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Talk:Intelligent design/Archive 86

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Latest comment: 6 years ago by MPants at work in topic My $0.02 on the issue of bias
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Latest comment: 6 years ago55 comments17 people in discussion
Objections were raised and addressed, arguments made and invalidated. When the trolls start accusing the rest of the community of trolling, it's time to move on. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:30, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The source citations used for the opening sentence of the article are highly specific to a particular country. Questioning reasoning to use them as sources in a non country-specific context, without even mentioning the specificity. Violates "Neutral Point of View Policy" as it presents opinion of a US Federal Court as a fact, even outside of its jurisdiction.— Preceding unsigned comment added by The scar face (talk • contribs) 06:15, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

The opening sentence does not even have a source. (The introduction is supposed to summarize the article, so it doe not need sources.) So, which source are you talking about? There is no sentence that is sourced only to a Federal Court decision. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:24, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I know that opening sentence does not have a source citation, right next to it. I am talking about the whole article and the fact that the opening sentence seems to be based, at least to some extent, on the Federal Court ruling. If an article has a fallacious citations, then whether the whole conclusion of article is justified, seems to be debatable. What I see you arguing is that, premises using fallacious citations are acceptable for establishing conclusion. I hope that it is just my misunderstanding and you meant something different. The scar face (talk) 10:01, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

According to the policy WP:LEAD, the opening section of the article is supposed to summarize the content of the rest of the article, and does not require sources to do so. Now, if you have an issue with the sourcing in the body of the article, that's a separate question. But whatever is in the body is supposed to be summarized in the lead. Alephb (talk) 10:04, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
The lead does contain a source. And the question was raised specifically over it. What you are telling me is to raise a concern that is in lead, in body. I also see that you are using opening sentence and lead, which refers to the opening section, interchangeably. Suggesting that I should edit body and not opening section, when the source is attached in opening section, seems highly disingenuous, to be frank.— Preceding unsigned comment added by The scar face (talk • contribs) 10:35, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
Please use indentations ":" when you respond to a Talk page contribution. Alephb used one colons, so you should two colons in your response. I corrected that for you. Also, please sign your contributions. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:40, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
When somebody has a problem with an article, they should be able to tell others what that problem is. You said your problem was with "source citations used for the opening sentence". As I pointed out, there is no such thing. So your problem must be somewhere else.
Now you say you are "talking about the whole article". That is pretty unspecific. What do you expect us to do, throw it away and write a new one, then ask you if you are happy with that one? Then repeat until you are? We cannot read your thoughts unless you write them down.
If you want to change something, you must be able to tell us what. Quote a specific sentence here, say what you want it to look like instead. And give a reliable source for the new sentence.
"What I see you arguing is that [..]" I have no idea what you are trying to say here. You come across as pretty confused. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:40, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

So, let me put it in an extremely watered down language. The lead sentence claims that Intelligent Design is a religious argument for God's existence. Whether it is summary of the body or a statement in itself, it must be established. One of the citation that supposedly establishes that, is the US Federal Court decision., which I point out is highly specific to a particular country. When the opening sentence mentions that it is a religious argument, it should either mention context, or does not use a qualifier at all, because it is a misrepresentation. The scar face (talk) 10:50, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

The first two sentences have two citations: [1] Ron Numbers, includes "claim to have found indisputable evidence of a God-like being. ... Although the religious roots of the design argument go back centuries, its contemporary incarnation dates from the 1980s". That covers the point raised, and Ron isn't a he Federal Court ruling. Neither is [2] Meyer, Stephen C.. Perhaps The scar face is thinking of the point that Ron's expert opinion has been backed up by the Kitzmiller ruling, as explained later in the lead: it's a fact that the court set a persuasive precedent, which carries weight beyond its immediate jurisdiction. Nothing wrong with that. The second sentence shows some of the context, and the clear majority expert view is that ID is a religious argument, as also acknowledged by its proponentists when they're not denying it. Tsf seems to be promoting a fringe view. . dave souza, talk 11:01, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
[Edit conflict] There are a lot of sources, scientific sources, that say it is like that. For example:
  • "Like creation science, intelligent design centers on Paley's religious argument from design" has a source ("Biological design in science classrooms").
  • "The movement is headquartered in the Center for Science and Culture, established in 1996 as the creationist wing of the Discovery Institute to promote a religious agenda" has a source ("The Wedge").
  • "the movement's "activities betray an aggressive, systematic agenda for promoting not only intelligent design creationism, but the religious worldview that undergirds it."" has a source ("The Wedge at Work").
You can easily find other such sources by search for "religi" in the article, then looking at the bracketed numbers.
The court decision is based on those sources and on other sources like that. There is no problem here. You are clutching at straws. It has been established that ID is a religious idea, dishonestly presented as scientific, and technicalities like pointing at one specific source, when there are enough others, will not change that. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:06, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

I do not see how the first citation shows that Intelligent Design is a religious argument. Ron does not suggest that in at least, what is provided as citation. For example, a statistical proof that shows that Free Markets have higher GDP than Communist Markets, is not a Capitalist proof. It is a statistical proof. "it's a fact that the court set a persuasive precedent, which carries weight beyond its immediate jurisdiction. Nothing wrong with that." - Yes, this is problematic because courts of USA do not have jurisdiction over the areas outside USA. This is not "Neutral Point of View". Just like it would not be neutral if I was defining a legal term, strictly based on what UK courts believe. For simple reason, that it does not apply to other countries. "The second sentence shows some of the context, and the clear majority expert view is that ID is a religious argument, as also acknowledged by its proponentists when they're not denying it. Tsf seems to be promoting a fringe view." - The second sentence deals with the fact whether it is a pseudoscience or not and not whether it is religious. The scar face (talk) 11:35, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

To make a long story short, Wikipedia is a place where we kowtow to the academic mainstream. If you don't like doing that, you won't like it here. See WP:ABIAS. Tgeorgescu (talk) 11:26, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Well, I am still seeking evidence of that mainstream. It is not hard to imagine or a revelation that the editors herein choose those sources that agree with their views, but at least, they should mention these sources, and cite how they represent consensus.

The scar face (talk) 11:36, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

I don't want to offend you, but saying that mainstream scientists don't consider ID as a religious argument is close to being delusional. Tgeorgescu (talk) 11:38, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
There are plenty of citations all over the article that make the religious nature of intelligent design very clear. If you read the whole article and look at all the footnotes, you should have no problem understanding this. Alephb (talk) 11:44, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
If you have other reliable sources that say the opposite, give them. If you don't, your claim that "the editors herein choose those sources that agree with their views" is just fantasy. (My bet is on the second.) --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:54, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

"I don't want to offend you, but saying that mainstream scientists don't consider ID as a religious argument is close to being delusional." Sadly, this is not an argument, but just an assertion. ":There are plenty of citations all over the article that make the religious nature of intelligent design very clear. If you read the whole article and look at all the footnotes, you should have no problem understanding this." - According to the guidelines, the sources must follow closely what is written in the article. Can you provide a direct quote that establishes the sentence, with consensus? ":If you have other reliable sources that say the opposite, give them. If you don't, your claim that "the editors herein choose those sources that agree with their views" is just fantasy." - This is not the way Burden of Proof works. It is on the claimant. I am not claiming anything, except that the sources attached do not establish the first sentence. The scar face (talk) 12:00, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Have you read the whole article, and looked at the footnotes attached to sentences that have to do with the relationship between Intelligent design and religion? Alephb (talk) 12:02, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
Per WP:NOTFORUM, this isn't a debate forum (not Debatepedia). We have rules for what's allowed as argument. Tgeorgescu (talk) 12:15, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
"This is not the way Burden of Proof works" Bullshit. Find your own sources and show us that the sources in the article are biased. Until you do that, the sources in the article are authoritative. You cannot just claim "the editors herein choose those sources that agree with their views" without evidence and expect us to accept that.
So far, you are a typical creationist WP:SPA WP:POV warrior: claiming that it is not so, without sources; nitpicking at irrelevant technicalities; whining that what Wikipedia says does not agree with what you believe. We get regular visits from users like you, and they all fail to convince anybody because their reasoning is always as poor as yours. --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:22, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
@ The scar face, WP:SOURCES is Wikipedia policy, as is WP:WEIGHT. Your assertions are in the wrong place. . . dave souza, talk 12:39, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
@The scar face:, please provide a reliable, reputable source that explicitly states that Intelligent Design is not religious, and overrides the documented original intentions of Intelligent Design's proponents and creators, or please stop.--Mr Fink (talk) 15:08, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Well, I am still seeking evidence of that mainstream. Please read:

These should help to understand the current state of mainstream knowledge (and that ID is indeed religious arguments using pseudoscience to support preconceptions) and how relevant Wikipedia articles should report this. —PaleoNeonate – 17:40, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

If you'd like to have a source for the intro sentence in the lede, there's this. PiCo (talk) 23:03, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Actually I wonder if that sentence is correct: a religious argument for the existence of God? Surely better to drop the word "religious". PiCo (talk) 23:07, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

a) The lede does not need a source, save for very special circumstances in very special situations, and
b) "Intelligent Design" is a religious argument because its creators have 1) been repeatedly documented as directly implying that the Intelligent Designer in question is none other than God as described in the Holy Bible, and 2) been repeatedly documented as outright stating that Intelligent Design is one of a long, long list of shameless attempts to shoehorn lawsuit-proof religiously inspired anti-science propaganda into science classrooms in order to replace science curricula.--Mr Fink (talk) 23:43, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

The subjective judgement in the opening of this article is incredible. Is there a similar opening for the evolution articles saying that they're a religious argument against the existence of a god? I don't need to look that up to know the answer. Agree or disagree, but the collective personal biases of the consensus, which by the way is not measured in any way I can see, does not speak well of the objectivity of this site. I don't have a ton of experience with it, but what I do have is now colored. And no, you may not assume that I am a proponent of intelligent design. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.74.215.163 (talk • contribs) 16:06, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

