# On the Use of the Term "Creationism" in Popular Debate in the Past Century or So
**URL:** https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/on-the-use-of-the-term-creationism-in-popular-debate-in-the-past-century-or-so/9210
**Category:** Side Conversation
**Created:** [January 8, 2020, 11:41am UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/on-the-use-of-the-term-creationism-in-popular-debate-in-the-past-century-or-so/9210 "2020-01-08T11:41:40Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 21
### Author:  [@gbrooks9](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/gbrooks9)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2020, 7:01pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/on-the-use-of-the-term-creationism-in-popular-debate-in-the-past-century-or-so/9210/403 "2020-01-29T19:01:38Z")
> [@T\_aquaticus](#):
>
> How is the front-loading implemented if not by supernatural means?
The design is “front-loaded” before the moment of creation. That is the only part of the process that is necessarily divine. For goodness sake, Mr. T., you and I watched the very same Behe video months ago.
It’s relatively clear. And now you are playing word games to win a circular argument.
What has recently gone wrong is that Behe produced his latest book which is practically incoherent… @Eddie, you are going to have to come to terms with this incoherence.
If God guides evolution, he guides the good evolution and the seemingly bad evolution. Period.
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### Author:  [@gbrooks9](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/gbrooks9)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2020, 7:04pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/on-the-use-of-the-term-creationism-in-popular-debate-in-the-past-century-or-so/9210/404 "2020-01-29T19:04:07Z")
> [@Roy](#):
>
> Not if front-loading only applies to life. Though front-loading is unravelling fast anyway.
@Roy
Let’s be sure we are not confounding the term “Front-Loading” with some of the earlier applications of the term: there used to be those who argued that the genetic imprint for whales was already 100% present within the mammalian genome… and that the whale was just a specially revealed mammal.
This is not how @Eddie and I use the term front-load, and it looks like this thread has been adequately clear about avoiding this old application of the term.
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### Author:  [@Roy](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Roy)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2020, 7:47pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/on-the-use-of-the-term-creationism-in-popular-debate-in-the-past-century-or-so/9210/405 "2020-01-29T19:47:37Z")
> [@gbrooks9](#):
>
> Let’s be sure we are not confounding the term “Front-Loading” with some of the earlier applications of the term: there used to be those who argued that the genetic imprint for whales was already 100% present within the mammalian genome… and that the whale was just a specially revealed mammal.
>
> This is not how @Eddie and I use the term front-load, and it looks like this thread has been adequately clear about avoiding this old application of the term.
If you want to restrict front-loading to occurring only before/at creation, that’s fine - but if @Eddie wants to do that, he’ll have to reconcile it with Behe’s claims that certain biological features wouldn’t evolve naturally.
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### Author:  [@Faizal\_Ali](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Faizal_Ali)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2020, 7:50pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/on-the-use-of-the-term-creationism-in-popular-debate-in-the-past-century-or-so/9210/406 "2020-01-29T19:50:20Z")
> [@gbrooks9](#):
>
> So, if you want to participate in this discussion, come up with the phrasing you prefer… and maybe I will use it… maybe even Eddie will use it.
>
> Behe describes something that is 100% natural and lawful in his God’s Billiards Shot analogy.
The problem with Behe’s argument is elaborated on here:
> [@Michael Behe's "Billiard Shot" model](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/michael-behes-billiard-shot-model/9397):
>
> Intelligent design proponents are careful to say that they cannot identify the designer at work in the world, although most readily concede that God is the most likely possibility. And they offer varied opinions on when and how often a designer intervened. Dr. Behe, for example, said he could imagine that, like an elaborate billiards shot, the design was set up when the Big Bang occurred 13.6 billion years ago. “It could have all been programmed into the universe as far as I’m concerned,” he said. I am skeptical that this can actually be incorporated into Behe’s typical arguments for Intelligent Design Creationism. To be specific: He argues that we can determine specific biological systems or structures that indicate “intelligent design” by the fact that, in his view, they could not have arisen thru undirected evolutionary processes. So, for instance, chloroquine resistance in the malaria parasite falls within what he calls “the edge of evolution” and does not require “design.…
You’ve even commented in that thread, so I don’t know why you are acting like you aren’t aware of these problems.
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### Author:  [@T\_aquaticus](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/T_aquaticus)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2020, 7:54pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/on-the-use-of-the-term-creationism-in-popular-debate-in-the-past-century-or-so/9210/407 "2020-01-29T19:54:59Z")
> [@gbrooks9](#):
>
> Behe describes something that is 100% natural and lawful in his God’s Billiards Shot analogy.
