Is Intelligent Design a Peasants' Revolt?

When I was a high school debater back in the Reagan era, scaremongering about nuclear war was omnipresent. Facing off, debate teams had a habit, which became a joke, of arguing that any policy favored by their opponents would result in an exchange of warheads with the USSR. Even something as innocuous as to support, or oppose, a law requiring automobile airbags could be wrestled into a threat of annihilation.

It goes beyond high school. In countering an idea you really don't like, the tempta...