A few years ago I worked as tech support for an internet provider. After being there for a year and a half's worth of steady paychecks, I was suddenly informed by HR that they could no longer write my checks out to the name on my bank account because my SS card had a different name first.

I argued that the middle name on that SS card is the name on my bank account as well as the name on my birth certificate and I can use any of the names I've got if I so choose. They told me I'd have to take time off work - unpaid - to go sit at the SS office all day to get the names switched around to suit their new policy, supposedly imposed by Homeland Security. Being not very tolerant of pointless corporate/governmental stupidity, I told 'em to shove their silly policy on which of my legal names I can choose to have on my paycheck - they didn't pay me enough for that sort of garbage.

What does name-changing have to do with these debates? Well, we've seen quite a few critics recently who want to know why it is that TTers who aren't part of the DI and aren't 'Creo-bots' would still call what they're talking about "Intelligent Design." And their questions have been repeatedly answered by pointing out that it wouldn't do us any good to change the name of the approach to biology and evolution, because these very same critics - as well as hoards of others - would still claim we're part of the DI, support "The Wedge" and *are* Creo-bots. What would be the point?
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Gordy Slack wrote What neo-creationists get right, an article in which he attempts to set aside his gut reactions and dispassionately assess some points made by the opposition. From the article:

First, I have to agree with the ID crowd that there are some very big (and frankly exciting) questions that should keep evolutionists humble. While there is important work going on in the area of biogenesis, for instance, I think it's fair to say that science is still in the dark about this fundamental question. It's hard to draw conclusions about the significance of what we don't know. Still, I think it is disingenuous to argue that the origin of life is irrelevant to evolution. It is no less relevant than the Big Bang is to physics or cosmology. Evolution should be able to explain, in theory at least, all the way back to the very first organism that could replicate itself through biological or chemical processes. And to understand that organism fully, we would simply have to know what came before it. And right now we are nowhere close. I believe a material explanation will be found, but that confidence comes from my faith that science is up to the task of explaining, in purely material or naturalistic terms, the whole history of life. My faith is well founded, but it is still faith.

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After watching as a number of threads descended into chaos from interesting starts, an underlying oddity seems to beg attention from the fisticuffs over word usage that has become so prevalent of late. In the Post-Wedge World the perennial dueling metaphysics hasn't waned one bit, but something new has come to the fore.

We've been mixing it up with a commenter who calls himself "aiguy" to identify with the field of computer science called "Artificial Intelligence." It would appear that he has a problem with ID's use of the word "Intelligent" to describe its focus. Aiguy tells us that we have no definition of intelligence for either AI or ID, but he wants ID to drop the term anyway, perhaps so he can feel better about the use of it in his own discipline of science. Who knows?

If it were just this one critic who was bent by the terminology it would just be a single critic with a single issue about terminology. Instead, aiguy is just the latest in a string of critics who have lodged complaints in recent months about ID's use of the word "Intelligent" and insisted that it be dropped from the lexicon.

It strikes me that with such universal focus on the word - whether the complaint is that it's a metaphysical concept or an ill-defined term - the 'other' word has slipped under the radar into mainstream usage. Is it now okay to speak of biological systems in terms of "Design" so long as "Intelligent" isn't attached?

For years critics have fulminated about the "ID movement" while engaging in their own much more effective socio-political crusades. The science blogs are loaded with socio-political invective. The top ranked blog in this group carries a descriptive tag Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal. It is the godless liberal aphorism, not science, which best depicts the themes of most of the blog entries.

Help "Fight the Good Fight!" Hand Out Flyers! summarizes the preoccupation of one who should be advancing the public understanding of science instead of indulging his own hostilities toward religion.

Mad rantings about politics, evolution, and microbiology is another location where one can be treated to a generous dose of socio-political expositions. The real movement is alive and well.

Are You a Scientist Interested in Getting More Involved in the Political Process? Hey why not, particularly if the cause lies in the desired part of the political spectrum.

Billy Joel described the types who gravitate to the real movement:

There's a place in the world for the angry young man
With his working class ties and his radical plans
He refuses to bend, he refuses to crawl,
He's always at home with his back to the wall.
And he's proud of his scars and the battles he's lost,
And he struggles and bleeds as he hangs on the cross-
And he likes to be known as the angry young man.

Give a moment or two to the angry young man,
With his foot in his mouth and his heart in his hand.
He's been stabbed in the back, he's been misunderstood,
It's a comfort to know his intentions are good.
And he sits in a room with a lock on the door,
With his maps and his medals laid out on the floor-
And he likes to be known as the angry young man.

I believe I've passed the age of consciousness and righteous rage
I found that just surviving was a noble fight.
I once believed in causes too,
I had my pointless point of view,
And life went on no matter who was wrong or right.

