Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

Judging from some of the posts on that site, they might want to change the name of that site from "Fundies Say the Darndest Things" to "Fundies Say the Sickest Things".

I did a search on that site. They have quoted gungasnake 3 times, spendius 2 times, and RexRed once.

An Internet troll, or simply troll in Internet slang, is someone who posts controversial and irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum or chat room, with the intention of provoking other users into an emotional response[1] or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion.

Latest in the TEA Monkey Trial
(by Forrest Wilder, The Texas Observer, August 13th, 2008)

The Texas Education Agency and Commissioner Robert Scott have answered the federal lawsuit filed against them by former science curriculum director Chris Comer. (Comer was forced out in December over an email she sent to science teachers announcing a talk by an evolution expert.) In her suit, Comer alleges that she was fired for violating an unconstitutional TEA policy of “neutrality” on evolution.

The fatal flaw in Comer’s argument, according to TEA’s Motion to Dismiss, “arises from a fundamental misconception of the relationship between the Texas Education Agency, headed by defendant Scott, and the State Board of Education.” The 15-member elected board of education develops curriculum, including what Texas schoolchildren learn about evolution, the motion states. TEA only administers that curriculum and provides oversight. “TEA staff, in their capacity as state employees, must not take positions, even by implication, on contested curriculum issues the State Board will be called upon to resolve,” the motion states.

TEA’s motion lists a number of other controversial curriculum issues on which TEA staff may not voice an opinion in public:

Whether schools should teach “whole language” or “phonics” in English Language Arts;
Whether schools should have grammar as a separate section of the English curriculum or embedded in the overall curriculum;
How schools should present the treatment of minorities in U.S. or Texas history;
Whether schools should have required reading lists in English or other subjects (and if so what books should be included on them);
Whether schools should emphasize scientific processes or content;
Whether schools should require laboratory instruction in science courses;
How schools should integrate the Spanish-language grammar or decoding skills into English TEKS for students with limited English proficiency (LEP);
Whether to include instruction on contraceptives along with abstinence, in the presentation of human sexuality in health education.
TEA stresses in its court filings that the “neutrality” policy only applies to its employees, not classroom teachers, who must follow the direction of the board of education.

The agency may have the upper hand, legally speaking " I haven’t a clue about the law in this area " but what a sad thought that career educators and public servants are effectively muzzled on any issue the conservative majority on the SBOE deems “controversial.” Consider what the far-right members of the board of education has done to textbooks over the years. The L.A. Times summarizes a few choice samples:

In a nod to those who believe God created the Earth 6,000 years ago, a sentence saying the ice age took place “millions of years ago” was changed to “in the distant past.” Descriptions of environmentalism have been attacked as antithetical to free-enterprise ideals; a passage describing the cruelty of slavery was derided as “overkill.”

Still, the teaching of evolution is the official policy of the state. If TEA staffers generally, and the science curriculum director in particular, are tasked with administering the state’s policy on science, how can they reasonably be expected to remain “neutral” on evolution? What does that even mean?

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Although no formal announcement was ever made, the ten amendments adopted appear to have been in force from December 15, 1791.

I say as long as they understand that Intelligent Design is not science

Report on the Sixth International Conference on Creationism, Part One
(Jason Rosenhouse, ScienceBlogs.com, August 17, 2008)

Usually I write these accounts in strict chronological order. I will break from that tradition this time since one of my most interesting experiences at the conference came right near the end. I had made a pest of myself during several of the Q and A's after the talks, meaning that by the third day of the conference I had a bit of a reputation. Late in the day a pleasant enough fellow approached me in the bookstore, and we had a conversation.

I asked him flat out why he was a creationist. He replied with a brief biography about how he came to Christ when he was twelve, but didn't really give any thought to evolution until much later. A sermon he heard in church set him on to the issue, and he proceded to read a number of books and articles on either side. He found the creationist arguments to be convincing. End of story.

There is a stereotype of young-Earth creationists that they are chronically adverse to thinking, that they just thump their King James Bibles and snarl at anyone who disagrees with them, and that their views are purely the product of mindless faith. I have attended many creationist gatherings over the last six years. And I can honestly say that I have encountered a lot of people who fit the stereotype perfectly. I'm talking about people so ignorant and paranoid it is impossible even to have a conversation with them.

But the stereotype is not the whole story. In fact, I'm not even convinced it's the dominant part of the story. For every person I've met who fits the stereotype I have met two like the fellow above. People who have, indeed, given some serious thought to the issue and who are prepared to go point by point in a debate. It is one of the cliches of anti-creationist life that there is no point in marshalling scientific arguments and evidence since creationists have completely immunized their brains against such puny weapons.

Certainly there is some truth to that. But there is falsity in it as well, and those scholars who have taken the time to answer creationist arguments and to make a cogent case for evolution have not been wasting their time.

Creationists are very enthusiastic about religious faith, but they also believe sincerely that they have good, rational arguments to make in defense of their views. At every conference I have attended, including this one, I have encountered many people genuinely interested in what I had to say. They are badly misinformed and tend to live insular lives in which they don't often encounter an alternate viewpoint presented intelligently. This is one of the reasons I go to these conferences. Of course you're not going to make some slam dunk argument that will instantly cause them to change the way they think about life. But maybe you can plant a few seeds, enough so that the next time they here some preacher frothing at the mouth about the foolishness of evolution, they at least have the decency to feel some shame.

Sadly, while I have generally been impressed with the personality and temperament of many of the people I have met at these conferences, the fact remains that they are hopelessly ignorant of science. This ignorance is exacerbated by the annoying fact that so many of them fancy themselves highly knowledgeable indeed. It didn't take long for my interlocutor to whip out the standard talking points. He sagely informed me that the second law of thermodynamics contradicted evolution, that there were no transitional forms in the fossil record, and that geneticists could not explain the growth of genetic information over time.

