Back in the dark days before ubiquitous Internet, disinformation was sustainable. When you were told that Marilyn Manson is actually Paul from The Wonder Years, it would have been difficult to prove otherwise; one would have had to find someone's old VHS tape on which they'd recorded one of the episodes, check the credits to figure out what that actor's name was, and then find someone's copy of Antichrist Superstar and look for the same name on the liner notes. And it was unlikely that you would find old Wonder Years episodes and Marilyn Manson albums in the same place. It was easier to just half-believe that Paul was Marilyn Manson.
Life is different now, if less interesting. Consider William Dembski, the mathematician and theologian who rose to the top of the nascent intelligent design pack in the late '90s after claiming to have proven that certain aspects of biology can be attributable only to the intervention of one or more intelligent entities. As for who or what those entities might be, Dembski is coy when addressing a potentially secular audience, claiming that there "are many possibilities." Among these possibilities, we may determine, is that Dembski is lying; in a 1999 interview with the Christian magazine Touchstone, Dembski stated unambiguously that "[i]ntelligent design is just the Logos theology of John's Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory." With ID being increasingly under attack as theology clothed in science, Dembski has since been more hesitant in giving due credit to either John or the Logos.
Bits of information are no longer compartmentalized like so many scattered VHS tapes and gothic rock album liner notes, which is why Dembski and company can't get away with trying to portray ID as a scientific theory with no religious intent while having already admitted that same religious intent to sympathetic Biblical literalists. But that crowd doesn't seem to understand this fundamental aspect of the Internet, that Google waits in watch of dishonesty. And thus it is that Dembski's blog Uncommon Descent is among the most interesting things that the Internet has to offer. More importantly, it provides us with a sense of how the leaders of the ID movement would run things if they were ever to run anything other than a blog.
Dembski began blogging in 2005, perhaps as a means of procrastination; 2005 was also the last year in which he and his movement colleagues bothered to put out a new issue of their own scientific journal, although their lack of output hasn't stopped them from criticizing mainstream journals for declining to publish their work, non-existent though it may be. Some choice moments in the years since:
* In conjunction with his friends at the pro-ID Discovery Institute, Dembski decided to commission a Flash animation ridiculing Judge John Jones, the Bush-appointed churchgoer who, despite being a Bush-appointed churchgoer, ruled in the 2005 Dover Trial (known more formerly as Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District and even more formally as something longer and more formal) that intelligent design could not be taught in public school science classes. The animation consisted of Judge Jones represented as a puppet with his strings being held by various proponents of evolution; aside from being depicted as unusually flatulent, poor Judge Jones was also shown to be reading aloud from his court opinion in a high-pitched voice (Dembski's, it turned out, but sped up to make it sound sillier). The point of all of this, as The Discovery Institute explained, was that Jones had supposedly cribbed some 90 percent of his decision from findings presented by the ACLU, and that this was a very unusual and terrible thing for Jones to have done. On the contrary, judges commonly incorporate the findings of the winning party into their final opinion, either in whole or in part, and Jones' own written opinion actually incorporated far less than 90 percent of the findings in question. For his part, Dembski agreed to reduce the number of fart noises in the animation if Jones would agree to contribute his own voice. Jones does not appear to have accepted the offer.
* One of Dembski's hand-picked blog co-moderators, Dave Springer, once received an e-mail to the effect that the ACLU was about to sue the Marine Corps in order to stop Marines from praying; outraged, Springer posted it on his blog in order that his readers could join him in being affronted. After all, the e-mail had told him to. "Please send this to people you know so everyone will know how stupid the ACLU is Getting [sic] in trying to remove GOD from everything and every place in America," the bright-red text exhorted, above pictures of praying Marines. "Right on!" Dembski added in the comments. It was then pointed out by other readers that the e-mail was a three-year-old hoax; the ACLU spokesperson named therein did not actually exist, and neither did the ACLU's complaint. Springer was unfazed by the revelation. "To everyone who's pointed out that the ACLU story is a fabrication according to snopes.com -- that's hardly the point," he explained. "The pictures of Marines praying are real." Dembski himself had no further comment.
