Who's Operating "The Misinformation Train"?

This is ridiculous -- ID may not OVERTLY "invoke supernatural explanations", but they would be hard pressed to produce a member of their group who didn't first object to evolution on relgious grounds. The whole movement is ancillary to the primary desire to compel belief in the Judeo-Christian god (yes, lowercase). ID has as one of its principle founders Phillip Johnson. This is a man who not only questions evolution, but natural epistemology as a whole. And why? Because he believes it is inferior to the Christian version of epistemology, primarily because of the "Noetic Effects of the Fall" as taught by my Presbyterian college professors. ID is a corollary of that fundamental belief. Trust me, I was educated in these institutions. And while I'm not willing to force the conclusion of a strictly materialistic universe, let's at least be genuine about the primary motivation here. It's just a wordy version of the argument for God as prime mover.

Jeez.

"Supernatural" is too explicit?? How vague can one get?

all becomes clear when one examines what ID advocates have to say on the matter.

INTRODUCTION The proposition that human beings are created in the image of God is one of the bedrock principles on which Western civilization was built...

The first misunderstanding is the belief that intelligent design is based on religion rather than science.

"This (the intelligent design movement) isn't really, and never has been, a debate about science, it's about religion and philosophy." - Phillip Johnson (widely recognized as the father of the Intelligent Design movement), World Magazine, 30
November 1996

Could we please not use the term "Judeo-Christian." It implies that somehow Jewish beliefs are even remotely similar to these nutcases. I'm not saying that we don't have nutcases too, just that our nutcases tend not to be so much involved in intelligent design.

Actually, a fair number of Christians would have trouble with the IDC-ers' reducing the Christian God to a mere wielder of molecular tweezers, with or without the accompanying puff of smoke.

IDC's scientific [sic] claims rest on the God of the Gaps fallacy:

1. The causes of some biological phenomena are unknown to human knowledge.
2. God is by definition unknown to human knowledge.
3. Therefore God is the cause of biological phenomena.

This is bad science and worse religion. Probably because it's all politics.

Timothy Chase wrote: "This (the intelligent design movement) isn't really, and never has been, a debate about science, it's about religion and philosophy

"ID invokes only the scientific fact that we can occasionally detect designs by un-named designers. That has been empirically established"

*cough cough cough* by who? Can I see the workings and ASSUMPTIONS; I'm mathematically savvy enough to help you debunk whatever you put.

"...rather than the product of random undirected forces"

That's only a reasonable conclusion if you are operating under the misconception that evolution is a random undirected process.

Evolution is a heavily biased process in which the source of the bias is primarily natural selection. Other biases exist as well, some of which are (recursively) subject to evolution (e.g. patterns of development, genetic architecture, etc.). Evolution is not random and is not undirected.

Unless by "directed" you mean "controlled by some supernatural force."

Sal -

You claim that:

"we can occasionally detect designs by un-named designers. That has been empirically established"

What are your criteria for evaluating whether an observed structure has been "intelligently" designed or "naturally" designed? Please give specific examples or literature citations.

Please explain how these principals would be applied in determining the degree of design present in a structure.

Also please give examples of how this criteria has provided a better explanation than "evolution", or provides an explanation where "evolution" cannot.

And please, don't regurgitate any of Dembski's or Behe's, er, "theories". They don't work.

ID invokes only the scientific fact that we can occasionally detect designs by un-named designers. That has been empirically established. If a scientific fact leads one to conclude in a supernatural agency, that is that person's choice. Many, like myself and other IDists have made that choice, and have personal beliefs about the identity of the designer, and some have even made public professions of our personal beliefs.

— Salvador T. Cordova

Hey, Sal?

Regarding your claim of "empirically established"? I think Lenny has a couple of questions for you...

Please, everyone, think of your kids' backs. You know how they're carrying around 30, 40, sometimes 50 lbs worth of books all day at school? That's terrible for their backs. If you really cared about your kids, you'd let us win. We'd throw away those heavy textbooks and replace them with a simple, light postcard from Ken Ham's Dinosaur Aventure World, which will tell them all they should know.

A conference on "Mere Creation" at Biola University in suburban Los Angeles brought together an unprecedented cross-disciplinary gathering of 200 men and women--mostly academics and mostly Christians--interested in building a credible origins model based on "theistic design." "This isn't really, and never has been, a debate about science," says the conference's prime mover, law professor Phillip Johnson of the University of California at Berkeley. "It's about religion and philosophy." Mr. Johnson also insists the real issue in the century-old debate isn't even about the early chapters of Genesis. "I turn instead to John 1," says the astute Presbyterian layman, "where we're told that 'In the beginning was the word.'"

Contrary to what Sal says, the fallible heuristic of linking designs to designers requires at least some knowledge of the possible designers.

My saying we don't need any knowledge of the designers, he makes the same kind of error David Heddle makes. He says we don't need any side information, but when you ask him for an example, he always gives you one where you know side info, just as David Heddle, when pressed, would make analogies to poker.

Oh look! Salvador T. Cordova makes a rare appearance. He's one doubleplusgood duckspeaker.

I'm not sure how I said "My saying we don't need any knowledge of the designers..." but that should be "In saying we don't need any knowledge of the designers,..."

Perhaps I have a cerebral infarction from PZ's brazillian and bikini.

steve:

probably you meant to write "BY saying..."