What you have is your own opinion, but WP:NOTAFORUM and this page is for discussing properly sourced proposals for article improvement. . dave souza, talk 16:22, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
In the first sentence of this article, wouldn't it be more appropriate to first cite the founders of Intelligent Design to define what it is they're asserting before citing opposing viewpoints? According to them, ID attempts, through abductive reasoning, to explain the origin of information found in DNA and complex biological systems as the product of an intelligent mind - since intelligent minds are the only known source of complex, information-driven systems, it makes sense to infer the same kind of origin for the information-driven complex biological systems in question. It seems strange to lead the Intelligent Design article with an outsider's dissenting opinion of what they think they're about (a religious argument for the existence of God). That seems biased to me. The vast majority of articles I've read on Wikipedia start with what a group asserts about themselves first and then afterward they cite criticisms of the group. So my objection is the ordering of the sides of the argument at the start of the article. I'm fine with having both sides represented, just in the proper order. Thoughts? --Rcronk (talk) 04:33, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
How about Flat Earth or Geocentrism? This is the way we treat WP:FRINGE subjects. Tgeorgescu (talk) 05:26, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
As for the suggested source, it's Meyer, S.C. (1999) "DNA by Design: An Inference to the Best Explanation for the Origin of Biological Information." Rhetoric and Public Affairs, (Michigan State University Press: Lansing, Michigan) Volume 1, No. 4., pp. 519-555.
It's not a definition, and it's hard to see where you get one from in Meyer's windy article. Conveniently, it was superseded by their Topp Questions in 2004 which told us that "The theory of intelligent design holds 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." As of 2014 it looks the same, with a "for more info" addition. This source adds the assertion that it's a scientific theory, which of course it isn't. See the second paragraph of the lead. . dave souza, talk 06:02, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
Since intelligent minds are the only known source of complex, information-driven systems: because evolutionary systems work, we also use them to develop certain complex algorithm types. There also is a lot of evidence against this belief. While the article can summarize their beliefs and arguments (which I have the impression is the case), we cannot promote them. —PaleoNeonate – 17:18, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
I don't want to get into a debate here about genetic programming techniques and how they compare to random mutation of DNA and natural selection. The book Evolutionary Informatics addresses that topic and, in my opinion, the comparison between genetic engineering and chemical and biological evolution is invalid. I'm a software engineer who has modeled random mutation of the sort commonly accepted by evolutionists and it doesn't work because of the massive search space involved. My original point here, though, was to look at the ordering of the first paragraph and lead with what the group itself asserts, and then follow with any objections. It definitely is a WP:FRINGE point of view, so I'm fine with it being presented as such. In my opinion, the first paragraph is misleading as it currently stands - it doesn't paint the true picture of both points of view. If nobody here agrees with my point of view on the first paragraph, I'm fine with it being left as-is. I just wanted to bring it up and get the consensus. --63.158.132.10 (talk) 17:44, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
You're right that this is WP:NOTAFORUM, if you do want to propose article changes you need reliable third party sources, and what you've suggested is a dodgy primary source and a wiki, which isn't reliable. An area you could research: you say evolution "doesn't work because of the massive search space involved", you don't seem to realise that evolution is a really really massive search, as Douglas Adams might have put it. Try reading some mainstream publications about how evolution works, or in relation to ID you could work through this series – part 2 apparently includes code and methodology to try it yourself. . . dave souza, talk 18:20, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for the additional sources, Dave. I will read them. I have discussed these things with biology professors and have read mainstream books and it's actually quite surprising that they haven't addressed my concerns and have taken a lot for granted. Often, they walk away from the conversation while throwing ad hominem attacks when they can't address the issues at hand. I hope your sources contain better information. I think I'm fine leaving the article introduction as-is. The more I read it, the more I realize that while the ordering isn't what I would want, it does give both sides at least a decent mention. --Rcronk (talk) 03:50, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
The source Forrest, Barbara (May 2007). "Understanding the Intelligent Design Creationist Movement: Its True Nature and Goals" - and all claims associated with it, should be removed from this article. Not only is the sources extremely biased, she also has numerous factual errors in her paper, which she supports with references to her own published works, instead of references to the Discovery institute. She also has references to the ICR, as if the ICR is relevant to a discussion on the Discovery Institute. She claims that the Discovery Institute campaigned to have Intelligent Design taught in public schools. This is a lie: https://evolutionnews.org/2005/11/the_truth_about_discovery_inst/ " Discovery Institute’s science education policy has been consistent and clear. We strongly believe that teaching about intelligent design is constitutionally permissible, but we think mandatory inclusion of intelligent design in public school curricula is ill-advised. Instead, we recommend that schools require only that the scientific evidence for and against neo-Darwinism be taught, while not infringing on the academic freedom of teachers to present appropriate information about intelligent design if they choose."
"Discovery Institute repeatedly advised the Dover School Board and Thomas More that the board’s intelligent design policy enacted in the fall of 2004 was problematic and should be replaced. The Dover Board and Thomas More chose to reject Discovery Institute’s advice."
The claim that the Intelligent Design movement is just a name change from Creationism is also false. Micheal Behe, for instance, was never a Young Earth Creationist, and still is not. The use of sources that makes claims about Intelligent Design which directly contradict the writings of Intelligent Design proponents themselves is clear evidence that this article is biased and factually incorrect. The fact that the source also repeatedly use her own writings as references, does not help the matter. Since there is a community of activists who refuse to allow for even minor corrections on this article, I will leave it to them make the changes to see how unbiased they really are. --Hanno den Boer (talk) 17:52, 07 December 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.161.59.178 (talk)
This is an encyclopedia heavily biased for mainstream science, we follow WP:SOURCES. Hannodb does not exist. Hannodb does. Tgeorgescu (talk) 18:45, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
That is hardly the point. I get that mainstream science view Evolution as the standard theory, and reject Intelligent design as a valid theory, or even as science. Though I disagree with that position, I accept that, I don't have a problem with the mainstream disagreeing with Intelligent Design. What I do have a problem with, is the mainstream misrepresenting and slandering the position of Intelligent Design in order to discredit it. This article makes numerous objective assertions of what Intelligent Design is, and then it quotes from sources who opposes and misrepresent intelligent design. You might as well write an article on what Capitalism is using a majority of Communist sources - it's not hard to see why such an article will not be balanced. I do not mind the criticism of Intelligent Design, what I do mind, is the misrepresentation of what Intelligent Design actually is, and the use of inaccurate and biased sources to do so. Barbarra Forrest's conspiracy theories on what Intelligent Design is, is not science and it is not an accurate representation of Intelligent Design. It should be removed. I speak as someone who have read many Intelligent Design books, and who have seen its arguments grossly misrepresented by its opponents, I know what I'm talking about. Unfortunately, I have a life outside of Wikipedia, and I do not have the time to indefinitely argue and fight an army of Wikipedia Gestapo who probably never read any first hand sources on Intelligent Design. I see in the history I'm not the first who tried to reason with this army, and I'm won't to be the last. Your attempts to censor even the most reasonable of corrections clearly shows that you have no interest in giving a fair presentation of what ID is. Sure: the article can say it is pseudoscience (even though it is not), sure, it can argue that it has no empirical evidence (even though it has). But when it states what the affirmative position of intelligent design by labeling it as a "religious argument", that is an inexcusable factual error and a misrepresentation, which has nothing to do on whether ID is science or not. --Hanno den Boer (talk) 17:52, 08 December 2017 (UTC)
I love the Gestapo insult. As for the rest of your screed, it’s just bollocks. -Roxy, Zalophus californianus. barcus 08:18, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
You just justified the Gestapo insult. Dismissing an argument with "it's just bollocks" is hardly an intellectual way to refute an argument. How many books have you read by intelligent design proponents? I've read "Darwin's Black Box", "The Edge of Evolution", "Signature in the Cell", "Darwin's Doubt", among many other, and they are all vastly removed from the description given of Intelligent design in this article. I've also read "Doubts about Darwin" by Thomas Woodward, which document the read origin of Intelligent Design: Not Creationist, but scientists who were disillusioned by Evolution theory. Did Creationists fund them, or have an interest in their success? I bet they do, but the *INTELLECTUAL* origin of the movement does *not* come from Religion or Creationism. That is just a conspiracy theory by narrow minded people. And with that, I have said my peace. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.161.59.178 (talk) 08:25, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Learn to sign your posts, like this ~~~~ and please stop changing other people’s posts here, you will get into really serious bother. Thanks. Roxy, Zalophus californianus. barcus 08:31, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
"You just justified the Gestapo insult." - Yes: since the Gestapo's main weapon was to call their victims' ideas "bollocks", the parallel becomes obvious... oh, wait, that is not the case! There is no similarity between the Gestapo and anybody here. You fail.
"Micheal Behe, for instance, was never a Young Earth Creationist" Nice sleight of hand. You palmed the "Young Earth" wording into what Forrest said as if it had been there from the beginning. You fail again.
There is a lot of room for improvement in your "reasoning", but since there are no good reasons for ID, you'll have to change your goal first. --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:03, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
"Nice sleight of hand. You palmed the "Young Earth" wording into what Forrest said as if it had been there from the beginning." - You have not read the source before responding, have you? If Forrest did not intent Young Earth Creationism, why include the ICR in her list of sources, which is a Young Earth Creationist institution?
She writes:
“Intelligent design theory” is the newest variant of the traditional creationism that has plagued American public schools for decades.". "Traditional" Creationism is YEC. Yes, she goes on to say that ID is Old Earth Creationism, but later on, it is clear that according to Barbara, this is nothing more than an disingenuous political position taken in response to the 1987 verdict.
"In Darwin on Trial, Phillip Johnson argues that evolution is accepted by the scientific community only because scientists have made a dogmatic, a priori commitment to naturalism (Johnson, 1991). After the Supreme Court declared the teaching of creationism unconstitutional in Edwards v. Aguillard (1987), Johnson decided that the creationists had lost that case because of their unfair exclusion from science by the scientific community’s naturalistic definition of science. Consequently, creationists must redefine science to restore the supernatural: “Definitions of science, [Johnson] argued, could be contrived to exclude any conclusion we dislike or to include any we favor” (Nelson, 2002, 3). The ID movement thus chose to operate with an unworkable, pre-modern definition of science that requires appeals to the supernatural in order to construct an “adequate” explanation of natural phenomena.3 Yet ID proponents have never provided a plausible explanation of why untestable—hence unscientific—claims about supernatural causation are needed, or even useful, for understanding natural phenomena."
"As stated earlier, ID is the direct descendant of earlier forms of creationism. After Edwards, a group of creationists decided to adopt “intelligent design” terminology in an attempt to skirt this Supreme Court ruling (Forrest, 2005a, 16-18; 2005b)"
"They have jettisoned only the distinctive elements of young-earth creationism, such as Earth’s young age and Noah’s flood. These elements would too blatantly identify ID as creationism and thus prevent many of their sympathizers from endorsing the CSC’s agenda, knowing that doing so would automatically doom their efforts to legal defeat. However, revealing examples of the congruence between ID and the creation science of several decades ago can be gleaned from the writings of creation scientists and ID creationists, as a couple of examples suffice to show (taken from Forrest, 2005c)"
Edwards v. Aguillard (1987) was about YOUNG earth Creationism, and not only does Forrest claim that the "Intelligent Design" is a change in strategy as a direct result of the defeat of YEC in that case - which would imply that the same people who were defeated in Edwards v. Aguillard are now also the people pioneering the Intelligent Design movement - she constantly use herself as references for these claims.
It is clear that Barbara Forrest has an agenda to smear the Intelligent Design movement, and is therefore not a reliable source on this topic. Her quotes linking ID with religion is taken out of context, and is about as legitimate as using Richard Dawkins's quote "Although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist" as evidence that Evolution is nothing more than an anti-religious movement. There is the theory, and then there is people's personal opinion about the implications of the theory. Forrest disingenuously use quote mining to conflate the two in order to argue that ID is Creationism. For someone living outside the U.S, who is not influenced by the political debate around U.S. constitutional matters, it is quite clear that the Evolusionists in the U.S. has an agenda to smear ID in order to discredit it.
For instance: Consider the following quote: "Should BI produce any genuine science, it will not establish ID’s credibility any more than ICR and CRS have established the credibility of young-earth creationism; both ID and YEC rest on belief in a supernatural creator" - This is simply false, as ID makes no claims on the identity of the creator: It is one thing to find evidence for design, it is quite another to identify the designer. Many respectable scientists propose that life might have been engineered by aliens. If this is true, then that is a 100% confirmation of Intelligent Design. ID by no means require a supernatural designer. The only people who claims that, are the evolutionists who oppose ID.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.161.59.178 (talk) 15:47, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

With or without citing Forrest, it is clear that ID is creationism. Also, even though IP's arguments may fairly represent the arguments of ID proponents, they both fail by WP:PROFRINGE. If ID were a real scientific theory/hypothesis, all the fuss would be: does it make better predictions than modern synthesis or not? That would be a genuine scientific controversy, were ID to make any concrete and testable predictions. Since it fails to do that, it is no scientific theory, nor hypothesis, there is just the agit-prop sound of shooting blanks at Darwin and claiming he was hit by their bullets. Such sounds are all for the show, for advancing a religious agenda against mainstream science. Tgeorgescu (talk) 14:44, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
"With or without citing Forrest, it is clear that ID is creationism." - It is one thing to refute a position, it is quite another to misrepresent it. The accusation that ID is Creationism is not based in fact, but based on a mob of malicious opponents who would say and do anything to discredit Intelligent Design. Even if Intelligent Design was Creationism, is still would not justify the use of a source that blatantly misrepresent the the movement. I get that the majority of people here do not view ID as science, that is not the issue here. The issue here is that the position of ID itself is being misrepresented in order to discredit it, and that is the problem. You can claim that ID is not science, provided that you are refuting an accurate definition of Intelligent Design, not a Straw man. There is no such thing as "Intelligent Design Creationism" - it is a strawman created by those who wish to silence the movement, and anyone who uses that term only shows their own ignorance or dishonesty on the topic. The fact that you're perfectly ok with leaving a source in this article which is demonstrably false, demonstrate that those who police this article against corrections does not, in fact, care for a factual, non-biased representation of what ID is. They are in contravention with the rules of Wikipedia, but get away with it simply because they are the majority.
"If ID were a real scientific theory/hypothesis, all the fuss would be: does it make better predictions than modern synthesis or not?" - Except that ID proponents does make such predictions to test the theory with, but its opponents is too busy misrepresenting ID as a religious argument in order to avoid having to deal with the actual arguments and evidence provided by the movement. One example of this is Douglas Axe's research in how prevalent protein sequences are which result in functional enzyme folds. Another is that Junk DNA will ultimately prove to have some function, and already function is discovered for sequences which was previously thought to be junk. The arguments of Intelligent Design is entirely scientific (the inference to design in ID is in no way different to the inferences to design in archaeology or the SETI program), and based on empirical evidence. However, if all you've ever read about ID is what the opponents write about it, you might be forgiven for thinking that that is not the case. The opponents of ID is not interested in fair and open debate on the evidence. They want to force "scientific consensus" by shutting down all descending voices. Have you ever thought what it would do to the careers of thousands of evolutionary biologists if the criticism of evolutionary theory were found to have a valid basis? There is much more at stake here than just evolution as a scientific theory: The income and prestige of all those who specialized in this theory is at stake as well. It is therefore not surprising to find them acting in a most dishonest and unscientific way towards valid criticisms of the theory of Evolution. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.161.59.178 (talk) 17:58, 12 December 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 197.229.126.100 (talk)
First, Wikipedia is heavily biased for mainstream science and mainstream scholarship, see WP:NOTNEUTRAL. So, obviously, Wikipedia sides with the mainstream scientific/scholarly view. So, this is not a conspiracy/cabal, we are quite open about our bias, there's nothing to hide.
Second, there is a 9 million SEK reward for whoever shows the Big Bang to be busted. I expect similar rewards to exist for busting modern synthesis. To assume that all biologists have sworn obedience oaths to an idea which can fairly simply be shown to be false is a paranoid conspiracy theory.
Third, please list 10 original ID predictions about the eyes of vertebrates, i.e. show how ID has advanced our knowledge of the eye more than evolution did.
Fourth, in this article Wikipedia cites those widely considered as authorities upon science and epistemology. It does not cite WP:RANDY. Tgeorgescu (talk) 16:33, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

