attacking straw men

So Mr. Scott Adams, of Dilbert, poked his fingers into the debate over Intelligent Design, and the Darwinists promptly proceeded to roundly attack him.^[1] He proceeded to try to clarify how many of the comments proved his point exactly,^{[2] I think he did so less than clearly, but I do not think his lack of clarity mattered to much by that point.}

The point he is trying to make, badly, is that when you attack people instead of their positions, or when you attack ideas that people really do not profess, others will question you even where you appear to be, and perhaps are, credible. If you want to convince me that you are right, and I am wrong, then you had best either know what I think and refute that, or stick to your own position and not claim to address mine at all. When you attack a straw man, those with the wit to realize what you are doing will doubt your position. If it was all that accurate, why would not not attack my position directly?

Beyond this point that Mr. Adams attempts to make though is a larger one. Evolution might be, I think is, the best materialistic theory for life as we know it. But science, in practice, claims more than that. It claims that evolution is not just the best explanation that science can offer, but an explanation that we must accept as objectively true. The realm of objective truth cannot be restricted to materialist explanations without proof that only such explanations are in fact objectively true. Such a proof is outside the realm of science, and so a counter argument would be equally outside the realm of science.

If you restrict your focus to what can be studied by a materialist approach, all the available evidence will support a materialist theory. That does not make the theory an accurate description of history. I care more about learning what is historically true than what is the best science can offer.