Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
My friend Wesley Elsberry has a terrific post at his blog that absolutely shreds the standard DI rhetoric about not wanting to teach ID but only wanting the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolution taught. He quotes DI flak Rob Crowther:
As for claims that we try to get intelligent design into the curriculum, that's just not the case. Our science education policy is very clear. In November of 2003 Discovery Institute issued a Q&A that stated:Does Discovery Institute advocate requiring intelligent design theory in textbooks as an alternative? Absolutely not. We are NOT seeking to have intelligent design included in textbooks or in classroom instruction. We only want factual errors corrected and legitimate scientific weaknesses of neo-Darwinism presented.
Wesley replies:
News flash, Rob... this didn't work in Ohio. Remember Ohio? In 2002, DI Fellows Stephen Meyer and Jonathan Wells, on the spot to tell the Ohio State Board of Education exactly what they proposed teaching students as "intelligent design", offered a "compromise" instead, that being "critical analysis". The Ohio SBOE went along with that. They shepherded a "critical analysis" lesson plan by an Ohio "intelligent design" advocate through the review process and rejected alternative lesson plans that actually implemented "critical analysis". The poor reviews of the IDC "critical analysis" lesson plan were suppressed; the SBOE didn't get to see those. Then "Coingate" happened in Ohio and Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District happened in Pennsylvania. Requests for public records in pursuit of the shenanigans behind "Coingate" revealed the dirty political laundry of "intelligent design" advocacy behind the scenes, including political threats employed by one of the major IDC advocates on the SBOE. It also brought to light the internal reviews of the "critical analysis" lesson plan, where the education specialists from the Department of Education easily recognized the arguments in the "critical analysis" lesson plan as being the same as seen in "intelligent design" materials and "creation science" before that. The Kitzmiller case indicated that there was a significant liability risk to teaching religious antievolution. Given the clear evidence that the SBOE had been lied to on the issue of whether "intelligent design" was being advocated through the "critical analysis" language, the SBOE early in 2006 dropped the "critical analysis" language from the standards and the lesson plan from their website. Later, the voters dropped the high-profile IDC advocate on the SBOE who had threatened the governor politically to inject "critical analysis" AKA "intelligent design" into the curriculum.The quote above does not say that the Discovery Institute won't push for "intelligent design" arguments to be used in Texas classrooms. It just says that the Discovery Institute isn't pushing for the "intelligent design" label for them to be required. But "intelligent design" isn't anything in itself, it is simply a collection of objections to evolution that have been made by religious antievolutionists for decades or centuries. "Irreducible complexity", "specified complexity", and various "anthropic principle" arguments have explicit expression of the concepts in the work of the Reverend William Paley in "Natural Theology" from 1802. If you want to impress folks in Texas, Rob, tell them that the Discovery Institute has repudiated those arguments entirely and doesn't want anyone to use them anymore. Teaching children falsehoods, like the arguments made under the "intelligent design" label, has no secular purpose. We'll wait for your clarification that the Discovery Institute thinks that all the arguments that were made under the "intelligent design" label were wrong and teachers in Texas should not use those as bogus "weaknesses" of evolutionary science.
Absolutely right. And if you want a textbook example of what will happen when you allow people to use materials that point to "legitimate scientific weaknesses" of evolution, look no further than John Freshwater. He claims that he never taught creationism or ID at all, only that he presented materials about evolution. But the stuff he handed out was straight out of the creationist jokebook, including such egregious nonsense as the long-discredited "moon dust" argument and absurd creationist material casting doubt on radiometric dating.
Politics
Comments
Judging by all the scare quotes that Mr. Elsberry put in there, I would say that the "Intelligent Design" "theory" is like a little baby "theory" for little mental babies, and their childish baby religion too.
Posted by: 386sx | November 10, 2008 10:49 AM
1. Calling evolution "neo-Darwinism" and scientists, "Darwinists", is proof positive you are trying to push ID. No one else uses those ridiculous terms.
2. It's obvious the motivation behind presenting the "weaknesses" of the TOE is to create an opening to slip in ID. All along, their SOP has been to create doubts about it to uniformed people, to ready the ground for the inevitable question that would follow: "if not evolution, then what?". Aha, an ID, of course! Creationists and the DI are masters of the either/or fallacy.
