The "debate" about ID concerns me deeply. On one hand it illustrates how badly we have failed in the United States in educating at least two generations as to what science is and how it is distinguished from religion. The very fact that ID can be considered a "Theory" bespeaks a very profound ignorance of what a theory in science is.
The second area of concern, in my mind, is the inherent acceptance of ignorance as an option in human intellectual inquiry, and the fact that this option has attraction to those who have, one would have hoped, replaced superstition with rational thought.
ID, after all, defines areas where "design" is the only option for the existence of certain things. What is really being said is that one or more people have not been able to intellectually deal with certain classes of complexity and therefore they, and by extension we, must fall back on a supernatural explanation. Aside from the elementary logical error implied by this approach, it raises ignorance to an equal level with rational exploration of nature.
It is sad, medieval, and harkens back to the time when humans found magic in much of their natural world and, because of their ignorance, propitiated various deities who provided "explanations” for what they could not understand.
A slippery slope indeed.
