Reason #5592557 ID Creationism is dead

Ah well.

Here's an aids joke.

We all missed the Denyse-esque "Buy My Book" motif too.

FYI Ken Miller is on Science Friday today... I think starting in a few mins.

Thanks for the Hat Tip - and the sweet summary.

I have to say that the idea of Dembski and/or Sal doing anything with kids is kind of creepy... anybody else think we're looking at a future headline on all channels except FAUX?

ps: Abbie!!! Last night flipping channels - The travel Channel had a show about "Bigfootville OK!!!" - There's your
certain-sure PhD!

This makes more sense if you stop and think about it.

First, apologetics in all religions and ideologies has always been to a large extent preaching to converted. The apologists attempt not so much to convert people but to give believers additional reasons to keep them on their side of the fence.

Second, and related to the first point, many of those creationists would go on to college and be exposed to mainstream views. If they accept "intelligent design" in its more vague or less reality-challenged versions they won't have nearly as much of a tendency to reject their anti-evolution beliefs than they would if a fundamental part of those beliefs was a literal six day creation.

Third, these young homeschooled children are the people who can have the most impact on other people. Again, seen in apolgetic terms, this gives the people who are most likely to earnestly repeat the apologetics, and gives them a variety of somewhat new techniques to spread among the general populace.

The ID crowd is totally fractured at this point. Kitzmiller busted them apart.

Prior to Kitzmiller they were all "ID is science" and blah, blah, blah.

But, after Behe screwed the pooch at Kitzmiller leading to the conclusion that ID was old fashioned creationism relabeled, the movement couldn't use that approach any more.

Behe tried to make amends with a lame book the thesis of which got owned by a student, granted a future Nobel Prize winning scientist, but a student nevertheless and Behe has no face left in the ID community. Even the Disco Institute stopped supporting him.

Thus, the fallback position is good old fashioned creationism and bashing evolution just like the good old days.

Dembski has been reduced from Director of an ID think tank at Baylor to writing vacation bible school tracts for children. What's next, palm reading?

Dembski made that point years ago on ARN, repeating it is here:

Why should ID supporters allow the Darwinian establishment to indoctrinate students at the high school level, only to divert some of the brightest to becoming supporters of a mechanistic account of evolution, when by presenting ID at the high school level some of these same students would go on to careers trying to develop ID as a positive research program? If ID is going to succeed as a research program, it will need workers, and these are best recruited at a young age.

Translation: Us credentialed ID proponents can't get a research program started, so let's recruit some high school kids to do it.

Like Edward Current says, creation science must be taken seriously!

First, we need a God-approved, non-blasphemous way to determine the age of rocks and fossils...

Hi all,

Bill Dembski is acting as a cheerleader again, asking his IDiot sycophants to strike at their delusional version of Ken Miller at Uncommon Dissent. His ongoing actions really bring home what I observed in my Amazon.com review of Ken Miller's "only A Theory".

In the second and third paragraphs of my Amazon.com review, I noted this:

"What is America's 'scientific soul' and why its survival remains in jeopardy from Intelligent Design's ongoing, vigorous - or perhaps more accurately, fanatical - assault, are among the most important, most compelling, themes examined by Miller in his elegant, terse tome. As Miller eloquently notes in the opening chapter, his recognition of a 'battle for America's scientific soul' is one he has discerned only recently, in the aftermath of recent legal battles against Intelligent Design and other creationist foes. And, regrettably, it is a battle that goes well beyond shaping the future course of American secondary school science education. Miller passionately believes that our 'scientific soul' is exactly the very essence that makes us Americans; a healthy disdain for authority, but one which does respect pragmatism, and demands results, in short, the very cultural environment that has been embraced, and sustained by mainstream science for centuries. A cultural environment whose revolutionary nature arose in little more than a decade during the American Revolution, according to Miller's distinguished Brown University colleague, eminent American historian Gordon Wood, when Americans transformed their society from 'one little different from the hierarchal societies of European monarchies to one that took up the truly radical notion that individuals were both the source of a government's legitimacy and its greatest hope for progress.'"

"In many respects, not only is Intelligent Design an idea that is 'un-American', since its very principles are antithetical to America's defining cultural values of practicality, pragmatism and disrespect of authority, but, in its key objective of 'overthrowing methodological naturalism', Intelligent Design, argues Miller, is a far more serious and dangerous threat to mainstream science than traditional creationism, since it is a revolutionary assault against the very fabric of scientific methodology ('methodological naturalism', or rather, what is commonly recognized as the scientific method comprised of hypothesis generation and testing) employed by science for centuries, transforming science into an unrecognizable entity that is as rife with relativism as the leftist-leaning social sciences criticized by philosopher Allan Bloom in his landmark tome, 'The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Impoverished America's Young and Failed Its Students'. Indeed Miller observes astutely that Bloom's analysis was not a conservative-leaning attack on leftist Academia, but instead, one warning how a relativistic "openness" - an uncritical embrace of all ideas - was detrimental to the survival of rational thought on college and university campuses, and, not surprisingly, Bloom contended that the sciences were the only realm of Academia unaffected by the politics of openness. However, if Intelligent Design successfully gains further acceptance amongst a sympathetic American populace, then, Miller warns, American science would be susceptible too to the same political plagues affecting the arts, humanities and social sciences (Ironically the same plagues that have been the subjects of ample discourse, mostly hysterical ridicule, from leading Intelligent Design advocates like Philip Johnson, David Klinghoffer, and Ann Coulter.). This is a warning which should be heeded by anyone who reads or hears of Miller's message, since the very essence, the very future, of American science is at stake."

