Re: How is the Intelligent Design Movement Doing?

On 3/30/2025 10:36 AM, RonO wrote:

On 3/29/2025 11:58 PM, jillery wrote:

On Sat, 29 Mar 2025 17:21:21 -0500, RonO <rokimoto557@gmail.com>
wrote:
>

https://seanmcdowell.org/blog/how-is-the-intelligent-design-movement- doing-interview-with-william-dembski
>
I found this Dembski interview while looking for any evidence that the
ID bait and switch scam had any type of future.  The interview was from
2016 a couple of years before Dembski had retired from the ID scam as an
abject failure.  None of Dembski's junk made it into the Top Six, so
that tells you how highly Dembski's "ID science" was regarded by the
other ID perps in 2017.
>
As crazy as it may seem along with the usual lies about ID still being
viable for anything but bait, Dembski is admitting that the ID perps
wanted more religious support from more Christian denominations.  This
indicates what a lie the ID scam science claims have always been.  Real
science does not need support from organized religion.
>
QUOTE:
(2) In my remarks about the role of the church in advancing ID, I was
trying to be a bit provocative to get people thinking. To be sure,
well-wishers of ID abound in Christian circles. But how many are willing
to put their necks on the chopping block and make a real difference in
the scientific and cultural debate? As 19th century activist Annie
Besant put it:
>
Plenty of people wish well to any good cause, but very few care to exert
themselves to help it, and still fewer will risk anything in its
support. “Some one ought to do it, but why should I?” is the ever
re-echoed phrase of weak-kneed amiability. “Some one ought to do it, so
why not I?” is the cry of some earnest servant of man, eagerly forward
springing to face some perilous duty.
>
So, how much good has the Christian community really done in advancing
ID? Sure, there have been pockets of genuine support in the Christian
community. But why is the first and only ID think-tank/research center
at a Christian college or university Baylor's Michael Polanyi Center
(which I founded in 1999, and which was dismantled the following year
--- thanks in this case not to young-earth creationists but to theistic
evolutionists)? And why is the $100M spent on a Noah's Ark theme park
several times more than has been spent on all ID efforts over the last
20 years? Let's get some sense of proportion.
END QUOTE:
>
The ID perps have disenfranchised most of the YEC denominations because
they have run the bait and switch on the creationist rubes too many
times, and nearly all of them have dropped the issue instead of bending
over for the switch scam.  The creationists rubes do not want to teach
the obfuscation and denial if they can't tell the students the religious
reason for lying to them.  West Virginia in 2024 indicates that there
are still YEC creationist rubes that will take the bait, but it is
obviously for dishonest religious reasons.
>
You should read this interview in context.  Dembski got first hand
experience with what type of theocracy the ID perps were trying to
recreate by being forced to recant and apologize to his students at the
religious college he was teaching at, in order to keep his job.  He had
just told them the truth, that the earth and universe were likely much
older than depicted in the Bible and that the Noachian flood was likely
local instead of global.  If he had not recanted and apologized he would
have been fired.  As it was his contract was not renewed and Dembski
ended up working full time for the ID scam unit of the Discovery
Institute putting out ID as bait.  Dembski failed to produce any
convincing ID science scam material that could be used as useful bait,
and Dembski "retired" from the ID scam and the Discovery Institute in
2014 (I think it was 2014).  He claimed that he was moving on from the
ID scam, and wanted to go into education.  He was a failure at trying to
turn a new leaf and got hired back at the ID scam unit a couple of years
after this interview (after the ID perps had killed ID on TO by putting
out the Top Six best evidences for ID at the end of 2017).
>
Ron Okimoto

>
>
My impression is the movement has shifted its strategy, from pushing
to teach ID in public schools, to using public taxes to pay for
private schools.  Along with SCOTUS providing religious exemptions for
otherwise illegal activity, eliminating the Department of Education,
as Trump advocates, would practically guarantee this to happen.
>
People like Stephen Meyer, a longtime ID advocate, has teamed up with
Prager University to spread the word:
>
<https://intelligentdesign.org/prageru/>

 After the ID perps lost so badly in Dover, the fact that they were actively trying to get the Dover rubes to not teach the ID scam junk before the issue went to court, and the fact that half of the ID perps ran instead of testifying pretty much made the ID scam unit at the Discovery Institute look like it wasn't a very Christian organization. Everyone should recall the press releases coming out of the ID scam unit at the Discovery Institute after the Dover rubes announced that they were not going to bend over for the switch scam, and that they were going to try to teach ID without mentioning the ID scam unit.  The ID perps were whining that the Dover rubes were not listening to reason and that they did not want them to try to teach the ID science in the public schools.  No one should have missed the fact that the bait and switch had gone down on 100% of the creationist rubes that had wanted to teach ID in the public schools, and that the ID perps were the ones running the bait and switch scam.  Even though the ID perps were claiming that ID could be taught in the public schools not a single creationist rube had ever gotten any ID science to teach in the preceding 3 years that the bait and switch had been going down.
 The ID perps started claiming that it was a science and religion issue as your web site demonstrates is still going on.  They tried to wrap themselves in the cloak of their religious beliefs in order to deflect the fact that they were obviously the dishonest bad guys in the whole stupid fiasco.  They started claiming that they were on the side of religion even though they had been running a stupid bait and switch scam on the creationist rubes for years.

