# Intelligent Design prof requires student to troll on 'hostile' websites. **URL:** \ **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:** 8
**Author:** ![ivn1188](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e480ec/32.png) [@ivn1188](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivn1188)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/141 "2009-08-13T00:06:54Z")
> [@cricetus](#): > > 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. Well, I think you are giving them too much credit, but like I said, I’ll use different terminology. I believe that some of the people in this thread are just too invested in their own biases to seriously consider any theory that isn’t atheistic or that they consider crazy religious stuff. It’s the same type of “hard science” people who eschew anything that is “untestable”, yet get all upset when other people have differing moral views (which are equally untestable). ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/142 "2009-08-13T00:07:53Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > 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. ☹ He’s right - a degree in stupidity from clown college does make one more interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/143 "2009-08-13T00:10:25Z")
> [@ivn1188](#): > > It’s the same type of “hard science” people who eschew anything that is “untestable”, yet get all upset when other people have differing moral views (which are equally untestable). No, they say anything untestable isn’t science. There are plenty of other things. Hard scientists like sex too. Even soft scientists. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/144 "2009-08-13T00:11:01Z")
> [@ivn1188](#): > > Fine. I already proposed a new term, Nonrandomism. Good grief, you don’t have the grace to admit that you have **no idea** what you are even defending. So now that this digression is over, what do you think of the OP and the actual practices of intelligent design apologists? ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/145 "2009-08-13T00:13:36Z")
> [@ivn1188](#): > > 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. I don’t believe you. No, seriously. I don’t believe you are correct. You are CLEARLY biased on the matter, and so have no credibility as a reporter of the structure of his arguments. But even if you _are_ correct (blind pigs and acorns, and all that) - you still have failed to demonstrate that one useless philosophical speculation instigating other useless philosophical speculations actually connects up to something “useful”. Notably, you strongly implied (as much as asserted, really) that ID was a building block to developing the scientific method. Which I think is a load of crap. Despite your proud unsupportd assertion. Not all philosophy is useful. For example, solipsism isn’t useful. Last thursdayism isn’t useful. And neither are the _other_ forms of ID (or whatever we’re calling it.) (Yes, solipsism and last thursdayism are ID-type theories.) ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/146 "2009-08-13T00:14:45Z")
> [@ivn1188](#): > > I believe that some of the people in this thread are just too invested in their own biases to seriously consider any theory that isn’t atheistic Again, _look how stupid you are._ Your lie was that you’re not opposed to ‘materialism’. Attacking people for not accepting magic as a valid scientific hypothesis and not accepting untestable claims as anything other than quaint ideas is simply a puerile attack on ‘materialism’ with some silly semantic gamesmanship being played. > [@ivn1188](#): > > Fine. I already proposed a new term, Nonrandomism. Yeah, and yet here we’ve been talking about Dembsky and the Discovery Institute. Now either you’re relentlessly stupid and missed that when you attempted to pick a fight, or you’re just a trollish idiot who decided that even though we were all discussing a clearly defined anti-scientific piece of claptrap, that you’d like to conflate it with theistic evolution and pick a fight anyways because you’re opposed to reason and the scientific method and have pretensions of competency. Comprehension. Read for it, jackass. > [@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. Wrong, yet again. Empiricism stretches back to ancient times. Muslim scholars around the 11th century had already realized that we needed a rigorous system of experimentation, proof and refutation with which to sift ideas. About a century before Bacon, Jacopo Zabarella was working on refining Aristotelian investigative methodology. Brahe’s solid investigative methodology was also, likewise, roughly a century before Bacon. Roughly two decades before _Discourse on Method_, _Instauratio Magna_ began refining the European understanding of proper investigative methodology. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/147 "2009-08-13T00:17:01Z")
> [@cricetus](#): > > 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. Did Behe invent the term, or was his concept hijacked by the creationists? I thought the former, and they, finding a real scientists somewhere outside a Bible college with a concept that has religion at its heart (even if hidden) quickly slapped the name on their same old crap and tried to pretend it was science now. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/148 "2009-08-13T00:19:16Z")
