Scientific Support, By Design

Paul Krugman has an excellent op-ed in today's New York Times ("Design for Confusion") discussing the continued use of pseudo-scientific "theories" to support an ideological agenda.

The important thing to remember is that like supply-side economics or global-warming skepticism, intelligent design doesn't have to attract significant support from actual researchers to be effective. All it has to do is create confusion, to make it seem as if there really is a controversy about the validity of evolutionary theory. That, together with the political muscle of the religious right, may be enough to start a process that ends with banishing Darwin from the classroom.

The question, of course, is what can be done about this situation. Clearly it is unproductive (and even counter-productive) to debate the merits of evolutionary theory, and proponents of ID have yet to put forth a falsifiable hypothesis that can be attacked directly.