The ID Report

In the middle of the burgeoning controversy over whether the universe and life forms show detectible evidence of intelligent design, the Director of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History is co-hosting — with the Discovery Institute — the “national premiere and evening reception” for The Privileged Planet: The Search for Purpose in the Universe

The Privileged Planet: The Search for Purpose in the Universe is a documentary by Illustra Media featuring philosopher Jay Richards and astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez, arguing for the intelligent design of the universe. Both Richards and Gonzalez are associated with the intelligent design community, and have coauthored a book, also called The Privileged Planet. (See www.privilegedplanet.com)

I have just received an invitation to attend this event, which will be held on Thursday, June 23, 2005 at 6:00 p.m. at the Smithsonian, at Constitution and Tenth Avenues in Washington, D.C.

The documentary will be shown at 6:00 p.m. in the Baird Auditorium, with a reception to follow in the Hall of Geology, Gems, and Minerals.

Key question: Will Richard Sternberg, the Smithsonian scientist who was practically driven from his post because he permitted an ID-friendly paper to be published be invited? (See www.rsternberg.net) I hope so, and if he isn’t, I’ll give him my ticket and cover the event from the ceiling fan.

Details to follow.

Darwinian evolutionist H. Allen Orr has written a piece in the New Yorker“Devolution” The article is most interesting because, unlike the vast majority of hostile commentators, Dr. Orr, an evolutionary biologist, has actually felt it necessary to find out something about intelligent design theory before trying to trash it.

In fact, he informs us that

"Many scientists avoid discussing I.D. for strategic reasons. If a scientific claim can be loosely defined as one that scientists take seriously enough to debate, then engaging the intelligent-design movement on scientific grounds, they worry, cedes what it most desires: recognition that its claims are legitimate scientific ones.

"Meanwhile, proposals hostile to evolution are being considered in more than twenty states; earlier this month, a bill was introduced into the New York State Assembly calling for instruction in intelligent design for all public-school students. The Kansas State Board of Education … [a number of ID-related events are cited] In the past few years, college students across the country have formed Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness chapters. Clearly, a policy of limited scientific engagement has failed. So just what is this movement?"

It is convenient that Orr admits, up front, that stifling discussion of ID was a strategy and that the strategy has failed. Overall, he writes a surprisingly reasonable hostile account in which he makes absolutely clear that Darwinian evolution means evolution with no design or purpose and that that is the only type of evolution that is permitted to be taught in the school system.

Vast reams of media coverage of the school board controversies fail to articulate that simple fact. And if you do not know that fact, you will not know why Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness ( IDEA) chapters are springing up among students. In other words, it is not because students have taken a shine to the Religious Right. It is rather that, as Casey Luskin, IDEA Center co-president writes,

"The reason why so many students are interested in intelligent design is because they aren't hearing about it in their classes, or are hearing about it in an exceedingly one-sided manner. This peaks their interest because students are keen at smelling when there is information they aren't being told."

Luskin, an apparent enfant terrible, also challenges Orr on a sensitive point:

"I publicly invite Allen Orr to explain to us how his Darwinian view of life interfaces with his personal religious beliefs. Public disclosure of Orr's personal views would go much further towards reassuring people that it is possible to believe in God and evolution than would his mere citation to a statement by a pope who said that God and evolution are compatible. My e-mail address is casey@ideacenter.org. "

Any other Darwinist is welcome to do the same, I presume.

The other thing I liked about Orr’s comments is that he refrains from foolish scaremongering about the Religious Right. I presume that that is because he is a sensible person, but would add that the vast majority of Americans do not believe in Darwinian evolution, so presumably they are all the Religious Right, in which case ...

Luskin also notes that he has written to the New Yorker to complain that Orr has misrepresented ID theorist Bill Dembski, and has posted comments at “Refuted Before it was Written: A Guide to Allen Orr’s ‘Devolution’ Article in The New Yorker”
Dembski posted something brief on this at his own blog, Uncommon Descent and apparently plans to say more.

But overall, see how the Internet changes things? The New Yorker might majestically refuse to publish Dembski’s or Luskin’s response, but neither can prevent Dembski or Luskin from reaching whatever section of the public cares—at next to no cost.

