Talk:Intelligent design/Archive 13

message: The article is longer than other similar articles, such as:
*Evolution
*Human Evolution
*Christianity
*Creationism
There are way too many references and it's too long, to the point that it's a thesis paper on ID, not an article. I base my claim based on its relative size to other related articles. I'll try to shorten it, later today, by mostly removing the redundant references.
*Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought
*Wikipedia is not a propaganda machine
*Wikipedia is not a mirror or a repository of links, images, or media files 69.138.24.96 14:35, 13 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Articles on allegedly similar subjects can be of different lengths for various reasons.  For intance, evolution is so pervasive a theory, that details and tidbits are spread throughout hundreds of articles on wikipedia, so the total body of work on evolution dwarfs this article.  Similarly for Christianity.   Creationism is no longer on the front lines of controversy, the apologias and responses are more practised and settled there.  Most of what there is to say has been said before.  When you gain experience on wikipedia you will learn that on controversial subjects, no POV wants to be shunted off into side articles, in fact, it is an disengenuous tactic to cite article length and suggest moving the material elsewhere, after you have gotten your side into the article.  On a fairly new "science" like ID (barely a decade in the limelight), there is not a lot of established authority, or critical review, and definitely a paucity of peer reviewed journal articles, so some original criticism, as is typical in scientific summaries is in order.  For example, if in global warming, someone posts a summary that reaches a conclusion that GW the more extreme predictions are now confirmed.  It is not original research to point out that the work was based on the same models that had been acknowledged to be weak in cloud physics and that the advances that merited peer review publication were unrelated to such known issues.  This is ordinary scientific criticism and is accepted in most of the scientific articles here, although admittedly with less opposition in the less controversial areas.  Similarly when some notable ID researcher claims a new instance of "intelligent design", it is not original thought, to make explicit, what the researcher may or may not have stated, that this implies a new designer at a place and time, that may represent a problem for various single designer or multiple designer hypotheses.  Problems and implications of scientific results for other scientific results are routinely discussed and summarized, and because some segment of ID apparently rejects any specific discussion about hypotheses about the designer(s), and leaves that out of their result, does not negate the fact that they loudly and clearly put the designer at a particular, place and time, engaged in a particular activity, even if only implicitly.  The article is not too long for this kind of article, and the best tool for compromise, NPOV, and avoiding edit wars is slack.--Silverback 13:37, August 14, 2005 (UTC)
Much too long. Readers will want to know what Intelligent Design is.  The Introduction and Summary are quite adequate to explain that.  The rest of the article is confusing and often incomprehensible. If it was translated into plain words some  of it might be worth retaining but a lot would be clearly seen as meaningless.
The article is not suitable for Featured Aticle status. It makes Wikipedia look like a feast for self-indulgent contributors.      --82.38.97.206 20:58, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

text: There's not a single established fact in that, personal criticisms are out of place in WP, and it's not even a personal criticism of the subject of the article. 68.6.40.203 18:32, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

text: The only kind of thought (i.e., the only kind of theory) that counts for science is thought that produces testable hypotheses. If ID chaps want to be scientists, they should behave like scientists. No scientism here. --Hob Gadling 11:52, August 1, 2005 (UTC)
"Criticism of the critics of the theory" - come on - this could go on forever... The article describes the "theory" and then the criticism of said "theory" - this should of course, in all fairness, also apply to the scientism article - but it is not relevant here. Celcius 00:23, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Article Is Too Long 