Then how is the billiard’s shot implemented? What is the chain of causation starting with God and ending with the mutation appearing in nature? Is any link in that chain a supernatural act?
> [@gbrooks9](#):
>
> But before the Big Bang, God is DESIGNING, right?
If that is what Behe believes, then why doesn’t he expect irreducibly complex systems emerging in the lab? Why doesn’t Behe expect to see new mutations that functionally improve proteins in living populations?
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### Author:  [@T\_aquaticus](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/T_aquaticus)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2020, 7:57pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/on-the-use-of-the-term-creationism-in-popular-debate-in-the-past-century-or-so/9210/408 "2020-01-29T19:57:40Z")
> [@gbrooks9](#):
>
> Behe’s problem is that he cannot tell us when God is designing or not designing.
Behe attempts to do just that. Mutations that don’t produce irreducibly complex systems or functionally improved proteins is when God is not designing, according to Behe.
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### Author:  [@gbrooks9](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/gbrooks9)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2020, 8:30pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/on-the-use-of-the-term-creationism-in-popular-debate-in-the-past-century-or-so/9210/409 "2020-01-29T20:30:43Z")
> [@Faizal\_Ali](#):
>
> You’ve even commented in that thread, so I don’t know why you are acting like you aren’t aware of these problems.
@Faizal_Ali
What I’m objecting to is that there IS a way for a scientist to endorse the Billliard Ball scenario. Behe’s problem is not that he thinks God is the designer … his problem is that he thinks we can tell from observations of nature which ones are God’s design, and which ones are not.
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### Author:  [@gbrooks9](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/gbrooks9)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2020, 8:34pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/on-the-use-of-the-term-creationism-in-popular-debate-in-the-past-century-or-so/9210/410 "2020-01-29T20:34:17Z")
> [@T\_aquaticus](#):
>
> Behe attempts to do just that. Mutations that don’t produce irreducibly complex systems or functionally improved proteins is when God is not designing, according to Behe.
Yes, @T_aquaticus, and he is in error for attempting this… he is not in error because of his Billiards Ball scenario.
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### Author:  [@Faizal\_Ali](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Faizal_Ali)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2020, 8:47pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/on-the-use-of-the-term-creationism-in-popular-debate-in-the-past-century-or-so/9210/411 "2020-01-29T20:47:14Z")
> [@gbrooks9](#):
>
> his problem is that he thinks we can tell from observations of nature which ones are God’s design, and which ones are not.
OK, I get you. I agree with that. I don’t agree with the whole “billiard ball” thing in the first place, but theists are free to talk about it amongst themselves without causing me any offense.
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### Author:  [@Eddie](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Eddie)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2020, 8:58pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/on-the-use-of-the-term-creationism-in-popular-debate-in-the-past-century-or-so/9210/412 "2020-01-29T20:58:34Z")
> [@Roy](#):
>
> Anyone familiar with the Kitzmiller transcripts could have found these easily,
It’s your responsibility to provide sources; no one should have spend even 15 seconds searching for them. It’s obvious you have no training in the humanities, or you’d know this. You should have provided the information without my asking for it.
> [@Roy](#):
>
> If irreducibly complex features can’t evolve, then they equally can’t be the result of front-loading, so intervention is necessary in the lineage from single-celled forms to creatures with a complex brain.
Again, you are making an inference. Are you not familiar with the difference in meaning between “Behe _asserts_” and Behe _implies_"? Again, lack of training in the humanities is evident.
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### Author:  [@Eddie](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Eddie)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2020, 9:01pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/on-the-use-of-the-term-creationism-in-popular-debate-in-the-past-century-or-so/9210/413 "2020-01-29T21:01:51Z")
> [@Roy](#):
>
> He may be once again choosing his phrasing to mislead.
No, I’m not trying to mislead. But to be blunt, it no business of anyone here who my current employers are etc. So you can all lay off this line inquiry, because I’ll say no more. And if you think that’s an unreasonable position, it’s _exactly_ the position Mercer took on other sites when he used pseudonyms, before he retired.
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### Author:  [@Faizal\_Ali](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Faizal_Ali)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2020, 9:04pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/on-the-use-of-the-term-creationism-in-popular-debate-in-the-past-century-or-so/9210/414 "2020-01-29T21:04:16Z")
> [@Eddie](#):
>
> It’s your responsibility to provide sources; no one should have spend even 15 seconds searching for them. It’s obvious you have no training in the humanities, or you’d know this.
Yet when I asked Eddie to provide examples of quotes he had attributed to others in this discussion, how did Eddie respond?
