Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Distasteful
Over at William Dembski's Uncommon Descent, apprentice blogger DaveScot thinks it may have been a mistake for the former Dover school board to have referred to the wannabe ID textbook, Of Pandas and People, in their statement dissing evolution:
Saying the Dover board made a mistake by referring students to the book because it later became the only formidable obstacle in a winning defense, strikes RSR very much as saying the only reason the bear got his foot caught in the trap was because he made the mistake of being born with four paws.
Of Pandas and People, and all it's drafts, are merely the hard evidence -- the tracks left behind by ID advocates as they traveled the well-worn path from creationism to intelligent design.
Dembski apparently sees qualities in DaveScot that others of us have missed. In fact, not long ago, Dembski climbed down from the driver's seat at Uncommon Descent and handed the keys to DaveScot and a few of his friends.
Perhaps, Dembski came to appreciate DaveScot's talents after he posted this comment on the blog in November:
We claim no particular insight into Dembski's inner thoughts; however, if you can infer intelligent design from viewing a bacterial flagellum, if you can assume an intelligence is responsible for the appearance of design in nature, then what exactly is supposed prevent us from assuming that DaveScot was promoted to Uncommon Descent's executive suite because he believes "Islam is a cancer growing on the planet"?
Who was it that said, if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it must be a duck?
"Distasteful as it is," he writes, "I have to agree with Harvey and Matzke. The history of Of Pandas and People was the only formidable obstacle in a winning defense."Skip over, for the moment, the perjured testimony of the defendants. Ignore too, if you can, the woeful testimony of ID "experts" Michael Behe and Scott Minnich. And, pay no heed to the admission that under ID's definition, astrology would qualify as science. Let's focus, for now, on DaveScot's assertion that "it was all about the book."
Saying the Dover board made a mistake by referring students to the book because it later became the only formidable obstacle in a winning defense, strikes RSR very much as saying the only reason the bear got his foot caught in the trap was because he made the mistake of being born with four paws.
Of Pandas and People, and all it's drafts, are merely the hard evidence -- the tracks left behind by ID advocates as they traveled the well-worn path from creationism to intelligent design.
Dembski apparently sees qualities in DaveScot that others of us have missed. In fact, not long ago, Dembski climbed down from the driver's seat at Uncommon Descent and handed the keys to DaveScot and a few of his friends.
Perhaps, Dembski came to appreciate DaveScot's talents after he posted this comment on the blog in November:
Islam is a cancer growing on the planet. It needs to be killed not accommodated. It’s an ugly, dysfunctional belief system even in milder forms, that subjugates the female half of the population. However, since we can’t just kill them all (we can kill the worst offenders though) we have to put a more attractive alternative in place. The more attractive alternative is democracy. Islam can’t survive in democracies for long. It won’t go down without a fight so there must be some bloodshed before it’s a closed chapter in history.
We claim no particular insight into Dembski's inner thoughts; however, if you can infer intelligent design from viewing a bacterial flagellum, if you can assume an intelligence is responsible for the appearance of design in nature, then what exactly is supposed prevent us from assuming that DaveScot was promoted to Uncommon Descent's executive suite because he believes "Islam is a cancer growing on the planet"?
Who was it that said, if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it must be a duck?
