User talk:Andrew Lancaster/ID RfC draft

Initial thoughts

Good morning, Andrew.

A few points.

Politically, this is a non-starter. You've burned through a lot of goodwill. The references you put forward for the "contemporary ID" change convinced a lot of people (including me) that you don't have a deep understanding of this literature, and trying to claim a consensus in the !vote because your rationale was better convinced a lot of people (including me) that you aren't that interested in building consensus. Bringing up this RfC when there is a clear consensus on the direction of the article looks like you are someone who won't take "no" for answer.

As to the format: RfCs work best when there is a single, concrete question. You're setting this up a validation of your argument, not a question regarding a change to the text. For example, in #1 there's not a combination of choices that represents the existing consensus, and so this comes across as being clumsily manipulative. There isn't a controversy as to the words reliable sources contain. Your disagreement is in how those words should be interpreted.

The second point, likewise, there's no disagreement as to what the current subject of the article is, an aside from you and North8000 there's no disagreement that it should remain as it currently stands.

Rather than continue this into 3 and 4, let me give you an alternate solution. Create an RfC with your entire master plan for this set of articles:

Intelligent design moved to Intelligent design theory
Intelligent design recreated as an article focused on teleological arguments in general
Emphasis on contemporary ID theorists in Intelligent design theory article

Then ask for an up or down vote on the whole package. I think you and North8000 will the only ones who !vote in favor, but at least you will have the satisfaction of having your argument placed in the best possible light.

Garamond Lethet c 16:59, 15 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks User:Garamond Lethe, I suppose. The talkpage mudslinging sure does make it hard to be understood, but that was why I took an interest in trying to help the article in the first place. Please note:

Your accusation about the recent poll is more or less quoting Gaba P, and is not right. I am the one who called the consensus against the edit I preferred (which had been the consensus edit), so that is taking "no" for an answer. But the problems of the article are not going to end because of this, nor if I give up.
At the time when I gave a comment that there really was no clear consensus yet, I believe asking for more discussion was the right thing to do. Not only are North and myself also people (and only a few people had voted at that time), but strength of preference is always relevant in these discussions, and the original postings in favor of the new edit were definitely written as if there was only a slight preference. As a result of my mid-poll post, more people made their positions more clear.
Furthermore, asking rationales is important for anyone trying to make a discussion better. The results of pushing for rationales were in my opinion more important than any discussion about a single sentence, because consensus opinions on this article are in fact NOT clear for many things. The main aim for my work on the article is to try to get rationales and sourcing clear and open so that people can either debate them in the open or work according to those conceptions. The difference in rationales between the active editors and the occasionals was very striking and helpful information.
Your accusation that I am trying to change rather than stabilize the direction of the article is a misunderstanding. Please note that I have asked people to explain what the article about many times since August and got dozens of completely different answers from just the small group of people who answered.
The demand that anything like this has to be done by RfC rather than talk page discussion is coming from the long term locals on this article. I have said many times I am not a fan of this idea, and that I am uncomfortable with how to do it meaningfully. But if it is the only way...
I have no strong preference to move to intelligent design theory, and I also know of strong feelings from others, it just seems to be a potential clarifying change that could be discussed. The idea keeps coming into my mind when I see it is the term in many of the sources most commonly cited in the article. If you think it is a bad idea to propose this, let me know please.
I do not think it would be a good idea to recreate the intelligent design article as an article for teleological arguments in general, which we already have, and I do not think anyone is proposing it. I am reluctant to put this question, but I know people seem to think it needs an RfC.
I do not see that my proposed #1 has no option which the consensus can agree to? I guess most people agree to 1.c? Anyway how do we know what people think if we do not ask?

In all honesty, if the RfC is bad, please can you give advice on how to break the cycle on this article. To me, the sources question seems important to clear up somehow, and so does the question about the lede. (1 and 4.) I was already thinking of squashing it down to one or both of those, but it is the way my brain works that I tend to start with bigger draft ideas which try to cover everything. Sorry for the long post.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:35, 15 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe this helps to explain: While I have been working on the draft my most common vision of where it will end if it is does succeed to become a short RfC would be based on question 4 concerning policy and lede writing. These things have been a constant part of the cycle of obfuscation and bullying on this talk page long term. This would unfortunately leave the sourcing discussion still open for further discussion, but maybe that is ok. Comments requested.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:46, 15 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

To your first point, you may want to go back to the talk page and clear things up. You said:

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?

