Talk:Intelligent design/Archive 7

message: The user Silverback continues to restore and add rambling sentences that ruminate on whether or not the "intelligent designer" is omniscient or omnipotent. I've offered my thoughts on this already (see "ID in relation to Bible-based creationism,"  above). As I read it, these bits are digressive, confusing, and reflect an eccentric personal POV. I think they should be reduced or eliminated for the betterment of the article, but I don't want to do that unilaterally since my attempts to integrate this material thusfar have largely been reverted.  I hope some other users will look over the material in question (most of it is in the "Hypotheses about..." section) and hop in to arbitrate this.  --BTfromLA 03:36, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: For what it's worth, I agree that such an issue is digressive.  It's relevant, but it gets to a level of detail that an encylopedia article shouldn't try to tackle.  --Theyeti 04:09, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: What is digressive about the issue, can you be more specific?  I've cleaned up the clumsy language, which resulted from my attempt to add qualifying dependent clauses, in situ, to statements that were clearly false or over generalizations, especially the idea that ID makes no claims about the designer.  Since most ID theory based on irreducable complexity, "claims" to accept existing fossil evidence, the irreducably complex mechanisms often came into existance at different specific points in time, therefore, the designer must have been present and available at those points in time, or new spermia arrived at that time, or the design was present but waiting to be expressed in the genome until the time of its appearance in the fossil record.   There are other possibilities, but each possibility makes demands and implies temporial and other characteristics of the designer.   Independently of this is the issue of whether the designer could be ominiscient and omnipotent.  This is particularly relevant since the "conservative christians" mentioned earlier in the article, usually also hold the belief in such a creator and are unaware that such a belief may have to be abandoned if ID is true, or that such a belief may subject their ID design theories to greater scrutiny.  Most controversial theories in wikipedia devote space to criticisms and counter arguments, and ID theory should not be allowed to escape a significant part of that criticism by allowing resort to a cause, the intelligent designer, which has the unusual characteristic of being available and capable whenever needed, yet escapes scrutiny by being otherwise explicitly ignored by the theory, despite the implicit characteristics that must be present to fulful each individual invocation, and the accumulated characteristics required to fulfill all the invocations.--Silverback 08:12, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

text: Omniscience (on the part of The Designer) is not relevant to ID. While it may be an assumption help by many, it is not a requirement of the concept. --DannyMuse 22:26, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Let's be more scientific, "omniscience" and "omnipotence" is a "hypothesis" held by many.  The finally tuned universe theory for instance hypothesizes an intelligent designer capable of anticipating the characteristics of a universe that would be hospitable to life, and assumes that was the motive of the designer.  It is the statement in the second paragraph, about no assumptions being made that is incorrect.--Silverback 22:34, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Silverback, I'm confused. It's hard to tell from the way you worded it, but it seems that you're agreeing with my point! (I added emphasis to your commentary above to highlight that). --DannyMuse 18:29, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is omnipotence relevant? 

message: I've come over from peer review and decided to start at the top... I've rewritten the lead section in what hopefully is more NPOV and acceptable to all sides.  I'm not going to jump in the middle of an edit war though, so I'll just post my proposal below and let you all run with it if you think it's an improvement on the current.  Personally, I think it is.  :)  Bantman 07:13, Jan 9, 2005 (UTC)
----
The theory of intelligent design (ID) proposes that life on earh was deliberately designed by one or more intelligent agents.  Advocates of the the theory claim that empirical evidence supports the conclusion that life on earth was deliberately designed.  ID proposes that an intelligent designer is necessary to fully account for the adaptive complexity and diversity of life, because naturalistic causes are inherently insufficient.
The phrase "intelligent design" was first widely publicized by legal scholar Phillip E. Johnson in his 1991 book Darwin on Trial,  though earlier references can be found in creationist literature.  Johnson's argument, and a key tenet of the ID movement, is that philosophical naturalism is false.  Since the publication of Johnson's book, a movement has coalesced around the theory of intelligent design; this movement has led an organized effort to advance ID in public and scientific circles as a legitimate alternative to naturalistic theories on the origin of life and evolution, and is known as the intelligent design movement.
The efforts of the intelligent design movement have been rebuffed by the vast majority of the scientific community, which widely considers the theory of ID to be worthless pseudoscience.  ID has not garnered the support of any significant portion or subset of the scientific community; in particular, biologists nearly universally reject ID.  Many scientists view ID as having been already so thoroughly disproven as to not demand further attention; however, it has attracted considerably more attention than might be expected for a theory with no significant support in scientific literature, probably due to the very public efforts of the intelligent design movement.  In response to these efforts, ID has been repeatedly discredited in scientific literature.
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:i like it very much for the most part -- i'd just change the last sentence a little bit to include the possibility that it has been successful with the general public because many of us find it to be reasonable, rather than solely "due to the public efforts of the id movement."  generally very well done, sir:).  Ungtss 08:19, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Also, maybe a little more exposition on why it is rejected by scientists, e.g. "Some skeptics claim that ID is largely a cipher for more traditional forms of Creationism"? --RBeschizza 09:11, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed new lead section 

