Talk:Intelligent design/Archive 27

message: I'm not sure who did what, but it is very pretty. However several active discussions were archived. Can we fix that?--Tznkai 02:43, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Which one did you want to continue? They are all in Archive 24. I suggest that you start a new section with the title of the discussion you want continued, with a continued from Archive 24 note, link to the old discussion, a brief summation (optional) then post your opening statement. I will do it for you if you tell me which discussion you wish to continue. KillerChihuahua?!? 02:54, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The discussion about adding a distinction between ID and TE/EC is still in-progress.  I'm waiting for input from TE/EC editors.  I'm okay if the discussion just stays in the archive for now.  (Makes things more neat)  I'm going to wait until I'm absolutely sure such a distinction is necessary.Lovecoconuts 03:32, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Something has been added to the article concerning that - it was 4 editors, back to back. An anon, me, Tzn, and FM. Diff is here . The anon added a God sentence, I edited to TE, Tzn tweaked wording, and FM moved to appropriate place in article. KillerChihuahua?!? 11:34, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for informing me.  It looks okay to me, and I'm glad someone else added the distinction.  I actually prefer to never edit the ID article, for personal reasons.  I will hope that can stop or limit confusion between ID and TE/EC.Lovecoconuts 11:50, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: My apologies. I thought you watched the article as well as the talk page, and assumed (very bad practice, that) you had seen it. KillerChihuahua?!? 12:12, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No problem, really.  As you have probably observed - I am a slowpoke contributor.  I actually thought it take me at least a week before I would be adding the ID and TE/EC distinction.Lovecoconuts 12:36, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Normally, I would think at least a week. The anon's contrib was so close to what we'd been discussing, we took it in that direction. The process was more organic than it often is. KillerChihuahua?!? 12:45, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archival 

message: Re: "Poor grammar, intelligent design cannot be stated in a possessive form."  There is no steadfast rule that precludes using a possessive for concepts or inanimate objects.  While I agree with Endomion that it is better not to use possessives when describing a concept, it is really a simple matter of preference.  However, whichever preference we choose, we must be consistent throughout the article.  Jim62sch 01:49, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I will retract my edits and "resurrect" the article to the way I found it, so to speak.  Endomion 02:12, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Re "Revert all Endomion edits, even good faith attempts to improve readability are resisted": if you recall, I agreed with you regarding the use of possessives (with the exception of organizations, which are generally personified).  The other edits, though, were without foundation in that there is no proof that person A knew of the use of "Intelligent Design" by person B (or person C).  Jim62sch 02:23, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's one thing to make an article I disagree with look better, but the last thing I'm going to do is get into an edit war trying to make an article I disagree with look better.  Endomion 02:28, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Possessives

message: Try http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/4ba04f6a59f82197 William M. Connolley 18:01, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: lol, thanks much. KillerChihuahua?!? 19:19, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: LOL.  I kept thinking of the Parrot sketch from Monty Python.  "This is an ex-Parrot!"--ghost 20:53, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Light relief 

message: The content that was being resurrected here was so demonstrably incorrect, one-sided, woefully out of date (2001!) and POV on so many levels that it is can serve no purpose here. Resurrecting it was another instance of willfully trolling this page. I've moved it to a subpage sandbox, Talk:Intelligent design/Old suggested content where hopefully it will die its rightful death. FeloniousMonk 17:29, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Why the hell not, my POV banners, article edits, and contributions to this talk page are routinely reverted.  Endomion 18:03, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And clearly it isn't that you are the problem, it's all the other editors and the conspiracy against theists that are in error. --ScienceApologist 20:14, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

text: A "helpful" contribution from a recent barnstar winner, harping on religious bias.  I wonder if the above edit would score a "1" or a "5"?  Endomion 21:41, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

text: When did he alter a post? All I saw was him taking out a huge paste from the talk page of a couple of years ago, which should have been put in as a link anyway, IMHO. That's not altering anyone's post, its removing unecessary duplication of content. Did I miss something? KillerChihuahua?!? 00:12, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The Zen thing to do would be to become one with the mind of Ben, thus his concerns become clear.  Jim62sch 01:21, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Stop trolling. FeloniousMonk 07:48, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You're all mad, I'm the only sane one here (Major Bloodnok)... dave souza 08:17, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

