Yet you left it out of your list of ways for Wikipedia editors to resolve arguments.
It’s not hard. I understand it. My point is that when listing the ways Wikipedia editors might resolve disagreement, you omitted ‘evidence’. That omission is informative.
The statement is true, and your arguments never overcame the evidence for it.
You should have looked for it before posting your comment.
For all your posturing and vilification of Wikipedia, the only ‘misrepresentation’ you have identified is the Wikipedia statement that “ID is a form of creationism”, which accurately reflects the mainstream view and is supported by evidence, and the only ‘bias’ you have identified is Gunter Bechly having the page a colleague and he wrote about himself being deleted because Bechly was too insignificant to meet Wikipedia’s qualifications for entry, too egotistical to avoid writing about himself and too dumb to avoid getting noticed.
Wikipedia is defining ID the way the people who invented the term (in its modern form) defined it - which is identical to their definition of creationism. Hence the statement that ID s a form of creationism. They’re not imposing a disavowed definition, they’re simply not allowing the originators to rewrite history. That those people have specifically disavowed any connection between two identically defined terms is not Wikipedia’s problem.
And as usual, @Eddie neglects to mention that the meaning of the term as defined by its originators was identical to their definition of creationism, and is compatible with other definitions of creationism.
I did not say that an encyclopaedia is not a proper forum for recording criticisms of ID. Of course it can and should do that. It is not, however, its job to promote those criticisms of ID. It’s job is to say: “This is what the term ID means, as its proponents use it, and these are the arguments they present for it, and, on the other hand, these are the people who say that ID arguments are not valid, and these are the arguments they present against it, and the current majority opinion of biologists regarding ID is that it has failed to make its case.” Written that way, an encyclopedia argument is informative – it helps the reader to understand what ID is, why some people defend it, what the objections are against it, and its current level of acceptance. In contrast, articles which state that ID is creationism, ID is pseudoscience, etc. go beyond reporting what scientists or the majority of scientists say, and render the verdict of the writers of the encyclopedia rather than the verdict of the scientists who criticize ID.
I have nothing against Wikipedia reporting that the majority of biologists in the USA think that ID false; that is neutral, objective reporting. I do have something against Wikipedia saying, in its own name, “ID is false” (or anything equivalent). That’s is not neutral, objective reporting, it’s rendering a verdict, and that’s not the job of an encyclopedia.
When a journalist covers a court trial, he represents the arguments of the prosecution and the defense, but he does not add, “and the prosecution is clearly right here, and the defense is clearly wrong.” Even when the trial is over, he does not say (if he is a responsible journalist), “It is a fact that Mr. Smith murdered his wife.” He says, “the jury found (or the judge ruled) that Mr. Smith murdered his wife.”
The distinction I am making here is not a shallow or trivial one. It’s important, not just regarding ID and Wikipedia, but regarding all reporting over debated questions.
Yes, that is correct. If Wikipedia had said that, I would have no problem with the statement. I’ve made the equivalent statement here myself, many times.
It depend on what you mean by “identifies ID as creationism”.
(1) If you mean, formally defines ID as creationism, or as a species of creationism, then no; neither the 1989 nor the 1993 edition does that. In fact, neither edition contains the word “creationism”, and “creationist” occurs only twice, and not referring to the American setting, but to 18th-century Europe.
In fact, the glossary at the back of the 1993 edition contains this definition of intelligent design: “In biology, the theory that biological organisms owe their origin to a preexistent intelligence.” That’s the only formal definition of intelligent design in either edition. Note that there is no mention of Genesis here, and no mention of the Bible at all. In fact, this definition is compatible with religions other than Christianity, such as Judaism and Islam, and it’s compatible even with some versions of pagan theology, e.g., Platonist ones. Note how broad this definition is. Whereas creationism, in the American context, is a belief within Protestant Biblicist religion, and explicitly mentions the Bible and the creation stories in Genesis, there’s no mention of the Bible or Genesis. And “owe their origin to a prexistent intelligence” isn’t necessarily the same as “arose by special creation.” For example, Michael Denton would agree with “owe their origin to a preexistent intelligence” but not with “arose by special creation.”
