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Another ID epithet — “Creationism’s belligerent teenage cousin”

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The gods must be crazy if they call this intelligence
Robyn Williams insists the intelligent design movement is as sinister as it is wrong, writes Deborah Smith.

ROBYN WILLIAMS’S heart sank this week when he listened to people from Toowoomba on the radio blithely rejecting the latest scientific evidence on the quality of recycled water in favour of the myths.

It was as if science was just another choice of product on a supermarket shelf they could ignore at will, says the ABC science broadcaster. “People simply say, ‘I don’t want to know that. It’s inconvenient’.”

The prevalence of this attitude has been playing on Williams’s mind as he ponders the way the intelligent design movement – creationism’s “belligerent teenage cousin” – has sprung up “like a boil on a bum”. One of its hallmarks, he says, is the arrogant dismissal of carefully weighed scientific evidence.

Until recently Williams had thought it unwise to give any more publicity to intelligent design – the notion that life is too complex to have evolved without some assistance from an intelligent designer, whom many adherents believe to be God.

But its well-resourced backing in the US, from the President, George Bush, down, and its spread here – it is taught in science classes in about 100 schools, he estimates – has finally forced him into print.

He pulls no punches. Intelligent design is a politically sinister movement, a form of terrorism focused on public education, he argues in a new book, Unintelligent Design – Why God Isn’t as Smart as She Thinks She Is. “The means are devious, the arguments deceitful and the consequences profound.”

Recent scientific findings about the evolution of life are far more fascinating than the intelligent design movement’s untestable Just So stories, he says. “I find it gobsmackingly outrageous that ID can be allowed to pretend our state of knowledge is inadequate. Incomplete, certainly, but expanding at a ferocious rate,” he says.

Williams wrote the first draft in three weeks at the beach house in Gerroa he shares with his partner, Jonica Newby. It is “the place in the universe we love being most”.

He was keenly aware that other authors, such as Richard Dawkins, had addressed every creationist chestnut, such as perfectly designed eyes, at length. But the publisher Richard Walsh convinced The Science Show’s presenter there was still a need for a well-known figure such as him to distil the evidence against intelligent design for a different audience, and give it an individual perspective.

“In many ways the book is a personal statement, a mini-polemic. I feel passionate about the subject,” says Williams, who reveals much about his formative years, including the episode when he stopped his “self-righteous pugilist” father, a staunch Communist Party believer, from beating his younger brother.

The universe is a spooky place. If the force of gravity, or any of a number of other factors in the cosmos, were slightly different, humankind would not be here. “With all these happy circumstances, it’s little wonder that a few conclude that someone’s been setting up a Wendy House for us and our friends,” he says. But if that was the case, that someone must have been very keen on astronomy. “Why wait 10 billion years before getting the whole Genesis yarn going?”

And the technique appears to have been slapdash or confused: “Halitosis, farting, vaginal discharge, reflux, snoring, rheumatism, warts, smelly armpits, varicose veins, menopause, brewer’s droop … these are not the marks of a designer at the top of his game.”

Koalas, Williams also notes, have a pouch that opens downwards. “Was God intending the babies to fall out and crash to the forest floor?”

As with many other examples of unintelligent design, there is a scientific explanation: koalas evolved from wombat-like marsupials that had a pouch turned backwards so that, when they dug, their baby’s eyes did not get sand-blasted with dirt.

An atheist, Williams fondly remembers when scientists and people of faith often discussed their viewpoints at length on the radio, reaching a friendly agreement that “science could look after most of the ‘how’ questions, while religion would handle the ‘why’ “.

The tactics of the intelligent design movement, however, remind him of the deviousness of Stalinist bullies he observed as a young man. In the US its power has been used to erase evolution from science textbooks, to undermine museums and to misrepresent science. And the public is falling for it.

In an age “dominated by powerful men causing misery in the name of God while insisting that theirs is the only way”, scientists and believers need to work hand-in-hand, says Williams.

While they may disagree about how the Earth was made, they can still agree that it, and all its wonders, need to be protected.

Source: http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/the-gods-must-be-crazy-if-they-call-this-intelligence/2006/08/04/1154198329050.html#

