On the Use of the Term "Creationism" in Popular Debate in the Past Century or So

That’s not the only criterion but even if it was that would be too bad for them, right?

An example of the usage of ID proponents: “cdesignproponentists.”

Yes, and “cdesignproponentists” is the most hilarious evidence of that.

False. See “cdesignproponentists.”

Only in public. When editing a creationist book, they clearly did.

“cdesignproponentists”

“cdesignproponentists”

They all contradict “cdesignproponentists.”

No one imposed “cdesignproponentists” on them. They used it themselves.

ID folks are responsible for “cdesignproponentists.”

None of those claims are consistent with the evidence: “cdesignproponentists.”

Except when they let the mask slip and admit that it is creationism: “cdesignproponentists.”

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I would point out that the use of “various” makes this an apparently intentionally unclear statement.

Hypothesizing when the allegedly massive inputs occurred is very testable.

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Those people who follow these debates do know that the term was coined by those hostile to ID. But even if the general public doesn’t know who coined the term, they certainly know what it conveys; it is very clear to them that “intelligent design creationism” is meant in the same uncomplimentary sense that regular “creationism” is. Average intelligent readers have common sense and are pretty good at picking up blatantly hostile framing context, even if pedantic would-be academics prefer to split hairs and avoid the obvious.

Of course I do. But they can only sustain that belief by ignoring the counter-examples. As I’ve already said, to your deaf ears, if Scott etc. would say “Most ID proponents are creationist” I would not object. But the term “intelligent design creationism” is used without noting any exceptions and in context is meant to include everyone associated with Discovery or ID, including Behe and Denton and others like them. Faizal Ali falls in with this error. He explicitly declares that both Behe and Denton count as creationists. Behe said adamantly to Scott that he was not a creationist. She ignored him and went on to treat him as a creationist – which is personally disrespectful and not dialogue in good faith.

Because (a) every single person who has repeated her usage on the internet means that by it, (b) every ID proponent I know – and ID folks monitor these cultural things daily – complains about the spread of the false equation of ID and creationism, and attributes it in part to the currency of that phrase, and (c) I know of no counterexamples. Find me some. Find me some people who don’t interpret “intelligent design creationism” in the way I’ve described.

False. ID does not affirm creationism, as I have defined the term. ID explicitly states that it is not creationism. The statements are on the Discovery website. You won’t read them. Or you don’t understand them.

On the contrary, they understand that perfectly well – which is why they object to putting together the two things, “intelligent design” and “creationism” as a name for their position. ID is not a form of creationism, but theory of design detection. It is compatible with creationism, and the majority of ID proponents are creationists. But if you can’t distinguish between, “The majority of people who hold to Theory X also hold to religious belief Y” and “Theory X is religious belief Y” then you are so poorly trained in the use of both logic and the English language that your remarks can’t be taken seriously by educated people.

By very few; and not by the official organization representing ID, which explicitly distinguishes between the two.

Interesting that of the long list of titles you give, only one of them employs “intelligent design creationism”; all the rest have just “intelligent design.” And that one is neither in a “scientific journal” nor published by OUP.

By a definition established by the historical Church which you think teaches a false form of Christianity.

I’m fully aware of the history and etymology of “heretical”; I taught Greek for many years. But though the word is not a synonym for “theologically in the wrong,” all heretics are in fact “theologically in the wrong” on one or more points, where “wrong” means “departing from the orthodox view.” If they were not “wrong” on at least one point, there is no reason why the Church would be trying to correct their view, sometimes by very drastic means. If I use the phrase “Christadelphian heretics” I am implying that on at least one doctrine, the Christadelphians have departed from orthodoxy, and therefore, on that point are “wrong” (from the point of view of orthodoxy).

My disagreement was over what you (or the people you were speaking for) made to follow from that historical connection.

I already gave my reason. Can’t you read? Do you think Jews, Muslims and Hindus worship “the Christian God”? Duuuuh.

