Reply #13: Creation myths and various arguments from design

[HereSince1628]

are included in most undergraduate courses in evolution...they are just included as failed ideas. It's my experience that most creationist students took greater offense at my pointing out their positions failings than they objected to being asked to be able to explain the position of evolutionary scientists.

The interesting thing about Intelligent Design is that it's as much a social/political agenda as it is an actual explanation. What creationist can't win within science, they attempt to achieve in an arena where scientific rules don't apply, namely the arena of law and pubic governance. Their advocates twist scientific dismissal of failed ideas, such as Intelligent Design (which is actually not much different from Paley's Argument from Design but introduces claims of "irreducible complexity") into notions of fairness and censorship which are better suited to considerations of public conduct under the law and rules of governance.

Bachmann is actually doing a very mainstream thing for folks who belong to the intelligent design movement...seeking to change the venue in which creation is considered from one of science to one in which vernacular appeals to fairness have traction.