### Author:  [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/81 "2009-08-12T20:02:59Z")
> [@hotflungwok](#):
>
> How can this possibly be seen as a good idea? Go forth and be an ass unto others! They aren’t even trying something new, or bringing new arguments, or anything that might have a positive effect.
[Being an ass unto others](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=523679)[worked for Prof. David Myers](http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/07/loyola_university_professor_be.html).
---
### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/82 "2009-08-12T20:08:35Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#):
>
> How does ID getting through the peer review process somehow disprove its religious basis? Who, exactly, are they alleging the “designer” is? Even if its space aliens, that just kicks the can a bit further down the road and then we have to identify the evolutionary processes that created them. Otherwise it’s turtles all the way down. Do you contend that when people talk bout ID, they’re not talking about some sort of transcendent, magical intelligence at the start of the process? Who do you believe they’re alleging that the “designer” is, specifically?
> \
>
> Further the facts of ID’s published history hardly bear [examination.](http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CI/CI001_4.html)
What a lot of people don’t understand is that peer review doesn’t necessarily convey legitimacy - especially not when the peers are morons. Any Creationist idiot can start a journal, get someone to write a paper, and then send it to 3 or 6 fellow believers and publish it as peer-reviewed.
There are journals where publication means that the paper has been carefully reviewed, and there are journals where publication means only a minimal level of competency - and where they needed to fill the space. There is also he problem that any decent editor can vastly increase the chances of acceptance by steering a paper to a set of reviewers who look kindly on work. Part of our review scoring is interest and relevance, and no matter how obscure the subject a reviewer in that same sub-sub-specialty will give a paper high marks in this area.
As your cite mentions, the only surprising thing is how few papers actually get published. I think one trial revealed that not many are even submitted. Creationists/IDers aren’t even trying hard; but then it isn’t about science at all, is it?
---
### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/83 "2009-08-12T20:09:45Z")
> [@magellan01](#):
>
> Then we agree. Though I’d insert “often” or “usually” before “used”.
Of course. Does anyone even work on the original ID concept except Behe?
---
### Author:  [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/84 "2009-08-12T20:27:23Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#):
>
> When has it ever been anything else? How could it be? :dubious:
This is answered by what is below.
> [@ElvisL1ves](#):
>
> “Intelligent Design” is simply positing an intelligent designer, i.e. God.
And…
> [@ElvisL1ves](#):
>
> That’s not “linked to religion”? :dubious:
Not _necessarily_. Think creator “god”, small “g”.
> [@ElvisL1ves](#):
>
> “Macroevolution” is not a theory. The term arises from an attempt to reconcile the fact of evolution (no prefix) with religion.
It is used this way:
amoeba \> man = macroevolution
finch with a short beak \> finch with a long pointy beak = microevolution
And just because you seem to like them: :dubious::dubious::dubious:
---
### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/85 "2009-08-12T20:36:22Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#):
>
> “Intelligent Design” is simply positing an intelligent designer, i.e. God. That’s not “linked to religion”? :dubious:
The Raelians believe in intelligent design, but think some space alien was the designer. It would be fun to teach that version in Dembski’s class. There is no more evidence for that version than the God version, not counting the beginning of **2001** of course.
---
### Author:  [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/86 "2009-08-12T20:39:09Z")
Macrovolution = Microevolution x n, where n is a really large number. It’s not a different kind of evolution.
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### Author:  [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/87 "2009-08-12T20:42:32Z")
> [@magellan01](#):
>
> Think creator “god”, small “g”.
Okay, the difference is? Or, if they’re sjust space aliens, then they \*in turn \*came into existence because … ? Or is it just turtles all the way down?
> [@](#):
>
> It is used this way
I know it is. But only by people who are, as I said, trying to find a way to reconcile fact with an inalterable, undiscussable religion. Not by people starting with fact and trying to find out why they are what they are. That latter part has been done. The fact that it conflicts with certain old books to which some persons ascribe divine inspiration to is the problem of those persons.