The New Yorker must sell advertising to meet huge production costs, but a blogger doesn’t need to do much more than a journalist would. Legacy mainstream media has not grasped the significance of this, just as traditional manuscript illuminators did not grasp the significance of the new trade of printing. The illuminator generally thought that the printer was producing an inferior product, and in some ways that was true — but not in the ways that were important to the customer. The customer, for example, just wanted a Bible; he did not need an illuminated Bible. In the same way, you don’t really need hundreds of colourful ads for perfume and makeup. You just want a discussion of what’s going on, with links so you can follow up for yourself.

As a matter of fact, while we are on this subject, I came across another interesting statistic about the decline in the fortunes of legacy media. According to former publishing exec Russ Smith (who writes under the soubriquet “Mugger”), “In the post-Watergate 1970's, some 25 to 30 percent of Americans reported to the Harris Poll that they had a great deal of confidence in the press, more than they had in Congress, unions or corporate America. In the 2005 poll, the press ranked only ahead of law firms, with 12 percent reporting high confidence in the media.”

In one sense, this is easy to understand. Woodward and Bernstein revealed political misdeeds that were really happening! Dan Rather (pajamagate) and Newsweek (Korangate) were revealing their fantasies. We enjoy popular fiction, but we don’t believe it. And when it is fiction about us, we just lose interest after a while and turn to other sources.

American Association for the Advancement of Science CEO Alan I. Leshner Let fact and faith coexist outside schools wrote a fairly typical piece of bumph for a Kansas paper, equating doubts about Darwinism with trying to introduce religion into the school system. He warns,
Pressures are mounting to introduce nonscientific, anti-evolution rhetoric into science classrooms, alongside well-supported facts about life's origins.

(Origins? About life’s origins, as opposed to its development or evolution, there are in fact no well-supported theories. There is a huge variety of poorly supported ones. But let’s let that pass for now.)

Each time one of these boffins bloviates, it becomes clearer that Darwinism is the religion of the school system. That is the fundamental reason why questioning it is so controversial. As I said in By Design or by Chance?, Darwinism—whether true or false scientifically— is the creation story of atheism. It enables you to account for life without design. If it is true, fair enough, but if you are not allowed to question it, you will never know whether it is true.

Anyway, Leshner goes on to say, “ The United States is not alone in these struggles. In Brazil, where the country's Protestant evangelical population has undergone a fivefold increase since 1940, creationists have ramped up efforts to combat the teaching of evolution.”

Enezio E. de Almeida Filho writes from Brazil to reply,

Can someone correct Leshner's misstatement about Brazil? It is true that evangelical protestants have undergone 'a fivefold increase since 1940', however they have no relevant impact upon Brazilian society -- culturally speaking they are kind of 'second class' citizens [kind of pariahs] and have a hard time to have a say in important cultural issues, and remain mostly 'sociologically unseen' or unwanted by the rest of our society. These creationists haven't 'ramped up efforts to combat the teaching of evolution'.

Leshner should do his homework better: the Brazilian scenario is totally different from the 'cultural warfare' in the United States -- the only church openly promoting creationism in Brazil since its inception is the Seventh Day Adventist Church, a very small Christian denomination in Brazil. But even this very small segment of Protestants hasn't 'ramped up efforts to combat the teaching of evolution' but to'teach the controversy'.

Give me a break, Leshner, these little creationists are no threat to you nor Darwin!

Thanks Enezio. But remember, Leshner is using Brazil’s second class citizens as a bug-a-boo to frighten his fellow science boffins. Getting it right about them would spoil the fun. What is he going to say, after all? That people are beginning to doubt Darwinism because it is doubtful?

If you have been following the intelligent design (ID) controversy, you could paper a wall with announcements by boffins that ID makes no testable or falsifiable predictions. Of course, many of the same people do their best to keep ID-friendly papers out of journals. But now and then they slip up, and a paper gets published.

