oh, so that's all Intelligent Design is

Mark Olson on ID:

ID at the heart is a claim against the current mechanisms (sexual exchange of genetic material and environmental selection) as the primary and sufficient driver for the evolutionary development observed. Simply stated, ID questions that assumption and that’s it. Furthermore my assertion is that without a theory from which to test the assumed mechanisms this debate is meaningless. More precisely that is given a set of mechanisms {X} is it reasonable for feature “Y” to develop in time T or not? Or does the set {X} of mechanisms need to be expanded? That, in my view, is the crux of the ID question and to say it “isn’t science” is just wrong [edited for typos].

It is Olson, rather, who is wrong, on many points.

1. Sexual exchange is but one of many options on the table. After all, most organisms aren't sexual. (In fact, sexual reproduction is theorized to reduce mutations.)

2. ID doesn't simply question the core assumption of Neo-Darwinism, otherwise, it's indistinguishable from Margulis's symbiotic theorizing, Jabolonka's neo-Lamarckianism, and classic creationism. (In fact, perversely, creationism is more scientific than ID, at least offering testable hypotheses about the age of the universe, the age of the earth, rates of mutation, rates of radioactive decay, etc. Spectacularly bad hypotheses, mind you, and overwhelmingly rejected by the scientific community, even by IDers, but at least they're trying.)

3. In other words, merely contradicting RM+NS does not a theory make, or a testable hypothesis produce.

4. ID is at its core a critique of materialism, a philosophical position that says that material laws are inadequate to fully explain the origin of life and the existence of intelligence. That is why IDers would also have to discount the role of symbiosis, viruses, developmental pathways, neo-Lamarckian concepts, and any other unguided mechanisms of change. (Or not. After all, some IDers want to include theistic evolutionists and young-earth creationists in the ID "big tent." A theory has to be pretty vacuous to include mutually exclusive positions.)

5. Charitably, ID has done a bit of good: it has driven scientists to assemble and articulate the evidence for evolution, evidence that is even more overwhelming than when ID first entered the scene.