More Dissembling from the DI on Dover

It's clear that the DI's political strategy on Dover is to spin it as a danger to academic freedom, but this position is utter nonsense. They are crowing over a brief filed in the case by a group of scientists, no doubt prompted by the DI, claiming that if the court rules on the nature of science it could destroy careers and have far-reaching effects. But history denies this. The 1981 McLean v. Arkansas ruling directly engaged the question of what is and is not legitimate science, ruling that "creation science" was religion, not science, and therefore could not be taught in public school science classrooms. Did that ruling mean that scientists could no longer research creation science? Of course not. If anything, creation science groups are stronger now than they were then. The Institute for Creation Research continues to go along its merry way, the Geoscience Research Institute at Loma Linda hasn't shut down, and Answers in Genesis is opening a $25 million creation science museum soon.

The same thing is at issue in this case, whether intelligent design is a legitimate scientific theory or a more vague form of creationism designed to skirt the previous rulings. This inevitably means the court has to consider the question of whether ID is a legitimate scientific theory or not, just as they had to do the same for creation science in McLean and Edwards. But regardless of the ruling, it isn't going to stop anyone from doing research on ID or advocating for their position. Hell, they don't do any such research now! The only thing stopping them from doing such research now is their lack of a model and their focus on public relations over science. And this statement from David DeWolf of the DI is astonishing:

"The advance of scientific knowledge depends on uninhibited, robust investigation seeking the best explanation," said Gonzaga University law professor David DeWolf, a senior fellow at Discovery Institute. "Doubts as to whether a theory adequately explains the evidence should be resolved in the laboratory not in the court room."

Close. The first part is correct, of course. Whether a theory has explanatory power should be decided in the lab, and in science journals and conferences. But the DI wants these questions debated not there, but in high school science classrooms by kids who aren't capable of understanding the arguments. If they had any actual research to report, if they even had a model or theory from which one could derive testable hypotheses to guide such research, they are free, and would remain free regardless of this ruling, to peform the experiments, report them in the scientific literature and let their peers check their work and criticize it to see if it holds up.

The fact that they have not even attempted to do that kind of research, or engage their peers in the scientific literature as the advocates of every other idea in science has had to do, speaks volumes. And the fact that they spend all of their time and energy on efforts to get their ideas into public school science classrooms rather than on doing the work necessary to establish them as valid speaks even louder.

This is exactly what former DI fellow Bruce Gordon was referring to when he said that "design-theoretic research has been hijacked as part of a larger cultural and political movement. In particular, the theory has been prematurely drawn into discussions of public science education where it has no business making an appearance without broad recognition from the scientific community that it is making a worthwhile contribution to our understanding of the natural world."

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I'd sure like to see that brief. Was it filed as an amicus? Do I smell a Rule 11 violation somewhere?

It was filed amicus. As far as I know, it's not available anywhere online yet. As soon as it is, I'll link to it.

In your post you said "But the DI wants these questions debated not there, but in high school science classrooms by kids who aren't capable of understanding the arguments."

Yet the Discovery Institute says at http://www.discovery.org/csc/topQuestions.php "3. Should public schools require the teaching of intelligent design?

No. Instead of mandating intelligent design, Discovery Institute recommends that states and school districts focus on teaching students more about evolutionary theory, including telling them about some of the theory's problems that have been discussed in peer-reviewed science journals. In other words, evolution should be taught as a scientific theory that is open to critical scrutiny, not as a sacred dogma that can't be questioned. We believe this is a common-sense approach that will benefit students, teachers, and parents."

They are advocating teaching a more complete picture of evolution, with no mention of ID. There are clearly people/organizations that want ID taught in schools, but DI isn't one of them. Not yet anyway. If ID matures into a testable theory in the future, then they may change their position.

podsytn wrote:

They are advocating teaching a more complete picture of evolution, with no mention of ID. There are clearly people/organizations that want ID taught in schools, but DI isn't one of them. Not yet anyway. If ID matures into a testable theory in the future, then they may change their position.

