In light of the recent controversy over the screening of the film The Privileged Planet at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History, William H. Jefferys's review of the book on which the film is based is sure to be of interest. He writes in part:
The fundamental error made by Gonzalez and Richards, as with most creationists (including "intelligent design" [ID] creationists), is that they imagine that they can prove the existence of their "intelligent designer" by merely alleging evidence against a particular strawman naturalistic scenario, and, without clearly specifying an alternative model, simply assert that the only other explanation possible is that everything was created by a "designer". Under this strategy, no details are specified about what we would expect to see if the "designer" existed, or why we would expect to see that and not something else. It is, as we shall see, not a scientific theory.Jefferys is the Harlan J Smith Centennial Professor of Astronomy, Emeritus, at the University of Texas at Austin; his review will appear in a forthcoming issue of Reports of the NCSE. Update: Review available here