The thing is, we let the know up front that there was a tight word limit and we’d like to clarify any questions they have. We would even note any errors we made, if needed. Unfortunately, they have not wanted to understand what we meant before publishing several (current count is 5) defensive articles. Sadly, West knows there are legitimate reasons we would have said these things (and even mentions this in his article) but goes straight to suggesting “fraud.”
One of the rhetorical tactics here is that they are claiming our critique can be dismissed because we didn’t take the time to actually understand them. Look, we want to understand. We just asked to go to their summer workshop (Lents and Swamidass Apply for Discovery Insitute's 2019 Summer Seminar). We have invited them into dialogue several times (Inviting Behe and Axe into Dialogue). We read their book closely, and also followed Behe’s work over the last 2 decades too.
Perhaps we do understand his argument, and we do know his history, and we just disagree. Perhaps we did not have enough space in 750 words to explain ourselves fully.
I’d hope that we could understand each other better. When will they show up to the table for some conversation? I’m entirely sure that lobbing aggressive articles our way is not helping things. Let’s try and understand each other.
@pnelson, @agauger, @bjmiller, and @kirk, please let DI, Axe, and Behe know that we continue to desire dialogue with them. We don’t have to be enemies. We just disagree on the science, but we want to treat you fairly and accurately represent you. Come reason with us.