Educators, Scientists and Religious people speak out.

Posted 31 December 2004 by PvM

↗ The current version of this post is on the live site: https://pandasthumb.org/archives/2004/12/educators-scien.html

I have collected an extensive, but hardly exhaustive, list of educators, scientists and religious people supporting evolution and/or speaking out against Intelligent Design.

I will move the list to PandasThumb once I finish the translation from HTML to BBCode and clean up the organization (such as alphabetizing the states and adding an index).

If you are aware of any additional links please add a comment and I will update the list to reflect the latest, most up-to-date list.

Read further at Wedgie World

32 Comments

Ed Darrell · 31 December 2004

I think your list might benefit from the 125 or so University of Texas profs, and the 100 or so Rice University profs who signed letters urging intelligent design be left out of textbooks. The letters are in the transcripts of the 2003 textbook hearings at the Texas State Board of Education site.

Steve Reuland · 1 January 2005

Wow, that's pretty cool. You didn't tell us you had your owm blog!

PvM · 1 January 2005

Thanks Ed I will add the references. Steve, I finally caught up with the rest of the world, where everyone has their own personal blog.
In my case I intend to use it for 'Wedgie World' postings not really relevant to PT but still of interest.

arcticpenguin · 1 January 2005

You could mine this page at Panda's Thumb.

arcticpenguin · 1 January 2005

Botanical Society of America's Statement on Evolution, including the example of wheat.

Mike Hopkins · 1 January 2005

This listing might also be a good idea for The Talk.Origins Archive.

It should be possible to put these statements in an easy to edit format and use Perl or some other script to convert it to HTML or Kwickcode.

----
Anti-spam: Replace "user" with "harlequin2"

Salvador T. Cordova · 3 January 2005

Hey congratulations on you're new weblog. I didn't learn of your blog until now.

By the way, nice of you to mention me in your blog. I'm doing something in reciprocity....in a yet-to-be released section of irreverend recollections on my website, I mentioned your blog and provided a link to it. Wasn't that nice of me?

I'm not quite done getting my web page on you completed, but here is an advance copy of my irreverend recollections of you (well I tried to be respectful of your person in the process of being a little light hearted. Hope you don't find it too offensive, I tried to be nice :) :

My Recollections of Pim van Meurs

cheers,
Salvador

Lurker · 3 January 2005

Isn't ST Cordova the person who said that Intelligent Design has a falsifiable hypothesis whose truth a person can find out after he dies?

LOL

DaveScot · 3 January 2005

Appeals to authority grow ever so much more appealing as the authority grows in number.

Shall we then list by name the vast majority of people in the United States who do not fully believe in either creation science or naturalistic evolution?

In a democracy isn't that majority supposed to decide matters like what is taught in public school classrooms?

Do we live in a democracy or some kind of scientocracy?

PvM · 3 January 2005

Do we live in a democracy or some kind of scientocracy?
— Dave Scot

Democracy, which is why scientists, educators, and religious people are able to show support for the theory of evolution and oppose the teaching of intelligent design. Creation science is a contradiction in terms by the way.

PvM · 3 January 2005

Salvador is the greatest thing that happened to those who oppose Intelligent Design. He often gets himself tangled up in his own arguments, believes that he has debunked Elsberry and Shallit but seems to be unable to really present an argument let alone a convincing one. He is unable to support the efficacy of the design inference, quickly returns to such concepts as quantum theory but fails to present anything scientifically relevant. In addition he has called for the ex-communication of Denis Lamoureux, is willing to take a grenade for Dembski and seems to be proud of having ARN ban ID critics. Salvador believes that genetic identification is an example of the design inference in action, conflating two distinct concepts. Through conflation and equivocation Sal manages to confuse pattern matching with the explanatory filter.

