In fact, I’ve started to hear some of the ID-types begin to challenge key theories from geology and physics in addition to the theory of evolution. Their primary targets (from physics) are the big bang and (from geology) plate tectonics and the age of the earth. I think, however, that many of them are backing off making these challenges to physics and geology (in public forums at least) because they know how absurd they will look to so much of the public. Their “acceptance” of the 4.5 billion year age of the earth is therefore merely provisional—and primarily a PR move. If they ever win the evolution debate, they may be emboldened to pursue their other goals more aggressively and start dismantling physics and geology education as well.

As far as their explanations for the fossil record, I think they see the end of the dinosaurs as proof of Noah’s flood. They tend to avoid any details on the actual mechanisms of species creation (doing so tends to force them to talk about the designer, which forces them to talk about god, which blows their cover, exposing ID as just creationism repackaged by clever PR people). But who really knows . . . there’s nothing coherent about any of their arguments if you dig even an inch below the surface. I guess deep layers of fact and reason confound them as much as deep layers of sedimentary rock.

My general response to the ID types is that they should go back and re-read their beloved ten commandments (which they want to post in every schoolhouse and courtroom in America). If I remember right, one of those commandments is “thou shalt not bear false witness.” All their arguments are a pack of lies designed to hide their real agenda which, quite simply, is removing anything from the public-school curriculum that could be seen as contradicting a literal interpretation of the Bible. They know they can’t win if they’re honest about their agenda, so they just lie a lot. It’s a funny kind of Christianity they practice . . .

Are you serious??! There are two possibilities:
1. I am half-educated. Even if so, I could use the other half to find out how easy it is to critique Darwinism by reflecting on some obvious discrepancies in the way it is presented, if I can escape the ID noise factor.
2. I am not half-educated. In that case I could take less than a week to research the complete fairytale mode in all accounts of Darwinism, its history, and the propaganda instruments used to promote it, and intimidate skeptics. The situation doesn’t add up.

Pulling rank by citing the great wisdom of evolutionary biologists is a good laugh. Half of them are so miseducated by the educational system they can’t think straight and don’t understand their own subject matter. The real researchers have to bluff. I kid you not. Take a frustrated heretic like Evelyn Fox Keller, and analyzie the in between the lines. Look at your colleagues carefully. They are either glazed over true believers, or else look for the nervous ones, who have to make tenure.

As to the psychological syndrome of the Darwin skeptic, come on. Give me a break. This isn’t the thirties in Russia.
As the Elmer Fudd said to his tormentors, ‘Make me’.

Actually, science is not that dissimilar from a court room. Science and a court room are supposed to make use of evidence. The only signficicant difference is that science doesn’t have a lay jury who are supposed to determine the veracity of one of a multitude of theories regarding this, that, or the other. And, unlike in a court case, the issue is never completely settled. The issue is always up for re-evaluation, after additional evidence is developed.

My undergraduate and (yes) graduate degrees were in an actual science (physics). Then I went on to get a couple of law degrees. When I transferred from science (physics) to law, I was rather amused to discover that the lawyers made use of similar words (for example, “theory”) whereas they used them in ways that were very different.

On the subject of the post, when the ID proposers actually present evidence for their proposal, one might sit up and listen. They never have. I hesitate to say that they never will. But unless and until they do, one might seriously question why anyone should pay attention to them.

This year, 2005, is the 100th anniversary of the four papers of Albert Einstein that changed physics. Not only did he explain things very clearly, without a lot of mathematical gobbledlygook (the math is useful for some, but I believe it tends to hide reality), but let’s see. Einstein’s insights were amazing. What was more amazing is that he proposed experiments that would tend to provide evidence (I’m using court room verbiage) to try to verify them.

Science might not be a court room. But science uses evidence, just as a court room does. The problem is that people who put forth things like ID or creationism, have never presented any evidence for their proposition. I use the word “proposition” instead of “theory” intentionally.

The public is being held hostage by this subtle form of double thought control, and secularists who don’t like ID and know Darwin’s theory of natural selection is inadequate are forced to be either social outcastes, brazen liars, or bluffers, and toe a party line. It seems suspicious the only views we hear are from large-scale paradigm blocks with adequate Ad budgets and/or legitimation power.
How is it that all this scientific/academic horsepower (?) can’t manage something better than being plagued by fundamentalism? It should have been dealt with long ago, and dropping the false claims for natural selection but holding the line on evolution would make the debate more honest and take the wind out of Creationist sails.
(The answer to the riddle is given by Robert Wesson in Beyond Natural Selection is that Darwinism is another fundamentalism. There could be other explanations. Research on this mindset is needed. But first some new form of credential is required to pull rank on confused rocket scientists).
BTW: a bit of spam: new evolution blog at
http://eonix.8m.com/darwiniana.htm

It would have been nice if everyone on the evolution side of this debate would have boycotted the whole thing and refused to give it any legitimacy. I know Pedro, the attorney representing the evolution side, and he is a good guy who means well (Last year he debated Fred Phelps over the proposed city ordinance that would prevent discrimination based on sexual orientation.). I am sure he doesn’t mind the publicity, but if he would have refused to do it someone else would have stepped in.

