Talk:Intelligent design

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Unaffiliated publications

Actually there are a number publications in independent scientific editions supportive of ID (e.g. those online: Joseph A. Kuhn, “Dissecting Darwinism”, Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings, 2012, Solomon Victor and Vijaya M. Nayak, “Evolutionary anticipation of the human heart,” Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, Solomon Victor, Vljaya M. Nayek, and Raveen Rajasingh, “Evolution of the Ventricles,” Texas Heart Institute Journal). The reference to Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District according to which "the intelligent design movement has not published a properly peer-reviewed article supporting ID in a scientific journal, and has failed to publish supporting peer-reviewed research or data" is prone to staling as various publications do appear since 2005. As such paraphrasing is needed IMO. Brandmeister^talk 23:44, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Uh...I think the issue here is, no offense, but you seem to not be grasping what real peer review is, or what would qualify something to be a professional scientific journal. I don't think a thing on your list would hold up to the rigors necessary to be one.Farsight001 (talk) 00:00, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I hardly think those could be disqualified as unreliable sources. If you don't agree, take them to WP:RSN. Brandmeister^talk 00:07, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

From the examples provided it remains obvious that "the intelligent design movement has not published a properly peer-reviewed article supporting ID in a scientific journal, and has failed to publish supporting peer-reviewed research or data." The key is actually doing the science, not just talking about it. The latter method has been out of favor for more than 400 years. — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 00:08, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The first one, Kuhn "Dissecting Darwinism", the front page of Baylor University states "A top Texas Christian University." If this publication by that university is properly peer reviewed I'd eat a copy of it. What evidence do you have that this is peer reviewed or anyway credible in the scientific community? He makes the Irreducible Complexity argument in it, and states that life can't arise from non-life argument, all of which is demonstrably false. So that right there calls into question the legitimacy of the claim that it's peer reviewed. The second paper by Victor does talk about ID in it's conclusion some, but this is a Review article, review articles are not held to the same kind of standards as an actual paper, and likely wasn't peer reviewed. On the journal's home page it states it allows controversial topics, and as a review it could have some controversial material. But I HIGHLY doubt they would accept a research paper that stated their data showed evolution wasn't possible and ID was the only conclusion. There's a big difference between being published in this manor and publishing an actual research paper, should be obvious to anyone who's read a lot of journals I think. The third paper by Nayek is a editorial in a "journal" by the Christian organization "Texas Heart Institute", again hardly a rigorously peer reviewed journal, and even if it was it's an editorial not a research paper. — raekyt 00:10, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

And I'll be WP:BOLD enough to state, that if you want to use any of these as evidence to remove the statement from the trial, then it WILL have to go through RSN first.... — raekyt 00:18, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Wow, that's really inappropriate, Raeky. You have publicly stated here that a university's publication is disqualified because of it's confessional status. That's totally inappropriate, and shows the agenda that is motivating you. You cannot disqualify a peer-reviewed source from an accredited university because you don't like the religion of the university's management. I ask you to retract that and to remove your statement.

If these articles were peer-reviewed then claiming that no peer review has been done of this theory is wrong. We should therefore verify these articles as such, and then amend the Wikipedia entry. It doesn't mean claiming that this is a mainstream theory or commonly accepted (obviously it isn't), but facts are facts and again, this article is not for editorializing about anything. It is meant to inform the reader accurately about the topic, not to persuade him to take a particular position on an issue.

MatthewCHoffman (talk) 00:28, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

There's no reason to retract, the first is a journal from a christian school, that right there calls into doubt it's scientific status, then the content of the article calls into doubt their standards. The second is a review article, which generally are not peer reviewed, even in peer reviewed journals, reviews are not research papers, third is a editorial in journal from a christian organization, again that calls into doubt it's scientific status, and it's a editorial which is generally not peer reviewed like review articles, it's not a research article. You need to have a basic understanding of what a scientific journal is, anyone can claim their journal is scientific, claim it's peer reviewed, but that doesn't mean it holds any credit in the scientific community. That's why RSN will be necessary if you want to use any of these specific examples. — raekyt 00:37, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