text: I guess I'm still sore over the last time you flipped on me for trying to strike out jokes about Creationists. Here you are deleting another editor's discussion section you could have easily ignored. At least this wasn't a steady stream of insults like the discussion you insisted on keeping. --Ben 10:21, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe FM just doesn't like chewing his cud thrice.  Jim62sch 00:11, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: =P  I can definitely sympathize with that.  Oh Ben just reminded me - ignoring should be easier to do and done more frequently.  I shouldn't forget that.Lovecoconuts 05:38, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Orphaned content from Talk:Intelligent_Design (article is a redirect)

message: Anyone who's interested in the social and philosophical reasonings of the architect of intelligent design, Phillip Johnson, needs to take a few minutes to read his How The Evolution Debate Can Be Won. FeloniousMonk 17:55, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Required reading

message: Polkinghorne is a prominent British scientist and a convinced Christian. On his Q&A web page  one item concerns his views on Intelligent Design. May be of interest. By the way, his last point is: "Theologically I do not think it is a critical matter whether the ID claims are correct or not, for God, who is the ordainer and sustainer of nature, acts as much through natural processes as in any other way." Says it for me. Folks at 137 21:09, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: At least he's not a mathematician.  The odds of getting any specific bridge hand are one-in-six-hundred-twenty-billion; thus requiring us to wonder whether we should keep it or discard it because it's "so unlikely". Jim62sch 01:41, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  John Polkinghorne 

message: While it does seem rather circular to use intelligence in the definition of intelligent design, I believe sentient is not a satisfactory replacement.  As far as I can tell from ID literature, the designer must have known what he/she/it/they was/were doing--whether it was aliens, the flying spaghetti monster, Allah, or Jehova, the IDers believe the design was purposeful.  A sentient being does not necessarily have the intellect or the self-awareness to purposefully design.  Something with sentience is not necessarily self-aware or capable of designing; a frog, for example, has sentience, but it does not have the intelligence to design things beyond its instictual level. Any suggestion?
--Rousseau 01:42, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: IMHO as the purpose is to present ID in a NPOV manner, we cannot speculate as to other attributes of the proposed designer, the nature of intelligence and/or sentience, and other related issues. We can present that which is fully supported by cite and verifiable. Intelligence is the only attribute the designer has been presented as having. KillerChihuahua?!? 02:26, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: To be honest, I agree with you; there appears to be no synonym that quite fills the role of intelligent in this definition.  Plus, it is the word used by the Discovery Institute.  I think intelligent should be kept.--Rousseau 02:32, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: So I'm out-numbered, and the consensus is to define Intelligent Design by saying it's design by an intelligence. Uh...okay...me go now.   Endomion 02:54, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You don't have to take it personally.  It seems rather weird to use intelligence to define intelligent design, but sentient is definitely not the proper synonym.  Plus, if that's how the Discovery Institute wants to define their concept, who are we to argue it?--Rousseau 03:06, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed.  Anyway, if it's sentient, I think the title would have to be changed to Sentient Design.  These days, I have to use other words for "intelligent design" because right now - it's the sort of thing that makes people grin.Lovecoconuts 03:13, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sentient v. Intelligence 