I think that if “creationism” is freshly defined in a specific context, it can mean all kinds of things, including what you have above. I’m quite willing to accept a definition of a term specified in that way, for the purposes of local conversation. But culture isn’t generally transmitted by careful discussions where people define their terms. Culture is “picked up” from the prevailing atmosphere. And the prevailing atmosphere on this continent (an atmosphere I know better than you, having lived here for 60 years, as opposed to having visited it for a few weeks now and then), at least in popular discussions of origins, has given “creationism” certain associations which are not easily shaken. The two primary associations it has are anti-evolution and a Biblical basis. That’s why, if someone wants to assert that he believes God created through evolution, he has to explain himself carefully. If he just says that he is a creationist and doesn’t say anything more, the presumption of most people will be that he doesn’t accept evolution and doesn’t accept it because he thinks it’s against the Bible. For good or ill, that is how the term has generally been used. And I think you know this.

Then how do you explain that Discovery published 4 books by Michael Denton? No creationist organization would ever do that. How do you explain the presence of a large number of Catholics – and Catholics of a non-fundamentalist sort, including some who think macroevolution really happened – in high positions at Discovery? Would OEC or YEC organizations put Catholics in high positions? Would they make Michael Behe and Michael Denton into Fellows?

I did not mean that the term was used in the literature of engineering. I meant that it refers to a concept that engineers deal with. It’s about the relation of parts to wholes in working systems. I don’t think you will deny that engineers are concerned with parts and wholes of working systems. I have number of close friends who are engineers, and designing, making, and improving systems with a large number of interacting parts is what they do.

I don’t know what you mean here. Are you saying that you don’t think there exist, anywhere in the universe, any irreducibly complex systems? Or are you saying that they exist, but that ID people wrongly draw a creationist inference from their existence?

Many human designed systems have a large number of interacting parts, but not all systems with interacting parts were consciously designed. Why do ID-Creationists not understand basic logic?

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Yes, ID is a form of Creationism.

How were “intelligently designed” biological features brought into physical existence if they weren’t created by the Designer?

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In fact, if you actually bothered to read ID literature, which you seem never to have done, you would see that Behe grants your point. He does not argue that all systems with interacting parts require design. He does think that some such systems do. And he explains which ones, and why. Try reading his books instead of relying on rumor and hearsay for a change.

Ken Miller believes that “biological features” were “brought into physical existence” by a Creator. By your line of argument, Ken Miller is therefore a creationist. Have you told him this?

But the ones he claims require “design” have already been shown possible to evolve through stepwise evolutionary processes. The only reason he keeps making the already discredited argument is because it’s a dog whistle to his ID-Creationist audience, the ones he counts on to but his pseudo-science books.

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No, they haven’t been – not one of them. What has been offered is storytelling, not science.

But not directly by supernatural POOFING like ID-Creationists believe.

Please find me direct and unambiguous statements in Behe and Denton that speak of supernatural poofing. Page numbers, please.

Yes they have to the satisfaction of the scientific community. Of course Behe will never admit it because it will cost him book sales to his True Believer ID-Creationist followers. :slight_smile:

Tell us how God got Behe’s claimed God produced changes into genomes. Did God use a CRISPR tool?

So you can’t find the assertion in Behe. That’s one you lose. Now, can you find the assertion in Denton?

So you can’t explain how God made Behe’s claimed changes to the genome without POOFING. That’s one you lose.

Evidence please. Is this also “very clear” to them when they read “evolutionary creationism”?

I haven’t seen any evidence that Behe and Denton are not creationists. The views they hold are views which Thaxton and others have defined as “Special Creation”.

Behe is also on record as being incredibly unreliable.

Oh, so personal opinion, hearsay, and anecdotal evidence. Ok!

Me!

You are again shifting the goalposts. That is not topic under discussion. The topic under discussion is that creationism is what ID has in common with the creationism of YEC, OEC, and EC. This has nothing to do with how you define the term.

Not only have I read them, I’ve raised them here.

Yes I can. However this is nothing to do with the topic under discussion. Previously we have seen you totally unable to differentiate between creationist arguments and ID arguments. The reason is obvious; they are the same arguments.

But why would it be defined as creationism by any ID proponents? And you cut off the part of my sentence in which I identified ID as being defined as creationism by some of IDs own founders and earliest supporters. By the way, which is “the official organization representing ID”, and how is that verifiable?

So you didn’t read any of them. You only read the titles.

