Ben?s Birthday, Our Present

Rice University physicist Neal Lane penned linkurl:an interesting op-ed;http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/3590974.html in the __Houston Chronicle__ today. On the occasion of Benjamin Franklin?s 300th birthday, Lane asks (and takes a stab at answering) the question, what would Ben make of this whole intelligent design hubbub While unquestionably a man of God, Franklin reveled in science. Lane writes that Franklin would most certainly have cut any purported ID theorist a fair switch: **?Were Franklin alive today, he would undoubtedly attest that evolution is a fact in the same way that gravitation and electromagnetism are facts. The same scientific method was used to understand all three aspects of nature. Early hypotheses become theories. Theories are subjected to rigorous experimental testing, and factual descriptions emerge. For centuries, that's how people, including Franklin, have advanced their understanding of how nature works.?** With Franklin?s character and scientists? easy affinity for the statesman/scientist, such a statement is easy to...