Anything New on the ID Front?

Posted by jrosenhouse on September 27, 2006
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Over at the utlra-right-wing website World Net Daily, Jonathan Wells has posted a characteristically ignorant and dishonest essay entitled “Why Darwinism is Doomed.” Yawn. P. Z. Myers takes care of business with this smackdown. Worth reading both for the joy of seeing Wells’ rhetorically dismembered, and for the clear description of some recent research into the evolution of the human brain. Ed Brayton also piles on.

Incidentally, I ‘ve been staring at the computer screen for a while trying to devise a new topic for my series of CSICOP essays. Alas, it seems that ID has been so utterly bereft of any substance lately, that I find myself at a loss for topics to write about. Anyone have any suggestions?

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  1. #1 John Farrell
    September 27, 2006

    Hmm. I looked at your list of essays. And a suggestion occurred to me.

    One thing that always fascinates me–is how do you explain the ‘random’ component of natural selection to non-scientists in a way that will help them appreciate how the chance factor works in evolution. I remember a woman, skeptical about evolution, once telling me that this part of the theory always struck her as seeming like voodoo. She wasn’t a fundie or a Bible nut, but she didn’t get the ‘random’ aspect of evolution and felt that it was vague because scientists themselves didn’t really have an explanation.

    Anyway, that’s one idea.
    :)

  2. #2 Fred
    September 27, 2006

    How about trying to find the research that’s supposedly going on in the ID world. In 15 years or so since ID was first proposed there’s been a TON of evolution research, yet I’m not aware of any real, verifiable, ID research.

    All I ever hear is the claim that ID is a science and that research is going on, but the only thing I *see* is articles and books that try to disprove evolution; as if finding flaws in evolution would prove ID right. (Not that they ever actually do find flaws, but it’s so cute when they try. It’s almost like they’re real thinking people.)

  3. #3 Jim Anderson
    September 27, 2006

    Everyone loves a top ten list. How about a top ten of the latest and greatest findings on the evolutionary landscape?

  4. #4 Steve Bencze
    September 28, 2006

    What about a recommended reading list for those of us who love the topic and the discussions but need to re-energize calcified brain cells? It seems that the occasional article in Discover magazine hasn’t been anywhere near enough to get me up to speed on things (boy, I really miss Isaac Asimov!). I love your blog, by the way, and those listed on your blogroll, but I always feel as if I’ve come in on the middle of the conversation….

  5. #5 Martin Corcoran
    September 28, 2006

    How about doing an article on the REAL controversies in evolution research. Its a constant debating point for anti-evolutionists to ‘teach the controversy’ however I’ve never actually seen a genuinely real controversy being brought up by the ID-iots, its always really silly points like there is no evidence for common descent or that there are no transitional fossils.
    As scientists and educators we should see nothing wrong with teaching about the actual points in biological evolution that are, to date, unclear or unresolved but at least lets be clear about what these points are rather than let the other side propogate the suggestion that particular evolutionary points with mountains of published evidence and essentially proven to all serious scientist are a mystery.

  6. #6 Joe
    September 28, 2006

    DI maintains a list of peer-reviewed, scientific, ID literature.
    http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=2640&program=CSC%20-%20Scientific%20Research%20and%20Scholarship%20-%20Science
    It runs to around 30 items. Of course, the notions of “peer-review” and “scientific” are stretched to their breaking points. The “peer-reviwed” claim for Behe’s book was dismantled during the Dover trial.

  7. #7 JohnC
    September 28, 2006

    Behe has a new article available today at:
    http://www.proteinscience.org/cgi/reprint/ps.04802904v1

    Haven’t read beyond the abstract yet, but a scientific offering from Behe is a rare bird indeed

  8. #8 JohnC
    September 28, 2006

    Whoops, 2004 (thought it was sounding familiar) :-/

  9. #9 Comstock
    September 28, 2006

    I recommend writing on the nonsensical division creationists draw between what they call micro- and macroevolution. This drives me crazy. For one thing, it simply makes no sense to admit the process on the small scale and refuse to consider what happens to the small scale over long time periods (the I-believe-in-inches-but-not-miles problem). Also, in my education in evolutionary biology, macroevolution as a topic of study was not the study of big anatomical changes in a species but rather the study of evolutionary patterns that become apparent when looking at levels higher than that of the species.