Intelligent Design Creationism

I will state that in my copy no analogy with manufactured goods is to be found in the first few pages of the Historical Sketch, the Introduction or Chapter 1.One wonders where John Paul got his idea from.

There isn't an ID theory to teach and no likelihood that there will be one in the forseeable future. ID was intentionally set up to incorporate everything from straight YEC to Denton's Platonic ideas. With so many disparate views how could they converge on a theory ?And they aren't likely to even try. ID is a political movment and they want the support of the YECs. The ID movement doesn't want to campaign for a straight YEC view because that failed in the courts. But if they go for an Old Earth view, allowing more evolution than YECs are comfortable with then how can they hope to keep YEC support ? Only by keeping things vague - as they have done the entire time - can they hope to avoid the dilemma.

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Well, you could start out with a brief history of intelligent design from Plato to Paley to today.

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Don't forget to mention that Hume is accepted as having discredted the entire argument.

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Then you could start getting into some basics of modern ID, especially Dembski's explanatory filter.

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Don't remember to mention that nobody actually makes serious use of the filter. At present it's just a theoretical curiosity - and there's no sign that that will change.

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Don't forget to specifically explain that modern ID can't ID (unintended pun) the designer

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You mean that most in the ID movement mean "God" but find it politically awkward to mention it except when trying to mobilise political support amongst fellow-beleivers.
As well as the fact that the ID movement completely rejects the idea that we can infer the nature of the "designer" from the alleged "designs" because that evidence points away from the cinlusion they want.

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Throw in some of the accomplishments of ID (like the discovery that junk DNA may not be junk).

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If ID has real achievements why are you trying to steal somebody elses ?

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After that, segway into the modern ID-evolution controversy

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And we should say that it is a purely political controversy - stirred up by a religious group which wants to get their ideas into the school curriculum.The trouble is that there isn't an awful lot of biology here. There's philosphy (Plato, Paley and Hume). A bit of mathematical theory that doesn't seem to have any real relevance to practical science. A lot of political claims. And one false claim of success in biology.I suppose it would be worth letting kids know the truth about ID - we can skip the philosophy. ID's scientific failures and political record is damning enough,

Well the religious group I had in mind was the Discovery Insititute's CSRC. Did I say anything about the "Christan right" ?And if they aren't all "Christian" that doesn't mean that they aren't religiously motivated - Jonathan Wells certainly is.BTW if you know of any other scientific movement that had to get pushed into the science curriculum before producing results let me know. Dembski suggested just that http://www.designinference.com/...ents/2002.07.Mike_Gene.htmAnd finally:

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Don't remember to mention that nobody actually makes serious use of the filter. At present it's just a theoretical curiosity - and there's no sign that that will change.

There's a nice little unsupported assertion. Do you want to bring a scientific challenge to this filter?

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Now there ARE theoretical problems with the filter but that isn't what I said, is it ? If you want to argue that Dembski's EF is being seriously used then produce some examples - real examples not assertions that some unnamed person or persons has used it.

So Casey Luskin CLAIMS that there were "numerous" researchers who had successfully used Dembski's EF. More then 2 years ago.So where are the published examples ? You can't say that there hasn't been time to get a few examples out. There's no excuse for not producing the results - if they existed in the first place.

I have got evidence that Luskin's statement is untrue and that the supposed examples did not exist. This does not necessarily imply that Luskin was lying - he might for instance have misinterpreted references to "specified complxity" as referring to the appication of the filter when they referred instead to the common meaning of the term.The ID movement has a strong motivation to publish examples. Even examples that fail to find design would show that it could be used. You yourself claim that it is a "huge part of ID". So it must be embarassing that it seems to be completely unused even by the ID movement.The ID movement has had more than 2 years to publish some of those "numerous" examples and to generate even more.NO valid applications of the EF to biology have been published.Conclusion : The ID movement had no valid examples at the conference and probably have none to this day.This message has been edited by PaulK, 04-20-2005 05:28 AM