Intelligent Design Might Be Meeting Its Maker

The New York Times ^ | December 4, 2005 | LAURIE GOODSTEIN

[Right Wing Professor]

TO read the headlines, intelligent design as a challenge to evolution seems to be building momentum.

...

Behind the headlines, however, intelligent design as a field of inquiry is failing to gain the traction its supporters had hoped for. It has gained little support among the academics who should have been its natural allies. And if the intelligent design proponents lose the case in Dover, there could be serious consequences for the movement's credibility.

On college campuses, the movement's theorists are academic pariahs, publicly denounced by their own colleagues. Design proponents have published few papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

[js1138]

Isn't is about time for the Dover verdict?

[muir_redwoods]

"The Taliban has scientists? Ya think?"

Read my reply carefully, one need not be a scientist to have an approach to science. For example, look at the nonsense spouted by the ID proponents on this post.

[js1138]

Google knows.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

"No in fact it probably has much more to do with your posting history. You know, all that stuff you bring to the table in the name of science and the cause of evo-cultism."

Ah, another deep post from Wolfie. lol

[CarolinaGuitarman]

"Since character nor integrity is apparent here, Wolf will do it for you."

Yes, we have all noticed your lack of character and integrity Wolfie. :)

[Dimensio]

These theories must be proved

Theories in science are never proven.

Then they want to whine about teaching Intelligent Design? An idea that this universe, this world, along with humans were designed by an Intelligent being?

The "whine" is that Intelligent Design is not science, which it is not.

These g-d haters

Why do ID-pushers dishonestly claim that everyone who opposes pushing ID as science is a "God-hater"?

[js1138]

Intelligent Design has absolutely nothing to do with God or religion. The people who started the movement and promote it say so and have testified to this effect under oath.

The rejection of ID has nothing to do with re rejection of religion. It is just of an unproductive idea. If someone can make ID scientifically productive, that will be fine.

The Templeton Foundation has offered to fund ID research, but no proposals have been made.

So drop the God Hater ruse. ID is not religion.

[Dimensio]

The people who started the movement and promote it say so and have testified to this effect under oath.

And yet others claiming to champion the cause of ID say otherwise. It seems that it's religious when they want to claim "religious persecution!" and not religious when someone rightly points out that science cannot address matters of the supernatural (though ID still ends up failing as science for other reasons).

[js1138]

I am just pointing out what Templeton and Discovery Institute admit. Even when offered money for research, ID is unproductive. The ID movement cannot even suggest avenues of research.

This distinguished ID from such conjectures as string theory, which has managed, despite enormous obstacles, to produce research.

Or consider the problem quantum theory faced proving entanglement -- possibly the most counterintuitive idea ever faced by science.

When the ideas are real, the research follows.

[whispering out loud]

not without proof it doesn't

[RussP]

"Okay, I'll tell you why your exampe is silly. If we saw the expression "E=MC^2" written on the sand we would recognize it as an expression written it the language common to about 50% of humanity and would know instantly that it was put there by an intelligent force. If, instead we saw the image of a line stretching into the distance resembling this pattern,~~~~~~~ on the sand you might think it was put there by an intelligent force and I might conclude it was simply the actions of waves."

Nice try, but not quite. Replace the message "E = MC^2" with a complicated figure of any kind, and we would still "know instantly that it was put there by an intelligent force." And no, "~~~~~~~~" is *not* a complicated figure. Your claim that the message is "written in a common language" is completely incidental to the main point. Sorry, but my argument stands, despite your fervent wishes to the contrary.

[Pietro]

"The monkeys also recently typed out a Norman Mailer novel, but that doesn't count."

Priceless!

[muir_redwoods]

"Nice try, but not quite. Replace the message "E = MC^2" with a complicated figure of any kind, and we would still "know instantly that it was put there by an intelligent force." And no, "~~~~~~~~" is *not* a complicated figure. Your claim that the message is "written in a common language" is completely incidental to the main point. Sorry, but my argument stands, despite your fervent wishes to the contrary."

Sorry Russ, but you've failed again. Are you aware that the muslims in Europe have successfully gotten Burger King to pull promotional displays for their smoothee drinks because the picture of the smoothee show a whipped topping that resembles the arabic word for their pig-dog idol, allah? It seems some of your philosiophical allies found what they believed to be an intelligent script for their god in a random display of creamy topping. How is your example any different?

[Doctor Stochastic]

Dominant and recessive (and partially dominant, etc.) are all passed on by the same mechanism. Of course, having such a gene may change the survival probabilities. There're several books about the subject, but I don't remember the names. GOOGLE may be of help. The subject is "population genetics."

[Doctor Stochastic]

The statement would still be false.

[Doctor Stochastic]

That's one possibility. However, one could do things like take the percentage of a certain gene and see how this percentage may grow or shrink over generations; based on things like fitness, luck, etc. Genetic algorithms simulate specific outcomes (strong solutions to the problem) but one can also track averages (weak solutions to the problem) or other collective properties.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Not to mention Mustafa Akyol, hired by the Kansas Conseravtive, member of BAV and writer for Harun Yahyn as well as National Review.

[reasonisfaith]

Again, atheism apparently excludes any being higher than man.

You offer no argument. An argument would be a statement.
Instead you ask a question.

I don’t mind answering more than twice.

Hello?

[VadeRetro]

How do we enhance student learning by lying to them?

We could make a game of it. Call it "Spot the Bullsh*t," a game in which students evaluate different presenters on scientific validity of presentation.

The first thoughts on a cheat sheet for such a test:

• If he's telling you you'll go to hell for disbelieving, it isn't science.
• If he's appealing to the world-wide conspiracy to suppress the truth, it isn't science.
• If the evidence is just sort of everywhere around you but not in any specific series of studies or experiments, it isn't science.
• If it's a drive-by shooting of one unsupported statement after another after another, it probably isn't science. (Or, if it is, it's too poorly presented to tell.)
• If the presenter can't seem to understand your questions or objections, that's a bad sign.
• If the presentation is "all arithmetic and no model," that's a bad sign.

[Senator Bedfellow]

Google Knows All. All Hail Google! :)

I suspect a lot of posters know too, having googled it, but oddly, nobody seems to want to touch it.