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Proposed version after page protection

As advised, I re-factor. This is a simple practical matter which someone has to discuss. To simplify, I go right back to Dave Souza's version. I will not re-post all the reasoning, which is not hard to find above.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:58, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

18th Sept version 19th Sept version (current)

This is a version of the theological argument from design for the existence of God, in which contemporary ID proponents present ID as "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins" rather than "a religious-based idea".

It is a version of the theological argument from design for the existence of God that proponents present as "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins" rather than "a religious-based idea".

  • I propose the first one. Please note that is not written by me, nor considered perfect in any way. It has something of a "written by committee" feeling, but at least it was a real effort to address the long term problem of over-absolute claims which as everyone keeps reminding me has been bitterly debated here for years. It is also clear that the current edit has no consensus, and that the people supporting it are themselves saying that this unpopular version does not change meaning.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:58, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
I have updated the second (current) version to include the existing wikilinking. Feel free to revert if this is not what you intended. Garamond Lethet
c 10:58, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Support current version for a third time for reasons stated above. Will I have to do the same a fourth time tomorrow? Gaba (talk) 11:08, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Support current version, rationale given above. Garamond Lethet
    c     11:15, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Support current version to be clear that in my view the version of 19th Sept is clearer and no more "absolute" than the version of 18th Sept – the current version is explicit that ID as discussed in this article is one version of the broader argument from design (or "argument from intelligent design" as used in the occasional version picked out in Andrew's list above), distinguished in that ID proponents present ID with the claim that it is science. In the context of the lead, the original version of 19th Sept is much better. . dave souza, talk 11:25, 11 November 2013 (UTC) clarify by striking "original" dave souza, talk 08:19, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Support September 18th version.' The version that is in there now is unsourced (as written) unsourcable, and conflicts with sources. It is also the last agreed-upon version. North8000 (talk) 11:31, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Current version. Two months ago I walked away, fed up with the tediousness of having to deal with an editor intent on pushing his own (mis)interpretation of original sources. I come back and nothing(!!!) has changed. "Contemporary ID proponents" implies that people who used the term in the past were also "ID proponents", an anachronism unsupported by sources. Guettarda (talk) 12:24, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
    • Just to clarify, in case I was not entirely clear, I support the current version on the following grounds
    1. In terms of substantive content, the phrase "contemporary ID proponents" suggests that there were "ID proponents" in the past. While the phrase "intelligent design" was used in the past, the people who used it have not be described as "intelligent design proponents", nor, for that matter, could they be considered ID proponents. They were natural theologians; implying that they were "intelligent design proponents" is an anachronism.
    2. The 'Sept 18' version has grammatical problems as well. The current version, which says "It is..." is clear - the 'it' to which the sentence refers is clearly the subject of the prior sentence: intelligent design. Changing it to "This is..." makes the sentence less clear. "This" could refer to either of the nouns in the prior sentence - intelligent design or anti-evolution creationism; 'this' rather than 'it' would, in fact, be more likely to point to the object (anti-evolution creationism) than the subject (intelligent design).
    3. Finally, "contemporary ID proponents present ID" is both wordy phrasing and jargony. We are supposed to avoid jargon where possible; "ID" is jargon, and it's already overused (11 times in the current version). There's no reason we should increase that count. It's poor writing in an article that's already too dense, too difficult for outsiders to penetrate. Throwing more jargon into the lead will discourage readers. Guettarda (talk) 05:48, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
information in here noted, but please stay on target; other editors are not the target
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
That was written by Dave Souza. And this is a different question than before. So there's two big errors in your nasty volley (unless you are calling Dave that editor) . The question back then was resolved, an inevitable resolution long delayed by harassment tactics. So let's just leave the drama and nastiness out of the conversation. North8000 (talk) 12:32, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
If that was written by me, then I confirm that the current version is better. As for this stuff about "harassment tactics" etc., please desist and WP:AGF in future. . dave souza, talk 13:28, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
Nastiness is nastiness. There is no "assuming"; it is written explicitly a couple posts up. And the fact that they talked about the wording in your earlier version (not realizing or even bothering to read that it was by you) saying that it is evidence of "an editor intent on pushing his own (mis)interpretation of original sources." speaks volumes. North8000 (talk) 13:33, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
Just to clarify what North said, the version that uses contemporary ID is not simply "Dave's version". Dave proposed a version on the 18th Sept which used the word "modern". This was contested by Andrew who requested it be changed to "contemporary" to which Dave agreed "with some reservations". That said, the version currently up is clearly backed by a majority of editors and should therefore remain regardless of what the three of you talked about two months ago. Regards. Gaba (talk) 13:52, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
"Nasty volley" North? Please withdraw your personal attacks against me. You've been warned by the arbcomm about your battleground mentality in other articles - please take that warning to heart; don't inject the same kind of behaviour that got you sanctioned elsewhere into this article. Note that this article is also subject to discretionary sanctions. Guettarda (talk) 14:31, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
My comment was about your comment and not a personal attack. However, your false characterization IS a personal personal attack, you should immediately strike or redact it. In any case no more nasty crap here. The main 4 participants in discussions here in recent months (2 on each side) have managed to stick to the topic without trying to vilify or make accusations against other editors. Let's get this back to that plane. Let's comment on the topic and the article, not the editors. I plan to not respond to comments on editors here except to say that I am not doing such. North8000 (talk) 15:21, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Support current version. Again, these sentences say the same thing, but the one on the right flows better (it doesn't try to say "ID" 50 times).
This/It: This and It both refer to what was defined in the previous sentence, in other words, the ID we just defined as creationism. For some reason, I prefer It over This.
in which/that: There really is nothing to be in in this sentence. It should come down to which/that which are semantically the same. Often enough, which is used for optional qualities and that is used for necessary ones. I think that is therefore more appropriate... maybe others will disagree.
contemporary ID proponents/proponents present: Who else would support ID but its supporters? The big difference here is the addition of contemporary. The version on the right is already talking about "contemporary ID" and thus has no need to specify. Of course, I'd say the left one is also talking about the "contemporary ID" (remember the subject, This, refers to the ID we defined in the first sentence), but there must be some disagreement there.
present ID/present: Of course ID proponents present their own "theory"... this is redundant.
Let me just say that if it's our goal to better distinguish ID from teleological arguments, the sentence on the left does a poor job. As I've hopefully now illustrated, both statements carry the same message, but one is unnecessarily and redundantly verbose. If I may say so, it sounds bad. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 16:43, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
Hello MisterDub. IMHO they both have a flaw (an over-reachng claim about ID in general) but the "contemporary" lessens it So my argument is not calling the Sept. 18th version ideal, just less-flawed, and also the one that should be in from a "fair process" standpoint. Due to the "moving target" questions, I paused on the RFC, but I think it will address the underlying questions. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 17:02, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
North8000, I'm not following... what "'moving target' questions"? And please do not stop with the RfC. If you want to accomplish your goal, that is the next step. I don't want it put on hold just so we can have another year of the same discussion. Continue with the RfC or stop trying to edit the page against consensus. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 22:29, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

@Dave and Gaba: Of course we all know Dave wrote the version and of course we also know that he wrote in order to achieve consensus, after a long discussion, not as his favorite version. It is no-ones favorite version, and there is no shock that Dave would prefer the version with "contemporary" removed.

[ADDED: The remark by Dave being replied to partly here is now compressed above.]--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:26, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

@Everyone, please check my logic or correct any misunderstandings:

  • Two active editors so far, North and myself, are quite strongly opposed to the adjusted version by MisterDub, and do not see it as just a readability edit. Evidence that many people do not, has been discussed.
  • Concerning the other edit, as far as I understand, no one says they oppose it for any such big reason. Supporters of the MisterDub edit claim that they do not feel that is shows any major change of meaning, just some wording improvements.
  • So to me it seems the consensus is the old version. You can not have a consensus version which is at the same time highly controversial, right?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:43, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
Wait, let me get this straight. You have 5 editors supporting the current version and only 2 that support changing it to your version and you arrive at the conclusion that your version is the consensus? Are you serious? Gaba (talk) 20:55, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
I count 7 in support of the current version. Garamond Lethet
c 21:07, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
(ec) Andrew Lancaster, I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you're saying above. "Evidence that many people do not"—do not what? "Concerning the other edit"—which edit?
As to consensus, I may be misunderstanding you, but of course a consensus version can be highly controversial. "Consensus on Wikipedia does not mean unanimity." If the !votes were at 5:4 then yes, we don't have consensus. At 7:2 for the later version, I would be comfortable betting that a disinterested editor would consider consensus to have been reached. There's no rush, though. This hasn't even been up for 24 hours yet. Let's let it run a while longer. Garamond Lethet
c 21:07, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
Garamond, yes consensus is not exact, as you say. Let me count a different way than you: We have 2 active editors so far who see a big problem with one version. The other version: it is not clear but it seems most supporters insist it is a minor tweak a way from their preferred version, and not in any meaningful way. Do you agree that such things are important in such situations? But I also agree with you that it is too early to close counting.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:27, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
From the rationales I'm reading here, I don't think "most" supporters of the current version consider this to be a minor tweak, but arguendo let's assume they do. A reasonable argument could have been made to these editors that, as you see a large problem with the proposed edit, and as they see negligible benefit, they might want to stand aside rather than support the change. That's a delicate argument to make and requires a high level of trust among the editors involved. I don't see any evidence of that trust here, and so I'm not surprised that argument wasn't successful.
Now that we've moved from persuasion to determining where the consensus lies, no, it is not appropriate to disregard an opinion because an editor considers the edit in question to be minor. It is even less appropriate to raise this after several opinions have been posted. Garamond Lethet
c 22:22, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
Well I was not trying to close the discussion pre-maturely, but just pointing to a complexity in the case that seems to be going to be relevant (depending upon whether can clarify their positions). It is one more appeal for more clarity about rationales. I guess there are several possible interpretations of some of the editors supporting the new version:
  • What they really want is a change in meaning to back before the September compromise. Specifically, they want the implication removed that there are any variants of usage in the term "intelligent design". The impression I guess that the public and our community gets then is that the long sourcing discussion is being quietly reversed after a period to let the attention die down. [ADDED: At this stage I count Guettarda, Man Jess, Johnuniq, Nick Thorne in this category. Corrections to my understanding would be welcome.]
  • They have a slight preference for a wording change.
  • Problematically they want to say it is a slight wording change, but that they feel really strongly about it. The impression that the public and community will get then is that there is something odd happening. [ADDED: At this stage position appears to apply to MisterDub and Dave souza, who are notably the two supporting authors who were most involved in sourcing discussions.]
Whatever happens, my aim is that we try to get a discussion which creates a more stable article in the longer term. That has been my aim since arriving at the article. Note: sweeping things under carpets does not lead to stability.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:26, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Current version, obviously. I don't see any reason to prefer the older version unless you are attempting to imply there are multiple version of ID (some of which are not "a scientific proposition"). That implication is a restatement of an argument that's been had on this talk page for months that is opposed by a strong consensus. The two versions may mean the same thing literally, but the latter comes without an implication that is untrue. Andrew, your reading of consensus is, frankly, absurd.   — Jess· Δ♥ 20:58, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
I think that you are misreading what Andrew said. He said that the 9/18 version had consensus, and the subsequent change is controversial and has no consensus (and I'd add is in conflict with a core policy as noted above) North8000 (talk) 21:16, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
(ec)Man Jess your position is that new version is preferred because it has a different meaning. But most supporters of the new version claim that it is just a minor wording tweak. I believe the strength of a person's rationale is relevant when seeking consensus, or am I wrong about that?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:27, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
North, I understood Andrew perfectly. Andrew, I did not say the "new version has a different meaning". Quoting myself just above: "The two versions may mean the same thing literally, but the latter comes without an implication that is untrue." Please do not represent me as having said precisely the opposite of my actual words.   — Jess· Δ♥ 21:44, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
My apologies if I misinterpreted you Man Jess, my post was intended to confirm my understanding. So if I understand you now, the MisterDub version is less ambiguous about some particular point, whereas the Dave souza version allowed for a possibility which is wrong. Concerning that ambiguity, are your referring to the possibility of other types of "intelligent design"? If so then as someone involved in the original drafting I would say this this possibility was in there deliberately (Dave, above, claims to believe it is still there in MisterDub's version I think). So removing that possibility is pretty much a big change of meaning, surely? In effect does it not mean you want a return to the all/nothing type of message which for example Dave souza above says is not in either version? (i.e. you want it to say all intelligent design pretends to be science, right, and not just "all of the intelligent design being discussed in this article" for example?) Please confirm if I understand correctly.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:26, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Support current version (19th Sept). The 18th Sept text includes the laughable "contemporary ID proponents" which is a complete misunderstanding of the topic of this article—as has been explained on several occasions. We will have to live with the fact that positions such as mine can be dismissed because of the poor rationale. Johnuniq (talk) 21:41, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
OK, so that is a clear argument for a change in meaning, by which I mean you want no wording which implies that there is anything called intelligent design apart from the pseudo science. Correct?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:26, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Suport current version The first version implies that there are some unstated other versions of ID separate from "contemporary ID". This is at best synthesis, at worst deliberately misleading and in either case is completely unsupported by the sources. This poll should be the end of the matter, but I predict that there is still some more flogging of dead horses in this page's future. - Nick Thorne talk 02:23, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
Well, the recent sourcing discussion was a while back Nick, as you know, and it led to Dave souza making the version which allows for the possibility you now say is unsupported, but in any case your vote appears clear. You want the sentence changed in order to change the meaning, by which I mean you want any implication of other types of "intelligent design" to be removed from the article. Correct?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:26, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
Andrew, what "other types"? As discussed at #Second outsider comment and proposed RfC above, the citations you've given show use of "argument from intelligent design" as a synonym for "argument from design" where the designer is described as being intelligent, but the label "intelligent design" is a term for the current (anti-evolution) version. . dave souza, talk 15:39, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
Not sure I follow. You just named two types of intelligent design, one is more general (argument from design), and one is the most specific anti-evolution one which this article is about. Right? But our opening may currently not be edited to say this in a clear way, because many of the articles less active watchers do not realize this fine point (or they perhaps think it it is a can of worms to be hidden rather than something we can fix with less stressful wording discussions).--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:14, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
Amdrew, you misread me. In "argument from intelligent design", the word "intelligent" is an adjective describing the qualities of the design, the argument is the "argument from intelligent design". In anti-evolution ID, "intelligent design" is a label for what is essentially creation science, hence a term for that specific concept (which like ID has the argument from design as a central feature). . . dave souza, talk 21:03, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
That's OR Dave and not in our sources, so I don's think this helps us here one way or the other. FWIW the main bit I really disagree with is that "in anti-evolution ID, "intelligent design" is a label for what is essentially creation science". It can be sometimes, but normally our secondary, primary and even legal sources all use the term at their most considered and clear to refer to the argument from design aspect of the movement - which I understand to be the subject of this article. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:27, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
Extra note: of course I do not deny that "intelligent design" can refer to the movement and its actions and strategies but also we already have articles for creation science, intelligent design movement, neocreationism and many more highly over-lapping ways to refer to the movement and its actions. So I think it is obvious that this article is not about those subjects anyway.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:25, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
So again just correct me if I am wrong, but I think you are in the category of voters who support the new version because it changes the meaning and makes readers understand that there is nothing called "intelligent design" except the pseudo science of recent decades.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:28, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
Andrew, I think you're wrong in several responses above, and are putting your own spin on the words of other editors. The term or label intelligent design commonly refers to the pseudoscience of recent decades, the phrase "intelligent design" has quite often been used when describing or discussing other variants of the generic design argument. . dave souza, talk 05:05, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
I agree with your reading of the sources Dave, which is something we should make more of, but the fact is that your preferred edit is being supported mainly by less active editors who clearly imagine the sources to say something different. ("Random", which was the word you were using also until September, basing it on Matzke's blog, is not the same as "less common".) I do not say this in order to try to catch people out on a fine point, but just because it is important to see where the agreements and disagreements really are. To me it seems that the comment of Matzke is not wrong as such, and reflects an understanding a lot of editors here feel strongly about. What we therefore need is way to say this which is more clear. Both random and rare are not yet a convincing way to clarify your position to the numerous editors who keep coming to this article and thinking it is wrong. Referring to the first use of glossaries seems to encapsulate the feeling, but is also not clear or useful for wording in the article. What this article needs is a better way to answer those concerned editors. Just a thought: the movement turned the term into a proper noun and this article, I think, is about that proper noun, right? (Maybe not quite a full solution. Ayala clearly uses the term as a proper noun too, referring to teleological arguments such as Paley's.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:27, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Procedural note

