That’s certainly the strategy the DI follows. The question, then, is whether BIll has been deceived by them, or has simply learned from them.
It’s very easy to imagine such a “result”. Some omnipotent being decides, just for shits and giggles, to create a bunch of ungulates that give every appearance, down to the molecular level, of being descended from a common ancestor. Could happen, sure, if the only limitation on what “could” happen is that it be logically coherent.
The question is whether the evidence favours such a result, or whether there is another result that can more parsimoniously account for the evidence.
Well by definition an omnipotent designer that expends considerable effort making it look like common descent, has left us with all we need to infer common descent and none for separate origins. We can hardly be blamed for taking the hint.
True enough, if all the evidence really is fake and planted to deceive us by TheInvisibleDesignerTM, then we’ve been misled and common descent is ultimately false. But we are not at fault for going with what the evidence shows. Perhaps this is where Bills ultimate disagreement lies. It’s the-evidence-be-damned position of AIG and so on.
Never forget the Wedge Document. The whole game is given up there. The objective is replace a society run on the basis of reason and consensus with one under the rule of religious authority, conservative Evangelical Christian authority to be precise. The really pathetic part is that Bill and his ilk think such a society would work to their benefit. Just like all those fools who had dreams of glory and power as they helped Trump regain his throne. Look where that got them.
I’m reminded of those who champion limits on having children, removal of minimum wages, or slavery - who never consider that it might be them who become penniless childless slaves.
I would say yes, most probably. But I have to say that I didn’t put much thought in this issue. For exemple if I was asked to offer evidence for it right now, I would have some trouble.
So many questions present themselves. Why haven’t you thought about it? Isn’t this a subject you’re interested in? Not deer, specifically, but the issue of what, if separately created kinds exist, they might be and how we would recognize them. Bill has shown himself incapable of thinking about that, but can you do any better?
It is indeed a subject I am interested in. I’ve even bought a book you’ve recommended me on the subject some years ago. Unfortunately, I didn’t find the time to study it yet. Hope this will change in the not to far futur. But please consider that I am not hostile to the idea of CD. I’ve had an exchange on that topic with Gpuccio some years ago at UD that resulted in a shift of my position from being agnostic regarding CD to being more supportive. You’ve also contributed to this shift.
I’am not sure what you mean exactly by theistic evolutionist. What I can tell you is that I have no objection right now to CD. So if evolution means CD, I have no objection to evolution. But if evolution means a blind, unpurposeful process, then I am not an evolutionist.
Would it be fair to say that your position is perhaps more along the lines of Behe’s, who accept common descent, but think certain design interventions are required for things like the bacterial flagellum, blood clotting cascade, and so on?
Nobody is. Everyone means something different by it. But I mean what you have described for yourself and what Behe has expressed, though he rejects the term.
Does anybody prominent who accepts Common Descent, but stipulates the necessity of some form of explicit designer intervention, accept the label “Theistic Evolutionist”?
I don’t know. I tend not to keep track of most self-assigned labels. But do such people fit the criteria for that label? Unfortunately, the criteria aren’t clear. Don’t know what label to use or whether anyone would accept it. “IDer” is clearly inadequate, as it’s a big tent that covers YECs too.
@Giltil, what label would you go with for yourself?
I think it is unambiguous that Behe and the like might be considered a “Theistic Descentist” (if such a label existed), but that is not, I would suggest, the same thing as a “Theistic Evolutionist”.
I would probably define an “Evolutionist” as somebody who fully accepts the Theory of Evolution, and a “Theistic Evolutionist” as one who does so within a Theistic worldview – one that likely assumes that the universe was created by a deity (thus opening the door for cosmic fine-tuning arguments) and some form of Divine Providence, but nothing that conflicts with this theory.
I would suggest that “stipulat[ing] the necessity of some form of explicit designer intervention” would conflict with that theory, so would not classify anybody who makes that stipulation an “Evolutionist” or a “Theistic Evolutionist”.
Others may of course define “Evolutionist”, and thus “Theistic Evolutionist”, differently.
They may be a bit awkward, but I could see conceivable worlds where they might each become necessary.
A world where some theists insist that thunderstorms cannot happen without the intervention of Thor, might necessitate the term "Theistic Meteorologist”, for theists who fully accept the scientific explanation of weather.
Likewise, a world where some theists claim that a bridge would fall over without a prayer engraved into it might necessitate the term "Theistic Engineer”.
I think that might be less clunky if turned around the other way, to “Descentist ID advocate” (as “Descentist” would seem to make a less clunky adjective than “IDer”).
Admittedly, the contrary position within ID would then be “Special Creationist ID advocate”, which is still clunky (but I don’t think can be easily declunkified).