  1. Cleaves, Anna, and Rob Toplis. “In the Shadow of Intelligent Design: The Teaching of Evolution.” Journal of Biological Education 42.1 (2007): 30–35. It seems that the UK is experiencing attempts to introduce ID / creationism materials into science lessons…
  2. Coyne, Jerry. “When Science Meets Religion in the Classroom.” Nature 435.7040 (2005): 275–275. Nature claims that scientists have not dealt effectively with the threat to evolutionary biology posed by ‘intelligent design’ ( ID ) creationism
  3. Forrest, Barbara. “Still Creationism after All These Years: Understanding and Counteracting Intelligent Design.” Integr Comp Biol 48.2 (2008): 189–201. In an interview in December 2007 with a religious organization, William Dembski, the intelligent design (ID) creationist movement’s leading intellectual… [this journal is published by OUP]
  4. Kern, William Travis. “Intelligent Design and Creationism in Our Schools” 1 (2014): 5. I describe and elaborate what both ID / Creationism and evolution…
  5. Kutschera, U. “Designer Scientific Literature.” Nature 423.6936 (2003): 116–116. Last year, ID–creationism took a step towards scientific respectability…
  6. Nakhnikian, George. “It Ain’t Necessarily So: An Essay Review of Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics: Philosophical, Theological, and Scientific Perspectives.” Philosophy of Science 71.4 (2004): 593–604. The remedy is not to replace scientific evolution with ID creationism.
  7. Padian, Kevin. “Waiting for the Watchmaker.” Science 295.5564 (2002): 2373–74. ID Creationism is more or less the brainchild of Phillip E. Johnson…
  8. Sarkar, Sahotra. “Sober on Intelligent Design.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 83.3 (2011): 683–91. … including the one most relevant to this response, viz., his analysis of ID creationism
  9. Shortell, Timothy. “The Conflict over Origins: A Discourse Analysis of the Creationism Controversy in American Newspapers.” Mass Communication and Society 14.4 (2011): 431–53. Many people, both participants and onlookers, see the dispute about Intelligent Design ( ID ) creationism as one of the fronts in the American ‘‘culture war.’’

Remind me again about all your supposedly incredible academic qualifications and skills. You can’t even do basic fact checking.

By the standard English language definition, actually.

Thank you.

Yes, from the point of view of orthodoxy. This does not mean “necessarily wrong”.

So let’s look again at these three statements with which you disagreed so virulently.

  1. Scientific creationism is one of the intellectual antecedents of the intelligent design movement.

Stated by Philip Johnson.

  1. The designer of intelligent design is, ultimately, the Christian God.

Stated by William Dembski.

  1. Persons who believe that the earth is billions of years old, and that simple forms of life evolved gradually to become more complex forms including humans, are “creationists” if they believe that a supernatural Creator not only initiated this process but in some meaningful sense controls it in furtherance of a purpose.

Stated by Philip Johnson.

How interesting that you did not recognize any of these statements. Your knowledge of the history, founders, and literature of ID creationism is always demonstrably shallow. This is another case in point.

Yes he is a creationist of some kind. I would call him a Theistic Evolution Creationist, or just an Evolutionary Creationist.

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I’m not the one that’s trying to prove something. You are trying to prove that Behe asserts that design can only be actualized through miracles. If you can’t show passages where he asserts that, then you are just conjecturing. Especially since we know that Denton asserts that design need not be actualized through miracles, and Behe is familiar with Denton’s thought. Apparently you aren’t acquainted with the need to document your claims from what people have written. I gather that you were never during your education asked to provide such documentation.

Behe asserts God came by and directly intervened to put changes into genomes. To every honest person that constitutes a divine miracle.

I made no comment on how the typical person would understand “evolutionary creationism.” I made a comment only on how the typical person would understand “intelligent design creationism.” And my comment was correct.

Yes, you have. You know that they are not creationists as that term has been generally used in a century of popular American discussion about origins.

A silly non-sequitur. He is not “unreliable” at reporting what he himself believes. He says he is not a creationist. That means that, in accord with his definition of “creationist”, he is not one. I submit that his definition of creationism is very close to the one I have provided above. I base that on having read virtually every word he has put into print, having heard him speak innumerable times, and having conversed with him personally over the past several years.