1. What is the theory of intelligent design? The scientific theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.

I bolded the part which Timothy inserted. He's putting words in Johnson's mouth. Good example of Type I Darwinist misrepresentation. Johnson was criticizing the naturalistic Darwinist philosophy of the atheists and the theology of Theistic Evolutionists who believe God's actions are undetectable. Johnson was not describing the intelligent design movement.

... But during three days of meetings two weeks ago, thoughtful folks might well have looked a bit farther up the coast for options on how to bring down the biggest bogeyman biblical Christianity may ever have faced. A conference on "Mere Creation" at Biola University in suburban Los Angeles brought together an unprecedented cross-disciplinary gathering of 200 men and women--mostly academics and mostly Christians--interested in building a credible origins model based on "theistic design." "This isn't really, and never has been, a debate about science," says the conference's prime mover, law professor Phillip Johnson of the University of California at Berkeley. "It's about religion and philosophy." Mr. Johnson also insists the real issue in the century-old debate isn't even about the early chapters of Genesis. "I turn instead to John 1," says the astute Presbyterian layman, "where we're told that 'In the beginning was the word.'" ...

Timothy Chase wrote: "This (the intelligent design movement) isn't really, and never has been, a debate about science, it's about religion and philosophy

Johnson was criticizing the naturalistic Darwinist philosophy of the atheists and the theology of Theistic Evolutionists who believe God's actions are undetectable. Johnson was not describing the intelligent design movement.

"This isn't really, and never has been, a debate about science," says the conference's prime mover, law professor Phillip Johnson of the University of California at Berkeley. "It's about religion and philosophy." Mr. Johnson also insists the real issue in the century-old debate isn't even about the early chapters of Genesis. "I turn instead to John 1," says the astute Presbyterian layman, "where we're told that 'In the beginning was the word.'"

Salvador:

From the Wedge Document:

Governing Goals

1. To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies.

2. To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and hurnan beings are created by God.

Doesn't then ID, by defintiion from the Discovery Institute, mean by God's design? And by the goals, whether the science/data is there or not, is to convince the public that it was all God's design?

Cart before the horse??? This is your science?

Sal says: If a scientific fact leads one to conclude in a supernatural agency, that is that person's choice.

So, is a fact still a fact, is a person choices to ignore it?

Now I am one who believes in a supernatural creation and no one can kid me that ID does the same, except that his God is rather a lazy God who only springs into action when Behe or Dembski tell him to. I don't seem to have that type of influence on God -just as well for all of us!

Sal,

Let's cut to the chase:

If life on Earth is too complicated to have evolved, then it was either designed by:

a) Supernatural beings

or

b) Space Aliens.

Correct?

If life on Earth was designed by space aliens, where did they come from? How could space aliens clever enough to design life on earth evolve somewhere else?

Well?

Yet, Type I Critics then purposefully misrepresent ID to the public (and particularly to scientists) as an untestable and unscientific appeal to the supernatural.

I bolded the part which Timothy inserted. He's putting words in Johnson's mouth. Good example of Type I Darwinist misrepresentation.

Johnson was criticizing the naturalistic Darwinist philosophy of the atheists and the theology of Theistic Evolutionists who believe God's actions are undetectable. Johnson was not describing the intelligent design movement. http://www.leaderu.com/pjohnson/world2.html

ID invokes only the scientific fact that we can occasionally detect designs by un-named designers. That has been empirically established.

If a scientific fact leads one to conclude in a supernatural agency, that is that person's choice. Many, like myself and other IDists have made that choice, and have personal beliefs about the identity of the designer, and some have even made public professions of our personal beliefs.

However, those personal beliefs are separate from the basic science of forensically detecting design.

I think it is completely constitutional to say when we compare biology with man-made designs, reasonable people, including a minority of scientists and the majority of the American population have concluded that the biology is consistent with some sort of intelligent design rather than the product of random undirected forces. Further it is fully constitutional to say that wide varieties of design by un-named designers can be occasionally detected.

There are no "Type I Darwinists" as defined by Luskin. No one recognizes that ID respects the limits of science. If that were true the DI wouldn't be trying to redefine science through local school boards and Bill Dembski wouldn't be trying to redefine nature in his papers.

"Indeed, design theorists argue that intelligent causation is perfectly natural provided that nature is understood aright." (Dembski, W. A. 2005. In Defense of Intelligent Design)

How interesting that Salvador completely misrepresented Johnson's remark, when a brief look at the article makes it clear that Johnson was talking about "theistic design" (a good phrase, by the way) and invoking John 1:1.

This is not really a surprise, as I have seen Salvador do this on numerous occasions about numerous subjects, but it still amazes me how he (and others) can look at just what they want to see and nothing else.

Sal is certainly an interesting case. One of the guys in my lab is a funamentalist, and I had a hard time getting my head around the idea that he honestly doesn't understand his position.

Sal is much the same case: I think he honestly believes in the dribble he passes off as 'science'; but more importantly, he honestly doesn't understand how damaging to the ID movement his postings and behavior actually are.

Amazing, really.

It looks to me like Timothy Chase would have done right if he had written:
"This (theistic design) isn't really, and never has been, a debate about science, it's about religion and philosophy".

Mr. Cordova, you really need to do a better job. Or maybe the blame goes to Joel Betz and the good folks at World Magazine.

Casey Luskin writes in the Discovery Institute's Evolution News and Views blog concerning the widespread perception that "intelligent design" invokes supernatural explanation. Luskin says that critics of ID have misled the public on this issue, and that all becomes clear when one examines what ID advocates have to say on the matter.

