Tom Bethell is at it again. If you want a snap-shot of just how out-of-touch conservative journalists of the grizzled generation of Bethell, Buckley and Buchanan truly are about biological science in general, read Jeffrey Shalit:
Bethell tells us that “Structures or signals of specified complexity permit an inference to design without any necessary recourse to the supernatural” without bothering to mention that “specified complexity” is junk mathematics and doesn’t permit an inference to anything at all, except that Bethell is rather gullible to accept William Dembski’s assurances as gospel.
Bethell then goes on to repeat a common lie of the intelligent design movement: that the SETI Project (Search for Extraterrestrial Life) spends its time looking for things as a sequence of prime numbers”. Sorry, Tom, that was the movie “Contact”. You know, fiction?
Sigh. Do you know why Tom says complexity permits an inference to design without any necessary recourse to the supernatural? Let me guess: Because Dembski probably sent him an email. You know why Buckley doesn’t believe in evolution? Probably because of that outdated tome written by Gertrude Himmelfarb 45 plus years ago. Buchanan? Coulter? You can be sure they get their ‘information’ from the same in-bred sources.
As opposed to, say, contacting 5 biologists picked at random from the colleges and universities around the country and simply asking them some questions. You know, what journalists are normally supposed to do.
This is why conservative journalists have NO credibility when it comes to science. Because they are incurious, intellectually lazy, and afraid to really find out the truth.
Update: Just as an example, here’s one guy Tom could spend an afternoon with to great profit.