Recall that we had two versions to choose from, 18 Sept and 19 Sept. Several editors (myself included) assumed "old" meant 18 Sept., and that given the !vote was running 5:2 against that version at the time, you had either redefined "old" or redefined "consensus". The second sentence supported the latter (the 19 Sept version was highly controversial, thus it could not be the consensus despite the current !vote tally). When I asked you to clarify what you meant, you did so at length and said nothing to indicate that I had the wrong interpretation. You didn't respond to either of the other two editors who found the comment unusual enough to mention.

This may just be a spectacular misunderstanding: perhaps the origins of the 19 Sept. version are older than the 18 Sept., and so you were actually acquiescing? And despite three editors telling you your reasoning was odd or inappropriate, you didn't jump in and clear up what you meant? I would prefer to believe that, but if I didn't understand what you meant I don't think any other editor (excepting North8000) understood it either.

I'm having a harder time reconciling "At the time when I gave a comment that there really was no clear consensus yet" with "So to me it seems the consensus is the old version."

We'll just have to agree to differ on the importance of rationales.

"Please note that I have asked people to explain what the article about many times since August and got dozens of completely different answers from just the small group of people who answered." That's humanity for you. I'm bemused that you're asking the question. I have couple hundred technical, mathematical and philosophy books here in my office, and a few thousand more at home. If I gave any of them to a group of $n$ interested amateurs and asked what it was about, I'd expect $n$ answers. That's not a good measure of clarity. (If I asked $n$ experts I'd expect $2^{n}$ answers.) I don't think clarity implies uniformity of response.

RfCs are a fine thing and yes, if you're trying to change the article, it should be by RfC. But if you're trying to determine rationales, just ask politely (and don't argue). If you're trying to change rationales, then you need to be a much better politician.

I don't see anything here that needs clarifying. Perhaps more precisely, I don't see anything where the effort of clarification would be worth the modest improvement in the article.

I also am not having the difficulty you are in determining what people think. People think the term "intelligent design" refers to the teleological strand of creationism promulgated by the DI. People think the phrase was used in prior teleological arguments, both for creationism and the existence of God. The article is about the term, not the phrase, as we have a wealth of reliable sources discussing the term but no reliable sources discussing (as opposed to mentioning) the phrase. Other people will put that differently, but the underlying rationale is the same.

So let's talk about the RfC. I'll focus on #4.

a. "Is it desirable that a lede (and not just for example the HAT and/or a history section) should use wording which makes it clear, or at least allow for the possibility, that there are other related meanings which could be confused with the subject of our article?" This is a leading question. The reader feels like it is constructed in such a way that "yes" is the only allowable answer. Are you asking for a disclaimer that it's possible this article does not cover every sense of the term? Wouldn't we have to add that disclaimer to every article where a common word became a term of art? (Evolution comes to mind.) Do you have any evidence that this is a problem for readers?

b. "Evolution" prior to Darwin making it a term of (biological) art was also used to describe biological processes. For example,

"We shall, therefor, go through the whole vegetable world, from the evolution of plants from seeds to their decay..." (1805)
"...and though such and imperfection in the original formation of this class of plants, as this would imply, it is so contrary to the order and correctness of nature in the general structure and evolution of plants, it acquires some probability from a peculiarity belonging the orchis..." (1820)
"The evolution of animals is evidently proportioned to the heat necessary for putting their fluids in motion..." (1803)

Your reading of the guidelines would require that, in the Evolution lead, we "make[] it clear ... that there are other related meanings which could be confused with the subject of our article" to prevent the possibility of any confusion for readers poking around in 19th century works on natural philosophy. I'm trying very hard to keep my language constructive here, but why would you think this is a good idea? Wouldn't it be easier, especially in the absence of evidence to the contrary, to assume our readers are sophisticated enough to understand that the meanings of words change over time?

c. Since Paley isn't mentioned in the lead, I don't think we have a problem with WP:UNDUE. Paley isn't WP:FRINGE, btw. His formulation of the teleological argument is the one that's taught in philosophy of religion and philosophy of science. As to eliding reliable sources: No.