> [@Eddie](#):
>
> Second of all, if you aren’t aware that statements equivalent to this has been made, and repeatedly, over the past few days, you either haven’t been paying attention, or you aren’t reading carefully.
The only thing consistent about Eddie is his inconsistency.
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### Author:  [@Eddie](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Eddie)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2020, 9:04pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/on-the-use-of-the-term-creationism-in-popular-debate-in-the-past-century-or-so/9210/415 "2020-01-29T21:04:34Z")
> [@Roy](#):
>
> Can you provide an example? You’ve been demanding exact quotes, references and page numbers from others, so it would be appropriate for you to provide them too.
I already did, in my reply to Rich Hampton above.
> **[God, Design, and Contingency in Nature | Evolution News](https://evolutionnews.org/2009/11/god_design_and_contingency_in/)**
>
> I recently received an email asking if the correspondent correctly understood my views about intelligent design and God. Since I sometimes get similar questions, I’m posting this correspondence for…
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### Author:  [@Rich\_Hampton](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Rich_Hampton)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2020, 9:17pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/on-the-use-of-the-term-creationism-in-popular-debate-in-the-past-century-or-so/9210/416 "2020-01-29T21:17:06Z")
No, it’s not design because Behe categorically rejects a thomist/catholic view wherein front loading is indistinguishable from evolution because unintelligent processes are all there is after the “pool shot”. He makes this claim in an interview that I can provide if you don’t want to google it.
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### Author:  [@Rich\_Hampton](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Rich_Hampton)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2020, 9:24pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/on-the-use-of-the-term-creationism-in-popular-debate-in-the-past-century-or-so/9210/417 "2020-01-29T21:24:39Z")
> **[Darwin Devolves](https://www.biola.edu/blogs/think-biblically/2019/darwin-devolves/)**
>
> Michael Behe is one of the most influential advocates for intelligent design. In this podcast, Sean and Scott interview him about his most recent book Darwin Devolves. Behe offers insights about the state of the Darwin/Design debate and lays out his...
> Yeah, sure. Back in the day, I used to believe Darwin’s theory was correct. I’m a Roman Catholic, and I went to parochial schools, and _we were taught kind of a theistic evolutionary idea that God created the universe and it’s laws. And if he wanted to make life by natural process as well, who were we to tell him he couldn’t?_ And that sounded all fine to me. But, after a while, when I was an associate professor at Lehigh in the mid '80s, I read a book called Evolution, A Theory in Crisis. By a guy named Michael Denton who’s a medical doctor and geneticist in Australia at the time.
>
> And in it, he pointed out a whole number of problems for Darwin’s theory that I had never heard about, even though I was, at that time, a faculty member, biochemist, and I should have heard about this. And, thinking back, I found that nobody in my science classes looked critically at Darwin’s theory. It was all pretty much assumed.
>
> And so at that point, I got ticked off. I was mad because I thought I was being led to believe something not because of the evidence for it, but just because that’s the way we’re supposed to think these days.
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### Author:  [@Eddie](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Eddie)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2020, 9:44pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/on-the-use-of-the-term-creationism-in-popular-debate-in-the-past-century-or-so/9210/418 "2020-01-29T21:44:39Z")
I ignore your typically pedantic, hair-splitting claim that adding the word “traditional” to “natural theology” forces the discussion into purely Christian territory. Most writers see natural theology in the Christian era as exhibiting continuity with arguments found in pre-Christian writings. I won’t bother going through all the books I have here that demonstrate this usage, but the article on “Physicotheology” in the 8-volume Encyclopedia of Philosophy is one place where the continuity is stressed.
> [@Jonathan\_Burke](#):
>
> **and this being we call God** ”.
I can’t say much for your Latin scholarship. Aquinas uses different phrasings at the end of the various Five Ways arguments. He interchangeably employs “and this we call God” “and this all (men) call God” “and this all (men) name God”. “All men” (which translates _omnes_) clearly means all human beings, not “all European Christians of this era”; and even if he had used “we” every time, since he is making a broad philosophical argument, it wouldn’t necessarily pertain to only Christians. Your pedantry, and your research sloppiness, are showing here.
> [@Jonathan\_Burke](#):
>
> The “God” there is very obviously the Christian God, and he even quotes the Bible directly,
The God whose existence can be verified _without any need for the Bible_ can be identified with the God referred to in the Bible, with extra information possessed by Christians, but the argument established only a generic God, not the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The reference to the Bible is in no way part of the argument.
