Excavation of a Failure: The International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design (ISCID)

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History remains rife with failed ideas and hordes of individuals to pursue them, who create organizations falling into rather dry dust, eventually. Primarily religious interpretations of the cosmos with science taking the hindmost amount to such ideas. One idea in the fray is Creationism. Another is Intelligent Design.

Intelligent Design and Creationism continue to evolve, mutually and separately. By and large, Intelligent Design and Creationism have failed, which means individuals associated with and organizations built around either/both have failed: legally, socially, culturally, scientifically, even philosophically and theologically. Legitimacy for either/both is null. Most educated peoples see them as illegitimate if not bad jokes.

The Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy, on broad Creationism, states, “At a broad level, a Creationist is someone who believes in a god who is absolute creator of heaven and earth, out of nothing, by an act of free will” (Ruse, 2021)

While, in a specific sense, it means “…taking of the Bible, particularly the early chapters of Genesis, as literally true guides to the history of the universe and to the history of life, including us humans, down here on earth” (Ibid.).

In other words, either a supernatural intervening mind starting everything including life or the Bible as the interpretive frame for approximately the same idea, Creationism posits divine intervention. Intelligent Design, the focus for today, refers to a slant or overlay on the core concepts of Creationism.

The Discovery Institute’s Professor Michael J. Behe and Dr. Stephen C. Meyer defined Intelligent Design as the theory “that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection” (Behe & Meyer, 2018).

Now, the idea presents as a scientific theory or, at least, a hypothesis as an alternative to evolution via natural selection. However, when digging deeper, one finds the true machinations behind its presentation, as such.

RationalWiki (2021) defines Intelligent Design, as follows, “Intelligent design creationism (often intelligent design, ID, or IDC) is a pseudoscience that maintains that certain aspects of the physical world, and more specifically life, show signs of having been designed, and hence were designed, by an intelligent being (usually, but not always, the God of the Christian religion).”

Dr. William Dembski, one of the pillars for founding the Intelligent Design movement, stated, “I believe God created the world for a purpose. The Designer of intelligent design is, ultimately, the Christian God” (Environment and Ecology, 2019).”

Also, Dembski stated, “Intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John’s Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory (Dembski, 1999),” and, “Intelligent design opens the whole possibility of us being created in the image of a benevolent God. The job of apologetics is to clear the ground — to clear obstacles that prevent people from coming to the knowledge of Christ. And if there’s anything that I think has blocked the growth of Christ as the free reign of the spirit and people accepting the scripture and Jesus Christ, it is the Darwinian naturalistic view.”

The latter, supposedly, stated at the National Religious Broadcasters’ conference in Anaheim, California on February 6, 2000. In short, and these amount to a smidgen of definitions along the same lines of one another, Intelligent Design is distinct from Creationism.

While, at the same time, Creationism is a foundation stone for modern Intelligent Design. Where, its founders point to the religious, particularly, biblical and Christian roots of Intelligent Design, thus Creationist underpinnings and not overlay.

Ergo, Intelligent Design is not Creationism and Creationism is not Intelligent Design, though Intelligent Design is rooted in Creationism and Creationism is the parent of Intelligent Design.

The late Philip Johnson claimed Christianity as the foundation for Intelligent Design in “Reclaiming America for Christ Conference” (1999):

I have built an intellectual movement in the universities and churches that we call “The Wedge,” which is devoted to scholarship and writing that furthers this program of questioning the materialistic basis of science…

And so we’re the ones that stand for good science, objective reasoning, assumptions on the table, a high level of education, and freedom of conscience to think as we are capable of thinking.

That’s what America stands for, and that’s something we stand for, and that’s something the Christian Church and the Christian Gospel stand for-the truth that makes you free. Let’s recapture that, while we’re recapturing America.

Furthermore, he wrote in 1996, “Our strategy has been to change the subject a bit so that we can get intelligent design — which really means the reality of God — before the academic world and into the schools” (Clemmitt, 2005).

