The Obama Presidency Tends To Greatly Support Atheism - Does intelligent design provide a plausible account of life's origins?

The point of Atheism, to me, is to not act like religion and proselytize. Keep it personal and private. I'm on the Darwin side. m/r 

Does intelligent design provide a plausible account of life's origins?

Two writers go head to head.

By Stephen C. Meyer and John Derbyshire – From the January-February 2014 issue

The Cambrian Explosion and the Combinatorial Problem 

by Stephen C. Meyer 

We count on scientists to tell us what they know and don’t know—not just what they want us to hear. But when it comes to the contentious issue of the evolution of life on earth, spokesmen for official science are often less forthcoming than we might wish.

When writing in scientific journals, leading biologists candidly discuss the many scientific difficulties facing contemporary versions of Darwin’s theory. Yet when scientists take up the public defense of Darwinism—in educational policy statements, textbooks, or public television documentaries—that candor often disappears behind a rhetorical curtain. “There’s a feeling in biology that scientists should keep their dirty laundry hidden,” says theoretical biologist Danny Hillis, adding that “there’s a strong school of thought in biology that one should never question Darwin in public.”

-go to link-

Occasionalism Isn’t Science

by John Derbyshire

Why can't the purveyors of intelligent design get a break? They have been plowing their lonely furrow for 20 years now, insisting on their right to a seat at science’s banquet and promising that their ideas will bring about a revolutionary overthrow of orthodox biology (which they call “Darwinism” for propagandistic reasons) Any Day Now. They drop heavy hints that biologists are in a panic about the instability of their foundational theories, but are anxious to hide their doubts from public gaze.

Really? One would naturally like to see some illustrative examples. Twenty years on from the inception of ID, the revolution seems as far away as ever. The ID-ers are still shut outside the banquet with their noses pressed forlornly to the window, and the ancien régime looks to be as firmly established as ever. What’s the problem here?

-continue at link-