To the editor:

Your article, "Intelligent design theorists are winning the battle
against evolution" [December 18] was a masterpiece of propaganda.  Not
surprising, perhaps, because the "battle against evolution" is a
political battle, not a scientific one.

The intelligent design movement has failed to produce a single
peer-reviewed scientific publication outlining the theory.  Experiments
and predictions are hallmarks of science, but no proponent
of intelligent design has proposed a single experiment to test it or
a single prediction that could be confirmed.  The Discovery Institute,
which finances intelligent design work, explicitly admits that its goal
is to overthrow "scientific materialism" -- what everyone else just
calls science.

Your article was filled with nonsense, such as "the fossil record does
not support evolution" and "there is no evidence of a common ancestor
of all life on earth" that could be easily refuted by consulting a
university textbook on evolutionary biology.  In addition, you failed
to interview even one scientist who would oppose the intelligent design
position.

Your article was not journalism; it was a pathetic attempt to reinforce the
fundamentalist beliefs of the credulous.


Jeffrey Shallit