In short, Creationism is about a supernatural intervening god, often about a biblical Christian God, while Intelligent Design is a social and political tool posed as scientific based on the biblical Christian God in the idiom of information theory, according to the founders of the Intelligent Design movement.

Regarding the actual people and organizations for Intelligent Design, the main one is the Discovery Institute. However, mostly, it becomes confused with Creationism in particular, while, in some sense, committed to both. Professor Michael Behe, Dr. William Dembski, and Philip E. Johnson were, probably, the core people.

Unfortunately, on their life trajectories, Dembski is without academic affiliation; Johnson died with many failures; and, Behe has been ideologically isolated within the university’s biology department. On September 23, 2016, Dembski claimed to be leaving the Intelligent Design movement, including the Discovery Institute fellowship. All associations were cut. Were they, though? No.

However, as one can expect in the socio-political battles of the religious, they never give up, never intended to relent, and continue onwards, as ever; they’re as predictable as the Sun rising. He returned circa February, 2021. All this pertains to an organizational history too.

At one time, there was The International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design (ISCID) and its flagship publication entitled Progress in Complexity, Information, and Design (PCID). It contains all the “idiom of information theory.” You see the overlay.

Intelligent Design isn’t Creationism. Intelligent Design is an evolution of Creationism. It is masked with information-theoretic terminology and concepts. The purpose, as defined by its founders, is dishonest with social and political influence of the religious on an increasingly secular and non-Christian culture.

ISCID is a defunct organization. PCID is a failed publication. The inherent interest is not in the persistence of Creationism, as religious fundamentalists have always acted with zeal, whether a clean & polite presentation or not. That’s old, not new.

The intrinsic intrigue of the operation is the increasing levels of sophisticated gibberish to justify non-sense and religion into society — forcing religion mendaciously on the public. So, who are the agents of dishonest theology?

As defined on the website, “The International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design (ISCID) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization which provides a forum for free and uncensored inquiry into complex systems. The day-to-day operation of the society centers on the Archive, to which members and nonmembers may submit articles. Once uploaded onto the archive, each article has a commenting facility to which members may append comments. At the author’s request, after three months on the archive, articles passed on by the editorial board enter the quarterly online peer-reviewed journal of the society: Progress in Complexity, Information, and Design (PCID)” (ISCID, 2011a).

All information Society of Fellows information publicly available (ISCID, 2011b). In terms of the Executive Board or Board, ISCID’s Executive Director, in its main days, was William A. Dembski. Its Managing Director was Micah Sporacio. Its Chief Research Coordinator was Jed Macosko. Its Program Coordinator was Forrest M. Mims III. Its Development Officer was Terry Rickard. Its Office Manager was Stephanie Hoylman.

Yet, they had fellows specializing in different areas affiliated with institutions. Michael Behe (Biochemistry) from Lehigh University. John Bloom (Physics and Philosophy of Science) from Biola University. Walter Bradley (Mechanical Engineering) from Texas A&M University. Neil Broom (Biophysics) from the University of Auckland.

Russell W. Carlson (Molecular Biology) from the University of Georgia, Athens. David K.Y. Chiu (Biocomputing) from the University of Guelph. Robin Collins (Cosmology and Philosophy of Physics) from Mesiah College.

J. Budziszewski (Philosophy and Political Theory) from the University of Texas, Austin. John Angus Campbell (Communications) from the University of Memphis.

William Lane Craig (Philosophy) from the Talbot School of Theology, Biola. Bernard d’Abrera (Lepidoptera) from the British Museum, Natural History. Kenneth de Jong (Linguistics) from Indiana University, Bloomington. Of course, William Dembski in Mathematics. Mark R. Discher (Ethics) from the University of St. Thomas.

David Humphreys (Chemistry) from McMaster University. Cornelius Hunter (Biophysics) from Seagull Technology. Muzaffar Iqbal (Science and Religion from) from Center for Islam and Science. Quinn Tyler Jackson for “Language & Software Systems.”

