Talk:Michael Denton

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Creationism: Intelligent design

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Some additions[edit]

Link to version.

I will leave this perfunctory comment here regarding this version of the article which carries additional, correct information for other editors to consider. Apparently I have been thwarted in my assistance of Wikipedia's aims by an odd administrative problem; therefore, I hope at some point another editor will do what is necessary.— ^ignis _scripta 21:32, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I leave it to the readers to determine that User:Igni has interpolated at least one "fact" which is implausible and unsourced. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 22:37, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

One last mention for other readers (since miscalculations seem intent on lingering on my skin not unlike a case of verruca) so that they may not be mislead by misapprehension: Michael Denton is a part of the intelligent design movement; however, his position is based not on theology (i.e., the "religiously based intelligent design movement") but on his theories regarding the structure of nature, a matter which he discusses at extended length in his books to discredit the Darwinian formulation of intrinsically chaotic, random, and cumulative events as the bases of evolutionary processes. So much for factual erroneousness—readers of reasonable understanding will inevitably conclude that nowhere is a written, "implausible and unsourced" error "among others" to be found.— ^ignis _scripta 14:14, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Whether or not he is part of the intelligent design movement, he intentionally supports it, as far as can be determined. The statement that he is not part of the ID movement is not sourced, nor is it likely to be. We would need a third party source for the statement; neither his word nor the word of ID advocates is adequate. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 15:24, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Given the statements of his second book "Nature's Destiny" he isn't a supporter of intelligent design. Specifically quotes like " Contrary to the creationist position, the whole argument presented here is critically dependent on the presumption of the unbroken continuity of the organic world--that is, on the reality of organic evolution and on the presumption that all living organisms on earth are natural forms in the profoundest sense of the word, no less natural than salt crystals, atoms, waterfalls, or galaxies." prove this point. I will give some reviews of his second book. http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/mark_vuletic/natures_destiny.html http://home.wxs.nl/~gkorthof/kortho29.htm Headrattle (talk) 06:51, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Right, so I guess his previous books should just be ignored. Along with his former placement at the Discovery Institute. His statement appears to be yet another attempt to distance ID from creationism; a goal long sought by ID members but continuously upheld by other institutions. Baegis (talk) 07:03, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Denton's dissociation from ID has been, to say the least, ambiguous and equivocal. It has also been poorly documented in reliable third party sources. Also it isn't particularly clear whether Nature's Destiny takes him away from ID or merely away from the biological wing of ID (typified by Michael Behe & Irreducible complexity) and towards the Fine-tuned Universe‎ wing of ID (typified by Guillermo Gonzalez & The Privileged Planet), with any apparent 'disassociation' to his prior position merely being due to the contradiction between the claims of these two wings of ID. Because of this, we really need a reliable secondary source to say whether Denton is genuinely disavowing ID or not. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 07:23, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Given the nature of ID wouldn't it be safe to say that he has distanced himself from the viewpoint of ID? In the forward of his book he specifically states that everything has natural causes. Though it is hard to find any actual quotes from him it seems that he distanced himself from ID when he no longer agreed with them. Though this is conjecture it should be noted for the future of this page.Headrattle (talk) 11:14, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The "nature of ID" is too frequently equivocal and self-contradictory for safety in making such assessments without expert opinion. How do Denton's views differ from Gonzalez's for instance? Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 19:39, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nature's Destiny espouses views that Gonzalez would reject out of hand as "pantheism". On page 329 of The Privileged Planet, Gonzalez and Richards write that they cannot rule out a view they reject: "It's possible to be both a naturalist and to admit design in nature. In fact, in the ancient world, both Aristotelians and Stoics did just that. Perhaps, for instance, design is somehow an inextricable part of an eternal cosmos, like matter and energy. We can't conclusively rule this out. The problem in our modern setting is that this strategy would require an essentially pantheistic view of nature that most naturalists deny." The IDers want to say that the laws and constants of physics make the universe congenial to life, but don't actually bring life about. They want to leave a gap in the universe so it needs a transcendent Intelligence to intervene to design living things.JKeck (talk) 00:44, 18 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

a casual observation[edit]

I'm not very familiar with the subject matter, so take this with two grains of salt, but the article claims he "has been a strong proponent of intelligent design" yet the discussion here on the talk page does not reflect that. There seems to be some unanswered questions regarding how "deep" his ID support goes. Also, the claim that his book "was instrumental in starting the intelligent design movement" is not well referenced and a claim like that, I think, should have a significant amount of support. And what is the relationship between the title of his book and the Disco's anti-science mantra "evolution is a theory in crisis?" Finally...How do we know he asked that his name be removed from the DI web site? I'm just curious, I'd like to read more about it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Angry Christian (talk • contribs) 20:44, 25 February 2008 (UTC) Oops! Angry Christian (talk) 21:00, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're right: "strong" is inaccurate, so I've changed it to "influential". His writing was one of the things that caused Johnson to kick off the whole thing, though I've always had the impression he was luke-warm about it -- his book, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis‎, tends to be mentioned in the formation of the ID movement far more often than he is. Will work on finding citations for this. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 02:30, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't aware on the influence on Johnson, I am now. I tried to find more about the guy so I could add some cites (and more to the article) myself, I just haven't found much yet. I'll keep looking Angry Christian (talk) 02:36, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just checked, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis#Historical significance and intelligent design fully substantiates, and sources, the claims in this article. I don't really think duplication of this information here is needed (if you want more details of the impact of a book, you logically follow the link to the article on the book). Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 02:52, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much, the mag that has the Johnson interview seems to be down right now. I read the Behe one though. I think some of this would improve the article. I need to learn how to add cites...Let me do that and I'll see about adding alittle Angry Christian (talk) 03:02, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Denton's PhD[edit]

