Fine. You’re entitled to your definition, as long as you state it. But neither Behe nor anyone else has appointed T. aquaticus the official definer of the term “evolution” for the whole world. If you want to have a meaningful conversation with people who use terms differently, you have to register those differences before you declare that they have made errors. Most of your objections to Behe have rested on the equivocation between evolution as “descent with modification” and evolution as “an unguided process of blind search for viable outcomes.” And I’ve had no success in getting you to see this.
Maybe one could. But the TEs say they are talking about not just any intelligent designer, but the God of the Bible, as understood in evangelical Christianity. And they have never made clear how a genuinely open-ended search for adaptations is compatible with planned outcomes determined in advance by God. When asked about it, they won’t even discuss it, beyond chanting “Providence, providence, providence.” You’d think they all worked for the Chamber of Commerce on Rhode Island.
It isn’t. Explicit allegiance to PN is fine with me. Then I know where someone stands, what his assumptions are, why he takes the positions he does, why he rules out certain options, etc. The problem comes only when one position (PN) is subtly promoted while the person claims he’s only endorsing a more modest one (MN). Whenever that happens, it’s right for observers to blow the whistle.
It could, if that scientist uses his vote in hiring and tenure decisions, and his influence over granting decisions, and his vote at Ph.D. oral examinations, to ensure that any scientist who thinks there is something outside of nature doesn’t dare utter a peep about design inferences, on pain of losing his scientific career. And while you might be more open-minded about such things, I think you know that there are some of your atheist colleagues who aren’t.
I agree; there is no need for thought police. But I haven’t seen Behe, etc. arguing that biologists shouldn’t be allowed to investigate Darwinian accounts of evolution, while I have seen biologists strongly suggest that people who think ID is credible should be drummed out of scientific careers. The thought policing, to the extent that it exists in secular biology departments, is more on one side than on the other.
If you are not interested enough in Denton’s thesis to read it for yourself, then in my view you lack a healthy intellectual curiosity. Genuinely curious people like to read the latest ideas of highly intelligent authors, especially ideas in their own academic field (biology) and relating to issues that are of obvious interest to them (origins). Denton’s book is one the most important ID books written, and so if you are going to debate in public about ID, you should want to get it straight rather than rely on the summary of someone else. And don’t say you’re a busy scientist who doesn’t have time to read 400-page books. You spend more time in one week reading posts here and replying to them than it would take you to read Denton’s book. You just can’t be bothered. And that fine; but then you can’t blame me when I say that I can’t be bothered investing my personal time to summarize works for you that you lack the initiative to read for yourself.