* Dembski has spent much time and energy pointing out that Charles Darwin made several racist statements back in the 19th century, even going so far as to call for a boycott of the British ten-pound note due to Darwin's picture being displayed thereupon. Incidentally, Dembski has spent most of the past decade working at universities within the fold of the Southern Baptist Convention, which was founded in the 19th century for the sole purpose of defending slavery.
* Springer, the aforementioned aficionado of e-mail forwards, once noted that he stopped reading an article by a critic of intelligent design because it contained a cartoon depicting the famous Black Knight routine from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. "Anyone who needs to resort to Monty Python in a scientific argument can be safely ignored as not having any legs to stand on," he announced. Springer can be forgiven for not being aware that Dembski himself has referenced Monty Python in the context of a scientific argument more than once. Somewhat more inexplicable is that Springer himself has done the exact same thing, making reference to the very same Monty Python routine and doing so in the very same context as did the article he was criticizing -- twice. I mean, come on.
* Upon being told that University of Texas Professor Eric Pianka had given a speech in which he'd supposedly asserted that the world would be better off if most of humanity was killed via a global contagion, Dembski announced on his blog that he had just reported Pianka to the Department of Homeland Security out of concern that the elderly biologist was planning to somehow contribute to the destruction of humanity. The FBI interviewed Pianka but took no further action, having perhaps determined that the recipient of the 2006 Distinguished Texas Scientist award was not actually planning on killing off the majority of the world's population.
* Seriously, it was the exact same Monty Python routine.
As much as he puts into his blog, his professorships, and his voice acting, Dembski is still as prolific an author as ever. His latest effort, set for release later this year, takes on the wave of pro-atheist books that have seen publication over the past couple of years. Among the pundits whom he'll be countering is Christopher Hitchens, contributing editor at Vanity Fair and author of God is Not Great. If you happen to spot Hitchens drinking, it's probably just to calm his nerves.
Updated!
Uncommon Descent contributor Clive Hayden has launched a devastating counterattack against your humble correspondent, referring to me as "Barrett Clown" in one of the few instances that he manages to spell "Barrett" correctly. Although the post is a bit on the abstract side, I shall attempt to decipher it by way of the Logos.
Me: Oh, mighty Logos, hear my call, homina homina homina.
Logos: Yo yo, you be holdin'?
Me: Dude, shhhh. I need to know what Clive Hayden is trying to say here.
Logos: His basic point is that the 1,000-word article you wrote about Uncommon Descent does not include an entire refutation of specified complexity.
Me: Of course it doesn't; I've already written a whole book about that. Clive even mentions it. Dembski trashed it a couple years back without refuting any of the points therein, such as his participation in the blatantly fraudulent activities of the Discovery Institute that came to light with the theft and publication of that organization's once-secret mission statement, the Wedge Document, which itself contradicts what Dembski and his fellow Constantine fetishists have been telling the public about what intelligent design is really intended to be.
Logos: He called you "Barrett Clown," man.
Me: I know, what the fuck?
Yet Another Update!
Hayden denounces me as "a comedian;" I would note that we're now represented in the Senate, as we should be. Comedians are the greatest people in the world.
He also asks an astonishing question:
He must really dislike certain outcomes of evolution. Whence comes the discernment between competing worldviews that are all outcomes of evolution? If evolution, to Barrett, admittedly produces false worldviews, such as religion, then why trust it in any other regard?
I don't trust evolution any more than I trust gravity or attractive women. I don't make any claims to the effect that evolution only produces swell things and makes everyone smart and honest. I'm not all totally in love with evolution; I just think it's the case. And I'm amazed that Hayden would ask me to account for the results of the process to which I ascribe when it is he and his fellow intelligent design advocates who attribute divine purpose to nature, not I. And what's up with those airline peanuts, amirite?
Note to the Folks at Uncommon Descent
I posted a comment to the blog post at Uncommon Descent concerning me at 5:59 EST; it was a response to the latest silly, fact-free attacks on me, this time by Gil Dodgen. It is still "pending approval" three hours later, even though several other comments posted after mine are already published and visible. Your blog is already notorious for "disappearing" inconvenient comments, but I believe that this the first time in the history of the internet that an author has been barred from leaving a comment on a post about his own work.