And nobody has said the is because they "...don't like the religion of the university's management." A statement that is really uncalled for. —ArtifexMayhem (talk) 00:43, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Again your statement that the Christian confession of an accredited university calls into question the scientific status of its publication is inappropriate. It violates Wikipedia policy, and is nothing more than an expression of unjust discrimination. If you don't retract, this is going to become a complaint. You cannot use Wikipedia to engage in this type of discrimination. Baylor is accredited. MatthewCHoffman (talk) 00:46, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Please link to this policy, thanks. — raekyt 00:51, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

LOL. Do you know the meaning of the word? Peer-review is not synonymous to being published. Creating your own journals like BIO-Complexity just to get "published", creating imaginary scientific-sounding institutions like "Department of ProtoBioCybernetics and ProtoBioSemiotics, Origin of Life Science Foundation, Inc." to give the illusion of decorated affiliations, or publishing in journals isolated from the rest of the scientific community (and only remotely connected to actual biology) is not "peer reviewed".

It's even hilarious how bad these are. Victor and Nayak's 2000 paper for example simply rehashes comparative anatomy and then nonsensically waxes philosophical quoting Da Vinci, citing the "Designer" as an a priori fact, and claiming that for a species to change they'd need microprocessor technology. LMAO. And it manages to consistently misspell Homo sapiens sapiens as a compound word Homosapiens sapiens.

And the most damning thing about this "peer-reviewed" article? FOURTEEN of the 18 references are also papers by Victor and/or Nayak. The references which aren't by the same authors are only tangentially related or completely unrelated at all (not to mention unscientific). The opposing views they sourced to an article on the National Geographic and on Darwin's original paper itself. And the remaining two? This is where it gets even more hilarious: a book on Indian mythology and the Holy Vedas.

That is not peer-review. That's circle-jerking. It's not even science.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 01:45, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Discrimination

Wikipedia:Discrimination http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Discrimination

I quote: "Wikipedia and English Wikipedia should not give privilege in writing and freedom of speech, and expression, scientific inclusion, etc. to some in expense of others and will not tolerate promotion of discrimination through its content. Such rule stops or bans using any other rules included and existing in Wikipedia in discriminative manner.

"In discrimination notion is included any discrimination on base of: ... religion ..." MatthewCHoffman (talk) 01:24, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Please note that that is not a policy, but an essay, and a failed essay at that, so it carries with it almost no power, secondly what you bolded means we hold scientific value of this resource to be pretty high, and scientific value is what I'm promoting. It is perfectly acceptable to question the motives of a christian journal when it comes to evolution/ID topics and specifically if they publish the linked article it definitely calls into question the reliability of the source for scientific information. I don't know what your trying to pull, or if you just don't understand WP:DUE, WP:NPOV, WP:FRINGE and the level of standards we generally expect for scientific journals, but these sources are not quality sources. The second one is the only journal I would even remotely consider as a valid scientific journal, but the article linked from it isn't a research article, and only minorly makes assertions of ID, and in any case would never be considered as evidence for ID with what was presented there. Since it's a review article it PROBABLY WASN'T peer reviewed, as is generally understood for scientific research articles. So again there is no reason to retract my comments, and your threats hold no weight and are potentially in violation of policy yourself. — raekyt 01:40, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry that I had to refer this to the administrators (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#Religious_discrimination_issue), but your open contempt for Wikipedia's clearly defined policy compelled me to do so. I asked you more than once to retract what you had stated or to delete it, but you refused. You don't have a license here to discriminate against Christian-identified universities that are nationally accredited like any other university. --MatthewCHoffman (talk) 16:37, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I suggest you look at the top of the page. There's a FAQ. See question #3.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 17:55, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

{e/c}Did you see the notices at the top of that page?