The ability to make successful predictions is a hallmark of valid scientific theories, but prediction is also one of the tools most abused by pseudoscientists. Velikovsky's infamous "predictions" that Jupiter should emit radio waves or Venus should be hot are prime examples. Prediction is valid only if the prediction follows rigorously from the theory, which Velikovsky's do not. Scattergun predictions, random hits, and after-the-fact coincidences with vague predictions are not valid.

— Steven Dutch, What Pseudoscience Tells us About Science
Quoted by Tgeorgescu (talk) 17:06, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
are in contravention with the rules of Wikipedia If necessary, WP:PARITY allows to use of substandard sources to represent the mainstream view when topics are not notable enough to have legitimate scholarly criticism. In this case the topic is notable and the scholarly criticism exists. Another is that Junk DNA will ultimately prove to have some function, and already function is discovered for sequences which was previously thought to be junk Biology doesn't view this as "junk" (which is a popular science term) and understands that genes of the chain that are deactivated are the result of ancestry. It's not by coincidence that in embryology, the fetus of mammals still go through stages inherited from earlier life forms. Other than the sources you mention, a number of universities and institutions also have statements against the promotion of pseudoscience including ID. It is simply fringe and the reliable sources describe it as rehashed creationism and its history and development can be traced. This is therefore what the article also shows. —PaleoNeonate – 17:14, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
"So, obviously, Wikipedia sides with the mainstream scientific/scholarly view." - You already raised this argument, and I already pointed out it is a strawman, as you're committing a category error. This article is *not* about what the mainstream scientific position, it is about intelligent design. My criticism is not about Intelligent Design being contrasted with the mainstream scientific view, it is about the misrepresentation of the position this article supposedly represents. Misrepresenting a position is not a valid way of refuting it. Also, Wikipedia requires articles to be NEUTRAL. That does not mean the article must endorse Intelligent Design, or refrain from criticizing it, it means that Intelligent Design must be represented accurately. See Larry Sangers comment below. Considering that he is one of the cofounders of Wikipedia, his comment cannot simply be dismissed.
"Second, there is a 9 million SEK reward for whoever shows the Big Bang to be busted." Creationists have raised similar challenges. Such rewards are meaningless when those who issue the reward will also be prosecutor, judge and jury.
"Second, there is a 9 million SEK reward for whoever shows the Big Bang to be busted." Yet another disingenuous strawman. Not "all biologists", only evolutionary biologists. These two fields deal with two vastly different questions: Biologists deal with the question of function, evolutionary biologists deal with the question of origin. It is perfectly possible to be a successful biologist without ever dealing with the question of origin and evolution. And indeed, there is non-creationist criticism of the Neo-Darwinian synthases by biochemists, not all of whom are proponents of Intelligent Design. One of them is James Shapiro, and in response, Jerry Coyne wrote the following: “Virtually all of the non-creationist opposition to the modern theory of evolution… ­come from molecular biologists. I’m not sure whether there’s something about that discipline (the complexity of molecular mechanisms) that makes people doubt the efficacy of natural selection, or whether it’s simply that many molecular biologists don’t get a good grounding in evolutionary biology.” Clearly, there *is* such a thing as non-creationist, scientific criticism of evolution. The question here is: what is more likely: Molecular Biologists who do not have a good grounding in evolutionary biology, or evolutionary biologists who do not have a good grounding on molecular biology? If evolution fail to account for what we see in biochemistry, then evolution fails as a theory. When Molecular Biologists - who are at the cutting edge of biological research, raises concerns about evolution, we ought to pay attention.
"Third, please list 10 original ID predictions about the eyes of vertebrates, i.e. show how ID has advanced our knowledge of the eye more than evolution did." You do not get to move the goal posts like that. Intelligent Design is a new theory with limited resources, and it should be judged on what it has produced, not on what you think it should've produced already. Moreover, evolutionary theory has contributed nothing to our understanding of the eye. For instance, while evolutionists like to point out that the photo receptors in the eyes is evidence of "poor design" that can only be accounted for by the blind haphazard process of evolution, new research have vindicated the ID prediction that there would be purpose to this design. But why limit it to vertebrate eyes? Why not include the eyes of non-vertebrates which is very similar to those of vertebrates, and yet cannot be explained using common descent? "Convergent evolution" is a term that is used to plug all the holes in evolutionary predictions, whenever homologous features cannot be accounted for by common descent. Not only that, there is an increasing list of homologous features which - counter to expectations - do not have a homologous embryology or even homologous genetic instructions. This is yet another example of the failure of evolutionary theory which is glossed over.
Fourth, in this article Wikipedia cites those widely considered as authorities upon science and epistemology - Yet, I have taken a single sample of the sources and shown how unreliable it is. Appealing to authority is a fallacy and is a religious epistemology, not a scientific one. Again, mainstream scientists are completely within their right to criticize and refute intelligent design. It is not within their right to redefine, misrepresent and smear intelligent design in order to avoid its real arguments.
Nothing you said provide a valid reason for not removing this source and all claims linked to it.
 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 197.229.126.100 (talk)
"If necessary, WP:PARITY allows to use of substandard sources to represent the mainstream view when topics are not notable enough to have legitimate scholarly criticism." - The mainstream does get to criticize intelligent design. It does not get to redefine Intelligent Design. Most of the criticism of the mainstream is directed at its own straw man representation of Intelligent Design, and therefore invalid.
"Biology doesn't view this as "junk" (which is a popular science term) and understands that genes of the chain that are deactivated are the result of ancestry." You are either ignorant or dishonest on this matter. Junk DNA was a reference to highly repetitive, non-coding DNA sequences, thought to be non functioning sequences. It was not merely considered "deactivated" DNA, it was thought to be non-functional gibberish.
"It's not by coincidence that in embryology, the fetus of mammals still go through stages inherited from earlier life forms." Except, it doesn't. It has been known for over a 100 years now that Ernst Haeckel's embryo drawings was cherry picked and fudged to fit his theory. Not only were the similarities in the earliest stages exaggerated:
1) The species chosen was cherry picked because they do appear similar on this stage.
2) The first stage in the drawings is actually the middle stage, with the earliest stages differing vastly from one another, showing little or no resemblance to one another.
3) Even on genetic level, things that was once thought thought to be homologous have vastly different genetic instructions - refuting the idea that such similarities is due to common descent.
"Other than the sources you mention, a number of universities and institutions also have statements against the promotion of pseudoscience including ID." No one can possibly tackle all the slander and misrepresentation all at once. I'm dealing with this one source only, pointing out that it is erroneous. So, regardless of what other sources might say, THIS source is invalid and should be removed.
"It is simply fringe and the reliable sources describe it as rehashed creationism and its history and development can be traced." On what basis do you claim the sources to be "reliable"? On the basis that anything that reinforce orthodoxy is by definition "reliable", and anything that challenges it is "pseudo-science"? Science did not advance by not questioning orthodoxy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 197.229.126.100 (talk) 19:30, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
"The ability to make successful predictions is a hallmark of valid scientific theories, but prediction is also one of the tools most abused by pseudoscientists. Velikovsky's infamous "predictions" that Jupiter should emit radio waves or Venus should be hot are prime examples. Prediction is valid only if the prediction follows rigorously from the theory, which Velikovsky's do not. Scattergun predictions, random hits, and after-the-fact coincidences with vague predictions are not valid." Cosmology is yet another field where science is failing. Velikovsky's work did not end in the 50's, and many scientists are still working on his theory of a plasma universe. Indeed, the latest comet observations has vindicated the plasma universe, and refuted the mainstream cosmology: Comets are not dirty snowballs, but rather asteroids responding the the charge of the plasma it's moving through. The enormous plasma discharge caused by NASA's comet impactor baffled mainstream scientists, but was expected by plasma cosmologists. The rocky appearance of the comets was also predicted by plasma cosmologists. Yet, despite all the new evidence to the contrary, many cosmologists still hold on to the now debunked "dirty snowball" view of comets. This is not the only area where mainstream cosmology fails. It invokes all kinds of fantastical substances in order to maintain coherency with observations. Substances like Dark Energy and Dark Matter, while Plasma cosmology have no need for such fanciful explanations. The Plasma model also gives a much better explanation of the workings of the sun, and is able to explain why the heliosphere is so much hotter than the surface of the sun. There is even a experimental research program to test these theories called "The Safire project". The plasma model also successfully predicted the solar link with the earth, and how this is responsible for the Northern lights. All of this is off topic, but it serves to illustrate that there is something seriously wrong in the soft sciences: The dogmatic devotion to orthodoxy, and the double standards to reinforce that orthodoxy. When the orthodox few fail to predict a certain phenomena, the possibility that the orthodox view is wrong is not questioned. Instead, terminology is invented to gloss over the holes of the theory: "Dark matter", "Convergent evolution", etc. However, when a competing theory fails in just one single area, it is "proof that the whole paradign is falsified, and is therefore pseudo-science". These are fields that cannot easily be demonstrated in the lab, using the scientific principle of repeatability. These are fields that should be open to dialog and alternative explanations. Instead, we a mainstream pushing an orthodox view, dismissing any new insight that might refute their pet theories, using ridicule rather than argument.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 197.229.126.100 (talk) 19:30, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

You already raised this argument, and I already pointed out it is a strawman, as you're committing a category error. This article is *not* about what the mainstream scientific position, it is about intelligent design. It's not an argument, it's policy. Please see WP:PSCI. —PaleoNeonate – 20:07, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
"It's not an argument, it's policy." Now you are just being full of it. Show me where is it the policy of Wikipedia that it is ok to intentionally misrepresent a position simply because the majority thinks it is wrong. You are hiding behind rules, policies, and questionable sources in order to excuse and defend lies and deceit. I did not expect that this discussion would end in the removal of this illegitimate source, I've started this discussion to expose you lot for the hypocritical and dishonest trolls that you are. You have no interest in truth: you are a bunch of Darwinist zealots who have nothing better to do with your time than to make sure no one writes anything remotely accurate about intelligent design on this page, and you will twist and distort the rules in order to fit your agenda. I have exposed one of your sources as being questionable, and false, and you have all been quite evasive about it. I am quite pleased that I stand vindicated: This page is held hostage by dishonest trolls who has no interest in the truth. I am quite happy to let the readers of this thread judge for themselves. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 197.229.126.100 (talk) 20:26, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
ROFLMAO. We don't allow you WP:GEVAL with Science, Evolution, and Creationism, National Academy of Sciences and Institute of Medicine, 2008, since this isn't Debatepedia. Learn to know your place, learn to know what you are able to reach and what you're unable to achieve. ID luminaries already cited on this page concur that they have no theory yet, just a bunch of intuitions. And the predictions at [1] are somewhere between vagaries and Barnum statements.