In all of its court documents and arguments, the Discovery Institute goes to great lengths to claim that it is only interested in science, and has no ulterior religious motives, aims or purpose, and emphatically is NOT out to advance any religious opinions. A quick review of published statements made by DI members, however, shows this to be at best mere legal evasion and sophistry, and at worst a deliberate lie. In 1999, an internal Discovery Institute document was leaked to the Internet by an internal source. The document outlined the Discovery Institute's longterm plan to, as it states, produce a "broadly theistic understanding of nature" (Discovery institute, The Wedge Document, 1999), and its tactic of using the evolution "controversy" as a "wedge" to do this. The authenticity of the "Wedge Document", as it quickly became known, was later admitted by the Discovery Institute. The very first sentence of the Wedge Document makes plain the underlying religious aim of the Discovery Institute and its anti-evolution campaign: "The proposition that human beings are created in the image of God is one of the bedrock principles on which Western Civilization was built." (Wedge Document) The Discovery Institute, like other fundamentalist Christians, refers to the rejection of this religious idea as "the philosophy of materialism" or "naturalism" or sometimes "darwinism" (all are phrases which have long been the fundie code words for "atheism"), and explicitly states that this materialistic atheism is the direct result of science: "This cardinal idea came under wholesale attack by intellectuals drawing on the discoveries of modern science. Debunking the traditional conceptions of both God and man, thinkers such as Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud portrayed humans not as moral and spiritual beings, but as animals or machines who inhabited a universe ruled by purely impersonal forces and whose behavior and very thoughts were dictated by the unbending forces of biology, chemistry, and environment. This materialistic conception of reality eventually infected virtually every area of our culture, from politics and economics to literature and art." (Wedge Document) Thus, as the Discovery Institute's basic complaint can be summed up as "science is atheistic". Under the heading "Governing Goals", the Discovery Institute lists, "To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and hurnan beings are created by God." (Wedge Document, 1999) The goal of Discovery Institute's "intelligent design theory", then, is to replace "materialism" with . . . . well . . . they are very careful in court and in legislation to NOT name their replacement. However, since "materialism" and "naturalism" have long been the fundie code word for "atheism", and since nothing but a god or deity is capable of using any NON-"materialistic" or SUPER-"naturalistic" mechanism or process, it seems pretty certain that what Discovery Institute wants is to introduce theism into science and to force science to bow before its religious opinions. As the Wedge Document puts it, "Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture seeks nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies. Bringing together leading scholars from the natural sciences and those from the humanities and social sciences, the Center explores how new developments in biology, physics and cognitive science raise serious doubts about scientific materialism and have re-opened the case for a broadly theistic understanding of nature." The Discovery Institute, after a long silence, has attempted to deflect concerns about the Wedge Document in a web article ("The Wedge Document; So what?", Discovery Institute website, March 1, 2004). Their "response" is fraught with deception and evasion. The Institute first tries to downplay the significance of the document, by dismissing it as a mere "early fundraising proposal". Even a cursory reading of the document, however, demonstrates this claim to be nonsense. Nowhere in the entire document is there any appeal for funds, nor any mention of fundraising. What IS mentioned, however, are things such as "The Wedge Strategy", "Five Year Strategic Plan Summary", "Governing Goals", "Five Year Goals", "Twenty Year Goals", and "The Wedge Strategy Progress Summary". The document also lists a number of steps to be taken to advance the ID agenda --- every one of which Discovery Institute subsequently carried out (or attempted to). The DI's claim that the Wedge Document is just a "fundraising proposal" and not actually a planning document outlining the goals of the Institute and the steps it plans to take in order to reach those goals, is laughable and not worthy of any serious consideration. Even the Discovery Institute's denial that the Wedge Document sets out a religious agenda confirms that it has a religious agenda. "We think the materialist world-view that has dominated Western intellectual life since the 19th century is false and we want to refute it. We further want to reverse the influence of such materialistic thinking on our culture. (Discovery Institute, "The Wedge Document; So What?", 2004) Not only is the DI's dismissal of the Wedge Document as a "fundraising proposal" dishonest and plainly untrue, it is also completely irrelevant. It makes no difference whether the Wedge Document is a strategy guide, a fundraising proposal, or a memo for the Institute's janitor. What DOES matter (and what the Discovery Institute's "response" fails utterly to acknowledge or defend) is that the Wedge Document clearly, unequivocably and unmistakably declares, in print, that the "governing goal" of the Institute is to advance their religious beliefs, that "intelligent design theory" is the primary method they have chosen through which to pursue that goal, and that they have an articulated pre--planned 20-year strategy to use ID "theory" as a method of advancing their religious goals. Despite all the DI's arm-waving, the Wedge Document demonstrates with crystal clarity that the sole and only aim of the Institute is to use "intelligent design theory" as a means of advancing religion -- exactly what the US Constitution says they CANNOT do. And when they claim that ID "theory" has no religious aims or purpose, the Wedge Document demonstrates that they are flat-out lying to us. More recent published statements by DI associates confirm that replacing "scientific materialism" with "God" or a "theistic understanding of nature" is indeed the only aim and purpose of "intelligent design theory". DI associate George Gilder wrote an entire piece entitled "The Materialist Superstition" which decries "the Darwinian materialist paradigm", and advocates replacing it with "intelligent design", which, Gilder implies (but is very careful NOT to explicitly state), is NON-materialistic. ("The Materialistic Superstition", Discovery Institute Website, 2005). Other ID advocates, however, have at times been less circumspect. DI guru Phillip Johnson, who talks much more openly than the others about the explicit anti-atheistic goals of "intelligent design theory", specifically contrasts "scientific materialism" with "divine intervention"; "It is the alleged absence of divine intervention throughout the history of life -- the strict materialism of the orthodox theory -- that explains why a great many people, only some of whom are biblical fundamentalists, think that Darwinian evolution (beyond the micro level) is basically materialistic philosophy disguised as scientific fact." (Johnson, "The Unraveling of Scientific Materialism", First Things, November 1997, PP 22-25) "Science also has become identified with a philosophy known as materialism or scientific naturalism. This philosophy insists that nature is all there is, or at least the only thing about which we can have any knowledge. It follows that nature had to do its own creating, and that the means of creation must not have included any role for God. . . . The reason the theory of evolution is so controversial is that it is the main scientific prop for scientific naturalism. Students first learn that "evolution is a fact," and then they gradually learn more and more about what that "fact" means. It means that all living things are the product of mindless material forces such as chemical laws, natural selection, and random variation. So God is totally out of the picture, and humans (like everything else) are the accidental product of a purposeless universe." (Johnson, "The Church of Darwin", Wall