[quote=“Eddie, post:121, topic:5798”]
I have not gone over ID writings with the specific question of where individual IDers stand on “drift” in mind.[/quote]
Then on what basis can you claim to know what ID as a whole is “formally” about, Eddie?
Drift also involves mutation, which is random ONLY with respect to fitness, as well. Do you not know what genetic drift (no scare quotes needed) is? Do you not realize that drift is a major aspect of exploring sequence space, a subject that Doug Axe claims to address?
It seems to me that drift is far more theologically troubling than natural selection, as it is a component of evolution that is truly random.
Why would you need so much time to answer a question about something so fundamental, particularly when you routinely make pronouncements regarding what is “formally” and “officially” covered by ID?
Why do you think that if you don’t know whether drift is covered by ID? And why the scare quotes? It’s a real term. Whether selection or drift dominates is one of the most contentious aspects of evolutionary biology.
Why don’t you simply answer my question instead of speculating about what others might say, particularly when you are pleading ignorance at the same time? If you’ve already made a hard claim about what is formally included in ID in good faith, why can’t you answer my question in good faith?
[quote=“Eddie, post:124, topic:5798”]
“Involves mutation” is vague. That’s like saying the Christian religion “involves Jesus.”[/quote]
Context, Eddie. That’s just sad.
Because you repeatedly and explicitly claim to be providing “official” and “formal” positions of the ID movement, of course!
The idea of a pseudonymous commenter holding himself up as the official arbiter of what is and isn’t ID is just plain weird.
I have indeed. So has Jonathan. Do you have any information to the contrary? How can there be any “ID theorists” if none can articulate, much less empirically test, a scientific ID hypothesis, much less a theory?
One case is sufficient to falsify a negative proposition…
Very little; Behe, the worst offender, clearly ignores a century of relevant population genetics.
But you’re here. So why did you exclude drift in your “formal” version? Who appointed you to promulgate a “formal” or “official” version of ID here?
I’m pointing out the (apparently tactical) inconsistencies in your definitions. Your rant suggests that I am correct.
Yet this mask is often dropped in favor of the simple dichotomy:
"If the best that evolutionists can come up with in response to Behe is “convergent evolution,…”
Could it be that you are the best exemplar of an I.D. proponent in terms of the clarity, scope and explicitness of your writings?
Now that I my reverence for Behe has been demolished by his very own words … I am left to you as the only ID proponent so far who seems to be able to handle the requirements of science in his endorsement of ID fundamentals!
[quote=“Eddie, post:127, topic:5798”]
Is any weirder than the idea of a pseudonymous commenter who (by his own admission) is not an evolutionary biologist holding himself up as an authority on evolutionary biology?[/quote]
That’s you, Eddie. You and Behe, Denton, Axe, and Meyer. None of you are authorities, yet all of you claim to understand evolution better than the people who actually work to study it.
And I’ve many times, including this one, indicated that you are utterly inconsistent with your terminology.
They are careful far less often than they are not careful and/or misleading their readers.
[quote]But other times, some of them use “evolution” as a synonym for “neo-Darwinian evolution,” as a kind of shorthand.
[/quote]Yet they are just as opposed to NON-Darwinian drift, so that shorthand makes no sense.
I wouldn’t. I conclude that they neither know nor care what they are talking about. Obfuscation is a valuable tool in the Culture Wars.