Talk:Intelligent design/Archive 53

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Straw poll - sort of: Intelligent design is the X

Please add your opinions to the table below. Give each term marks out of 5 representing how much you favour using it. A score of five means that you strongly support that term, perhaps enough to revert its removal from the article (once), a score of three is neutral, and a score of one means you would probably revert the addition of that term to the article (but no more than once). Needless to say, if we get a lot of fives and ones we're going to keep looking for words.

• To add another term, create a new column at the end of the list.
• To add your input, copy the last row of the table, putting your username (three tildes) in the first column and your scores in the other columns.

User ( ~~~ )	"assertion"	"idea"	"concept"	"hypothesis"	"theory"	"argument"	"position"	"premise"	"belief"	"inference"	"view"	(other)
SHEFFIELDSTEELTALK	3	4	3	2	1	2	3	3	4	3	4
User:Filll	4	4	3	2	1	4	3	3	3	2
Darrenhusted (talk)	5	2	2	2	2	1	1	1	1	1
siℓℓy rabbit (talk)	3	2	2	1	1	3	4	2	3	1	4
Hrafn	5	2	2	2	1	3	4	1	2	2	3
Professor marginalia	4	2	2	1	1	4	3	3	1	1
Guettarda	5	3	3	1	1	4	2	2	1	1
Ludwigs2	4	5	5	3	3	4	4	1	4	3	5
Somedumbyankee (talk)	4	2	3	1	1	3	4	3	2	1	4
TSP (talk)	2	4	3	3	3	4	4	2	2	2	4
User:Odd nature	5	3	3	1	1	4	5	1	1	1	3
LuckyLavs	1	5	2	3	2	3	3	1	1	4	4
Championdante (talk)	2	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
Lightnin Boltz (talk)	4	1	1	1	1	1	3	1	3	1	2
Aunt Entropy (talk)	4	4	5	2	1	3	4	2	2	1	3
ScienceApologist	4	4	3	1	1	2	2	2	4	2
Playwrite (talk)	5	2	2	4	1	1	3	4	4	2	3
ZayZayEM (talk)	5	3	4	1	2	4	2	2	1	3	3

• Please bear in mind that the purpose of this section isn't to discuss or debate any of the terms, just to establish everyone's opinion. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 13:40, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I wish I could give theory a zero.--Filll (talk | wpc) 13:49, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't think holding a straw poll will help. This isn't a popularity contest. --Jenny 13:51, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree. The suitability of a given word depends heavily on context, anyway. Gnixon (talk) 14:39, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

The context is that of the lead sentence: Intelligent design is the X 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". I agree that this isn't a popularity contest. It's an aid to finding out how lots of people feel about lots of potential words. Hopefully it will help focus future discussion, perhaps including or excluding certain words, perhaps bringing to light new issues. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 14:59, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Okay; I didn't think the poll was an unreasonable idea, but I'm concerned that it oversimplifies what is necessarily a rather nuanced discussion. I'm honestly not 100% comfortable with any substitution for X that I've yet seen, including "theory," "argument," "view," etc.---maybe there's a way to rephrase things entirely. Gnixon (talk) 18:04, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

"Intelligent design is the view that..." gets my vote. A nice neutral, matter of fact, layman's term that implies nothing about the view's merits or otherwise. 66.96.243.12 (talk) 17:25, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I'll add that we should really be determining this on the basis of neutrality, not a straw poll. it's sad that politics has infused this debate so much that we're fighting major battles over the choice of individual words. --Ludwigs2 17:55, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I hear what you say. But consider that this is the first word in the first sentence that actually describes or defines ID, hence arguably the most important single word in the article. That's why so many editors have discussed this at such length - both now and in the past. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 18:20, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

This isn't a vote, it's just a screening mechanism to identify what's worth considering for choice of words. For the record, I agree that view is also a reasonable choice (would put a 4 if it were on the table). Check out Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which is a very interesting spin on the statement "it's just semantics." Somedumbyankee (talk) 18:33, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I've been reading with some interest, and thought I'd add my thoughts. I haven't put "1" or "5" for anything, as I think that pretty much all the options have their merits and problems (and I wouldn't go so far as to revert any of them). I would like to see "assertion" replaced, though. I think that most people's interpretation of the term would be something like the American Heritage Dictionary's "Something declared or stated positively, often with no support or attempt at proof." Now, we may quite reasonably think that all the ID supporters' attempts to provide evidence in favour of ID have been nonsense and largely disproven; but they have certainly been making them, so I think that 'assertion' is inappropriate as it suggests that there have been no attempts to provide any support for the idea.

To comment on a few of the others; "premise" doesn't fit well for me. I understand a premise as in logic - it's what you start out from in making another argument; I don't think that ID is used in this way. "Inference" implies that ID was developed as a direct response to evidence, which is at best highly disputed. "Belief" again implies to me at least that its adherents make no attempt to logically justify their view; while you may think that their attempts have been pathetic, they do seem to have made attempts.

"Theory" and "hypothesis" are probably too scientific in tone; though, to their credit, they seem to be the terms used by many of our sources, on both sides of the debate. (I don't think I buy the idea that the AAAS is using the term ironically.)

My preferred options are the plain English "idea", "argument", "position", "view" - all of which seem to me to be without positive or negative judgement. "Argument" has the additional bonus of being Britannica's word; but I'd be very happy with any of these. TSP (talk) 19:17, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

"argument" has support -- but it will generate more ARGUMENT than "theory" ever has -- "proposition" would be preferable
Every word choice for ID is X, has one or more deficits: unmerited legitimization, oversimplification/condescension, multiple definition/ambiguity, requires prior learning or demands explanation; and none of them "just plain sound right" except for "assertion," which often conveys a lack of supportive reasoning -- though that usually requires some sort of descriptor such as "just," "mere," or "unwarranted" to drive the point home (all of which this sentence lacks). If ID is X is to be maintained, then "assertion" should be kept for "choice that least offends" reasons. But I recommend escape from the corner ID is X has painted us into:

"Certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection."^[1][2] This is the premise of intelligent design, a modern form..."

--Championdante (talk) 04:26, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

"Proposition" is the first word I thought of, and it's not even in the list : ( It fits though: "something offered for consideration or acceptance". That's the idea, right? Creationism is shot down by the courts, so they reframe it and offer up something new for acceptance, ie. a proposition. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 07:17, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to add the term "extremely irritating" to the list. I jest, how about "Intelligent design is a model of the universe"?

"Interpreting" the "data"

Feel free to modify these lists:

Words to avoid for this article

• Hypothesis, theory, premise, and inference all have multiple strong objections and should probably not be used. None of these have any active support.
• Belief also has strong objections, though there are some supporters.

Word to use for the first sentence

• Assertion has broad support, with a few people lukewarm and some objections but no outright rejection.
• Idea and concept do not have any strong objections, but many people do not appear to be enthused about these.

Discussion follows:

Overall, just for the purposes of good writing, we should probably be looking for words which have broad support or are otherwise uncontroversial rather than a "one best word". The article will otherwise sound like a broken record with constant repetition of that word, and we don't want to give any impression of an authoritative term.

The only time where "one word" is necessary is for the first line of the article. My personal spin on this is that we should focus on choosing a word that is not objectionable rather than a word that has the most strong supporters. Somedumbyankee (talk) 21:06, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I have objected to 'assertion'; it's just that the numbers 5 and 1 were explained in terms of 'I would revert the addition/removal of this term'; I wouldn't, without discussion, so I didn't vote 5 or 1 for anything. 66.96.243.12 also seemed to be objecting to the term, though hasn't filled in the straw poll.

"Position" seems to have a large number of 5s and 4s, and just one 2 and one 1 (the 1 being from an editor who, without wishing to suggest that his view should not be taken into account, voted either 2 or 1 to everything other than the status quo). "Argument" likewise has received generally positive views; as has "view", though as it was added late most haven't expressed an opinion on it. TSP (talk) 23:05, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Because it amused me, I've crunched this data with Excel. I converted all of the numbers given to a percent. For example, a user who gave responses in the range of 1-2 would give "0" for 1 (lowest given) and a "100" for 2 (highest given), range of 1-5, 2 is a "25". This should flatten out people's different interpretations of the instructions. Adding all percents and dividing by number of opinions given (19 for most, 14 for view), gives the following results:

• score > 49: view, position, argument
• 49 > score > 39: assertion, idea
• 39 > score > 29: belief
• 29 > score  : hypothesis, theory, premise, inference

The range was from 10 (theory) to 54 (view). This is not a rigorous analysis. SDY (talk) 17:15, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

The above math appears to be screwy. here are the average raw scores:

• "assertion" 3.83
• "idea" 2.94
• "concept" 2.72
• "hypothesis" 1.78
• "theory" 1.39
• "argument" 2.83
• "position" 3.06
• "premise" 1.94
• "belief" 2.22
• "inference" 1.78
• "view" 3.31

Assertion scores highest, followed by view. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 19:21, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

The reason it's screwy is because it takes into account the other responses of each user and is not a raw average. If 4 was the highest score a user gave, the conversion gave it a higher weight than a 4 from a user that also gave 5's (correcting for hyperbole, more or less). I was trying to take into account TSP's concern regarding how people interpreted the instructions differently. SDY (talk) 19:33, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Another two minutes of fun with spreadsheets. This method compares a user's value for each word compared to the sum of the values they gave. Like the previous weighted analysis, the intent is to look at the response in context. For example, the first value given in the table is a 3 from a user that gave a total of 28, so that's "0.107" (10.7%) of his or her "vote." "View" is excluded from this analysis since several people didn't express a preference.

Assertion: 2.94 + (first by 0.69) Idea: 2.11 + Concept: 1.96 + Hypothesis: 1.30 - Theory: 1.05 - (lowest by 0.25) Argument: 2.06 + Position: 2.25 + Premise: 1.44 - Belief: 1.64 - Interference 1.29 -

The mean response is 1.80, the + and - in the results show above or below that value. SDY (talk) 20:08, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Your "correcting for hyperbole" could equally be described as "overweighting more apathetic opinions". The scale was explicitly characterised as an absolute scale ('would revert' at extremes) not a relative one (like/dislike most), so I see no justification for such scaling (particularly given that your methodology is still far from clear, let alone rigorous). Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 05:54, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Of course it's not a validated algorithm. I spent about 2 minutes on it because it amused me. I can explain the methodology, but I don't think it really matters all that much. I do think that giving more weight to "apathetic" editors is reasonable since this page could do with a little less passion and a little more calm. SDY (talk) 06:13, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Short of forcibly injecting all editors on this article with heroin, good luck. ;) For myself, I deal with editors as they are, not as they should be -- and pretending that there aren't some words which they'd revert because they see them as grossly inaccurate, seems counter-productive. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 07:12, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Another way forward

I want to say again that I think the best solution would be to find another way entirely of defining ID. As Hrafn has pointed out, the quote is not exactly a statement of a belief/theory, but rather an argument for that belief/theory. The belief/theory is that there is an "intelligent designer" who "designed" life and the physical world. The quote is a statement of the position that such a belief/theory better explains the facts, e.g., the diversity of life, than certain scientific theories, e.g., evolution. We need to ask ourselves whether ID (as a notable subject) is essentially the belief/theory that there is an "intelligent designer" or if it is essentially a set of arguments for the existence of an "intelligent designer." As a side note, if it is the latter, I think Ludwig has made an excellent case for merging this article with Intelligent design movement. Gnixon (talk) 17:44, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Merging the articles would be an excellent idea in itself. "Intelligent Design" is a product of the "Intelligent Design movement," it does not predate the movement and is inseperable. Creationism is a seperate, valid religious belief, one which does not subject itself to the rigors of scientific examination, so ID cannot escape through that hatch. RvLeshrac (talk) 00:24, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Here is an example of how one might rephrase the definition: Intelligent design refers to the idea that life and the physical universe were designed by an intelligent agent. Following this with "Arguments for intelligent design are related to the traditional teleological argument for the existence of God, but ..." should transition nicely to a mention of its historical origins. Gnixon (talk) 17:49, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

"Refers to the IDEA." Theres no point in re-writing if we don't escape the descriptive word. Of course, thsi being an encyclopeda we have to use a descriptor and hence the argument remains. Playwrite (talk) 13:25, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Part of my point was that the quote is an assertion that ID is correct, not a definition of ID, so it's a somewhat nonsensical exercise to try to complete the sentence. We could have a much more focused discussion about what substitutions are possible for "idea" in the sentence I gave. Gnixon (talk) 20:57, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Word Analysis

I would like to chime in on word selection.

"Assertion" is not the best word to use here, as an assertion can imply some kind of strongly held position. Strongly held ideas are "asserted"; weak ideas are "floated." However, you have certain ID proponents on record stating that ID cannot be verified... taking the position that it's simply a "possibility." Therefore, to say that ID is an "assertion" lumps too many people together into one category.

"Belief" is perjorative. Beliefs can be made on faith alone, i.e. -- a person can believe he can fly if he jumps out of a building. "Belief" is another term that can be viewed as an attempt to force-fit ID into a religious idea, dismissing the reasons given by its proponents.

"Concept" doesn't really fit ID, as concepts are usually required to be mastered to come to grips with a larger problem. Not to mention-- we usually don't speak of unverifiable concepts, and ID is unverifiable.

"Premise" is likewise not a good word, because premises are used to form conclusions. ID is not just a single premise or a set of premises (natural systems are complex); but includes a conclusion as well (therefore, likely created by an intelligent cause).

"Argument" is better than premise, but like assertion, this term suffers from suggesting too strong of a connection or a nexus between the premises and the conclusion. If I said "It might have rained yesterday because the ground is wet." That's much different than saying "The ground is wet, therefore it rained." The latter would clearly be an argument. The former, however, doesn't sound like an argument, even if it is.

"Theory" also should not be used, merely for the sake of clarity, since theory can have both a broad connotation or a specific, scientific connotation. Better to prevent against possible equivocation and confusion when you have so many alternative words that could be used instead of this word.

"Position" is a little better than the words above; but not everyone who finds the idea plausible takes ID as a "position".

"View" is not a bad word - although "views" can merely be opinions held without evidence or reasoning to back them. For example, "In my view, leprochauns are real." But this word is still much better than assertion or belief.

"Inference" is probably a good word -- however, certain ID proponents might say ID is more than merely an inference. This word suffers from overgeneralization, even if the group that finds it to be more than just an inference is a numerical minority.

I think the best two words are these:

"Proposition" or "Idea"

I cannot think of any reasons not to use either of these words. Both are neutral in tone.

Now, if we could only fix the other 40,000 words in the article, we might actually attain NPOV.

LuckyLavs (talk) 19:32, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Example

Since all these discussions about neutrality are a bit abstract, perhaps it would advance the discussion if I gave a specific example of what I think would be a more professional lead. This example resulted from a few casual edits I made a week or so ago to a sort of draft proposal for the lead hosted at User:Bwrs/draft_article. I don't claim it's perfect, but I think it addresses the requirements of NPOV better than the current lead. I also think it shows that "theory" can be used without misleading readers. References are cut to keep this post shorter, but they are a subset of those currently in the lead. I'm interested in hearing constructive criticism. Gnixon (talk) 15:05, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Text

Intelligent design is the theory 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." It is related to the traditional teleological argument for the existence of God, but avoids specifying the nature or identity of the designer.

Proponents of intelligent design look for evidence of what they term "signs of intelligence": physical properties of an object that point to a designer. For example, intelligent design proponents argue that an archaeologist who finds a statue made of stone in a field may justifiably conclude that the statue was designed, and may reasonably seek to identify its designer. Design proponents argue that living systems show great complexity, from which they infer that some aspects of life have been designed.

The unequivocal response of the scientific community has been that intelligent design is not legitimate science. According to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, "Creationism, intelligent design, and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life or of species are not science because they are not testable by the methods of science." The American Association for the Advancement of Science and the US National Science Teachers Association have called it pseudoscience.

The intelligent design movement originated in response to the 1987 United States Supreme Court Edwards v. Aguillard, which barred the teaching of creation science in public schools. The first published description of intelligent design was Of Pandas and People, a 1989 textbook intended for high-school biology classes; other books about intelligent design were published in the 1990s. With the Discovery Institute serving a central role in planning and funding, the movement grew increasingly visible in the late 1990s and early 2000s, culminating in the 2005 Dover trial.

In Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, parents challenged a public school district requirement for teachers to present intelligent design in biology classes as an alternative "explanation of the origin of life". The court ruled that the school district had violated the separation of church and state, finding that Intelligent Design "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents."

Discussion

Again, I don't mean this to represent a polished final product, merely a "proof of concept." The main improvement I would like to make would be condensing the two paragraphs on the "movement" into one, but Kitzmiller seems central enough that maybe it should keep its own paragraph. Also, the "archaeologist" bit is more of an analogy than an example; I'm not sure of its origin (I copied it from elsewhere in the Bwrs draft), and something from biology would be better. Gnixon (talk) 15:05, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Some thoughts:

• Given that the mainstream POV clearly rejects calling it a theory, it's probably best to just avoid that word by default. There are many synonyms in English that don't have that concern.
• "Intelligent cause" sounds awkward, neutrality aside.
• We should probably explain what we mean by a teleological argument, as that word is essentially philosophical jargon. It may be the right word at the right time at the right place for a formal discussion, but that doesn't help when your average reader may confuse it with theological or simply not understand.
• Conversely, "published description" implies to me a scientific paper. "Widely printed" maybe? A one sentence mention of the reception to papers on the topic seems appropriate for the lead.
• May have more later, time for work.

Somedumbyankee (talk) 15:23, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, SDY. Some responses.... Didn't the above discussion establish that "mainstream clearly rejects calling it theory" is inaccurate? (E.g., the AAAS does so.) I'm open to being convinced that another word is better here than "theory." Anyway, I don't want to get too hung up on that point. "Intelligent cause" may sound awkward, but it's part of a long quote. I think just linking "teleological" should be sufficient; otherwise we risk a long tangent in the very first paragraph of the lead. "Published description" is followed immediately by "textbook," so it should be clear it's not a paper; "published" is to indicate that this is the first source defining the "theory." Gnixon (talk) 15:35, 3 July 2008 (UTC) To clarify, if "theory" is too much of a distraction, I'll change it to "argument" for the purposes of this discussion. Gnixon (talk) 15:46, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

"Published description" is a set of words that has a certain meaning within scientific contexts. This is part of why I want to remove anything sounding like science jargon from the article (i.e. theory) and present it with words that don't have any loaded meaning. Abuse of semantics is one of the main contentions about the ID movement: it appropriates the language of science to describe something totally outside the realm of science. Somedumbyankee (talk) 18:43, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Mr. Nixon: The IDists are moving away from the practice of referring to ID as a "theory". They are probably doing so because Judge Jones ruled that ID is an untestable hypothesis, which precludes ID from being regarded as a theory.

Please look at the "Glossary" of Explore Evolution ( http://exploreevolution.com/glossary.php ). It contains definitions for "hypothesis," and "inference to the best explanation," and "historical science," but it does not contain definitions for "theory" and "science."

"historical science: an enterprise that observes and studies clues left by past events and uses what is known about present cause-and-effect relationships to reconstruct the history of those events; examples include geology, paleontology, archaeology and forensics." "inference to the best explanation: a method of scientific reasoning that favors the hypothesis that would, if true, best explain the relevant evidence; hypotheses that qualify as 'best' typically provide coherent and causally adequate explanations of the evidence or phenomenon in question."

The IDists cannot teach ID as a scientific theory so they are going to condition children to independently infer that ID is the best explanation. They will teach children how to use "inference to the best explanation" and how to use "what is known about present cause-and-effect relationships to reconstruct the history of" life on Earth. They will take children to the brink of religion and hope that the children choose supernaturalism.

Jonathan Wells wrote, "ID does not maintain that all species were created in their present form; indeed, some ID advocates have no quarrel with the idea that all living things are descended from a common ancestor. ID challenges only the sufficiency of unguided natural processes and the Darwinian claim that design in living things is an illusion rather than a reality." http://www.evolutionnews.org/2008/07/what_is_intelligent_design.html

ID is evolving. ID will become the hypothesis of evolution with divine guidance. And the anti-ID forces will probably claim that the Flying Spaghetti Monster has been tweaking our genes for billions of years, guiding us to utopia and moral perfection. All hail the Divine Tweaker! Scott610 (talk) 17:32, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Okay, but let's get past the "theory" issue. Feel free to read "argument" or "view" in its place. I'd be interested in comments on other aspects of the example. Gnixon (talk) 18:07, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I do not support any of these proposed changes because I don't think they do not improve the article. IMO, they would make the article less clear and accurate, not more. Odd nature (talk) 20:30, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

It would be more helpful if you would say why. Gnixon (talk) 21:24, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Gnixon, in the absence of anything more reasoned, just assume it falls under I don't like it. --Ludwigs2 02:26, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd suggest assuming good faith myself. Aunt Entropy (talk) 03:16, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

good faith is always something I practice. however, it's never a substitute for good reasons. --Ludwigs2 01:17, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't like it either, for reasons given above and below:

1) The new paragraph, starting "Proponents of intelligent design look for..." It seems to imply that there is an intelligent designer, and that ID is about looking for evidence of design. The actual argument, as I tend to hear it, is simply: complexity implies design. The way it's phrased here glosses over the fundamental assumption of ID: the assumption that a supernatural designer exists. "Archaeologist finds a statue" sounds like it's straight from an ID textbook. It glosses over the assumption that a strangely shaped piece of rock is a statue and not just a strangely shaped piece of rock, which is a major leap. It runs into problems of confirmation bias. Including this as a quote or explicitly as an example of a statement that an ID proponent would make is fine, but as a nominally neutral example it's misleading. A little more discussion of what ID claims seems reasonable, but it should be very careful about WP:WEIGHT. Short, declarative sentences are the easiest way to remain neutrality: ID (insert verb to be determined) that complexity implies design. No adjectives or qualifiers unless absolutely necessary. Examples should be covered in the main text anyway.

2)"Not legitimate science" vs. "Not science". The qualifier implies that illegitimate science is still somehow scientific. It's distracting and misleading. The question of legitimacy implies a value judgment. That ID is not science is not a value judgment, it's just a statement of fact. Some would disagree, but our reliable sources agree on the fact, so the fringe viewpoint doesn't have to be covered.

3)The order of the statements is not irrelevant. "Definition, statement in support, statement of criticism" gives more weight to ID than "Definition, statement of criticism, statement of support." Including the supporting statement immediately after the definition skews the article, because it reads "here is the idea, here are a bunch of people who disagree with it" instead of "a bunch of people disagree with this idea, here is the idea." These are very different statements.

