Perish the thought. People who say such things had better roll their own party sandwiches, right?
Yet Asher Moses for The Age (July 8, 2009) advises,
a study by Israeli psychology researchers found “the prosocial behaviour apparent in Wikipedia is primarily connected to egocentric motives … which are not associated with high levels of agreeableness”.
The study, published in the journal CyberPsychology and Behaviour, gave personality tests to 69 active members of the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit and 70 non-Wikipedians, finding the former “feel more comfortable expressing themselves on the net than they do offline”.
The researchers’ findings that Wikipedians were introverted, disagreeable and closed to new ideas is at odds with the notion that Wikipedia was built around community and knowledge sharing.
Feather, please. I can’t be expected to do my pro-gravity trick without the familiar prop.
The rest of the article goes on to provide details and to vindicate Australian Wikipedians as less messed in the head than others, and we must hope it is so.
Of course, anyone familiar with the intelligent design controversy will be well aware of the waste of time associated with trying to get reasonably neutral information posted.
To me, the scandal is not that the trolls are running the ‘pedia, but that profs actually send their students there for information.
Hey, Denyse: the full paper is freely available here.
It’s conclusions aren’t quite what you (and the article you’ve relied upon, which also didn’t bother to read the paper, apparently) think they are:
Notice that “may”? That means they are speculating as to potential, as opposed to confirmed, explanations, as they make quite clear:
The study was in fact testing entirely different hypotheses:
Only the first was claimed to have been confirmed by the results.
BTW, what does this have to do with ID anyway? Seems an odd place to file it. Care to elaborate?
That should read “fully confirmed”, as the second was partially confirmed.
DBT,
“what does this have to do with ID anyway?”
O’Leary states,
“Of course, anyone familiar with the intelligent design controversy will be well aware of the waste of time associated with trying to get reasonably neutral information posted.”
As an example of this bias, if you look up Intelligent Design in Wikipedia, the first sentence states,
“Intelligent design is the assertion that “certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design
Calling ID an assertion is hardly a neutral position. I think O’Leary’s observation is therefore justified.
Here are some other inaccuracies in the article:
“It is a modern form of the traditional teleological argument for the existence of God, but one which avoids specifying the nature or identity of the designer”
ID is not a teleological argument for the existence of God. The evidence ID looks at implies the existence of God, but that does not make ID a teleological argument.
“The idea was developed by a group of American creationists who reformulated their argument in the creation-evolution controversy to circumvent court rulings that prohibit the teaching of creationism as science.”
Wrong again. Failure to define what is meant by “creationist” confuses the issue. The courts specifically prohibited the teaching of “scientific creationism,” and as such, none of the developers of ID fit in that category.
“Advocates of intelligent design argue that it is a scientific theory,[11] and seek to fundamentally redefine science to accept supernatural explanations.”
Another misconception. ID proponents are not appealing to “supernatural” explanations, because nobody is really defining what is meant by “supernatural.”
“The unequivocal consensus in the scientific community is that intelligent design is not science.”
An article that doesn’t have a particular bias against ID would not appeal to an “unequivocal consensus.”
“The concept of intelligent design originated in response to the 1987 United States Supreme Court Edwards v. Aguillard ruling involving separation of church and state.”
Wrong again – ID started before that.
Now compare what Wikipedia says about ID, and what another online encyclopedia – Conservapedia says about ID:
“The central idea of Intelligent Design theory is that design is empirically detectable, just as the detectability of design in man-made objects is straightforward, non-controversial, and often intuitive; see design detection. With respect to the origin and development of cosmological and biological systems, Intelligent Design theory holds that the same principles provide a logical inference of design in nature. That is, without necessarily “proving” actual intelligent design in nature, the observable material evidence provides a reasonable basis from which to infer design, and such an inference supports a legitimate scientific hypothesis of intelligent design. As such, Intelligent Design theory is a scientific disagreement with the core claim of materialistic theories of evolution such as chemical and Darwinian evolution [1] that the design exhibited in our universe is merely apparent design, i.e., unintelligent design caused by unguided, purposeless, natural forces of physics and chemistry alone.[2]
In a broader sense, Intelligent Design is simply the science of design detection…”
http://www.conservapedia.com/Intelligent_design
In-short, Conservapedia right off the bat, tells us exactly what Intelligent Design actually is, rather than a misguided extrapolation of what detractors of intelligent design think it is.