If you think this is in any way a sincere position on their part, you haven't been paying attention. This is all a part of their marketing strategy and it fits a pattern of continually making their position more and more vague to reduce the objections to it. They tried hard initially to get ID into science classrooms explicitly, and had no success. Then they watered it down into their new "teach the controversy" position and now they claim that they only want the "arguments for and against evolution" taught. But as I've pointed out before, ID is nothing but arguments against evolution. That's all they have is a set of criticisms of evolution, most of them either arguments from ignorance or based on distortions of the scientific data. So the "we don't want ID taught, just the arguments against evolution" position is something of a reverse tautology.

I would also note that when President Bush said that he thought both should be taught, William Dembski at least cheered him on. And the DI further nuances their position by claiming that while they don't want to see it mandated that ID be taught, they do want teachers to be allowed to teach ID if they want. But again, there's nothing to teach other than criticisms of evolution, and bad ones at that.

Mr. Fitzgerald-

I have to object to a couple of items in your post. First, I think it is a mistake to point out that many of the signers of the brief are affiliated with Christian universities. It simply has no relevance and it sounds an awful lot like an ad hominem. My colleague Howard Van Till is affiliated with Calvin College, which is obviously a Christian institution, but that does not have anything to do with the validity of what he says. If they are affiliated with a diploma mill, a la Kent Hovind, that's a fair thing to point out. I don't think it's either fair or germane to make an issue of them being affiliated with Christian universities.

Second, I disagree with your argument that because many of them signed the DI's 400 Scientists statement they are therefore "fundamentally opposed to Darwinian evolutionary theory." The statement in question does not require opposition, fundamental or otherwise, to evolutionary theory. Indeed, even Richard Dawkins could honestly sign that statement. It is Discovery Institute hype that says that that statement amounts to "dissent from Darwinism"; it does us no good to repeat that hype, since it is fundamentally dishonest.

The statement in question does not require opposition, fundamental or otherwise, to evolutionary theory. Indeed, even Richard Dawkins could honestly sign that statement.

Indeed, I'd find it hard to see how anyone aquainted with modern evolutionary theory could disagree with the statement, "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life". Obviously there is a great deal more to explaining all the complexities of life than just random mutation and selection.

It's only the DI spin crew that would suggest that anyone who would agree with this statement must therefore doubt modern evolutionary theory in it's entirety.

I have to wonder who is making these claims to which they refer? As far as I know, only anti-evolutionists like those at the DI make this claim. I've yet to see any knowledgable scientist in the relevant field make it.

Concerning whether it was "a mistake to point out that many of the signers of the brief are affiliated with Christian universities."

I considered this before I made the post, but decided to go ahead in any case. The institutions I pointed out explicitly tout themselves as "evangelical" or "Bible-centered," which seems to me to be a significant fact and worthy of dissemination, given the relationship of the evangelical movement to the creationism. Other institutions -- such as Virginia Intermont College (see an update to my original post) and Baylor University, which are explicitly Christian, but not evangelical or Bible-centered, were not included.

Concerning the objection to my argument that signing the DI's "Dissent from Darwinism" meant that the signers were "fundamentally opposed to Darwinian evolutionary theory," because the "Dissent" is so slackly worded that even Richard Dawkins could sign it, and that touting it as anti-evolutionary is falling in with DI hype.

This is correct as far as it goes, but rather misses the point. The "Dissent" is indeed so vaguely worded that almost anyone could sign it in good conscience, but only those who live in a vacuum, entirely unaware of the purpose of the Discovery Institute, would sign it without knowing the propaganda value of the statement and to what ends it would be used. If any of the signers have disavowed their affiliation with the statement, and the use the DI has put it to, I'm unaware of it, but I will look into it. However, in the absence of any such information, the signers need to be held accountable for what they signed and the uses to which it was designed to be put.

