On Par With The Designer

Ok, I haven't returned to Dan Brown's Deception Point yet...still waiting for students to email with final questions before the exam tomorrow...

In the meantime, I caught this on Dembski's site. Two things immediately struck me. First is that Dembski seems to think the ability of the researchers to accomplish "intelligently designed molecular evolution" was the result of a theoretical perspective in Intelligent Design. Uh...sorry, but if you read the article it appears that the researchers were coming from much different theoretical underpinnings: "It was our contention that the application of the theory of divergent molecular evolution to promiscuous enzymes would enable us to design enzymes with greater specificity and higher activity" (emphasis mine).

Secondly, if this is a case of intelligent design a la Dembski, Behe and others, then once again humans prove themselves to be on a par with the Designer. They are successfully manipulating the genetic code to "intelligently design" specific characteristics we want. How long before we just start designing whole new species? The Designer appears to be increasingly superfluous as humans advance their knowledge. As I said before...why are we worrying about giving glory to the "Designer" of Intelligent Design? We'll be able to match him/her/it in a few decades...

(Is this really the conclusion the pro-ID folks want??)