message: The word unguided is used once in the article ATM.  Given that it doesn't quite have the usual meaning here, should it be explained, or be in quotes, or maybe be a link to I don't know where?  Regards, Ben Aveling 00:40, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The antonym would be "guided".  Does the concept of Intelligent Design state that evolution is actively guided, or is it more like a clockwork mechanism that was designed and set in motion?  If it states it is actively guided, then "unguided" would be appropriate.  Endomion 02:10, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The "theory" of intelligent design doesn't say one way or the other.  Guettarda 02:12, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Mutations are random, I'll grant you, but the wonderful world of sex acts as a "guide" of sorts, with the little chicky critters getting to decide which fine male display wins the prize.  Endomion 07:16, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed.  And funnily enough, the things they like (bright colors, lots of feathers or horns or whatever) are things that are 'expensive' - being able to put lots of effort into pure showing off is a signal that you are a very healthy individual; exactly what the girls are looking for. Regards, Ben Aveling 11:12, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Just to clarify.  Sex, as a mechanism, increases the genetic diversity of offspring by shuffling genetic material.  The above describes "sexual selection" which is a relatively high-level refinement to the mechanism.  On the subject of guidance, however, sexual selection essentially allows genes to guide evolution by giving them a means by which successful (whatever that means) genes can be selected (via their successful phenotypes) for partnership.  Sex, on its own, does not.  It's a blind way of increasing offspring diversity.  Anyway, I'm blabbing.  --Plumbago 12:31, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

text: This is descending into a perfect example of why semantics, as a term commonly misused by the vox populi, has a bad name.  So, let's try logic and true semantics: Since ID requires an intelligent designer it assumes a guided process.  As ID stands in opposition to evolution, unguided is thus implied.  In fact, the current CSC version of the definition uses "undirected" which is clearly synonymous with unguided.  Also, that unguided (or undirected) imply randomness is precisely the point ID wants to make. Jim62sch 12:17, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In an effort to settle this issue (and others), I reverted the first sentence to the one I agreed to with SA.  It clearly identifies the quote from the DI, and thus pushes the onus of explaining "an unguided process" to them.  Where it belongs.--ghost 15:19, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Comment - that is a good fix.  Endomion 15:25, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

text: I concur w/ghost and SA's version, it is clear and accurate. KillerChihuahua?!? 16:05, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It has the additional benefit of not being a trap.  If some n00b comes in here and tries to improve it, he or she will see the quotes and probably cry off before the whole anti-ID universe dumps on him or her for being a troll.  Endomion 16:28, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks good.  I'd still like to see 'unguided' discussed somewhere.  Maybe under 'Arguments from ignorance' we could point out that the word unguided is misleading in that it implies that a lack of conscious guidance means no guidance at all?  Regards, Ben Aveling 06:47, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

text: So long as we point out the difference between "supernaturally" guided and "naturally" guided (DNA does guide evolution), and note DI's reasoning for referring to evolution as "undirected (unguided)", it may be appropriate.  Let's see if we can reach some kind of consensus on this.  Jim62sch 15:18, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  'unguided' process 

message: A question arises concerning links between ID and certain concepts in science fiction.  For example, in Darwin's Black Box, Behe refers to a time traveling intelligent designer.  There seems to be a parallel between the (genuinely fictional) experiment by the pan-galactic mice/experimenters in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Behe's (real-life postulation) twenty years later.  It seems that ID draws upon sci-fi concepts to promote counter-Darwinian concepts, but perhaps part of sci-fi's job is to inspire advanced thinking by scientific luminaries......
I'm not sure how to best present the emergence of this type of cultural transition, using comparisons with HHGG or other sci-fi (such as Kubrick's 2001 for example), without appearing to stir up controversy.  
  
Another, perhaps more practical, viewpoint is that there's really nothing that has to do with time travel and biology in Hitchhiker's. It sounds a LOT more like the plot from a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, specifically The Chase. The story has to do with a race of humanoids who seeded their DNA on many world in the Milky Way Galaxy, such that lifeforms who would eventually evolve there would look a lot like them (which was a pseudo-sci-fi way of explaining why so many aliens looked alike - there was a star trek joke for a while that the only way to tell the aliens apart was by their forehead makeups - basically they couldn't afford the makeup or effects budget to have "aliens" that appeared a LOT different than two-armed, two-legged humans). Perhaps the postulation would derive from sci-fi concepts, just not from Adams's works (MAYBE in the first Dirk Gently novel, but that's a stretch.  
 
