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How much do atheists know about intelligent design?

In addition to what's already been said, I have a little more to add. It goes along with the "wedge strategy" and how the scientific process is being misrepresented in the whole ID argument.

The 'wedge strategy' was intended to do more than simply coat Creationism with fake scientific terminology and promote unsupportable conclusions. There is actually one science the right wing and the Evangelical think tanks are better at than the scientific community. That is the science of persuasion and marketing. This science is a key feature contained within the ID 'wedge strategy'.

Here are some of the techniques. First, when you lose your case in scientific circles, take your arguments directly to the less knowledgeable public. In the public arena, skill in the science of persuasion and marketing easily trumps skill in a scientific field and logical reasoning. As skeptics and scientists, many of us have yet to learn this fact.

In addition, since ID proponents did fail to convince the scientific community, it might also be difficult to debate the essence of the science. Yet a lot of the forums where ID proponents sought to bring their cause to the attention of the public were debate forums. What better place to pit your scientific claims against theirs than challenging scientists to debate the evidence in a public forum. Only one problem, ID would lose the debate if proponents based the arguments on evidence, even if they went out of their way to discredit credible evidence such as radio-isotope dating.

What do you do? You change the argument to one you can win. Thus comes the "fairness" and the "science is against religion" straw men arguments. Science is "unfairly" excluding ID from the evolution debate. Science excludes any evidence which supports religious beliefs.

"Persecution", always popular among Christians, science is against religion, or,

"Fairness", scientists are prematurely convinced and exclude any evidence from the evolution debate which contradicts the Theory of Evolution.

Those are obviously not the reasons science has discarded the ID hypothesis, but they make winnable straw men to battle in public debates.

ID arguments are straw men. We should address them and get the focus of the debate back to the real issues. Those would be the principles and evidence which prevented the ID hypothesis from ever becoming a valid argument within the scientific community.

Scientific principles:
  • We know something about human design. We have no evidence all designers would be the same. We do have evidence some things which appeared to be human designs have turned out not to be. Therefore, science has no way to test for a designer, let alone a non-human intelligent designer.
  • Science does include all viable hypotheses and theories.
  • Science is concerned with the evidence. Whether or not that evidence supported some religious doctrine or belief would not be relevant.

Scientific evidence:
  • The actual supporting evidence for ID is irreducible complexity.
  • No example yet of irreducible complexity has been found.
  • Michael Behe's research concluding the irreducible complexity of the bacterial flagellum has been debunked.
  • Discoveries in genetic science have provided overwhelming evidence that irreducible complexity is not a supportable hypothesis.
 
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Oh, and BTW, I've been debating this ID nonsense since I first found Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy forum > 8-9 years ago. I heard about Michael Behe there, as well as the wedge strategy. Very little of what I know about ID comes from any local media, in fact, I'd say none.
 
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I believe the wide end of the wedge goes well past the teaching of science, and is aimed at the overall desecularization of government. It is this that worries me most, because I think many people who ought to know better underestimate the depth and implication of the change that the religious right has in mind for our society.
 
CapelDodger said:
Just when you think yourself unshockable, somebody conjures up a truly shocking image. Implausible in the extreme, of course, and beyond my own imagination.
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I have been shocked at my countries backward slide both in science and civil rights... and I'm sure the Middle East was equally shocked when the Taliban rose in power.

I think faith festers in the fearful and leaders who invoke fear and offer faith as a solution hold more sway than I'd ever realized. There's this fear that learning evolution will lead to immorality as will secularism. But studies show that the opposite is true. http://moses.creighton.edu/jrs/2005/2005-11.html

It's just that facts don't matter when you have faith. If you can get people to trust their leaders and think it's arrogant to ask questions and "bite from the tree of knowledge"--that bad things will happen to them and their children and that scientists and secularists are trying to destroy people-- you get a cancer of ignorance which propagates readily ("go forth and multiply"... "god doesn't give you more than you can handle"..."spread the good news"...).

