I first noticed the phrase “Intelligent Design” about ten years ago. Not long after,William Dembski produced his website, Uncommon Descent, and declared his intentions:
This blog is for me mainly to get out news items about the ID movement and my work in particular. For more sustained writing and development of my ideas, I refer you to my website: www.designinference.com. I am not a journalist nor do I intend to become one. Thus this is not “The ID Answer Man” or “Ask Your Questions about ID Forum.” If I don’t respond to your comments and questions, even if they are good comments and questions, understand that I have way more commitments than I can fulfill, and that I will only occasionally contribute to a comment thread here.
Finally, there is one cardinal rule at this blog, namely, I make up the rules as I go along. In other words, these policies can change at any time. Moreover, if they change, it will most likely be in the direction of curtailing the time I need to spend with comments.
I made an early assessment of ID here. And I made the confident and wrong prediction that ID would fade completely from public view within five years. Dembski has since relinquished the site to one Barry Arrington, a lawyer by profession, and there continues to be the same consistency in moderation. “I make up the rules as I go along” could equally be Arrington’s mantra. Since Dembski’s withdrawal from public discussion, though (well indeed, since I first heard of “Intelligent Design”), I’ve seen no genuine effort to convert the claim that ID has some scientific merit into reality.
What I think I see now at Uncommon Descent, the only remaining discussion venue I am aware of where ID is still claimed to be real, is a gentle decline that may take a generation. What I don’t see at UD are many young or female advocates and no young, female advocates. What I no longer see is the pretense that ID is a useful scientific paradigm rather than a banner for the religious right (white male) to gather around.
Who’s left there with anything interesting to say? Who is left at UD who merits attention and consideration rather than being ignored? Anyone at all?
I won’t re-post it here, but it deserves a little notice as we discuss the productivity of “ID research”
ID publications, Biologic Institute, 2014
William J. Murray,
Yeah, I see myself more like the Knight in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. I’ve got the tinfoil armour and the cardboard sword and everything. Every time I see something I disagree with on the Internet, I jab it with my sword. I am winning, slowly but surely.
Arcatia said:
It’s all about Mr. Arrington? Why on earth do you care? Have you not ever asked yourself, “why do I give a crap what Barry Arrington does or says on his tiny, dying, unread, unimportant blog?”
You do realize how this sounds, right?
I’d have to dispute with you on “tiny”. UD appears on my screen no smaller than any other blog site.
“Unread” is demonstrably untrue. Even I read bits of it.
“Unimportant”? It’s the last bastion of ID as far as the possibility of discussion goes. ISCID is defunct, ARN forum has disappeared, the list of links to ID sites at UD resources page are largely dead.
You’re right on dying, though.
But the question for me is why a lawyer is running this site. Why not someone with some scientific expertise? I’m not sure if you are among them but some people still make the claim that ID has scientific merit.
Barry’s particular area of expertise (bankruptcy) may hold a hint.
All you do at UD is talk about evolution. You do realize how this sounds, right?
William can read minds:
So much for ID == science.
It’ll never die as long as there’s a theological need for it. Its not advancing though – its not more sophisticated in its explanatory power or methods. But it wants to pretend to be.
The UD thread now has a Joe infection. Does he list ID’s many accomplishments? No, he just cries about his perceived shortcoming with evolutionary theory. He’s just a chubbier, slower ‘news’ – no positive case for ID but a bunch of mud-slinging.
I always like these testimonials/projections. LIke Gil Dodgen, ‘if you can believe it I used to be an arrogant prig confident in my superiority, and now I’m humble despite being smarter than almost everyone here. All atheists are like I was, except my Dad, who’s nothing like that at all.’
Yes Murray, we don’t really have any problem believing what kind of atheist you were, because you haven’t changed much, if any. Ad hominems are your stock response, even as you hypocritically attack others for their supposed ad hominems (hint, calling a fraud a fraud isn’t actually wrong). Some people are emotionally invested in integrity, true, while ID in general is emotionally invested otherwise.
Glen Davidson
This, exactly this. And he’s utterly oblivious to it!
OMagain,
Yep, combined with the underlying logic of “any atheist who doesn’t have the personality that I had when I was an atheist is irrational”.
