Intelligent Design

After going into full flame mode on XML-Dev about intelligent design, I should apologize.

But I won't.

You see, every time anyone in America apologizes to the evangelicals, their extreme members use it to push their agendas harder. This is the only group I know of this side of the Moonies that have summer camps for preparing children to debate their agendas. I don't want that taught to my children. There are lots of parts of their agenda I oppose, but most of them can be debated without pulling the rest of the world into the debate.

Intelligent design is not science. It is religion. Science does not admit universal first cause. Why? Because this premise is not testable or verifiable. Once introduced, logical investigation stops. Competent well-trained scientists know this. Those who mix their faith into their technique of investigation, and science is technique, know this.

My position on the existence of God can be found all over my writings. My beliefs are as strong as they need to be. My relationship with God is not for anyone else to judge.

But I do not and cannot accept this thesis that attempts to beggar that relationship because some believe they can strengthen their own position with it. It adds nothing to my faith, and it detracts from the body of science.

In the past, when faced with the political agenda to create a unified faith in this country, the result was to build stocks on the village square. From that experience and others, we learned to separate our religion from our State, but this is not why intelligent design cannot be a subject for a science class. The thesis has no tests for proof and no proof offered adds knowledge that strengthens faith.

It isn't science. Teach it in the temple and I will be there with you. Teach it in a science class, and I will remove my children from your class. Make it a State-enforced requirement, and I will remove my family from the State. No negotiation.

The world today is filled with extremism. We are pumping these emotion-stirring positions into a system that amplifies them and gives them power over otherwise reasonable men and women. We do this at our peril. Any fool, whether foolish about religion, science, or their own relationship to God can see that. Fools that we are, if we wish to harm ourselves, this will achieve a fool's end.

Let the worshipper be known by that to which they live assimilate.

Getting Fed

Tim Bray is right, as usual.

If blogs, vlogs, mlogs, in other words, subscription systems are to grow faster, subscribing should be a one-click operation. On the other hand, the web is full of one-click nasties and if the XML icon is to be used for that operation, it should be safe. It seems to me, getting people to learn and trust the operation because they are fairly certain they can is the challenge.

Otherwise, yes: drive learning through the common interface convention. That is what hypertext has done best for decades.