Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Orson Scott Card has a patently absurd essay on ID and evolution, which PZ Myers has already done an admirable job of fisking. But there's one argument that Card makes in particular that is just infuriating in its outright dishonesty and I want to highlight it again. Here's his argument:
3. Expertism is the "trust us, you poor fools" defense. Essentially, the Darwinists tell the general public that we're too dumb to understand the subtleties of biochemistry, so it's not even worth trying to explain to us why the Designists are wrong. "We're the experts, you're not, so we're right by definition."Behe and his group don't think we're stupid. They actually make the effort to explain the science accurately and clearly in terms that the lay audience can understand. So who is going to win this argument? Some people bow down before experts; most of us resent the experts who expect us to bow.
The irony is that there are plenty of Darwinists who are perfectly good writers, capable of explaining the science to us well enough to show us the flaws in the Designists' arguments. The fact that they refuse even to try to explain is, again, a confession that they don't have an answer.
Card is lying, plain and simple. He's either lying or he has been living in a cave somewhere reading the arguments of ID advocates and completely unaware of the, (quite literally) hundreds of articles and books and blog posts written by scientists examining and pointing out the flaws in the arguments for ID. Is Card entirely unaware of the existence of The Panda's Thumb? Is he unable to do a simple Amazon search? Here's what even a quick search shows:
Unintelligent Design, by Mark Perakh, a physicist, which goes into great detail examining the arguments of ID advocates.
Why Intelligent Design Fails, by Matt Young and Taner Edis, both physicists.
Evolution vs Creationism: An Introduction, by Eugenie Scott, a physical anthropologist.
God, the Devil and Darwin: A Critique of Intelligent Design Theory, by Niall Shanks and Richard Dawkins.
Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design, by Barbara Forrest and Paul Gross.
Finding Darwin's God, by Ken Miller.
And these are just the major and obvious books. Is he completely unaware of the long and detailed critiques of ID arguments that have been published in scientific journals? Here's Adrian Melott's critique of Behe's arguments. Here's Allen Orr's critique of Dembski's work. Here's a critique of Dembski's use of SETI analogies written by an actual SETI researcher. Here's a critique of Dembski's claims about the No Free Lunch theorems from David Wolpert, the man who actually came up with them. Here's an entire webpage full of detailed essays by scientists examining the arguments of ID advocates. Here's another with detailed critiques of Wells' claims in Icons of Evolution. Here's a thorough critique of the claims found in Stephen Meyer's infamous "peer-reviewed article" in the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington (by the way, the DI promised that they would "respond to it fully, in a series of installments over the next days and weeks", but that was more than a year ago and no such response has appeared - so who exactly is ignoring critiques and arguments here?).
This just scratches the surface. I could sit here and link to hundreds of critiques of every single claim made by ID advocates. I've written many of them myself, as have dozens of actual scientists. I highly doubt that Card is completely unaware of them, or unaware of the fact that several scientists testified at the Dover trial and delivered detailed critiques of the ID arguments under oath as well. I don't know, or care, what universe Card inhabits, but it sure as hell isn't this one. In this universe, it is preposterous and utterly ridiculous to claim that scientists have not published volume after volume examining the flaws in ID arguments. If Card claims that the world he lives in is one in which scientists "refuse" to explain the flaws in those arguments, he is either lying through his teeth or he is completely delusional.
Comments
What a shame. I love several of his books. I was delighted when I discovered he had a blog and appalled when I read it. Doesn't he realize that the Mormon Chruch does not object to evolution? Is he "smarter" than they are?
Posted by: Susan Brassfield Cogan
| January 21, 2006 6:59 PM
Yeah, I know several people who admire Card's writing a great deal. I've never read any of his books. But this essay is so mind-numbingly idiotic and dishonest that it pretty much destroys his credibility with me.
Posted by: Ed Brayton
| January 21, 2006 7:01 PM
It's an extreme case of willful ignorance on Card's part. ID has been thoroughly thrashed in popular books and articles. One can even say that Dawkins' 1987 book The Blind Watchmaker anticipates and demolishes the ID movement's arguments.