Creationism, on the other hand, in the American context in which Pandas emerged, is a specifically Christian belief tied up with a specific literalist reading of Genesis.
(2) I suspect, however, that you are referring to the discovery that earlier drafts of Pandas had “creationism” or kindred terms where the printed editions had “intelligent design”, and that you’re saying that when the authors of Pandas say “intelligent design”, they really means “creationism” but are avoiding the word for tactical reasons. Much could be said about this, but we can concede that the terminology was changed, and even changed for tactical reasons, and that the authors saw a close relationship between intelligent design and creationist thinking, without conceding that the two terms are pure synonyms. In fact, within the argument of the book, the Bible and Genesis (which are barely mentioned), aren’t called upon to establish anything. And by the time Discovery starts promoting ID (the Pandas book was not published by Discovery), intelligent design is a concept that operates completely freely of any Biblical background.
Thus, Behe accepts universal common descent, which no creationist does, and he does not regard Genesis as teaching science or literal history, which all creationists do. Denton is the same on these points. Sternberg appears to be in the same ballpark, and Michael Flannery as well. Whatever might have been the original reason for adopting the term “intelligent design” for Pandas by the publisher of Pandas, it took on a life of its own, and now there are several people at Discovery, and plenty of followers of Discovery, who are ID supporters but not creationists as that term is usually used. This is why it’s wrong to say that ID, in itself, is creationism or even a species of creationism.
Elementary logic shows that ID can’t be a species of creationism, because ID is the broader term of the two, creationism the narrower one. So it would be more reasonable to say that creationism is a species of ID – the species of ID which rejects universal common descent and regards Genesis as actually describing the details of what happened in the world’s creation. So both in terms of logic and in terms of how ID proponents define the term, the Wikipedia definition is incorrect in terms of how ID understands itself theoretically and in relation to creationism.
Discovery, the official base of ID, has explicitly distinguished ID from creationism in articles I’ve cited or alluded to many times. See, for example, Top Questions and Answers About Intelligent Design Theory | Discovery Institute, points 2 and 3, and Intelligent Design and Creationism Just Aren’t the Same | Discovery Institute. These items were produced by Discovery before the Dover trial and were fully available to Wikipedia writers before they produced any of their current articles on ID. So Wikipedia was fully aware that the organization which was promoting the effective current meaning of intelligent design did not define intelligent design as creationism or a kind of creationism. Yet it chose to impose on ID a definition which its proponents itself rejected.
The motive for this imposition was plainly political. If ID is creationism, then it can be bashed for all the reasons that creationism is bashed. So it’s convenient for culture-war purposes to equate them. But if we define ID conceptually, according to its own notions of design detection, we can see it is not in itself creationism – even though most creationists agree with and make use of it. And this is in agreement with your first statement above.
The topic here is not “academics who have prominently opposed ID”, but “self-appointed non-academics who write the Wikipedia articles on ID.” I have not on this page attacked Coyne, Dawkins, etc. I have attacked much less talented and much less socially significant individuals who hold the same views as Coyne and Dawkins but seek an immunity from criticism that Coyne and Dawkins don’t seek, by sheltering themselves under the protection of Wikipedia. They are mere culture-warriors who have seized control of an institution originally intended as a public service (i.e., to provide information) to turn it into a propaganda tool. They deserved to be called what they are.
If my calling them what they are offends you, tough! People here offend me daily, and I don’t whine about it. I’ve a hundred times here been called names that would warrant me flagging the post for violating the basics of good manners and the spirit of “Peaceful Science,” but I never do flag the insulting posts. (Sometimes others have done so on my behalf, for which I thank them, but I haven’t.) Anyhow, it’s not your job to defend these Wikipedians (unless you’re secretly one of them). If they are offended by my criticism of them here, they can crawl out of their woodwork and defend themselves. But to continue my metaphor, given that invertebrates that live in woodwork do not have spines, I know that none of them ever will.
Yes, I have little doubt that you would do that, just as I have little doubt that a good number of the Wikipedia editors would do that under parallel conditions of absolute freedom.
