User talk:ConfuciusOrnis/FAQ

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Important notice: Some common points of argument are addressed at Wikipedia's Intelligent design FAQ, which represents the consensus of editors here. Please remember that this page is only for discussing Wikipedia's encyclopedia article about intelligent design. If you are interested in discussing or debating ID or evolution, you may want to visit talk.origins.

[edit] DI not a RS

I'm not about to go to the effort to provide references for the perfectly obvious. DI's core mission is to push intelligent design. Intelligent design is a canard - an deliberately false theory designed to repackage creationism as science. The end purpose is to duck court rulings that eliminated religion from the science classroom, by confusing people into conflating science and religion. As far as lies found in DI publications, they simple fact that they claim as supportive of their position discredited, withdrawn, or totally unrelated articles is fact enough. And I'm sure others more versed in their claims could make a laundry list of falsities found in their publications. Raul654 04:38, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Both the DI, and its individual members, have a record a mile long for misrepresentation, making and repeating unsubstantiated claims, making claims well outside their areas of expertise, and even the occasional outright fabrication. Some of the evidence for this is presented at Discovery Institute#Controversy -- but that's only the tip of the iceberg. Hrafn42 04:33, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

The Discovery Institute is a wholly partisan source that has conclusively been shown to be pushing half-truths and outright lies by other, less partisan sources. As such the Discovery Institute is only suitable as a primary source. FeloniousMonk 04:51, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Identity of the designer

The paragraph just above the heading "Origins of the term" states:

"Intelligent design deliberately does not try to identify or name the specific agent of creation — it merely states that one (or more) must exist. Although intelligent design itself does not name the designer, the personal view of many proponents is that the designer is the Christian god.[34][22][35] Whether this was a genuine feature of the concept or just a posture taken to avoid alienating those who would separate religion from the teaching of science has been a matter of great debate between supporters and critics of intelligent design. The Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District court ruling held the latter to be the case."

The above statement contains a popular misconception about the identity of the designer. ID leaders have indeed named the designer.

The article's reference #34 above is to Dembski's 1999 Touchstone article in which he says that "intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John's Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory." When Dembski said that, he was identifying, indeed defining, the designer as not only God but Jesus Christ, to which "Logos" refers in the Gospel of John, as Barbara Forrest points out on pp. 3-4 of her paper http://www.centerforinquiry.net/uploads/attachments/intelligent-design.pdf.

See also the article's reference #142 at pp. 39-40 of "Is It Science Yet? Intelligent Design Creationism and the Constitution," at http://law.wustl.edu/WULQ/83-1/p%201%20Brauer%20Forrest%20Gey%20book%20pages.pdf. Note here also that Phillip Johnson also defines ID as requiring God when he defines it as "theistic realism."

So it is clear that it is more than "a personal view of many proponents" that the designer is the Christian God. Pasado 05:42, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

It would probably be more accurate to say that certain ID advocates have made a point of avoiding to describe the designer, when such avoiding is (how to put it?) politically convenient. --FOo 05:56, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

FAQ: What is the Identity of the Designer? --Yqbd 05:59, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

However, as Dr. Haught testified, anyone familiar with Western religious thought would immediately make the association that the tactically unnamed designer is God, as the description of the designer in Of Pandas and People (hereinafter “Pandas”) is a “master intellect,” strongly suggesting a supernatural deity as opposed to any intelligent actor known to exist in the natural world. (P-11 at 85).
...
Although proponents of the IDM occasionally suggest that the designer could be a space alien or a time-traveling cell biologist, no serious alternative to God as the designer has been proposed by members of the IDM, including Defendants’ expert witnesses. (20:102-03 (Behe)). In fact, an explicit concession that the intelligent designer works outside the laws of nature and science and a direct reference to religion is Pandas’ rhetorical statement, “what kind of intelligent agent was it [the designer]” and answer: “On its own science cannot answer this question. It must leave it to religion and philosophy.” (P-11 at 7; 9:13-14 (Haught)).

-- Dover Decision Hrafn42 06:11, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ready to go live?

This FAQ seems to have stabilised. Is it ready to go live (i.e. be moved into to article-talk space & be linked to by the article talkpage)? Hrafn42 15:30, 8 September 2007 (UTC)