Street Journal, August 16, 1999). "For now we need to stick to the main point: In the beginning was the Word, and the 'fear of God'- recognition of our dependence upon God-is still the beginning of wisdom. If materialist science can prove otherwise then so be it, but everything we are learning about the evidence suggests that we don't need to worry. (Johnson, "How to Sink a Battleship; A Call to Separate Materialist Philosophy from Empriical Science", address to the 1996 "Mere Creation Conference") Johnson explicitly calls for "a better scientific theory, one genuinely based on unbiased empirical evidence and not on materialist philosophy" (Johnson, "How to Sink a Battleship). Johnson doesn't tell us what this NON-materialistic philosophy might be that he wants to base science on, but it is crushingly clear from the rest of his statements that he, like every other IDer, wants to base science on his religious beliefs. DI associate Michael Behe also makes the connection between fighting "scientific materialism" and "theistic understanding of nature" explicitly clear. "Darwinism is the most plausible unintelligent mechanism, yet it has tremendous difficulties and the evidence garnered so far points to its inability to do what its advocates claim for it. If unintelligent mechanisms can't do the job, then that shifts the focus to intelligent agency. That's as far as the argument against Darwinism takes us, but most people already have other reasons for believing in a personal God who just might act in history, and they will find the argument for intelligent design fits with what they already hold. With the argument arranged this way, evidence against Darwinism does count as evidence for an active God, just as valid negative advertising against the Democratic candidate will help the Republican, even though Vegetarian and One-World candidates are on the ballot, too. Life is either the result of exclusively unintelligent causes or it is not, and the evidence against the unintelligent production of life is clearly evidence for intelligent design." (Behe, "The God of Science", Weekly Standard, June 7, 1999, p. 35) "Naturalism is a philosophy which says that material things are all that there is. But philosophy is not science, and therefore excluding ideas which point to a creator, which point to God, is not allowed simply because in public schools in the United States one is not allowed to discriminate either for or against ideas which have religious implications." (Behe, Speech at Calvary Chapel, March 6, 2002) Another DI associate, William Dembski, makes the connection between ID and Christian apologetics even more explicit: "Not only does intelligent design rid us of this ideology, which suffocates the human spirit, but, in my personal experience, I've found that it opens the path for people to come to Christ. Indeed, once materialism is no longer an option, Christianity again becomes an option. True, there are then also other options. But Christianity is more than able to hold its own once it is seen as a live option. The problem with materialism is that it rules out Christianity so completely that it is not even a live option. Thus, in its relation to Christianity, intelligent design should be viewed as a ground-clearing operation that gets rid of the intellectual rubbish that for generations has kept Christianity from receiving serious consideration." (Dembski, "Intelligent Design's Contribution to the Debate Over Evolution", Designinference.com website, February 2005). Indeed, Dembski titled one of his books "Intelligent Design; the Bridge Between Science and Theology" (Dembski, 1999). In that book, Dembski makes the religious basis of ID "theory" explicit: "The conceptual soundings of the theory can in the end only be located in Christ." (Dembski, 1999, p. 210). Other statements by Dembski make it clear that his designer cannot be anything other than God: "The fine-tuning of the universe, about which cosmologists make such a to-do, is both complex and specified and readily yields design. So too, Michael Behe's irreducibly complex biochemical systems readily yield design. The complexity-specification criterion demonstrates that design pervades cosmology and biology. Moreover, it is a transcendent design, not reducible to the physical world. Indeed, no intelligent agent who is strictly physical could have presided over the origin of the universe or the origin of life." (Dembski, "The Act of Creation", ARN website, Aug 1998) In these public statements by DI associates and its own internal documents, we see the legal and political strategy of "intelligent design theory" in a nutshell --- ID wants to eliminate "materialism" and "atheism" in favor of "theistic understanding", but since it's illegal in the US to advance religion in public schools, ID advocates have no choice but to downplay and evade mentioning their clearly stated goal of doing exactly what the law says they cannot do --- using the public schools to advance their religious beliefs. As the Wedge Document puts it, "We are convinced that in order to defeat materialism, we must cut it off at its source. That source is scientific materialism. This is precisely our strategy. If we view the predominant materialistic science as a giant tree, our strategy is intended to function as a "wedge" that, while relatively small, can split the trunk when applied at its weakest points. The very beginning of this strategy, the "thin edge of the wedge," was Phillip Johnson's critique of Darwinism begun in 1991 in Darwinism on Trial, and continued in Reason in the Balance and Defeatng Darwinism by Opening Minds. Michael Behe's highly successful Darwin's Black Box followed Johnson's work. We are building on this momentum, broadening the wedge with a positive scientific alternative to materialistic scientific theories, which has come to be called the theory of intelligent design (ID). Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions." (Wedge Document, 1999) It is important to understand that intelligent design "theory" is, if you will pardon the pun, intelligently designed specifically and solely to attempt to evade and get around all of the Federal court cases which make it illegal to use the schools to advance religion. Why does the Discovery Institute backpedal and avoid talking about the "governing goals" listed in the Wedge Document? Because they know that their stated goal --- using "intelligent design theory" to advance religion -- is illegal, so they MUST pretend they don't have any religious aims or goals. Why does the Institute fall all over itself to disassociate itself from creation 'science'? Because creation 'science' has already been ruled illegal in the 1987 Supreme Court case. Why does the Institute bend over backwards to avoid answering questions about what their designer is, what it does, how old their "theory" concludes the universe to be, or whether humans are evolved from apes? Because each of those points were included as defining characteristics of creationism in the Arkansas and Louisiana cases, and DI has no choice but to avoid mentioning them (it's also a political ploy on behalf of DI's attempt to hold together young-earthers and old-earthers in its creationist "big tent"). Why does Discovery Institute currently declare that it does NOT favor teaching intelligent design "theory" as an "alternative scientific theory"? Because when it DID try to have ID taught as an "alternative theory" in Ohio, they lost crushingly and embarrassingly. Why has the Institute been advising the Dover School Board to end the lawsuit over intelligent design "theory"? Because DI knows as well as anyone else that they HAVE no "scientific theory", and that a court case that established this would be the end of the entire ID movement. However, as I have long noted, fundamentalists are their own worst enemies, and their own incessant compulsion to attack "materialism", "atheism". "darwinism" and "naturalism", gives the lie to their claims to be non-religious. Intelligent designer "theory" is, as the Discovery Institute admitted from the beginnning in its own internal documents, a legal and political strategy to "wedge" their religious opinions into public schools. Nothing more, nothing less, nothing else. It has the sole and only aim of advancing religion by attacking science's presumed "atheism" and "materialism". ID "theory" is nothing but an illegal advancement of religious beliefs, and IDers are flat-out lying to us when they claim otherwise.

