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From the point of view of ID I think the recent editorial in The PhysicsTeacher is quite a good rebuttal, and by a Jesuit no less. As to Ben Stein,
I think you are missing the point of Intelligent Design. It does not admit
supernatural agents any more than Darwinism does. It simply looks at the
usual evidence - fossil records, complexity of organisms, etc. - and
concludes from that evidence that evolution cannot explain the full
tapestry of what is seen - a non random, deliberate interaction of some
kind is seen to be required. That process may come to a different
conclusion than Darwinists, but it is no different in kind from the
process followed by Darwinists. The step to appealing to a deity as the
deliberate interaction is an entirely separate conclusion that is not
demanded by ID.
ID proponents understand very well how science operates. It is mainstream
scientists who are mistakenly dismissive of ID and who treat it as
something unworthy of serious rebuttal. One cannot blame non-scientists
for failing to conclude that in a comparison between Darwinism and ID, one
is science and the other is not.
Ben Stein is a very clever and intelligent person. He has remarkable
insight into the way education works and has shown this in the numerous
parodies that he has presented of pedantic instructors. He also has an
uncanny grasp of the workings of the financial world and has become very
wealthy acting on those insights. I watch him often on the Saturday
morning financial programs on Fox News. I have taken some of his advice
and have reaped significant financial rewards from doing so. He is not an
ignoramus. Obviously, neither is President Bush or numerous other highly
intelligent people who see no reason to prefer Darwinism over ID. Rather,
it is the science community who has to get off their high horses and come
up with clear, easily understandable retorts to ID. Simply being
dismissive is going to drive more of the general population into the ID
court. They have seen scientists careen from Global Cooling to Global
Warming - they have seen demands for banning DDT followed by unforgivable
mass deaths of children in undeveloped countries because of the resulting
surge in malaria - they will not accept nuclear power because scientists
have created bombs from that science. Scientists have too spotty a history
to take a believable condescending attitude toward ID that is readily
acceptable by the general public.
Bob at PC - who sees evolution as the only viable explanation for the
living world