Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Sal Cordova responded - kind of - to my post yesterday in this comment buried deep in his post at Dembski's place. Predictably, his response does not engage my argument; hell, it doesn't even come close to engaging it. He was attempting to dispute NIck Matzke's claim that the use of the phrase "intelligent design" in Of Pandas and People was the origin of that phrase as a label for the modern anti-evolution movement. Sal found an old letter where Darwin used the phrase and, for some reason, thought that actually disproved Matzke's claim (it doesn't, as I've explained several times without any substantive response).
I pointed out that William Dembski had said precisely the same thing that Matzke said in his expert report in the Dover trial. Dembski wrote:
Of Pandas and People was and remains the only intelligent design textbook. In fact, it was the first place where the phrase "intelligent design" appeared in its present use.
And I asked:
One wonders why Sal didn't contrast the quote from the Darwin letter with that quote from Dembski.
And here is Sal's "response":
Answer: Because the one by Darwin was more humorous.
That's not an answer, Sal. I didn't ask why you used the quote from Darwin, since that is obvious: you used it because you want to pretend (dishonestly) that Darwin's use of the phrase "intelligent design" somehow negates the point Matzke was making. What I asked was why you chose to contrast the Darwin quote with what Matzke said rather than contrasting it to what Dembski said, since the two of them said the exact same thing and Dembski clearly confirms Matzke's argument as true. You didn't answer that question.
Then, true to his dishonest quote-mining history, Sal cuts off the relevant portion of the Dembski quote and makes an irrelevant argument:
Of Pandas and People was and remains the only intelligent design textbook. Bill DembskiThat statement is obsolescent because Bill Dembski and Jonathan Wells have written a new ID textbook with an new definition of ID.
You are nothing if not predictable, Sal. True to form, you conveniently forgot the relevant portion of the quote and left it off; I'm sure that's completely coincidental, though. You wouldn't engage in such dishonesty in order to evade the real issue, would you? Nah, I'm sure you wouldn't; that's not what Jesus would do, is it? Let me know when you actually want to engage the substantive issue here rather than playing these stupid and dishonest word games. The only thing you're achieving here is confirmation of why anyone who has ever attempted to hold an honest discussion with you has come away shaking their head at just how slimy and deceitful you can be.
Comments
I wonder why anyone even bothers to deal with Cordova anymore. You can't have a debate with someone unless you assume at least a basic level of intellectual honesty, and Cordova has demonstrated time and time again that he has no interest in such niceties. His dishonesty, particularly his repetitive quote-mining, is so flagrant that it borderlines on compulsive lying.
Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | August 22, 2007 8:12 PM
Sal's now highlighting Matzke's use of "originated" instead of the immediately preceding "as such." Reading isn't his strong suit--or if it is, God help him.
Posted by: Jim Anderson | August 22, 2007 8:45 PM
he's trollin' ya.
Posted by: divalent | August 22, 2007 9:14 PM
All of the IDers have been spinning this argument exactly the same way, pretending that if the phrase "intelligent design" had ever been used by anyone at any time prior to 1987, the argument is disproven. But that is utter nonsense. The argument is not that 1987 was the first time the phrase had ever been uttered, but that that was when we first saw the systematic use of "intelligent design" as a label for the anti-evolution movement, replacing creationism and creation science. It was essentially a rebranding, but the rebranding took place in the same manner that speciation takes place, with a portion of the ancestral stock splitting off and forming a new group under a new label. All of the arguments found in ID can be traced directly to earlier creationist writings. All of the ID advocates were previously advocates of creationism in either its young earth or old earth form. In many cases, the very same people were saying the same thing about ID that they had earlier said about creation science and now pretending that it never really applied to creation science (see Dean Kenyon's affidavit in Edwards for a perfect example). And the only reason that they have to play this dishonest game of pretending that if they can show any use of the phrase prior to 1987 they've won the argument is because they simply cannot deny the truth of the real argument; the only thing they can do is resort to defeating a straw man version of it.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | August 22, 2007 9:51 PM
Again, though, Ed, I don't think that you really believe that the religious motivation prong of the Lemon test should be there in the first place. I think that's been pretty clear from your writings. So Sal's arguing with you over this really seems like navel-gazing, or being right for right's sake.
