INDY500 said:
Darwinism, however, seems to be the exception. It is to be defended with almost religious zeal, regardless of the facts.
Therefore, I don't believe Intelligent Design to be a science. But to my satisfaction, it better explains the origin of Man and life better than evolution.
Darwinism isn't a scientific theory.
evolution is.
[q]The term Darwinism is often used by promotors of creationism to describe evolution, notably by leading members of the intelligent design movement.[1] In this usage, the term has connotations of atheism. For example, in Charles Hodge's book What Is Darwinism?, Hodge answers the question posed in the book's title by concluding: "It is Atheism."[2][3][4] Creationists use the term Darwinism, often pejoratively, to imply that the theory has been held as true only by Darwin and a core group of his followers, which they cast as dogmatic and inflexible in their belief. Casting evolution as a doctrine or belief bolsters religiously motivated political arguments to mandate equal time for the teaching of creationism in public schools.
However, Darwinism is also used neutrally within the scientific community to distinguish modern evolutionary theories from those first proposed by Darwin, as well as by historians to differentiate it from other evolutionary theories from around the same period. For example, Darwinism may be used to refer to Darwin's proposed mechanism of natural selection, in comparison to more recent theories such as genetic drift and gene flow. It may also refer specifically to the role of Charles Darwin as opposed to others in the history of evolutionary thought — particularly contrasting Darwin's results with those of earlier theories such as Lamarckism or later ones such as the modern synthesis. A notable example of a scientist who uses the term in a positive sense is Richard Dawkins.
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the defensiveness you see is in response to the fanatics who want to qualify it -- and only it, when it comes to scientific theories -- with conservative christian crap, called Creationism or Intelligent Design, or some other fabrication that's come from the annals of american conservative christianism.
i'm sure you do find ID lovely and comforting. you're a Christian. and if you try to poison a science curriculum with that garbage, then i'm going to fight you tooth and nail. it is no more scientific than any other religiously-based creation myth.
if you want to discuss this over beers, gosh, go ahead. we can also argue about Santa Claus, Atlantis, the Bermuda Triangle, the exitence of Bigfood, and the UFO abdunction phenomenon. it'd be fun.
just don't pretend that there's a scientific foothold.