When two or more theories are in competition, it is common for one of them to be treated as the established position - the default option, as it were - and the others to be treated as challengers. A challenging theory is normally expected to bear the burden or onus of proof. In other words, advocates of the challenging theory are expected to provide highly convincing evidence and arguments before the theory can be taken seriously. To use a different metaphor, it is assumed that the established theory has jumped over a very high hurdle to gain its leading position and that any challenger must jump over an equally high hurdle before being in contention for the remainder of the race.

— Brian Martin, The burden of proof and the origin of acquired immune deficiency syndrome, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B, Vol. 356, 2001, pp. 939-944
Britannica treats ID as religious propaganda: check. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy treats ID as religious propaganda: check. ID has a front-stage: "We have nothing to do with creationism, we're pure science!" (of the supernatural, anti-naturalistic sort) and its backstage: "Yes, the Designer is the Christian God, so we fight God's cause, may I have your donations, please?"
If, as you say, ID is fine and dandy with a wholly natural designer, what were doing those buffoons who testified in court in favor of ID, saying that the scientific method should be made to include supernatural causes? Tgeorgescu (talk) 22:12, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
You expect us to read huge rants and to answer to those claims while this is not a forum (WP:NOTFORUM). Adding personal attacks will also not help. Plasma cosmology is also fringe. There is an organized pseudoscience bubble which appears to unfortunately indoctrinate those who don't grasp mainstream science. Wikipedia is not the place to debate about these. —PaleoNeonate – 22:33, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Argument?

Latest comment: 6 years ago23 comments6 people in discussion

How is Intelligent design an argument? It is meant to be an explanation for how life got here and is therefore an idea or concept

Reliable sources back this up. A Stamford University publication which as an academic source refers to it as a "concept". The academic peer reviewed Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy refers to it as "theory".

Not only do academic sources reject the idea that it is an "argument" but so do dictionaries. Dictionary.com calls it a "theory", as does the Oxford English Dictionary and the Cambridge dictionary calls it an "idea. These last two are very respectable dictionaries.

I found no sources whatsoever that intelligent design is an "argument".Michael O'hara (talk) 21:35, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Really? First WP:RS quoted in the article defines ID as an argument. Tgeorgescu (talk) 22:20, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
No it doesnt, quote the relevant part then. Regardless it is most commonly refered to as other things.Michael O'hara (talk) 22:29, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
ID is the teleological argument applied to biology. Tgeorgescu (talk) 22:31, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
Yeah I actually don't care what your personal opinion is. Can you provide a source for your claim?Michael O'hara (talk) 22:33, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
A quote from the first WP:RS is already in our article. Tgeorgescu (talk) 22:34, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
Quote the relevant text where it is called an argument. Regardless it is clearmy not the most common descriptor.Michael O'hara (talk) 22:36, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
I mean: what is the point of arguing that it is not there when you refuse to read the footnotes? Tgeorgescu (talk) 22:37, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
There are 190 footnotes, it would be much easier for everybody if you just provided the quote. I notice you are ignoring the fact that it has not been demomstrated that "argument" is the most common descriptor. Michael O'hara (talk) 22:39, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
As I told you: read the first footnote, the quote is already there and it is defined there as an incarnation of the design argument. That's its essence definition from a very respectable source written by a top expert on these matters. Tgeorgescu (talk) 22:44, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
Let's assume you are rIght. What evidence is there this is the most common descriptor? I provided many sources that refer to it as a theory. You keep coveniantly ignoring this request.Michael O'hara (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:47, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
Most common descriptor in what: church lectionaries, popular press, scholarly treatises in the philosophy of science or history of science? Tgeorgescu (talk) 22:50, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
Most common descriptor in academic cIrcles which should ideally be the standard for all Wikipedia articles.Michael O'hara (talk) 22:51, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
About that: it can't be "theory", because that's reserved for fairly well supported hypotheses, it can't be "hypothesis" since ID makes no concrete predictions of the type "if A, then B" (A and B being empirical data), so it's just a philosophical argument masquerading as empirical science. Tgeorgescu (talk) 22:57, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
As I already explained I dont care about your opinion. Wikipedia is not based on the ignorant claims of one editor who needs to familiarise himself wifh the definition of theory but on reliable sources. With ten thousand edits you should know that.Michael O'hara (talk) 23:08, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
Well, it is you who is arguing against a WP:RS written by a top scholar. The claim of ID being an argument is verifiable. I have only explained why papers claiming that ID is a theory/hypothesis cannot be considered WP:RS. Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:12, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
#It is YOU not I who, not once but TWICE wrote paragraphs giving your own personal views. This flys in the face of WP:OR
  1. Just becuase you disagree with them that doesn't make then not RS. On what fucking planet is the peer-review academic Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and other academic dictionaries not reliable sources? I seriously hope you are just lying your arse off here in an attempt to try and meander your way past wiki policy without admitting it as opposed to actually believing this tripe.Michael O'hara (talk) 23:22, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

I quoted ID theorist Paul Nelson, who wrote: “Easily the biggest challenge facing the ID community is to develop a full-fledged theory of biological design. We don’t have such a theory right now, and that’s a problem … we’ve got a bag of powerful intuitions, and a handful of notions such as ‘irreducible complexity’ and ‘specified complexity’—but, as yet, no general theory of biological design.” The retired Berkeley lawyer, Philip Johnson, considered the founder of ID, made similar comments: “I also don’t think that there is really a theory of intelligent design at the present time to propose as a comparable alternative to the Darwinian theory, which is, whatever errors it might contain, a fully worked-out scheme.”

— Karl W. Giberson, My Debate With an ‘Intelligent Design’ Theorist
The claim that ID is a philosophical/religious argument masquerading as empirical science is abundantly sourced in our article. I suggest WP:STICK. Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:28, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
Although I agree with you, maybe the best way to describe it is more or less the way you did above, although maybe with a milder description than masquerading. If there is some limited controversy, as indicated above by the sources he cites, we might be best using language like you do above. John Carter (talk) 23:36, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

It is an argument for the existence of God, also known as the argument from design. And it is indeed "masquerading as science," because the existence of God is not subject to scientific proof or disproof. TFD (talk) 02:06, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Well technically ID is a theory of design. Any argument that said design proves God exists would be a separate item. Markbassett (talk) 08:38, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
It is neither theory nor hypothesis. ID sent the firing squad to execute Darwin, but (scientifically seen) they only have blank bullets. Tgeorgescu (talk) 09:17, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Struck through edits by sock of Apollo the Logician. Doug Weller talk 15:59, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Sanger at Everipedia and Discovery Institute

Latest comment: 6 years ago18 comments8 people in discussion

At 22:07, 16 December 2017, Dimadick mentioned Larry Sanger's relationship with veripedia, which must be a typo for Everipedia. (There was previously a Veropedia run by a WP veteran.) Across the top of every Everipedia page is a black banner announcing "Recent news: Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger joins our team as Chief Information Officer. Follow Everipedia on Telegram and Reddit to learn about our upcoming move to the blockchain!" Check out Everipedia's article on ID. LOL.
And here is an article on Discovery Institute's website about this thread. YoPienso (talk) 07:05, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

Articles at Quartz and Cointelegraph. From the latter: Free online encyclopedia co-founder Larry Sanger has joined the venture-backed startup firm Everipedia as chief information officer (CIO) in his bid to disrupt the company that he helped establish. YoPienso (talk) 07:48, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

Something about stones and glass houses here . . . how about the Seigenthaler incident? Or our list of hoaxes? See Reliability of Wikipedia. YoPienso (talk) 08:01, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
Yopienso, the headline was not mine. Thanks for the reminder about Seigenthaler, I made some tweaks. It's a story of a harmful hoax but the end of it is policy changes that made Wikipedia better. It's also more than a decade old, and Wikipedia has changed and matured in that time. I don't suggest that Wikipedia is flawless nor free of errors, but that article points to some serious flaws in Everipedia and I think they make Sanger's decision surprising and makes it legitimate to be asking some questions (which he is, of course, free to respond to or not respond to as he wishes). I believe that a Wikipedia article about a non-notable person who was briefly and mistakenly claimed to be a mass murderer would get deleted here very fast, yet the article to which I linked is months old and cites an example of such an Everipedia page that was still up a few hours ago when I looked. Wikipedia does not offer a service to monitor BLPs for a fee, which Everipedia apparently does, and which is a dangerous step down a slippery slope. Will vandalism be reverted less quickly for articles on those who do not pay? Will those who pay be able to influence content? Then, there's Everipedia's marketting claim to be the biggest online encyclopedia, conveniently leaving out that a huge amount of the content has been lifted from Wikipedia – which strikes me as deceptive and dishonest. Will they be advertising that they lack the editing community to maintain those articles, or will they simply take updates for here as they occur? What about maintaining the BLPs that they will host but we would delete as non-notable? Wikipedia is far from perfect. We have articles with bias, we have mistakes, and we've fallen for hoaxes... but I think we are still better that Conservapedia, we are better than Citizendium, and we are better than Everipedia. EdChem (talk) 11:19, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
Yes, I realized it wasn't your headline; sorry if I appeared to be pushing back at you. I pretty much agree with your points, but am giving Everipedia the benefit of a doubt: it could possibly grow up, too. You probably see that possibility as well. (We still have a long ways to go, imho, but yes, I think we're miles ahead of the copycats. And we should be.) YoPienso (talk) 17:40, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
Here you go. And here. And here. Is that what you meant? YoPienso (talk) 20:07, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
So you're comparing self-congratulatory passing mentions in other articles to entire WP articles devoted to WP issues, and WP's entire article about it's own reliability to Everipedia's lack of anything of the sort? That's the sort of stretch that would make Reed Richards proud. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:49, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
So that's not what you meant. Happy holidays! YoPienso (talk) 21:01, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
I have no idea what you think I meant, but my words are pretty damn clear so if it's anything other that "what I actually said", I'm afraid you're operating under a misconception. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:37, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

"Then, there's Everipedia's marketting claim to be the biggest online encyclopedia, conveniently leaving out that a huge amount of the content has been lifted from Wikipedia – which strikes me as deceptive and dishonest. "

One curiosity about Everipedia: It is apparently copying content from Facebook. "Above all, according to Moghadam, Everipedia is easy to use: “You cut and paste any Facebook page into [an] Everipedia page,” "

Reliability concerns aside, is that legal? Copying and pasting someone else's text or private page and publishing it as your own? Dimadick (talk) 07:52, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

I'm no lawyer, but I think it might be a violation of intellectual property protections.Sumanuil (talk) 08:05, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Naw; see WP:5P3. YoPienso (talk) 09:08, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
Yopienso, you are correct that lifting Wikipedia content is not unlawful, although attribution can be an issue. However, I think that Dimadick and Sumanuil are asking about copy-and-paste lifting from Facebook. Is that content automatically released as free when it is posted? If it isn't, I think there are potential legal issues for Everipedia here. EdChem (talk) 13:03, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
See FB's terms. The person who registered the FB page in question owns the copyright and grants FB rights to use it in perpetuity. So yes, copying and pasting an individual FB pages is something that is not necessarily a copyvio, but if done habitually will absolutely include some copyvios. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:32, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

This whole section seems rather off topic. NOTFORUM and all that. Guettarda (talk) 14:07, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

It´s an interesting discussion, but not really about improving the article. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:11, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

|}

Edit being reinstated rather than BRD - please check thanks

Latest comment: 6 years ago19 comments8 people in discussion

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Intelligent_design&oldid=prev&diff=814420806