Daniel Dix (Mathematics) from the University of Southern Carolina. Fred Field (Linguistics) from California State University. Guillermo Gonzalez (Astronomy) from Iowa State University. Bruce L. Gordon (Philosophy of Physics) from Baylor University.

Conrad Johnson (Clinical Neurosciences & Physiology) from Brown Medical School. Robert Kaita (Plasma Physics) from Princeton University. James Keener (Mathematics and Bioengineering) from the University of Utah. Robert C. Koons (Philosophy) from the University of Texas, Austin.

Jed Macosko (Chemistry) from La Sierra University. Bonnie Mallard (Immunology) from the University of Guelph. Forrest M. Mims III for “Atmospheric Science.” Scott Minnich (Microbiology) from the University of Idaho. Paul Nelson (Philosophy of Biology) from the Discovery Institute.

Younghun Kwon (Physics) from Hanyang University. Christopher Michael Langan/Chris Langan/Christopher Langan (Logic, Cosmology, and Reality Theory) from the Mega Foundation and Research Group. Robert Larmer (Philosophy) from the University of New Brunswick.

Martti Leisola (Bioprocess Engineering) from Helsinki University of Technology. Stan Lennard (Medicine) from the University of Washington. John Lennox (Mathematics) from the University of Oxford. Gina Lynne LoSasso (Cognitive Neuroscience and Clinical Neuropsychology) from the Mega Foundation and Research Group.

Filip Palda (Economics) from the l’École Nationale d’Administration Publique, Montreal. Edward T.Peltzer for “Ocean Chemistry.” Alvina Plantinga (Philosophy) from the University of Notre Dame. Martin Poenie (Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology) from the University of Texas, Austin.

Carlos E. Puente (Hydrology and Theoretical Dynamics) from the University of California, Davis. Del Ratzsch (Philosophy of Science) from Calvin College. Jay Wesley Richard (Philosophical Theology) from the Discovery Institute. Terry Rickard (Electrical Engineering) from the Orincon Corporation.

Jeffrey M. Schwartz, M.D. (Psychiatry/Neuroscience) from the UCLA Department of Psychiatry. Philip Skell (Chemistry) from Penn State University. Frederick Skiff (Physics) from the University of Iowa. Karl D. Stephan (Electrical Engineering) from Southwest Texas State University.

John Roche (History of Science) from the University of Oxford. Andrew Ruys (Bioceramic Engineering) from the University of Sydney. Henry F. Schaefer (Quantum Chemistry) from the University of Georgia, Athens.

Richard Sternberg (Systematics) from NCBI-GenBank (NIH). Frank Tipler (Mathematical Physics) from Tulane University. Jonathan Wells (Developmental Biology) from the Discovery Institute. Finally, Peter Zoeller-Greer (Mathematics, Physics and Information Science) from the State University of Applied Sciences, Frankfurt on the Main.

Now, with the number of academic disciplines and institutional associations, obviously, these are smart people, educated individuals. So, it would be inappropriate to claim, “Idiocy,” “Stupidity,” and the like. Individuals with a sincere belief, mostly theological, often Christian, and, in fact, predominantly Euro-American men.

Which is to say, not as a critique of the proposal of Intelligent Design, but, rather, as a sincere sociological analysis, the Intelligent Design movement, by and large, remains comprised of Euro-American Protestant Christian men with advanced degrees and prestigious connections.

Given the theological influences noted by Johnson, and Dembski, above, obviously, the American Protestant Christian communities appear as the source of Intelligent Design with highly educated American Protestant Christian men at the helm.

ISCID offered a number of services. It offered conferences and symposia with the first held on October 2002 to investigate “teleological accounts for the origin of biological information” (ISCID, 2011b).

It provided a “brainstorms discussion forum” “to get preliminary thoughts about complex systems into circulation so that they can receive critical scrutiny and be more fully developed” with “special interest” to “novel intuitions, speculations, hypotheses, conjectures, arguments, and data” (Ibid.)

