William Dembski Refutes "Pro-ID" Paper

Posted 11 April 2007 by Steve Reuland

You've gotta hand it to Bill Dembski. No one is as damaging to the ID cause as he is. I mean, we've tried to trip them up, and I think we've succeeded here and there, but ultimately, Dembski is our best warrior. Case in point: he's just gone on a tirade in which the very paper which he previously said was in favor of intelligent design has got it all wrong:

So let me spell it out: DIRECTED EVOLUTION IS NON-DARWINIAN. DARWINIAN EVOLUTION IS NON-DIRECTED. ... Just because the word "evolution" is used doesn't mean that homage is being paid to Darwin. "Directed evolution" properly falls under ID.

The sad thing is, this little outburst should really be directed at Matti Leisola and Ossi Turunen, the guys who wrote the paper under consideration, and not at me. Here is what the authors wrote:

At one end is an approach commonly referred to as a rational design, which aims to understand the principles of protein structure and function well enough to apply them in designing new properties or even novel proteins using de novo design. The value of this approach in purely scientific terms is indisputable. However, because the difficulty is likewise indisputable, any approach that might succeed sooner is worth exploring. That realization has motivated work at the other end of the spectrum, where the emphasis is on finding what works rather than predicting what works. Darwinian evolution is the inspiration behind this. In the extreme form, this means avoiding protein design principles altogether and relying instead on huge sequence libraries and carefully designed selection methods.

Why didn't Dembski, with all his brilliance, bother telling his ID author heroes that they were really talking about "intelligent design" the whole time? Instead they're under the horrible misapprehension that directed evolution techniques were inspired by Darwinian evolution. And later they go on to say that there's an "Overreliance on the Darwinian methodology", meaning the directed evolutionary methods they spent the previous paragraphs describing. Here's more:

It is often said that random genetic methods to improve enzyme properties "rely on simple but powerful Darwinian principles of mutation and selection" (Johannes and Zhao 2006). We agree.

Whoa, what's that? Leisola and Turunen agree that mutation and selection are "Darwinian principles", and that these principles are responsible for the success of directed evolution? Say it ain't so! Tell me something Bill: Did you even read the paper? Putting aside the fact that Dembski is flatly contradicted by the very "pro-ID" paper he originally cited, his claim is utterly illogical. Dembski's original error was to conflate rational design techniques with "intelligent design", which as I pointed out at the time is just plain wrong. Protein engineers do not operate under the premise that natural proteins were designed by some unknown intelligence for unknown reasons using unknown methods at some unknown point in the past. Quite the opposite, even those relying strictly on rational design methods use phylogenetic trees and other facets of evolutionary theory to guide their research. Now Dembski has gone and doubled-down on the absurdity, declaring that the method at the "other end of the spectrum", which is directed evolution, is now also "intelligent design". Goodness, is there anything that doesn't fall under that vague and useless term? As I explained previously, directed evolution methods involve the experimenter using random mutagenesis and a selection screen. This is the Darwinian mechanism. The fact that an experimenter chooses which screen to use doesn't matter, because the experimenter is simply mimicking what the environment does on a constant basis all over the planet. In fact, as far as the organism or protein sequence under selection is concerned, the experimenter is just another piece of the environment. And it definitely has nothing to do with ID, which is -- and let's drop the pretense for a change -- God supernaturally zapping stuff. Given Dembski's reasoning, we should conclude that wind tunnel experiments are an example of ID because the experimenter sets the speed and direction of the wind. Therefore, airplane lift could not happen due to undirected naturalistic forces. If you think this is ridiculous, you are correct.

29 Comments

Vyoma · 11 April 2007

When you get right down to it, I think the only people left who still care what Dembski has to say are the people who hang about on his website. I don't see much evidence that anyone else puts much stock in his ideas or, frankly, even know who he is... including creationists I've met in my neck of the woods (there are very, very few people that I've met here who use the words "intelligent design" as anything other than a more modern-sounding title for "creationism," and they'll say so unabashedly).

Most of them haven't read anything Dembski has ever written anywhere, nor do they appear to know he has a website.

Essentially, Dembski has become irrelevant to anyone outside of a small core of his true-believers (if he ever was relevant in the first place). Even most man-in-the-street type ID proponents couldn't say who the guy is, and in the scientific sphere, nobody is motivated one way or the other by Dembski.