> [@Jonathan\_Burke](#):
>
> You said he “offered a natural theology argument”.
But I already adjusted my claim, so your continued attempt to score a debating point is petty. Even “offered” could be taken in a weak sense, but I will settle for “presented”; the point is that he regarded such arguments as within the province of philosophy, requiring no theological commits or assumptions derived from Christianity.
> [@Jonathan\_Burke](#):
>
> Your definition of evolution is “the process of organic change over time”.
I did not offer this as my own definition, or if I did, it certainly is not the one I usually offer here. It is too vague, and could cover a great deal, or very little, depending on how it is read.
I said several times that by evolution I meant “descent with modification”, and elsewhere have added that the descent runs all the way from one or a few simple organic forms down to all later organic forms, including man. And I have correctly stated that Discovery has taken no position against evolution understood in this sense. Individual Discovery writers, speaking for themselves, have expressed doubts about evolution, but Discovery itself has said that evolution is not incompatible with ID theory. Many times.
> [@Jonathan\_Burke](#):
>
> And let’s remember that while the DI claims to be open to the possibility of evolution being planned and/or guided, they constantly argue against it.
Show me where, in the four books by Denton published by Discovery, he argues against evolution. If Discovery was against evolution on principle, it would not publish Denton’s books.
> [@Jonathan\_Burke](#):
>
> That’s Philip Johnson. According to him, Denton is a creationist.
Note that Johnson employs scare quotes, an indicator that he is using the word “creationist” in a sense different from what many readers might understand by the term. I would submit that Johnson is distinguishing an “evolutionary creationist” from a “creationist” as typically understood, i.e., as I have outlined in my article above. Another way of putting this is that ID is not, as such, against “evolutionary creation,” where evolutionary creation is understood as a planned or guided process. (Contrast with most BioLogos and most ASA versions of evolutionary creationism, whose proponents wriggle and squirm when asked to commit to guidance or planning of any kind in the evolutionary process.) Johnson’s statement is not out of line with anything I’ve said, or any definition of ID on Discovery.
> [@Jonathan\_Burke](#):
>
> You don’t seem to realise that what you are saying here is that currently there is no “ID theory”
That doesn’t follow. A theory can exist in partly developed form, not yet ready to be included in science class.
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### Author:  [@Timothy\_Horton](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Timothy_Horton)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2020, 9:47pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/on-the-use-of-the-term-creationism-in-popular-debate-in-the-past-century-or-so/9210/419 "2020-01-29T21:47:10Z")
Heh. Behe’s ignorance of basic evolutionary biology sure shines through in that interview. He also comes across as a slightly bitter old crank IMHO. The rest was just the usual DI supplied propaganda talking points all ID-Creationists rely on.
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### Author:  [@Eddie](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Eddie)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2020, 9:52pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/on-the-use-of-the-term-creationism-in-popular-debate-in-the-past-century-or-so/9210/420 "2020-01-29T21:52:28Z")
> [@T\_aquaticus](#):
>
> The frontloading would not be a natural process.
Yes, but since it is done at the very start of the universe, it is not an “intervention” into nature, not a “miracle” in the usual sense of the word. Most people, when they speak of miracles, are talking about God jumping in and breaking his own laws of nature. And I think you will admit that when you speak of Behe on interventions and miracles, you do not have in mind God merely setting it up and then letting nature run. Your remarks have repeatedly shown that you think Behe envisions God sticking his finger in on many occasions to break natural laws. In fact, I am pretty sure that is what _all_ of Behe’s critics here have in mind when they think of Behe. And I’m making the _very limited argument_ that Behe never explicitly asserts that such interventions have happened, or that they are required by ID theory. Maybe it’s implied by some of the conclusions he draws, but he never asserts it. Will you concede that he never _asserts_ it, so that we can be done with this ridiculous debate? Or else provide a passage containing the _assertion_?
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### Author:  [@Eddie](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Eddie)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2020, 9:54pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/on-the-use-of-the-term-creationism-in-popular-debate-in-the-past-century-or-so/9210/421 "2020-01-29T21:54:36Z")
Your long-winded reply avoids answering the question. I gave a direct quotation from Tim. Do you agree with the quotation, or not? If you will not answer this simple question, I will rightly infer that you are afraid to answer it.
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### Author:  [@Rich\_Hampton](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Rich_Hampton)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2020, 9:55pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/on-the-use-of-the-term-creationism-in-popular-debate-in-the-past-century-or-so/9210/422 "2020-01-29T21:55:03Z")
But Behe rejects front loading, both theologically and scientifically. It’s right in the interview.
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