Any thoughts about the right way to do this???     JXM 21:05, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There is one really big physics problem with the "time traveling intelligent designer" idea.  A time machine can't go back in time farther than the date of its creation.  Then, of course, there's the circular pardox the idea creates.  It works well in sci-fi, but in the real world it's BS.  Jim62sch 00:25, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

text: *cough* Hey careful about taking credit for the stuff I left on your talk page! ;) Anyway, I think one has to be careful about how you view this - are these DELIBERATE ideas to put some ID concepts into pop culture, or ideas that have popped up in other media (especially science fiction) that one COULD interpret to be parallel to the concept of ID. I'm seeing this as a "chicken and egg" thing, I don't know how other people are viewing it - and no, I'm not trying to slight this in the least, I just want to make sure that such ideas get properly referenced. I really don't see, as stated above, where there are ID concepts in ANY of Douglas Adams's works, but I don't know if the writers of The Chase inserted the concepts (had the name "Intelligent Design" been coined as of 1993?) deliberately or not. Feel free to debate as needed. ;) --JohnDBuell 21:23, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

text: There's already a link to Panspermia in the Origins bit, in relation to Fred Hoyle's writings in the early 80s. As Panspermia#Science fiction notes, the concept goes back to the 1950s, and there are other old SF short stories that toy with the idea of an alien creator, but in the ID context this is more of an excuse than an inspiration. ....dave souza 21:43, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not to mention that Hitchhiker's dates from 1978, which predates ID as we know it now by a number of years. :) I think some of the "Space Odyssey" or "Time Odyssey" ideas (both by or co-written by Arthur C. Clarke, another 100% atheist as it happens) - where there are Watchers monitoring all forms of life in the rest of the universe could be seen as another "parallel idea." So certainly, without taking the "ID" label, the thoughts and concepts behind a superbeing or superrace watching other life in the galaxy or even the whole universe HAS been broached in other media. --JohnDBuell 21:46, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I was just reading the article for the usage of the term "Intelligent Design." Good job for those editors who have tracked its usage! I figured I was correct in saying H2G2 predated the popular use of ID as a term by a few years, it resurfaced in the mid-late 1980s. By the early 1990s, when the TNG episode referenced above was written, the writers MAY have heard of the term, or they may have just been echoing Hoyle, or just coming up with the pseudo-scientific explanation for their own plot holes, as has been alluded to before. ;) --JohnDBuell 21:50, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

text: This is a truly ridiculous deviation from the topic at hand.  Isn't there a sci-fi page you can take this silliness to?   Jim62sch 00:28, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The place is Panspermia, and if absolutely necessary the sentence could change to, say, "and was resurrected in the early 1980s by Sir Fred Hoyle as part of his promotion of panspermia which had previously featured in science fiction." However, I think that's unnecessary. ...dave souza 12:41, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: ID in Pop Culture

message: The following was added by an anon with regards to "In his view, one cannot test for the identity of influences exterior to a closed system from within, so questions concerning the identity of a designer fall outside the realm of the concept":
:However, others argue that no exterior influence could exist, the ability to affect the system means that the system is not closed to it.
I removed it as being both unclear and unsourced (actually KC beat me to it).  Whom the "others" are, where this argument has been made, what exactly the bearing of this statement is, I am unsure.  Guettarda 18:33, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I did it first, but you did it more appropriately I think - It read like nonsense to me. KillerChihuahua?!? 18:36, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not even clear what the person means, as the way it's worded the first clause seems to contradict the second clause.  Plus, if the second clause is supposed to mean what I think it's supposed to mean, cause and effect are reversed (and illogical).  Jim62sch 18:39, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I thought I covered that with "nonsense". KillerChihuahua?!? 22:49, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

text: I was in the mood to be expansive.  :)  Jim62sch 23:11, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Did you have to mention that stupid gedanke experiment?  Even Shrödinger hated the damn thing.  I shall, therefore, note my argeement with Stephen Hawking, "Everytime I hear about Shrödinger's Cat, I reach for my gun". 17:18, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: concur, I get headaches from that darn cat. KillerChihuahua?!? 17:22, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 8->  It's the Trickster in me.....--ghost 17:26, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

text: I think you may be correct -- do you have a degree in deciphering gibberish? Jim62sch 01:56, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anon's addition