It doesn’t represent the mainstream view of society overall, though it may reflect the mainstream view of certain sub-sections of society, such as atheist culture warriors. In any case, the “view” you speak of is an opinion, and while an encyclopedia article may report opinions, it should not report opinions as facts. The fact that certain people with zero training in philosophy, theology, and philology think that ID is creationism does not make their thought true.
Wrong. See my detailed reply to Paul King, and the references therein.
The definition of ID is whatever Discovery says it is. They have de facto ownership of the term, being the leading articulator of the concept for over 25 years now. Whether one can move from that definition to show that it is equivalent to creationism is a completely separate question. You’re confusing a possible deduction with a definition. But the two things are logically quite distinct. Wikipedia, concerned with culture-war politics rather than logical rigor, runs roughshod over that distinction, putting an equals sign where it should put a question mark. You either have not noticed this sleight of hand, or have noticed it but approve of it. Either way, we are never going to agree. I stand with the co-founder of Wikipedia, who created its neutral point of view policy and is the most reliable interpreter of it. And applying his own principles regarding neutral point of view, I think that the “appallingly biased” judgment extends beyond the specific article on ID to cover the majority of the Wikipedia articles on ID and related subjects.
Right. The people who invented the term “intelligent design” (in its modern form) defined it in the first published edition of OPaP, as: “Intelligent design means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency, with their distinctive features already intact. Fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, wings, etc.” That is identical to their previous definition of creationism, making “intelligent design”, as originally defined, equivalent to creationism.
That the DI have subsequently rewritten their definition to obscure that connection does nothing to change the fact, correctly reported by Wikipedia, that ID is a form of creationism.
They can change their definition as much has they like, and change their term from ‘creationism’ to ‘intelligent design’ to ‘sudden emergence’ if they like, but unless they also change their ideas and supporting arguments they will still be pushing creationism.
That definition doesn’t come from biology at all. It’s straight out of scientific creationism.
As usual, you’ve ‘forgotten’ to mention this definition: “Intelligent design means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency, with their distinctive features already intact. Fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, wings, etc.”
So I was right despite your strange objection. Odd that you would hold that I was the one making the mistake when the error was obviously yours.
And I would certainly say that Wikipedia should not be “neutral” in a way that gave any credence to the false claims of the ID movement. A political and religious movement which produces far more propaganda than science.
As others have pointed out it goes further than that, “Intelligent Design” was substituted for “creation” to the extent that the definition of “creation” became a definition of “Intelligent Design”. Clearly they were considered synonyms at that point. The Discovey Institute was not quite synonymous with the ID movement but the links are there. Nancy Pearcey contributed. The Discovery Institute promoted it as an ID textbook (which demonstrates yet again the anti-scientific nature of ID). And agreed to defend it’s use in the Dover trial. Not to mention even greater involvement in later editions.
I also remember a supporter of Intelligent Design - a big fan of Philip Johnson - complaining that he had been asked to leave the movement for going too far in his acceptance of common descent. I rather think that the acceptance of Behe’s views has far more to do with the fact that it’s Behe than with anything else.
What previous definition of creationism? I already told you: the word “creationism” does not appear in the book. How could the book contain a definition of “creationism” when the word “creationism” doesn’t appear?
The passage you are quoting appears in both the 1989 and 1993 editions, on pp. 99-100. You seem to be treating it as a formal definition, as if it means: “Intelligent design is the doctrine that various forms of life began abruptly…” Well, it could mean that. But then we would have, at least in the 1993, two different definitions of intelligent design. We would have:
“Intelligent design is the doctrine that various forms of life began abruptly…”
and
“Intelligent design is the theory that biological organisms owe their origin to a preexistent intelligence.”
Note that the second definition says nothing about abruptness or timing at all. Its focus is entirely on “preexistent intelligence.”
So how did Kenyon and Davis want us to relate the two ideas? Did they want us to think that intelligent design per se is just the claim that organisms required a preexistent intelligence, but that they, Davis and Kenyon, are making the additional assertion that the intelligence brought various forms into existence abruptly? Or did they want us to think that intelligent design, by definition, requires abrupt creation of forms?
