I've been reading through the exhanges between Krauze and The Questionable Authority (TQA). From my reading, the essence of TQA's point boils down to this:

When I raised those points about testability and the supernatural, I was not trying to substitute my own reasoning for that of the judge. I was attempting to explain why there is a "centuries-old ground rule" against invoking the supernatural in science. To put it as plainly and simply as possible, nobody has been able to conduct an empirical test for the hypothesis that "God did it," nobody has been able to design an empirical test for the hypothesis that "God did it," and nobody has been able to conceive of an empirical test for the hypothesis that "God did it."

But ID is not about trying to show a supernatural cause or that "God did it." ID is about trying to find patterns that signal an origin through intelligent causation. According to current expressions of ID, irreducible complexity signals design and complex specified information signals design (the validity of this inference is not relevant to my argument here). Just because Behe or Dembski may take the additional step and attribute design to God does not mean this additional step is entailed in the design inference.

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It's time for yet another reiteration of the discussion over Judge Jones' ruling I've been having with The Questionable Authority. TQA's latest post about the topic is here, which contains links to the previous posts, both from him and me. I agree with TAQ that these back-and-forths are fruitful, as "they let you see where the differences of opinion really sit, and where the differences really seem to be more the result of people just talking at cross-purposes to one another." However, I also have understanding for those readers whose eyes glaze over from following two people's public squabble. So I will try to make my reply as readable for outsiders as possible. For the sake of those who've been with us from the start, I won't reiterate more than absolutely necessary, meaning you'll have to read the previous posts to get the full story.

Before going to the actual point of contention, we'll have to clear up a point of confusion. In his reply, TQA writes as if intelligent design requires the designer to be supernatural. However, as skeptic Michael Shermer points out, the designer might as well be an extraterrestrial intelligence. But judge Jones also took that into account, as he ruled that intelligent design becomes unscientific by even "permitting supernatural causation" (my emphasis). So, intelligent design will only be scientific when we track down the designer and conclude that it is not supernatural.

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The North Dakota High School Activities Association won't allow students to debate the role of intelligent design in public school classrooms.

Some parents and administrators feel the topic is too controversial, said Robert Hetler of the state's high school activities association.

"We're doing this because we don't want to exclude any students from public forum debate at state," Hetler said. "Some schools were afraid parents wouldn't allow their kids to do this one."
N.D. bans intelligent design debate: First in country

I'm right behind North Dakota on this one, as there's nothing worse than debating a controversial topic. Hopefully, the North Dakota High School Activities Association will find a safer topic for their high schoolers to debate – maybe "Is pollution bad?" or "Are babies cute?"

Tomday, over at the TheUndergroundDialectic.com, has a thought-provoking blog about ID:

"I conclude this gelandesprung saying to those that don't think ID is valid: none of the above ideas are based on any particular type of creator, intelligence, or religious point of view. Maybe, as Douglas Adams postulated in his seminal book, the designers are mice. Regardless, it is an error in judgment for those in the press, those that are legitimate scientists, and true philosophers to dismiss out of hand the concepts that underpin ID. This dismissal is, in itself, unscientific and as a result deserves to be dismissed. True science must always wonder at the world."

Over at the Christian Science Monitor, philosopher Alexander George offers an interesting oped concerning the intelligent design debate and what should and should not be taught in science classes. While he agrees with the verdict in the Dover case that ID should not be taught in science classes, he does so for different reasons than those most often touted by intelligent design critics, that ID is not science.

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University of Chicago law professor Albert Alschuler has weighed in on the Dover ruling, with Brian Leiter responding. Among other commenters on Judge Jones' ruling are David Opderbeck, Viewpoint, and Fdocc, who includes it in the bottom of a long post about how intelligent design is entering pop culture.

We've previously seen that E.O. Wilson thinks biology is the battleground for his faith. He continues this theme over at the Edge . Here is his vision of an introductory science class:

Ask the questions right from the beginning of the freshman class: What is the meaning of sex? Why do we have to die? Why do people grow old? What's the whole point of all this? You've got their attention. You talk about the scientific exploration of these issues and in order to understand them you have to understand something about the whole process of evolution and how the body works.

You say that we're going to deal with two great principles that are the substance of biology and which you must know: One, that everything that's in the body, including the brain and the action of the mind, is obedient to the laws of physics and chemistry as we understand it. And two, that the body, the species, and life as a whole evolved by natural selection. You take it from there and explain as best we can what we know about science, recognizing that there are still unanswered questions. If you sensibly ask what the meaning of life is, you don't have to worry about science haters or mathophobes. You've got 'em.

