Replies

I think this is an interesting article and I have 3 immediate thoughts on it.

1. The structure of argument and rebuttal is well laid out and illustrates the way that presenting both views could be conducted in science classrooms. The case is made and rebutted in scientific terms with no reference to religious material. Make the case. Rebut the case. You'll have informed students.

2. The case for ID is well represented, but as fully and robustly as has been done in ID literature. This article illustrates a good, simple example of the pro/con discussion.

3. The rebuttals are not robust as well, and are in fact lame. For example, the rebuttal on the question of the Cambrian Explosian appears to be: hey it's really not an explosian and not really a big deal. Lame.

My favorite lame response is in the rebuttal section on the question of the Origin of Life, which is:

"In response, Robert Hazen, a geologist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, said, 'We don't have all the answers right now, but there is no evidence that the origin of life is other than a natural process.'"

I would paraphrase that as - we don't have any evidence but neither do they, so I'm sticking to my a priori assumption of naturalism. Lame.

Interesting article.

By the way, I'm currently reading published literature about ID written by the proponents (Johnson, Dembski, Behe), as well as Richard Dawkin's "The Blind Watchmaker" on evolution. There's no reason that students in school couldn't do the same.

[By the way, I'm currently reading published literature about ID written by the proponents (Johnson, Dembski, Behe), as well as Richard Dawkin's "The Blind Watchmaker" on evolution. There's no reason that students in school couldn't do the same.]

I've recently changed my mind on this and now find myself agreeing with you that we should teach ID in public schools.

We should include it in the science classroom in the section about fallacies of logic and how to recognize them. We should also include a few other examples of pseudo-science like faith healing, cold fusion, UFO abductions, astrology, and the Bermuda triangle mysteries.

I'm being totally serious. This is an excellent way to teach science students how to avoid errors in logic.

Unfortunately a lot of the public discussion of studies related to intelligent design has been pretty shallow, or as you noted "lame".

Actually there is quite a bit to be learned by thinking about the questions raised by an effort to determine if something you observe was created by an "intelligent" process. Just defining what that means is a challenge, and it is central to efforts like the SETI project.

We have lots of intelligently designed organisms around us today - cows, corn, fruit trees, etc. I doubt even the most stringent Darwinians would claim that Monsanto bio-engineered corn was a result of natural selection. So an interesting question is how do you determine if an organism was designed? How can you tell if the apple tree in the woods was created by breeding 100 years ago?

You know, the way Darwinists react to a competing theory is kind of like the way Democrats react to George Bush. Its all hate and slander. You would think that a true scientist would be eager to take on any argument against his chosen theory, if only to prove it wrong. These guys, though, resort to silly retorts like you just described, and more often, flat-out refusal to admit they are being challenged at all. Then they start name calling. Just look over some of the threads on this forum...

What is funny is that there are a lot of positive arguments for ID, but the folks on the other side always respond with some trite bs about "giving up" and resorting to explaining things by God. The normal response of the Darwinist leads me to believe they have made it more personal than the ID folks have. They have reasons beyond scientific inquiry for their faith in Darwin. I'm like the previous poster who said something along the lines of "conduct and experiment and shut up about the rest."