Over at the Thinking Christian, Tom Gilson, a proponent of intelligent design, asks: “Who Defines ID?” My goal in this essay is not to define ID, but to inquire into its origins. For Tom and ID supporters to talk about ID in the present, it first had to be possible for Tom to invoke the phrase “intelligent design.” How did “intelligent design” become possible to talk about?

I don’t want to see evidence of my wife. I want to find out more about her. Even if she were out when I came home, I might find some dry dishes waiting to be put away, or some clean washing all over the chairs in the living room! These things might tell you something about her personality, though may be less than ‘evidence’ that any particular person lives with me. They are like the glow in our house after she has passed through it.

I don’t see how we can live in the world with God without seeing a similar glow.

In TIME magazine’s issue of 13 November, Richard Dawkins, a well known scientist and militant atheist, debates the reasonableness of God’s existence with and Francis Collins, Director of the US National Genome Institute and an evangelical Christian. Dawkins wins.