Good job Casey, our IDEA president!

A tenet of my own faith is broken: that I could reconcile any argument with any basically honest person, given careful discussion and respect (for one another's motives and the information before us).

After many years of searching, lamp in hand, I must conclude that not one honest, open person, of any religious persuasion, could ever, in investigating the issues at even the most basic, unbiased factual level, find "Intelligent Design" as promoted by the Discovery Institute and its ilk, or the old or young Creationism shilled by the Fundamentalits and their mobs, reasonable explanations for the diversity of life on Earth, and that any person who promotes either view has no interest in the question itself but rather of two basic types, the openly dishonest (including any and all the "leaders" of these "movements") and the purposefully ignorant and disingenuous (the latter being those with whom I have spent much time seeking to see how they could promote such a obviously silly belief as factually based, as well as striving to see if their outsider's view of the facts had hidden merits or unique insights.)

Perhaps a decade ago I found that, when someone introduced their religious beliefs into a conversation in which religion seemed peripheral (100% of these cases involved self-described "born-again" Christians), their opinions proved to be shallow, predictable, and filled with both pride (the bad kind) and either self-righteous anger (even before being challenged on any point at question) or false pity.
As similar encounters piled up, I found that I assumed that any person using such a tactic simply had nothing inside them to offer: in WSB's expression, there was "nothing left but the recordings."

I therefore. on PT and elsewhere, swear never to engage in debate with these lost, lost people any longer. It has been a waste of time I could have used to learn more about Biology and Evolution, or to read poems or take walks or, well, you get the picture.
Of course, I will continue to lend my little part to the public debate, but I will simply not fall to the Brer Fox tricks of people I have concluded are utterly deluded and/or dishonest (though I hope to ever keep an ear open to them, should a reasonable sound sing above their dreary and perpetually boring cacophony): no more shall I bother punching their silly little tar babies.

Nature's facts and laws are what they are, and the idiocy and vanity (born of fear) of a few or many human beings change them not one whit.

more importantly, he honestly doesn't understand how damaging to the ID movement his postings and behavior actually are.

Could we please not use the term "Judeo-Christian." It implies that somehow Jewish beliefs are even remotely similar to these nutcases. I'm not saying that we don't have nutcases too, just that our nutcases tend not to be so much involved in intelligent design.

— Hyperion

Reverend Casey Luskin, who runs a 'science' club which only permits christians to be officers, protests that his club's 'science' has nothing to do with religion.

I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O, Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it.

-Voltaire

Who's operating this Misinformation Train? Casey Luskin

Who's in charge of this train wreck?

Sal'zo Panza.

Hey, where'd Sal go?

haven't heard a peep from him since he dropped his little gem here.

He must be back in his lab, working on those questions he was asked. Or perhaps not.

We're ready when you are, Sal......

ID proponents seem to confuse various issues:

1. They claim that ID is not about identifying the designer
1.a They claim that such design inferences work for common design in such areas as criminology, archaeology, SETI etc
1.b They claim that such design inferences also work for supernatural design
2. They rely on gap arguments, not on positive evidence
3. They are less concerned about identifying the designer they have in mind when amongst similar minded people
4. They refuse to acknowledge that a supernatural designer can explain anything and thus nothing
5. They are unable to present any relevant scientific hypotheses about design

In other words, ID remains scientifically vacuous

For political and judicial reasons ID proponents have argued that ID can identify design, without saying anything about the designer. In other words, the designer may very well have been a natural process. IF their designer is supernatural then nothing is explained by it and again ID remains scientifically vacuous.

