On the current usage of the term "creationist" as applied to ID

[Faizal_Ali]

@Eddie

I never contended for any such thing.

Sorry, wrong. That is exactly the premise underlying your argument as quoted below (as just some examples). The premise is not overtly stated and you may not even be aware of it. But the argument only works if one begs the question and assumes that “design” + common descent = evolution, and that is the very premise I am arguing against.

To make it more clear: The error you are committing here is documenting a number of instances in which the term “evolution” is used in reference to ideas that do NOT entail “design”, and then assuming that these people would continue to use the term in the same way for ideologies that include “design.” As we have already established, several of the people you cite have in fact done the opposite, and refer to Michael Behe as a creationist because his ideas entail “design.”

@Eddie

Stephen Jay Gould, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory :

(p. 981) “But creationism surged again in the 1970s… Creationists enjoyed a second round of success in the late 1970s, culminating in the passage of ‘equal time’ laws for creationism and evolution in the states of Arkansas and Louisiana.”

[Eddie’s Note: the context implies that “creationism” is a competing theory against “evolution.”]

(p. 989) “… the Arkansas trial permitted full scale testimony about creationism in a court of law. I feel honored that I had the opportunity to present the case for evolution as natural knowledge, and for creationism as pseudoscience …”

[Eddie’s Note: the context makes clear that “creationism” refers to the views of anti-evolutionary fundamentalists, not a broad general belief that God created the world.]

@Eddie

Eugenie Scott, National Center for Science Education , The Creation/Evolution Continuum | National Center for Science Education

“Many — if not most — Americans think of the creation and evolution controversy as a dichotomy with “creationists” on one side, and “evolutionists” on the other.”

[Eddie’s Note (to avoid charges of out-of-context quoting): It must be added that Scott goes on to indicate that she wishes this were not the case; nonetheless, she starts out by describing what is the case, regarding current usage.]

Ken Miller, Finding Darwin’s God , p. 63:

“I first approached the creationist literature … The very first time I read through the creationist literature on this subject … I dug into Henry Morris’s Scientific Creationism …”

[Eddie’s Note: Henry Morris is adamantly anti-evolutionist.]