Evolutionary theory is not a central of foundational part of any branch of modern science other than evolutionary biology and evolutionary biology has almost no practical application in modern science. Modern medicine does not rely on the principles of evolution. Modern drug research does not, molecular biology does not, cell biology does not.
In the first place the accuracy of a theory is not dependent on its utility. In the second place, multiple practical disciplines use principals of evolutionary biology as a matter of course. Artificial selection of crops and livestock wouldn't work without basic assumptions concerning common descent. Treatment of recently evolved diseases such as HIV are dependent on research regarding its change from ancestral SIV viruses. Immune system responses are dependent on the evolutionary host parasite relationship. Evolutionary algorithms are used for problem solving in systems management. And, of course, any future benefits are dependent on the accuracy of the tested hypotheses. Ten years of tossing money down the rabbit hole of Intelligent Design has yielded nothing of benefit to anyone (except maybe a paycheck to Dembski, et.al).
What is this person talking about?
People. Pretty much every PhD biologist from the major Texas universities signed this statement.
Likewise the claim that intelligent design is a religious idea is false also. What religous doctrine is it derived from? What religous document does ID support? None.
The motives of the Discovery Institute are clear as witnessed in that pesky
Wedge Strategy.
The Designer of intelligent design is, ultimately, the Christian God.
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William DembskiPersonally, I could care less whether Dembski is a Christian or a Raelian. I just think it is dishonest for the proponents of ID to demand a place at the table without doing any of the groundwork. No other unpopular ideas (endosymbiosis, relativity, plate techtonics, puncuated equilibrium, germ theory, etc) put themselves up as political movements in advance of actually accumulating corroborating evidence.