The world turned upside down: It’s okay to read Charles Krauthammer this week

Guest Post by Morbo

About twice a year, syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer writes a piece that actually makes sense. One ran last week. It is about “intelligent design” and is worth a look.

Krauthammer called ID “today’s tarted-up version of creationism.” It’s a good line, and I wish I had thought of it.

As I read the rest of the column, I kept waiting for Krauthammer to insert some snarky attack on liberals, perhaps something like, “As everyone knows, Bill Clinton is a scumbag, Hillary Clinton is a conniving, power-mad hell hag and Al Gore is clinically insane. But none of this means that intelligent design makes any sense.”

He did not do so. Instead he wrote:

How ridiculous to make evolution the enemy of God. What could be more elegant, more simple, more brilliant, more economical, more creative, indeed more divine than a planet with millions of life forms, distinct and yet interactive, all ultimately derived from accumulated variations in a single double-stranded molecule, pliable and fecund enough to give us mollusks and mice, Newton and Einstein? Even if it did give us the Kansas State Board of Education, too.

Nicely stated. Check out the column now because by next week whatever medication Krauthammer is on will undoubtedly have worn off.

Good to see your writings again this Saturday, Morbo. Although I always enjoy a good tart, I find Intelligent Design ridiculous too.

But in sour Kraut the Hammer’s article. He actually makes the case that both Newton and Einstein were for (lower case) intelligent design. They believed in (upper case) God and were searching for the deep design.

This habit of pointing out that some scientists are/were religious, instead of making a case for religion and science not having conflicts, just seems to make the case that scientists have blind spots outside their discipline.

  • Before I got exasperated with the creationist
    crowd, I used to answer their nonsense with
    the question, “Why do you think God was
    too stupid to have created evolution so he
    didn’t have to spend all his time micro
    managing the goddamn thing, so he could
    go on to more important things like saving
    souls?” But I just got blank stares.

    A survey taken a few months ago – sorry,
    I don’t have a link or even remember the
    source – revealed that about 2/3 of some
    2000 scientists believe in God, which
    should give the lie to these idiots that
    claim evolution is an atheistic conspiracy.
    Although I’m not religious, I don’t see
    any conflict with thoughtful belief systems
    and science. Science is the study of the
    natural world. Why can’t people accept
    that?

  • I see the start of a pattern here. George Will’s Thursday column had a similarly blunt statement about evolution being a fact. No hedging or fence sitting. Conservative intellectuals (my fingers have a hard time typing that) have always had to hold their noses around their religious right partners – it was the price of getting elected. Now, with the post-Bush era starting sooner than expected, they need to publically re-attach themselves to reality. They plan to be around Washington long after Bush & Co. are gone. There is no future for flat-earthers on the Washington dinner party circuit.

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