If I may, I think you are doing a commendable job. Let this forum be a tool for you and your students, not a burden to you. Structure the rules for the benefit of yourself and students in the learning process, and not the benefit of the outside participants.

You and your students have here an opportunity to ask the participants, particularly the IDers why they believe certain things.

Let the forum be of service to you and your students, not an irritation. Use the Socratic method on the members of this list. That way you can probably get them to articulate their positions more clearly, and perhaps they will spend less time attacking other members of the list (including you).

Finally, consider that Michael Behe and Dean Kenyon became IDers years after they got their PhD’s in prestigious schools. What changed their minds were obscure works available in the popular press, not peer-reviewed articles! I think it’s instructive that books in the popular press could be so persuasive to PhD’s accustomed to peer-reviewed literature.

It is this pop-literature that is affecting college students, grad students, working scientists, professors, engineers, and doctors. That may be a little disconcerting that pop-literature can have such an affect rather than peer-reviewed articles and college textbooks, but that is the way it is, and perhaps knowing that and knowing why may be informative.

Your class and the discussion on the internet may help clarify reasons why. That in itself may help define the value of this forum to you and your students.

Salvador

Mea culpa