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### Author:  [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/88 "2009-08-12T20:45:14Z")
> [@cricetus](#):
>
> Macrovolution = Microevolution x n, where n is a really large number. It’s not a different kind of evolution.
It is to the Believers. They came up with the concept out of an unwillingness to accept that evolution can create entire new species, although they accept the finch-beak evidence. Only God (or god, take your pick), can create a species, and did all of that He was going to 6000 years ago, therefore “macroevolution” cannot exist.
You won’t find either term in a respectable biology text.
---
### Author:  [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/89 "2009-08-12T20:55:27Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#):
>
> You won’t find either term in a respectable biology text.
[O rly?](http://books.google.com/books?id=b-HGB9PqXCUC&dq=macroevolution+study&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=iigIY0nXpN&sig=96MOJ8HDmBwI1QwAuhUdgvQ8ukQ&hl=en&ei=CSyDSsyvDqKxmAeJ9LCiDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2#v=onepage&q=macroevolution%20study&f=false)
---
### Author:  [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/90 "2009-08-12T21:00:53Z")
> [@Voyager](#):
>
> but then it isn’t about science at all, is it?
Well… I’d argue that it is about science, as Dembsky and the Discovery Institute admit in their own words, it’s about destroying “materialism”. That is science, and epistemology, and reason, etc… It’s about removing valid tools of intellectual inquiry and replacing them with a system which is specifically and deliberately set up to make supernatural explanations interchangeable (if not preferable to) scientific investigations.
> [@magellan01](#):
>
> I don’t see anyone here arguing that. If so, who?
Yes, ivn argued that the theory of evolution was not proven and that specifically there was very little evidence for examples of macroevolution when, in fact, there is quite a lot of evidence for quite a few examples. Nor did he retract his claim once proven to be wrong, instead only growing more strident in his mistake and more pretentious in his delusions of competency.
Specifically (and unsurprisingly), his claim was [a creationist talking point.](http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA202.html)
> [@magellan01](#):
>
> Not _necessarily_. Think creator “god”, small “g”.
Which is still a form of religion, or New Ageism, or supernaturalism, or what-have-you. We all recognize that even positing super intelligent bio-engineer grey aliens with almond shaped heads who made life on Earth, that the can just gets kicked down the road and we’d still need a biological theory to explain their rise from the primordial ooze. Do you deny that ID (ignoring that in this thread we’re specifically talking about Dembsky’s/the Discovery Institute’s ID) must, perforce, posit a Designer who is resident in some sort of non-reality, who is itself a Prime Mover and First Uncaused Cause and who created the laws/whatever of our world through a process which is neither testable, verifiable, or falsifiable?
If so, how it is at all false to say that it’s fundamentally a religious concept?
We are most certainly _not_ talking about an anthropic principle at all, but a Designer whose own creation is somehow cast as being beyond the relationship of cause and effect and evolutionary biology itself.
On preview, I see that Voyager points out the Raelians. But it should be pointed out that even a claim about the evolution of life on Earth is not, in fact, a claim about evolutionary mechanics as such, which is what ID claims. If someone said, for instance, that all life on Earth was brought over on vast space-arks last Tuesday after lunch and we all had our memories falsely implanted to make us think we’d always been here, that still wouldn’t answer the fundamental questions of biological evolution. Which is what ID claims to do, and why its claims of a Designer are fundamentally supernatural.
> [@magellan01](#):
>
> It is used this way:
> amoeba \> man = macroevolution
> finch with a short beak \> finch with a long pointy beak = microevolution
No, it’s not, assuming you’re using Darwin’s finches as your example.
Darwin’s finches are, actually, a perfect example of cladogenesis. And as such they’re an example of macroevolution.
> [@cricetus](#):
>
> Macrovolution = Microevolution x n, where n is a really large number. It’s not a different kind of evolution.
