Chronicle of Higher Education: Letters on ID

The letters are freely available at the CHE website.

The letters are freely available if you plunk down 45 bucks for a half-year subscription.

Is the link not working? I may have registered for access long ago and therefore I can see the link...

Whoops, sorry about that. I have edited the OP.

It seems that some are privileged and some are not. I read the three letters and just now checked hat I can still read the letters.

Once again, the post has been formatted too "broadly" and its appearance is overlapping and interfering with the display of the sidebar.

Please fix, thanks!

Once again, the post has been formatted too "broadly" and its appearance is overlapping and interfering with the display of the sidebar. Please fix, thanks!

Steviepinhead --- As I said, some are privileged. Looks fine to me as well.

Of course, the context here isn't everything, it's the only thing. To paraphrase P.T.Barnum, creationists don't care what you say about ID so long as you say it in science class. Go ahead, announce in science class that ID is pure blind fundamentalist anti-scientific idiocy. No problem - the PR machine will joyfully report that "ID is being discussed in science class, where it belongs."

The *content* is irrelevant. Everyone knows ID is the political arm of creationism, funded by religious sources for religious reasons. The only thing that matter is where the terminology is voiced, and how that can be positioned for propaganda purposes. Really, that's the entire purpose of ID. The FACT of discussion is everything, whatever is said is irrelevant.

ID is discussed all the time on college campuses. The question is not whether, but where and how.

First, I am against using any significant amount of class time in a natural science class to discuss ID. While there may be some limited pedagogical value to discussing fringe theories, philosophy of science and even some good old fashioned debunking in a natural science class, that should not be the primary purpose. The focus should be on teaching good science.

On my campus ID is discussed in the classroom in two venues: it is discussed (sympathetically) by a philosophy professor in ethics and philosophy and it is discussed (unsympathetically but I trust fairly) by me in an interdisciplinary class. I spend a very small amount of time on why it is not science in my anthro class. I also spend some time talking specifically about mythological worldviews. After all, it is a Cultural Anthropology class. These seem to me to be appropriate venues for discussion of ID.

There is a question of academic freedom which is a complex one. Even advocates of fringe theories should be protected in a Unversity setting. First and foremost however it seems to me that professors should focus on teaching established principles. If one really must bring up ID or YEC in the classroom, then is it too much to ask that the person actually cover evolution fairly, accurately and competently? I'm in an odd position as I am a tenured associate professor and my wife is a full time biology major. My wife and I both think she has a right to have evolution taught so that she can learn the appropriate, relevant material for grad school.

There is nothing stopping people (especially at colleges like mine-small, public schools without huge research committments) from writing and publishing in ID if they so choose.

If you will all pardon my rant let me end with my biggest complaint however: that is the spread of a non-discourse situation wrt ID.

What happens is that ID advocates, some of whom have no knowledge of the science, have no interest in the science, and refuse to actually investigate the science continuously make allegations about evolutionary biology and related fields (ev psych, bio-social and ecological anthropology) that have nothing at all to do with the issues and the research in the field.

Significant amounts of time can be spent trying to argue with people. The logical result is that the argument is fruitless because to fully correct the arguments takes the time and energy one normally devotes to writing a journal article. Yet the argument is then viewed as a "controversy". Personally, I call this a non-discourse situation.

I can respect and fight for the academic freedom of any fringe or unpopular view. That does not mean I have to be happy about the non-debate.

Here's another thought: why don't we discuss evolution on college campuses?

I'm sure on some browsers, it is fine.

But, just for the heck of it, try reducing the airspace given to the right margin both within and outside of the blockquote. I expect that would take care of it.

Or not.

It doesn't seem to be one of those fireball days at PT anyway.

I vaguely recall having this experience with the CHE website before, almost like they give you a number of views for free, and then cut it off after awhile.

Nick

Nick,

Now only if the likes of Krauze or MikeGene would stop pretending! Good letter! Makes great sense!

"What scientific movement begins life as a textbook revision?"

well it was a textbook case of the re-use of adeles for new capabilities.

maybe?

Richard Dawkins's attempt to make science into an apologetic for atheism

Dawkins sets up "appearance of design" as the only good argument for God's existence, and then knocks it down with natural selection and concludes there is no God.

Richard Dawkins's attempt to make science into an apologetic for atheism

I'm sure on some browsers, it is fine.

This thing between Nick and Richard is getting very old.

The official line of ID advocates is that they just want to "teach the controversy" over "Darwinism" --- but the truth is that the vast majority of ID advocates deny the common ancestry of humans and apes in favor of special creation, many of them are agnostic on the age of the earth, and these views emerge not from serious scientific research on these questions, which they have not done, but from the fundamentalist doctrine of reading the Bible as inerrant.

— Nick Matzke

And to preempt Raging Bee, I offer this observation by Sir_Toejam. The other comments about Dawkins in that thread are also revealing.

Good letter, Nick, with some good lines.

I like your point about "the appearance of design." Dawkins' famous remark has been used as the jumping off point for IDists from the beginning, overlooking the fact that further inspection has shown that life is not designed in the way that IDists claim it is.

Dawkins' famous remark has been used as the jumping off point for IDists from the beginning

Ah yes, the "ID is Dawkin's fault" smear.

I'm a chemist, but I have to teach a liberal arts (not a natural science!) course in which the students read the "great works". Right now the students are reading an excerpt from Paley and an excerpt from Origin of Species. I'm going to have the students talk about ID today in class. In fact, one of my students is from the Dover area, so I'm going to ask her to give the class her perspective. Based on my conversations with the students to date and the fact that most of my students are biology majors, I'm pretty sure they aren't impressed with ID.

PG wrote:

...over and over, Matzke has taken the opportunity to say, in effect, "I concur with your dishonest strawman ad hominem attack on Richard Dawkins" when responding to creationists, fence sitters, and evolutionists alike.

Care to provide some examples of such statements? Or is this just another dishonest strawman ad hominem defense of Dawkins?

If you really want to defend Dawkins, perhaps you should address the specific points made in this review of The God Delusion:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19775

What scientific movement begins life as a textbook revision?

— Nick Matzke

Ah yes, the "ID is Dawkin's fault" smear.

...over and over, Matzke has taken the opportunity to say, in effect, "I concur with your dishonest strawman ad hominem attack on Richard Dawkins" when responding to creationists, fence sitters, and evolutionists alike. Care to provide some examples of such statements? Or is this just another dishonest strawman ad hominem defense of Dawkins?

If you really want to defend Dawkins, perhaps you should address the specific points made in this review of The God Delusion:

Huh? How so?

Have you not noticed this?

Are you disinclined to notice the across-the-board dishonesty of the DI on the grounds that if you notice this, YOU will somehow become "responsible" for their actions?

Uh, yes.

Uh, "blamed Dawkins for this".

But I wonder if Flint has noticed that a number of people (if not Jack Krebs) have blamed Dawkins for this, as his response doesn't seem to recognize this.

Dawkins is a useful target for opponents of evolution. They attack his "atheism" and "materialism" without ever really bothering to try and understand what he is trying to say. Ditto for Dennett. Yet most of the attacks I have heard on Dawkins and Dennett seem to indicate that the attacker has never even read them.

