Stereotyping has been a persistent issue in the ID debate. Prominent critics almost invariably try to link ID and its proponents to certain stereotypes: creationism, religious fundamentalism, theocracy, religion, anti-science, irrationalism, etc. But the "problem" of stereotyping has not only been addressed just by ID proponents. Sam Harris seeks to dispel stereotypes of atheists in 10 myths"”and 10 Truths"”About Atheism.

The other day I ran across an interesting excerpt from Stereotypes as Explanations.

Now commonly, stereotypes are thought to be bad. These social psychologists, however, claim this is not necessarily so. Stereotyping can do some necessary work for making sense of the world and ordering society. They use an example of a police officer directing traffic. Since the officer is part of a well known group there is also a stereotype associated with it. The common stereotype includes the idea of authority, law enforcement, protection, helpfulness, etc. This stereotype is important for directing traffic because it provides for an instant response in appropriate ways from individuals and groups.

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Is ID really the threat to science that some make it out to be or are there other factors at work? An article entitled UCF physicist says Hollywood movies hurt students' understanding of science presents another view of the issue.

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From here:

The state has agreed to pay $925,000 to unwitting subjects of an infamous 1930s stuttering experiment "” orphans who were badgered and belittled as children by University of Iowa researchers trying to induce speech impediments.

["¦.]

The 1939 experiment has come to be known as "The Monster Study" because of its methods and the theory researchers set out to prove "” that stuttering is a learned behavior that can be induced in children.

Over a six-month period, Dr. Wendell Johnson, a nationally renowned pioneer in the field of speech pathology, and his staff tested his theory on 22 children who were in the care of the state-run Iowa Soldiers' Orphans' Home. Some were subjected to steady harassment, badgering and other negative therapy in an attempt to get them to stutter; the rest served as a control group.

According to the study, none became stutterers, but some became reluctant to speak or self-conscious about their speech.

["¦]

The university kept the experiment and its methods from the former subjects for decades. It was not until 2001 when the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News published an investigative story about the study and its methods did the former subjects learn about the experiment's true purpose.

It appears as if PZ Meyers is being sued for libel. This might be a rare occasion when I side with PZ.

Over at PT, Nick Matzke writes:

As everyone now knows, even though the ID guys will never admit it, "intelligent design" as such originated in the 1989 ID textbook Of Pandas and People, with "intelligent design" being the new label chosen after the 1987 Edwards decision made creationist terminology difficult to use in textbooks. Pandas was the first place the term "intelligent design" was used systematically, defined in a glossary, claimed to be something other than creationism, etc.

I'm still left with an unanswered question "“ so what? I can understand the importance of such a finding in the circumscribed setting of the court room that came into existence because school administrators told 9th grade science students to look into Of Pandas and People in the library as a resource for Intelligent Design. In that setting, the finding is extremely relevant. And given Nick's role in the court room drama, I can understand why he thinks it is so important. But that's 2005. Beyond that, and in the post-wedge world, why is the history of this text and the socio-political ID movement all that relevant everywhere else? Perhaps someone can explain this.

In the mean time, one thing we can say is that the book, Of Pandas and People, has been quite irrelevant to those of us at TT. It would be irrational to insist otherwise.

A Telic Thoughts member introduced some quotes of Sean Carroll echoing a familiar theme that pits science against religion. It's an old knee-jerk tactic about which even some atheists have had second thoughts. As Michael Shermer notes in his article Rational Atheism Anti-something movements by themselves will fail. That incidentally also accounts for some negative reactions toward intelligent design. As long as criticism of mainstream evolution and abiogenesis was "anti" in nature there was an instinctive feel that it was eventually doomed. ID puts forth positve inferences and for that reason alone has a different impact.

Carroll is quoted as stating:

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Sammy A offers up some interesting thoughts:

The truth is Intelligent Design does not conflict with the Creations view of creation or the Evolutionist view of Evolution. In fact it gives you a way to unify the two. That being said, it still just an implication and certainly not science.

From here:

Natural selection is accepted by scientists as the main engine driving the array of organisms and their complex features. But is evolution via natural selection the only explanation for complex organisms?

"I think one of the greatest mysteries in biology at the moment is whether natural selection is the only process capable of generating organismal complexity," said Massimo Pigliucci of the Department of Ecology and Evolution at Stony Brook University in New York, "or whether there are other properties of matter that also come into play. I suspect the latter will turn out to be true."

Seth Roberts summarizes a recent example of politics in academia. While the subject has nothing to do with ID, some here might find that this passage comes with an uncanny resonance:

Well, which is it? "Proven wrong" by "almost everyone" (McCloskey) or "unfalsifiable" and without "predictive capabilities" and "untestable" (Conway)? McCloskey and Conway must have talked many times. This discrepancy in how they attacked Blanchard's theory shows how little they cared about its truth "” or that they knew it was true.