Intelligent Design

A friend who took his family to the Arizona State Fair noticed a booth from the Arizona Origins Science Association last night, and so pointed me to their website. A featured link on the front page says: Have you been taught or indoctrinated? - Take a test - View the answers The test answers show that this group uncritically accepts bad arguments, such as bogus arguments for a young earth (including making up the nonexistent isotope Po 234), claiming that the extinct pig’s tooth of “Nebraska man” was ever accepted scientific evidence for human evolution, claiming that because Peking Man and Java Man are now classified as Homo erectus that it’s purely “human” and thus not evidence for evolution, claiming that Australopithecus afarensis is no different from a chimpanzee or bonobo, claiming that all radiometric dating methods are based on untestable assumptions while ignoring the internal checks provided by isochron dating and comparisons of multiple methods where their view has no explanation for agreement, claiming that there are no known beneficial mutations, claiming that index fossils and the ages of geologic strata are the only things used to mutually validate each other, and so on. It’s as if they’ve never seen the talk.origins website or the index of creationist claims. The president of the group, Dr. Joseph M. Kezele, Jr., was previously mentioned on this blog as one of the five Darwin-denying doctors in Arizona who has signed on as a supporter of the anti-evolution “Physicians and Surgeons for Scientific Integrity." UPDATE: Of special interest on the Arizona Origins Science Association website are responses to surveys about creationism that they sent to various Arizona churches. I was quite pleased to see that many local churches have given responses that challenge AZOSA’s young-earth creationism. For example, the response from Dale Hallberg, Lead Pastor at Esperanza Lutheran Church, writes a comment on the statement “The Earth is relatively young (ten thousand or less years old)" (PDF) after marking it “D” for disagree: “Get serious!" Fr. William K. Young of St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church, in response to the statement “A person must accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior to be saved from eternal separation from God,” marks it “D” and comments (PDF) “If so, God help us all!" Dr. Roger Miller, interim pastor at the First Congregational United Church of Christ, added an entire page of comments (PDF) on the survey after he had viewed AZOSA’s website, and writes (in part) that “Sadly, fundamentalism is, per solid research, a demonstration of limited cognitive complexity capacity. Your work, though spirited and apologetically well intentioned, shows both limited understanding of scripture and archaeology. As an M.D., I would hope you’d spend time working for universal healthcare and lower prescription drug costs and leave the theological work to those so trained and the science to those trained in their fields.”

P.Z. Myers comments on a couple of professors defending the literal existence of angels and demons. Intelligent design advocate and Discovery Institute Fellow William Dembski on angels: Peter Williams’ The Case for Angels is about…the theological rift between a Christian intelligentsia that increasingly regards angels only as figurative or literary devices, and the great mass of Christians who thankfully still regard them as real (a fact confirmed by popular polls, as Williams notes in this book). This rift was brought home to me at a conference I helped organize at Baylor University some years back. The conference was entitled ‘The Nature of Nature’ and focused on whether nature is self-contained or points beyond itself. The activity of angels in the world would clearly constitute on way nature points beyond itself. Why is it important to know about angels? Why is it important to know about rocks and plants and animals? It’s important because all of these are aspects of reality that impinge on us. The problem with the secular intelligentsia is that they deny those aspects of reality that are inconvenient to their world-picture. And since the intelligentsia are by definition intelligent (though rarely wise), they are able to rationalize away what they find inconvenient. This is what Bishop Sheen was getting at with the previous quote when he referred to the intelligentsia rationalizing evil, and this what Williams is so successful at unmasking in the intelligentsia’s rejection of angels. ...