Speaking for myself, I'm not that great a fan of Dawkins/Dennett as far as their general approach to epistemology goes. But they are hardly the source of all evil.

nice letter

I dont' know, how you define the term "ID-movement". I think, that "ID-movement" is either very old (Paley etc.) or began perhaps after Phillip E. Johnson's Darwin on Trial. It could be also claimed, that Discovery Institute (and its Wedge) is so essential part of the term "ID-movement", that ID-movement began, when DI's "Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture" started. But I would like to hear your opinion.

— analyysi

Yet most of the attacks I have heard on Dawkins and Dennett seem to indicate that the attacker has never even read them.

PG: Thanks for the link to Rosenhouse's response to that review. I'll just respond to a few of Rosenhouse's points:

Dawkins provides no serious discussion of Jewish or Christian theology? Of course not, because such theology is mostly irrelevant to how religion is actually practiced. Theology is an academic pursuit, and like many such pursuits it concerns itself primarily with esoterica far removed from people's actual lives.

This is a bit of a false dichotomy: yes, academic/esoteric theology is not the same as the beliefs preached to the masses; but the former is derived from the latter, is constrained by the latter, and can only deviate so far from the latter before further discussion is shut down. Rosenhouse's response seems like an after-the-fact excuse for Dawkins' refusal to understand what believers actually believe.

And since Orr is criticizing Dawkins' superficiality, it is a bit rich for him to reduce Augustine's views to the slogan that he rejected biblical literalism...

Non sequitur. What does one have to do with the other?

...Augustine did take the view that the Bible should be interpreted in as literal a way as possible, and in some of his writing he even endorsed a young-Earth position. He was willing to countenance a somewhat allegorical interpretation of Genesis, but that was only because he felt the Bible should not be read in a way that contradicts what clear scientific evidence is telling us.

So Augustine really did reject Biblical literalism, at least when common sense demanded it. Which makes Rosenhouse's complaint here even emptier.

Orr sums up all of this intellecutalizing by protesting that Dawkins' book is too middlebrow. Of course it's middlebrow! It was intended as a popular-level book published by a mainstream outfit that people are actually intended to read.

Note that Rosenhouse does not defend Dawkins' handling of the facts; he merely says that a "middlebrow" book like Dawkins' doesn't have to get the facts right. In other words, a sort of "pathetic level of detail" dodge, which all propagandists make.

...But a better explanation is that religious hostility was born out of the entirely correct realization that Darwin's work posed a genuine threat to their beliefs. Many believers responded to Darwin with a "So what?" Show me a believer who had that reaction and I'll show you someone who either didn't understand Darwin's work, or made a point of not thinking carefully about it. You might be able to reconcile traditional Christian belief with evolution, but it requires some serious mental engagement to do so.

Rosenhouse shows absolutely no sign of knowing exactly which beliefs are "threatened" by the theory of evolution, or how many people hold such beliefs, or how strongly or inflexibly those beliefs are held. He merely asserts that "their beliefs" are threatened by evolution, and adds -- without evidence -- that anyone who doesn't feel threatened is either dumb or dishonest. This assertion is an atheist's echo of the fundamentalist's "all or nothing"/"with us or with the Devil" absolutism.

And Rosenhouse closes by agreeing with one of my own criticisms of Dawkins:

One of the weaknesses of Dawkins' book is that he frequently writes as if the really important distinction in forging a civil, livable society is theism vs. atheism. It isn't. The important distinctions are secular society vs. government involvement in religion, and rational thought and evidence vs. irrational faith and revelation. You can reasonably say that theism is more closely associated with the bad parts of those last two dichotomies, and atheism is more closely associated with the good parts. But atheism good / theism bad is not born out by the evidence.

Finally, Rosenhouse does not even address what I consider Dawkins' most odious opinion, that religious moderates "enable" extremists just by being religious. That's too harsh a charge, levelled at too many decent people, with too little supporting evidence; and it reduces Dawkins' credibility to zero.

PS: you really ought to cut back on the grade-school name-calling, PG. I've asked you this before: if Dawkins knew how you were "defending" him, would he be proud, or embarrassed?

But I wonder if Flint has noticed that a number of people (if not Jack Krebs) have blamed Dawkins for this, as his response doesn't seem to recognize this.

Dawkins is a useful target for opponents of evolution. They attack his "atheism" and "materialism" without ever really bothering to try and understand what he is trying to say.

PG: Thanks for the link to Rosenhouse's response to that review. I'll just respond to a few of Rosenhouse's points:

you really ought to cut back on the grade-school name-calling, PG.

I was talking about folks like Matzke, Raging Bee, and the whole "Dawkins is bad for us, I wish he would just shut up about religion" crowd...He's also a useful target for the NOMA crowd that insists, against all evidence, that "moderate" religions make no empirical claims contradicted by science...

PG: Your name-calling might carry a little weight if you could actually, you know, refute or disprove what I said. As it is, you sound as thin-skinned as DaveScot, without the power to hide behind.

Finally, Rosenhouse does not even address what I consider Dawkins' most odious opinion, that religious moderates "enable" extremists just by being religious.

... what is so hard for us to understand is that -- to repeat the point because it is so important -- these people actually believe what they say they believe. The take home message is that we should blame religion itself, not religious extremism -- as though that were some kind of terrible perversion of real, decent religion. Voltaire got it right long agao: 'Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.' So did Bertrand Russell: 'Many people would sooner die than think. In fact they do.' As long as we accept the principle that religious faith must be respected simply because it is religious faith, it is hard to withhold respect for Osama bin Laden and the suicide bombers. The alternative, one so transparent that it should need no urging, is to abandon the principle of automatic respect for religious faith. This is one reason why I do everything in my power to warn people against faith itself, not just against so-called 'extremist' faith. The teachings of 'moderate' religion, though not extremist in themselves, are an open invitation to extremism.

That's too harsh a charge, levelled at too many decent people, with too little supporting evidence; and it reduces Dawkins' credibility to zero.

My speculation, then, was that Dawkins is viewed as a threat to (and by) the moderates. I speculate that they wish he'd shut up not because he's wrong or "gives religion a bad name" but because he shows that their doctrinal beliefs wear no more clothes than the fundamentalists' beliefs wear.

Maybe the moderates think they can appease the fundies out of their zealotry? You really think so?

But many in the "I wish Dawkins would shut up about religion" crowd are non-believers.

"Neville Chamberlain" specifically refers to non-believers, "moderate" in their strategy, not moderate believers. It's the moderate believers, not the fundies, that they want to "appease", afraid that they will lose them as allies in the defense of science if scientists say anything critical of religion.

I personally wish Dawkins would shut up about religion, although it's a very low priority wish.

Naturally, he has every right not to. But I have every right to wish he would.

I actually don't care what Dawkins' specific arguments or views on religion are. I've read one of his books (yes, only one), and I realize that he's a reasonable enough guy in most ways. He strikes me as excessively interested what other peoples' relgious beliefs may be.

I didn't enjoy the book very much, but not because of an emphasis on atheism. Rather, I found that it was somewhat oversimplified "popular" stuff. Molecular biology, genetics, and basic mathematical models were markedly lacking. I sympathize that it's hard to know what to leave in or out in a book for lay people, but I found it a bit weaker on substance than necessary (the book in question was The Blind Watchmaker). It's quite conceivable that this flaw isn't Dawkins' fault, of course, but merely what his publishers exige.

