It was clumsily worded, for which I apologise. What I meant to be saying is that many atheists do not dispute the appearance of design, and even some scientists who are atheists do not dispute it.

I once sat with a large group of scientists at a certain institution and I heard the following words, "and no matter how much it appears things have been designed, we must resist the temptation to see design in complex systems" (statement was in the context of a discussion of complex biological systems). This became the topic of conversation, and there was broad agreement with this statement.

Even if you, and many like you, do not personally believe that there is an appearance of design, that would not change the fact that it is in fact a very common position. Many atheists agree with Dawkins on this. My use of the word "many" should of course not be construed to mean "most". That was not my argument. Nor should it be construed to mean that I believe their position is that these things are designed. That should be clear from the quotation from Dawkins. Despite the fact that on this occasion I was careless with my wording, I do not, in general, use the word "many" to mean "most". I mean that it is not a position held by only a handful of individuals on the fringe. In speaking with many atheists, I conclude that it is in fact quite a common conception.

Incidentally, whilst it is very much a minority opinion (here I do mean only a handful of credentialled individuals), there are atheists who do believe that many complex biological systems were intelligently designed. And I am not referring to people who believe life on earth was designed by extraterrestrials (in the little green men sense), which I feel is usually (maybe even always) not a scientific position.

What is more common is academics such as myself who accept that evolution happens, but who also believe in a designer. And again, I do not mean to imply that this is any kind of majority opinion or concensus. I mean that relative to fringe technical opinions, belief in a designer is common. But I shouldn't need to qualify every single word I use, should I.

So, getting back to the article, although I did not articulate it well, my point is that the article not only simplifies the science, but it grossly oversimplifies the diversity of opinion that exists not only amongst atheists and people who believe in intelligent design of some kind, but of scientists in general. To my taste, and this is nothing more than a personal opinion, I found the article to be greatly oversimplified. Moreover, as I pointed out in a post above, the argument it makes is not a new one, but a recycled one from at least ten years ago. As such, I felt that it very directly conflicted with the injunction on the HN faq to not introduce classic flamewar topics unless there is something genuinely new to say.

Certainly it should be expected that there are going to be dissenting opinions when an article of this nature is presented. Again, this is only my personal opinion, but I felt that the article stuck out like a sore thumb on HN, not because it was about the design issue per se, but because of the way it attempted to deal with this controversial issue. I feel that a scientific approach to the issue would encourage a careful examination of the data and of various hypotheses on their merits. The thing that initially bothered me is that the article did not even attempt to examine why this gross inefficiency was preserved by evolution. To me this is always a clue that there is something further to be understood, and more science to be done. I am not a biologist, but I am a professional academic with a science degree. I expect more from articles such as this and am prepared to say so, and defend my opinion.