I don’t pretend to know what they were thinking, because they didn’t write clearly enough to be sure. But I can talk with knowledge about what “intelligent design” meant very soon afterward, because we have web pages from Discovery, the books of Behe and Dembski, etc., from the mid-1990s on. And the insistence on forms of life beginning abruptly rapidly fades from view during this period, as the emphasis on things like “irreducible complexity”, and “the explanatory filter” (in which none of the three options is “abrupt emergence”), and living things as displaying “informational properties”, and “design detection” become the predominant themes. By the time of the Dover trial, all these ideas are up front in presentations of ID.
One of the three top public faces of ID, Michael Behe, was asked to comment on the exact passage you quoted, at the Dover trial (see Day 11, pm session, pages 4-6). In the exchange with the lawyer, he said:
“I certainly do not think that intelligent design means that a feature has to appear abruptly.”
When the lawyer asks him for a better notion of ID from the same book (Pandas), he says that it’s about detecting design from the purposeful arrangement of parts, and cites a passage on page 144 (which he himself wrote) about the blood clotting system.
Later, when the lawyer asks him again whether abrupt appearance is necessary for intelligence design, he says (page 8):
“No. Again, intelligent design simply is the theory that designed features can be detected from the physical – physical evidence of nature, it [i]s seen in the purposeful arrangement of parts, but it does not say anything directly about how fast such a thing might go, how slow such a thing might go, or other interesting questions.”
The position Behe outlines there – that intelligent design is compatible with, but does not require, abrupt appearance – was the public position of Discovery at the time of the Dover trial (as a search of the various documents on the site will confirm, including one I cited earlier which stated that intelligent design was compatible with common descent).
Now if ID required abrupt appearance of new forms, then it could plausibly be equated with creationism. But if it’s merely compatible with abrupt appearance, while also being compatible with smooth appearance (new forms arising gradually out earlier ancestors), then it can’t be equated with creationism.
Let’s take the worst-case scenario for my earlier claim. Suppose that Kenyon and Davis understood “intelligent design” to require abrupt creation, special creation of basic forms, by definition. Then I made a historical error in saying that the people who originated the term were not pushing any form of creationism. All right, I can easily admit that. But having admitted that I made a historical error, I’m in the clear regarding everything else I’ve been saying about ID and Wikipedia’s mischaracterization of it.
Here’s why.
Whatever Davis and Kenyon may have meant by the term, “the theory of intelligent design” today means the theory as it stands now, not as it stood in the writings of Davis and Kenyon in 1989 and 1993. The Texas company which published their book is extinct. They themselves are only very minor players in the ID movement today, if they’re even still alive. (I have no idea, and I don’t care.) Discovery took over the leadership of the ID movement in the mid-1990s, and the Seattle HQ became the de facto legislature of the movement. After that, “intelligent design” meant what Discovery said it meant, not what Davis and Kenyon might have intended it to mean.
And Discovery has made it extremely plain that ID does not require abrupt emergence of species, is compatible in principle with universal common descent, is focused on design detection rather than miracle detection, and is no more specially connected, theoretically, with Christian religion or the Bible than it is with Islam or Judaism or ancient Platonic notions of design. And it has shown this not just in word but in deed, by publishing six books by Michael Denton, who is not a creationist by anyone’s definition (Faizal Ali being the only exception among the world’s current 7 billion inhabitants) and in fact is an ardent believer in an evolutionary process that is not assisted by any miracles or divine tinkering. In light of all of this, no one can say that ID is creationism, or is a form of creationism. One can plausibly argue that ID owes its historical origin to creationism, and one can say truly that most ID proponents are creationists, but one cannot say, speaking of the present, that ID is creationism. It’s simply, and demonstrably, a false description.
