Talk:Intelligent design

I've added an introduction to this subject. The corresponding Wikipedia page has been the cause of bitter disputes and allegations of heavy bias to the point that the article is now protected and can only be edited by regular wikipedians. If Citizendium is to succeed where Wikipedia has failed, I am guessing this will be an interesting test case.

Some suggestions as to why Wikipedia might have had so much trouble with this article:

• It quotes the opinions of individuals in order to make various points in a narrative style article. This is dangerous since almost anything anyone wants to say has been said by *someone* regarding ID, thus quoting those opinions can be a way of adding legitimacy to a personal argument about the issue. In other words, some of the opinons quoted may be prone to encouraging or entertaining the debate, rather than informing readers.
• The article errs on the side of conflating creationism and ID, however the article should try to elucidate the distinction between the two concepts.
• The article conflates the personal beliefs of many of the leading proponents and the actual statements that constitute the theory of intelligent design itself. In general there is a poor distinction in the article between the ID movement as a cultural phenomenon and intelligent design framed as a scientific argument.
• A number of quotations appear to be used to give the impression that something which is not factual, is true. For example the statement that no scientific evidence supporting ID has been published in peer reviewed literature is very carefully worded, but quite misleading. An important case of an article which passed peer review but was later rejected amidst accusations of editorial misconduct (which the editor denies), does not appear to be mentioned.
• Statistics are used rather wildly, for example a poorly constructed poll is admitted to evidence, and a statement about 70,000 scientists opposing ID is in fact really about a petition signed by only 9 people who may or may not hold the same views as the members they represent in their respective organisations (not to mention people possibly belonging to more than one of the organisations).
• The article often uses phrases such as, "it is claimed that" or "proponents say that" or "so and so argues that", which is often used in the article as a literary device for advancing one side of the debate against the other. Instead of presenting the facts, the article is presented as a dialogue between opponents and proponents of the theory (which of course just degenerates into such a debate on the talk page).
• The debate is entertained by the article rather than being reported in an unempassioned way from the outside of the issue.
• Many statements in the article would be highly offensive to one side of the debate or the other, prompting more aggravation on the talk page and in edit wars within the article itself.

In summary, I believe that the article is neither neutral, nor encyclopaedic. Of course what I've added to the page on Citizendium is certainly not the latter, and quite possibly not the former either. But every article needs a starting point. In fact I think I have erred on the side of casting ID in a bad light rather than simply reporting what it is. If people agree, perhaps even more could be culled from my intro. In particular, I may not have recognized various connotations of the wording which seem to promote one side of the debate over the other. I welcome any and all changes designed to make the article more neutral. Please be kind. I'm going with the "be bold" slogan of Citizendium. William Hart 09:06, 15 February 2007 (CST)

What is the difference between ID and creationism? I don't ask for my personal information ;-) but because the article should make this clear. Mainstream monotheistic belief has it that God is the creator and therefore virtually all mainstream believers are creationists. But obviously not all of them buy into ID. --Larry Sanger 09:10, 15 February 2007 (CST)

I think that is a good point and I agree, the article should reflect that. Also on the flip side, there are occasional agnostics who support ID. So my guess is that creationism and ID are quite different concepts. I think the main distinction is that ID does not require a *supernatural* designer. The wikipedia article tries to brush this distinction aside by making comments about how an alien race or some other kind of natural designer could not have designed the universe and that the fine tuning of constants, though under the general purview of ID theory, could not have been achieved by a natural designer. The wikipedia article also puts forward the argument that a designer would be so complex as to require an intelligent designer of its own. Since I don't wish to be making a case for either side of the debate here, I won't try to analyse these notions any further, but I think it suffices to say that those arguments look like they have been added to the wikipedia article by those wishing to debunk ID rather than to present an article which simply reports the facts. As a result they dismiss, rather than describe, the major distinction between ID and creationism.

In short, I think that ID is more about detecting design in nature and arguing for it from scientific considerations (e.g. from considerations arising from a study of microbiology) rather than trying to establish the nature of the intelligent designer. In that sense, ID most certainly cannot be characterised as an argument for the existence of God as the wikipedia article begins. In other words, ID theory has nothing to do with the statement "life on earth was created by an intelligent designer" and has much more to do with the statement "design can be *detected* in nature". This is possibly the reason many Christians object to it. Though they believe in a creator God, they perhaps don't believe that the specific considerations that intelligent design theory makes point to intelligent design. Nor do they think there is any reason to expect such considerations to lead to a proof of design. Other Christians object, as I understand it, because intelligent design doesn't go far enough, and identify the designer as God.

OK. I should be adding this to the article, not the talk page. But how to add it!? The specific wording is pretty important, so as to avoid the endless arguments which have accompanied the wikipedia version. William Hart 09:44, 15 February 2007 (CST)