NEW YORK -- Why do my compatriots, the Japanese, try to copy Americans -- often on the basis of a most tenuous understanding? The wonderment occurred when I checked the Internet to see if the notion of "intelligent design" (I.D.) was known in Japan and at once found that it was, and more.
Among the "intellectuals" who embrace it is Hisayoshi Watanabe, professor emeritus of English and American literature at the University of Kyoto. Asked by the Sankei Shimbun newspaper to explain I.D. for a Sept. 26 article, Watanabe began by noting that U.S. President George W. Bush's remark "heightened its recognition" in the United States. He then defined I.D. as "a theory that proposes to give up explaining the making of this universe and the natural world in terms of aimless, plan-less mechanical forces alone," and to "recognize as science -- other than natural factors like 'inevitability' (natural law) and 'coincidence' -- a 'design' factor."
Asked about the oft-made point that I.D.'s principal promoter is the "Christian right" and that "the intelligent being" assumed to exist in the I.D. argument "is just another name for God in the Creation based on the Old Testament," Watanabe dismissed it by saying, "If it were anything of the sort, not a single scientist would be supporting it."