In his recent paper in Rivista di Biologia, “Do Centrioles Generate a Polar Ejection Force?”, Jonathan Wells makes the following testable predictions regarding his hypothesis that the centrioles of cells generate a polar ejection force:

http://www.tilgher.it/(zblz3wi2x3gdp545ombvkm2i)/index.aspx?lang=eng&tpr=4&act=abs&id=3216

A. It [the hypothesis] predicts that spindle microtubules in animal cells begin to oscillate at the beginning of prometaphase, and that those oscillations rapidly accelerate until metaphase, at which point they decelerate or cease. By metaphase the oscillations may be of such high frequency that they would be difficult to detect, but the lower frequency oscillations early in prometaphase should be detectable by immunofluorescence microscopy and high-speed camera technology.
B. It predicts that the centriole contains a helical pump powered by dynein molecules located in the inner wall of its lumen. Improved imaging techniques may make it possible to elucidate
the complex internal structure of centrioles, characterizing more fully the helical structures in their lumens and determining the precise localization of dynein in their inner walls.
C. It predicts that the polar ejection force is regulated, at least in part, by intracellular calcium concentration. It should be possible to test this by observing chromosome behavior in the spindles of dividing animal cells while artificially raising the concentration of intracellular calcium during prometaphase or blocking its rise at the beginning of anaphase.

He adds, “If the hypothesis presented here withstands these and other experimental tests, then it may contribute to a better understanding not only of cell division, but also of cancer.”

Wells makes clear in the paper that his assumptions are based on the thesis that the centriole is a designed object, like a machine, and should be studied as one. Asked whether he considers the centriole irreducibly complex, he told me, “I suspect so, but I don't know. The fact that there seem to be no intermediates (you either have a working centriole, or you don't) strongly suggests irreducible complexity, but people would have to do experiments similar to those done on the bacterial flagellum (i.e., removing parts to find out if they're needed for function) to find out for sure.”

About getting his paper published, Wells noted that Rivista di Biologia/Biology Forum is an English-language peer-reviewed journal published in Italy, “whose editor (Giuseppe Sermonti) is a geneticist critical of Darwinism.”

Yo, Darwinists. Get hold of that editor’s e-mail address and start showering him with abuse immediately. Why should an American, Richard Sternberg, be the only one who has to apply to the government to stop the persecution? You shouldn’t let the Americans be first at everything; it looks bad.

Apparently, 18 black Canadian squirrels were released at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. in the early 1900s. As anyone who has lived in Toronto would predict, they soon began to jostle the local gray squirrels at area bird feeders.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/18/AR2005051802251.html

The Post writer announces,

That's because those 18 squirrels -- whose coats of lustrous black set them apart from the native animals -- were the beginning of a shift that has changed the complexion of Washington's backyard critters. Now, probably because of a slight evolutionary advantage conveyed with a black coat, the descendants of these squirrels have spread all the way into Rockville and Prince William County.

Seriously: Scientists say it's a real-life example of natural selection at work, which has rolled on for a century here without much public notice.

"It shows the spread of a gene within a population," said Richard W. Thorington Jr., a Smithsonian Institution researcher working on a book that includes a history of the District's black squirrels. "That is evolutionary change before your eyes."

Wow. Seriously? Evolutionary change before my eyes? But wait a minute ... The Post writer then goes on to say,

The story of Washington's black squirrels -- which scientists say are just a color variation within the common gray squirrel species -- still has its shades of mystery.

Yes, that’s right, folks. The grey and the black squirrels are actually two coat-type varieties of the same species. They are about as different as black and white alley cats are from orange and white alley cats.

Here in Toronto, the two coat types have persisted together for many decades, doing a proportionate amount of damage to spring flower gardens and native bird feeders. But apparently in the Washington area a century ago, for some reason, only the greys were found, until a zookeeper acquired some of the black variety from Canada and let them go.

In a classic example of Darwinian just-so storytelling, we are informed, “Here's why some scientists believe the black squirrels were multiplying: In winter, their dark coats allowed them to retain heat from sunlight, leaving them less desperate for warmth than their lighter-colored cousins.”

Well, if that is the case, why do the supposedly disadvantaged grey-coat type squirrels survive at all in cities like Toronto that can become much colder than Washington? Yet their relative proportion of the squirrel population here does not seem to have changed much over the decades.

In reality, the black squirrels are multiplying in Washington because that’s what squirrels do, given a chance. In Toronto, the black squirrels tend to be somewhat more numerous than the grey, but unlike the Darwinists, I am not going to offer a just-so story as to why that is so. A genome map might possibly demonstrate that black is the dominant colour, but I don’t know of any such map in existence now.

Oh, by the way, do the squirrels even care which coat type they are? One scientist explains,

“... the squirrels don't appear to treat each other differently because they are black or gray.” “They don't seem to care,” he said.

Personally, I can’t imagine why the squirrels would even know, let alone care.