I think the above is a productive discussion. I think it should continue for a little while longer, and then be closed in the usual Wikipedia fashion of determining consensus through evaluating the strength of the arguments against policy. Zad68 04:17, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Suggested conclusion for now

I think this is the pattern developing in the last day:

  • Concerning editors recently evolved in detailed sourcing and wording discussions, we who posted first for the most part, it is apparently accepted that "intelligent design" is a term which can refer to arguments from design (maybe rarely or whatever), but it is more or less a dead heat concerning what to do about it in practice, and there is dispute about whether there is any implication of the opposite in the sentence under discussion.
  • There is a reasonably large number of passionate watchers of this article who were not in that discussion and who all seem very certain that "we've seen it all before". Interestingly, all or most of this category seem to feel quite comfortable agreeing with North and I that the sentence change under discussion is intended to deny any possibility of there being any type of intelligent design which is an "old fashioned" argument from design. But in any case, that is of lesser importance than the fact that we have such widely different readings of the sources. That clearly has to mean this article is going to keep having problems. So I would propose the following are the practical implications:
  • I obviously can not try to reinsert the old consensus sentence as a consensus unless something changes!
  • But then there needs to be some bigger discussion in order to try to confirm whether the whole discussion we had recently about sources was something which a bigger community would accept.

In other words, this twist of events whereby a detailed recent sourcing debate is being ignored by a broader community who are not convinced, is finally starting to make me agree with the idea of an RfC. But I disagree with the idea that it should be about individual sentences, nor about the subject of the article, at least primarily. I think it needs to be about what the sources say, with the aim of making it clear enough that future editors can work here on more solid and stable ground, making sentence easier to read for example, or pruning the footnotes. Comments welcome. Am I jumping any guns here?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:41, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

As the detail of the proposed sources shows, "argument from intelligent design" has appeared in several sources, some in the context of discussion of current anti-evolution intelligent design. The term "intelligent design" is specifically about the latter, which has been given that label, the phrase "intelligent design" appears in the former as a more descriptive version of "argument from design". The central issue is that we have two articles, this one about the specififc concept labelled "intelligent design", and the teleological argument article which covers the generic design argument including the "argument from intelligent design". . . dave souza, talk 17:11, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
Well I am not sure I agree about what the source of controversy is, and I am watching closely for some months now. At least one very big part of it is quite simply a defensive/aggressive habit, as shown by the discussion about what the last consensus was after the sources discussion. I think the question of what this article is about is a red herring in this spirit - something which comes from the years of arguments you guys have been in. I don't see anyone really arguing about it, but rather I see people constantly coming to this article and pointing to sentences which ARE ambiguous and not good, and could be fixed uncontroversially in a more constructive copy-editing environment. Everyone is being bullied and pushed away, assumed to be evil. When after a month of work some incremental changes are made, these are in effect all then reversed as soon as the memory of the discussion is cooling off. There are myths and baggage on this article and the followers of these myths believe that every new question which comes is the same old question. To improve the editing atmosphere I think what is called for is a look at the sources which calls in a much broader community. The article seems to be very habituated to working on the basis that there were "things once proven long ago in the past" (years before you even edited here, I already argued against this, as MisterDub said), so we need to get into a new session of defining what things are proven. Otherwise this article is failing to work like a normal Wikipedia article.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:07, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
Dave would you look at the notes I am developing here and comment? (Within reason I would welcome comments from anyone on my draft page, within reason of course.) We can of course discuss those ideas on this talk page?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:16, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
Andrew, I think you're making this more complicated than it need be. The question is whether or not intelligent design is a common name for teleological arguments. If it is the common name, a WP:MOVE request needs to be initiated at Teleological argument. If it is a common name, the namespace for "Intelligent design" should redirect to Teleological argument and this page needs to be renamed. If intelligent design is neither of these, then it is okay to refer to ID as ID on an article whose topic is ID and which defines ID clearly in the first sentence. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 19:29, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
MisterDub let the sources talk, let the policy pages say what they really say, and let the community see it all and judge slowly. I think you are making it more complicated than it need be.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:05, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
"All significant alternative titles, names, or forms of names that apply to a specific article should be made to redirect to that article." WP:TITLE#Treatment of alternative names -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 21:05, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
More complex cases are common. BTW I find it odd how you and Gaba both argue so hard that others should argue a certain (over-dramatic) way against you all the time.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:09, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
lolwut? -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 21:16, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

May we also discuss copy editing?

I do not want to overwork everyone but while people are here, I can not help noticing that we use the word proponents in our first 3 sentences. I guess that says something about the history of the sentences but can anyone find a non-controversial solution just to make it easier on the eye? Currently we have this:

Intelligent design (ID) is a form of creationism[1][2] presented by its proponents as the theory that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection."[3] It is a version of the theological argument from design for the existence of God that proponents present as "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins" rather than "a religious-based idea".[n 1][4] The leading proponents of this version of the argument are associated with the Discovery Institute [...]

So the first two sentences have the exact same construction, which effectively says: ID is a type of [...], presented by proponents as [...].

  • Would it shock people if I suggest that the first sentence has obviously evolved away from needing the "presented by proponents" bit at all, and that this could just be "which argues that" or something like that?
  • It might help editors to keep in mind that the direct quote at the end of the first sentence is itself exactly what the first words of the second sentence say "a version of the theological argument from design...". (I believe this was meant to be more clearly connected in earlier drafts Dave and I worked on.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:23, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
Andrew, regarding your first bullet point, the reason we have "presented by proponents" in the first sentence is due to WP:FRINGE. If it weren't for that policy, we could say ID is a scientific theory. Remember that ID is the name of the theory which is the topic of this article. We do not want to lose the purportedly scientific aspect of ID by changing the words as you suggested.
That said, I think the easiest way to fix this particular problem is to change the second sentence: "It is a version of the theological argument from design for the existence of God that proponents present presented as 'an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins' rather than 'a religious-based idea'." I think this pads out the use of proponents in the first and third sentences enough that we can leave those. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 16:43, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
Agree with MisterDub, just made the bold edit. Regards. Gaba (talk) 16:57, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
Concerning the first bullet I do not follow your reasoning. The first sentence does not even mention anything scientific, nor anything which needs to be described as being presented as something. Actually the first sentence is basically defining ID as argument from design (which is not consistent with the second sentence which effectively starts to call all arguments from design, as just mentioned in the first sentence, one variant of argument from design; I think originally the intention of the first sentence was to say something more meaningful such as that ID, as in the subject of article, is anti-evolution).
The "proponents present" wording makes most sense staying in the second sentence because:- When you put "proponents present" you indicate doubt in our sources about whether it is true. Concerning the first sentence there is no such doubt, but concerning the second sentence there is such doubt and you effectively change the meaning by removing those words, creating a dry definition where our sources tell a more complex story.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:02, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
Andrew, this is a rather difficult topic because ID is a purportedly scientific theory, yet we can't really give any credence to the "scientific-ness" of it, again due to WP:FRINGE. This is why theory wasn't in the lead for a long time as well, the word theory means something different in scientific circles than it does colloquially. Can we say "purportedly scientific theory"? Or is purportedly (or some synonym) a word to watch? Right now, we're using "proponents present" to illustrate that, despite protestations to the contrary, ID is not science. That's where the doubt is being appropriately cast. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 17:51, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
<ec>The first instance is a quotation from ID proponents, and as such requires attribution. It also makes it clear that this is their definition, not one generally agreed by topic experts. . . dave souza, talk 17:20, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
That is true, I just realized. Still not sure about what has now been done to the second sentence though. What do you think Dave?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:13, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
My reading of it is that it looked ok after Gaba's edit. . . dave souza, talk 20:50, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
I was kind of hoping you might respond to the concerns I mentioned above. (With something more than I disagree, if possible.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:06, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
Sorry I started a question about editing boldness which went wrong of course. My fault.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Not sure it was advisable for Gaba to make that bold edit quite so quickly. Are we all allowed to do that now?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:06, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
You question my bold edit agreed upon by two editors and yet you go ahead and make an edit two editors disagreed upon? Your behaviour is rapidly approaching WP:GAMING and I'd seriously advise you to think very carefully before making any more edits to the article if you don't want to find yourself in WP:AN/I. Gaba (talk) 17:16, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
Quit the false accusation crap. Comment on content, not editors. North8000 (talk) 18:13, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
In case you haven't noticed North, you telling every other editor here to quit the "false accusations" and "bad faith crap" is actually commenting on editors. When an editor makes a very clear poor choice (to call it something) it's good practice to advise him/her to stop before it gets any worse (ie:AN/I) Andrew's editing against consensus after he was told not to is an attempt at gaming the system by abusing WP:BRD. This has been going on for quite some time now, most clearly in the form of bringing up the same issue over and over again in the talk page. I'm not nearly the first editor to comment on this by the way, just read some threads up. Regards. Gaba (talk) 19:01, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

looking at opening

So now we have:

Intelligent design (ID) is a form of creationism[1][2] presented by its proponents as the theory that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection."[3] It is a version of the theological argument from design for the existence of God presented as "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins" rather than "a religious-based idea".[n 1][4]

I notice one idea above which was not discussed at the time, because it was a compromise, perhaps become interesting to consider again. This was when Garamond Lethe proposed the addition of the words "is distinguished by" to the second sentence. It was I believe his judgement that this covers everyone's concerns. In my opinion it would give marginal improvement. It would make it

Intelligent design (ID) is a form of creationism[1][2] presented by its proponents as the theory that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection."[3] It is a version of the theological argument from design for the existence of God, distinguished by being presented as "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins" rather than "a religious-based idea".[n 1][4]

Comments?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:02, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

The proposed wording is yours, Andrew, but you don't seem very happy with it. To be clear, Garamond was discussing you choice of words, and said:
"'Except that' raises the expectation that intelligent design isn't really a teleological argument due to whatever exceptional circumstances are detailed in the remainder of the sentence. A better choice might be 'distinguished by'. In my opinion, the structure of the sentence is sufficient to make the distinction without further emphasis."
That looks like endorsement of the current wording, and leaves open the question of what features distinguish ID from other versions of the argument. As Guettarda suggested earlier, ID is modified to avoid specifying the nature or identity of the designer [sourced to Numbers]. Note 1 in the article is cited for the sentence under discussion, it quotes the Kitzmiller judgment: "The only apparent difference between the argument made by Paley and the argument for ID, as expressed by defense expert witnesses Behe and Minnich, is that ID's 'official position' does not acknowledge that the designer is God." So, ID includes a claim to be science, and differs from older arguments by avoiding identifying the designer. Got suggestions for wording? . . dave souza, talk 21:36, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for the on topic post Dave. A quick first response:
  • The quotation you cite here is about the difference between Paley and ID, not between all arguments from design and ID. I can think of good reasons for them making such a distinction - essentially all related to the fact that Paley gives the version of the argument from design most similar to the one used by the IDM.
  • Can you help me concerning whether "Numbers" is another source?
  • What I had understood from previous discussions is that this article is about a variant of the argument from design which is (a) associated with opposition to the theory of evolution and (b) associated with being presented as empirical science. Concerning (a) you and I talked in September about putting it into the lead, but it did not survive and so now our article does not make it clear. I am not sure why and I think it would be helpful to get a clear explanation.
  • Concerning (b), which is found in our present article, the Kitzmiller judgment you quote seems NOT to go so far as (b), because instead of claiming to be empirical science this ID is just leaving room for it so to speak (by not naming the god). So the term ID is not being used to refer to the pretending as such. Do we have any source which actually justifies b? [ADDED: I think the source we use now for the second sentence is the DI itself, but we have agreed that the IDM is bigger than the DI, and also for this purpose a secondary source would be better. But the secondary sources seem to say something a bit different?]
  • One of the concerns raised about the lead is that it seems to sometimes want to imply that there are no potentially confusing, closely related usages of the term "intelligent design" which are NOT being covered by this article. This concern is not addressed by the proposal of Guettarda I think? --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:49, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Please stop treating this page as a forum for never-ending discussions vaguely related to the topic. If anyone wants a change from the text favored by strong consensus they need to prepare an RfC and post it. Until then, expanding the walls of text is disruptive as it drives away other editors who may have an interest, but who become exasperated by the pointless commentary. Dave souza posted a short comment with a single link; clicking that link leads to another short comment with a single link. Clicking that link explains what "Numbers" refers to. How can anyone with an opinion on Guettarda's comment not see that? Johnuniq (talk) 09:45, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Johnuniq, if at some point we have a clear case of a controversial proposal for a text change like you mention, then we can potentially do yet another RfC, although I find that demanding this as a principle is verging upon deliberate disruption. However we are not at this point now, and indeed it is hard to determine what is controversial still. In the meantime please let the talk page do its function. I have asked Dave some questions above, and the issue of Numbers was a small point which I felt could most easily be handled with a quick question and polite answer.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:11, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Scope of this article

There have been repeated questions about the scope of this article, and claims that occasional published use of the phrase "intelligent design" when discussing the teleological argument requires that we treat the term intelligent design as meaning the broader design argument. In response, several editors have referred to naming policy in reaffirming the longstanding scope of this article as essentially about the modern pseudoscientific field.

