“Evolution bill survives by a vote”

Even though the bill has been watered-down to near meaninglessness, it will still be taken as a moral victory by proponents; a point of encouragement.

What’s most distressing is, and not really surprising, is the lack of enlightenment among a people (Mormons) whom I grew up with and who really have no doctrinal reason to reject science and many doctrines that point to embracing it. It’s simple, ignorant, fanaticism overcoming a rational root. Just another reason why religion is failing us.

“Darwin’s Folly
Learn the facts evolutionists don’t want you to know about.
http://www.goodnewsmag.ca”

LINK (link fixed by The Bad Astronomer)

Heh.

I would have to agree. Please accept my apologies, RAD.

Loved the mousetrap examples. I had trouble imagining the changes, but found the pictures to be very helpful.

Glad I found this blog. I love things that make me think and help me learn more than I knew before.

For instance, RAD said,”I also don’t think you stop explaining things as “God did it”.” You argued that he is wrong, but I think there are two different interpretations of that remark at work.

RAD does not seem to be taking “God did it” as a statement of how it was done, only the religious assumption behind the scenes. He accepts God did it through Evolution.

The “God did it” response is only an end to the investigatory process when one uses that as the “how”. How did life begin? God did it. How did life diversify? God did it. If used that way, you are correct, it is an end to science, but I don’t think RAD meant it that way.

RAD Said:
>Another way to look at the mouse trap example is that someone had to make the changes, they didn’t happen without someone physically making those changes.

Regardless of whether that’s moving the goal posts, it is irrelevant. Mousetraps aren’t self-replicating – they don’t build new mousetraps. Mice, on the otherhand, build new mice.

The Mousetrap example was an analogy, or model. It isn’t fair to over-extend the analogy.

Wow, if history, recorded in comparatively modern times, is 75% flawed, what does that say about the Bible, written 2000-ish years ago based on oral stories, and translated and interpreted to within an inch of its life by hundreds of people over the centuries?

Marc Stacy says:
“Intelligent design can be taught in schools right beside evolution…then let the students make an “informed decision”.”

How about we force Christian churches to teach the Koran and the Baghavad Gita – then students of Christianity can make an “informed decision”? That would be fair wouldn’t it? Of course, those heathen books haven’t passed the standards of Christianity that are required for teaching, but after all, fair is fair and Sunday school students need to be exposed to these things to make a proper decision on what really is true.

Marc Stacy says:
“Here’s the bottom line…liberals are SCARED OF GOD!”

Interesting assertion. By Canadian standards, I’m pretty conservative, but by US standards I’d certainly be a “liberal”. I’m not scared of any gods because I don’t believe there are gods by which I should be frightened.

What I *AM* scared of is religious fundamentalism killing off critical thinking through harassment and coercion, whether that’s Christian fundamentalists in the US or Muslim fundamentalists in the middle-east, or Hindu fundamentalists in India. If critical thinking is set back, we start moving back toward the dark ages, and I can’t imagine how that would be good for anyone… religious or not.

No, we cry “foul” if people lie, cheat, decieve, intentionally mislead, manipulate, knowingly use erroneous information, knowingly use poor and ultimately unethical argument tactics, manipulate or even outright alter the statements of others in order to change the meaning of the statements, conciously avoid and ignore anything that might contradict their opinions, or otherwise willfully attempt to manipulate the system and trick everyone else into helping them accomplish their goals of destroying our society. When people do that, like the leaders of the ID and Creationists movement do pretty much ever time they open their mouths, then we cry “foul”.

Marc Stacy says:
“You claim separating “church and state” is the best thing.”

Indeed, it has worked very well for our country, as the founding fathers who coined the term “seperation of church and state” explicitly stated that they intended it to.

Marc Stacy says:
“Liberals want anything that has to do with God and morals to be dead on the rack. ”

No, they want to follow the explicit statements the founding fathers, the very people who wrote the amendemnt, made on the issue.

