I have clearly vindicated Ken Miller and shown that ID skeptics are not telling an "urban legend" when we tell the newly-discovered history of ID. It was the old history of ID that was an urban legend, and if you don't think so, ask yourself why the true origin of Pandas was never told in any history of the ID movement, until Plaintiffs uncovered it in the Dover trial.

Nick's sense of vindication is rooted in confusion. As I have explained several times now, the "urban legend" I spoke of is this notion that the concept of ID was concocted in reaction to the Supreme Court decision to serve as a Trojan Horse to impose creationism/religion in the schools. Anyone with basic reading comprehension skills can see me explicitly state this in the beginning of my blog. My blog then clearly documents the concepts that played a significant role in the emergence of the ID concept. All this activity occurred prior to and independent of the Supreme Court decision. I summarized this history as follows:

So there seems to be a more accurate, although less sensational, explanation for the birth of ID. In the 1950s, researchers such as Sanger, Watson, and Crick brought sequence to the center stage of molecular biology. In the 1960s, the genetic code was worked out and Michael Polanyi began to explore the implications of such things. In the 1970s, Hubert Yockey would consider sequence and begin to make arguments that would resonate among the creationists. Such resonance was then amplified by Fred Hoyle in the late 70s and early 80s. Along came Thaxton et al's book in 1984, providing a powerful critique of abiogenesis and ends with tantalizing ideas about intelligence, specified complexity, and design. A year later, 1985, Michael Denton puts Darwin in the cross-hairs and ends his book with an inspiring section on design. In 1986, abiogenesis researcher Robert Shapiro gives abiogenesis a stinging criticism. The arguments from Hoyle, Thaxton et al., Denton, and Shapiro were all laid out from 1978-1986 and it's safe to say that the authors of Pandas, Thaxton and Kenyon, were well immersed in them.

Nick, who has offered no less that 29 replies in this thread, does not dispute any of this. In fact, my essay is 1,666 words long (longer is you add the essays I also linked to as part of the argument). How many of the words from my essay did Nick quote and respond to? Eight. Well, 8/1666 = 0.48%. Clearly, whatever vindication Nick has in mind, it has not come at the expense of my arguments/evidence outlined in my blog.

As for the rest of Nick's reply, he introduces it as follows:

Moving on to the point that seems interesting to Mike Gene: Is "ID=God" vs. "ID=God or aliens or telic force" a meaningful distinction?

The point that "seems interesting to Mike" began as follows. In response to a concise and accurate summary provided by Deuce, I replied, "Nicely stated. Furthermore, the whole origin of the IDM becomes moot since Behe and Dembski have conceptually cut the ties between ID and creationism. For cripes sake, ID doesn't even require the designer to be God!" At this point, Nick complains about "subterfuge." Lies, subterfuge, fraud, sham"¦.we've heard it all. I then politely spent time establishing the validity of my point.

Nick's response again ignores the arguments I put on the table, as he merely assumes intelligent intervention is the same as supernatural intervention and supports it with nothing more than sociological considerations. He argues that supernatural causes are empirically intractable. That would be a relevant argument if ID necessarily entailed supernaturalism as part of an explanation. Since it does not, Nick offers up a Red Herring.

So I can repeat myself because Nick failed to counter my arguments.

The reason it is so possible to talk about ID instead of God is because the logic of ID allows it. And when one begins to explore the logic, and think about it in an open-ended investigative manner, your designer-centric concerns fall by the wayside. They become superfluous. The logic tells me that the designer could be supernatural or natural, but that is not an important consideration given that the fingerprints are not a function of such ontology.

People are free to bring whatever additional baggage they want. What matters is whether their belief that the designer is God is a necessary requirement for thinking in terms of ID. It is not. Is it a required conclusion if you go all the way and embrace ID because of the arguments? No. Their belief in "God as designer" is neither a necessary assumption nor a mandated conclusion. It is extraneous to the method.

Nick ends with, "Whatever you guys sincerely believe, it is clear that for ID at large the primary appeal of this vagueness is rhetorical and constitutional, in helping to dodge the well-known objections that are raised to invoking the supernatural in science."

Who cares? This sociological angle is relevant only to those who approach this issue in a purely political fashion. We have made it clear that we are not supporters of the IDM, thus Nick is complaining to the wrong crowd.

What matters is that I have shown the conceptual development related to ID prior to and after the Supreme Court decision. Unless Nick can uncover secret documents that show Yockey, Hoyle, Shapiro, Thaxton et al., and Denton plotting together to come up with these arguments back in the early 80s to advance religion in the classroom, my argument stands.

