In a new post, Dembski's faithful manservant Cato has built a perfectly inaccurate straw man and proceeded to beat the heck out of it while pretending to actually engage an argument being made by the anti-ID side. To wit:
The Vatican Newspaper published an article distancing itself from ID and (once again) embracing Darwinian Evolution.
So when should we expect some outrage from the folks at Panda's Thumb that Darwinian Evolution is religion? They're all over ID as unconstitutional because evangelical Christians are some of its most vocal supporters. Clearly, if they are consistent in their logic, they should now be all over Darwinian Evolution because it is supported by the Vatican. Can we expect consistent application of principles from the folks at Panda's Thumb, the National Center for Selling Evolution Science Education, the ACLU, and other virtuous defenders of Separation of Church and State? I doubt it. Consistency has never been their strong suit.
How amusing. He might have a point if he was portraying our position honestly, but of course he's not. No one claims that ID is unconstitutional "because evangelical Christians are some of its most vocal supporters." All he has to do is look at Judge Jones' ruling in Dover and he will see that nowhere is that argument made. There are several other lines of evidence that ID is inherently religious and therefore unconstitutional to teach in public schools, but nowhere will he find the argument he makes here. It appears to exist only in his mind.
The argument for the religious nature of ID has nothing to do with the religious views of those who accept it and everything to do with the substance of the arguments themselves. For example, the fact that the first ID textbook used the phrase "intelligent design" to mean exactly the same thing that they had previously defined as creationism. And the fact that ID advocates themselves admitted under oath that ID can only be considered scientific and not religious if the definition of science was changed to allow in theistic and supernatural causation. And the fact that they have admitted quite bluntly that the designer could only be supernatural and transcendant, despite their vague claims to the contrary.
All of these arguments, and several more, are offered consistently by our side in making the case that ID is an inherently religious idea. The argument that Cato attributes to us is entirely a figment of his imagination, made necessary by his inability to dispute the real arguments being made. Thankfully, we are only required to act consistent with our own positions, not the imaginary ones he attempts to foist upon us.
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Umm, seems to me there have been some well respected mathmaticians and astronomers at the vatican over the centuries. Because of that support for research, would this clown now also classify physics and mathmatics as religions too? Would they all be part of the same religion, or would it require three different religions. If they are all one religion, would it be called "Observed Reality" (OR)?
mikey
Unfortunately, we still have to waste time rebutting all of the continuous stream of bizarre, illogical and false statements they come out with, otherwise we are accused of 'avoiding the argument'. Since the ID-ers are well-funded and -connected, this becomes a time-consuming & repetitive job, and still results in increased publicity for the proponents of ID, even when ID gets legally slammed.
Good grief. DaveScot is just slandering Christians here. Apparently, the Catholic church cannot have an opinion without it being an explicitly religious, as opposed to just intelligent, position. As it happens, the Catholic Church has both: a pragmatic and sensible position on not misusing science, and a relgious position stating that mainstream evolutionary theory is not at odds with Catholic belief. That's not a religious motivation supporting evolutionary theory in any sense.
Jeebus.
Dave Scott just closed the comments to his post, and disemvoweled the two trackbacks there, including yours. He disemvoweled the trackbacks!
I shit you not.
Is DaveScot really Wee Willy Dembski incognito? Surely this is just a joke that he thinks is funny (although nobody else sees the humor)! Is it possible that someone is so massively, incorrigibly, stupid to think that this is a valid argument? Or does he have such disdain for Catholics that he believes they cannot simultaneously entertain their religion and understand some aspect of science?
Or does he have such disdain for Catholics that he believes they cannot simultaneously entertain their religion and understand some aspect of science?
Maybe part of the "logic" is that if you have some idiot pissing over people who have deep personal religious beliefs and express those beliefs, that this somehow proves that ID creationism cannot be inherently a religious notion.