I've updated my post with your criticisms and my response.

I went on to comment:

Clearly, there is very little that can be determined about the people who signed the amicus brief from the bare list of names and affiliations which is the raw material I had to work from. It would be preferable, of course, to do an in-depth search for the writings and expressions of each person individually to evaluate their relationship to the "intelligent design" movement, or even to interview them personally, and perhaps I can make some inroads into at least the former over time -- but bear in mind that all the judge was presented was the list of names and the Discovery Institute's assurance that they were all "professional scientists who support academic freedom," with the clear implication that they had no axe to grind in the case at hand. I think the information I provided shows that, at the very least, this is not the case.

Ed Fitzgerald wrote:

If any of the signers have disavowed their affiliation with the statement, and the use the DI has put it to, I'm unaware of it, but I will look into it. However, in the absence of any such information, the signers need to be held accountable for what they signed and the uses to which it was designed to be put.

There has been at least one, actually. I reported on him a few weeks ago. He very publicly told them to take his name off the list. Also bear in mind that that list was first put up several years ago, before the DI was a well known entity. Lastly, it should be kept in mind the enormous number of such statements that get passed around and how casually someone might sign on to them. On the anti-ID side, I've received no fewer than 5 of them in the past two weeks alone, two of them so similar that they've taken out identical webpages, one ending in .com and one in .org, but they are different statements by two entirely different groups.

More importantly, the statement simply doesn't say what they claim it says, nor does it say what you claim it said. It does not in any way entail or require a rejection of evolutionary theory. I don't doubt that most who signed that statement probably do reject at least some aspect of what they believe to be evolutionary theory (or of "Darwinism", however they may be defining that at this particular moment). But again, that really has little to do with whether anything said in that brief is true or not. It's still very close to being an ad hominem - "they reject evolution, so why should we listen to what they say about academic freedom?". But being wrong on one subject doesn't mean they're wrong on another, any more than being a Christian makes them wrong about evolution or about the subject of that brief.

Clearly, there is very little that can be determined about the people who signed the amicus brief from the bare list of names and affiliations which is the raw material I had to work from. It would be preferable, of course, to do an in-depth search for the writings and expressions of each person individually to evaluate their relationship to the "intelligent design" movement, or even to interview them personally, and perhaps I can make some inroads into at least the former over time -- but bear in mind that all the judge was presented was the list of names and the Discovery Institute's assurance that they were all "professional scientists who support academic freedom," with the clear implication that they had no axe to grind in the case at hand. I think the information I provided shows that, at the very least, this is not the case.

But the judge will not, and should not, consider the relationship of the signers of that amicus brief to the intelligent design movement when deciding whether to accept the arguments it contains. He will ask only whether the arguments in the brief hold up to scrutiny. That's why when I responded to the brief, I focused on the validity of the arguments in it.

This is all very much akin to what Richard Thompson attempted to do last week when questioning Barbara Forrest. He tried repeatedly to point out that she's a humanist, a card carrying member of the ACLU, and so forth, as a means of impeaching her testimony. The judge rightly shot down those attempts because they are not relevant to the validity of her position. We should not engage in the same sort of thing ourselves. Focus on the strength of the argument, not the identity of the person making it.

I think I understand your objections, and I respect them, but they also perplex me as well, because the net result of following your advice would seem to be to put the identities and authority of the people who signed the amicus brief totally beyond our scrutiny, out of what I think is a misplaced belief that the argument made, and only the argument made, should be considered. If I may, that seems to be to be an almost fatally naive stance to take in a situation such as this, against an opponent as savvy about propaganda and spin as the Discovery Institute.