In a section in Archive 74 Andrew provided a source for reference with this comment:

"I think I never noted this source on this talkpage but only at teleological argument. However it is not only relevant to historical matters. You can for example search for "intelligent design".-- Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:16, 23 September 2013 (UTC)"
  • Wildman, Wesley (2010), Religious Philosophy as Multidisciplinary Comparative Inquiry: Envisioning a future for the philosophy of religion, State University of New York

The suggested search brings up the following three pages in the text, plus the index and references:

p.261 – "this ancient argument….. It is a particularly hot topic in religious philosophy at the present time, thanks to the intellectual and political aspirations of the so-called intelligent design theorists. Their confidence in a particular form of the design argument is so strong that they believe it should be taught in high school science classes as a check on the pretensions of evolutionary theory."
p.263 – "the design argument has been profoundly influenced by the dominant form of religious imagination"… "If we picture ultimate reality as an intelligent being, then apparent design in nature will lead us to an intelligent designer." … "Thomas carefully distinguished between what the design argument can achieve and the way his religious tradition tends to conceive of ultimate reality. Contemporary intelligent design theorists attempt to duplicate his caution in their own way, saying only that apparent design in nature supports inference to an intelligent designer, not to God as theists conceive God."
p.269 – "increased complexity in the biological case also makes the design hypothesis more difficult to falsify and thus easier to sustain in the face of scientific objections. This in turn is why intelligent design theory has a prominent political face while fine-tuning arguments do not."

In my view, this source is clear that ID is a particular form of the ancient design argument, with defining features of belief that it should be taught in high school science classes in opposition to evolutionary theory, that it officially posits that appearance of design in nature supports inference to an intelligent designer, not to God (though its leading proponents consider The Designer to be the Christian God), and it is prominently political when disputing scientific objections to its covertly religious view. The topic of this article is this specific version of creationism, which scientific sources describe as pseudoscience. The current wording of the lead is clear on this point, and should not be obscured by unnecessary caveats about what the phrase might mean in some other contexts. Having said that, proposals for revised wording can be considered provided of course that they are presented with specific published sources in support. dave souza, talk 19:28, 8 November 2013 (UTC)


Dave, I think that with the removal of the "ID is just DI" stuff, nobody has been overly concerned directly about scope. It just became an article that is 90% about "claimed to be science" Di, with mentions of the other 10% left just as mentions, without getting into characterizing it, and no explicit definition of scope of the article.
Second, I don't think that anybody is dead set against an article what is just about the "90%". The resistance would come from an article on the 90% that squats on the title that claims to be about the 100%. But even that has not been a subject of discussion.
The core of the current controversies is over-reaching statements:
  1. One essentially claims that the 90% is the 100%. (e.g., in shorthand, that ALL ID claims to be science)
  2. The other claims that the older forms of ID all claim to be science.
Since these are sort of buried in the logic of the sentences, I'm not sure that you and MisterDub understand that these statements are in there. This thought is reinforced by Misterdub saying that he sincerely believed his edit which injected #2 was taggable and describable as being a minor edit, which lead me to believe that he might not have realized that he injected that claim.
These may arise indirectly from the "scope" / topic question. If somebody is thinking that the "motorcycle" article which is 90% about 2-wheeled motorcycles (with 10% just mentioning 3-wheeled motorcycles) then that might lead them to make over-reaching statements (e.g. all motorcycles have 2 wheels) because in their mind they are making the statement about the putative topic of the article.
I am writing this not to debate disagreements, but to see if we even have a fundamental disagreement. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 19:57, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
As thie above source shows, intelligent design is the label for this specific version, the normal label for the religious argument without claims to be science is the "design argument" [as in this source], "argument from design" (or "argument-from-design") or more officially, teleological argument. The current wording of the article clearly describes intelligent design as claimed to be a scientific theory and as pseudoscience. Do you want to propose specific sources that say otherwise? . . dave souza, talk 20:23, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
Dave, you just jumped off and made statements that in no way address what I said. If you really don't know what I was trying to say (e.g. if I have communicated it poorly) , we should continue. If you do know but are ignoring it, we should end this thread.North8000 (talk) 20:45, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
Look, you're alleging an "overreaching statement" that "ALL ID claims to be science", but the article doesn't make that statement: it defines ID specifically as the recent version of the design argument presented with a claim that it's science. You're proposing that ID is the generic design argument, but as shown in the above source it's more specific. Got a source supporting your claim? . . dave souza, talk 22:44, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
"The other claims that the older forms of ID all claim to be science" – what older forms? The wp:commonnames for the older argument are design argument or teleological argument. The phrase "intelligent design" is sometimes used when describing aspects of that argument, but it's seldom if ever used as the generic term for the argument: commonly it appears after the argument is defined as the argument from design. Older forms of the design argument may or may not claim to be science, but they're outwith the scope of this article. Once again, please provide sources supporting your claims rather than mere assertion. . dave souza, talk 22:44, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
Dave, thanks for that. I think that what it shows is that you may not realize where some claims are embedded, but that there is less of an underlying disagreement. That was the the clarification of your thoughts that I was asking for; but I would be happy to discuss further if you wish. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 23:01, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
Please be specific, and cite sources to support what you want shown in the article. . dave souza, talk 23:38, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
Dave, what I want is is an article 99.5% like the present one, no new material, and the other 1/2% being word tweaks in a few sentences; basically dialing the back to what is actually sourced. So close and yet "so far". Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 01:55, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
Then please be precise and mention which edits you'd like to see done one by one with the corresponding sources/arguments supporting each one so we can discuss them and agree whether to add them or not. This will only work if you and Andrew understand that not having consensus to make an edit is not an excuse to raise the same issue again in two days, otherwise we'll be right back were we started. I'll await your proposed edits. Regards. Gaba (talk) 02:21, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

I think it is important to point out once more that my main concern is NOT trying to change the article topic, but trying to reduce the use of un-encyclopedic and un-sourced absolute language, which is creating ambiguity and misleading remarks, which are in turn the cause of constant disruption, and an unconstructive atmosphere on this talkpage and article. If that can not be done the article certainly does not seem to deserve its FA status, and to remind, my original approach to this article in August was looking around at philosophy articles with FA status. Dave with all due respect I have no idea why you have made a long post about one source out of the dozens I have brought here. I think you and I both already agreed many times that "intelligent design" is a term used many ways? That is precisely why absolute language is inappropriate. By the way, I notice it uses "intelligent design theory" which I have in the past proposed to be a term which is used by many of the more neutral secondary sources in order to avoid ambiguity. The addition of the word "theory" is as far as I can see always applied to the version of the movement. But if I recall correctly, my proposal to follow such sources in our own word use was rejected?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:16, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Andrew, I hope I've been clear that "intelligent design" is a phrase used in several ways variously related to the design argument, the term intelligent design is specific to the post-1987 creationist variant. It's not a theory, as has been admitted by one prominent proponent, [from memory] some sources describe it as "so-called intelligent design theory" which is possibly useful as disambiguation within the article used sparingly, but inappropriate as the article title for a topic generally known simply as intelligent design. As to why I made a "long post", you proposed the source and I replicated the words from that source that gave relevant context. Simply giving a link to the google entry on the book and taking a couple of words out of context is unhelpful at best. . . dave souza, talk 04:57, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
As discussed more below, your distinction between phrase and term is not clear. I think you mean that this article is about a proper noun, and that is fine by me. But what secondary sources we have which write about terminology tend to use "intelligent design" as a broader term than "intelligent design theory". Also, probably the clearest secondary source we have concerning how terms are used is the Ayala quote which says that "The argument from design to demonstrate God's existence, now called the 'Intelligent Design' argument (ID)..." It would be nice if the sources did not give us such complexity, but it seems to me that the frequent visitors to this page who worry about this do have a point. So logically the article's editors need to try to develop a more convincing way of answering these concerns.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:46, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
I'm sorry the distinction between phrase and term isn't clear to you. As I've mentioned to you elsewhere, reading only the portions of text that match your search query is not a reliable method of understanding the nuances of how the words are used. One of the substantial benefits of the DI efforts was provoking philosophers to start writing about philosophy of science at a level that could be understood outside of the academy. I've found this work to be unusually accessible, but you still have to read it, not just google it. Garamond Lethet
c 19:40, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
I have not just read snippets. I read the whole Ayala review article and other writings of his and there is no inconsistency: he describes Paley as a proponent of intelligent design in other places also. So do other sources. Please note that Dave and I have had longer discussions about the exact texts prior to the recent discussions, and I have passed links to those archived discussions to you recently. Anyway, more practical: concerning the distinction between phrase and term as it is referred to here, you and I have talked about the same subject with different terminology, so I expected you might know that I personally do not deny there is something to the proposal that the IDM turned the two words into something like a brand name or standard term, a proper noun, found in glossaries (etc etc whatever we want to call it), but my question above, (if we did not just read it in snippets), has a context. Question to you though is how may we translate the distinction clearly into something practical for our lead in the actual article? The current approach is a walled garden: we pretend that there was nothing called (as phrase or term) intelligent design before and there is no intelligent design even now, outside of the textbook debate. In the meantime, I do still say that intelligent design has in fact become a more complex term (irrespective of it was before IDM), with several meanings. All this is connected to the fact that the article has 75 archives. But in the words of recent defenders of the article's approach, the lead is currently intended to indicate to our readers that there are no variants of ID, and ID always means a pseudo-scientific scam strategy. The allowance that it is not all DI is a recent one. Furthermore, earlier discussion established that the defenders of the current approach will not allow use of the word "term" in a lead, so we may not contrast "terms and phrases" unless this position moves. I could go on, because many such things have been discussed, but I am imagining that to some extent the most important point to start with is to try to make sure you are not focusing on the wrong things due to misunderstandings.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:59, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
  • For the sake of trying to focus on encyclopedia writing, I would like to point to some simple policy stuff. I just do it to try to eliminate dead ends positions we should not waste time on. One thing is that if a Wikipedian says "I think Ayala does not think this way" it is not relevant, unless we can point to words in that source or another which indicate grounds for such a statement (but then we risk non-obvious synthesis). There have been a lot of examples like this in the circles of discussion of this articles' 75 archives. Recently for example, looking at the real words of the sources in our lead, MisterDub says that those sources were being anachronistic (about the very point which is most frequently debated about how we use them; in other words they say the opposite). Again not useful, because claiming that the sources are making a mistake would be problematic, and there is nothing in the text to show ironic intent. If all our sources are playing a trick on us by writing words they do not mean, or even just being unclear, then actually we should not have an article on this subject in Wikipedia, but of course I am only pointing to the logical conclusion of a position I think none of us are going to be taking.
  • And now a point of logic, with the same aim of trying to name positions I do not think can work. I think the following two positions will not go together: (1) let our readers work out the differences between the subject of this article and the closely related meanings of the same words/phrase/term/whatever and (2) our readers will not be looking at the footnotes and connecting the dots to see that we are saying that Paley is a pseudo scientist.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:28, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Andrew, let's take a look at Ayala.

The argument from design has two parts. In one familiar form it asserts, first, that organisms evince to have been designed; second, that only God could account for the design. The argument from design was advanced, in a variety of forms, in Classical Greece and early Christianity. In the thirteenth century, it was proposed by Thomas Aquinas as one of five arguments to demonstrate the existence of God, and received much elaboration during the ensuing centuries, but it was mercilessly criticized by David Hume. Its most extensive formulation is due to William Paley in his Natural Theology (1802). The eye—as well as all sorts of organs, organisms, and their interaction—manifests to be the outcome of design and not of chance, thus shows to have been created by God.

Darwin's (1859) theory of evolution by natural selection disposed of Paley's arguments: the adaptations of organisms are outcomes not of chance, but of a process that, over time, causes the gradual accumulation of features beneficial to organisms, whenever these features increase the organisms' chances of surviving and reproducing.

In the 1990s, the design argument was revived in the United States by several authors. The flagellum used by bacteria for swimming and the immune system of mammals, as well as some improbability calculations, were advanced as evidence of "intelligent design" (ID), on the grounds that natural processes could not account for the phenomena to be explained. Scientists have refuted these arguments with extensive evidence. ID is not a scientifically acceptable proposal, because it cannot be empirically tested, nor has it produced any scientific results. Ayala, Francisco J. (2010), "There Is No Place for Intelligent Design in the Philosophy of Biology", Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Biology, p. 364

There is no confusion here about whether or not Ayala thought Paley argued for ID. He didn't. I've spot-checked several Ayala publications and he is consistent (as you noted) in this usage.

I see no difficulties with the lead as it stands. Intelligent design is placed properly within its intellectual heritage in the second sentence. You have not provided any sources that have convinced me (or others) that prior versions of "intelligent design" exist; this absence is consistent with the reliable sources I have consulted.

I think we've reached an understanding of each others' positions. I'm planning on bowing out of the discussion until your RfC goes up.

Garamond Lethet
c 03:01, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Garamond, if I am missing something please help me, but it seems nothing in the citation you make says that Paley did not argue for ID? OTOH I have given two citations of Ayala where he indicates that Paley did. OTOH concerning the point that ID is not valid as modern empirical science (I add the adjectives to avoid ambiguity; our science article shockingly admits that a word has several meanings apart from the main one) there is already wide consensus in our sources, and on this talk page. Also please note: I definitely do not understand your positions on practical points. There is too much which is either between the lines, or maybe just has not been considered. It is hard to relate your remarks to the questions about the lead which really come up here because the questions which come up here show that there are non-stupid ways of misreading the lead, and so arguing that there are also ways of reading it which are not wrong seems to be setting the wrong benchmark. NOTE. The most recent discussion started by User:GDallimore led to the bigger discussion because of the following short exchange which shows how the current sentence can be and is read:

It is an aspect and/or specific type of intelligent design which is a pseudoscience, ie the aspect or type which claims to be scientific. Am I wrong? (Intelligent design does not by its definition do this, even though it is a common and notable association.) So is there any reason we would want to make this unclear?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:16, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

So, the statement that ID is pseudoscience is accurate then, yes? "[Intelligent design] is a version of the theological argument from design for the existence of God that proponents present as 'an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins' rather than 'a religious-based idea'." -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 16:27, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