Yes and no. Microevolution refers to changes within the species level, and macroevolution refers to changes ‘above’ it, including but not limited to cladogenesis. The process of speciation is, indeed, a somewhat different process than the ‘simple’ shift of allelic frequencies within a gene pool even if they (generally) have the same basis in molecular fact. Geographic isolation can lead to cladogenesis which would not, then, be an example of successive generations of microevolution. Just by way of example.
> [@ElvisL1ves](#):
>
> You won’t find either term in a respectable biology text.
Gah. [Yes, you will](http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/macroevolution.html). Learn what you’re talking about please.
---
### Author:  [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/91 "2009-08-12T21:12:43Z")
> [@Voyager](#):
>
> I hate to break it to you, but **Contact** was fiction.
Pish-posh. Next thing, you’re going to try to convince me to stop bugging J.K. Rowling to teach me how to be a witch.
---
### Author:  [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/92 "2009-08-12T21:17:30Z")
I will admit, having someone angrily cite fiction at me will probably be the funniest thing that I see today.
---
### Author:  [@ivn1188](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivn1188)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/93 "2009-08-12T21:36:23Z")
> [@Voyager](#):
>
> I hate to break it to you, but **Contact** was fiction.
> Are you saying science requires proof? If so, you don’t understand a lot about science. If not, are you saying that speciation has not been demonstrated to or above the level of other well accepted scientific theories? Do you deny that evolution has led to correct predictions where ID (in whatever flavor) has led to none.
>
> Anyhow, don’t you have a town hall meeting somewhere to rant at?
Three things:
First, lern2multiquote.
Second, I am not denying the validity of evolution or macroevolution. Regardless of **FinnAgain** ’s google dumps, there remain many theories about how speciation works, some stronger than others, and none have been proven or have even emerged from the pack as the probable winner. Look at the idea of punctuated equilibrium compared to steady progress. We’re still looking for missing links, and yes, as provided by the douchebagger party, we have been searching further and further down into genetics for an answer, **but we still don’t know for certain how it works, nor have we found clear evidence of one species changing into another**.
As far as speciation goes, we _haven’t_ made accurate predictions that have been verified. Micro, sure, macro, not so much. And scientific Intelligent Design theories, by the way, do not provide predictive power. Nor are they expected to. This doesn’t mean they aren’t useful. Why do you think people study ethics or epistemology or even astrophysics? Going back to Descarte’s idea of us all living in a simulation, which led to a few minor advances in metaphysics, intelligent design was not and still is not a ridiculous religious concept with no usefulness. (FOR THE TARDS: IF YOU IMAGINE WE ARE ALL LIVING IN A MAD SCIENTIST’S SIMULATION, THAT UNIVERSE IS AN INTELLIGENTLY DESIGNED ONE)
Finally, your inability to actually understand what my point is makes you an utter shitbrick. Contact was indeed fiction. But those of us who aren’t yammering parrots understand that fiction is often used to explore ideas that are important. Sagan using the premise of ID in a well-reasoned and interesting way shows, _which has been my fucking point all along, you mouthbreathing cretin_, that ID is not limited as a thought exercise to zealotry and anti-science.
Of course, shrill hangers-upon like **FinnAgain** don’t have the mental wattage to help illuminate the nuance that exists here, and instead resort to categorizing things in their futile attempt to ensure that they can feel good about knowing everything, instead of keeping the open mind and clear thinking that is required by scientific and rational thought. Ironically, he and his cohort of cheap-seat dittoheads are the antithesis of the scientific ideal they brandish as the best and highest.
---
### Author:  [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/94 "2009-08-12T21:51:36Z")
> [@ivn1188](#):
>
> Sagan using the premise of ID in a well-reasoned and interesting way shows, _which has been my fucking point all along, you mouthbreathing cretin_, that ID is not limited as a thought exercise to zealotry and anti-science.
So I can go back to bugging Rowling for magic lessons, then? Great!
---
### Author:  [@ivn1188](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivn1188)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/95 "2009-08-12T21:53:01Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#):
>
> So I can go back to bugging Rowling for magic lessons, then? Great!