My concern is not primarily with the trial judge -- after all, the chance of him seeing the information I've developed is virtually nil -- but with the general public, which is, if I may say so, almost certainly also the primary concern of the Discovery Institute. That's why they issued a press release trumpeting the "85 scientists" who are so vitally concerned that they were moved to file a brief in the case, not because they are advocates of intelligent design or creationism, no, but because academic freedom itself is at stake. That's the impression that DI was at great pains to create, and it's what I'm attempting to counter.

I believe that the information I've dug up goes some distance toward discrediting the DI's claims about the signers of the brief. The fact that the majority of them also signed the "Dissent" is indeed, in my view, indicative of a predisposition to disbelieve in the primacy of Darwinian evolutionary theory: the statement is, after all, not a "correction" to Darwinian thought, or an "adjustment" or anything other than what its title purports it to be -- a dissent from it, a disagreement with its totality, no matter how innocuous the wording makes it appear when examined. The point of it is abundantly clear to almost anyone.

(The argument from ease of signing seems to be to be just plain wrong. However many manifestos and resolutions and complaints people are asked to sign, they are still responsible for the content of, and intented use for, those that they actually put their names to, and they should be held to it. If it turns out that they actually disagree with the statement or the way it is utilized, then it is incumbent on them to remove their name and make their disagreements known publicly. If you'd care to tell me the name of the one person you refer to who has done just that, I'll be very happy to publicize it on my weblog.)

Finally, I find your comparison of my efforts with the cross-examination of Forrest by Thompson highly objectionable, as well as inapt. In the courtroom, Barbara Forrest's qualifications and CV, her publications and public presentations were a matter of adversarial examination, and only after she had been accepted by the court as an expert could she then present her opinions and arguments. In spite of this, Thompson went after her on irrelevant matters unconnected to her authority as accepted by the court.

The case of the signers of the amicus is entirely different. Here, the argument has been presented (and well debunked, by you and others), but the authority of the presenters is carried only primarily by the representations made about them in the brief: that they are "professional scientists" acting out of concern for academic freedom. Except for this (mis)representation, we know almost nothing from the naked list of names about who they are, what their qualifications are, what they've written or produced, how they relate to the intelligent design movement or their beliefs about Darwinian evolution. My research is an attempt to flesh out that picture, to understand how much, or how little, weight to give their arguments.

It's not enough to simply discredit their arguments by taking them apart logically -- if it was, there would be no voir dire in the courtroom, simply the presentation of arguments without attached authority. Inside the courtroom and outside of it, who you are is almost always as important as what you say. It's perhaps not terribly egalitarian, but it's a fact of human psychology.

The story is dated August 24, 2005.

I think this list is like the mob....once you're in, you're in forever!

Ed Fitzgerald wrote:

I think I understand your objections, and I respect them, but they also perplex me as well, because the net result of following your advice would seem to be to put the identities and authority of the people who signed the amicus brief totally beyond our scrutiny, out of what I think is a misplaced belief that the argument made, and only the argument made, should be considered. If I may, that seems to be to be an almost fatally naive stance to take in a situation such as this, against an opponent as savvy about propaganda and spin as the Discovery Institute.

My point is that even if you do the most damage you can do using this tactic, what does it get you? Let's say that you prove that half of the people who filed that brief aren't really scientists because they don't work as scientists, but merely have degrees in science. And let's say you prove that 2/3 of the people on the list are evangelical Christians or affiliated with schools that are. Have you actually made any arguments against the substantive argument? No. All you've done is open your self up to the accusation that you're attacking their religion and not their argument (and in fact, you are doing exactly that). It's one thing to mention in passing that the people who signed on aren't exactly objective observers while you're also attacking the substantive argument they make; it's quite another to focus your entire argument on attacking personal traits and ignoring the substantive argument. And if that doesn't convince you that you're using the wrong tactic here, there's just not much more I can say.

No, certainly not, by showing who the signers are I make no substantive argument against the ideas in their brief -- but that was never my purpose. What I *have* done is to make a case against the Discovery Institute's claim about who the signers are and what their authority is. That's the entire point.