Why scientists get so angry when dealing with ID proponents: intelligent design proponents are constantly quoting scientists out of context to make it wrongly appear they have grave reservations about evolution

I am sometimes asked why supporters of evolution get so angry when addressing proponents of Intelligent Design (ID). My answer is that if the evolution/ID dispute were simply a discussion of rival scientific claims, say about whether known evolutionary mechanisms are capable of explaining the formation of complex systems, then the discussion would be far less acrimonious. In reality, however, ID proponents spend most of their time leveling bogus charges against evolution. Professionals in the relevant fields possess the expertise to immediately recognize that the charges are scientifically untrue, but the lay audiences to which these charges are directed are unlikely to be similarly equipped. The result is that ID proponents present a picture of modern biology that is completely unsupported scientifically and disingenuous. And this is why ID proponents are so reviled by scientists.

In this article, I will document one specific example of blatant ID duplicity. It provides a useful study of ID proponents' tactics.

One of the most prolific ID proponents is William Dembski. On April 26, 2005, he published an essay at his blog in which he addressed the charge that ID proponents present quotations inaccurately. The essay began this way:

   Unlike the serious sciences (e.g., quantum electrodynamics,
   which is accurate up to 14 decimal places), evolution has become
   an exercise in filling holes by digging others. Fortunately, the
   cognitive dissonance associated with this exercise can't be
   suppressed indefinitely, so occasionally evolutionists less-up that
   some gaping hole really is there and can't be filled simply by
   digging another hole. Such admissions, of course, provide ready
   material for evolution critics like me. Indeed, it's one of the few
   pleasures in this business sticking it to the evolutionists when
   they make some particularly egregious admission. Consider the
   following admission by Peter Ward (Ward is a well-known expert on
   ammonite fossils and does not favor a ID-based view)....

Dembski is about to present a quotation from paleontologist Peter Ward to support his contention that there are gaping holes in evolutionary biology. Dembski tells us that the quotation he is about to present is the product of the cognitive dissonance created when scientists must suppress what they know to be true about the deficiencies of evolution.

We will come to the quotation in a moment, but first there is some history to recount. As described by Dembski, he first used Ward's statement in an essay entitled "Five Questions Evolutionists Would Rather Dodge," posted at his Web site on April 14, 2004. Shortly after this essay was posted, two contributors to "The Panda's Thumb" blog, Gary Hurd and Dave Mullenix, wrote a rebuttal taking Dembski to task for, among other things, misusing Ward's statement. Dembski's blog entry, quoted above, was to be a belated reply to Hurd and Mullenix.

Prior to reading Dembski's blog entry, I had not read his "Five Questions" essay. Likewise, I had not read the reply by Hurd and Mullenix. I also had never heard of Peter Ward, had not read the book from which the quote was taken, and did not know anything about Ward's scientific opinions. Consequently, I was able to investigate the situation with no preconceived notions about who was telling me the truth. I knew that the facts of the matter would be easy enough to obtain, and that they would allow me to determine who was providing the straight story.

I began by reading Dembski's essay. The relevant statement is the following:

   The challenge that here confronts evolution is not isolated but
   pervasive, and comes up most flagrantly in what's called the
   Cambrian Explosion. In a very brief window of time during the
   geological period known as the Cambrian, virtually all the basic
   animal types appeared suddenly in the fossil record with no trace
   of evolutionary ancestors. The Cambrian explosion so flies in the
   face of evolution that paleontologist Peter Ward wrote, "If ever
   there was evidence suggesting Divine Creation, surely the
   Precambrian and Cambrian transition, known from numerous
   localities across the face of the earth, is it." Note that Ward is
   nor a creationist.

Already a question emerges. Taken at face value, Ward's statement above seems to affirm the idea that the Cambrian Explosion is strong evidence for Divine Creation. If that is an accurate presentation of Ward's opinion on this subject, then why isn't Ward a creationist?

Ward made his statement in his 1992 book On Methuselah's Trail. I obtained a copy of the book, flipped to page 29, and found that Ward had indeed written the words being attributed to him. The quoted line comes at the beginning of a ten-page section entitled "The Base of the Cambrian." In this section Ward provides a brief history of what is known about the Precambrian to Cambrian transition.

So I decided to read the rest of the section. After the line Dembski quoted, Ward goes on to describe Darwin's own concerns about the Cambrian explosion (though that term did not exist in Darwin's time). He also discusses various explanations offered by some of Darwin's contemporaries, such as Roger Murchison and Adam Sedgwick, and shows how those explanations fared in the face of subsequent discoveries.