Re: [Phys-l] Intelligent designists fight back.

["John Clement" <clement@hal-pc.org>]

> From the point of view of ID I think the recent editorial in The Physics
Teacher is quite a good rebuttal, and by a Jesuit no less. As to Ben Stein,
one of his comments about rejecting Darwinism is because it has been used to
persecute various groups (eugenics).  But then Christianity, Judaism,
virtually any ...ism has been likewise used.

The real problem is with educating students about evolution.  This is a very
difficult topic to get across, and the concept is actually at the highest
level according to the research by Anton Lawson.  Just rebutting each point
merely makes it look like ID and evolution are in many ways equivalent.
There are scientists who do this.

The big mistake in ID is trying to fill the gaps with God.  This is an
anti-scientific attitude.  In science we acknowledge that our ideas will
always have gaps, and that filling them with pixies, faeries, gods,
devils... is not a scientific paradigm.  ID is just an opening, to try to
promote creationism, which incidentally Bush would seem to be an adherent.
The ID people have never thought ahead that if the gaps in understanding are
closed, then their primary argument for ID and hence for God is also gone.
So I contend that ID proponents do not know how science works.  It works by
creating models of what we observe.  It can not propose unseen, untestable
agents.

The people who argue for ID are generally also generally people who would
tear down the separation of church and state.  They would put back prayer in
public school, and only allow their prayer.  They would deny Wiccans the
opportunity to use their prayers, or atheists to state their positions over
the PA in school in lieu of prayer.  In Sante Fe, TX the student body
elected a student to say the public prayers at school and at games.  When
the various practices including allowing the Gideons on campus were opposed,
the reaction was violent and nasty.  They dumped garbage on the city
manager's lawn (who was Jewish) despite the fact he had no hand in the suit.
The suit was brought by a Catholic girl and a Baptist girl.  The Baptist was
harassed because she said no thanks to the Gideons because she already had a
bible.  She was actually a very faithful in her faith.  The Supreme Court
eventually outlawed all religious practices at school or at games.  It is
not just the Jews who can be persecuted.  It is not clear that the current
court will do the same in the future.

Ben Stein may be very intelligent, and he certainly is a good entertainer,
but he is not a scientist, nor is he aware of the education research.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX

> I think you are missing the point of Intelligent Design. It does not admit
> supernatural agents any more than Darwinism does. It simply looks at the
> usual evidence - fossil records, complexity of organisms, etc. - and
> concludes from that evidence that evolution cannot explain the full
> tapestry of what is seen - a non random, deliberate interaction of some
> kind is seen to be required. That process may come to a different
> conclusion than Darwinists, but it is no different in kind from the
> process followed by Darwinists. The step to appealing to a deity as the
> deliberate interaction is an entirely separate conclusion that is not
> demanded by ID.
>
> ID proponents understand very well how science operates. It is mainstream
> scientists who are mistakenly dismissive of ID and who treat it as
> something unworthy of serious rebuttal. One cannot blame non-scientists
> for failing to conclude that in a comparison between Darwinism and ID, one
> is science and the other is not.
>
> Ben Stein is a very clever and intelligent person. He has remarkable
> insight into the way education works and has shown this in the numerous
> parodies that he has presented of pedantic instructors. He also has an
> uncanny grasp of the workings of the financial world and has become very
> wealthy acting on those insights. I watch him often on the Saturday
> morning financial programs on Fox News. I have taken some of his advice
> and have reaped significant financial rewards from doing so. He is not an
> ignoramus. Obviously, neither is President Bush or numerous other highly
> intelligent people who see no reason to prefer Darwinism over ID. Rather,
> it is the science community who has to get off their high horses and come
> up with clear, easily understandable retorts to ID. Simply being
> dismissive is going to drive more of the general population into the ID
> court. They have seen scientists careen from Global Cooling to Global
> Warming - they have seen demands for banning DDT followed by unforgivable
> mass deaths of children in undeveloped countries because of the resulting
> surge in malaria - they will not accept nuclear power because scientists
> have created bombs from that science. Scientists have too spotty a history
> to take a believable condescending attitude toward ID that is readily
> acceptable by the general public.
>
> Bob at PC - who sees evolution as the only viable explanation for the
> living world