And since it is demonstrably false, but Wikipedia keeps saying it, then Wikipedia lies. And why do people or institutions lie? Usually for money, or power, or social influence. In this case it’s the latter. Wikipedia wants to control what people think about origins, by lying to them. It wants people to believe that if they even begin to take seriously the idea that design in nature might be inferable, they will be sucked into believing a whole set of anti-science, Christian fundamentalist teachings. E.g., if they investigate ID today, they’ll start believing that radiocarbon dating doesn’t work tomorrow, and next thing you know they will be denying all of geology and affirming a global Flood. Wikipedia is using the bogeyman of “creationism” to try to deter people from looking into rational and empirical (non-Bible-based) evidence for design. It’s a deliberate rhetorical strategy, which logically can have no other motivation than to prop up materialism and atheism, and it’s entirely dishonest.
I made no error. You did not understand, or at least did not express, the distinction between recording criticisms and taking the side of those criticisms. I clarified the discussion by stressing the difference between the two.
What I’m advocating has nothing at all do with “giving credence” to ID or anything else. The job of a general encyclopedia article on ID is simple. You record what ID says, you record its arguments, you record what its critics say, you record their arguments, and finally, you record the current state of opinion regarding ID. Record it. Then you shut up and stop writing. If you do more, if you go on to say (whether crudely and directly, or subtly and indirectly, by slanting the prose), “And by the way, I agree with the critics that ID sucks,” then you’re not an encyclopedia-writer, you’re an opinion columnist, a cultural critic, or whatever. Your job as the author of a general encyclopedia article is not to take a social, political, or cultural stand on anything; your job is to give all the information that people need to make up their minds about the question, not to do their thinking and their concluding for them. As one of the few people here (perhaps the only one?) to have published an article in a real encyclopedia (i.e., one run by and written by professional scholars whose names and qualifications are known, not hidden), I think I can say I’m giving a fair description of what a traditional encyclopedia does.
We had this discussion long ago. Probably you weren’t here yet. Joshua made a useful distinction between ID as a theory about design in nature and ID as a social/religious movement. When one talks about “ID” it’s necessary to make clear whether one is talking about it as a theory or a movement.
When I talk about ID, unless I specify otherwise, I’m talking about it as a theory, i.e., the theory that there is detectable design in nature, including all the related methodological discussions, empirical evidence, etc. I’m not talking about the activity of Discovery regarding school boards or the cause of bringing America back to a Christian nation, or anything of the sort. Now, ID as a theory has nothing to do with creationism. It does not presuppose the truth of the Bible, or of Christianity. It makes no use of Genesis. It couldn’t care less how old the earth is. It is not interested in in trying to find fragments of the Ark. It’s about looking at the information in cells and the apparently purposeful arrangement of parts in living things and the apparent fine-tuning of nature without which there could be no life, and it’s about trying to determine if these things point to a conclusion of intelligent design. Full stop.
I think that you are talking primarily about ID as a movement, and have almost no interest in it as a theory. So we are approaching things from the opposite direction. You probably like Wikipedia’s articles on ID because you think they tell the truth about the ID movement, but I hate them because they tell falsehoods about ID as a theory. As a theory, ID is not creationism, and it boils my blood to hear it stated that it is.
If Wikipedia would split its article into two, one on ID theory and one on the ID movement, and accurately characterize each, I would not have a problem. But because its editors are furious, for culture-war reasons, at ID as a movement, they can’t resist the temptation to misrepresent ID as a theory. Their rage to fight “creationism” (which for them is a social evil even more than a theoretical error) makes them unjust, causes them not to represent accurately what ID as a theory is claiming.
This is a garbled, oversimplified account. If you want a discussion from someone who knows the relevant texts in some detail (i.e., me – there’s no one here who has read as much ID literature as I have), see my long reply to Roy about the Pandas book quotation.
