Have you heard of project Steve:
http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/news/2005/ZZ/657_project_steve_n__600_9_16_2005.asp Most of these people may be "scientists" in some sense of the term, but how many of them are truly leaders in their fields. IDers and other creationists habitually support the opinions of people who have made very minor contributions (or none at all) over people who have made staggering contributions:
Example - I keep hearing muttering about how String Theory supports ID. But one of the co-founders of the subject, Leonard Susskind gave a talk entitled "The Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the ILLUSION of Intelligent Design."
(I all-capped ILLUSION for emphasis.) I wrote Dr. Susskind and asked him directly whether this was meant to be taken literally or whether he had intended some sort of irony. He answered very quickly that it was meant literally and that he was coming out with a book by the name.
Now, there is a lot of debate about String Theory, but I think when it comes to who understands it best, that this guy would be way up there. In any case, his book has since come out:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/01/20/news/booksat.php http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316155799/103-1943192-3866216?v=glance&n=283155 Another example:
William Dembski has written about how an information theoretic (IT) concept known as the NFL (No Free Lunch) Theorems supports intelligent design. What is Dembski famous for? Nothing, other than supporting ID. What does the David Wolpert - the co-discoverer of the NFL theorems - say?
He wrote an article called "William Dembski's Treatment of the No Free Lunch Theorems is Written in Jello" which you can read here:
http://www.talkreason.org/articles/jello.cfm These are just two of the latest in and ENDLESS attempt by IDers (and other creationists) to go to some really obscure branch of science and try to make some idiotic assertion - feeling very secure that the rarified atmosphere will keep out the average critic AND that they will be able to state things in such a way that the average reader will have an illusion of understanding the subject.
It started with
1) the 2nd law of thermodynamics disproves evolution, then went to
2) the human eye disproves evolution, then
3) the bombadier beetle disproves evolution, then to
(2 and 3 representing cases of "specified complexity")
4) IT (info theory, specifically the NFL theorems listed above) disprove evolution, and finally to
5) ST (String Theory) disproves evolution.
These are just a very few highlights. IDers and other creationists have devoted pages and pages making claims like this - there are hundreds of examples.
On the one had the people who keep throwing out these little tidbits don't do sufficient homework to understand how inane most of them or how to evaluate competing claims (oh, wow! Jonathon Wells has TWO PhDs so he MUST BE really smart and really right!) On the other hand, their audiences tend to be even more mentally lazy. They just keep spouting the same stuff over and over, beating themselves into a frenzy about the myriad obvious disproofs of evolution.
If scientists ignore it, they say, "SEE! They don't know how to refute us!"
If scientists respond, they say, "SEE! We must be on to something, because they keep defending evolution SO VERY VIGOROUSLY!"