They have been in use in Automatic Target Recognition, Bio-Reporting, Medical Diagnostics, Bio-Defense, and import control of genetically modified foods. The work of www.genetic-id.com is a good example.
— Sal

And when the going gets too tough for Sal, he used to delete the postings or even the threads involved. His standard response to scientific criticisms is to taunt with references to Shallit being Dembski's teacher, or the opening of an IDEA club in someone's neighborhood or other trivialities. Perhaps Sal wants to address the comments by ID proponent Del Ratzsch who wrote the following about Dembski's filter

So typically, patterns that are likely candidates for design are first identified as such by some unspecified ("mysterious") means, then with the pattern in hand S picks out side information identified (by unspecified means) as releavant to the particular pattern, then sees whether the pattern in question is among the various patterns that could have been constructed from that side information. What this means, of course, is that Dembski's design inference will not be particularly useful either in initial recognition or identification of design (Del Ratzsch Nature design and science p. 159)

and

"I do not wish to play down or denigrate what Dembski has done. There is much of value in the Design Inference. But I think that some aspects of even the limited task Dembski set for himself still remains to be tamed." "That Dembski is not employing the robust, standard, agency-derived conception of design that most of his supporters and many of his critics have assumed seems clear. (Del Ratzsch Nature design and science)

"I don't think the design case has yet been convincingly made," Ratzsch said. "I think that design advocates have raised some intriguing issues. (Intelligent design theory merits regard Iowa State Daily)

Should Del be ex-communicated as well? As I said, he is the best thing that ever happened to ID critics. Totally committed to defend ID at all cost, even when it involves 'taking the grenade' or losing credibility. Sal seems to have found a (partial) match in ID's Bulldog who is barking a lot...

Roger Tang · 3 January 2005

Science is NOT a democracy. Its findings really are not subject to debate and rhetoric.

Unfortunately, that's what most ID leaders are subjecting science to; what's even more unfortunate is that most ID followers see nothing wrong with this.

Flint · 3 January 2005

From a post at Internet Infidels:

The creationists are attempting to use meta-agreements to their advantage. We may not agree on exactly what curriculum a science course should have, but we agree that the curriculum is properly set be a State school board, and that the members of that board are politically elected. This in turn means that curricula are political footballs, and unavoidably so. If they were not, who would decide those curricula, and how would those people be chosen? And who would choose those who do the choosing? SOME political process ultimately is required, and we prefer one as open and transparent as possible.

And so, rather ironically, it is the scientists who are attempting to subvert this political process, and *arbitrarily decree* what students should be exposed to, trust them, they are the experts! The scientists are attempting to substitute straight appeal-to-authority; making the bald-faced claim that their opinions are better than our opinions. This can legitimately be regarded as a violation of the meta-agreement to respect the political process. Scientists have adopted a sort of "medical model" used by doctors: That in domains of highly specialized knowledge, those possessing the knowledge are above questioning by those lacking it. This model backfires because creationists consider themselves ALSO to be in possession of appropriate specialized knowledge. And so they are!

DaveScot is correct in saying this is a political battle. The description of what constitutes a good education is a political and social description. It's really quite necessary that we reserve the right as a political body to vote ourselves ignorant and superstitious if this is what we desire, even though the better-educated minority can easily foresee the consequences. But the alternative is worse, because if those undemocratic "proper" designators of our curricula should be wrong, we would have no recourse. The political system is ironically like science in this respect: it permits us to be wrong, and it ALSO permits us to correct errors.

And so I'll defend our processes, even though I cringe when I see the likes of DaveScot gloating that ignoramuses each have one vote just like the educated, and there are more ignoramuses. Only education can cure this sickness, which is why it's worth fighting to defend.

Rilke's Granddaughter · 3 January 2005

DaveScot is correct in saying this is a political battle. The description of what constitutes a good education is a political and social description. It's really quite necessary that we reserve the right as a political body to vote ourselves ignorant and superstitious if this is what we desire, even though the better-educated minority can easily foresee the consequences. But the alternative is worse, because if those undemocratic "proper" designators of our curricula should be wrong, we would have no recourse. The political system is ironically like science in this respect: it permits us to be wrong, and it ALSO permits us to correct errors.

My objection would be that I thought the whole point of the political system that Jefferson and Madison and Wilson cobbled together was that it prevented the tyranny of the majority over the minority. Did I miss something?

Rilke's Granddaughter · 3 January 2005

Sal, if your website is an indication of the quality of discussion being made on behalf of the ID movement (regrettably, you can't actually call it a 'theory' because no ID theory has ever been presented), then PvM is right - you are the greatest asset the anti-design movement could have.

I note that your 'scientific evidence for God' position is being cheerfully dismantled on ARN; but is that really the kind of 'education' you'd want people to have? Education without theories, hypothesis, experiments, results?

Weird.

Flint · 3 January 2005

Rilke:

Did I miss something?