Without specifics, I can’t comment on this. I’ll just say I know hundreds of ID people, from the very top names down through the rank and file, and have been interacting with these people for about 15 years, often several times a day, and everyone is made to feel welcome. YECs, OECs and evolutionists all acknowledge each other as legitimate members of the ID fraternity. I’ve seen people start with Behe’s position and abandon it for OEC, and I’ve seen OECs abandon OEC for Behe’s position. In neither case was the person censured or blackballed by the ID community. And in the very rare cases where someone acts a little pushy, e.g., seeming to belittle YECs or seeming to attack those who accept common descent, I’ve seen prominent people step in and remind everyone listening that ID is a big tent and that what unites us is an interest in design detection. It’s the freest intellectual community I know – far freer than the community in most universities these days, where political correctness has created a massive list of things you’re not supposed to say or even think. Every day I converse with Christians, Jews, agnostics, Deists, – for a while, we even had an atheist ID proponent, believe it or not. (He’s no longer an atheist, but when he was, he was welcome in the intellectual community because he was open to the possibility of design in nature.) As an intellectual community, we can fairly boast that there is more diversity of opinion, both scientific and religious, in our group than in groups that are solely OEC, YEC, EC/TE, or atheist/materialist. Every imaginable variant on creation and evolution, except Dawkins/Coyne/Monod atheism, is found within our ranks. It’s the least doctrinaire collective I’ve ever been involved in. Much less doctrinaire than the collective that produces Wikipedia articles on origins.
Nonsense. You insisted that you only meant the labelling of ID as creationism and insisted that I should have known that you meant that. As you have admitted that is not what you meant.
And again we have the conflation of disagreement with a statement with a failure to understand it.
I certainly disagree with the idea that the claims of the ID movement should be given any consideration at all.
The arrogant pretence of superiority is very wearing, and not at all appropriate to this forum.
ID itself is an alliance of people with different ideas. The point of agreement is so vague that I do not accept that it can be rightly called a theory. That only leaves the social religious movement,
I’ve seen the reply but it doesn’t indicate any garbling on my part. Clearly ID was used as a synonym of creation.
I was quite a while ago, but nevertheless I remember it clearly.
And I really question your opinion given the sheer hate we see in your posts here.
Now I’m lost. I don’t even know what it is you think I have admitted. It’s not worth the time to try to go back over all our back and forth to sort out how and where we got confused. The point I was trying to make, somewhere back there, was that it’s fine for Wikipedia to write that Scientists X and Y and Z think that ID is not good science, but it’s not fine for Wikipedia to write that ID is not good science. The writers at Wikipedia aren’t trained in any science at all, not even to the Bachelor’s level (as is obvious from reading their comments on the Talk pages), and they know zero about the philosophy of science, so they’re in no position to say what is or what is not good science; and even if they did have such knowledge, it’s not the job of the writer of a general encyclopedia article to make such judgments. I gather you think differently. I gather you think that writers of general encyclopedia articles, when writing about controversial subjects where there is much combative exchange, should take the “right” side in the combat and defend it, and try to destroy the “wrong” side in the combat. There we disagree over what the role of an encyclopedia is.
I don’t know why you disagree. If it’s due to some reasoned position on what encyclopedias actually do, or should do, based on your experience as a scholar or encyclopedia editor or the like, you can share with me examples of general encyclopedias which blatantly take sides in contemporary debates, or you can show me some statements by editors-in-chief of Britannica, Collier’s, Americana, etc. about the duties of encyclopedias. But if it’s merely due to your hatred of ID, and you’re inventing ad hoc principles about what encyclopedia articles should do to justify what Wikipedia does to ID, then you’re not arguing out of any academic principle, but out of a political agenda.
See above, where I distinguish between ID movement and ID as a theory. I have not defended all the activities of the ID movement. But the idea that design in nature might be detectable is an idea with a respectable intellectual pedigree, and can be found in Plato, the Stoics, Newton, Boyle, Paley, the writers of the Bridgewater Treatises, etc. To rule it out as something not even worth investigating is sheer prejudice. To say that biology should rule it out is sheer dogmatism.
I don’t know your academic background, so I don’t know what kind of methodological assumptions you make in whatever subject you trained in. It might help if you told me where you were coming from, biographically speaking. If I know some of the working assumptions about nature, science, design vs. chance, etc. that you bring to the table because of your education or profession, I might be able address your objections in a way that is more to your liking. As it stands, all I am getting is a bunch of potshot objections that don’t represent any particular philosophical or methodological position.