Template:essay Template:failed

You are correct that the Baylor journal is peer-reviewed. It's archived at NCBI. The author of that particular article, though, identifies it as a review. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to review the arguments that have been leveled against the concept of evolution as proposed by Charles Darwin and John Hunter, surgeon and biologist extraordinaire. [Break] Since this review is offered by a physician and surgeon. . . It doesn't seem to be a peer-reviewed paper. Yopienso (talk) 01:43, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Was basically my point, except after reading that paper I'd never trust that journal for a controversial evolution/creation type article since they allowed that to be published even as a review. But as I said, reviews and editorials do not go through the same peer review process as a research article and are not held to very high standards. So using these as arguments to remove the statement from the court ruling would not be sufficient. (also note Yopienso, I made those links to the templates so they wouldn't interfere here). — raekyt 01:49, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

The creationist BS claim about the Kuhn paper is that it was "published in a peer-reviewed journal", which is deceptive, because although the journal does indeed publish real peer-reviewed papers, the Kuhn paper is not one of them. It is an editorial (Kuhn is on the editorial board of the journal), and certainly did not undergo any form of peer-review, as no original scientific research is being reported on. The fact that the journal is published by a Christian university is immaterial. Baylor is not a "Bible college" anymore, but has become a serious university with a fine reputation. The medical center is a top notch research facility. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 05:36, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

ID re creator

Ironically, the group here has pretended that ID is only the (DI) version which specifically avoids and has nothing in it regarding a creator. That tack seems to be backfiring or self-conflicting at the moment. North8000 (talk) 12:26, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

LOL. Hardly. — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 13:29, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

LOL indeed. "which specifically avoids and has nothing in it regarding a creator." -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 17:52, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Was that not in fact the point of the DI version of ID.....to specifically leave out anything regarding a creator so as to be able to say that it is not religion? Also a point made in this article? North8000 (talk) 18:08, 23 July 2012 (UTC).

And the point made by the district court judge in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District was that that tactic was transparent deceptive. ID remains pretty much a religiously motivated movement. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 18:21, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Agree and Agree. But it has nothing about a creator. North8000 (talk) 18:52, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, there is a creator in ID; it's just not specifically called God. I guess my request that you (North8000) stop trying to steer every conversation toward this end was conveniently ignored. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 19:01, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

<ec> Nothing? "Phillip E. Johnson puts forward a core definition that the designer creates for a purpose, giving the example that in his view AIDS was created to punish immorality and was not caused by HIV, but such motives cannot be tested by scientific methods." You've got to watch what those cdesign proponentsists say. . . dave souza, talk 19:04, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Disagree at two levels. First, taken literally/ostensibly, creation is not a core tenet of ID, even though many of its proponents have that belief. Second, within what it posits/implies are other mechanisms besides creation for intelligent intervention/guidance in the process. North8000 (talk) 13:05, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

So, just to be clear, you're suggesting that the intelligent designer posited by ID "decided upon the look and functioning of [organisms on Earth], typically by making a detailed drawing of [them]," (Oxford English Dictionary) and then... gave it to someone else to create? -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 15:28, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

No I meant that it allows for beliefs such as guiding certain natural processes to arrive at what we see now rather than creating it. North8000 (talk) 16:32, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Then you're talking about theistic evolution, not ID; ID is meant to challenge evolution by positing that natural processes can't produce the organisms we observe on Earth. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 16:42, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Agree with the second part of your post. And if one notes (or agrees) that ID doesn't go much farther than what you just said, then such supports my original statement. ID allows for creation and non-creation "interventions" and thus does not dictate/narrow to only creation ones. North8000 (talk) 17:28, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Do you have a change to the article that you'd like to propose? GaramondLethe 17:38, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

The ID article should cover ID as a whole, and, more to the point, not imply that it is limited to the DI version. But I have temporarily given up on that except to make a few occasional comments (especially when the current error presents such quandaries) like that one that started this thread. North8000 (talk) 18:05, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

So, no. Also, how's that stick? -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 18:19, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Quit the crap. The situation is nowhere near what you are trying to imply by that baseless link. And escalating a low key conversation into something else by injecting insults into it is really bad behavior. North8000 (talk) 19:27, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

You brought an edit proposal to this Talk page and it was rejected, but you continue to make comments about it in completely unrelated sections for no other reason than to vent your frustration. What else would you call that?

From WP:STICK:

• If you have "lost" – sorry, hard luck. Now go about your business; don't keep reminding us of the fact that your "opponent" didn't actually "win" because of... whatever.
• If the debate died a natural death – let it remain dead. It is over, let it go. Nobody cared except you. Hard to stomach, but you're going to have to live with it.

-- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 19:39, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

My previous comment applies, including on your further mis-representation of the situation. I'm not engaging further on the crappy insult-based level reflected in your posts. North8000 (talk) 19:49, 15 August 2012 (UTC) Signing off on this thread. North8000 (talk) 19:49, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Deja vu

We've been here before, at length. The Kuhn paper is nonsense and wasn't peer reviewed, there may be useful sources there on some of the other proposed papers. . . dave souza, talk 18:27, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Are all the sources used in this article peer reviewed? If a source isn't peer reviewed, does that automatically make it "nonsense"? What is it about the Kuhn paper that makes it "nonsense"? Cla68 (talk) 22:50, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Cla68, no, the lack of peer review doesn't make an article nonsense--that was a personal judgment--and peer-review is not a Wikipedia requirement for inclusion of a source. However, the particular claim this source intends to contradict is that "[t]he intelligent design movement has not published a properly peer-reviewed article supporting ID in a scientific journal, and has failed to publish supporting peer-reviewed research or data." As an editorial, the Kuhn paper would be sufficient for his opinion on ID/evolution, but since he is not a professional in a relevant field it cannot be cited for more than this purpose (and since Kuhn is a non-figure in the "controversy," I don't see why his opinion would merit inclusion anyway). -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 14:23, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Explanation to IP user 98.200.227.100

Defining ID has been a challenge. The consensus at this article is that the word "theory" denotes a scientific theory, not speculation as per popular usage. ID works backwards from the perception that the Universe demonstrates an underlying (or overarching) design to try to explain how things came to be as they are. A scientific theory is the result of research and testing conducted to find an explanation for a phenomenon, further refined by input from an existing body of scientific thought and critiques by experts. "To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning," according to our article to which I've linked. Also, the "and/or" form isn't the best. Yopienso (talk) 03:55, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

First sentence

Imagine you are a kid researching this topic for a school paper. Would the first sentence give you any clear summary of what it actually is? The first sentence doesn't even mention that it's an intellectual perspective on the origin of life and species. Or that it's a mostly pseudo-scientific "theory" that challenges Darwinian Evolution. Or that it's extremely popular among Christians. Or that tens of millions of Americans agree with it. Either let my proposed first sentence stand, or someone else come up with a better one. Zyx1xyz (talk) 17:53, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Or let things stand as they are, of course. What is your proposed first sentence? GaramondLethe 17:58, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

See his edit. I don't have time to join this discussion, however. As for Zyx1xyz's question in the edit summary, please read the previous discussions in this page and you'll know why. -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 18:02, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. GaramondLethe 18:08, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Oppose, due to unnecessary violence inflicted upon the English language. GaramondLethe 18:08, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Please make specific criticisms of the grammatical errors to whch you object, thanks. KillerChihuahua^?!? 18:16, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

To the best of my knowledge the grammar is fine. The sentence is wordy, awkward and reads like a laundry list. GaramondLethe 18:40, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

The first sentence must summarize the subject, and in cases other than schoolboys, it matters. In mobile devices, that is often all which shows; when linking to public forums, such as FaceBook, which have a preview, that is often all that shows. It must convey accurately the sum of the article, insofar as is possible. The proposed change is accurate, so far as I can see. Does it summarize the article better than the current first sentence? KillerChihuahua^?!? 18:16, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

First, when has it been characterized as an "intellectual perspective"? I'd like to see the source on that. Secondly, it's a rather atrocious run-on sentence and requires a restructuring, at the very least. My final issue with this is that it's unnecessarily verbose: a really quick way to say "controversial, pseudo-scientific, intellectual perspective on the origin of life and its various species on earth, rooted in traditional Western religion, popular among many Christians, rejected by most of the scientific community" is creationism, which is how the article is currently written. Why would we want to introduce such convolution? -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 18:25, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Ball is in your court, Zyx1xyz. KillerChihuahua^?!? 18:28, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