Since I don't have the time to moderate this thread, and no one is taking the trouble to dispute the things I actually wrote (after having plenty of opportunity), enough is enough.

Arago

The most radical ideas are those that are perceived to support religion, specifically Judaism and Christianity. When I was a student at MIT in the late 1960s, I audited a course in cosmology from the physics Nobelist Steven Weinberg. He told his class that of the theories of cosmology, he preferred the Steady State Theory because "it least resembled the account in Genesis"

Frank Tipler

Is a scientific idea automatically suspect because it resembles a religious text? Is it possible that someone might feel more strongly that a religious text is true because they feel the independent scientific evidence is more consistent with it?

Perhaps it's lost upon the critics of ID and creation science, that maybe the reason the religious beliefs are held is because the believers think the scientific evidence is favorable to their religious views:

I have now known Weinberg for over thirty years, and I know that he has always taken the equations of physics very seriously indeed. ..as he himself points out in his book, the Big Bang Theory was an automatic consequence of standard thermodynamics, standard gravity theory, and standard nuclear physics. All of the basic physics one needs for the Big Bang Theory was well established in the 1930s, some two decades before the theory was worked out. Weinberg rejected this standard physics not because he didn't take the equations of physics seriously, but because he
did not like the religious implications of the laws of physics.

Frank Tipler

Nick wrote at PT: I guess ID really was "Creationism's Trojan Horse" after all

He pointed out Kenyon's definition of Creation Science:

Intelligent design means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency, with their distinctive features already intact "” fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, and wings, etc. (Pandas 1993, 2nd edition, published, pp. 99-100)

and compare that with Kenyon's Affidavit:

9. Definitions of Creation-Science and Evolution. Creation-science means origin through abrupt appearance in complex form, and includes biological creation, biochemical creation (or chemical creation), and cosmic creation. Evolution-science is equivalent to evolution. Evolution is generally understood by scientists (although some would disagree) to include biological evolution (or organic evolution) from simple life to all plants and animals, biochemical evolution (or chemical evolution or prebiotic evolution of the first life), and cosmic evolution (including stellar evolution) (of the universe). Creation-science does not include as essential parts the concepts of catastrophism, a world-wide flood, a recent inception of the earth or life, from nothingness (ex nihilo), the concept of kinds, or any concepts from Genesis or other religious texts.

Now some comments are in order. Even if someone wanted to arrive at desired conclusion (scientiific pursuits are often driven by some sort of personal quest), if they believe the physical and theoretical evidence can independently arrive at the same conclusion, it is fair to say it does not include (as in appeal to as a religious authority source), any concepts from Genesis or other religious texts.

Even I, as a card carrying YEC, would want my the scientific research to proceed independently of my hoped-for outcome. Why? The final outcome, if favorable to my personal hopes would have more integrity in the end. There is nothing wrong therefore in trying to coin a name that will distance theological ideas from scientific ones.

The tone of the Urban Legend is that a knowingly flawed and baseless theory was conceived and promoted for the purpose of solidifying socio-political power through the establishment of a state religion. One would have to establish that the architects of the theory feel their theory is flawed and baseless, yet marketed it any. Forrest attempts to paint that picture in her book. I think she's over interpreting peoples remarks. The responsible thing would be to ask the people involved, not speculate on their motivations.

Finally, what difference does it make how the name of theory was coined? The phrase "Big Bang" originated as a derogatory joke. Do we implicate all the subsequent development of the theory to the circumstances surrounding the origin of the theory's name?

Miller is not vindicated. The concepts driving ID today and in 1987 have less to do with getting creation science taught in public schools than the fundamental belief that design is a worthy hypothesis.

In your vampires example, however, it was the specific "vampires" hypothesis that brought success, not the ultra-vague "we're not saying anything about the IDer" hypothesis that appears to be the status quo around here.

Moving on to the point that seems interesting to Mike Gene: Is "ID=God" vs. "ID=God or aliens or telic force" a meaningful distinction?

I argue it is not. The reason science has a rule of thumb, named methodological naturalism, is that supernatural causes in science have had severe problems for hundreds of years. Some are sociological problems, but the biggest problem is that a supernatural cause is unconstrained, and an unconstrained hypothesis produces no empirical expectations. You can't do anything scientifically with an unconstrained ID cause unless you sneak in constraints by implicitly specifying something about the designer. And this is what you guys label "designer-centrism", except when you sneak some designer-specifications under the table without admitting it.