Final Update (Hopefully)
After four hours and some ridicule, the folks at Uncommon Descent have finally approved my comment. Truly, this is a great day for open debate!
Epilogue
I recently promised Uncommon Descent gadfly Clive Hayden and other proponents of the movement that I would respond to several questions and accusations put forth on that blog over the past few days.
Several intelligent design supporters have accused me of slandering William Dembski by asserting that he is lying when he expresses his alleged opinion that the intelligence behind design could be one of many things, including something "natural." The crux of their argument is that it is entirely appropriate to speak on this from a theological context on some occasions and in a scientific context on others. I agree. But it is not appropriate or honest to go in front of a mainstream audience and try to give the impression that he is agnostic on the identity of the designer, when he has already told a sympathetic Christian audience that it is absolutely certain that the designer is Christ, and that science divorced from Christ is invalid.
Dembski has done this repeatedly. Aside from the incident I mention in the above article, he did it again during a CNN debate with Skeptic founder Michael Shermer. After explaining the stunning complexity we see among the components of the cell, Dembski is asked by host Daryn Kagan, "Are you explaining that by saying it's God that answers those questions?" He responds, "No, what we're saying is that there's an intelligence involved." Nonsense. Dembski can validly claim that intelligent design need not be religiously motivated, but he cannot claim, when asked if he explains "specified complexity" with reference to God, that he does not. He does. He doesn't do it when talking to Daryn Kagan, but he does do it whenever addressing a Christian audience.
I would evoke a favorite metaphor of the intelligent design crowd - that what they do when seeking to detect design is much akin to what a police investigator does when trying to solve a crime by way of forensics. Imagine that Dembski is a detective who has spent years studying a crime scene. He determines that the crime was perpetrated by a certain Jesus H. Christ, and even writes several reports to the effect that he is absolutely certain that this is the case. Then he talks to someone whom he'd like to convinced of the soundness of his forensic methodology, but he knows that this person is disinclined to agree that Christ was the perp, so when asked if he explains the crime as having been performed by the perp in question, he says, "No, what we're saying is that there's a criminal involved" and then goes on to list a couple of possibilities without even mentioning Christ. That detective would be lying. Dembski, too, is lying.
At least one intelligent design proponent notes that, had I written the above article in the U.K., I would be on my way to court "to defend a libel charge right now, and with the prospect of having to pay the full costs of the other party and the court too, in addition to damages." I doubt that Dembski would be foolish enough to put the question of his honesty in front of a court.
Clive Hayden, meanwhile, asks that I engage him in a discussion on the subject of evolution and how it relates to each person's efforts to verify his worldview. I am disinclined to do so insomuch as that Hayden appears to have difficulty with his memory to such an extent that to debate him further would be much akin to arguing with a persistent amnesiac; when I mentioned two of Dembski's offenses against logic and civility, Hayden claimed that he had "no idea" what I was referring to even though the incidents together formed some forty percent of the argument I made against Dembski in this very article, which, of course, was the topic of his own blog post. Even when I reminded him of this, he refrained from answering the related questions I put to him, choosing instead to allege that I have written nothing of substance on the subject of intelligent design. How he could possibly know that is a mystery insomuch as that he has not read my book on intelligent design and appears to have had some difficulty comprehending the only article of mine on the topic that he has attempted to read.
Yet Another Damned Update
Mr. Hayden is not satisfied with my responses thus far.
I answered your questions, now you answer mine, and don't weasel out of it by talking about my memory. Can you not answer my questions? Can you not? It certainly appears that you cannot. If you can, do it here and now. Evasion won't work Barrett.
I have responded to this particular question several times both here and on the Uncommon Descent blog, just not to Mr. Hayden's satisfaction. I would remind him again that, contrary to his claim that he has answered my questions, I have just explained yet again that he has not. I asked him if Mr. Dembski's behavior with regards to Judge Jones and his decision to report a fellow professor to the Department of Homeland Security as a potential terrorist constitute "mudslinging." He originally claimed not to know of these incidents, and though I've since held his hand through this twice now, he has still failed to answer the question. Hayden does not want to discuss any of the matters that I discuss in the actual article; he is quite willing to write a lengthy post attacking the article, but he knows perfectly well that it is not to his advantage to respond to any of the charges within, as they are all valid and, taken together, they demonstrate that William Dembski is a degenerate hypocrite who reported an enemy to the government and alleged improper conduct on the part of a judge without first checking to see if the judge had actually done anything improper. Hayden makes for a fitting representative.
