Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
All of my favorite subjects rolled into one. Over at Uncommon Descent, Doug Moran reacted to the ACLU threatening to sue the Toledo school district for allowing the teaching of ID by declaring them to be the "most vile intellectual terrorists". I'll take ridiculous hyperbole for $1000, Alex. Why not just call them "intellectual abortionists" while you're at it, Doug? Why limit yourself to just one pointlessly inflammatory attempt to poison the well rather than engage their position?
But here's the punchline to the whole thing. When someone pointed out that Dawkins' view of the philosophical inferences to be drawn from evolution is not taught in science classes, DaveScot demanded to know, then, why the Kansas science standards declare that, "Biological evolution postulates an unguided natural process that has no discernable direction or goal." Jack Krebs, a Panda's Thumb colleague who is on the Kansas science standards committee, answered his question:
We, the majority on the science committee, did not write that line - in fact we rejected it in committee by a 2:1 marginEgbooth is right. The phrase about "unguided" was added by the ID Minority on the writing committee and adopted by the Board. It is an unwarranted metaphysical addition made by the ID Minority. The majority of the writing committee (of which I am a member) believe that evolutionary theory, or science in general, can only study the physical world in a limited way, and that judging whether there is or isn't divine guidance (as the word is meant to imply in the standards) is outside the scope of science.
And yes I know about the letter from the Nobel 38, and about Dawkins, etc. If the Nobel 38 meant to make a statement about metaphysical or divine guidance, then, despite what ever well-meaning intentions they had, they were not talking about science and not talking for science. More importantly, they are not teaching Kansas school children.
So, going back to the topic of the thread: if a teacher were to actually explicitly teach the position stated in the line added by the ID Minority (that evolution was a unguided process from a theological view, and that therefore students were accidents with no intrinsic purpose because there is no God), the ACLU would be first in line to support a suit against them, and Kansas Citizens for Science would support them.
This is actually one of the few good things to come from the ID movement, pointing out that calling evolution "unguided" - though I think there is good reason to believe that - is going a bit beyond the scope of the science itself. As a result, textbook writers like Ken Miller have removed such inferences from their books and I think science education is all the better for it. But isn't it amusing how the IDers react when such inferences aren't there to criticize? They just add them in themselves and then criticize us for it even though we objected to their inclusion! Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Comments
Ed says:
I think it's interesting that when you look at their arguments against the term "unguided", they look very much our arguments against their use of "design". They can see that "unguided" is not a scientific testable concept, but they can't see that "guided" (i.e. Design) amounts to the exact same thing, but in reverse.
Posted by: Dave S.
| February 16, 2006 1:29 PM
This is an old COINTELPRO tactic: portray your opposition as more extreme than it really is, or have provocateurs nudge the opposition in a more extreme direction, in order to divide the opposition and discredit its leaders. I'm not at all surprised that the far right are doing this -- they did the same thing by funding Nader in 2004, and extremists routinely argue only with their stupidest and most extreme opponents. It's an old tradition going at least as far back as 1933, when Nazis and Communists ganged up on the Social Democrats in the German election.
Posted by: Raging Bee
| February 16, 2006 1:47 PM
The thing I really don't get is why these people care so much. It's as if they really don't believe in God or view him/her/it as so impotent that it can't take care of itself.
I would only argue that the phrase unguided is abit of a misnomer. Of course evolution is guided, just not likely by any supernatural means, or any particular direction. Organisms don't exist in a vacuum. If you want to go supernatural, well, we all know that dead end.
Posted by: Chance
| February 16, 2006 1:58 PM
There is a language issue on this topic. When I get a chance I'm going to write a blog post recasting this issue as "unguided" versus "unguidable". Science can demonstrate the later, but not the former.
Posted by: Reed A. Cartwright
| February 16, 2006 2:06 PM
Hello,
I read through most of the Wikipedia entries for the ID discussion, but one concept I didn't see relates somewhat to the 'unguided' issue.
While mutation and then selection appear to do a good job of describing physical events on the planet, I'd like to know if there is any literature that looks at the process from a wider view. Has anyone ever proposed that the rays from outer space that cause mutations have some design intent behind them?
I know this just begs larger questions, but I'd be interested in reading any works that address the idea.
