This all may be moot, if when the book comes out, it turns out that the man does have a new argument. The piece that Paul Brandon posted today refers to an "apparent impossibility of providing a naturalistic theory of the origin from DNA of the first reproducing species", but doesn't provide the argument for that claim of impossibility (which is, remember, NOT the same thing as simple failure to currently have such a naturalistic theory). If there's an argument that such a theory is impossible, then it's not simply the argument from ignorance, but it doesn't seem to me that we can tell yet.
This is of course the heart of the Intelligent Design argument (going back to Paley). Most professional philosophers (and of course biologists) have rejected it. among other flaws it's based on requiring a proof of the null hypothesis.
As Paul Smith says, lacking some rather spectacular justification (and note flew's own allusions to his declining cognitive abilities) 'pilot error' seems to be the most likely hypothesis.
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"No one in this world, so far as I know, has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people." -H. L. Mencken
* PAUL K. BRANDON [EMAIL PROTECTED] * * Psychology Dept Minnesota State University * * 23 Armstrong Hall, Mankato, MN 56001 ph 507-389-6217 * * http://www.mnsu.edu/dept/psych/welcome.html *
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