"ID=God" and "ID=God or aliens or telic force" are equally unconstrained hypotheses. Your hypothesis need not obey, say, the First Law of Thermodynamics (matter and energy are neither created nor destroyed), or quantum indeterminacy, or the directionality of time, or anything else that science would actually rely upon in real-life forensics or archeology or SETI. All bets are off so ID is completely empirically intractable.

So, making the IDer more vague doesn't help anything scientifically. Whatever you guys sincerely believe, it is clear that for ID at large the primary appeal of this vagueness is rhetorical and constitutional, in helping to dodge the well-known objections that are raised to invoking the supernatural in science.

I'm sure you guys sincerely believe that the fine distinction between identifying the IDer as "God" versus "might be God, but could be superpowerful aliens or a vaguely-defined teleological force" makes all the difference in the world for questions like whether or not ID is creationism relabeled.

Actually, that "superpowerful aliens or a vaguely-defined teleological force" could be designers isn't the point per se, but rather it's meant to illustrate the point.

Let's say a couple of detectives arrive at a bloody murder scene. Leading away from the scene are a trail of size 12 bloody footprints. One detective says to the other "Looks like the killer wears a size 12". Detective two says "I know! Maybe the killer was a vampire who wears a size 12!" Detective one says "Um, let's hold off on the supernatural explanations there, bucko".

So, the investigation continues. The next thing they notice are bite marks on the victim's neck. Later, when chasing the killer, he gets away by turning into a bat. After a long an intense investigation, which involves some of the victims returning to life as creatures of the night, they finally corner the killer and put a wooden stake through his heart, whereupon he turns into ash.

Okay, at this point, ridiculous as it all is, the killer is plainly a vampire, by process of elimination, and therefore 'supernatural' (I'm guessing this would fit your definition of 'supernatural'?). Does this mean that the original hypothesis, that the killer wore a size 12, was therefore an appeal to supernaturalism? Obviously not, because wearing a size 12 shoe isn't an inherently supernaturalistic thing.

Likewise for design. It's not inherently supernaturalistic to do something intentionally. Hence, inferring design in something isn't logically an appeal to the supernatural, even if, by some other process of elimination, you can show that the intender would have to be 'supernatural' (whatever one means by that).

Nick wrote:
Intervention at the quantum scale would have to be supernatural intervention, so yes, that would be a creationist argument.

I point out that Ken Miller wrote:

The indeterminate nature of quantum events would allow a clever and subtle God to influence events in ways that are profound, but scientifically undetectable to us. Those events could include the appearance of mutations, the activation of individual neurons in the brain, and even the survival of individual cells and organisms affected by the chance processes of radioactive decay"¦God, the creator of space, time, chance and indeterminacy, would exercise exactly the degree of control He chooses

"“Ken Miller

You were referring to Ken Miller's talk in your original post. I doubt he was referring to the "concept of intelligent design" in the extremely rarified sense you seem to think it should be taken.

Then you should have made the point that I did not accurately represent Miller's point. The fact remains that I clearly spelled out the "urban legend" in very beginning of my blog = I was talking about "According to this legend, the concept of Intelligent Design was invented in 1987." You are the one talking about the ID movement. Not me.

What conceptual development? The best argument that ID has, irreducible complexity, circulated among the creationists for decades before Behe. Increasingly verbose variations on the probability-of-random-assembly argument, culminating in Dembski, are not conceptual development either.

If you are going to criticize me, it would help if you made the effort to read what I write. I'm obviously harkening back to my blog, where I noted: "Since 1987, intelligent design has continued to develop and I have already spelled this out. Both Behe and Dembski have contributed essential steps in developing intelligent design into a serious method to explore nature." The conceptual development is spelled out in the link. Not as sexy as you would want, but essential work.

Although Polyani is cited by many in the ID movement, both his family and Polyani scholars say they are misinterpreting him, like so many others.

That's irrelevant. Judging from past experience, one of those famous e-mail campaigns could have been launched "warning" these people that Polanyi was being used by the eevil religious right. Or maybe they, like you, misguidedly equate ID with creationism. Yet none of that even matters, as no one (AFAIK) is claiming Polanyi was an ID proponent. All that matters is that anyone can read the articles he wrote and see how they foreshadow a good chunk of ID "“ boundary conditions, DNA as text, machines, life is not reducable to the laws of chemistry, etc.

