Imaginative . . . sort of

Just recently one of the DI's Senior Fellows referred to Evolution as:

"merely a loose collection of narratives that are forged to fit the evidence"

I don't recall which talking head said that, we discussed it here.  I would like to introduce you to something that fits that description considerably better. In this post, also from the DI, "Intelligent Design Changes Everything, Thanks to You!".  What post is about is a plea for donations, but the 'loose collection of narratives' is how they try and sell this idea of contributing to the mis-education of America.

They create an imaginary family visiting a museum:

"Imagine taking your family to a museum where you are transported back to prehistoric times. In every direction are recreations of creatures you’ve only seen in books. Unfortunately, in every direction there are placards informing your family that fossil succession, biogeography, homology, and natural selection prove that evolution is responsible for these amazing creatures and their modern day counterparts…including you."

This family just happened to run into Stephen C. Meyer, one of the DI senior guys and have an imaginary conversation:

"He tells you that the sudden appearance of the Cambrian creatures cannot be explained by Darwinian evolution. Rather, the reams of information needed to create these novel life forms point to intelligent design. You’ve never heard of this theory before, but his explanation makes total sense."

Here's where things take an even more imaginary turn, the family thinks that Meyer's imaginative stories, stories that have been shown to be false and the product of poor scholarship, makes total sense? That's the unbelievable part.  They are surrounded by museum artifacts, items supporting the evidence of evolution and biology -- items that are so cavalierly dismissed by Meyer.

No one at the DI seems to think it might be a little weird having a stranger preach to you something without a shred of evidence and then they claim it 'makes total sense'. While they seem to want us to believe this really happened to a family at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology in Drumheller, Alberta.  I have serious doubts.  Aside from rarely trusting anything the DI talking heads like to say, I would find this much more credible if it happened at the Creation pseudo-museum in Kentucky.  At a real museum, it's much harder to believe.

They further compound the story by having them run into another DI talking head.  Talk about stretching credibility.  This time they claim that the family's son had his picture taken with Meyer.  Sure, that's just the kind of thing you do with strangers at museums, let your child get his picture taken with a complete stranger who just finished preaching his religion to you.

But even if this did happen, I bet Stephen failed to mention a few things, like:

• How his book has been completely dismissed by actual Paleontologists due to his failure to actually understand or reference any real paleontology.
• How there is no debate about Evolution within the scientific community, only a cultural debate driven by religious beliefs.
• How a US Federal Court ruled Intelligent Design was Creationism re-labeled, and that the  judge who made that ruling was a Conservative  by a Republican President. 
• How, even after opening their own lab, they have failed to produce any evidential support for their ideas.
• How, even after opening their own publishing group, have failed to gain any traction in academic circles -- and their response to that is claiming a centuries-long, multi-cultural and multi-national conspiracy against them as the reason for their failure.
• How his organization continually uses tactics like lying, quote-mining, re-defining real science in order to keep financial support coming in.

No, I doubt Stephen would have mentioned any of that.  No, he told them a very loose and unsupported narrative that appealed their their religious sensibilities and then claimed they thought it was a life changing experience.

So just what is life changing about Meyer and his claims?  To date, what, if any, life changes have come about due to Intelligent Design?  Are there any scientific advances based on it?  Are there any new actual scientific theories because of it?  Has anyone invented anything that uses it?  Has a single medical treatment or medicine been developed based on their pseudo-scientific religion?  There is nothing life changing about ID, other than your wallet being a bit slimmer if you cough up a donation.

If it had been my family, I would have been laughing at Meyer and would have kept him away from my children.  Even if he had managed to corner them, I would enjoy watching one of my daughters take him down with a look of either sheer incredulity or significant laughter.  Even better to see the face of one of my nieces, who is majoring in Biology, as she cuts him off a the knees.  I don't know of a family member who studied paleontology, so it might not have been a clean sweep.

Meyer might have tried to engage in a debate, but that would be a waste of time.  DI's folks don't debate, they pontificate and obfuscate, they don't seriously engage in a debate.  They prefer to tell you both sides of the cultural debate, of course heavily bent in one direction while build strawmen out of science for the express purpose of knocking them down and claiming a victory.