Brainstorms, in fact, set a standard of not talking about “politics, personalities, and motives” (ISCID, 2012a). They were strict, stating, “Professional courtesy is to be observed at all times. Excessively long and repetitive posts are to be avoided. The start of a thread needs to present some positive insight into complex systems rather than some purely negative criticism. Threads that do not meet these standards will be closed or deleted entirely” (Ibid.).

They had reading discussion groups with books related top ISCID aiming for participation of the author (Ibid.). The had essay contests “in honor of Michael Polanyi with a cash prize of $1,000 [for undergraduates] and a graduate essay contest in honor of John von Neumann with a cash prize of $2,000” (ISCID, 2011b).

The page, on the John von Neumann Essay Prize, stated, “The John von Neumann Essay Prizeis awarded each summer to the best graduate article on complexity, information, and design submitted during the previous academic year. The article must be between 8,000 and 12,000 words (excluding abstract, bibliography, and notes). The prize value is $2,000” (ISCID, 2008).

On the Michael Polanyi Essay Prize, stated, “The Michael Polanyi Essay Prize is awarded each summer to the best undergraduate article on complexity, information, and design submitted during the previous academic year. The article must be between 6,000 and 8,000 words (excluding abstract, bibliography, and notes). The prize value is $1,000” (Ibid.). The essays well before the shutdown of operations in 2011 or the lack of management of web domain in 2011.

Their summer workshops included “bright undergraduate and graduate students as well as exceptional high school juniors and seniors” who could “have the opportunity each summer to converge on Princeton, New Jersey and learn about complex systems from some of the premier researchers in the field” (Ibid.).

Finally, internal to the system, they had a research bibliography as “an open-source, community project to develop the most comprehensive scientific bibliography resource on complex systems, information and design theory, and teleology. Users can submit entries, make comments, and create “folders” containing relevant reference information” (Ibid.).

You could make donations, become a member and gain benefits. The donations had corresponding levels of memberships, including “Regular Membership — $45-$99,” “Sustaining Membership — $100-$249,” “Friend — $250 — $499,” “Patron — $500 — $999,” “Founder — $1000 and above,” and “Lifetime Benefactor — $5000 and above (includes a lifetime membership)” (ISCID, 2013).

There were monthly donations available of “Ten dollars per month,” “Twenty-five dollars per month,” “Fifty dollars per month,” “One hundred dollars per month,” and “Two hundred and fifty dollars per month” (Ibid.).

Their memberships page had two formal membership levels — apparently, differing from donation memberships — with $25.00 for the Student Membership and $40.00 for the Regular Membership (Ibid.).

Members could access “thousands of online science journal articles,” could share “an interest in information- and design-theoretic applications to complex systems,” while membership was “open to anyone: professional, student, or lay person,” could “receive free or discounted access to online conferences, workshops, and reading discussion groups,” as well as “receive free access to ISCID research tools such as the online Bibliography.”

“Member Services,” as a web page, and some of this is repetitive, included an Online Research Library, Member Discussion Board, Edit Your Profile, Directory, Refer a member, ISCID Bibliography, Job Postings, Membership Renewal, Log out, and the beta version of ISCID Encyclopedia of Science and Philosophy (ISCID, 2003).

Their “Research Tools” were, similarly, limited, with services including the ISCID Encyclopedia of Science and Philosophy(Beta), aLiterature Review, anISCID Bibliography, theMESA: Monotonic Evolutionary Simulation Algorithm, and PLoS Biology & Public Library of Science. That’s about it.

Its top-page motto or phrase stated, “Retraining the scientific imagination to see purpose in nature” (Ibid.), which leads to PCID or the flagship journal of ISCID. “Purpose in nature” means teleology, so theology. It was a teleological/theological organization, not scientific.

The above-listed “Society of Fellows” was the advisory board for the peer-review of PCID. The fellows of ISCID, are the advisory board for PCID, are the peer-review for PCID. This was the structure of the organization.

