The Star Tribune has a substantial series of articles on the opinion pages on Intelligent Design creationism. Unfortunately, they fall into the usual trap of feeling obligated to be "balanced", which in this case means balancing informed opinion with the gibberings of a creationist. I really don't understand why they do this; if they had an electrical engineer explaining how a television worked, would they also seek out a proponent of painterly-gnomism, the "theory" that there are tribes of gnomes living in CRTs that jump up and paint pictures on the screen very fast when you turn your TV on? It seems to me that what they ought to do is run all these articles by someone qualified in the appropriate science & technology discipline, and get their opinion: my article would have been improved by such a process, I'm sure, and all the dishonesty and silliness in Eaton's article would have been cut, reducing it to a lame and tepid short paragraph.

It really is an awful article. It begins by bragging that 82% of Minnesotans polled agree that scientists should "continue to critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory." That's sensible; of course they should, and do. This is not the same as declaring that we should introduce crackpottery into the high school curriculum, however, and Intelligent Design is not a component of critical analysis. The observation does not support his thesis. In addition, popular support is simply not relevant: we do not choose what is true or what should be taught on the basis of popular vote. We know that 9% of Americans don't know what a molecule is, and that 21% have no clue what DNA is; these are not the people we ought to tap to figure out what should be taught in the schools (the sad thing is, these often are the people who rush to fill slots on school boards).

Next, Eaton plays a standard creationist card, one that they think is a trump but that scientists know is a dud: the distinction between micro- and macro-evolution. Creationists love this one because they can pretend to be pro-science by declaring that they agree "100 percent" with microevolution, and then soberly turn to the audience and state that there are grave problems with macroevolution, and that these ideas are in serious debate within the scientific community.

This is lie piled on lie. Microevolution is a fact; it happened and is happening. There is debate within the scientific community on details of mechanisms and relative importance of various processes. Macroevolution is also a fact. It happened and is happening. The scientific community is in virtually 100% agreement on both processes going on, and they are both analogous in the unanimity of support and the continuing research into their precise mechanisms. Macroevolution is not a concept that undermines evolutionary thinking.

Throughout the article, Eaton invents fantasy critics and supporters. For instance, he declares that "many scientists now question the mechanism generating the large amount of change required to account for the completely novel organs or body plans that suddenly emerge in the fossil record." What the heck does that mean? Name some. There are scientists actively researching the mechanisms of macroevolutionary change, but they are working within the framework of evolutionary biology. I doubt that Sean B. Carroll, for instance, thinks his work is justification for Intelligent Design creationism, or that it means evolution is false.

Eaton also says that "Some evolutionists go too far when they insist that evolution should be taught completely without criticism." Again, name some. I don't know any who think this. I believe evolution should be taught as a scientific theory, with proper evaluation of the evidence. I do not think we should confuse the issue with unscientific mumbo-jumbo from the theologians of the Discovery Institute.

Ah, but here's the biggest, fattest, stinkiest set of lies in the whole Eaton piece:

Intelligent design (ID) theory is an emerging scientific challenger to neo-Darwinian theory.

Creationism depends on scripture; ID depends on science.

These are outright falsehoods. ID is not scientific, and that was one of the main points of my op-ed. It is not founded on evidence, there is no research being done on "design theory" and the most prominent institute sponsoring ID, the Discovery Institute, is a glorified public relations firm that pumps out press releases and ships lawyers around the country to defend pseudoscience and water down curricula and textbooks. When I picture serious "scientific challengers", I imagine people with deep backgrounds in science working hard in laboratories, presenting their results at meetings and in papers, and inspiring furious activity in other labs around the world...not a bunch of lawyers and philosophers who wouldn't know which end of a pipettor goes up haranguing little old ladies on school boards.

We also should not ignore the guidance provided in the report language of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which urges adoption of a science curriculum that "help[s] students to understand the full range of scientific views that exist" about controversial subjects "such as biological evolution."

Wow. He's peddling that old canard about the Santorum amendment? The ID gang must be getting desperate—next thing you know, they'll be dredging up the Lady Hope story.

The story here is that Senator Rick Santorum attempted to pin an amendment to the No Child Left Behind Act. He made a recommendation that language about teaching controversial subjects, naming evolution as an example, be mandated in the Act; this recommendation did not make it out of committee, was not approved by the legislature, and is not present in the NCLB.

It is representative of the usual ID strategy, though: play fast and loose with the facts, erect false fronts everywhere, and try to bamboozle everyone with the illusion that there is something substantial behind their facade of lies.