Barry Arrington posed a challenge to critics of intelligent design:

So, here is my challenge to our opponents: Do you understand ID well enough to pass the Ideological Turing Test? If you think you do, prove it by giving a one paragraph summary of ID in the comments below.

The “Ideological Turing Test” to which he refers is attributed to Bryan Caplan:

The Ideological Turing Test is a concept invented by Bryan Caplan to test whether a political or ideological partisan correctly understands the arguments of his or her intellectual adversaries. The partisan is invited to answer questions or write an essay posing as his opposite number; if neutral judges cannot tell the difference between the partisan’s answers and the answers of the opposite number, the candidate is judged to correctly understand the opposing side. [link in the original]

As I’ve mentioned before, I try to present my opponents’ arguments honestly, so I felt pretty up to the challenge:

Screenshot from http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/ideological-turing-test/ at 1:04 pm EST.

Either Arrington doesn’t want his narrative spoiled, or he doesn’t want to be reminded of what he’s said in the past, because he deleted my comment:

Screenshot from http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/ideological-turing-test/ at 3:18 pm EST.

Of course, it’s his right to do so. I have no inalienable right to comment on Uncommon Descent; they have every right to delete any or all of my comments, or to ban me outright (I haven’t yet checked if that’s the case). It does seem a bit dishonest, though, to issue a challenge and then delete comments that meet the challenge. My comment was topical, respectful (though critical), and, as far as I can tell, violates none of Uncommon Descent‘s comment policies (here and here). I wonder if mine is the only comment he has deleted. I’m sure he’d prefer to have a gross mischaracterization to flog, supporting his assertion that critics of intelligent design don’t understand it.

Or maybe he deleted my post because he’s embarrassed that he called me a ‘fascist apologist’. I would be. Here’s the comment that inspired that characterization:

So let’s review: back in July, I accused Barry Arrington of misrepresenting a proposal advanced by the Democratic Platform Drafting Committee. In response he misrepresented my position by calling me a ‘fascist apologist’. Now he accuses intelligent design critics of misrepresenting his position:

…I have never seen a fair summary of ID theory come from one of our opponents.

And he maintains this fiction by deleting a comment that meets his challenge.

Maybe it’s true (or was, until this afternoon) that he’s never seen a fair summary of intelligent design from its critics. If not, he hasn’t been looking very hard.