Thanks,
TW
Posted by: TWood
| February 16, 2006 3:51 PM
Eventually we will have to address the issue of transhuman genetic engineering and whether the "products" of those processes are "evolutionary" and 'guided.' We already have GE corn pollen blowing into non-GM fields, morphing the various plants and weeds, many towards a resistance to herbicides and pesticides. These are not insignificant steps on the ladder of evolutionary processes. Removing the term "unguided" at least informs the conversation.
Posted by: spyder
| February 16, 2006 6:44 PM
Check out the thread now. There is no such Ebooth, but replies to him remain.
This is always funny to me.
Anyone coming across the blog will either be confused by replies to people who aren't there or realize that the site is run by dishonest cowards who remove posts and posters who shred their arguments.
Posted by: beervolcano
| February 16, 2006 7:44 PM
I guess I was a little naive when I thought that civil discussion was allowed over at Uncommon Descent. My comment that was banned (but referred to and insulted by DaveScot - that seems fair) merely pointed out that this discussion of guided/unguided by supernatural forces is not a scientific discussion. I guess that was "trite, derivative, boring, ignorant, wrong, hysterical, hyperbolic" according to DaveScot. What a joke!
Posted by: egbooth
| February 17, 2006 2:51 PM
egbooth:
It's well known that you do not reveal the ignorance of DaveScot on his blog. Goodness knows how hard that is to do, given the many opportunities he gives. Welcome to the club.
Dissent is not allowed over there...Uncommon Descent is a word-play with both words.
Posted by: Dave S.
| February 17, 2006 3:10 PM
I wonder if someone could tell me why it's supposedly unscientific to say that evolution is unguided? It seems to me that if there's no evidence of any guidance mechanism and the mechanisms that do determine the direction of evolution are all material and show no signs of intelligence, then it should be "scientific" to say that evolution is unguided.
Let me give an example: Blow up a balloon and let it go. It shoots all over the room and eventually lands at some random spot. Is it scientific to say that the balloon's path is unguided? I should think that it is. There is no discernable guidance mechanism and the things that do determine the balloon's path (size, shape and characteristics of the rubber nozzle, vagrant air currents, etc) are all ordinary material things and show no sign of intelligence.
If someone told me that the balloon's flight was guided, I'd feel perfectly justified in putting the burden of proof on him: What is the guidance mechanism? How does it work? Where does intelligence come in to the picture?
Similarly, when someone tells me that evolution is guided, I can't help noticing that we know some material mechanisms that seem to account for all of our observations of the direction of evolution: mutations that are random with regard to survival and natural selection that is aggressively non-random in favoring mutations that aid survival and reproduction, but which show no signs of intelligent input. I feel perfectly justified in asking the person who insists that it's guided, "What is the guidance mechanism? How does it work? Where does the intelligence come into the picture?" Absent good answers to those questions, I'd say the default answer, that evolution is not guided, wins out.
Posted by: djmullen
| March 1, 2006 2:52 AM
I would like to offer a contrarian opinion:
Darwinism is not science, it is a materialist, secular religion, designed to support atheism.
Darwinism is not science because it cannot be disproved.
For example, the fossils fail to show any meaningful transitions at the level of class or phyla but this is not deemed a disproof. In fact, nothing would be considered a disproof to Darwinian pseudo-scientists.
For evolution to be true, Darwinists must prove macro-evolution (that actual mutations have led to a NEW SPECIES). There is NO EVIDENCE for macro-evolution.
Instead of evidence for macro-evolution, Darwinists fraudulently use evidence for micro-evolution (change within species)to prove macro-evolution. Micro-evolution is obviously true.
Darwinists fraudulently pretend that micro-evolution and macro-evolution are the same thing, but THEY ARE NOT THE SAME THING.
Darwinists have no evidence for macro-evolution. Instead they have invented clever stories which they support with fake drawings in science textbooks of embryos, horse transitions for which there are no supporting fossils, and much, much other fake evidence.
Unfortunately, fake evidence and clever stories are not science.
Asher Norman
Author of Twenty-Six Reasons Why Jews Don't Believe In Jesus @ www.26reasons.com.
Posted by: Asher | September 26, 2006 1:59 AM