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more valuable when expressed in the absenceof evidence. For a Christian, when science isallowed to be neutral on the subject of God,science can only bolster faith. In contrast, andI imagine without realizing it, ID proponentshave become professional DoubtingThomases, funded by Doubting ThomasInstitutes. When advocates of ID use thevocabulary of science to argue for God’spresence in cellular machinery or in the fossilrecord, they too poke their fingers throughJesus’ hands. In so doing, ID vitiates faith.

Not realizing this, many Christians nowbelieve they are making a stand against evilby supporting religion-infused alternatives toevolution. For them, the fundamental debateis not over which is wrong and which is right,but over which is good and which is bad, andthe majority opinion is clear. So if we want to ensure the continued learning of evolutionin our schools, we cannot only argue thatscience and faith can be reconciled; we alsohave to show that ID actively undermines thebasis of Christianity. Douglas W. YuCentre for Ecology, Evolution and Conservation,School of Biological Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK

Leave well alone and stickto teaching what you know SIR – Your Editorial “Dealing with design”(Nature 434, 1053; 2005) is another piece ofevidence of the peculiar angst among certainscientists about the ID strategy of a ratherrobust fraction of the US population. On thebasis of some decades of work in this area, Ido not believe that your advice to those whofeel so threatened is wise, for two reasons.

There are some very skilled experts on thetopic of how to deal with different cultures orbelief systems. Their advice, from experience,would be: leave well alone. Act like a scientist,confident in your own — always tentative,always open to change — axioms and laws.Read the literature, for God’s (or Darwin’s)sake. It will prove to you that even graduatesof MIT and Harvard do not know simplescientific facts that are irrelevant to theirwork, such as why the Earth experienceswinter and summer, despite having beenexplicitly taught such facts several timesduring their education. This amazingignorance does not affect their performanceas scientists. I do not know a single materialsscientist or engineer whose technical workwould be affected by their beliefs aboutevolution/ID. My advice: relax. It can do verylittle harm. Ham-fisted efforts will simplyalienate much larger numbers of people fromthe rest of science.

As to the suggestion that scientists should“offer some constructive thoughts of theirown”: beware of the ignorance, nay illiteracy,

of many scientists on matters of social andpolitical concern. I recommend HustonSmith’s book Why Religion Matters(HarperSanFrancisco, 2002) for advice on how to handle the ID debate. Rustum RoyThe Pennsylvania State University, 102 MRL,University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA

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Intelligent design orintellectual laziness?SIR – Much of the concern over ID (Nature434, 1053 and 1062–1065; 2005) has focusedon veiled attempts to inject religion intopublic education. Sheltered within theconfines of academia, most biologists find ithard to believe that the slain need to be slainagain. Those in the trenches — school boards,school biology teachers and their nationalrepresentatives — often don’t know how torespond, in part because they themselvesnever really achieved a deep understandingof evolutionary biology at college.

However, there is a related and equallydisturbing issue: the legitimization ofintellectual laziness. Have a problemexplaining something? Forget about it: theDesigner made it that way. Any place fordiversity of opinion as to who/what theDesigner is/was? The ID literature makes itvery clear that there is no room for scientificdiscourse on that. Think I’m exaggerating?To get a good idea of what IDers would havethe face of science look like, check out thejournal Perspectives on Science and ChristianFaith (www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF.html).

Two factors have facilitated the promotionof ID. First, IDers like to portray evolution as being built entirely on an edifice ofdarwinian natural selection. This caricatureof evolutionary biology is not too surprising.Most molecular, cell and developmentalbiologists subscribe to the same creed, as domany popular science writers. However, ithas long been known that purely selectivearguments are inadequate to explain manyaspects of biological diversity. Building astraw man based on natural selection alonemakes it easy for opponents to poke holes inevolution. But features of the genome, such as genomic parasites or non-coding introns,which aren’t so evolutionarily favourable (nor obviously ‘intelligent’ innovations), canbe more readily explained by models thatinclude random genetic drift and mutation assubstantial evolutionary forces.

Second, IDers like to portray evolution as

a mere theory. But after a century of closescrutiny, evolutionary theory has passed somany litmus tests of validation that evolutionis as much a fact as respiration and digestion.

Less widely appreciated is that evolutionhas long been the most quantitative field of biology, well grounded in the generalprinciples of transmission genetics. Yet fewstudents at university, and almost none athigh school, are exposed to the mathematicalunderpinnings of evolutionary theory. Theteaching of evolution purely as history, withlittle consideration given to the underlyingmechanisms, reinforces the false view thatevolution is one of the softer areas of science.

Here is a missed opportunity. Our failureto provide students with the mathematicalskills necessary to compete in a technicalworld is a major concern in the United States.Mathematics becomes more digestible, andeven attractive, when students see itsimmediate application. What better place tostart than with the population-genetic theoryof evolution, much of which is couched inalgebraic terms accessible to school students? Michael LynchDepartment of Biology, Indiana University,Bloomington, Indiana 47405, USA

Solidarity with theoppressed flat-EarthersSIR – I was disturbed by your News Feature“Who has designs on your students’ minds?”(Nature 434, 1062–1065; 2005), in which theproponents of ID are mostly portrayed as a persecuted minority. They are said to beafraid to reveal their identity and to befrequently censured into silence by anti-democratic scientists and administrators.

Your reporter clearly does not realize that‘intelligent designers’ are not the onlyminority bullied into submission by thescientific establishment. The vast majority of flat-Earthers, tea-leaf readers, astrologers,geocentrists and phlogiston theorists cannotpublish their studies in respectable journals.It is rumoured that Nature has rejectedwithout review a study showing that storksbring babies into the world. I have even heardof a physician who was fired from a universityhospital for trying to cure his patients byaltering the ratio of blood to yellow bile andphlegm to black bile.

Thanks to your News Feature, I am nowconvinced that by replacing “small, mediumand large” with “tall, grande and venti” — asin my local coffee-shop — the disreputabletheory of biblical creationism can be turnedinto a respectable scientific discipline called‘intelligent design’. Dan GraurDepartment of Biology and Biochemistry,University of Houston, Houston, Texas 77204-5001, USA

“Building a straw man based onnatural selection alone makes iteasy for opponents to poke holes in evolution” — Michael Lynch

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