His claim that scientist-writers do not think highly of their readers is an absurd fantasy. SJ Gould made it a point not to water down complex ideas. Dawkins would spend pages and pages meticulously explaining the nuances of evolution. Ken Miller explained the blot-clotting cascade in his book. The creationists, on the other hand, rely on the relative ignorance of their readers to fool them with science sounding terms and ideas. They're the ones who flaunt their "expertise" degrees to the unsuspecting public. Who says it's the scientists who think poorly of the lay readers?
Posted by: Danny Boy
| January 21, 2006 7:29 PM
What really incenses me about this particular argument of Card's (aside from the fact that he's showing exactly why evolutionists think people like him don't understand evolution and science) is that he seems to think being an expert in a field is worth nothing at all in terms of how much weight their argument should be given. And in fact he resents their expertise so much that he'll listen to crackpots who know no more than he does because he can understand them.
Posted by: Skemono
| January 21, 2006 7:34 PM
I read the article and Card goes out of his way to say that he does not necessarily buy ID's claims about nature. Unfortunately, he has accepted the all of the IDers claims about the beliefs and behaviours of biologists.
Posted by: Mike P
| January 21, 2006 8:32 PM
Ca[na]rd:Essentially, the Darwinists tell the general public that we're too dumb to understand the subtleties of biochemistry, so it's not even worth trying to explain to us why the Designists are wrong.
He's on to something. Maybe a university, like, say, Oxford, should appoint a "Professor of the Public Understanding of Science". And maybe they could name the post after Charles Simonyi.
Posted by: Bartholomew
| January 21, 2006 8:54 PM
Orson Scott Card should be commended for writing yet another excellent work of fiction. Card is a prolific science fiction writer who is best known for his "Ender's Game" series in which a group of child geniuses plan strategies to fight an alien menace. In his latest work, "Creation and Evolution in the Schools," Card goes in a new direction by spinning a narrative from the perspective of a deluded Intelligent Design supporter. The protagonist utilizes old, well-refuted arguments such as specified complexity to attack the theory of evolutionary. Our unfortunate anti-hero then falls into a web of deception created by creationist proponents, for he soon becomes blind to any scientific criticism of Intelligent Design and credulously accepts even the wildest assertions by opponents of evolution. This hobbled thinking is perhaps best shown when the protagonist claims ID is not religious but then states that both evolution and ID are religious viewpoints.
Throughout the work, Card lives up to his reputation for sketching out the complex personal feelings of his characters and explaining how these feelings shape decision making. For example, the narrator indicates how his religious views lead to a rejection of evolution. The only notable flaw of this story is the lack of character development. At the end, the protagonist has changed little from the beginning, and the antagonists suffer worse. The Darwinists remain shadowy and unidentified, so there is no way for the reader to know what they think or how they behave. Instead, one must guess at the reality behind the misled narrator's imagination. That issue aside, "Creation and Evolution in Schools" is a master work that Card uses to show the corrupting dangers of creationist thought. Orson Scott Card has again shown why he is a master of science fiction.
Posted by: Irrational Entity
| January 21, 2006 9:29 PM
Of course he also ignores all the hundreds of books where scientists explain evolution to lay audiences...
Posted by: afarensis
| January 21, 2006 11:48 PM
I haven't read very much in the way of Card - he's not my "type" as it were. I have been told i should give him more of a chance by several people but he has always seemed a little too much like the wrong sort of brain candy for me. I like to read spy novels for that sort of escapism. But I will likely not be giving him the chance I have been told I should based on that essay.
Posted by: Treban
| January 22, 2006 12:28 AM
Sort of off topic but there is a really bad essay, blasting the Dover ID decision, at ReNew America. I mean, it's pretty bad. The guy who wrote it, David N. Bass, could be a Robert O'Brien candidate.