Marc Stacy says:
“This great nation was founded on the very principles that “offend” so many liberals today. ”

On the contrary, our “great nation” was founded by a bunch of deists. Many of them weren’t even Chrisitian, not to mention rabid fundamentalists. Thomas Jefferson was about as a liberal a Christian as you could possibly imagine. Benjamin Frankling, probably the most well-respected man of his time, wasn’t a Christian at all and utterly rejected Christianity. George Washington appeared to share his beliefs. The claim is a common one, but simply does not mesh with the actual beliefs of those who actually formed our country. Religious fundamentalism of the form practiced today is a relatively recent phenomenon, not having arisen until the 20th century.

Marc Stacy says:
“God raised this nation and he will take away his “support” if we continue to head in the same direction. ”

I see, so you have a direct line to God. You alone know exactly what he is thinking, exactly what he is planning, exactly what he intends for us. You alone speak for God. Give me a break. You don’t know what God wants the US to do any more than the rest of us. Plenty of non-Christian countries have been extremely successful, and plenty of devoute Christian countries have fallen. God does not appear to judge countries on whether a small sect of Christians in the country force their beliefs on everyone else, some such countires have prospered and other have failed.

Marc Stacy says:
“Liberals want only scientificly proven things taught in schools”

Any liberal who wants that is an idiot. It is obvious you haven’t actually read any of the other comments here. Which probably means you won’t read mine, either, so I probably shouldn’t be feeding the troll. Anyway, the issue is that “THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS PROOF IN SCIENCE”. Anybody who expects “scientific proof” is expecting something that cannot possibly exist.

Marc Stacy says:
“well probably 75% of what they teach in history classes is flawed..based on the opinion of what people think happened in the past. ”

Oh really? 75%? That is a very large number. It means that 3 our of every 4 things we think we know about history is wrong. Wow, I never knew. I guess all the people who spend their entire lives analyzing every single aspect of every minute historical event are just idiots. 10 years of school and a lifetime of experience and they still can’t hold a candle to you, huh? Wow, not only are you the one person who speaks directly for God but you also know more about history than every single expert in the world. Impressive. It is all irrelevant, though, because we are discussing science, not history. What is and isn’t right about history is entirely irrelevant.

Marc Stacy says:
“Scientist find a small portion of some record somewhere and “they fill in the blanks” with what they “believe happened. ”

No, scientists do not study history. That would be historians. I still fail to see what bearing historians have on science (or Creationism, for that matter). And for someone who seems to be extremely sure about what the founding fathers intended for this country, you seem to have absolutely no faith in the accuracy of our historical records. According to what you are saying pretty much everything you think you know about the founding fathers must be wrong, right? Or is that the one thing our historical records are absolutey perfect regarding?

Marc Stacy says:
“Time and time again…their theories of how the universe was created crumbles in their faces…yet…they continue to teach as if FACT!.”

No, that would be scientists, not historians. You really need to get this straight. Scientists study science. Historians study history. Historians do not study science and scientists do not study history. This is not a complicated issue, just look at the names.

And generally speaking, most theories regarding the origins of the universe that have crumbled were religious ideas that were accepted by mainstream scientists and were ultimately disproven when they actually started using science to analyze the phenomenon instead of blindly depending on religious dogma of the time.

And scientific theories are not facts. Facts are used to build theories. Anybody who tries to teach a theory as a fact is either clueless about science or an idiot.

Marc Stacy says:
“The big bang and gravitational model no longer hold water”

Sure they do. There are few theories better supported by the evidence. In fact, the main theory that is better supported (probably the best supported of any scientific theory) is evolution.

Marc Stacy says:
“I know…let’s congure up an unexplained pile of mularkey and we’ll call it “dark matter”.”

Actually, dark matter was discovered due to problems with the rotation rate of galaxies, the big bang was irrelevant and in fact the issue of dark matter would still be with us even if God created the universe in 6 days 10,000 years ago. The issue of the rotation of galaxies would still be with us.

Marc Stacy says:
“How does it work?…who cares! Ha! ha! ”

You do realize massive amounts of resources, both in terms of money, facilities, and human time, are being dedicated to solving this problem, right? Obviously SOMEONE cares because a lot of people are trying very hard and spending a lot of money to figure out how it works.

Marc Stacy says:
“Intelligent design can be taught in schools right beside evolution…then let the students make an “informed decision”.”

