November 03, 2005
National science = pseudoscience
John Derbyshire offers a reflection on my account of Francisco Ayala's thoughts on "Intelligent Design" that is obvious once said but which hadn't occurred to me. As Ayala points out, Intelligent Design is almost purely an American phenomenon. And, as Derbyshire notes, any theory with a strictly national following -- he gives as an example Lysenkoism -- ought to be presumed to be pseudoscience rather than science.
Of course, now that Derbyshire has pointed out this weakness in the ID campaign, it will no doubt be possible, with some small fraction of the tens of millions of dollars flowing into the Discovery Institute, to locate associate pseudoscientists elsewhere.
Just one more example, along with MacDonald's and rap music, of the most pernicious aspects of American culture being exported to the rest of the world.