I think Dawkins may deserve to be characterized as one of those figures who make deliberately provocative statements in order to draw attention to themselves. Again, this may be unfair, since I don't pay much attention to Dawkins, and am by no means an expert, but it's possible. That type of public figure can undeniably be annoying. Again, he has every right, in a free society, to be such a figure if he wishes.

I generally support encouraging everyone to educate themselves about science, regardless of their religious or cultural background. If they have a personal religious or cultural issue with what mainstream science shows, that's their business unless they ask me about it. I'm thus generally inclined to repeat the point that many religious leaders and scientists have argued that their religious tradition is not at odds with the finding of science. (The Dalai Lama etc, etc, etc.) Whether someone else feels that the Dalai Lama's religious views must actually be at odds with science, and must be corrected, is somewhat irrelevant, as long as they respect his right to hold whatever views he wishes.

Obviously, in our society, it is not atheists who attempt to censor or distort science, but rather, figures on the authoritarian political right, who make overt claims of religious faith (of which I am most dubious), who attempt to do so.

It strikes me that there is a lot of pixel wastage on the subject of Dawkins here. A number of posters seem to be very vigilant for anything they perceive as a slight toward Dawkins. As far as I know, his scientific views are perfectly mainstream, albeit generally expressed in a simplified manner for general public consumption. I don't much care about his position on religion, nor agree that the theory of evolution somehow supports his position on religion relative to everyone else's (certainly, it supports his position relative to positions that are directly at odds with science, such as the claim, sincere or not, to take the Book of Genesis "literally", but that's not saying much). But his position on religion is his own business.

I didn't know this. So you think these people fear that Dawkins will drive theistic evolutionists into the biblical inerrancy camp?

According to PG, Dawkins wrote:

As long as we accept the principle that religious faith must be respected simply because it is religious faith, it is hard to withhold respect for Osama bin Laden and the suicide bombers.

This is precisely the sort of odious, bigoted non-sequitur that completely sinks Dawkins' credibility: Dawkins is simply making a totally unsupported asertion of of how religious people view religious faith in general (do we really respect all religious faith merely because it is faith?), then making up a guilt-by-association argument to link persons of faith (any faith?) with Islamofascist terrorism. If Dawkins described a specific cause-and-effect link between the two, you -- and the rest of Dawkins' flock -- have yet to find and quote it.

And since this argument comes directly from Dawkins' own writings, PG, as you admit, you can't hide behind the "you've never read Dawkins so you don't know what you're talking about" excuse anymore. You quoted a bit of Dawkins in his defense, and his logic is horseshit.

...he's not leveling a charge against "people", but against religion.

Yeah, right, and Louis Farrakhan wasn't attacking Jewish people, he was only attacking their "gutter religion," right?

A number of posters seem to be very vigilant for anything they perceive as a slight toward Dawkins.

But his position on religion is his own business.

Dizzy -

"If someone's religious beliefs include a belief that they need to kill me and everyone I know, that's very much my business"

Indeed, but this doesn't seem related to anything I wrote.

It would be the height of absurdity to conflate an argument for tolerance and mutual respect of human rights with an argument in favor of killing other people. Such an obvious distortion of my intent - which may not be what you intended - would barely be worthy of refuting.

With regard to your other point, it is true that if Dawkins' statements have been distorted, it may be reasonable for his avid readers to set the record straight, at least as far at the distortion is concerned. Nevertheless, I stand by my opinion that discussions of Dawkins over-dominate this site.

Raging Bee --- Popper's Ghost is just a ghost! Appears thin-skinned because ghosts don't have any skin at all. :-)

Sorry harold, I meant to refer to your comment:

"Whether someone else feels that the Dalai Lama's religious views must actually be at odds with science, and must be corrected, is somewhat irrelevant, as long as they respect his right to hold whatever views he wishes."

Replace "Dalai Lama" with "Osama bin Laden," and "science" with "our sense of morality," and you have the crux (as I understand it) of one of Dawkins' and Harris' arguments...the point being that the main difference between the DL and ObL is that latter is *currently* offensive to *our* culture, while the former is not - change the time period or location, and either or both might be acceptable.

I do agree that (at least this thread) seems to be a bit too Dawkins-centric, but I think that may partially be due to the fact that he represents/summarizes the views of a few other prominent authors.

It would be the height of absurdity to conflate an argument for tolerance and mutual respect of human rights with an argument in favor of killing other people.

As long as we accept the principle that religious faith must be respected simply because it is religious faith, it is hard to withhold respect for Osama bin Laden and the suicide bombers.

Raging Bee-
Although as written it is a non-sequitur, what it seems like Dawkins is trying to argue is:
"As long as we accept the principle that religious faith must be respected simply because it is religious faith, it is hard to withhold respect for (the religious faith of) Osama bin Laden and the suicide bombers"
In this reading there is no guilt by association, but the attempt to show the rediculousness of "respecting faith simply because it is faith" by coming to the absurd conclusion that a violent faith must be respected.

Once again, the post has been formatted too "broadly" and its appearance is overlapping and interfering with the display of the sidebar. Please fix, thanks!

Steve, I wasn't attempting to indict PT's technical cutting-edgitude in general.

Or even suggesting that all PT's contributing posters ought to be equally tech savvy.

But, in other similar cases, other posters have been able to deal with the problem, if they happened to be paying attention and were asked politely.

Nick was clearly paying attention, but didn't see the problem showing up via whatever browser he was using, and may or may not have the expertise to deal with it even if he had experienced it.

No biggie.

I'll add, though, that changing the text size doesn't solve the problem. What does solve the problem is having some idea of how to set or size the "margins" of the new post--particularly when quoting or inserting images--such that the new post doesn't overlap the sidebar.

Obviously harder to do if you don't happen to be familiar with the default settings--as many posters may not be--and/or if you don't "see" the problem show up through your own browser.

Comment #165308 Posted by Stevie "Dead Horse Beating Pinhead on March 13, 2007 7:01 PM (e) Steve, I wasn't attempting to indict PT's technical cutting-edgitude in general. Or even suggesting that all PT's contributing posters ought to be equally tech savvy. But, in other similar cases, other posters have been able to deal with the problem, if they happened to be paying attention and were asked politely. Nick was clearly paying attention, but didn't see the problem showing up via whatever browser he was using, and may or may not have the expertise to deal with it even if he had experienced it. No biggie.

It may be the long skinny image I put in this post that is messing up your display, I dunno.

Comment #165208 Posted by analyysi on March 13, 2007 8:23 AM Hi Nick! What makes you think, that ID-movement began in 1987?

You know, that the idea of ID is old, and that even the term "intelligent design" was before Panda's used several times for example by James E. Horigan. (See for example his book "Chance or Design?" (Philosophical Library, 1979) or his article at JASA (December 1983: 209-216)), where he used the term. [Also for example Fred Hoyle (1982), Raymond G. Boblin, Kerby Anderson (1983), Walter R. Thorson (1985), and others including Tipler and Barrow (The Anthropic Cosmological principle, p. 32) have written about "intelligent design".]

I dont' know, how you define the term "ID-movement". I think, that "ID-movement" is either very old (Paley etc.) or began perhaps after Phillip E. Johnson's Darwin on Trial.

