Outsider's impression

I have just completed a sweep of the article as an editor with little interest in the science/religion controversy and I am very concerned at the state of the article. Outside the first paragraph, the entire article is given over to criticism of the topic, very little in the way of neutral factual description (beyond criticism) of the document, and little if any space is given to the opinions of the Discovery Institute or supporters of the document. Prior to my edits, opinions were constantly being misrepresented as fact, weasel statements along the lines of "many critics say that" abounded, and opinions rarely attributed to their source. In short, this article is a travesty of POV, and I have tagged it as such until the issues I have highlighted (through inline tags) have been addressed. Sincerely, Skomorokh 18:27, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I would appreciate it if the changes I made to the article in good faith and as I see it in accordance with policy would be discussed on a case by case basis instead of mass-reverting. Sincerely, Skomorokh 04:31, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Regarding this change I made to the article, I pushed the wrong button, which didn't allow me to add an edit summary. In essence, the changes made by Skomorokh go against a long-term consensus of numerous editors, add POV to the article by rewriting several statements including removal of content that laid out one of the major issues of this push. Finally, it is a "critique" because almost every single reliable source criticizes this issue. Any attempt to give undue weight to a fringe theory, even if it ends up a solid criticism in this article, cannot be allowed. Please review WP:NPOV. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 04:53, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely incredible. I had heard there was a "clique" of editors attempting to control articles related to "intelligent design" but I didn't give it any credence until now. Along with the reasonably contestable tags, you reverted attributed statements by opponents of the document to weasel ones and restored poorer quality reference formating. What better proof that you had no intent of relinquishing control of these articles. How utterly transparent and shameless. As I am not here to war over articles but to write them, I will bid you adieu, and wish you all the success in your endeavours on Wikipedia you so richly deserve. Regards, Skomorokh 05:27, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

That is a personal attack. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 05:30, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

At a glance, some of Skomorokh's changes seemed to me to look valid, but overall it was rather a curate's egg which had problems of NPOV: Giving "equal validity" to NPOV: Pseudoscience, and was unsuitable in WP:FRINGE terms. If possible, it would be useful to consider each of the edits as pointers to possible improvements to the article. . . dave souza, talk 08:27, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I am also an outsider coming to this article. I too see that it does not meet NPOV requirements. I am going to make a series of edits to the article. None of them are going to promote the idea of Intelligent Design at all. I have a view on the question but I am not going to state it here. All I am interested in as an editor is getting the article to stick to facts and not make its own interpretations. Please bear this in mind. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:33, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

One of the flagship articles of the WikiClique on Intelligent Design is the article entitled A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism. It's an article about a 2-sentence 32-word statement that the Discovery Institute has headlined since 2001 as "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism".

In the last few days, some outside editors on the English Wikipedia have begun to review this article to see if it conforms to Wikipedia's standards for NPOV.

Here is a new thread on the article's talk page.

Several more editors, including JoshuaZ, have arrived and are continuing Skomorokh's effort to NPOV the article. Interestingly, the anti-ID group have apparently backed-off and are letting it happen. This may, perhaps, be a sign that the increased community scrutiny of this group is having a positive impact.

MIT's Rosalind Picard promotes Intelligent Design (Score:2)
by SimHacker (180785) * on Thursday March 30 2006, @05:40PM (#15029861) Homepage Journal

Rosalind W. Picard, one of Media Lab's prominent research scientists, is regularly cited as a supporter of intelligent design [wikipedia.org]. The New York Times [nytimes.com] writes about the Anti-Evolution Petition [dissentfromdarwin.org] that "advocates who have pushed to dilute its teaching have regularly pointed to a petition signed by 514 scientists and engineers", including " Rosalind W. Picard [mit.edu], director of the affective computing research group [mit.edu] at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology".

Can Rosalind Picard please explain how teaching Intelligent Design [wikipedia.org] is good for the educational system? Is she hoping to secure a big fat grant for her Affective Computing Research Group from the Discovery Institute [wikipedia.org]?

Wikipedia's Discovery Institute [wikipedia.org] says:

The Templeton Foundation, who provided grants for conferences and courses to debate intelligent design, later asked intelligent design proponents to submit proposals for actual research, "They never came in," said Charles L. Harper Jr., senior vice president at the Templeton Foundation, who said that while he was skeptical from the beginning, other foundation officials were initially intrigued and later grew disillusioned. "From the point of view of rigor and intellectual seriousness, the intelligent design people don't come out very well in our world of scientific review," he said.

The MIT Media Lab is often criticised for being more interested in securing corporate funding than having any scientific rigor and or intellectual seriousness. If Rosalind Picard is such a rigorous scientist who supports Intelligent Design, then why doesn't she submit a proposal to the Discovery Institute to do some actual research to prove her irrational beliefs?

Knock Knock.
Who's there?
Intelligent Designer.
Intelligent Designer who?
God.

-Don

Anti-Drama Statement (Score:1)
by Moulton (44252) on Wednesday April 05 2006, @10:31AM (#15066287) Homepage Journal

I am skeptical of claims for the ability of random remarks and simulated scandals to account for the complexity of drama. Careful examination of the evidence for Drama Theory should be pursued.

Parent

Just out of curiosity, do all parties to this controversy agree that the only options are those of Darwinism and ID? Has any third option ever been raised, such as the ideas of Vladimir Vernadsky?

And I so *do* hate religious arguments. They never end, no one is ever happy, and most of them are based on who yells the loudest or has the most popular or power advantage. Annoying stuff.

You mean like Wikipedia policy decisions?

I never understood this fight on Wikipedia, or in general, such as it is. To me, it's a simple attempt to enjoin religious views into a scientific principle, which isn't correct.

Well, there's unintelligent design, in which creatures were consciously designed by some third party, but very poorly.

Less subjectively, we can distinguish between mere evolution, the assertion that the diversity of life forms reflects descent with modification from a common ancestor, and the mechanisms which govern that modification, e.g. random mutation in a dialectic with natural selection, psychically-willed change by the creatures themselves, or any number of other explanations, most of which aren't mutually exclusive.

Nor is intelligent design actually mutually exclusive with evolution: for example, God/aliens could have designed a limited number of creatures, each of which went on to evolve in the usual way, God/aliens designed only a few creatures, but all the others evolved on their own, God /aliens stepped in at one point or another to make a customized change , etc.

The deliberate modification of organisms is a form of intelligent design, but does not erase the evolutionary history of the organism prior to that point, or prevent its descendants from being subject to evolution thereafter.

Any creationist theory not at odds with directly observable facts will at least concede that, if God designed all creatures, he did so in a series of prototypes building upon one another; i.e. descent with modification.