I guess so. I take it you are not a student of politics? Our system is designed to honor and respect the will of the majority, within some (hopefully) strict limits designed to protect members of minorities from clear and present, flagrant discrimination. We do this by granting rights to all citizens -- basically the rights to vote, to own property, to worship as we see fit (provided nobody else is harmed in the process), to speak and assemble freely (so long as the assembly is peaceable), etc. There is certainly no right, expressed or implied, that protects those voting in the minority from living under the circumstances engineered by those elected by the majority, *except* that specific named rights are protected. You seem to be claiming that if popularly elected school boards adopt curricula the scientific elite dislikes, this is tyranny. And I'm sorry, but it's not. As I wrote, our system has consequences that aren't always what the minority would prefer, but there is always a minority, with respect to every issue. How you propose to ban minorities would be interesting to learn. Alternatively, you might be saying that the minority should be permitted to dictate to the majority, voting to the contrary be damned, but ONLY in cases where the majority is wrong? In that case, as I wrote, who gets to decide what's so right it overrides the majority's desires, and how is that person to be selected? Warning: this is a trick question. Many governments have answered it somewhat differently: Whoever has the military force to dictate such decrees gets to make them. Would you seriously prefer such a system? And this is why I wrote that our system, like any other, makes errors. What distinguishes our system is that it enables us to correct our errors. If you know a way to prevent error, please let us know. So far, the only method I've seen is the religious approach - to define yourself as infallible. But one might argue that this doesn't prevent error per se, it only prevents error from being recognized.

Rilke's Granddaughter · 3 January 2005

Flint,

You seem to be claiming that if popularly elected school boards adopt curricula the scientific elite dislikes, this is tyranny. And I'm sorry, but it's not. As I wrote, our system has consequences that aren't always what the minority would prefer, but there is always a minority, with respect to every issue. How you propose to ban minorities would be interesting to learn.

No, I'm not, really. I was thinking about a more general philosophical question related to an analysis I read on how JM&W tried to make sure that minorities weren't blatantly sat upon. I would agree that our system permits the selection of whatever 'eduction' is preferred by the majority; and that for the minority to impose it's will would actually be tyranny. I, myself, am a monarchist at heart; I consider an englightened dictatorship (not, of course, necessarily synonymous with monarchy!) to be the sole safeguard against the stupidity of the majority (I think someone once defined humans as one of the few species more intelligent in the singular than the aggregate). In fact, I'm not really crazy about the sanity (judged sheerly by results) of an elective system; it invariably produces people whose talent is being elected, rather than administrating. Biology (my monarchy) probably produces better results averaged over the long-run (I must do a study on that). What I don't necessarily agree with you on is that our system permits us to correct errors. Of course, that may be because I'm not sure how you define error in this context.

Great White Wonder · 3 January 2005

In that case, as I wrote, who gets to decide what's so right it overrides the majority's desires, and how is that person to be selected?

Typically in this situation a court decides and they are typically selected by an appointment process. The Supreme Court is an example of such a court. Checks and balances, a difficult to amend Constitution, all imperfectly designed to prevent the tyranny of the majority. Yes, I buy this theory. Perhaps some new "elite" historians are going to try to convince me that this is untrue, that unfettered majority rule was the goal of the slave-owning founders. Unsurprisingly, the majority salivates over such theories. Does that make the new elites right? Nope.

Rilke's Granddaughter · 3 January 2005

In fact, our system is not actually predicated on the idea that the majority rules; it is predicated on the idea that the majority will delegate[/] decision-making abilities to other groups (congress, school boards, legislatures of all kinds).

Sure, there will always be a disgruntled minority (and I would argue that is a healthy thing - lack of opposition is usually a sign that the state is going to the dogs), but what might be improved is the process by which the majority delegates its decision-making powers.

JM&W settled on a system that going for it emotional appeal - I don't see that there is much else to recommend it. But surely other methods could be found to 'select' the decision-makers for a given context?