What I mean is that there is no variant of ID that is pseudoscientific because there are no variants at all; it's all pseudoscience. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 20:15, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Where is our source for that? I draw everyone's attention to WP:V.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:08, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
To avoid any misunderstanding, I am asking where is our source for "it's all pseudoscience", which is a set of words MisterDub stated (and many editors both for and against have stated) to be what our second sentence says as adjusted by MisterDub on 19th September. So it is at least a possible way of reading it. If nothing else, we should put in the right footnote on the sentence. (Of course if we are saying that sources DO use the words in different ways, but this article has been chosen by Wikipedia editors to be about the pseudoscience, then WP:V is not the issue, but the question is then why we do not make this clear in our lead. And hopefully no one will ask why ambiguity is worse than clarity in an encyclopedia? Again, we have 75 archives on this supposed FA article. That is in a league with Barack Obama's article, which is about a much more notable subject.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:42, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
Just another factoid: the Evolution article has significantly fewer archives and less debate than this article.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:26, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
I wonder if something like the second sentence of the version that passed the last FAR would be more acceptable: It is a modern form of the traditional teleological argument for the existence of God, modified to avoid specifying the nature or identity of the designer. This is sourced to Numbers, who is an excellent source. Guettarda (talk) 05:26, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
I think such fresh proposals for the lead are a good idea, though I am not sure this one changes much. That ID is a version of the teleological argument has wide consensus in our sources and on this talk page, and is clear in the article. The additional bit, that it is not clear about the deity as such may also be correct, but one finds Thomists arguing that this is also found in Paley and the Greeks. So I am not sure we have consensus in our sources. Anyway, it also does not really resolve other questions, such as whether ALL "ID" pretends to be modern empirical science. Guettarda, does your proposal indicate that you do not see it as essential to say that ID is presented as "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins" rather than "a religious-based idea"?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:08, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
Garamond Lethe has the right idea: there is no need to repeat everything that has already been repeated several times in the past few years until the RfC is proposed. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 17:05, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
Did Garamond say that? If he did then he is working against the basic principles of Wikipedia. MisterDub, your post and similar ones you have posted are clearly disruptive in their intentions. If you want to propose an RfC do so, or at least help define one in a way which actually corresponds to some sort of point that can help this article and this talkpage (RfCs are not supposed to be turf wars). But you have no right to deliberately break into discussions with the aim of stopping them, as you and others here constantly do. You demand RfC's but will not respond to questions about them except in ambiguous ways. Why? The talk page is dominated over many many archives by obfuscation and bullying. 75 archives show that this clearly does not work. It works on no Wikipedia articles. You want an RfC which will polarize and give a winner, and such RfCs are lose-lose results. If you are, as you keep telling me, sick of having to repeat something you told another editor years ago, but haven't had the energy to explain to me yet after some months (which sounds like a childish excuse to me) then don't bother with it. Your presence is not required, and you do not own this article either. Being tired because of something verbal is pretty much the laziest excuse for trying to run away from a discussion on Wikipedia that I can imagine. Do you believe that this article can not be improved?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:30, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
Andrew, a RfC will give you the opportunity to put clearly and concisely what changes you are proposing, and exactly which sources you propose to support these changes. It then opens the matter to wider discussion. So do it. . dave souza, talk 19:57, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Andrew, I'm sorry that I haven't responded to your RfC questions to your liking, but please understand that I explained the problems with the changes you and North8000 want to make to the best of my ability (both before and during your time here). It's quite clear that you do not have consensus to make the changes you want, and the RfC is your chance to change that. Until you have consensus, however, your changes are the disruptive ones. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 20:13, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
MisterDub, which changes do you say I am proposing? When I have had specific wording proposals I have made them, no? And several of these have been accepted. I have also spent a lot of time asking people to explain their sourcing and other rationales, and occasionally pointing to concerns I see with some of them (and I would say this has been to both of the pre-existing "sides" on this talkpage). I note that you put a lot of effort into trying to re-write what I have been doing on this talkpage, trying to portray it as a mission to get one particular change. This adds a lot of words and frustrations to the numerous archives, but does not really achieve anything positive.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:33, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Andrew, the changes you've proposed all have one goal: to make the term intelligent design a common name for the subject currently described in the Teleological argument. I've explained before that if this is a common name, we need to change the namespaces these articles currently occupy. The big issue here is that you are complaining about a non-existent problem: nowhere in this article does it state, explicitly or otherwise, that "all ID" is pseudoscience. It quite clearly uses ID in the context of the purportedly scientific theory promulgated by the DI. How do we know this? Because the article defines it so! The very first sentence of the lead and the hatnote on the top of this article make it abundantly clear that this page is about the pseudoscience, and that one can learn about other uses of the term by reading the Teleological argument article. To reiterate (yet again), you cannot claim that ID is a common term that refers to the teleological argument without first changing the namespace of either the Intelligent design or Teleological argument articles, nor can you claim that the term is not common but somehow requires us to pretend it is by qualifying every appearance of the term, which only succeeds in making this article sound dumb. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 20:14, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
MisterDub, thank you for a constructive post. You are being straight, and thankfully also not trying to depict me as an idiot or someone with ulterior motives. It is wonderful to see you admit to common ground on the sourcing, and see that I have been concerned about lately is an issue about how to write a lead. Finding common ground is really important on any article with 75 archives. Unfortunately the recent poll showed that some observers of the article have been misled about the difference between our positions because it has been terribly exaggerated. The point you make here, is (as you see it) a policy point, not a difference of opinions about sourcing, and if I would make an RfC it would probably be about this policy point, which I think is a misunderstanding. (But I suspect such a point can better be made on a specialized policy talkpage or forum.) To single out the words for further discussion:

you cannot claim that ID is a common term that refers to the teleological argument without first changing the namespace of either the Intelligent design or Teleological argument articles, nor can you claim that the term is not common but somehow requires us to pretend it is by qualifying every appearance of the term, which only succeeds in making this article sound dumb

I think WP policies and "traditions" are much more flexible than you say. Something I have said a few times when you have made such points is that I believe no WP policy tells us to be more ambiguous, less clear, or less accurate. I would like to start a new discussion thread below about this.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:43, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
What should the RfC be about Dave? What is the matter you are talking about? Or are you saying that every editing proposal for this article needs to go to an RfC? --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:52, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
Andrew, you've been persistently long-winded to the point of being disruptive, but short on putting forward specific editing proposals with sources for citation. You're the one wanting some vague change, an RfC could help you to be specific. . dave souza, talk 21:24, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
No Dave, the disruptors adding verbiage to this discussion are you and MisterDub, and this happens a lot. The suggestion which was made was not even made by me, but by Guettarda, and the concern he is trying to address was raised by User:GDallimore and other editors. Both of you are spending too much time trying to disrupt and distort every discussion I am involved in. Such ways of working do not lead to long term stability, but in the best case scenario can only sweep concerns under the carpet for a few weeks. My very un-secret mission is that I am trying to get rationales more open on this talkpage (perhaps including the FAQ, which seems to be important here), and to get the boundaries of the article made more clear also for our readers. Such an aim is difficult to turn into an RfC, and the same can be said about the various different specific questions about sourcing and lead writing policies, both of which are types of questions most often handled in specialist forums on Wikipedia.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:33, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
AL - I was simply proposing wording that, I thought, split the difference between what you were asking for and what the article currently has. I'm not interested in debating what Thomists, to pick and example, had to say, since they're irrelevant in the lead of this article. We have one short sentence in the body of the article about Aquinas. If it's not in the article, it doesn't belong in the lead. We could re-write the "origin of the concept" section to say more about Thomists, provided we can find sources that attest to the idea that they should be given additional weight in this article. Before we can decide what needs to be in the lead, we need to decide what changes we want to make in the body of the article. The lead follows the body, not the other way around. Guettarda (talk) 22:36, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
That seems fair enough and I think it is potentially helpful, so thanks for replying. I see Dave has commented further on this below and will comment there. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:33, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Possible reorganisation

As discussed above in relation to antecedents, the point about pseudoscience refers to ID rather than irreducible complexity and specified complexity. It could be clearer if this point were made in the first paragraph. For example:

Intelligent design (ID) is a form of creationism[1][2] presented by its proponents as the theory that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection."[3] It is a version of the theological argument from design for the existence of God presented as "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins" rather than "a religious-based idea".[n 1][4] The scientific community considers it a pseudoscience because it lacks empirical support and offers no tenable hypotheses.[n 5][6][7][8] The leading proponents of this version of the design argument are associated with the Discovery Institute, a politically conservative think tank based in the United States, and believe the designer to be the Christian deity.[n 2][5][n 3] Their concepts of irreducible complexity and specified complexity propose that certain biological features are too complex to be the result of natural processes, and proponents therefore conclude that these features are evidence of design.[n 4] Detailed scientific examination has rebutted the claims that evolutionary explanations are inadequate, and this premise of intelligent design, that evidence against evolution constitutes evidence for design, has been criticized as a false dichotomy.[9][10][11][12] From the outset, ID proponents have sought to overturn the methodological naturalism inherent in modern science, proposing that it be replaced by "theistic realism" or "theistic science" in which ID presents a broadly theistic understanding of nature.[13]

As noted above, sources show ID differing from the older design argument in that it officially does not acknowledge that the designer is God, but rather is modified to avoid specifying the nature or identity of the designer. There's also the point that more sources show that it has no scientific validity than are specific that it is pseudoscience. Possible modified wording:

Intelligent design (ID) is a form of creationism[1][2] presented by its proponents as the theory that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection."[3] It is a version of the theological argument from design for the existence of God modified to avoid specifying the nature or identity of the designer, and presented as "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins" rather than "a religious-based idea".[n 1][4] The scientific community considers this not science but rather pseudoscience because it lacks empirical support and offers no tenable hypotheses. Intelligent design has no credence as science, and the scientific community considers such claims to be pseudoscience as it lacks empirical support and offers no tenable hypotheses.[n 5][6][7][8]

Do these drafts suggest a way of meeting the various concerns? . . dave souza, talk 17:34, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

dave souza, I appreciate your suggestion, but I don't think this solves the more pervasive problem: the claim that we cannot say "ID" on an article about ID without people somehow confusing it with a different subject. As for your proposal, I think it could use a copy edit (e.g. you don't need a comma before "modified to avoid", "considers this not science" sounds a bit odd), but other than that I think it's fine. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 17:53, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Good points, I've removed the surplus comma and struck the "odd" version of the last sentence, adding another option. Of course we could stick with the simpler formulation in the first box, "The scientific community considers it a pseudoscience because it lacks empirical support and offers no tenable hypotheses." Just trying out various options. . dave souza, talk 18:49, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
I'm not sure I like "has no credence" much better. Honestly, I think the current sentence reads better and would just change the "modified to avoid" bit. Also, I don't see how this proposal is semantically any different from what is currently there, ... but if some people think it solves a problem, I guess it's worth changing. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 20:54, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
At first sight I have no problem with the proposal, but I think MisterDub's point is also correct on both points made. (In my opinion the article is in no place nice to read, and this problem is not independent of the bigger issues. Writing well is not going to happen when there are watchers of the article telling new editors to propose RfCs for any edit.) Possibly it is an improvement though, depending what others think, and even marginal improvements are always good.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:15, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Ah Andrew, it is the way of the wiki. Prefer my further suggestions, or do you have versions you'd like to propose? . . dave souza, talk 18:49, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
MisterDub raised two points, and I think you have only addressed one?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:20, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

I read it twice (which I still consider to be a "first read" and I think that it solves the main current issue. North8000 (talk) 20:31, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

To explain more then: I think it is an improvement which addresses the latest concrete concern about a specific version of the article. So I have no complaint but what I think MisterDub was also referring to is the longer term question which will keep coming back, and is still in the proposal in a more indirect way now. We are now pointing to what makes ID pseudo science, but we are also still saying indirectly that ID (presumably all things going by that name) has that characteristic (the claiming to be...) which makes it pseudoscience. And it is still, I think. the intention of the local consensus here that this article is about ID the pseudo science, so this is not just me reading carefully and non obviously between the lines. (And if it was, then our article is no longer clear about what it is about.) --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:49, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
To go to the first option, we're explicitly saying "It is a version of the theological argument ...presented as "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins" rather than "a religious-based idea". The scientific community considers it a pseudoscience". This refers to this specific version which is presented as a scientific theory as pseudoscience, not any version. . dave souza, talk 21:28, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Yes, but to continue this side discussion about the bigger concern MisterDub mentioned, we do not say that there are any other types of intelligent design nor even use wording which would imply the possibility. A reader of reasonable intelligence and education can not see that even between the lines or in any way in the current version, or most recent versions. I am still asking why this is demanded.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:17, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
I don't understand what the proposed edit aims at accomplishing. What is changing this
  • The scientific community considers it a pseudoscience because it lacks empirical support and offers no tenable hypotheses.
to this
  • Intelligent design has no credence as science, and the scientific community considers such claims to be pseudoscience as it lacks empirical support and offers no tenable hypotheses.
suppose to fix? For the record, I think the version currently in place is less convoluted and easier to follow. Regards. Gaba (talk) 21:16, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
The more complex sentence is my second suggestion which tries to include more info, the version you prefer is in my first suggestion. Currently the second paragraph, after discussing irreducible complexity and specified complexity, states "The scientific community considers intelligent design a pseudoscience because it lacks empirical support and offers no tenable hypotheses." My first suggestion is to move that sentence to the end of the first paragraph following the description of ID as claiming to be science, with "it" instead of "intelligent design" as that's clear from the preceding sentence. . . dave souza, talk 21:39, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Thank you Dave, yes I understand those are your proposals but what I don't see is what issue in particular they are supposed to be addressing? As far as I can tell the second version is more convoluted and seems like "change for the sake of change". Regards. Gaba (talk) 22:33, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
The first proposal relates the pseudoscience point directly to the defining aspect of this "intelligent design" as being claimed as science, and so overcomes North's fear that citing the sources showing that ID is pseudoscience might be misunderstood by some confused reader as referring to some other [unexplained] intelligent design. The second is an attempt at incorporating the defining feature of avoiding mentioning that "the designer" is God, and the point from many sources that ID is not science (more general than the specific point that ID is pseudoscience). So, the first proposal is more immediate, in the longer term I think it's worth looking at these additional points. . dave souza, talk 23:00, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Gaba, I agree. I mean no offense, dave souza, but I, too, don't see this proposal fixing any problem. I'm sort of "declaring reservations" on this because, although I don't think the proposal is an improvement, if it will appease the concerns of Andrew and North8000, I'm okay with it. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 23:13, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Fair enough, I thought moving the pseudoscience issue to the first paragraph was a minor tweak which might clarify what it referred to, but not a big deal. It may be worth reviewing coverage in the lead of the points that ID has a defining feature of avoiding mentioning that "the designer" is God, and is not science. . . dave souza, talk 18:17, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Concern that sentences should not imply all

Answering Dave, there are a lot of different ways to do it; I'd pragmatically choose the one which leaves this article 99.5% as-is. Without really changing anything, we'd quietly understand that the article is a term-defined article.......anything called "intelligent design" that relates to the origin of man/life/the earth/universe. And going by what's in sources, about 90% of it would be about the DI initiative/ versions purporting to be science, 10% about the other historic instances currently covered in the article, and 0% (but maybe someday 1%) about purely religious variants. The only change would be to tweak any wording that claims that the 90% is 100%. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 21:20, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