(Incidentally mine is one of three currently posted at Amazon.com and the only ones which covers the two main points of Ken's book:

1) The current battles with ID creationists mean that we are engaged in a battle for America's soul, which could well determine what a future America will resemble, not only scientifically, but also culturally and politically.

2) Is ID a scientific theory that can explain better the structure and history of Planet Earth's biodiversity? How can we test its principles? Does existing data support them?)

For more of review, then please look here:

http://www.amazon.com/Only-Theory-Evolution-Battle-Americas/dp/06700188…

Regards,

John

Neither of the other reviews currently posted do address these key points

Keep 'em stupid and when they grow up they can get elected to school boards and state legislatures.

Intelligent Design Creationism is dead, like a zombie is dead. And thinks about as much, too.

Speaking of keeping them stupid: There's still the YECs like Ray Comfort out there.

I once said on his blog (though leter removed) that Ray is c___ f___ing stupid, and he keeps bearing me out.

There are two problems with this: 1) Fossils are dead creatures. It's absurd to say something didn't "survive long enough to [die and] be fossilized." If a fish begins growing stubby little legs, making it less adapted to its current environment, it will die sooner rather than later. But the fossilization will begin at whatever age it dies. Dead things fossilize.

2) Anyone can look at a collection of things and categorize them from smallest to largest, from simplest to most complex. But that in no way makes them descendant from one another. We could do that with autos (sports car to Hummer), airplanes (biplane to jumbo jet), etc., and then announce our "scientific" conclusion: "Aha! See? That proves they have a common ancestor!" That's nonsense!

What is the scientific proof that similarity demands that they have common ancestry? Instead, more logical is that common design indicates a common designer. Lining up fossils is no more "scientific evidence" than lining up different makes of cars.

I wonder if he'll allow my response to that bs of his to go in?

Damn. Buggered up the formatting. Those middle two paragraphs are quoted from Ray's site. Let me try again:

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There are two problems with this: 1) Fossils are dead creatures. It's absurd to say something didn't "survive long enough to [die and] be fossilized." If a fish begins growing stubby little legs, making it less adapted to its current environment, it will die sooner rather than later. But the fossilization will begin at whatever age it dies. Dead things fossilize.

2) Anyone can look at a collection of things and categorize them from smallest to largest, from simplest to most complex. But that in no way makes them descendant from one another. We could do that with autos (sports car to Hummer), airplanes (biplane to jumbo jet), etc., and then announce our "scientific" conclusion: "Aha! See? That proves they have a common ancestor!" That's nonsense!

--------

The irony? I used to have trouble formatting on Abbie's old site. Can anyone guess the excuse I'll use this time?

BTW Abbie, don't know if you have seen this about the courts in SA banning trials of vitamins as an AID cure by the usual denier quacks:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7453449.stm

The really funny thing is that a lot of the really hard-core Young Earth Creationists see Intelligent Design as being nearly as blasphemous as evolution. Anyone hoping for another denier fight?

Anyone can look at a collection of things and categorize them from smallest to largest, from simplest to most complex. But that in no way makes them descendant from one another. We could do that with autos (sports car to Hummer), airplanes (biplane to jumbo jet), etc., and then announce our "scientific" conclusion: "Aha! See? That proves they have a common ancestor!" That's nonsense!

The irony? I used to have trouble formatting on Abbie's old site. Can anyone guess the excuse I'll use this time?

Keep 'em stupid and when they grow up they can get elected to school boards and state legislatures.

Intelligent Design Creationism is dead, like a zombie is dead. And thinks about as much, too.

Zayflama, just in case you didn't notice and assuming you don't want to embarrass yourself more than you already have, but your ignorance is showing. Be a good fellow and tuck it back in for it's not seemly to leave it hanging out for all to see.

ERV, you know if you keep slapping your self in the head you are going to start killing brain cells. I know the UD boards cause that reaction but like the car crash you must look away for your own good.

DI and ID start Operation Footbullet as our anonymous friends and comrades would say

New Woo for You:The Logic of Creationism Featuring that paragon of logic, Yomin Postelnik.

Hi all,

Ken Miller will be on the Colbert Report tonight. Check your local listings.

John

Apparently Mike Behe is so afraid of adverse public reaction that he's decided not to post his latest Blog post on the product page of his latest solo exercise in mendacious intellectual pornography, "The Edge of Evolution".

