Thoughts in a Haystack

Remember John Lynch's article a while back, "The Roots of ID," about the Discovery Institute's claim at its faith + evolution website (set up to counter the Biologos Foundation's efforts to convince more Christians that evolution and faith are compatible) that the Intelligent Design Movement wasn't born in the immediate aftermath of Edwards v. Aguillard by the cdesign proponentsists working on Of Pandas and People?

John demonstrated quite thoroughly that no one was saying that the design argument was new ... far from it ... the issue was when the modern ID Movement, aimed at getting ID into public school science curricula or, at least, watering down education in evolutionary science, was born. John also notes the irony of the DI quoting extensively from Christian and other theistic sources to show that ID predated the decision in Edwards v. Aguillard, at the same time as they are claiming it is non-religious modern science.

They (sort of) attempt to avoid that problem by pointing to Fred Hoyle (sometimes described as an agnostic and sometimes as an atheist), who once in 1982 used the words in that order, as the person who "coined [the term] in its contemporary scientific usage," even though no one knew about Hoyle's use until sometime in 2007, way too late for him to have been IDs intellectual progenitor.

But there was one modern usage that the DI missed ... one that bears a lot in common with ID.

Let's take a brief detour to this press release:

The comic possibilities have already been mined by The Sensuous Curmudgeon. What interests me is this:

There you have it! An earlier use than Hoyle's, arguing for design in a scientific context.

You have to wonder why the DI isn't all over it!
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