No, students CANNOT make an informed decision. They neither have the time, experience, background knowledge, or understanding to make anything close to an informed decision. All they habe to go on is what bit of scientific-sounding gibberish sounds better. The people who CAN make an informed decision, real scientists with a great deal of experience in the field and extensive knowledge of the issues, are the people who should be having the debate. But the IDers do not want to debate real scientists in a scientific setting on the scientific merits of their conjecture (it is NOT a theory). However, IDers refuse to do this. The reason is simple. They know they will lose. They know their claims are wrong. They know their claims will be torn to shreds by people who actually understand what they are saying. So they go out of their way to avoid actually having to present their theory to the scientific community and let the scientific community make the call as to whether it has merit. They know it has no merit. So they are targetting everybody outside of the scientic community, everybody who doesn’t know enough to tell what they are saying is garbage, and hoping to get their support so they can bypass the normal scientific process all other scientific theories have to pass through before being accepted for teaching in public schools.

Marc Stacy says:
“Conservatives are ok with this method…it’s FAIR!”

No, it isn’t. What is fair is for ID to meet the same criteria all other scientific theories pass through. It has to be peer reviewed. It has to be tested and hown correct countless times. It has to be accepted by the vast majority of the scientific community. It has to be used every day by countless scientists around the world. If it can do that, then it deserve a place in public schools. Every other theory taught in public school has had to meet those criteria. What is fair is for ID to follow the same path all other science must follow. But ID does not want fair. Its supporters knows it can never meet the same criteria the rest of science must meet. It knows its only hope is to bypass the rigourous “gauntlet”, as I like to call it. Fair has nothing to do with it. Fair is everything or everyone being treated the same. ID wants the opposite of fair. ID wants to be handed on a silver platter what every other scientific theory must fight tooth and nail for years in order to learn. Special treatment because people like you is not fair. Fair is having to go through the same trials and tribulations everyone else must go through.

And by conservatives, I assume you mean people who have been members of conservative organizations their entire life? By conservative, you mean people who were elected to the US Congress on a republican ticket? By conservative, you mean people who are officially endorsed by President George W. Bush and Tom Ridge? By conservative, you mean people who are devoute members of their church? By conservaite, you mean people who are appointed by President George W. Bush to serve as a federal district court judge? By conservative, you mean Judge Jones, who meets all of these criteria and recently ruled against the ID movement in the Kitzmiller vs. Dover trial?

Perhaps an excerpt from his decision may be in order:
“Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Board’s decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources.”

Marc Stacy says:
“Liberals are not happy deep down inside and they don’t want anyone else to be happy. ”

On the contrary, I am very happy. What makes me unhappy is when a group of religious fundamentalists get together and hatch a plan to destroy our country’s ability to function in the modern world. What makes me unhappy is when the group gets together and decides to destroy the field I work in. That tends to piss me off just a little.

Marc Stacy says:
“Here’s the bottom line…liberals are SCARED OF GOD! ”

Naturally. Anyone who believes in God but is not scared of him is an idiot.

Marc Stacy says:
“Here is the liberal motto…”Out of sight…out of mind”. ”

I can’t recally ever hearing a liberal use that motto.

Marc Stacy says:
“One of us is going to be wrong…DEAD WRONG! I know it won’t be those that believe in God!”

Despite what you want to believe:
1. There are a great many liberals who believe in God
2. There are a great many scientists who believe in God
3. There are a great many scientists that are conservative
4. There are a great many historians that are conservative
5. Historians and scientists are not the same thing
6. There are a great many conservatives (like Judge Jones) that are not scientists but reject ID
7. There are almost no scientists who accept ID
8. There are almost no conservative scientsits who accept ID
9. There are very few Christians worldwide who accept ID
10. There are very few, if any, major Christian denominations that accept ID
11. There is almost nobody who actually knows what he or she is talking about that accepts ID
12. The founding fathers believed in “seperation of church and state”, and in fact coined the term
13. A number of founding fathers were not Christian, some were vocally anti-Christian, and many, if not most, were Deists of some sort
14. Liberals can be happy
15. Conservaitves can be unhappy
16. ID has not passed any of the criteria that all material taught in science classrooms must pass
17. Expecting everyone to treat you differently than everybody else is not fair
18. Countries with a fundamentalist Christian state religion do not always succeed
19. Countires with no state religion whatsoever do not always fail
20. Christians do not necessarily live
21. Athiests do not necessarily die
22. You are do not speak for God, God is perfectly capable of making up His own mind without your help

Indeed, I see a marked change over the course of this dicussion. You definitely seem to have gotten a very good handle on the issues.