You should change your username to “Dropped On Head”.
---
### Author:  [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/96 "2009-08-12T21:53:04Z")
Liars have to have a good memory.
Ideally, they have to avoid being really fucking stupid, too.
> [@ivn1188](#):
>
> Second, I am not denying the validity of evolution or macroevolution.
> [@you](#):
>
> Evolution and Intelligent Design as philosophical theories have nothing to do with one another; in fact, many forms of ID embrace the theory of evolution (which, by the way, is not proven – there are very few, if any, real examples of macroevolution like there are for microevolution.)
> [@ivn1188](#):
>
> there remain many theories about how speciation works, some stronger than others
There are theories as to how exactly speciation occurs, which has nothng to do with your mistake (which you’re too stupid and/or dishonest to retract) that macroevolution is not a proven fact. You stupid, stupid woo-selling fraud. You’re equivalent to some moron who claims that gravity is not proven because there are many competing theories of gravity.
> [@ivn1188](#):
>
> We’re still looking for missing links
A creationist talking point about how we need to find the “missing links”, from you? Noooooooooo. Get outa town!
> [@ivn1188](#):
>
> nor have we found clear evidence of one species changing into another\*\*.
[You are either a loud mouthed idiot or a fraud.](http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html)
> [@ivn1188](#):
>
> As far as speciation goes, we _haven’t_ made accurate predictions that have been verified.
You didn’t even read the cite I provided. Not only have we made such predictions, they’ve been verified by vast amounts of evidence. You are a liar or a willfully ignorant asshole.
---
### Author:  [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/97 "2009-08-12T21:59:38Z")
> [@ivn1188](#):
>
> You should change your username to “Dropped On Head”.
Oh, pardon me, I missed the words “thought exercise.” Probably because the rest of your posts have been about the legitimacy of I.D. in the real world.
So, guys, how about those unicorns in my back yard? But you can’t tell me they don’t exist, because I’m discussing them _as a thought exercise_.
---
### Author:  [@ivn1188](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivn1188)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/98 "2009-08-12T22:08:02Z")
Yawn. more “Ditto” from Finn, (yer stupid, WOO!)
lemme quote from his cite: ‘This can lead us to glibly assert its universal applicability, despite its irrelevance to many groups. When we examine putative speciation events, we need to ask the question, which species definition is the most reasonable for this group of organisms? In many cases it will be the biological definition. In many other cases some other definition will be more appropriate.’
IN OTHER WORDS, YOU DISHONEST WANKER, THE EXAMPLES REQUIRE US TO CHANGE OUR DEFINITION OF SPECIES TO MATCH. IT’S NOT CLEAR EVIDENCE. PLEASE GO HOME.
And more dipshittery from Dropped On Head. Go look at Descarte, or Nozick. There is _real-world applicability_ springing from an idea of intelligent design. Seriously, you are what happens when we let textile design majors try to argue about philosophy.
---
### Author:  [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/99 "2009-08-12T22:08:39Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#):
>
> Yes, ivn argued that the theory of evolution was not proven…
He seems to question your use of “proven”. I don’t think it has been proven, though I could be wrong. I do think that there’s a point at which all evidence registers such a high level of confidence that we might as well accept it. But that is not the same as “proven”, in the scientific sense. Wouldn’t you agree?
> [@FinnAgain](#):
>
> Specifically (and unsurprisingly), his claim was [a creationist talking point.](http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA202.html)
Whether it is a creationist talking point or not is immaterial, really. The claim either has veracity in it’s own right or it doesn’t. If it does, and someone uses it to cobble together some theory that makes no sense, that’s a different problem. If someone has a plan to use a spatula as a toothbrush that doesn’t mean the spatula doesn’t have other legitimate uses.
> [@FinnAgain](#):
>
> Which is still a form of religion…
It all depends on how broadly you define the word, doesn’t it?