Moderately Relevant Update!
I've got a new piece up at Vanity Fair, this time attacking Charles Krauthammer instead of the intelligent design yahoos.
From a philosophical perspective, information theory reflects a “message,” and Christ, as creator, is the messenger, so, in that context, it follows that there is an unbreakable bond between the sender of the message and the message itself. From a SCIENTIFIC perspective, on the other hand, one cannot discern the identity of the messenger using a design infernce any more than one can identify the identity of a burglar after having made the design inference that his house was ransacked. Using ID methodology, one can only detect the presence of SOME intelligent agent.
Obviously, Mr. Brown has no interest in thess facts since they challenge his anti-ID ideology. Unfortuntely, his knowledge deficit leads him to defame another man who has done nothing to deserve it.
Some have suggested that the disproving of a hypothesis or theory would be the death throw of it, for example:
Suppose we challenge the ID person to show us a new species created by the Designer. We mean something new now. Let us decide if it is in fact new. Here we predict the outcome will be negative.
Possibly the ID person cannot command the Designer to do this very thing. Nevertheless they go off for a spell and then return empty handed. So we decide that this is proof the our suspicion that the ID camp is false.
Suppose now that we challenge the Evolution advocate to produce a new species through the evolutionaly process. We say we don't care which type of evolution is used. Let us decide if it is in fact new. Here we predict the outcome will be negative. The Evolutionists would no doubt go off and return empty handed.
Possibly the Evolutionist cannot apply pressure to the evolutionary process to produce a new species. We decide that this is proof that our suspicion that the Evolution camp is false.
We are back to square one.
Oldsop, you obviously *think* that you have an informed opinion. It is just as obvious as a reader that this is not the case.
After all, anyone even modestly clued in about evolutionary science would be aware that *inducing* speciation not only can be done, but has been done. The most common mechanism is by inducing polyploid changes in karyotype. In plants, application of colchicine is often sufficient. In teleost fish, blast overpressure can do the job. Then there's all sorts of hybridization, some of which can lead to reproductively isolated offspring. I haven't undertaken a literature search for all methods of inducing speciation, but any existing example busts your post-modernist know-nothing-ism, and the examples do exist.
If one extends the range of acceptable examples to *observed* rather than just *induced* speciation, there are more examples, as perusal of the TalkOrigins Archive again demonstrates:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/speciation.html
In orchids, the American Orchid Society keeps a list of species, with the tetraploids marked off as such. That class includes both induced and simply observed speciation events.
It might prove less embarrassing for you next time if instead of grandstanding in ignorance you simply asked whether there were examples of some event.
Evolution is supposed to bring about a permanent change in species creation. Such an event would be noteworthy, i.e., I want to see a dog have a cat; or an elephant have a fish. Anything else is just an adaptation of what already exists and therefore not a new species but just a different flavor of the one we already have (i.e., a liger or a tion).
1. School boards and similar bodies run by non-academics: Here the argument is always on the level of popular opinion (Darwin was Hitler's grandmother, scientists are librul atheists who want to eat your baby) with unsubtle appeals to biblical literalism. Attempts to correct pro-IDC falsehoods and misstatements in these are shouted down (sound familiar?) ;
2. Dembski's echo-chamber, where the purpose of 'moderation' is to prevent infection of true believers by rational discussion;
3. Sites run by scientists where the above two are observed with a mixture of horror and hilarity.
It's also instructive (in a jaded kind of way) to map the various talking points of IDC back to the honest-to-Gawd Young Earth Creationist arguments they recycle. Examples are legion and can be followed on the Index to Common Creationist Claims.
Lastly, IDCs have the felicitous habit of shooting themselves in the foot by quote-mining, misunderstanding the point of scientific papers, and lying in a most blatant way. All told, very persuasive indeed. I'm not aware of scientists doing this without being ostracised by their peers.