3. You can't have "critical analysis" based on ignorant, unscientific premises and done by folks - even putative experts - with obvious bias.
4. No matter how many times you people try to disguise the concept by changing the terminology, the blatant BS that is ID shows right through your efforts at semantic sleight-of-hand. Give it up, we're sick of your no-talent magic show.
Posted by: marnk | November 10, 2008 11:17 AM
Any time I read about "weaknesses" of evolution, I always want to press the issue and ask what those weaknesses are, exactly. Don McLeroy, head of the Texas SBOE, was asked that in an interview on a PBS station in Texas, and listed misunderstandings of the theory. One was the Cambrian Explosion, and I can't remember what the other two were, but he seemed to have the idea that the TOE had problems in dealing with them.
I hope the three actual scientists on the Texas expert panel press the issue as well - what are the weaknesses?
Posted by: Curt Cameron | November 10, 2008 11:39 AM
Curt - the answer: "It's Hard! I don't understand it, therefore it must be wrong! It changes as scientists 'learn' more, therefore it is all wrong!"
also: "It makes my delusional belief look even sillier and more irrational, and I can't have that!"
Posted by: Badger3k | November 10, 2008 11:48 AM
Posted by: Taz | November 10, 2008 12:10 PM
"1. Calling evolution "neo-Darwinism" and scientists, "Darwinists", is proof positive you are trying to push ID. No one else uses those ridiculous terms."
Well, those terms are used sometimes to refer synonymously to adaptationists. But of course, Darwinism should never be equated with evolution, since Darwin's proposed mechanism of evolution (via natural selection) is just one mechanism while there are others such as drift.
It's probably true though that Creationists intend to use "Darwinist" as a slur, but it's really not and is a legitimate label.
Posted by: AL | November 10, 2008 12:14 PM
I'm sometimes in agreement with Wes, and sometimes not. But in any case you can count on him to present arguments that are reasoned, fair, and most of all informed. A formidable opponent.
Posted by: heddle | November 10, 2008 12:40 PM
"We only want factual errors corrected and legitimate scientific weaknesses of neo-Darwinism presented." - Rob Crowther, Dishonesty Institute pimp
Even if evolution was proven to be false, that would not automatically mean that intelligent design creationism was therefore proven to be true. Most "cdesign proponentsists" don't understand that - because they don't understand how science works.
Posted by: Paul Burnett | November 10, 2008 1:09 PM
Using the label "Darwinist" or "Neo-Darwinist" is indeed used as a slur. You don't have physicists called "Newtonists". They are physicists and those "Darwinists" are biologists. The term is used to separate biologists into 2 camps with equal status. That is a gross injustice as the vast majority of biologists recognize Darwin's natural selection as the basic framework of their specialty. DI and the other nutjobs need to stop wasting our precious time and money.
Posted by: Mike | November 10, 2008 1:14 PM
Pz has a great post up ( http://goosetheantithesis.blogspot.com/2008/11/id-was-spanked-in-fort-worth.html ) on a debate with David Berlinski, the subject of this notation in the report"
"Upon drawing close, he heard Krauss ask Berlinski why he wasted his intellect advocating for intelligent design. To which Berlinski replied that he doesn't believe a word of it, but is happy to cash the checks the Discovery Institute writes him. Strangely enough, this would be consistent with Berlinski's odd statement early on in which he admitted that his own ethical orientation was focused on living as contentedly and as selfishly as possible. It was a weird aside at the time; realizing that he could be exercising that ethic by making chumps of the Discovery Institute seems somehow poetically appropriate."
Posted by: Gingerbaker | November 10, 2008 1:32 PM
Most "cdesign proponentsists" don't understand that - because they don't understand how science works.
I'm gonna go a bit further and say ALL "cdesign proponentsists" that claim to advocate it from a scientific perspective. If you're not being dishonest because of an ideological handicap (and with respect to this discussion I argue that it really is a handicap), then I don't think you can really be both a "scientific" proponent of ID and understand how science really works.
Also, a second to everything Mike wrote above.
Posted by: Josh | November 10, 2008 1:37 PM
1. Calling evolution "neo-Darwinism" and scientists, "Darwinists", is proof positive you are trying to push ID. No one else uses those ridiculous terms.
Not true. Margulis refers to herself as a "Darwinist", and neodarwinians as "neodarwinian bullies". I agree with her in a similar context, and would say that neodarwinians are extreme aniticentrists, like most scientists.