And there's always a place for the angry young man,
With his fist in the air and his head in the sand.
And he's never been able to learn from mistakes,
So he can't understand why his heart always breaks.
But his honor is pure and his courage as well,
And he's fair and he's true and he's boring as hell-
And he'll go to the grave as an angry old man.

Only they tend to be the privaleged, not those with working class ties. Otherwise the lyrics accurately describe too many ID critics who hypocritically rail against socio-political movements while promoting their own.

James F. McGrath writes:

Let's imagine a hypothetical (and admittedly implausible) scenario, in which some new information comes to light - whether through scientific investigation, or from a booming voice from a burning bush - showing that in fact the intelligent design crowd, or even the young-earth creationists, were right, and it turns out that evolution is utterly inadequate as an explanation for the development of life on this planet.

The Design Matrix:

The concept of Intelligent Design need not contradict anything science has discovered about evolution. If design at the hands of an intelligent agency intersects with our biological reality, this does not mean that mutation and natural selection would not exist.
["¦]
The final way in which the Traditional Template shapes the design debate is with the very familiar evolution versus design paradigm where it is assumed that the two explanations somehow contradict each other and are mutually exclusive. In fact, in the debate between evolutionary scientists and creationists, the only place there ever seems to be agreement is with the claim that evolution is incompatible with design.
["¦]
Evolution itself is needlessly set against design as if we could not exist in a reality where both are true.

McGrath:

The YECs and cdesign proponentsists, on the other hand, should be ashamed even if they turned out to be right. Because in the realm of science, and in the realm of honest discourse in general, it isn't whether your opinion or conviction happens to be right. It is how you reached your conclusion that matters.

The Design Matrix:

In the process of characterizing the fingerprints that signal design, the context I have provided in the previous chapters becomes more important than ever. In Chapter 2, we decided to steer away from the traditional approach of looking for some extraordinary marker that would unequivocally"prove" design. We are not looking for data that scream "Design!" Instead, we adopt an incremental approach and systematically gather clues to determine if they converge on a signal of design. We surveyed some of those clues in Chapters 3-5. But then, in the following chapters, we encountered obstacles. Our attempt to infer design was clouded by the existence of natural selection acting as a designer-mimic (Chapter 6), and further by the possibility that an intelligent designer may indeed make use of the designer-mimic (Chapter 7). If we assume designed things carry with them some residual trace of their history of being designed, can it ever be strong enough to break through all the noise?

McGrath:

If someone picks a view of the universe because it makes them feel good, and doesn't care about the evidence, the fact that they happened to pick the one that was right doesn't mean for a moment that they made an intelligent, honest, careful, well thought out choice. The ID and YEC proponents have engaged in trickery and deceit, sleight of hand and misrepresentation of the facts. These things are utterly shameful behavior, even in the service of a viewpoint that happens to be correct.

The Design Matrix:

It is not uncommon for people to approach the topic of design from a myopic perspective, thinking that " Intelligent Design" is an American idea invented back in the 1990s by sneaky creationists with a socio-political agenda.

Throughout the years, I have noticed a pattern that occurs when arguing with various critics "“ rather than focus and deal with the actual argument I am making, they are arguing against a point that they anticipate I will make later down the line. To argue like this, I assume they think they are relying on their foresight, but more often than not, they are simply relying on stereotypes. So what would it be like to play chess with someone like that?

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An article of The Times entitled Professors discuss intelligent design vs. evolution shows interviews of Michael Behe and William Dress, an assistant professor of science who teaches biology at Robert Morris University. Their viewpoints contrast with each other. Here's some snippets:

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Since some of you have read The Design Matrix, or are in the process of reading it, I thought I would use this time window to wink at y'all. And to facilitate my friendly winking, I will use a recent essay from Mac Johnson. Johnson a writer and medical researcher in Cambridge, Mass. and is a regular contributor to HUMAN EVENTS. The title of his essay is Intelligent Design, and Other Dumb Ideas. If you have read the Design Matrix, I encourage you to read Johnson' s essay and come back here to survey the terrain.

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A New York Times editorial entitled Evolution and Texas is a practical illustration of a teflon movement that avoids labels indicating existing political and financial motives. The ousting of Christine Comer sparked the editorial response. Comer's departure is not applauded but neither is the spin attached to the incident. From the linked article:

Is Texas about to become the next state to undermine the teaching of evolution? That is the scary implication of the abrupt ousting of Christine Comer, the state's top expert on science education. Her transgression: forwarding an e-mail message about a talk by a distinguished professor who debunks "intelligent design" and creationism as legitimate alternatives to evolution in the science curriculum.

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I think the thing I like best about the Intelligent Design debate is watching highly educated and highly respected thinkers criticize ID. I enjoy this because it quickly becomes clear that many of our culture's leading intellectuals are simply reacting, often reflexively, to popular and sensational claims rather than demonstrating a reflective approach born of independent, critical thinking. The latest example comes from Mary Midgley.

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