Scientifically vacuous, theologically risky

Why are you in here arguing that ID/creationism is all about God and the Bible, while Discovery Institute and other creationists are currently in Kansas and Dover arguing that ID/creationism is NOT all about God and the Bible? Why are you **undercutting your own side**???????? I really truly want to know

Now I am one who believes in a supernatural creation and no one can kid me that ID does the same, except that his God is rather a lazy God who only springs into action when Behe or Dembski tell him to. I don't seem to have that type of influence on God -just as well for all of us!

How interesting that Salvador completely misrepresented Johnson's remark, when a brief look at the article makes it clear that Johnson was talking about "theistic design" (a good phrase, by the way) and invoking John 1:1. This is not really a surprise, as I have seen Salvador do this on numerous occasions about numerous subjects, but it still amazes me how he (and others) can look at just what they want to see and nothing else.

Timothy misquoted: This (the intelligent design movement) isn't really, and never has been, a debate about science, it's about religion and philosophy

What happened in that great triumphal celebration of 1959 is that science embraced a religious dogma called "naturalism," or "materialism."

Johnson wrote: We can wait until we have a better scientific theory, one genuinely based on unbiased empirical evidence and not on materialist philosophy, before we need to worry about whether and to what extent that theory is consistent with the Bible. Until we reach that better science, it's just best to live with some uncertainties and incongruities, which is our lot as human beings-in this life, anyway. For now we need to stick to the main point: In the beginning was the Word, and the "fear of God"- recognition of our dependence upon God-is still the beginning of wisdom. If materialist science can prove otherwise then so be it, but everything we are learning about the evidence suggests that we don't need to worry. One by one the great prophets of materialism have been shown to be false prophets and have fallen aside. Marx and Freud have lost their scientific standing. Now Darwin is on the block.

Johnson wrote: The first step for a 21st century science of origins is to separate materialist philosophy from empirical science.

How interesting that Salvador completely misrepresented Johnson's remark,

when a brief look at the article makes it clear that Johnson was talking about "theistic design" (a good phrase, by the way) and invoking John 1:1. This is not really a surprise, as I have seen Salvador do this on numerous occasions about numerous subjects, but it still amazes me how he (and others) can look at just what they want to see and nothing else.

OK, fellow "Darwinists," you clobbered Salvador on one point, but he won the bigger battle by keeping the discussion about design, "naturalism," who said what, who meant what, etc. That is just what IDers want. That, and getting you to defend evolution with technical arguments that most audiences don't understand, and with cold, dry (but necessary) language that they don't appreciate.

What I want to know, however, is what did the designer do, when, and how. Since IDers have yet to come up with a coherent alternative, and take every opportunity to steer the discussion away from it, I have to conclude that, designer or not, it's still evolution, old earth, common descent and all. And that the evasion is just a pathetic attempt to keep YECs and OECs under a political "big tent."

Sal reminds me of those roly-poly clown things. You know, the ones with the weight in the bottom so that no matter how hard you hit them, they just keep popping back up with that stupid grin on their face. Their other property is that they are full of nothing but air.

my point was he was not saying that ID was about religion, but that the debate had become religious and philosophical because a substantial number of scientists had embraced a religious dogma he calls naturalism. Thus the origins debate became a debate over the religious and philosophical views adopted by a large number of scientists, and this religious and philosophical view was polluting scientific objectivity.

Salvador,

You say that Johnson wants science to "be willing to release itself from materialist philosophy", but I don't understand what's meant by that. What exactly is the "religious dogma called 'naturalism'" that is "polluting scientific objectivity"?

One guess would be that the words "naturalism" and "materialism" in Johnson's mouth are merely codewords for "atheism". Then he would be saying that scientists are failing to be objective because their atheism ruled out some ideas from consideration. But what kinds of options are eliminated by an atheistic point of view? Just religious ideas, of course. But if Johnson is complaining that religious ideas don't get a fair hearing amongst scientific theories, then there's no point in arguing that he doesn't have a religious intent.

What else could the "materialist philosophy" of science be? What exactly is it that Johnson (or you) would eliminate from scientific practice as it is currently done? Specifically, what would "non-materialist science" look like, and how would it differ from mainstream modern science?

Naturalism is any of several philosophical stances, typically those descended from materialism and pragmatism, that reject the validity of explanations or theories making use of entities inaccessible to natural science, that is, supernatural phenomena: phenomena beyond the natural world that we measure using the scientific method. Naturalism also rejects teleology, or the idea that natural phenomena and events have an innate purpose. Any method of inquiry or investigation or any procedure for gaining knowledge that limits itself to natural, physical, and material approaches and explanations can be described as naturalist.

