The Wedge

About 20 years ago, the Discovery Institute, that ivory tower of 'intelligent design', was caught out. 

Yes really!

It was revealed that they had a document that defined the Wedge Strategy - with a 20 year target of convincing the world that there was some science in the (not even a theory of) 'intelligent design'.  Of course there isn't!  (If you provide some evidence to dispute that claim then I will be happy to consider it.)

21 years later, we are still waiting for success and Dembski et al are back-pedalling. 

Teaching the other controversy

People preach about 'teaching the controversy' in the debate about evolution, as if Intelligent Design were science.  Maybe there are questions about evolution by natural selection, but it is certain that Intelligent Design is not an alternative answer.

They like to teach the controversy and claim that the arguments of 'neo-darwinists' don't hold up to scrutiny.

Well does that matter or not?  ID's proponents claim that it is a science but does that hold up to scrutiny?  They claim that they start from the data.  That's nice, but science starts from the hypothesis and uses data from the real world to see whether it supports the science - not the other way round.

And although they deny it, Intelligent Design requires an Intelligent Designer, and we are being impolite if we ask Christians who that designer might have been.

So let's start from the data again - and ask what data shows that God (obviously the pseudonymous intelligent being who designed everything) exists.  Is there any data?  I doubt it.  After all, faith is more powerful than data.

Then we can move on to the real science again.

Discoveroids best effort last month

A friend of mine received the following solicitation (for cash), presumably on the basis that he is sometimes an outspoken critic of so called Intelligent Design and creationism.  I include comments [in dark green, in these square brackets] for those who know what eukaryotes are, and to be ignored by those who don't care because their particular religious cleric tells them that they don't need to know more than the 'clerics' do.

I humbly suggest that you laugh at their claims and read the note at the end.

Dear ************:

Textbooks and teachers stop teaching myths about evolution when the mainstream media admit textbooks are wrong ... don't they?
 
Not if the data challenges Darwinian evolution. 

"'Junk DNA' concept debunked by new analysis of human genome" hollered the Washington Post on September 5th [proof by media??] just as many kids were sitting down to science textbooks that claimed otherwise. And yet, one popular high school biology textbook claims “In eukaryotes, the vast majority of DNA has no apparent function.”  (Douglas J. Futuyma, Evolution, Sinauer)  [and does it, and if so, does it help your creationist cause in any way anyway?]

In other words most of your DNA is just worthless junk.  Junk DNA has long been trumpeted as a major piece of evidence proving Darwin's theory of unguided evolution.
 
What other false evidence claiming to prove evolution are your kids being exposed to? [. . . as opposed to the false evidence that Jesus existed I presume?]

• Inclusion of Haeckel's long-refuted embryo drawings, which overstate the similarities among vertebrate embryos in the early stages of vertebrate development. [I never remember claiming anything about Haeckel's embryos and don't remember it being used by anyone else - this argument passed its sell-by date a few decades ago!  It only gets dragged back up by creationists.]


• Retelling outdated myths about the Miller-Urey experiment and the origin of life and wrongly telling students the experiment correctly simulated gases present on the early earth. [That experiment was the best guess at the time. Now it isn't. So what?  How do negative results prove anything for creationism anyway?]


• Overstating the evidence for biochemical evolution by claiming biologists have evolutionary explanations, when they don't. [How to generate a claim from nothing - if this is the third best you can do you should give up now!]

The evidence challenging evolution is beginning to outweigh the evidence that supports it.  But will your kids learn about that in their science classes?  Unfortunately, probably not.

To help parents understand all the aspects of the debate over Darwinian evolution and intelligent design we created a free 28 page e-booklet A Parent’s Guide to Intelligent Design: Resources to help you and your children understand the debate between Darwinian evolution and intelligent design.

Will you help us distribute this digital booklet to as many parents as possible around the country?  

We need your help to raise $10,000 for a web advertising campaign letting parents know about this important free resource, and to print hardcopy booklets to hand out at events we conduct at schools, universities and churches.  With your help we can get this digital booklet into the hands of thousands of parents around the country.  Please donate now to support our campaign to help educate students, and parents.

Thank you for your support.

Sincerely,

Janine Dixon
Educational Outreach Coordinator
Center for Science & Culture
Discovery Institute
PS: Donations of $25 or more will receive a printed copy of the "Parent's Guide to Intelligent Design" and $100 or more will get you a free book or DVD from a wide selection of science related products.  Please donate today and help us reach our goal.

 
This is my donation! 

For those who might be confused by this post, the term Discoveroids refers to the people who staff the Discovery Institute, which heralds the alleged 'theory' (but really not even a good hypothesis) of 'Intelligent Design'.  Yes, the term Discoveroids is indeed intended to be pejorative.  

If you woud like to know more about the amazing revelations of The Discovery Institute, and the source of the terminology, I can only recommend this blog, The Sensuous Curmudgeon.  Happy reading Casey Luskin!

Incidentally, you can get the booklet here if you like.  I have deliberately not made it a hyperlink.  http://support.discovery.org/site/R?i=UPG1flsDMwJa-6GBZij4iw