[SeaLion]

Appears to be a good overview of the current debate; above is only opening extract, many useful links and sidebars on the website

[SeaLion]

Mini-ping. Not breaking news, but a reasonable overview methinks -- with Part 2 published tomorrow

[newsgatherer]

Intelligent Design: An Ambiguous Assault on Evolution

A better title would be: Intelligent Design: fact takes on the fiction of Evolution.

Jake

[NonLinear]

Not picking sides in the debate with this comment, but the article showed a pretty big skew in favor of Dawinism.

One illustration of bias in this article, is not in the text of the article, but in the web page. Embedded in the article (which is adressing ID vs Darwin) is a link to "Top 10 Creation Myths". One would naturally infer upon first glance that the link would take them to the top 10 ID myths, with the refutations, since that is the subject of the encapsulating article. Instead, one is taken to various creation stories from cultures around the world.

Another example:
The CSC is using a campaign called "Teach the Controversy" to carry out the first part of the strategy. The campaign is aimed at public schools and teachers are urged to expose students to the "scientific arguments for and against Darwinian theory." It exploits disagreements among biologists, pointing out gaps in their understanding of evolution in order to portray evolution as a "theory in crisis."
Can anyone find a teeny slant to that stucture?

But the ID people could just as easily say:
"It examines disagreements among biologists, pointing out gaps in their understanding of evolution in order to expose evolution as a "theory in crisis."

There are many more examples mostly relating to the stucture of his arguments, and the deflections from the stated topic to superflurous issues, but this post has grown WAY longer than I intended...

Rather than address the arguments for and against Darwinism in juxtaposition with those for and against ID, the article proceeds to simply bash ID as unscientific. Darwinsim slips from the scientific realm and into the myth realm when it is argued not as a mechanism of natural selection and adaption, and diversification of species but as a starting point for those species.

Examples of stuff that would have been relevant:
Darwin explains nicely how DNA allows creatures to adapt. Darwin fails miserably in explaining how DNA comes into being from seawater, miscellaneous inorganic molecules, and very simple carbon compounds, namely CO2 and methane. Given the concentrations of the various compounds in the ocean, and given the temperatures involved, kenetics suggests much difficulty in building up relatively simple molecules even over geologic time spans. Very complex organic molecules forming naturally are quite a leap of faith, even given billions of years. The need for faith is the argument against ID, so why is Darwin given a pass?

Agreed that creationism has big problems with matching up with scientific evidence - fossil records, geologic strata, etc. But Darwin has problems with fossil records too. Where are all these intermediate transition species that failed? Scientific method does not allow the false dichotomy "Not A therefore B". Honest scientific method says "If Not A AND Not B, then something else".

I guess my point is that I would much rather see an honest debate than this type of coverage. And, yes, if the article were supporting ID using the same slanted coverage, I would have to bash it too. At some point both sides need to actually examine the weaknesses of their own arguments as well as the strengths of the opposing argument, and somewhere below the tornado of hyperbole, will be the truth.

Opinion in the Evolution vs ID argument for schools:
Should ID be taught in school? If evolution is taught as the "BRANCHING of the species" then no. If evolution is taught as "The ORIGIN of the species" then yes. Darwin showed plausible evidence of the former, but the latter has not been shown to be any less speculative than ID.

[RadioAstronomer]

Thanks for posting this.

[newcthem]

An Assault on Evolution? I find it ironic that proponents of "science" speak far and wide about free thinking and open research, yet when a view is proposed that doesn't fit their template, it is termed an assault. Why is another idea considered an assault? Perhaps the free thinkers of the scientific community are not as open with their views as they would like us to believe............Kind of like the PC crowd.

[fizziwig]

Here we go again with the evo ID debate. Each side setting up a straw man and then knocking him down. Its hopeless...I'm out...sayonara.

[kublia khan]

"For Americans who view evolution as inconsistent with their intuitions or beliefs about life and how it began, Creationism has always been a seductive alternative"
Actually for many millennium apparently using the evolution theory's time-line, creation had no competition and the theory of evolution as postulated by Darwin is a very late arrival.

[Lexinom]

Darwin's truththeory

Fixed (no charge, ma'am).

[Doc Savage]

What debate? Evolution is a THEORY. Prove it and your detractors will go away! I will bet you geniuses that you were taught that Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny and you blindly accepted it as fact based on proven fraudulent drawing. You were also taught One Gene - One Enzyme, which has also been proven incorrect. You were taught the Miller and Urey PROVED the "creation" (knew you'd like that word!) of life. All false. All proven false.

Just produce the peer-reviewable and reproducible research proving Macro-Evolution actually occurred and was the singular force in the "creation" "knew you would love that word!) of life and we will all go away quietly. But you can't.

You will never be able to overcome the black box of molecular structure and design. But you guys love pretending Macro-Evolution is fact. It's theory! You guys really need to get outside your bathrooms more. Maybe catch a ball game or hunt mushrooms!

[G Larry]

Bump!