It could be also claimed, that Discovery Institute (and its Wedge) is so essential part of the term "ID-movement", that ID-movement began, when DI's "Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture" started. But I would like to hear your opinion.

my post came off as mean, I know. I don't mean to indict anybody at Panda's Thumb. It's just that I know a little bit about design, and it amazes me that very simple capabilities aren't accomodated by modern web software. If you have sensitive eyes and use computers 15 hours per day, as I do, for instance, it's necessary to default the background to a low-intensity color. Say, a light grey. If I tried to read thin black text on a blaring white background, which is fairly common formatting on the internet, my eyes would be bleeding in short order. So built into the earliest standards and browsers, beginning in the early 90's, is the ability to lessen the harshness by using slightly larger sans serif fonts and changing the background color to a lower intensity. (While serif fonts are more readable on the printed page, on monitors it's often the opposite) It's just shocking to me that 15 years after these capabilities were built into HTML and browsers, there are still sites which go totally farkakta when you use these settings. Enforce your own background color and go to MSNBC, and you'll be shocked that the fly-out menu text superimposes on the regular site text, creating an unreadable morass.

On the plus side, two huge design catastrophes show up less and less on web pages. 1 People no longer have as many animated doodads on their pages*. 2 Mostly disappearing are lines of text whose vertical separation distance is enforced. Popular science used to be bad about this. If you have enforced vertical distance with lines of text, and default settings which make the text larger than expected, the tops and bottoms of text rows can overlap.

* Except for all those Flash ads, which I presume nobody ever sees anymore because they're using Adblock and the autoupdating firefox plugin for filterset G. ;-)

Comment #165187 Posted by Frank J on March 13, 2007 5:01 AM Nick Matzke wrote: The official line of ID advocates is that they just want to "teach the controversy" over "Darwinism" --- but the truth is that the vast majority of ID advocates deny the common ancestry of humans and apes in favor of special creation, many of them are agnostic on the age of the earth, and these views emerge not from serious scientific research on these questions, which they have not done, but from the fundamentalist doctrine of reading the Bible as inerrant.

If I'm wrong, I'm wrong the other way, in that creationism has been a scam from the beginning.

Whether "classic creationists" truly believe that the evidence supports independent origin of "kinds," or in some cases a young Earth, or whether, unlike IDers, they just prefer to tell a fairy tale directly, instead of letting the audience infer it, they at least make testable hypotheses about the basic "whats" and "whens" of biological history. Somewhere along the way to "evolving" into ID, and attracting a new generation of leaders, it became painfully obvious that trying to support those alternative hypotheses would not only call attention to the failures, but also to the irreconcilable differences between YEC, OEC and non-biblical models. If IDers honestly believed that the evidence supported any of those models, they'd have no problem advocating a "critical analysis" of them. As long as "creation" or "design" language is left out of the lesson plan, they'd have no legal problems at all. If anything it would help their pretense about being strictly about the science. How about the "naturalistic" anti-evolution hypotheses of Schwabe and Senapathy? Why is there virtually no mention of them, let alone demand for "equal time" to critically analyze them? Especially since, unlike the phony "critical analysis" of evolution, that critical analysis wouldn't require cherry picking evidence, bait-and-switch definitions or quote mining. The reason is simple. Today's scammers know that, if the evidence is considered fairly and honestly, evolution wins hands down.

By the way, everyone should read this and rid themselves of the "ID is fine with common ancestry" idea.

Lastly, on the Dawkins and "appearance of design" issue -- in that letter, I was reacting to J. Scott Turner's essay, which went on and on in unquestioning fashion about "design" in biology and how it is such an interesting thing to discuss even if we don't buy into ID.

My point was that "apparent design" is not some kind of obviously true descriptor of biology. Even amongst famous biologists, it is emphasized by people like Darwin and Dawkins who are steeped in the British natural theology tradition and the reaction against it. But it is not prominent at all with people with other backgrounds, e.g. T.H. Huxley, Theodosius Dobzhansky, etc. who have continental backgrounds.

That's why I really like the "appearance of flatness" response. At one level, the earth "appears flat", and even large industries are built on a kind of flat-earth model -- e.g., any map displayed on paper or a 2-dimensional computer monitor.

But we all agree it would be silly, knowing what we scientifically know, to go around emphasizing that the earth "appears flat." But if people were doing this, even though they later explain why it's not really flat, it wouldn't be at all surprising that Flat-Earthers would pick up on it and turn it against the scientists.

After all, a large part of pseudoscience involves promoting "common sense" and eyewitness (but superficial) observations above the difficult-to-understand science that consists of quantitative observation and statistical characterization, complex theory, etc.

For what it's worth, I wouldn't be surprised if Dawkins agree with me that life appears designed like the Earth appears flat. This is what his scientific arguments are saying at bottom. It just sometimes gets lost because he is fighting metaphysical battles in addition to the scientific ones.

But we all agree it would be silly, knowing what we scientifically know, to go around emphasizing that the earth "appears flat." But if people were doing this, even though they later explain why it's not really flat, it wouldn't be at all surprising that Flat-Earthers would pick up on it and turn it against the scientists.

actually, WD-40 (dembski), is the only IDer I have seen change his view to consistently state in public that he has no qualms with common descent that "the evidence for it is overwhelming" as he stated in a debate with Ruse a couple of years back. the problem is, when you get into the details of what he means by "evidence" and the mechanism he thinks the evidence supports.

Depending on how one construes the words "creation" and "evolution," one's answer to the question Do you believe in creation? and Do you believe in evolution? are likely to show quite a bit of variability. For myself, Yes, I believe that God created the world with a purpose in mind, and No, I don't believe that God created the world in six 24-hour day periods. No, I don't believe in fully naturalistic evolution controlled solely by purposeless material processes, and Yes, I do believe that organisms have undergone some change in the course of natural history (though I believe that this change has occurred within strict limits and that human beings were specially created). (bold added, italics original)

LOL. What's missing from the ResearchIntelligentDesign.org wiki Intelligent design timeline?

Whatever you saw at that talk with Ruse might just be Dembski talking about common ancestry "within a kind", or the old "I accept evolution (by which I mean microevolution, not macroevolution)" routine.

...If we're talking about common descent, universal common ancestry, I think there's good evidence for that.

Thanks for looking that up. I guess I have seen Dembski talk in that fashion before. I think "good evidence" is different than "convincing evidence." I am pretty sure Dembski would also say there is "good evidence" against common ancestry. E.g. his human evolution chapter for The Design of Life.

LOL. What's missing from the ResearchIntelligentDesign.org wiki Intelligent design timeline?

I am pretty sure Dembski would also say there is "good evidence" against common ancestry.

..oh and of course there isn't ANY actual research in the "researchintelligentdesign" timeline, either.

Hi Nick! What makes you think, that ID-movement began in 1987?Uh...you mean apart from The Great Creationism Relabeling Event Of 1987?

— Nick Matzke

The real history is that Johnson was a latecomer. The proto-ID movement was the group organized around Charles Thaxton (Academic Editor and organizer of the Pandas project) in the late 1980s --- basically the several dozen people listed in the Acknowledgements section of Pandas

— Nick Matzke

The point is that the 1989 Of Pandas and People was the first book to use "intelligent design" as a phrase, in a systematic fashion. It is the first book that uses the term exclusively, instead of a rare minority descriptor of traditional creation/design arguments. It is the first work of any kind that uses it more than a handful of times. And it is the first book that explicitly gives a definition to "intelligent design."

