Below sums up ID so perfectly that it should be framed and put in every
real scientists office and school biology class room.The following is a
post from a science weblog that's been following ID closely:
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"I've got about 30 minutes to kill, so I might as well give some general
thoughts on the IDists' reactions to the cataclysmic Dover decision.
First: They don't get it. At all. One would think that this kind of
decision - coming from a Lutheran Republican judge appointed by George
Bush
(that's George W. Bush, mind you), who, for six weeks watched exactly
the
kind of "Darwin[ists] on Trial" case that the IDists have been
fantasizing
about for years - would at least give the IDists a bit of pause. Perhaps
some of those scientific, philosophical, and legal arguments - all of
them
tried out extensively by the Thomas More Law Center - weren't quite as
convincing as the Discovery Institute had been putting on. No, instead,
all
we have seen is vituperation ("activist", "biased", and, presumably
worst,
"Darwinist"😉 directed at a judge who on any other day would be
considered a
model conservative.
I'm pretty convinced that if another court case were held tomorrow, the
ID
side would try all of the same arguments over again. Behe would get up
there
and brazenly assert that scientists were baffled at the evolutionary
origin
of irreducibly complex systems, and again we would stack up the articles
and
books on the evolution of the immune system on his podium in front of
him.
Again, they would repeat the quarter-baked argument that evolution can't
produce new genetic information, and again we would show the judge the
peer-reviewed research articles showing how new genes come about. Again
they
would assert gaps in the fossil record, and again a paleontologist would
show the judge - show the judge, right there in court - a bunch of
transitional fossils that have been discovered in the last decade or so.
They would claim that evolutionists make the contradictory claims that
ID is
both falsified and unfalsifiable, and again we would point out that
evolution is testable, and the ID movement's claims against evolution
have
been tested and failed - but that the only positive argument they've
got,
"purposeful arrangement of parts", is untestable without some model of
the
purposeful agent and his purposes. Again, they would recite their fake
history of their movement, ignoring the fact that all of the ID
arguments
were originally "creation science" arguments, and again we would show
the
judge the real history, the transitional forms (this time we'd make sure
"cdesign proponentsists" made it onto the judge's computer screen during
the
trial), and the identity in tactics and argumentation between the two
movements. And again, the judge would learn that the ID claims are
simply
thin soundbites that fall apart upon detailed examination, whereas the
plaintiffs case is based on sound fundamentals - peer-reviewed science,
well-documented history, coherant philosophy, and above all pragmatic
considerations for what constitutes good science and good science
education - and again, we would get an overwhelming ruling.
Second: It is clear that many of the judge's critics, even those with
law
backgrounds, do not realize that every point in the judge's opinion -
the
scientific debunking of Behe's irreducible complexity, the philosophy of
science, the theological history, etc. - was argued and fought for at
trial.
The judge heard every claim and every cross-examination point. Every
single
tired argument that the ID fans are repeating after the decision was
brought
up by TMLC and its witnesses and debunked in detail before the judge,
during
the bench trial. Anyone wishing to do a serious rebuttal of the judge's
opinion has to look at his citations to the record - which is all
online,
except exhibits - and rebut the record he based his decision on.
Finally, the ID movement has no one but themselves to blame for this
decision. If you don't want damaging court decisions, don't make the
very
first book systematically using the term "intelligent design" a 9th
grade
biology textbook!!! Don't publish, and then distribute widely, law
review
articles confidently declaring the intellectual soundess of ID, and
spinning
rosy legal scenarios where consitutional difficulties evaporate.
Whatever
you do, don't send your propaganda videos to school board members who
might
actually take them to heart! In fact, if the ID movement were
intellectually
serious, they would withdraw completely from interfering with public
education, realizing that introductory science classes simply have to
educate students in the basics of accepted science, and are not the
right
places to try getting recruits for fringe science. They would stop
trying to
make their case in the media, and instead take the only legitimate route
to
academic respectability - winning the scientific battle, in the
scientific
community. IDists have made much of comparing ID to the Big Bang model -
but
did Big Bang proponents kick off their model in a high school textbook?
Did
they go around the country mucking with kiddies science standards to
promote
their view? Did they ever lobby legislators? I don't think so."
..
--
Will Brink @ http://www.brinkzone.com/