The key thing to see here is that the Darwinist wants us to understand that the process that (he hopes) can explain why pesky black-coat-type squirrels can get established in the Washington area alongside grey members of the same species can also explain the entire history of life. But he never demonstrates that point, he merely assumes it as an article of faith. And he then expects the rest of us to take these utterly trivial instances of animals adapting to an environment as evidence for his thesis. No wonder they are restless over there in Kansas.

Just when I wondered if legacy media could get any dozier about the controversy between Darwinism and intelligent design, a liberal media watchdog, Media Matters, http://mediamatters.org/items/200505130008] jumps into the fray and proves that the depths haven’t been reached yet.

The May 12 edition of Lou Dobbs Tonight featured Jonathan Wells for intelligent design, John Morris for creationism, and Michael Ruse for Darwinism:

On the show, Dobbs remarked, “The fact is that evolution, Darwinism, is not a fully explained or completely rigorous and defined science that has testable results within it. Like a – “ (At that point he was interrupted by a panelist.)

Shocked, just shocked, Media Matters informs us,

During a debate on "the origin of life," CNN host Lou Dobbs stated on his own authority: "The fact is that evolution, Darwinism, is not a fully explained or completely rigorous and defined science that has testable results within it." The National Academy of Sciences (NAS), which advises the federal government on “scientific and technical matters,” disagrees with Dobbs’ “facts” about evolution.

Sure it does. With the exception of one lone member, Phil Skell, NAS is an establishment organization obediently yapping the party line—or to put it more politely, defending Darwinism as one of their big causes, oblivious to the questions that are growing all around us about whether mind really evolves from mud.

Media Matters, has it ever occurred to you ... like, is it even barely possible that ... oh, I am not going to complete this thought for you. Compare your ridiculous sucking up to an establishment organization with the insightful Michael Powell article above, and then go rend your hearts and not your press passes.

To find out more about my book on the intelligent design controversy, go to By Design or by Chance?

Amazingly, this Washington Post story avoids the cliches and the Darwinist super-yes-men, and talks about some of the real issues behind the intelligent design controversy, in a profile of Berkeley law professor Phillip Johnson, who did more than anyone else to force the issues into the open:

“Phillip is absolutely right that the evidence for the big transformations in evolution are not there in the fossil record -- it's always good to point this out,” Provine says. “It's difficult to explore a billion-year-old fossil record. Be patient!”

Provine's faith, if one may call it that, rests on Darwinism, which he
describes as the greatest engine of atheism devised by man. The English
scientist's insights registered as a powerful blow -- perhaps the decisive one -- in the long run of battles, from Copernicus to Descartes, that removed God from the center of the Western world.

“Give Johnson and the intelligent-design movement their due -- they are
asking terribly important questions," says Stuart A. Kauffman, director of the Institute for Biocomplexity at the University of Calgary. “ To question whether patterns and complexity, at the level of the cell or the universe, bespeak intelligent design is not stupid in the least.

“I simply believe they've come up with the wrong answers.”

Wow, an intelligent discussion!

Here are some excerpts from a letter I wrote, thanking journalist Michael Powell:

"As one who spent three years researching and writing a book on the intelligent design controversy (By Design or by Chance? Augsburg Fortress, 2004), I was impressed with your willingness to actually look at the issues the ID folk raise.

...

"Michael, your signal achievement, in my view, is to get PAST the idea that the best way to understand the ID controversy is to hear what the detractors of the ID folk say and then print that as if it is some sort of satisfying truth.

"Not so. The issues are much bigger than the detractors of the ID guys, or even the ID guys themselves. Those ID guys could well perpetrate a tragedy they don't even understand, by promoting a materialistic conception of God (even if they don't intend to - witness the law of unintended consequences).

"But who knows? Generally, you will find, the ID guys are a much more interesting lot than their professional detractors, who - in my experience, tend to be super-yes-men, promoting establishment thinking that is actually quite unsound at many points, but the super-yes-men are the last to know. They are certainly not my favourite type, anyway, when I am looking for a really good story, which is why I find the dependence of so many journalists on the Darwinist super-yes-men so much less than praiseworthy."

Many people have worried a lot about genetic determinism—the belief that there are master genes that control our behaviour — crime, obesity, sexuality, honesty ...

There are two separate worries here: First, is it true? If so, free will does not really exist.

More practically, what if large numbers of people believe it is true, even if it isn’t? Then those people will act as if they, and we, have no free will. They will have a bad effect on society even if they are wrong.

