From today’s New York Times article on “Intelligent Design”:
“All ideas go through three stages — first they’re ignored, then they’re attacked, then they’re accepted,” said Jay W. Richards, a philosopher and the institute’s vice president.
Note that: evidently “all ideas” will eventually be accepted, regardless of their soundness. Intelligent design has a future after all.
I tried to figure out a charitable reconstruction of this philosopher’s glib blunder, but the best I could come up with is something like, “All good ideas are ignored, then attacked, before they’re accepted.” It doesn’t have a catchy ring to it — but then, it’s not out-and-out false, either.
He just didn’t get a chance to finish his thought: “…then they’re accepted, by a population segment once predicted to become available at a rate of sixty per hour.”
I don’t know if you know but that is the same Jay Richards who was a Ph.D. Candidate in Theology at PTS while you were there. He was also involved in the big bruhaha over the Charles Hodge Society publication that so upset the faculty authors of the book about Homosexuality.
Oh, dear! Of course I remember Jay, though I didn’t associate him with this article. It’s sad that he would get caught saying something so silly (if indeed this is what he said).
Yes, I was one of the targets of his barbs in the Hodge Society journal. After he and the others lit into me, Margaret and I invited them over for dinner (Bill Dembski was another of our guests that night).