PCID’s Editorial Board — not the Advisory Board/Society of Fellows — was William A. Dembski as General Editor, Jed Macosko as Associate Editor, Bruce Gordon as Associate Editor, James Barham as Book Review Editor, John Bracht as Managing Editor, and Micah Sparacio as Webmaster. Individuals could advertise with them for finance. PCID’s ISSN was 1555–5089.

They had a total of 8 issues: Volume 1.1, January — March 2002, Double Issue, Volumes 1.2 and 1.3, April — September 2002, Volume 1.4, October — December 2002, Double Issue, Volumes 2.1 and 2.2, January — June 2003, Philosophy of Mind Issue, Volume 2.3, October 2003, Volume 3.1, November 2004, Volume 4.1, July 2005, Volume 4.2 November 2005. These were purely electronic and not print versions, which makes sense moving into the 2000s and forward.

PCID was an attempt by Intelligent Design proponents to publish articles without a standard peer review process. The critique of the peer-review process was the lack of impartiality and rigour of the journal, in spite of secular presentation with information-theoretic terminology and academic patois.

The articles needed acceptance into the archive, required basic scholarly standards in relevance to complex systems as a discipline, and only required one ISCID Society of Fellows fellow to publish it. There was, obvious, conflict of interest and, probably, personal relationships between authors and requesters. The standards and output were very low.

As you can see, clear as day, the social and political intent was dishonest, as noted further above. The peer review was, in effect, dishonest, described above. So, as a service, and in concordance with, for most of them, their Saviour, I state, “…the truth will set you free.”

To further the point about low productivity, Volume 1.1, January — March 2002 published 8 articles and 3 book reviews: Inventions, Algorithms, and Biological Design by John Bracht, Are Probabilities Indispensable to the Design Inference? by Robert C. Koons, Back to Stoics: Dynamical Monism as the Foundation for a Reformed Naturalism by James Barham, A Response to Critics of Darwin’s Black Box by Michael J. Behe, Searching for Deep Variation in the Model Systems of Evo-Devo by Paul A. Nelson and Jonathan Wells, Why Natural Selection Can’t Design Anything by William A. Dembski, Dynamical Complexity and Regularity by Richard Johns, Does the association of spectral absorption bands in sunlight with the spectral response of photoreceptors in plants imply coincidence, adaptation or design? by Forrest M. Mims III, Three Issues With “No Free Lunch” by Darel R. Finley, What Have Butterflies Got to Do with Darwin? by William A. Dembski, and Finding Miller’s King by Jed Macosko.

Double Issue, Volumes 1.2 and 1.3, April — September 2002 published 7 articles and 1 interview: The Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe: A New Kind of Reality Theory by Christopher Michael Langan, The Impasse between the Design and Evolution of Life by Philip R. Page, On the descriptive terminology of the information transfer between organisms by Koszteyn and Lenartowicz, What is Natural Selection? A Plea for Clarification by Neil Broom, Random Predicate Logic I: A Probabilistic Approach to Vagueness by William A. Dembski, Complex Specification (CS): A New Proposal For Identifying Intelligence,Darel R. Finley, The evolution of complex information systems as movement against the pull of entropy, measured along information-space-time dimensions by Arie S. Issar, and Developing a science and philosophy of consciousness: A chat with David Chalmers.

Volume 1.4, October — December 2002 published 8 papers and 1 interview: Becoming a Disciplined Science: Prospects, Pitfalls, and Reality Check for ID by William A. Dembski, Probabilities of randomly assembling a primitive cell on Earth by Dermott J. Mullan, Evolution and the Second Law of Thermodynamics by Granville Sewell, What Does Evolutionary Computing Say About Intelligent Design? by Karl D. Stephan,Evolution’s Logic of Credulity: An Unfettered Response to Allen Orr, by William A. Dembski, Symmetry in Evolution by Phillip L. Engle, Two Kinds of Causality: Philosophical Reflections on Darwin’s Black Box by Jakob Wolf, Some Theoretical and Practical Results in Context-Sensitive and Adaptive Parsing by Quinn Tyler Jackson, and Complexity and Self-Organization: A chat with Stuart Kauffman.

