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

[T_aquaticus]

From that same interview:

Scott Rae : So let me ask a follow-up question on that. I’ve heard some of your colleagues at Discovery Institute, Steve Meyer, for example, and others. Make the argument that among the Darwinian community, that the traditional Darwinian emphasis on mutations and natural selection is the mechanism for producing the complexity of life as we know it today is in crisis. Would you agree with that assessment?

Michael Behe : I certainly would. And as a matter of fact, perhaps more important, not only me, but I would be that at least a third or maybe more of practicing biologists would agree with that. That’s one thing that gets very much under reported in all this. Whenever evolution is discussed for the unwashed masses, and in public, Darwin’s theory is rolled out and touted as the answer to all your questions. It explains pretty much everything. But if you look in the professional literature, and the journals that biologists write in and read, there’s lots of people who say that Darwin’s theory can’t really cut the mustard. And we’ve got to look around for something else. And people who are proposing different ideas to supplement or augment Darwin’s theory.
Darwin Devolves - Think Biblically - Biola University

Behe defines Darwinism as mutation and selection. Behe then says that Darwinism can’t “cut the mustard”. Therefore, natural mutation and selection can’t cut the mustard. He also throws natural genetic engineering under the bus:

One is called natural genetic engineering. And it’s kind of championed mostly by a man named James Chapiro, who’s a biologist at the University of Chicago. And the idea is that, just like Darwin’s natural selection, maybe nature can engineer cells and organisms. Just like scientists in the lab take materials from the cell in order to do a number of manipulations on DNA. There are little catalysts called enzymes, which can cut DNA at specific places. They’re called restriction enzymes. And other ones that can stitch them back together where you want them to be, and they’re called ligases. And, there are little DNA vehicles that you can put genes into in a lab, and put the vehicle into a cell, and it will reproduce inside the cell. They’re called plasmids.

And the idea is, well, the cell has all these tools that we humans use to genetically engineer DNA outside of the cell. All kind of artificial genetic engineering. Well maybe nature, just like artificial versus natural selection, maybe nature can use these itself to rearrange DNA. And it’s an interesting idea. And it recognizes some of the problems with Darwin’s theory. But, there’s no reason to suppose, and no evidence to show, that these tools do anything novel or interesting when the cell loses control of them. When they go outside their normally regulated boundaries in the cell.

So it’s an interesting idea. In some ways it’s pointing towards intelligent design too. But there’s no reason, and no evidence to support it right now. In my humble view.
ibid

[T_aquaticus]

@Eddie

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.

Intervention is exactly what Behe is calling for since he clearly states that mutations can’t produce the features he is talking about. See my post above.

@Eddie

Your remarks have repeatedly shown that you think Behe envisions God sticking his finger in on many occasions to break natural laws.

They aren’t my remarks. They are Behe’s remarks.

[Timothy_Horton]

@Eddie

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.

Behe: " “[Edge of Evolution] proposed at least some biochemical systems had been purposely designed by an intelligent agent”.

Still trying the losing gambit of claiming Behe thinks some biochemical systems were purposely designed but NOT implemented by intervention of the intelligent designer? Too funny!

[Eddie (Edward Robinson)]

@Faizal_Ali

Ah, I see. So Behe is claiming that God is using a design process that is both natural and, at the same time, OUTSIDE of nature.

Your inability to read carefully is a testimony to how bad modern scientific education, or at least your scientific education, is. Behe, as I have said repeatedly, is not “claiming” anything like that. Behe gives options for how design might find its way into nature. Read the Discovery article I posted.

[Timothy_Horton]

@T_aquaticus

Intervention is exactly what Behe is calling for since he clearly states that mutations can’t produce the features he is talking about. See my post above.

Eddie is reduced to arguing since Behe didn’t explicitly type the word “intervention” then everyone is wrong to assume Behe’s Intelligent Designer intervened anywhere. Hard to imagine a lamer argument but hey, it’s coming from a Trained Scholar.