4)Separation of church and state is not in the Constitution, the Establishment Clause is. We can go on to explain that this section of the constitution is interpreted to mean separation of church and state, but teaching this in public schools is unconstitutional should be the "take home" message from the court's decision. The judge who made the decision is significant, since he essentially made an admission against interest given what people would expect of his biases.

In short, WP:IDONTLIKEIT because it provides undue weight to a fringe opinion. It waters down the presentation of relevant evidence with unnecessary adjectives and misleading explanations. I agree that calling it junk science, pseudoscience, and notscience is probably overkill and/or confusing. SDY (talk) 03:34, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, SDY, these are all reasonable points. Forgive me for numbering them so I can more easily address them in turn:

1) I agree, as I said above, that this paragraph could be improved, and I agree with your reasons. The main thing is that a paragraph describing ID should exist.

2) Regarding value/fact, that ID is not science is at least a finding of fact, and one could equally say that "not legitimate science" is also a fact. "Not legitimate" alludes to the fact that ID is presented as science by its proponents. This policing of the language, while an understandable reaction to "only a theory," has really gotten out of hand.

3) What do you consider a statement of support? I've added a paragraph (hastily thrown together) that elaborates slightly on the one-sentence definition in the first paragraph. This is standard and entirely reasonable, and moreover, it helps bring the lead into compliance with WP:LEAD by summarizing a major part of the article (granted, the paragraph should be reworked to do a better job of mentioning complexity, etc.). I'm frankly shocked that you would insist on "Definition, statement of criticism, statement of support" in a discussion about NPOV.

4) I used "separation of church and state" because it is (a) more familiar to the average reader than "establishment clause of the first amendment to the United States Constitution" and (b) considerably more concise. Details such as a more precise statement of where the constitutional violation is found and why this particular judge is interesting can easily be addressed in the body of the article so they won't clutter the lead.

Finally, you are misapplying the WP:UNDUE policy, which guides how much space to give various views on the subject of an article. When a given view is the subject of an article, it is impossible to spend too much of the article talking about it. You presumably mean that the example I gave is not sufficiently critical of ID, but I remind you that an article that is critical of its own subject (or anything else) violates WP:NPOV. Gnixon (talk) 12:27, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Generally, ID's critics see it as a political movement and not a scientific proposition, and things like the wedge document and other material from the court cases show that the supporters don't really disagree. The article is about ID as a political statement, and including lots of information about the proposition gives a fraudulent statement (essentially what the courts decided it was) more credibility than it deserves. Regarding #3, See Serial_position_effect#Primacy_effect for why the order is important. Putting the disagreement first is a disclaimer, putting the disagreement second just indicates a difference of opinion, so WP:WEIGHT is affected by ordering. SDY (talk) 17:39, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

If I understand you correctly, you're saying that ID as an idea is essentially not notable---that ID is notable rather as a political movement. If so, that's a good argument for merging this article with intelligent design movement, which I'm increasingly convinced is a good idea. If we do have an article about ID as an idea, we can't possibly give too much space/weight to describing the idea. The concept of "serial position effect" doesn't apply here. Rather it applies to a long list, wherein the first and last words are best remembered. "Disclaiming" ID is inappropriate with respect to NPOV. The appropriate thing to do is to indicate the "difference of opinion" held by notable representatives of mainstream science like the AAAS, to which most readers will give due weight in their own evaluations of the validity of ID. Gnixon (talk) 18:03, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Or, in other words, we should "Teach the Controversy". I have a serious problem with any attempt to make this page give "equal weight" to a fraudulent attempt to whitewash creationism and call it science. SDY (talk) 18:17, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Dang it, SDY, it borders on libelous to reframe my comment that way. I did not suggest we should "teach the controversy." Nor did I suggest we present ID favorably. In the same way, we shouldn't attempt to present it unfavorably, either. My argument is that we should either (a) describe the idea of ID dispassionately, giving due weight to its criticisms from the scientific community and the legal system, or (b) if it is not in itself a notable idea worthy of description in its own article, we should relegate such description to the ID movement article. Surely you don't mean that the intelligent design movement article amounts to "teaching the controversy"? Gnixon (talk) 19:28, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I apologize if I am WP:ABF. Presenting it unfavorably is relatively neutral. It's a discredited proposition that after significant review has been conclusively shown to be a fraud. We don't have to beat a dead horse, obviously, but "giving it the benefit of the doubt" is equivalent to TtC. A reasonable reader who arrives at the article without any preconceptions should always come to the conclusion that ID is (1) unscientific, (2) unconstitutional to teach, and (3) a whitewash of creationism. The article should not be "fair", the same way that the phrenology article is not "fair." See WP:FRINGE#Notability versus acceptance: "Ideas that have been rejected, are widely considered to be absurd or pseudoscientific, only of historical interest, or primarily the realm of science fiction, should be documented as such, using reliable sources." SDY (talk) 20:03, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

There are a couple of points I would disagree with. I don't think we should call it a "whitewash of creationism" since that implies there is something wrong with creationism that needs to be whitewashed. There isn't so there isn't. Secondly, I think it might be important to note that the idea that it is a fraud is only in relation to it's claim to be scientific. As such, ID might be true but still fraudulent in this sense. It's not so much that science has rejected the theory, more that the working assumptions of science forbid it's consideration. This seems to me quite an important distinction to bear in mind.66.96.243.12 (talk) 20:14, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

(undent) Thanks, SDY. I don't agree it's (even relatively) neutral to present it unfavorably. Phrenology isn't a great analogy because it has no followers today (as far as I know). ID, on the other hand, is still active. It should be entirely possible to describe ID in neutral terms (neither favorably nor unfavorably). In the interest of NPOV, I would rephrase your goals as: A reasonable reader without any preconceptions should always come to the conclusion that ID is (1) regarded as unscientific by notable scientific bodies, (2) found to be unconstitutional to teach by U.S. federal courts, and (3) historically an outgrowth of efforts to teach concepts of creationism in U.S. public schools. Many readers will likely conclude that ID is an unscientific, unconstitutional fraud, but it cannot be our goal to convince them of that. This isn't about "fair," it's about maintaining a neutral, professional tone. Gnixon (talk) 20:38, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

My objection to the proposed text is that it is neither more professional nor more neutral. Including qualifying language doesn't make the statement more neutral or more professional; it makes it weaker. For example, compare "unscientific" with "regarded as unscientific by notable scientific bodies". The second implies that there are other important positions, but it does not state what those positions are. Professional writing does not use unnecessary adjectives and qualifiers. It states facts. If the context makes the facts misleading, it states facts to provide context. SDY (talk) 21:10, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Gnixon is correct here, though I don't think professionalism is what is at issue. Rather, it is a question of Wikipedia's mandate to describe topics in a disinterested manner. SDY is correct to imply that good, forceful writing omits needless adjectives and qualifiers. But Wikipedia's policy makes NPOV a higher value than forceful prose. While it might be appropriate for you or I to write an essay that declares ID to be unscientific or misleading, it is inappropriate for Wikipedia to make such a claim. And the current article is at times brazen in its disregard for WP:NPOV, as Gnixon and others here have pointed out. BTfromLA (talk) 21:52, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Per the WP:FRINGE section I pointed out above, it is appropriate for Wikipedia to state in no uncertain terms that ID is notable but thoroughly rejected. I am open to examining the content, but NPOV does not demand anemic writing. I agree that including more evidence than is "necessary and sufficient" to demonstrate this is overkill. For example, calling ID nonscience (a nonword that should clearly nongo in the article), pseudoscience, and junk science in the lead is probably too much. SDY (talk) 22:11, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate BT's explanation, which perhaps explains my position more eloquently than I have. Any statement making a positive or negative judgment needs to be clearly attributed to comply with NPOV. I think this can be done without too much anemia---attributing statements to notable bodies arguably gives them more force than if our readers wonder whether they're the conclusions of Wikipedia editors. The importance of attribution may justify including "not science" because it allows us to cite the National Academy of Science, just as "pseudoscience" expresses the notable opinions of the NSTA and the AAAS. That is, we include both statements not to establish that ID is both "not science" and "pseudoscience," but rather to represent three highly notable positions. If it were possible to summarize views of the NAS, the NSTA, and the AAAS in one sentence, that would be preferable, but the ability to use direct quotes with separate sentences is a compelling advantage. The pejorative "junk science," attributed to no one nearly as notable, should have been cut long ago. Gnixon (talk) 23:26, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Just as a thought, though, I wouldn't be too heavy handed with "So and so says this" because it sounds too much like there are other contradictory opinions and "that's just what this particular group believes." With ID not being science, for example, there is a broad consensus among reliable sources and direct attribution makes it sound like "this is just one opinion." Compare "the AMA believes that exercise is good for you" vs. "exercise is good for you." The second statement takes into account the position of just about every medical organization I've ever heard make a statement on the topic.

In other words, we shouldn't make it sound like we're just reporting the viewpoints of specific and isolated organizations. The article should be able to incorporate extremely unoriginal synthesis and state things which are not reasonably contested without getting into "he said, she said". Sourcing the statement is obviously required. SDY (talk) 00:35, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't mean to sound like the attribution nazi here, but I still think it's the way to go. If we were writing an article about the FAoA (Fat Asses of America) theory that nobody needs to exercise, we would surely include an attributed statement like "the AMA has said that exercise improves cardiovascular fitness and decreases the risk of heart attack." It would sound strange for an encyclopedia article to include that statement without attribution, particularly in an article about a "theory" disputed by the statement. Don't get me wrong---I'm sure there are cases where one could to take attribution too far. I just think attribution is particularly useful here. Gnixon (talk) 03:37, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Semantics of "theory"

Scientific 'position'
The current Theory of Evolution is currently the best explanation that science has of the diversity of life.

ID's equivalent
"Certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection."

Explanation (i.e. theory) of evolution (rough version)
Evolution occurs through natural selection, genetic drift and gene flow, acting upon mutation and recombination (as well as more complicated stuff involving evolutionary developmental biology and similar).

ID equivalent
"it's not ID's task to match your pathetic level of detail in telling mechanistic stories" -- William A. Dembski

Conclusion
Even putting aside the strict scientific definition of "theory", "Certain features..." is not a theory even in the colloquial sense, in that it doesn't explain anything (even speculatively) -- it merely asserts a position. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 18:35, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

That's a good point. The quoted statement is an assertion, not a definition of a theory. I suppose the "theory" is that "certain features of the universe were designed by an intelligence." The question becomes whether "intelligent design" refers to that "theory" or if it refers to a collection of arguments supporting that "theory." In either case, we should be able to improve how this article defines the term. Gnixon (talk) 19:37, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

As far as sources and guidelines go we're done discussing whether ID can be defined as a theory; this article already sufficiently covers the debate. Odd nature (talk) 20:33, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

without disagreeing (actually, without making any comment either way) on the above, I do have to say that it poses a problem. if ID is not considered to be a theory, then it should not be criticized as a theory (any more than we would criticize a young child who thought that people actually got smaller as they walked away - we'd correct him, yes, but not beat him up about it). as I've mentioned elsewhere, ID as it's presented here seems to be caught in this strange never-never land, where editors say "we refuse to call it a theory since it's not a theory, but since it calls itself a theory, we can criticize it as though it were a theory, even though it's definitely not." doesn't that strike anyone else as thoroughly tangled logic? --Ludwigs2 20:46, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

He filled and kicked the bucket.... Gnixon (talk) 21:23, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

lmAo - I have NO idea what that means, but I'll take it as a good thing.  :-) --Ludwigs2 21:30, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

How do you mean? If we can't misrepresent ID as a theory, we should at least criticize it less? I'm not following. Aunt Entropy (talk) 22:12, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Maybe it's part of an cunning master plan for world domination to make ID opponents start calling it a theory so that they can argue that it's not a theory and then "oh maybe it's a theory after all" and I think I lost myself. I'll come in again. SDY (talk) 22:23, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Aunt Entropy - actually, I think you are following. personally, I'd like to see us give up all this silliness about ID not being a theory - let it be a theory, present it as a theory, and then let the scientific evidence gently lower it into the lost land of hopeless debunkitude, along with phlogiston and the four humors. but since there is this intense angst here to preclude any mention of ID as a scientific theory, then we really shouldn't be pulling out all the guns we do to show that it doesn't cut it as the kind of scientific theory we already decided it isn't. that's just a bully tactic. --Ludwigs2 00:27, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

p.s. and SDY, I think you forgot to add 'mwahahahahaaaaa' --Ludwigs2 00:28, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

It is represented as a scientific theistic alternative to materialistic science (the Wedge document again, among others) so its lack of the necessary attributes of a scientific theory has been commented on at length in reliable sources, and of course we must give due weight to both the claim and the refutations, which occupy a considerable part of the history of this creationist strategy. --Jenny 00:39, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

"Advocates of intelligent design claim that it is a scientific theory..." The article situates ID in the context of the scientific consensus. What more do you want? Amerique^dialectics 00:49, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

me? I just want fair and balanced treatment of the subject matter. I'm not saying it shouldn't be criticized on scientific grounds; I am saying that this weird logical tangle has produced an article which is palpably hostile. if the article is going to start from the premise that ID is not a scientific theory, that's fine - then much of the scientific criticism becomes meaningless and superfluous and should be removed. if the article is going to start from the premise that ID is a scientific theory, that's fine too - but then much of the political criticism should be remove as meaningless and superfluous, and sent over to the ID movement page; science can handle ID as a theory without political help. right now the article is trying to deal with ID on scientific and political grounds simultaneously, and that's just created a tangled mess. --Ludwigs2 01:06, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Many general readers will come to this article after being exposed to the claim that ID is a "scientific theory" of at least equal value to the Theory of Evolution. Clearly a balanced article has to address those claims, allowing a full reply from the scientific community. The article is rigorous in it's language and in it's analysis of ID's claims. To see this as hostile might be seen as the response of one who supports ID and is disappointed at it's failure to stand against such rigorous analysis. As for the "political" aspects of the article, it is the ID movement that seeks to entangle this debate within politics, as clearly they have no hope of winning it in the scientific community. Given that ID has no scientific credibility, the political aspects must also be addressed.--Michael Johnson (talk) 01:34, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

The main difference between ID and, say, phlogiston, is that ID is not an honest and misguided attempt at science. Most pseudoscience results from a misunderstanding of scientific principles, ID is intentionally deceptive. I wouldn't be surprised if many of the proponents of ID don't honestly believe it either, but they believe that defending the faith is more important. It's far less repulsive than pseudoscience to sell desperate cancer patients fake medications. They do have a noble goal, but it doesn't justify fraud. SDY (talk) 01:18, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

oh, I don't disagree with you at all. all I'm saying is that even if they're dishonest, we need to be consistent in how we deal with them. treat them as frauds, or treat them as scientific dunces; either is fine. but if we get caught between those two it gets very murky, very fast.--Ludwigs2 01:29, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

archiving off topic convo - 24.10.111.154, see your talk page
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Does anyone have a hypothesis as to why the "intelligent designer" made so many mistakes?24.10.111.154 (talk) 00:58, 4 July 2008 (UTC) lol - no. --Ludwigs2 01:06, 4 July 2008 (UTC) There are no mistakes. They're just undocumented features. SDY (talk) 01:19, 4 July 2008 (UTC) SDY, you're obviously a "windows" man. FWIW have the proponents of "intelligent design" ever addressed the question of the "intelligenter designer" and the "even more intelligenter designer", ad infinitum? This is not a rhetorical question. If anyone knows, I'd like an answer. I've never heard it mentioned, but it's so obvious that my ignorance must be my fault.24.10.111.154 (talk) 01:35, 4 July 2008 (UTC) First: Please restrict discussion on this talk page to article improvements. Second: ID proponents take pains not to identify or describe the "intelligent designer" other than to claim that a designer must exist. So the answer to your question is "No". ~Amatulić (talk) 01:42, 4 July 2008 (UTC) 24.10.111.154 - check your talk page... --Ludwigs2 01:46, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, here at WP there is an intense angst against including deliberately unfactual statements mentioning ID as a scientific theory. I'm sorry you find it questionable. In the article, it is shown that ID is claimed as a science, it is not, therefore it is considered pseudoscience. The reader is then informed of the scientific reasoning behind that assertion. The background of the ID movement is also given to the reader to give an accurate assessment of the big picture of ID. It's all relevant, and leaving out anything would give a false view of what ID is.

If you are serious about cutting sourced material from the article, please paste it here, and show convincing evidence why keeping said material in the article would mislead the reader. Aunt Entropy (talk) 02:07, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I am serious about making some changes that will create a more neutral article. this will mostly be reorganization of the material already given to produce a different tone, but will probably involve excising one or two of the more pungent comments (for instance, I'm having a hard time seeing what the some have called it junk science phrase adds to the discussion - well sourced it may be, but it seems like nothing more than a well-sourced pejorative). I'm working on it elsewhere, though, because of the reception my proposals got here last time. that seemed prudent. I'll add in a link here when I'm done, and I'll look forward to your comments. --Ludwigs2 02:19, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I believe three independent sources are cited for "junk science". The seems to be particularly relevant to the cases where Intelligent design has been taught in schools in science classes--which is a big part of the fuss over ID. --Jenny 03:53, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

there could be twenty sources citing junk science, and I would still resist using it, for the following reasons:

1. the page denies that ID is science, so it's logically inconsistent to call it science of any kind
2. the term 'junk science' is a pure pejorative - it adds no knowledge or information of any constructive sort, but merely acts as an unnecessary snub. there are plenty of critiques out there that dispute the legitimacy of ID in thoughtful ways; stooping to name-calling is a move worthy of a snot-faced 3rd-grader.

but let me finish what I was doing and present an alternative. we can discuss it then. --Ludwigs2 01:26, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

The view represents how poorly received ID really is, and it doesn't matter that the term is pejorative. It's a notable view with a stack of reliable sources. WP:NPOV says "NPOV says that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each." There's no policy requiring Wikipedia to only cover favorable views. Your objections to covering the view are specious at best. FeloniousMonk (talk) 01:55, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

wp:NPOV also says "If we are going to characterize disputes neutrally, we should present competing views with a consistently fair and sensitive tone." common courtesy is a part of neutrality, whether you like it or not, and no encyclopedia in the world makes a policy of pissing all over topics no matter how unfavorably they're viewed. heck, most articles on the holocaust don't attack it with the vehemence that ID is hit with here, and I kinda doubt that ID is the worse of those two evils... --Ludwigs2 02:23, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

"Pissing all over topics?" Isn't the implication that editors here "pissing on" the article a bit extreme? I don't think such statements are helpful. Aunt Entropy (talk) 04:28, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Another reason to ignore him - he favors his personal opinion over core policy. Until he gets how NPOV, V and RS all dance together, there's no reason to respond and every reason to archive or userfy off-policy rants. FeloniousMonk (talk) 05:41, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

pardon my hyperbole (though I don't think it's entirely unjustified). unless, of course, you'd prefer to use that as an excuse to avoid talking about that fair and sensitive tone prescription in wp:npov. lord knows you can't let a little thing like policy get in the way of your editorial style...  ;-) --Ludwigs2 17:15, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

p.s. and FM - please stop tossing around policy acronyms and start discussing. you're really good at throwing acronyms around, but I have yet to see you use the contents of one of those policies effectively. --Ludwigs2 17:16, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

"Wikilawyering"? •Jim62sch•^dissera! 17:22, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

eh, sounded good at the time.  :-) I'll refactor if you think it's inappropriate. --Ludwigs2 18:56, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it would be better if it were reworded. (BTW, refactor is bereft of meaning in this case -- I'm not busting on you, I just hate the word used in that way). •Jim62sch•^dissera! 23:15, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

ok, I've reworded, and no worries about the other. I'm a fan of proper language use, generally speaking, but it's a slippery fish. --Ludwigs2 18:30, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Semantics II

A few comments:

1. "As far as sources and guidelines go we're done discussing whether ID can be defined as a theory; this article already sufficiently covers the debate." I agree ON -- I was merely trying (possibly in vain) to put one more stake through the heart of this undead corpse of an issue.
2. "if ID is not considered to be a theory, then it should not be criticized as a theory (any more than we would criticize a young child who thought that people actually got smaller as they walked away - we'd correct him, yes, but not beat him up about it)." It is however an assertion about the scientific merits of an 'intelligent designer', so science is the appropriate setting for evaluating it.
3. "treat them as frauds, or treat them as scientific dunces; either is fine. but if we get caught between those two it gets very murky, very fast." I see no reason why these two categories are mutually exclusive -- and would suggest that there's enough evidence that an opinion that they're both has some merit.

Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 04:10, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually they're neither frauds nor dunces. OK, some of them are one, the other or both, but that isn't the major driver - it's denialism. Read Johnson...he pretty much says that if the Bible isn't true, then he can't trust God. Listen to Dembski when he says (in essence), "if you can't give me every single stepping stone across the Pacific to Japan, then I'm not buying your theory". Sure, ID is deception, but it's deception predicated on a need to not have one's world view shaken. Guettarda (talk) 04:30, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm on my hands and knees again, begging editors to resist the temptation to ...... go there on the talk page. Editors from all sides are tugged by the same temptation, editors from all sides will seize any outbreak as an invitation to engage in debate, and editors from all sides will be quick to scream "persecution!" when spanked for it. When dealing with powder house topics, extra caution is necessary to prevent these completely predictable ripple effects.Professor marginalia (talk) 04:53, 4 July 2008 (UTC) <unindenting>-Professor marginalia (talk) 14:07, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Huh? What are you talking about? Guettarda (talk) 05:21, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I think Prof is worried about things getting somewhat personal. If we try to stay narrowly on topic for this article it's better. I know I have to bite my tongue too on some topics. How we edit the article, that's the topic. The temptation to broaden it into discussion of ID per se and characterizing it and its advocates or opponents as you did above is high, but that isn't what this page is for. --Jenny 05:29, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Er...that's what I was trying to avoid. Ludwigs raised the issue of "treating them as frauds" and Hrafn replied to them. I was simply trying to explain that there are far less personal explanations. Not to mention that all of what I said is based on (loose paraphrases of) secondary sources. Guettarda (talk) 05:41, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I know you didn't introduce the idea or start the discussion. Sorry if I gave the appearance of singling you out. I'll shut up now. --Jenny 06:29, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

The indention left that unfortunate impression as well. I'm sorry, and I've fixed it. The discussion veers into editorialization and speculation at many points and this page is thickly carpeted with reminders and admonishments not to engage in such here. T'ain't a blog. Professor marginalia (talk) 14:07, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Hrafn, you're falling prey to the same confusion of language that led to the "theory" discussions in order to pronounce them closed. It has been well established that the AAAS, a reliable source for the opinion of the scientific community, does not consider ID a scientific theory. It has also been well established that the AAAS, a philosopher of science, a judge, and the Washington Post find it reasonable and convenient to refer to ID as a "theory." The discussion was (and is) about how we can best refer to ID, not how to define it. Gnixon (talk) 12:57, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

No. There is no "confusion of language". ID offers no explanation, no "pathetic level of detail in telling mechanistic stories" (or any details at all for that matter as to who/why/how/when/etc any of this happened), so is not a theory (even in the colloquial sense). All that is "well established" is that you are cherry-picking (Judge Jones used the word "theory" 126 times in his decision, including explicitly stating "ID is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory", "the disclaimer ... presents students with a religious alternative masquerading as a scientific theory", "ID ... cannot qualify as part of the scientific process or as a scientific theory", "we find that ID is not science and cannot be adjudged a valid, accepted scientific theory"). Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 14:56, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

How can you simultaneously note that Judge Jones described ID with "theory" 126 times, argue that ID is "not a theory," and claim there's "no confusion of language"??? Gnixon (talk) 15:00, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Even one use of "theory" by the judge to refer to ID is good evidence that it's not crazy to do so, as is the fact that the AAAS, the Washington Post, and an expert philosopher of science did the same thing. Clearly, they think at least the colloquial "theory" applies to ID. Anyway, see my 15:03 post below. Gnixon (talk) 15:28, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

"Not crazy to do so" is hardly a reason to put it in the lead. "Not crazy to do so" is a far lower standard than WP:V, WP:OR, WP:NPOV or any other policy. Should we introduce 'WP:CRAZY -- if it's not crazy to do so, then do it anyway'? Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 16:39, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

More to the point, notice that in each of your quotes, he felt the need to qualify "theory" with "scientific," as did the AAAS when they said ID is not a "scientific theory." Nobody here is disputing that. The dispute is over whether or not it is appropriate for us to apply "theory" in its broader sense. Gnixon (talk) 15:03, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

One instance out of 126 is not "confusion" (let alone endorsement of the characterisation), it is a momentary imprecision of language (something that everybody does at times). The AAAS characterise it as "so-called 'intelligent design theory'" -- making very clear that they do not accept "theory" as a legitimate chacaterisation (even without inserting "scientific" into the mix). I will repeat the point that you are avoiding as though it had the bubonic plague: it is not a theory because it does not explain anything. Theories are explanations. Calling it a theory therefore makes as much sense as calling it a dingo, a balloon, onomatopoeia, or a rhyimng couplet. "Theory" means something that this isn't. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 15:26, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

The entire point of what I'm saying is that we should be willing to accept a "momentary imprecision of language" in the lead in order to avoid linguistic contortions. It's obvious that AAAS was uncomfortable associating ID with the scientific meaning of "theory," nothing more. Please don't attempt to speculate on my motives---I'm not "avoiding" anything; rather, I'm focusing on sources, since the type of analysis you want to discuss might be considered blockable WP:OR. Let me set aside that concern for a moment...

If you were to tell me you thought life had to be designed by some intelligence because it was too complicated to arise any other way, then that would be an excellent example of a "theory," under several of the various meanings of the word. I refer you to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, which includes the following applicable meanings of theory:

1) the analysis of a set of facts in their relation to one another

2) abstract thought : speculation

4a) a belief, policy, or procedure proposed or followed as the basis of action: "her method is based on the theory that all children want to learn"

6a) a hypothesis assumed for the sake of argument or investigation

6b) an unproved assumption : conjecture

It's quite obvious, and has been demonstrated by citations, that the AAAS and Judge Jones were saying that ID does not represent a specific meaning of theory, to wit, the scientific meaning: 5) a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena: "the wave theory of light" Gnixon (talk) 15:54, 4 July 2008 (UTC) ...which is why every single sourced example of "not a __ theory" has included the adjective "scientific." Gnixon (talk) 15:58, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Wonder of wonders, you do not demonstrate that the description of ID meets even one of those definitions -- let alone that it's a good enough fit that it should be used in preference to other, more accurate, characterisations. and no, we should not permit an intentional "momentary imprecision of language" in the lead, when there are more accurate characterisations available. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 16:39, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I suggest we follow PM's advice below and close this discussion. Gnixon (talk) 17:12, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

<unindent>The only disagreement remaining over use of the word "theory" is whether or not to avoid it in this article. We all seem to agree that it's used differently by sources when describing ID in different contexts: some describe ID as a theory in the scientific sense (many ID proponents); authoritative sources such as the AAAS and Kitzmiller emphasize it is not a theory in the scientific sense; and many assorted sources--supportive, neutral and critical sources--have used theory to describe ID in the informal, as opposed to scientific, definition. There are also WP guidelines, (one is noted at the top of this page), which steer editors away from the word theory in science-related articles unless it is in reference to a true scientific theory. I don't think there is any disagreement on any of these points. The disagreement is simply over whether this article should relax and allow use of the term "theory" in the informal. Further debate over points that have already been sorted out and everyone concedes to is like trying to take a car from point A to point B in "neutral" gear. Unless there's something new to say, more talking about it won't move us anywhere. One thing that probably will is for each of us to weigh in on the straw poll. Professor marginalia (talk) 16:31, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I sort of reopened the issue of "theory" and while I am happy to have the discussion close for the reasons stated by PM, there is one point I would like to return to briefly. Above Hrafn says, in reference to whether we can use the word "theory": "Wonder of wonders, you do not demonstrate that the description of ID meets even one of those definitions". My response to that is: so what, who cares, we don't need to. That is, Wiki is about what reliable sources say and the reliable sources regularly say "theory". No further justification is needed. That some here have done a bit of SYNTH and OR and decided on that basis that "theory" in science-related articles on Wiki will mean "scientific theory" and "scientific theory" alone is not an argument against inclusion; rather, it is an appeal to good faith collaborative editing. If we are going to exclude the word "theory" from the article, as I now think we should, we should be clear in the FAQs that this has been agreed by editors on the basis of the points made by PM, and not on the basis of all the other SYNTH and OR arguments that have been thrown around as if they amounted to anything. That is, the sources do say "theory" and we would normally be entitled (normally be expected) to use the word, but in this case, and others, we have decided that for clarity we will not.66.96.243.12 (talk) 18:17, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Huh? Care to clarify? The post is a bit rambling and, to me at least, a bit lacking in logic.

So, how is ID a theory? It's quite simple to show how it isn't (read the above comments, read the archives, etc.,) a theory, but an assertion that begins with the assumption of a "supernatural" (i.e. something outside the bounds of science) can never be a theory. But, feel free to try to posit a way in which the "it is a theory" assertion could be defended. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149;^dissera! 17:32, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

"There is a God" is a "theory" under several definitions of the word. See the dictionary I quoted above. Gnixon (talk) 18:16, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

No, it's a belief, based on inference rather than a logical analysis of data. The statement can never be a scientific theory as it is not falsifiable.

If I recall, you've worked on physics articles. Gravity belngs to the field of physics if I'm correct. Would you say that "Jesus walked on water" is a scientific theory or that it defies the theory of gravity? &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149;^dissera! 18:25, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

"Scientific theory" is a strawman, which nobody here is talking about. Read the above discussions, where this is repeatedly made clear. Gnixon (talk) 18:28, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Nonsense. ID presents as an alternative to evolution. Hence, it has the pretense of being a scientific theory. As it is not falsifiable (nor does it predict anything) it is not a theory.

Answer my second question above, please. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149;^dissera! 18:31, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

It's been very clear that we're talking about nonscientific meanings of "theory." I'll respond to you when you stop talking past me. Gnixon (talk) 18:46, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I think that's the problem Gnixon - you're talking past everyone else. The conversation has always been about "scientific theory". Guettarda (talk) 18:52, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

No, G. I've had fruitful discussions with PM, SDY, Hrafn, and the IP about whether we should use "theory" in the non-scientific sense, as do several trusted sources. It's all there in the "Theory" discussion recently archived by FM. Everyone is well-aware of the "evolution is not a theory" or "ID is another theory like evolution" concerns. How can you say it's "always" been about "scientific theory" when we've explicitly, repeatedly said otherwise (and when it should be obvious from the context)??? Gnixon (talk) 19:02, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'm hardly talking past you,GNixon, but you most certainly are missing the point: ID stands in opposition to evolution, offering itself as a viable alternative, hence is has the pretense of a scientific theory and it uses junk-science via Behe and junk-math via Dembski to attempt to bolster its validity. The other definitions of the word theory are meaningless, and the use of such definitions relies entirely on WP:SYNTH and WP:OR. None of this is difficult.

Still haven't answered the walking on water question. Interesting and quite telling. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149;^dissera! 18:55, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

You're not telling me anything I don't know about ID, and it's rather silly to suggest that other dictionary meanings of "theory" are "meaningless." It's telling that I haven't responded to your pointless baiting? Such deliberate obtuseness borders on harassment. Gnixon (talk) 19:06, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

The other definitions are meaningless in this context. Given your edits on Physics articles, I'm rather baffled that you are either unwilling to or incapable of comprehending that simple fact.

There's no obtuseness, deliberate or otherwise. Nor is there any "harassment". (Besides, obtuseness of any variety could never be considered a form of harassment.) Rather, there's an attempt to engage in a college-type debate. Sadly, you seem unwilling to do so. Oh well, so it goes. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149;^dissera! 19:34, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

To be blunt, why is it so important to even consider calling it a theory? The word is imprecise and misleading in this context because it has two substantially different meanings, and ID has specifically abused that ambiguity, so including it in a neutral article is just plain foolishness. Per WP:WTA#Theory, using it for any definition in the dictionary is not allowed; only the "science" definition is tolerable. ID wholeheartedly fails that definition, all other definitions are specifically avoided in all articles. I will be deliberately obtuse in this case because wikipedia guidelines, clear and informative writing, and the context of ID all specifically reject the use of theory to mean anything but theory#science. SDY (talk) 19:48, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Those are all reasonable points, and I thank you for making them in a way that shows you appreciate points made in previous conversations---that's the opposite of being deliberately obtuse. The fact that ID has specifically abused "theory" cuts both ways: it may be a good reason to avoid "theory" in order to avoid submitting to their framing of the discussion; conversely, it may justify a common sense exception to the WP:WTA#THEORY guideline, where we might temporarily use the proponents' preferred term, as a matter of editorial convenience, as have most trusted sources, before clearly presenting the position of mainstream science. If we're clear that science doesn't regard it as a legitimate scientific theory, then "theory" is unlikely to be misleading! In any case, what I'm objecting to is the attempt to short-circuit that editorial discussion via the ridiculous claim that no meaning of "theory" applies to ID. Gnixon (talk) 20:50, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

For the purposes of the article, which is all that matters, no other meaning exists. In the context of wikipedia, there is no meaning of "theory" that applies to ID, and this conversation is moot. SDY (talk) 20:56, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I think that's a rather extreme position. It's simple enough to say you think the reasons for not using theory outweigh by the reasons for using it. There's no need to rigorously define a special meaning for "theory" in Wikipedia that doesn't apply in the rest of the world. Doing so only serves to short-circuit useful discussions. Gnixon (talk) 21:07, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

This hasn't been a useful discussion. SDY (talk) 21:09, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

No, it hasn't been. Well, at least we have a glimmer of appreciation for what Galileo felt when trying to explain that the earth goes round the sun. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149;^dissera! 22:24, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Semantics

Semantics III

(undent) ugh! this is such a 'mountains out of molehills' discussion. the 99.9999% of the population not engaged in this talk page discussion would read the word 'theory' in the loose, colloquial, 'john has a theory that jane is bucking for office manager' way. I'll admit I have a mild preference for the phrase 'theory of intelligent design' not because I think it's an actual scientific theory, but just because that's what I (and the media, and arguably most people in the US) tend to call it in our own heads. personally I think it's more important to use something familiar to the general public than to satisfy the abstruse methodological-foundational concerns of wikipedia editors, but the level of obsessiveness that springs up around this issue is disturbing and daunting. do any of you actually believe that the amount of text that's been poured out on this issue is worth the result? --Ludwigs2 18:57, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

It's been rejected as poor word choice. Look at the straw poll. Further discussion of this is pointless, so just drop it. SDY (talk) 03:51, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

A mountain of text isn't necessary. There's already a consensus against using the word "theory" when it may be misleading. Wikipedia:WTA#Theory. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 04:02, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Neal, the point was that it's highly unlikely to be misleading, since this article prominently notes that the scientific community doesn't consider ID to be a scientific theory. For that and other reasons, this could be a good example of a "common sense exception" to the WTA guideline. Gnixon (talk) 04:10, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I would think common sense would go like this: If scientists say it's not a scientific theory, and ID people say it is, obviously ID people are confused on what makes a "scientific theory", and as such the use of "theory" (sans- science) is extremely likely to be misleading to ID people and the general public, and misrepresentative to scientists. An exception to the WTA guideline would probably be an honest mistake. Here is what the WTA guideline is specifically written for. We don't want to misrepresent "theory" while reporting on "intelligent design". If Ludwig is right that most would read "theory" in the colloquial sense, that's all the more reason to avoid it. Encyclopedia's aren't colloquial. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 04:30, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Well put. --Michael Johnson (talk) 04:40, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree up to the point about "colloquial," which seems to marginalize perfectly acceptable non-scientific meanings. Anyway, yes, avoid describing ID as a theory. This can most often be accomplished by just saying "intelligent design" instead of things like "the theory of intelligent design." But the situation at hand, in the first paragraph of the lead, is a special case, where we're attempting to define ID. I find it difficult to open the article without explicitly adopting or explicitly rejecting the scientific language in which ID is defined by its proponents. Because of that, it seems (potentially) useful to use "theory" loosely for a moment in order to define it, before explicitly saying that proponents consider it a scientific theory, but science rejects that characterization. Otherwise, we end up doing silly things like defining intelligent design as the argument that intelligent design is true. Gnixon (talk) 06:17, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

If that's what it is, it's not silly. Defining it as the argument that there is an intelligent designer, which is purely descriptive and neutral, is actually what would be considered a good definition. It's not a theory, it's not even a speculation or hypothesis, it's a forceful proposition that they're demanding be accepted into schools alongside actual scientific theories that do meet the strict definition of theory. If it were simply a "what if this were true" it'd be a different matter. Because they are asserting that it is true, it's an "argument". --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 14:09, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Now perhaps you can see why this mountain of text has been useful, because it has brought into focus (yet again) a tricky issue. Intelligent design is the "proposition" that things were designed by an intelligent being. However, all the notable aspects of that "proposition" arise from the argument that it is supported by scientific evidence, and that it should therefore be accepted in schools. The fact that this article is necessarily about that notable argument doesn't change the fact that "Intelligent design is the argument that intelligent design is true" is prima facie nonsensical. The tricky question becomes how to open the article properly with a (neutral) definition of "intelligent design," while quickly pivoting to the true subject of the article, which is the argument that ID is a scientific theory. Gnixon (talk) 14:37, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

To be concrete, here is a more accurate definition of ID than we currently have: Intelligent design is the purportedly scientific theory that certain features of life and the physical world were designed by an intelligent being. This example does little to solve the problem of explaining why ID is notable, because all the meat of the issue must necessarily follow the trivial definition, but it helps illustrate the problem with the current definition, as well as the trickiness in maintaining neutrality. (I.e., does "purportedly scientific theory" solve the neutrality problem or exacerbate it?). Gnixon (talk) 14:49, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

All the notable aspects of the "proposition" is that it was a famously rejected argument. Otherwise it wouldn't be notable at all. A neutral definition of Britney Spears isn't "Britney Spears is a female". You have to distinquish her notablity. "Britney Spears is a pop singer". Same case with ID. ID is not a proposition. ID is an argument that was rejected. That's what it's known for. Your definition above isn't the definition that every else sees. Correct is: Intelligent design is the argument that certain features of life and the physical world were designed by an intelligent being. The meat and bones would be the circumstances and events surrounding the argument and it's subsequent failure to be accepted. That's the only neutral way to go. The "purportedly scientific theory" gives too much weight to the idea that it ever was a scientific theory (in light of the result that it was rejected as such). It's a notable argument. Nothing more, nothing less. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 14:51, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Neal, you seem to be simply repeating yourself instead of responding to the point I raised. It's difficult to distinguish the notability of ID because it resides in arguments for ID, not in ID itself. I'm of course aware that the scientific community has rejected ID as a scientific theory, and that it's "known for" the rejected argument that it's scientific. That's exactly why we should discuss the tricky issue of how to introduce that notability without adopting silly definitions like "ID is the argument for ID." Gnixon (talk) 15:08, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for adding the clarification. I don't see how "purportedly" adds any weight. And I still say your suggestion amounts to "ID is the argument for ID." It simply doesn't make sense to adopt a nonsensical, inaccurate definition merely to avoid a tricky bit of writing. Gnixon (talk) 15:13, 7 July 2008 (UTC) However, I see that my example was poorly constructed. Better would be ''Intelligent design is the purportedly scientific theory that an intelligent being designed certain features of life and the physical world. Do you see why I think this is more accurate and solves the linguistic inconsistency? Gnixon (talk) 15:18, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

It's not a solution. "Purportedly" suggests that it was "assumed to be such; supposed". The only ones assuming or supposing that were/is its proponents. It's giving too much weight to the proponent's position when the prevailing position was not theirs. OK? Let's put it this way, because I'm sure you're an honest, ethical, and fair person. If they didn't earn the assumption there, why should it be given to them here? It wouldn't be fair. The prevailing position won and deserves the benefits of winning, in the interest of fairness. That's "fair and unbiased", from NPOV. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 16:10, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

No! "Purported"="Alleged", as in "the guide took gullible tourists to purported ancient sites." Strike another internet-written project (freedictionary, wiktionary) from the list of reliable sources. Gnixon (talk) 19:37, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Wow, and "alleged" means "asserted to be true or to exist", and that's sooo different from "assumed to be such; supposed". In any case, insert "asserted to be true" into what I said and you get: The only ones asserting that it is true were/is its proponents. It's giving too much weight to the proponent's position when the prevailing position was not theirs. OK? Let's put it this way, because I'm sure you're an honest, ethical, and fair person. If it was an assertion on their parts, why would we continue the assertion on their behalf? It wouldn't be fair. The prevailing position won and deserves the benefits of winning, in the interest of fairness. That's "fair and unbiased", from NPOV. (Doesn't seem to be all that different). --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 19:50, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

The point is exactly that proponents claim it is scientific. Hence "purportedly," implying that the assertion is disputed. How on earth could that be seen as giving weight to the claim?? I'm sure you're also an honest, ethical, and fair person, but I'm really having trouble understanding what you mean here. We don't "continue the assertion on their behalf," we report it, e.g., by calling ID a "purportedly scientific theory." What does "winning" have to do with anything? ID proponents continue to argue that ID is scientific, so we must continue to describe that claim. Gnixon (talk) 20:03, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Not as a definition we don't have to describe it as that. Why would we define it as they define it? They assert that it is a scientific theory. Everyone else (WP:WEIGHT) says it's a religion perpetrating as science. Why not define it that way? That's the prominent view. Winning has everything to do with it because reputable science calls it not science, reputable courts call it not science, the reputable decision was that it's not science, it was all decided outside Wikipedia. Unreliable adherents continue to say it is science. And you suggest we call it by what they call it and just slap a "purported" on it? That's a strange way of balancing the heavily imbalanced situation. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 22:11, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

As you clearly recognize, there are two sides to a debate over whether ID is science or not. Hence we are required, per NPOV, to present both sides neutrally. The opinion of the folks who invented this "theory" is clearly quite notable in this article, even if it may not deserve much weight in the article about evolutionary science, so please no red herrings. I don't at all suggest we call it what "they" call it, regardless of whether you substitute "ID proponents" or "representatives of science" for "they." Rather, I insist we follow the letter and spirit of NPOV and dispassionately, without choosing sides, describe both sides of the argument over the nature of ID. Gnixon (talk) 01:33, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps I can explain myself more clearly. You say we shouldn't define ID the way its proponents want it to be defined, but you seem to want to define it the way science defines it. Neither is allowed. The position of ID proponents is highly notable because, well, they invented it; the position of science is highly notable because ID claims to be science. There is clearly a notable debate over the subject of this article. Thus we must refrain from adopting the POV of either side, and attempt to describe ID in a neutral way. My best solution to this problem, so far, is to describe ID as a "purportedly scientific theory," which describes how it was presented by its authors while alluding to the fact that science disputes the claim that it's scientific. Can you suggest a better way to (a) define ID while (b) alluding to the highly notable debate over its nature without (c) taking sides? If so, I'm honestly all ears. Gnixon (talk) 01:47, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

No! That is precisely the strategy of the ID movement, to claim there are "two sides" to the "argument". That way they get to claim their "theory" is as equally as valid as the Theory of Evolution. Clearly science says it is not, and the courts say it is not. So we should say it is not. That is not POV, it is NPOV reporting the most reputable sources on the subject. --Michael Johnson (talk) 03:23, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't make any sense to call it a theory at all. This argument is ridiculous and unproductive and seems to be bent on calling ID a theory in some fashion whatever the consequences. Having the article contradict itself (theory, not a theory) is bad writing. There are many reasons that we oppose it, and the only reason for it appears to be that ID proponents call it a theory. It's been established that they do so with the intent of misleading people.

We have no intention of misleading people, so the article should only present the mainstream argument (ID is not a scientific theory). This horse is dead. Put down the stick. SDY (talk) 15:39, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Semantics IV

(undent) We can and should report their claim, but WP:UNDUE and WP:FRINGE require that we also include overwhelming evidence against the claim. As for point (a), no consensus to ignore WP:WTA is emerging after over 15,000 words have been written on this topic. Maybe we should move on to a more productive discussion. SDY (talk) 03:52, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Gnixon, I think you need to reread WP:WEIGHT since you called that part of core policy a "red herring". Please note that this article is not called "Creationist views on intelligent design". It is simply "intelligent design", an article that summarizes everything related to ID, and comparing all views on the topic. "Articles that compare views should not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views." It is a minority view that ID has anything more to do with science than a politically motivated perpetration as science. NPOV dictates that we present the majority view as the majority and the minority as the minority, in this case the view that ID is science is a tiny minority view (the view of adherents only) only mentioned in Wikipedia because it is notable that the adherents felt that way, and only worth mentioning so that when we mention how the majority feels about it the article makes sense. However, "We should not attempt to represent a dispute as if a view held by a small minority deserved as much attention as a majority view." NPOV does not mean equal. It means fair and unbiased. Fair is to present minority as minority and majority as majority. We do so without bias. There is no controversy or debate in any majority sense. The fair and unbiased neutral point of view is: Science & Courts trumps Creationists and ID adherents. You don't have to go crazy denigrating ID. It is what it is. They gave it a good go and they just didn't get any support out of it. But to give that view any more validity than it earned outside of Wikipedia is biased and unfair because it gives ID adherent's views more weight in Wikipedia than they've earned elsewhere. That is a simple, guiding approach to this article. Anything else is not a neutral approach. I'm sure you understand. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 04:13, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Neal, it's simply incredible that you would find in WP:UNDUE a prohibition against saying ID is the purportedly scientific theory.... I hardly know where to begin. First of all, most of UNDUE is entirely irrelevant here because it applies to the treatment of minority views in articles about mainstream subjects, e.g., ID in Evolution. That's why the bulk of your post is a red herring in this context.

