Okay... This is going to take a lot of italics.
Come on, now. You don't really believe that nonsense, do you? Following that line of reasoning, nobody at FR would ever be able to successfully ridicule John Kerry or Helen Thomas. Mark Steyn and Ann Coulter would find their careers effectively dead, and H.L Mencken's never would have occured.
Since Coulter and Steyn's careers aren't dead and Mencken's did occur, I'll assume you don't really believe that nonsense,and what you really mean is that the issues promulgated by the Discovery Institute are actually non-issues; that considering them anything but that, is silly from a scientific standpoint, and that therefore any point it purports to make ought to be suspect.
However, that really doesn't address anything I said; nor does referring to those who approve of the first list as being anti-science. You may find the question "already ridiculous" but to simply claim that the signers are anti-science because they agree with its statement still begs said question by running afoul of the "No true Scotsman fallacy".
Suppose I assert no Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge. You counter this by pointing out that your friend Angus likes sugar with his porridge. I then say "Ah, yes, but no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge.
It's one thing to say that ID isn't really science, and it is another to say that no true scientists endorse it. It's that latter claim that I think can't be made without committing the NTS fallacy.
As for Stephen Jay Gould, I'm a little surprised you would describe him as "great". According to John Maynard Smith, "the evolutionary biologists with whom I have discussed his work tend to see him as a man whose ideas are so confused as to be hardly worth bothering with, but as one who should not be publicly criticized because he is at least on our side against the creationists. All this would not matter, were it not that he is giving non-biologists a largely false picture of the state of evolutionary theory."
Outside of his specialty, of course, Gould is well known for having written the Mismeasure of Man, a screed attacking the Bell Curve and its authors as pseudo-scientists rather than dealing with its facts and arguments-- plainly, in the case of the late, great, Richard Hernstein in particular, an example of the No True Scotsman Fallacy.
Gould, The Mismeasure of Man, 1981
Herrnstein and Murray, The Bell Curve, 1994
It was a joke. Lighten up, Francis.
You may find the question "already ridiculous" but to simply claim that the signers are anti-science because they agree with its statement still begs said question by running afoul of the "No true Scotsman fallacy".
I didn't claims that the signers are anti-science. Your statement is, thus, an example of the "Strawman fallacy." (It is the Discovery Institute and those that wish to replace science in the classroom with fairy stories, creation myths or, to risk repetition, ID.)
It's one thing to say that ID isn't really science, and it is another to say that no true scientists endorse it. It's that latter claim that I think can't be made without committing the NTS fallacy.
I never said anything about the scientists who signed it, but about the DI, who are defrauding the public, and its tactic of lying about the supposed existance of a genuine controversy in the biological community about the validity of evolution.
Of the signatories, some are Moonies who were asked by "Father" Sun Yong Moon to pursue education and careers in biology to give the sort of legitimacy to his primative Genesisist beliefs that the DI is pushing. Some, if not most, are scientists who were duped into signing it, given the innocuousness of the statement, coupled with the signatory's ignorance of the DI and its tactics and goals. Finally, there are a bunch of scientists in non-biological fields who are born again Christians who, I believe, signed as an act of religious faith or obligation.
As for Stephen Jay Gould, I'm a little surprised you would describe him as "great". According to John Maynard Smith,...
Maynard Smith's entitled to his opinion of Gould, I'm entitled to my opinion of Maynard Smith. And anyone who wouldn't describe Gould as "great," even if they have academic differences with him, simply isn't paying attention.
Gould is well known for having written the Mismeasure of Man, a screed attacking the Bell Curve and its authors as pseudo-scientists rather than dealing with its facts and arguments...
LMAO! Referring to any of Gould's writing as a "screed" is utterly ridiculous. Gould may write many things, but "screeds" are not among them.