Intelligent design study appears

The publication in a peer-reviewed biology journal of an article which sounds themes often heard in discussions of "intelligent design"–a theory one critic calls "the old creationist arguments in fancy clothes"–has drawn criticism from the members of the society that publishes the journal, and from others.

In an article entitled "The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories," which was made available online on August 28 by the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, Stephen Meyer concludes: "what natural selection lacks, intelligent selection–purposive or goal-directed design–provides." Meyer is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, which, according to its Web site "supports research by scientists and other scholars developing the scientific theory known as intelligent design."

Intelligent design, or the design hypothesis, is the "idea that the origin of information is best explained by an act of intelligence rather than a strictly materialistic process," Meyer told The ...