A Test for Intelligent Design Proponents

I'm not a follower of ID so I'm not going to try to answer for them any further. I've said what I've gleaned from what I've run across here and there and that's about it.I think you should concede that you can't read minds and judge motives and then this thread can move on to what is of most interest to you.This message has been edited by Faith, 11-29-2005 10:51 PM

I get offended by ANYBODY's motives being impugned on the basis of somebody's disagreeing with their viewpoint. Motives are not so easily readable and it's an ad hominem to accuse your opponent of inner states you cannot know about. So does everybody. I do. I have never heard of that publication. You'd have to prove that this happened, that it's important, that it's deceitful in any way. Otherwise again it's just an attack on the character of IDers rather than an argument with their position.This message has been edited by Faith, 11-30-2005 04:35 AM

I haven't claimed to have knowledge of ID. I'm not an IDer, I don't agree with their nonfundamentalist reading of Genesis, I haven't been following the big flap, and I'm not in favor of fighting to get creationism in any form into the public schools. And I'm not interested enough to read up on it. I simply hate people imputing motives to people.This message has been edited by Faith, 11-30-2005 10:29 AM

Nonsense, Tim. In the context of a debate you don't impute motives as you have done. That's just smearing the opposition. You deal with the content.

Also, what they intended to say is a completely different thing from their motives for saying it.{I tried to add the above line to the above post three times and it would not take.}

He didn't show that. He made up his own interpretation of their motives, sleazy ones of course. Besides, of course they are biased and so is he, that should be taken for granted. But assuming they acted dishonestly on the basis of their bias is out of order.

Repackaging a book is not the same as stealing your wallet. What's your point anyway, that ID is *REALLY* creationism in disguise? But of course it's creationism as far as much of the scientific thinking goes so why shouldn't a textbook be easily adapted to express their views? What's dishonest about that? They are not being dishonest about their main point which is that the physical world itself shows that there had to be a designer, or about not naming the designer since it is the science they want to focus on. They aren't fundamentalists who DO want to see the Creator named and obeyed in the teaching of Biblical creationism.I continue to believe you are wrong to comment at all on the motives or anything personal. Answer their arguments.

I made a case for why it isn't dishonesty.

If you want to make the case that the new ID text is merely the warmed-over creationist text there's nothing wrong with that and in itself it can be an argument for your side against the ID side by simply demonstrating that the principles of creationism are still in play.What's wrong is when you get into interpreting the motives involved. And again, IDers do honestly want to keep the focus on science as their claim is that science itself demonstrates a designer and can be understood in terms of design as opposed to evolution, and they don't want to get into the particulars about the designer and I see nothing dishonest in any of that.This message has been edited by Faith, 12-01-2005 12:16 PM

I have been waiting for you to move on for pages. it is you who have been keeping the side issues alive.And yes, I may not have anything to say about your main points, I don't know, I don't participate in all threads after all, but calling you on the side issues is not out of order.Gee, Tim, you USED to be so nice. I can see why you tried hard to cultivate it as it isn't your natural state is it?P.S. Imputing motives OUT LOUD is bad manners at the very least, whether it is habitual of us to do so to ourselves or not. You don't seem to consider that you could be wrong about somebody's motives and that is what is REALLY out of order.This message has been edited by Faith, 12-01-2005 12:51 PM

Good post, just a couple questions. To the characters, of course, but to the author?As for imputing motives to IDers it is not only rude and arrogant but counterproductive as the task of their opposition is to show their ARGUMENTS wrong.

I don't see any motives [AbE: being discussed] in the OPs of those threads. Can you link to specific posts that show that? I'm not saying you're wrong, I can certainly imagine it happens, but I haven't been following those threads. I don't like it any more if creationists do it than if evolutionists do it.This message has been edited by Faith, 12-01-2005 02:09 PM

Aaargh. Most of all that cited in the above four posts is not properly speaking accusation of foul motives, except the accusation of lying. That one I've experienced a lot from the evos. Often when I've made an argument that doesn't hold together properly by their standards I've been accused of lying. The question Tim quotes from an evo to a creo whether the creo thinks evos are lying is also very common -- that's an accusation of the creo not the evo, however, as creos are more likely to think evos are sincerely bamboozled by their own theory than that they are lying -- if they ever think that. The evo suspects the creo thinks that, deduces it from the creo's complaints about evo thinking, but the creo doesn't think evos are stupid OR lying ordinarily, simply so caught up in the ToE and the habit of thinking everything through it that they can't see the other point of view. That's not lying. Analyzing a person's anti-god assumptions is also not imputing motives. Imputing motives means believing the opponent is consciously acting to deceive, not merely having difficulty getting the argument put together properly, which is usually what it is on both sides. None of the above is imputing motives as I meant it, except of course conscious lying.But haven't we finally done this to death? Isn't there more to the OP you wanted to pursue?