Specifically, what would "non-materialist science" look like,

— logopetria

Materialism is the philosophical view that the only thing that can truly be said to 'exist' is matter; that fundamentally, all things are composed of 'material'. The view is perhaps best understood in its opposition to the doctrines of immaterial substance applied to the mind historically, and most famously by René Descartes. However, by itself materialism says nothing about how material substance should be characterized. In practice it is frequently assimilated to one variety of physicalism or another. Materialism is sometimes allied with the methodological principle of reductionism, according to which the objects or phenomena individuated at one level of description, if they are genuine, must be explicable in terms of the objects or phenomena at some other level of description -- typically, a more general level than the reduced one. Non-reductive materialism explicitly rejects this notion, however, taking the material constitution of all particulars to be consistent with the existence of real objects, properties, or phenomena not explicable in the terms canonically used for the basic material constituents. Jerry Fodor influentially argues this view, according to which empirical laws and explanations in "special sciences" like psychology or geology are invisible from the perspective of, say, basic physics. A vigorous literature has grown up around the relation between these views.

The views of a large number of contemporary physcal scientists are summed up in the essay "remarks on the Mind-Body Question" written by Nobel laureate Eugene Wigner. Wigner begins by pointing out that most physical scientists have returned to the recognition that thought--meaning the mind--is primary. he goes on to state: "It was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way without reference to the consciousness." And he concludes by noting how remarkable it is that the scientific study of the world led to the content of consciousness as the ultimate reality. A further development in yet another field of physics reinforces Wigner's viewpoint. The introduction of information theory and its application to thermodynamics has led to the conclusion that entropy, a basic concept of that science, is a measure of the observer's ignorance of the atomic details of the system. When we measure the pressure, volume, and temperature of an object, we have a residual lack of knowledge of the exact position and velocity of the component atoms and molecules. The numerical value of the amount of information we are missing is proportional to the entropy. In earlier thermodynamics, entorpy had represented, in an engineering sense, the energy of the system unavailable to perform external work. In the modern view, the human mind enters once again, and entropy relates not just to the state of the system but to our knowledge of that state. The founders of modern atomic theory did not start out to impose a "mentalist" picture of the world. Rather, they began with the opposite point of view and were forced to the present-day position in order to explain experimental results. We are now in a position to integrate the perspectives of three large fields: psychology, biology, physics..... First the human mind, including consciousness and reflective thought, can be explained by activities of the central nervous system, which in turn, can be reduced to the biological structure and function of that physiological system. Second, biological phenomena at all levels can be totally understood in terms of atomic physics, that is, through the action and interaction of the component atoms of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and so forth. Third and last, atomic physics, which is now understood most fully by means of quantum mechanics, must be formulated with the mind as a primitive component of the system. Harold Morowitz, The Mind's I, by Ultra Darwinist Daniel Dennett and mathematician Douglas Hofstadter. Hardly a pro-ID book in and of itself.

More than this, quantum mechanics is actually teleological, though physicists don't use this loaded word (we call it "unitarity" instead of "teleology"). That is, quantum mechanics says that it is completely correct to say that the universe's evolution is determined not by how it started in the Big Bang, but by the final state of the universe. Frank Tipler

In conclusion it may very well be said that information is the irreducible kernel from which everything else flows. Then the question why nature appears quantized is simply a consequence of the fact that information itself is quantized by necessity. It might even be fair to observe that the concept that information is fundamental is very old knowledge ofhumanity, witness for example the beginning of gospel according to John: "In the beginning was the Word". Anton Zeilinger, one of the most respected quantum physicists alive today

It is fitting that physics -- the science that gave rise to materialism -- should also signal the demise of materialism. During this century the new physics has blown apart the central tenets of materialist doctrine in a sequence of stunning developments. First came the theory of relativity, which demolished Newton's assumptions about space and time--assumptions that still hold sway in our everyday "common-sense" view of the world. ...Then came the quantum theory, which totally transformed our image of matter.... Quantum physics undermines materialism... Paul Davies and John Gribben both respected physicists

Davies and Gribbin cite Gilder: In this "overthrow of matter," writes Gilder, "the powers of mind are everywhere ascendant over the brute force of things," transforming "a material world composed of blank inert particles to a radiant domain rich with sparks of informative energy"

Mr. Cordova, you have yet to demonstrate that science ever "embraced" philosophical naturalism. Worse, you have yet to demonstrate that such an embrace has any bad effects.

Methodological naturalism in science is the practice of not first ascribing events to the work of poltergeists. Notice I said "practice," and not "philosophy." You seem to have some other definition of what science is, and you appear to have absolutely no idea how science works -- say, to measure coliform bacteria in ocean water, or to measure concentrations of sulfur dioxide in power plant emissions.

So what if a quantum physics is weird? How in the world does that affect biology?

And why should we abandon those hard methods of science, developed over the centuries by Christian monks trying to get things right, to please an old, cranky criminal lawyer from California?

Naturalism is any of several philosophical stances...

Quantum physics undermines materialism...

The notion that physics is now embracing nonmaterialistic viewpoints is absurd, as anyone who seriously looks at the science will see. More than 30 years ago physicists and philosophers demonstrated this nonsense to be baseless.

Moreover, Lenny is right: the materialism of biology is exactly like the materialism of any other scientific field. The ontological position presupposed by scientific research is hard won: only ignoring the history of science could suggest we could somehow adopt a prescientific worldview piece-meal.

If the ID movement really is just about science and nothing at all to do with religion, then maybe the foundations that support the ID movement (the MacLellan Foundation, the Servant Foundation, the Stewardship Foundation, Fieldstead & Co) might like to take a look at funding some other areas of science as well as ID. I mean, obviously, even though they refer to themselves as foundations whose purpose is to promote evangelical Christianity, they've made an exception in this case and funded the totally non-religious and totally scientific enterprise of intelligent-design - um - theory for some unspecified but clearly nonreligious reasons. The rest of the scientific community could do with a bit of cash too, if these foundations are getting into supporting genuine science.