DaveScot · 4 January 2005
This is a lot like arguments I've had on usenet 10 years and more ago over certain evolutionary aspects of personal computers. I won those arguments after time proved the predicted outcome. I won because I understand that technical merit is but one factor in what makes an idea a winner. Often it's not the deciding factor. Marketing and political clout usually win the day. ID has sufficient technical appeal and distance from the bible to be a competitor in the marketplace of public school curricula. Natural evolution and design are both forensic - no one can prove one happened and the other didn't. This is easily understandable to the general public. The general public, which is who will ultimately decide what is taught and how it is taught to their children in public schools, couldn't possibly care less what pedants say science is and is not.
The ID guys are going to get their wedge into the classroom. Bank on it. Resistance is futile. They've got the advantage of vast numbers of plebeian voters who want to believe in design and you can't PROVE their belief is wrong. Courts will be forced to examine ID prima facie and conclude that "intelligent agent" does not equal "God" and rule it constitutional. School boards will make the call and in a nation where 80% of them believe in God it isn't tough to guess they'll support teaching a theory which doesn't begin by assuming that there is no God.
But don't despair. This is all just a bunch of nonsense. ID or no ID in the classroom will have absolutely no effect on the price of tea in China. Religious alarmists who think evolution is the cause of all evil in the world will find it's the cause of none of it and secular alarmists who think ID in the classroom will cause the collapse of the enlightenment will find that it collapses absolutely nothing.
In other words - the entire argument is academic (pun intended).

DaveScot · 4 January 2005
Best way to fight ID if it means that much to ya...
You have to ridicule it in a way that the John Q. Public who is much more knowledgeable about NBA than DNA will understand and sympathize with.
Ridicule or attack on the basis of "it isn't science" won't get you anywhere. Joe Average doesn't understand why testable and verifiable are important concepts. Explanatory is the only attribute he cares about, if he cares at all.
Ridicule or attack on the basis that "intelligent agent" is code for "God" is just an insult to Joe's intelligence. Prima facie, to anyone with enough education to use a dictionary, intelligent agent isn't a biblical invention. He will agree it includes God but he doesn't care because 80% of Joe's crowd has some vague belief in God anyhow.
Ridicule or attack on technical merits are far too deep for Joe to ever understand. There's sufficient easily understood surface technical merit for ID to convince Joe it's worthy of consideration. Just take Reagan's simplistic "when you go into a restaurant and eat a fine meal, do you doubt the existence of a chef?". It takes more time and technical acumen than Joe has or will ever have for him to begin to understand the problems with Reagan's one liner. Joe likes his science, and everything else, in sound bytes and the evolutionist camp can't make their technical case in a sound byte. And nobody likes an intellectual bully who's just too smart for everyone else.
Now here's my idea. The reason ID appeals to ME is I'm a hopeless SciFi buff (nerd or geek if you prefer). Since a tender young age (I'm almost 50 now) I've been reading the musings of rather well educated men of science (the best SciFi authors are scientists) on the notion that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe. Only carbon chauvinists are dedicated to the idea that it has to be DNA based. As a computer scientist for 25 years it's particularly intriguing to me to think about semi-conductor based intelligence. Maybe I was too young when I read von Daniken's "Chariots of the Gods" and "Ancient Astronauts". I don't know. I just know the idea that life on earth was designed intrigues me and since it can't be disproven it retains an appeal. But here's the thing - Joe Sixpack is more repulsed by the idea of little green men visiting the earth and tampering with life here than he is by natural evolution. I'm weird. Joe doesn't want to be associated with weirdos like me.
So what you need to do is attack ID not on its inclusiveness of God but rather on its inclusiveness of the proverbial LGM (little green men) from Alpha Centauri. The very modification that the wedgies were forced to make to honest to God creation science so it passes constitutional muster is probably the best way to attack it. Don't try to equate intelligent agent with God. Even if you can on some conspiratorial level that what's a majority wants to believe and prima facie the courts can't make the equate. Equate "intelligent agent" with little green men from Alpha Centauri in flying saucers. Frame it in the same class with UFO whackos and Area 51. That's the ticket. Joe won't like that.

Bayesian Bouffant · 4 January 2005
I'm not sure what you mean. Should we point out that Raelians support the teaching if ID, which they believe was carried out by space aliens?