Check what exactly?Michael O'hara (talk) 18:54, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

the veracity of your edit according to the source text used to write the article. Edaham (talk) 18:56, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
The source explictly calls it a theory, what's dubious abiut my edit?Michael O'hara (talk) 18:58, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
It looks like a partial quote or misrepresented piece of text inserted into the article to disproportionately present a point of view (which is what I wrote briefly in my edit summary). Edaham (talk) 19:00, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
You should probably just check for yourself then instead of being so lazy. If you check the source you will see I am in no way misrepresenting anything.Michael O'hara (talk) 19:04, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
See above: ID proponents recognize the fact that they have no theory yet. My two cents are that we all here will die of old age before a hypothesis of ID gets formulated (making concrete predictions of the type "if A then B", not the vagaries at [2]). Tgeorgescu (talk) 19:07, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
UTC)
If a reliable source says something there is no reason not to include it.Michael O'hara (talk) 19:13, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Even credible scholarly works could sometimes be flat out wrong. Tgeorgescu (talk) 19:18, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Wikipedia doesn't censor opinions just because they are wrong. Read WP:CENSOR and educate yourself.Michael O'hara (talk) 19:38, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Inaccuracy. Tgeorgescu (talk) 19:57, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
I did check, that's why I reverted it. However you didn't follow BRD so now I'm inviting other editors to share their opinions. Calling another editor "lazy" is a personal attack. Please don't make personal attacks, thanks. Edaham (talk) 19:10, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
In what way havery I misrepresented anything?Michael O'hara (talk) 19:13, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
I've already stated the issue I have with your proposed edit. Sorry, I'm not here to use the talk page as a discussion forum to go into depth about the subject or Wikipedia policy regarding content inclusion per your question above. I've left the link here as a sign post for other editors to review the content you added. You might want to take up the issue with other frequent editors of the article should they decide to revert it. Edaham (talk) 19:21, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Agree, this is my reading of the source as well. The word theory is only use in the context of naming the concept "Intelligent Design Theory" and not in any way to endorse it. As a side note, the question of describing ID as a theory is covered by the Question 2 of the FAQ at the top of the page.--McSly (talk) 19:43, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Concur, it's just a name, SEP does not claim that ID would be a scientific theory. Tgeorgescu (talk) 02:41, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
I think there's an element of OR here - this isn't using the Stanford Encyclopedia as a source, it's drawing conclusions based on the choice of wording used in a source. Guettarda (talk) 18:05, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Michael O'hara (talk · contribs) has been blocked as a sock who is likely to return in due course. Johnuniq (talk) 00:56, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Couldn't we block him as a sock that is unlikely to return? -Roxy, Zalophus californianus. barcus 12:43, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Thinking outside of the box

Latest comment: 6 years ago38 comments11 people in discussion
This has degenerated into an argument about the subject and has produced no suggestions as to how to improve the article. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:10, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Following on from the above discussion, I wonder if a different approach to the lede might be helpful. Rather than focusing on specific wordings and sources, perhaps we can find / build a consensus that includes editors across a breadth of perspectives by starting with a macro view. In that spirit, may I ask for perspectives on what is essential for inclusion in the lede, leaving aside the sequence in which they might be presented and the language to be used. Sources relevant to content are helpful but not essential. For example, it seems to me that the following are necessary:

  1. what ID actually is, according to its proponents
  2. how ID is described / defined in mainstream sources
  3. links to creationism as revealed in Kitzmiller and the establishment clause issues
  4. historical antecedents
  5. features of ID such as irreducible complexity and specified complexity

I particularly invite input from Larry Sanger and DrFleischman as critics who may not be watching this page. Please, if we can avoid debating ID itself and focus on what topics / areas relating to ID belong in an encyclopaedic article, that would help. I'm hoping this is the non-contentious precursor to provide a frame for looking at what (if anything) in the lede might need / warrant removal / redrafting / resequencing / adjusting / whatever... Thanks. EdChem (talk) 22:16, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Note: I've numbered your list to make it easier to respond to, revert if you desire.
My take (from my reading of the sources, of course) is as follows:
  1. ID is a re-framing of creationism in scientific terms, in order to pass it off as science.
  2. It is almost unanimously described as pseudoscience and an act of deception (note that I'm distinguishing it from creationism with the latter; creationism apologetic have a lot of deception in them, but the idea isn't deceptive itself).
  3. Already well-documented in the article, see cdesign proponentsists.
  4. Creationism and the Discovery Institute.
  5. I believe we have articles on those, but they should be summarized here, as well.
I'm not entirely sure there's even room in the lede for good coverage of all of that. I'm not opposed to a re-write, but the first two points are overwhelmingly supported by the RSes, and as such should definitely be included. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:27, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
The most bestest and properest approach to the lede is to summarize article content. Therefore the correct questions to be asked are:
  • C1:L0 Which essential parts of the Content are not covered in the Lede?
  • C0:L1 Which parts of the lede are not covered in content?
  • C0:L0 Which essential elements of the subject are missing at all?
  • C1:L2 Which parts of the lede incorrectly or inadequately summarize content?
And EdChem's bullet points must be considered from this perspective. Staszek Lem (talk) 22:33, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
Tend to agree with Staszek here, even if implicitly at least they involve a review of the whole article not just the lead. John Carter (talk) 22:54, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
While those are the correct questions to ask about a lede in general, I should point out that EdChem's questions aren't inapplicable; they're just specific to this article. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 23:00, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
Regarding MP's summary, I think personally maybe the best way to summarize in the first paragraph might be that ID or whatever else it gets called ultimately originated as a misleading rephrasing of creationist thinking for the purposes of getting such thinking to rise to the level of science and on that basis be able to receive equivalent attention in the classroom as per the court ruling about teaching a variety of scientific theories. John Carter (talk) 23:40, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
...for the purposes of getting such thinking to rise to the level of science... You mean for the purpose of making it appear to rise to the level of science? The RSes are quite clear that the originators knew very well the numerous ways in which ID failed to actually be science, and yet presented it as science anyways. ID is, at it's heart, pure deception. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 23:53, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
Right. The definition of what qualifies as scientific in general, and possibly whether something that doesn't meet current standards might meet earlier standards could still perhaps be relevant and worth discussion later in the lede, depending on whether it is relevant here I guess. But the implicit subtext regarding it qualifying as science sufficiently to be seen as such by the courts to be taught in schools should be spelled out. And I used the milder word misleading only because the word you proposed, fraud, seems to be primarily legal and on that basis maybe not used unless clearly expressed or implied by a court. In my own haphazard review of scientific developments of all sorts in the early twentieth century, in many if not most of the revolutionary changes proposed then many or most received some serious scientific opposition, so some oldsters who had opposed cosmological and evolutionary thinking might still have at least thought of themselves as being scientific, even if others didn't. John Carter (talk) 00:24, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
relevant and worth discussion later in the lede - No. The article is about ID, not about scientific approach. And don't start this "misunderstood science" and "prosecuted Galileo" bullshit. Staszek Lem (talk) 00:45, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
Relativity was rightly disbelieved when there was no evidence for relativity, the Big Bang was rightly disbelieved when there was no evidence for the Big Bang, that's pretty much normal, see Mertonian norms. And quarrels among scientists are normal, they are part of legitimate science. But what the scientific community and philosophers of science say is that ID isn't anything like a legitimate scientific hypothesis, even not a speculative one (which would be still awaiting for subsequent proof). Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:01, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
More or less agree with Tgeorgescu above, although there might be grounds for argument if science had not said the same thing as strongly earlier in the history of the idea. And, actually, agree with Staszek too, with perhaps an indication somewhere prominent in the article or maybe lede to relevant articles regarding scientific method and/or maybe philosophy of science where appropriate.
At this point the main thrust of the ID argument seems to be in a sense the definition of science and related terms. If that's correct, it would be hard to avoid links to the most directly relevant subarticles of science for the purposes of further information. John Carter (talk) 01:23, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
  • What problem are we trying to fix, exactly? The lede summarises the subject very well. I know that creationist sympathisers hate it, but it is the nature of ID that any properly neutral article will be hated by them, just like all the articles on evolutionary biology. Hence the existence of Conservapedia. Guy (Help!) 12:13, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
I'm not sure. But any changes to the lede are fine by me, so long as they include the facts I posted and answer the questions Staszek Lem posted. The current lede does that already, but if people think re-writing it will help... ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:20, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
Er, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.... Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:07, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Problems with the lede: a) ineffective first sentence b) wordy, repetitive in places c) doesn't provide historical, philosophical, or political context [central parts of the article body] d) doesn't clearly connect this concept with the closest related concepts, IDM & arg. from design.

Some examples of what's missing or needed [C0:L0 - C1:L2] :

  • ID is an argument for creationism, a specific variant of old philosophical arguments (AFD & irreducible complexity), often presented as a scientific theory.
  • It grew out of a political/religious creationist movement in the 1980s, as a way to present creationist ideas as comparable to scientific ones. This branch of the creationist movement is called the IDM.
  • Unlike the general philosophical argument from design, ID is presented as a [demonstrated] scientific theory that disproves evolution and natural selection.
  • The scientific community [overwhelmingly] classifies ID as pseudoscience, and its scientific claims as false or deceptive.

These points need internal links and cites. AFD, IDM and creationism should be linked from the first two sentences. – SJ + 17:02, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Well, yes, but that mainly comes from bending over backwards to appease creationism apologists, so the purported "problem" will only get worse if we fix it :-) Guy (Help!) 17:11, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
Points raised are covered in the lead, if not in the first paragraph: are there any points not currently included or lacking sources? Is this a discussion about how much to get into the first paragraph? If so, what's needed is a checklist and proposals for wording that improves style for each point, and at least maintains clarity. Points should each be separately listed for purposes of discussion. . . . dave souza, talk 17:39, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
Knowing that at least some will likely decry what I say as promoting some sort of philosophical or religious bias, one thing I do not currently see in the lead, maybe because some might say it is at best dubiously related, is an implicit view that there is only one meaning to science. I do note that the article on social science rather prominently refers to science in it's "stricter modern sense" and includes a link there to history of science#Modern science. I get no sense from this article or lede that the word science has ever been used in any sense but the modern sense. Some such discussion would be helpful and useful. And I might also introduce you to some guys I know with a bachelor of science in the clearly scientific field of business administration.
I also don't see in an admittedly quick review of the article any material about how ID proponents might criticize the reliability of modern science based on possible overgeneralization or using dubiously sufficient evidence to "prove" their points. I imagine they might well regularly use some of the objections to evolution and similar arguments and if they do that probably should be prominently indicated.
As a final point, admittedly outside the scope of this particular article, if we can find people to find sources about the battle for the use and definition of the word science in at least the US in the mid 20th century between the hard sciences and everybody else who described their disciplines as scientific, that would be particularly useful. Again, at least to me, that perceived "hijacking" of the word for virtually the exclusive use of the hard sciences provided a lot of the attention which fuelled the early days of the ID movement.
Also, obviously, having not checked all the sources, I imagine ID journals probably provide the most detailed and reliable sources for ID as a whole, specific books being more the discussion of the individual author's personal views. They would probably qualify as RS for the purposes of sourcing such arguments.
And, finally, believe it or not, my personal academic background (and at least one scholarship) was in astronomy. I deal with a lot of the religious and philosophical content around here because I live near good religion libraries and that material was in particularly miserable shape when I started. If certain individuals, including at least one or two in this section, might not react negatively so quickly to anything that doesn't toe the line of modern scientific orthodoxy they might find a possible real ID proponent willing to discuss things reasonably if they perceived themselves being treated that way. John Carter (talk) 18:39, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
See Intelligent design and science. Staszek Lem (talk) 20:21, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
See also the last phrase in the first lead paragraph (as amended in response to a point raised above) – "and so is not science." It may interest you to find that the first paragraph of that article defines science as "a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe." As reliable sources show, the central argument of ID is inherently untestable. As discussed above, the "hijacking" of the word "science" for testable explanations dates back to the 1820s, and natural philosophers including Herschel and Whewell (who coined the term "scientist"). It's not a matter of "toe the line", anything untestable such as an omnipotent god is inherently unworkable as a scientific explanation, and should not be taught in science classes. However good it may be as theology. . . dave souza, talk 21:57, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