General remark:
Lately I’ve been reading Flanagan’s The Problem of the Soul: Two Visions Of Mind And How To Reconcile Them. Flanagan does an excellent job explaining how to think of moral agency in a naturalistic metaphysics, and his basic idea of “ethics as human ecology” is promising. He’s also the author of The Really Hard Problem: Meaning in a Material World. In terms of whether Flanagan succeeds in showing how purpose, significance, or value are consistent with a fully naturalized self-understanding, I’d be surprised if he’s discovered anything that wasn’t already figured out by Nietzsche or Dewey, but certainly the naturalists of the 19th century didn’t have the requisite neuroscience, ecology, or evolutionary theory to put their philosophical intuitions on the gold standard of evidence.
Dawkins was certainly wrong when he said that Darwin made it intellectually respectable to be an atheist. Darwinism solves one specific problem in science. But of course in a naturalistic worldview; there are many other problems that Darwinism can say nothing at all about. Some of them have been solved since Darwin; others remain to be solved. It is possible that some of them will never be solved, though I am cautiously optimistic.
I found Box’s admission quite revealing:
Well, I am certainly not a “materialist”, so I am in no position to defend whatever it is that Box, WJM, and others there are so keen to attack. In fact, I do not think that anyone here at TSZ is a “materialist” in the sense that that term is used by folks at Uncommon Descent. I might be wrong about that, but insofar as I can understand what the folks at UD mean by “materialism,” it’s not a view that anyone at TSZ endorses.
However, there is a still a further issue that can be addressed here, and that is the longing for permanence or for immortality. What Box has trouble with her is imaging someone who has made his or her peace with, or who is able to accept with any sort of grace, the following thought: “I am a rational, self-conscious, and autonomous agent who is also a kind of animal and therefore I am a being whose self-consciousness and agency will end when my life does”. Box cannot imagine someone who is perfectly OK with that. I find that fascinating. Not having been raised with the concept of “life after death,” I do not know how to begin having a conversation with someone who is terrified by the thought of his or her inevitable annihilation. There seems to be no common ground that could serve as the basis of mutual understanding.
OMagain,
William @UD
Whereas of course, since discovering theism this sense of superiority is held very much in check!
eta: beaten to this most ‘obvious’ of observations!
Box, living in an argument to consequences of his own creating.
I don’t know how to respond to Box. Here’s my ‘problem’: I don’t believe in God. I could pretend to myself I did, but I would not be fooled.
On the other hand, I love life. I feel incredibly fortunate to even exist, given the many possible fates of my ancestors. I can’t say I’m exactly thrilled by the dying thing, precisely because life is so great, but there appears to be absolutely sod all I can do about it. The idea that an entity will grant eternal life if you only believe it will seems simply perverse. So I just accept it, and get on with making the best of the here and now.
And why would anyone suppose that we are not? How truly “lamentable” reality may be I don’t know (it’s what we find ourselves in–what was it “supposed to be”?), but I think that any chance at real magic, enchantment, and incomparable beauty is more than slightly alluring.
I just can’t make up a bunch of shit, or accept same from someone else, and pretend that it’s really immortality, magic, and perfect beauty, though. So why not do the best with what really is possible?
Glen Davidson
William @ UD, in response to a point Z makes that there is no demonstrable argument against materialism per se:
Bold in original. These days I mostly just feel sorry for William and his ilk. You can practically hear the sneer. It must be very frustrating to be so right yet have nobody listening at all! To be making no measurable impact at all in the wider world.
It seems the echo-chamber acts as an arrogance multiplier. They are all so careful to never quite focus on each others positions lest they realise they are all in fact mutually incompatible. If evolution beyond the “body plan” level is impossible, why have those who claim that ID is only required at the OOL not argued it out with the “body plan” group? You’d expect they’d agree on the best supported position and move on with that as a group? But instead they each state their positions, often elaborating it in response to outsiders questions. But that lack of being challenged by their fellow ID supporters, they seem to be perceiving that as validation for their claims. And in some cases it’s been around a decade with the same claims, repeated over and over like a mantra!
KF will be arguing that FIASCO is useful till the end of time, the fact that nobody has ever used it is neither here nor there.
The “proteins cannot form without ID” never seem to discuss that with the “body plan” people, who presumably believe that they can form without ID.
It’s almost as if there is an intelligent design to it all!
experiential illusion generated by the intersection of fields of quantum potential and the sensory interpretations in the minds of macro-observer my arse
William, please.
Is that why you run off just as it starts to get interesting?
ID in a nutshell:
Comment by BOX to WJM.
And again –
William J Murray is a functional materialist. Nothing he does has a non-material explanation.
