If you like Telic Thoughts (and I know you do), please check out Bradley Monton's blog.  Monton is a philosopher at the University of Colorado at Boulder.  He's written a book on ID and is trying to get it published.  Here's a brief description:

The doctrine of intelligent design has been maligned by atheists, but even though I'm an atheist, I'm of the opinion that the arguments for intelligent design are stronger than most realize. The goal of this book is to try to get people to take intelligent design seriously. I maintain that it is legitimate to view intelligent design as science, that there are somewhat plausible arguments for the existence of a cosmic designer, and that intelligent design should be taught in public school science classes.

The book is written in such a way that it will have appeal to both non-academics and fellow professors. I anticipate that both proponents and opponents of intelligent design would be interested in reading it. I will be agreeing with a lot of what intelligent design proponents say — I'm trying to be intellectually honest and give the proponents credit wherever credit is due. By rejecting the fallacious arguments against intelligent design, I am helping everyone to understand the issues and arguments more clearly. In the long run, this is what will lend the most support to the cause of reason.

As far as I know, no one has published a book like this, or is even in the process of writing one. There is a fair amount of literature nowadays on atheism vs. theism, and the merits of intelligent design, but that literature has become like a war between two camps, and the point of my book is to transcend that.

I, for one, hope that he does find a publisher.

Does this post suggest that the critics are finally starting to realize what we've been saying for a long time: that there is a difference between an intelligent design creationist and an intelligent design evolutionist?

Answer: Probably not, since the post is labeled "humor."

It would be a sin here at Telic Thoughts to pass up a story about bunnies, animal rights extremists, and teaching the controversy.

Students at the Community Building Children's Center arrived at their downtown preschool Monday morning to discover that their pet rabbit Sugar Bunny had been kidnapped over the weekend. Teachers found anti-circus flyers in his hutch.

"Somebody stoled him," said five-year-old Zion. "I'm sad."

At the bottom of the "anti-cicus flyers" were "PETA and the Northwest Animal Rights Network (NARN)."  Thankfully, however, this teacher was able to use this incident to "teach the controversy":

"We talked about how some people have different ideas about animals. Some people don't think they should be in cages," said Peters.

I realize that they've taken down the image at the university webpage, but I thought I'd offer this picture as a representation of a typical IDiot. Perhaps the professor can use it as a visual aid in class.

A while ago, Chris at Mixing Memory wrote about the tendencies of some anti-ID blogs:

"Post after post on every single piece of nonsense that an IDist puts on the internet, and as they become more obsessed, post after post about what IDists are eating for breakfast, signifies a deep lack of focus and direction, and it's less "pro-science" than it is masturbation."

I see signs that they may be starting to realize this. Myers offers a number of explanations for why UD has low traffic compared to his blog but he neglects one that we at Telic Thoughts have been mentioning for quite some time - ID just isn't that big of a threat.  Not a lot of people know what ID is, not a lot of people talk about ID, not a lot of people accept ID, and the threat ID poses to society is quite minimal.  Because of these things, ID blogs don't get a lot of traffic. 

The problem with some of these anti-ID blogs is that if they do start to realize and (perhaps) curtail their masturbatory tendencies, their own blog traffic may go limp, too.  Check the sidebar at Science Blogs and you will notice that the most active and most emailed posts are quite often about the ID movement (with the other hot topics being religion, politics, and anything else that isn't strictly science). 

There is an episode of South Park where Jimmy and Timmy, the two physically challenged kids in South park, accidentally join a gang. They mistakenly thought that the Crips were a gang for crippled kids. Upset that the Crips have a rivalry with the Bloods, Jimmy organizes a lock-in at a local rec center for the Crips and the Bloods, since lock-ins are always so fun. When Jimmy realizes that things might get ugly at the lock-in, he responds with "Why don't we at least give it a chance? I mean … Come on!"

"I mean … come on" is about the only response I have to this op-ed. It's written by John Hauptman, a physics professor at Iowa State University, in response to the denial of tenure of Guillermo Gonzalez. I haven't said anything about Gonzalez yet because I had no idea of the reasons he was denied tenure and without knowing that, there isn't much to say. I thought it was going to come down to an issue of economics, not ID, but it appears I was at least partially wrong.

For Hauptman, the issue came down to the question "What is science?" Gonzalez, Hauptman says, is "very creative, intelligent and knowledgeable, highly productive scientifically and an excellent teacher." Furthermore, Hauptman says he has always been fascinated by the ideas Gonzalez is researching,

"always been fascinated by his ideas, for example, that the first few millimeters of moon dust contain pieces of ancient Earth, the circling moon acting as a vacuum cleaner scooping up impact debris, or that numerous but precise and delicate conditions allow life on our Earth. Where else is life allowed? These are great questions."

So Hauptman admits that he is fascinated by Gonzalez's research, that he's asking great questions, and that he is "highly productive scientifically." (my emphasis)

What's the problem then? It is that he has "expressed his belief" in ID. I really don't know how to respond to that. I mean … come on. Give me something specific, man. Point me to some faulty arguments. Point me to incompetence. Give me anything. I mean … come on. "ID isn't science" is about as much of a non-answer as "God did it." It's a fancy slogan that just gets in the way of the real issues. Ironically, in this case, it appears to be a "science stopper" if we are to take Hauptman at his word when he said Gonzalez is "highly productive scientifically."

I mean … come on.

So, apparently, some people aren't so happy with Mooney and Nisbet and their articles about framing.  So unhappy that it has been suggested that they may be (gasp) creationists.  Not directly stated, of course, just a wink, wink, nudge, nudge, sort of thing.  If you've ever read anything by them, you know that calling them (gasp) creationists is only slightly more ridiculous than calling Ken Miller a (gasp) creationist. But the word does generally gain for its user a lot of rhetorical miles … it's a nice word to have in one's arsenal.  It still doesn't come close to words like "Nazi" or "fascist" or "mama's boy," but it's up there.  Laden apologized to them for calling them (gasp) creationists, explaining:

I don't think you are a creationist. I really don't. I don't think Matt is either.

No, wait, that is not really the way I want to say it. I KNOW you and Matt are not creationists. I know it. I also know you are trying to do good things.

I have to admit that there was a moment when I was worried about this, with you and Matt. I don't know you guys at all. I saw some stuff you are saying and I was worried.

So the reason he suggested they may be (gasp) creationists, was because he was worried.  He didn't like the ideas they were talking about and thought that people who say the types of things that Mooney and Nisbet were saying were exactly the types of things that "deep cover operatives" of the Discovery Institute might say.  So, he's "worried" and he's "scared."  And because of this, instead of merely arguing against Mooney and Nisbet's ideas about framing, he drops the (gasp) C-word.  Gee, that tactic seems so familiar.  I wonder where I've seen it before …

Here is John Dupré's review of Alex Rosenberg's Darwinian Reductionism: Or, How to Stop Worrying and Love Molecular Biology.  You might also want to check out this interview with Dupré.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has a new article up on Molecular Genetics.

One major talking point for ID critics has been the supposed non-link between methodological naturalism (MN) and philosophical naturalism (PN). In doing this, they have committed themselves to an instrumental view of science. We use MN because it works, they say, but by using MN, this doesn't commit us to accepting PN. They can't say that MN leads to the truth, because if they did, it would link MN to PN. But they can't say that MN and PN are linked because that would look bad in the classroom and in the courts.

Read the rest of this entry »