So, what does this thread have to do with ID? Pretty much everything. If people are being fed misconceptions about ID, how can they ever hope to understand it?
BTW,
For an excellent summation of the origins of ID, go here:
http://www.evolutionnews.org/T.....Design.pdf
Witt states,
“By now even this brief survey has brought certain facts sharply into focus. Although its roots stretch back to Plato, the modern intelligent design movement sprang from fresh discoveries in astronomy, physics, chemistry and biology. It’s older than Edwards vs. Aguillard and much bigger than current battles over science education.
Some opponents of intelligent design, however, aren’t interested in debating the evidence. They prefer to pretend that the intellectual work of scientists like Dean Kenyon revolve around Edwards vs. Aguillard. The theory of intelligent design owes much to law, but the laws it concerns itself with are the laws of nature. The second half of the 20th century revealed that they are exquisitely fine-tuned for life. It also revealed that while life needs a finely tuned set of physical constants, it apparently also needs something that only intelligence can provide—information. Critics of intelligent design could do with more of it.”
“Notice that “may”? That means they are speculating as to potential, as opposed to confirmed, explanations, as they make quite clear:”
Gosh, you suddenly sound like a skeptic reading evolutionist story-telling historical research books and published records.
The list of “may” “probably” Might-be” is endless, yet Darwinist and militant atheist claim that macro-evolution is a fact. Hmmmmm…
CY: Sure, but the research she cites, and which is the primary subject of her post, is not evidence for her argument about Wikipedia.
DATCG:
What relation does this have to misreporting the results of psych papers which can be easily found, for free, via a Google search? In fact, I’m not even entirely sure what it’s supposed to mean.
CannuckianYankee
Indeed, about 6K BC, on a Monday morning.
DBT
“CY: Sure, but the research she cites, and which is the primary subject of her post, is not evidence for her argument about Wikipedia.”
OK, well, you have to admit that O’Leary provoked an interesting discussion – regardless of the merits of some of those conclusions. We can refine these ideas as we see fit, and according to more thorough research. I don’t think O’Leary is making an argument about Wikipedia other than her observation of its biases – while trying to figure out where those biases come from. The article she cited perhaps does not provide us with a difinitive explanation for those biases, but it’s at least a place to start.
It warrants further investigation and discussion.
Wikipedia’s “evolution” of ID:
From 2001:
“A theory of evolution asserting that the appearance of new species in the fossil record are authentic. According to Intelligent Design, God created each new species right around the time they first appeared in the fossil record.
“Intelligent Design should be distinguished from Sudden Creationism, the religious doctrine that God created all forms of life in an extremely short period of time. Many adherents of Sudden Creationism reject the idea that fossils provide a record of evolutionary activity.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/inde.....did=259782
Later the same day:
“A theory of evolution asserting that God guided the process of evolution.
Intelligent Design (ID) agrees with Darwinism that fossils provide scientists with a useful tool to date the appearance and extinction of new species. According to ID, God created each new species right around the time they first appeared in the fossil record. The acceptance of the fossil record distinguishes ID from other Creationist theories such as Sudden Creationism.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/inde.....did=259787
The next day after several other revisions:
“Intelligent design is a theory of evolution which asserts that God guided and continues to guide the process of evolution, on the grounds that some differences between species are too complex to have come about without having been designed.
The scientific view of evolution is based on two premises. Variations occur in the genetic makeup of organisms, and through the process of Natural selection, the most fit of those variations survive while the others die out.
Intelligent Design accepts much of the scientific theory, but differs in one crucial aspect — the role of God in causing the variations.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/inde.....did=259811
About a year later:
“Advocates of intelligent design argue that the biological evidence presents serious problems for macroevolution. For example, all the major types of animals appeared at the same time in the fossil record, with no evidence of common ancestry–a pattern inconsistent with Darwin’s theory.
They also argued that complex organs that cannot function without all their parts provide evidence for a cause having intelligence. Usually, this intelligence is attributed to God.
This may be considered an outgrowth of the concept that some biological developments are too complex to have come about without having been designed–this latter concept is known as Irreducible complexity, and the related
argument from design.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/inde.....did=259949
From July, 2002:
“Intelligent design (ID) is a set of beliefs which state that life is the product of an intelligent designer. ID is in direct opposition to the Darwin’s theory of evolution and most modern ideas and theories or life and its evolution.
