# Intelligent Design prof requires student to troll on 'hostile' websites.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [August 11, 2009, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072 "2009-08-11T16:18:11Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 7
### Author:  [@ivn1188](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivn1188)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/121 "2009-08-12T23:31:48Z")
> [@begbert2](#):
>
> To assume that writing a fiction story even _slightly_ implies that the author believes the contents of it are true… Well, that’s a great deal of stupid in a small amount of space.
I really just can’t believe that such stupidity exists. I cannot make it any plainer than this:
The fact that Sagan, in his book, used the idea of intelligent design in a way that was _not_ tinged with irrationality and religion, shows that there can exist forms of intelligent design that can be thought about in a serious manner. End. Done.
And as far as your comments about uselessness, I beg to differ. Descarte, Hobbes, Hume, and Nozick have all used intelligent design in useful ways that have provoked a lot of serious scholarship.
BTW, I am actually more educated than you. B.A. in liberal arts, or maybe a master’s in English Lit? Sorry, Charlie – unless you’re an MD, you have less education than I do. (And even then, Med School isn’t really big on philosophy.)
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### Author:  [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/122 "2009-08-12T23:36:14Z")
> [@Voyager](#):
>
> I wasn’t aware of anyone, even on the SDMB, who read that book besides me.
😃 Same here. Although I read it when I was in college. It’s part of what got me interested in researching linguistics and cognitive linguistics when I was in grad school.
And yeah, Behe is a nebbish. My only point is that, to the degree that ID attempts to claim that it’s a theory of evolutionary biology rather than a specific anthropological/historical/whatever claim about aliens designing humans, that it’s some form or another of supernaturalism. It either devolves into turtles all the way down, or has to posit some sort of entity ‘outside’ of reality that acts via magic.
> [@Voyager](#):
>
> I haven’t read Darwin’s Black Box, but does he say anything about this or does he just give examples of irreducible complexity?
TBH, I’m not sure. I’ve read some of his other writings but I’ve never had the sheer masochism required to slog through his major stuff. Maybe I’ll dig up an ecopy… but I doubt it.
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### Author:  [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/123 "2009-08-12T23:38:35Z")
> [@ivn1188](#):
>
> And as far as your comments about uselessness, I beg to differ. Descarte, Hobbes, Hume, and Nozick have all used intelligent design in useful ways that have provoked a lot of serious scholarship.
That is nice, in philosophy, but that is not the usefulness we are looking for, how useful it is in biology?
> [@](#):
>
> BTW, I am actually more educated than you. B.A. in liberal arts, or maybe a master’s in English Lit? Sorry, Charlie – unless you’re an MD, you have less education than I do. (And even then, Med School isn’t really big on philosophy.)
Piffle, Ben Stein got as much or more than you and he is still a fool when he attempts to come out as an expert on evolution.
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### Author:  [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/124 "2009-08-12T23:41:23Z")
> [@ivn1188](#):
>
> I really just can’t believe that such stupidity exists. I cannot make it any plainer than this:
>
> The fact that Sagan, in his book, used the idea of intelligent design in a way that was _not_ tinged with irrationality and religion, shows that there can exist forms of intelligent design that can be thought about in a serious manner. End. Done.
You can say EXACTLY the same thing about dragons. I’m writing a fiction book myself about ESP. (_Including_ postulating a mechanism for it!)
You’d have to be a hell of a dipshit to think that being written about in a fiction book implies that the author of that book gives credence to the idea being true in real life. Which WAS your point, despite your attempt to move the goalpost to a slightly less retarded position here.
And let me tell you, it’s hard to take being called stupid by _you_ as an insult. I mean, you clearly think you’re seven different flavors of brilliant, so you demonstrably couldn’t identify intelligence if it wore a sign around its neck.
> [@ivn1188](#):
>
> And as far as your comments about uselessness, I beg to differ. Descarte, Hobbes, Hume, and Nozick have all used intelligent design in useful ways that have provoked a lot of serious scholarship.
