Eugenia Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education

In the Winter of 2006 she gave an extremely interesting presentation on "Intelligent Design and the Creationism/Evolution Controversy"(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PE3Qvfm8jU0&feature=player_embedded). The main value of this presentation is that it narrates how some folks who were personally committed to creationism (not sure whether it was young earth or progressive creationism) basically dressed up their theory in a new suit, called intelligent design. My concern here is to report what she said, not to affirm or deny every detail of the history that she provides. Let me say that the overall impression is that the Dover case (i.e., the case that condemned ID as a version of creationism) was well-decided against the teaching of (at least one version of) intelligent design.

She gives the following case as important background: Edwards v. Aguilar, in which the USSC decided that creationism violates the religious clause(s) in the US Constitution...

...or was it another case (in 1987) v. Arkansas? Gotta check.

In any case, in the early 1980s, John Burwell founded the "Foundation for Thought and Ethics," which developed an alternative to creationism and started a movement that later became intelligent design.

Some guy named Thaxton got involved, in some way contributed to a book (produced, I think by the Foundation), called The Mystery of Life's Origin." The second book produced by the same organization, called, "Of Pandas and People," is the FIRST book to use the term "Intelliigent Design." It simply takes the word "creation" out of the first edition (The Mystery of Life's Origin") and replaces it with ID. This shows that ID (as conceived by this publisher) is at its root creationism in disguise.

Next my notes mention Dean Kenyon: quid est?

I have to listen to this talk again: many details of this story are missing.

Also, I need to research her role in the Dover trial: it seems as though she (and her organization) gave expert testimony.

But in any case, it's quite clear that the intent of the book and of the school board the implemented it, was to uphold as much of creationism as they legally could.

This is a very strong argument. Motives count in these matters (that is, in deciding whether the free exercise Clause was violated in Dover, not in deciding once and for all about the validity of all ID-ish proposals), as well they should. But I have criticisms of her arguments against ID as a broader phenom than Dover(to be continued).

Other cogent points against ID:

1. that IDers resort to God of the gaps argumentation... That is, they find what they believe are untraversable gaps and say God did it.

2. that IDers seem to aim to prove progressive creationism.

3. that IDers assume that merely demonstrating the insufficiency of natural selection naturally implies that some sort of intelligent being had a hand in the origin of present-day life-forms. To which Eugenia replies that there may be other mechanisms involved besides natural selection.

4. ID has no narrative. That is, IDers never say (I'm paraphrasing), "this happened first, then that, then that other thing." Eugenia's implication here is, I think that they are just nay-sayers and gap-fillers.

5. In order to stop science's being used to promote materialism, Discovery engages in an insidiously-religious campaign (note use of word "dispensation" in Discovery's brochure's description of their own agenda) to fight cultural tendencies toward materialism. In other words, Discovery is more primarily concerned with achieving political goals than toward teaching scientific truth.

6. To IDer's attacks on Darwinism, Scott replies that the use of this term is specious. do they mean classical Darwinism, post-Mendellian neo-Darwinism, or evo/devo Darwinism? If one means only what Darwin actually taught, then, Eugenia points out, she is not a Darwinist.

If IDers use "Darwinism" as a pejorative with great rhetorical effect to refer to an ideology that can be associated with Darwin's account of evolution, then Eugenia's reply is that the use of methodological naturalism/ mateialism is not the same as ontological naturalism/materialism. One may subscribe to an account consistent with Darwin's without subscribing to the ideology that IDers find objectionable.

7. Eugenia also points out how Dembski, a leading ID proponent was affiliated with the same outfit that was responsible for the bogus textbook (Pandas and People). He was scheduled to be a witness at Dover but pulled out when a book he was writing was subpoenaed.

Dembski's "specified compexity" semiotics and teleology (both ad intra and ad extra)

Integral to Dembski's idea of specified complexity (SC) is the notion that something extrinsic to evolution is the source of the specification in how it develops. He compares SC to the message sent by space aliens in the movie "Contact." In that movie, earthbound scientists determine that radio waves originating in from somewhere in our galaxy are actually a signal being sent by space aliens. The scientists determine that these waves are a signal is the fact that they indicate prime numbers in a way that a random occurrence would not. What is interesting to me is the fact that Dembski relies upon an analogy with a sign rather than a machine. Like a machine, signs are produced by an intelligent being for the sake of something beyond themselves. Machines, if you will, have a meaning. Signs, if you will, produce knowledge. But the meaning/knowledge is in both cases something other than the machine/sign itself. Both signs and machines are purposeful or teleological...

particular/universal event/rule

While listening to a recorded lecture on Quine's Two Dogmas of Empiricism, it occurred to me that every rule is in a way, a fact about the world. Think about baseball: from the p.o.v. of an individual player, a baseball rule is not a thing but a guide for acting and interpreting the actions of others. But this rule, like the action it guides, is part of a concrete individual --i.e., part of an institution that has come into existence at a particular place and time, has endured and may eventually go out of existence. The baseball rule, as a feature of that individual, is likewise individual. The term "baseball rule," on the one hand, links us to a unique cultural event; it can, on the other hand, name a certain type of being. In this way, it transgresses the boundary between proper and common noun. If there were no such overlap, then we might be tempted to divide our ontology between a bunch of facts "out there" and a bunch of common nouns "in here....

continuing the discussion with Tim in a new post

Hi Tim, I am posting my reply here, because the great blogmeister won't let me put it all in a comment. Me thinks I get your point: is it that we can name and chimps can't, so therefore we are of greater value than chimps? Naming is something above and beyond what a chimp can do, right? In other words, you are illustrating the point I am making (if I catch your drift). My argument is only a sketch, but I think adding the ability to name names, as it were, is still not enough to make the argument seem cogent. For one can still ask why we prefer being able to name over other skills had by animals but not by humans. The objector would demand a more convincing reason. The answer I have in mind is, to put it briefly, that there is something infinite about human beings in comparison with the subhuman. That "something" has to do with our ability to think of the meaning of the cosmos. Whereas one might say"He's got the whole world in His han...

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