You should drop this quote: "evolution solely by means of random mutation and natural selection, as the only or overwhelming source for the diversity of species"
I don't see why. That is what the ID people are arguing against. OK, maybe its not perfectly precise but other than artificial/human selection which is relatively recent mutation and natural selection are the overwhelming drivers of revolution (I'm counting sexual selection as a form of natural selection, if you don't you can change it to "mutation, natural selection, and sexual selection".) OK I didn't include genetic drift and gene transfer but "mutation, natural selection, artificial selection, sexual selection, genetic drift and gene transfer" gets pretty clumsy. Even my more limited phrase was longer than ideal.
ID fundamentally claims that there are detectable components of life which COULD not evolve
That's the usual argument but it isn't an inherent part of ID. Strip it out and ID looks even weaker but you can believe in intelligent design without believing evolution is generally impossible or that any specific claimed evolutionary change is impossible.
Denying evolution of any sort is more extreme than denying that random mutation and natural selection are the sole or overwhelming cause of the evolution.
The latter is called theistic evolution, and is not really denial of evolution at all. It simply is leaving an open door for religion. From a functional perspective in science, a theistic evolution has the same scientific mindset in his work as an atheistic evolutionist.
Theistic evolution shades in to intelligent design. Intelligent design simples means that you believe that life follows a design of some intelligent being (presumably a deity, but I suppose you could believe life on Earth follows the design of some advanced intelligent extraterrestrial). If God directly decreed each evolutionary change that would be an example of intelligent design as the sole real source of the diversity of species.
3) Offensive: Yes, in both cases it is an argument against teaching something. In one case something false (Holocaust denial) in the other something true (Evolution). So my point is, whether something is offensive or not is totally irrelevant.
Let me try phrasing it a different way. Denying the Holocaust is more legitimately offensive than arguing for some form of evolution. Yes its subjective, but the whole subject of why its more reasonable to be tolerant or intolerant of one idea than another idea is subjective. Yes it assumes the Holocaust happened but neither of us doubt that. In one case you are denying a theory of how observed facts came about. In another you are denying the reality of the suffering and death of millions of people.
Even legitimate offense should only go so far. A historical or scientific idea that has any reasonable claim to being true shouldn't be shut out of the conversation just because some, or even many, take offence to it. But a think tank, web site, or magazine might legitimately and reasonably be less tolerant of questionable offensive ideas, than merely questionable ideas, and deciding to accept articles supporting one idea and not another is not shutting the second idea out of the debate. |