Oh really? Like HOW? Let’s see this scholarship. (And then point out that just because a scholar has, once in his life, _talked_ about a silly theory, doesn’t mean that that theory informed the rest of his work.)
> [@ivn1188](#):
>
> BTW, I am actually more educated than you. B.A. in liberal arts, or maybe a master’s in English Lit? Sorry, Charlie – unless you’re an MD, you have less education than I do. (And even then, Med School isn’t really big on philosophy.)
I wasn’t talking about me, because you didn’t post that at me, you moron. Good lord, you’re dumb.
And I’m CompSci. Which is about as close to being liberal arts as you are to being an honest debater.
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### Author:  [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/125 "2009-08-12T23:41:39Z")
> [@ivn1188](#):
>
> But the fact remains that you are as much a liar and a fool as those you try to take down, except that, like the teabaggers or birthers or dittoheads, you lack even the grace to acknowledge that you are a hypocrite of the finest water, and that all you can do is parrot your own set of talking points.
Choice of words nitpick; what is the exception in this statement?
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### Author:  [@ivn1188](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivn1188)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/126 "2009-08-12T23:43:06Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#):
>
> That is nice, in philosophy, but that is not the usefulness we are looking for, how useful it is in biology?
Where do you think the scientific method came from, dipshit? It just sprang up out of nowhere? Oh, wait… from philosophy. From Descarte, specifically. Who used an ID thought experiment to pose an answer to the question “How do we know what’s true?” And biology uses… the scientific method.
Of course, only incompetents are arguing that Nonrandomism somehow has to prove something about biology.
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### Author:  [@ivn1188](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivn1188)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/127 "2009-08-12T23:44:12Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#):
>
> Choice of words nitpick; what is the exception in this statement?
He differs from the people he attempts to browbeat by not even having the aforementioned graces.
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### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/128 "2009-08-12T23:44:37Z")
> [@ivn1188](#):
>
> Oh, and we are (or at least I am) **not** discussing ID vs Evolution, like it’s some sort of three card fight nite. The two ideas are neither mutually exclusive nor even related. Try this: Being creates universe. Being sets up universe in such a way that natural selection (or Lamarckian selection, or whatever you want) causes evolution of life to occur. Evolution occurs. This is an intelligent design theory. Evolution is a fact in this scenario. QED, ID is not the opposite of evolution, except to morons who can’t separate christian fundie blather from serious thought.
If you think that you are discussing “Intelligent Design” in this paragraph, you are mistaken. That is NOT the “Intelligent Design” of Behe, Dembski, or Phillips, and if you are not following those three, you are using a common term to discuss a totally separate thought process.
Each of those three insist on a Designer that interacts with the world at multiple stages of biological development.
What you have described is Theistic Evolution, a different belief. In Theistic Evolution, the Creator sets the rules and intitiates the process, then allows the process to move forth naturally on its own. This creator might be a Deist’s clockmaker or a Theist’s personal God, but in neither case does the Creator tamper with the process of natural evolution on anything resembling a regular basis. Now, there was an unfortunate incident a couple of years ago when the Discovery Institute coaxed the scientifically illiterate Archbishop of Vienna to write a piece for the New York Times in which he described Theistic Evolution, (as he understood it), while applying the term “Intelligent Design” throughout his article. This muddied the water quite a bit because a number of believers in Theistic Evolution who happened to share his lack of knowledge of biology, began to use the phrase “intelligent design” when they were actually discussing Theistic Evolution. When Cardinal von Schönborn originally published his little exercise in confusion, he was immediately corrected by the scholars at the Vatican. Unfortunately, the Discovery Institute folks had been successful in getting the phrase out in a misleading context. If one wishes to use the phrase “intelligent design” when discussing Theistic Evolution, it is more honest to acknowledge that one is not actually discussing the anti-scientific Intelligent Design proposals of Phillips, Behe, and Dembski.