Proponents of ID claim that it is different from creationism, because ID neither begins with the faith that God exists or that God did create the world and living things. Rather ID proponents argue that the various forms of life show signs of having been created.
Opponents of ID tend to dismiss ID’s claim of differentiation from creationism, seeing it as a way of dressing up religious claims in scientific guise. Some opponents of ID say it serves primarily as a big tent under which to rally all sorts of creationists; the godfather of the ID movement, the UC Berkeley law professor Phillip Johnson (now emeritus), is quoted as saying that issues such as the age of the earth can be taken up once the common enemy of evolution has been done away with.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/inde.....ldid=58625
August, 2003:
“Intelligent design (ID) is the name for the traditional Biblical religious belief that the universe, life and specifically man, has been created by an “intelligent designer”, namely “God”. Advocates of intelligent design are generally fundamentalist Christians. Advocates of intelligent design take great care never to name God as the designer.
Intelligent design is a form creationism; it is vigorously opposed by the mainstream of scientific thought, which overwhelmingly accepts that biological evolution is a well-established fact. (See also natural selection.)
Intelligent Design rejects the basis of of evolutionary theory, and rejects the idea of macro evolution. Advocates of ID, however, do accept that microevolution does occur.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/inde.....id=1242196
From September, 2004:
“Intelligent design (ID) is the phrase coined for the argument that life and living things show signs of having been designed by an intelligent agent, and that therefore abiogenesis must be a false hypothesis. Specifically, the conjecture focuses on the ‘what’ of the origin of life on Earth, i.e. saying that it is not possible for ‘non-living’ matter to become ‘living’ matter (with the level of organization that is observed today) without intervention, and that life itself shows signs of design. The ‘Who, why, when, where and how’ are theoretically excluded from the debate, although the idea is more often than not identified with religious arguments, with inevitable extension into those other domains. Religious proponents of ID use the argument from design to argue for the existence of a god, usually – in the context of Christianity – God.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/inde.....id=6019551
From November, 2004:
“Intelligent design (ID) (ID) encompasses a number of theories arguing that life shows signs of being created by an “Intelligent Designer” rather than through the process of evolution by means of natural selection. Intelligent design makes no claim as to the identity of the designer, however. As such, Intelligent Design arguments support belief in the creation of life on Earth by God, by some other intelligent agent that is not God, or by panspermia, the idea that life originated from organic molecules in space.
Intelligent design remains a fringe movement among the mainstream scientific community, and the vast majority of scientists consider it to be pseudoscience, and a masked attempt to bring religion back into scientific discourse.”
November of 2004 seems to have been a very contentious month for ID on Wikipedia, as there are over 4 pages of links to updates of the article.
I especially like the following from April, 2005:
“Intelligent design (ID) describes a controversial set of arguments which assert that empirical evidence supports the conclusion that life on Earth was deliberately designed by one or more intelligent agents. ID advocates also argue that the standard scientific model of evolution by natural selection is insufficient to explain the origin, complexity, and diversity of life.
Claimed by its advocates to expose the limitations of scientific orthodoxy and of the secular philosophy of naturalism, the well-organized ID movement has attracted considerable press attention and pockets of public support, especially among Christian fundamentalists in the US. These supporters embrace ID as an alternative to and critique of orthodox science, and many advocate that ID should be offered alongside he standard scientific models in public school curricula.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/inde.....d=11836604
Notice: “These supporters embrace ID as an alternative to and critique of orthodox science…” Orthodox science? Really?
OK, I could go on and on, but I’ll stop there. Releived? The point being, that Wikipedia never does get ID right. If this is the case with most of their articles, I begin to wonder if Wikipedia is a good source of any information. I do think the current article is the least accurate of all the articles I linked above. So the evolution of articles on Wikipedia does not always lead to more accuracy.
OTH, I do think that they do a fairly good job with benign subjects, such as geography and some history.
Although I have no stake in Wikipedia’s credibility one way or another, it is should be noted that this paper is worthless exercise that would earn a failing grade in a freshman psychology class. Its fatal methodological flaws (e.g. self-selection of subjects via the internet) render any inferences from their subjects to larger populations utterly invalid.
UD contributors and sympathetic commenters often assert they are concerned with science. A good start would be the application of some discrimination regarding scientific inferences. Citing this paper as indicative of anything isn’t a good start.
Some seem to have missed the fact that the hedder is Coffee’s Here!
Those are not intended as serious moments, whether or not your views are well ground.
