BEING A CONSERVATIVE AND DEFENDING science and reason is sometimes a lonely affair. There are all too many people, otherwise fine conservatives, who lose all hope of rational thought when it comes to evolution and the development of the diversity of life on earth. Not that we expect it’s much better being a liberal — you don’t think that people who believe in magic healing crystals or channeling are voting for W, do you?

In any case, because of that occasional feeling of being under siege, we are always heartened when thoughtful conservatives weigh in to defend reason against the forces of ignorance, whether that be Charles Krauthammer, John Derbyshire, or George Will. We are reminded that we may be outnumbered — aren’t the rationalists always? — but we are not lacking for firepower.

Now we find Anthony Dick of the National Review weighing in with a look at an upcoming documentary on the Kansas Board of Education brouhaha. No, not the Kath’n'Con show we mentioned earlier, but yet another look at it all. How pleased the Kansas tourism people must be with all the recent publicity their state is receiving.

But we digress. Take it away, Mr. Dick:

Olson’s exposition of this first point hinges on what has become the biggest buzzword in the ID movement: “irreducible complexity.” This concept is the golden calf of ID advocates, who argue that there are some biological structures that are so complex that they could not possibly have evolved through the Darwinian process of genetic mutation and natural selection. The proper functioning of these structures, they claim, requires the simultaneous operation of numerous different components. These components supposedly could not have been of any use to an organism if they had evolved individually on a gradual timescale, so it is not clear how they could have evolved together to form the larger structures.

And so? Do IDers modestly conclude from this that they may have found an interesting challenge that should be the topic of further discussion and investigation?

Well, not exactly: They conclude that, because we can’t presently think of a way that some complex biological structures evolved naturally, these structures must have been fashioned by an intelligent designer. Here you will want to fire up your camcorders: Rarely will you see a logical long-jump that hurdles so many acres of careful reasoning with such soaring ease. If ever there was a record-breaking flight of fallacy, surely this is it.

Indeed. Bring it on, you forces of darkness and ignorance, you…