(ec) It must convey accurately the sum of the article: I looked in the WP:MOS and didn't see anything along those lines. If this is your personal preference as to how the opening sentence should be written, that's fine: I think we can agree to disagree. If you're repeating what is accepted as house style or policy, I'd appreciate a pointer to where you got it from. Thanks. GaramondLethe 18:40, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

WP:LEAD, specifically the WP:MOSINTRO and WP:BEGINNING parts of it. ~Amatulić (talk) 18:47, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! Zyx1xyz, you might want to give this a read. There are lots of good examples. You might also want to look at the first sentences that introduce evolution, naturalism (philosophy) and, oh, I don't know, coalescent theory. Compare those to the first sentence of scientific creationism. I find the former much easier to read and much more effective in drawing me into the article (or, just as important, letting me know quickly that this isn't the article I was looking for). GaramondLethe 19:07, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Zyx1xyz, this is a very contentious article and being bold can quickly lead to edit wars. To avoid this, please discuss your proposed change(s) here before changing the lead. Thank you. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 21:03, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for all the feedback. The run-on sentence has been significantly trimmed in the latest edit.Zyx1xyz (talk) 21:56, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Let's say that you see a popular Wikipedia article that has an extremely cryptic and convoluted introductory paragraph, defining its subject by reference only. The paragraph is so bad that it's almost unreadable, and is embarrassing for Wikipedia. What do you do? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zyx1xyz (talk • contribs) 22:12, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

You head straight to the talk page and make a suggestion as to how it could be improved? Theroadislong (talk) 22:15, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia at its worst

This article is an example of Wikipedia at its worst: a disjointed jumble of semi-relevant minutiae that feels to the reader like a runaway computer program wrote it. Read any of these other articles that I found on a quick web search and they are all MILES and MILES better than ours: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1081911/intelligent-design-ID, http://people.howstuffworks.com/intelligent-design1.htm, http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php, http://www.conservapedia.com/Intelligent_design.

A quick glance shows that many of the prominent facts in our article are just plain wrong. But even worse, these other competing articles and CLEAR and EASY TO READ - totally unlike our mess.

We Wikipedians should be EMBARRASSED. This article is the result of a broken process. Hundreds of petty little editors bickering and undoing one another's edits led to this mess. A thousand whining little arguments can't make a single well-written, intelligible page of prose on a simple subject. We should be ashamed of ourselves. Wikipedia deserves better. Our readers deserve better. If we don't get our act together, somebody else will fill the niche. Look around; there are already competing sources out there now. Your bickering and noodling just helps them in their quest to replace Wikipedia.

What needs to be done? Administrators need to take control, lock down this article, re-write it from scratch so it MAKES SENSE and is ACCURATE, and then start the process again. Reboot needed. This article is BROKEN. It's serving nothing more than embarrassing us, confusing readers, and providing an arena for petty noodlers to argue with one another. It's a huge of waste of time better spent. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zyx1xyz (talk • contribs)

What specific facts are "wrong"? If you have nothing constructive to say, why are you bothering to post here? If you are incapable of comprehending the sources, then explain why. If you can write a better article, do so in your user space and propose it. If you disagree with Wikipedia's policy about referencing only reliable, secondary, independent sources, then either go to the policy page and lobby for changing it to your liking, or spend your time somewhere else that you feel is more worthwhile. In any case, nothing you have said so far is constructive criticism. ~Amatulić (talk) 22:58, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

