> I know that a lot of people are going to jump on me for saying this,

Because it's completely ridiculous? Yeah, I guess holding people accountable for ridiculous statements is probably also an example of being close-minded.

> but evolution is not, in the final analysis, scientific theory at all. It's a religion. If you doubt this, just look at the extreme, emotional, and in some cases, almost hysterical responses that some evolutionists have when their theory is questioned in any way, even on scientific grounds. Why else would some scientists attack Creationism and ID--but NOT other creation stories--so savagely?

A few points:

1. Carrie addressed why nobody cares about the other creation stories. There's no lobby trying to teach them as science. In fact I'm perfectly fine with the Christian creation story being taught in schools, so long as it's in the context of a humanities type class. Earlier in this thread, Sam mentioned his belief that creation should be taught in this context, because understanding is important. I fully agree. In fact, I think we should absolutely offer more religion and philosophy classes in public schools.

2. How people respond to an attack on a theory is completely separate to whether the theory is scientific or not. Your reasoning here is absurd. "Some people get pissed when you attack evolution, therefore it is a religion." Plenty of people get pissed off when you attack anything they believe strongly. By your definition, every strongly held belief is religious in nature. (Also I'd like to note that if evolution advocates seem frustrated, it is probably from hearing and refuting the same broken arguments over and over. "Evolution violates the second law of thermal dynamics," "How come there are both humans and monkeys?", "What good is half an eye?" etc. There is a sort of frustration when people make claims that evolution has big scientific flaws and then reveal they lack even a cursory understanding of all the involved sciences.)

3. Disirregardless of my second point, the ID folks are not attacking evolution so much as they are attacking science. Whether you think biological evolution as outlined by Neo-Darwinism occurred or not, to dismiss the theory as unscientific is to dismiss more than a century of biologists. We don't think Brahe was a priest of geocentrism just because he produced data that seemed to disprove the Copernican model -- in fact we say, hey, Brahe's methods were sound and inaccurate instruments led him to untrue conclusions. It's taught in history of science classes as an example of how the scientific method, properly applied, can lead to incorrect results. Being wrong or passionate about something does not make that something a religion.

The problem is that the ID folks, lacking in any actual science, have to attack the methods of real scientists in an effort to confuse the theology that is creationism with science and get ID into public schools. That's what this is all about. The "ID as science" movement is an effort that, at its core, is promoting a philosophy as a scientific theory. Once the courts ruled creationism could not be taught in public science classes, creationism got repackaged under a new name and sold as a scientific theory.

Actual scientists saw through it and thus refused to give it credit, so the only move the ID researchers had left was to attack the scientists. As others have hinted in this thread (and has been discussed at length many times before at RW) science is itself a sort of philosophy (in the sense that science is a way of acquiring and processing knowledge), but one that gets special treatment because of its incredible utility. This is why most high schools have entire classes devoted to science but not, say, existentialism.

Look, as soon as ID has made some useful predictions that have been later found true, the scientific community will start giving it some respect. So long as it is nothing more than a thinly-veiled attack on science, yes, you can expect scientists to be upset about it.

This is not to say you cannot attack science. I don't think there is a concentrated effort among scientists to stop English professors from ranting about postmodernism, despite its general incompability with the scientific belief in an absolute reality. The difference between postmodernism and ID is that postmodernism is clearly labelled as a philosophy, not as an alternative scientific theory.

Of course I know that any critics will respond that ID actually is science and the reason the mainstream scientists won't accept it is because they don't like its conclusions and there's a cabal and all great ideas are ridiculed at first. Which basically gets us back to where we started. To which I say: as a layman I will continue to defer to the consensus of the world's scientists. I think it is roughly 100% in favor of evolution as science, give or take a few tenths of a percent.

There's a tiny chance ID is legitimate science and will some day make a useful discovery that will require scientists to take it seriously. Does anyone want to wager some money about when that will occur? You can name the length of time (within my expected lifespan, please) and the amount of money and I'll take the bet. I'm completely serious about this. If you're interested, I will happily work with you to create solid language for winning conditions.

I know, I know, ID will never be taken seriously because that ~100% of scientists who believe in it are part of the cabal. Well, if they are, then it's the single greatest cabal of all time that has done more to benefit humanity than any other group of people, ever. I would get rid of any other group of people or institution (including my own government or even myself) before I would get rid of mainstream scientists.

Stephen