CannuckianYankee (#3) wrote: “Now compare what Wikipedia says about ID, and what another online encyclopedia – Conservapedia says…”
Unlike Wikipedia, the majority of Conservapedia articles appear to have been written by a high school sophomore in a hurry. Citing Conservapedia on any given topic is advocating a much lower standard of scholarship than citing Wikipedia.
(My favorite Conservapedia articles include the utterly non-scientific “Baraminology” and the “Origins – Creation science and Creationism” section of the “Kangaroo” article. Conservapedia supports creationism far more strongly than it supports intelligent design.)
It’s pretty clear that O’Leary’s motivation in this thread is similar to Mario Lopez’s motivation in his Nazi thread: to attempt to refute people’s ideas with attacks on their characters. Lopez (or at least the commentators in the thread) hope that by associating Darwin with Nazism or by calling Darwin a racist you will somehow conclude that the theory that Darwin originated is therefore wrong. O’Leary is miffed that wikipedia (rightfully) calls ID what it is: the new form of creationist pseudoscience. She therefore ad homs wikipedia editors, calling them introverted, disagreeable, and closed-minded, with the hope that readers will conclude that what they say about ID must therefore somehow be wrong. It should be apparent what logical fallacies both of these threads commit. At least O’Leary, when called on the speciousness of her comments, was wily enough to have protected herself: “I was just joking!”
I found pass Wikipedia articles on I.D. funny. They never seem to get quite right. the biggest question do these poeple write what they understand off an argument for I.D.. Do these editors ever go to book to get it right and then tell have ever one feels about it.
spark300c, did you consider looking at:
a. The talk page
and:
b. The list of works cited
?
PaulBurnett,
“Unlike Wikipedia, the majority of Conservapedia articles appear to have been written by a high school sophomore in a hurry. Citing Conservapedia on any given topic is advocating a much lower standard of scholarship than citing Wikipedia.”
My intention in citing Conservapedia was to show that they got ID right, while Wikipedia is constantly revising their article on ID, and never quite getting it right. Their’s appears as more of a political ideologue’s impression of ID rather than what ID actually is. I’m really not in favor of any of these online encyclopedias, where pretty much anybody can insert their ideas. And as far as finding good information? Forget it. Sadly, a lot of people rely on them.
BTW PaulBurnett,
I never use Conservapedia. I use Wiki often, but for info on more benign subjects – such as music history and literature, etc. Conservapedia simply does not have the vast data base that Wiki has.
I use Wikipedia often myself, for the very simple reason that it contains a mountain of useful information, available at the touch of a button. Obviously, Conservapedia doesn’t hold a candle to Wikipedia, although it does have a few thought-provoking articles.
It would be unwise to read too much into the psychological study of Wikipedia contributors cited in the report in The Age, given the study’s modest conclusions and methodological limitations.
Far more disturbing, however, is the following extract from the report in The Age:
I am not questioning the contributors’ intelligence or breadth of knowledge. What worries me is their apparent lack of openness to radically new ideas which threaten to overturn the scientific status quo – as shown by their inability to come to grips with, or even agree on a satisfactory definition of, intelligent design. In that sense, Wikipedia might be described as the real Conservapedia on the Web.
One does not need to suppose that any conspiracy is going on here. The real cause of Wikipedia’s resistance to radical ideas might simply be that its board of moderators has grown too big, and that institutional inertia has set in.
indeed. the humorless cads protesting the methods or conclusions of this paper are not adding anything to your insightful analysis, Ms O’Leary.
I would be interested to know how many of these wikipedia editors are darwinists and how many find it acceptable to squelch opposing viewpoints from other editors as we often see from the darwinist side.
My view is that the truth cannot be stopped, just like ID is a growing movement also the liberal stranglehold on wikipedia will be broken by the keen and growing competition from conservapedia.
Me:”Wrong again – ID started before that.”
Sparc: “Indeed, about 6K BC, on a Monday morning.”
Not quite, Johnathan Witt remarks that the beginnings of the Design arguments in biology can be traced to the 1950s and further into the 1970s with the discovery of the double helix in the DNA – and then more explicitly with Michael Polanyi in the 1960s; “machines are irreducible to physics and chemistry” and… “mechanistic structures of living beings appear to be likewise irreducible.”
http://www.evolutionnews.org/T.....Design.pdf
Witt states: “Polanyi’s work also influenced the seminal 1984 book The Mystery of Life’s Origin by Charles Thaxton (Ph.D., Physical Chemistry, Iowa State University), Walter Bradley (Ph.D., Materials Science, University of Texas, Austin), and Roger Olsen (Ph.D., Geochemistry, Colorado School of Mines). Thaxton and his co-authors argued that matter and energy can accomplish only so much by themselves, and that some things can only “be accomplished through what Michael Polanyi has called ‘a profoundly informative intervention.’”
