Who could argue with support like this?

In a follow-up article to something I posted a little about already, David Klinghoffer, who I less than affectionately call 'klingy', posted this little gem:  "Natural History Museums Bear Witness to the Debate over Intelligent Design".  This time around klingy is 'confirming' the viability of the debate over Intelligent Design (ID), or I should say that's what it appears he's trying to do..

This has been one of the common theme's since the DI released their latest set of excuses about Stephen C. Meyer's 'Debating Darwin', which I also commented on recently (That's it? An admission of failure?).  The theme from their latest effort, "Debating Darwin’s Doubt: The Scientific Controversy That Can No Longer Be Denied" is to try and legitimize the scientific debate over ID.  Now no one I know doubts there is a debate over ID, but what there is not is a scientific debate.  There is a cultural debate over their efforts to substitute pseudo-science for real science, but there is no scientific debate because, frankly, there is no science supporting ID. 

Klingy and his buds claim to have the science, but they cannot seem to be able to communicate it to anyone else.  Dembski's 'design filter', Behe's 'irreducible complexity', Nelson's 'ontogenetic depth', none of it makes any sense when it comes to being science.  Oh it sounds scientific, but once you look past the wrinkled lab coat the words are dressed up in, you get nothing.  Not a single scientific advance is based on Creationism/ID, none!

What I find misleading is the title, it seems to be trying to convince readers that one of the more famous Natural History museums is confirming the debate.  Which is an interesting tactic.  It's similar to the one where little kennie ham tried to link his Creation 'Museum' with the local Cincinnati Zoo, which we all know failed and more than likely caused kennie many hours of anguish over lost revenue.

This time around, does klingy use quotes from the institution?  Did anyone from the Smithsonian confirm the debate?  No, if you read it, did you catch who klingy's source is?  Read carefully, he only mentions this once:

"An email correspondent points out that the different methods stem from the specific decades when the halls were respectively updated and redesigned" 

That's it.  An 'email correspondent' and klingy goes wild then this correspondent offers this opinion :

"They are in a fight, and they know it."

That's all it takes for klingy to rattle off yet another post confirming the 'scientific' controversy that only seems to exist in the minds of folks over at the Discovery Institute.  So to be clear, an unidentified email correspondent makes a comment that is never confirmed by the institution, nor even addressed by the institution, then klingy takes that as the institution's implied acceptance that they are a witness to an imaginary scientific debate over ID.  Oh yea, that clears things up.

Scientists are well aware of the cultural controversy represented by ID.  The reason isn't because ID threatens science, but because of the negative impact ID/Creationism have on science education.  It wasn't until folks like the DI started organizing, marketing, and making demands did any scientists give them much thought at all.  Now, if the DI was willing to do actual science to support their ideas things might be different.  But as long as the best confirmation of a scientific controversy are unnamed 'email correspondents' of klingy's, I don't think we are nearly to the point of treating ID much differently than we treat Astrology, Numerology, and Parapsychology.  Oh we may have to deal with them more often, because they are a well-funded and vocal set of Evangelicals, but there isn't much different amongst the pseudo-sciences.

What's next with klingy, will he be getting calls from the Psychic Network?  There's a thought.  Have you seen any of those commercials for various tele-psychics?  I know, you probably ignore them like I do.  But someone once pointed out that in the small print on the screen includes a little disclaimer.  Maybe klingy needs to add it to the bottom of all his posts.  There's an idea - "For Entertainment Purposes Only"