Talk:Rejection of evolution by religious groups

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Arbitration Ruling on the Treatment of Pseudoscience

In December of 2006 the Arbitration Committee ruled on guidelines for the presentation of topics as pseudoscience in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience. The final decision was as follows:

Neutral point of view as applied to science: Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, a fundamental policy, requires fair representation of significant alternatives to scientific orthodoxy. Significant alternatives, in this case, refers to legitimate scientific disagreement, as opposed to pseudoscience.
Serious encyclopedias: Serious and respected encyclopedias and reference works are generally expected to provide overviews of scientific topics that are in line with respected scientific thought. Wikipedia aspires to be such a respected work.
Obvious pseudoscience: Theories which, while purporting to be scientific, are obviously bogus, such as Time Cube, may be so labeled and categorized as such without more justification.
Generally considered pseudoscience: Theories which have a following, such as astrology, but which are generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community may properly contain that information and may be categorized as pseudoscience.
Questionable science: Theories which have a substantial following, such as psychoanalysis, but which some critics allege to be pseudoscience, may contain information to that effect, but generally should not be so characterized.
Alternative theoretical formulations: Alternative theoretical formulations which have a following within the scientific community are not pseudoscience, but part of the scientific process.

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Frequently asked questions

These questions arise frequently on this talk page.

To view an explanation to the answer, click the [show] link to the right of the question.

Q1: Is this article unfairly biased in favor of evolution?

A1: There have been arguments over the years about the article's neutrality and concerns that it violates Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy. The NPOV policy does not require all points of view to be represented as equally valid, but it does require us to represent them. The policy requires that we present the theory of evolution from the point of view of disinterested philosophers, biologists and other scientists, and that we also include the views of evolution proponents and opponents. We should not present minority views as though they are majority ones, but we should also make sure the minority views are correctly described and not just criticized.

Q2: Should Intelligent Design (ID) be equated with creationism?

A2: ID is a form of creationism, and many sources argue that it is identical. U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III ruled that it "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents", and Phillip E. Johnson, one of the founders of the ID movement, stated that the goal of intelligent design is to cast creationism as a scientific concept.^[1]^[2]

Not everyone agrees with this. For example, philosopher Thomas Nagel argues that intelligent design is very different from creation science, in that it does not depend on distortion of the evidence, or on the assumption that it is immune to empirical evidence. It depends only on the idea that the hypothesis of a designer makes sense and that it is not assigned a vanishingly small probability (see "Public Education and Intelligent Design", Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 36, no. 2, 2008).

Although intelligent design proponents do not name the designer, they make it clear that the designer is the Christian god.^[3]^[4]^[5]^[1]

In drafts of the 1989 high-school level textbook Of Pandas and People, almost all derivations of the word "creation", such as "creationism", were replaced with the words "intelligent design".^[6]

Taken together, the Kitzmiller ruling, statements of ID's main proponents, the nature of ID itself, and the history of the movement, it becomes apparent—Discovery Institute's protestations to the contrary notwithstanding—that ID is a form of creationism, modified to appear more secular than it really is. This is in line with the Discovery Institute's stated strategy in the Wedge Document.

Q3: Should ID be characterized as science?

A3: The majority of scientists state ID should not be characterized as science. This was the finding of Judge Jones during the Kitzmiller hearing, and is a position supported by the overwhelming majority of the scientific community.^[7] Scientists say that ID cannot be regarded as scientific theory because it is untestable even in principle. A scientific theory predicts the outcome of experiments. If the predicted outcome is not observed, the theory is false. There is no experiment which can be constructed which can disprove intelligent design. Unlike a true scientific theory, it has absolutely no predictive capability. It doesn't run the risk of being disproved by objective experiment.