Unless, of course, they aren't supporting genuine science but are honest enough - unlike the ID movement - to be doing what they say they're doing, and supporting a religious viewpoint.

Sal seems to love quote mining but should instead spend some more time on comprehension of the arguments involved.
Keep up the good work my friend. Your contributions to the intelligent design debate match my expectations of what ID has to offer to science and theology. ;-)

This is another of those threads which causes repeated crashes (of IE). Length doesn't seem to have that much to do with it. So what's the common killing factor in these thread pages which isn't present in others?

I too am having the crashes... :o(

I don't think Sal even understands what he is talking about. Nothing he puts here makes any sense, nor does it prove any points. Just a jarbled mess of words crammed together...incoherent babble. I don't even know why anyone bothers to respond to his posts. He parrots the same stuff over and over, and ignores anything to the contrary.

Maybe this IS the true scientific method of ID, YEC, OEC, and creationism.

Heisenberg's uncertainty principle is an example of quantities not accessible to natural science, but quantities which many believe exist.

Can you elaborate? What are these quantities? The uncertainty principle deals with position and momentum. It says that you cannot definitively calculate both at the same time, but can do so probabilistically. Why does this exclude natural science?

To my earlier points:

God or space aliens, Sal? If the latter, where did the come from?

and:

What is the evidence for a young earth?

Natural law is not explained by natural law. Naturalism is therefore philosophically inconsistent, and it has no place in science to argue everything MUST be explained by natural law and everything is purposeless.

I don't even know why anyone bothers to respond to his posts.

Sal is still going thru his course work for a doctrate from the Oxford of IT advised by the Isaac Newton of IT (aka Master of All Subjects). In partial fulfilment of credits he is required to troll around on PT and scurry back to his dear leaders and report on progress toward the imminent demise of "materialism".

"...my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways" Isaiah 55:9

oops. make that Isaiah 55:8

Russell, when you're good, you're good. But of course, what Yahweh meant there was, "While you guys do your design work with AutoCAD 2006 on an Apple G5, I'm using AutoCAD A Million, on an Apple G81. "

By the way, AutoCAD version A Million is a really powerful program. Very powerful macros. You want to insert a flagellum? F3. The necessary ion pumps? Please. That's AutoCompleted. There's a wizard for building whole immune systems just by clicking 'next' a few times.

Quoting the the Jewish Bible to make points for or against ID is actually an amazing procedure. Imagine how long it would take to explain William Paley's ideas, let alone contemporary cell biology to the guy who wrote Isaiah 55:8. How would you even start?

If you really let yourself go and allow any system of exegesis whatsoever, you can use any text whatsoever as your holy writ and find any message you like lurking in it. The approach does have advantages. For example, it allows people to drastically change their opinions while maintaining a decent if rather notional respect for tradition. The theologians invented the dodge, but other folks have adopted it--Marxists and Freudians, for example, typically claim that their latest wrinkles are already to be found in the words of the master if only you interpret them correctly.

More than this, quantum mechanics is actually teleological, though physicists don't use this loaded word (we call it "unitarity" instead of "teleology"). That is, quantum mechanics says that it is completely correct to say that the universe's evolution is determined not by how it started in the Big Bang, but by the final state of the universe. Frank Tipler

Paul Davies and John Gribben both respected physicists

Sal is using the famous Appeal to Other Cranks strategy.

Sal can't get it through his think head that...<

— ts(not Tim)

Sal -

when are you going to stop spewing hot air and come up with some concrete examples of how ID outperforms "naturtalistic" evolution?

No one gives a damn about how you THINK the universe should work - where's your evidence?

Or is the concept of "evidence" too materialistic for you???

By the way, AutoCAD version A Million is a really powerful program. Very powerful macros. You want to insert a flagellum? F3. The necessary ion pumps? Please. That's AutoCompleted. There's a wizard for building whole immune systems just by clicking 'next' a few times.

— steve

Ctrl-S lets you export to PDF--Prokaryote DNA Format.

That's how crappy Intelligent Design (No Actual) Theory is, Ved. They are trying to prove just that something, at sometime, thought some of biology up. There's no Intelligent Manufacturing Theory.

"Naturalism [...] reject[s] the validity of explanations or theories making use of entities inaccessible to natural science, that is, supernatural phenomena: phenomena beyond the natural world that we measure using the scientific method."

Also, who reviews the plans? Yaweh himself?

Timothy misquoted: This (the intelligent design movement) isn't really, and never has been, a debate about science, it's about religion and philosophy.

Johnson calls his movement "The Wedge." The objective, he said, is to convince people that Darwinism is inherently atheistic, thus shifting the debate from creationism vs. evolution to the existence of God vs. the non-existence of God. From there people are introduced to "the truth" of the Bible and then "the question of sin" and finally "introduced to Jesus." Missionary Man TV Preacher D. James Kennedy And His Allies Are Targeting Public School Children For Evangelism By Rob Boston Church & State April 1999 http://web.archive.org/web/20021218193424/http://www.au.org/churchstate/cs4995.htm

This (the intelligent design movement) isn't really, and never has been, a debate about science, it's about religion and philosophy.

Sal, it is entirely appropriate to insert the subject when it is missing from the statement but more or less established by the context.

It isn't really, not the way you did it; you should have written "[The debate between theistic design and evolution] isn't really, and never has been, a debate about science, it's about religion and philosophy." Text in [] is understood to be absent from the original.

Just to be clear here: you made an honest mistake; Sal's accusations and misrepresentations are anything but.