Flint · 4 January 2005
This is all rather outside the scope of this blog. I'll try to respond as well as I can: Rilke:
I, myself, am a monarchist at heart; I consider an englightened dictatorship (not, of course, necessarily synonymous with monarchy!) to be the sole safeguard against the stupidity of the majority
This would be a great system if it worked. It always fails, usually immediately (due to a power-abusing dictator), but if not, then in the second generation after the Great Man dies. Why? Because there is generally no mechanism for replacement. The first guy got there (typically) because he was a charismatic general loved and respected by everyone. But after him, whom? His son? Fight another war and hope a replacement emerges? The only historically stable approach has been primogeniture based on the divine right to rule, *as accepted* by the governed. But history also tells us that stable government is not necessarily good government at all. So what we need is a mechanism to identify when the enlightened dictator is losing it, and able to replace him (with someone equally enlightened, meaning the system has to be able to identify and recruit him. How?). The catch is, this mechanism must therefore be more powerful than the dictator. Otherwise, as we see with thumping regularity, the dictator simply offs those nominally responsible and carries on. Power is not easy to share. (One of the interesting reactions to the American system from many parts of the world is slack-jawed baffled astonishment that the President accepts the end of his term, either after 2 terms or losing an election, and voluntarily steps down! WHY!!!??? He has the power. He can simply declare himself President-for-life and nobody could stand against him. He controls the military. WHY would he give it up? Are American Presidents all nutso? And we can explain about stability, tradition, laws and not men, political philosophy, and it's all just meaningless noise. Who cares about that abstract stuff? The President has the POWER! What else could possibly matter? The foreigners admit that they cannot understand, and will never understand, and leave shaking their heads.)
What I don't necessarily agree with you on is that our system permits us to correct errors. Of course, that may be because I'm not sure how you define error in this context.
Errors in this context are whatever the system decides to change, for whatever reason. We have tried to structure the process of making changes in certain ways, as I'll discuss when I reply to GWW. GWW:
Typically in this situation a court decides and they are typically selected by an appointment process. The Supreme Court is an example of such a court.
Two separate replies to this. More proximately, you understand that some courts are elected, others are appointed by those who are elected. Ultimately the decision is a popular decision. More fundamentally, the courts are NOT, organizationally speaking, who overrides the majority's desires. The courts exist to ENFORCE the majority's desires, provided those desires do not deprive anyone of life, liberty, property, etc. according to our laws and procedures. I certainly wouldn't want (I hope you wouldn't either) a court deciding that the public was being deprived of a "good" education as defined by a minority the court decided was "right", without some political process involved. For example, we might have a declared principle that the curriculum for each subject should accord with what is widely accepted as appropriate by a consensus of specialists in that subject. The courts would then adjudicate whether or not this principle was followed. It is NOT the courts' position to alter that principle; that's a political issue.
Perhaps some new "elite" historians are going to try to convince me that this is untrue, that unfettered majority rule was the goal of the slave-owning founders. Unsurprisingly, the majority salivates over such theories.
I doubt they do, by and large. I shudder to think of a "pure democracy" using today's technology to enable an instant poke-a-button national plebiscite on all issues, doing away with legislatures. The country wouldn't last a month! You're correct that the whole point of balancing power and applying it indirectly is to filter public urges through wiser heads, and then set the wiser heads against each other so that truly stupid things are very hard to do. Indeed, the system's structure *assumes* that the majority is stupid! Rilke again:
In fact, our system is not actually predicated on the idea that the majority rules; it is predicated on the idea that the majority will delegate decision-making abilities to other groups (congress, school boards, legislatures of all kinds).
But of course, the delegates are elected by the majority, and hold their positions by listening to the majority. Hopefully, there is a negative feedback process here (there nearly always is). Delegates tend to be elected by squeaking wheels, typically a minority, while the majority is fairly indifferent or uninvolved -- UNTIL (as in Kansas) the squeaking wheels DO manage something outrageous, which galvanizes the indifferent. There are other feedback processes as well. This is one way that "errors" are corrected. But this does require the participation (and time) of people like you and RBH and anyone else who is part of the consensus of specialists.
what might be improved is the process by which the majority delegates its decision-making powers.
What I've called the meta-rules - the rules for making the rules. I think the key here is to think generally. Yes, in our topic of focus, we don't want the Great Unwashed using their majority status to teach trash in public schools. But turn the situation around: imagine that the majority respects scientific knowledge, but that the religious elite get to dictate the curriculum. Imagine they do so on the same grounds you seem to want - that their specialized knowledge uniquely places them in a position to make best-informed judgments! In that situation (precisely what you ask, except for the identity of the elite), "changing the process by which the majority delegates is decision-making powers" so as to preserve the privileges of the elite would work against you.
JM&W settled on a system that going for it emotional appeal - I don't see that there is much else to recommend it.
Sigh. What recommends it is that it listens to the desires of the governed, protects the rights of minorities at the margins, adjusts to changing times, provides multiple methods for redress of grievances and processes, prevents serious resentments from building up, and on and on. As Churchill said, it's the worst system there is except for everything else that's ever been tried.
But surely other methods could be found to 'select' the decision-makers for a given context?
If you think about it, your question regresses to a "who designed God" problem. There is always the question of who selects the selectors, and how. I also desire scientists to make the scientific decisions. I would NOT want them making political decisions. Deciding which scientists get to pick the science curriculum must be a political decision. Look: Either the people make the ultimate decision (indirectly through representatives, of course), or the people are cut out of the decisions, which are made by self-appointed elites (who invariably protect that position with guns, indirectly through representatives, of course). What you'd like to see is the people cut out, and elites of YOUR preference running the show. But what if an elite very much opposed to your preferences should self-select themselves (because they had more guns)? NOW how are you going to dislodge them? You have no process. Congratulations - you have the system of your desires. Not the personnel, of course... DaveScot: I predict differently. Some court somewhere might decide the "Designer" is generic enough not to represent the doctrine of any particular recognized organized religion, but it would be very difficult to convince a court that a claim devoid of evidence, tests, research, track record or falsifiability is nonetheless science. Despite the window dressing, ID is so fundamentally antithetical to everything that is science, that even a court ignorant of science should have no difficulty grasping the distinction. And so we might get ID taught in comparative religion class (because the designer is by definition supernatural), and nobody should object.

