From Evolution News.
Excerpt:
In September, Oxford University Press officially releases the hardcover version of a new book by renowned philosopher Thomas Nagel at New York University. It’s a bombshell.
Already available on Kindle, Nagel’s book carries the provocative title Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False. You read that right: The book’s subtitle declares that “the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False.” Nagel is an atheist who is not convinced by the positive case for intelligent design. But he clearly finds the evidence for modern Darwinian theory wanting.
Nagel writes:
In thinking about these questions I have been stimulated by criticisms of the prevailing scientific world picture… by the defenders of intelligent design. Even though writers like Michael Behe and Stephen Meyer are motivated at least in part by their religious beliefs, the empirical arguments they offer against the likelihood that the origin of life and its evolutionary history can be fully explained by physics and chemistry are of great interest in themselves. Another skeptic, David Berlinski, has brought out these problems vividly without reference to the design inference. Even if one is not drawn to the alternative of an explanation by the actions of a designer, the problems that these iconoclasts pose for the orthodox scientific consensus should be taken seriously. They do not deserve the scorn with which they are commonly met. It is manifestly unfair.
Read the rest here. Thomas Nagel previously named Stephen C. Meyer’s “Signature in the Cell” a Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year. He is a very independent thinker, and very honest about his motivations and the evidence.
WINTERY KNIGHT 
Atheists claim an adherence to rational thought, or deductive reason that fits with the data it is based upon. Is science objective in that sense? Not necessarily, since while the data may be accurate, an assessment of that data requires subjection thought as well as deductive reasoning.
I bring ‘science’ into the discussion, since most rationalists claim it to be the true source of materialistic knowledge, or knowledge concerning physics, biology and cosmology, among others.
But here is why I consider hard atheism (a non-belief [acceptance] in even the remote possibility of a Creator, or creative force) as being devoid of rational thought. It is largely subjective, since hard evidence for and against a creative source is totally lacking.
Viewed in that light, the concept of intelligent design, or even just intelligencia elsewhere in the Cosmos must be considered as scientific. Cleared of its subjectively attached religious inferences, and its superfluous ties to ancient religions, astrology, numerology et al, it fits within science.
That may, in part, be a reason that Nagel views ID as scientific and non-religious. It may also, in part, be that in his view, the best way to defeat or suppress ID is to confront it.
But regardless, whether or not I agree with Nagel’s philosophic views, he is correct in viewing ID as a scientific concept (hypothesis), and in no way sourced by religion.
Although a philosopher rather than a scientist, his stated view may sell books, but will surly raise hackles on the backs of scientists on the cusp of attacking him.
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