Posted by: island | November 10, 2008 5:50 PM
Island,
In what context would any scientist refer to themselves as a darwinist rather than a biologist? It would only be reasonable to do so to contrast themselves with a creationist. Sad but necessary.
As for the bullying, I can only surmise that the non-darwinists are getting beat up by facts so often and so thoroughly they feel bullied. But in reality, that is not being bullied so much as being shown a fool in the eyes of anyone who can reason and see the truth for themselves.
Anti-centrist? Is that a person certain of their facts and position and not weak minded enough to be swayed by crap?
Posted by: Mike | November 10, 2008 6:12 PM
I find the DI's frequent use of "neo-Darwinism" as a slur particularly interesting from a linguistic angle. First of all, it's a technically true label. Historically, "neo-Darwinism" -- short for the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis -- referred to the combining during the 1930-40s of population genetics with Darwin's theory of natural selection. So yes, you'd be hard pressed to find a "Darwinist" who couldn't be rightly called a "neo-Darwinist", since not being one would mean rejecting modern genetics. However, it's that redundancy that makes it obvious that the use of the term by creationists is intended as a negative rhetorical device.
(For example, virtually all televisions sold today are color televisions, but no one refers to them as "color TVs" anymore since their black & white alternatives are dead as the VCR. If someone kept insisting on calling all TVs "color TVs" where a normal person would just say "TVs" you'd think it very strange sounding and would suspect them of trying to make some sort of point by doing so.)
But why are we seeing the DI use "neo-Darwinism" instead of just "Darwinism", which is also technically true and used as a slur among creationists? I think it's because the prefix "neo-", especially when combined with an "-ism" or "-ist" type word, has gained a negative connotation due mainly to popular familiarity with the words "neo-Nazi" and lately "neo-conservative" ("neo-con" has been the slur of choice on the left since 2001, and while most IDists identify with the right, they couldn't have helped but notice the sinister sounding way "neo-con" is used).
In this use, "neo-" means "sinister" or "group plotting in the shadows, gathering their forces for an eventual take over" or just "super extra bad". How fortuitous for the DI that there was already a term like "neo-Darwinism" that they could hijack with plausible deniability due to its technical correctness. So for the DI (or rather, their intended audience) "neo-Darwinism" doesn't mean "a new form of Darwinism" (much less some sort of reference to the history of science), but rather "an even worse and more sneaky form of Darwinism", which is evident in the paranoid nonsense that "island" above seems to be peddling (if he isn't Poeing us).
Posted by: jpf | November 10, 2008 7:37 PM
jpf, Perfectly put. Thanks.
Posted by: Mike | November 10, 2008 7:47 PM
In what context would any scientist refer to themselves as a darwinist rather than a biologist? It would only be reasonable to do so to contrast themselves with a creationist. Sad but necessary.
Nope.
Well, the context that Lynn used it in was when she took her best shot as the honored guest speaker at the last evolutionary conference:
The problem with neo-Darwinism is that Random changes in DNA alone do not lead to speciation. It was like confessing a murder when I discovered I was not a neo-Darwinist. I am definitely a Darwinist though. I think we are missing important information about the origins of variation. I differ from the neo-Darwinian bullies on this point.
-Lynn Margulis
It has nothing to do with creationism, Lynn is at odds with certain interpretations of neodarwinism that are excessively focused on inter-organismic competition. She is quoted in the Wikipedia as saying that she believes that history will ultimately judge them as comprising "a minor twentieth-century religious sect within the sprawling religious persuasion of Anglo-Saxon Biology." who "wallow in their zoological, capitalistic, competitive, cost-benefit interpretation of Darwin - having mistaken him..." "Neo-Darwinism, which insists on (the slow accrual of mutations by gene-level natural selection), is a complete funk."
As for the bullying, I can only surmise that the non-darwinists are getting beat up by facts so often and so thoroughly they feel bullied. But in reality, that is not being bullied so much as being shown a fool in the eyes of anyone who can reason and see the truth for themselves.
Anti-centrist? Is that a person certain of their facts and position and not weak minded enough to be swayed by crap?
I'm not defending creationism, but the lost point is that unjustified Copernicanism isn't science either. nevermind...