message: First off, notability has not been proven. (FYI: Scavanger hunts are disengenous Silverback, thats not how we do shit 'round here). If ANYONE wants to point out a good refrence for it, go right ahead.
Second thing is relevance. As per the scientism critique above, we have a massive article where lots of extraneous issues are related. This does not mean they are salient, relevant, and pertinent to Intelligent design. In fact, I would suggest they are not. If ID is a recylcing of bad pseduoscience, these critiques of "flawed design" are recycled bad philosiphy. Most trained aithiest debaters don't touch this stuff, cause it gets no where. Trust me, been on both sides of that one.
:I don't trust you on that one, because you are wrong.  Much of the interest and momentum of the ID movement comes from believers in the omniscient, omnipotent God.  What pointing out the problems this hypothesis poses does, is remove any illusion they have that they can preserve this hypothesis scientifically.  They have to resort to assumptions about the unknowability or unfathomability of omniscience, i.e., they once again are appealing to mystery and faith.  Getting them back to this point is not getting them no where, but rather gets them to the long standing consensus of religious apologia.--Silverback 19:39, August 3, 2005 (UTC)
The section lists a number of flaws with various designs. All from a human perspective (questionable already), and also we are lead to ask are they really flaws? By who's definition? Every improvment has its cost. Humans can't stick to walls. Is this a design flaw 'cause flies can? O.o These are questions we've been asking for ages in our elementary science classes, I'm not really sure why its come back here.
:See, "human perspective (questionable already)", you are already appealling the mystery of "greater" intelligence.  However, as a compromise, instead of calling these flaws, how about just calling them "issues" that need explanation.--Silverback 19:39, August 3, 2005 (UTC)
Third is quality. This article, at last check, was still over the 32k suggested "limit". This suggests to me that we can start being picky on what we choose to include. The best written, most salient, most convincing and most major arguments are best.
As far as I can tell, and feel free to chime in here, the major criticsms and defences of ID lie around: The "flaws" of science in general, the specific group of hypothese (CSI, IC, etc etc etc.), the supposed flaws in evolutionary theory (I don't think they are flaws at all, but thats my POV). There are also a few parting shots at the big wigs on both sides about them trying to "destroy science" and "destroy faith." And finally, the peer review bits, the distinct failure to describe what the hell the designer is, and the argument from ignorance.
These are all unquestionably salient. Criticsing an unidentified God (singular) with qualities not proven needed (omni-ness), with criticisms about supposed flaws from an unprovenly notable perspective, does not belong. If you think it does, find a refrence, clean up the prose. We'll even help, but only after you find the refrence.--Tznkai 17:20, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Many science articles also venture into the political, see Global warming.  Whether omni-ness is "proven" or not, believers in omni-ness are an important constituency and driving force behind the theory, and this alone can make it notable, despite the weak grounding of their omni-ness beliefs.--Silverback 19:48, August 3, 2005 (UTC)
I vote for irrelevant.  Silverback, assuming your argument is accurate, the BEST it does is show that the designer was not omniscient.  It doesn't prove there was no designer...  thus it doesn't faze ID.  Dante's Peak was a crappy movie loaded with flaws, but that doesn't mean there wasn't a designer.  I think your criticisms would be more relevant on the omniscience page.  David Bergan 20:10, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removing the section on criticisms of the design. Again. 

message: I don't know if anyone has noticed that the numbering and ordering of the footnotes does not correspond to the article. You probably all have and were smart enough to wait for someone dumb enough to make mention of it. Fine. Anyone want to tackle this thankless task? Anyone aware of a numbering ordering method to avoid this in the future? Steinsky, where are you? This was your idea. Help us out. FeloniousMonk 23:23, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ordering of the article's footnotes 

message: I've protected the page because of the reverting today. Give me a shout on my talk page when you want me to unlock, and if I'm not around, you can post a request on WP:RFPP. Cheers, SlimVirgin (talk) 06:10, August 4, 2005 (UTC)
:I've already posted the request to the RFPP page, and stand ready to edit now as before.--Silverback 06:13, August 4, 2005 (UTC)
::Silverback, I haven't been following this page as much lately, or how it got to the point of being locked, and I'm not particularly opposed to or in favor of making the article smaller, however, I just wanted to point out that I'd support the notion that this edit by you made the article less encyclopedic. As for major paring down, maybe we could figure out some basic goals that everyone can agree to before we bring out the pruning tools. FuelWagon 16:30, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm thinking That FM and I hit upon one particular area for trimming: example creep. We could stand to reduce the arguments about the example themsevles, especially since the main pages will likley have the information needed. Other than that, we can always just shuttle things off to their subarticles.--Tznkai 18:36, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Page protection

message: Silverback wrote: My goal is to see that ID gets a fair presentation, including any arguments that even remotely make sense or have some merit. In addition I want any reader who comes here to be able to find all the reasoned arguments ID is likely to meet in the field of ideas, and that those get a fair hearing, and the counters to those, as well
OK, sounds good so far. I'm not aware of any arguments for/against ID that didn't get fair representation though. I started a new section so that we could put them in here as subsections in an attempt to manage them somewhat. any artgument for/against that you don't think is getting fair represenation, put below in three "equal" signs to start a new subsection, and then we can comment on each argument individually. FuelWagon 00:50, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think we can stand to have a bit of reorganization, especially with the "additional criticsms" section, but thats old news.--Tznkai 14:31, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: fair representation