Actual Intelligent Design, (note the capitalization), does require frequent interference by the designer in order to push evolution along. This is true in all the works of Phillips, Dembski, and Behe and any claim that Intelligent Design is merely another phrase for Theistic Evolution reflects a serious ignorance of the way that ID’s actual proponents use the word, themselves.
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### Author:  [@ivn1188](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivn1188)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/129 "2009-08-12T23:46:05Z")
> [@begbert2](#):
>
> And I’m CompSci. Which is about as close to being liberal arts as you are to being an honest debater.
That explains your inability to be interesting.
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### Author:  [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/130 "2009-08-12T23:46:50Z")
> [@ivn1188](#):
>
> He differs from the people he attempts to browbeat by not even having the aforementioned graces.
The people he attempts to browbeat admit to being hypocritical parrots with no other ability?
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### Author:  [@ivn1188](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivn1188)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/131 "2009-08-12T23:47:12Z")
> [@tomndebb](#):
>
> If you think that you are discussing “Intelligent Design” in this paragraph, you are mistaken. That is NOT the “Intelligent Design” of Behe, Dembski, or Phillips, and if you are not following those three, you are using a common term to discuss a totally separate thought process.
Fine. I already proposed a new term, Nonrandomism.
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### Author:  [@ivn1188](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivn1188)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/132 "2009-08-12T23:49:53Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#):
>
> The people he attempts to browbeat admit to being hypocritical parrots with no other ability?
You got me there.
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### Author:  [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/133 "2009-08-12T23:52:12Z")
> [@ivn1188](#):
>
> That explains your inability to be interesting.
I’m stunned. Is that the _best_ you could do?
I do concede that I would indeed by a _lot_ more interesting by shouting a lot of lies and false accusations and noise and stupidity. But you’re right - my education and self-respect restricts me considerably. I’m so uninteresting. ☹
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### Author:  [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/134 "2009-08-12T23:52:44Z")
> [@ivn1188](#):
>
> Where do you think the scientific method came from, dipshit? It just sprang up out of nowhere? Oh, wait… from philosophy. From Descarte, specifically. Who used an ID thought experiment to pose an answer to the question “How do we know what’s true?” And biology uses… the scientific method.
That remains a non sequitur when you still do not mention how useful it is **to biology today**.
What I get from your answer is that ID was somehow used (with no cites) to figure out the scientific method. That is nice, but Newtonian Physics are useful today in many disciplines today, not just in Physics.
So, once again, how is ID useful for today’s biology?
> [@](#):
>
> Of course, only incompetents are arguing that Nonrandomism somehow has to prove something about biology.
So, in the end you have no answers, figures.
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### Author:  [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/135 "2009-08-12T23:58:11Z")
> [@ivn1188](#):
>
> Where do you think the scientific method came from, dipshit? It just sprang up out of nowhere? Oh, wait… from philosophy. From Descarte, specifically. Who used an ID thought experiment to pose an answer to the question “How do we know what’s true?” And biology uses… the scientific method.
Just because a scholar has, once in his life, \*talked \*about a silly theory, doesn’t mean that that theory informed the rest of his work.
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/136 "2009-08-12T23:58:32Z")
> [@ivn1188](#):
>
> Funny, that was _exactly_ what I protested – people lumping all flavors of ID into one giant bag of “wrong religious nutters”. And I did not claim _any_ form of ID was true – you’re putting words in my mouth because of your knee-jerk reaction to the words “intelligent design”. Truth value aside, it can still be _useful_. Just like Newtonian physics is useful, even if not absolutely _true_.
>
> Capiche?
See post #76. Most people in this thread are referring to the version of intelligent design in the OP, which is reasonable.
As I said, ID would be a curious and little mentioned concept if it wasn’t for the religious nutters. Neither Behe nor Dembski is using ID as an interesting concept to investigate anything - they are positing that their flavor of ID is correct. And ID is not even remotely as true as Newtonian physics.
