Not surprisingly for a radio debate, it does not appear that anything particularly new was added to the discussion. While Shermer was adept at discussing the issues and clarifying reality for Wells, the appearance of Wells here fits in with the overall public relations strategy of the Discovery Institute (DI). Because of their recent political defeats in court (Kitzmiller v. Dover) and at the polls (Kansas primaries), Wells and the DI have retreated to a “teach the controversy” position, despite that there is a complete absence of scientific controversy on this subject. Clearly, teaching the alleged “problems” with evolutionary theory that have been invented by the DI (especially Wells) would represent an unwarranted and dangerous intrusion of religion and politics into the science classroom (see the NCSE and PT sites for a good summary of their agenda). While Wells claims here that ID “has to be tested on the field of science and win its stripes that way”, his continued participation in a publicity campaign for this untestable theory, rather than spending the requisite decades on research, belies this claim. His focus on publicity rather than honest research implies that he himself is not convinced that such research is likely to yield fruitful results. First, of course, he would have to make specifically testable claims about when and where ID has actually happened, and then he would have to remove the many claims that directly contradict each other.

While Wells may have been particularly cautious in this debate with a verbally adept scientist, this radio discussion should be viewed in the context of DI’s overall campaign to force their invented “controversy” into public classrooms, and their strategy of attacking higher education on the grounds that students should not be impinged upon by ideas they might not like. Thorough and credible scientific education in evolution and biology is too important for the future well being of this country to allow such thoughtless and self-serving arguments to stand. While appearances such as this may serve to keep the faithful happy by showing that DI and Wells are still in the fight, any pretense of reason and logic appears to be simply designed to lay the groundwork for future efforts to claim that ID supporters are engaged in the scientific process. While scientists would welcome true efforts to engage in the scientific process, such efforts require an honest effort to dispense with unsubstantiated prior beliefs. Such effort is not evident, and seems unlikely with this group.

It was also interesting to consider the dynamics and form of the debate itself, from a political and sociological view. While most scientists do not find evidence of a “debate” concerning ID in the scientific community, there is clearly a debate in the overall community about whether they should listen to the scientists or the religious theoreticians on this subject. Furthermore, while the ID movement is associated most strongly with evangelical Christianity in the United States, and evangelical Christianity is tightly associated with “conservatism”, the self-styled conservative talk show host/moderator appeared to be more sympathetic to Shermer than to Wells. This appears to be due to Rosen’s apparent affinity with libertarian views against government intrusion into corporate or individual affairs. One striking feature was Rosen’s continual (and correct) equation of the ID agenda with the creationist agenda. Although this debate may have simply served to further DI’s publicity agenda, Rosen (and Shermer) may also have done good science a favor here. Certainly Wells did not make his numerous misleading statements without being strongly corrected or contested by Shermer or Rosen.

David Pollock, with contributions from Jim Platt, Mike Antolin, and Jeff Kieft, 2006