Intelligent Design as an alternative to Darwinian Evolution rumbles on in school curriculum debates in the US. Those stickers keep turning up in biology textbooks.
It wouldn’t be so bad if it simply referred to “The Theory of Darwinian Evolution”, and let people infer the pejorative tone of the word “theory”, but no, for the hard-of-thinking they kindly include the phrase “it’s a theory, not a fact”
With that, an appeal to balance says any old “theory” has equal rights to a hearing.
Err, no. There are no facts or theories. Another false dichotomy. What there is, is empirical evidence [sic fact] and explanation [sic theory]. The “best” explanation is not a matter of logic, it’s a matter of quality, including subjective fit and consistency as well as “objective” evidence. The test is credibility, not proof. That quality has subjective, collaborative and democratic aspects, not purely objective, competitive and logical, just like evolution itself in fact, in its broadest sense.
Another case of mysticism appealing to logical argument and science falling for it yet again. The Catch-22 of logical positivism or objective fundamentalism wins again. We need to shift the rules of argument. In this case the Catch-22 is a double-bind; the rules themselves are “evolution”.