John West of the Discovery Institute has presented his version of the year in ID. In summary:
A year after Dover, Darwinists seem increasingly disillusioned as well as shrill, the central part of Judge Jones' "brilliant" decision has been found to be riddled with errors and copied nearly verbatim from the ACLU, a research lab has been launched for scientists to pursue intelligent design-inspired scientific research, and states and localities are continuing to adopt public policies to encourage students to study the scientific evidence for and against Darwin's theory. At the same time, the stereotype that all critics of Darwin's theory are religiously-motivated zealots while all defenders of the theory are dispassionate scholars who are neutral toward religion has started to implode.
Later on West gives his "top developments" of the year:
- "The Growing Sense of Defeat among Darwinists." Huh? And please get it straight, we are not Darwinists.
- "The Growing Challenge within Science to Neo-Darwinism." Featuring the 700 signatories of the "Dissent from Darwin" list and the observation that "[t]he phylogenetic relationships among most metazoan phyla remain uncertain". And look folks! A scientific paper gets mentioned ... pity it is in the journal Chaos, Solitons, and Fractals ... hardly a mainstream biological journal.
- "The Implosion of the Kitzmiller Ruling by Judge Jones." Guess who gets accused of "wholesale copying"?
- "The Persecution of Darwin's Critics." Yup, Sternberg. Yawn.
- "Continued Public Policy Efforts to Teach the Controversy and Promote Academic Freedom." Still no science here.
- "The Debate over Darwin Goes Global." ... though probably not due to ID.
- "The Darwinist War on Religion." Dawkins. Nuff said.
You may want to compare this with my version of the year in ID. Once again, notice that there is no mention of a single peer-reviewed article offering either (a) positive evidence for design, (b) a method to unambiguously detect design, or (c) a theory of how the Designer did the designing. Now that would have been a "top development".
- Log in to post comments
I'm just curious as to why you restrict this to "peer-reviewed". To the best of my knowledge, there has been no statement, whether peer-reviewed or not, answering anything like those issues.
And one could rather loosen points a-b-c. For example, rather than "unambiguously detect design", why not just "tell the difference between something that is designed and something that is not", or even "give an example of something that is not designed"?
Yes, yes, the ID-inspired scientific research. Been waiting for that longer than I've been waiting for the release of Duke Nukem Forever. Gussied up Paley isn't scientific research.
And once everyone gets on board with the "don't mention the 'G'-word" campaign, that stereotype will really get going on it's in-progress implosion; to be followed shortly by the imminent demise of evolution.
We should just call him John "Black Knight" West for his blinkered cries of "Tis but a flesh wound!".
My favorite part of his fictional writing was this gem:
"During the Dover trial, there was a constant refrain that scientists who support intelligent design don't do scientific research, but as just reported last week, a research lab has in fact been established to facilitate biological research from the perspective of intelligent design."
That's like saying you work out regularly because you own a gym. It's not enough to buy the equipment John. You have to actually use it.
We'll wait...
I only spotted two "Steve"s. Most disappointing. I may have missed one or two, but they clearly need to get cracking on chasing down Steves.