Meaning of life in Bio101? Sounds like someone wants to use science as a Trojan Horse to peddle their metaphysics to 18 year olds. Sign-up to learn about genetic engineering or because your university requires you to have a certain amount of natural science credits and receive a sermon about the meaning of life.

Wilson also has some observations about scientists:

Most science education takes a boot camp approach or is set up to train acolytes. That's because most scientists are journeymen"”they're not masters. That is to say, they're well-versed and if it's a major research university they probably have some accomplishments on a narrow segment of scientific research, but basically they think like journeymen and are there to train journeymen. They don't think particularly laterally about what their field means.

I've been having an exchange of opinions with TQA, also known as The Questionable Authority. He wrote a post about Judge Jones' Dover ruling to which I replied, and just before Christmas, TQA posted his response to me.

In my post, I pointed out that TQA, in describing Judge Jones' reasons for declaring intelligent design unscientific, was omitting the judge's emphasis on the perception that intelligent design "violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation". In his reply, TQA explains that he omitted this because he didn't think it was the strongest argument against intelligent design, and that it wasn't really all that relevant in the rejection of intelligent design:

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Richard Hoppe draws our attention to a very interesting study about human evolution. Hoppe pinpoints the main findings: "Many genes under recent selection cluster into four main groupings: "host-pathogen interactions, reproduction, protein metabolism, and neuronal function". That last, of course, is real interesting!" He also links to John Hawks blog, where Hawk gives us a tantalizing portion of the study:

The numbers obtained, however, are similar to estimated numbers obtained for artificial selection (by humans) on the maize genome (45). Given that most of these selective events likely occurred in the last 10,000 Ã? 40,000 years, a time of major population expansion out of Africa followed by regional shifts from hunterÃ?gatherer to agrarian societies, it is tempting to speculate that gene Ã? culture interactions directly or indirectly shaped our genomic architecture.

I have not read the study, but if we go back to Hoppe's categories, they all nicely fit together. As our ancestors expanded out of Africa, they would likely encounter new pathogens. As they shifted from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to an agrarian society, this would have influenced reproductive behavior and diet. And taken together, a better brain would have facilitated all of this.

What's most interesting from the telic perspective is the foundational role of choice. Since we're dealing with a mere 10-40,000 years ago, it is reasonable to assume our ancestors were making choices in their new environments and these choices themselves set up the selective pressures to cull the genetic variability. Thus, it is not surprising that "the numbers"¦are similar to estimated numbers obtained for artificial selection (by humans) on the maize genome." In essence, just as choices define the selective pressure in artificial selection of plants and animals, our choices defined the selective pressures of our own evolution. Of course, our ancestors did not set out to evolve themselves into us. Nevertheless, they were not passive players in an elaborate dance between genetic variability and selection. They played an active, even human, role in their own evolution.

Hawks is right when noting, "It would be hard for me to overstate how important this paper is." In due time, we'll see why.

And Thanks For Reading!

A common technique among the critics of ID is to accuse their opponents of lying. Liar, liar, pants on fire, nose as long as a telephone wire! The problem is that more often than not, this is just a personal attack. Say the ID proponent argues X. If the critic thinks X is false, the critic immediately goes for the jugular and shouts "Lies!" Lies, lies, lies. But with the accusation of lying comes a very tall burden. If X is indeed false, then for the ID proponent to be lying, the ID proponent must know and agree that X is false. Otherwise, the problem is not quite as sinister.

For example, the ID proponent may simply be misinformed. She may simply be mistaken. He may be relying on a different point of view. She may be relying on a different point of emphasis. The critic should always remember that his perception of the ID proponent is not an observation of their mind. A critic may say, "But I have shown that X is false, yet the ID proponent continues to propose X. That makes him a liar!" No it does not. The proponent may not agree with the critic's presentation of X. The proponent may not trust the critic's presentation of X. The proponent may not understand the critic's presentation of X. Etc. Unless the proponent agrees and knows that X is false, he cannot be lying when he proposes X is true. And unless the critic can prove the proponent agrees and knows that X is false, it is irresponsible and inflammatory to publicly accuse the proponent of lying.

Of course, the "liar, liar, pants on fire" accusation is a sneaky and effective piece of political rhetoric. But the self-righteous accuser should remember it is also a double-edged sword. If errors and different interpretations of the world count as lies, what makes the accuser think he can escape his own judgmentalism?

We all know those nasty wedge suppporters, who pretend to stand for principles of academic freedom, but who, when they're among friends, admit that they have quite different motives. Well, it seems that the practice is gaining popularity. Witness Wesley Elsberry, an ID critic and Information Project Director of the NCSE:

Judge Jones' decision clearly lays out how both the specific actions of the Dover school district and the general tactics of "intelligent design" advocates have been based upon deception, subterfuge, and lies. We as Christians should reject utterly the sort of lies, mendacity, and innuendo that not just characterize antievolution, but comprise it. It is a blot upon the reputation of the body of Christ, an erroneous and injurious digression from the serious business of making our lives an example to the world.