I just had a look at the entry for Intelligent Design in Larry Sanger's alternative encyclopadia, Citizendium. It's actually pretty good - certainly by contrast with this article. While it notes the scientific consensus on ID, both sides are given space to breathe, resulting in an interesting and enlightening discussion that touches on science, philosophy, history, theology and contemporary politics. We should take some cues. http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Intelligent_design. Sam T. (talk) 14:06, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, but articles on it are generally written with a generalized audience in mind (instead of a serious scholarly audience) by editors cognizant of the way the vast majority of readers use those articles, as we tend to use WP ourselves. One inescapable fact of this is that as you count sentences, the number of readers who are still reading decreases. Aware of this, we tend to front-load articles with everything we consider to be important. Hence why we cram important details like "it's not actually science" and "it's deceptive" into the first sentence or two. This gives the appearance of bias, because it doesn't read like a detached, disinterested robot spitting out text in a formulaic manner (first describe, then present supporting claims, then present opposing claims, then characterize the debate). But in reality, the ledes of WP articles are designed to ensure that the largest possible number of readers will stop reading having already gotten the facts that they need. WP ledes thus may look biased to those who are sympathetic to fringe views, but end up being more informative to a larger number of people.
Also, that article does demonstrate a pro-ID bias. There is a section, prominently titled "Does science stand in opposition to intelligent design?" This is deceptive. First, there is no real question; as ID is pseudoscience, then by definition Yes, science stands in opposition to it. To frame it as a question in an encyclopedia implies that the answer is unknown or unknowable, which is blatantly untrue. Second, reading that section does not immediately provide the correct answer. In fact, two paragraphs in, I cannot see where it answers the question at all. Instead, the section presents ID talking points in voice of authority as if they are well-accepted axioms of science without ever providing a single reference for them. The second paragraph even falsely implies that there is scientific legitimacy to ID. It does so by falsely claiming that the "core question" of ID is something which it is not. In fact, the "core question" of ID is "can we formulate creationism as a scientific theory, or as something similar enough to it that it will be accepted as science?" The "core" of the resultant pseudoscientific "theory" of ID is not actually a question, but a statement; "Some features of living organisms could not possibly have evolved through natural selection." So even assuming a serious scholar, previously entirely ignorant of ID took the time to read their entire article and ruminate upon and internalize the information contained therein, they would be significantly less well-informed than if they had simply read the lede of the WP article. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:48, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
Hi MPants. A couple of points. First, "cramming the lede" with pejorative descriptions because one feels strongly about a topic doesn't "give the appearance of bias"; it's just bias, pure and simple. Everyone on both sides of the ID debate, up to and including Wikipedia's co-founder - with the exception of a small handful of dedicated editors - can see the problem here. It's like a sore thumb. The only question is how to resolve it tactfully in the light of said handful.
Second, while I certainly agree that articles should be written with general readers in mind, this shouldn't entail a lack of scholarly fairness. As it stands, the article reads like fundamentalist propaganda, where everything is black or white, and there's only the good guys and the bad guys. Anyone versed in the philosophy of science knows, for instance, that the scientific status of ID, like the Demarcation Problem as a whole - the question of what separates science from non-science - is a complex (and interesting!) issue that requires thoughtful explanation. This isn't surprising given that ID is, after all, and despite its political motivations in the US, just the most recent incarnation of the teleological argument, which occurs in some of the most famous philosophical and scientific works of all time, from Plato's "Phaedo" to Newton's "Principia".
As I say, the Citizendium article supports the overall consensus on ID, but it also covers these intriguing topics instead of railroading the discussion with a terse, poorly-worded charge of pseudoscience. The fact that you view even the airing of these facts as pro-ID indicates the level of neutrality with which you are approaching this article. Sam T. (talk) 17:23, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
The above explained pretty clearly why it's not POV. Because one feels strongly about a topic attempts to transform this into an opinion game which is not what this is about. —PaleoNeonate – 17:36, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
First, "cramming the lede" with pejorative descriptions because one feels strongly about a topic doesn't "give the appearance of bias"; it's just bias, pure and simple. Only if those pejoratives are inaccurate or unimportant to an understanding of the subject. That is not the case, here.
...this shouldn't entail a lack of scholarly fairness. If we held to a principle of scholarly fairness, the entire article would consist of nothing but the sections about the controversy, court case, and the failings of ID as a science. We would not include any meaningful description of ID, nor any arguments in favor of it because there's absolutely nothing scholarly about any of that. We take a documentary approach; which means yes, we document the claims of and arguments for ID, but we also document the controversies, its failings as science, and notable criticisms of it. The fact that its failings, controversies and criticisms produce a lot more text than its claims and arguments is a failing of the subject, not the article.
Anyone versed in the philosophy of science knows, for instance, that the scientific status of ID, like the Demarcation Problem as a whole - the question of what separates science from non-science - is a complex... Bullshit. I'm very well versed in the philosophy of science. The problem with ID is that it's not falsifiable. That's about as simple as it gets.
The fact that you view even the airing of these facts as pro-ID... Our article covers all of those facts, and I've never advocated for removal of them (or even implied that I don't like them), so you can take your "fact" that I view things this way and shove it. Don't presume to tell me what I believe. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:55, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
There was no need for any of this - you'd already made your prejudices abundantly clear. I'm not here to argue with ideologues, I'm afraid. I've made a point about Citizendium, and you've registered your disagreement. Let's leave it at that. Sam T. (talk) 18:07, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
Well, it was left at that until you responded by making a bunch of false claims and casting aspersions on me. But if you're done making the same tired argument that's been shot down countless times since this article was created, then that's a good thing. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 18:19, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
Plenty of attitude here. I'm not done with helping to restore neutrality, no - just with the smorgasbord of nonsense. No wonder the article's a mess. If that requires a quick explanation, take your comment about falsifiability. Guess what? You can't have your cake and eat it. Is ID known to be false or not? You seem to be claiming both. In any case, leaving aside the question of whether ID is falsifiable (as in fact claimed by its proponents), plenty of bona fide scientific theories are themselves unfalsifiable, for instance the principle of "no action at a distance". It can't be falsified because even if object x appears to be influencing object y at a distance, it's always possible to posit some hitherto undiscovered substance mediating the two. Popperian falsificationism is a useful guide to how science generally works, but philosophers of science know that it breaks down under sustained scrutiny (see also e.g. the Duhem–Quine thesis). It's tempting to throw assertions around if you lack the expertise to handle these topics properly, but an encyclopaedia needs to demonstrate what it claims.
On another issue, since when have the political motivations of a theory's founders had a bearing on the evidential status of the theory itself? That's a textbook ad hom, I'm afraid. As I said above, you're not doing the consensus on ID any favours by overcooking its defense. Sam T. (talk) 19:49, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
To cut the long story short: our article is indeed biased, it is biased for mainstream science, like a serious encyclopedia should be. See e.g. WP:NOTNEUTRAL, WP:ABIAS and Daniel Okrent#Okrent's law. This is not the place for "unbiased" treatment of geocentrism, flat Earth and ID. And falsifiabily is restricted to hypotheses, ID proponents did not even bother to produce a hypothesis (falsifiable or not), they just keep repeating catchy slogans which in their view are in place of real scientific work (good or bad). Tgeorgescu (talk) 19:32, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
take your comment about falsifiability. Guess what? You can't have your cake and eat it. Is ID known to be false or not? You seem to be claiming both. And with that, you demonstrate a profound misunderstanding of the very field you had the audacity to make claims about in your last comment. We're done here; I'm not engaging with a sock who doesn't even understand the subject they feel so passionately about. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:07, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
More assertion, MPants. Oh, a sock? Sam T. (talk) 20:20, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Oh yes, let's look at Citizendium. Let's especially look at the number of articles it has had to basically nuke because they were taken over by "experts" with fringe views. Guy (Help!) 15:36, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
Let's drop the sarcasm, shall we? Expert input is precisely what we're lacking in the current article. Sam T. (talk) 17:23, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
So you think our sources weren't written by experts? ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:36, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
Sam T., having had a look at the Citizendium ID article, its lead is badly written, ungrammatical, and laughably dismissive of mainstream expert opinion on ID. You've made your prejudices abundantly clear, but have failed to present any workable proposals for article improvement – I suggest you should study WP:NOTAFORUM. . . dave souza, talk 20:21, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
I wonder if User:Larry Sanger would agree with this assessment. I'll leave it to others to take a gander at the page and decide who's prejudiced here. The article certainly isn't perfect, but it's a far sight better than this one, and the level of bias is roughly the same as in, say, Britannica, which is to say essentially nonexistent - unless I missed the bit where it's "laughably dismissive of mainstream expert opinion"? Give us a pointer if so - I haven't read the entire thing. Sam T. (talk) 20:42, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
Irresistible quote: Meyer's "review questions whether whether conventional biological theory can explain the information explosion evident during the Cambrian period." So the Cambrian was the scene of exploding information? Who knew. And this nonsense is presented uncritically. . . dave souza, talk 20:30, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

My $0.02 on the issue of bias

Latest comment: 6 years ago42 comments21 people in discussion
Message received, essays read, co-founders humored and now it's gotten old. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:34, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

As the originator of and the first person to elaborate Wikipedia's neutrality policy, and as an agnostic who believes intelligent design to be completely wrong, I just have to say that this article is appallingly biased. It simply cannot be defended as neutral. If you want to understand why, read this. I'm not here to argue the point, as I completely despair of persuading Wikipedians of the error of their ways. I'm just officially registering my protest. --Larry Sanger (talk) 05:30, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