North8000, for those of us who do not see the problem to which you are referring, could you please point to a specific instance in the current article where it implies that all teleological arguments are X (X being pseudoscience, creationism, happy puppies, etc.). -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 21:33, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Will do. Putting them in one at a time:
  • "The scientific community considers intelligent design a pseudoscience..."
  • "Intelligent design avoids identifying or naming the intelligent designer—it merely states that one (or more) must exist—but leaders of the movement..."
  • "Advocates of intelligent design seek to keep God and the Bible out of the discussion, and present intelligent design in the language of science as though it were a scientific hypothesis"
I think that that is it. So ti think that just three sentences that need to have their wording tweaked a bit and what I'd consider to be the remaining open issues would be resolved.
Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 22:30, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
North8000, it's probably no surprise that I disagree with your assertion that these claims are as absolute as you believe them to be. It should be pretty obvious to everyone that referring to ID without a qualifier on an encyclopaedic page about ID means we're talking about the subject of this article, and not some other ID, however it may be defined. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 22:57, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
I think the changes are not intended to change the meaning, and so it would be better to judge them based on whether they communicate more clearly. Indeed, it would be great if there was more such discussion possible, but the fear of certain meaning changes is clearly making discussion about such things quite difficult on this article, long term. MisterDub, just to confirm a more fundamental point though, I think with your last sentence you are saying something an outsider to Wikipedia would find bizarre. To break it down: yes it is obvious to a reader that a Wikipedia article is about what it is about (that is a useless tautology), but it is clearly not obvious (unless we help them) whether or not the search term or article name has closely related and potentially confusing alternative meanings.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:28, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
Quote: "For generic arguments from "intelligent design", see Teleological argument.". . . dave souza, talk 09:32, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
And quite clearly this does NOT say that the term intelligent design can also refer to teleological arguments generally. To someone trained in the esoteric arts of Wikidebate, it might imply it, but that is not a reasonable standard, nor a normal standard on Wikipedia.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:19, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
Maybe the whole hatnote is appropriate then: "This article is about a form of creationism. For generic arguments from "intelligent design", see Teleological argument. For the movement, see Intelligent design movement. For other uses of the phrase, see Intelligent design (disambiguation)." And on the disambiguation page, the first entry in the list is: "Intelligent design may also refer to [...] Argument from intelligent design or the teleological argument, a philosophical argument for the existence of God" -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 16:38, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
This still does not make a clear statement about synonyms, it only implies things, and only to Wikipedian editors looking for it, not to readers. And even if we ignore hatnote MOS and make a very explanatory hatnote, are we saying that the hatnote over-rules the opening sentences and informs our readers about how to read the article? That is in my opinion very unusual and questionable, because again we need to make weird assumptions about how people read. The hatnote and the opening lines are two separate things, which we can improve separately, but they both should be clear. I have posted about the same subject above also.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:58, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
What isn't clear? This back-and-forth is entirely unproductive until you folks can identify where problems exist. North8000 has listed a few sentences above... do you agree with his list or are you referring to something else? -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 17:42, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
MisterDub in answer to your first question read the answer to Dave souza immediately above, which you responded to. It is clear what I was referring to. Concerning the list of North, I find the whole line of discussion typical of the 75 archives, and going nowhere. If we can not get better points of agreement about principles, then various sentences are going to constantly draw the same types of concerns, which you and others will be able to counter argue about for many more archives. Logical flaw: asking for a list of sentences which show ambiguity is not the same as asking for a list of sentences which need to be changed, because when one is clarifying an ambiguity in a flowing text, one single clarification can fix all the later sentences (something like the task you wish to assign to hatnotes). So the question, I think, is whether we may have ONE clarification in the lead.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:58, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
Andrew, you have a certain genius for using the maximum number of words to go nowhere, and while the phrase "intelligent design" appears in older contexts, I don't think you've shown that "the term intelligent design can also refer to teleological arguments generally". Do you have a specific proposal for improved wording of these sentences? . . dave souza, talk 19:11, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
I am saying that such discussions are obviously going in circles, and now we should openly agree the principles that that should guide editing. Without these being in the open proposing edits is clearly a waste of time. I am asking therefore, if you can accept the idea of a sentence in the lead which indicates that "intelligent design" can mean arguments from design generally (without them pretending to be science). And if not, please indicate the reasoning.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:29, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Principles: WP:V, WP:NOR and WP:WEIGHT. Please propose wording you want added to the lead, with a source or sources and without giving undue weight to a rare occurrence of phrasing. Thanks. . dave souza, talk 19:58, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

But if you refuse to first define what your red lines are, how do we avoid the circular discussions of the past, with argument that appear to me at least to be constantly changing? I have been begging you to try to make your red lines clear and consistent (and able to withstand basic logic) first this time. In fact as far as I am concerned this is more important than any particular individual edit given the past of this article and talkpage. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:26, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
These are the principles, show your proposed sources and wording for discussion. I've no "red lines" beyond that. . dave souza, talk 21:17, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Source question

Looking at the lead, I am trying to pry apart and review the thick web of citations because sourcing is important. Just in the lead, we have several relatively simple sentences which are (when the footnotes are read, many of which cite several sources at once) citing 6 different sources, many of which are blogs etc. I have one question to start with. From which source do the direct quotes come from when we say ""an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins" rather than "a religious-based idea""? I am guessing it is in their somewhere, but I have not been able to locate it so far. Also (small thing) I noticed footnote 87 is the same as footnote 1.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:15, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure which ref covers it, but Google leads to DI, and that points to the original. Johnuniq (talk) 11:09, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. This means our footnote 4 is correctly doing its job there I think. I suppose that citing it to the version on the DI website makes sense given that the use of the article on their website indicates that the position is probably a DI position.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:32, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
<ec> Ref [4] cites that, and links to the disco version. Amusingly, an unreliable source indicates that Meyer repeats the wording in Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design . . dave souza, talk 11:35, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
Maybe off on a tangent here, but why amusing? Just wanting to make sure I am not missing something.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:47, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
Ok, just my sense of humour, but I thought it droll that in 2009 he's recycling the same words he put forward in 2005. More fun with arguments for the existence of God, but that's getting offtopic. . dave souza, talk 13:34, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
OK, got it. Thanks. I guess these things are a bit like slogans in a way. But even in other types of writing, one sees recycling of words pretty often, once people think they have a good formulation. Anyway, handy for us, because it helps us see that the words are thought important for at least this person.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:44, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
Oh, and the other thing was that the search found this claim to really really be science in biblearchaeology.org . . . dave souza, talk 14:07, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Sourcing question

I notice that very many of our footnotes for this article contain no author name. Although when looked up, they are clearly presented as the work on a single author. (My impression is indeed that many have the same authors.) But we are preferring to present them as if written by organizations etc. Take for example our footnote 1, which presents itself as a paper by Babara Forrest. This does not seem normal or correct to me. Can anyone explain a reason we are not mentioning authors or may this be corrected?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:10, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Nice catch! The example in question uses the vcite template, which doesn't recognize "first", "last" or "authorlink" (and doesn't throw an error when one of these are used). I fixed the specific problem by removing those parameters and substituting "author=[[Barbara Forrest]]". Looks like that source is duplicated at least once, and based on what you've said I'd guess this is a common problem in the article. Dive in if you want to start fixing these. Garamond Lethet
c 22:57, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Attempt to place finger on a source of controversy

MisterDub has above made a constructive;y straightforward response. I believe it is a much more honest attempt to really describe an issue that could really lead to a better way to discuss future concerns and proposals. I can finally recognize something here which is a real concern of mine, and I can see a real reply to it which is apparently based on an understanding of policy that, I must add, seems wrong to me. But now we can discuss it.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:46, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Andrew, the changes you've proposed all have one goal: to make the term intelligent design a common name for the subject currently described in the Teleological argument. I've explained before that if this is a common name, we need to change the namespaces these articles currently occupy. The big issue here is that you are complaining about a non-existent problem: nowhere in this article does it state, explicitly or otherwise, that "all ID" is pseudoscience. It quite clearly uses ID in the context of the purportedly scientific theory promulgated by the DI. How do we know this? Because the article defines it so! The very first sentence of the lead and the hatnote on the top of this article make it abundantly clear that this page is about the pseudoscience, and that one can learn about other uses of the term by reading the Teleological argument article. To reiterate (yet again), you cannot claim that ID is a common term that refers to the teleological argument without first changing the namespace of either the Intelligent design or Teleological argument articles, nor can you claim that the term is not common but somehow requires us to pretend it is by qualifying every appearance of the term, which only succeeds in making this article sound dumb. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 20:14, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

My first comments:

  • I do not believe this article should be merged with teleological argument (nor with intelligent design movement).
  • I do not believe that Wikipedia policy demands all or nothing decisions of the type described: where there must be a fight to the death to determine the most common use of a term, and then all other competitors must be banished.
  • The decisions about how to define the boundaries of articles are often close to flipping a coin and I have no problem with that. The most important thing is whether good articles can be written within those boundaries. Note: good articles are not ambiguous, unclear, controversial etc.
  • We can mention related terms in a lede. There is really no policy which demands otherwise.
  • Hatnotes are in fact more controlled by policy than leads, and our hatnote on this article, like most of them, does not say that there are alternative rare meanings which might confuse. It would be more objectionable in policy terms to make it do so, than to make our lead do so.

If comments like the ones I have just been made are confirmed to be the core of practical disagreements, then we can discuss it more clearly.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:57, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Andrew, I do not quite understand what you are trying to express in this last post. Let's try it this way: why don't you tell us the problem(s) with the current article. Exactly which sentences are unclear? Where is the ambiguity? -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 21:26, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
WP:NOTFORUM. Please propose a precise edit explaining your reasons and the sources to back it up or why the sources in place do not back the current statement up. Regards. Gaba (talk) 21:31, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
@Gaba, as far as I can see you are not involved in editing or talking about this article in any constructive way, just trying to be disruptive. Please avoid that. There is clearly no rule on Wikipedia that talk pages are only for proposals of exact edits, and this discussion is in any clearly coming out of discussions about exact edits and is definitely about this Wikipedia article. I suggest you make sure you understand policies before citing them at people, and please make sure that when you post on an article talkpage, it has some sort of relevance to the article, and not just individual editors.
@MisterDub, it is precisely the aim of the discussion to try to define common ground and also to see what differences of opinion remain (if any). I was hoping you would give feedback about what you think about this also.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:40, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
I should explain more. The breakthrough for me is that you are not taking an extreme position. I propose that we have the following fixed points to build upon...
(a) You are not claiming that I am trying to make this article cover the same ground as teleological argument, but instead you recognize that I am only saying that the term intelligent design has other meanings. Not twisting my intentions is helpful!
(b) You are not claiming that there are "no variants" of meaning for the term "intelligent design" which do not imply pseudo science, only that there are no variants of meaning to what we mean by it for the definition of what this article about, which is the pseudo science. (Which is kind of a tautology, but fine by me.)
(c) So that leaves one concern for now, and I think it is the one you have pointed to: you apparently believe that because of WP policy reasons, once we say that an article should be about meaning Y1 of term X, then we may not make any remarks in the article lead about potentially confusing and related meanings of X, such as Y2 or Y3. I am hoping you and I can work on defining what the policy understanding is, so that we can see whether either of us have misunderstood something in the policy. Once we have more solid ground we can consider for example memorializing the principle on the FAQ in order to avoid it coming back over and over.
(d) Please note that I am taking the approach of assuming that for argument's sake, there is at least an understanding of some editors that we have text in the lead which is currently implying that "all things referred to as intelligent design are also pseudo science". I have argued the case that you think this yourself, but in any case it is clearly a tendency for you and other editors to want this in the lead, and so it is a thematic issue which is going to keep coming back. My aim is to help the article avoid that.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:03, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
No one can be constructive while pointless walls of text are erected by one user. If there is a problem in the article, identify it in a new section. If something should be added, identify it in a new section. Stop talking about the topic, and focus on changes to the article. Johnuniq (talk) 12:11, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Actually there is such a discussion going on, and I was replying to MisterDub (who also sometimes writes long posts), on topic, good faith, aimed at article improvements. This is in fact also a new section. You and Gaba should please stop writing deliberately disruptive posts which show no interest or understanding in the subject under discussion. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:20, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Andrew, as to your point (d), I do not agree that "we have text in the lead which is currently implying that 'all things referred to as intelligent design are also pseudo science'." Could you please identify where in the lead you think this implication occurs? -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 16:09, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
As this has been discussed a lot, and will need discussion anew for every version of the article as it changes over time, I am suggesting we treat this as an assumption "for arguments sake", in order to establish principles of what to do when/if it does happen. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:08, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

To all: A proposed fast solution / compromise. Edit the (putative) few sentences that conflict with MisterDub's "nowhere in this article does it state, explicitly or otherwise, that "all ID" is pseudoscience." to bring them in compliance with MisterDub's statement. Here's the first:

  • Change "The scientific community considers intelligent design a pseudoscience" to ""The scientific community considers that to be pseudoscience".