I don’t advocate replacing or mixing science and religion. Seeing the mark of God in the world and universe is not a reason to believe but is a reason to further cement your faith in God. The outside evidence is what makes my faith stronger not give me reasons to begin to believe. I came upon this website in the beginning because of the fox special on the moon hoax. Not because I believe we never went to the moon but because I didn’t have the answers to their ridiculous claims. This site has been a wealth of information to me. I am trying to learn and understand as much as I can and I hope you can see that you are getting through and I am maybe coming to a better understanding of the science points of view. Even being religious I am not above being wrong, or admitting such. Science can and does support beliefs if you are willing to look past the science is out to discount a God stance. It is a misconception and again I am after evidence to support or change my thoughts about the scientific community. In short a quest for understanding and more knowledge.

I never said that you did. I simply said you were using a standard ID/Creationist tactic, and explained how it is used by the IDers/Creationists.

Rad said:
“I didn’t move any goal post I just pointed out a the behind the seens working of an individual”

That IS moving the goal posts. As I kept saying, the question is whether a mousetrap can develop by discrete steps, each being confering an advantage to the mousetrap. Who or what caused it to take those steps has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on the question at hand, it is completely irrelevant. This tactic serves no purpose other than to change the topic of the debate from the issue at hand to another, completely seperate issue. Behe made a very specific claim. That very specific claim has been shown to be utterly wrong. Whether some other, totally unrelated claim is right or wrong has absolutely no bearing on whether the claim we are talking about is right or wrong. That is what “moving the goalposts” is, someone or something has been shown to be wrong but then people tack on additional criteria or conditions in order to drag things out and obfuscate the real issue being debated. No matter what other unrelated issues you may bring up, Behe is still wrong.

RAD says:
“I also don’t think you stop explaining things as “God did it”.”

Yes, you do. The claim that God did it means that the issue is settled. Nothing more can be said about it. Nothing more can be learned about it. It was a miracle and that is all there is to it. God can do anything. The moment you start allowing devine miracles, anything is possible. No natural laws can be applied because miracles do not follow natural laws.

To quote Isaac Asimov: “Where any answer is possible, all answers are meaningless.” In addition, “To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today. ”

RAD said:
“I know these are all problems faced with debating IDers, which I’m not.”

If you use standard ID/Creationist flawed argument tactics to support standard ID/Creationist flawed claims, then people familiar with the movement will probably assume you are a standard ID/Creationist. You know the old saying, “if it looks like a duck…”. It would probably be a good idea to learn what they do wrong and not do it yourself. Generally speaking, anything an IDer/Creationist does and anything an IDer/Creationist claims can, 99% of the time, be safely assumed to be hopelessly flawed, probably unethical, and generally something to avoid claiming or doing yourself under any circumstance (but especially around people who know the ID/Creationist movement).

RAD said:
“Of coarse God is omnipotent but he is still bound by laws.”

That is not possible. Something that is omnipotent has no bounds. Something that is omnipotent can do anything, whether it follows natural law or not. That is the what omnipotent means. Anything that is bound by any rules or laws whatsoever has limits on what it can do, and thus is, by definition, not omnipotent. Claiming the Christian God is bound by natural law is to claim His power has limits, and thus to claim that He is not omnipotent. You cannot say something is omnipotent with limits, that is an oxymoron.

RAD says:
“What you seem to be saying is that if there is a God science ends and is no longer needed.”

I am saying nothing of the sort. What I am saying is that if you allow God as an explanation for what happened, then all science ends. God may have been involved in any number of things. But to say that it was a miracle done by God is to give an ultimate answer. Once that answer has been invoked there is no reason for further study, the issue is settled and nothing more can be learned. God may have been involved, but saying it was His doing is not a valid answer to any question in science.

RAD says:
“knowledge is what makes God omnipotent”

No, knowledge makes God omnicient (all knowing). Being able to do anything he wants, irrespecitve of the laws of nature, is what makes God omnipotent. These are two completely different characteristics.