message: Are you MAD sterling? That's absurd to have that many dot points under, a "SUMMMARY of arguments against ID".  I strongly suggest reverting back to the original section, which was concise and to the point (as a summary should be). --Brendanfox 00:25, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: friendly one, isn't he?  Ungtss 01:52, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Brendanfox (or someone), please do revert that section.  Stirling, whatever your familiarity with ID discussions, you evidently are not a professional writer.  Wikipedia articles aspire to providing concise definitions of the topic at hand, and a brief introduction to the issues that surround it.  Many of these issues are elaborated upon in linked articles, and can be pursued in greater depth through bibliographic citations and off-site weblinks. A summary that names general categories and does not extensively delve into specific details is not Bowdlerized--it is a summary.  In general, the goal should be to pare away everything that is not required for a clear, bare-bones presentation of the material, and move details of sub-topics to their own articles (like irreducible complexity). --BTfromLA 01:55, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: perhaps one should take a look in the mirror first.  none of the individuals opposing those edits (other than me) ascribe to ID.  Ungtss 07:32, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: What not-nice behavior are you referring to, Stirling?  You have insisted on adding an absurd amount of clutter and brazenly POV language to the article (which was already overlong and digressive in my view).  And your comments are often hostile or snide. I, and several others, have tried to point out why your additions are seen (by everyone here, far as I can tell) as causing more problems for the article than they address. (Although your contributions to the precision of the article are certainly welcome.) Untgss is correct, by the way--I have no interest in promoting ID, and as far as I know, he is the only participant here who supports the idea.  If you are not just a troll--being deliberately outrageous to get a rise out of people--then please allow some others to edit the material, and allow yourself a little time to consider whether the edits might actually improve the piece. If you want to write a screed that rails on for page after page about the deficiencies of the ID proponents, this is not the appropriate venue. At this rate, we seem on track to have an article with four hundred bullet points followed by a catalogue of all possible disputes about the nature and abilities of God, gods and non-gods. Sheesh! --BTfromLA 08:49, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Gentlemen, I must insist that the name calling stop immediately. - Ta bu shi da yu 07:57, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: I agree that stirlings additions are pooly written.  They also contain responses to arguments that are made in ID that are not documented here, especially the information theory stuff.  Perhaps he should document the ID arguments before he responds to them, so his additions make more sense.--Silverback 13:29, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Summary of Arguments against ID 

