State of the University Address (with critiques as written by Mark Psiaki between 11/3/2005 and 11/22/2005 and interspersed throughout the speech in parenthetical sections that start with MLP:)

(MLP Abstract: Intelligent design includes aspects that are proper science and aspects that are philosophy. Contrary to President Rawlings' assertions in this speech, the science aspects do not constitute junk science. Rather, they are valid and important elements of the study of origins in biology. They are needed as a counter-weight to Darwinism because much of Darwinism is driven by the world view known as philosophical materialism rather than by evidence and scientific method. Intelligent design poses challenging counter-examples to Darwinism. It runs counter to accepted practices in science to dismiss intelligent design because it does not offer a competing over-arching theory in the way that Darwinism does. It is a valid scientific pursuit to seek counter-examples to a theory, and those who propose the counter-examples do not need to offer a substitute theory. Darwinists who are committed to the scientific method should welcome the challenge posed by the scientific components of intelligent design as a means of testing the case for their theory. Scientists who are committed to the scientific method should demand that Darwinists accept the challenge. These issues and many additional issues related to the scientific debate on origins, to the scientific method, and to underlying world views are discussed in the responses to various parts of President Rawlings’ speech. The organization of the comments is to respond to specific points in the speech just after the relevant paragraph and then to broaden the discussion to cover related topics. Additional related topics are discussed after the end of the text of President Rawlings' speech. A summary of arguments is included at the very end.)