The Brittanica entry is a reliable, secondary, independent source which we can use to help us improve this article. Cla68 (talk) 23:16, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Closing WP:SOAPBOXING. Please make constructive and specific comments as ranting about your experience here helps no one address the supposed issues Sædontalk 23:17, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I've spent the last 24 hours making a multitude of suggestions from all different angles and perspectives and they've all been lost in a din of crowd noise, bickering, "drive by" pot shots, and the like. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zyx1xyz (talk • contribs) 23:20, 15 August 2012 (UTC) Absolute Chaos I've spent the last 24 hours trying to make any one of dozens of simple edits that would improve this hopelessly disjointed and inaccurate article, and it's like trying to help 1,000 bickering cooks make a pot of soup. The entire Wikipedia editing process is unmanageable for an article this small. I could spend a year arguing and undoing changes with an endless parade of petty noodlers and not succeed in making a single successful change. This article is an absolute mess of inaccuracies and bad writing, and nobody is able to do anything. This is complete GRIDLOCK. This is absolute CHAOS. Everyone contributing to this article should be EMBARRASSED. We're all wasting our time. This article is a joke and so are all of these thousands of little ignorant, petty arguments about minutiae. This is a FAILED process. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zyx1xyz (talk • contribs) 23:11, 15 August 2012 (UTC) Try making a suggestion here on the talk page about what you want to change. Cla68 (talk) 23:14, 15 August 2012 (UTC) (after edit conflict) I'm sorry you're frustrated. Wikipedia actually works quite well. You need patience. If you want to write your own article on ID, feel free to do so elsewhere. If you wish to help with this one, you must follow Wikipedia policy. KillerChihuahua?!? 23:16, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Please, Zyxqxyz, just make a suggestion here about what you want to change. Cla68 (talk) 23:18, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Promulgation link

After someone edited the lead sentence to include a dictionary link for the word "promulgated", I replaced it with the close-enough synonym "promoted" - if a word is obscure enough that we think some readers will need to pause and look it up in a dictionary, and if it's not a technical term that's a significant aspect of the article subject, I think we should try to avoid using it in the WP:LEADSENTENCE.

This was reverted with the explanation that the verb was "sourced to appease one particular editor who didn't seem to understand that words have different contexts", which seems to refer to this conversation. Putting a clunking great wiktionary link in the first sentence of a featured article to appease one Wikipedia editor seems like a bad idea. If the consensus genuinely is just "one editor didn't know what this meant" then we should unlink it, but if consensus is actually that "many readers won't understand this word in this context", wouldn't a synonym or a rewrite be better? --McGeddon (talk) 09:07, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

I'd be astonished if John Q Public didn't understand the word, nor do I think anyone would confuse it for its obscure legal meaning. Removing the link doesn't seem problematic. Sædon^talk 09:10, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Agree. This is not Simple English Wikipedia, and the word "promulgate" is better than "promote" here, and it's hardly an obscure word. I've removed the link. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 09:24, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Could we please, instead of impulsively revert warring, discuss article changes we don't agree with? Notice that once a few editors paused to talk it over, it was resolved fairly easily and amicably. Thank you. Cla68 (talk) 12:51, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

I think perhaps a different word might be something to consider here. I added the Wiktionary link after someone had tried to wikilink the word promulgate to the legal definition on Wikipedia, and this isn't the first time. I think even though we may understand the verb and believe it common enough for others, the repeated edits "defining" this term via wikilink is a good indication that many readers don't understand it. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 14:57, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Promulgate has a broader meaning which is think is better here. It includes the initial "broadcast" of written items and thus also usually the creation of the item. North8000 (talk) 15:10, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Agree. Possible synonyms are not as specific and do not carry the connotation of origination. Again, the word is common enough that any college freshman should know it, or else better learn it pdq, and that is the language level we should be aiming at. Trying to explain the history of the topic using baby-talk is fine, but not here. That's what Simplified English Wikipedia is for. We are not doing our readers a disservice here by making them reach for a dictionary. Does a body good. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 15:21, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

We aren't just restricted to picking one perfect synonym, of course - we can recast the sentence as much as we like ("a form of creationism posited and promoted by the Discovery Institute", perhaps). "Promulgated" sounds somewhat archaic to my British ear, and feels slightly outside the "style used by reliable sources" of WP:TONE, particularly in the lede where "It is even more important here than in the rest of the article that the text be accessible". --McGeddon (talk) 15:45, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Polls

I've removed the following from the Polls section:

A May 2005 survey of nearly 1500 physicians in the United States conducted by the Louis Finkelstein Institute and HCD Research showed that 63% of the physicians agreed more with evolution than with intelligent design.

The description of the poll results is the reverse of what the citation actually says, and it doesn't seem relevant to the article. If anyone thinks it's worthwhile to have, please go ahead and correct it.WmGB (talk) 22:29, 27 August 2012 (UTC)