Polanyi’s irreducible mechanistic structures inspired Dr. Michael Behe’s “irreducible complexity.”
To my best knowledge I am in no way related to spark300c.
VJtroley,
“I am not questioning the contributors’ intelligence or breadth of knowledge. What worries me is their apparent lack of openness to radically new ideas which threaten to overturn the scientific status quo – as shown by their inability to come to grips with, or even agree on a satisfactory definition of, intelligent design. In that sense, Wikipedia might be described as the real Conservapedia on the Web.”
Indeed. I tested this dynamic by looking up another much older controversial subject, astrology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrology
The article was rather benign, and quite informative. It seems that ID is taken to the slaughter compared to an obviously more esoteric subject such as astrology. One would think by comparing the two that astrology actually has more respectability than the notion of design.
VJtorley,
We find in the astrology article:
“Astrology has played an important role in the shaping of culture, early astronomy, the Vedas,[1] the Bible,[2] and various disciplines throughout history.”
Nowhere near the beginning of the Intelligent Design article do we find “Design has played an important role in the shaping of culture…” yet design inferences have been made since Plato, and were instrumental in the beginnings of Darwinism itself.
The article would have been more accurate if like the Astrology article, it begins by tracing the history of Design inferences from Plato, through Aquinas, to Paley, Thaxton and Polanyi, Behe, Dembski, etc. – but it does none of that. When it mentions any of these supporters of ID, it is only in relation to the negative impression of them from detractors.
And here’s another issue – once someone were to write a more in-depth and informative article on ID, it would most assuredly be deleted or revised so that only one side gets to define it.
Sparc,
“To my best knowledge I am in no way related to spark300c.”
Yes, I gathered that. My fault. I’m so used to abbreviating people’s names here. Sorry for the mixup. 🙂
Sparc and Sparc300c,
It seems I’m getting both of you mixed up now. lol.
VJ @ 19:
You are far too generous, VJ. The actual study merits no conclusions whatsoever, modest or otherwise. It’s methodological flaws are not mere “limitations” – rather they are completely fatal WRT inferences about these populations. The study is worthless.
For The Age to continue, “The researchers’ findings that Wikipedians were introverted, disagreeable and closed to new ideas is at odds with the notion that Wikipedia was built around community and knowledge sharing” is unwarranted. The study warrants no such conclusion. Moses either didn’t read it or is incapable of evaluating research of this kind.
What remains are some opinions about Wikipedia.
OUT, wayward apostrophe.
This is exactly why my college professors have told me, repeatedly, “For the love of God, don’t use Wikipedia as a source” when writing research papers.
“This is exactly why my college professors have told me, repeatedly, “For the love of God, don’t use Wikipedia as a source” when writing research papers.”
When I was in school – long before the internet, I was told to never use encyclopedias as sources when writing research papers. Encyclopedias are actually excellent places to start some research if you know nothing about a subject, because it gives you some sources, but they can also be very outdated sources.
One good thing about Wikipedia is that a lot of their sources are more up to date than the average hard-copy encyclopedia.
CY:
Re: the ID article
That’s because ID isn’t the same thing as the teleological argument aka argument from design:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleological_argument
nicholas.steno (#20) wrote: “…the liberal stranglehold on wikipedia will be broken by the keen and growing competition from conservapedia.”
I sure hope that was a joke, because it’s really funny.
Here, for instance, is the entire article on “Plastic” from Conservapedia: “Plastic is a durable, (sometimes) recyclable material formed from oil that is nearly ubiquitous in American consumer products. Plastics were discovered in the mid-1900s, and entered into wide use almost as quickly.” – http://www.conservapedia.com/Plastic
Wikipedia’s “Plastic” article takes over twenty screens to display (on my monitor). Conservapedia’s two-sentence article is mostly wrong, and far from “keen.” But, yeah, there’s definitely room to grow, so you are correct that Conservapedia is “growing” – but it’s got a long way to go to catch up to Wikipedia.