I agree, Larry. It's disturbing how certain pages on Wikipedia have a gaggle of overlords who hover over certain pages and make sure their point of view is the only one allowed. They apparently have plenty of time to babysit their precious pages while the rest of us have day jobs and give up editing pages after a few reverts happen. I'm just tired of it. --Rcronk (talk) 05:43, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
This is how Wikipedia works: mainstream scientists/mainstream scholars say something in WP:RS. Wikipedia repeats what they said. So Wikipedia strongly supports mainstream science, there is no way it could be otherwise. See WP:NOTNEUTRAL. Tgeorgescu (talk) 10:33, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Interestingly, your Para 25 on how creationism should be taught in schools is pretty much exactly what happens here in the UK. No other concepts than evolution are taught in biology classes, but the beliefs of all the main religions are taught in Religious Education classes (including atheism and agnosticism), which parents do have the right to withdraw their children from if necessary. I suppose the main difference is that here in the UK "creationism" isn't really a thing here as it is in the US. Biblical literalism is very much a minority view; even many people who describe themselves as "Christian" do not take the Bible to be verbatim fact. Children are taught Christian beliefs in schools, which of course includes the Creation narrative, but few if any links are made to biology; in British life there simply isn't a controversy about it which children need to be taught. Some (a minority) of people believe in creation and that evolution is false or partly so, but there simply isn't the dichotomy that there is in the US. I suspect this may lie behind many of the issues on this page and others (such as pages on the Age of the Universe/Earth, dinosaurs etc.) as I would suggest the dissenting voices may not realize that the "controversy" they are complaining about simply doesn't exist in many other countries. Black Kite (talk) 13:17, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
I've read that entire essay, and found that it hinges upon the presupposition that the validity of a point of view and the accuracy, utility and morality of that point of view are independent. Indeed, the whole thing reeks of post-modernist relativism in which truth is an entirely subjective construct upon which reality has very little effect. Once one accepts that there is such a thing as objective reality, the arguments in your essay fall apart. This is underscored by the essays own repeated appeals to critical thought, which pay lip service to ideals likely to resonate with its audience without actually respecting them in any meaningful ways. Some controversies (quite obviously including this one to anyone with any knowledge of it) are not actually controversies among intellectually honest peers with similar levels of expertise and credibility, but manufactured controversies between those who know what they're talking about and those who will lie, cheat and steal to serve their own interests. This is a fundamentally different beast than a controversy between political ideologies in which all sides are both earnest and occasionally dishonest, or a scientific controversy in which all sides are both earnest and honest and differ only in the nature or interpretation of evidence. The equivocation of those sorts of controversies with a controversy such as this one is necessarily the result of either profound ignorance, or a rather hypocritical bias towards post-modernist thought (which, itself, is barely more feasible than biblical literalism).
Furthermore, the insinuation that this represents a failing on the part of the editors of this project completely ignores the existence, utility and meaning of our policy on verifiability. One would expect the founder of WP to recognize just how fundamental that policy is to this project, especially given that it is used in your other project, as well. I suppose the argument could be made that you are implying that this article doesn't actually meet that criteria (thereby implying that reliable sources take ID more seriously than WP does), but that's trivially easy to disprove, as the sources themselves are right there for all to see.
Finally, this is once again, another editor crying "bias!" without ever bothering to point out specific problems that could, conceivably be addressed. The closest thing this comment does to pointing out a problem is -as I previously implied- by calling the article biased and then linking to an essay that claims that biased media "...seem to get the facts wrong so often..." Well, if you are disputing the factual accuracy of anything in the article, you would be better served to actually make a convincing case that there are factual inaccuracies, rather than using this talk page as a forum to promote your own writing. If you are not suggesting that the factual accuracy of this article is in dispute, then given the nature of those claims of fact made by this article, I see absolutely no purpose to your comment at all. Except, of course, by bringing attention to something you wrote. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 18:53, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
My view is that postmodernism works well for sciences which don't have a paradigm (e.g. psychology, sociology, history), but fails for sciences that do have one (e.g. physics, chemistry, etc.). Tgeorgescu (talk) 19:14, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
I'm with ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants here. What purpose could possibly be service by wafting by just to tell us that the article is biased? Without specifics such a post reeks of simply self-promotion. Larry is no different than all the other creationists who come here decrying the article but without any sense of how it should be improved. For all his pride about writing the neutrality policy, Larry doesn't seem to know what a talk page is for. --Adamfinmo (talk) 05:59, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
I think Moynihan's approach is best: we are all entitled to our opinions but not to our own facts. The argument from is a legitimate philosophical theory that the universe shows design, therefore there was a designer. But when it is presented as a scientific theory it is a lie. It misrepresents that science could resolve issues such as the existence of God. TFD (talk) 02:24, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
From our fans: Wikipedia Co-Founder Blasts “Appallingly Biased” Wikipedia Entry on Intelligent Design Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:05, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
This is why this sort of self-righteous naval gazing is so fucking immature; people with an audience like Sanger never stop to think about the consequences of their self-righteous naval gazing. Now there's another (broken, but still) arrow in the quiver of creationists who want to show up here whining about our "bias" and another call to arms for more of them to do so. This whole stupid stunt accomplishes nothing except making himself look like a fool to anyone who actually gives this article careful thought and making life worse for anyone who's watchlisted this page. Good job, Sanger. I hope you're proud of yourself. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:57, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
"F***ing immature"? Leaving aside the irony, the tone of this comment reveals a lot about the attitude driving what is, indeed, the "appalling bias" - not to mention poor structure and phraseology - of the article as it stands. Even to those with no horse in the race, the axe-grinding is palpable. The gang of ideologues who have taken it on themselves to enforce this bias would do well to ponder the following quote: "how to succeed - try hard enough; how to fail - try too hard". A subtle critique of ID - for those who wish to flout Sanger's neutrality guidelines - is far more likely to carry weight in the long term. Sam T. (talk) 13:12, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
"the validity of a point of view and the accuracy, utility and morality of that point of view are independent" - My essay neither says nor implies any such thing. The notion that either I am committed to "post-modern relativism," or the essay is, is just funny to anyone who knows me. "Once one accepts that there is such a thing as objective reality, the arguments in your essay fall apart." Nonsense. But go ahead and argue how accepting that an objective reality exists—something to which I'm sure I'm at least as strongly committed as you are—shows that my arguments can't be defended. Pick one and construct your rebuttal. I'll wait.
And if you're right, well—it follows that you are rejecting the neutrality policy. You don't want to let people think for themselves and make up their own minds. You'd prefer to force readers' minds, to bend them to your will, rather than fairly presenting arguments on all sides and allowing readers to make up their own minds. Am I wrong?
Maybe you read the essay, but you didn't understand what you read.
And the purpose of telling you all this, of course, is to give you feedback. You think you understand what neutrality requires; I'm saying that you don't. Or else you do, and you actually reject neutrality, because (maybe) you think standards of neutrality involve a "post-modern relativism." --Larry Sanger (talk) 03:45, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
My essay neither says nor implies any such thing. The hell it doesn't. In the context in which you have presented this to us, you drew a completely false -and frankly, rather ignorant- equivocation between the validity of ID and the validity of evolutionary theory. You did so while claiming that you don't believe in ID. In other words, you implicitly admitted that there's no utility, accuracy or morality to ID, then made the explicit claim that it's validity is equal to ET's. Whether you intended to do it or not, that's exactly what you communicated.
Nonsense. But go ahead and argue how accepting that an objective reality exists—something to which I'm sure I'm at least as strongly committed as you are—shows that my arguments can't be defended. Pick one and construct your rebuttal. I'll wait. You don't have to wait. See the paragraph above.
And if you're right, well—it follows that you are rejecting the neutrality policy. No, it doesn't. It's amazing how someone who has the audacity to brag about crafting the neutrality policy can be so incredibly ignorant of the most important point, repeated numerous times and upheld by reams of sound reasoning and empirical evidence: that neutrality is not the same thing as a false balance of validity. Because your whole argument was that there needs to be a false balance between science and pseudoscience.
You don't want to let people think for themselves and make up their own minds. You don't want to let people think for themselves and make up their own minds. You'd prefer to force readers' minds, to bend them to your will, rather than fairly presenting arguments on all sides and allowing readers to make up their own minds. Am I wrong? Yes. More so than you can probably even comprehend.
Maybe you read the essay, but you didn't understand what you read. Given that you made it explicitly clear with your comments in this thread that the rationale of your essay tracks exactly with the way I described it, it'd be easier to convince someone that you didn't understand what you wrote.
You think you understand what neutrality requires; I'm saying that you don't. You have demonstrated a profound misunderstanding of virtually every policy you have addressed in your entire editing history. Absolutely no-one is going to take your word for this. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:20, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
We receive plenty enough feedback complaining about how the Intelligent Design and other Creationism-related articles are "biased" and terrible because they do not discuss those topics in warm, loving, and praise-filled prose mirroring various Young Earth Creationist and Intelligent Design-themed websites as is. That, and Wikipedia does not operate under the idea that "neutrality" and "unbiased" mean "filled with praise" and "censoring unflattering truths in revenge for being being hurtful and unflattering."--Mr Fink (talk) 04:03, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
In order to "make up your own mind", you need information. Disinformation is not helpful. That is why we need to use reliable sources and not use unreliable sources. But the ID standpoint comes from unreliable sources, so we can't use those directly. We need to follow what the reliable sources say about ID, and the article is the way it is because it simply says what the reliable sources say.
Of course, you can now say that this depends on which sources you consider reliable. Well, if they have a history of misreprentation, they are out. The Discovery Institute is out.
If we didn't do it like this, if we didn't care about the reliability of sources, we would also have to accept pathological liars and fake news sites as sources. Some say Comet Pizza has a basement, some say it doesn't. Some say Roy Moore won the election, some say he didn't. Some say the Jews are the cause of all evil and must all be exterminated, some don't. Of course, one can draw a line somewhere, including the ID proponents but excluding Goebbels, but that line is always subjective. The most objective one is to forbid all the dishonest sources.
In your essay, you completely ignore the reliability of sources. But this is actually the underlying cause of this article being the way it is.
Maybe you are just not as familiar with the dishonesty of ID sources, maybe you fell for the part of their propaganda that says ID is a legitimate idea.
Maybe you do have a point somewhere, maybe this is not what you mean, but as long as you don't say exactly what is, in your view, wrong with the article, we cannot do anything about it. To make that point clearer, consider this dialogue:
Larry Sanger: "This article is bad. Improve it."
Mr Fink: "Oh, I hadn't noticed that. I will remedy it now. Thank you."
So, do you want to give the liars more room? Include quotes that misrepresent evolution without pointing out that they misrepresent evolution? --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:29, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
In what sense are there no reliable sources? No reliable sources about what the ID arguments are? Surely an official ID website is a reliable source - indeed, the reliable source - for what the ID arguments are - and yet these are quoted sparingly, while the opinion of critics have many citations, even ones with little knowledge of the subject such as Bill Nye being quoted several times. You say they are dishonest, but how can they be dishonest about what their own arguments are - surely it's impossible for a person to be dishonest about what statements they are making? If you believe that, it would seem that you are the one lying to yourself. Whether 'ID is a legitimate idea' is irrelevant - horoscopes are not a legitimate idea, but I think you'll find the Wikipedia page on that to be fairly neutral, that article merely presents the facts rather than continuously pointing out how many negative opinions many people have of that idea. I think his article said that even if an idea is wrong, the arguments made by its proponents should be presented in their strongest form, and that is clearly not being done here. Indeed, even though there is a section devoted to 'Criticisms', I'd estimate slightly over half of the 'Concepts' section is also devoted to criticisms. Where is the section actually devoted to what the article is actually about, rather than to criticisms of it? I'd say the TL;DR of Larry's article was that if an article is neutral, you shouldn't know which side the writer supports. Can you honestly say you believe that about this article? 81.141.245.201 (talk) 17:07, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
Don't squeeze your words into other people's contributions. It is rude and it makes the page harder to understand for others. I remedied that slightly - actually, it should be below Roxy's older contribution, but that one has already been answered.
"how can they be dishonest about what their own arguments are" - I did not say they were dishonest about what their own arguments are. You are drifting farther away from the point.
The ID arguments are strongest when they are proposed to an uninformed person. No, we will not present them like that.
"if an article is neutral, you shouldn't know which side the writer supports." This is concept of neutrality that is different from Wikipedia's NPOV. It is the one favored by know-nothings and postmodernists, but it does not help the reader to understand. --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:31, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
Question. Is Larry a creationist? I know nothing about him except that he was involved in the project in the early days. -Roxy, Zalophus californianus. barcus 07:44, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
Ken Ham seems to think Bill Nye is a person qualified to comment on creationism. And if anyone is an expert on this particular conceit, then it is he. Guy (Help!) 20:03, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
  • I read Larry Sanger's piece. It does not provide any substantive reason why there is anything wrong with this article. In fact, I think he has been talking to too many cdesign proponentsists.
[ob global warming skepticism; creationism, intelligent design, or creation science; the anti-vaccination movement; homeopathic medicine]: The popularity of such views combined with the relative silence about them in the media suggests that journalists would find neutral coverage of such topics to be “false balance.” These also suggest at least two different variants of the argument to consider: a moral variant and an epistemological variant.
Really? How about this as an alternative hypothesis: the media don't cover these views because they are wrong. Sanger correctly identifies these as areas of legitimate scientific inquiry. Science is inherently neutral. Sanger talks about false equivalence and the difference between "balance" and "neutrality". In fact, that has been a core complaint of scientists for a long time: the media give a "balanced" view between cranks and scientists.
The media has, by and large, learned its lesson, at least in respect of global warming. The global warming deniers are no longer given much of a platform, and science is represented for what it is: our best objective understanding of the observed facts. They portray this as suppression of their free speech and a distortion of the marketplace of ideas. It isn't. Actually they are engaing in special pleading. they have lost out in the marketplace of ideas, and want another kick at the can, with an audience less adept at spotting bullshit. The antivaxers' attempts to publish science keep ending up with retraction, so they switch to making propaganda movies and howling about attempts to suppress their freedom to advocate for children dying of preventable infectious diseases. They are wrong. Wikipedia can, should, and does say that they are wrong.
What else do you want, Larry? Seriously? Science is the platonic ideal of neutrality. It converges on empirical correctness and has a robust, if fallible, mechanism for weeding out wrong ideas, bias, conflict of interest and the rest. It's the best way mankind has ever devised for telling truth from falsehood.
ID is objectively wrong. Promotion of ID is objectively dangerous: it requires people to learn that religious "truth" and scientific truth are competitors, with definite underlying purpose of then asserting religious "truth" as superior. The entire history of ID is absolutely laid bare in the Kitzmiller trial and elsewhere. It is a Trojan horse to get religious indoctrination into the public school system after it was ruled unconstitutional. The lede is one of the best on Wikipedia. It is factual, not polemical, succinct, and doesn't use weasel words. Intelligent Design is a religious concept, a Trojan horse for creationism, and it has been busted wide open in every relevant field: science, philosophy, educational theory, and of course the law. And that's what we say. Because anything else would be a lie.
ID is classical pseudoscience, portraying a religious dogma in science-y sounding language. In fact, homeopathy is the same: the dogmas of homeopathy are quasi-religious. Homeopathists disagree on fundamental questions like the Korsakovian dilution or combination versus classical similimum. You can take two mutually exclusive ideas, test them to see if A or B is false. The result of this test will be either A, B, or both, but "both true" is not an option because they are mutually exclusive. And the actual result, the homeopathists assert, is "both true", because they cannot accept "neither".
Wikipedia is a reality-based encyclopaedia. Sanger may prefer the fashionable relativism that views a conflict between science and nonsense as equivalent to the conflict between the alt-right and progressives. He is at liberty to prefer that. He tried it on Citizendium. His articles were hijacked by "experts" on the losing side in the battle of ideas who had failed to get their way on Wikipedia. I am sure he likes these people, and I am suspicious that it has coloured his views of Wikipedia's approach to articles on subjects like ID, vaccination, homeopathy, global warming and the like which are beset by small, well-funded, vocal and differently rational groups whose commercial interests and quasi-religious beliefs are contradicted by the best available evidence.
If your friends are homeopaths, creationists, global warming deniers and so on, you are going to be subjected to an endless conspiracist narrative in which Big Science is conspiring to do down ideas that challenge it. I have been told by homeopaths and creationists alike that science is "threatened" by their ideas. No, it is not. A scientist who found a new theory of matter that was consistent with the claims of homeopathy would be a special guest in Stockholm without any question at all. Science is not threatened by things it does not understand - the existence of things it does not understand is in fact science's sole reason for existence. As Dara Ó Briain put it, "science knows it doesn't know everything; otherwise, it'd stop". However, as he goes on to say, "just because science doesn't know everything doesn't mean you can fill in the gaps with whatever fairy tale most appeals to you".
I think Larry Sanger needs to study some psychology. He needs to read up on motivated reasoning, cognitive dissonance and the Dunning-Kruger effect. In that order. Guy (Help!) 17:03, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

The essay is rather long, but the basic point is fine: Wikipedia does not follow "neutrality" the way Sanger defines it. His definition is: it should not be possible to infer the writer's viewpoint from what they wrote. So, after reading an article on Intelligent Design, it should not be possible to infer the writer's viewpoint. Should Wikipedia follow Sanger's model? I'm not sure.

