OK, thanks for the extra info. Thus, we see the bizarre situation whereby the Texas state board of education pretty much decides what will be in a nation’s text books.

The reason Texas has so much influence on school book content is that the state selects the books for *all* the school districts and centrally purchases and distributes them. In most states, the decisions about which books to use and when to purchase new ones is made by the local school committee and the teachers. Publishers can hear the cash registers go “ching” every time Texas selects one of their books, so they want to meet whatever random requirements it sets.

* What about the woodpecker’s tongue, the panda’s thumb, the whatever’s thingy, etc.?
Again, this is all part and parcel of the “throw enough poo at your opponent, and eventually you’ll hit on something they don’t know” strategy. Most of the things that creationists and intelligent design proponents will throw out are horrid missunderstandings of the basic biological mechanisms at work, so not only are you debating evolution with them, but you need to correct them on how whatever strawman they have thrown out is wrong from the sense of basic biology, not only from an evolutionary standpoint.

Ah, yes, but what about the duck-billed platypus? That has got to be evidence for design-by-committee, right?

@John Foudy”if Stephen Jay Gould were still alive, and he proposed addressing Irreducible Complexity, then yes some evolutionists/biologists would look into a bit more, before re-proclaiming that it was nuttery, than if Joe Schmoe said the same thing.”

Sure, I’d go with that. But at least it was his field. And I bet he would have gone with the whole peer review thing.

Plus, he would also have thought long and hard about exactly what he was proposing. Most probably he would have seen the inherent weakness of the argument before trying to publish.

But I’d contrast this with the behaviour of scientists like Behe.

There are no other scientists like Behe. Behe should have known better, because his education would have included knowledge of a great deal of the evidence that demonstrates common descent. He also knowingly bypassed the peer review process by publishing his ideas in books rather than in science journals (where, of course, his ideas would have been utterly panned in peer review).

There are no other biological scientists who support ID as expounded by the DI.

After all the truly advanced nations on Earth, past and present, all have rejected religion such as the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam, Cuba and Germany during the 1930’s.

Epic fail.

But probably for reasons other than the rejection of religion (although, of course, the absence of freedom to practise religion was and is one of several less-than-ideal aspects to those administrations).

Interestingly, the USSR also officially rejected Darwinisn evolution, adhering instead to the strange ideas of Lysenko (look him up on Wikipedia). This is often cited as a reason for widespread crop failures in the USSR in the 50s (or 60s?).

It’s obvious believing in a supreme being that was responsible for our existence is a sign of intellectual inferiority or mental defect. All those who believe in such fantasy should be institutionalized. The sooner these delusional Jews, Muslims and Christians are removed from society the better we’ll all be. After all the truly advanced nations on Earth, past and present, all have rejected religion such as the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam, Cuba and Germany during the 1930’s.

OK, I get that you are being sarcastic here, but the point you are trying to make is not clear.

Creationism is creationism even if scientists say it’s science — which is what happened with ID.

Actually, the only ID proponent with any scientific credentials was Mike Behe (his qualifications are in chemistry and biochemistry, and he has published work on DNA structure). All the others were lawyers and theologians and what have you, many of whom were smart enough in principle to have anticipated where ID would end up. All Mike Behe has done is destroy his scientific credibility (although I daresay he has made a few bucks in the process).