The Lippard Blog: Internal criticism

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

Internal criticism

Denyse O'Leary (an appallingly bad journalist who blogs in favor of Intelligent Design) wrote that she won't become an internal critic of ID because she opposes the "academic fascism" of ID critics. I find that an appallingly weak justification for being a propagandist. Internal criticism tends to strengthen the quality of arguments and evidence, not weaken them--unless, of course, what you're advocating is false.

4 comments:

Einzige said...: Are there any pro-IDers who are critical of other pro-IDers?; September 8, 2005 at 10:05 AM
Lippard said...: Some young-earth creationists have been highly critical of some ID'ers, or ID'ers in general. Some within the ID movement have been honest and forthcoming about the fact that ID has no scientific basis (though they hope it will in the future), e.g. Paul Nelson (who is also a YEC), quoted here:
http://darwin.bc.asu.edu/blog/?p=376; September 8, 2005 at 12:39 PM
Victor Reppert said...: This essay, by Robin Collins, is clearly by someone sympathetic to the overall ID project, but wants ID refocused as a metascientific rather than a scientific hypothesis. It seems to be critical of the way in which ID has been presented so far.

http://home.messiah.edu/~rcollins/Intell3.htm; September 13, 2005 at 1:45 PM
Einzige said...: Maybe I just don't get it, but his suggestion seems incoherent. So we call it a "meta-scientific hypothesis"... Ooooh, brilliant! Where does that get us, really? Why not just call a spade a spade and say it's a non-scientific hypothesis?

His essay also looks like it might not be all that satisfying to the young-Earth creationists out there who I think are right to be concerned that ID already gives up way too much ground to the real scientists.; September 15, 2005 at 1:21 AM