‘Tomorrow I head out for a business meeting, so I’ll leave you this for Friday night/Saturday silliness.
Albert and I go way back.
And if you don’t believe that, then maybe this will be more credible:
‘
About Bad Astronomy
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Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.
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March 10th, 2006 at 7:55 pm
Hahaha, now that gave me a smile.
Makes me feel better. (stupid cold. *grabs tissue*)
March 10th, 2006 at 9:03 pm
Hey, where did you get my picture?
March 10th, 2006 at 9:16 pm
“Creationist deny evolution; new law bans them from using medicine produced using science”
Awww.
Now all those creationists will drive home crying in their computer-monitored cars and turn on the air-conditioning, watch DVD’s on their plasma screen TV’s, send emails on their laptop computers over wireless networks while downloading the latest images from Mars and then call their other creationist friends on their digital cordless telephones and tell them science doesn’t know anything about physics and the universe.
March 10th, 2006 at 10:03 pm
Well, I’d say that news caster was intelligently designed!
March 10th, 2006 at 11:39 pm
i guess that means you can’t use anything invented by someone who believes in god. i’m too lazy to make a list, but i’m willing to bet the vast majority of inventions came from the hand of somebody believing in god.
creationism is not the black and white debate you want it to be.
“HA HA the god sheeple can’t use science!”
is no better than
“all those scientists are immoral heatherns!”
and the simple fact is that such views are only held by the fringes of proffesed theists, while the same appearantly can’t be said of, no doubt highly intelligent, “scientific activists” (whatever title you prefer, you know what i mean). just because the nutjobs on the theist side get more media attention doesn’t excuse the fact that far more people hold equally close-minded views on your side.
/the einstein was funny, and i love your site phil, i truly believe you to be highly intelligent, but i also love informed, rational debate. this is why it pains me to see you stoop to such a level as things like this.
March 10th, 2006 at 11:43 pm
guano: whaddaya mean intelligently designed? Doesn’t she wanna make you show her our mating rituals developed through generations of evolution?
“How’re you doin’?”
Or to much TV?
March 10th, 2006 at 11:50 pm
Andy: I don’t think that’s what BA means at all.
I think you are 100% right in that more things have been invented by people who believed in God than the other way around. But they have all kept religion and science separate. You can’t fill in the blanks with superstition.
March 11th, 2006 at 12:04 am
they’ve kept religion and science seperate? how so? i’m unaware of any religion that proclaims the true way to make a telephone is tin cans and string, and that bell’s invention can’t really work. i’m also unaware of any religion that advocates “filling in the gaps” of research with religious doctrine insofar as inventions goes. you can make that argument over the origins debate, but it really doesn’t fit when it comes to say, penicillin or any other actual science outside of the origins of the universe.
March 11th, 2006 at 12:56 am
There’s next to no science in the Bible, or as little as would be expected from bronze age pastoralists. It nearly requires a flat earth and a fixed firmament above. Its stories about breeding animals suggest folk magic at best. As a tool for understanding the world it’s practically useless. An engineering manual it’s not.
Hundreds of years ago the religious establishment fought against the heliocentric model of the universe. It gave up that fight, but not because scripture changed. Astronomy became necessary for navigation, and even the most benighted in this age are aware that we’ve been to the moon and rely on satellites for communication.
Germ theory, in contrast, encountered little theological resistance, even though germs, like genes or atoms, are somewhat at odds with biblical teachings.
Rather than denying vaccines to creationists, I’d suggest prohibiting the use of digital devices to those who cavil at the Uncertainty Principle. Quantum mechanics is a challenge to anyone’s faith.
March 11th, 2006 at 1:02 am
Andy:
Pro-IDers, anti-Darwiners, Creationists, etc, have historically used comics with a similar voice as this in their fight against evolution. I think AB is simply poking fun and not completely serious about what the comic says.
btw, I don’t have to believe in God to explain how my telephone works.
March 11th, 2006 at 1:12 am
“You know, Moses never used a telephone.”
– Henry Drummond (Spencer Tracy), in Inherit the Wind (1960)
There’s lots more good stuff from the same source:
“The Bible is a book. It’s a good book, but it is not the only book.”