— Nick Matzke

To hold that the universe was intelligently designed is to expect that an intelligent Designer would have had reason and purpose to bring the universe, and all that lies within it, into existence. The remarkable purposefulness we will consider in the natural world herein is of itself not demonstrable of ultimate purpose. When one seeks to argue to the existence of an ultimate Designer of the universe on the strength alone of inferences arising from present-day empirical knowledge, and without resort to biblical or other religious references, it restricts one's possible avenues of explanation of purpose that could otherwise be available. No doubt some will find this approach to be in error.

I think 1996 is about the point at which the "intelligent design" terminology became widely used by its advocates *instead* of creation/creationism. Many of the IDers in the early 1990s freely interchanged the terms in their writings.

— Nick Matzke

Jackson wrote:

Although as written it is a non-sequitur, what it seems like Dawkins is trying to argue is...

It seems? You mean you're not sure what he's saying? Are his own words not clear enough?

..."As long as we accept the principle that religious faith must be respected simply because it is religious faith, it is hard to withhold respect for (the religious faith of) Osama bin Laden and the suicide bombers."

"Hard" for whom? How many of "us" really accept that principle as Dawkins states it? Do religious leaders routinely go around advising their followers to respect differing faiths on the principle that faith should be respected in itself? Of course not -- they tell their followers that their faith is right, and other faiths are wrong, dangerous, and in need of correction. That's one of the main (and good) reasons why atheists disdain religion, remember?

I certainly don't remember Pat Robertson saying that Christians should respect the faith of Buddhists, Hindus, or Pagans. And while the Pagans I know advocate respect for other faiths, that respect is clearly contingent on decent behavior on the other believers' part. Suicide-bombers need not apply.

I know, and have heard of, plenty of people who have, and respect, religious faith; and none of them have any problem withholding respect from people whose actions seem contrary to their core values. Dawkins' reasoning is based on an assumption/assertion about people's attitudes toward faith that is observably false. In fact, I suspect that Dawkins, or his followers, have reworded the assumption to support the desired conclusion.

In this reading there is no guilt by association, but the attempt to show the rediculousness of "respecting faith simply because it is faith" by coming to the absurd conclusion that a violent faith must be respected.

The guilt-by-association lies in misrepresenting what people believe, then drawing an absurd and damning conclusion from that false assumption.

Do religious leaders routinely go around advising their followers to respect differing faiths on the principle that faith should be respected in itself? Of course not --- they tell their followers that their faith is right, and other faiths are wrong, dangerous, and in need of correction. That's one of the main (and good) reasons why atheists disdain religion, remember?

I know, and have heard of, plenty of people who have, and respect, religious faith; and none of them have any problem withholding respect from people whose actions seem contrary to their core values.

raging bee wrote: Are his own words not clear enough?

raging bee wrote: It seems?

raging bee wrote: The guilt-by-association lies in misrepresenting what people believe, then drawing an absurd and damning conclusion from that false assumption.

Raging Bee -

I meant to throw some words of agreement here.

Perhaps Dawkins is guilty, not so much of a non-sequitor, but merely of arguing against something that doesn't exist.

Certainly, I don't respect "religious faith just for being faith", and even if I did, that still wouldn't mean that I condone every physical action that claims to be justified by faith.

I'm utterly opposed to any vision of religious faith that endorses murder, to take an almost silly example, whether in the form of human sacrifice or suicide attacks.

Do I "respect" the human-sacrifice religions that, say, the Aztecs, or my own bronze agen and neolithic ancestors not much longer ago, practiced? While, I guess that depends on what you mean by "respect", but it would be massively immoral (as well as illegal) for us modern people to retain such beliefs and practices.

What I do respect is the right of everyone to privately hold and practice such beliefs as they see fit, as long as the rights of others are not impacted.

I also respect that others can decide for themselves whether their religious faith is at odds with science.

As I said, I most certainly don't want to get into a multi-post Dawkins donnybrook here, but it's hard to understand why he would make the comment in question. It is a comment that will CLEARLY be interpreted by many as implying that any religious position whatsoever, or even any respect for any other person's religious position, is morally equivalent to support for the actions of Ossam Bin Laden. One can argue that Dawkins didn't intend this per se, but this interpretation is so predictable that he must have foreseen it. The "strictly correct" interpretation is so unimportant - essentially, "An imaginary algorythm which is compelled to homogenously 'respect' all 'religion' will be compelled to 'respect' 'Ossama bin Laden' (which is, of course, logically true, but irrelevant to real life) - that it's hard to see why the comments were written, if not with the intent that they be interpreted in an inflammatory way. (With the "strictly correct" interpretation carefully planted to be offered after the fact.)

Dawkins has every right to make such statements, and I support those rights. I would far rather that he have those rights and use them, than that he not have those rights. But that doesn't mean I have to say that I like it when he makes such statements.

...b) he isn't referring to "religious leaders," as you seem to read it, but the general tendency in Western society to shy away from rational discussion whenever someone's religious beliefs come into the picture...

In other words, he's retreating (or you're retreating) from a testable claim about the specific words and actions of specific persons or groups, into a completely nebulous claim about a "general tendency" in "Western society"* -- thus making the claim less testable and more vacuous. This is really no better than a religious demagogue preaching about the "general tendencies" of gays, Pagans, atheists, or "unbelievers" in "godless secular society."

...I think his response would be that religious beliefs form an integral part of an individual's "core values," and when core values are built on the premise that belief without/contrary to evidence is a virtue...

First, you leap from one premise to the other without establishing any link between the two. Are you trying to imply that one follows from the other? Second, that sentence is so full of abstractions, and so empty of specific grounding, that my Orwell-Grade BS Detector is now flashing red. Third, are the core values of any significant sample of any population really built on that premise? And even if they are, is it really inevitable that such people would be unable to recognize or resist evil, especially when it comes from beliefs contrary to their own? (I'm sure there are plenty of devout Christians who are perfectly capable of recognizing the evilness of Osama's actions.) Of course, none of your claims can be tested, since we're talking about "general tendencies" in "Western society," not specific beliefs of specific groups.

*Is this "tendency" less prevalent in Eastern society?

The "strictly correct" interpretation [of Dawkins' thesis] is so unimportant...that it's hard to see why the comments were written, if not with the intent that they be interpreted in an inflammatory way. (With the "strictly correct" interpretation carefully planted to be offered after the fact.)

Thank you, harold, I've long suspected much the same thing: Dawkins is, for nearly all prectical purposes, making shit up to stir up an unnecessary conflict, and thus make himself look and feel relevant, when there are plenty of pre-existing REAL conflicts that the rest of us have to deal with already -- conflicts for which Dawkins has all-but-explicitly said he didn't much care, and to which he doesn't seem to have much to contribute. While the rest of us are trying to cobble up strong political support to neutralize the Christofascists, Dawkins and Harris are busy trying to erase and cover up the line between allies and enemies. Beneath all the noise they make, that lot are pretty much irrelevant in the real-world conflict between reason and unreason.

Certainly, I don't respect "religious faith just for being faith", and even if I did, that still wouldn't mean that I condone every physical action that claims to be justified by faith. I'm utterly opposed to any vision of religious faith that endorses murder, to take an almost silly example, whether in the form of human sacrifice or suicide attacks.