Then we change a couple more like this and consider this whole thing to be finally settled (vs. the beginning of a complex and game-changing RFC) and we all go on vacation. (??) The holidays are coming. Bonfire at my house on the solstice. :-) North8000 (talk) 22:04, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Question: How is that ambiguous? When referring to ID on an article that defines ID as a teleological argument presented as science, isn't it patently obvious that ID refers to what we just defined and not some other topic? The problem with your suggestion is, as I stated before on the Talk page and in edit summaries, the antecedent becomes unknown: there is no clear antecedent for that in your proposal. Probably my biggest problem here is that your proposals do the exact opposite of your stated goals; they make the lead more vague, not less. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 22:13, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
The "that" has an antecedent, it is what was described in the previous sentence. And I'm not trying to remove ambiguity, I'm trying to change an overreaching (and thus false) statement. I think I see the problem. You are in essence saying that if the statement is true for (putative) topic of the article, then it is OK to make it for the term in general. For example, (putatively) if we were to decide that the "motorcycle" article is about only the two wheeled type, (leaving out three wheelers) you would consider it OK to say "motorcycles, having only two wheels, tilt when they go around corners" because it is a statement about those in the scope of the article. We would say no, even if the article were only about 2 wheeled motorcycles, you can't make that statement about motorcycles in general because some have three wheels. Or, to come at it from a different angle, if we consider it key, and you just consider it non-optimum, why not throw each other a few bones to settle it? Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 22:50, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
North8000, could you please point to the antecedent then? I really only ask because it's not there, and I'd like you to understand this. Also, I've noticed that you seem to be using putatively as a synonym for hypothetically, but that's not what that word means. Just FYI. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 23:07, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
The proposal by North8000 only obscures the sentence and adds nothing of value. Doing this to "a couple more like this" would be even worst. Regards. Gaba (talk) 23:16, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
@ Hello MisterDub. The antecedent is: "Their concepts of irreducible complexity and specified complexity propose that certain biological features are too complex to be the result of natural processes, and proponents therefore conclude that these features are evidence of design.". I was using "putatively" to mean "temporarily treating as fact, while acknowledging that it may not be so". Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 01:28, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Any sentence which points more directly to what is pseudoscience, rather than implying that all things referred to as intelligent design are necessarily pseudo science would be an improvement, but in this proposal the improvement is not so clear. I guess what MisterDub is saying is that the context, looking back through the sentences, still implies that "that" means "intelligent design". Indeed the antecedent words you describe could describe any argument from design, such as Paley's. In my opinion what we want the lead to say more opening is precisely what Dave souza and MisterDub and Garamond Lethe have been happy to admit on this talk page: that the subject of this article is a specific variant of the argument from design (which is known as a pseudo science), but not the only usage of the term "intelligent design". I think in order to have a good article we need to add words in the lead to point out that the term "intelligent design" can be used to mean any argument from design. Even if that meaning is "rare" it is not "random" like the metal mouse called "intelligent design" or like someone who just happens to put the words intelligent and design together by accident. This is a related meaning, and one which even our editors find hard to unravel from the subject of the article. Is there any reason not to do this?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:15, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Actually, I mean there is no antecedent. Look at the sentence North8000 quoted here... it explains that "their" (ID's leading proponents) concepts of IC and CSI seek to reject a materialist worldview by pulling the bottom out from under evolution. So, to what would the that in the following sentence refer? The ID's leading proponents? IC? CSI? The fact that ID's leading proponents have devised these two concepts? The fact that IC and CSI are each teleological arguments, that they seek to prove a supernatural creator by appealing to design?
The fact is that there is nothing in the sentence recently quoted by North8000 to which the suggested proform can refer, and thus there is no antecedent. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 16:25, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
I tend to agree with you about this specific proposal. But the question which comes up is why it is so hard to track precedents in the first sentences. One reason is the odd parallel structure of the first two. Of course such fine points are hard to discuss on this article in practice.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:11, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
User:North8000, thank you for providing a thoughtful, concrete suggestion. As to your motorcycle analogy, I'd say that if the preponderance of the best reliable sources say a motorcycle has two wheels, then for our purposes here a motorcycle has two wheels, even if we know better (see WP:FLAT). A quick check of google books show that Intelligent Design is considered pseudoscience by the scientific community (happy to give you the list if you're interested). None of the sources I consulted qualified the term "Intelligent Design" to limit its scope to the DI. I assume the authors thought the meaning would be clear from the context given. Those authors may well be wrong and readers may indeed now think Paley was practicing pseudoscience, but if the reliable sources we have aren't making that distinction/qualification, I don't know how we can do so without hitting WP:OR.
You probably know this better than I do, but I'll prevail upon your good humor and tell you again: WP:RS is a brilliant idea precisely because (at least in theory) it short-circuits conversations like this one. Rather than get into a platonic debate amongst ourselves over the nature of motorcyleness, all we have to agree on is which sources are best and then consult them.
I'm convinced there's not a problem to be solved here. You're convinced that there is. If you can dig up a source where the author takes care to distinguish the various senses of "intelligent design", then even though I know better, we can discuss where to include it in the article. Absent such a source, I think your proposed change is well into WP:OR.
Garamond Lethet
c 13:20, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. But IMHO you have the burden part in reverse. The current sentences that need tweaking are essentially unsourced claims that (e.g.) Payley is pseudo-science. wp:ver / wp: nor say that suitable sourcing is a condition for the presence of content / claims, it does not say that ones needs to find a source that addresses and refutes the unsourced claim in order to remove it. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 13:29, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Either way I was just seeking a "small changes" (on the basis that they are small, and arguable either way) shortcut to resolution rather than to open a debate on them. I think that and RFC would have results that many of the folks (who prefer the status quo) here would not prefer, and we're only a few small (agruable) tweaks away from something that I think would settle this quickly with only those small changes. Right now the two main folks on the "let's not misword to bash ID" side (Andrew and I) are atheist Darwinists just arguing a few small wording points. An RFC could turn much broader and different that that. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 13:36, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Garamond Lethe, you put the point in a constructive way by referring to real policies and sourcing questions. But in reply: Dave souza has given a lot of sourcing for the fact that the pseudo science intelligent design is new in its characteristics. Just to give one example, we have the Matzke and Padian source which talks about "your father's ID" which they equate to Paley, and "the DI's version of ID" which is the pseudoscience. Does this answer your specific call for sourcing for the distinction?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:43, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Actually Padian and Matzke don't talk about "your father's ID", they include a section header entitled "Why the DI's version is not you father's 'ID'". Section headers are catchy, shorthand headers, they aren't meant to be parsed in any great depth. "Not your father's [x]" is a common rhetorical phrase, it's not something that's meant to be taken literally. To use that to say that Padian and Matzke consider Paley to be ID is a bit of a stretch, especially when Nick has gone to such lengths to distinguish "intelligent design" the noun from the older use of the phrase where "intelligent" is merely a descriptive adjective. Guettarda (talk) 15:26, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
This reasoning is not wrong, for example the title of the section is clearly not really about our fathers, but (a) I think it is clear that the section title is about something in the section, and reading the section makes it obvious what that is (ie your father's ID means the design arguments like Paley; and I would say no active editors here would disagree?), and (b) I think the point MisterDub once made in another context is relevant to your point about nouns and adjectives: when the acronym is being used, a single concept with a single name, a proper noun, is how any English reader will read it. Note that Padian and Matzke also refer to the DI's "version" of ID in another part of their text. This is entirely consistent with other sources such as the ruling of the case they are talking about, which says intelligent design goes back to Aquinas at least (and they are clearly talking dryly about the textbook case ID). In Haught's expert testimony we actually have the use of the word "notion" also indicating a single concept and proper noun, but then with a specific reference to their being an historical notion of intelligent design, which used to be more openly religious, and in Ayala we have the acronym ID being added in brackets to the term "intelligent design" on a description of Paley's type of argument from design. And so on. Are there really active editors here who think that our sources never use intelligent design as a proper noun for argument from design, and not only for the specific type which pretends to be science?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:45, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Yet there is no claim, sourced or otherwise, the Payley's argument is pseudoscience. — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 14:24, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
We're getting to the heart of the matter here. We are saying that statements about ID (with no qualifiers) implicitly or explicitly claim that such is true for all ID. E.g. a statement that "motorcycles have two wheels" is a statement/claim that all motorcycles have two wheels. Does anyone 1. Disagree with my last sentence? 2. Disagree that is applicable here? North8000 (talk) 15:11, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
I agree with that sentence. It seems self evident as an English speaker and what's more it is the type of sentence which is normally easy to tweak to avoid misunderstanding. But I also agree with Garamond Lethe's remark that if all our sources make a vague implication, then it can become hard for WP to justify avoiding it too clearly ourselves. But, I do not think we have situation. I think at least some of our sources do distinguish "versions" (the word Padian and Matzke use) of "ID", and I see no real debate about what they mean by this. I think all active editors basically agree on what they mean?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:20, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
PS, it is this working assumption of agreement about the sources (at least amongst several active editors), that leads me to ask for a more clear discussion about the policy arguments which at least some editors see as also being relevant to the preference for not simply mentioning in the lead that intelligent design is a term which has some other meanings. If we have such things (agreements and disagreements) out in the open then we have far better discussions about all types of edits on this article. (Currently, even minor edits have a tendency to become controversial on this article, as I learnt in August and September.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:56, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
North8000, yes, I very much disagree with your statement. Referring to ID without any qualifiers on an encyclopaedic article about ID does not somehow include any and all things that may have been once referred to as intelligent, designed, or intelligently designed. ArtifexMayhem is correct: there is no claim that anything other than the ID we discuss in this article is pseudoscience. It's called context. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 16:38, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. The "other" ones that you listed are a bit of a straw man, because even the broadest meaning proposed by anybody here is limited to referring to the origin of man/life/the earth/universe. I think that a key item is that we're talking about a set of meanings that are so closely related that most people consider them the same. For example, a statement about under "global warming" would cover the current increase in average temperature, actions by man that affect earth's temperature, climate etc. the debate about such, but not include how the earth will heated billions of years from now when the sun goes red giant and engulfs the earth. North8000 (talk) 17:44, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for tightening it a little, North. Could you and Andrew define exactly what you think "intelligent design" means, when it doesn't refer to the creationist pseudoscience ID? . . dave souza, talk 17:58, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Yes I think there is one clear secondary meaning that editors/readers keep showing us, and that is the application of the term to arguments from design generally (ie a broader concept than the one we are targeting, but obviously related and potentially confusing in a way a hatnote can not handle). Of course if we were talking about the company who makes mouses, there would be no issue. Another obvious potential confusion is with general references to the intelligent design movement, but that seems to create far less problematic feedback. Please note that I am not saying there is a wrong and a right here concerning the use of the term, only that we should have a way to explain politely to such editors/readers how we are handling the concern in a reasonable way. I believe that would help the editing situation here a lot.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:06, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
What do you mean by "the application of the term to arguments from design generally"? You've presented several examples of "argument from intelligent design", to me the phrase there means "design done intelligently", not to the whole argument or effectively that would be saying "argument from argument from intelligent design". . . dave souza, talk 18:38, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Yes those examples are relevant to this point about potential confusion. But I have also given other examples from sources which do not have the "argument from...", which have the acronym, which speak of the historical notion of intelligent design (Paley, as described in Haught), which speak of "your father's" version of ID (Paley as described in Padian and Matzke), which say ID is an argument going back to Aquinas and Paley etc etc. I guess that an endless discussion is possible whereby we discuss the fine points of these sentences and one of us claims to see something the other does not. But more relevant than you and me is that we surely can't be claiming that no person of reasonable intelligence and education could be expected NOT to be confused between the terms "intelligent design" (when used in contexts of argument from design) and the subject of this article, which is "intelligent design" (used in a context of specific arguments from design)? Or do you honestly disagree and find this obvious? Nor can we say that the hatnote does much on this matter.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:14, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Here is just one of the examples which you seem to think invalid: Ayala writes "The argument from design to demonstrate God's existence, now called the 'Intelligent Design' argument (ID) is a two-tined argument." NOTE: the scare quotes, the capitalization, the words "now called", and the acronym in brackets. So Ayala is not just using those two words together accidentally. This is clearly what you keep talking about, a "term", but the context makes it clear that being a pseudo science is not part of how he is using it. Furthermore, the arguments necessary to describe this as an accident wold be clearly non "obvious", and therefore wp:synthesis, whether they are openly written into our article or just used between the lines as an assumption about how to write the article. Much easier, and much more normal on Wikipedia, would be if we just say a bit more clearly to readers somehow that this article is about X (which we as WP editors have a right to decide upon) and pro-actively advise about obviously confusing similar meanings. I know of no policy forbidding this, and I have asked dozens of times why we would ever want ambiguity if we could avoid it. (If we get a good reason that is convincing then great, we can put it in the FAQ in order to help newbies more politely in the future.) This is my question still. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:40, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Source? Please name publication and page number of Ayala. . . dave souza, talk 21:18, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
ADDED LATER (to avoid the wrong impression being created by the scattering of dave souza's posts). 9 minutes before posting this post, you posted another post below "I've read these things in context", which was not true. A day later 17:58, 21 November 2013 (UTC) you admitted that you were not looking at the correct source at all when this post was written.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:02, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
ADDED LATER STILL: Oh yes it was true! See below. . dave souza, talk 16:45, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Andrew, regarding your comment that "we surely can't be claiming that no person of reasonable intelligence and education could be expected NOT to be confused between the terms 'intelligent design' (when used in contexts of argument from design) and the subject of this article": yes, I am saying exactly that. It is astoundingly preposterous to claim that we cannot use the term intelligent design on an article about ID without people thinking it refers to something else. I'm honestly dumbfounded that this is even a conversation to be had, let alone one that has continued for years. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 20:47, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
But MisterDub what do you mean by this? I am saying we seem to have different meanings of the same term "intelligent design" in good sources, or to put it another way, not all uses of the term "intelligent design" (as a term) match the subject Wikipedians are writing on in this article. So I am saying people can be confused between the terms "intelligent design" and "intelligent design", not between intelligent design and "something else" like you say. Maybe you have misunderstood me? Please in any case show me how obvious it is: is Ayala talking about the subject of the present article (which claims to be science) or not in the quote I just gave? I think focused editors of this article find it non-obvious, let alone readers.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:59, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Agree with MisterDub, I've read these things in context, and think Andrew is misinterpreting these examples. We clearly have sources stating that intelligent design (ID) is a term for a variant or form of creationism, creation science relabelled, and we have examples of usage which show the phrase being used more ambiguously for what is generally called the argument from design. Our article wording should be as clear as possible, but it's an extreme stretch to expect readers to ignore the clear scope described in the article and keep jumping to associations with what the article is clearly not about. As for Ayala, you seem to be quoting from p. 11 – "Modern versions of the argument from design, 'intelligent design' as it has been currently named, are considered in Chapter 8." Guess what, Chapter 8 is clearly about the creationist pseudoscience. . . dave souza, talk 21:09, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
ADDED LATER (to avoid the wrong impression being created by the scattering of dave souza's posts). 9 minutes after writing here that "I've read these things in context" you inserted a new post in another place asking for the source information. A day later 17:58, 21 November 2013 (UTC), below, you admitted that you were not looking at the correct source at all when this post was written. There has been no new criticism about my interpretation of the Ayala quote after it became clear which source we were talking about.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:02, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
ADDED LATER STILL: while I did it from memory and had forgotten the exact post, my criticism about your interpretation was correct and stands. Ayala was reviewing Creationism's Trojan Horse. The Wedge of Intelligent Design, so when he wrote "The argument from design to demonstrate God's existence, now called the 'Intelligent Design' argument (ID)" this was clearly with reference to the DI's ID. Which is pseudoscience, or as Ayala puts it, "nothing but a vulgar charade". You're flogging a dead Trojan Horse. . . dave souza, talk 16:45, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
No Dave and after giving you so many chances to not dig deeper, what a fraudulent remark to make. He goes on to mention Aquinas, and St Augustine, and so on before finally coming to "modern intelligent design". Was St Augustine in the DI? LOL. Note: he uses the adjective "modern" to distinguish the new kind. The word usage only leaves one possible interpretation with respect to the point of discussion here.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:19, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
Andrew, "what a fraudulent remark to make" is a personal attack, please strike it and concentrate on improving the article rather than attacking other editors. As for 'finally coming to "modern intelligent design"', you seem to have forgotten the title of his review. . dave souza, talk 21:34, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
Dave, words on their own do not create personal attacks. Fraud has an objective meaning. If you can show you were not being fraudulent I will be happy and apologize. But for now it sure does look that way. I have not wanted to corner you on this but you have now once again insisted on aggressively telling this talkpage something which is quite simply not in the article being cited. It can't just be sloppiness after so many repetitions, so that makes it fraudulent. You are pretending. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:44, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Andrew, yes, there are two subjects and one term (well, not quite). The difference is that one subject is specifically named ID: the "scientific" theory is literally called intelligent design (ID), not anything else. The other subject is referred to by many terms, teleological argument or argument from design being the most common. For people who are expecting the latter, there's a hatnote that says, "no, look here instead." We also make it known in the lead that ID is a teleological argument (with a handy link to that subject for those who want to read about it), but one that is presented in secular terms so it can pretend to be science. Remember, Wikipedia is not a dictionary; if it is common enough that people think ID refers to the teleological argument, we need to have a RfC to discuss moving this article (and possibly Teleological argument as well). Or maybe we need to discuss an article about the term (Intelligent design (term)) again. Whatever the case may be, the one thing we should not be doing is avoiding the term intelligent design on an article about ID; that is just completely asinine. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 22:51, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

