Yes, but I’d argue that the test of a good scientific theory is whether it can overcome entrenched, institutional biases. Plus, I don’t think the scientific bias against ID is of a fundamentally different order than the scientific bias against any other underdog theory.

–You don’t think this has the teensiest bit to do with bias on the part of the scientific community and the editors peer-reviewed journals who accept articles for publication?

But it’s a valid label, to the extent that darwinism is a naturalistic process.

AIG and YECism are not the only game in town when it comes to creationism. The intelligent design movement (ID) accepts many of the tenets of modern cosmology, geology and evolutionary theory, such as the big bang, an old earth, and even (in some cases) natural selection. ID’s position is essentially that evolution isn’t *enough* to explain everything. A YECist might not be able to tell much difference between the views of an IDist like Michael Behe and an evolutionist like Steven J. Gould.

In the intellectual realm, the battle is between ID and evolution. And even then, only a tiny minority of actual working biologists support ID. The number of peer-reviewed scientific papers published per month in support of evolutionary theory is probably more than the number of peer-reviewed papers published *per decade* in support of ID theory. So IDists have a bit of work to do before their views become accepted by the scientific majority.

As for this essay, my comment would be that be calling a natural selection/progression “Social Darwinism” is just applying a “label” to something that happens naturally.

Heh heh. They would write on your tombstone “Mr. Congeniality”

As I understand it we’ve been genetically programmed to store fat all along since most of our evolution was spent in hard times and poverty. Now the tables are turned and we live in a land of plenty, so the extra fat tends to build up. We’re sort of running afoul of our own evolution.