Fortunately, recent developments in genetics are making clear that this sort of “reductionism” — reducing everything to a single factor — is nonsense. There are no single genes that control human behaviour. Popular literature often does not catch up with new science developments very quickly, so it might be helpful to summarize a couple of key points here:

Not very long ago, as MIT science historian Evelyn Fox Keller notes in The Century of the Gene, biologists thought that if we could read the human genome, it would explain everything there was to know about a person. As Francis Crick put in in 1957, “DNA makes RNA, RNA makes protein, and proteins make us.” This was the “central dogma” of biology for nearly fifty years.

Quoting another scientist from about 15 years ago, Keller says,

“Spelling out his ‘Vision of the Grail,’ Walter Gilbert wrote, “Three billion bases of sequence can be put on a single compact disc (CD), and one will be able to pull a CD out of one’s pocket and say, ‘Here is a human being; it’s me!’”

Then she adds, “Today, almost no one would make such a provocative claim.”

So why would almost no one make such a claim today? Both genes and organisms have turned out to be much more complex than anyone imagined. As Keller notes, “Indeed, the functional gene may have no fixity at all: its existence is both transitory and contingent, depending critically on the functional dynamics of the entire organism.”

As a recent article in the Guardian Education supplement explained, most genes do not do only one job:

“Rather than having a single major function, most genes, like roads, probably play a small part in lots of tasks within the cell. By dissecting biology into its genetic atoms, reductionism failed to account for these multitasking genes. So the starting point for systems biologists isn't the gene but rather a mathematical model of the entire cell. Instead of focusing on key control points, systems biologists look at the system properties of the entire network. In this new vision of biology, genes aren't discrete nuggets of genetic information but more diffuse entities whose functional reality may be spread across hundreds of interacting DNA segments.”

Put simply, if you have a tendency toward inactivity that causes you to gain weight, there isn’t a “gene” that makes you fat. Your tendency is likely the result of a system with hundreds of components, interacting with other systems with hundreds of components. The bad news is that it is more difficult to understand than a simple system. The good news is that it is much easier to influence than a simple system, because you can influence many different components. So biology is not destiny after all.

Of course, we can expect years of headlines about the “shoplifting gene,” the “compulsive spending” gene and so forth. Promising ideas die hard. That little word “gene” promises us absolution without ever having to say we’re sorry—or even admit that we did something bad.

Jonah Goldberg takes after the frightened whine of the Darwinists that if anyone is allowed to question Darwinism (the theory that life moved from mud to mind in 15 billion easy and obvious steps), we will soon find ourselves in a theocratic state. Why? We didn’t have a theocratic state before Darwinism, so why should we after it?

He writes, "I can take the somber, frightened "special reports" on National Public Radio, where you can literally hear the correspondents wringing their hands over the possibility that the "Darwin fish" affixed to their Volvos will be banned. I can even handle the dog-whistle shrieks of Paul Krugman and Maureen Dowd types about the looming Inquisition led by an alliance of the new German (wink, wink) pope and the Kansas Board of Education. [both the new Pope and the Kansas Board have questioned Darwinism recently - d.]

"But the most recent episode of NBC’s doddering “Law & Order” series is where I draw the line. The episode tells the story of a racist who committed murder nine years ago but who, in shame and remorse, subsequently found Jesus and was born again. In the nine years since he dedicated himself to Christ, he has led an exemplary life. But his guilt is discovered, and he decides to confess and show true contrition."

Goldberg’s screed mainly concerns a stupid TV program, as you will see. But the program is very much the kind of thing that people whose logo is a fish with rubber-boots feet would listen to for clues about their future. Advice to such persons: Tea leaves are more relaxing and just as useful. Honest.

This week seems to be a real bonanza for ID TV:

Last night (May 9, 2005) ABC News Nightline, hosted by George Stephanopoulos, featured William Dembski vs. Michael Ruse on the Kansas science standards hearings—but really about intelligent design theory in general. Interestingly, both Ruse and Dembski think that ID will prevail over time. That makes sense to me; most of the world does not accept naturalism, so forcing it on the public will not likely succeed, but See the show, and decide for yourself.

Also note Steve Meyer debating Eugenie Scott of the Darwin lobby. Meyer, remember, was the author of the ID-friendly article in the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, on account of which his editor had to ask for protection from the Office of Special Counsel of the United States government. Ironically, Sternberg was not even a supporter of intelligent design, particularly.