Do I "respect" the human-sacrifice religions that, say, the Aztecs, or my own bronze agen and neolithic ancestors not much longer ago, practiced? While, I guess that depends on what you mean by "respect", but it would be massively immoral (as well as illegal) for us modern people to retain such beliefs and practices.

What I do respect is the right of everyone to privately hold and practice such beliefs as they see fit, as long as the rights of others are not impacted.

It is a comment that will CLEARLY be interpreted by many as implying that any religious position whatsoever, or even any respect for any other person's religious position, is morally equivalent to support for the actions of Ossam Bin Laden.

In other words, he's retreating (or you're retreating) from a testable claim about the specific words and actions of specific persons or groups, into a completely nebulous claim about a "general tendency" in "Western society"* --- thus making the claim less testable and more vacuous.

First, you leap from one premise to the other without establishing any link between the two. Are you trying to imply that one follows from the other? Second, that sentence is so full of abstractions, and so empty of specific grounding, that my Orwell-Grade BS Detector is now flashing red.

Dawkins is, for nearly all prectical purposes, making shit up to stir up an unnecessary conflict, and thus make himself look and feel relevant

LOL. What's missing from the ResearchIntelligentDesign.org wiki Intelligent design timeline?

1987 simply doesn't exist.

— Sir_Toejam

Percival Davis and Dean Kenyon publish Of Pandas and People, a high-school level textbook that contains information on intelligent design and has been endorsed by some design proponents. The term first appeared in drafts of the book in 1987.

in the years following the publication of The Origin Darwin faced an unexpected challenge to his Positivist biology from two groups within the Creationist paradigm, the " providential evolutionists" and the "providential Darwinists," who maintained that it was possible to harmonize some form of evolution, by whatever mechanism, with their creationist commitment to the presence of intelligent design in nature. The providential evolutionists (e.g. Owen, Argyll, Mivart) believed that the entire evolutionary process was designed by 'god'; the providential Darwinists (e.g. Gray, Wallace, Lyell) argued that natural selection was the means by which 'god' created new variations and species. Both groups felt that they had thus blunted Darwin's critique of Creationism by effectively synthesizing Creationist 'design' with his theory of evolution and natural selection.

Dizzy -

Your question is simple - why am I "right" and others "wrong"?

Good question. Beyond the realm of this discussion, but good question.

I didn't necessarily say I was right, I merely described my preferences. But I'll try to answer your question.

A functional answer is "the laws of the country I live in". Likewise, international consensus bodies such as the UN tend to agree with me. I have enormous problems with the details of how my society is governed, but pragmatically, the rights I support with respect to religion or its lack are enforced by the authorities, Dover being a case in point. (I'll give a more philosophical answer below.) The inquisition would be massively illegal under the constitution of either the US or Canada. If someone tried to change the constitution to allow inquisitions or human sacrifices, I'd fight against it, with votes and money if that sufficed, physically if need be. There's a simple functional answer for you.

It's really very simple. Under the type of laws that I both live under and agree with, people can live a far stricter life of observant Islam than the average Saudi if they want, and many thousands do. But I can live my life my way. All we have to do is respect each other's legal rights and it all works out. Sure, it's absurd that there are laws against smoking marijuana and obscene that human rights are violated egregiously at Guantanamo and so on - I massively oppose both of those things and many others - but overall I like the basic framework of rights that we have in place.

Of course, if some other guy does things that are congruent with my preferences, and says he does them because of his religious faith, or that he knows it's right to do what I see as good because of his religious faith, heck, I have no problem with that. Quite the contrary. Take Dr Martin Luther King for example.

Of course, my view that it is courteous to allow others to form their own conclusion as to whether their religious faith is in conflict with science, rather than to harangue them if they say it is, is merely my own preference. There's no law (unless the line of the law - eg harrassment, trespassing, discrimination, vandalism, etc - is crossed) against haranguing religious people. Nor should there be. Note that I also consider it discourteous for religious people to harangue atheists. Note also that I don't proclaim myself as an epitome of courtesy at all times.

If you want to know my philosophical position, I tend to think that the dharmic religions, especially but by no means exclusively some branches of zen, have the best grasp of the human relationship with the universe.

For cultural reasons, I don't formally practice a dharmic religion. I consider myself an "existentialist Christian". I believe that Judaism, Islam, and Christianity contain valuable elements of truth. Of course, I vehemently disagree with homophobia, sexism, the idea of eternal punishment, and so on - things which some people, but not me, incorporate as part of their interpretation of Christianity. I see "secular humanism" as perfectly valid, too.

Sorry if you don't like that, and if you're either a right wing ideologue who claims to adhere to ID/creationism, or a strident advocate of pure atheism as the only way, you probably don't like it. There's nothing you can do about it, though.

I'm not claiming that my "religion" is "right", though. I'm just saying that I prefer that humans grant each other certain rights and fundamental dignities, and that behaviorally, I'll work to make that happen.

I don't have the least problem with atheism as a rational stance, nor with the fact that atheists can be as ethical as anyone else.

I don't agree that atheism is always associated with being rational. Many atheists are into astrology and other pseudoscience.

I do agree that humans tend to be violent, and tend to be religious. I don't agree that if we got rid of the religion we'd experience a net reduction in violence. MAYBE. But who knows? All we know is that humans have always been prone to be religious, and always been prone to be violent. The only "officially atheist" societies we know of are places like the USSR. It's almost a nonsense question to ask "what would happen if humans weren't prone to being religious". There is no serious answer, only imaginary made-up answers. There is no control planet populated by humans who aren't religious, but are otherwise just like earth humans.

A functional answer is "the laws of the country I live in". Likewise, international consensus bodies such as the UN tend to agree with me.

I note that you also are "abstracting" by projecting some kind of strange and unproductive goal onto a single author...

I'm not "projecting," I'm remembering that he had said in an interview that he considered his crusade to debunk and eradicate religion in general more important than the daily battles that ordinary people are forced to wage against religious tyranny. He also brushed off the idea of joining those real-world struggles as "politically expedient" (by which he seemed to mean "relevant to other people," as if that were somehow bad or beneath his stature). All in all, he came off as another academic trying to stay above it all and not get his hands dirty with a real job. And this impression of mine is only reinforced when his followers defend his uninformed statements by saying things like "He refuses to be a whore!" -- as if trying not to insult people who have done no wrong (and might be willing to help) was equivalent to prostitution.

Nick,

Thanks for the references. I have read them before, but will scrutinize them better, and change my opinions if necessary.

I often add the caveat that is that it is impossible to truly know what anyone believes in private. What they lead others to believe is easier to pin down. With ID, I agree that it is mostly OEC and YEC, and not the "front loading" scenario that is ironically the only one that ID ever proposed in any "pathetic level of detail." So it's no surprise that they avoid criticism of YEC or OEC, and might do so even if there weren't those pesky flaws and contradictions.

I'm also aware that Bryan Leonard's telling his students the scientifically accepted age of the Earth, but insisting at the Kangaroo Court on qualifying it with "I tell my students" can be interpreted 2 ways. Either he believes in a young Earth and doesn't want to admit it to science students, or he rejects a young Earth, but doesn't want to admit it to a general audience, because it's more important to him for that audience not think that ID commits to an old Earth position.

