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1 Repeated questions
2 Evolution page
3 SC
4 Steve's list

Repeated questions

Some of the questions in the Intelligent Design FAQ are repeated twice. Is that by design or chance?--SierraEcho 11:36, 27 February 2006 (CST)
- Um, it was by error, which would mean chance. :) -- JosephCCampana 11:46, 27 February 2006 (CST)
- I deleted the ones I could find, is that all of them? -- JosephCCampana 11:52, 27 February 2006 (CST)

Perhaps these two questions: Is Intelligent Design Theory pseudoscience? (1.3.11) and Is Intelligent Design pseudoscience? (1.3.5). Should we merge the two?--SierraEcho 20:02, 2 March 2006 (CST)

Yes, lets! :) Good work, SierraEcho! -- JosephCCampana 00:24, 3 March 2006 (CST)

It looks like we have some spam in the question, Is there any good reason to consider perspectives other than Darwinism or its subsidiary views? Ramanpotential added recently:

On the other hand, over 700 scientists named "Steve", believe that "Evolution is a vital, well-supported, unifying principle of the biological sciences, and the scientific evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the idea that all living things share a common ancestry. Although there are legitimate debates about the patterns and processes of evolution, there is no serious scientific doubt that evolution occurred or that natural selection is a major mechanism in its occurrence. It is scientifically inappropriate and pedagogically irresponsible for creationist pseudoscience, including but not limited to "intelligent design," to be introduced into the science curricula of our nation's public schools."

Should we revert this? I'm not sure how this helps answer the question.--SierraEcho 14:21, 24 March 2006 (CST)

Doesn't seem to me terribly relevant. The researchid faq isn't really about chronicling whatever happens to be the mainstream view, and I don't see where the opinion of 700 "Steves" play into this question. Is Ramanpotential still around to explain why he thought it was important? --Arctura 14:40, 24 March 2006 (CST)

Okay, I see, the "real answer" does talk about the other list. Still I would say the "steve list" isn't relevant; the question is not whether there are an overwhelming majority in favor of the other side or not, but whether ther might be reason to consider other perspectives. --Arctura 14:44, 24 March 2006 (CST)

One comment I'd make is that, when I saw the mention of the Steve Project, I took it as a sign of intellectual honesty on the part of the wiki maintainers, who were apparently going out of their way to make people aware of conflicting viewpoints. That's definitely an image worth cultivating; whether linking to the Steve Project is the best way to do so is of course up to you. -- Corkscrew

Thanks for commenting on this. We'd all like to be fair, but the focus of the website is more on facilitating ID research then making a NPOV. As far as intellectual honesty goes, the list of Steves seems to me a poor way maintaining it--why do evolutionists really think it helps their cause? Because we definitely aren't contesting whether or not there are a majority of scientist on their side.

Do you think that paragraph actually answers the question? --Arctura 18:41, 24 March 2006 (CST)

Yeah, I can completely see where you're coming from. -- Corkscrew

Project Steve is a parody of Discovery Institute's "list of dissent". They both have about as much scientific relevance (i.e. nil). However, the DI's statement could theoretically be signed by virtually any biologist in the world, at least if they didn't know that it would be distorted as an endorcement for ID. --Glip 04:07, 25 March 2006 (CST)

In the previous paragraph the added sentence "A possible alternative to Darwinism is the Modern Synthesis." is definitely misleading, as this nicely labeled Neo-Darwinism is a subsidiary view. I'm removing it... any objections? --Arctura 14:58, 24 March 2006 (CST)

The misleading part is pretending Darwinism [isn't] a subsidiary view. -- Glip 16:54, 24 March 2006 (CST)

It might help at some point to sort out a brief summary of the history of Darwinian thought - that way, no accusations about straw men can be made (in the past I've seen people "refuting" thirty-year-old science as if it were cutting-edge research - that's a reputation to be avoided). Such a summary would also be useful in terms of building a foundation for further discussion.

It would also be a good idea to distinguish between philosophical implications of evolutionary biology and the actual scientific claims thereof. The key issue is that the latter, as with most science, has tended to home in on increasingly detailed conclusions (there aren't really any "subsidiary views" to speak of), whereas the former has tended to diverge into a wide range of speculations and beliefs. I'm still not sure which category "Darwinism" falls into. -- Corkscrew

Glip-- I'm afraid I don't understand. How can "Darwinism" be a subsidiary view of "Darwinism"?

Corkscrew-- I like your idea of a brief summary; and I know what you mean about the thirty-year old science-- it's the same on both sides.

As far as "subsidiary views"; you would say there wasn't much divergence on the scientific side of evolutionary thought? At my uni my experience has been rather different-- people agreeing on the basic tenets and wearing their colors proudly, but with highly varying perspectives when it came to the question of how it happened (rather than if it happened), and in general on most of the practical details. --Arctura 18:32, 24 March 2006 (CST)

Sorry, it seems I typoed. I meant "isn't", not "is". It turns out I also misunderstood the usage of the word "subsidiary" (not being a native english speaker). However, what I meant was that Darwinism is an outdated view. I wish you would stop pretending that any substantial part of the scientific community accepts that view. It's similar to arguing against relativity by saying that Newton's laws don't explain black holes. --Glip 03:59, 25 March 2006 (CST)

Really? I haven't come across that phenomenon so much. Obviously some of the very fine detail will be debated over for decades, but that's mostly just marking time pending the unearthing of relevant evidence. People from different areas of biology will probably view questions in a different light - for example, do zebras stay in herds because of complex socioneurological factors or because if they didn't they'd get eaten by lions (answer: both!) - but that's pretty much a case of potayto, potahto.

Here's hoping that this wiki can bring understanding of ID (whatever one's views on its accuracy) up to date. I could certainly use more info about how exactly stuff like specified complexity is calculated. -- Corkscrew

Cheers to everything that has been said here. It's all good discussion. See new sections below. -- JosephCCampana 17:24, 25 March 2006 (CST)

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Evolution page

A page on evolution sounds like a good idea, remembering three things:

1)Let's keep summary content on the shell pages, while detailed information is kept on deeper pages. As stated on our about page, "concise and relevant articles on the "outer layer" of the site, with more technical information on the "inner layers." This will be tricky, but I know we can do it. A general rule of thumb is that if one point or sub-heading takes up more than one browser window page-fold, a fork is desirable.

2)Not all ID researchers think that evolution is a contrary opposite to ID, myself included. Some are researching how evolution itself shows evidence of teleology, and ergo design. Also, a failure for evolution does not mean a victory for ID. In fact some victories for evolution fortify ID and vice versa.

3)Make sure the content is helpful in researching Intelligent Design somehow, whether it be theoretical or empirical. We are not cataloguing criticism or attacks on ID, there are hundreds, possibly thousands of websites on the internet that have taken on this task in one form or another. That being said, there are also No ID apologias and no polemics, which has a lot to do with style. Rule of thumb: Distinctions and clarifiers (like "some ID researchers have stated" or "other possibilities include") are always preferred to "ID is right because" or "ID is wrong because". Corkscrew did a great job of this on the Evolutionary Explanations page. -- JosephCCampana 17:24, 25 March 2006 (CST)

I think Corkscrew is responsible for that page, not Glip. But I was impressed by it as well. --Arctura 18:24, 25 March 2006 (CST)

My mistake, thank you Corkscrew. Good work! -- JosephCCampana 22:28, 25 March 2006 (CST)

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SC

Let's find a link to a good explanation of how to calculate specified complexity and put it on the page, if it's not already there. -- JosephCCampana 17:24, 25 March 2006 (CST)

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