Intervention at the quantum scale would have to be supernatural intervention, so yes, that would be a creationist argument.

Really? It sounds more like the Creationist Fabrication to me. The evidence that you want is not contrary to evolution, but is more like guided evolution. So you end up defining creationist such that someone who accepts all of evolution is a creationist. For example, we'd have a creationist proponent of the chimp-human evolutionary relationship. Since we all know that's not how most people would define "˜creationist,' you are clearly painting targets around arrows. What you would need is a new term.

If I found such evidence I would happily become a creationist and explicitly say I was proposing supernatural intervention.

If you told me you were a creationist, I, and most people, would think that you denied evolution.

That is how people who are advocating supernatural intervention should proceed in my view.

Sure. But proposing intelligent intervention is not the same as supernatural intervention. If an ID proponent wants to add a criterion that signals supernatural causation, as opposed to natural causation, then they should make it clear the issue is not about intelligence, but about a type of intelligence.

The typical problems with proposing supernatural intervention "” unverifiability, wishful thinking covering over ignorance, religious apologetics rather than evidence dominating "” the reasons we have methodological naturalism as a rule of thumb "” are extremely common and well-known, and would have to be overcome directly if someone were ever going to establish a supernatural cause in science. They cannot be overcome by avoiding the issues with a label change.

All you have done here is convince yourself that intelligent intervention must equal supernatural intervention and then proceed from there. ID is not about detecting fingerprints of supernatural activity.

I'm sure you guys sincerely believe that the fine distinction between identifying the IDer as "God" versus "might be God, but could be superpowerful aliens or a vaguely-defined teleological force" makes all the difference in the world for questions like whether or not ID is creationism relabeled.

No, it's not about whether ID is creationism relabeled. We happen to understand what creationism is. We also know what ID is. It is based on this understanding of the positions and the arguments, and the knowledge of what we think/propose, that we can know that ID is not the same as creationism. As I said before, the logic of the arguments speaks more loudly than your stories about personalities.

The distinction is important because your accusation works to smear us (note how I had get you to actually answer the question).

Look, the reason it is so possible to talk about ID instead of God is because the logic of ID allows it. And when one begins to explore the logic, and think about it in an open-ended investigative manner, your designer-centric concerns fall by the wayside. They become superfluous. The logic tells me that the designer could be supernatural or natural, but that is not an important consideration given that the fingerprints are not a function of such ontology.

But for ID in general this sincerity cannot be maintained, because all of the major ID players have proudly stated that they think the designer is, in fact, God.

So what? People are free to bring whatever additional baggage they want. What matters is whether their belief that the designer is God is a necessary requirement for thinking in terms of ID. It is not. Is it a required conclusion if you go all the way and embrace ID because of the arguments? No. Their belief in "God as designer" is neither a necessary assumption nor a mandated conclusion. It is extraneous to the method.

You don't seem to understand a simple fact. Or it least it hasn't sunk in. Behe and Dembski have cut the cords between ID and theism/creationism. The act has been done. Ever since, people who begin to play with ID, think about ID, explore with ID, accept ID, are under no obligation to reach the same conclusion about the designer. Why do you think the YECs have been distancing themselves from ID? Is that part of the Conspiracy also?

Okay, I have the last word at this point, as it is mostly old stuff that is tangential to the topic of my blog. I've patiently walked the extra mile, but from now on, material that does not address the issues I raise in the blog, or walk closely to them, will find itself in the Hole.

Does someone want to add to my analysis? Is there something wrong with my analysis? If so, what is it? Those are the type of questions I will use when moderating more aggressively.

As an aside, I will tell you however that our side perceives your side as as pushing religion in the classroom versus true science. My understanding is neither you, Wes Elsberry, PvM, and others at PT are atheists, but the perception that you're side is generally pushing atheism religiously over scientific truth is very strong.

Here is an account of Jerry Cook, and MIT PhD, the very kind of person that creation science is supposedly driving away from engineering and science: Darwin Goes to Church.

The Birth of ID, whether one wishes to call it creationism or not, seem rooted to me and others ( including university professors ) in basic scientific deduction. If the accusation persists that it's all about pushing "untrue creationism" into schools and "true Darwinism" out, then it will only continue to alienate large segments of the population, many of whom are quite capable of becoming university science professors…

I can tell you that at my alma mater, the perception among several biology students is that the pro-Darwin crowd aren't really interested in the truth, but pushing dogma, even anti-Christian philosophy down student's throats:
Intelligent Design and Academic Freedom.

Salvador