A recent article in the Guardian’s Education supplement suggests that new findings in genetics have undermined Darwinist Richard Dawkins’s famous “selfish gene”to the point where it is a meaningless concept.

Rather than having a single major function, most genes, like roads, probably play a small part in lots of tasks within the cell. By dissecting biology into its genetic atoms, reductionism failed to account for these multitasking genes. So the starting point for systems biologists isn't the gene but rather a mathematical model of the entire cell. Instead of focusing on key control points, systems biologists look at the system properties of the entire network. In this new vision of biology, genes aren't discrete nuggets of genetic information but more diffuse entities whose functional reality may be spread across hundreds of interacting DNA segments.

M‘bye, Dawkins. Whoops, don’t forget those selfish genes of yours, even though they’ll forget you. Seriously, as a result,

Systems biology is reasserting the primacy of the whole organism - the system - rather than the selfish behaviour of any of its components.

Systems biology courses are infiltrating curricula in campuses across the globe and systems biology centres are popping up in cities from London to Seattle. The British biological research funding body, the BBSRC, has just announced the creation of three systems biology centres in the UK. These centres are very different from traditional biology departments as they tend to be staffed by physicists, mathematicians and engineers, alongside biologists. Rather like the systems they study, systems biology centres are designed to promote interactivity and networking.

This new trend should be good news for the intelligent design scientists, who tend to thrive better in interdisciplinary groups than in closed, reductionist ones.

Recently, an extinct group of tiny people, Flores man, was found and declared to be a new human species.

However, in the following puzzling development,

INDONESIAN scientists have found a community of Pygmy people on the eastern island of Flores, near a village where Australian scientists discovered a dwarf-sized skeleton last year and declared it a new human species, a newspaper says.

This latest discovery will likely raise more controversy over the finding of homo floresiensis, claimed by Australian scientists Mike Morwood and Peter Brown in September last year. They dubbed the new species "hobbits".

Kompas Daily reported yesterday that the Pygmy community had been found during an April expedition in the village of Rampapasa, about 1km from the village of Liang Bua where the "hobbits" were found.

Could it be something in the air down there that shrinks people?

Anyway, this discovery certainly ratchets up the row over origins because some scientists dispute that Flores man is really a new species at all, and are accusing its promoters of scientific “terrorism”.

A new ID blog, Telic Thoughts has hit the scene. I like it because the people involved seem to be mostly young guys who want to have fun. Check out the following, especially, “Stone tools and arguments against design”

A question I sometimes ask is this: If I came across a weathered wooden kitchen tool among the weird driftwood on a beach, how would I know it was a kitchen tool? I would likely suspect it was a tool even if I did not know what it was for. (I have seen many kitchen tools hung up for sale in those fancy new kitchen stores whose use eludes me.) Someone should study just how it is that humans infer design.

A science teacher of thirty years’ experience comments on “teaching the controversy” where evolution and ID are concerned:

“Two thoughts about "confrontational mode" from a veteran:

1. It is an important part of learning science to learn about the confrontation of ideas. Think back to 1900 and the Light-is-a-Particle vs Light-is-a-wave controversy. A confrontation of ideas is not the same as an enmity between persons. Honest and clever men and women sat on either side of that fence, and in the end the evidence forced a conclusion that neither side could possibly have imagined.

2. No less a teacher of teachers than the great Elgin Wolfe held that a perfectly acceptable answer in science to a difficult question is, "We don't know." He suggested that if students asked, e.g., where the first cell came from, we could simply say, ‘We don’t know. Maybe it will be your Ph.D. thesis which will enlighten the world on that subject.’ (Now, he also suggested that if students asked questions the answer to which the individual teacher did not know the answer, then the correct response would be, ‘I don't know, but I’ll find out from people who do know. You try to find out as well, and let's see which of us can get the answer first !’)

Good thoughts. My own much more limited experience in adult ed has been that students do not respect teachers who can’t/won’t/are not allowed to address the subjects that the students really know are controversial. The only difference between adults and teens, in this regard, is that the adults are too polite to display their disdain.