@Dave, unfortunately you have once again talked straight past the subject. I have said (as MisterDub has understood) that there is at least strong evidence, at least enough to confuse even a careful reader, that there are multiple meanings for the TERM "intelligent design". I gave one reminder of a much-discussed example above, and you have completely reinterpreted it to the point where discussion is broken. (Maybe you really do not realize the source I was quoting is number 4 in our lead sources discussion here, which is stunning given the number of times I have brought it up.) Throwing counter examples at me, or trying to convince me that there really is a true and right single meaning of "intelligent design" is absolutely beside the point and not relevant to the point I am making. Please try not to make discussions go in circles. The point is that we do not need to argue about what the truest and bestest meaning is, but we do need to let readers now how we are defining the boundaries of we are talking about. It is an aim of Wikipedia to communicate well, right? Ambiguity is never communicating well.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:41, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
Ah, thanks for the link to which of Ayala's text's you're talking about. Your incessant repetition and going in circles doesn't make offhand references clear. Once again, that source doesn't say what you seem to think: Ayala is discussing the context of modern intelligent design, the pseudoscience version, and repeatedly uses "argument from design" for the old theological argument. You may not like his occasional ambiguity, but his meaning is clear enough on a fair reading. . . dave souza, talk 17:58, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
Yes it is. As I have said, you and I read the sources the same way as far as I can tell. There is no doubt that intelligent design can refer to the pseudoscience version and no one is arguing against that. But Ayala and other authors also clearly use the term "intelligent design" in sentences such as the one I gave where they are making it clear it is NOT referring to the pseudo science type. (In fact I know of no source which does the opposite, and actually indicates that "intelligent design" is necessarily pseudo science. Do you? So it is still at least arguable on a WP policy basis that intelligent design normally refers to arguments from design generally irrespective of their pretending to be science. But I am ignoring this and assuming such sources exist somewhere?)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:24, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
For reference, here was our earlier and more detailed discussion on the Ayala book review I raised as only one example here. Also during that discussion Dave, your responses petered out and became confused. At one point you told me to find more examples "apart from Haught" (indicating that you already know there are more examples. I am confident I can also find diffs of you admitting that "intelligent design" is sometimes used as a term to refer to argument from design (specifically with and/or without being pseudo science). We should in my opinion be discussing my real question, which is why we can not help our readers see the boundaries of the article which we have set. (This is in any case what the real Andrew Lancaster has been trying to talk about.) I am asking for the policy (or any other) rationale for not doing this.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:50, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
Andrew, your wall-of-text approach can lead to posts going unanswered: don't take that as meaning "responses petered out and became confused", and it's daft to suggest that a request for more examples means they're already known. . dave souza, talk 17:58, 21 November 2013 (UTC) [grammar edit 18:45, 21 November 2013 (UTC)]
Speaking of confusion, Andrew, diff needed for where I asked you to find more examples "apart from Haught". Could it be that you're misremembering "Can you find another secondary source besides Haught for the co-option by ID proponents of the older phrase "intelligent design"? That could improve the "origins of the term" section. . . dave souza, talk 08:44, 11 September 2013 (UTC)"? [archive] If so, you've misunderstood or misrepresented a clear question. . . dave souza, talk 18:40, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
Like I say, the conversation petered out and became confused. To be more clear: as usual you did that. I believe you are giving up on trying to say I was wrong about Ayala. Now, I asked you for a rationale for why we can not describe potentially confusing, related and similar usages of the term "intelligent design" in the lead of this article. To avoid walls of words, please respond.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:13, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
@MisterDub, thank you for you constructive post. My responses are a bit long, but I also think your post could be important:
  • Your first 3 sentences are fine by me. It is good to have some common ground admitted to!
  • Sentences 4 and 5. Unfortunately, I think a hatnote can not and may not do what you say. Hatnotes do not say anything directly. The links they give only imply to a reader that if they are interested in the search term then other articles might for some reason be more what they are looking for. And remember when we talk about readers as opposed to editors, these are people coming here for information they do not already have, so we should not assume much about their preconceptions (as I think you do above). There are in the case of hatnotes also really rules about not saying too much about related topics. (There are not such policies, I think, concerning leads, and if you disagree I am begging you for some clear citations of policies and guidelines.) (BTW just as a witness, please note the recent comments of Yopienso, that they were disappointed that the present hatnote does not sort the problem out.)
  • "Remember, Wikipedia is not a dictionary." So each of our articles is about a concept, not a term, right? And some terms are used for several concepts, and most concepts have several terms attached to them. With all due respect I might not be the one confused about this. I have no problem saying that the article is about a single concept, not a term. So I have no problem saying that the main term we use for that concept is also sometimes used for other concepts. You on the other hand seem to be insisting that we must act as if term and concept are the same thing, and locked into one fixed relationship (even though you know that is not true in this case). See the next bullet.
  • "if it is common enough that people think ID refers to the teleological argument, we need to have a RfC to discuss moving this article (and possibly Teleological argument as well). Or maybe we need to discuss an article about the term (Intelligent design (term)) again." [BOLD ADDED.] You keep saying things like this [in bold] and I keep asking for a rationale. I repeat my request, and I would like to focus on this. Unless we have a clear understanding of where and why you are making these statements then all other attempts to discuss this article seem to be doomed to going in circles. I know of no policy or guideline which says anything like this. Just because we admit, as you do, that there is another meaning of a common term that we have as an article title, does not mean we need to start talking about moves, mergers, etc. Please explain.
  • "Whatever the case may be, the one thing we should not be doing is avoiding the term intelligent design on an article about ID; that is just completely asinine." But who do you accuse of demanding that? When you make statements like this I really have to wonder what you are thinking of. Have I ever said anything which goes in this sort of direction? I suspect that misunderstandings are coming about because the subject of the above bullet is still open and undefined.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:14, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
Honestly, Andrew, I have to ask if you've been paying attention to this discussion at all. "I know of no policy or guideline which says anything like this." Really?! 'Cause I've quoted it here before. "But who do you accuse of demanding that?" Have you read anything North8000 has written recently? Your incredulity is completely unwarranted.

Hatnotes are short notes placed at the top of an article or section of an article (hence the name "hat"). Hatnotes help readers locate a different article they might be seeking. Readers may have arrived at the article containing the hatnote because they were redirected, because the sought article uses a more specific, disambiguated title, or because the sought article and the article with the hatnote have similar names. Hatnotes provide links to the possibly sought article or to a disambiguation page.

— WP:HATNOTE (emphasis added)

All significant alternative titles, names, or forms of names that apply to a specific article should be made to redirect to that article. If they are ambiguous, it should be ensured that the article can at least be reached from a disambiguation page for the alternative term.

— WP:TITLE#Treatment of alternative names

We are saying that statements about ID (with no qualifiers) implicitly or explicitly claim that such is true for all ID.

— North8000 on 15:11, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
-- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 15:59, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
MisterDub I have formatted your post a bit to try to show what I think is intended as far as "who said what", using the options of the templates you already used. Please of course adapt or revert that as you see fit, but it is not easy to follow this post. I get the feeling it is a bit rushed, but at this point in the discussion I would think a "slow" answer could be a really helpful thing, and I would appreciate it very much. I shall make an effort to respond. I apologize if I miss the point:
First concerning hatnotes, I think my comments about your 4th and 5th sentences show I am aware of the basics, and so please refer to what I wrote there (and also to Dave souza below), which goes beyond that. To someone adept at editing WP, who knows the rules, just seeing terms listed in a hatnote implies (if they think about it) that those terms are sometimes considered synonyms to the name of an article (or one of the article's redirects!). But this is only an implication at the best of times, and anyway the knowledge of an experienced editor is not the standard we should use when judging what a reader will understand.
Concerning TITLE policy, your quotation does not immediately seem relevant to my remark. I said that I do not know of any policy forcing us to have an RfC about moves etc, simply because we have found a potentially confusing secondary meaning for our article's name. Note: "If they are ambiguous..." Ambiguity is common, and frankly not that hard to deal with. Can you please explain further? What am I missing?
I also do not see any evidence that North said the article should avoid the term "intelligent design"?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:39, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
Perhaps worth pointing out that it is self-evident that saying "ID is X", especially in the opening of an encyclopedia article, strongly implies "all ID is X" (in a way that is easily avoided, and thus looks intentional, which of course it is). To say otherwise would be a bit like denying that 1+1 is 2, or that something can not both be and not be something at the same time. Furthermore, anyone (even an experienced Wikipedi editor) seeing such wording is likely to take it at face value, because it looks deliberate, and not start looking up MOS guidelines concerning hatnotes in order to speculate about other possibilities. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:51, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
Tense? Clearly the argument from design was put by Paley et al., and ID is presented with a modern version of that argument as a central feature. You've yet to show that intelligent design is something else that could cause your supposed confusion to someone who misses the hatnote. . . . . dave souza, talk 18:06, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
Dave, whatever you are talking about (arguments do not die with particular individuals), it is not relevant to my point. My point is that we do know that the term "intelligent design" has some confusingly close usages to the way we are defining it for this article. A reasonably intelligent and well educated reader could easily be confused. My suggestion is that we explain that in the lead, and I ask if there is any reason we may not do that. Try to give a straight answer in order to avoid walls of words.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:13, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
Here's a straight answer: your comment that "[a] reasonably intelligent and well educated reader could easily be confused" is nonsense. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 19:20, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
I find that very unconvincing. I bet many people would. Can you see how this approach to discussion (I think I have made an effort to treat you seriously) is going to lead to lots more archives and more of those super frustrating types of people who you by your own account have been arguing with for years? Why not try to develop a better, more reasonable sounding answer that you can use in the future in order to avoid all that?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:34, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
BTW just to make sure it is clear, one of the reasons your comment is so unconvincing is that it is so obviously a 180 degree spin from the various rationales you have been giving, and this is happening constantly: at points you say there is no possible confusion, at other points you say that the hatnote covers the confusion, and at other points you have said that the confusion is policy related and we may not clarify unless we move the whole article etc. It will help you more than anyone if you can pick one rationale to stay by. It would certainly make threads more economical.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:43, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
I don't know what else you want from us. We've got two people claiming to see a problem that no one else sees, and Wikipedia is built upon consensus, not acquiescing to minority viewpoints. How about you 1) identify a problem and 2) propose a solution? Now that would prevent 75 pages of archives. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 19:44, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
MisterDub, you and Dave are making me repeat over and over. I have identified a problem (a potentially confusing other meaning of the term) which is easy to fix. I ask whether we may fix this problem (which for arguments sake may only apply to idiots) by adding a clarifying sentence. And if not, why not? I also ask you to give one clear and consistent answer, not a circle of inconsistent ones.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:09, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
Andrew, go ahead and propose a clarifying sentence with the citations you think appropriate. . . dave souza, talk 20:16, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
Yes, we can fix it with a clarifying sentence. Please propose something. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 20:20, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Offer to help

  • Tempers appear to be getting a little short in this discussion. You guys are aware that WP's policies prohibit personalizing debates or casting aspersions on each others' motives? Anything I can do to help calm things down a little bit? Cla68 (talk) 22:29, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
I'm not sure... what would you suggest? -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 22:39, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

I know that both Andrew and MisterDub are both knowlegable and highly civilized editors. Let's just move on. North8000 (talk) 23:09, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

BTW, I think that Andrew wants to have a "high plane" and thorough discussion and have it arrive at a conclusion based on the merits. One minor quibble with MisterDub and Dave is thatIMHO you seem to "hop away" rather than bring it to such a conclusion. Talking about such a small item is more a compliment than a complaint, but I do think that it is relevant to the way forward here. North8000 (talk) 23:21, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Me, I'm looking for a shortcut. The big underlyng question (and the inevitable RFC) is the scope of the article, and MisterDub or Dave, if you say "take it to RFC" I would do that. And I'm about 90% sure it would end up as the broader definition, opposite to how Dave & MisterDub want it. But is that what you really want? Right now there is not an explicit attempt to define the scope (except for Dave's attempts to create a NEW one at the disambig page). Personally, I'd be ready to live with it as is (no explicit definition, and let it be 90% about the pseudoscience versions) and just tweak the wording on those three overreaching sentences. North8000 (talk) 23:21, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I would like to see a RfC instead of this nonstop discussion. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 23:29, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
FWIW I see no strong connection between anything I am trying to discuss, and the idea of an RfC about the article topic. There seems to be an idea that if we change the article topic, we can actually describe a different reality, but that is not correct. We have sources which says that intelligent design is the modern name for argument from design, and sources that do not. We can not ignore either, in any article which touches this issue. We have to be able to handle the complexity of a term with some amount of potentially confusing ambiguity, and we should be able. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 23:52, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
I think that the linkage goes as follows (please excuse the wording which is very direct for brevity)
  1. In reality, the article is mostly but not only about the versions purporting to be science.
  2. Some folks have been pretending that there is a definition of scope which limits it to versions which purport to be science.
  3. Not having any other leg to stand on, and in conflict with reality, they have defended false "all ID purports to be science" statements on the basis that if they are true for what they created under #2, they can be stated as being true for ID in general. And such statements are implicitly made in this article. And Andrew has been trying to work on the places where these statements are most subtly made by coverage wording that "pretends" that ID-not-claiming-to-be-science does not exist. And even the best persons discussing this with Andrew keep "changing the subject" or evading basic questions asked each time one of these conversations starts progressing to it's logical conclusion, and the evasion is usually done by invoking their creation under #2.
Andrew, I think that you are rightly saying that #3 should be able to be resolved without dealing with #2 and I think that that is where you have been putting your efforts and focus. I'm saying that you are right, but it ain't happening, and that #2 would, besides clearing the way for this article to be about what it actually about, resolve #3. My approach has also been to get a smaller and more superficial / partial fix on #3 (dialing back 3 overreaching sentences) and leaving #2 in it's current undefined sate, and considering that to be a "good enough"' compromise. So far no luck, and now Dave chose to light a bonfire at the disambig article via trying to edit war a back door approach to moving #2 further the other way. If he does not self revert, this will cause numerous issues, including upsetting the near-compromise apple cart and probably forcing a larger RFC. North8000 (talk) 13:32, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
Actually I do not see myself fitting very well into this discussion of article scope, and I think a lot of people have misunderstood me because they assume I must be as concerned with this as the long term editors. Despite what people seem to think, now that the all ID is DI claim is apparently gone, I am not sure how I would vote on scope. I am not really against what I can understand of the current scope, and I just want it cleared up. I see myself as looking at more basic things which seem to be causing long run problems, and which unlike the scope discussion seem more amenable to some sort of eventual progress. Under basic things, yes, over-reaching sentences are clearly an issue (independent of scope) connected to long run problems on this article. And I see these as part of what you call the good enough compromise style of some parts of the article. So I do not see the good enough compromise style as good enough in some of those places: it is part of the problem, because it means unclear wordings left unclear, letting different editors and readers all see different things. The "all ID is DI" claim was just wrong, a basic thing, and needed some persistent discussion to get discussion in the open and then clarify what the editors (looking at sources) really wanted to say. The "all ID is pseudo science" claim is also being refined now, in various slow discussions, and seems to be heading to a more stable and realistic wording and rationale that can be more easily explained to future editors and readers. I believe the FAQ discussion is helping focus minds on this type of approach of building up a bank of more solid rationales, even if it is not always a smooth discussion. The edit war you guys had on the dab page was a bit odd, but as long as it is over it does not seem important in the greater scheme of things. As we work through the FAQ rationales, I am still keeping in mind the demand that I should propose a wording change to the lead. (People are welcome to go see my sandbox, but people should not take it too seriously yet, because it is not being proposed at this time and is not a finished idea. I would be interested in any obvious problems though.) I think before more important that the wording question of the lead is the logically prior question of how to read sources like Ayala and Haught.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:39, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
North8000, you're wrong on #1: this article is about the supposed scientific theory called intelligent design. For other uses of the term, see Teleological argument. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 15:19, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
(added later) IMO you are referring to #2, and I am referring to the actual content.
Well, sorry, but again, you're wrong. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 15:34, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
You are basically saying that your preferred scope is the "right" answer and anything else is "wrong"....there is no basis for that. But it is sort of moot..see below. North8000 (talk) 15:51, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
There is a basis for that: this is an encyclopaedia and the subject of this article is a purportedly scientific theory. Other uses of the phrase are treated in a different article, named Teleological argument, according to WP:UCN. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 15:58, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
That is not a basis, that is a repetition of your preference.North8000 (talk) 16:06, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
I see that you mean about the style of the answer North. MisterDub seems to get locked in circles. But surely we can fast forward in our imaginations to the point where eventually someone will say that MisterDub means that the article does already have a clear local consensus about the topic, and that is a rationale in itself. I can see how you can point to signs that it is not clear to everyone in every way, which is why I think some things need clarification. But basically doesn't MisterDub have a point? Of course if the greater community would over-rule the local consensus that would be a new situation, but until then, this is not the case.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:28, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
Andrew, no... what I mean is that there are only two subjects that are ever referred to as intelligent design, we have an article for both (named according to WP:UCN), and this one is about the purportedly scientific theory. It has nothing to do with consensus; that's just how an encyclopaedia works. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 16:43, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
MisterDub, your claim that policy dictates your preference is not correct. You seem to be claiming that an article can't be about a term, or a set of closely related meanings for a term....such an assertion is in direct conflict with policy. But we're going in circles for no particular purpose, and I'm not going to respond further on this thread. North8000 (talk) 16:51, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
I agree with North that this way of explanation is so obviously not a real explanation that it always leads to circular discussions MisterDub. You have been in many right? And just to remind, I was agreeing with you on the conclusion, just not this type of discussion that you always get into. The results of them clearly frustrate you as much as anyone.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:22, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
Please read Wikipedia policy and take special note of how an encyclopaedia differs from a dictionary when an article has "The same title for different things". We could have an article about the term (and I've proposed exactly this in the past), but right now there are only articles about the separate subjects. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 17:37, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
All been discussed before MisterDub. WP:IDNHT. Concerning these sorts of proposals, which started before I got here, it is you that is the long term POV pusher of an idea that has been dead for a long time and does not seem to have any broad support. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:47, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
Hahaha! I didn't know you were a comedian! -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 17:51, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Andrew, thanks for that thorough overview. Unless there were a relapse, I think that the most severe problems with this article have been solved. The lesser problems fall under #3, and I see the possible routes to resolving them as being my more dramatic route through #2, or for someone with more patience than myself (such as you, with your calm, thorough patient approach) to work on #3 directly. I think that in view of all of the above, (especially that the problems are no longer that severe) I'm going to slip into a less active role here, though I would certainly comment in a few areas where it might be helpful, or jump in if any bullies return. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 15:26, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Change the hatnote

