The dangers of ID: An example

On Pharyngula PZ Myers discusses an op-ed written by two ID proponents

Wanna see James and Cheri Bogart humiliate themselves?

I don’t want to, myself, and I read this op-ed by James and Cheri Bogart and just cringed. That it is terribly bad and grossly wrong is just to be expected of a pro-Intelligent Design creationism article, but these two just set themselves up for a terrible and embarrassing fall. Their first paragraph pompously announces,

We, as two trained, field experienced scientists, wish to clarify these issues.

They then proceed to demonstrate their incompetence with a serious of trivially false claims. They want to claim that there is a simple, strict hierarchy of legitimacy for scientific ideas, from hypothesis to theory to law, and they just mangle every concept on the way.

If public humiliation and absurd pratfalls make you squirm, don’t read the link above, and stop right now

If ID wants to gain some relevance it needs to address and correct such misunderstandings of both evolutionary theory as well as intelligent design. Teach the controversy seems to be mostly about people not being too familiar with evolutionary theory. ID should rectify the damage it has caused already with its claims before the cost for science AND religion becomes too large.

What is fascinating to me is that these two scientists can claim that there is a theory of Intelligent Design when so far no such theory beyond an appeal from ignorance has been presented.

That should be a concern to any scientist... And that is the real controversy imho.
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