Sure, intelligent design is bad science, because its central propositions can’t be tested — more precisely, there is no test that could show them to be false. But doesn’t it give you an extra frisson of schadenfreude to know that ID is also bad religion? J. M. Tyree points out ID’s theological underpinnings, and summarizes some of the best arguments against it, going back to Hume.
Despite the new cloaking device of pseudoscientific language, ID is actually a recent mutation of one of the oldest, most persistent, and most tempting of religious ideas, the so-called “teleological argument” or “argument from design.” … The most devastating objection is that even if you assume the world was designed, it does not appear to be designed by a very nice deity. … The Designer who so Intelligently Designed our world, in theory, could be malevolent or capricious just as easily as he could be all good. He might have designed us intelligently, but for the purpose of watching us tear each others’ throats out.
In other words, God might be Cthulhu … or maybe even the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