Above, Andrew Lancaster voiced a concern that the hatnote "does NOT say that the term intelligent design can also refer to teleological arguments generally." Would it be useful to change the hatnote template away from an "About" template to either a "Distinguish" template or a generic template that holds custom text? The "Distinguish" template begins "Not to be confused with X," where X is whatever we want... perhaps "the argument from intelligent design"? Or we could use the generic template to say something along the lines of "Intelligent design may also refer to the teleological argument" (copying the text from the ID disambig page). Would this be a worthwhile endeavor, Andrew or North8000? -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 23:23, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

The reasoning sounds like a good idea to me. Every improvement in clarity is a good thing, in any part of an article. Would be good to see a more complete proposal, and to see that no one has a major problem with it.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:27, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
Honestly, from what you've been saying, I thought you'd prefer the latter of these two options, but I don't care either way. I'm just hoping a change to the hatnote will sate your concerns. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 18:15, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

ment"

Vaguely speaking, I think that more explanation such what you proposed and / or what is in the GAQ would be good. I think that the noted alternative should not be just an "argument" but instead related uses of the term as described in the new FAQ material. North8000 (talk) 00:58, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
North8000, I'm not quite sure what you mean about "more explanation," can you reiterate? And why wouldn't we use one of the two most common terms to refer to the teleological argument? -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 01:35, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
Might help if you give a full text proposal.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:31, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
Are you kidding? I've given you two options and asked if either will help. Just answer. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 17:55, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
I am sorry but I do not see any full proposal yet. If I have made a mistake, then please just help me out with it, and don't make a point out of that? If I have not made a mistake then my point was that as we are talking about a single line of text, it seems most practical to me to fully state the exact words being proposed. In the past of course we have had more discussions about this, and not found it that simple.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:46, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
Just to make it clear, I already registered above that the reasoning of your idea to say something along the lines of "Intelligent design may also refer to the teleological argument" (copying the text from the ID disambig page) sound like a good idea. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:52, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Currently we have an About template which gives:

  • This page is about a form of creationism. For generic arguments from "intelligent design", see Teleological argument. For the movement, see Intelligent design movement. For other uses of the phrase, see Intelligent design/Archive 76 (disambiguation).

I presume MisterDub, you mean something like this:

  • This article is about a form of creationism. The words "intelligent design" may also refer to the teleological argument. For other uses of the phrase, see Intelligent design (disambiguation).

Is this correct? I do prefer this proposed version. If we can confirm that this is what is being proposed then maybe other editors can register opinions more confidently.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:35, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

No. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 16:14, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
Absolutely not. Garamond Lethet
c 16:29, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
MisterDub, I copy pasted from your words above and stuck it all together into templates in a simple way, and I only did this after you seemed to have refused to write out fully what you were proposing. Can you give more than a one word answer, and preferably not a emotive but otherwise useless word like Garamond Lethe has done? BTW, I think ad hominem edit summaries are not helpful, and indeed "adding words because they sound impressive" rarely is on WP, GL. FWIW I did not even start this thread, and it is not coming from any proposal of mine. I beg both of you for more civilized explanation in response to my attempt to take MisterDub seriously.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:39, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, what I meant was, if you're going to act like a child, you can piss off. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 17:06, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
Mood swings and obfuscation make rational discussion very difficult, clearly. That's one more case of wording implying article ownership to add to the collection, and one more ad hominem post where it would have been easy to just reply concerning the point under discussion, which was a discussion about a proposal you started. For example, you could have just written out what it was you were proposing in the first place. How should anyone understand why you started this thread? I was taking it in good faith.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:22, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
I started this thread to see if an edit along these lines would ease your concerns. You decided to be an ass, so I'm done helping. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 17:36, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
And always these wonderful cowboy edit summaries you guys do. Who are they for? MisterDub, I did not even think when writing out those two proposals, I simply cut and paste from your own supposedly obvious proposals, and just asked if that was what was intended. I can not for the life of me understand what you are ranting about this time, as it would require telepathy. Communication is impossible if you refuse to ever explain fully what you mean about anything (time and time again).--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:13, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
You are a master—the best I've ever seen. However, walls-of-text and repeated IDIDNTHEARTHAT will not get your opinions into the article. Just work out what you think should happen to the article, put it in an RfC, and post the RfC on this page. Meanwhile, I suggest we all stop feeding the NOTFORUM violations. Johnuniq (talk) 22:50, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
Did not hear what Johnuniq? If the answer is obvious then maybe I am stupid or whatever, but it should still be easier to just write it out rather than to sling mud and keep changing subject? One of the biggest problems this talk page has is people refusing to give straight answers to straight questions. This causes the other problems.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:46, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
Yes, Johnuniq, I'd like to know what the (didn't hear) "what" referred to in your insult is and how it relates to the current conversation. Surely you had specific answers in mind on these two questions before hurling the "IDIDNTHEARTHAT" accusation insult at Andrew. North8000 (talk) 17:52, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Answering MisterDub, by "more information", I meant that the more information that there is that covers the related not-claiming-to-be-science usages of the term, even if that information only acknowledges them but says that they are not covered in this article) the more that the remaining issues with this article are lessened. And I think that your idea helps in that area. North8000 (talk) 18:24, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your input, North8000... did you prefer the "Distinguish" template, or the generic one? -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 18:28, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
I think that the generic template is far better. BTW I don't think that Andrew was being difficult when he asked for a specific proposal. He already expressed support for your idea in general and with any item that is having a spirited discussion, when giving their final "support" on a proposal they usually like to know exactly what the exact proposed change is. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 19:28, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
A slight difficulty is that the phrase isn't used much, if at all, for the whole argument; generally "intelligent design" is used in place of "design". We could I suppose say "The argument from intelligent design may also refer to the teleological argument, a philosophical argument for the existence of God", but probably simpler to say "For the generic argument from intelligent design, see teleological argument. . . dave souza, talk 19:59, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Thanks again for your input, North8000. I wasn't asking Andrew for his "final 'support'"; he registered his view and that was great, but he's not the only editor on this page and he can wait for other people to respond as well. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 20:03, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
@MisterDub. I did not "register a view", I asked you to state in concrete the words you intended, and you refused. Then I cut and paste and asked if that was what you meant, and then you swung to the dark side of the force again.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:07, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
@dave souza, I am open to correction but your longer worded version seems remarkably similar in meaning to the wording I stuck together above, which annoyed MisterDub terribly, and which you also seem to be saying is wrong? It just has some words added which do not change the meaning. So you maybe you and MisterDub disagree on this. OTOH I get what you are saying about keeping it simple in hatnotes which is why I mentioned originally that I think the lead itself probably has to have a comment about this. See our discussion above where MisterDub said that this idea was acceptable to him, at least for discussion. We can source such wording from Ayala and Haught for example.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:07, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
Andrew, my very first post here states in concrete words exactly what I'm proposing; it was your choice to play dumb and ask for a "full text proposal." Realize that you're not the only editor here, calm the eff down, and wait for others to chime in. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 21:28, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
Clearly I did not get it MisterDub, so maybe I am dumb. I don't know why it makes you so angry. It is great to hear that others may chip in and help me understand, but I find it odd that you refuse to, in such an amazingly aggressive manner. BTW, the Dirty Harry edit summaries are still being noted everyone. They are part of the discussion which is going on record, and reflect upon your characters and good faith. We are all just here to make an encyclopedia remember?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:50, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
I assume, then, that you've also recorded statements you've made explicitly announcing your lack of good faith? -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 22:03, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
WP:AGF is not an absolute directive MisterDub. And my approach to a discussion like this is to explain what I see and try to be open. So if I point to evidence of bad faith sometimes then it is always in the hope that someone will give evidence that I have misunderstood. Pointing to your edit summaries does not make me guilty of bad faith or personal attack. They are there for all to see.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:25, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
I'm also unsure as to why you reverted dave souza's edit on the disambig page with the edit summary, "This is the contested area under discussion." We're discussing the hatnote, not the disambig page. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 20:06, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
Indeed. If North wants to discuss the old version here, this is it. The newer version corrects various points, and if disputed the discussion belongs on Talk:Intelligent design (disambiguation). . . dave souza, talk 20:12, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
Edits on that dab frequently refer to discussion on this talk page? Is it not a bit disingenuous to pretend otherwise?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:07, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
Dave's change that he has been trying to war in that the disambig article is a reference to this article and a change in the definition of scope. Either it is linked to a "dispute" at this article or it isn't. If it IS linked, then any such (possible) change should wait for the result here. If it is NOT linked, than a controversial disputed change should first get consensus on the talk page there. Either way Dave has blown it there and should self-revert and approach it properly. North8000 (talk) 12:08, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
There is not a 'dispute waiting for consensus' here. There are two editors trying to make changes which have been broadly opposed. You keep offering to start an RfC, but then when you're asked to (repeatedly, by just about everyone), it never comes. We are at a point that you need to either post an RfC to get broader input, or accept the input you've already been given and stop halting progress.   — Jess· Δ♥ 15:28, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
Mann Jess, for the sake of a happier future talk page please be careful about how you pigeon hole me? Dave souza made changes to the dab last night and then edit warred about it. I personally did not see that it was about a meaning change, indeed I find it hard to understand what it was supposed to be about, and anyway I was not involved in that edit war. More generally I do not see myself as trying to make changes on this article which have been broadly opposed. I see myself as working slowly through various issues which are controversy magnets on this article. There are heaps of misunderstandings which make that discussion difficult. But in the meantime the "all ID is DI" claims (once fiercely defended) are adjusted to something more realistic and apparently now seen as a misunderstanding. My proposal for a new Q/A in the FAQ has apparently been seen as positive and has been taken up, leading to interesting new discussions. My ideas about how to mention secondary meanings of ID in the lead are not yet fully formed, but no one seems to want to say that this is a non starter (maybe they intend to say it later, but if so it is still important to develop a rationale for that). I also do not see myself as currently having a position about article scope. So if you wish to accuse me of trying to make changes which have been broadly opposed, what are they?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:14, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
Really? "More generally I do not see myself as trying to make changes on this article which have been broadly opposed." You've been told by about every editor on this page that your interpretation is bogus:
  • "Agree with MisterDub, I've read these things in context, and think Andrew is misinterpreting these examples." - dave souza
  • "You have not provided any sources that have convinced me (or others) that prior versions of 'intelligent design' exist; this absence is consistent with the reliable sources I have consulted." - Garamond Lethe
  • "However, walls-of-text and repeated IDIDNTHEARTHAT will not get your opinions into the article." - Johnuniq
  • "Two months ago I walked away, fed up with the tediousness of having to deal with an editor intent on pushing his own (mis)interpretation of original sources. I come back and nothing(!!!) has changed." - Guettarda
  • "Attempting to link ID with random instances of the words intelligent and design found together is WP:SYNTH." - ArtifexMayhem
  • "This is at best synthesis, at worst deliberately misleading and in either case is completely unsupported by the sources. This poll should be the end of the matter, but I predict that there is still some more flogging of dead horses in this page's future." - Nick Thorne
The Gish gallop needs to stop; you can't just exhaust everyone here with Talk page discussion and then assume consensus when we're tired of refuting your nonsense. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 17:06, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
MisterDub, this is a very simplistic and emotive answer, of the type which deliberately reads past the point. As you have said many times, there are YEARS of posts like this on this talk page, and you personally have been involved in much of it. Anyone who wants to try to work here knows such posts are coming, many of which are based on misunderstandings, and some just expressions of emotion. I wonder if any of the above were about the "all ID is DI" claims? So I still say I do not see my self as trying to make changes on this article which have been broadly opposed. This was not intended to deny that I have made specific proposals in the past which were opposed. But who hasn't, and who cares? That is what we are here for: proposing improvements. Clearly I do not deny doing that. And MisterDub, did I claim a consensus? No, I claim there are many points where the consensus is not clear and can do with clarification. You know that better than many editors here. You should read people's posts in context, and the context above is the post of Mann Jess which was making a specific type of accusation. What this talk page needs like a hole in the head are more posts which try to make emotive caricatures of the editors.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:41, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
Why is it that you like to call me emotional all the time? Everything I've said I've supported with sources or Wikipedia policy. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 17:49, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
I guess what you would now do in my shoes is paste a bunch of choice quotes below, including maybe a few of your best edit summaries. But I am just going to see your question as rhetorical. What is more interesting is whether we can move on to some place better. This side discussion started with me objecting to being pigeon holed over simplistically. Was that so objectionable? Here's why it was important to me: to break circular discussions you need to find common ground, and there nearly always is some if you want to see it. Caricaturing people and misreading them deliberately kills that process.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:56, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
Andrew, what I'd do if I was in your shoes is look for reliable sources on the aspect of the topic, and report carefully what they say about it. Why don't you do that instead of these long screeds about other editors? To help out, I'll start a section below. . dave souza, talk 18:44, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
Dave, to me this discussion looks like it is about editors of this article, not an aspect of the article. (I do not say that is a good thing per se, but it happens, and sometimes is necessary.) If by chance you placed your comment on the wrong thread again for some reason, just let me know and we can move it or something?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:21, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
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