Another extinction?

Posted on December 24, 2008 | 17 Comments

dodo_birdAllen MacNeill at Evolution List makes an interesting observation in his post The “Intelligent Design” Movement on College and University Campuses is Dead. He’s had a look at the web sites for the Intelligent Design (ID) and Evolution Awareness (IDEA) University campus groups. These are simply student groups (although ID proponents sometimes imply they have scientific standing),  although they have been touted as evidence of academic ‘controversy’ over evolution,  MacNeill’s detailed analysis indicates that none of these groups are currently active.

These finding parallel my observation for some other, apparently more weighty, ID organisations. Even the International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design (ISCID) – a research group established by Bill Dembski – appears (from its web site) to have been  inactive since 2005. That’s when the last issue of their short-lived quarterly journal (Progress in Complexity, Information, and Design) appeared. Origins (featuring “scholarly and popular resources concerning intelligent design and philosophical theism”) was last updated almost 2 years ago.

Many other ID sites are similar, or post articles only infrequently.

I guess extinction is the inevitable evolutionary fate for organisms that can’t deal with reality.

See also They must be ex-ideas at Pharyngula.

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This entry was posted in creationism, culture, Darwin, Dembski, diversity, evolution, faith, god, intelligent design, religion, science, supernatural, superstition. Bookmark the permalink.

17 responses to “Another extinction?”

  1. Cedric Katesby | December 24, 2008 at 7:04 am |

    Perhaps the sites are sabotaged by a secret conspiracy of “Darwinist” computer hackers that sneak onto all pro-ID sites and delete all the comments, thus making it appear that nobody gives a tinker’s cuss about Intelligent Design?

    Far fetched? Well perhaps.

    Though not as far fetched as suggesting that the reason why “ID scientists” never do any work is because they are being “suppressed”.
    (giggle)

    http://www.expelledexposed.com/index.php/the-truth/id

    The UncommonDescent website (one of the few ID sites that has any commenters at all and is run by Dembski) is so notoriously bad that it has spawned it’s own running commentry thread over at Pandasthumb.com
    It’s called UncommonlyDense.
    Fun for all the family…
    http://www.antievolution.org/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi?s=49512904b1ee4c84;act=ST;f=14;t=5735

    Intelligent Design.
    The “scientific theory” that wasn’t.
    😮

    Like

  2. alison | December 24, 2008 at 12:12 pm |

    ye-es – but I do think PZ’s being somewhat optimistic. The creationist/cdesign proponentsist camp will simply re-invent itself. In fact as some of PZ’s commentators (& I think the man himself) have said, ‘preserving academic freedom’ is the new catch-cry. As in, if a teacher wants to teach ID in the classroom, they should have the academic freedom to do so. Now, I always thought that ‘academic freedom’ referred to the scientists actually doing the work, & their rights in terms of communicating about what they’re doing. So I’m a leetle startled that anyone would seriously think that this ‘freedom’ also applies to primary & secondary school teachers & classrooms…

    Like

  3. Cedric Katesby | December 24, 2008 at 4:12 pm |

    “Now, I always thought that ‘academic freedom’ referred to the scientists actually doing the work…”

    No, Alison. You’re not getting into the spirit of the thing.

    (…channelling an ID supporter…)

    ID scientists ARE doing the work.
    Secretly.
    In secret laboratories.
    They are bravely and secretly following the evidence wherever it leads.
    They don’t publish their results because…well…they’d be suppressed.
    That suppression is absolute.
    Scientific papers in favour of ID are written every day.
    They are rejected by the “Darwinian” establishment who are afraid of the Truth (TM).
    This suppression is so complete, so diabolically powerful that not a single rejected ID-friendly paper has been revealed by the ID community in over twenty years.

    Not one.
    Harvard has probably rejected hundreds by now.
    Yet where are these SUBMITTED AND REJECTED papers?
    They’re suppressed.

    The brave scientists who try and publish them on the Internet have their papers cunningly erased by the “Darwinian” thought police.
    It’s global!