That’s rich, given I’m complaining about the arrogant pretense of superiority on Wikipedia. All you have to do is study some of the Talk pages where the atheist/materialist editors are lashing out with belittling remarks at more open-minded editors who dare to propose emendations to their sentences.
I don’t know how well you know the culture here on PS. The site was founded by a Christian, Joshua, who wanted to find a more peaceful way of talking about origins issues, one that could bring Christians and non-Christians together in a civil, respectful conversation. That goal was admirable. But it hasn’t worked out that way. If you look at a good number of the discussions here, not all but probably the majority, they are dominated by atheist/materialist posters, and scorn is regularly heaped on any Christian poster who is perceived as supporting creationism or ID, or who even defends just plain non-creationist Christian faith. The posts from the atheists (there are exceptions, such as T. aquaticus, who does not engage in lower methods of debate, and most of the time Rumraket, who sticks to the scientific arguments and avoids religion-baiting) tend to be sarcastic, put-downish, and filled with accusations of low or dishonest motivations. They frequently insult and berate people. Just recently I was directly called a hypocrite by one of the atheists here, and no one flagged the post. (I never flag posts myself, no matter how vicious they are to me.) The place resembles a bear-pit or a mud-wrestling contest wherever the majority of the posters on a topic are the atheists. There are never discussions here (which implies give and take) when the atheists dominate; there are only quarrels. I can count on my fingers the number of times any atheist/materialist here has said something like, “You’ve got a point there. I withdraw that part of my argument. However, I still would maintain…” It’s always a take-no-prisoners battle in which everything I say is wrong, and everything the atheist says is right. The atheists here (most of them) seem to be driven by testosterone, because they are constantly in showdown mode.
I’m convinced that it’s this showdown mode which has driven away the very few female posters we ever had on the site. Most women I know see conversation as something collegial and cooperative, not competitive. They don’t like places like this, and after looking in the window at the proceedings, they just keep on walking.
So if you think I’m too firm in my stances, or too aggressive in my responses, bear in mind that I’m dealing with levels of conversational aggression that I never encounter in ordinary civilian life, where people are mostly polite to each other. The tone and argumentative methods used here by some people would never be tolerated in most workplaces, and certainly not by the professors who taught me. Even in graduate seminars, where often strong disagreement is expressed, e.g. between a Calvinist and a Thomist, or between a Platonist and a Hobbesian, I never saw aggression such as I’ve seen here. And since I don’t like to be bullied myself, and since I don’t like to see others bullied, I sometimes stand up very firmly to such aggression.
I and someone else here once proposed creating a subsection of Peaceful Science, dedicated specifically to Christians who want to talk about origins issues, in which the understanding would be that arguments about the truth of Christianity, about the truth of the Bible, etc. would not be allowed, and an intra-Christian exchange among defenders of YEC, OEC, TE, EC, genealogical Adam, etc. would take place. The existence of such a subsection would not prevent all the atheists who currently dominate the pages of PS from continuing to do what they do now, over most of the site. But it would provide a zone for the discussion of specifically Christian views on the subject of origins. It would thus solve the problem which has not yet been solved here, and was never solved on BioLogos, of how to hold a pan-Christian discussion of origins which does not turn bitter and violent due to being hijacked by atheist-materialists. We were asking for maybe 5% of the discussion space for Christians who want to debate about origins – on a website founded by a Christian who says that Jesus is more important to him even than science! It wasn’t an unreasonable request. But it never got anywhere.
I believe there is a place for arguments between atheists and Christians. But there is also a place for arguments among Christians about origins. No one yet has come up with a website where that can take place. PS could be that place, if it chose to become a house with many mansions, one of them being the Christian mansion. It would be heaven on earth for me to find myself, after over a dozen years of hostile climates on the internet, in a place where many people disagreed strongly with my views on origins, but where there was enough common humanity due to shared Christian beliefs (and Christian manners!) that the disagreement could take place as a disagreement among friends, rather than a war between sworn enemies. A place where the feeling communicated from the other posters was “I think you’re wrong, but I think you have the highest motives and I respect and love you,” rather than, “I think you’re wrong, and I think you have the lowest motives, including wanting to bring in a theocracy and take away my freedoms, and I hate you.” I wish that the Christians in the management and moderator positions here could see their way toward creating that kind of feeling, on some small portion of this site.
