Pharyngula::IDEA clubs: now with extra sneakiness and ignorance!

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Sunday, January 08, 2006

IDEA clubs: now with extra sneakiness and ignorance!

PZ Myers • 32 Comments (last page)

You might recall that the IDEA clubs required that their leaders be Christian (linked to Google cache).

1) Having an interest in intelligent design and creation - evolution issues, and a willingness to learn more.

2) Agreeing with and being willing to uphold the IDEA Center's mission statement.

3) Having a desire and commitment to using these issues to educate and outreach to your fellow students, campus, or community.

4) We also require that club leaders be Christians as the IDEA Center Leadership believes, for religious reasons unrelated to intelligent design theory, that the identity of the designer is the God of the Bible. It is definitely not necessary to "be an expert" to start and run a successful a club. It is helpful to be familiar with the basics of intelligent design theory, but if you're not, that's where the IDEA Center hopes to step in and help educate you so you can in turn educate others. Where ever you feel like you might need help--whether its science, leadership skills, or practical tips for running the club--that's where the IDEA Center wants to step in an help you. We try to help give any club founder all the tools they might need to start and run a succesful club and help promote a better understanding of the creation - evolution issue at their schools.

No more! The rules have been changed.

1) Having an interest in intelligent design and creation - evolution issues, and a willingness to learn more.

2) Agreeing with and being willing to uphold the IDEA Center's mission statement.

3) Having a desire and commitment to using these issues to educate and outreach to your fellow students, campus, or community.

4) IDEA Club leaders must advocate the scientific theory of intelligent design in the fields of biology and physics/cosmology.

5) There are no requirements regarding the religious beliefs of IDEA Club leaders or founders.

So now, instead of requiring Christianity, they require a) that one be an advocate of the "scientific theory of intelligent design" and b) that one agree with the IDEA center's mission statement. That's interesting; there is no scientific theory of intelligent design. There is no science behind it, and it doesn't qualify as a theory—even calling it a hypothesis is over-generous, since we typically expect even hypotheses to have some foundation in evidence and observation. That's strike one. What about that mission statement?

We believe that in the investigation of intelligent design the identity of the designer is completely separate from the scientific theory of intelligent design, since a scientific theory cannot specify the identity of the designer based upon the empirical data or the scientific method alone, and is not dependent upon religious premises; nonetheless, we consider it reasonable to conclude that the designer may be identified as the God of the Bible, while recognizing that others may identify the designer in a different way.

How cunning! They cut out the blatant religious requirement and buried it more subtly in the mission statement—if you don't think it reasonable to identify the designer as the God of the Bible, you aren't the kind of person they want running their clubs. I guess the Raelians are going to be disappointed.

Intelligent Design creationists do seem fond of sneaking their beliefs in through the back door, don't they?

It's also interesting how much they emphasize that absolutely no expertise is required to be a leader in the IDEA clubs. That's their clientele: people who know absolutely nothing about science, but are willing and eager to repudiate it.

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Comments:

#56950: — 01/08 at 01:05 PM
How interesting. Is that Google cache permanent? Is someone preserving copies of their old requirements? It could come up in a future discussion (or court case.)

BTW, I will take credit for the tip.

#56954: Andy — 01/08 at 01:27 PM
The wayback machine at archive.org doesn't have anything because of ideacenter.org's robots.txt, which only lists the internet archiver in the following 5 lines:

User-agent: ia_archiver
Disallow: /

User-agent: ia_archiver/1.6
Disallow: /

So it seems they explictly don't want any caches/archives of their content, but arn't smart enough to limit other robots/web archivers. One could read this as that they do not have very much confidence in their content.

#56957: Les Lane — 01/08 at 02:02 PM
Interest in science is not required. Perhaps we should praise them for not (overtly) requiring hostility to science.

#56958: ekzept — 01/08 at 02:20 PM

The IDEA Center provides all IDEA Club Chapters with 2' x 4' high quality vinyl "IDEA Club sign."

oh, heck, that's enough of a reason to sell my soul to Satan and anyone else who gets in the way: i want one of dose signs!!

The wayback machine at archive.org doesn't have anything because of ideacenter.org's robots.txt, which only lists the internet archiver in the following 5 lines ...

yeah, robots.txt is a voluntary thing public spiders follows. alas, archive.org is very much public so can't help but follow them. however, many private spidering firms simply disregard these, particularly those seeking data on competitors.

#56959: ekzept — 01/08 at 02:36 PM
BTW, the other sneaky thing the creationist alchemists do is fail to public (whether electronically or using dead trees) the proceedings of conferences, like the 2004 one. you need to order an audio recording of the conference.

so, like the failure to allow archiving of their Web sites, these critters "have a lot of good science in the pipeline" that's not only not available now, but never will be.

#56960: kutsuwamushi — 01/08 at 03:00 PM
I wonder what would happen if a Hindu tried to start a club. It's obvious that they want their club members to be Christian, but now that it's not required by their rules ...

#56961: — 01/08 at 03:02 PM
ID isn't a hypothesis either. A hypothesis must be testable. ID is just an article of faith.

#56962: — 01/08 at 03:10 PM
I find the idea of hitting certain ID proponents with idea clubs, repeatedly, to be rather appealing.

#56964: — 01/08 at 03:43 PM
God loves a liar.

#56965: — 01/08 at 03:51 PM
I guess Jews, and maybe Muslims, can lead IDEA clubs now. They must be so happy.

Of course that a person would have to Xian to conclude that the designer was the God of the Bible was absurd, with Jewish IDists (few, but not zero) easily fitting that description. So it looks like they're at least a bit more logical in their statement now (that Schaeffer (sp?) guy could be an IDEA leader now, were he a student). But well, what were they supposed to do, disavow their purpose and the only reason anyone has to be pro-ID?