[Eddie (Edward Robinson)]

@T_aquaticus

what Behe is calling for since he clearly states that mutations can’t produce the features he is talking about.

Still an inference on your part. Not a statement by Behe that intervention has occurred.

@T_aquaticus

They aren’t my remarks. They are Behe’s remarks.

He didn’t make any remark about God sticking his finger in to break natural laws. That’s your inference.

[T_aquaticus]

Here is more from Behe, clearly showing that natural processes are not a part of ID:

Sean McDowell : I’ve got kind of a two part question for you. Number one is, you’re convinced that natural causes, Darwin’s mechanism in others, can’t account for the complexity and diversity of life down at DNA. But your criticism, on page 51 you say, “Darwin’s icy grip on modern intellectual life is based on shoddy philosophy, not science.” So, what is this philosophy that’s holding people back from recognizing what you view as the failure of Darwin’s theories? But then on the flip side, there seems to be a growing number of theists, evolutionary creationists, or theistic evolutionists, who embrace some form of Darwinism. How do you make sense of the two of those?

Michael Behe : Well, let’s see. The first part, the philosophy is behind it is pretty much materialism. And that is that only material processes, matter and energy, chance and so on, and natural laws, explain life. And that’s taken as an assumption, not as some sort of demonstrated fact. And, that of course, ties into a lot of other questions too. Philosophical, theological questions about how God interacts with the world, or whether there is a God. And it’s just cool too, it seems to be more modern than somebody who claims that life was designed, that a creator had to have made life.

So that’s pretty much it. That’s the philosophy. And then, stemming from that are a lot of other things like prestige and how you’re considered by your fellow folks, and just what looks plausible in your social network. So, probably most scientist don’t believe in Darwinism because they have been somehow persuaded, but because that’s what they were taught. And that’s what everybody assumes in their departments and so on.

As far as theistic evolutionists, well you can’t explain a whole broad category. But still, I think that a major factor is that they have kind of been influenced by these sociological factors too. That some of them explicitly assume that it’s illegitimate to talk about design. And you have to explain life by using only material factors, even though they believe that there’s God and that … So there’s something other than material factors that could have influenced life. Nonetheless, they bought into the assumption that you can’t consider that when trying to explain life.

Other things are that if you work, even if you’re a theist and you work in a department where it’s just assumed that Darwin’s theory explains life. And that anybody who doesn’t see that, well they’re, “Hey, what’s wrong with them?” And, so social pressure helps to explain a lot too. Yeah.
Darwin Devolves - Think Biblically - Biola University

[T_aquaticus]

@Eddie

Still an inference on your part.

No, it isn’t. Behe clearly states that mutations and selection can’t be the cause of the biological features he is talking about.

Later, he also states that people refuse to accept intelligent design because they want to stick with natural explanations. See my post above.

[Faizal_Ali]

@Eddie

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.

Are you not paying attention to this discussion? It is obvious that Behe asserts that God intervenes into the evolutionary process. And it is equally obvious that he denies this. Behe has no coherent model or hypothesis. He just says a bunch of stuff.

[Rich_Hampton]

Yes he did. His rejects his Catholic education’s view of Design, front loading. First it annoyed him that it was assumed that unintelligent processes, after the pool shot, produced life, us. Then he learned, and later developed his theories WHY front loading/unintelligent processes could not have led to, for example, the physical process of how certain folds occur.

[Timothy_Horton]

@Faizal_Ali

Are you not paying attention to this discussion? It is obvious that Behe asserts that God intervenes into the evolutionary process. And it is equally obvious that he denies this. Behe has no coherent model or hypothesis. He just says a bunch of stuff.

Whatever it takes to sell his books. For him ID-Creationism is all about the $$$, not science.

[Eddie (Edward Robinson)]

@Rich_Hampton

But Behe rejects front loading, both theologically and scientifically. It’s right in the interview.

Did you read the article I linked you to? He does not decide between the two.