Sounds like Elsberry is standing on principle, huh? The fact that he has been explicitly spelling this out as a calculated strategy on the ID-critical blog Panda's Thumb must be a pure coincidence.

If you want to drive a wedge between an audience of evangelical Christians and the professionals in the ID movement, you need a third approach: show that the ID advocate on stage with you has been lying to his followers. Show misquote after misquote; demonstrate error after checkable error, and make the audience understand that if the ID advocate claims that the sky is blue, their next step had better be to look out the window to see for themselves. Evangelicals do want to take Christ's message to the world, but they also have a deep loathing of liars.

We've seen how Professor Paul Mirecki attempted to cover his political agenda with a veneer of academic enlightenment. So now I'm wondering: Is Elsberry genuinely concerned for his ability to make his life "an example to the world", or is he simply speculating in evangelicals' "deep loathing of liars"

While Judge Jones' Dover ruling about Intelligent Design may have significantly changed the socio-political landscape, the concept of Intelligent Design remains untouched. For example, if we begin with the basics of Intelligent Design, ID101, does the ruling damage the arguments in any way? No. Has the ruling established that ID is Creationism? No, ID102 still stands (also, consider this analysis ). Has the ruling established that the identity of the Designer must be stated and it must be God? No, the logic remains.

In fact, let me repost something I blogged about this summer "“

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This message is aimed at that minority of individuals who 1) acknowledge that Intelligent Design (ID) is immature as a scientific research program, 2) recognize that the current generation of intelligent design theorists have laid a unique foundation for exploring the biotic world, and 3) want to be participants (and possible failures) in the development of a telic science.

The next 3 years should prove to be pivotal for any prospective intelligent design research program. It really is time (er, has been time) to stop arguing about the scientific status of ID and to let history play itself out by conducting research and doing the hard work.

Just do it, as they say.

Here's some primitive guiding advice for the small minority.

1. Start small and be meticulous
2. Don't aim for "smoking-gun" results
3. Don't be afraid to make mistakes; take chances – speculate and imagine
4. Don't extrapolate wildly from the data and don't look for grandiose results
5. Explore the world with unfettered curiosity
6. Don't force the data into your model.
7. Ignore the buzzbots and cherish the true skeptics.
8. Resist the temptation to spectate.
9. Don't hold your breath for Mike Gene to publish a book;-)

The Questionable Authority has a post about Judge Jones' Dover ruling, correcting some misunderstandings of the reasoning behind the ruling. However, in so doing, TQA himself unwittingly misleads his audience. On the rationale behind the ruling, he writes:

Judge Jones concluded, rightly, that Intelligent Design is not science. The religious motivations of ID proponents were only one of many pieces of evidence leading to that conclusion. The most compelling evidence for this conclusion is actually totally unrelated to the motivations, religious or otherwise, of ID proponents: the ID people, according to the testimony of pro-ID defense witnesses, haven't done science. They have not been able to devise or conduct any experiment that would be a positive test of Intelligent Design. That is why ID is not science.

But TQA is leaving out a very important part of Judge Jones' decision. From the ruling:

After a searching review of the record and applicable caselaw, we find that while ID arguments may be true, a proposition on which the Court takes no position, ID is not science.

We find that ID fails on three different levels, any one of which is sufficient to preclude a determination that ID is science. They are: (1) ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation; (2) the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980's; and (3) ID's negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community.

As we will discuss in more detail below, it is additionally important to note that ID has failed to gain acceptance in the scientific community, it has not generated peer-reviewed publications, nor has it been the subject of testing and research.

Obviously, it is this last paragraph that TQA is referring to. But what about the "three different levels, any one of which is sufficient to preclude a determination that ID is science" We can ignore level two and three, as there could be formulations of intelligent design that didn't position itself against evolution and which didn't rely solely on "negative attacks" to make its case. That leaves us with level number one: "ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation." Remember, it isn't enough that ID supporters say that the designer could be natural, as this would still permit the possibility that it isn't.

TQA has missed a golden opportunity to educate his readers about the nature of science. Instead of emphasizing the lack of experiments confirming intelligent design, he should have said: "There are currently no experiments confirming intelligent design. But even if there was, it wouldn't matter, as intelligent design violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation. ID suppporters could fill up every science journal in the world with experimental evidence confirming intelligent design, but we would still have to conclude that it's unscientific, as it allows for the possibility of a supernatural designer." After all, we can't have people walking around being confused about science.