Debating Design

Debating Design : From Darwin to DNA by William A. Dembski (Editor), Michael Ruse (Editor)

This is a very useful collection of essays on the design debate, with a good mix of viewpoints. But, unfortunately, a strange thing has happened, Darwinists and Intelligent Design proponents have learned to coexist and remain deaf, caught up in their separate agendas. Part of the reason, no doubt, is that the field of debate has been monopolized by the two parties that have social clout, with little chance of really breaking the deadlock with fresh ideas. It is not hard to clarify the issue of evolution, but the people with the means to do this don't have ad budgets. So we are stuck with the dreary Darwin boilerplate and now the legerdemain of the ID faction. The Darwinists are frozen, and the ID people, after a burst of useful criticisms of Darwinism, have also become fronzen.
One part of the problem is that ID folk have gone a bridge too far. As a critique of natural selection, Darwin doubt is one thing. But to go over the threshold to a new and complex metaphysics in disguise via the rehashed hopes for the argument by design simply drives the dialectic in reverse gear. That gives Darwinists their excuse to not listen to criticisms of their position. It is getting very tiresome to hear still the useless claims that Darwin's theory resolves issues of complexity, teleology, and the rest. Will they never learn?

We need a third new perspective, not connected with theology in the background, and capable of both using the insights of the new complexity sciences, without their hype, to produce a self-critique of natural selection. Once that's accomplished, then perhaps a new methodology can be devised. The essays of Davies and Kaufmann show hints in that direction, but are still stuck in the wrong science mindset.
A ways to go here. The Darwin defenders are notably without insight into the weaknesses of their position, and the fixation on Darwin's theory goes on and on.