If you want to accuse Scott, all the NCSE writers, Faizal, Pennock, etc. of relying on hearsay, etc., that is fine with me. They are the ones who are on record as spreading the phrase “intelligent design creationism” with the meaning I’ve given.

That you can’t find a seconder is telling.

Ummmm – I set the topic under discussion. This is my column we are under, remember? Read the title above. Read the article again.

No, that’s the topic you would like to change the discussion to. I’m not interested in that discussion. If you want to have that discussion, start your own new topic.

Nonsense.

Here is an ID argument (I’m not commenting on whether or not it is valid, just presenting it):

“The human eye displays irreducible and specified complexity, and we know of no other cause for this other than intelligent design; therefore, the human eye was designed.”

Here is a creationist argument (again, with no comment from me on its validity):

“The Bible tells us that man along with all the other creatures was created by miraculous divine action. And God being all-wise, as the Bible tells us, he would not create anything without purpose or plan. Therefore man and all parts of man are designed by God. Therefore, the human eye is designed.”

Now, which of these types of argument do you find in Darwin’s Black Box, The Design of Life, Signature in the Cell, No Free Lunch, etc.? The first, or the second?

Next subject:

It’s interesting that the authors you select are among the most obviously partisan, and include some of the earliest people who actively spread the “intelligent design creationism” phrase in the popular arena: Padian, Forrest, Coyne … These obvious partisans with obvious polemical motivation don’t help your case. You need usage from people who aren’t in the thick of the fighting, who might plausibly be regarded as objective.

I don’t have access to many of these journals, so if you want me to read the quotations in context, you will have to provide me with links to the full text – and not behind a paywall.

I do note, however, that most of the journals are journals of philosophy of science, science education, etc., not science proper. I thought you specified peer-reviewed science journals, of the type that Mercer here publishes (or used to publish) in.

Finally, note that even if some scholars, being influenced by gross culture-war partisans like Forrest, Pennock, Scott, Padian, etc., are now using “intelligent design creationism” as if it is an unproblematic term, it doesn’t follow that they are right to do so. The book you have praised by Kojonen is very careful not to do that. And I don’t think it’s any accident that Rope spent years conversing with ID proponents themselves, in a constructive and good-faith manner, before producing that book, whereas a good number of the people employing “ID creationism” in their writing have read very little original ID material and have rarely if ever had a friendly personal conversation with an actual ID leader, and actually asked the ID leader what he means by ID and whether it is the same thing as creationism.

Which became standard only because of the cultural authority of the established Church, a Church which you think got Christianity fundamentally wrong. You’re still dodging. You should have the courage to say: “I refuse to accept the definitions of “orthodox” and “heretical” imposed on society by an organization which claims to be Christian but has Christianity wildly wrong. The view that the mainstream Church calls “orthodox” has nothing “ortho” about it; it should be called “pseudodox”; it is Christadelphians who hold the “ortho” view.”

I have not disputed this. So are the writings of Paley, the first book of Denton, statements by Hoyle, and many other things, “antecedents” of ID theory.

For Dembski, that is true. It is not true for Klinghoffer. You are aware that Klinghoffer is a Jew?

This statement proves my point. Look how many careful qualifying words Johnson had to write in order to show how “evolution” and “creationism” can be put together. Why did he need to do this? He needed to do it because the prevailing popular definitions of “creationism” and “evolution” made the two things seem mutually exclusive, and he needed to finesse the terms to harmonize them. I don’t disagree with what Johnson is driving at; but his statement doesn’t count an iota against the definition of “creationism” I gave above, which pertained to what the term is generally understood to mean in the absence of a qualifying discussion such as Johnson’s.

Interestingly, you choose quotations from Johnson and Dembski, who have not been active in formulating ID for some years now. Interesting also that you can’t find any definitions of ID on the Discovery site which support your claims, and that you don’t cite works by Denton or Meyer or Nelson or Wells or Gauger or Sternberg.

Note that you would thereby be imposing your terminology on him. In Finding Darwin’s God he criticizes creationism as a position different from his own. That’s because he understands “creationism” to mean what I’ve said above. I respect his right to define his position and therefore I don’t call him a creationist. You apparently don’t respect either his right, or the right of ID people, to define their own positions, without having words shoved into their mouths by their opponents. That says something about you both as a scholar, and as a person.