MIIIIIIIIND POWEEEEERRSSSSzz
KN said:
You internal bias is demonstrated by your use of the term “terrified”. Box didn’t say he was terrified by death or the prospect of non-existence; he said he couldn’t understand holding that lamentable perspective. If one has any opportunity to do so, why not hold that a continued existence of some sort awaits? After all, there’s quite a bit of evidence that experience may continue after death. There’s even a quantum-immortality theory that your personal experience cannot end – ever.
What is the point of believing that one’s existence ends at death? I don’t know of any practical or logical reason for holding such a belief. I’m perfectly at peace with the thought that I’ll discontinue existing after I die – I mean, it’s not like I’m going to care about not existing if that is the case – but I see no practical value for such a belief while one is still alive.
I mean, it’s not like believing that your experience/existence ends at death is necessary in “preparing” you for that result – you are not going to experience the result. It’s not like those who believe in an afterlife are going to be dissapointed or heartbroken after they die and “find out” their beliefs were not true.
If non-existence after death is true, I can believe whatever I want about it and I won’t ever feel bad about being wrong. Being wrong about it won’t matter one bit after I’m dead.
So, I don’t see the point in holding such a useless belief even if I am at peace with it. There are other beliefs I can hold about death that are far more useful to me in life.
to box,
my deity is better then yours. mine can make conscious entities from nothing but lawful interactions of chemicals. Yours has to like reach down all the time and do stuff and constantly design new body plans and that, and make a whole like parallel universe of minds to act as radio transmitters to silly fleshy bodies and keep track of which is joined to what and do all those silly edge cases like two people in one body where sometimes you have two brains and sometimes just one and the other person is like virtual. yours had to make some sort of objective moral code and transmit it to everyone, despite the fact that some things like the puddles of mind on omnicron theatha 9 need to eat their children to survive and so broke it from the start yet that was the way your one created them! and those guys living on the planet of bridges and railway switches, man, those people are suffering so badly, every time they think they’ve worked out what the objective morality says to do someone else comes along with another argument for something different, despite the alleged objective nature of such things!
you got the 0.1 version dude, you should have waited till release day, not joined the beta! i tole you so!
om
Where should I place the cash, oh holy one who appears to believe in and have knowledge of an afterlife?
Also, while you are at it, could you let me know how I could make your life less harsh, so you could perhaps better interpret the laws of reality for me so that I might better serve the one that, oddly, only you seem to be able to channel?
Meh. That you even have to wonder why promulgating such things can work out incredibly badly then I suggest you pick up a history book other then Darwin/Hitler and do a bit of reading. Most any point in history will be fine.
Yes, we know this already. You are, after all, an ID supporter.
What is the value of believing that life is a “mortal coil” that can be shuffled off, leading to an eternal life without inconveniences?
Aside from the fact that such mythology is useful to psychopathic leaders, in that it allows them to convince retarded people to strap on explosive vests, and allows nations to convince kids to charge into the path of machine guns.
The rise of skepticism has coincided with the decline in willingness to jump into pointless wars. And though we still have seemingly endless war, the number of casualties has declined since WWII. Wars are mostly about religion now, and are conducted by the proponents of Big End vs the proponents of Little End.
So that is a positive value of atheism. A decline in willingness to murder and to die for the benefit of psychopaths.
With William, I have to keep reminding myself I’m reading the words of a right wing republican ammosexual. It then all makes much more sense.
William, the sort of Guy you could persuade to fly a plane into a building, because you know, the shortcomings of naturalism.
petrushka asks:
Well, that belief might serve to get you through some really bad stuff in life, you phrase that question as if that is the only alternative to the “nonexistence” scenario. I don’t find the idea of an eternity of joy (without inconveniences) very appealing – but then, I don’t have to believe in that particular afterlife scenario.
We can compare belief systems to see which one promoted the most historical deaths, but we both know the non-afterlife scenario is at least just as bad as the afterlife scenario in being conducive to causing lots of death and destruction. The point is, you can believe in an afterlife that aids you in life; I don’t see how a belief in non-existence after death can possibly be of any aid in life.
No, that’s the positive value of reasonable skepticism. Skepticism and atheism are not the same thing. Being skeptical helps avoid “pointless” war whether one is being skeptical of atheistic or theistic leaders/policies. Just because one’s government is secular or even atheistic doesn’t mean it is more trustworthy.
Theisms of various sorts have been both helpful and harmful throughout world history; the same can be said of secularism and even atheism.
