Indeed. I would have no objection if @pnelson and @Eddie qualified every mention of “ID theorists” by preceding it with “nonscientific.” Do you think they’d do that?
Then by all means kindly articulate a few of them, along with the names of the one(s) of “they” who have advanced these actual scientific hypotheses, where, and when.
Most evolutionary biologists are busy with their work. They have projects that need to be written up and submitted for publication, students that need advising, courses that need teaching, organisms that need to be kept alive, and grant funding that needs to be re-applied for.
They sense, correctly, that if they wanted to involve themselves actively in writing about ID arguments, that they would have to spend some months setting most of their work aside. They see an ID movement that has such a “big tent” that it fails to be clear on whether the earth might be only 6,000 years old. They’ve got better things to do.
Nevertheless their students should pay more attention to these issues, as they’re going to run into arguments like this and ought to be able to say something sensible about them.
We should always keep in mind that ENV is a propaganda arm of the DI, and not a website that is intended to provide thoughtful, useful or accurate information. That ID Creationists are subject to rampant discrimination by the scientific establishment is one of the false narratives it is particularly enthusiastic in pushing.
I must admit, I’m surprised at how many do take the time.
Yes, I gave up reading it a long, long time ago – too little signal to noise.
Yes, I’m well aware of this, having deep-dived into some of the more prominent controversies several years ago. 
All this does nothing but further confirm my hypothesis about there not being many Evolutionary Biologists who obsessively read ENV, but refuse to speak to IDers.
None of you have taught me in a formal setting, but if I ever get into academia, I guess I will have more to share to my students from the discussions we have had and will have here.
Do you guys direct your undergrads to forums like PS?
I was chatting with Ann Gauger via Facebook messaging about how endogenous retroviruses prove common descent. She asked me to cite some relevant scientific literature. As soon as I did so, she promptly blocked me! https://www.evolutionarymodel.com/ervs.htm#References
I can’t speak for any organization, just as a guy on my own who enjoys science and theology. I know i personally go through phases of engagement with people who adhere to ID or even worse, YEC because often ID is being used but it’s actually a form of YEC being presented. At times you are just too drain to spend much time with silly beliefs that have been disproven dozens and dozens of times. There is a big difference between opening up a platform for legitimate counter arguments versus someone without them.
That is a tricky issue. Especially since I am at a state university where one is not supposed to engage in any advocacy of any particular religious view. Nevertheless I do think that evolutionary biology students should become familiar with the arguments about common descent and mechanisms of change, as, at a minimum, if they teach courses themselves they will have to know what to expect and where some of their students are “coming from”.
On some web pages, including some course webpages, I have provided links to PT, UD, and TSZ as well as Talk.origins and ENV&ST. I do warn in the text accompanying those that these sites also contain arguments about religion. I have now retired from teaching, so the issue does not arise as much for courses.
PS is secular and makes space for all sorts of religious views. Secular doesn’t mean we are to ignore dialogue with religion, but we just are not to favor one particular religious or non-religious view over others.
At the same time, I don’t think it is generally wise to point students to the origins debate in their course work per se. If they are already so inclined, they will ask questions about it, and in that extracurricular context pointing them to trustworthy sources can be reasonable.
As for citing PS in web pages meant for students, so far I haven’t. Not only because I stopped puting up course web pages, but because most of the aims of PS are theological. If an argument is about whether evolutionary biology is consistent with some particular passages about Adam and Eve in biblical texts, that is quite far off topic for a discussion of what we know about evolution.
Hi Paul,
I tried to respond on ENV to your interesting article, but comments are disabled.
Best,
Chris
EDIT: Fixed hanging participle
It wouldn’t make sense to link to the theological work. But there are scientific articles here too. For example, see this one:
Does that make sense for a science class? Probably not, as we usually would be more interested in exposing students to the underlying papers and data.
Paul Nelson’s article refers admiringly to Maynard Smith’s willingness to inter-locute with holders of non-mainstream ideas, comparing him favorably to some (unnamed) current mainstream biologists. The situations are not the same.
The argument that Maynard Smith refuted in 1970 is still being made by ID proponents, fifty years on. There is very little reason to engage with people who are making the same arguments that were refuted fifty years ago and show no willingness to respond to the refutation.
As someone who knew JMS for about 35 years, I think I should clarify that his interest was not in “inter-locuting”, trying to reach consensus with creationist debaters. But he was very interested in explaining evolutionary biology to people outside of biology, including people who got most of their information from creationist sources. He was too realistic to have any expectation that he could charm, or convince, Duane Gish into changing his views on anything. Warm fuzzy feelings of mutual respect were not his objective.
Whereas such interlocution is, in and of itself, a goal of the ID Creationist movement. It helps further their false narrative that there is a legitimate debate between IDC and science.
@pnelson’s article can be understood as part of this propaganda effort.
I think this is the important point. What’s the perceived need for engagement? What’s the benefit or what’s the compensation for spending one’s free time? Does ID present anything worth the cost of engagement, particularly when a small few may have already responded? I would say, “No”. It’s up to ID people to present a good, compelling, positive case of theoretic of design. Then, maybe other scientists would find something worthy of reviewing. But I think there is nothing really compelling or interesting right now.
Additionally, I think ENV and the DI really shoot themselves in the foot. With past articles from people like Michael Egnor or David Klinghoffer, I can see why most professional scientists would not bother engaging those associated with the organization. Honestly, it’s an advocacy organization where the science takes the backseat to polemics.
That’s true. IDers and (other) creationists have a long history of preferring/creating forums where their statements are protected from criticism.
I can’t think of many exceptions. Uncommon Descent was one in theory, but in practice the heavy-handed moderation did not actually allow this.
I guess the Skeptical Zone, based on a few recent visits, has mutated into one such place, though I don’t think that was its original intent.
Either by not allowing comments in the first place (e.g. ENV) or banning contributors as soon as they demonstrate their ability to shoot holes in ID claims (e.g. Uncommon Descent).
All of which renders Nelson’s original ENV comments even more disingenuous.