Garamond Lethet c 01:21, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Concerning the first straw poll and the importance of rationales, I am going to make a working assumption that if we spent a lot of time talking about it, we would probably come to a common understanding or at least a closer one.
One of the biggest difficulties with this discussion is that you think that there is a clear and coherent local consensus on the article and I don't. I see individual sentences getting defended but with wildly differing explanations and frequent evidence that the act of defending the article is seen as important in itself. I have been spending time on it, and I get what you say about human nature and all that, but the experience was striking and now forms part of my understanding of what I am talking about. Perhaps it would be constructive if you actually tell me what the consensus position seems to be and how it disagrees with me. If these things are coherent then it should be possible to write them out. I can then better help point you to diffs on the talk page. More importantly maybe your formulation will help me see something I am missing.
Another issue which I think keeps causing confusion: I am not overly concerned with out-dated terminology and wanting to disambiguate with what old books say. (I see no problem with doing that in principle, why would we want to be unclear?) It is in modern books being written now that the term "intelligent design" is increasingly being used outside of the context of the biology teaching debate, and with a meaning rather close but subtly different, not something easy for our editors, let alone our readers. Any look over over the talk page history finds that this point gets raised over and over by other editors than me. (BTW I did not start the discussion about the post 19th September version.) Example: Francisco J. Ayala. "The argument from design to demonstrate God's existence, now called the 'Intelligent Design' argument (ID) is a two-tined argument." Note that this is a quote by an expert which is about the term itself and how it is used today.
Paley and Aquinas and their "historical notion of intelligent design" are mentioned in association with being proponents of ID more than once in the sources for our lead, including within the thicket of Kitzmiller related footnotes.
I do not know what you mean by eliding of sources. Did I propose that? Are you saying that discussion of sources can not be avoided if we discuss any of these subjects? Likely true, but the context of my remarks above was about whether to have specific guided RfC questions about sourcing. If question 4 is the only question, a sourcing discussion would hopefully ensue. See my attempts to make shorter RfC drafts on the main page of this draft.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:17, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

BTW Ayala, and other writers on the theological side of this subject are not all consistent in their opinions and terminology and one of the problems here is that this is normal for theology whereas the standard being applied to the article is the concept of one mainstream and then fringe, i.e. the standard found in modern science. That standard is relevant to the question of whether any argument from design which argues against the theory of evolution, in the context of that argument, but the standard should not be used to judge theologists arguing about what real religion is etc. Ayala associates Paley with intelligent design, but respects him and sees the IDM as a twisting of Paley. The Thomist Edward Feser is much harsher about Paley and draws a big line between Aquinas and Paley, not Paley and the IDM. To the extent that our article handles theology or philosophy it needs to report in a way which is not over dogmatic about mainstreams and fringes. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:10, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrary break

I'll be adding to this as I can throughout the day, but I wanted to get this first comment out early.

It is in modern books being written now that the term "intelligent design" is increasingly being used outside of the context of the biology teaching debate, and with a meaning rather close but subtly different, not something easy for our editors, let alone our readers.

I understand an appreciate that you are making a good faith effort to improve the article. But sentences like the above don't give me much confidence that you understand this area well enough to make a contribution.

1. The teleological argument had been used to demonstrate the existence of God prior to Darwin. Paley (among others) shifted the the argument to be anti-evolution, but it's still the same argument.

2. The argument is not about biological education. That's made abundantly clear in the wedge strategy (see the descriptions of phases I-III here). Kitzmiller was a happy accident: the DI was not responsible for getting Of Pandas and People into the school, and after lots of silly bluster by Dembski, the DI chose not to participate in the trial. The trial is what most people remember, but getting into secondary schools wasn't the goal.

