Steve Hayward (who?) on the Corner decides to un-seriously step up in defense of proponents of Intellectual Design. Shall we see if we can decipher what Steve's trying to say here?

I continue to be troubled by the fervency of anti-ID commentary.

Well now, Steve. There's your first mistake. You kept typing after "troubled."

I don't have a dog in this fight

Now here you stopped typing too early, Steve, since your sentence silently continues with "but I will use any opportunity to compare liberals to Nazis." You think I'm joking? Read on!

I can understand, in the abstract, why global warming alarmists decry us so-called "skeptics"—we are, after all, a roadblock to SAVING THE PLANET, fergodsakes!

Wait? I thought you were talking about people who're fervently opposed to Intelligent Design? How did you.... OH! I GET IT! Steve, you old dog, you. By simply slipping Global Warming into the argument, you can just rant about that, rather than try to actually defend ID. Good job!

(Despair not, gentle reader: if you did not already know, Global Warming is Hayward's pet subject, and virtually the only thing of note he's been able to write on for NRO. He brings it up because it's all he knows.)

But what exactly is the real world threat from ID people in the academy?

Religion belongs in a bible college or theology/divinity classes. ID thinly dresses up obscurantism as science in the same way that Muslims sometimes dresses up male violence against women as the natural order of things. Does this really need to be spelled out or are you just trolling for attention? Wait, don't answer...

Is there a technical issue, like stem cell research, where the ID argument is relevant?

Not yet, but a lot of inroads have been made by ID proponents to make the ID argument relevant in the teaching of science. That is the whole point of the argument -- to keep it from becoming relevant.

Is ID really the scientific equivalent of Naziism or Communism

1. Wait, did just just misspell Nazism? Have you ever read Jonah's book? Goodness!
2. Is isn't the scientific equivalent of anything. It's not scientific.

I have to agree with Ben Stein in the trailer that people who are confident in their views should not feel threatened by heterodox views.

In that case I expect you are fully in support of teaching Communism as an acceptable mainstream alternative to capitalism and democracy in American Colleges and Universities, and Euthanasia as a reasonable alternative to caring for the elderly and mentally challenged.

It's a sad day indeed when John Derbyshire is shrilly attacked for saying what every sane and serious observer has been suggesting for years:

The constant strain of keeping a straight face while insisting that theirs is not — no way! absolutely not!! — a religious campaign, and talking about the mysterious-but-definitely-not-supernatural "Designer," has corrupted them irredeemably.