Notes and references

^ ^a ^b Phillip Johnson: "Our strategy has been to change the subject a bit so that we can get the issue of Intelligent Design, which really means the reality of God, before the academic world and into the schools." Johnson 2004. Christianity.ca. Let's Be Intelligent About Darwin. "This isn't really, and never has been a debate about science. It's about religion and philosophy." Johnson 1996. World Magazine. Witnesses For The Prosecution. "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." Johnson 2000. Touchstone magazine. Berkeley's Radical An Interview with Phillip E. Johnson
^ "I have built an intellectual movement in the universities and churches that we call The Wedge, which is devoted to scholarship and writing that furthers this program of questioning the materialistic basis of science."…"Now the way that I see the logic of our movement going is like this. The first thing you understand is that the Darwinian theory isn't true. It's falsified by all of the evidence and the logic is terrible. When you realize that, the next question that occurs to you is, well, where might you get the truth?"…"I start with John 1:1. In the beginning was the word. In the beginning was intelligence, purpose, and wisdom. The Bible had that right. And the materialist scientists are deluding themselves." Johnson 1999. Reclaiming America for Christ Conference. How the Evolution Debate Can Be Won
^ Dembski: "Intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John's Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory," Touchstone Magazine. Volume 12, Issue4: July/August, 1999
^ Wedge Document Discovery Institute, 1999.
"[M]embers of the national ID movement insist that their attacks on evolution aren't religiously motivated, but, rather, scientific in nature." … "Yet the express strategic objectives of the Discovery Institute; the writings, careers, and affiliations of ID's leading proponents; and the movement’s funding sources all betray a clear moral and religious agenda." Inferior Design Chris Mooney. The American Prospect, August 10, 2005.
^ "ID's rejection of naturalism in any form logically entails its appeal to the only alternative, supernaturalism, as a putatively scientific explanation for natural phenomena. This makes ID a religious belief." Expert Witness Report Barbara Forrest Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, April, 2005.
^ Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, 04 cv 2688 (December 20, 2005)., pp. 31 – 33.
^ Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, 04 cv 2688 (December 20, 2005)., 4. Whether ID is Science, p. 87

Rejection of evolution by religious groups was one of the good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
January 22, 2006	Good article nominee	Listed
October 4, 2006	Good article reassessment	Delisted
November 25, 2006	Peer review	Reviewed

Current status: Delisted good article

This article was nominated for deletion on December 11, 2004. The result of the discussion was keep.

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[wedge2-1] Phillip Johnson: "Our strategy has been to change the subject a bit so that we can get the issue of Intelligent Design, which really means the reality of God, before the academic world and into the schools." Johnson 2004. Christianity.ca. Let's Be Intelligent About Darwin. "This isn't really, and never has been a debate about science. It's about religion and philosophy." Johnson 1996. World Magazine. Witnesses For The Prosecution. "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." Johnson 2000. Touchstone magazine. Berkeley's Radical An Interview with Phillip E. Johnson

[PJC-2] "I have built an intellectual movement in the universities and churches that we call The Wedge, which is devoted to scholarship and writing that furthers this program of questioning the materialistic basis of science."…"Now the way that I see the logic of our movement going is like this. The first thing you understand is that the Darwinian theory isn't true. It's falsified by all of the evidence and the logic is terrible. When you realize that, the next question that occurs to you is, well, where might you get the truth?"…"I start with John 1:1. In the beginning was the word. In the beginning was intelligence, purpose, and wisdom. The Bible had that right. And the materialist scientists are deluding themselves." Johnson 1999. Reclaiming America for Christ Conference. How the Evolution Debate Can Be Won

[dembski_logos-3] Dembski: "Intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John's Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory," Touchstone Magazine. Volume 12, Issue4: July/August, 1999

[wedge1-4] Wedge Document Discovery Institute, 1999.
"[M]embers of the national ID movement insist that their attacks on evolution aren't religiously motivated, but, rather, scientific in nature." … "Yet the express strategic objectives of the Discovery Institute; the writings, careers, and affiliations of ID's leading proponents; and the movement’s funding sources all betray a clear moral and religious agenda." Inferior Design Chris Mooney. The American Prospect, August 10, 2005.

[5] "ID's rejection of naturalism in any form logically entails its appeal to the only alternative, supernaturalism, as a putatively scientific explanation for natural phenomena. This makes ID a religious belief." Expert Witness Report Barbara Forrest Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, April, 2005.

[kitz31-6] Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, 04 cv 2688 (December 20, 2005)., pp. 31 – 33.

[kitzruling_pg87-7] Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, 04 cv 2688 (December 20, 2005)., 4. Whether ID is Science, p. 87

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