It’s All So Clear to Me Now
Bill Maher explains Intelligent Design.
No wonder IDiots think atheism is a religion: they think ignorance is a form of knowledge.
Dembski Proposes Research Program, Cordova Misapplies It
I’ve been saying for a while (and I’m not alone) that if the ID folks want to be taken seriously by the scientific community, they need to do some actual, you know, research. So I was taken aback when William Dembski actually
suggested a line of research Read More
ID at Cornell
Allen MacNeill, at
Cornell,
will be teaching a course this summer entitled
Evolution and Design: Is There Purpose in Nature?.
Telic Thoughts has picked up on it, and MacNeill has chimed in in the comments. Go read them.
Judging by the course description and reading list (which includes books by Behe and Dembski), and MacNeill’s comments, it appears that this may be the fair “teach both sides” course that creationists have been demanding for some time. I also suspect that the outcome may not be one that they like, but I guess we’ll see.
Assorted Snippets From Dembski and Pals
So I was poking around at
Chez Dembski,
mainly to see whether he had anything to say about
a recent BC strip, and found a few amusing and/or stupid items:
ID vs. Methodological Naturalism
Andrew Rowell at ID In the UK
writes:
The basic articles of faith for a methodological naturalist go
something like this:We have found excellent naturalistic explanations for many
phenomenon [sic] in nature.Therefore
we believe every phenomenon in nature will have a naturalistic
explanation.Therefore
we make it a strict rule that science is exclusively the study of
possible naturalistic explanations for what can be observed in the
universe.
Rowell has it exactly backward. Scientists don’t pledge a blood oath
to preserve the purity of science’s precious bodily naturalism.
Rather, if you’re trying to figure out how the world works,
methodological naturalism works, and nothing else even comes close.
Not heated argument.
Not listening to the most senior researcher present.
Not quoting Aristotle.
Not divine inspiration.
When scientists investigate natural phenomena, they look for natural
explanations because that’s the only method we as a species have come
up with that works worth a damn.
The Definitive ID FAQ
Best. Intelligent Design FAQ. Ever.
(Thanks to John “Bruce” Wilkins for the link.)
Not God, Just Someone With the Same Skill Set
There are at least two postings at Uncommon Descent (here and here), that argue that fine-tuning of cosmological constants is evidence of a Designer. Evidently the ID party line is that the Designer isn’t necessarily God, but is someone who can change the speed of light, the charge of the electron, and the fine structure constant throughout the universe.
But last year, after Bill Dembski appeared on The Daily Show’s Evolution, Schmevolution, he wrote:
Stewart & Co. had some lines that were not only funny but also memorable. The one that sticks out poked fun at ID: “We’re not saying that the designer is God, just someone with the same skill-set.”
[…]
Although the line is funny, it is not accurate.
So please tell us, Bill: how is Stewart’s line inaccurate?
ID Hysterics
Over at Uncommon Descent, Bill Dembski quotes an unnamed colleague as saying:
However, let us not lose sight of the fact that a scientific theory that requires a judge to enforce its teaching cannot be said to be in good INTELLECTUAL health.
Oh, dear. That blew out my industrial-capacity, lead-shielded, firewalled, unplugged irony-meter. Damn. Those things ain’t cheap, you know?
ID Creationists love to compare ID to the Big Bang and to plate tectonics. Now, which of the three made their way into the classroom after the scientific community concluded that they were good ideas, and which one is being pushed through school boards and the courts? Which one “cannot be said to be in good INTELLECTUAL health”?
By proclaiming it illegal to “disparage or denigrate” neo-Darwinism, Judge Jones adopted the principle of the Inquisition, and in so doing rendered both himself and that state-enforced theory ridiculous.
Ooh, the Inquisition! What a deft way to sidestep Godwin’s Law. But let’s reread what Judge Jones actually wrote in his decision:
we will enter an order permanently enjoining Defendants […] from requiring teachers to denigrate or disparage the scientific theory of evolution, and from requiring teachers to refer to a religious, alternative theory known as ID.
(emphasis mine) For the reading-comprehension-impaired, this means that Judge Jones didn’t forbid dissing evolution, but rather forbade requiring teachers to do so. Got that? Good.
Taking a longer view, I think Dover will come eventually to be be seen as a moral victory, in the same way that Galileo’s condemnation is now viewed as a moral victory.
Ah, yes. The “they laughed at Galileo” argument. Unfortunately, as Robert Park put it, “to wear the mantle of Galileo it is not enough that you be persecuted by an unkind establishment. You must also be right.”
Hey, ID guys, feel free to begin demonstrating that you’re right any time you like.
Monty Dembski’s Life of Brian
On Jan. 30, 2006, DaveScot
wrote
in Uncommon Descent:
I will remind everyone again – please frame your arguments around science. If the ID movement doesn’t get the issue framed around science it’s going down and I do not like losing. The plain conclusion of scientific evidence supports descent with modification from a common ancestor.
What we are fighting is the idea that the modification was unguided. ID can fight that without ever leaving the battleground of plain scientific conclusions. If we try to argue against anything else we’re are going to lose. Plain and simple.
In the comments, he adds:
Creation science already lost. Didn’t you get the memo?
Pretty strong words, and certainly a welcome change of direction. But
first, here’s what this posting (and the subsequent discussion in the
comments)
made me think of:
ID and Suboptimal Design
William Dembski has put up a paper entitled Intelligent Design is not Optimal Design, which purports to counter the argument from suboptimal design (e.g., “Why would Godan intelligent designer wire human retinas backward, when he had done a better job with octopodes?” or “Why is the panda’s thumb such a kludge? Why not use the same thumb design as in humans?”). His conclusion:
This is a fallen world. The good that God initially intended is no longer fully in evidence. Much has been perverted. Dysteleology, the perversion of design in nature, is a reality. It is evident all around us.
I’ve added a section about this to the notes on the Frequently Asked But Never Answered Questions About Intelligent Design.
(Thanks to Uncommon Descent for the pointer.)