Pat Robertson is a Jerk ... But so is Daniel Dennett

The problem with free will is that some real jerks can agree with you without your prior consent. For example, being a Christian, with political leanings towards the right, I sometimes find myself in cahoots with a bunch of crazies. On the other hand, going into analytic philosophy means that sometimes I'm bed fellows with a bunch of bastards. When I become King of the World I won't let Pat Robertson or Daniel Dennett ever speak again!

I have noticed that Joseph Bottum, of First Things, shares my predicament. Especially in regards to "intelligent design". Over at FT's blog he writes,

Once again, for the third or fourth time in the last century and a half, the battle over evolution has reignited. In some ways, this is unintelligible. How can we still be having this fight? But in another way, the return of agitation about Darwin is perfectly predictable, for the mainstream consensus has finally failed us. Except that it wasn't the Bible-only people who broke the great compromise. It was instead the Darwin-only people.

Amen, brother Bottum. Can't we just go back to the good old days, and let science be science and philosophy of science be philosophy of science. (To the end of my days, I'll never know how religion got in there. After all, say you "prove" a designer, well your left with the 'god of the philosophers'. A god who is as far from the 'God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob' as you can get.)

On the other hand, I love how the neo-Darwinians are shootingthemselvess in the foot every time the get a chance to. For example, check out the debate between William Dembski of Baylor and Lee Silver of Princeton. Dembskiwipess the floor with him. Silver never actuallyrespondes to Dembski's points, and by the end the audience (a Princeton audience no less) is rooting for the IDer. It's great; check it out.