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

That’s already been supplied at least 4 times in this thread. First you ignored the answer, then you hand-waved it away. Now because you can’t be wrong about anything you keep asking the same already answered question until people get sick of hearing you squawk.

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It’s more like everyone thinks your silly rhetorical “argument” is worthless and has already been adequately responded to ad nauseum. Just admit you were wrong for once in your life and move on already.

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Behe said:

And that is that only material processes, matter and energy, chance and so on, and natural laws, explain life.

But in a front-loaded scenario, “only material processes” don’t explain life. Matter, energy, and [pred-loaded] design are all part of the explanation. And “design” is not a material process, or material in any sense. It’s something mental.

Behe does reject the vast majority of modern evolutionary theories, as you say, not just the Darwinian. But none of the ones he rejects allow design any role. An evolutionary theory that had room for design, he would not reject. That is, he would reject any evolutionary theory upheld by the atheists here, but would not reject an account of descent with modification which asserted that the whole process was designed from the beginning to produce certain outcomes.

If I am wrong, please point me to the spot in the Biola interview where he explicitly addresses Denton or other front-loaded models that allow design, and explicitly insists on intervention.

Because he speaks of unintelligent processes. Any unintelligent processes you can think of, even those yet discovered, can not produce the folds in question. Only intelligent processes can do that.

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Behe rejects his Catholic education’s view, front loading. Then he goes on to explain why.

Are you saying Darwin delves that … Darwin’s mechanism and/or other natural mechanisms can account for species and genus level changes, but not higher levels of classification. Could you clarify that for our audience? And then explain what you mean using the reference that I loved in your book, where you had eight digits of money to explain how much these natural mechanisms can account for the diversity and complexity of life.

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Eddie’s at it again:

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See my reply to T. aquaticus above.

I should add that I had not seen the Biola interview until now, and that my remarks were based on the work of Behe up to the time of the interview, i.e, 24 years of talks, articles and books by the man. If Behe has changed his mind, and if the interview shows that, then I will concede that now he asserts intervention. But he did not ever assert it before, and all the passages provided in this discussion – except possibly the Biola interview – fail.

So let’s discuss the Biola interview if you like. Does it rule out front-loaded scenarios where not just matter and energy but intelligent design are an essential cause of the evolutionary results? Or does it rule out only “materialistic” evolutionary theories? There’s a difference between a “materialistic” account of evolution and a “naturalistic” one where design is involved. Denton’s account is “naturalistic” in that it envisions no interference with nature, but it is not “materialistic” because it insists on a non-material cause (intelligent design). So I need to be shown that Behe explicitly rules out front-loaded accounts of the Denton type. I will read the whole interview more closely.

(facepalm) He’s been asserting intervention by his intelligent designer God for 24 years. That’s what everyone has been both telling you and showing you. This interview is nothing new. Good grief.

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Again, Behe rejecting the pool shot that ‘theistic evolutionists’ believe:

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.

TEs do explain life by God setting up the pool shot so that unintelligent processes eventually lead to life and us. So what specifically are TEs not considering?

Intelligent processes.

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If I knock down a domino, everything that happens after that – the fall of all the other dominoes – happens by “unintelligent processes” – the dominoes don’t think or plan, aren’t aiming to knock down other dominoes. But there is still a design or plan in the mind of the person who set up the dominoes so that the first push will create the pattern of falling. The process of falling is not intelligent but it is planned by an intelligence. So there is still intelligence operating, but on the grand scale rather than locally.

Let me read the interview, OK?

The design is intelligent and relies exclusively on unintelligent processes, which Behe rejects.

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Where does Behe say that in the interview?

Instead, Behe says that God created life:

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Read the question, and read the answer. Behe had multiple opportunities throughout the interview to correct McDowall on the point of intelligent design running counter to natural law, but he never did. Behe leaned right into it:

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If you found a series of dominos set up like below, would you conclude they had just randomly and naturally ended up that way?

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That’s not incompatible with Denton’s scenario.

Eddie . . . c’mon. Really?

Denton thinks life evolved a certain way because natural laws were set up at the beginning in a certain way. Behe says just the opposite:

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Nope. Never “asserting.” Maybe “implying.” Not “asserting.”

“And that is that only material processes, matter and energy, chance and so on, and natural laws, explain life.”

This is not Denton’s view, so Behe is not contradicting Denton.

The materialist view that Behe is attacking says there is evolution, but no design.

Denton’s view is that there is evolution, unfolding according to a design. Denton is not a materialist. His view of evolution’s unfolding is naturalistic, but nature is for him biased toward certain outcomes (including man) by inbuilt design. I see nothing in Behe’s responses to the interviewer that constitute an attack on Denton’s notion of evolution.

Please try to distinguish between questions. Whether Behe personally favors intervention over front-loading is not a question I have commented on. I have said only that he hasn’t clearly and unambiguously stated (stated, not implied) that intervention has happened, and he hasn’t clearly and unambiguously stated that ID theory requires intervention.

Further, if ID theory requires intervention, then Denton is not an ID theorist, so why has Discovery published 4 of his books? I would submit that both Discovery and Behe regard Denton as broadly within the ID fold, and if Behe personally thinks that God performed interventions – which he very well may think – that is not, for Behe, required by ID as such.

How so? References?

[sorry, my post got cut off]

Denton’s view is that evolution unfolds through natural laws which were designed at the beginning of the Big Bang. That is not what Behe believes.

Yes, he has. It’s right there in the interview.

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All 400 pages of Nature’s Destiny. The book is “one long argument” for the necessity of design behind the evolutionary process. The argument is cumulative and there’s no single sentence I would prefer over any other. But everyone who has read Nature’s Destiny agrees that the book (1) advocates macroevolution from molecules to man; (b) requires no miracles after the initial disposition of the universe; ( c ) argues for design. None of this characterization is in dispute by anybody, even by Denton’s worst enemies. You can take my word for it. But if won’t take my word for it, you are at liberty to read the book. It’s arguably the best ID book ever written.