That said, allow me to quote some passages from WP:UNDUE that are relevant:

1) An article ... should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject.

Conclusion: Since the claim that ID is a scientific theory is highly significant, it should be given prominence.

2) Minority views can receive attention on pages specifically devoted to them—Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia. But on such pages, though a view may be spelled out in great detail, the article should make appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint wherever relevant.

Conclusion: While spelling out the view of ID proponents, the most significant part of which is the claim that ID is a scientific theory, we should make reference to the fact that science disputes that claim.

Hence we arrive at the phrase in question, which complies directly with the relevant aspects of WP:UNDUE:

Intelligent design is the purportedly (Make reference to majority) scientific theory (Weight the claim as significant by putting it right up front)....

I hope this makes things clear. Gnixon (talk) 06:13, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Gnixion, as ahypothetical, what weight would you give to the idea that the earth is flat, per the strenuous and deeply held beliefs of the flat earth society? this is the problem most of us have with ID: it makes as much sense as a flat earth theory, and therefore, the weight given to pro ID is v small. I admit, that as a % of the US population, you could probably justify giving ID much more favorable treatment- but what would you do if a majority of the us population supported the flat earth theory? It is like the old joke, how do you tell a paranoid that they are crazy...Do you have an objective way to resolve this ? Cinnamon colbert (talk) 00:50, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Read it again, and quote me where it says it applies just to mainstream subjects and not all articles that compare views. You'll also have to explain to me how cutting the text from...

Undue weight applies to more than just viewpoints. Just as giving undue weight to a viewpoint is not neutral, so is giving undue weight to other verifiable and sourced statements. An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject, but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject.

to...

An article ... should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject.

is not a gross misrepresentation of the entire text which says giving undue weight to a viewpoint is not neutral. Your conclusion says the "claim that ID is a scientific theory is highly significant" and should be given prominence. A claim is a view, and core policy says it doesn't get prominence. It gets mentioned.

Don't confuse my position. I'm not so concerned about your proposed text as I am in your rationale for it. You said "there are two sides to a debate over whether ID is science or not". Yes. One is very BIG and the other is very small. WP:WEIGHT covers exactly that, and you for some reason say it's a "red herring". Quite simply, no. I'm not going to argue with you on it either. Do an RfC or simply ask someone else what WP:WEIGHT means and whether it's a fundamental policy regarding the intelligent design article as I described. You'll have a clear consensus in a short time, I'm sure. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 07:02, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Part of the problem is a knee-jerk response, and it's probably unwarranted, but it taints a lot of the arguments that I've seen made here, including these two (the descriptor and the balance).

This is part of the legacy of teach the controversy, which abuses "fair" coverage in order to get ID considered. Appealing for the article to provide "neutral coverage" automatically triggers "I've heard this one before." It's the same concern as calling it a theory. The idea isn't wrong, but it's very hard to get people to assume good faith when the exact same arguments have already been used in bad faith. It may not be what you're saying, but it's what I'm hearing. SDY (talk) 07:22, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I assume good faith. In fact, if I'm reading what you wrote correctly, I concur. The descriptor approach I think is Gnixon's and the balance approach I think is mine. I understand where Gnixon is coming from, and I'd agree with the descriptor approach in 90% of the articles at Wikipedia where there are viewpoints in opposition. However, on this topic the weight of the opposing viewpoints are so disproportionate, and the possibility of giving the lighter viewpoint a weight it doesn't deserve is so high, balance is the right approach. It's the only responsible thing to do. Being careless with the use of "science" in this article would be both misrepresentative of science and misleading on ID. Most topics that's not the case. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 07:41, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I think that it's pretty clear we must report the claim that it is scientific, but I think we can pretty easily do so without having the article call it is a theory (by any definition). Looking at the current article, it seems to follow this form. (a) What is wrong with that?

• Having Wikipedia call it a scientific theory fails NPOV when that is such a contentious point. "Purportedly" is a weasel word and doesn't change that the article is calling it a theory. Proponents can claim all they want, critics can savage it, but whether it is scientific is ultimately the claim that critics have successfully rejected. (b) How is having the article call it a theory (and insinuating that it is science) neutral? These two words are inseparable in this debate.
• (c) What reliable sources call it a scientific theory? (see the FAQ for why the DI is not reliable for anything but identifying that a claim has been made)

I agree that WP:UNDUE changes how this article is presented in that normally we wouldn't even report obviously pseudoscientific claims. That's all it changes. I don't see how the standards for evidence are changed, especially when WP:FRINGE is very clear on the topic. SDY (talk) 15:23, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Neal, we disagree strongly on the correct interpretation of WP:UNDUE in this context, but if the textual example I raised doesn't bother you as much as the rationale for it, perhaps we can sidestep the more abstract questions and make some progress anyway. Returning to "ID is the purportedly scientific theory...," please see this link (recently provided by you in another discussion) for a good example of how "purported" allows one to report a claim without supporting it. Gnixon (talk) 18:34, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Do you mean where it says "There is considerable controversy surrounding the purported discovery"? That's on cold fusion where there's an actual debate in science over whether something was demonstrated or not. That's sort of the point I was illustrating above. On ID there's no significant controversy in terms of whether it is or isn't a scientific theory, so you don't have to word it that way. When you mention that they view that it is a scientific theory it wouldn't be in the definition. It'd be where it is now: "Advocates of intelligent design argue that it is a scientific theory". There's many different options editors are tossing out on how to word it in the sections above, so you don't need to worry about convincing me of your choice in wording. You can add it to the list of others and I'm sure if there's a consensus to change what is already in the article my opinion won't make that much of a difference. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 02:56, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, you know, I've honestly forgotten how the heck this conversation started, anyway.  :) I still feel like the current lead defines ID as the argument that ID is correct, which seems odd to me. I also feel like my attempts to improve the language have been met with undue concern about legitimizing ID. More generally, I feel like the lead has an improperly critical tone, and I don't think WP:UNDUE in any way justifies that. Oh well. I'll probably take another shot at suggesting improvements somewhere below. Gnixon (talk) 15:46, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Why not just explicitly report and attribute it like the article does now? Purportedly isn't explicitly "wrong", but it's kind of weaselesque and it's weak writing that can be misunderstood. I guess I just don't see the problem with the current setup and how this change makes the article more neutral. If your concern is that the article is overly conclusive as anti-ID, two wrongs don't make a right. SDY (talk) 19:36, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I understand the concern about weasel words, but "purported" doesn't seem like one in this context. My suggestion didn't have anything to do with being more neutral. My goal was to state the claim right up front (since it's arguably the most significant thing about ID), while alluding to the fact that it's disputed (in order to avoid saying it is a scientific theory). I understand Neal's point that ID isn't disputed among scientists even in the way a fringe theory like cold fusion is, but there's still a dispute between ID proponents and scientists that needs to be recognized by a neutral article. I certainly don't think we should right a wrong with a wrong by giving credit to ID, but I just don't see how "purported scientific theory" does that. The only reason I've brought up neutrality here is because I think an anti-ID bias (or at least a paranoia about being pro-ID) is restricting our ability to discuss reasonable phrases. Anyway, we can return to all this later. I'm feeling kind of worn down on the issue at the moment. Cheers, Gnixon (talk) 15:46, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I read "Purportedly scientific theory" to mean exactly the same thing as "some people say it is a scientific theory." ID will get all the credit is due. In the case of whether or not it is science, it has no legs to stand on after it was unceremoniously shredded by the courts and leaked documents showing their rather unscientific motives became freely available. There is no meaningful controversy left over whether or not it is science. There is more ambiguity over the existence of nessie since at least that's an "absence of evidence" not an "evidence of absence." SDY (talk) 14:20, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

But the entire point of having ID is to claim it's a scientific theory. I wish you would stop telling me about how conclusively science rejects ID as science---I'm fully aware of that, and I'm in no way trying to have this article lend credence to the claim that ID is science. Regardless of how clearly science, courts, etc., have rejected ID as pseudoscience, its proponents still push the claim that it's science. That's the essence of ID. I'd like to find some way of mentioning that claim right up front, rather than at the end of the first paragraph, where it is now. Gnixon (talk) 05:10, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

This conversation has a certain deja vu quality. Having a nominally neutral article (outside of a quote or a clearly attributed statement) refer to ID as science lends credence to the claim that ID is science. Do you agree with this statement? SDY (talk) 06:07, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate the effort at clarifying---there's certainly a lot of deja vu. I agree with your statement, but I'm concerned we would disagree on its interpretation. For a specific example, I don't think "purportedly scientific..." lends any credence to the claim. Being less specific, and pushing the edge a bit, I think it might even be possible to have a paragraph or section that spoke freely about ID in scientific terms, as long as the context clearly attributed the views of that paragraph/section to ID proponents. That might be a good way to lay out the claims of ID without burdening the text with too many qualifiers. Or it might not work---this is where concrete examples like "purportedly scientific" can help sharpen the discussion. Here's a statement I think we might disagree on: "Having an unattributed statement to the effect that ID is not good science is improper within this article, because in the context of this article, dispute over that point is highly notable." The bottom line is that it's improper for this article to adopt either the scientific point of view or the ID point of view---but that's not much of a handicap. The solution is simply to be sure all disputed viewpoints are clearly attributed, where even the perspective of mainstream science counts as "disputed" in this article. Gnixon (talk) 16:00, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

All I am hearing is "treat equally" and "give ID the benefit of the doubt" and other things that you claim to agree with. Since we agree on the basics and disagree on the semantics, all I can say is that there is no consensus for these changes and leave it there. SDY (talk) 17:39, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand what you mean about "give ID the benefit of the doubt." Beyond that, I'm sorry I've been unable to make myself clear. I'll try to do a better job. Gnixon (talk) 21:45, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Let me flip it for a second, because I too have been coming at it from the "scientists reject it" side, and like Gnixon pointed out, that's getting repetitive. But flip it around and look at the other side -- the other view -- and it's the same result. Wikipedia, in various policies and guidelines, say when describing viewpoints you must clearly state who has that view and the size of the group that holds that view. If you wanted to say "purported scientific theory", it's weasel unless you say who's doing the purporting. Advocates purport it. Purport, assert, claim, argue, there's very little difference. You end up with exactly what it says here "Advocates of intelligent design argue that it is a scientific theory". I don't know why this is still an issue. Even when you come at it from reporting on where its accepted, rather than where its rejected, you end up with the same wording. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 18:03, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I guess I thought it would be obvious to the reader that its proponents "purport" it to be scientific. The difference is that "Advocates of intelligent design argue that it is a scientific theory" is buried toward the end of the ever-swelling first paragraph. I was trying to get that claim as close to the front as possible, since I think it's the most notable aspect of ID. I don't understand what you mean about "come at it from reporting on ... where it's rejected." Gnixon (talk) 21:45, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I've been arguing about weights of views, and that emphasis is placed on the more prominent view. The more prominent view is that of science, where the notion that it's a scientific theory is rejected. I was coming at reporting it from that prominent view where its rejected. What I was saying is that even if you come at it from the less prominent view, reporting it from the view where it is accepted, you have to say who holds that view, and as such it's still the same wording. In the wording you offered "ID is the purportedly scientific theory", you'd still have to say who's purporting it. Above you said, "its proponents 'purport' it to be scientific", and that's different than what you were offering. "ID is the purportedly scientific theory" is not a real definition, because it leaves out that very important part {{who}}. What you'd end up with is "ID is the purported by proponents to be scientific theory that says...". That doesn't say what it really is. It's not a real definition. It only says what proponents purport. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 22:00, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

It seems to me that the point here is not to report it from the more prominent view or the less prominent view, but simply to report it from a neutral view, and place the other views in the article in regard to their prominence. --Ludwigs2 22:15, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, except that the neutral view is that it's not a scientific theory. You can string it out and say, well, the neutral view is also that it might be a scientific theory. Sure. But, there's no way to word it without attributing the view that it is to the proponents, and thus placing the view in regard to its prominence. Neutral doesn't mean equal. It means "not Wikipedia's view". It means attribution of views. Once attributed, the view sinks by weighting. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 22:22, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) Actually, I still don't see what the problem is that requires megabytes of discussion. The view of the proponents is clearly stated in the very first line: "Intelligent design is the assertion that 'certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.'" That's the proponent's primary-prominent view. The "scientific theory" assertion is a lesser view devised to get it into schools. It's not a part of their "What is the theory of intelligent design?"[1] They don't start asserting that it is scientific until #3. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 23:21, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

well, actually, the scientific perspective is that it's not a scientific theory; that's the dominant view, but not a neutral one. a neutral view simply doesn't have an opinion on the matter. kind of a laundry list, like "ID proponents say it's a scientific theory, but lots and lots of scientists say it's not; most experts think the whole thing was really just a political gambit, while a few adherents claim that it's a correct and valid approach", with appropriate sources, but without any effort to assert or imply the truth or correctness of either side.

this is the reason this page gets so much debate/argument, you know. to a reader such as myself, the ID page reads like an exercise in implication. The extents to which the phrasing is manipulated to make sure that everyone knows that the scientific perspective is correct and ID shady makes me laugh. of course, since it's a tone issue, it's impossible to argue about about with people who don't want to listen; you just get these endless arguments where one side is trying to address tone and the other side is responding as though tone doesn't mean anything, and everyone gets steamed under the collar. nothing angers people more than not being listened to, you know. but I digress... --Ludwigs2 23:40, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

You have got to be kidding. "That's the dominant view, but not a neutral one"? I'd say that science is neutral on any non-science subject, such as whether deities or angels exist. ID proponents get to define ID, science gets to define science. When someone outside of the science community comes along and claims something is science that is clearly not to those within the community, that isn't an issue of neutrality. The non-neutral view, in this case, is coming from the non-science side. They don't get to redefine science to fit their worldview, sorry. The article seems neutral in that regard; defining science as science, and not-science as not-science, isn't biased in the least. The bias comes from the not-science crowd claiming they're doing science. It's like a theologian claiming his theology is equivalent to mathematics. ~Amatulić (talk) 23:50, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

No, he's serious, and I find that to be troubling. Certainly his comment misses the point that science is one of the few disciplines that is self-correcting and hence extremely neutral. Scientists long ago realised that the supernatural (upon which ID depends) is outside the bounds of science, thus anything relying on the supernatural is not science. It's quite simple really, perhaps too simple for minds seeking to find proof of their beliefs imprinted on the world around them. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149;^dissera! 00:05, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

wow, this discussion suddenly got fascinating. Amatulić, did you mean to imply that science was universally neutral on any non-science subject, or was that a typo?

I'm going to avoid (for the sake of everyone's sanity) a debate about whether science actually represents a single, cohesive thing, with a clear definition and boundaries. there's a lot of very smart, very published people who would dispute that. granting that it might be, I think you've both made a confusion between neutrality and objectivity. Science (in most definitions, anyway) tries to be objective and evidentiary, and to the extent that it succeeds it can claim to be a ontologically faithful reflection of the world. claiming that this is 'neutral' in the wikipedian sense of the word, though, is really mixing apples and oranges. wikipedia neutrality - however you want to define it - is a social construct that has to do with the perceived balance between significant viewpoints in a discussion. scientific objectivity may lead to something approaching neutrality within a particular material domain, and that objective position may be cited and balanced into an article as part of a broader neutrality question for that article, but you can't simply equate the former with the latter. and in particular, the statements of scientists about ID are clearly not neutral - they are not even reasoned scientific conclusions that could claim objectivity on evidentiary grounds; they are merely the opinions of scientists on an issue of disciplinary boundaries.

and Jim, please don't accuse me of being feather-brained like that, not unless you want to start the my CV is bigger then your CV game...  ;-) --Ludwigs2 00:52, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Curricula Vitae are utterly irrelevant, although you obviously felt some need to raise the issue. Beats me why.

In any case, this "they are not even reasoned scientific conclusions" is one of the most fascinating cases of self-delusion I've ever seen. But hey, if you're happy, so be it. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149;^dissera! 20:47, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

oh, I was just lightening the mood, no worries; you're right, it is irrelevant. but what I said was true. scientific conclusions are a particular thing, having to do with research and evidence. the claim that ID is not a scientific theory - while undoubtably true - is not a matter of research or analysis, but merely a statement of disciplinary boundaries. --Ludwigs2 21:12, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps, yet every assertion made by Behe and Dembski have been proven to be scheiss. Hence, it is not merely about disciplinary boundaries, but about the failure of ID to present any valid evidence to support its suppositions. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149;^dissera! 21:38, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

actually, no assertion by Behe and Dembski (that I'm aware of) has ever been formally tested, because the assertions don't fall into the boundaries of testable scientific propositions. seriously Jim, this is the distinction I'm advocating for: B&D's scientific assertions are scheiss on inspection; they haven't been proven to be scheiss. no one has bothered to say whether B&D's assertions are right or wrong, because those assertions fall squarely in the category of "untestable belief." I mean, when you come right down to it, all ID (as theory) really says is that some transcendent force is behind the organization of the universe; that's something every major religion (and a lot of scientists) would accept, and not something that can ever be falsified empirically. the ID movement, of course, is tied up with the political machinations of a group of fundamentalist Christians, and that kind of political scheiss (I've decided I like this word) deserves what it gets. but I see no value in over-stating the scientific position, because it just ends up making science look polemical, and weakens its credibility on other issues. --Ludwigs2 17:22, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Numerous of Behe's examples of Irreducible complexity have been disproved by scientists who have hypothesised pathways by which they could have/probably did evolve. However the general assertion of IC is as unfalsifiable as Russell's teapot. Dembski's claims have been shown by mathematicians to be flawed, hopelessly imprecise and/or inapplicable to evolution. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 18:07, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

More simply put, all of the specific examples of "irreducible complexity" that have been brought up have been reduced in a plausible fashion. The "fine-tuned universe" has been rejected through pointing out obvious problems with biological designs. It's possible that there's a designer, but the observations more or less indicate that said designer is either incompetent or malicious.

No explanation can ever be totally rejected, all we can say is "does it agree with the evidence?" In the case of ID's explanations, they simply aren't consistent with observations. They could still nominally be true and we may simply have picked bad examples, but after numbers and numbers start adding up and the weight of the evidence is against the explanation, we can divide explanations into those that consistently agree with observations and those that do not. SDY (talk) 18:27, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Of course, creationism (the older version) could be nominally true, but it's still not science, still not a theory, still not of any predictive value, and still supernatural hocus pocus. ;) I assume the "we" in "we may simply have picked bad examples" is a universal "we"?  :) Given that the explanations offered for irreducible complexity and specified complexity were seen by the ID-crowd as the best possible extant explanations, the most "robust" explanations, and given that all have gone down in flames it's no small wonder that only certain groups with specific agendas still find it compelling and why scientists (really, biologists, as the opinion of an astrophysicist or astronomer or chemist, i.e. the guys making up the bulk of the "Scientific Dissent from Darwinism", is utterly irrelevant) have rejected it as piffle. End of rant.  ;)

Anyway, SDY, you're doing nice work here. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149;^dissera! 16:15, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Hrfan - errrr... you can't disprove something by hypothesizing. you can logically refute something that way, but not disprove it, since disproof implies disqualifying evidence. I'm with SDY here, and jim as well, that the available evidence supports ET (that's evolution theory, not aliens) completely, but honestly its just a matter of time before someone at DI backpedals more and says "well, God designed the universe as evolutionary, in order to evolve man into his image." the core belief here is just plain unfalsifiable. --Ludwigs2 17:57, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually, due to the way that IC is phrased, you can. IC states that certain features could not have evolved -- not merely that they did not. Which means that to disprove it for a particular example, you do not have to prove that the feature did evolve along a certain pathway, only that they could have. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 18:45, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, IC itself is falsifiable, but the underlying premise, id est, "God did it", is not (see below).

Of course, the "could not have" bit merely points out the duplicity and disingenousness of the ID crowd. They can't even make a definitive statement, but need to couch it in the subjunctive/conditional, and misue math to try to prove their point (Dawkins does a nice job pointing out the fallacy of the math the IDers rely upon in The Blind Watchmaker). &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149;^dissera! 19:32, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if they'll backpedal that far, unless the person is speaking extemporaneously and gets caught up in the heat of the moment, as such a pronouncement would support those who've stated that ID is merely creationism (even if it's in a theistic evolution sense). In any case it would clearly belie ID's pretense to being scientific. Not, of course, that those who choose to believe that ID is a valid "theory" would care, in fact they'd see it as an affirmation that the founders and propenents of ID are directed by God and hence, good folk, good soldiers in the battle against "materialism".

In any case, as the existence of a deity or deities is neither provable nor disprovable, Ludwigs is correct: ID's core belief cannot be put to the test of falsifiability. Of course, that, and it's lack of parsimony and predictive hypotheses, dooms it to being unscientific. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149;^dissera! 18:20, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

yes. I'll tell you, this article will be so easy to write in a neutral tone in about 40 years, when all the hubbub around the (by then forgotten) ID movement will have disappeared...

just in the spirit of devilishness, though, I do have to point out that no scientist has actually seen evolution in action. there have been a few studies that have shown the workings of selection in controlled experiments with fruit flies and fish (and of course bacteria) that have short life cycles and high breeding rates, but no one has actually ever seen a viable mutation be created and spread through a population, nor has anyone yet seen speciation (in which an accumulation of selected mutations splits a single population into two populations which cannot interbreed). food for thought... <smirk> --Ludwigs2 06:00, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Much like gravity really, yet it's effects can be clearly observed. Shot info (talk) 06:28, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Ludwigs, in your diabolical comments you don't seem to appreciate that from a scientific viewpoint mutations (or variations) happen, tthe idea that mutations are created is a religious idea. Like ID. . . . dave souza, talk 09:17, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

"No scientist has actually seen evolution in action". An action is event with two time markers, a beginning and an end. Spread the markers out long enough and you have clear view of the events of evolution. Move the markers closer and you're still watching evolution in action, you just don't know it because you don't have the long view. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 13:48, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Dave - I meant 'created in the lab' (using radiation or teratogenic chemicals). I know they've tried producing mutations in fruitflies, but to my knowledge those results have simply produced sterility and deformities, not any new and viable characteristics that could be passed on to future generations. don't get me wrong: I'm not trying to debunk Evolution, which is by far the best theory available. I just happen to be more of a Lamarkian than a Mendelian (i.e., evolution as a function of direct adaptation to an environment, rather than indirectly through random mutation and extinction). that's part of why I have an interest in this page - Lamarkian constructions of evolution were largely discarded because they were (incorrectly) confused with religious teleological notions. I hate to see the same confusion propogated on this page. --Ludwigs2 19:18, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Q&A

OK, I'll bite: Principle: Wikipedia is neutral. Principle: Wikipedia sometimes reports views that are not neutral. Principle: Wikipedia can neutrally report those views that are not neutral. Principle: Wikipedia doesn't have to water them down and misrepresent the views to make them neutral, Wikipedia simply attributes those views to the viewer so they are not Wikipedia's views. Wikipedia's view is thus neutral. It's not Wikipedia's opinion that it isn't scientific. It's the scientists. Principle: After attributing views to the viewer, Wikipedia must then determine prominence, majority and minority. Principle: After determining prominence, Wikipedia must then reflect prominence to remain neutral and unbiased.