PvM · 4 January 2005
Ridicule or attack on the basis of "it isn't science" won't get you anywhere.
— DaveScott
On the contrary, the only reason ID is still being pursued is not because it is good science (it isn't for obvious reasons) but because of its theological impact.

DaveScot · 4 January 2005
Bayesian re Raelians
Exactly.
But it needs to be said during public input to school boards to be effective. ID is embarrassing on an easily understood level if it can be loosely associated with crop circles, alien abductions, and anal probing instead of a respectable God of some sort. ID apologists have no defense against this other than a lame "ID makes no attempt to define the nature of the intelligence" which is forced on them for church/state separation reasons. That is its strength and its weakness. It allows you to mention the nature of the intelligences it must therefore include aside from the God that most everyone wants to believe in.

DaveScot · 4 January 2005
Flint,
There's no constitutional requirement that only science be taught in science class. The people are free to make a law through due process requiring that basket weaving be included in 9th grade biology class if they want. A judge cannot overturn such a law as it does not violate any constitutional prohibition that I'm aware of.

Flint · 4 January 2005
DaveScot:
You are correct. The content of any public school curriculum is a matter of administrative policy, crafted by either appointed people (bureaucrats) or elected people (representatives). If we wish to change the curriculum, we needn't change the policy but only those responsible for implementing it. We do this at the polls.
However, once we HAVE a policy, a judge can determine whether or not the appropriate procedures were followed in implementing that policy. Some law exists somewhere saying "Here is how this is to be done." If that law was not followed, a judge can say so. If the process was followed correctly and the result is basket weaving in biology class, then the judge can do nothing. At that point, it's up to the people to elect representatives to either change the law, or appoint bureaucrats who in following the existing policy, produce the desired output.

Flint · 4 January 2005
DaveScot:
Ah, I should add that I assumed a policy somewhere that science is to be taught in science classes. An administrative judge would determine if the policy were met. This isn't part of the court system itself; it's an administrative arm of the department of education.

Great White Wonder · 4 January 2005
I won because I understand that technical merit is but one factor in what makes an idea a winner. Often it's not the deciding factor. Marketing and political clout usually win the day.
Of course, Dave, the issue is not whether consumers will overwhelmingly buy VHS tapes over superior Beta tapes, but whether children in public school science classrooms should have their minds filled with pseudoscientific garbage that is indistinguishable from the pseudoscience you mentioned above. Marketing and political clout are significant factors in determining the resolution of certain issues, but let's face it: if it weren't for "the children" we'd see female nipples on TV every night. And there is no principled way to allow crap like creationism to be fed to kids in science class while keeping telepathy, anal probing, and knowledge of deities vastly more powerful than the Christian God out. Also, Americans by and large are smart enough to appreciate that any theory which relies on unprecedentedly powerful alien beings to "explain" why their pubic hair is curly is horsecrap. And finally, I believe most Americans are willing to accept the decisions of courts in these matters. And most Federal judges are a hell of a lot smarter than the average American.
The ID guys are going to get their wedge into the classroom. Bank on it. Resistance is futile. They've got the advantage of vast numbers of plebeian voters who want to believe in design and you can't PROVE their belief is wrong.
But I can prove that their belief in a deity has nothing whatsoever to do with whether "ID theory" is a giant pile of pseudoscientific horsecrap, and I can prove that "ID theory" was cooked up by some religious nuts who claim that the sort of evidence that judges rely on every day is worthless. That will suffice to determine that "ID theory" is dead on arrival. Put your money with your mouth is Dave. What do you think is going to happen in Dover?