By their works ye shall know them.
Why would one expect an article like Barrett Brown's to survey all the past work critiquing "intelligent design" creationism's failures? One can easily find the critiques, after all.
For the collection of just about everything related to William Dembski's argument up to about 2002, visit here: http://www.antievolution.org/people/dembski_wa/
For a critique of Dembski's "explanatory filter", visit here: http://www.talkdesign.org/faqs/theftovertoil/theftovertoil.html This was published in Philosophy and Biology in 2001.
In 2004, "Why Intelligent Design Fails", an anthology from Rutgers University Press included several chapters of critique of Dembski's claims.
In 2007, "Scientists Confront Intelligent Design and Creationism", the second edition of a classic text came out, updated to include criticism of "intelligent design" creationism.
This year, the journal Synthese is publishing a shortened version of the essay by me and Jeff Shallit that can be downloaded here: http://www.antievolution.org/people/wre/papers/eandsdembski.pdf If you want the exact Synthese version, visit here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/a1l08u041t72m227/
Here is our abstract's conclusion from the Synthese paper:
"In this paper, we examine Dembski’s claims, point out significant errors in his reasoning, and conclude that there is no reason to accept his assertions."
>>>Firstly, the nucleic sequences in DNA (which makes all life possible) utilizes a symbol system of encoded information that is physico-dynamically inert, meaning; there are no material forces that cause it to exist as it does, and hence, no material causes to explain its existence (in other words, for an explanation to be offered, it must first be said to exist, but it doesn’t).
But that's all bullshit. What's it mean? Natural selection causes DNA to exist as it does. That's material. So... wrong? You people are silly.
Scott Andrews: The idea that natural forces acting randomly can produce anything as complex as the simplest living thing is so outrageous, so fantastic, so unbelievable, that no one can be faulted for rejecting it outright without reams of documentation or a time-lapse video. Something so preposterous cannot be accepted based on threads of evidence woven together by speculation and hope.<
http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/reverend-barry-lynn-blasts-infidels-who-refuse-to-venerate-darwinius/#comment-329404
I gave him the answer here: http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/if-you-want-good-science-who-better-to-ask-than-barret-brown/comment-page-2/#comment-329383
For those who would rather KNOW than be just another link in the chain, you might consider reading David Abel's peer-reviewed paper in the Journal of Theoretical Biological and Medical Modeling. He spells out the case in no uncertain terms. Its available here: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1208958
There is also another from the International Journal of Molecular Science: http://mdpi.com/1422-0067/10/1/247/pdf
One thing is for certain, no one here will address the evidence presented in either of these peer-reviewed journals on its face. Building strawmen, as Barret has done, is always more fun.
A piece NOT actually intended to be about the vacuous gobbledegook that is "ID" has nothing whatsoever about 'ID" in it!
It is a conspiracy, I tells ya!
Pro-ID zealots are a constant source of entertainment, to be sure.
Here is what is amazing: A peer-reviewed article appearing in the Journal of Theoretical Medical and Biological Modeling, and a companion piece in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences implicitly states:
"The fundamental contention inherent in our three subsets of sequence complexity proposed in this paper is this: without volitional agency assigning meaning to each configurable-switch-position symbol, algorithmic function and language will not occur. The same would be true in assigning meaning to each combinatorial syntax segment (programming module or word). Source and destination on either end of the channel must agree to these assigned meanings in a shared operational context. Chance and necessity cannot establish such a cybernetic coding/decoding scheme [71]."
"To focus the scientific community’s attention on its own tendencies toward overzealous metaphysical imagination bordering on “wish-fulfillment,” we propose the following readily falsifiable null hypothesis, and invite rigorous experimental attempts to falsify it:
“Physicodynamics cannot spontaneously traverse The Cybernetic Cut [9]: physicodynamics alone cannot organize itself into formally functional systems requiring algorithmic optimization, computational halting, and circuit integration.”
"A single exception of non trivial, unaided spontaneous optimization of formal function by truly natural process would falsify this null hypothesis".
...and so you suggest this has nothing to do with the hypothesis that volitional agency is required to achieve function in the sequencing of nucleotides.
Nice.