Maybe he's still got some impact on the theological circles he claims to be most comfortable in?

PoxyHowzes · 11 April 2007

Grammar police here: the phrase "the very pro-ID paper" means, I think, "the exact same pro-ID paper," not "the paper that is so pro-ID." (actually, it is grammatical, just potentially ambiguous.)

Steve Reuland · 11 April 2007

When you get right down to it, I think the only people left who still care what Dembski has to say are the people who hang about on his website.
— Vynoma

I've often said that when ID advocates -- and this applies most strongly to Dembski -- write critiques of pro-evolution stuff, they do so only with their supporters as the intended audience. They do not write with their critics or even outside observers in mind at all, because they rely on their readers not having read or given due consideration to the original source material. Perhaps the best example of this is in their attacks on the Kitzmiller decision. Almost all of the arguments they used were answered in the original decision itself. They weren't responding to the decision, they were just repeating the very same arguments that Judge Jones didn't buy in the first place. This trick only works on people who either didn't read the decision or are strongly predisposed to rejecting it simply because it didn't go their way -- in other words, the true believers.

Glen Davidson · 11 April 2007

It's "Darwinian evolution" in the same sense that any Petri-dish evolution experiment is. That is, it's evolution under laboratory conditions.

In that sense it is somewhat different from evolutionary theory, which deals with evolution "in nature". But of course it's proof of principle, exactly the sorts of "experiments" that should be done with respect to evolutionary theory, if they can be.

Dembski apparently thinks that doing experiments under controlled conditions somehow voids the scientific method, when it is (part of) the scientific method. Presumably it's why he does none.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/35s39o

Dave S. · 11 April 2007

So let me spell it out: DIRECTED EVOLUTION IS NON-DARWINIAN. DARWINIAN EVOLUTION IS NON-DIRECTED.... Just because the word "evolution" is used doesn't mean that homage is being paid to Darwin. "Directed evolution" properly falls under ID.

Good to know Dembski thinks eugenics (directed evolution by his definition it seems) is non-Darwinian and an example of intelligent design. Looks like the good Dr. Engor is rubbing off on him.

raven · 11 April 2007

Dembski apparently thinks that doing experiments under controlled conditions somehow voids the scientific method, when it is (part of) the scientific method. Presumably it's why he does none.

This is just demogoguery or empty rhetoric. If scientists hadn't tested evolution in laboratory experiments he would be all over that as "proof" that scientists are lazy and afraid their experiments wouldn't work. Heads he wins, tails he wins. It is true that humans formulated the hypothesis, designed the experiments, carried them out, collected the data, analyzed it, and drew conclusions. A process known as empiricism or the scientific method. Well, so what. Who else would carry them out? A dog? If anything done by humans is artificial, then all science since the first data thousands of years ago is "artificial". So's the bible unless it was written down by goats or something. No wonder ID fails as science. These guys don't know what science is and don't care.

Bill Gascoyne · 11 April 2007

Most of them [creationists I've met in my neck of the woods] haven't read anything Dembski has ever written anywhere, nor do they appear to know he has a website.

Do they know what a web site is?

raven · 11 April 2007

So let me spell it out: DIRECTED EVOLUTION IS NON-DARWINIAN. DARWINIAN EVOLUTION IS NON-DIRECTED.... Just because the word "evolution" is used doesn't mean that homage is being paid to Darwin. "Directed evolution" properly falls under ID.

Having a hard time keeping up with the ID intellectual contortions. Darwinian evolution is the bad evolution. Directed evolution is the good evolution. So they are saying evolution exists and it works. But it never happen(s)ed in the biosphere? Natural selection would be a powerful directing force. What's the difference between direction by natural selection for differential reproduction of the fittest and human direction toward some chosen goal? Not much that I can see. None in principle. As I recall, a lot of evolutionists think the distinction between artificial and natural selection is a false dichotomy. We exist in the physical world as part of nature.

Henry J · 11 April 2007

Re "What's the difference between direction by natural selection for differential reproduction of the fittest and human direction toward some chosen goal?"

My guess: populations produced by natural selection are probably better able to adapt to changing conditions, and populations produced by artificial (human guided) selection are more apt to require continued human support for their survival.

Henry

David Stanton · 11 April 2007

So, a successful application of a theory is not the theory, because the theory (which was developed to explain what happens in nature) said nothing about any particular applications.