Now, how do you figure that the proponent's view goes first? As in your example wording? Would you still propose putting the adherent's view first if we were talking about the Westboro Baptist Church? It just doesn't make any sense to organize a laundry list that way, under the purview of Wikipedia's principles. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 00:45, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Incidentally, the way the Westboro article would go under that line of ordering would be: "Westboro Church says 'God hates ___'. A lot of people disagree and say 'God doesn't hate ___'. Most people see the debate over whether God hates ___ as a sort of political gambit where one uses the persona of God to support a political or religious agenda against homosexuality. Though that is the majority view, some adherents still say 'No, seriously, God hates ___'." That doesn't make for a very good article I would think. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 01:04, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm usually given to a "say what it is, say what it means, say where it comes from, say who objects" format for articles - in this case I might move the anti-defamation league comments lower in the lead and raise the central point about it being anti-gay, but I'm not sure how hard I'd push for it. the tone of that article might be a bit harsh, but I'd have to read it more carefully. --Ludwigs2 01:22, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Neal - I wasn't actually arguing for that particular ordering (I happen to favor it in this case, but not necessarily in the WBC case). I was arguing for a simple detachment from taking sides. clearly, whenever there's a view that's not neutral that needs to be reported, there's also at least one other significant view that's not neutral in a different direction, and that should be reported as well. we don't need to report that they are not neutral (that should be evident from context); we don't need to report that this view is more neutral than that view (that's up for the reader to decide). all we need to do is report each fairly and without bias, in their proper prominence in the discussion, and let it go. no? --Ludwigs2 01:08, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Principle: When reporting opinions, Wikipedia reports facts about opinions. | In your view, why would Wikipedia omit notable facts about the opinion, such as the extent to which something is condemned? Applied to pedophilia, shouldn't we make clear that the opinion that an old man taking a young woman as his wife is an outdated cultural artifact that is almost universally condemned in society? That most courts are strongly opposed to that view? Those are notable facts that aren't neutral to that view, but are nonetheless facts about the view.

I'm not trying to bust you on your way of interpreting Wikipedia policies and guidelines. I'm asking you questions to get you to think about why they are the way they are. Neutral and unbiased would be treating any view that is unpopular like any other view that is unpopular. Reporting facts about those views is neutral and unbiased, even if they're facts one doesn't like. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 01:14, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

things like 'extent' are judgements largely made by editors, not facts present in sources. no one is talking here about omitting facts, but merely balancing tone between given facts. --Ludwigs2 01:22, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Principle: Sources must be reliable and statements must be true to the source. | If a reliable source states someone saying that there is a almost universal condemnation, and the source reflects that the person is representative of a large group, would it be alright to post that to the article even if it doesn't shed the best light on the topic? Principle: Wikipedia presents notable views | What if the statement is really, really negative, pejorative even, but the guy is a notable critic. Do you a) water down his view, b) present it exactly as he said it so there's no misrepresentation, or c) omit it as too negative? --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 01:31, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Neal - I don't think you're trying to bust me, I just think we're talking past each other. for instance, with you point about pedophilia, I think we should make it clear that "an old man taking a young woman as his wife is an outdated cultural artifact that is almost universally condemned in society" to the extent that this appears as an actual claim in the argument: if pederasts are making that claim and opponents are refuting it by calling it outdated, all that needs to be included (as well as the fact that it is a historically valid practice that has gone out of favor). but if it's not part of the argument in reliable sources, but we as editors want to add it (because we as editors do or don't happen to like pederasty) then we've stepped over the line. even if we start saying things like 'universally condemned' where sources say 'generally prohibited', we are beginning to editorialize, and that too takes us over the line. to your other question, that boils down to sourcing. if you have one notable guy saying something fairly extreme, then simple, cautious 'extreme statements call for rigorous evidence' type conservatism would suggest that you find supporting sources for his opinion. right? --Ludwigs2 02:13, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Principle: Again, Wikipedia must be true to reliable sources. | If one assumes the idea that saying "universally condemned" is editorializing when the source says "generally prohibited" (your view), would it be fair to say "general sentiment" if the sources say "unequivocal consensus"? Principle: Again, Wikipedia presents notable views | If a bunch of people say "this is pseudoscience" do you a) water down that view because its pejorative, b) present it exactly as it's said so there's no misrepresentation, or c) omit that view because it's negative? --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 05:02, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

and now we're properly into issues of tone. it's clear that the intent of statements like 'universally condemned' and 'pseudoscience' is not to convey factual information about the topic, but to establish an emotional weight to a particular perspective in a controversy. like anything else in a controversy, you will find people with stronger and milder opinions on each side, and idealistically wp:undue weight would suggest that the most prominent view should get the most prominent representation. is 'universally condemned' or 'generally rejected' the most prominent sentiment on the oppose side? however, that's rarely practical. the more annoyed someone is, the more likely he or she is to spout off about it, and so strong, angry opinions will always have a greater representation in the literature than milquetoast disapproval, even if the vast majority of opinions fall in the latter category. as editors, we have to create a balanced perspective, not simply represent the most extreme view available as the truth of that particular side. in short, you cannot treat an emotional judgement about the proper place of ID in the community (as universally condemned), as equivalent with the more-or-less dispassionate assertion about its validity (that it is not particularly scientific). and again with pseudoscience - any author who calls something pseudoscience is (supposedly) doing so for a reason, and citing the reason is clearly better (tone-wise) than merely citing the pseudoscience reference; citing the reason adds information to the topic, whereas labeling merely categorizes without explanation. nothing wrong with pseudoscience per se (since that is a common enough category), but the reasons themselves get the idea across without resorting to labeling.

maybe this is the way to put it: anything that adds direct information about the topic itself is gold. anything that adds information about the relationship between the sides in the conflict, however, needs to be handled carefully and conservatively, otherwise it will appear as though wikipedia is supporting one side over the other, and that's pure lead. --Ludwigs2 19:39, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

(The question was if "unequivocal consensus" would be fair, not "universally condemned", though I can see how that may have been confusing. I'll come back to "pseudoscience" in a moment.) Principle: Wikipedia asserts facts, including facts about opinions | In your view, would unequivocal ("leaving no doubt") be a fair fact about the opinion or consensus of the scientific community when "fact" is defined as "something not seriously in dispute"? If it's a fact, can it really be considered emotional? If you consider it emotional, would rewording it as unemotional be misrepresenting the fact (unemotionalizing an emotional fact)? --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 20:16, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

sorry, I misread (or mistyped - not sure which...). I'll point out that you're reasoning in the abstract here, rather than in particulars (that can cause communication problems) but with that being said, I'd have to consider how you mean "something not seriously in dispute". for instance, I doubt anyone in the scientific community would bother to say "there is an unequivocal consensus that gravity exists." they'd just say it's a fact (or if they were being careful, that it's an established principle of physics), and let it slide. when you get into a contested issue, words do tend to get a little stronger, but 'unequivocal consensus' is a phrase that's intended to demonstrate strong solidarity in the face of opposition - that's an emotional commitment laid on top of the simple factual statement. I sincerely doubt that most scientists (if you knocked on their door and asked) would say 'there is an unequivocal consensus that ID is not science' - they'd just laugh at you, and tell you to go away and stop bothering them with trivialities. at any rate, while it may be a verifiable 'fact' that certain scientists have made that claim; it is not a verifiable 'fact' that that claim is attributable to all scientists. see, this is sticky. I don't doubt that most scientists dismiss ID as irrelevant, but I'd hesitate to attribute any strong emotions to them on the matter. now we can discuss whether 'unequivocal consensus' really reflects an emotional commitment (which is where I think you might have been heading), and I'll admit I might be convinced that it doesn't. but that is a pure question of tone - neither of us is disagreeing that the citation exists, but rather we are discussing what power to give it in the article based on other factors. but that moment of discussing the matter and being convinced is important, because that's what's going to keep me from coming back and complaining about it later. --Ludwigs2 21:32, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

(ri) BTW, it's not about what any scientist might think, it should only be about what biologists think. That's one of the problems with DI's dissent from Darwinism petition: not a lot of biologists (specially renowned biologists) in that mix. Oh, Ludwigs, e e cummings already did the lack of capitalisation gig: it's effective in poetry, but not in prose.  :) &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149;^dissera! 22:13, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Ludwig, you say I'm reasoning in abstract? : ) I'm not sure what point to pull from your response and don't really want to try for fear of misrepresenting what you were trying to say. The only thing I think you're trying to say is that everything boils down to tone. Would that be essentially correct?

If you'd like to talk about tone, I'd like to hear your thoughts on the place of tone-disputes in relation to Wikipedia policies and guidelines overall. I'm curious about this because I've seen a lot of editors say the tone is "too negative" on words like "unequivocal", when words like that are just level-of-degree words on a particular view, reliably sourced, and doesn't have anything to do with the other competing views. How high on the priority scale is a tone-dispute when the complete principles of Wikipedia are the Five Pillars, which places "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia" over all others, places "Wikipedia has a neutral point of view" below that, and only in that second tier priority is "Fairness of tone" placed. Further to this query, I'll ask, when the overall goal of NPOV is to present each view accurately while not claiming a "best view" -- how does that translate to distorting a view for tone when its just one competing view? In other words, if all competing views are described accurately and without misrepresentation, and Wikipedia doesn't claim one view as the best, why would any particular view need to be "toned down" so that the other doesn't look so bad? If competing views are described fully and accurately, they compete on their own merits -- Wikipedia is thus neutral. If Wikipedia waters one down so that it's not overwhelming to the other, guess what, Wikipedia just chose a view to protect, the underdog view. Question: That above in consideration, where does "tone" rank in priority at Wikipedia? --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 03:59, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Jim - I have to say, I made exactly that argument somewhere else, and got shot down for it (the argument being roughly that since things like ID are 'pseudoscience' they don't belong to any field and can thus be refuted by any scientist). needless to say, I agree with your point wholeheartedly; I just don't know how to convince anyone else of it. unless you're suggesting I start arguing in verse? I could do that... =)

Neal - I see tone as being the last, 'tweaking' element of the process. Article content should be decided by verifiable, reliable sources first, and tone shouldn't have much say over sourcing at all (except maybe in choosing a source that gives the same information in a different tone). the issue (for me) is a psychological/statistical one: no editor is perfect, and no source is completely representative with respect to opinions, so your phrase "all competing views are described accurately and without misrepresentation" can never be completely true. verifiability and reliability get you most of the way there, but even after all sources are vetted and included, there's still a degree of ambiguity over the exact sense that the article is supposed to convey, and that opens the door for editors to make inferences and implement them in tone (and inferences, as you know, bring in a risk of WP:SYN). I don't see any way to avoid these inferences (short of creating a genetically enhanced breed of super-editors <shudder...>), and so I advocate for a conservative, understated, consensus approach, which at least minimizes the potential for incivility in whatever synthesis does occur. wikipedia is never perfect, and I don't think we should adopt principles which rely on wikipedia being perfect to be effective. --Ludwigs2 18:02, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

We cover "no editor is perfect" with reliability of sourcing policies, which puts the burden of reliability on the source, not the editor. The quality of the source is something that can be determined objectively, without ever considering the quality of the editor.

We cover rogue views with policies that say tiny-minority views aren't appropriate to the encyclopedia anyway. You said "no source is completely representative with respect to opinions" is a reason to say "all competing views are described accurately and without misrepresentation" can never happen. Yes, actually we can describe accuractely all competing views. First, we have policies that describe what competing views are. Tiny-minority (rogue opinions) are not competing views. One dissenting voice, or even a tiny minority of multiple dissenting voices, is not a competing view. It's not an arbitrary judgement to say it's not competitive. It's a simple numerical observation. We only consider substantially shared opinions to begin with, so anomalous opinions are never an issue at Wikipedia. Second, a source isn't supposed to be "completely representative with respect to opinions", not reliable ones anyway, because we consider reliable sources to be authoritative. This is related to the first point. A source that tries to be representative of every opinion out there, instead of just notable/significant ones, isn't the most reliable source to be using because it's not authoritative. The NAS and the AAAS, for example, are authoritative and reliable on science's view, exactly because they represent a consensus-view of science rather than every single opinion of every single scientist.

Q: Like consensus at Wikipedia doesn't mean everyone shares that view, but rather that it is the shared view of the community itself, wouldn't you agree that tiny-minority opinions from rogue scientists have nothing to do with the "consensus of the scientific community"? ie. Isn't it a scientific consensus that natural selection is the best scientific explanation for evolution despite one or two rogue scientists who disagree? --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 21:05, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

A proposed first two sentences

How about this: "Intelligent Design" is the name used since the mid-1980s to describe the proposition 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." The term "Intelligent Design" is closely associated with the Discovery Institute, a US-based organization that has undertaken a high-profile campaign to promote the Intelligent Design hypothesis to the public. --BTfromLA (talk) 07:07, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

"Unguided process such as natural selection" makes it seem like it is an atheistic idea, when there are also a very large number of theistic evolutionists. Simply dropping "unguided" would correct it, rather than adding in other stuff to do with christian apologists that would make it too complicated.--Serviam (talk) 13:02, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

It's a quote. Gnixon (talk) 13:11, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

This would appear to be non-MOS compliant. The compliant version (and better English) would be "Intelligent Design is the proposition 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.'" This is simply adding 'proposition' to the assertion/idea/theory/etc mix. Not that I mind it as an alternative -- I'd probably give it a 4 on the above strawpoll. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 15:34, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't mean to throw another spanner in the works but the first thing that struck me about the opening claim/definition of ID is that it is obviously true. That is, TVs, hairstyles and eyes after laser surgery are features of the universe and/or living things that are not just best explained, but are rightly explained, by an intelligent cause as opposed to undirected process such as NS.66.96.243.12 (talk) 17:37, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

True. By leaving open what these "features" might be, they effectively turn it into an analogue of Russell's teapot, and thus unfalsifiable. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 18:20, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

There is a difference between unfalsifiable because impossible to test and unfalsifiable because tested and found to be true. The point I am making is that the opening sentence is an example of the latter. 66.96.243.12 (talk) 18:29, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have worded more precisely. Because the scope of these "features" are not defined, the statement is (i) true in trivial ways that are unrelated to ID's dispute with evolution and (ii) unfalsifiable with respect to that dispute. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 18:48, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm happy to do without that quote in the first sentence, if you folks are. Try this: "Intelligent Design" is the name used since the mid-1980s for the proposition that empirical evidence supports the conclusion that life or the universe is the product of "an intelligent cause." The term is closely associated with the Discovery Institute, a US-based organization that has undertaken a program of public advocacy of the Intelligent Design hypothesis. They present Intelligent Design as both an alternative to and a critique of naturalistic explanations of life and the cosmos, specifically targeting the standard biological model of evolution by natural selection. (I suggest that this sentence be followed immediately with a brief description of the DI's ID argument--that might be the place for a representative quotation.) BTfromLA (talk) 19:56, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

First sentence has become unwieldy. How about dropping "evidence supports the conclusion that"? That aspect would be covered by adding the quote where you suggest. Gnixon (talk) 20:27, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion, Gnixon. I agree that the first sentence needs streamlining, but the claim about using empirical data is absolutely key to Intelligent Design. Without it, there is nothing to separate ID from any other belief in a creator, except for the refusal to name that creator. So, I think some reference to an empirical basis for this probably should be in the very first sentence. Does this version go down any more smoothly?: Intelligent Design is the name used since the mid-1980s for the proposition that empirical evidence points to "an intelligent cause" for life or the universe. BTfromLA (talk) 20:42, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, I understand your point, but I think you're essentially substituting "evidence supports intelligent design" for "intelligent design." I think this issue is confusing all of us. Does "intelligent design" refer to the idea that there is an intelligent designer, being closely-associated with the attending arguments, or does "intelligent design" somehow refer to the pseudoscientific arguments themselves? Gnixon (talk) 20:49, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

As I understand it, this article clearly refers to ID in the sense of the contemporary (Philip Johnson, Stephen Meyer, Wm Dembski, etc.) Intelligent Design movement. Therefore, it needs to fairly present the arguments--however weak or misleading--that advocates for ID make. (As a reader, that is certainly what I'd hope for from an encyclopedia.) I think that their claim to locate "design" based on empirical data (as opposed to blind faith or purely philosophical argument) is a defining characteristic of ID. No doubt there is a slippery quality to the term, which I've seen used to describe a religious intuition, a claimed scientific theory or a political movement. But I still think that the pseudo- or quasi- scientific claim is crucial. BTfromLA (talk) 21:04, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree, but it's difficult to present that claim without implying whether or not it can appropriately be described in the language of science. How about something like this: Intelligent design refers to the idea that life and the physical universe were designed by an intelligent agent. Proponents argue that intelligent design is supported by scientific evidence, and advocate teaching it as an alternative to evolution in U.S. public schools, while critics condemn it as pseudoscience and "a mere relabeling of creationism." Gnixon (talk) 21:43, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I think that both of our drafts improve on the existing opening. I still lean toward my version (I don't really understand your objection to "...the proposition that empirical evidence points to "an intelligent cause" for life or the universe"--we're just reporting a claim, not addressing its merit) and I like the idea of getting the Discovery Institute in there right near the lead... as a reader, I'd want to be clued in to the institution that sits so squarely behind this notion and its popularization. But I'm going to have to sign off shortly, so if you want to go forward with the version you've proposed above, you have my support. I appreciate your efforts to neutralize the tone of this article. I'll drop back in when I have a chance. BTfromLA (talk) 22:08, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, BT. My objection to issue with "empirical evidence points to" is one of semantics. Is ID the idea that there's an intelligent agent, or is it the idea that empirical evidence suggests there's an intelligent agent? I think the latter definition is problematic, even though (under the former definition) it is the arguments for ID that are most notable. That's why I'd like to first define the non-notable notion that an "intelligent designer" exists (this is the "theory," after all), then quickly move on to the notable arguments for why one should think this "theory" is correct. I think it's unlikely that a change to the article will be agreed to anytime soon, so there should be plenty of time for us to continue the discussion later. Gnixon (talk) 23:50, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Neither proposed change meets the bar for WP:V, WP:RS or WP:NPOV, so they're not going to fly. Both seek to replace a properly sourced view with a summary that rests on a WP:SYNTH. FeloniousMonk (talk) 05:37, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

The quote itself clearly constitutes a reliable source verifying these rather neutral, non-synthesized phrasings. There are several proposed revisions in this section, at least one of which barely deviates from the original in its reliance on the quote. The remainder are clearly consistent with the quote, but also take into account Hrafn's point that the quote is an argument for ID, not a definition of ID, at least under one definition of ID, the correct definition remaining semantically unclear. It's hard to understand what you mean unless you explain your objections in a way that addresses the various issues raised in this discussion. Gnixon (talk) 15:10, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Gnixon - please give FM a chance to explain how these proposed changes fail to meet the bar for that bowl of alphabet soup he threw at you. I'm curious to know. --Ludwigs2 17:11, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Just as a general comment, it might be better to paraphrase and cite the quote instead of just repeating it. Without any clarification, "it's unclear why the statement is in quotes." Are they sneer quotes? Who, when, and what is the article quoting? Consider:

Intelligent design is an alternative explanation made by groups that oppose the teaching of evolution. It was first proposed in 198*. The leading group in the movement, the Discovery Institute, states 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."

Obviously we'd fill in 198* with whatever the actual year was, "1980's" is too colloquial for my taste. It offers a lot of capability for wikilinking related articles, provides some context, and attributes the quote clearly. SDY (talk) 17:29, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

SDY, that looks like a reasonable start, but I think we need to be more specific than "alternate explanation." Gnixon (talk) 17:43, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

So, what precisely is to be gained by rewriting the first two sentences? Nothing that I can see. They're quite clear and meet WP:V, WP:RS and WP:NPOV. (Oh dear, more alphabet soup stuff). Nothing can be clearer than the DI's own statement of what ID is. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149;^dissera! 17:38, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that the semantics are all screwed up. The quote isn't a definition of ID, it's an assertion that ID offers a better explanation than natural selection. Gnixon (talk) 17:45, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Gnixon is incorrect. I did not say that it is "not a definition of ID", nor words to that effect. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 17:39, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry if I was putting words into your mouth. You said the quote did not define a "theory," which I took to mean that it defined an argument for an idea, not the idea itself. I'll just say that explicitly from now on. Gnixon (talk) 17:43, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

So, are you saying it's a theory? I'm unclear as to which position you're taking.

Also, the word semantics is being poorly used in this discussion. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149;^dissera! 17:50, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Re semantics, that's possible. I'm probably throwing around the term sloppily, but I think it makes the point. Hrafn argued that the quote does not define a "theory." I think his arguments indicated that the quote constitutes an argument for an idea, not a definition of an idea. I did theory->idea to temporarily avoid a loaded word. Gnixon (talk) 17:56, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Getting back on topic, the intent of my proposed language was to include context about ID (alternative to evolution from groups opposed). It also identifies where the quote is coming from, which is a problem with the current language. While I don't 100% agree with Gnixon's assertion that all substantial statements should be attributed quotes, I 110% believe that all quotes should be attributed. I'm not so much concerned about NPOV from that standpoint, I just think that the unattributed quote is bad writing because it's not clear why it's in quotes, especially since the lead uses "quotes" on things that are not quotations, usually in a spurious fashion. "Intelligent Design" doesn't need them, italicizing is probably a better approach to identifying a jargon phrase. Once the jargon has been defined, the article can just call it ID or Intelligent Design. SDY (talk) 18:03, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

All quotes in the article are attributed, either via their source or a direct mention of the source. Either way is acceptable by Wikipedia policy. I don't see how your proposed change improves on the current version. FeloniousMonk (talk) 10:55, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

It's not wrong, but the writing could be clearer. SDY (talk) 22:41, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Unnecessary sentence

The sentence

Others have concurred, and some have called it junk science.

adds nothing of value to the lead, and should be cut. Gnixon (talk) 21:08, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

agreed - I'm with you there. --Ludwigs2 21:33, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

A broad and unflinching condemnation isn't inappropriate in this context. That the lead goes into great depth on what organizations agree is fine, since leaving it as a specific list might be read as less than unanimous rejection. I don't see any value in pulling punches when the scientific community's assessment is so unequivocal in its disdain. Notable organizations have called it junk science, and the connotation of "politically motivated manipulation of supposedly scientific statements" is 100% accurate. It isn't a nice description, but it's just as accurate as calling Stalin a tyrant.

