On the subject of Intelligent Design, Jim Phillips writes by email:

I don’t understand the issue about Intelligent Design. I am no fundamentalist, but from what I read, 12 billion years (since the big bang) is simply insufficient time to explain evolution on the basis of random selection. All that means is that the selection is not random, that some power, God, force or inclination makes the selection on some basis other than random chance. Besides (I think) that being acceptable generally to a strict fundamentalist (given some variation in time frames), it is also scientifically true. So I don’t quite get the controversy. I suppose it is always easier to vilify than to love.