I have no desire to carry the water for the Intelligent Design adherents. There are experts who are more than willing to explain the finer points of this theory. But I have read enough about it to know that it is not “today’s tarted-up version of creationism,” as Charles Krauthammer sneers in the Washington Post.

Intelligent Design is a scientific theory. Starting with the proposition that some things happen by chance, and some things by design (which should be unobjectionable), it further proposes that we can judge from empirical observation that some things could not have happened by chance, and therefore must have happened by design.

This theory is either right or wrong. Agree with it or disagree as you like, but it strikes me as so obvious that I would be surprised to learn it was at all controversial. We all accept its premises, whether we admit to it or not. A detective investigating a warehouse fire finds traces of accelerant around the furnace and says, “this was arson,” because he can make a judgment of design from his observations. An archaeologist digging in the dirt finds an obsidian blade tied to a stick, and says, “this is a man-made tool,” because he knows axes don’t happen by accident. When you open your door and find a newspaper on your step, you do not wonder “how could this have occurred?” unless it is the Washington Post.
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