It used to be that the main problem areas were sex education and drug-proofing. Some people didn’t want the teachers to talk about what all the students knew about, or soon would. It shows how serious the origins debate has become when the same restrictions are now being applied to discussions of evolution versus intelligent design. If past experience is any indicator, the people who want to ban discussion of ID from the classroom will flop miserably, on principle, and deserve to.

Decades ago, when I was a live-in counselor at a group home for teen boys, I used to be amused at the way they'd "nark themselves off." Far from being the street-smart kids you might see on TV or the movies, some of these kids were virtually clueless.

On my very first day on the job, I walked into one of the bedrooms where a couple of they guys were hunched over working on something. I didn't think anything of it until one of the kids looked up, saw me, and shouted, "B-u-u-u-sted!"

The other shot back, "Shut up, man! He didn't know what we were doing!"

He was right, I didn't. Turns out they were assembling a home-made bong in anticipation of scoring some good weed. I confiscated the bong, and they didn't have access to the outside world for awhile.

But over the years I've found that it's not just clueless boy's-home teens that bust themselves. Sometimes it's people whom you'd think would have every reason to keep their mouths shut. But a wagging tongue can be tough to still.

For example, back in 1989 or thereabouts, California approved an extremely controversial set of science standards that were calculated to silence criticism of evolution in public school classrooms. This was evident if you happened to know anything about biology and the philosophy of science. But the writer of some of the most controversial sections, Kevin Padian a Berkeley paleontologist and NCSE activist, couldn't help but boast of his and proudly proclaimed, in print no less: "As for the religious right, the new Science Framework leaves them totally disenfranchised from the public educational system in California."¹

Bu-u-u-sted.

More recently, as I noted in my blog, "The Stricture of Scientific Resolutions," the Council that governs the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington provided another classic when it posted a statement regarding its publication of a major pro-ID paper by the Discovery Institute's Steve Meyer.

A brief passage from the statement is a marvel of self-indictment--all the more so when you consider that it's the result of serious deliberation among the Council's thoroughly self-conscious members. The passage reads: "The Council endorses a resolution on ID published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which observes that there is no credible scientific evidence supporting ID as a testable hypothesis to explain the origin of organic diversity. Accordingly, the Meyer paper does not meet the scientific standards of the Proceedings."

In other words, because the AAAS says ID is untestable and without support, Meyer's peer-approved paper does not meet the journal's standards--a breath-taking display of devotion to scientific ideals, and as blatant an admission as you could ask for that ID-friendly articles will not even be accepted for review, let alone publication. Is it any wonder then, as the anti-ID community constantly laments, that critics "simply doesn't understand how science how science works"?

All together now: B-u-u-u-sted.

The most recent gaffe, however, is a real kicker. In a post on the Website of the anti-ID Kansas Citizens for Science (KCFS), Liz Craig, an officer and media contact for the group blurted out the following regarding the conservative members of the Kansas State Board of Education:

My strategy at this point is the same as it was in 1999: notify the national and local media about what's going on and portray them in the harshest light possible, as political opportunists, evangelical activists, ignoramuses, breakers of rules, unprincipled bullies, etc.

There may no way to head off another science standards debacle, but we can sure make them look like asses as they do what they do.

Our target is the moderates who are not that well educated about the issues, most of whom probably are theistic evolutionists. There is no way to convert the creationists.

Wow.

Much has been made by ID foes--almost to the point of hysteria--of the Discovery Institute's "Wedge Document," a funding proposal that allegedly reveals a sinister religious agenda. Moreover, the same Web site where Craig posted her comment has a thread in its discussion forums called, "Damning Quotes," the purpose of which is to "to keep track of, and maintain, various 'damning quotes' that have been made in regards to ID, and it's religious nature."

But the "Wedge Document" and all the quotes that KCFS have scraped together simply don't compare to the sheer malice revealed by the above statements. What kind of person can express delight at having disenfranchised an entire segment of the population? What does it take to profess devotion to scientific principles, yet devise policies that amount to laughable non sequiturs and enforce profoundly irrational and anti-scientific behavior? And although smears, slanders and slurs are a disheartingly common element of politics, they somehow seem all the worse coming from an organization that purports to defend the integrity of science--sort of like a cop gone bad.

Which brings me to one final remark: Bu-u-u-sted.

Note
¹ Kevin Padian, "The California Science Framework: A Victory for
Scientific Integrity," National Center for Science Education Reports, Vol 9, No. 6, Nov-Dec 1989, pp 1, 10-11.