A Truthy Response To Barney

12 January, 2006. 1,202 words.

Barney Brenner’s op-ed piece, Darwinism: An Endangered Way of Thinking?, is a good example of punditry in action. The article has just enough truthiness in it to fool someone who doesn’t know better, or someone who has already made up their mind. He makes a lot of claims and doesn’t back a single one of them up, presuming that the reader will just accept his word on them. He uses subtle manipulation to change facts to fit his viewpoint.

In 1925, an ACLU-driven defense team in the Scopes-Monkey Trial wanted a court to declare that laws forbidding the teaching of evolution were unconstitutional.

Okay, that’s true. But he doesn’t mention that the ACLU lost that circus case, and the Butler Act which declared it illegal to teach evolution was not repealed in Tennessee until 1967.

In recent weeks, in a courtroom in Dover Pennsylvania, the same organization applauded a judge’s ruling that the teaching of ideas contrary to evolution, in this case Intelligent Design, were unconstitutional.

Not quite true. It’s subtle, but here’s the twisted fact: The judge only ruled that teaching Intelligent Design was unconstitutional. He said nothing about other “ideas contrary to evolution.” See Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District.

Having judges decide what constitutes science is as nonsensical as scientists issuing judicial decisions.

Fortunately, there were expert scientific witnesses in the case to back him up. Too easy. Surely you can do better than that?

And the irreligious left, perpetually misusing the First Amendment, can’t identify which religion is being established. Is it that of the Jehovah’s Witnesses or of Catholicism? Perhaps Mormonism or Orthodox Judaism?

Fortunately, the Establishment Clause of the Constitution does not specify which religion needs to be established. Still easy. I guess you can’t.

The left maintains that Intelligent Design is merely creationism – a literal reading of the Bible’s account of creation – camouflaged in scientific language.

It’s more than “the left”-I don’t really consider myself part of “the left” or “the right” and I maintain that Intelligent Design is not creationism, but utter crap-ism invented by the Discovery Institute (a conservative Christian think tank) to advance their political agenda in the United States and around the world.

But even a casual perusal of ID demonstrates there is no dependence on Genesis for any of its arguments, nor does it teach any biblical doctrine.

Aye, that’s why it’s so slick! A scientific description of God! Brilliant!

To support Darwin’s theory, the earth should be teeming with myriad transitional specimens, but they are noteworthy, despite incessant extrapolation, only by their absence.

Some facts to back up that statement would be nice. Perhaps a link or two? A footnote maybe? Probably too much work. In any case, I’ll intelligently design my own off-the-cuff rebuttal and suggest that it would be impossible to see transitions until they are complete. Where’s H.G. Wells with his time machine when you need one?

Other modern observations are daunting for Darwinists: digital information – universally a mark of design – in the genetic code and irreducibly complex structures such as miniature molecular machines within the cell that Darwin could hardly begin to imagine.

Do I have to keep saying this? References please? Or are you just making this stuff up? I’ll just assume you are. First of all, since when is digital information “universally a mark of design?” I suppose that might be true if the entire universe fit into Silicon Valley. And “miniature molecular machines?” WTF is that? It’s very alliterative, but horribly undescriptive. I’ll make the bold assumption that you’re talking about nanotechnology, which is an entirely human creation.

Using the eye as an example, he [Darwin] coined the phrase, “organs of extreme perfection and complication” and recognized his theory’s inability to explain them. New discoveries only exacerbate these shortcomings.

I think most scientists-no, wait, reasonably intelligent people-would agree that theories evolve over time as new evidence presents itself. Remember when we all thought the earth was flat? Wasn’t that a hoot.

And despite frequent references to “organic chemicals” present on the formative earth, neither Darwin nor modern scientists can demonstrate how to get from these compounds to just a single-cell living organism, or even a virus – let alone the complex life forms. The search for that initial “spark” of life, or an explanation of why it is no longer in evidence, has been forever elusive.

Well, you’re right. We’ve taken way too much time trying to find those connections; we’re way past the deadline. Let’s just give up the search and call it… [with a dramatic wave of the arms] MAGIC! Queue up The Cars CD! “Oh oh, it’s maaagic…”

Ironically, the scientific community, which anxiously tries to find evidence of other intelligent life in the universe, blatantly turns its back on the one intelligence we have the most indication of: a creator; a master chemist for whom the DNA code – a puzzle which even our terrestrial species is just starting to grasp – is a simple blueprint.

Allah akbar! I enjoyed the word choice here.. not “most evidence of” or “most facts for,” but “most indication of.” Nice twist of words. Has a lot of truthiness to it. Something else that might work there is: “Most political support for.”

Even though ID relies not at all on the Bible, it does leave open the conclusion that the designer is the biblical God and this implication of God is what Darwinists seem to fear.

Ah, now we get down to it. After arguing that there is no connection between Intelligent Design and religion, Mr. Brenner finally tips his hand.

Yet there may still be hope for these folks. The Psalmist says, “The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.” Let’s hope they eventually wise up.

Doh! Not even trying to disguise the religion anymore. Falling down on the job there, don’t you think? After all, the spread of the Intelligent Design movement depends on removing religious and creationist undertones. Just ask Phillip E. Johnson, the first designer of what is now called Intelligent Design. I particularly like this quote:

So the question is: “How to win?” That’s when I began to develop what you now see full-fledged in the “wedge” strategy: “Stick with the most important thing”—the mechanism and the building up of information. Get the Bible and the Book of Genesis out of the debate because you do not want to raise the so-called Bible-science dichotomy. Phrase the argument in such a way that you can get it heard in the secular academy and in a way that tends to unify the religious dissenters. That means concentrating on, “Do you need a Creator to do the creating, or can nature do it on its own?” and refusing to get sidetracked onto other issues, which people are always trying to do. They’ll ask, “What do you think of Noah’s flood?” or something like that. Never bite on such questions because they’ll lead you into a trackless wasteland and you’ll never get out of it.

Fun stuff. I don’t see any political motivation in that, do you? It’s pure science, man.

P.S. It’s great fun to snipe at people from the comfort of my own blog!

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