OK, so: a light bulb is not a theory of physics and theories of physics say nothing about light bulbs; an atomic reactor is not atomic theory and atomic theory doesn't have anything to say about an atomic reactor, etc.

Pretty silly argument.

Vyoma · 11 April 2007

Pretty silly argument.
— David Stanton

Silly arguments often come from silly sources.

raven · 11 April 2007

FWIW, there is nothing particularly new about directed evolution of proteins for binding or activity. This has been done for at least 15 years. Phage display has been used to select higher affinity antibodies directed against a given target and so on.

The same general principles have been used to make RNA chunks (aptamers) that bind to a given target or catalytic RNAs (ribozymes) that perform various catalytic reactions. One of them is an RNA ligase with weak polymerase activity. I will have to check but one aptamer drug, Macugen, binds to vegf and is used to treat macular degeneration and was probably derived by directed RNA evolution.

This is very old molbio news. Whether a creo molecular biologist has his name on a paper in the field or not should be totally irrelevant as to whether it has any relevance to evolution or ID.

Jason F · 11 April 2007

Dembski states:

"Directed evolution" properly falls under ID.

So does that mean Dembski and the rest of the ID creationist crowd now embrace theistic evolution? I'm pretty sure they used to chastize theistic evolutionists as cop-outs. Now it seems they're trying to claim them as their own. Vyoma states:

I think the only people left who still care what Dembski has to say are the people who hang about on his website

You're absolutely correct. Back in the heyday of ID creationism, the PandasThumb was mostly about countering what ID creationists did (e.g. lobbying school boards, publishing textbooks, etc.), but now the PandasThumb is almost exclusively about responding to what ID creationists say (mostly on their websites). And quite frankly, it's not all that interesting anymore. Now this site is almost exclusively, "Hey, look at what Dembski posted at UD!" I'm glad ID creationists have been rendered so obsolete, but the unfortunate result has been the subsequent loss of interest in The Pandas Thumb.

Kevin · 11 April 2007

"Tell me something Bill: Did you even read the paper"

read? what is this "read" of which you type?

Dave Carlson · 12 April 2007

Dembski responds:

Steve Reuland, commenting at the Panda's Thumb on this post, claims that I've misrepresented him and the paper. If he but were to read the paper closely, he would find that it distinguishes between Darwinian evolution as an "inspiration" to directed search and "Darwinian blind search" as inherently limited. Darwinian evolution, which is blind, is the inspiration for evolutionary computing, which employs well-crafted fitness landscapes to achieve ends and therefore is not blind --- and therefore is properly a branch of ID and non-Darwinian. Yes, we're playing a turf war here. But it will not do to have Darwin discard teleology and then to claim teleological processes as Darwinian. This is an abuse of language. Leisola and Turunen skirted the edge yet nuanced their views adequately; but Reuland is guilty of it.

Torbjörn Larsson · 12 April 2007

which employs well-crafted fitness landscapes to achieve ends and therefore is not blind

The idiocy and inadequacy of Dembski's attempts to describe evolutionary algorithms have been described in depth before. Suffice to say, the algorithms has no information of where the solution is situated, if they did the problem would be solved already. (Sometimes the area is bounded, but that doesn't detract from the implications of the real situation.)

then to claim teleological processes as Darwinian.

Bait-and-switch, the only ones discussing teleology in selection are creationists. To demonstrate that a directed search is contingent and isolated from teleology one can use a stochastic process, such as a flip of the coin, to pick the intended target, and further to form a fitness landscape. It is interesting to see Dembski trying to squirm out of not having read the paper. Which, I freely disclose, I haven't either. But the quotations above are quite clear. That evolutionary processes have inspired the evolutionary methods used in the directed searches in question is not something he can confess to.

"Darwinian blind search" as inherently limited.

Sure, it would be better to understand all the principles of protein structure and functioning to directly design them. But since design is limited due to lack of understanding (and if we can't elucidate all the details, inherently so), we use other methods to make up for what 'intelligent' design can't do. It is a testament to the power of evolution, really.

trrll · 12 April 2007

Embarrassing as this is for Dembski, he really had no choice but to reverse himself. Desperate for examples of ID-based research, he prematurely embraced this paper, then realized that he had painted himself into a very dangerous corner.