@Timothy_Horton

Eddie is reduced to arguing since Behe didn’t explicitly type the word “intervention” then everyone is wrong to assume Behe’s Intelligent Designer intervened anywhere.

No, I haven’t even insisted on that. I haven’t said inference is illegitimate. I’ve insisted only that Behe never asserts intervention. But the childish, knee-jerk reaction here by atheists to anything that Eddie posts, the determination to show him up, prevents them from even conceding the very minimal point that Eddie is asking for. It would be easy for anyone to say: “Yeah, you’re right; it’s been evident from the beginning that all you have been asking for is an admission that Behe doesn’t explicitly say there have been interventions, and we should have conceded that, and then gone to focus on the question whether interventions are implied.” But the anti-ID, anti-Behe, anti-Eddie pathology here runs so deep, that there was little hope of that ever happening.

@Michael_Callen

Michael and Moderators: I would point out that this thread is supposed to be about the definition of creationism and has now degenerated into a quarrel over the wording of Behe and Discovery regarding intervention and miracles. I think it’s time to terminate it.

[Rich_Hampton]

@Eddie

Did you read the article I linked you to? He does not decide between the two.

But in the Biola interview he does

[T_aquaticus]

@Eddie

Did you read the article I linked you to? He does not decide between the two.

In the interview, he does decide between them.

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. And so, in biochemistry, which is the study of the molecular basis of life, you come across a lot of really fantastically complex systems. Elegant systems. And it used to be the case, I’d look at them, turn the page of the textbook and say, “Wholy moly, I wonder how that evolved?” And I’d say to myself, “Well, I guess somebody knows.” And turn the page again.

Darwin Devolves - Think Biblically - Biola University

[Eddie (Edward Robinson)]

@Faizal_Ali

Are you not paying attention to this discussion? It is obvious that Behe asserts that God intervenes into the evolutionary process.

Well, it took about two days and about 50 intervening posts, with many evasions by you, but you finally answered my question. You agree with Tim. So now, provide me with the passages where Behe asserts (not implies) God’s intervention.

[T_aquaticus]

Well, let’s see. The first part, the philosophy is behind it is pretty much materialism. And that is that only material processes, matter and energy, chance and so on, and natural laws, explain life. And that’s taken as an assumption, not as some sort of demonstrated fact. And, that of course, ties into a lot of other questions too. Philosophical, theological questions about how God interacts with the world, or whether there is a God. And it’s just cool too, it seems to be more modern than somebody who claims that life was designed, that a creator had to have made life.
–Michael Behe [emphasis mine]
Darwin Devolves - Think Biblically - Biola University

Creationist?

[Rich_Hampton]

The Biola interview says it all. Now you’re just stone walling. I expected better of you.

[T_aquaticus]

@Rich_Hampton

The Biola interview says it all.

Sean McDowall, the inteviewer, seems to get it:

Number one is, you’re [Michael Behe] convinced that natural causes, Darwin’s mechanism in others, can’t account for the complexity and diversity of life down at DNA.
Darwin Devolves - Think Biblically - Biola University

Behe never corrects him.

[Faizal_Ali]

@Rich_Hampton

I expected better of you.

Why would you?

[Eddie (Edward Robinson)]

In the interview, Behe refers repeatedly to “Darwin’s theory.” Elsewhere he refers repeatedly to neo-Darwinian theory. How does rejecting those theories rule out the possibility of front-loading? Remember that Behe gave a positive endorsement to Denton’s second book which endorsed front-loading.

And you’re still relying on inference. You’re still arguing, essentially, that since Behe rejects front-loading, he must believe in interventions. And even if your inference is correct, it’s still an inference, not a statement.

I find it hard to grasp how so many supposedly educated atheists can’t grasp the difference between “statement” and “inference.” All I’m asking for is the concession that Behe never said it (that interventions are necessary); I’m not asking for the concession that he doesn’t imply it. Is it really the case that no one here understands the very plain English that I’m employing? Or is this another case of “Eddie is claiming something, so let’s oppose whatever it is he’s saying in another of our group assaults”?