> [@ivn1188](#): > > 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. The importance of Descartes’ work doesn’t mean we should teach **The Matrix** in science class. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/149 "2009-08-13T00:20:38Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > Wrong, yet again. > > Empiricism stretches back to ancient times. Muslim scholars around the 11th century had already realized that we needed a rigorous system of experimentation, proof and refutation with which to sift ideas. About a century before Bacon, Jacopo Zabarella was working on refining Aristotelian investigative methodology. Brahe’s solid investigative methodology was also, likewise, roughly a century before Bacon. Roughly two decades before _Discourse on Method_, _Instauratio Magna_ began refining the European understanding of proper investigative methodology. Just to add to this, empiricism and the scientific method are very, very different things. Sextus Empiricus was already talking about the problem of induction in the 2nd century AD. It sounds like our friend **ivn** is living in the kind of Pyrrhonian hell Sextus Empiricus describes. And if he isn’t, well, that’s because he has biases just like the rest of us mortals. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/150 "2009-08-13T00:22:37Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > The importance of Descartes’ work doesn’t mean we should teach **The Matrix** in science class. Hey man, the Matrix is fiction! That means it’s true! And meaningful! Don’t you know! (To complete this properly I’d have to slap you with unmerited insults, but I can’t bring myself to.) ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/151 "2009-08-13T00:26:45Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Did Behe invent the term, or was his concept hijacked by the creationists? I thought the former, and they, finding a real scientists somewhere outside a Bible college with a concept that has religion at its heart (even if hidden) quickly slapped the name on their same old crap and tried to pretend it was science now. Edwards v. Aguillard was in 1987. That’s around the point at which _Pandas and People_ had their search-and-replace and cdesign proponentsists nonsense going on. Around 1992 the “Wedge strategy” was formulated, in part in concert with Behe. About a year later Behe first presented his ideas on “irreducible complexity”. The Discovery Institute backed their coterie in 1995 partially due to the “The Death of Materialism and the Renewal of Culture” that went on. About a year later Behe became a member of the Discover Institute’s Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture. Rather embarrassingly for him, Behe was later taken to pieces on the witness stand for the Dover trial where [Behe admitted](http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn8178) that his psuedoscience was so sloppy and overly broad that it would admit astrology as a scientific theory, among other bits of woo. Behe was pretty much always their man. ---
**Author:** ![tnetennba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/152 "2009-08-13T00:29:38Z")
Behe didn’t publish until the mid 90s, well after the term was established as code for creation. For example, it had already been used in the textbook Of Pandas and People. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/153 "2009-08-13T00:29:44Z")
> [@Maeglin](#): > > Just to add to this, empiricism and the scientific method are very, very different things. Sextus Empiricus was already talking about the problem of induction in the 2nd century AD. It sounds like our friend **ivn** is living in the kind of Pyrrhonian hell Sextus Empiricus describes. And if he isn’t, well, that’s because he has biases just like the rest of us mortals. Point. I didn’t mean to imply that empiricism was the same as the SM, but that it rather clearly served one of its precursors in a much more tangible (and useful) way than whatever ‘intelligent design’ ivn claims (with no quotes and no cites) Descartes was influenced by. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/154 "2009-08-13T00:32:27Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Did Behe invent the term, or was his concept hijacked by the creationists? His concept was creationist from the beginning. It makes the evidence free claim that there are features of biology that evolution can’t explain, without actually coming up with any such features. While it may not say “therefore God” that’s clearly the point of it. Why else make up an “explanation” for a nonexistent problem? ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/155 "2009-08-13T00:34:57Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > Point. > I didn’t mean to imply that empiricism was the same as the SM, but that it rather clearly served one of its precursors in a much more tangible (and useful) way than whatever ‘intelligent design’ ivn claims (with no quotes and no cites) Descartes was influenced by. Completely agree and I did not think that you were confusing the two. I think that ivn perhaps is, and I thought it just bore mentioning. He is so quick to tilt at his scientism windmill that he is getting somewhat confused. The arguments of George Berkely contra Newton are interesting and useful if you are studying the history of mathematical controversy, but they sure as shit aren’t useful if you are trying to do math. This simple difference seems to elude our fellow traveler. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/156 "2009-08-13T01:24:19Z")