For Dembski to acknowledge any kind of directed evolution as a valid simulation of natural selection would be a fatal blow to the entire intellectual facade that he has labored to create. Dembski's fundamental argument, after all, is that it is impossible for Darwinian mechanisms to generate any kind of non-trivial information. As long as Dembski can keep this on a purely theoretical level, he is insulated from challenges. But if any kind of laboratory or computer simulation is valid, then it becomes possible to test Dembski's claims experimentally, and Dembski clearly knows how that would come out. It is not good enough for rational protein design to be superior to natural-selection-simulation based protein design (even if that were true, which at this point it still isn't), because Dembski's thesis requires that natural selection should not work at all.

So Dembski has no choice but to insist that any kind of natural selection based method of design possesses some form of "smuggled intelligence," which is entirely responsible for its success.

secondclass · 12 April 2007

So let me spell it out: DIRECTED EVOLUTION IS NON-DARWINIAN. DARWINIAN EVOLUTION IS NON-DIRECTED. I've been saying this now for close to a decade (see ch. 4 of my book No Free Lunch).
— Dembski

Chapter 4 of NFL -- the Jello chapter. Unfortunately for Dembski, that chapter, and his subsequent elaborations here and here, do NOT say that "DARWINIAN EVOLUTION IS NON-DIRECTED". If we cast Darwinian evolution as a search, which is what Dembski does, it has the following features: 1) A fitness function with smooth gradients 2) A target that's based on the fitness function (say, everything above a certain threshold constitutes the target) 3) A search algorithm that moves uphill via RM+NS (Whether it even makes sense to cast evolution as a search is questionable. Dembski never tells us what the target of evolution is, but since Dembski considers evolution to be successful, and since evolution produces fit organisms, it seems that the target is a certain level of fitness.) In terms of Dembski's "assisted search vs. blind search" dichotomy, Darwinian evolution is most definitely an assisted search. Chock this up as another one of Dembski's flip-flops.

Mike Treat · 12 April 2007

I pop over to Panda's Thumb every once in a while just to confirm how silly those that worship at the alter of materialism can make themselves look. Your ad hominem attacks on Dembski are downright silly. First you question whether he read the paper mentioned in this thread (possible but unfounded). Then you question whether anyone that supports ID *can* read or even know what a web site is. Classy. You claim that Dembski is doing more to undermine ID than you can do yourself. The way I see it, vitriol like that displayed at Panda's Thumb does more to undermine your case than anything else I've seen. Your venom inherently smacks of hysteria to anyone with an open mind regarding which inference -- macro-evolution (sorry, it's just an inference) or intelligent design -- best explains the incredible complexity, diversity, and interdependence displayed within life as we understand it. The open-minded takes one look and concludes they can't trust materialistic fundamentalists such as yourselves. Perhaps they won't (and shouldn't) trust some elements of the ID crowd either. All fundamentalism is wrong-headed: whether pro *or* anti ID. Plus, Darwinian theory says *nothing* empirical about how the first self-replicating life-form came to be in the first place. But I forget. Having an open mind on these issues is unacceptable. To be an accepted member of the church of materialism requires that one chant pro-Darwinian phrases and nothing else. God (or whoever) forbid that we only go as far as the evidence actually leads. We *MUST* choose *NOW* to worship random chance. What's so bad about having an open mind? I'm *sure* all the nice folks at Panda's Thumb will respond to this posting with civil, well-thought out responses rather than name-calling -- thereby refuting my main point that you folks do more harm than good to your cause. The more we learn about life the less likely it is that undirected random chance can accomplish it all. You're looking sillier all the time.

Henry J · 12 April 2007

Mike,
If name-calling refutes one's own argument, then you just clobbered yours.

Henry

TheBogNug · 12 April 2007

You are right Mike. Undirected random chance would not accomplish much at all. Of course, the great part of natural selection is that it isn't undirected random chance. It is wrapped in that word, "selection". I would've guessed with such an open mind you would have read and understood enough of evolutionary theory to have grasped that critical point.

RBH · 12 April 2007

Dembski wrote: If he but were to read the paper closely, he would find that it distinguishes between Darwinian evolution as an "inspiration" to directed search and "Darwinian blind search" as inherently limited. Darwinian evolution, which is blind, is the inspiration for evolutionary computing, which employs well-crafted fitness landscapes to achieve ends and therefore is not blind --- and therefore is properly a branch of ID and non-Darwinian.