Posted by: island | November 10, 2008 7:55 PM
Don't forget that it can't explain gravity or the origin of the universe.
Yeah, and it won't do dishes too. Evolution has many many weaknesses. Many many.
Posted by: 386sx | November 10, 2008 8:31 PM
Paul, I'll spin that another way. Even if Intelligent Design itself were proven to be true, the arguments used to advance it are so dishonest and intellectually vacuous that I wouldn't give the creationists credit for being right rather than just lucky.
Posted by: Scott Hanley | November 10, 2008 9:38 PM
Posted by: Taz | November 10, 2008 9:42 PM
Slightly off topic, but you might get a kick out of this article in Sarah Palin's local newspaper:
http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/584151.html
Just checking, Angelica asked if the fossils were older than Jesus.
"No," her mother said.
Posted by: Grumpy | November 10, 2008 11:08 PM
Island,
I thought jpf explained the situation most admirably but I see you didn't catch the drift. Lynn Margulis was speaking at a conference where her meaning would not be mistaken for a slur. If she meant it as a slur then she ought to be ashamed.
If you are not defending creationism, why argue at all?
Copurnicus was right. He just needed a little help to move forward. Evolution is right and supported by thousands of tests, facts and predictions and is moving forward as well. ID creationism is wrong in that it is unsupported by any of these. Evolution will 'evolve' as a theory as new material is added to the knowledge base. ID creationism says stop studying. No need to look any further, we have all the answers right here in this design. That is not science but rather unbending religious dogma.
Posted by: Mike | November 11, 2008 9:00 AM
LOL... yeah, Copernicus was right:
http://dorigo.wordpress.com/2008/06/23/guest-post-rick-ryals-the-anthropic-principle/
And it isn't a question of either, he was, or creationists were, but it is no surprise to me to find you buying their hype.
Posted by: island | November 11, 2008 9:46 AM
Island,
Not sure what hype I'm buying. The idea that our 'situation' is so unique that no other place can support life is intriguing but, like ID, asks you to stop looking, stop investigating, just believe what's behind the magic curtain.
I do believe life exists elsewhere whether we find it or no. I believe biology and evolution will explain what many describe as 'weaknesses' with more work and more study. Stating a thing is too difficult therefore shouldn't be studied in favor of a magical designer is ludicrous and unscientific.
Posted by: Mike | November 11, 2008 12:58 PM
"Well, the context that Lynn used it in was when she took her best shot as the honored guest speaker at the last evolutionary conference." - island
Are you on a first-name basis with Dr. Margulis, island? Or should we attribute your first-naming her to a) a belief on your part that you are her academic equal; and/or b) sexism?
Btw, that locution of yours, "the last evolutionary conference" would betray you as a science illiterate, even if your defense of "darwinism" and "darwinist" as legitimate scientific terms hadn't already done so. Only someone with an extremely superficial self-education in biology, and a tin ear, would refer to an "evolutionary conference."
The normal way for a well-educated layperson (I'm not a scientist, so I won't speak for scientists) to refer to a scientific conference dealing with the subject of evolution would be, "a conference on evolution" or perhaps, "an evolution conference."
I am sure that many such conferences, including a number of prominent ones, are held every year. There is no one annointed conference, held every 4 years like the Olympics, that qualifies as "the evolutionary conference." Referring to "the last evolutionary conference" is about like referring to "the last fiction writing conference" or "the last boxing championship."
In other words, island, your insider pose falls flat. And it doesn't even take a real insider to know that you're a fake.
Posted by: plum grenville | November 11, 2008 7:07 PM
Island
If I have understood that gobblygook you linked to, you seem to be promoting the idea that the Universe was designed to encourage carbon-based life ( and that conventional scientist refuse to admit such)?
If so, all I can say is - what a terrible bit of engineering. The designer is an absolute failure, as, so far, the only organic life that we can find is only on this one little planet of ours, lonely amongst 100 billion billion galaxies.
Posted by: Gingerbaker | November 12, 2008 9:39 AM
I stand somewhat corrected, after just hearing Richard Dawkins use the term "Darwinism" [@ around 6:50 as he describes his loss of faith at 15]. So I amend my initial absolutist point #1, though I agree with everyone who said that when creationists use it, it is meant pejoratively.
Posted by: marnk | November 16, 2008 11:41 AM