Posted by: Brian | August 22, 2007 9:55 PM
Brian wrote:
You've lost me. What does this argument have to do with the purpose prong?
Posted by: Ed Brayton | August 22, 2007 9:59 PM
Asked and answered, as they say on Law and Order. We like Salvador precisely because he's an obvious liar. If you can show that your opponent is an obvious liar, you win among the informed opinion-makers.
Posted by: steve s | August 22, 2007 10:07 PM
Well, if ID is indeed a religious philosophy, it should be obvious that it is, on its own merit (which I think is true). The fact that it has underpinnings in an even more obviously religious philosophy such as creationism are irrelevant unless you're talking about the purpose prong - a situation where it's obvious that, by using recycled creationism, the ID proponents have no legitimate secular purpose.
Posted by: Brian | August 22, 2007 10:09 PM
His dishonesty, particularly his repetitive quote-mining, is so flagrant that it borderlines on compulsive lying.
"Borderlines?" From where Sal stands, the border isn't even in visual range. He's squarely in the heart of LieForJesusStan, and has been for as long as I've been hearing of him.
Posted by: Raging Bee | August 22, 2007 10:15 PM
Also, Sal seems to be falling back on trying to pretend he's only kidding, and we should all be laughing at his brilliant humor -- just like Ann Coulter. And like the Blonde Brainstem, he's doing this because he knows full well how discredited and indefensible his position is.
Posted by: Raging Bee | August 22, 2007 10:18 PM
Brian wrote:
No, you're confusing the purpose prong and the effect prong. The question of whether ID is or is not an inherently religious idea is about effect, not purpose; the government, under current precedent, is forbidden from teaching an inherently religious idea. If ID is inherently religious then putting ID into science classrooms has the primary effect of advancing religion. All of the effort to tie ID to creation science in the Dover trial was for the effect prong analysis. The purpose prong analysis was based upon statements from the school board about "standing up for Jesus", which could be argued quite apart from whether ID is synonymous with creationism. If that purpose prong was all we had, though, the case would have been pretty weak. The effect prong analysis made it a great deal stronger, which is why the ID advocates are screaming that the judge didn't just stop with "they were motivated by a religious purpose" but instead continued with the effect prong analysis tying ID to creationism, thus establishing that it is an inherently religious idea.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | August 22, 2007 10:32 PM
Years ago when I was posting on ARN I regarded Sal as a reasonably honest but deeply ignorant run of the mill creationist. Having watched him sink over the years, I now regard him as a an irredeemably immoral intellectual slut.
Posted by: RBH | August 22, 2007 11:29 PM
That's worryingly close to an ad-hominem; Sal's a slimeball, but that doesn't necessarily make ID wrong. Pointing out his dishonesty publicly might score us political points, but it's really no better than when O'Leary finds some crank writing rubbish in the name of evo-devo and then claims that proves the whole discipline is rubbish.
Posted by: Will | August 23, 2007 6:03 AM
Well that was as blatant as an attempt at deceit as it was stupid on Mr Cordova's part.
Just don't call him a crackpot.
Posted by: lunartalks | August 23, 2007 6:35 AM
That's pretty good too!
Posted by: steve s | August 23, 2007 8:58 AM
Pure poetry.
Though we could also make that "an irredeemable irresponsibly immoral intellectual imago", I rather envision gender neutral creeping crawlies when I read Sal. (And sometimes I see bloviating beasts bar balls but busting butts.)
Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson, OM | August 23, 2007 9:40 AM
Sal's a slimeball, but that doesn't necessarily make ID wrong.
It proves Sal is wrong, and totally unreliable. And when the rest of the ID movement fail to distance themselves from Sal's tactics, it proves the deep dishonesty of the ID movement.
RBH: If Sal is a "slut," he's the ugliest slut I've ever seen -- at least Paris Hilton didn't lie like Sal does. Where's Britney Spears when we need her?
Posted by: Raging Bee | August 24, 2007 9:27 AM