What a load of crap. My company uses evolutionary algorithms precisely because we do not know what the fitness landscape looks like: we couldn't "craft" it if we wanted to. If we did know what it looked like, we'd just write down the equation(s) corresponding to the fitness peak(s) and forget about all that wasteful and time-consuming evolution business. RBH

harold · 12 April 2007

Mike Treat -

Your post suggests to me that you, yourself, might benefit from becoming more open-minded.

The large number of insults in your post ("silly", "hysterical", etc) serves no purpose except to make communication more strained.

Your complaint that the theory of evolution does not explain how life began is valid but irrelevant. The theory of evolution explains how cellular and post-cellular life evolves.

I'm not sure what you mean by "macro-evolution", but evolution of cellular and post-cellular life on earth from a common ancestor, by the process of variable replication of nucleic acids, natural selection acting on phenotypes, and a number of other natural processes (mainly random genetic drift) is not "based on conjecture". It is supported by strong evidence from molecular biology, biochemistry, genetics, physiology, anatomy, anthropology, and paleontology.

You make the very common error of confusing "ad hominem" with "insult" or "criticism". An ad hominem is not an insult, it is the illogical act of using an an irrelevant insult to argue against an unrelated position held by the insulted party (imaginary example - "David Duke believes that Paris is the capital of Czech Republic, and David Duke is a racist, so Paris must not be the capital of Czech Republic"). Note that even if the conclusion is coincidentally correct, as here, and even if the insult or personal criticism is valid, as may be the case here, the logical process is still wrong. This is not an independently good reason to conclude that Paris is not the capital of the Czech Republic.

Dembski is sharply criticized here (more than deservedly so, in my opinion), and even insulted. These criticisms are not ad hominems, however. In fact, Dembski's demonstrably wrong opinions give rise to the criticisms, rather than the criticisms leading anyone to conclude that his opinions are wrong.

Your (incorrect) statement that posters here are "fundamentalist materialists", however, comes close to ad hominem, since you use it as a justification for not accepting unrelated arguments. I'm not a "fundamentalist materialist", but if I were, the bacterial flagellum may still have evolved rather than having been pinned on by a magical "designer".

The irony of your declaration that insults invalidate arguments, in combination with your heavy use of insults, has already been commented on.

Insults don't invalidate arguments. "Two plus two is four, you bloated imbecile" accurately expressed that two plus two is four, despite the insult. They do hamper communication at times, however.

Steve Reuland · 12 April 2007

If he but were to read the paper closely, he would find that it distinguishes between Darwinian evolution as an "inspiration" to directed search and "Darwinian blind search" as inherently limited.
— Dembski

Oh good grief. If he would have read the paper more closely (or at all), he might have seen that it explicitly labels directed evolution as a Darwinian method. How else could the authors argue that there is an "Overreliance on Darwinian methods" if they didn't think the methods in question were Darwinian? If they, like Dembski, were of the opinion that the second an experimenter enters the picture the method suddenly becomes non-Darwinian, that statement would be meaningless. And even if they didn't say so directly, the whole reason why they are downplaying and criticizing the use of directed evolutionary methods is because they correctly perceive them as being Darwinian in character. If Dembski were right, Leisola and Turunen would have written a much different paper. They wouldn't be attacking a method that they thought was actually ID, now would they? Dembski must really think his readers are stupid.

Vyoma · 12 April 2007

The more we learn about life the less likely it is that undirected random chance can accomplish it all.
— Mike Treat

As opposed to non-random chance? There's nothing supporting this claim, because no claim has actually been made other than "every living thing on earth poofed into existence spontaneously in no particular order." That's what a truly random event is, after all; it has no connection to any other event, and is completely independent of all other probabilities. A towering strawman, surely, if ever there was one. Of course, this particular IDiot is fond of such arguments, as in the case where he wrote elsewhere:

You make the exact same mistakes that the judge in the Dover, PA trial made: you pretty much ignore what is being SAID by the ID camp and then pretend to know what they REALLY mean by everything they say. It's nothing but a strawman argument. Enjoy beating the stuffing out of that strawman for as long as it lasts. I, for one, am kind of glad that the Darwinists take this approach because it ensures that they won't know what hit them when it becomes painfully obvious to everyone willing and able to use their brain that you don't get specifically, complex systems and bio-mechanisms for free (via random chance mutation and natural selection alone). (And if you do, prove it! Don't just assume it.) Keep it up. By the time you take ID seriously, it will be too late. LOL.
— Mike Treat