What exactly did you think the author was talking about when he said the phrase “volitional agency”?
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1208958
The complexity of life (organization, order, functional sequence) could not have come from non-life because we cannot recreate it today in the lab.
The inference (especially among creationists) is that since we don't know exactly how the first living system came into being, it must have been the work of God.
Functional Sequences: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB150.html
Abiogenesis: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB010.html
Arguement from incredulity: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA100.html
Finally, in response to your UD posting, the "DNA Language" arguement is NOT proof:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB180.html
ID is a theologically based belief, NOT a science. It begins with the conclusion ("God did it") and then looks for (and only sees) evidence to support the inviolate conclusion.
Neither of the articles made a single claim about what can and can't be recreated in a lab. That wasn't even the theme of the research. Those terms never appear even once anywhere within the text, and neither does the argument that you say the paper makes. The claim that you would like to assign to this paper does not exist anywhere whatsoever within the content of the paper. Period.
You have chosen to misrepresent the paper instead of actually addressing the evidence being presented. And in its place you have posted chatter from non-peer-reviewed sources as a rebuttal.
Its a familiar refrain. Instead, of dealing with the data, there will be motive mongering, ad hominem attacks, misrepresentations of the argument, and a never-ending obfuscation of the evidence - oh and yes, repeating the chatter of "sciency" websites that do the same.
It represents an almost pathelogical level of denial - which is rather odd for those who jealously defend themselves as the defenders of empirical evidence.
"The issue is that a flat earth is no longer a theory. It is fact. There is a mountain of evidence to support a flat earth. Round earth has little to support it and that is why practically all scientists don't consider it credible. That is also why round earthers have lost in court cases - although I must confess that I don't accept courts as arbiters of the truth; they are not. But for some people no amount of evidence will change their mind. When that happens, it is no longer science, and has no place in a science curriculum."
Such a paragraph could have been written when "flat earth" was the accepted norm. The point here is that our paradigms can change. I invite you to read The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn.
The folks pushing "intelligent design" creationism (IDC) are handicapped in constructing analogies. They shoot themselves in the foot, as in the above case.
The modern advocates of a Flat Earth are holding on to it because it favors a preferred scriptural interpretation. And there are modern Flat Earth advocates. The International Flat Earth Society run by Charles Johnson claimed thousands of members right up to his death around 2003. And his flyer advertising the Society lays out plainly that they are an anti-science organization:
"We maintain that what is called 'Science' today and 'scientists' consist of the same old gang of witch doctors, sorcerers, tellers of tales, the 'Priest-Entertainers' for the common people. 'Science' consists of a weird, way-out occult concoction of jibberish theory-theology...unrelated to the real world of facts, technology and inventions, tall buildings and fast cars, airplanes and other Real and Good things in life; technology is not in any way related to the web of idiotic scientific theory. ALL inventors have been anti-science. The Wright brothers said: "Science theory held us up for years. When we threw out all science, started from experiment and experience, then we invented the airplane." By the way, airplanes all fly level on this Plane earth."
Sorry, the IDC movement's actions are far more analogous to Flat Earther tactics than is the history of science. Try again.
Your example is flawed, as the proof of a round earth is so elegant and overwhelming in its simplicity that your statement would never have been true. The theory was replaced with such rapidity. In addition, only the uneducated masses believed/still believe it.
So is ID 'Modern Creationism'? To some, perhaps. But I and others view it as a scientific approach to the exploration of biologic origins, and based not on presuppositions, but on empirical evidences. While some have used the term in place of 'creation science', or a rewording of 'Pandas an People', most true Creationists disavow ID.
ID is objective science, and has hard evidence to support it. The "reams of data" accumulated since Darwin's time tend to support intelligent design more than natural causation as nature's prime source. If not, what is the harm in pursuing its hypothesis?
Your book was funny in places, but basically a recanting of historical data that both attempt to discredit and disparage. In the first case, there were attempts to undermine its veracity as a valid hypothesis, and in the second to demean it by calling it a "threat to science". Both fall short, ignoring the forest except for a few mutated trees.
ID will win out in the end. I would even rephrase Dobzhansky's catch phrase to say that "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Purposeful Design. So do I deny evolution? Nah, it's just another 'designed in' contrivance to keep extinctions on the back burner!