The essay is rather short on examples, but I noticed that Sanger gives as an example of typical "neutral work" to be textbooks and encyclopedias. Do real-world encyclopedias actually follow his model of "neutrality"?

Consider the question of whether Shakespeare actually was the author of the works attributed to him. Look at the Encyclopedia Britannica article section. Does that look "neutral" to you? It clearly takes a side (the correct side). The article Shakespeare authorship question on Wikipedia also clearly takes a side (the correct one). In fact the former is simply dismissive of the whole issue, while the latter presents the controversy in much more detail (because it has much more space).

If the aim of textbooks and encyclopedias is to actually teach what is known, would it really make sense to follow Sanger's model? I don't know, and few or no textbooks follow his model. What they instead do is use a different model. After reading the textbook (and attending class etc.) the student should be able to answer questions in an exam to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the material. The latter goal does not require any "neutrality" at all, from what I can see.

Of course, presentation of opposing viewpoints just to show why they are defective is a proper and well-known technique to achieve the latter goal. But again, this does not require that the textbook or teacher not take a side. Sure, a "neutral" teacher (or better yet, a devil's advocate) can be a useful part of teaching. But it does not need to be (nor is it in practice) the organizing principle of the whole material. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 14:08, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

True: how would this work for Earth and Solar System: WP:GEVAL to flat Earth and geocentrism? Tgeorgescu (talk) 14:57, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
Of course, a hypothetical reader who does not know anything about the shape and movement of the Earth would complain that those articles are biased, the same way those readers who do not know anything about evolution complain that the evolution/ID/creationism articles are biased... the application of Sanger's neutrality ideas depends strongly on the applier's individual knowledge/ignorance border, so the idea works only if the knowledge of all parties about all subjects is exactly the same. --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:05, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
Of course, a hypothetical reader who does not know anything about the shape and movement of the Earth would complain that those articles are biased No, such a reader would simply be informed by the article. A reader would have had to be introduced to the flat earth before complaining about bias. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:27, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Here is a link to the "Neutral Point of View" in 2002, that Larry Sanger refers to. If that were still policy today then Larry's criticism of this article would be valid. But the current policy warns against false balance. Since ID is universally rejected in reliable sources, following current policy will portray it in a negative light. Furthermore, current policy says that consensus opinion in science should be treated as fact, while the older policy would have given equal validity to ID theory. As editors, we are supposed to follow current policy. TFD (talk) 16:33, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Even that version has language that supports the "no false balance" principle, just not explicitly. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:07, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
But what all of you who are opposing Larry Sanger's comment ignore is this, from the top of the current policy:
This page in a nutshell:' Articles must not take sides, but should explain the sides, fairly and without editorial bias. This applies to both what you say and how you say it.
This article violates the "how you say it" part and overtly takes sides. YoPienso (talk) 17:37, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
Then, @Yopienso: how do you explain, in a neutral tone, that no science can done with Intelligent Design because Intelligent Design was created by Young Earth Creationists for the expressed purpose of circumventing the First Amendment of The United States Constitution in order to teach anti-science-themed religious propaganda instead of science in science classrooms in the US? Or, are we assuming that "neutral tone" means "censoring unflattering truths because they are not filled with praise"?--Mr Fink (talk) 17:51, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
You know what, Mr. Fink? I returned to revert my comment since I don't really have the time or energy or will to get into this. But since you've already responded, I'll paste in what I was preparing before realizing I need to prioritize my time differently, and then hat the section. Collapse, I guess.
The Encyclopedia Britannica article, in contrast to this one, first dispassionately defines the topic without name-calling or innuendo--not calling it religious nor an argument for the existence of God, nor a pseudoscience: Intelligent design (ID), argument intended to demonstrate that living organisms were created in more or less their present forms by an “intelligent designer.” The author, Thomas F. Glick, presents ID as "an explicit refutation of the theory of biological evolution advanced by Charles Darwin" and then gets into Paley's influence. He concludes that "Meanwhile, intelligent design appeared incapable of generating a scientific research program, which inevitably broadened the gap between it and the established norms of science." I find that unbiased while expressing the facts of the matter.
Yes, lots of sources, particularly from within the community of working evolutionary researchers, are hostile. Say so without adopting their tone.
Glick is a historian and has no axe to grind; he's an expert in the field, as seen on his Boston U. profile, which says he is "co-author of Negotiating Darwin: The Vatican Confronts Evolution, 1877-1902 (2006). He is editor or co-editor of The Comparative Reception of Darwinism (2nd ed., 1988); The Comparative Reception of Relativity (1987); The Reception of Charles Darwin in Europe (2008)."
I think the article has been greatly improved over the past few years; my greatest objection is to the wording of the first two paragraphs of the lead. I think the first should give an unbiased definition of ID from its proponents viewpoint, not call it pseudoscience, and eliminate the word "claim." I think the second should focus on the argument itself, not its proponents; as it stands it's a veiled personal attack on them.
Is the intent of the article to inform the public? or to publicly bash an offensive argument? If the intent is to inform, we should try to not alienate readers right at the outset. Talk pages demonstrate that has been the case over and over again, as documented right at the top of this page: "A common objection made often by new arrivals is that the article presents ID in an unsympathetic light and that criticism of ID is too extensive or violates Wikipedia's Neutral Point of View policy (WP:NPOV)."
Yes, ID is arguably pseudoscience, and WP has made a special ruling on that. I have no trouble with a subsection devoted to that, but object to the blatant assertion right at the beginning in WP's own voice.
Etc., etc., but never mind. YoPienso (talk) 18:27, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
In fact, Britannica is also biased against ID, but this is not seen at Intelligent design but at Intelligent design and its critics. So, your assumption that Britannica is not biased in respect to ID is faulty. Tgeorgescu (talk) 19:12, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
My tuppenceworth – the Britannica web page has the title "intelligent design | History & Facts" and it seems to be one of a group on ID, at least one other is also written by Glick. He defines ID as an argument, but then focusses on Behe's ideas while ignoring the earlier appearonce of ID in Pandas, and not mentioning its broader claims. If you read right through, and relate it to his other article, it seems to come to much the same conclusion as this Wikipedia article. It's vague in a way that could appear dispassionate, but in my view is a partial account rather than an overview. In sum, it's not doing the same job as our article. . . dave souza, talk 19:33, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
Which raises what might be yet another question this article and a lot of other articles we have here encounter, which is basically pecking order. To what degree any article is the primary article and first place of consultation by readers for a given subject, and what if any parent articles exist and what content should be in which article here is a very real one. And it would help a lot if we had any other highly regarded reference sources, in this particular case probably including specialist sources in science, philosophy, religion and sociology, which could be used to help determine that. I wish I knew of any. John Carter (talk) 19:56, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
The rub lies in the fact that ID presents itself as if it were established scientific fact (ready to be taught in science classes). If it were a theological or philosophical argument, all we could do is agree to disagree, as my sociological theories professor said "To my exam there are no good or bad answers, but only good or bad arguments for those answers." So, all philosophers and theologians can say is that they have agreed to disagree: they exchange arguments, but there is no objective way to tell who is right and who is wrong. It isn't so in science and the philosophy of science distinguishes between scientific statements and unscientific statements. Tgeorgescu (talk) 21:09, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
Yopienso, we are not putting any kind of editorial judgment on this, the facts were established in a court of law. It's not Wikipedia editors who are saying that ID isa copy-paste rebranding of religious creationists, it's a court. The cdesign proponentists themselves provided the smoking gun. Guy (Help!) 22:44, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
Larry Sanger weighed in with his two cents, so I'll weigh in with mine. First, I have to wonder about the timing of the comment considering he just recently started working for our competitor veripedia and may have been looking for a particular article to criticize in public statements. Secondly, to an extent, I agree that the article might well be flawed and if it is our policies might as they currently exist might be one of the reasons why. We officially give current scientific reasoning priority over all other disciplines. And we probably have more editors who have a background and personal inclination, sometimes a very strong inclination, toward broadly scientific views than to views of what might be called philosophy of religion. Unfortunately, and this might maybe be particularly true about articles and topics involved in the recent science vs. religion debate in pop culture, sometimes specialists even make fairly big and obvious mistakes in their own speciality as was mentioned in the recent book The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. This might be particularly true of both scientists and religious thinkers in this highly controversial topic area. In such a case, my own first impulse would be to try to find any recent highly regarded reference books like encyclopedias dealing with the broad topic area at some length and more or less make our article and coverage of the broader topic an agglomeration of the material in them. I wish I knew of such encyclopedic sources from both sides but don't remember seeing any. If any of you do, it might be nice to mention them. John Carter (talk) 18:21, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
"And we probably have more editors who have a background and personal inclination, sometimes a very strong inclination, toward broadly scientific views than to views of what might be called philosophy of religion." Observation. Scientific views are based on data, and sciences such as geology, evolutionary biology, and paleontology have done a great job of tracing the history of this planet and all life on it. Philosophy of religion has to do with human beliefs and cultural concepts. By its nature, it is not based on generally accepted evidence, and offers many questions, but very few answers. An ever increasing number of contradictory positions have been offered by philosophers, from antiquity onwards. They make for amusing reading, but I would question their relevance to the human experience. Dimadick (talk) 22:07, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
  • I disagree with the OP and do not believe this particular article is pervasively biased. However, I do believe this talk page and other ID-related talk pages have been poisoned by patrolling editors who consider themselves to be the science police so zealously that anyone who doesn’t tow their line is a bad faith actor who must be ridiculed and ignored. Not only does this prevent full discussion and consensus building on these issues, but it also prevents basic article development. The article and others in the ID space are just shoddily written. (I am not watching this page, so please ping me if you want my attention.) —Dr. Fleischman (talk) 18:02, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Amazingly, User:MjolnirPants has decided that I lack the right to respond here in this thread. Rather than start a revert war, I've decided to move my comment to my talk page. --Larry Sanger (talk) 17:08, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

It's not really amazing if you actually read the policy. Your talk page isn't even the best place for such ruminations, per the same policy, but I doubt anyone would be inclined to revert you there. In the future, please use the talk pages for their intended use; discussing changes to the article. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:15, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
There is nothing any more "forum"-y about my comment than about most of the above thread. You deleted my reply because--to put it nicely--you didn't like it. But as apparently you didn't realize, this means that a lot more people are going to see what a brilliant admin you are, "Mjolnir Pants." --Larry Sanger (talk) 17:23, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
Well, for starters, I'm not an admin and never presented myself as one. For another thing; yes, we humored you because you were one of the co-founders of WP. Once it became obvious that every experienced editor pretty much disagreed with you entirely, it's time to be done with this. So I'm going to archive the section with this edit. Feel free to respond at my talk; don't like the giant red banner scare you off; invitations such as this are a "free pass" as it were. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:34, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Discovery Institute and Sanger at Everipedia
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
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