> [@FinnAgain](#):
>
> Do you deny that ID (ignoring that in this thread we’re specifically talking about Dembsky’s/the Discovery Institute’s ID) must, perforce, posit a Designer who is resident in some sort of non-reality, who is itself a Prime Mover and First Uncaused Cause and who created the laws/whatever of our world through a process which is neither testable, verifiable, or falsifiable?
I do not deny that whatsoever. But that, IMO, does not equate it to “religion”. I agree that it/he must exist in some extra-natural sense and not be constrained by our “laws”. It is therefore, extra-natural. And may or may not have a religious component assigned to it by some.
> [@FinnAgain](#):
>
> If so, how it is at all false to say that it’s fundamentally a religious concept?
> We are most certainly _not_ talking about an anthropic principle at all, but a Designer whose own creation is somehow cast as being beyond the relationship of cause and effect and evolutionary biology itself.
I don’t think it’s useful to define it as any belief in any extra-natural force(s). I think the first question is merely a philosophical one: is their a Creator? The “no” side of that leads one to no religion. The yes side may or may not. If you believe in a specific flavor of creator then we’re likely on the way to religion. But if one holds, for instance, simply that there is a creator, but believes that that creator wants nothing of us, that we were not the ultimate goal of his creation (maybe, merely detritus), or that this creator abhors deference or praise or recognition in any way, and wants man to hold rationality above all, I don’t see how you can characterize that as “religion”. Of course, you can define it as broadly as you wish. But it can be so broad as to lose meaning. I think religion kicks in when their is a belief set that requires other assumptions and/or specific actions. Until then, you have a philosophical stance.
> [@FinnAgain](#):
>
> On preview, I see that Voyager points out the Raelians. But it should be pointed out that even a claim about the evolution of life on Earth is not, in fact, a claim about evolutionary mechanics as such, which is what ID claims. If someone said, for instance, that all life on Earth was brought over on vast space-arks last Tuesday after lunch and we all had our memories falsely implanted to make us think we’d always been here, that still wouldn’t answer the fundamental questions of biological evolution. Which is what ID claims to do, and why its claims of a Designer are fundamentally supernatural.
Yes. But there’s one funny thing about this supernatural creator, if he/it is a reality, it really isn’t supernatural, is it? (I play. The word is very useful in talking about this.)
> [@FinnAgain](#):
>
> No, it’s not, assuming you’re using Darwin’s finches as your example.
> Darwin’s finches are, actually, a perfect example of cladogenesis. And as such they’re an example of macroevolution.
But didn’t a beak have to get longER and pointiER first? And wouldn’t that be characterized as microevolution?
---
### Author:  [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/100 "2009-08-12T22:23:46Z")
> [@ivn1188](#):
>
> there remain many theories about how speciation works
There is only one theory of how speciation works. It’s called Natural Selection. There are no scientific challenges to Natural sSelection.
> [@](#):
>
> none have been proven
False. Natural Selection has been amply proven.
> [@](#):
>
> We’re still looking for missing links
You really lose all credibility when you use a phrase like “missing links.” That’s pure creationist bullshit. It is neither necessary nor expected that we should be able to trace every evolutionary pathway in order to confirm that evolution via mutation, natural selection and speciation occurs.
> [@](#):
>
> nd yes, as provided by the douchebagger party, we have been searching further and further down into genetics for an answer, **but we still don’t know for certain how it works, nor have we found clear evidence of one species changing into another**.
This is false on every count. We do know how it occurs, and we can prove speciation, not only by the genetic evidence, but by direct observation.
> [@](#):
>
> As far as speciation goes, we _haven’t_ made accurate predictions that have been verified.
Yes we have.
> [@](#):
>
> Micro, sure, macro, not so much.
There is no difference between micro and macro. Macro is just a whole bunch of micro.
> [@](#):
>
> And scientific Intelligent Design theories, by the way, do not provide predictive power
There is no such thing as a “scientific intelligent design theory”. ID is neither scientific nor a theory.
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