I'll comment on IC below on an earlier post by Barrett.
That statement is factually incorrect. There is no scientific theory of Intelligent Design Creationism. Even IDC proponents admit that:
"We don't have such a theory right now, and that's a problem. Without a theory, it's very hard to know where to direct your research focus. Right now, we've got a bag of powerful intuitions, and a handful of notions such as 'irreducible complexity' and 'specified complexity' -- but, as yet, no general theory of biological design."
-- Paul Nelson, Touchstone, 2004
The scientific method is based on observation, hypothesis, and testing, repeating to approach correspondence with reality. IDC is based on a desperate desire to preserve fundamentalist faith in the face of massive amounts of contrary evidence.
Disagree? Then present a scientific theory of IDC and provide an explicit, testable prediction that would serve to falsify it.
I admit I have been on both sides and understand what is at stake for each intellectually:
Both sides swear their stuff is the legitimate viewpoint.
Agreeing to disagree seems to me the only civil outcome of such discussions. But as I have stated elsewhere, the dialog is refreshing.
I never said it was a 'theory' per se. I view it as an adjunct or alteration of the existing TOE to allow for intelligent input. The hypothesis of natural causation to elicit novelty and complexity (beyond a certain level, i.e. 'specified' complexity) is unproven, and is frankly falsified at this point. Even the thesis at talk.origins titled "29+ Evidences of Macroevolution" focuses in part on microevolutionary events, a blatant misrepresentation of it's central premise, nor in its true speciation examples does it effectively make the case for natural causation.
When I say that ID is objective science, I'm referring to an interpretation of the existing data that is more in line with reality. But within objective reality, both positions need to be considered, i.e. with no mandated exclusion of design as an evolutionary component.
Nelson also stated, "I think the Darwinian view that organisms are cobbled-together kludges—the “low” view of life, so to speak—was a scientific blunder of the first order. Biology is having to unlearn “facts” about putatively non-functional systems all the time, which might not have happened if investigators had begun with the premise that what they were looking at was the product of a subtle, exceedingly clever mind."
Paul Nelson was merely stating a reality, that of the obligatory rejection of ID by the scientific community.
Before I go, I'd like to ask that all of you sign the Academic Freedom Petition. Let science be science again. Allow progression to take place. Don't cling to silly 19th ideas, ideas that haven't been intellectually fulfilling in over a century.
I.D, on the other hand, proposes that some "outside influence ", not available for analysis nor even understood, directs the progression of (life, world, universe - whatever) towards some unknown goal.
The distinction is important: one (Darwinism) is called "science" and can be tested regardless of philosophy. It is not a religion, nor does it depend on religious philosophy for support.
The other (I.D.) must be classified as religious in nature, because it relies on faith in the existence of an unknown power that cannot be observed or tested - nor even conclusively demonstrated to exist. Sounds like religion to me.
Both have their places, but they are examined and tested by very different means - and must not be mixed together in the same classroom.
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While a single omnipotent Divine Entity is one possibility, other possibilities exist, such as competing deities, surrogates (angelics), and less likely, aliens, an intelligent mechanism, or savant idiots but with an inventive/ creative streak.
To say that "ID must be classified as religious" is wrong, since forensic investigations of this sort are neutral as to the source of the intelligence. Since ID is based on design detection, algorithmic processes based on statistical probabilities is one method, and would consist of valid science.
If we rule ID out, we must rule out SETI research as well.
If your cause is to pi** off those who disagree with you such that they can't hear what you are saying then you will probably and probably have succeeded.
Then again, the tooth fairy isn't trying to take over the school board.
This is exactly the crux of the matter.
is simply the end-result of limited human imagination
reinforced by simplistic and dogmatic religious organizations...
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It is our limied perception that tricks us into believing this is the only reality.
That, plus the _extremely_ limited teachings we grow up with in the Judeo-Christian tradition do not admit the possibility of an infinite God except as lip-service. He is merely the ultimate Father Figure controlling the tribe - not the all-permeating force sustaining this lotus-dream (or maya) we perceive.
This response is part of the "Index to Creationist Claims": http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA301.html