    “So I’m a leetle startled that anyone would seriously think that this ‘freedom’ also applies to primary & secondary school teachers & classrooms…”

    Ahah. Spoken like the crypto-fascist you are!
    Think of the children.
    Don’t they deserve freedom of thought too?
    Teach both sides. Let the kiddies decide.

    🙂

    Like

  4. alison | December 24, 2008 at 5:03 pm |

    Just as well I know you fairly well – otherwise it would be no more popcorn for you, Cedric! 😉

    Like

  5. Dan Howitt | December 27, 2008 at 10:02 am |

    Thanks for the article.
    Informing replies too.
    Dan Howitt

    Like

  6. Dan Howitt | December 27, 2008 at 10:03 am |

    “ye-es – but I do think PZ’s being somewhat optimistic. The creationist/cdesign proponentsist camp will simply re-invent itself. In fact as some of PZ’s commentators (& I think the man himself) have said, ‘preserving academic freedom’ is the new catch-cry. As in, if a teacher wants to teach ID in the classroom, they should have the academic freedom to do so. Now, I always thought that ‘academic freedom’ referred to the scientists actually doing the work, & their rights in terms of communicating about what they’re doing. So I’m a leetle startled that anyone would seriously think that this ‘freedom’ also applies to primary & secondary school teachers & classrooms…”

    Like ur sentiments and ideas.
    Dan Howitt

    Like

  7. Ken | December 27, 2008 at 3:03 pm |

    I agree that the creationists do just reinvent themselves – they evolve. And they do it in the most dishonest ways.

    I guess the example of Dembski’s “scientific journals” and “scientific institutes” are really just part of the reinvention and therefore have an extremely short “shelf life.”

    The reinvention and scatty invention of institutions and journals is, I guess, just another example of the dishonesty – and the fact that ID is really not scientifically based.

    Like

  8. alison | January 7, 2009 at 8:49 pm |

    Further to my earlier comment (#2) on ‘academic freedom’ in the classroom – I see that this concept is again being mis-used in the US: http://ncseweb.org/news/2009/01/antievolution-legislation-oklahoma-003647. Despite the lack of genuine & substantive scientific controversy related to any of the topics included in Oklahoma’s draft.

    Like

  9. Heraclides | January 7, 2009 at 11:45 pm |

    @8:

    As far as I can tell, this looks like a “non-bill” me. (Not that I know a jot about bills or what they are supposed to look like!)

    Firstly, I would have thought that are already rights covering the genuine cases of the issues they present.

    Secondly, it’s so (deliberately) vague and word to be open-ended as to have no concrete (or finite) meaning, presumably other than widening the scope of existing rights. Which is probably the nub of the thing?

    Besides, what the hell does “prohibiting certain construction” mean?! It sounds horribly like “let me prevent anything”.

    Like

  10. Heraclides | January 8, 2009 at 10:50 am |

    @8:

    Looks like you beat PZ to it, he has a post up about this now.

    Like

  11. alison | January 8, 2009 at 1:10 pm |

    “Which is probably the nub of the thing?”

    Yup, I would say so 🙂 And indeed – “let me prevent anything [being taught in the classroom that I don’t agree with]”… Same old, same old. You think they would have learned something from Dover.

    Like

  12. alison | January 8, 2009 at 1:10 pm |

    PS I beat PZ to something?? Gosh!

    Like

  14. alison | January 9, 2009 at 2:46 pm |

    Yes, I saw that this morning – PZ would say it’s like plating whackamole 😉

    Like

  15. alison | January 9, 2009 at 2:52 pm |

    oops I meant ‘playing’… That will teach me to type with one hand & eat monkey bread with the other *blush*

    Like

  16. Damian | October 24, 2009 at 5:55 am |

    See the pattern with the recent posts that all end with a . , ? Ken do you have a new spam filter that makes their links innocuous or do you think this is an attempt by a bot to get legitimacy for its IP address for future spamenation?

    Like

  17. Ken | October 24, 2009 at 9:49 am |

    Yes, Damian. I have sent them to spam.

    It could be that some sort of change has been made by wordpress.com with their spam filter – it’s usually very good.

    Or maybe its a cunning ploy to avoid the filter.

    Like

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