RAD says:
“I don’t see Creationist expecting science to end either…”

Then you aren’t looking very hard. I recommend you do a web search for “wedge document”. This is where the leaders of the ID movement explain that their goal is to completely and utterly destroy science forever. That is what the want, and everything they have been doing has the sole purpose of accomplishing their goal. Sure they may claim they like science and just want to science to be correct, but in reality they hate science and want it gone forever.

RAD said:
“If you have to rule out a God so that you can continue exploring science be my guest. ”

Wow, you sure seem to want to believe that I am an athiest. Well, if it makes you feel better about your own beliefs to just write me off as a Godless athiest feel free. But I am not. I am a Christian. I believe in God. I believe God created the universe. But I am perfectly aware that there is no evidence whatsoever to back up my beliefs. I am perfectly aware that science will never support my beliefs. I am perfeclty aware that the answers science discovers regarding life on Earth and the nature of the universe say nothing about the truthfullness or falsehood of my beliefs. I understand that my beliefs are an act of faith. Faith, by definition, is not supported by any evidence. My faith is my faith for the sole reason that I choose it to be, not because of any outside evidence. I do not believe in God because of the beauty of the universe. I do not believe in God because I see the mark of his work in the world. I do not believe in God because I interpret scientific findings to support my beliefs. I believe because I choose to believe and for no other reason. Faith is faith, science is science, I see no need to try to mix the two. So discount me as an athiest if you want, whatever you choose to believe regarding me has no impact on my faith.

A predictable response, but it is simply more ID obfuscating. The IDers make a claim, for instance that a mousetrap is cannot be formed by a series of small, incremental, always beneficial steps as evolution describe. This is their notion of “irreducible complexity”, and is the mousetrap is the standard example they always use. Now someone has shown that the mousetrap itself is not “irreducibly complex” at all. So, of course the response is “but it took a human to plan and execute each of these steps”. That, of course, has absolutely no bearing on the original claim. The IDers claimed that a mousetrap cannot be formed as evolution described, by a series of small, incremental steps, with each step being superior to the purpose. The original statement the IDers made had no reference to who or what caused the steps, simply that there is no possible way for them to occur. It is only when they are shown to be wrong that they add a new requirement (as you did): the steps couldn’t be carried out by a human. The fact that this has no bearing on their original argument is irrelevant. They simply tack on new requirements or conditions whenever their claims are shown to be wrong. This is called “moving the goalposts”, and is one of the things that scientists hate about IDers. It makes them impossible to debate, no matter how good your evidence is or not matter how well you trash their arguments you can never win because they will always tack on new requirements or new conditions or something new that will keep them right and you wrong. They will not admit they are wrong. This is not how sciene works, if you are shown to have made a flawed statement, then the statement is flawed. You don’t keep adding on additional conditions (“I really meant this, but didn’t say it” or “you have to show this, even though it is not really relevant to my original statement”). If you are wrong, you are wrong and move on. But IDers and Creationists will never, ever, ever, under any circumstances allow themselves to be shown wrong.

RAD says:
“Even the last part about taking away the piece of wood doen’t really make a good enough point because you effectivly replace the piece of wood with a floor or wherever you attach the pieces.”

This is completely in line with biological systems. There are plenty of biochemical systems that attach themselves to an existing, fundamental, multi-purpose biochemical systems in order to carry out their function. If you were to take an example, you could use calcium ion inflow triggering the release of neurotransmitters at synapses (naturally, considering my specialty is the nervous system). Calcium ion inflow is a fundamental second messenger used for a wide variety of purposes in just about every cell in the human body. You could consider that to be the floor. In the majority of cases it is used to control gene transcription in some way (we could make an analogy to the floor holding up the walls, the walls vary but they are similar in nature). Now, the nervous system has taken something that is more often used for controlling gene regulation and instead use it to control the release of excretory vesicles containing neurotransmitters. This has nothing at all to do with gene regulation, but makes effective use of the basic voltage-gated ion channel system. You could imagine this as the mousetrap making use of the floor for something different than its normal use (of course, like calcium is used for a variety of purposes besides gene regulation the floor is used to do such things as hold up furniture and ease moving objects around). Now, say a creature evolved so that its synaptic vesicles are triggered by sodium ions instead of calcium ions. You could think of this as the wood. Certainly the calcium channels still exist (like the floor), but now the sodium ions are what actually trigger the synaptic vesicle release. So the floor and wooden block thing is completely in line with biological systems.

