Illogical Deceit theory

For brevity, intelligent design theory will be abbreviated “idism”. In so far as religion appeals to the emotions and to faith-despite-absence-of-direct-evidence the term 'id' seems appropriate because it refers to the feeling, non-rational part of the brain.

For brevity, those who promote idism will be abbreviated “idists”. Internet debaters who are pro-idism will be abbreviated “proids”. For accuracy the purported intelligent designer will be referred to as God. The ultimate point being philosophers can speculate about the existence of God, but that science cannot, by its naturalist nature examine the supernatural.

The arguments of idism belong in the realm of philosophy and not in the science curriculum. Therefore, discussion of idism ought to be confined to university level philosophy courses. There the principles of critical thinking are within the intellectual grasp of most students. Further, the dissection of fallacies of logic is pertinent to the course curriculum in philosophy.

In the more than 10 years since idism has been attracting the donations of proids, the idists have not performed a scientific investigation nor produced a single peer-reviewed scientific publication. Below are selected opinions of scientists on ‘intelligent design theory’, or what I regard as “Illogical Deceit theory”.

Why “illogical”? See the Fallacies of Logic section, a dissection of the fallacies of logic to be found in many arguments, specifically the arguments of creationists, proids and idists.

Why “deceit”? The claims of idists that idism does not speculate on the nature of the ‘designer’ are deceitful in view of all the evidence that links idism to religion. Any doubts concerning such evidence should be dispelled by googling abiogenesis, or "intelligent design", and observing the number of religion oriented websites.

Claims that idism is science and not theology are also deceitful in view of the anti-evolutionist and religious stance taken by proids. God cannot be examined by science, so idism is religious both in subject matter and in approach. See also The Wedge Document and On the teaching of pseudoscience. (On the Teaching of Pseudoscience and The Wedge Document.)

For more comments, articles, and refutations of creationists', anti-evolutionists', proids and idists' favorite fallacies see the Godspell Follies section.

1 GUIDE

Anonymous Anonymous said...

The comment section will be used as a guide or glossary, obviating some of the need to move around the site. If the website’s name shows as purple, you can return to the main page by clicking on “Abiogenesis & Evolution” or “Home”.

idism = intelligent design theory
idist = intelligent design proponent, for example Behe or Dembski
fodi = fellow of the Discovery Institute, one of the organizations set up for the purpose of promoting intelligent design theory
proid = advocate of intelligent design theory, often an Internet debater

8:20 PM  

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