Just because some other people abuse the notion of atheism or theism or get obsessively attached to destructive versions of those ideas doesn’t prevent you, as a rational, good person, from selecting an afterlife belief that helps you in life and doesn’t harm anyone.
William J. Murray,
I concede the point; “lamentable” is not “terrified,” and I did not do justice to Box’s view.
Let me rephrase, then: I do not understand the underlying psychology in someone who regards the annihilation of his or her consciousness with the death of his or her body as “lamentable” (unfortunate, sad, tragic, regrettable, etc.). Nor do I see the practical benefit of believing in personal immortality.
Of course, if someone chooses to believe in personal immortality, or in God, they’ll get no argument from me — I just don’t understand it. That won’t stop me from arguing that libertarian free will and mind-body dualism are both conceptually incoherent and inconsistent with empirical science.
Unlike most of the non-theists here, I do not think that the concept of God is conceptually incoherent or inconsistent with empirical science, but that is because there are so many different conceptions of God. There is even “theistic naturalism” (see here and here), though Ellis’s position is intriguing to me largely because she takes her point of departure from McDowell’s non-scientistic naturalism, which is something I also work on quite extensively.
I differ from some of my “tribe” in that I find secular ideologies potentially as dangerous as religious ones. What I find dangerous is belief itself.
I am a soft atheist. I am not a believer in atheism. I have looked at the major religions and found no intellectual merit in any of them. So I am a non-believer. I was raised as a nominal Christian, so I enjoy Christian art and music. Fortunately, most of my favorite music is either instrumental or has a Latin text. Since I don’t understand Latin, I am not troubled by the text.
My test of the value of any theology or political ideology is rather simple. If it leads people to hurt other people, it is evil. It is, of course, difficult to get through life without conflict and without hurting other people’s feelings. I do not consider advocating ideas to be hurtful. Prison is hurtful. Death is hurtful. Debate and advocacy are not hurtful.
KN:
I am something of an apathetic mystic. I sometimes enjoy musing on why there is something rather than nothing. I wonder about silly things like cosmic consciousness. Such thoughts give me a pleasant buzz for a few idle moments.
There is no place for them to lead.
KN said:
Okay, I have no means to relate to this, because it is so alien that I consider it non-human. Unless someone is experiencing an ongoing miserable experience with little hope of it ever changing, I can’t understand not wanting to continue existing and experiencing – experiencing is a remarkable, astounding, breathtaking thing. How can the annihilation of one’s capacity to experience be anything other than lamentable?
I mean, seriously, if you don’t understand that psychology, then you don’t understand what it is to be human, IMO. It’s like asking me what’s lamentable about being deprived of the most remarkable, beautiful, terrible, breathtaking thing ever? Really? Jeez. I found it lamentable when I couldn’t experience any new episodes of Breaking Bad, and lamentable when I found that I couldn’t enjoy eating guacamole any more; you don’t find the end of all your personal experience forever lamentable???
You can’t really be serious. Does your life really suck so bad that you find nothing lamentable about losing it to nothingness?
Well, I didn’t say immortality per se, but rather an afterlife. The practical benefits are many and varied; it can help with grief during the loss of loved ones; it can provide hope in very desperate situations; it can give motivation and comfort when self-sacrifice or self-endangerment is required in service of the good or to protect/help others. It can provide a perspective that diminishes suffering and worry in times where such feelings are counter-productive.
Eternity is a long time. Particularly toward the end.
As opposed to what?
Living forever in a heaven that includes you? Count me out.
You also forgot setting the stage for the unprincipled to exploit the grieving by pretending they can see behind the veil, and only for a little more can pass messages back and forth.
In any case, am I comforted by the idea of my loved ones persisting for all eternity just waiting for me to arrive?
You people are just so wrong. What a horrible horrible thing to believe in. Let’s all just drink the kool-aid now why don’t we and join them?
It’s also inevitable. Did you worry about it before you existed?
God save us all from the mindset that the people we don’t agree with are “non-human.”
Give us an example then, where even atheism has been harmful?
Bet ya can’t.
Yeah, it’s bizarre. I don’t have free will according to William.
What shall we do with the people who don’t have free will somebody at the back shouts.
William J. Murray,
I have no particular active desire for my consciousness to end; I enjoy life, and experience, and I too lament that there are no more Breaking Bad episodes. (See, we do have common ground!)
I take good care of my health and wish to postpone death for another three or four decades. But I regard the eventual end of my consciousness as an accepted fact, and that does have practical consequences (I would say, benefits) for how I live my life.