As long as their target audience doesn't care that ID isn't scientific, IDers have no need to promote arguments like those of Schwabe and Senapathy, which actually try to support "independent abiogenesis" on its own merits, even though that would get them in less legal trouble than their usual negative approach that relies on anti-"Darwinism" canards that ties ID to classic creationism. Then again, they seem to be able to spin their legal defeats to their advantage, so that's probably the less risky option.

Although my unprovable suspicion remains that most major IDers and many classic creationists privately know that evolution is correct, as opposed to them being affected by Morton's Demon, my concern is not that very few people share my suspicion, but that almost no one ever suggests it even as a possibility. That's especially puzzling when IDers are of the extreme political ideology that is most expected to promote to the "masses" what "elite members" don't necessarily believe.

As for Dembski's 1995 comment, he could have changed his mind (after conferring with Behe?), or possibly been referring to souls with "specially created," or both (& of course, or neither).

Update: I have some company in the "Coulter Hoax" thread.

Sure, it's absurd that there are laws against smoking marijuana and obscene that human rights are violated egregiously at Guantanamo and so on - I massively oppose both of those things and many others - but overall I like the basic framework of rights that we have in place.

I didn't necessarily say I was right, I merely described my preferences.

Dizzy -

The law is mainly congruent with my morals, or ethics if you prefer.

But I actually hope that the law is somewhat independent of any specific moral system.

Rather, I perceive the law as a "social contract", to use a philosophy term.

For example, someone may think that human sacrifice is moral, yet agree that, for the convenience of not having to worry about being sacrificed themselves, it should not be illegal.

Likewise, some may think that all manner of behavior which I consider okay, or even commendable, is immoral. But at the same time, they may realize that it isn't free to arrest, try, and penalize people. Plus if there's a power struggle one may lose.

So people may implicitly agree that it's best not to hunt down heretics and burn them at the stake, even if they think that, morally, that's what some heretics deserve. By having laws that protect people from such things, they lose the satisfaction of really sticking it to a heretic, but they save the tax dollars that would be spent, and avoid the inconvenience of worrying that they themselves might be accused of heresy.

I don't so much claim that my morals are right, as advocate for a social structure that, while coincidentally congruent with my private morals, is most convenient for everyone.

Dizzy: Sorry if I sound obtuse, but where, exactly, are you going with your cross-examination?

I'm remembering that he had said in an interview that he considered his crusade to debunk and eradicate religion in general more important than the daily battles that ordinary people are forced to wage against religious tyranny. He also brushed off the idea of joining those real-world struggles as "politically expedient" (by which he seemed to mean "relevant to other people," as if that were somehow bad or beneath his stature).

Dawkins is, for nearly all prectical purposes, making shit up to stir up an unnecessary conflict, and thus make himself look and feel relevant

Dizzy: Sorry if I sound obtuse, but where, exactly, are you going with your cross-examination?

Analysi,

It seems dubious to call that 1979 usage of "intelligent design" a definition. Pandas has the term in a glossary, for goodness sakes.

As I said before, the fact that sometimes the phrase "intelligent design" sometimes appears in works discussing the Design argument (usually with a capital D) is not highly significant. Search JSTOR on "irreducibly complex" as an analogy.

The pre-1989 usages of "intelligent design" are furthermore (a) about creationism and (b) about God, both of which are explicitly denied in Pandas' usage of the phrase.

A decade has passed since Of Pandas and People's second edition appeared in print. Written by Percival Davis and Dean Kenyon, this book was the first intelligent design textbook. In fact, it was the first place where the phrase "intelligent design" appeared in its present use. [This Preface, by Jon Buell, to the third edition of Pandas entitled The Design of Life, was freely online at William Dembski's DesignInference.com website for much of 2004, but was taken down about the time Kitzmiller v. Dover was filed in December 2004 --- see Wayback archive, where it can still be downloaded, and a May 2004 blog post quoting the beginning of Buell's Preface.]

The book (and article) by Ray Bohlin and crew is significant though, that's where the panda stuff in Of Pandas and People comes from. It was produced by Probe Ministries, the progenitor of FTE and Jon Buell which produced Pandas.

The book is Natural Limits to Biological Change.

For example, someone may think that human sacrifice is moral, yet agree that, for the convenience of not having to worry about being sacrificed themselves, it should not be illegal.

Likewise, some may think that all manner of behavior which I consider okay, or even commendable, is immoral. But at the same time, they may realize that it isn't free to arrest, try, and penalize people. Plus if there's a power struggle one may lose.

So people may implicitly agree that it's best not to hunt down heretics and burn them at the stake, even if they think that, morally, that's what some heretics deserve. By having laws that protect people from such things, they lose the satisfaction of really sticking it to a heretic, but they save the tax dollars that would be spent, and avoid the inconvenience of worrying that they themselves might be accused of heresy.

I don't so much claim that my morals are right, as advocate for a social structure that, while coincidentally congruent with my private morals, is most convenient for everyone.

As I understand it, Harris and Dawkins maintain that the *only* way to credibly establish standards of behavior that can apply to *all* humans is by using objective, evidence-based justifications....

— Dizzy

From www.ResearchIntelligentDesign.org: "Percival Davis and Dean Kenyon publish Of Pandas and People, a high-school level textbook that contains information on intelligent design and has been endorsed by some cdesign proponentists. The term first appeared in drafts of the book in 1987."

— analyysi

Analysi, It seems dubious to call that 1979 usage of "intelligent design" a definition. Pandas has the term in a glossary, for goodness sakes. As I said before, the fact that sometimes the phrase "intelligent design" sometimes appears in works discussing the Design argument (usually with a capital D) is not highly significant. Search JSTOR on "irreducibly complex" as an analogy.

— Nick Matzke

The pre-1989 usages of "intelligent design" are furthermore (a) about creationism and (b) about God, both of which are explicitly denied in Pandas' usage of the phrase.

— Nick Matzke

Dizzy -

At this point I think I've made myself abundantly clear, but I'll address a couple of your points, just to clarify even further.

I'm not trying to win any philosophical battles or "prove" any "absolute truths" here.

"In that case, you are imposing your advocacy goals on others who might not like it, aren't you? If I'm a devout Saudi Muslim and you tell me I can't stone your wife to death for heresy because it's not "most convenient for everyone," you're imposing on my morals (and pushing me toward an eternity in hell), as well as breaking the law. If, on the other hand, you contend that there are pragmatic, objective justifications for your approach - which transcend religion - then you can make a good case that I shouldn't do so."

Just to make it really clear one more time - I would oppose laws against stoning for heresy (I don't believe that actually is the law in Saudi Arabia, but putting that aside...). Although I personally believe it is immoral to stone people, my argument against it is, in fact, grounded in preference justifications, rather than in a futile attempt to argue who is "more moral". It is more convenient for everyone not to worry about being stoned for heresy. Bit this isn't necessarily "objective", read on...

"What I think I see you doing is providing pragmatic justifications for imposing certain kinds of behavior."

Correct. Easy to understand, pragmatic justifications.

"The thing about such justifications is that they are objective - one can demonstrate that allowing murder or suicide bombing will likely have "inconvenient" or detrimental effects on society or the human race as a whole."

They are not entirely objective. Some people are sadistic and enjoy seeing suffering, even if it puts them at risk. Some religious or ideological fanatics believe that the physical extermination of the human race, or most of it, would be better, even if this view puts them at greater risk of being exterminated themselves. However, I make the basic and perhaps subjective assumption that it is better not to create excess suffering, and many people agree with me.