Well, I'll do the honors for him here:

"Once More With Feeling
11:11 AM PDT, June 16, 2008
Dear Readers,
Kenneth R. Miller, a professor of biology at Brown University, has written a new book Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul, in which he defends Darwinism, attacks intelligent design, and makes a case for theistic evolution (defined as something like "God used Darwinian evolution to make life"). In all this, it's pretty much a re-run of his previous book published over a decade ago, Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground between God and Evolution. So if you read that book, you'll have a very good idea of what 90% of the new book concerns. For people who think that a mousetrap is not irreducibly complex because parts of it can be used as a paperweight or tie clip, and so would be easy to evolve by chance, Miller is their man. Despite the doubts of many - perhaps most - evolutionary biologists of the power of the Darwinian mechanism, to Miller's easy imagination evolving any complex system by chance plus selection is a piece of cake, and intermediates are to be found behind every door. A purer devotee of Darwinian wishful thinking would be hard to find.

A few events of the last ten years seem to have caught his attention. He discusses The Edge of Evolution for several pages, reprising his superficial review for Nature that I critiqued on this site last year. At a number of points he lovingly quotes Dover trial Judge John Jones, either not recognizing or purposely ignoring the fact that Jones' opinion was pretty much copied word for word from a document given to him by the plaintiff's attorneys; there's no evidence that Jones comprehended any of the expert testimony at the trial - even Miller's own testimony. Miller even quotes the passage from "Jones"' opinion which blatantly mischaracterized my testimony, placing in my mouth words that the plaintiff's attorney had actually spoken. But even that has been gone over many times; if you read the newspaper and some blogs, all this is very old hat.

The theistic evolution is the same too. (I have nothing against theistic evolution - I used to agree with it - except now I think it doesn't fit the data.) We live in a finely tuned universe, so that points to God. Miller pointedly denies that that is a scientific argument, but it's hard to see why not. How many other theological or philosophical arguments depend on the exact values of physical constants - to many significant figures - such as the charge on the electron, the strength of gravity, and so on? Reasoning based on quantitative, precise measurements of nature is science. Ironically, Miller is an intelligent design proponent when it comes to cosmology, but is contemptuous of people who see design extending further into nature than he does.

The only "new" argument in the book is Miller's complaint that his intellectual opponents are threatening America and civilization, and so must be stopped for the good of the country. (Now, how many times have you heard a politician or special pleader use that line?) America is a science-based society, you see, so we should all bow when the National Academy of Sciences speaks - anything less is un-American.

Well, it seems to me that a country which places control of the military in civilian hands is a country which recognizes that experts, like other people, can be blinded by their biases. If control of the military is too important to be left to the experts, control of education is, too. Even to experts who are as sure of themselves as Kenneth Miller is."

Ken's two major points - of which Behe "gets it" with regards to one - are these:

1) America is battling for its soul, since modern science is part and parcel as to what we are as Americans - as eloquently noted by both Ken Miller in his latest book and his eminent colleague at Brown, American historian Gordon Wood, who is regarded by many as our foremost living authority on the American Revolution and the early history of the American republic. America is battling for its soul simply because Intelligent Design advocates like Behe wish to overthrow "methodological naturalism" (in plain English, the scientific mehtod), allowing a more expansive definition of science that would also include supernatural phenomena and such sciences as astrology (which Behe admitted under oath during the 2005 Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District Trial). This definition threatens not only evolutionary biology, but all of the natural sciences, asking us to consider theories like relativity and quantum mechanics and the periodic table of the elements in a new, irrational light.

2) Does Intelligent Design represent a credible, better, scientific alternative to contemporary evolutionary theory in explaining the structure and history of Planet Earth's biodiversity? Ken did not pose this question in "Finding Darwin's God", so he could be less selective in choosing those examples which illustrate his - and mine (which I have made here at Amazon for more than a year now) - points that Intelligent Design fails to be that alternative since it doesn't make predictions, generate research, or provide a unifying theory that allows paleontologists to talk to molecular biologists and developmental biologists (as Ken himself notes in the concluding chapter).

In private e-mail correspondence I have challenged Behe to explain how Intelligent Design represents a credible, better, scientific alternative to contemporary evolutionary theory in explaining the structure and history of Planet Earth's biodiversity. I wrote him back in August 2007, after he replied to an e-mail I sent him, and have not yet received an answer. So who is Behe kidding? Intelligent Design isn't a valid scientific theory; it is, quite simple, pseudoscientific religious nonsense that is mendacious intellectual pornography.

Respectfully submitted,

John Kwok

The AtBC boys are at it again. You're gonna lurve this to pieces - from Quidam

Actual Amazon screenshot (in the "Understanding Intelligent Design In Plain Language" thread).

"Turd Sandwhich" recommendations.

(Try to avert your vision from the loveliness of Dembski in nearby comments. Just trust me on that.)