not test ID hypotheses as part of a scientific discourse, but choose to exclude ID on ideological grounds.

I find it amusing that the last thing that many a pundit, grantsman, or theologian would think of doing is to actually read what intelligent design theorists say. It is much easier to form an opinion in the absence of distressing details that create doubt and make one think.