Posted by: Jason Spaceman
| January 22, 2006 4:45 AM
"The guy who wrote it, David N. Bass..."(Jason Spaceman comment)
"...is a nineteen-year-old home school graduate, a committed Christian, and a proud conservative."(RenewAmerica article)
Funny how it all makes sense when you put the 2 pieces of the puzzle together?
Posted by: Bing
| January 22, 2006 8:24 AM
This guy says we shouldn't worry about global warming (not that I worry so much about it myself) because God promised Noah there won't be another flood. Now this is a man who takes Bible literally.
Posted by: Roman Werpachowski
| January 22, 2006 9:41 AM
Does anyone know Card's mailing address, so perhaps we could each send him one of the many fine books about evolution that he apparently hasn't been able to find in his local bookstores and libraries?
Posted by: twsf
| January 22, 2006 10:24 AM
When you write science fiction you can get away without doing a lick of research. Everything is possible because it's set in the future. Spacecraft wars against aliens? It is realistic because it's set in the future. Robots take over the world? Sure it can happen, it's set in the future. Three-breasted women hanging with Arnold Schwarzenegger on Mars? Future.
Too bad nobody reminded this fellow that when you write about real stuff that's happening now, you should do a little fact checking, or you might look like an ass to people paying attention.
Posted by: Comfy
| January 22, 2006 11:15 AM
Comfy,
you're obviously not referring to the science fiction written by Lem!
Posted by: Roman Werpachowski
| January 22, 2006 12:21 PM
I bet Mr Card has no problem deferring to the expertise of the "experts" who install his plumbing, or the "experts" who synthesize, purify and blend his pharmaceuticals.
Posted by: ZacharySmith
| January 23, 2006 12:59 PM
Mormons may believe in evolution if they choose. I know I do. It has never been settled, doctrinally anyway. My grandparents were born before 1910 in Utah. My grandfather was a bishop for ten years (his father had been one even longer). The first book they gave me was about the expedition to the Gobi desert in search of dinosaur bones (this was the late 1970s). I used to spend my lunch periods in the high school library reading the Smithsonian book of evolution. My favorite missionary buddy has degree in the equivalent of evolutionary biology from a Nevada university. McConkie (hope I spelled that right) and his father-in-law Jospeh Fielding Smith were the minority who, sadly, printed many materials making ridiculous claims against evolution.
I think the saddest thing about the useless debates about evolution vs. creationism is the idea that creationism is solely represented by nut-jobs intent upon proving that Adam played with dinosaurs. The earth is, itself, a revelation of God's work. No one who surveys the richness and wonder of life on this planet can help but feel that there is a Creator (who works by natural laws) involved.
Alex
Posted by: Alex | May 9, 2007 2:42 PM
Card is one of those examples for NOT wanting to meet your heroes. (Heinlein was another.) I enjoyed the Ender series until I discovered his blog. I bought one book of his afterwards, and still haven't been able to finish it. And sad to say, the earlier works I enjoyed seem trite and silly now.
On the other hand, Neil Gaiman is the coolest person I've ever met. My daughter still has a crush on him almost a decade after meeting him.
Posted by: Jrob | August 2, 2008 4:44 PM
I used to read some of Card's books. I didn't much like the "Ender" series; I tend to prefer "softer" sci-fi(but not things like alternate history or "pure" fantasy). And oddly enough, I did like Card's "alternate America" series. For a while. That is, until I found out about some of his idiotic pronouncements about gays and gay marriage. It's not fair, but I just couldn't read any more Card after that. Too bad. He's a good writer, but his, um, ideas(and really, I didn't know that he'd gotten sucked into ID as well), really suck.
Anne G
Posted by: Anne Gilbert | August 2, 2008 6:25 PM
I have just thoroughly read Orson Scott Card's article so I'm here to set the record straight:
1. Card believes in evolution and natural selection.
2. Card does not believe in ID (Intelligent Design).
3. Card says that ID was invented to explain the holes in Darwinism but has NO scientific backing.
4. Card basically says that the problem with Darwinism is when people consider it to be the end-all of evolution science and dismiss any further thought/discussion on it, causing it to be a dogma rather than an evolving theory.