One proposal that's worth considering is stating that no "mainstream science" group has ever defended ID (a bald assumption for now, would need citing). It avoids the "junk science" rhetoric, and provides similar closure to the "groups opposed". The article should be very clear that the "disagreement in the scientific community about ID" is a smokescreen generated by the ID movement and that there is no meaningful disagreement. SDY (talk) 22:40, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

That is a little like saying that no democratic organization has defended Stalin. Let's call a spade a spade. --Michael Johnson (talk) 23:06, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

The contention that there is a dispute is out there and prominent, so the article should attempt to present available information on that dispute. SDY (talk) 23:18, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

you know, my main (and seemingly perpetual) concern on this article is the lack of distinction drawn between reporting on and engaging in the political battle over ID. YES: we need to say that the scientific community neither accepts nor supports Intelligent Design as a scientific theory. NO: we do not need to fight their battles for them (even assuming that they see themselves as fighting a battle, which I sincerely doubt; editors here are far more concerned about ID than actual scientists are). when you start talking about 'unanimous rejection' and 'unequivocal disdain,' and start making hyperbolic comparisons to Stalin, you've stepped over the boundary and become activists for a cause, not neutral observers. I'm tempted to accuse you all of engaging in original research of the social sciences variety (i.e., that you're trying to determine through inference the true nature of the ID movement, rather than merely discussing it). is that the case? --Ludwigs2 23:32, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

There's nothing original about my opinion. It's been reliably shown in court documents that ID was a dishonest attempt to teach creationism without calling it creationism. Please reread the Stalin line. It was simply a statement that using a negative word is perfectly reasonable when it is an accurate description, especially when it is being used by reliable sources. See WP:SPADE. SDY (talk) 01:03, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

if your 'nothing original' comment means that the opinion is shared by many others (including myself, mind you) then that's true. but original research is a different, drier concept. I'm leery of heavy-handed terms like 'unanimous rejection' and 'unequivocal disdain' because they amount to emotional synthesis, imputing a strong emotional stance to the scientific community that may in fact be true, but is not actually presented by the cites we have. I'll let the point on Stalin go, though - it really wasn't that bad of a comment. I just get a little cautious when Stalin, Hitler, Charles Manson, and the like start popping up in debates: it's a warning sign that the debate might be taking a nosedive. but probably not in this case. :-) --Ludwigs2 06:34, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Beware of Godwin's Law, indeed. Back on topic, the comparison with astrology that was brought up is apt: there is no quibbling or uncertainty from the reliable sources, and I think that's the message I was trying to get across. Leaving room for reasonable doubts about "science/notscience" is misleading. SDY (talk) 06:54, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

true, and agreed. but at the same time, notice there's almost no urge on the part of editors to trample on Astrology. compare the lead in the astrology article to the ID lead - there's no criticism at all in astrology until the second-to-last line, where it is politely but firmly pointed out that scientists think it's pseudoscience; the rest of the lead is a nice, factual description. by contrast, the ID lead starts nipping at ID's heels starting in line 2, and keeps throwing in snarky comments all the way through. this is not a science vs. un-science issue (since both topics are equally unscientific); this is an editorial difference between the two pages, where editors have decided to take a 'pull-no-punches' attitude here for some undiscussed reason. see what I mean? --Ludwigs2 07:10, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Astrology is a bad analogy. No one has tried to assert that astrology is science for hundreds of years. The reason astrology is a poster child of pseudoscience is because the guy who popularized the term "pseudoscience", Popper, used it as an example of old ideas of science versus practical new ideas of science that require stricter definitions of what and what isn't science to be useful. Because no one seriously thinks astrology is science, and that's not a topic that is covered much in science, by weight it doesn't need much expansion here. Because ID is notable strictly because it's been asserted as science, to be taught in schools as science, and rejected in courts and the scientific community, by weight it needs a great deal of expansion here -- that's it's claim to notability. ID wouldn't be particularly notable if it weren't for the compare and contrast. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 14:21, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Neal, again... there is a thin and dangerous line here between explaining the debate in the greater world and entering into it. you've essentially argued that ID should be treated differently than Astrology because real-world people assert ID as science but don't assert Astrology as science. that sounds very much like a political statement: that ID needs to be opposed in a way that Astrology doesn't. I have no problem with a discussion of the various criticisms of ID that are offered by the scientific world, but I don't think that WP should be taking a political stance of its own in the debate. --Ludwigs2 19:26, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Ludwig, you have a habit of putting words in my mouth. This time you said what I said sounds like ID needs to be "opposed" in a way that astrology doesn't. I didn't say that. What I actually said is that ID is opposed in a way that astrology isn't. Not by Wikipedia, by scientists. Avoiding political stances does not mean that you neglect reporting the depth of others viewpoints. Because the viewpoint is stronger, more detailed, and more elaborate towards ID than astrology, Wikipedia's depth of coverage on the two different topics are likewise not proportionately equal. It's a bad analogy. Astrology is not viewed the same as ID (by others). --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 19:41, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

my apologies if I put words in your mouth - not my intention. I don't actually think that we are disagreeing in terms of our analysis of the situation or even in the conclusions we draw. at least, there's nothing in what you said above that I would disagree with. the problem is one of implementation. I really don't think you're getting my point about politicking here. it's one thing for editors to give references which show that scientists reject ID; it's another thing entirely for editors to use quotes from scientists to show that ID is bad. the latter (if it's happening) is clearly POV-politicking, and shouldn't be present in WP. or am I wrong about that? --Ludwigs2 20:40, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Example? --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 21:54, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes: Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Attributing_and_substantiating_biased_statements, Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/FAQ#Pseudoscience. You probably have a better chance of changing policy than significantly changing the tone of this article. Amerique^dialectics 21:14, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Excuse me for butting in, but I can find nothing in the two linked policies that contradicts Ludwig2's position. Could you please specify where he's got it wrong? BTfromLA (talk) 21:28, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

With pleasure! "...it's another thing entirely for editors to use quotes from scientists to show that ID is bad. the latter (if it's happening) is clearly POV-politicking, and shouldn't be present in WP." Per NPOV policy, biased statements can be ok if attributed, and WP privileges the perspective of scientists on subjects that supposedly have to do with science. Amerique^dialectics 21:39, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

You don't seem to have understood Ludwig the same way I did, or you don't understand NPOV and attribution the same way I do. I thought Ludwig was saying that editors may not attempt to write an article that shows ID is bad. I agree, as that is the heart of NPOV. My understanding of attribution is that even the privileged perspective of scientists needs to be attributed in an article where the scientific POV is disputed by the other side. This seems to support what Ludwig said. Gnixon (talk) 21:46, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, Amerique. I think we're reading Ludwig2's meaning very differently. What I think he's saying is that there is an important distinction to be made between presenting the anti-ID views of scientists (or other relevant commentators) in the article and actually using the authorial voice of wikipedia to promote an anti-ID opinion. Wikipedia's NPOV policy, as I understand it, makes clear that Wikipedia should impartially describe existing opinions on a given topic, but it should not endorse or promote any opinion. Do you disagree? BTfromLA (talk) 21:53, 7 July

I did some independent research and changed my position on this. WP necessarily reproduces opinions, but they should fairly represent the source. Amerique^dialectics 22:31, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Striking. The sources are fairly represented. Amerique^dialectics 23:14, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

(drop indent)

"Pseudoscience is a social phenomenon and therefore may be significant, but it should not obfuscate the description of the main views, and any mention should be proportionate and represent the majority (scientific) view as the majority view and the minority (sometimes pseudoscientific) view as the minority view; and, moreover, should explain how scientists have received pseudoscientific theories. This is all in the purview of the task of describing a dispute fairly."

(Emphasis mine) In other words, reporting reliable sources that are critical of psuedoscientific concepts is not only allowed, it is recommended. The article should not sugarcoat the reception that ID has had from mainstream science. Leaving off outspoken critics when outspoken criticism is a major feature of the debate is clearly a violation of NPOV.

Just a second bit for BTfromLA, I do disagree. The way I read WP:FRINGE, we should not be endorsing fringe viewpoints. Per policy, the article should be neither fair nor balanced. It should report the mainstream viewpoint in due proportion (i.e. that ID is pseudoscience and politicolegal wrangling in the trappings of science). Some of the concerns that have been brought up are essentially about unceremoniously beating a dead horse, but we must give that horse a funeral. SDY (talk) 22:17, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Is there anyone who disagrees with you about this, SDY? I don't see anyone asking for sugarcoating or suppressing critical comments. The issue, as I read it, has to do with the POV from which the article is written. Wikipedia should describe subjects as neutrally as possible: the question is whether that is happening, or whether the anti-ID POV has become wikipedia's POV. BTfromLA (talk) 22:03, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

SDY -I'm sorry, but I'm really perplexed by what I can only see as a refusal on your part to make important distinctions here. so let me be perfectly clear: no one is trying to exclude or diminish the scientific viewpoint. this is a matter of approach, not a matter of content. the fact that the inclusion of critical viewpoints is recommended is not intended to endorse wholesale crapulence - it's intended to make sure that any claims and theories made are put in their proper perspective. honestly, if you can't even see that there's a logical distinction between a neutral critique and a directed attack, then I respectfully suggest that you take a step back until you can. there's just no reasoning with that kind of emotional blindness. --Ludwigs2 22:19, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

SDY, while I don't endorse Ludwig2's personalizing of the argument, I do share his perplexity at your response. For one thing, I've never seen any WP policy that suggests we should not be fair in our representations. But the main point is this: you are correct to say that Wikipedia should not endorse fringe viewpoints, but you overlook the basic principal of NPOV: to the extent possible, Wikipedia should avoid endorsing ANY viewpoints. The job of Wikipedia is to present facts and describe existing views, not to present any view--even one that is overwhelmingly held to be correct--as "our" point of view. Do you not see the distinction between disinterested presentation and advocacy? As far as I can tell, that is what Ludwig2's original comments addressed. BTfromLA (talk) 22:35, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I am not interested in advocacy. I am interested in having the article meet policy requirements for fringe and pseudoscientific topics. The "anti-ID" views are a mainstream POV and should be represented in proper proportion in the article, not hidden because they're "mean" to ID. It isn't Wikipedia's POV, we are simply reporting the facts. The article shouldn't even be a "neutral critique", it should only report what exists. Those facts include many vitriolic criticisms of ID. "...it's another thing entirely for editors to use quotes from scientists to show that ID is bad." This misses the point entirely. We can and must use quotes from scientists to show that ID is bad, not because we want to prove a point, but because they have made relevant statements that should be covered in the article. SDY (talk) 22:55, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

need a break for today, which I will take after I post this. apologies for any temper I showed earlier, or in the following.

it seems to me you really are missing the point entirely. I don't know whether that's intentional or unintentional, and it doesn't matter. nor do I want to continue pointing the same thing out to you in the hopes (against evidence) that you might eventually see it, because that will get old, fast, for both of us. so let me just say this, and leave be for a day. if you refuse to abide by, consider, or even acknowledge wp:NPOV#fairness of tone, I can't make you. Tone is not like wp:reliable or even wp:weight, where you at least have something concrete to discuss, and some overt leverage that can be applied. Tone is subjective, and more a matter of common sense and common courtesy than anything else. however, your failurefailing to consider it even as a possibility reflects badly on you and on the editing climate that has been established here. I don't think you can read this article and tell me with a straight face that it reflects 'a fair and sensitive tone' about the ID dispute, and I've had enough comments from other people to suggest to me that almost no one who reads the article it thinks reflects 'a fair and sensitive tone'sees it that way. the continued insistence on facticity at the expense of sensitivity strikes me as precisely the kind of bias that 'fairness of tone' was meant to address. now you (or whomever) can continue to get away with this stuff just by stonewalling - believe me, I understand the political advantages of calculated ignorance - but that doesn't mean that you're creating or defending NPOV. quite the contrary. --Ludwigs2 23:35, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I will choose my words more carefully in the future, it appears that some of my statements were unclear and inflammatory. I apologize for any confusion and have stricken my previous comments as they add nothing to the discussion. SDY (talk) 00:52, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I've likewise struck out anything irrelevant and personal from my side of the discussion, and I apologize for venting at you. it was unnecessary and inappropriate, and I thank you for calm tone in dealing with it. I hate it when I contribute to the problem more than the solution.  :-( --Ludwigs2 18:57, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Unnecessary sentence section 2

It is not necessary to determine "through inference" the true nature of the ID movement any more than it is necessary to determine "through inference" the objectives of Michael Moore. It is also not against Wikipedia policy to become "activists for a cause." As has been said many times, we no more provide equal time for holocaust denial than we should for other alternative, crackpot, scientific theories or histories. Should we begin to provide equal time and NPOV for holocaust denial simply because the proponents of it are genuine about their belief? The scientific consensus is that ID is not a scientific theory and that it should not be taught as such, nor should it be entertained as a curriculum track except as necessary for liberal arts, religion, or historical discussion of science and ethics. RvLeshrac (talk) 00:04, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

let's not mix issues here. I'm not saying that we should treat ID like a scientific theory, as you seem to imply above. what I am saying is that the kind of assertions you make above are unfounded, bordering on OR. yes, the scientific community says ID is not a theory; yes, the legal system said that it shouldn't be taught as high school curriculum (because it conflicts with the secular nature of the state). the remainder of that sentence, however - that it should not be taught as such, nor should it be entertained as a curriculum track except as necessary for liberal arts, religion, or historical discussion of science and ethics - is your personal opinion, extrapolated from the scientific and legal finding. further, you cannot simply assert that the 'true nature' of the ID movement (or of Michael Moore, or anyone else) is such and such on your own, and expect that to be binding just because you believe it. that too is OR. --Ludwigs2 00:19, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

There is just about as much dispute in science over whether ID is science as there is whether astrology is science. Any dispute is manufactured by the proponents of ID in an attempt to get their (religious) views taught as science or at least as an alternative to science (evolution). The article explains this, and is supported by very thorough, and complete referencing to reliable sources. --Michael Johnson (talk) 00:29, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

...and it does that perfectly well without the sentence in question, which is at best redundant. Gnixon (talk) 02:07, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

The first part provides context. The second adds another common claim. We could call it "politically motivated" instead of "junk science" as an alternative, since that's essentially what it means to call something junk science. SDY (talk) 02:28, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand. What context is added? Doesn't "junk science"="pseudocience"? How do you get "junk science"="politically motivated"? I don't understand how "junk science" is substantially different from "pseudoscience," except in the level of emotion, and none of the references are nearly as notable as those already cited saying substantially the same thing. Are Attie et al. so notable that the lead needs to represent their perspective as "Others have concurred"? Gnixon (talk) 03:11, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

(indent drop)

"Junk science is a term used in U.S. political and legal disputes that brands an advocate's claims about scientific data, research, analyses as spurious. The term conveys a pejorative connotation that the advocate is driven by political, ideological, financial, and other unscientific motives."

(Wikipedia's junk science article). Calling it "junk science" is an accusation of dishonesty. Pseudoscience is an accusation of tin foil hats.

I've already mentioned above what context the first part of the sentence provides: it helps close the "controversial in scientific community" abuse. That could be clearer, of course, and I don't think it'd be that hard (or inappropriate) to cite the claim that it is controversial and counterclaims. SDY (talk) 03:40, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining. I wouldn't put much stock in the Wikipedia junk science article, which looks like a lot of OR to me; it's clear that "junk" is a pejorative, indicating strong feelings, but I don't think we can draw any other conclusions directly. If I understand you correctly, you think we should somehow represent the strong feelings some scientists have toward ID. I'm fine with that, but I'd prefer a more specific citation than "others." The problem is that most notable scientific bodies tend to stick with pretty formal language. None of the references cited saying "junk science" are nearly as notable as those who said "not science" and "pseudoscience." We should fill in the blank on a statement like "(Notable body X) and others have dismissed intelligent design as junk science." As far as "others concur," I think most readers will already assume the NAS and AAAS essentially speak for mainsteam science, but we could include an "and others" in one of the earlier sentences. Gnixon (talk) 04:23, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

It's not so much strong feelings. The accusation is not that it is wrong (which science has decided it cannot judge), it is that it is dishonest, which is something that scientists (like most people) feel pretty strongly about. Interestingly, I don't see the words "junk science" in some of the cited sources, but I do see the accusation of "politics masquerading as science", and blunt honesty has been invoked to link it to the relevant wikipedia article (which has many references and is in no way original research). SDY (talk) 04:47, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

"Politics masquerading as science" would, IMHO, be a more valuable quote than "junk science" if something beyond emotion is to be conveyed. Gnixon (talk) 04:50, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd second that, for sure... --Ludwigs2 07:11, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I did a ctrl-f over the references used to support the "junk science" claim, and the phrase only shows up as a headline in an Christian "World Magazine" article by Mark Bergin.[2] As none of the references attribute this term to a scientist or some sort of spokesperson, (indeed, it is not the kind of term that would be used in a formal context) it may be considered somewhat prejudicial on WP's part and I would be ok with removing it. Amerique^dialectics 22:02, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

We could also improve on it by stating "Others have concurred, and even a Christian news magazine has called it junk science." That sounds NPOV to me. Amerique^dialectics 22:22, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Scratching previous comment, turns out, the "junk science" phrase is on the first line of the last paragraph of H. Allen Orr's piece in the New Yorker. Thus, the pronouncement can be attributed to a wide variety of sources. Although I probably didn't make my position clear enough in the first place, this phrase does seem to impartially represent mainstream views of ID outside of the scientific community, and as written is inline with NPOV and sourcing policy. Amerique^dialectics 23:12, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I think we need to be careful about trying to define "mainstream" views outside of science. Note that a CBS poll "found that 55% of respondents didn't believe in the theory of evolution at all." (Quoting a 2005 National Geographic article.) Gnixon (talk) 00:00, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

That is true. But still, if even a Christian publication uses a pejorative "junk science" phrase in reference to ID, (unless they actually intended to mean "science is junk!") it doesn't seem that ID is widely respected even as a substitute for evolution... I doubt a significant percentage of those survey respondents who claimed not to believe in evolution would claim to believe in ID, but i doubt the question was even asked. Amerique^dialectics 00:18, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Intelligent Design can only be defined as something creationists put together to get creationism into schools. Don't take my word for it, that's what the Judge said when he shot it down -- "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents". So, the notable views at play are science, and creationism. We know what they both think. We know the views. If "junk science" is a notable view and pejorative, simply call it that, as in Others have pejoratively called it "junk science". That's neutral and a fair tone. You don't want to suppress something notable (delete it) when there are fair-toned ways of stating it. If commentators had an emotional reaction to ID, and that emotional reaction is notable, you don't suppress that there was an emotional reaction, you call it emotional. Doing so helps the reader know there was an emotional reaction, and know the extent of the emotional reaction, without being Wikipedia being emotional about it. The reader is thus informed properly. Others have concurred, and some have pejoratively called it junk science.--Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 00:44, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I was wondering if, given the tone of the Christian "World Magazine" article, they could have intended "junk" as a verb, as in "junk science, not ID!" I think the contested sentence as is impartially conveys the sentiments of the referenced content, however. No need to improve on simplicity or conciseness. Amerique^dialectics 01:06, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Intelligent design can be defined as something put forward as a scientific theory, but that the scientific community and the courts consider pseudoscience. Hey, not a bad idea for a lead sentence. After indicating that major notable scientific bodies consider ID "not science" or "pseudoscience," the remaining valid reasons for mentioning "junk science" are (a) to represent the views of another equally notable party or (b) to convey the intensity of feeling of some less notable critics. Since I'm unaware of any party nearly as notable as the NAS or AAAS that has used "junk science," (a) doesn't apply. If the point is (b), let's put together a sentence that makes the point more clearly. Something along the lines of Efforts to promote intelligent design as a scientific alternative to evolution have elicited strong reactions, with some critics calling intelligent design "junk science" or "politics masquerading as science." Gnixon (talk) 01:21, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

That sentence seems a reasonable alternative to the current language since it explains what's meant by "junk science". That phrase is mostly useful because wikipedia has an article about it, though the Politicization of science article is an alternative. Those two may be merge-bait, though, and linking both may be redundant. "Masquerading" may be a bit too colorful for neutral and professional tone, so I'd only use that phrase if a notable source has used it. SDY (talk) 01:39, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Eugenie Scott, an expert on ID, seems to have called it "religious dogma masquerading as science," and I think I've seen the same elsewhere (perhaps derivative of her). I'm sure we could come up with a better citation than the link I gave. Gnixon (talk) 01:58, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Defining ID: A New Start

Ben Stein has defined intelligent design as the "hypothesis" that an "all-powerful designer" created the universe, including living things. Judge Jones found ID to be an "untestable hypothesis". The Ohio Academy of Science distinguishes between ordinary hypotheses and scientific hypotheses. According to the Academy, "...any hypothesis, theory, or concept that requires the incorporation of a subjective belief, opinion, element, or supernatural creator/designer, to reach its conclusion is not fact-based objective science. Why are supernatural elements not permitted in science? We know of no valid experiment designed to prove the existence of anything supernatural" (What is Science?, by Douglas L. Shrake, et al., The Ohio Journal of Science, 106 (4):130-135, 2006; http://www.ohiosci.org/WhatisScienceOJS106(4)130-135.pdf ). A hypothesis that cannot be tested by experiment may be referred to as a non-scientific hypothesis.

Given the foregoing definitions, the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article on ID might be revised to read as follows:

Intelligent design is the untestable, non-scientific hypothesis that an intelligent designer created the universe, including living things. Advocates of intelligent design assert that unguided natural processes are not sufficient to explain the complexity of living things. They have compared intelligent design to the theory of evolution and they have concluded 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." Based on this conclusion, they assert that intelligent design is a "scientific theory." They justify this assertion by claiming that abduction, or inference to the best explanation, is "a method of scientific reasoning" and that any hypothesis which is judged by this "scientific" method to be the "best" explanation of the relevant evidence may therefore be regarded as a scientific theory.

Intelligent design is a modern form of the traditional teleological argument for the existence of God... [continue the existing first paragraph from this point].