CannuckianYankee (#21) wrote: “Polanyi’s irreducible mechanistic structures inspired Dr. Michael Behe’s “irreducible complexity.”
Dr. Dick Bliss’ article in the June 1994 issue of the Creation Research Society Quarterly, from which Behe’s “theory” of irreducible complexity was plagiarized, provided lots more “inspiration” to Behe. This is discussed in Matthew Chapman’s book “40 Days and 40 Nights.”
PaulBurnett,
Dr. Dick Bliss’ article in the June 1994 issue of the Creation Research Society Quarterly, from which Behe’s “theory” of irreducible complexity was plagiarized, provided lots more “inspiration” to Behe. This is discussed in Matthew Chapman’s book “40 Days and 40 Nights.”
Matthew Chapman would appear to have a new twist on an old argument – actually accusing Behe of plagiarism. I hope he can present substantial evidence for this.
As it stands, a common scheme among Darwinists is to show ID’s ties to prior arguments from creationists so as to show that ID is in-fact, simply a new form of creationism with the same old arguments.
For a refutation of that argument, go here:
http://telicthoughts.com/to-be.....eationist/
“Wikipedia’s “Plastic” article takes over twenty screens to display (on my monitor). Conservapedia’s two-sentence article is mostly wrong, and far from “keen.” But, yeah, there’s definitely room to grow, so you are correct that Conservapedia is “growing” – but it’s got a long way to go to catch up to Wikipedia.”
Agreed. BTW, I took a look at both Wiki’s articla on Baraminology and Conservapedias. I found the Conservapedia one more ballanced. It presented what Baraminology is, allowed a section on disagreements, and was rather well ballanced. Not so with Wiki. They present a very sharp almost comical negation and that is all.
It would be interesting if we took both sides of the controversy on this forum to collectively write an article presenting ID to have published on Wiki. I bet all of us collectively could do a better job than what is currently there. Such an article would need to allow the pro-side to present what ID is first, then there could be a section discussing the cons, and how ID supporters respond.
PB, it wasn’t Dick Bliss, but rather Richard D. Lumsden in an article called “Not So Blind A Watchmaker”. abstract reads:
Interesting, to say the least. Especially that final sentence.
Here’s another interesting abstract from that June ’94 issue of the Creation Research Society Quarterly Journal:
Here’s a good one June 1967:
Sounds quite familiar. As I recall, Joseph has been using a variant of this argument on a current thread here, updated with some modern genetic details. I think he may have even proposed an experiment looking to confirm the existence of this “formal cause”.
Irreducible complexity by any other name…
From 1969 (bolding mine):
Of course, it’s not really ID because he, erm, IDed the Designer.
Also from that issue, a double-shot of “common design”. Just search and replace a few bits of vocabulary mentally as you read (and excise the Scripture):
Well, that was interesting. Others can post further examples if they wish. Here’s the page for abstracts by issue:
http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq/abstracts.htm
#32
sorry about that i am quite unused to these html thingies
paragraphs 1 was quoted, 2 3 4 my response
dbthomas,
“That’s because ID isn’t the same thing as the teleological argument aka argument from design:”
Sorry so late – I try to respond to everyone who responds to me, but this one sort of slipped by me.
I’m confused. Are you making an argument that ID IS a teleological argument for the existence of God?
If so, I disagree. ID is only concerned whether or not there is design, while a teleological argument takes apparent design as an argument for God’s existence.
Paley’s “Watchmaker” argument:
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/paley.html
http://philosophy.lander.edu/intro/paley.shtml
…is a teleological argument, but it is not quite ID. The evidence for design that ID detects supports teleological arguments, but is not itself one.
And this is part of what the Wikipedia article on ID gets wrong.
dbthomas,
BTW, ID supporters do not deny that much of ID thinking comes from creationist ideas – as you have taken time to point out. This is not surprising, since many IDists are either creationists in one sense of the word, or were creationists in the same sense or another. It’s important to distinguish one very important difference – ID does not appeal to biblical text as a test or guide for the veracity of it’s argument. ID looks only to the evidence from nature.
ID supporters for the most part don’t spend their time denegrating the ideas of creationists.
CY: OK, you kinda mistook my intent there. You were wondering why the ID article didn’t mention Plato or Aquinas and so forth. My point was that ID isn’t identical to the teleological argument in general. It certainly makes use of the basic idea, but ID also includes other arguments about the boundaries science, is characterized by a particular jargon, such as IC or CSI, which typically relies on more current knowledge, etc. By the same token, I wouldn’t say that Paley’s Natural Theology was the precisely the same thing either, because it had it’s own features, unique to its time and place of composition, that distinguished it from earlier versions of the AfD deployed by, say, Plato or Aristotle.