He says:
"But good science always examines its theories and compares them to the evidence, to see if they are still adequate."
5. Card points out that good scientists, such as Darwin himself, knew that his explanations were sometimes sticky and insufficient. Card also points out his enormous contribution to biological science.
6. Card does not NOT undermine the extent of our current scientific understanding of evolution. Only certain peoples' yet-to-be-proven understanding of it.
REPRIMAND: You people seriously need to read things for yourselves rather that believing rumors and jumping to conclusions.
Posted by: Kyle Taylor | November 20, 2010 7:37 AM
It's you who should read things for yourself, as Ed's post and all but a couple of the comments criticize Card not for rejecting evolution or embracing ID, but for mischaracterizing the popularization efforts of both.
In what acid-fuelled fever dream could Behe and his ID co-propagandists be described as explaining the science accurately and clearly? How deep must his head be in the sand to ignore the pro-evolution science writers who do an excellent job of communicating the real and ongoing science behind evolution?
Posted by: DaveL | November 20, 2010 8:53 AM
Kyle Taylor states:
Mr. Card made some provocative uncited assertions which Ed blockquotes above; for example:
Ed then goes on to provide empirical evidence falsifying Mr. Card's uncited assertions as misrepresentative of what science has published to, "explain the science accurately and clearly in terms that the lay audience can understand." See the body of Ed's blog post above which references online resources and several books which explain evolution and explains science & evolution in light of creationist claims, including intelligent design creationism, to the "lay audience".
I see no evidence of Ed publishing "rumors" or "jumping to conclusions" as you claim. Since you don't quote what Ed wrote which fits this characterization, I assume you conjured this up in your own delusional mind or are representing, perhaps misrepresenting, a commenter's post which is not representative of the quality of Ed's blog post or the comment thread in general.
Since Ed's post is from 2006, there's a plethora of material published since then, especially given the increased demand for better understanding evolution due to the recent 150th anniversary of Darwin and Wallace publishing and presenting their theory. Some examples would be Carl Zimmer's, Tangled Bank, Fairbanks' Relics of Eden, Coyne's Why Evolution is True, and Shubin's Your Inner Fish representing a mere smattering of publications since 2006. Tangled Bank happens to be a textbook whose reading level is sufficiently easy for high schoolers as are all the other books I present here.
Mr. Card claims a reality in absolute terms while failing to validate his claim. What's particularly ironic is that Ed belongs to a group, as do many of his readers, that advocates for an increase in volume of science education and evolution to decrease the level of scientific illiterateness we encounter. Ed proves Mr. Card's reality simply doesn't exist with citations. You then, also failing to validate your own assertions a la' Mr. Card, misrepresent how Ed responds. And then you have the gall to issue an all-caps lock reprimand when it's you who appear incapable of comprehending what's been asserted? Wow, just wow - do you realize what a textbook case illustrating delusion your post represents?
Definition of delusion: An idiosyncratic belief or impression that is firmly maintained despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality or rational argument.
From my perspective and what the evidence reveals; you are repeatedly punching yourself in the face (metaphorically).
Posted by: Michael Heath | November 20, 2010 9:53 AM
Perhaps I did not make myself clear. I was not reprimanding Ed Brayton since he has every right to his own take on Card's essay. I was reprimanding the individuals who were posting things like:
"Doesn't he realize that the Mormon Chruch does not object to evolution?"
-and-
"I didn't know that he'd gotten sucked into ID as well"
I think it's incredibly stupid that they could have drawn either of those conclusions.
Posted by: Kyle Taylor | November 21, 2010 1:44 AM
Thanks for the reprimand Kyle Taylor. Card however apparently did get snookered by the IDers a little bit into thinking they weren't creationists who didn't like coming from "no stinking monkeys" though.
Posted by: 386sx | November 21, 2010 2:34 AM