The New Mexico Division of the Intelligent Design Network has promoted ID as "a scientific theory of cosmological and biological origins". So ID is not just an alternative explanation for the existence of living things. ID is a cosmology, a worldview. The Discovery Institute tries to limit the debate about ID to just the biological aspects of ID in order to hide the fact that ID is a form of creationism. That is why they promote their conclusion that ID is the "best" explanation as though their conclusion constitutes a definition of ID. We should not be taken in by that kind of misdirection. Wikipedians should present a simple and accurate definition of ID, not a conclusion dressed up to look like a definition. ID is exactly what Ben Stein says it is -- the "hypothesis" that an "all-powerful designer" created the universe, including living things. That hypothesis is untestable by experiment and is therefore properly described as "non-scientific".

The new first paragraph that I have proposed above accurately refers to ID as an "untestable, non-scientific hypothesis". It also shows how ID advocates arrive at the conclusion that ID is the "best" explanation and how they justify referring to ID as a scientific theory. Having laid this foundation, the reader is then ready to read the next two paragraphs of the article, which cover the philosophical and scientific status of ID, respectively. Scott610 (talk) 23:58, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Ben Stein is an economist not a scientist, so I don't think his definition of ID should carry much weight. It can be mentioned if there is room I guess but I don't think the Wiki should adopt it.--Stetsonharry (talk) 12:38, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

While the goal here is good, the (un?)fortunate fact is that ID proponents cannot even agree on what ID is, so this would simply be fodder for an edit-war among them. Some of them posit that ID is a scientific alternative to evolution, while others admit that it is a religious view of evolution. Still others (young-earth creationists) view ID as a heresy. These views are irreconcilable. RvLeshrac (talk) 00:08, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

RvLeshrac: You are correct. Some ID advocates regard ID as "a scientific alternative to evolution", and other advocates regard ID as "a religious view of evolution", while still other advocates "view ID as a heresy". However, their views of ID do not change the simple fact that ID is an "untestable, nonscientific hypothesis". ID is a form of creationism and the advocates of ID should just accept that simple truth. The advocates, especially those at Discovery Institute, should not be trying to mislead people into believing that ID is a scientific theory. They should not attempt to use twisted logic to fool people and Wikipedia should not be a party to that deception. Scott610 (talk) 01:54, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

• Again. Take a look at WP:SYNTH. Sources can only be used in direct context of subject matter. Ohio Academy of Science definitions on hypothesis are irrelevant to this article.--ZayZayEM (talk) 11:53, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

WP:SYNTH is about orginal synthesis. If there is a published source in the article that says ID is not a real hypothesis, a definition of a hypothesis is very much relevant, and the synthesis isn't original because the published source already sythesized the topic of ID to the topic of hypothesis. It's their synthesis, not Wikipedia's. Specifically, "If the sources cited do not explicitly reach the same conclusion, or if the sources cited are not directly related to the subject of the article, then the editor is engaged in original research." The subject of the article is in part whether ID is a real hypothesis, so it's directly related. If A + B = C then it's original research. If A = B = C it is not. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 14:32, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

In the end, it's about making things clear for the reader. If explaining terms, or instead using different terms makes it easier, without changing the facts and so on, then by all means do it. That is clarification, not synthesis. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 15:03, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Taking a definition of "hypothesis", when applying the term to ID, from a source that does not deal directly with ID is Synthetic Research. It follows the example given at WP:SYNTH to a "T".--ZayZayEM (talk) 03:07, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Again, WP:SYNTH is about original syntheis. It's taking ID, looking at it, looking at the definition of hypothesis, and saying oh, ID must be a hypothesis (A + B = C), without that synthesis ever being in a published source, without anyone saying it's a hypothesis, and just drawing an original conclusion that it is. Likewise, no source saying it is not a hypothesis is also original research. But a source that says ID is not a hypothesis (A) plus a dictionary source of hypothesis (B) is not original research because the conclusion (not a hypothesis) is the same that A drew (C) or (A = B = C). That is already a published sythesis, not an original synthesis, not WP:SYNTH. The example in that policy assumes that no published source drew the conclusion in the first place. There is nothing wrong with stating "A hypothesis is a suggested explanation for a phenomenon[Source B]. Smith says intelligent design is not a hypothesis[Source A]" That's good writing, and not original research. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 04:08, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

ZayZayEM: Discovery Institute has published the statement, "The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection". And they assert that their "theory of intelligent design" is a "scientific theory". I am trying to explain to the reader how DI arrived at the conclusion that an "intelligent cause" is the "best" explanation, and how they justify asserting that the "theory of intelligent design" is a scientific theory. Please note that, as written, DI's "theory of intelligent design" does not contain an assertion of cause and effect. In other words, that so-called theory does not contain the assertion that an "intelligent cause" designed and created "certain features of the universe and of living". Since an assertion of cause and effect is not included in the "theory of intelligent design" it is obvious that the "theory of intelligent design" is not a scientific theory. And for the same reason, the "theory of intelligent design" cannot be regarded as a scientific hypothesis.

Discovery Institute is not publishing a definition of intelligent design but is instead (1) offering the opinion that an "intelligent cause" is the "best" explanation and then (2) offering the conclusion that "the theory of intelligent design" is a scientific theory. I am trying to explain to the reader how the principal advocates of ID arrive at the conclusion that their "theory of intelligent design" is the "best" explanation and why they believe that their conclusion constitutes a scientific theory. I believe that the revised first paragraph that I proposed above explains how the advocates of ID reached and justify their conclusions. I have tried to present their conclusions from a neutral point of view. Shoemaker's Holiday wrote, "In the end, it's about making things clear for the reader." I agree, and that is my goal. Scott610 (talk) 21:08, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

ZayZayEM: If referring to ID as a non-scientific hypothesis is not acceptable to you then please consider the following, alternative revision to the article's first paragraph.

"The theory of intelligent design", as published by the Discovery Institute, is the conclusion that "certain features of the universe and of living are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection". That conclusion is reached by (1) comparing the intelligent design hypothesis with the theory of evolution and then (2) finding that an "intelligent cause" is the "best" explanation for "certain features of the universe and of living". Based on that conclusion, advocates of the "theory of intelligent design" assert that the "theory of intelligent design" is a scientific theory.

This alternative presents "The theory of intelligent design" as a conclusion, rather than as a definition. This alternative separates the conclusion that ID is the "best" explanation from the actual definition of ID (the intelligent design hypothesis), which Judge Jones found to be an untestable, non-scientific hypothesis. Judge Jones' finding need not be addressed in the lead paragraph since it is adequately covered further down in the article. Scott610 (talk) 23:52, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I prefer the original proposal. However my preference does not preclude it violating a few wikipedia policies and guidelines. Your repeated attempts at rewording the paragraph suggest you have not followed advice in attempting to understand the guidelines. hence exasperation.

The main problem I see is too much focus on the US Supreme Court/Judge Jones as an authority figure. ID is already thrown out of the window as "untestable and non-scientific". This seems very antagonistic and not likely to resolve (and likely to exacerbate) problems regarding perceived POV of this article. It also uses an edge version of "hypothesis" that may create confusion in readers. To me hypothesis is even worse than a theory - and an "untestable hypothesis" is an oxymoron.

On another WFTE note, the wording repeatedly puts words into the mouths of "advocates of ID", this would need careful citing and care. It has a very systematic approach to defining what ID proponents "assert" and "conclude" and how the dots and lines between and continue onwards. Is this backed up by multiple independent sources? It looks like original research or unweighted POV to me. All in all it reads good for an essay introduction or a well-written media article, but not a NPOV encyclopedia.--ZayZayEM (talk) 03:16, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

ZayZayEM: You wrote that my proposal, "repeatedly puts words into the mouths of 'advocates of ID', this would need careful citing and care." You are correct. The advocates are obscurantists and it is very difficult to decipher what they are saying. And to make matters more difficult, they often use reifications and hypostatizations. They do not want to acknowledge that ID is a form of creationism so they present gobbledygook that is very difficult to understand. In my newest revision proposal ("The Behavior that Inspired ID", below) I made an effort to use the words that the advocates use (see their paragraph, Ibid., below) in order to avoid distorting their meaning while at the same time decoding their gobbledygook. The advocates should just state a cause-and-effect hypothesis (i.e., phenomenon "A" caused phenomenon "B") and then state how they tested that hypothesis, what data they collected, and how that data confirms or falsifies the hypothesis. But they will not state a simple, testable hypothesis. Ultimately, they know that they cannot do so, and that's why they will continue spouting gobbledygook that will need to be decoded.

In my most recent revision proposal I used the word "make" to describe what "intelligent agents" do, rather than using the possibly inflammatory word "create". "Make" represents my effort to present ID from a neutral point of view. Scott610 (talk) 05:33, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

You seem to be aware of the self-contradiction and non-information that makes up ID. What exactly is wrong with the present lead. It is well sourced and uses multiple independent primary and secondary sources on the topic. You have yet to provide appropriate reliable and appropriate sources (Ben Stein?? both critics and the DI are unimpressed with his authority) to back your claims.--ZayZayEM (talk) 12:42, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Plagiarism, proposed alternatives

"Intelligent design proponents aim to gain support by unifying the religious world—Christians, Jews, Muslims and others who believe in a creator—in challenging Darwinism with a God-friendly alternative theory.[139]" This is two separate lines taken verbatim from the source, though the two lines don't occur in that order.

We could list this as quotes, but it would be awkward. An attempt at paraphrase follows:

Supporters of intelligent design have also reached out to other faith groups with similar accounts of creation, such as Jews and Muslims, with the hope that the broader coalition will have greater influence in supporting science education that does not contradict their religious views.

Kosher/Halal/Neutral/Trout? SDY (talk) 04:10, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I removed one explanatory comment that doesn't add much because I loathe commas with the seething hatred sensible folk reserve for people who talk at the theater. SDY (talk) 20:28, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

The Behavior that Inspired ID

The first paragraph of the article on ID might be revised to read as follows:

Intelligent agents make objects. For example, birds build nests, bees make hives, and humans weave strands of straw together to make baskets. The observation that intelligent agents make objects has inspired some people to hypothesize that the universe and the original ancestors of living things were made by an intelligent agent. This hypothesis has been named "intelligent design". Advocates of the intelligent design hypothesis have compared their hypothesis to the theory of evolution and they have concluded 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." They refer to their conclusion as "the theory of intelligent design."

The foregoing paragraph contains the words "observation", "hypothesis", "conclusion", "objects", "intelligent agent" and "hypothesize". I borrowed those words from the following paragraph, which is posted on a Discovery Institute website at http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php .

"Is intelligent design a scientific theory? Yes. The scientific method is commonly described as a four-step process involving observations, hypothesis, experiments, and conclusion. Intelligent design begins with the observation that intelligent agents produce complex and specified information (CSI). Design theorists hypothesize that if a natural object was designed, it will contain high levels of CSI. Scientists then perform experimental tests upon natural objects to determine if they contain complex and specified information. One easily testable form of CSI is irreducible complexity, which can be discovered by experimentally reverse-engineering biological structures to see if they require all of their parts to function. When ID researchers find irreducible complexity in biology, they conclude that such structures were designed."

I do not understand Discovery Institute's explanation of ID. I wonder, does a bird's nest (a "natural object" designed and built by an "intelligent agent") contain "complex and specified information"? If so, how can that information be measured?

I have tried to explain ID in a very simple way. The paragraph that I wrote defines ID as the hypothesis that "the universe and the original ancestors of living things were made by an intelligent agent." That paragraph also explains that "the theory of intelligent design" is a conclusion based on a comparison. I believe that I have simply and correctly explained the intelligent design hypothesis and the theory of intelligent design. What do you think?

The fall of an apple inspired Isaac Newton to formulate his law of gravity. I wonder if intelligent design was inspired by the sight of a bird building her nest. Scott610 (talk) 21:40, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Except that intelligent design is neither hypothesis nor theory, according to a lot of very reliable sources, and this is adopting in wholesale language from an unreliable source (see the FAQ). It's got wonderful poetry (except for "hats" which is decidedly jarring), but it doesn't get anywhere near appropriate style for an encyclopedia.

Sergeant Friday would have been a great wikipedia editor: "Just the facts, ma'am." SDY (talk) 22:23, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

SDY: Judge Jones described ID as an "untestable hypothesis" and I agree with his description. ID is a hypothesis but it is definitely not a scientific hypothesis. Please note that I am not asserting that ID is a scientific theory; I am only reporting that the advocates of ID refer to their conclusion as a "theory". Scott610 (talk) 23:34, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Please see the nauseatingly long discussion above for this discussion. SDY (talk) 23:43, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

SDY: I changed "hats" to "baskets". Does that sound more poetic? Scott610 (talk) 23:50, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

It absolutely doesn't matter. Flowery language is not appropriate for an encyclopedia article. SDY (talk) 23:52, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree. That would be a fundamental shift in the point of view of this article.--Stetsonharry (talk) 15:20, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I think Stetson means that the opening sentences read like preparation for an argument that ID emerges from a purely secular line of reasoning, so it tends to frame things as an ID advocate would like, thereby injecting their POV. I agree that would be a mistake. Can we find a more direct way of opening, perhaps by finding a quote like the long one you gave, but more concise? Gnixon (talk) 15:57, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, exactamente.--Stetsonharry (talk) 16:07, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

An epigraph is very pretty, but it's really not appropriate for an encyclopedia article. My personal spin is that the lead shouldn't contain any direct quotes at all, just neutral description. We can get into messy details and context later. SDY (talk) 03:16, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Religion and ID

I guess my only quarrel with this article is that it seems to imply in places that you have "religion" on one side and "ID" on the other. with a wide gulf in between. Actually, as the article does acknowledge, religious groups have embraced evolution. What is not clear is why that is so. The reason is that religious interpretations of Creation are far broader and more liberal than is embraced by proponents of ID. I think that has to be made clearer. I found a good statement on the web from the Rabbinical Council of America that sets forth the issues well.[3]. I believe this group leans toward the right wing of that religion.--Stetsonharry (talk) 17:27, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

New World Encyclopedia Defines ID

A page on a Discovery Institute website ( http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php ) contains a hyperlink to a New World Encyclopedia page about ID ( http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Intelligent_design ). The first paragraph of that New World Encyclopedia article about ID reads as follows:

Intelligent design (ID) is the view that it is possible to infer from empirical evidence 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."[1] Intelligent design cannot be inferred from complexity alone, since complex patterns often happen by chance. ID focuses on just those sorts of complex patterns that in human experience are produced by a mind that conceives and executes a plan. According to adherents, intelligent design can be detected in the natural laws and structure of the cosmos; it also can be detected in at least some features of living things.

The intelligent design inference appears to be based on the idea that an intelligent agent can conceive and execute a plan and thereby produce things that contain "complex patterns". This idea is included in the following summary of ID.

The observation that some creatures make things, such as nests, hives, and houses, is the basis for the inference that one or more intelligent agents made some or all of the parts of the universe, including some or all of the parts of the original ancestor or ancestors of the living things on planet Earth. Discovery Institute presents this inference under the name "the theory of intelligent design". Some people believe that "the theory of intelligent design" is the best explanation for "certain features of the universe and of living things" and that "the theory of intelligent design" is a scientific theory.

I wrote the foregoing summary of ID so that it is loose enough to accommodate those ID advocates who believe that intelligent agents from another planet may have seeded Earth with genetically engineered life forms several billion years ago. See Robert T. Pennock, in "Intelligent Design?" ( http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/nhmag.html ); "Intelligent-design theorists do sometimes mention extraterrestrials as possible suspects, but most seem to have their eyes on a designer more highly placed in the heavens." The foregoing summary might be used as the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article on ID. Scott610 (talk) 01:22, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

The New World Encyclopedia is funded by the Universal Peace Federation, one of the many organisations set up by the Unification Church. Both its editor-in-chief and Editorial Review Board director are senior UC figures. Given that this church was the inspiration for Jonathan Wells' 'anti-Darwinism' crusade (and funded the biology PhD that he used to boost his credentials to do this), it is hardly surprising that they give ID favourable treatment (a treatment which has the dubious honour of being praised by notoriously-science-illiterate ID shill, Denyse O'Leary). In conclusion, I would suggest that the NWE is both (i) a biased source (ii) as a wiki, an unreliable one & (iii) not a particularly notable one (as it has garnered little scholarly or mainstream media attention).

On the 'alien' alternative, I would like to quote the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District‎ decision in rebuttal:

Although proponents of the IDM occasionally suggest that the designer

could be a space alien or a time-traveling cell biologist, no serious alternative to God as the designer has been proposed by members of the IDM, including

Defendants’ expert witnesses.

Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 02:13, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Neutral writing--can we agree on this?

I've been lurking here for just a week or so, and it's obvious these editorial discussions have a long and contentious history that I haven't read. But for what it's worth, I'd like to offer my perspective on a couple of principals that I am surprised to see causing so much confusion here. First is the fundamental premise of writing from a neutral point of view. It appears to me that a number of editors won't acknowledge that their point of view, no matter how well reasoned, is still a point of view, and by definition not neutral. The opening paragraph of the article states: "[ID]is a modern form of the traditional teleological argument for the existence of God, modified to avoid specifying the nature or identity of the designer. The idea was developed by certain United States creationists who reformulated their argument in the creation-evolution controversy to avoid various court rulings that prohibit the teaching of creationism as science." Given that many ID proponents explicitly deny that they are creationists or that their approach is religion-based, these sentences are clearly interpretive and even argumentative; they articulate a particular point of view about ID (one that is presented, for example, in Barbara Forrest's "Understanding the Intelligent Design Creationist Movement," an essay that she accurately subtitles "a position paper.")

It seems to me that the current presentation of those sentences is a flagrant violation of the NPOV policy, because it asserts a point of view as a neutral fact. Does anyone argue otherwise?

Please understand that I'm not arguing to suppress the claim that ID is a modern form of creationism. Nor am I arguing with the merit of that claim. The issue of NPOV has little to do with what is being said, the problem is how views are presented by Wikipedia. There is a relatively small universe of facts that Wikipedia can assert, and a much larger universe of discourse that Wikipedia can describe without taking sides. The critical analysis of Forrest (and others) should be quoted or summarized in the article (though maybe not in the second sentence or via such awkward prose, but that's a separate discussion). What needs to change is the way this point of view is asserted in the voice of wikipedia, as if it is an uncontested statement of fact and no other interpretation exists. You may personally judge the ID-ists claims to be disingenuous or stupid, but that doesn't matter: in our roll as a wikipedia editor, our personal opinions should be checked at the door. The NPOV idea, as I understand it, is to describe the issues and positions at hand in the most disinterested fashion possible, and leave it to the readers to arrive at their own value judgments. To attribute viewpoints to their sources is not that difficult, and while it may make the prose a little drier (one of the characteristics of encyclopedic writing), it does not inhibit Wikipedia articles from including any relevant content. It does, by design, inhibit Wikipedia articles from advocating for one point of view the way Forrest's position paper does.

Comments are invited. --BTfromLA (talk) 00:21, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

"You may personally judge the ID-ists claims to be disingenuous or stupid, but that doesn't matter." It's not my opinion. That they were disingenuous has been independently verified in court by a judge who all but the WP:FRINGE believe acted honorably.

That ID is dishonest is not merely an opinion of ID-haters, it's also a binding legal opinion. If you can provide reasonable evidence that demonstrates that it was an honest proposal, there's room to argue. My guess is that if such evidence existed, there would have been appeals to the Kitzmiller decision. Looking at Wikipedia's page for the decision, this does not appear to be the case. There were additional allegations of perjury at the trial.

Do you have any evidence from reliable sources (i.e. not the DI) that contradict the claim that ID was dishonest? If so, I'm willing to reconsider this. SDY (talk) 00:47, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Respectfully, SDY, you aren't addressing the subject of my post. I made no argument about the honesty of ID's proponents. I am trying to throw some light on the Wikipedia policy of NPOV, in the hopes that we can reach some shared agreement about a basic premise that seems to me to have been overlooked or misconstrued in this article. One basic issue, I think, is to clarify what constitutes a point of view or an opinion. Judge Jones' legal opinion is, as the name states, an opinion. A legal opinion is invested with the authority of the state judicial apparatus, and it certainly carries more credibility in this context than, say, my opinion or a random cab driver's opinion. Such views are not equivalent, then, or deserving of equal attention—me and the cabbie don't merit any citation in Wikipedia—but all are points of view. Allow me to try an analogy. Wikipedia can (assuming the claim is well sourced) appropriately state as a fact "Judge x in Court y ruled in year z that the death penalty constitutes cruel and unusual punishment." It would, however, violate NPOV to simply state that "The death penalty constitutes cruel and unusual punishment." See the difference? Agreed? (As an aside, I think the reason there was no appeal in that Kitzmiller trial is that the pro-ID school board members in Dover were all voted out of office by the time of the decision. The new board had no interest in appealing.)

