Aula de macheza

MEU AMIGO Steve Mirsky, editor da Scientific American, cansado de receber hate-mail de criacionistas, IDevotos e outras aberrações epistemológicas, resolveu dar uma resposta curta e grossa a um desses quadrúpedes. Reproduzo abaixo a carta do leitor e o comentário do editor:

Dear Sir,
In October's Scientific American, Steve Mirsky described Intelligent Design theory in his 'AntiGravity' column as: '"the full-blown intellectual surrender strategy" that proposes that a scientific explanation of life's complexity requires the intercession of a supernatural being.' This is incorrect. ID does not propose that 'the intercession of a supernatural being' is a scientific explanation, or even an explanation, required by life's complexity. All that ID hypothesizes (to account for specified and/or irreducible complexity) is the intercession of intelligence, full stop. Many ID theorists (but not all) philosophically identify this scientifically inferred intelligence as supernatural, but such identification is neither scientific nor part of Intelligent Design theory. Suppose a SETI researcher concludes, on the basis of a message received from space detailing how to build a machine (as in the movie Contact), that intelligent aliens exist. Would they be accused of 'intellectual surrender' because they should continue searching for an unintelligent explanation? No. In which case, why accuse ID of 'intellectual surrender' for making design inferences of exactly the same sort? If there are robust scientific design detection criteria, and if the conditions of those criteria are fulfilled by anything in nature, then ID represents an intellectual advance. Yours,

Dear Mr. Williams, Thank you for writing and voicing your
opinion. With all due respect, what an utter crock. ID is
the bastard offspring of creationism, concocted for political
reasons. Read up on its history--it has no intellectual foundation
and serves no intellectual purpose. And the best candidates that ID
proponents themselves put forth for a non-supernatural intelligent designer are
space aliens and time traveling molecular
biologists. Please. Occam's razor cuts that argument into
slices so thin you can see right through them.