I should note that the retreat to their religious roots happened after the loss in Dover.  It was their only excuse for running the bogus ID scam for a decade.  When they realized that the ID scam was going to be tested in the Federal courts they initially tried to distance themselves from their own religious beliefs.  They cleaned up the ISCID web site that had been moribund since the bait and switch had started to go down.   The last "science" paper had been put up in early 2003, and the site was pretty much dead by 2005, but the ID perps took it over and reformated the site.  What should be noted is that they obviously removed some of the papers that had been put up on the original web site.  You couldn't find the flood geology paper (yes a paper trying to support Noah's flood) that had been up on the ISCID site for years, after the ID perps reformat of the site.  I recall that they only boosted their religious arguments after the failure of the ID scam in the Federal court.
Ron Okimoto

 They started their religious web sites, and their creationist news site started to have religious categories instead of just being creationist anti-science.  They are just using their religious beliefs to try to make the rubes believe that they are still the good guys even though the bait and switch continues to go down as West Virginia is the latest example.  They never retracted their teach ID scam propaganda, and they even doubled down after Dover claiming that the Dover decision was wrong, and that it is still legal to teach ID in the public schools. They could not give up on using ID as bait.  After Dover the ID Network tried to sell the switch scam by changing the name of their organization to COPE and dropping ID from their name, and they had a 100% failure of selling the switch scam.  Zero takers, so they went back to being the ID Network after around 8 years of failure.  The ID perps, using ID as bait, got the Louisiana creationist rubes to bend over for the Switch scam in 2008 and the Texas rubes to bend over for the switch scam in 2010.  All the others that took the bait dropped the issue instead of bend over for the switch scam.  Ohio dropped their switch scam junk after the ID perp's Dover failure.  All the creationist rubes that took the bait and bent over for the switch scam did it for dishonest reasons.   The ID perps told them that the switch scam had nothing to do with ID nor creationism, but Louisiana, Texas, and West Virginia still wanted to use the switch scam to teach ID.  Louisiana even called what they wanted to teach both intelligent design and creationism.
 The ID perps are currently trying to find other ways to disrupt science education and keep the kids as ignorant as possible because the bait and switch scam results have been so poor.  Only Ohio tried to implement the switch scam at the state level and stay with the obfuscation and denial.   When Texas and Louisiana tried to implement their switch scam legislation and school board stupidity they both tried to teach ID instead of the stupid obfuscation and denial, and the ID perps had to run the bait and switch on both groups of creationist rubes again in 2013.  The Louisiana rubes had previously tried to use the switch scam to teach ID in 2010, and had the bait and switch run on them at that time.  After the 2013 incident there have been no reports of either Louisiana nor Texas trying to implement the switch scam.  Even though Texas and Louisiana bent over for the switch scam, it has been a failure in both states.  The author of the West Virginia switch scam legislation wanted to use the legislation to teach intelligent design even though she had been forced to remove ID from the act, and replace it with switch scam language.  The ID perps had to remind her that the switch scam had nothing to do with ID, and Luskin told her that the Discovery Institute did not support teaching intelligent design in the public schools.  Even after this Dakota took the bait and tried to pass legislation to teach ID in their public schools before the ID perps could run the bait and switch.  The ID perps were only spared more public ridicule by the bill failing to pass.  Before the bait and switch had to go down on both Louisiana and Texas again in 2013 the ID perps were more on the ball and would catch such legislation before it came up for a vote, but they seem to have missed West Virginia and Dakota (initially West Virginia passed an act stating that intelligent design could be taught in the public schools, but it must have not been signed by the Governor and the ID perps were able to get it rewritten with switch scam language).
 No matter what scheme that the ID perps try, the central focus of the ID perps is to continue to use ID as bait in order to attract the creationist rubes.  It is their best means of getting the attention of the creationists dishonest enough to want to believe that the ID scam (their creationist belief) is viable, so that they can be redirected to something that might work, instead of fail miserably, like ID/ creationism did in Dover.
 Ron Okimoto