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### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2009, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/137 "2009-08-13T00:00:50Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#):
>
> Do it! Do it!
>
> For godsakes, again – NOT ALL CHRISTIAN DENOMINATIONS TEACH CREATIONISM!!! Gah! Dude, are you aware that the guy who came up with the Big Bang theory was a [Catholic priest](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema%C3%AEtre)?
I understand that it was actually [two guys,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Bang_Theory) neither of whom appears to be a Catholic priest.
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### Author:  [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2009, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/138 "2009-08-13T00:00:59Z")
> [@ivn1188](#):
>
> No, actually, _you_ are using it that way. If you are confused by the terminology, fine. Come up with a name for a set of ideas that include some sort of sentient intervention in the creation of a universe that doesn’t have religious connotations. Maybe we’ll call it Nonrandomism.
>
> Nonrandomism, then, is only the idea that the design of the universe was in some way shaped by an intelligence. I never claimed, and do not claim, that it is a testable scientific theory – though it absolutely _could_ be testable depending on the specifics of your theory. But the testability of such an idea (let’s avoid even the word hypothesis), does not influence its usefulness. It brought us skepticism, after all.
>
> So it should be obvious that nonrandomism does not conflict with science, or require religious views, or is completely irrational. It’s simply a thought model that might (or might not) have some explanatory power. And given that it’s counter, Randomism (that the universe and its properties were established by random chance), is _also_ unverifiable and untestable, I see no reason to consign one view to that of a lunatic fringe, while the other view is the rational and obviously true view.
>
> The trick is just in not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Creationism, or ID if you must, is one form of Nonrandomism. There are other forms that don’t have the same problems as creationism. And those can be useful intellectual tools, to those who are not too invested in their own set of beliefs to use them.
The fact is that ID as a term was created by religious ideologues to sneak creationist dogma into school curriculum. This is not me misunderstanding the term. It’s me knowing the history of the term. I am giving you information. It’s not even an argument. I didn’t even say you were wrong. I was just telling you that while you seem to be arguing for the legitimacy of some untestable scientific agnosticism towards a creator, the term ID is a loaded one.
You will not find anyone before very 1990 or so using the term “intelligent design.” It is not an old scientific idea (it’s not a scientific idea at all, but never mind that.) It was invented by writers of Christian-themed textbooks to replace “creation” following a supreme court decision to disallow creationism from being taught in public school. There’s a youtube video somebody linked to above that explains it. They literally searched and replaced “creation” with “instructional design,” leading to some howlers in the text (“cdesign proponentsists”) It helps to know that the text book they are talking about doesn’t just employ the term, it is one of the first known uses… they _invented_ it. Any attempts at scientific legitimacy are half assed and after the fact.
Do you get what I’m trying to do now? I’m trying to tell you something that is actual information. It’s not evidence of my confusion. It’s just facts. You can look them up. You seem to think ID is some kind of long-treasured scientific premise. It is not scientific and it is not established historically, and you can actually find it’s source and track its usage. You need to let go of whatever abstract platonic idea you have as ID that transcends all known usage to grasp that the term was coined by ideologues and is rarely, if ever, used out of that camp.
I think you want to argue for some kind of scientific agnosticism, not from a true ID perspective, and so I was trying to explain why you are finding people so resistant. You are not likely to get much further, but there you go.
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### Author:  [@ivn1188](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivn1188)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2009, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/139 "2009-08-13T00:02:23Z")
> [@begbert2](#):
>
> Just because a scholar has, once in his life, \*talked \*about a silly theory, doesn’t mean that that theory informed the rest of his work.
No, it was actually the heart of Meditations, and led directly to his attempted refutation of skepticism (by establishing his own version). It was also important in Anarchy, State, and Utopia.
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2009, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/140 "2009-08-13T00:04:28Z")
> [@ivn1188](#):
>
> Fine. I already proposed a new term, Nonrandomism.
Lovely. So tell me, do you think evolution is random? If so, random in what sense?
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