Count the strawmen. Nobody claims, for instance, that one can get "specifically, complex systems and bio-mechanisms for free" because there has yet to be demonstrated a single biological system, complex or otherwise, that can be said to have been specified. Or the bit about "the judge in the Dover, PA trial," when of course it's precisely the job of judges to interpret motive and meaning in the statements in a non-juried legal proceeding. At least he's smart enough to know that ID isn't taken seriously by anyone other than a few hangers-on; most of the ID camp is composed of creationists who will, when pressed even the slightest bit, admit to being religiously-motivated creationists of the "goddidit" variety, indicating that even most of what's left of so-called ID no longer takes the argument (I hesitate even to call it a hypothesis at this point) seriously. ID has effectively been squeezed out of existence, after all. It didn't work as a scientific argument (still no research, no means of detecting design, no ability to say anything about how design gets inserted); it certainly has failed among the very religious (as it won't come right out and admit that "Goddidit"); and it has lost in every attempt at using legal means to assert itself (stickers in textbooks, changes to science education requirements). Even its major advocates have finally begun to admit that it hasn't got enough explanatory merit to be a fit subject for education. It's barely a blip on the radar screen anymore and is fading fast, exceeded in adherents even by YECs at this point, it would seem. Let's face it, Mike, what's gotten "hit" here is ID. There still aren't any scientists making any discoveries using anything that's been proposed by the ID-assertion. Not one prediction based uopn it has been forthcoming, let alone one that has actually been observed, whether inside or outside of a laboratory. After a decade, it has produced nothing more than a few ripples at the cultural level, and even those are damping out rapidly. LOL all you like, but nobody in a position to actually make a difference in science or technological progress takes ID seriously at this point, and that's a very sure sign of a failed experiment. It's hardly anything more than a loosely-applied label encompassing any number of essentially creationist ideas at this point, and the conflicts between those ideas are becoming readily apparent even amongst those motivated by religious ideology. ID isn't even a good strawman anymore; all the straw's fallen out. It's an old set of clothes that someone threw away, threadbare and frayed along every edge.

secondclass · 12 April 2007

As opposed to non-random chance?
— Vyoma

It sounds funny, but non-random chance is not an oxymoron in Dembski's world:

Chance as I characterize it thus includes necessity, chance (as it is ordinarily used), and their combination.
— Dembski, NFL, pg. 15

Raging Bee · 13 April 2007

The way I see it, vitriol like that displayed at Panda's Thumb does more to undermine your case than anything else I've seen.

Hey, at least we're not blaming Dembski for the Holocaust, eugenics, and all the other evils his crowd have blamed on "Darwinism." I really don't think you're in a position to lecture us on the subject of "vitriol"

Science Avenger · 13 April 2007

Trrll said: For Dembski to acknowledge any kind of directed evolution as a valid simulation of natural selection would be a fatal blow to the entire intellectual facade that he has labored to create. Dembski's fundamental argument, after all, is that it is impossible for Darwinian mechanisms to generate any kind of non-trivial information. As long as Dembski can keep this on a purely theoretical level, he is insulated from challenges. But if any kind of laboratory or computer simulation is valid, then it becomes possible to test Dembski's claims experimentally, and Dembski clearly knows how that would come out.

This is the crux of it. The IDers cannot allow computer simulations into the picture, or the game is over. Their only hope is to declare all of them "front-loaded" and hope their followers are too dim to understand the flaws in that argument. Alas, they are probably right, even in the face of objective refutations like Dave Thomas' (IIRC) Steiner problem example. However, I still hold out hope that the emergence of evolutionary algorithms in practical applications that even a layman can sit and watch function will be the real death knell to ID.

Science Avenger · 13 April 2007

Mike Treat said (in early 2006): You make the exact same mistakes that the judge in the Dover, PA trial made: you pretty much ignore what is being SAID by the ID camp and then pretend to know what they REALLY mean by everything they say.

Of all the arguments the IDers make, this has to be the most bizarre. Can they really not understand that the whole point of trials is to decide between competing opinions on matters of law and fact? If the IDers' claims are to be taken at face value, there is no reason for a trial.