I see (or actually, someone told me) that my piece on Signature in the Cell has been quoted on the news page of Uncommon Descent, the Intelligent Design site. This, naturally, is quite flattering – after all, UD is almost as famous as those other websites, Telic Thumb and Pandas in Genesis.
On reflection, though, I wonder why they would want to big up the blog of a mere retired GP with 4 (no, 5, since last night) subscribers. Other people more qualified have reviewed Meyer, and my observations on the stuff on BioLogos are all derived from material already on their website.
I wrote my piece here, rather than there, because it was both old news and rather long. I thought it might be read by some of my BioLogos friends who know me well enough to feel I might be fairly dispassionate, to reflect personally on some maybe unhelpful limitations on the BioLogos model of theistic evolution, and to encourage anyone soured by the discussion of SiTC actually to read the thing.
So what possible interest has all that to the wider Intelligent Design community? I’m forced to conclude it’s yet another example of the tribalism against which I was writing in the first place. I get the strong impression the UD blogger thought, “Ah, a bloke who’s written for our enemy BioLogos criticises it – let’s spin it as the empire rotting from within, or at least as a dissenter suffering persecution.”
Guys, that is not what it’s about. ID has distinctives, but stripped of the sociological junk is for the most part theistic evolution with limitations. And theistic evolution, amongst most of its supporters, can’t really deny that their God is an intelligent designer without also overthrowing the basic doctrine of Creation. So why divide into Bigendians and Littlendians again?
I wrote one article on BioLogos (on this very theme) because Darrel Falk kindly asked me to. I frequent the site because it’s a helpful discussion forum, as no doubt is Uncommon Descent for most of its contributors. That does not, or rather should not, initiate us into the tribe or obligate us to a party-line. ID folks, of all people, ought to realise the value of thinking and speaking freely and openly – and without trying to score points off others.
Give it a break, boys, eh?
Anyway, their quote of the blog did enable me to spot the typo in my original article, which is uncommonly decent of them.