> [@cricetus](#): > > Behe didn’t publish until the mid 90s, well after the term was established as code for creation. For example, it had already been used in the textbook Of Pandas and People. I looked at the Wikipedia entry, and see the term predates Behe by a bit. So Behe ripped it off from the creationists, and ivn is even wronger than I thought. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/157 "2009-08-13T01:52:13Z")
The thing is, if ivn wasn’t so very ignorant and smarmy in his ignorance, we could’ve had a decent conversation… not that there’s all that much to discuss. Most of us would readily agree that science cannot speak on matters of faith, and faith cannot gainsay facts or logic. I’d wager that the vast majority of Dopers would readily agree that we can’t prove or disprove any God or Gods since their very formulation places them outside the bounds of proof and refutation. And that, for much the same reasons, beyond the realm of faith concepts of God or Gods have no predictive, explanatory or elucidative power about any honest inquiry into facts. I’d also wager that more than a few would agree that one of the hallmarks of woo is that it attempts to open the door wide enough for a bit of necessary epistemological doubt and then uses that crack to slip in a tap dancing invisible orange elephant. That those who can’t support their position with logic, reason, or scientific analysis have to attack logic, reason and the scientific method themselves so that there’s no valid opposition to their claims left… so that “these are the facts and this is the process that we can use to winnow valid conclusions from invalid ones” is seen as equally valid to “this is what I saw in dream/invented/ thought sounded neat, and therefore it’s an alternate theory.” ---
**Author:** ![tnetennba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/158 "2009-08-13T01:57:07Z")
Tell me more about this elephant. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/159 "2009-08-13T02:00:26Z")
> [@ivn1188](#): > > Well, I think you are giving them too much credit, but like I said, I’ll use different terminology. I believe that some of the people in this thread are just too invested in their own biases to seriously consider any theory that isn’t atheistic or that they consider crazy religious stuff. I think you’re projecting. There is nothing atheistic or anti-religious about scientific method. A hypthesis is either testable or it is not. if it’s not testable, it’s not scientific. Religion has nothing to do with it, and the fact that you see science as some kind of atheist conspiracy is another strike agaianst your own credibility. Can you name a single untestable, NON-religious idea which is accepted as a scientific hypothesis or theory? > [@](#): > > It’s the same type of “hard science” people who eschew anything that is “untestable”, What other kind of science is there but “hard” science? What kind of science isn’t testable? > [@](#): > > yet get all upset when other people have differing moral views (which are equally untestable). What the fuck do “moral views” have to do with fucking ANYTHING? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072/160 "2009-08-13T02:07:05Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > The thing is, if ivn wasn’t so very ignorant and smarmy in his ignorance, we could’ve had a decent conversation… not that there’s all that much to discuss. > Most of us would readily agree that science cannot speak on matters of faith, and faith cannot gainsay facts or logic. > > I’d wager that the vast majority of Dopers would readily agree that we can’t prove or disprove any God or Gods since their very formulation places them outside the bounds of proof and refutation. And that, for much the same reasons, beyond the realm of faith concepts of God or Gods have no predictive, explanatory or elucidative power about any honest inquiry into facts. > > I’d also wager that more than a few would agree that one of the hallmarks of woo is that it attempts to open the door wide enough for a bit of necessary epistemological doubt and then uses that crack to slip in a tap dancing invisible orange elephant. That those who can’t support their position with logic, reason, or scientific analysis have to attack logic, reason and the scientific method themselves so that there’s no valid opposition to their claims left… so that “these are the facts and this is the process that we can use to winnow valid conclusions from invalid ones” is seen as equally valid to “this is what I saw in dream/invented/ thought sounded neat, and therefore it’s an alternate theory.” The way I like to put the whole epistemological doubt wank job is that they know they can’t compete on a level playing field, so they try to deny that the playing field even exists. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligent-design-prof-requires-student-to-troll-on-hostile-websites/506072.md?page=9)