message: The whole intelligent design controversy is rooted in metaphysics and methodology. Much of which is inextricably linked to a priori assumptions (i.e., axioms or premises).
Materialists already think there is no God, and except for the insignificant minority of "open-minded materialists" they will reject any argument contradicting their axiomatic starting point. Hence, ID's suggestion that the origin of multi-cellular beings (particularly vertebrates and humans) could reasonably be ascribed to an intelligent being is anathema to them. So it's really hard for them even to tolerate expression of such an idea, let alone to entertain it as a "hypothesis".
Religionists (and yes, I am one) already think there is a God, and likewise tend to reject out of hand any argument that contradicts their faith. "Fossils prove evolution? Then the fossils must be fakes (or a test from God)." So goes the fundamentalist POV. 
This article will remain turbulent and contentious until someone -- cleverer and more diplomatic than I am -- can identify and explain the hazy and/or hidden assumptions and thought processes of the various opposing sides. Larry Witham's recent book By Design is a valiant attempt to do just that. I wish I could get him to put his two cents in, here at Wikipedia, but published authors are notoriously hard to recruit. --user:Ed Poor (talk) 18:43, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)
:: Now Ed Poor comes in and decides to engage in bad faith Larry Witham is highly sympathetic - one might even say sycophantic - towards ID. Merely one review among many for the above mentioned book from amazon.com
:::Reviewer: A reader
:::This overview of the intelligent design movement is guaranteed to drive certain people crazy. Foremost among them will be fans of Richard Dawkins's "The Blind Watchmaker" and other acolytes of the modern religion of Scientism. Not science, mind you, which requires an open, inquisitive approach to data, but Scientism, the slavish devotion to the god Theory. Darwin handed down his discoveries, the earth shook, the sky trembled, don't try to teach anything else in OUR public schools.
:::The problem, as Witham demonstrates in his work, is that there are a great many questions left unanswered by Darwin, most of them revolving around what Michael Behe calls "irreducible complexity." There is no need to resort to the thought experiment of finding a watch in a field, as Dawkins does in his attempt to prove that random selection is the only force capable of or sufficent to explaining the world around us.
:::Behe, cited by Witham, makes things much easier: a simple mousetrap, with only five working parts, cannot have come together over billions of years by any natural process known or suspected. Half a mousetrap is useless, as is four-fifths. Only the complete mechanism will function, and the odds of a mousetrap "evolving" are astronomically, vanishingly small.
:::(Which begs an interesting question: Does Dawkins, and by extension his fans the Priests of Darwin, actually believe that a mechanism as complex as a pocketwatch will appear before their eyes if they sit in a field waiting for sufficient eons?)
:::Witham approaches this fascinating area of inquiry as an intelligent layman, surveying the experts in the field with an eye to offering the reader as complete an exposition of the intelligent design question as possible.
:::Highly recommended, but only to those willing to have their eyes, and minds, opened wide.
::Witham has also written several articles which uncritically present ID claims, and his blurb indicates his strong sympathy with ID. Since Mr. Poor entered this discussion by preaching good faith, and by threatening me for "breaking the rules" even as he presents a book which was written by someone who is all but an ID partisan and part of the "wedge strategy", I submit that he is not to be taken at face value, that he is not engaging in "good faith" but is, instead, merely presenting another face of ID supporters, in an attempt to frame the debate, as ID supporters do as between "Scientism" the religion and their own religion. This is not the point at issue with ID. I am deeply disappointed in his, at the very least, intellectually sloppy framing of the issue, and, at worse, intellectual dishonesty in presenting a book as neutral which is not. Stirling Newberry 02:26, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: (with regard to ed poor's comments): well said.  perhaps we should all put our heads together to find a way to do it right?  seems to me we've got the gamut of opinions here ... maybe with a little teamwork we can do it right.  Ungtss 18:50, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Faith, good and bad 

message: The section "a notable recent convert", is  problematic and should remain out of the article for several reasons:
:# At present the section exaggerates the implications of Flew's statements. The most that can be said of Flew is that he is unsure. By claiming "Antony Flew recently converted to a theistic point of view (though not necessarily the Christian God), primarily on the weight of Intelligent Design." it overstates his conversion and makes an unsubstantiated hasty conclusion about his motivation. In communications with Richard Carrier, Flew has stated that he hasn't really decided what to believe and that he was unsure. In response to theists citing him in their favor, Flew calls his "recent very modest defection from my previous unbelief" a "more radical form of unbelief," and implies that the concept of God might actually be self-refuting, for "surely there is material here for a new and more fundamental challenge to the very conception of God as an omnipotent spirit," but, Flew says, "I am just too old at the age of nearly 82 to initiate and conduct a major and super radical controversy about the conceivability of the putative concept of God as a spirit."  See also: 
:# Such a section provides little value to the article or the reader. Vaunting "recent converts" is an appeal to authority, a logical fallacy. As such it has no place in an encyclopedic article. For balance should we start citing those significant theists who become atheists due to their understanding of science? No. Such a list is a pointless game of tit-for-tat and lessens the article.
Until these issues are properly addressed, I'm removing the section.--FeloniousMonk 22:37, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well reasoned. I agree.  --BTfromLA 05:22, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Removing the section on recent converts