RAD says:
“Another point I would like to make is that God has to work within the laws of this universe. ”

He does? Since when? Both the Old and New Testament are full of examples where God does things that completely violate the laws of nature. The claim that “God has to work within the laws of the universe” is completely at odds with all fundamental Christian, Jewish, and Muslim teaching. The point is that the Judeo/Christian/Muslim God is omnipotent, he can do whatever the heck he wants, irrespective of the laws of nature or the laws of the universe.

RAD says: “What if God used life giving elements already present to assemble life on earth, which started the process, and then evolution takes over to help diversify life and spread it across the planet?”
If he did, he would pretty much have had to created a single, extraordinarily simple cell (before life had a chance to seperate into the present Domains). Otherwise it would be completely at odds with what we know about life on this world.

RAD says:
“Since evolution doesn’t cover the origins of life it just makes sense to me that it be used as a creative process or is a big part of the creative process.”

No, it doesn’t work that way. That is called “God of the Gaps”. The idea is that anything that is not yet explainable by science must be the work of God. The problem is that people have tried to use that idea for centuries, but as time went on what we don’t know has gotten smaller and smaller and smaller, and in the end there will likely be nothing substantial left for God (except perhaps for starting the universe). The fact that we do not know something does not mean “Goddidit” is a valid answer. In fact, such an answer is a completely antithetical to science. Once you use that answer then all research and discovery stops. If “Goddidit”, then there is nothing more to learn. Science simply ends (which is, actually, exactly what the leaders of the ID movement want). However, the point in this case is, once again, moot. Evolution may not say how life started, but that is simply because evolution only deals with living systems. It is not like we know nothing about how life started. The field called “abiogenesis”, which deals with that very issue, has been extremely successful at determing many completely plausible mechanisms by which life on Earth may have developed from non-living matter, and we are learning more about it every day. I recall a university, Harvard I think, just set up a massive research laboratory with the sole purpose of researching this issue. We know a great deal about how life could have developed. There are a bunch of very releasistic competing models. None of them involve God. We simply don’t know which one is the correct one yet, but that issue very well be solved as we learn more about early Earth and more about how well various mechanisms work.

RAD says:
“I am just pointing that its very possibly to have a creator even based on known facts.”

Of course it is possible. You can never rule out the involvement of an omnipotent diety, especially one who is intent on hiding his tracks. However, the very fact that you cannot rule it out means it is irrelevant, and in fact counterproductive, to science. Science only deals with testable claims, if something cannot be tested it is not part of science. A omnipotent diety intent on hiding its involvement is the best example we currently know.

RAD says:
“There is just not enough scientific proof either way as has been pointed out plenty here.”

Have you heard nothing that has been said here? THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS SCIENTIFIC “PROOF”! IT DOES NOT EXIST!!!!! Please stop using that term, it only demonstrates that you have not been paying the least bit of attention to anybody here.

“Unfortunately I’m having trouble finding the really good critique of “Darwin’s Black Box” by another biochemist. It was very detailed and showed the flaws in Behe’s methodology and research into the topic.”

Found it! Go to: http://www.csicop.org/si/2005-11/id.html
Skeptical Inquirer magazine : Nov/Dec 2005
Volume 29, Number 6

Does Irreducible Complexity Imply Intelligent Design?
Michael Behe’s “irreducible complexity,” according to “design theorists,” implies Intelligent Design of biological systems. In fact, such a conclusion lacks a logical foundation. Irreducible complexity can even more reasonably be construed as an argument against Intelligent Design.
MARK PERAKH

“I think you missed my point.” Hmm so I did. well…well it was a good point then and I agree with it!

As for my other point, this thread only had a few “IDiots” in it and no other derogatory labels in it. (that I saw) perhaps you reacted to Tony’s hurt feelings when you wrote:

“I would prefer to see less people posting here describing ID believers with derogatory labels. It just detracts from the environment for all of us.”

but a) there were hardly any labels, and b) you don’t speak for all of us and c) and I, personally, would like to see some new ones.

Not nasty but punny, not hurtful except in the way that the truth hurts.