If nothing else, I hope the backlash unites critical thinkers and turns the tables on this craziness. Luckily this forum can be an oasis amongst the omnipresent ignorance. I think it may be an important tool for progress by empowering people from within. Information is available and nobody has to be alone in their doubt.
 
Think of it as two steps forward, one step back. The country's been through this before and recent events suggest that current back step peaked. Not that I'm going back to my laurels mind you. ;)
 
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I was told by my born again friend that because evolution does not have every infinite answer that it must be thrown out as non-science. I asked him the value of pi, stating that with his thinking, because we don't know the exact value of pi that we should not have wheels for our cars. He did not get it.
 
skeptigirl said:
Think of it as two steps forward, one step back. The country's been through this before and recent events suggest that current back step peaked. Not that I'm going back to my laurels mind you. ;)
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We relaxed before, and look what happened :).

I agree that we've seen the peak of political religion in the US (and probably elsewhere, such as in the Muslim world). That sort of stuff is always more appealing in prospect than in actuality. Which is why it's a good idea for religion to stay out of practical politics (and out of science, of course). It can only serve to discredit the religion.

If we trace the current resurgence back to Reagan, what's remarkable is how little the Religious Right has gained, if anything. They've had very nearly four full terms of sympathetic Presidents since then and they've got squat out of it. That's one damn' fine Constitution those old boys drew up.
 
articulett said:
If nothing else, I hope the backlash unites critical thinkers and turns the tables on this craziness. Luckily this forum can be an oasis amongst the omnipresent ignorance. I think it may be an important tool for progress by empowering people from within. Information is available and nobody has to be alone in their doubt.
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I'm optimistic about a backlash against political religion of all varieties. Religion has not been getting good press of late.

I didn't grow up in a religious atmosphere, but was still told "you have to respect people's beliefs". I didn't buy it - I regard is a priestly fall-back position - and it's harder to sell in a world with suicide bombers, Zionist zealots (Jewish and Christian), and Karl Rove.

At some point (not this time, but hopefully soon) a Presidential hopeful will "screw my beliefs, here are my policies, ask me about them for crying out loud! The after-life is outwith the mandate I seek, m'kay?". The day we hear that we should all pour ourselves a goodly dram and drink a smug toast to ourselves :).
 
CapelDodger said:
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If we trace the current resurgence back to Reagan, what's remarkable is how little the Religious Right has gained, if anything. They've had very nearly four full terms of sympathetic Presidents since then and they've got squat out of it. That's one damn' fine Constitution those old boys drew up.
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I think they gained a bit, but it looks old and tired now because it did emerge from those days.

But about the Muslim thing, I wouldn't be so sure they've peaked at all.
 
CapelDodger said:
Your story is disturbing. Pretty much everything I've ever heard about Mississipi disturbs me. I recommend you get out as soon as opportunity presents, and I doubt I'm the first to do so.
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Absolutely. We're working on the financial aspects of that right now, as, for all its failings, Mississippi is very cheap which makes it difficult to save up money for a move to somewhere with a more thriving economy (where rent is much more expensive). In fact, when many people wonder why impoverished blacks don't move to escape financial and racial oppression, this is the largest contributing factor.

There was a time when I wanted to stay and make a difference but, yeah. It's kind of like hoping you can pour a bottle of fresh spring water into the Mississippi and hope to clear up the pollution.
 
skeptigirl said:
I think they gained a bit, but it looks old and tired now because it did emerge from those days.
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These days still :). Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

But about the Muslim thing, I wouldn't be so sure they've peaked at all.
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It all started in Iran - with the '79 Revolution - and it's come back around to Iran. Anybody under forty has grown up with the Islamic State their elders only had a concept of. The suicide mentality was developed for the front-line with Iraq, not for mayhem in a mall. Sunnis such as Bin Laden tried to catch up, but the Afghan resistance to the Soviets was quite the opposite of suicidal. It was all about getting away to fight another day - where you're not expected. Keep that up long enough and they (whoever "they" are this time) will give up and go away.