Denton's PhD is widely reported, especially in Creationist circles, as being in "developmental biology" (an error that can be traced back to Dembski's mendacious statement in Uncommon Dissent: "As a post graduate he studied developmental biology at Kings College, London University where he gained a PhD in 1974.") I have therefore given full details in the article. As far as I can tell, not only did he received his PhD from the Department of Biochemistry, whe thesis topic, which is on "developing adult mamalian[sic] erythroid cells" is unrelated to developmental biology, which is "the study of the process by which organisms grow and develop", not how cells develop in adults. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 15:49, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Update Needed[edit]

The article reads like it hasn't been touched in a decade. Denton's papers in the last five years show that his thinking has moved beyond Nature's Destiny, and way, way beyond A Theory in Crisis. Clearly the present article badly needs an update. JKeck (talk) 00:46, 18 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Denton has received very little new attention from scholarly sources in the past decade. If you can cite these papers for what the state about his views (or better yet, a reliable secondary source interpreting them), then please do so. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 03:57, 18 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The article reads: "the institute continues to cite Evolution: A Theory in Crisis work in support of its campaign" Actually the linked article (Bibliography of Supplementary Resources For Science Instruction) no longer cites Denton's Evolution: A Theory in Crisis though one quotation does mention his later book, Nature's Destiny. I'm going to update to better reflect reality.JKeck (talk) 17:38, 2 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I can tell from www.archive.org, it never did, nor does Creationism's Trojan Horse (which only mentions it on p153, not 150) make this claim. I've tagged the statement. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 17:52, 2 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry to have removed your tag, Hrafn. I did a more thorough edit of the page, and it seemed appropriate to remove the reference entirely. JKeck (talk) 18:44, 2 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And I have re-added it -- please demonstrate where the still-cited page of Creationism's Trojan Horse contains this information. It doesn't! Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 19:14, 2 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure that to do, as I didn't write the original. Would it be proper simply to eliminate the citation? JKeck (talk) 19:33, 2 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm happy with doing so. The Pandas statement probably needs a citation to the page number in that book though. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 05:17, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sourcing of recently deleted material[edit]

The statement "Denton's later book Nature's Destiny contradicts many of the points of A Theory in Crisis" is sourced to this, which only states:

Interestingly, it appears that Denton has finally rectified his misunderstanding about nested hierarchies and common descent, since in his latest book he unconditionally assumes the validity of the nested hierarchy, common descent, and the "tree of life" (Denton 1998, pp. 265-298). For example, in the chapter entitled The Tree of Life from Nature's Destiny, Denton discusses the phylogeny of several closely related species (the primates) and directly contradicts his previous misstatements presented by Camp above:
"In the case of primate DNA, for example, all the sequences in the hemoglobin gene cluster in man, chimp, gorilla, gibbon, etc., can be interconverted via single base change steps to form a perfect evolutionary tree relating the higher primates together in a system that looks as natural as could be imagined. There is not the slightest indication of any discontinuity." (Denton 1998, p. 277)

This was written by the same man who scribed:

"Each class at a molecular level is unique, isolated and unlinked by intermediates. Thus, molecules, like fossils, have failed to provide the elusive intermediates so long sought by evolutionary theory." (Denton 1986, p. 290)

This is fairly thin pickings for "many points". My suspicion (based on what I've heard said about ND) is that the statement is correct -- but it needs more solid sourcing to survive long term. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 05:18, 30 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Some detail, por favor?[edit]

This article seems completely lacking in any information about what Denton's actual views are other than he is seen as being linked to the Intelligent Design movement. Well, can anyone add some actual DETAIL as to what his views are and why he thinks there is evidence of some divine intervention? ThePeg (talk) 21:34, 7 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Probably because it appears he's said little other than in his first book (much touted by the IDM) & his second (which appears to be more than a little equivocal). If you can provide any RS clarification on his views, then you're more than welcome to do so. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 05:51, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Missing Reference[edit]

Reference 8 seems to have disappeared. I searched the web and couldn't find another source for his "My Biological World View." The reference should either be removed or replaced. Unfortunately I can't do that right now but I wanted to at least bring it up. CrimsonZ (talk) 10:39, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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Some book reviews criticized his arguments?[edit]

I had to laugh about that phrasing because this is basically a tautology for any book, that is actually being read by people... Yeah, there will be critical reviews. Maybe write something like "The philosophy of science professor Marc I. Vultic (among others) wrote a critical review paper."... 87.165.61.61 (talk) 08:08, 16 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]