Double Issue, Volumes 2.1 and 2.2, January — June 2003 published 9 papers, 1 on policy, 1 online simulation, and 2 interviews: An Evaluation of “Ev”
 by I.G.D. Strachan, Refereed Journals: Do They Insure Quality or Enforce Orthodoxy? by Frank J. Tipler, On the Application of Irreducible Complexity by Joshua A. Smart, The Bacterial Flagellum: A Response to Ursula Goodenough by John R. Bracht, A Shot in the Dark by David Owen, Tegmark’s Parallel Universes: A Challenge to Intelligent Design? by Karl D. Stephan, Still Spinning Just Fine: A Response to Ken Miller by William A. Dembski, Probability of randomly assembling a primitive cell on Earth: Part II by Dermott J. Mullan, An Evolutionary Manifesto: A New Hypothesis For Organic Change by John A. Davison, Peer Review or Peer Censorship?
 by William A. Dembski, Vignere Encoded Text Evolution, A 21st Century view of evolution (Transcript of online chat with James Shapiro), and Ontogenetic Depth as a Complexity Metric for the Cambrian Explosion (Transcript of online chat with Paul Nelson).

Philosophy of Mind Issue, Volume 2.3, October 2003 published 1 editorial note, 8 papers, and 1 discussion: It’s on the Mind… by Micah Sparacio, Groundwork for an Emergentist Account of the Mental by Timothy O’Connor, Rational Action, Freedom, and Choice by E.J. Lowe, Functionalism Without Physicalism: Outline of an Emergentist Program by Robert C. Koons, Consciousness and complexity by Todd Moody, How Not To Be A Reductivist by William Hasker, Dennett Denied: A Critique of Dennett’s Evolutionary Account of Intentionality by Angus J. L. Menugem, Thoughts on Thinking Matter by James Barham, and Mental Realism: Rejecting the Causal Closure Thesis and Expanding our Physical Ontology, by Micah Sparacio, and Discussion Forum for PCID Volume 2.3, Philosophy of Mind Issue.

Volume 3.1, November 2004 published 7 papers: Evaluation of neo-Darwinian Theory with Avida Simulations by Royal Truman, Using Intelligent Design Theory to Guide Scientific Research by Jonathan Wells, Problems with Characterizing the Protosome-Deuterostome Ancestor by Paul Nelson and Marcus Ross, Irreducible Complexity Revisited
 by William Dembski, Irreducible Complexity Reduced: An Integrated Approach to the Complexity Space by Eric Anderson, Irreducible Complexity by Stephen Griffith, and Some Implications for the Study of Intelligent Design Derived from Molecular and Microarray Analysis by Fernando Castro-Chavez.

Volume 4.1, July 2005 published 6 articles and 1 book review: Human Origins and Intelligent Design by Casey Luskin, Reflections on Human Origins by William Dembski, Questioning Cosmological Superstition: Separating science from myth in our theory of the universe by Rich Halvorson, What Kind of Revolution is the Design Revolution? by Jakob Wolf, The Case for Instant Evolution by John Davison, The Theory of Evolution in the Perspective of Thermodynamics and Everyday Experience by Wim M. de Jong, Review of Ric Machuga, In Defense of the Soul by Benjamin Wiker, A Review of Life’s Solution by Simon Conway Morris by Marcus Ross, and Is the Evolutionary Ladder a Stairway to Heaven? by Casey Luskin.

Volume 4.2, November 2005 published 5 articles: The Three Domains of Life: A Challenge to the concept of the Universal Cellular Ancestor? by Pattle. P. Pun, Stephen Schuldt, and Benjamin T. Pun, Information as a Measure of Variation by William Dembski, Palindromati by Fernando Castro-Chavez, On Einstein’s Razor by Quinn Tyler Jackson, and Bits, Bytes and Biology by Eric Anderson.