"As I understand it, Harris and Dawkins maintain that the *only* way to credibly establish standards of behavior that can apply to *all* humans is by using objective, evidence-based justifications. IIRC, they do caution against imposing standards willy-nilly, as new evidence is always incoming and secular knowledge is always expanding, and they do allow that certain assumptions ("suffering is bad","people do not enjoy living in fear") need to be made until objective evidence either confirms or refutes them, but they insist that not all assumptions are equal."

I certainly hope I'm not around when empirical evidence refutes the assumption that "people do not enjoy living in fear". With all due respect, I don't accept Dawkins and Harris as valid experts on what is the "only way to credibly establish standards of behavior", either. I can't think of a single reason why, based on what I know about them, I should accept them as experts on ethics or law at all. They seem to be law-abiding citizens, and to avoid such grotesqueries as racism, sexism, homophobia, and war-mongering, but that doesn't make them ethical or legal authorities. (Yes, yes, it's my "subjective" opinion, my "preference", that those things are bad.)

"The assumption, for example, that there is an afterlife in which you will burn eternally for forgiving heresy, or will live in paradise for killing infidels, is far less defensible, based on our empirical knowledge of the universe, than the assumption that killing people is generally detrimental to our survival as a species."

I don't happen to believe in such an afterlife, or have an opinion on an afterlife at all, for that matter. I don't necessarily think that our empirical knowledge of the universe really helps much in terms of answering this question. That the universe has the physical attributes and history seems to, and functions indepently of magic as far as we know, does not address the question of whether we go to Hell for not killing heretics. True, if someone's claim that we need to kill heretics is linked to claims about the physical universe, that type of claim may be refuted by science, but in theory, someone could equally claim that we all go to Hell for not killing heretics, without addressing the characteristics of the physical universe as well. I'm optimistic that the number of people who actually believe that they should kill others to gain uncertain benefits in the afterlife has always been rather low (much lower than people who kill for selfish reasons and claim such justification after the fact), and seems to be gradually reducing.

"Through a bit of reasoning, and some very interesting examples, they come to the conclusion that people like suicide bombers are not irrational - they are actually quite rational, given the beliefs that have been instilled in them. If I truly believed that failing to stone your wife to death would significantly increase my chances of spending an eternity in hell, it would be distinctly against my rational self-interest to fail to stone your wife. I think Harris was the one who said, "These people actually believe what they say they believe." It's the belief itself that is at the root of behavior, just as your belief that one should pursue solutions "that are most convenient for everyone" influences your behavior."

They (referring to Dawkins and Harris) seem to be building up to a conclusion that they should not merely be satisfied with respecting other peoples' rights (and having their own respected), but that rather, they should try to discover and control what others 'believe'. I can't help finding a strong similarity between this attitude and that of inquisitors of the fifteenth century. Fortunately, it's attitude only, not actions. They have every right to have any attitude they wish. Of course, I could be misreading, but that's the impression that these arguments make on me.

"Their contention, as I see it, is that the vast majority of religious beliefs we see touted as justification for harmful (or even beneficial) actions are equally indefensible based on evidence (isn't this a corollary of "faith"?), and none are more defensible than any others."

This is certainly true from their perspective but the actions of others, and in fact, only those actions that happen to impact on someone else's legal or human rights, are all they have any right to care about. Again, they seem to building up to a justification for sticking their noses into other peoples' private beliefs and practices. Again, though, since they restrict themselves merely to verbally critiquing others, they are free to do this. Should they or any of their followers ever hypothetically "cross the line" and resort to violence or property destruction in an effort to force others to believe as they do (not that I expect this, of course!), then they'll be in violation of the law.

"The difference between moderates and extremists is one of degree, not category; moderates are only moderates to the extent that they share with a majority of their culture and time period an arbitrary set of secular beliefs that override their religious beliefs."

The decision as to who is "moderate", and who is "extremist", is obviously subjective. My definition of an extremist is someone who tries to force their opinions on others. Thus, a super-orthodox rabbi, monk, imam or yogi who leaves me alone, and doesn't engage in political scheming to undermine human rights, is not, in my view, an extremist. A right wing ideologue who embraces the ID/creationism scam is, by definition, an extremist. In my view, people who live a very religious lifestyle can actually be far more moderate than other people who live a secular lifestyle of luxury and decadence, but seek to impose beliefs on others by force.

I'm afraid I'll have to make this my last post on this thread. I hope I've clarified my positions.

Damn. Guilty of writing one of those unreadably long posts. And I'm not even a ranting creationist.

Ps. I cannot agree with Jon Buell (whoever he is), because I have seen so many earlier uses of the phrase "intelligent design".

"The thing about such justifications is that they are objective - one can demonstrate that allowing murder or suicide bombing will likely have "inconvenient" or detrimental effects on society or the human race as a whole."

The point is that the 1989 Of Pandas and People was the first book to use "intelligent design" as a phrase, in a systematic fashion. It is the first book that uses the term exclusively, instead of a rare minority descriptor of traditional creation/design arguments. It is the first work of any kind that uses it more than a handful of times.

— Nick Matzke

It is broad objective of the work to show that,..., a coherent picture of intelligently designed creation is to be seen far more clearly and convincingly than ever before, and that the modern materialistic view of creation by pure chance and accidnet is an unsupportable, if not an irrational, alternative. This is to be premised alone on the kind of knowledge that comes from presentday observation, rather than from reference to biblical or other religious sources which lie beyond the research and intended scope of this work. (p. 3)

— James E. Horigan

"the view of intelligent design simply provides the best explanation for the very existence of such phenomena as the origin of self-replication in living organisms: the cognitive nature of the protein molecule and the basic code representing inheritable information, the structural pattern for species differentiation, the life cycles the tolerance aspect in the makeup of living things that allows for freedom to adapt, the goal-seeking and goal-archievingtendencies of living organisms toward functioning and purposive end-results, mind and consciousness, etc. (p. 26)

— James E. Horigan

In Chapters 9-11 we shall see how this aspect of chance in DNA fits quite well into a designed scheme of things, and that intelligent design may be seen ads providing a better explanation than chance for the origin of DNA and its activity. (p. 38)

— James E. Horigan

As an idea, chance has neither a firm foothold to a beginning, nor does it have an ending, in what is claimed for it in an empirical way. This includes the contention that chance alone is responsible for evolutionary processes as relate to living organisms which, as we shall consider in Chapters 10-12, may reasonably be best exolained when viewed in the context of foreknowledge and intelligent design. (p. 39)

— James E. Horigan

During the time of Hume, and for several centuries thereafter, the effects ("B") in nature that were said to give the appearance of "intelligent design" were of a limited general scope and mainly related to analogies of the sort described abobe. (p. 52)

— James E. Horigan

Probably the most significant book of this century, relating to "intelligent design" was written in 1913 by the American biochemist, L. J. Henderson, and entitled "Fitness of the "Environment. When put into a modern empirical context, it may be seen retrospectively as having opened up (and, in a way, re-opened) a most important pathway in support of the view of intelligently designed universe. (p. 55)

— James E. Horigan

In terms of intelligent design, an alternative supposition to the above might be that the few chemical elements of the atoms that are involved in life processes were programmed in advance, in some yet unknown manner, to bring about in time the end results that are evident in an interplay with evolutionary processes. (p. 165-166)

— James E. Horigan