This critical question was tackled by William Dembski, a leading proponent of Intelligent Design (ID) and Michael Ruse, prominent advocate of evolutionary theory, during a brief segment on ABC’s Nightline

This critical question was tackled by William Dembski, a leading proponent of Intelligent Design (ID) and Michael Ruse, prominent advocate of evolutionary theory, during a brief segment on ABC’s Nightline, on Monday, May 9, 2005.

“You know I’m sure God loves Americans…but I reckon he must be tearing his hair out right at the moment,” said Ruse, Professor of Philosophy and Zoology at Florida State University. “This is the good old fashioned debate between science and religion.”

The debate comes at the heels of weeklong hearings on evolution in Kansas where the school board is considering redefinition of science itself in debate over “science vs. miracle.”

The same quesion was addressed at the Nightline piece.

“There are debates in every scientific community and thank goodness there are," said Ruse. "Science would be really boring if there were no debates. But there are no debates about science vs. miracle and that's what's going on in Kansas at the moment.”

Meanwhile, supporters of ID say the current debate surrounding the origin of life is more about science than religion.

“My own emphasis is on the actual science that's there,” said Dembski, associate research professor in the conceptual foundations of science at Baylor University in Texas. ”This is not just going back to an old way of looking at things. There are genuinely new results with ID."

By the end of the debate, both Dembski and Ruse agreed that ID will be more prominently taught and followed in the next ten years.

“I think it's going to be taught in more [schools]…we'll see ID within ten years,” said Ruse.

Dembski was also positive ID will take a more prominent role by then.

“It takes about ten years for somebody from high school to get a Ph. D. and go out for a postdoc and I do see the young generation latching onto these ideas of ID and running with them,” Dembski said. “Darwinism is totally a status quo in the main streams. It's academy."

“ID is a new kid on the block and there are some exciting ideas there if you just read the actual materials.”

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