message: Dunc wrote (above):
:The links are easily demonstrated.  Take a look at Discovery Institute, Phillip E. Johnson, Bill Dembski.  The ID movement deny that they are religious, because they want to appear scientific, (it's very clever pseudoscience). The cover however is extremely thin, and it takes more than a single sentence to spell that out. 
I'm not sure this is true. The ID proponents with whom I'm familiar don't deny their religious affiliations and motives, but are scrupulously up front about them. Jonathan Wells, in particular.
My own attraction to the Discovery Institute is its frankly expressed religious basis combined with the attempt to conform to the scientific method. (If any Wikipedian has browsed the D.I. website and not discerned its religous basis (i.e., feels they're hiding their faith somehow), please let me know so I can describe this deception in our Wikipedia article about them.
I think the ID movement is being portrayed incorrectly, either out of ignorance (I hope) or a sneaky desire to score rhetorical points (I hope not!).
The essence of ID theory is that science neither disproves faith nor makes it irrelevant; rather, it complements faith. Its main argument is that irreducible complexity makes evolution via natural selection so unlikely that creationism MUST be considered as an alternate explanation.
The essence of opposition to ID is, I feel, a dogged insistence on clinging to the a priori decision to embrace materialism. This opposition manifests as an interpretation of "science" and "the scientific method" as necessarily limited to the search for naturalistic causes to the exclusion of supernaturalistic causes. Thus, ID cannot be a scientific hypothesis because (a) it posits a cause-and-effect relationship that transcends the material world while (b) science is supposed to concern itself only with material forces entirely within the material world. (Which is why scientists are loathe to study ghosts or ESP or life after death on any basis other than debunking these phenomena as hoaxes or hallucinations.)
To write about ID fairly, we need to discover in the writings of advocates and opponents what their explicitly expressed assumptions and motives are, rather than guessing at them. A good starting point is Wells, who openly admits that he studied biochemistry to "destroy Darwinism". At least John is being Frank! --user:Ed Poor (talk) 15:19, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)
:They do and they don't.  That's the problem, they deliberately jump their positions around.  If you ask them they'll say their religious views are irrelevent to their "science", which is about this mysterious "intelligent designer" and deny that it's creationism or pseudoscience.  On the other hand, they'll make it clear to their supporters their theological positions, sell books aimed at the popular reader instead of going through proper peer review (per the scientific method), tour the country talking at churches, get their funding by donations from God-fearing folk and Christian organisations.
:Wells, by the way, managed to write Icons without an explicit reference to God.  But he's also, basically a liar, and has some really wierd theology (by comparison to the rest).  The difference between his position and Behe's big idea is a huge gulf.  By keeping everything vague, it allows individuals to put over that template their own theology, and makes it difficult to argue against.  It's very, very clever.
Now, make whatever religious assumptions you will, but please do not present them as science, which by definition is areligious.  Your mention of ESP, etc is enlightening because ID fits into the same unfalsifiable, unscientific box.  Dunc|☺ 16:07, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: ID and religion

message: This articles really messy, and way too long.  I also think that the disputed tag should be placed at the top of the article, because looking at the recent changes, and the responses they've generated, I think there's some VERY different ideas about how this article should be written.  I'm on holidays now, in about a week, I plan on cutting a lot of stuff (or moving to new articles), and providing a bit more balance, I don't think the article is neutral at all.  I'll provide some more details then.  In the mean time, good luck getting it all sorted :) Brendanfox 12:21, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article Status 

message: stirling, why are you reverting the insertion of quotes from the relevent supreme court holdings, and the removal of court holdings that had nothing to do with intelligent design?  Ungtss 00:47, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: all the best to you:).  Ungtss 00:52, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  stirling -- why are we including Lynch, when it was about nativity scenes, not intelligent design?  Ungtss 13:24, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Because it relates to the "clear intent" standard, and provides for "some deference" as a guideline to courts in interpretation of this standard. You might want to read American Public School Law Alexander, Kern Chapter 7, Pages 314-322 for an exigesis of why religion cases are important. Or just reread the excerpt of Aguillard that you wanted inserted. Stirling Newberry 13:45, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  i would think that we would do better to quote cases AS APPLIED in ID cases, rather than inserting precedents that MIGHT be applied in the next case.  the 1st amendment is a VERY broad area of constitutional law, and different standards have been applied in different contexts -- i think we should limit ourselves to the 1st amendment as applied to creationism + id, not any religion case.  the page is already bloated.  what do you say?  Ungtss 14:14, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  court holdings 

message: stirling, why are you reverting the removal of a word-for-word duplication of text?  Ungtss 15:34, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  duplication 

message: stirling, why are you removing the full text of the sticker, leaving only part, and moving the schoolboard reasoning for the sticker after the court holding which was made over a year after the school board quote?  Ungtss 15:57, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  stickers