message: It appears from the article and the accompanying debate that so-called Intelligent Design is not a scientific topic but is instead a political or ideological topic regarding a doctrine developed for the purpose of circumventing the First Amendment in the drafting of educational texts.  (That probably explains why the list of discussion topics under this category includes the names of prominent politicians but no reference to science.)
The article should make is clearer that so-called Intelligent Design is, apparently, a topic about a field of science but that it is not itself a part of that science.  The article does, however, state:
"[Intelligent Design] does not oppose the concept of evolution as a mechanism for directed, intelligent creation, nor even for limited, apparently undirected natural change."
If that is indeed the case, there is no need to discuss "intelligent design" in order to understand evolution as a topic of empirical science, any more than there is a need to discuss Henry Ford in a manual of automobile mechanics.
The article continues:  "Ostensibly [Intelligent Design's] main purpose is to investigate whether or not there is empirical evidence that life on Earth was designed by an intelligent agent or agents."
While this is an interesting objective, it may be a trivial one.  Not only is one unlikely to be able to infer a Henry Ford through a complete and exhaustive study of the Model T, but one's inability to demonstrate the existence of Henry Ford on the basis of the Model T would not disprove the existence of Henry Ford.
Perhaps one basis of the perceived need for Intelligent Design is a belief that something does not exist unless it can be shown empirically to exists.  While Thomas Aquinus held this belief, that possibility cannot be excluded that Aquinus was erroneous in this belief and that all attempts to prove the existence of God through deductive reasoning are folly.
Science deals with those matters which can be shown empirically to exist, but it does not follow (and it is not scientific to assume) that those things which do not lend themselves to scientific analysis do not exist.  Similarly, it does not follow that well-reasoned, fact-based scientific conclusions are necessarily wrong unless they offer affirmative support for a particular religious dogma.
:I think this is a request for a clearer introduction/summary section. Someone else able to parse this?--Tznkai 13:26, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Not only is one unlikely to be able to infer a Henry Ford through a complete and exhaustive study of the Model T, but one's inability to demonstrate the existence of Henry Ford on the basis of the Model T would not disprove the existence of Henry Ford.  Design theorists never claim that they are able to discover the identity of the designer.  They only claim to know if there is a designer.  Maybe the article needs to speak this more clearly.  David Bergan 23:28, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the person who posted the henry ford bit, in quoting the article as saying "ID does not oppose evolution blah blah blah", is showing that perhaps the article is not clear that ID says basically "evolution is not enough". ID points to something like flagellum and says "evolution can't explain it, some intelligence must have put it there". I think perhaps that sentence seems to mislead a bit and could be read to say ID doesn't oppose the possibility that evolution could explain all of life in the universe. I'm pretty sure ID is clearly pointing to the idea that some outside intelligence is needed to explain some things. FuelWagon 22:16, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  The article needs to clarify what it is about 

message: I just created the Methodological ontological naturalism supernaturalism article and gave it a go. The title sucks, but it does give what I think is a good overview of the four terms, how they combine, and the three resulting worldviews that people can have. I was thinking we could polish it up and reference it in the ID article somewhere to describe the different possible worldviews that are at play. FuelWagon 23:50, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: MONS

message: I've renamed the MONS article to Ontology and methodology of evolutionary alternatives. It seems to succinctly describe the scope of the article, and explain why it isn't part of some other page. The point of the article is that this is where the differernt philosophies on the different sides of the evolution debate are reported. FuelWagon 12:26, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: rename: Ontology and methodology of evolutionary alternatives

message: I don't want to get involved with editing this article, so I just make some comments here:
# ID summary is too long.
# ID debate shouldn't be a debate - it should present the ID position. Pro/con lists are discouraged on Wikipedia for various reasons.
# Criticisms of ID should clearly distinguish between (a) criticisms of the ID methodology (this is where all the discussion of what constitutes science should be) and (b) criticisms of particular points made by ID (the current "Criticism:" paragraphs in the debate section).
# Mention issues raised by "Having Fun With Intelligent Design": that the ID movement, if not the ID "theory" itself, argues for a particular kind of designer; focussing on the reasons for the existence of homosexuality or the female orgasm is, for socio-political-religious reasons, not really on the agenda.
# Somewhere in there, something about the nature of design from an engineering point of view. Many biological systems are excessively complex, to the point where if there were design, it would have to be considered Bad Design. (Honest creationism would merely reply that "the ways of God are mysterious" - is ID's response that we were unlucky enough to get a Bad Designer?) Rd232 11:47, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comments 