In total, the entire existence of the organization produced about 70 publications. It’s virtually nothing.

The Archive (ISCID, 2012b) went further on the standards for acceptance of articles prior to a single individual selecting or approving publication of an article in the Archive:

1. All discussion of papers in the Archive will take place in the Brainstorms Forum.

2. Anonymous and pseudonymous submissions are allowed (though not considered for PCID)

3. Submissions must provide positive insight into complex systems. Thoughtful and contructive critiques are allowed.

4. Professional courtesy is to be maintained. Precluded from this are discussions of politics, personalities, and motives.

5. Articles that were in the Archive that do not meet these standards have been moved to the News and Features section (Ibid.)

To their credit, “authors retain full copyright of their material. Articles submitted to the archive can be removed at any time at the author’s request. Authors grant to the society the right to display PCID articles on its site in perpetuity” (Ibid.).

The “Society Events” contains some information on undergraduate summer workshops and chat events. The chats events have the richer archival links to events. Those included conversations with Robert Wright, Lynn Caporale, James Gardner, Guenter Albrecht-Buehler, Del Ratzsch, Brig Klyce, Jeffrey M. Schwartz, James Shapiro, Paul Nelson, William Dembski, Stuart Kauffman, David Chalmers, Christopher Langan, and Ray Kurzweil (ISCID, 2012c).

Now, the News section ended on 2005, which was around the loss at the Dover trial. In short, ISCID and PCID died around the time of the most consequential legal loss for the Intelligent Design movement or community.

Reflecting on the above, it’s clear ISCID was a catastrophic failure — in spite of the depth and concertedness of the effort seen in the excavation, and included most of the most prominent and important members of the Intelligent Design community, and failed to rise under the weight of its own impotent theoretical foundations: Christian theology couched in information- and design-theoretic language.

Most of the prominent and important members of the Intelligent Design community are aging or dying. As with Johnson working for the Gospel until death, and Behe continuing in spite of the departmental isolation, and Dembski despite profound failures over years, Intelligent Design advocates will continue in the tracks of the founders, though themselves part of the same aging cohort, in general.

Which is to say, ISCID and PCID were failures, as their foundations were false, and so with Intelligent Design.

References

Behe, M. & Meyer, S.C. (2018, May 10). What is Intelligent Design?. Retrieved from https://www.discovery.org/v/what-is-intelligent-design/.

Clemmitt, M. (2005, July 29). Intelligent Design: Should alternatives to evolutionary theory be taught?. Retrieved from https://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/document.php?id=cqresrre2005072902.

Dembski, W. (1999, July/August). Signs of Intelligence: A Primer on the Discernment of Intelligent Design.

Environment and Ecology. (2019). Intelligent Design. Retrieved from www.environment-ecology.com/religion-and-ecology/371-intelligent-design.html.

ISCID. (July 26, 2011b). About ISCID. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20110806053013/http://www.iscid.org/about.php.

ISCID. (April 5, 2013). Donations. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20130405174319/http://www.iscid.org/donations.php.

ISCID. (May 13, 2008). Essay Contests. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20080513011932/http://www.iscid.org/essaycontests.php.

ISCID. (2012c, February 6). ISCID Chat Events. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20120206204926/http://www.iscid.org/chat-events.php.

ISCID. (2003, February 10). Member Services. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20030210105012/http://www.iscid.org/memberservices.php.

ISCID. (2006, September 25). Research Tools. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20060925023031/http://www.iscid.org/research-tools.php.

ISCID. (2011a, July 26). Society of Fellows. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20110726191604/http://www.iscid.org/fellows.php.

ISCID. (2012b, February 4). The Archive. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20120204043714/http://www.iscid.org/archive.php.

ISCID. (2012a, February 05). What is Brainstorms?. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20120205023025/http://www.iscid.org/brainstorms.php.

RationalWiki. (2021, October 18). Intelligent design. Retrieved from https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Intelligent_design.

Ruse, M. (2021, June 21). Creationism. Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/creationism/.

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