I do not, however, have any wish to rob another person of whatever they need in order to endure suffering, grief, and despair.
When William was an atheist, he must logically also have believed that. So I don’t see why he can’t just remember what he though then.
William J. Murray,
Absolutely. But I really have a problem with hypocrisy and outright lies. Especially the type presented by Barry. When he says that he welcomes dissenting comments, and then bans people for simply dissenting, and then lies about banning them, yes I have a problem.
But please don’t underestimate the pure pleasure of pointing this out to Barry. I suspect is that this is because he is so pompous and arrogant.
If you are serious about UD being respected, get rid of Arrington. But based on the UD history, they would probably replace him with Joe.
I admit that it is unfair painting you with the same brush, because I haven’t experienced this from you. But, to borrow KF’s term, it is telling that you defend Barry’s approach.
KN said:
This seems kind of evasive to me. If you are trying to “postpone” nonexistence for another 3 or 4 decades, I must conclude that you enjoy your existence and would find it at least somewhat lamentable if you were to find out you had a terminal illness and were expected to live only a few more days. It seems to me to be some sort of posturing to the say you wouldn’t find an end to your ability to experience a lamentable, even if inevitable, fate.
If you could flip a switch and continue experiencing under conditions that would at least make such experience, on the whole, as enjoyable as experience is now, would you not prefer that to nonexistence?
I don’t know about you, but given the right conditions for continued existence/experience, I’d love to go on experiencing indefinitely. I assume that most humans, unless they are living a miserable experience, feel the same way – and, even if they are miserable, would jump at the chance to experience a more enjoyable experience for a long time if they can.
But you’re wiling to talk them out of such beliefs unless you think they “need” them? Why?
As far as active venues dedicated to promoting Intelligent Design go, there is a very active ID Facebook page (“The Official” page) with about 7,500 members. Moderated by Dennis Jones, Denyse O’Leary, and some young schmuck. Actually not too bad on banning.
William J. Murray:
How naive. If the set of “afterlife beliefs” was indeed delineated as you say then all would be well. But as noted above, to some these beliefs are just tools to manipulate people into behaving as desired.
Seys the guy who believes in faith healers and that it’s likely that Uri Geller has “mind powers” and James Randi is just jealous. One day you’ll realize what ” reasonable skepticism” is and be very embarrassed!
Oh, who am I kidding. You are not capable of such!
William J. Murray,
Perhaps. Also, if I could teleport myself freely and safely from galaxy to galaxy, it would be grand. But wishful thinking won’t make it happen.
We are all free to talk about our views. Other people don’t have to come round to share them, but if they do, why should I mind? It’s up to them to decide what they need. I suppose most people regard their own worldview as correct, and welcome any converts. There’s one possible exception: those who believe the correct worldview is only suitable for the aristocracy od spirit (and consider themselves to be members of that exclusive class) while the plebs are better off with their opium. It isn’t my attitude, though.
Piotr, theist or not? That is a question to Piotr, only him.
Piotr said:
IMO, you and KN are posturing when you say things like this. KN postures himself in a narrative where other lesser mortals are “terrified” of non-existence and so invent myths and fantasies to comfort themselves. This is a common implied theme when atheists/materialists are belittling theists, how they need a “crutch” to get through life and invent magical kingdoms and invisible sky-daddies.
When offered what is a really no-brainer choice between continued enjoyable experience and non-existence, this posturing within your narrative makes you say really stupid things like “perhaps”, or KN’s “I don’t understand the psychology of people that find eventual non-existence lamentable.” Oh, please. The only people you’re fooling is yourself, if even that. Of course you’d prefer an enjoyable existence to non-existence; to posture otherwise is just nonsensical game-playing.
If KN was truly apathetic about his continued existence, would he be taking care of himself to get another 3-4 decades of quality living? Get real.
This is the kind of nonsensical crap that makes honest debate with people like you guys virtually impossible. You’ll say the most stupid shit just to disagree with whatever a theist says.
Gregory,
Nope.
That I prefer existence to non-existence is one thing; that I would prefer existence over non-existence indefinitely is quite another. Maybe the problem here is that you are simply unable to accept me at my word when I say that I have no fear of death and no fear of the annihilation of my consciousness when that happens. If you’re not able to accept me as being sincere when I say that, then that says much more about you than it does about me.
Why would you not kill yourself, if you know a better life awaits you?
http://motherswhokillchildren.blogspot.co.uk/
What’s stopping *you* from killing yourself William? Why wait?