The state school board here is a perfect example of why local elections matter. The wingnuts work real hard to get their candidates elected. Once they are elected they are able to do crazy things like the current “trial.”

Here is a quote from the Lawrence paper that shows just how how much they care about the actual standards at issue.

Board members Kathy Martin, of Clay Center, and Connie Morris, of St. Francis, acknowledged they had merely scanned proposed standards retaining the state’s current policy of describing evolution as a key concept for students to learn. Martin’s acknowledgment elicited groans of disbelief from a few audience members.

“I’m not a word-for-word reader in this kind of technical information,” Martin said during a break.

Unfortunately, Mrs. Martin is from my hometown. She had lots of outside support ($$$) from wingnuts around the state, and it was just too much for the sane candidate to compete against.

But a significantly higher number want to avoid being laughingstocks (especially those living in a state like Kansas—which doesn’t have a sophisticated image to begin with).

A higher number, also, would not want their state to gain the reputation of being the last place a corporation would want to locate because the local school system has been hopelessly compromised.

This is what sunk the creationist effort in Kansas a few years ago—all the ‘what a bunch of hicks’ jokes.

One thing that puzzled me a bit was that most of the ID types accepted a 4.5 billion year age for the earth

Well, this is an alliance of convenience under the ‘I.D.’ umbrella. There are ‘young-earth’ creationists and ‘old earth’ creationists, and ID is intentionally agnositic about that. What they want is for evolution to be taught skeptically and the possibility of ID raised which will allow their various members to fill in the blanks in their kids heads with whatever flavor of creationism suits them.

Exactly. As the system works in practice, the “adversary” part is largely used as a threat to bludgeon people into settling.

“Justice” isn’t what the adversary system is about, anyway. It’s about giving each side a fair shot to make their case—not quite the same thing . . .

Good luck trying to figure that out. These people have raised evasiveness to a new art form. (I also wouldn’t necessarily recommend taking at face value the IDistas’ claims to accept the old earth; when they can’t evade their way around a Constitutional sandtrap they simply lie.)

Well no, it’s precisely the opposite – you have a right to keep what you can keep, by any strategy available, but only that, including your life, and only for as long as you can keep it. Isn’t that how we got our immune systems? Our social cohesion, our brains – by some of us dying while the rest went on?

I reply:

Evolution is a lousy problem solving method; nature uses it not because it’s a good thing, but simply because it’s the way things work, absent sufficient intelligence to short-circuit the process and move on to something better.

The human body is a disaster area of parts which work poorly and coordinate poorly, because it is the result of huge piles of random chance. If humanity could be redesigned from scratch, we could make ourselves infinitely better.

Cooperation is anti-evolutionary; you have that right. But there’s better ways to ensure one’s survival than relying on blind evolution. A pack of weakling humans, using their brains to invent technology, can bring down animals dozens of times the size of the human and ones which are much better suited by evolution to survive in their environment than the humans are.

The era of physical evolution is over. In the arena of social evolution, it’s the societies which find ways to cooperate in the face of human selfishness and competitive instincts which overcome those who don’t. The very network we’re using to have this conversation is a sign of the power of cooperation.

Are they claiming species-by-species special creation throughout this period and if not, what are they claiming?

UPS s3z: No, our employee records don’t show any messenger RNA.

Conspiracy Theorist s3z: Ah! Of course! UPS is doctoring its employee records so that it shows no evidence of messenger RNA! But the fact is, they’re employing messenger RNA to take over all humans and rule the world!

UPS zealot s3z: What have you got against UPS, you fascist Islamic pinko?

Skeptic s3z: Conspiracy theories are unfalsifiable.

Reporter s3z: Hm, everyone says his own thing. The jury’s still out.

… … … …

Gah, maybe it’s not the lawyers’ fault that people are using this “adversarial process”. As someone from outside the US, I personally think that the whole problem stems much deeper than that: it comes from the very fetishizing of “free speech” as the One True Method To Solve All The Problems In The World.