Ahmedinejad is the last desperate throw of the muftis, and even they aren't happy with him. Islam is making Iran a laughing-stock in the modern world, but Iran's history as a top player goes way back beyond that. (Unlike the Arabs, who were nothing before Muhammed.)

Nobody gains from confontation or denigration as "mad mullahs" or "Great Satan". Iran is ready and waiting to be made an offer of due respect.
 
CapelDodger said:
These days still :). Let's not get ahead of ourselves.



It all started in Iran - with the '79 Revolution - and it's come back around to Iran. Anybody under forty has grown up with the Islamic State their elders only had a concept of. The suicide mentality was developed for the front-line with Iraq, not for mayhem in a mall. Sunnis such as Bin Laden tried to catch up, but the Afghan resistance to the Soviets was quite the opposite of suicidal. It was all about getting away to fight another day - where you're not expected. Keep that up long enough and they (whoever "they" are this time) will give up and go away.

Ahmedinejad is the last desperate throw of the muftis, and even they aren't happy with him. Islam is making Iran a laughing-stock in the modern world, but Iran's history as a top player goes way back beyond that. (Unlike the Arabs, who were nothing before Muhammed.)

Nobody gains from confontation or denigration as "mad mullahs" or "Great Satan". Iran is ready and waiting to be made an offer of due respect.
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I was thinking more along the line of a bunch of idiots calling for the death of a teacher who named a teddy bear Mohammad or the rioting mobs that resulted after a cartoon was published in a paper months earlier in a country thousands of miles away. I was thinking more along the lines of that sort of thing, not the power seekers which take advantage of the idiots.
 
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Abe_the_Man said:
I'm just wondering how much atheists actually understand the "theory" of intelligent design? I was under the impression that intelligent design was the idea that an "Intelligent designer" laid out a plan for the universe before it's creation. Basically this designer decided how the big bang would happen. How where and when planets and stars would form. What pre-biological components would combine to create life. And set the parameters of evolution.

Basically I was under the impression that intelligent design agreed with evolution, cosmology and all our other scientific fields (I mean it is a "science" right?) but supposed that a creator had set the universe on it's exact course. Basically ID is moot. So I didn't have that much of a problem with it. I thought it was inappropriate to try and teach as science, mostly because it was worthless except as a mental exercise (and not a very vigorous one at that) while dragging science dangerously close to those theological questions.

Then I watched the Nova program "Judgment Day: Intelligent design on trial". I was absolutely FLABBERGASTED (i don't use that word lightly!) when I found out what ID is really about. It supposes that things are too complex to have evolved on their own and therefore they just "appeared spontaneously, fully formed". That's just insane! That means the kangaroos are hopping around happily in prehistoric Australia when suddenly 'POP' platypuses all over the place. And one day 'POOF' humans in Africa!

Not only is ID just a downright dumb idea it completely removes the wonder and majesty from the universe by dumbing it way down to "God did it!"

So I wonder how many evolutionists actually understand how mind bogglingly ridiculous ID is? If I didn't realize it perhaps others don't fully understand the ID "theory"?
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I'm an atheist, and not a particularly educated one (barely earned a diploma). Really all I needed was the powers of the internet to obtain a cursory understanding of ID and why it is so unscientific. Of course, I am more curious about pseudoscience and woo than the average person of my background, so I take more time to look into these things. Most people, atheists or not, don't take the time to do that. Although I will admit, the main reason I oppose ID is because of my hatred for Growing Pains and anything associated with it.
 
skeptigirl said:
I was thinking more along the line of a bunch of idiots calling for the death of a teacher who named a teddy bear Mohammad or the rioting mobs that resulted after a cartoon was published in a paper months earlier in a country thousands of miles away. I was thinking more along the lines of that sort of thing, not the power seekers which take advantage of the idiots.
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Look behind the headlines and you'll see Rent-A-Mob. Such incidents get no natural traction. They're exaggerated by both sides of the "Clash of Cultures" wannabes - rent a mob on one side, headline the rented mob on the other. The intention is to promote polarisation.
 
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