Here’s another thing: almost all of those historical versions, which you yourself brought up as antecedents to ID that should have been mentioned, explicitly were arguments for the existence of a deity of some sort. They weren’t just about saying “Look, that’s gotta be designed.” So, if I were an IDer, insisting that it’s not about proving God, I have to say I would not want to emphasize the connection with historical examples of the teleological argument like those you cited. I find it sort of odd that you want the Wikipedia article to do just that.
dbthomas,
“Here’s another thing: almost all of those historical versions, which you yourself brought up as antecedents to ID that should have been mentioned, explicitly were arguments for the existence of a deity of some sort. They weren’t just about saying “Look, that’s gotta be designed.” So, if I were an IDer, insisting that it’s not about proving God, I have to say I would not want to emphasize the connection with historical examples of the teleological argument like those you cited. I find it sort of odd that you want the Wikipedia article to do just that.”
I see now where the connection is. Let me clarify my thinking on this. The evidence for ID allows one to make a design inference. I don’t think ID supporters need to be embarrassed by the history of how humans have made design inferences. ID is not completely separated from that history, just as it is not completely separated from creationism.
However, as I pointed out in earlier posts, and as you have agreed, ID is not the same as a teleological argument. The teleological arguments in my view are valid, but not empirical. I believe ID is impirical.
So I think any thorough examination of ID would logically look at historical design inferences, to see how the thinking evolved into a more rigorous exploration of the evidence.
dbthomas,
Furthermore, design inferences in the past necessitated that the designer is a god or God. With more updated evidence we can see that such an assumption is not necessitated by the empirical data – while making the same inference is not at all invalid. Necessity and implication are different things altogether. Design implies God, and I think it is the most clear implication of design, but it doesn’t necessitate God. This is why I think there are a lot of agnostics and a few deists who accept ID. Antony Flew is an example of this.
We now have to accept that design inferences are metaphysically based. But metaphysical notions can have natural evidences. The danger is in ruling them out categorically – because in so doing, we forget that we are still making metaphysical assumptions.
As a theist, I have to allow others to come to their own conclusions, if I’m to be faithful to being a theist. I don’t believe God wants anybody to believe in a lie. The type of theism I accept allows that God is every bit a part of natural reality – although he is not a part of material nature – He is transcendent. As such, it is my belief that the empirical evidence will show and has shown that design is the better paradigm. But I have to allow the evidence to speak for itself, and not to force it to conform to a particular text, or interpretation of such a text.
So if somebody wants to infer that space aliens designed our biological nature via transpermia, fine; but I don’t believe that is the most parsimonious interpretation of the data due to the fact that it doesn’t sufficiently resolve the infinite regress problem.
I come to that conclusion not based on the empirical evidence, but based on my own metaphysical understanding.
You have probably noticed that I have interjected my own metaphysical understanding into my views on ID. Fine. We all do it. Darwinists interject “a god would not have designed the world as it is,” purely out of metaphysical assumptions. That is pretty much what this debate is about.
So when Darwinists come here to discuss and notice that we spend a lot of time talking about God and religion, they have to understand that we are doing what the evidence leads us to – not what we want to force on the evidence.
Wikipedia completely misunderstands this dynamic, and I think their article is intellectually shallow.
I wrote (#32) that “Conservapedia’s two-sentence article (“Plastic”) is mostly wrong…
…and nicholas.steno (#41) complained: “mostly wrong? i don’t see what is wrong with the factual content of the conservapedia article.
Thanks for that cogent observation. “Durable” is not a characteristic of all plastics; some plastics are not “formed from oil”; while plastics may be “nearly ubiquitous in American consumer products,” the audience for Wikipedia is purportedly planet-wide, not solely American. Plastics were not “discovered in the mid-1900s” but much earlier. Most of the “facts” in the two sentence “article” are wrong – or useless.
nicholas continued: “you seem to equate quantity with quality. trivial useless detail… I’m sure anyone looking at a wiki page isn’t looking for that sort of information. they just need the bare fact”
That’s the difference between a dictionary and an encyclopedia. Dictionaries can properly have a one or two sentence description. Encyclopedias are supposed to be…encyclopedic.