The real focus of the DI was Behe and Dembski's specified complexity, explanatory filter, the abuse of the no free lunch theorem, etc., along with Behe's biological examples. This was the teleological argument gussied up with mathematical formulas and biochemistry. Folks in the life sciences took this seriously, not because of Pandas, but because Dembski and Behe were trying to redefine what science was in order to let in their theology. Keep in mind Darwin's Black Box was published in 1996 and the Dover curriculum didn't change until 2004. (DI-bashing really took off during and after Kitzmiller, but all of the flaws in ID had be thrashed out in academia well before the trial started.)

So when Ayala talks about "intelligent design", he and I share the same understanding: it is the current formulation of the teleological argument, an argument that has historically been applied to proving God's existence as well as the inadequacies of evolution and (more recently) "scientific materialism".

If you're not familiar with all of this backstory, then yes, it Ayala's use of "intelligent design" seems to be quite different from its use in Kitzmiller. Ayala became (relatively) famous during the Intelligent Design academic debates and I think he would be surprise to have that sentence read the way you've read it.

If you had read Ayala (rather than just googling the phrase) I think his intended use would have been abundantly clear. Likewise, if you had read the list of sources you contributed to the ID talk page I think you would have discovered there was less there than you thought.

I would love to have you participating in this conversation on an equal footing. These are the books I've found most helpful.

Species: A History of the Idea, John Wilkins
The Creationists Ronald Numbers
Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics and Tower of Babel, Robert Pennock
Creationism's Trojan Horse, Barbara Forrest
The Kitzmiller Trial transcripts and decision (I had the pleasure of reading those each afternoon as they were released from the previous day of testimony.)

And now I'm off to the airport. More in a bit....

Garamond Lethet c 16:57, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I do really appreciate your efforts, but I am going to register some frustration at this point, though not with strong bad feelings, just to be clear. You have repeated several times now in a knowing way that I seem ignorant. I have thick skin, but I hate getting such remarks when I do not see why. (My thing about rationales!) One of the problems is that while I am trying to be very open with my remarks, and also trying hard to focus on the real discussions on the article talk page, you are not yet really explaining your own position in any way which clearly contrasts with mine or the supposed consensus of the local editors on the article I have been trying to focus on. I feel the following responses are fragments, because I do not know what I should respond to except the general accusation that you know I am ignorant...

The quote you criticize for whatever reason is in a sense written as a reply to a position on the article talkpage, which I understood you to be aware of and to agree with. It is the local consensus who insist that there is only one relevant meaning of intelligent design for the article, and that is the one which is associated with the textbook debate. Therefore I react by saying that there are other contexts, thinking that you need convincing. Does that make me sound less dumb?
I am also a bit surprised that you seem to be associating with me the idea that ID is all DI. This sort of all or nothing language is precisely what I have been focusing on. I have recently won the concession that it is NOT all DI, which is what our lead strongly implied until a while ago. I expect that this will eventually be reversed given current trends, but for now what is happened is the insertion of the new implication that all ID means pseudo science a la the textbook debate. That is what the recent wording debate was about, but now I am not sure if you realized that.
I have read the full article of Ayala, which is a short review article. Not only that but he has used the term "intelligent design" in other places to refer to Paley.
Of course I know the teleological argument was used before Darwin, and this is one of the points I have also argued and gained some concessions on. (Extended side remark: While Ayala and other theological critics of the IDM tend to be Catholic-oriented, and therefore able to take it back to Aquinas, Aquinas was basically a Catholiciser of Aristotle, and David Sedley and other classicists trace it back to Socrates himself (which is unusual, in other words they are saying the evidence is there that this was something pre Plato, partly because the accounts of Xenophon and Plato are so similar). In fact Sedley believes it sees signs of it in pre-Socratics, but that it going on a limb. It was also a significant factor in Islamic theology. My comment about Thomists was also not crazy: there is a big difference between Paley and Aquinas, because of the Aristotelian approach to causality.) But anyway, on the ID article as it currently stands my attempts to even include such material as a antecedents to ID have been attacked and had some success, but limited. There is a push against anything which shows a link between different time periods.

I would really encourage you to try to compare and contrast a bit more. I am really not sure what your position is, nor why you say the things you do about me. I suspect we are still not yet familiar with each other's positions, so the sooner the better.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:36, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]