This is where the conversation got very frustrating indeed. You see, when creationists say, “The second law of thermodynamics contradicts evolution,” they actually mean, “I don't understand how natural processes can account for the increase in complexity of organisms over time.” They are not saying anything about the size of Delta S relative to the integral of dQ over T, and it is very unlikely that they will know what you are talking about if you bring it up.

When I pointed out the second law implies that while the entropy of the universe as a whole is increasing, it has no problem allowing for local increases in complexity and order, he came back with the standard creationist retort that the mere fact that energy enters a system is not enough to explain increases in complexity within that system. For the life of me I could not get him to understand that he was no longer talking about thermodynamics. If your claim is that evolution runs afoul of the second law, then show me the entropy calculation that backs that statement up. If the issue is growth in complexity over time, then simply say that and stop talking about the second law.

Likewise for the fossils. I pointed out that the fossil record is teeming with transitional forms, and that you can read about them in virtually any textbook on paleontology. Virtually every major transition, whether from fish to amphibian, amphibian to reptile, reptile to mammal or many others are amply documented in the fossil record. He was unimpressed. You know why? Because he has seen statements from Stephen Jay Gould and David Raup denying that there are trnasitional forms.

Care to guess how much luck I had explaining the fine points of punctuated equilibirum, or what Gould and Raup had in mind in making their overly florid statements?

Exasperated I said something like, “Look, the fossil record is the most obvious place to look for evidence of evolution. If it were really the embarrassment creationists say it is, how do you explain that virtually every paleontologist in the world is an evolutionist? And if geneticists really could not explain how genetic information can grow over time, one of the fundamental questions any theory of evolution has to explain, why would evolution be so overwhelmingly dominant among scientists?”

He didn't miss a step. He promptly informed me that sin is a powerful force, and it has systematically colored the way generations of scientists view the data. But what about all of the scientists who are Christians, or followers of other religions? Obviously they don't have any preconceived bias against God. Perhaps not, but they are no less the victims of sin than anyone else. But what about scientists like Lamarck who became targets of scorn and ridicule for proposing evolutionary theories? It used to be scientists were overwhelmingly creationist in sympathy. How do you explain the more favorable reaction to Darwin? Simple. The way to apostasy was being paved by people like Lyell and Hutton and their old-Earth theories. Darwin arrived at the right time to take advantage of that.

It all made perfect sense to him.

So there you go. Creationism in a nutshell. A patina of science and calm argumentation, with the revival tent never lurking far beneath the surface.

Unlike at Ken Ham's gatherings, the conference organizers were doing their best to bury the revival tent far, far beneath the surface. This, you see, was an attempt at a serious creationist research conference. The papers being presented were appropriately complex and impenetrable, and most of the speakers successfully achieved the passionless monotone they fancy to be the hallmark of real scientific presentation. It's a pity. Say what you want about Ham, but when he is preaching to the choir he is never boring. The talks here combined the scientific respectability of creationism with the turgid style of the academic literature. Just try to sit in your computer chair and imagine the results.

Sadly, while I have generally been impressed with the personality and temperament of many of the people I have met at these conferences, the fact remains that they are hopelessly ignorant of science.

This ignorance is exacerbated by the annoying fact that so many of them fancy themselves highly knowledgeable indeed.

They are not saying anything about the size of Delta S relative to the integral of dQ over T, and it is very unlikely that they will know what you are talking about if you bring it up.

Likewise for the fossils. I pointed out that the fossil record is teeming with transitional forms, and that you can read about them in virtually any textbook on paleontology.

"The better theory is the one that explains more, that explains with greater precision, and that allows us to make better predictions." Karl Popper (1902-1994)

An evolutionary view of the world allows us to farm better and feed millions more people, it allows us to cure diseases, prevent plagues and to seize control of our future as biological organisms. And science in general has allowed us to build the world we currently enjoy, including the tools we use for this discussion.

Is irreducible complexity a problem for evolution?
(By Shalini Sehkar, The Edger, August 13, 2008)

An irreducibly complex system is generally defined as a system that loses its function if any one part is removed. If such a system is found, all it would show is that it did not evolve by the addition of single parts with no change in function. However, since this is not the only evolutionary mechanism around, the IDists who use this argument simply show themselves to be completely ignorant when it comes down to how evolution actually works. An irreducibly complex system would not pose a problem for evolution nor justify the design inference.

A reducibility complex system is both a property of the system and of the observer. Not only does the system have to be reduced to its known elements, the observer must also be capable of reducing it. Therefore, when we find an ‘irreducibility complex’ system, we must ask if we can improve our knowledge of that system. What the IDists do is to close their eyes and yell ‘God The Designer did it!’ instead of doing some actual science.

On the other hand, finding traces of a transcendental Designer would be a discovery worthy of a Nobel Prize. The next step after finding the designer is elucidating its nature and its relationship to our universe. Is the designer an alien from outer space? Is the designer William Dembski? No one has ‘proof’ on the nonexistence of a partial or total designer, or course, but we have evidence of a self-evolving universe.

The creationists are after a regression to the ‘god-of-the-gaps’ anti-scientific tactic as their design inference explains nothing at all. What could these irreducibly complex features tell us about the designer or the mechanisms of design? What exactly does the design inference explain apart from ‘We don’t know yet, so GODDIDIT.’? How does the design inference improve our understanding of how the universe works? Even if evolution is shown to be false, the ID approach is only one out of a vast number of possible answers to the question of origins, and there is no reason to assume that ID is the correct explanation by default.

Therefore, the ID argument fails.

the IDists who use this argument simply show themselves to be completely ignorant when it comes down to how evolution actually works.