Glen Davidson
Posts: 1100
Joined: May 2006
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I'm guessing that Coulter is reasonably helpful to ID as a political movement at this point in time. It's the old, "there's no bad publicity" idea.
Otoh, deliberately turning ID into a flaming political issue suggests that the attempts to turn ID into a serious idea have been abandoned. Dembski will probably gain financially from Coulter's antics, while even his followers start to question how serious he is about ID intellectually.
Really, turning ID over to Coulter is about the last thing that a promoter of serious ideas would do. And don't think that I disagree across the board with Coulter--I don't. Some of her stuff is not that far off from Carl Schmidt's Political Theology and the writings of other leftist and rightist political criticism. But in her hands, even the legitimate claims are turned into a screed, and trivialized in the minds of anyone who isn't impressed by pulpit denunciations.
With even O'Reilly writing against her style (and note how many more listen better to him than to Coulter) and personal attacks, making her the most prominent antievolutionist out there represents the abandonment of the campaign to make ID into something other than mere politics. It will fanaticize the core, yet it will further marginalize ID, and particularly Dembski.
I think that ID has turned even more into a shambles than it was. IDists who want to be taken seriously will have to answer for Coulter (and Dembski) for some considerable time, making their presentations into even more of a defense, and not the offense that they would like to mount. ID will receive even less of the little hearing that it has previously been given at universities.
Dembski is, understandably, bitter and angry, and wants to cement his standing with the core fanatics, while lashing out at PT and the science establishment. He has damaged intellectual claims made for ID considerably by latching onto the screeching Coulter, while achieving his own desires in probably the best way that he could. It's the sort of thing that evolutionary scenarios and game theory predict--under certain circumstances--while his more measured allies ought to be very displeased with his sell-out to tabloid tactics.
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Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of coincidence---ID philosophy
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