Dr. E.O. Wilson is a wonderfully accomplished scientist and writer. An entomologist by training, he's most known for his popular books on ecology and biodiversity and our human interactions with nature. He's one of our best scientific voices. He's won Pulitzer Prizes and other prestigious awards for his contributions to our expanding pool of scientific understanding. Here's what he recently wrote about science v. intelligent design in a short article entitled 'Let's Accept the Fault Line Between Faith and Science':

In the explanation of evolution, and especially of the human mind, might intelligent design provide a compromise between biology and religion? This now-famous proposal asserts that evolution is real but guided by a supernatural intelligence. The evidence, however, consists solely of a default argument followed by a non sequitur. Its logic is this: Biologists have not explained how some complex systems, such as the human eye and brain, could have evolved by random mutations and natural selection. More important, proponents say such an explanation is impossible. Therefore, they claim, a higher intelligence must have guided evolution.

Unfortunately, no positive evidence exists for such a claim. No scientific theory has been proffered or even imagined to explain the transcription from a supernatural force to organic reality. This absence of the elementary requirements of science is why intelligent design is better taught as religion or science fiction. Thankfully, educators and administrators -- including most recently those in Dover, Pa. -- are arriving at a similar conclusion.

[via Paleoblog]

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