message: Ok, What is ID? 
a questionable assertion? 
Yes, of course.
Anything can be a questionable assertion.
An assertion is no more than that. And all assertions are questionable in principle. 
One of the characteristic of a good definition is that it should define.
Therefore, this article should do better than that.
What kind of assertion is ID? 
ID is a theoretical proposal for scientific enquiry.
I know that this suggestions will make many defensive just by the sound of it. 
But we must recognize it for what it claims to be, even if we disagree with it. Or at least we should take account of what its proponents claim that it is.
For example: according to Dembski 
"Intelligent design is the field of study that investigates signs of intelligence."
 p. 2
Like it or not that is how they define themselve, should not the definition of ID take this into account?
Therefore I will suggest the first sentence to read:
Intelligent Design (or ID) is a controversial field of study claiming to investigate signs of intelligence. It is proposed by a minority of scientist and a movement denominated by the same name, which believe that certain features of the universe and of living things exhibit the characteristics of a product resulting from an intelligent cause or agent. 
erasmocbc 03:53, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Questionable assertions

message: FeloniousMonk 06:59, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: On the lighter side

message: :This is largely the consensus version of the intro, arrived at after long & bitter debate. If you want to make such substantive changes to it, seek consensus on the Talk page first.)FeloniousMonk
My arguments for the proposed change in the first sentence have been presented above. "questionable Assertions" and "it is not a field of study".
I would gladly appreciate your views concerning it.
erasmocbc 07:12, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The current consensus intro is accurate, reasonably concise, NPOV, free of factual, grammatical and logical errors and the result of many long months of back-and-forth debate. It represents a fair compromise, bitterly won. Your edits were not an improvement over the existing intro and likely to rekindle the flames that have only recently settled. As such, I reverted them. If you want to rewrite the intro, do it here and seek buy-in by the long-term contributors to this article before adding the content. I'm not yet finding your reasoning or justification for your rewrite compelling, but I encourage you to continue refining your points here. FeloniousMonk 07:24, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Definition that defines

message: I suspect that Wikipedia will never have good articles on controversial subjects like intelligent design.  There are too many partisans who will endlessly rewrite the page to slant it one way or the other other.  Talk.origins and other forums get hundreds of messages a day on this topic.  Nevertheless, probably foolishly, I rewrote the section on "Specified complexity" to focus it more narrowly on Dembski's use of the terms specification and complexity.
I had problems with the version that I am replacing:  a) It is hard reading the old version to get a feel for whether Dembski's arguments make any sense.  I suspect hardly anyone will understand, for example, why chance can produce information but not CSI.  b) It is not a criticism of a definition to say that it is a tautology; definitions are always tautologies.  c) Not all lotteries have winners.  Dembski's point is (rightly or wrongly) that a winner is very unlikely in the lottery of life. Ivar Y 19:34, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Rewrite of Specified Complexity Section

message: Does any actual outside source use this term? If so, it can be reported as their view of ID. If not, it should be dropped from the article. FuelWagon 19:08, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes, the term is widely used. See this edit --JPotter 19:15, August 22, 2005 (UTC)
It would seem that the following quotes could be used within the article regarding the term "big tent". 
"The 'big tent' of ID provides a setting in which that struggle (against neo-Dawrinism) can occur". 
"Morris argues that pantheism and New Age ideas might also fit comfortably within the 'big tent' of design" 
"Other Christian critics have taken the opposite tack... The 'big tent' is an illusion, erected for public relations purposes, and under the fancy inclusive language one finds the same old-fashioned ... creationism." 
Also, I don't think that "big tent" can be used as undisputed fact. The above paper shows that Christians dispute the term. FuelWagon 19:31, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: big tent

message: This diff removes a valid sourced quote and replaces it with text written as a view from nowhere. Criticism must be sourced. FuelWagon 21:08, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Criticism must be sourced

message: Short, simple, to the point. FuelWagon 19:06, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Nice URL