The Tantasqua Town Common published an opinion piece on page 7 of the January 10, 2008 edition. The title is ID Challenge lacks challenge.

I wrote the following letter to the editor in response:

In response to Patrick Lacaire’s guest column on intelligent design, I have a few brief comments.

It is good to question scientific theories. That is one of the ways science progresses. In the case of Lacaire’s questions, I think that most of them are answered in the book “Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design” by Michael Shermer. The book is available at the Sturbridge public library.

As for the comment that “random and purposeless processes do not produce complexity and order”, I think Darwin would agree. That is why his theory includes natural selection to add survival of the fittest as the purpose that produces order and complexity out of the randomness of genetic mutations.

As for intelligent design, I would like to see some discussion of how an intelligent designer would go about designing life in the universe. Can someone describe what experiments the intelligent designer carried out? What physical mechanisms were used to carry out those experiments? Surely the Discovery Institute must have contemplated these questions.

Follow the link to the Center for Science and Culture of the Discovery Institute to look for yourself.