I guess I'm just concerned about the slippery slope of taking into account positions with no reliable sources. Compare the following statements:

• that the dishonesty behind ID is "just an opinion"
• that the Discovery Institute is the main supporter of ID is "just an opinion"
• that the theory of evolution is "just an opinion"

The article should include all reasonable viewpoints, i.e. viewpoints that can be reliably sourced. I think you're confusing "Neutral point of view" with "No point of view." If there is an honest disagreement among reliable sources then we should portray that disagreement according to its weight. When there is no reasonable disagreement, why isn't it simply a fact that can be reported? SDY (talk) 03:21, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, good challenge. I'd say that something close to your second statement would be fine in terms of NPOV--indeed, I put something similar in my draft of an intro paragraph linked below. The idea that the Discovery Institute has been the principal proponent of ID is an uncontested fact, far as I know. As to the other two statements, placing something in the category of "opinion" or "point of view" does not demean it. The idea that science is the best method humans have devised for understanding the natural world is a point of view not universally held. But calling it that doesn't undermine the enormous evidence that can be mounted in favor of the accomplishments of science, nor the prestige of scientific institutions, nor the credibility of one who holds that view. As you know, a well established scientific theory is not "just a theory" in the colloquial sense of some goofball's theory that cats read minds. So it becomes important to communicate that difference, especially in articles that explain the theory of evolution or the nature of scientific knowledge. It becomes a little trickier in the case of the ID article—the article probably shouldn't digress into a detailed explication of scientific methodology—but I think it's manageable. Clearly, ID in large part consists of arguments that scientists have got it wrong: ID advocates argue not merely about "gaps" and "irreducible complexity," but that mainstream science itself is in error, being held hostage by an arbitrary metaphysical dogma ("naturalism" or "materialism") that limits and distorts true scientific understanding. I think we'd be irresponsible as encyclopedists (and that is the point of view that I think Wiki editors share) if we don't spell out those arguments in a way that lets our readers understand and consider them--like it or not, the ID movement has been successful in placing ID in the public consciousness to an extent that there is no doubt (is there?) that it merits an article here. Thus, the utterences of Johnson, Meyer, Dembski, etc., should be represented here, and I think we have to allow that there is some "reasonable disagreement" about ID, if I'm understanding your use of that term correctly. While there is next to no controversy among scientists, the legitimacy of ID as an "alternative approach" is supported by no less than the President of the United States, not to mention innumerable talk-show hosts, editorial-page writers and religionists. By the same token, we would be irresponsible if we offered the ID proponents views without clarifying the context in which their views have appeared and specifying the overwhelming rejection of ID among scientists and summarizing the substantial critical literature that interprets ID in terms of a religious and political agenda. BTfromLA (talk) 05:27, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I will freely concede that ID has many supporters and that it is not a fringe opinion. I will also freely concede that the arguments for it are not wholly without merit, especially in the context of a religious worldview. The question is if there is any significant disagreement over whether ID proponents have been making these arguments in bad faith. SDY (talk) 06:51, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

So that suggests another point of view that might need to be described in the article, one that relates to the "substantial critical literature" I mention above, But to steer things back to the NPOV discussion, it seems to me that we are mandated to present skepticism about their motives as a description, e.g., "Barbara Forrest has written that..." as opposed to plainly asserting that "ID proponents are liars." The IDers themselves, including their large network of supporters, would certainly argue with a characterization of "bad faith" (and probably launch a counter-argument, as I imagine is present in that "Expelled" movie), wouldn't they? --BTfromLA (talk) 07:14, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

"Liars" is far too strong a word, here, it's mostly just that the shoe fits for calling it a political movement. Just as a side note, ID's claims of persecution (and reactions to those claims) should probably be included in the article. SDY (talk) 07:59, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

BT - how would you rephrase this in a manner that is consistent with NPOV and UNDUE? Guettarda (talk) 00:56, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Fair question, though I haven't yet taken a crack at rewriting the creationism material, which I would probably move to the second or third paragraph. I did, however, draft a possible opening paragraph. I don't want this discussion to become derailed by a critique of my writing, but I've just created a page at User:BTfromLA/IDdrafts in response to your question, if you'd like to take a look it should give you an idea of my approach. Time permitting, I'll add to it and deal with the sentences that I singled out for criticism above. BTfromLA (talk) 03:55, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I would also point out that we have it on the authority of the IDers themselves that the 'Intelligent designer' is merely a "politically correct way to refer to God" (The Creationists, p380), making the whole IDM an exercise in dissimulation and obfuscation. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 04:38, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Be that as it may, I don't understand what that has to do with a discussion of NPOV writing style. (I am curious, though, who is quoted as saying that? Surely it isn't all the "IDers" in unison.) BTfromLA (talk) 06:07, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

BTfromLA - I've been reworking the lead and overview of the ID page in my own space - you can see it here. it's not done yet (been busy with other things) but the changes I've made so far reflect (I think) what you're talking about. check it over, and if it is what you mean feel free to modify it or use it as an example. --Ludwigs2 18:10, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Pondering the lead

Reading through WP:LEAD, I have some concerns with the current lead that have nothing to do with balance or fairness or weight: it may simply not cover what it's supposed to cover.

The lead currently doesn't provide an overview of intelligent design, it provides an accurate and thorough overview of the controversy over intelligent design. It misses important points about context, such as that it is largely a US issue and has had limited play overseas. It does not provide an accessible overview, as someone only reading the lead would be unlikely to recognize Intelligent Design unless someone used the magic words. The lead would not, in my opinion, work as a stand-alone article.

Without proposing any actual language and getting bogged down in semantics, a possible restructuring of the lead follows. SDY (talk) 05:29, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

A proposed structure for the lead

First (what is it?)

• 1. Intelligent design's basic idea, paraphrased and attributed.
• 2. Identify the DI as the epicenter.
• 3. Clearly attribute a claim that ID is science/secular to the DI.
• 4. Attribute (to Judge J) that ID has inseverable ties to creationism.
• 5. Broadly attribute a clearly worded rejection of the science/secular claim.
  • a. Include the opinion of the National Academy of Sciences.
  • b. Mention that nonscientists have opposed ID as well.
• 6. Attribute allegations from a reliable source that ID is not science but a political movement.

Second (what's the background?)

• 1. Identify as primarily a US controversy.
• 2. Identify as primarily a question for public education.
  • a. Briefly summarize the NSTA's opinion on the topic.
• 3. Previous attempts to include alternatives to evolution.
• 4. Previous ideas that were similar to ID.
• 5. ID as religious movement.

Third (what are the basic concepts in ID?)

• 1. Statement that these are the underlying principles. State that all have been rejected as science but do not reject them here.
  • a. Redefining science, rejection of Materialism
• 2. Intelligent designer.
  • a. Note that the intelligent designer is G-d, mention and wikilink teleological argument.
• 3. Irr. complexity.
• 4. Spec. complexity.
• 5. Fine-tuned Uni.
• 6. The wedge document.
• 7. Teach the controversy.
  • a. Explain the lack of controversy.

Fourth (what is the history of ID?)

• 1. Ed v. Ag
• 2. Of Pand and Peop
• 3. ID movement and Discovery Institute
• 4. Kitzmiller decision and current status

NOTE: Feel free to edit this section of the post if proposing alternate opinions in replies. SDY (talk) 05:29, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

This looks pretty good to me. It will be a big concern to keep it concise--there's no reason to investigate all of those things in detail in the lead, but most if not all should be acknowledged. One very big thing that I don't really see here (and that gets short shrift in the current article) is the ID attack on what they see as a materialistic philosophy that has corrupted science and culture at large. It could be argued that is the key idea of the ID movement--it was Johnson's main point, and it is clearly the goal of the "wedge" document. It may not need a bullet point, but I think it needs to be clearly articulated in the lead, as one of the basic concepts. SDY, did you look at my draft of a first paragraph here? It seems to conform fairly closely to your outline. BTfromLA (talk) 05:58, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the attempt to redefine science is a topic that should be covered. I've read your draft, but I want to keep this focused on structure first and then get to the language. If nothing else, the current lead can be reshuffled and a couple of sentences added so that it actually does what a lead is supposed to do. SDY (talk) 07:27, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Here's an alternative:

1. What is it?
   1. Most prevalent definition (but note ambiguity/equivocation)
   2. Characterise it as a form of creationism (specifically Neo-creationism) that grew out of earlier forms (Creation Science, Dean H. Kenyon, Edwards v. Aguillard‎, Of Pandas and People & "cdesign proponentsists" -- distilled down to a single sentence)
   3. Scientific community's rejection of ID and of creationism generally.
2. ID Movement (points 1 & 3 cover why it is largely US)
   1. Religious motivation, Designer = God
   2. DI
   3. Public education goals (Teach the controversy, Academic Freedom bills)
3. ID & Science
   1. Redefining science
   2. List of ID arguments
4. History -- expands upon 1.2, plus
   1. Wedge strategy
   2. Kitzmiller

Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 07:50, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

One thought that was brought up further up on this page is that the scientific community is not the only group that has rejected ID. Science's rejection of creationism in general would require a bit more explanation, since we'd have to talk around theistic evolution and it would get a little off topic for the lead. SDY (talk) 08:10, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Beyond an in-passing mention, that's probably beyond the scope of the lead. However more mention of theological opposition to ID (e.g. from KvD expert witness John Haught) in the article body wouldn't go amiss. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 15:36, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I think that a seciton on theological opposition to ID, addressing the point I raised earlier, would help the article greatly.--Stetsonharry (talk) 16:08, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree that an "in passing" mention is sufficient unless we have a substantial section on it. SDY (talk) 17:05, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

But I don't see anything wrong with just adding a paragraph, if a full section is not warranted. I wanted to hash things out in this talk page before adding anything, as I know this is a contentious article.--Stetsonharry (talk) 17:15, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Hrafn: You suggested providing the "Most prevalent definition (but note ambiguity/equivocation)". I have tried to do that with the following summary.

Intelligent design is the inference that one or more intelligent agents made some or all of the parts of the universe, including some or all of the parts of the original ancestor or ancestors of the living things on planet Earth. This inference is broad enough to accommodate (1) the proposition that an "all-powerful designer" created the universe, including the living things on Earth, and that the living descendants of the first living things are not significantly different from their original ancestors, and (2) the proposition that intelligent agents from outer space seeded Earth with simple, genetically engineered forms of life 3.5 billion years ago and that those simple organisms have evolved into the many complex forms of life that exist today. Advocates of the "all-powerful designer" proposition regard that proposition as a scientific theory. They believe that their "theory of intelligent design" is the best explanation for "certain features of the universe and of living things". Most of these advocates are associated with the Discovery Institute.

Scott610 (talk) 20:06, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

The "intelligent agents from outer space" argument is a fringe argument within ID and doesn't need to be covered in the lead. SDY (talk) 20:18, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Also note, ALL of the leading proponents are associated with the DI. . . dave souza, talk 08:19, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Following up on my earlier post, would anyone object if I added a paragraph on religious opposition to ID?--Stetsonharry (talk) 20:17, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I object. A paragraph would work in the body of the article, but I think only a sentence is appropriate in the lead. The lead should be kept short. ~Amatulić (talk) 20:58, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

A paragraph in the lead is a bit much. A paragraph in the body, however, is definitely appropriate. SDY (talk) 21:00, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

That's what I meant: a paragraph or section in the body, not the lead. It's too much of a tangential issue for the lead. Sorry for my lack of clarity on this.--Stetsonharry (talk) 22:51, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Arbitrary break – spectrum of ID

SDY: This revised summary (below) shows the reader that intelligent design addresses the extent to which speciation has or has not occurred. I believe that it is very helpful to show the reader the opposite ends of the spectrum of intelligent design possibilities.

Intelligent design is the inference that one or more intelligent agents made some or all of the parts of the universe, including some or all of the parts of the original ancestor or ancestors of the living things on planet Earth. This inference is broad enough to accommodate a wide spectrum of possible explanations for various features of the universe and of living things. At one end of that spectrum is the proposition that an "all-powerful designer" created the universe, including the living things on Earth, and that the living descendants of the first living things are not significantly different from their original ancestors (in other words, no speciation has occurred among living things). At the other end of that spectrum is the proposition that intelligent agents from outer space seeded Earth with simple, genetically engineered forms of life 3.5 billion years ago and that those simple organisms have evolved into the many complex forms of life that exist today (in other words, speciation has occurred many times during the history of life on Earth). Advocates of the "all-powerful designer" proposition regard that proposition as a scientific theory. They believe that their "theory of intelligent design" is the best explanation for "certain features of the universe and of living things". Most of those advocates are associated with the Discovery Institute.

Scott610 (talk) 21:35, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

SDY: An intermediate proposition on the intelligent design spectrum might be described as being similar to Catholic cosmogony... In summary, "An all-mighty intelligent designer caused a Big Bang 13.5 billion years ago and has, for the past 3.5 billion years, been pruning the branching bush of evolutionary development for the purpose of bringing humans into existence." This intermediate proposition might be referred to as "guided evolution". Scott610 (talk) 23:04, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

It might, but reliable sources verifying its relation to intelligent design would be needed, and you seem to have lost the big tent. ID is basically anti-evolution creationism, framed to accomodate the whole spectrum of such views while excluding theistic evolution and reviling science as "materialistic", then claiming the mantle of science for theistic realism. Although the leading proponents (all of whom are associated with the DI) hold views ranging from the YEC position of Wells to the progressive OEC position of Behe which accepts common descent with the occasional miracle to create AIDS, malaria and whatever, they play these views down to present the image that ID is a coherent discipline. . . dave souza, talk 23:16, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Dave: You are right. I am jettisoning the "big tent". I think that ID is easier to understand when the proponents are placed on a spectrum that runs from "no speciation" to "lots of speciation", with "guided evolution/controlled speciation" in between. I think that this spectrum is easier for the reader to understand because it gives the reader examples. My college English teacher told us frequently that whether an essay succeeds or fails depends on the quality of its examples. So I am trying to give the reader several good examples of "intelligent design." Scott610 (talk) 00:14, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I think what Dave is saying is that if there's a spectrum, it's not ID. Discovery Institute took a spectrum of various ideas, flattened it into a codified single-"theory" they support, dumped ideas they didn't support, and ended up with a result that can only be called Discovery Institute's original, spectrum-less, interpretation of the spectrum of ideas that were out there. Intelligent Design is essentially (c) Discovery Institute. The big tent here is DI. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 01:56, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Nealparr: Discovery Institute does appear to be trying to force people to use their view of ID. Their effort to force all IDists into the Institute's "big tent" is an effort to build a consensus for political purposes (e.g., to push ID-bills through state legislatures). But their big tent is a political tool, not an explanatory tool. The spectrum that I have proposed gives the reader a better understanding of what ID is. While I agree that "Intelligent Design is essentially (c) Discovery Institute", that does not eliminate the fact that ID existed long before DI adopted it's politically correct version of ID. DI's version should be put into a relative and a historical context and we should not try to use their "big tent" (a political tool) as an explanatory tool. Scott610 (talk) 02:22, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

There's a section in our article called Intelligent design#Origins of the term that covers the previous uses of the word before DI adopted it and established the now famous use of it. Do you feel there's something substantially missing? The way I read it, it was used sporadically and there wasn't anything substantial before DI's use. If there wasn't anything substantial before DI, we'd run the risk of giving other ideas ID/DI's famousness. It'd be like: I'm George Clooney's cousin (not really). George Clooney is famous. Therefore I am famous. It's juxtaposing ideas that may not be explicitly related. Of course if we're missing something in our "orgins" section, or you have reliable sources that do the juxtaposition (what's usually called synthesis) for us, that's a different matter. We can look at those and go from there. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 03:58, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

That "Discovery Institute does appear to be trying to force people to use their view of ID" is fallacious. ID is to a large extent the invention of the DI and associated individuals. They are trying to get other creationists to fit their beliefs into ID. Many OECs and some YECs have managed to do this, many YECs haven't -- mostly those that emphasise Flood geology and tend to be associated with the Institute for Creation Research and Answers in Genesis. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 05:13, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

It's really simpler than that. ID is a legalistic trick to find the common denominator amongst various forms of creationism and present that as non-denominational "science" so that creationism wins the legal battles in the US, expanded by Johnson into a bid to overturn secularism in the world. Its proponentsists think that openness makes it science, and are happy to ignore or play down their own beliefs. Thus Dembski is hard to pin down, Behe openly accepts common descent and natural selection, but keeps asserting that there are some exceptions, while Wells is openly YEC. That's my opinion, we need a reliable source making such an assessment if we're going to include it in the article. . . dave souza, talk 08:35, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break – definition

Nealparr: You asked, "Do you feel there's something substantially missing?" I do not feel that there is anything missing from the "Origins of the term" section of the ID article. However, a definition of ID is missing from the lead paragraph of the article. The proposition that "Intelligent design is the assertion..." that an intelligent cause is the best explanation is not an accurate statement. Some advocates of ID assert that an intelligent cause is the best explanation and while they are entitled to their opinion their opinion should not be mistaken for a definition of ID. Where is the DEFINITION of intelligent design? In other words, where is the simple assertion that phenomenon "A" caused phenomenon "B"?

The Discovery Institute should just assert that, "An intelligent cause designed and created the universe, including living things in their present forms (i.e., no speciation has occurred)". This definition of ID contains a cause (i.e., "An intelligent cause") and an effect (i.e., "the universe, including living things in their present forms"). The DI does not present this definition of ID because they know that if they did so then people would realize that ID is just a form of creationism. In order to prevent people from coming to that correct conclusion, DI publishes the opinion that ID is the best explanation and they deceptively label that opinion as a "theory". And that deception is woven into the first sentence of the Wikipedia article on ID!!! Stop the deception. Put a definition of ID into the first paragraph of the article. Please separate the definition of ID from the opinion of ID advocates that ID is the best explanation. I am NOT asking for too much. Scott610 (talk) 06:32, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

<undent> It's an interesting aspect which perhaps should be developed more clearly in the body of the article, but we must ask for verification from a good source of this exact argument, showing its significance, in order to avoid original research. The "definition" is what the DI put forward as a definition, and as we make clear it's an assertion rather than a hypothesis or theory. That's why we show that in the lead. Any alternative "definition" has to be equally impeccably sourced. .. dave souza, talk 08:19, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Scott, how would you define ID, when 1) ID is an original formulation by the Discovery Institute, 2) What we have here reflects their wording[4], 3) It's quoted so it's not in our voice, 4) We can't put words in their mouths (such as "Discovery Institute should just assert that...), and 5) We only cover views and rely on other peoples opinions on what is deceptive and what isn't. We're not allowed to say it's deceptive ourselves. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 14:53, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Dave and Nealparr: I found an interesting definition of ID. I put that definition into the following paragraph:

Intelligent design has been defined as "the concept that the order and complexity seen in nature must be the result of a rational design, as by God, and that natural processes such as evolution are insufficient to account for them entirely" [ http://www.yourdictionary.com/intelligent-design ]. Advocates of intelligent design assert 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." Most of those advocates are associated with the Discovery Institute. They believe that the designer of the universe is the Christian God.

Scott610 (talk) 22:37, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Not really an expert view – yourdictionary.com is a tertiary source, unsigned and with no particular claim to expertise. . . dave souza, talk 11:22, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Dave: Rather than citing a primary source, can we just agree on a definition of ID, such as the one in the following paragraph?

Intelligent design is the inference that the order and complexity in nature were conceived and brought into existence by an intelligent, "all-powerful designer."[Ben Stein's term] The primary proponents of intelligent design, all of whom are associated with the U.S.-based Discovery Institute, assert 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."[cite West & Luskin] They also assert that intelligent design is a scientific theory.[ibid] They believe that the designer of the universe is the God of Christianity.

Scott610 (talk) 18:22, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

But there is a substantial body of theological opinion which holds that natural selection is a "directed process." I believe this has been pointed out previously. There needs to be a paragraph or section fleshing out this point IMHO.--Stetsonharry (talk) 13:53, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

David Berlinski

We have an editor on David Berlinski who thinks that A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism is a WP:RS for claiming " a growing number of reputable scientists worldwide that are skeptical of claims of Darwinism and for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life". I've reverted twice & then severely modified, but don't want to get into any further reversion for fear of giving the appearance of WP:EDITWARing (particularly as I've been reverting quite a bit of his earlier POV advocacy). If others would like to take a look, it'd be appreciated. Thanks. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 08:22, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Will watch.--Serviam (talk) 15:10, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

me too.  :-) --Ludwigs2 18:12, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

me too! ;) --DannyMuse (talk) 07:48, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Speak of the devil. :-| Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 08:13, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

So what's the verdict guys? Is the Wiki article A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism a WP:RS or not? If not, why not? And how can it be fixed? Thanks, -- DannyMuse (talk) 08:27, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

That's a diabolical idea ;) See WP:SPS – wikis ain't reliable sources. . . dave souza, talk 08:47, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Dave, thanks. So we're in agreement, wiki-articles are NOT reliable sources. That was almost too easy, but we'll come back to this point! -- DannyMuse (talk) 22:20, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Not for the statement that there is a "growing number of reputable scientists worldwide that are skeptical of claims of Darwinism". Three reasons why:

• Self-pub and not independently verified, obviously.
• A growing list does not mean a growing number of converts. The number of people who feel that way may be a fixed number, and the list is just catching up.
• That list is countered by the growing number of scientists who signed their own petition in opposition. A Scientific Support for Darwinism, in just four days reached 7000 and change, far outweighing the other list that has been collecting names since 2001 by roughly 100 to 1. Project Steve (which tongue-in-cheek only lists scientists by the name of Steve or Stephanie, which someone calculated to be 1% of scientists overall) also outweighs the list by more than 100. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 14:35, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

"Growing number" falls afoul of WP:CRYSTAL as well. We can really only report the current consensus. SDY (talk) 15:25, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Not so, the number of signatures on the DI lists has grown from 100 in 2001 to 700 in 2008. This has nothing to do with the future so crystal balls are neither necessary or relevant. -- DannyMuse (talk) 22:18, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

"Growing" implies that it continues, which we can't determine at present. You could state that it has increased. Looking at the article for the source, it appears to be so heavily criticized that it would be like using NAMBLA's web site as a source on child psychology. They have an opinion, and they've nominally thought about it, but... SDY (talk) 23:13, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

SDY, Apparently you did not notice that I said in my previous post, "has grown". Past tense. But if you prefer "has increased" then very well, let's use that. Thanks! -- DannyMuse (talk) 01:03, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

(undent) I was talking about the comment that you were claiming that that cite supports, which is quoted above, not directly replying to your statement. At any rate, I also believe that the source is wholly unreliable and it doesn't support your statement regardless of whether it's "growing" or "has grown" or "eats ice cream." SDY (talk) 01:39, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure I see what the issue is, here. Wikipedia articles are tertiary sources, and according to wp:PSTS "Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable, published secondary sources." Tertiary sources are sometimes useful for broad overviews or summaries of complex topics, but A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism is not a broad topic requiring a summary. therefore, no - this article is not a reliable source for our purposes. --Ludwigs2 01:56, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I should have stated above that there is one and only one reason why it's not reliable: WP:SELFPUB. I seem to recall reading somewhere that a few scientists were pissed that someone added them to the list without their knowledge. I can't find the story right now, but simply because it's possible that such a thing can occur it's unreliable. In fact, if I weren't such a WP:WikiSloth, I'd challenge the reliability of sourcing on List of signatories to "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism" per WP:BLP. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 02:46, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

ah, I thought he was talking about the wikipedia article itself, not the ASDFD. either way, though... --Ludwigs2 02:51, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Maybe I read that wrong. I assumed they were talking about the actual document. Either way unreliable : ) --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 03:03, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Sadly, the "growing number" was reduced by one with the death of Leonard Loose, Ph.D. Botany, University of Leeds (UK), on 10 April 2007.[5] Ever sadder, the Dissent list "This was last publicly updated April 2008. Scientists listed by doctoral degree or current position." still includes the chap, who became a creationist in 1933 while still at university, and appears to have been a teacher with particular emphasis on creation science rather than a scientist. Presumably the number continues to grow beyond the grave :-/ . . dave souza, talk 11:45, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

This brings a somewhat icky feel to the otherwise appropriate metaphor of ID being Creationism's 'undead corpse' (post-Edwards). :/ Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 12:32, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Blessed are they who die in Intelligent Design, for they shall have everlasting life? SDY (talk) 16:14, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Since y'all are in a prosaic mood, here's a quote you might enjoy:

• "Resort is had to ridicule when reason is against us."---Jefferson

Either way, it seems appropriate - DannyMuse (talk) 17:41, 15 July 2008 (UTC)