Mr. John, you have proven that you can make mincemeat of a throwaway metaphor. For that I congratulate you.

But the main course lies yet on the table, untouched. I can understand if it remains unappetizing. One needs a strong stomach to deal with the “arguments” of the Church.

I reiterate: you haven’t addressing the arguments laid out in detail on this thread. Your ball.

Is “intelligent design” a legitimate school of scientific thought? Is there something to it, or have these people been taken in by one of the most ingenious hoaxes in the history of science? Wouldn’t such a hoax be impossible? No. Here’s how it has been done.

Intelligent design advocates, however, exploit the ambiguity between process and product that is built into the word “design.” For them, the presence of a finished product (a fully evolved eye, for instance) is evidence of an intelligent design process. But this tempting conclusion is just what evolutionary biology has shown to be mistaken.

The focus on intelligent design has, paradoxically, obscured something else: genuine scientific controversies about evolution that abound. In just about every field there are challenges to one established theory or another. The legitimate way to stir up such a storm is to come up with an alternative theory that makes a prediction that is crisply denied by the reigning theory — but that turns out to be true, or that explains something that has been baffling defenders of the status quo, or that unifies two distant theories at the cost of some element of the currently accepted view. . To date, the proponents of intelligent design have not produced anything like that. No experiments with results that challenge any mainstream biological understanding. No observations from the fossil record or genomics or biogeography or comparative anatomy that undermine standard evolutionary thinking.

Instead, the proponents of intelligent design use a ploy that works something like this. First you misuse or misdescribe some scientist’s work. Then you get an angry rebuttal. Then, instead of dealing forthrightly with the charges leveled, you cite the rebuttal as evidence that there is a “controversy” to teach. . Note that the trick is content-free. You can use it on any topic. “Smith’s work in geology supports my argument that the earth is flat,” you say, misrepresenting Smith’s work. When Smith responds with a denunciation of your misuse of her work, you respond, saying something like: “See what a controversy we have here? Professor Smith and I are locked in a titanic scientific debate. We should teach the controversy in the classrooms.” And here is the delicious part: you can often exploit the very technicality of the issues to your own advantage, counting on most of us to miss the point in all the difficult details.

To me the thinking process here is the same I have with most religions. Why?

Why would some being(s) do this? What was the purpose behind the creation of say the scorpion or the platapus? Typically this would mean believing that there is a purpose. Belief(or faith) and science aren’t the same. At least to me. Pushing for ID in classrooms would essentinally then convert them into churches/synagogues/mosques/temples.

I’ve already stated that it makes no difference whether I am in perfect agreement with the evolutionists in this debate.

My interest is in examining the structure of argument and in deconstructing language.

The arrogance, pomposity, self-congratulatory tone, etc. in tandem with the radical question-begging and inescapable a-priori reasoning of their position makes these evolutionists ridiculous.

But I’ve had it with this topic. Go ahead and believe adolescently spitballed reasonings.

More serious is the following:

I hope you will learn to be grateful to have escaped the condition of homelessness.

Your comment indicates you have not escaped the stain of presumed superiority.

Shame on you for further degrading those who are defeated in life.

You should re-think this attitude.

Christopher

No, they’re symptomatic of the fact that you’re not responding to the arguments already on the table. It’s how you’d treat a crazy homeless person muttering in your face.

http://blog.stayfreemagazine.org/2005/08/science_stamps.html

I think there are lots of third parties observing this argument in this forum. (I’m included in that grouping.)

We will have to disagree on this. To me, the ridiculing epithets and bristling dismissiveness are plausibly symptomatic of the following.

1)The evolutionists can’t get enough traction.

2)Their arguments are not solid enough.

3)Frustration results.

And in my view, this

4)cognitive dissonance emerges in the disdain you characterize as an optional resource.

I call it something else: undisciplined self-display.

How do the idiots reduce their masters to bawling, name calling simpletons?

This is what gives an objective, non committed reviewer pause.

An irresistable logic has no worry about legitimizing its rivals. It rises like a giant against them and they flee the field without a whisper.

I haven’t engaged with the IDists quite so long as you have. But my encounters have also left me pessimistic about the utility of public debate with them: It does make uninformed third-parties think that there is a genuine scientific debate on evol. biol.

I’m not quite sure about what’s best tactically. Certainly, biologists can’t afford to ignore them entirely. Perhaps biologists should focus more on ‘outreach’ to the public.

Kumar

there isn’t a hard and fast rule. i employ all sorts of tactics depending on the situation. in this case, i have debated/discussed/read about ID/creationism for 15 years now. it is clear impression to me that most people who promote ID are not arguing in good faith. if you have third parties observing the argument perhaps you could make the assertion that you are pushing, but if it is a us vs. them argument than i have no problem getting down and dirty. there are more than two, three, or four ways to go at this. i think there is something to the idea that treating someone as if they are worth being treated with gives them legitimacy. the decision of how to go about engaging people who promote ID is (in my opinion) conditioned upon what your ends are and how you weight the various factors.

myself, i vacillate between the disrespect and treat-them-like-they-are-sincere positions. it all depends on context.

I like your well-put evaluation of aspects of this discussion.

You are right about “shadow-boxing.” It’s also a useful metaphor.

My original reaction (you probably got this)was to the logism “pseudoscience” in the title. Even if I was in perfect agreement with Abhi, I would advise against that. I know that this usage is firmly in the vernacular, but that does not alter my resistance to it.

The best arguments are made with neutral, steady language. It’s also fine (and effective)to punctuate with flourishes, but I would conceive original expressions for that purpose and not clutter up my prose with empty pejoratives.

There is also a tactical consideration to this. The best way to begin the hard work of softening your adversaries is not to immediately impugn their position with insult. I accept that this might be a matter of style, but in my experience, finer thinkers can effectively and creatively sustain a point without the handicap of obvious devices. (I’m not including the skill of satire here. That is a special situation.)

continuity is important, my impression of your comments is that two often we (you, kush, abdhi, i, etc. etc.) are shadow-boxing perceived types. that is, kush says A, you infer B, respond with C and kush responds with D based on his perception that your response was E, etc. etc.

i don’t make grand ontological claims for the importance of science, which is a social enterprise that is fruitful because of its particular self-correcting mechanisms. my own interests are relatively wide, and i don’t have contempt for history and the humanities, and my own worldview tends to be synthesis. but,

1) in the narrow sense, the post was about intelligent design.

2) a few people on this thread have a misimpression about what ‘intelligent design’ is.

3) on the other hand, some of the perfunctory and truncated responses to #2 elicited in some a response (you, the fellow who cited alvin-pressupositionalist-plantiga) as if abhi et al were promoting a quasi-dawkinsian is -> ought paradigm. i’ve read some philosophy, but i didn’t want to get side-tracked because the basis focus of this thread was the problem of the ubiquity of #2.

4) so, perhaps you are correct that some scientific inclined people make grand claims for their enterprise which are not ontologically justified (i view the world as based on provisional operational “truths”). nevertheless, the problem before us is #2, the fact that a great majority of the public perceives intelligent design as legitimate science when it is by common sense (ie; the overwhelming preponderance of scientists).