“We seek and offer ourselves to be gulled.”
Montaigne

What I really want and it makes excellent sense when you think about it is to have my evolutionary papers including the unpublished Manifesto presented in chronological order under the title – “The collected evolutionary papers of John A. Davison.” This can be a very effective technique in demonstrating the growth of a biological idea and a new hypothesis for evolution. Jacques Loeb who invented arrtificial parthenogenesis had his papers presented that way and it is fascinating reading. If you hear of a publisher weak minded enough to consider such a proposal have them contact me before its too late. I’m not feeling so good so I think I’ll have another drink.

Skoal

Excellent. I can’t wait (but I’ll have to). Have you thought of a title? I’ll be looking for it.

Oh, and Watchmaker, I believe you misunderstood the point about every little boy and girl. David Horowitz made a dress change only – there was no real, underlying change in attitude or approach to life. This is really an important insight – for example, it explains why the Darwinist fundies and Christian fundies are so similar, and even sometimes convert in one direction or the other, just like Horowitz did.

Fer instance, a real change would involve acquiring some humility.

As a matter of fact I think I will write a book. The nice thing about books is that you get paid for them if you can find a publisher. The bad thing about books is that nobody ever reads them, nobody that is except me as far as I am able to ascertain. My conclusions have been based firmly on the books of some great biologists not one of whom was so stupid as to call himself an evolutionist. I sure don’t regard myself as one. There are no evolutionists because evolution remains a giant mystery. It has never been observed, not once. It is pretty hard to be an expert on a subject which has never been observed isn’t it? Oh no, not for Richard Dawkins. He knows all about it doesn’t he? Of course he does. Just ask your ordinary garden variety Darwinian mystic. There are only two things we know for certain about evolution; it did occur and chance had nothing whatsoever to do with it. That is just about all that can be said with absolute certainty. As a matter of fact that is going to be a dominant theme of the book I have in mind. I will start right off listing what we don’t know and then use that as the starting point. That is going to take quite a while.

How do you like them honeydew melon halves filled up with all them maraschino cherries? Sickeningly sweet aren’t they? I hope the Darwinians all get the runs.

Bye now.

Yeah, but people tend to feel like they themselves are being attacked when their ideas are being attacked. How do you separate the two when it isn’t you doing the conflating?

An entire collection of one’s ideas, true. But you can not judge a given idea based on a different idea that the same person holds.

For example, I could say that we should look at a surveilance videotape to see who committed a crime. I might have the idea in mind that the tape will prove that it was a certain person, but the idea of looking at the surveilance footage should not be discounted simply because I have other ideas.

Of course they are. “Attack Ideas – Not the People Who Hold Them” is new age BS. But I strongly believe that new age nitwits should listen to their own psychobabble and feel guilty about attacking people.

All’s fair in love and war, right?

As Big Daddy in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” said:

“I’m sick of all this HYPOCRICY and MENDACITY.”
my emphasis.

“Both sides will continue to LIE, CHEAT and STEAL to make their points.”
David Raup, paleontologist, my emphasis.

How do you like them rotating, dripping pork loins in them rotisseries with all them skewers in them?

Don’t overlook people like David Horowitz, who went from Marxist radical to neoconservative, or Arianna Huffington, who transformed from a right-winger into a “progressive populist.”

I agree, and so do most scientists. That’s why we accept Heisenberg’s findings, despite his support of the Third Reich; the polymerase chain reaction, despite Kary Mullis’s eccentricities; Cantor’s multiple infinities, despite his ensuing insanity; and Newton’s great achievements, despite his surliness and his now-discredited alchemical ideas.

“This is especially true in science and should be true when the United States Supreme Court judges things like Cobb County’s sticker or Dover’s verbal message. These are ideas and ideas should be judged apart from the people who hold them.”

Here it is not the truth of these ideas being judged, but rather their suitability for inclusion in a public school curriculum. A different matter altogether.

“[The Lemon test] has certainly been read like any religious motivation poisons the well by some lower courts.”

The Lemon test does not prohibit government actions which have a seondary religious purpose. Even the Rev. Barry Lynn of Americans United acknowledges this.

“Not only is the idea of ID not being judged apart from those holding it, the primary argument against it seems to be pointing out that the majority of its proponents are evangelical Christians, like that in and of itself makes ID unscientific.”

Not one of the arguments I’ve seen on talkdesign.org hinges on the religious beliefs of ID proponents. The scientific community accepts many ideas that were proposed by historic or contemporary Christian scientists. What does bother many ID opponents (including me) is the number of people who openly support ID because of its compatibility with their religious beliefs (like Bonsell and Buckingham) and not because of the strength of the scientific evidence for it.

“And the ones cheering about courts censoring it on establishment clause grounds are downright despicable. These are no scientists but rather people with an anti-religion agenda who won’t let facts get in the way of their agenda.”

Many of those “despicable” people are religious believers themselves who vehemently support the free practice of religion and recognize the value to everyone of keeping religion separate from government.