See above. You’d see none of that supposed “hate” if the dialogical atmosphere here were less hateful. If this place were less of a gathering ground for angry atheist-materials who themselves hate ID and creationism, there would be no need for people like me to be constantly standing up to those who bully and insult the Christians here.
Quit yammering, @Eddie. You’ve read the Kitzmiller transcripts. You’ve read the Wikipedia page on ID. You’ve seen the previous definition posted here on multiple occasions. You’ve even replied to those posts with various vacuous excuses for ignoring this definition. You know exactly what the previous definition is, it’s the definition from the first 1987 draft of Of Pandas and People, which reads “Creation means that the various forms of life began abruptly through the agency of an intelligent creator with their distinctive features already intact. Fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, and wings, etc.”
The definition that shows that “Intelligent Design” means exactly the same as “Creation”, and intelligent design originated as a form of creationism.
There is not an icicle’s chance in Inferno that you are not aware of this, so stop the stupid rhetorical pretence that this definition didn’t exist because it didn’t make it to the published edition, and don’t pretend you don’t know about something you’ve not only encountered but responded to on many previous occasions. You aren’t fooling anyone, you’re just showing us all how far you’re willing to sink in your attempts to defend ID.
Here’s another demonstration:
Dean Kenyon is still alive. He is now a Fellow of the Discovery Institute CSC. So is Charles Thaxton, who edited Pandas. In your attempt to distance ID and Discovery from Pandas you have resorted to claiming that current Discovery Institute Fellows are “very minor players in the ID movement”. You have no excuse for not knowing this either, since (i) it’s been pointed out to you before, and (ii) its mentioned on their Wikipedia pages which, despite your rants about bias against IDers in general and Gunter Bechly in particular, haven’t been deleted.
So @Eddie, for all his ranting about the Wikipedia entry on ID, doesn’t know that Wikipedia does have a separate page for the ID movement. Even though that’s literally the first thing on Wikipedia’s page on “Intelligent Design”:
But despite this frequent interaction with IDers for 15 years you somehow don’t know that Charles Thaxton and Dean Kenyon are Fellows of the Discovery Institute, or even still alive.
I slipped up slightly - the original definition was for ‘creation’, not ‘creationism’. But that just means that ‘intelligent design’ (the concept) is ‘creation’; ‘intelligent design’ (the movement) is still creationism. It doesn’t excuse Eddie’s convenient memory losses.
Been away, added about a half dozen birds to my lifer list, now catching up on what I might have missed and offering stray comments:
Uh huh.
So should we then also conclude that I spent six years in university academic studies and then a further five years in internship and residency programs to become an “Anti-Creationist Prophet”? (Answer: No, we should not).
So do you also think it would be informative and accurate too merely say of Flat Earth Theory that “a majority of geologists and astronomers believe the theory to be false” and leave it at that? I personally think that would be highly misleading, and no more so than your proposed statement on ID. .
Important tidbit I learned from the foregoing discussion: The now-defunct English Wiki page on ID-crank Gunther Bechly was mostly written by ID-crank Gunther Bechly. This amuses me greatly.
Since ID is not even science I disagree. An encyclopedia is not required to show any deference to the claims of the ID movement.
As I pointed out there is no ID theory, You’d think that if ID was science there would be some movement in that direction. Some direction for a research program. But there isn’t and the only scientific work they seem to do is to try to poke holes in evolution. And they don’t seem to do a great job of that.
Then maybe the ID movement should get on with investigating it. If they are going to make any claim to be doing science they should be engaged in a positive research program. Not the endless propaganda mill,
I must say that you seem to be one of the biggest obstacles to that goal. Maybe you should learn to be more tolerant of disagreement and less arrogant - and less prone to making false accusations, too. (No I haven’t forgotten the completely imaginary “allegations of bad motives”)
I really doubt that, The climate change issue hardly represents a religious divide. The rants against Wikipedia editors are not directed against anyone here. And, well, you don’t seem very Christian to me.