Comments on: Survival of the Fittest — Arguments

By: Odd Digit

Odd Digit — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 11:54:14 +0000

I agree that the ID debate has become repetitious and boring, particularly after ID took such a beating at Dover. ID had it's big chance and it's big trial and lost rather badly.

I enjoyed this quote:

Also behind the scenes there is, no doubt, new research going on both within the ID and Darwinian camps that possibly will add besides new empirical evidence, new arguments/propositions to the mix.

I'd love to see some of this 'research' from the ID camp. Has anyone actually found the 'intelligent designer' yet?

By: Nick Matzke

Nick Matzke — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 00:10:59 +0000

Weak or non-compelling arguments will not survive all this scrutiny. Unlike controversies that simmer for years because of relative obscurity, in this highly exposed debate it should not take long for the less fit to feel their power slipping away.

Therefore, young-earth creationism died in 1970, some years after the publication of The Genesis Flood and subsequent discussion showed it was bollocks.

By: Joy

Joy — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 18:05:32 +0000

There is indeed an element of new people coming in, but in the most active arenas of debate those newcomers are so often sockpuppets of the last banned obsessive evangelical from the Infidel snake pit that I don't automatically give a new name much credit for new-ness anymore.

And there's also an element of no new information, as Tom mentions. But why is that, really? For awhile there I was posting topic after topic from research highlighted at PLoS, the pre-print servers (biophysics, genomics, quantitative genetics, nonlinear systems, etc.) and press releases from ScienceDaily or one of the other news services. In a good many of the researches, indications of design were clearly present - and extremely intriguing - if one were inclined to suspend disbelief long enough to look closely.

Still, I got the same old blanket denials from the same old DarwinDefenders (even when researchers said right there in their abstracts or intros that their findings "challenge Darwinian orthodoxy" in some significant way) and the same old affirmations from the same old ID supporters (of COURSE it's intelligent design!). It's really hard to find anything new to talk about in that sort of "us vs. them" setup where neutrality and honest examination are kicked by both sides.

So what's the real problem, since it's NOT that biology can't handle (or doesn't recognize) design? Dueling Metaphysics, of course. That's all it is and all it ever will be. You either see design everywhere or you see it nowhere, there is no middle ground. No honest inquiry, no sense of wonder, no acquiescence to fact, no excitement at theory-building. Just metaphysical beliefs, and those never change.

Because of this, the arguments never change either.

By: TomG

TomG — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 16:20:56 +0000

Excellent analysis. I've noticed the tendency toward repetiveness in my own blog, including my own writings there, so I've slowed my pace in writing on ID there. Yet from time to time something comes up in the media or elsewhere that demands a response, which usually elicits a response from new quarters, which kicks off the discussion again–but we're usually covering familiar territory then. I await the slow but continuing process of work being done by the empirical specialists.