Obviously the requirements do and must limit the leadership, explicitly or otherwise. If theological commitment (however vague) were not required, science might displace belief. And then how long would the club last?

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/b8ykm

#56969: The Inoculated Mind — 01/08 at 04:45 PM
I've been corresponding with the leader of the Cornell chapter, following their press release declaring that ID is testable and is a valid scientific theory. I pressed for an explanation, and they have not yet explained how it qualifies as both of those.

I'm now asking their Prez. if they were aware of this requirement when they became prez.

Does anyone know when the IDEA center changed these rules?

Karl

#56971: — 01/08 at 05:07 PM
Somebody should really start one of these clubs with the premise that the FSM is the "designer."

#56972: ekzept — 01/08 at 05:21 PM
i think i've been watching too much Deep Space Nine and Bukaroo Bonzai recently. when IDers speak of gods and deities being Their Designer, i just see communities of intelligent beings and civilizations existing at the subatomic level, powered by "muon energy", controlling everything on the macroscopic for their own, nefarious ends. talk about little nissen, Loki gone wild!

hey, it ain't testable either.

so there!

#56974: — 01/08 at 05:27 PM
ROFLMAO

Don't be ashamed if you don't feel like an expert in science or other subjects if you want to start a club! All you need is the desire to see people learn about intelligent design, and the IDEA Center is here to help you.

That explains all.

-----
"As with all of ID, the important thing is first to have the concept. Production can then follow as a matter of course.” -Dembski

#56982: — 01/08 at 06:41 PM

They cut out the blatant religious requirement and buried it more subtly in the mission statement

But still not sneaky enough to get it past your elite scientific research skills of actually looking at all the evidence, PZ. They must be aiming it at the enthusiastically non-expert, or those who are already committed to the ID lie.

#56983: PZ Myers — 01/08 at 06:44 PM
Credit where credit is due -- my source dug that up.

It's not just me, the IDists are rousing a whole army of people who know how to think critically and research basic claims.

PZ Myers
Division of Science and Math
University of Minnesota, Morris

#56986: — 01/08 at 07:43 PM
Erm... You've just linked back to this same blog entry. It's a bit circular to refer to yourself as your source ... bordering on the god-like even.

#56988: PZ Myers — 01/08 at 07:49 PM
It's a link to Ivy Privy's comment.

PZ Myers
Division of Science and Math
University of Minnesota, Morris

#56992: — 01/08 at 08:11 PM
Ah. Interestingly that wasn't showing in IE's URL display.

PS Don't tell me to use FireFox instead. It was slow loading and then seemed to be hogging all the resources and even failing to unload itself properly on closing. So I've had to go back to IE and stop looking at PT altogether - the newly designed PC-crashing look of which had prompted my trial of FireFox in the first place.

#56996: — 01/08 at 09:18 PM

4) IDEA Club leaders must advocate the scientific theory of intelligent design in the fields of biology and physics/cosmology

Did anyone else notice how they snuck in physics/cosmology? Cosmology I can understand, but physics?
Seriously, F = (m * a) ^D
Outside of big bang stuff, are there any ID physicists?

#57001: — 01/08 at 10:43 PM

Did anyone else notice how they snuck in physics/cosmology? Cosmology I can understand, but physics?
Seriously, F = (m * a) ^D
Outside of big bang stuff, are there any ID physicists?

Yeah, if anything, ID is a mental disorder that is much more prevalent among cosmologists that take the anthropic principle *much* too seriously. They probably put in "physicists" just because cosmologists have long had lousy reputation for accuracy. (less so, now)

But it's interesting to consider that even for "ID" cosmology, the intervention _only_ occurs at t=0; tweeking the electron/proton mass ratio, for example. After which, the universe just has to "evolve" on its own.

Unlike ID biology, which apparantly requires constant poking and prodding. I guess that means that biology is just much, much harder for a poor overworked diety to suss out 13 billion years in advance.

#57004: Alon Levy — 01/08 at 11:17 PM
we consider it reasonable to conclude that the designer may be identified as the God of the Bible, while recognizing that others may identify the designer in a different way.

Judging by all the physical laws all gods contradict, I'd say that P(ID is correct) >> P(God exists | ID is correct).

#57006: — 01/09 at 12:03 AM
Playing Diety's Advocate here: Many universities require that recognized campus clubs have non-discrimination policies wrt membership, and have to include such in their bylaws to be approved. This change could be a response to that if they've had trouble forming chapters in such places.

But that doesn't necessarily excuse burying the religious nature of the club. Other religious groups on such campuses get along just fine.

#57013: — 01/09 at 02:18 AM
This particular piece of nonsense delights me:

a scientific theory cannot specify the identity of the designer based upon the empirical data or the scientific method alone

No, really? You can't just check the label? The holy book isn't much use either? So much for the first commandment.

Can they actually argue that the same science that proves that the world is designed requires that the designer cannot be identified?

No identifiable designer ... let's call it evolution.

#57052: — 01/09 at 11:16 AM

Does anyone know when the IDEA center changed these rules?

The new rules for founders/leaders of local clubs page says (C) 2006 at the bottom. That might be clue that it's recent.

Also, I met Hannah Maxson, president of the Cornell IDEA Club at an off-campus event Friday evening. She was asked point blank about the old religious requirement. She dodged, she weaved, she waffled, but she would not give a direct answer. She kept repeating, "ask about it on Monday", which makes sense if she knew the rule was in process of being changed (and was integrity-challenged).

I can verify that the old rules were still in place as of November 29, 2005.

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Sunday, January 08, 2006

IDEA clubs: now with extra sneakiness and ignorance!

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