Comments
"Our actions should be based on the ever-present awareness that human beings in their thinking, feeling, and acting are not free but are just as causally bound as the stars in their motion." Albert Einstein EVERYTHING is determined...by forces over which we have no control." ibid (my emphasis) We are all victims of our "prescribed" fates. Internet forums and the studies on separated monozygotic twins establish this beyond any reasonable doubt. Some of us have been luckier than others. Naturally we all regard ourselves as among the lucky ones. Don't you ever believe it. It is quite possible that we are all wrong! "He that I am reading seems aways to have the most force." Montaigne So quit reading so much and follow the advice of the founder of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard. "Study Nature not books." Louis Agassiz I hope that adage still adorns the foyer of Old Main at the Woods Hole Marine Biological Station which Agassiz also founded. I am sure he would roll in his grave if he knew what Gould and Mayr did at his Museum of Comparative Zoology and to our understanding of evolution generally. Harvard, Cornell and Oxford, three of the most influential institutions of our time, have done great harm to progress in the understanding of the great mystery of evolution. "A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable." John A. DavisonJohn A. Davison
August 6, 2006
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"One of its hallmarks, he says, is the arrogant dismissal of carefully weighed scientific evidence." The problem is that the evidence has not be carefully weighed, but selectively chosen and interpreted in light of a conclusion that has already been reached.GilDodgen
August 5, 2006
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Who is afraid? Not I. One of the advantages of growing old.John A. Davison
August 5, 2006
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Joseph: lots of forces are at play in society at any given time. I don't disagree at all that there is a resurgence of genuine curiosity, and of course I agree that the materialist paradigm is bankrupt...But I really think it is the reemergence of overt religiosity which is making certain people quake in their boots, not natural curiosity. I have to say, however, that this may just be a bias of mine, since although i consider myself extremely religious (according to my own definition) I also get pretty freaked out by certain forms of religious extremism, and am a huge believer in religious tolerance. People think in an associative manner. They have the word "religion", and then there are a thousand images clustered around that word which pop up in the mind. Many of the thousand are ugly. many are beautiful. Fear has an amazing ability to drive what is beautiful and noble away and magnify what is leering and ugly. It just feels to me like people like this are deeply repulsed at the images which they (correctly or incorrectly) associate with religion, and they will not, no matter how many times they are corrected, unhinge ID from these associations. Thanks to fear.tinabrewer
August 5, 2006
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TinaBrewer: Now, that authority is being undermined by a resurgence of religious belief,... You really think so? Or is it a resurgence in our undying curiousity- our "need to know"- and finding the current paradigm very wanting, especially in light of what we do know? I think people are realizing the "sheer-dumb-luck" (anti-ID) hypotheses are atheistic hubris. Purpose and intent. Intent and purpose. Dr. Wayne Dyer is hammering home "intention". "The Privileged Planet" exposes part of the purpose. You cannot run or hide from two such powerful forces. And you can only look the other way for so long, but that is like standing on a beach with your back twards an oncoming tsunami...Joseph
August 5, 2006
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I know exactly why people like him enjoyed the "good old days" in which science people and religion people could argue amicably: it was because everyone knew that religion was dying, on its way out, bankrupt, and that science had the real authority in society. Now, that authority is being undermined by a resurgence of religious belief, and these people are so terrified that they cannot help but conflate all types of resistance to their cherished theories with religious extremism. In a way its understandable. Religious people do the same thing when threatened. Doesn't excuse it, but one can understand the deep existential anxiety they must feel when the basic worldview which has given them power and security is busy dying...tinabrewer
August 5, 2006
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You have to feel sorry for people like this.tribune7
August 5, 2006
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Many accusations but nothing to substantiate them. Very typical of all anti-IDists. But if that was the case, that someone must have been very keen on astronomy. “Why wait 10 billion years before getting the whole Genesis yarn going?” YECs have explained that. Why is it that people who obviously know very little or nothing about ID or Creation feel it is their duty to spew their nonsense? I like this little bit of un-testable hubris: "As with many other examples of unintelligent design, there is a scientific explanation: koalas evolved from wombat-like marsupials that had a pouch turned backwards so that, when they dug, their baby’s eyes did not get sand-blasted with dirt." Just how is that a "scientific explanation"? Does he even know what a scientific explanation is? “The means are devious, the arguments deceitful and the consequences profound.” Exactly how I feel about evolutionism...Joseph
August 5, 2006
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An atheist, Williams fondly remembers when scientists and people of faith often discussed their viewpoints at length on the radio, reaching a friendly agreement that “science could look after most of the ‘how’ questions, while religion would handle the ‘why’ “ [my emphasis].
There\'s a problem with this: \"Why\" questions must inevitably be reduced into constituent \"how\" questions; otherwise, reason would constitute a fundamental, irreducible aspect of reality. We can look at aspects of nature and meaningfully ask \"why\". To deny this would be to deny an immensely important part of our cognitive economy. (The biological sciences, for example, would be meaningless were it not for particular supervenient conditions of certain chemical combinations.) The why/how problem (as I like to call it) is properly within the domain of scientific investigation. By arbitrarily isolating the \"why\" and assigning it to religion, Williams seeks to placate the religious and impede investigation into phenomena which bear the stamp of meaningful intent.crandaddy
August 5, 2006
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(Just in case you guys haven't seen this): Speaking of critics, here's a review of Pennock's book ("Intelligent Design Creationism"): http://www.calvin.edu/academic/philosophy/virtual_library/articles/ratzsch_del/design_theory_and_its_critics.pdf It mainly focuses on the philosophy of science aspect of the debate.Ryan
August 4, 2006
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"And the technique appears to have been slapdash or confused: “Halitosis, farting, vaginal discharge, reflux, snoring, rheumatism, warts, smelly armpits, varicose veins, menopause, brewer’s droop … these are not the marks of a designer at the top of his game.” Koalas, Williams also notes, have a pouch that opens downwards. “Was God intending the babies to fall out and crash to the forest floor?”" These guys are still using the same worn-out negative theological arguments that have been answered over and over again?!? Perhaps these people should actually read the works of ID proponents before they write books against them.Ryan
August 4, 2006
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How about ID as "a form of terrorism" is that new?idnet.com.au
August 4, 2006
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Williams "In many ways the book is a personal statement, a mini-polemic. I feel passionate about the subject" and "The tactics of the intelligent design movement, however, remind him of the deviousness of Stalinist bullies he observed as a young man." He believes ID has something to do with "the whole Genesis yarn". I like his personal disclosure. He is an atheist. He is passionate against ID. He had a problematic childhood. This explains a lot about his personal bias and perspective. Let's face it, we all have one.idnet.com.au
August 4, 2006
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I thought ID was only an issue in scientifically backward America where religious fundamentalism is such a problem. It seems that intelligent people here in the land down under (home of the Vegemite sandwich) can also see through the crap that masquerades as science in NDE.Ford Prefect
August 4, 2006
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"In the US its power has been used to erase evolution from science textbooks...." What textbooks is he referring to? Is he talking about textbooks in Scopes-era classrooms?russ
August 4, 2006
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