[UPDATE (April 15, 2008): See the NCSE’s “Expelled Exposed” website for a look at the deceptive tactics of the filmmakers and the real facts that they aren’t showing you.] In February, the movie “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” starring Ben Stein, will be released. [UPDATE: The release was delayed until April 18, possibly due to copyright infringement worries.] The film apparently argues that intelligent design is being wrongly excluded from public school classrooms, despite the fact that intelligent design is rebranded creationism and is a religious view without scientific support. There is no scientific theory of intelligent design to be taught in schools–it doesn’t exist. The advertising for the film says that P.Z. Myers appears in the film–but he was not interviewed for a film called “Expelled,” but for an apparently fictional project called “Crossroads: The Intersection of Science and Religion.” Mark Mathis, a producer for Rampant Films, contacted Myers, and he agreed to appear in that film. Now, as it turns out, Mathis is an associate producer on “Expelled." Myers writes: Why were they so dishonest about it? If Mathis had said outright that he wants to interview an atheist and outspoken critic of Intelligent Design for a film he was making about how ID is unfairly excluded from academe, I would have said, “bring it on!” We would have had a good, pugnacious argument on tape that directly addresses the claims of his movie, and it would have been a better (at least, more honest and more relevant) sequence. He would have also been more likely to get that good ol’ wild-haired, bulgy-eyed furious John Brown of the Godless vision than the usual mild-mannered professor that he did tape. And I probably would have been more aggressive with a plainly stated disagreement between us. I mean, seriously, not telling one of the sides in a debate about what the subject might be and then leading him around randomly to various topics, with the intent of later editing it down to the parts that just make the points you want, is the video version of quote-mining and is fundamentally dishonest.Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education reports a similar experience–she also was interviewed for “Crossroads." The producers of this film are sleazeballs. This kind of technique is already at or beyond the ethical edge for a comedy film like Borat, but to do this for a film that purports to take on a serious issue–and pretends to be on the side of God–is well past any such boundary. If, as has been suggested, this film is going to argue that belief in God is necessary for moral behavior (a falsehood), the behavior of the producers proves that it is not sufficient. The lesson for the future: Do not sign an agreement to be interviewed for a film if the agreement contains language that says they can use “…footage and materials in and in connection with the development, production, distribution and/or exploitation of the feature length documentary tentatively entitled Crossroads…and/or any other production…” That “and/or any other production” is a big loophole that will be exploited. UPDATE (August 23, 2007): Ed Brayton observes that two of the alleged controversies that “Expelled” will cover are bogus claims of persecution–the denial of tenure for Guillermo Gonzalez and the alleged martyrdom of Richard Sternberg. Ed notes that he has an article coming out in Skeptic magazine in February 2008 which will debunk the Souder report about the travails of Sternberg at the Smithsonian (a subject he has already written extensively about on his blog–linked to from the articles at my blog under the “Richard Sternberg affair” category). UPDATE (December 18, 2007): Ed Brayton points out that a new argument from the Discovery Institute for why Gonzalez shouldn’t have been denied tenure actually undermines that claim. UPDATE (February 10, 2008): John Lynch has a nice visual diagram of Gonzalez’s publication record. ...

Physicians and Surgeons for Scientific Integrity is an organization of Darwin-denying doctors being touted by the Discovery Institute as evidence of growing dissent against evolution. Those on their membership list in Arizona: Dr. Richard D. Friedman, Internal Medicine, Chandler, Arizona Dr. Joseph M. Kezele, Emergency Medicine, Cave Creek, Arizona Dr. William H. Noland, Neurology, Tucson, Arizona Dr. Joel T. Rohrbough, Orthopaedic Surgery, Flagstaff, Arizona Dr. Allan T. Sawyer, Obstetrics & Gynecology, Glendale, Arizona Personally, given the new developments in biological science and medicine that are discovered as a result of evolutionary science, I would not want to use a doctor who denies evolution. ...

They plan to get Paul Nelson’s Explore Evolution book used in a Tacoma, Washington public high school biology classroom. Round 4’s strategy is to avoid mentioning creationism or intelligent design, but just present evolution badly, and let the students infer creationism or intelligent design on their own or with the help of materials supplied outside of the classroom. The successful defense this time may not be through the courts, but by refuting the material and getting schools to abandon it (or better, refuse to adopt it) because it contains errors and doesn’t meet minimal standards of accuracy or value for the science curriculum. ...

For over a year, an individual has been harassing several evolutionary biologists at the Colorado University at Boulder about their “devilutionism,” and has now crossed the line into threats. The Discovery Institute claims that whoever is doing this is clearly not a Christian, a creationist, or religious (of course, only atheists are capable of doing anything unethical or crazy, right?), but the identity of this individual is known to the people being harassed. The Panda’s Thumb, Pharyngula, and Dispatches from the Culture Wars have more. UPDATE (July 13, 2007): The specific kook responsible has been identified as Michael Korn: Menacher “Michael” Korn is a 49-year-old Israeli national and former Messianic Jew who says he was baptized into Christianity in the Sea of Galilee seven years ago and is now on a mission to convert Jews and Muslims. His blog, JesusOverIsrael. blogspot.com, references CU-Boulder specifically and says he lives in Denver, although he has a North Carolina area code.See Pharyngula for links to Korn’s website and other information. ...

Tim Sandefur at the Panda’s Thumb explains how Casey Luskin, attorney at the Discovery Institute, misrepresents the 1982 U.S. Supreme Court case of Board of Education v. Pico. Luskin’s misrepresentations of biology can be blamed on incompetency, but as a lawyer, shouldn’t he at least know the law? I don’t see how his continued misrepresentations–and failure to correct them–can be blamed on anything but dishonesty.

The Montana Law Review has published an article by three Discovery Institute Fellows, a reply by Peter Irons, and a response by the DI Fellows (DeWolf, West, and Luskin). Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars has now published a reply by Irons to the short response from the DI Fellows; you can find all four contributions at his blog. I recommend starting with the first Irons reply, followed by the short DI Fellows response, followed by the Irons reply that Ed has published.

Congratulations to Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, and to eight teachers from Dover, Pennsylvania who refused to read the anti-evolution disclaimer mandated by the Dover Area School Board that was the subject of last year’s Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School Board trial: Brian Bahn, Vickie Davis, Robert Eshbach, Bertha Spahr, Robert Linker, Jennifer Miller, Leslie Prall, and David Taylor. They are the 2006 recipients of the Scientific Freedom and Responsibility Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Jack Cashill has produced an error-ridden column at WorldNetDaily on the Sternberg affair, which Ed Brayton has ably debunked. I predict Cashill will not correct himself, and may even continue to repeat the same errors.