RBH · 4 January 2005
Flint wrote
I doubt they do, by and large. I shudder to think of a "pure democracy" using today's technology to enable an instant poke-a-button national plebiscite on all issues, doing away with legislatures. The country wouldn't last a month!
I am irresistibly reminded of Robert Heinlein's remark that
Vox populi, vox dei translates as "How the Hell did we get into this mess?"
Flint further wrote
Some court somewhere might decide the "Designer" is generic enough not to represent the doctrine of any particular recognized organized religion, but it would be very difficult to convince a court that a claim devoid of evidence, tests, research, track record or falsifiability is nonetheless science. Despite the window dressing, ID is so fundamentally antithetical to everything that is science, that even a court ignorant of science should have no difficulty grasping the distinction.
The lawyers in the crowd might address whether Daubert v. Merrell Dow has any legs in this context. RBH

DaveScot · 4 January 2005
GWW
I don't know what will happen in Dover. The school board seems to have screwed the pooch by making assorted claims in session along of the lines of "someone has to take a stand for Jesus". Whether that was recorded in any way admissable in court I don't know nor do I know whether it'll be judged relevant. I know the ACLU will certainly try to get it admitted and certainly try to show it's relevant.
I also know the next school board won't make the same mistake Dover's did.
But that's just the tip of the iceberg.
I'm also following ongoing cases in Kansas, Georgia, Ohio, and Montana in addition to Dover.
You, GWW, can't prove anything you claim about ID. Stop flattering yourself. What are you going to do, write the 500th book disproving it that no one but the already convinced will bother to read? LOL!

Great White Wonder · 4 January 2005
Dave writes
I also know the next school board won't make the same mistake Dover's did.
It's impossible for them not to, Dave. Hence, you demonstrate your lack of understanding of the issues. Let me state it more simply so you might understand: whether the majority of rubes in Podunk want the creation theories discussed in their holy books to be presented as "alternate scientific theories" in their public schools is irrelevant. All that matters is that no matter how they dress up (or dress down) their creation theories, they are not scientific theories. And that is easy to prove.
, GWW, can't prove anything you claim about ID.
Um, sorry, but you're mistaken about that. I and many others here and elsewhere have proven that "ID theory" is worthless bunk many times. It's quite easy to do. Your statement to the contrary does not change that fact. Perhaps you'd like to point out the holes in our arguments, Dave? Can you do that articulately and honestly? If so, you would be the first person ever to succeed at doing so. As I've stated before, this is nothing to brag about. I'm only defending the virtues of a theory that has successfully predicted some of the greatest and most useful discoveries of the twentieth (and now 21st century). Not too hard, my friend. You, on the other hand, are defending am empty semantic shell promulgated by a scientifically ignorant fundamentalist lawyer, at least one Moonie, and a small host of worthless charlatans who have yet to publish a single piece of original research showing how their "theory" works. Pardon me for a moment: ahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!! That's the sound of an educated person laughing in your face at your extraordinary arrogance. Get used to it, my friend! There is a lot more where that came from.
But that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Ever heard of global warming? :)
What are you going to do, write the 500th book disproving it that no one but the already convinced will bother to read?
There is nothing about "ID theory" to "disprove" as it boils down to a worthless argument from ignorance and incredulity. And it takes only a paragraph or two to show that this is indisputably true. Books on the subject are useful only insofar as they illustrate the great depths that conservative fundamentalists and affiliated cranks will go to distort facts about evolutionary biology, as well as their habit of dissembling when their lies are thrown back in their faces. Perhaps you are eager to join that ignoble group of charlatans, Dave. There's always room for more, as PT Barnum is alleged to have predicted.