And how about this one:
“Can’t you understand that if you take a law like evolution and you make it a crime to teach it in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools? And tomorrow you may make it a crime to read about it. And soon you may ban books and newspapers. And then you may turn Catholic against Protestant, and Protestant against Protestant, and try to foist your own religion upon the mind of man. If you can do one, you can do the other. Because fanaticism and ignorance is forever busy, and needs feeding. And soon, your Honor, with banners flying and with drums beating we’ll be marching backward, backward, through the glorious ages of that Sixteenth Century when bigots burned the man who dared bring enlightenment and intelligence to the human mind!”
Or this:
“But all you have to do is knock on any door and say, ‘If you let me in, I’ll live the way you want me to live, and I’ll think the way you want me to think,’ and all the blinds’ll go up and all the windows will open, and you’ll never be lonely, ever again.”
March 11th, 2006 at 1:21 am
Andy: “i guess that means you can’t use anything invented by someone who believes in god.”
No, this is wrong. The *vast* majority (at least 95%, by my calculations) of people who believe in God, in the western hemisphere and Europe (since you’re obviously talking about Christians), also accept evolution. I used to think that was a fallacy, but lately I’m really beginning to believe that’s a deliberate attempt to paint all people who believe in evolution as atheists. Atheists are a lot easier to dismiss than Christians.
Let me fix that for you: “i guess that means you can’t use anything invented by creationists.”
That narrows the field significantly, especially since you can’t really include people who were creationists before scientists figured out evolution. I seriously doubt more than a handfull of inventions, if any, fall into that category.
March 11th, 2006 at 3:34 am
It’s a joke, people!
March 11th, 2006 at 5:08 am
Haha, Uncle Phil, that was quite amusing to me…the first one at least. Hehe. Thanks for cheering me up some, I’m sick like Michelle is.
March 11th, 2006 at 6:34 am
Man ! The first image ….. just look at it ^^
badastronomy !
March 11th, 2006 at 6:47 am
Andy,
You are making a false correlation. Just because all IDers/creationists believe in God, it does not mean that all who believe in God are IDers/creationists!
Evolution, like gravity, is a fact. The theory of evolution, like that of gravity, is still a work in progress. Darwin’s theory of evolution, like Newton’s theory of gravity, was a good first approximation.
If a literal reading of the King James Bible is the foundation of your “science” then pi=3.0000…
March 11th, 2006 at 7:12 am
I think the point being made is simply that our modern society, with its modern conveniences, would never have come about if it were for reactionary forces like flat-earthers and creationists. Their mindset, and pointed lack of comprehension of the scientific method, is not exactly conductive for any kind of progress, you know.
If anything, this is a point that should be made more often. It’s very convenient for most contemporary Christians to be able to pick and choose what they believe in: go to church when they feel like it, accept some aspects of reality that are contradictory to the faith’s holy tenets or traditions, while opposing other aspects of reality that they feel uncomfortable with. That’s a personal Jesus indeed!
However, if they were to be suddenly transported some centuries back in time, I think they’d quickly gain an appreciation of what general education and the scientific method has actually accomplished in the intervening time span. (That is, if they wouldn’t make the mistake of talking religion and ending up slaughtered as heretics, first.)
It’s unimportant that true fundamentalists today represent a comparatively small portion of all religious people (in the West, anyway), because if their irrationality is not held in check, it’s not going to take many generations to wind back the clock to a new Dark Age. The thought of Bible-thumping illiterates having control of all aspects of today’s technology, including our weapon stockpiles, even while refusing to understand the very principles on which this technology was based, is surely enough to give anyone pause.
The fact is that mankind’s every step forward has been opposed and bitterly fought by those who would have us remain god-fearing cave dwellers. I couldn’t care less what particular deities someone (be they scientists or not) personally chooses to confide their hopes and fears to, as long as this someone doesn’t try and force their dogma, or other childish views of reality, on the rest of us.
March 11th, 2006 at 8:13 am
Andy, when you said:
“creationism is not the black and white debate you want it to be.
“HA HA the god sheeple can’t use science!â€
is no better than
“all those scientists are immoral heatherns!†”
you seem to overlook one important fact. The science side of the debate does not pursue a demonstrably-incorrect argument in the face of overwhelming evidence, nor are any scientists trying to deny ayone the right to worship what or whom they choose.
Whereas the creationists ignore the facts, many of them lie (or deliberately misprepresent the scintific position), and they often argue by “sound-bite” rather than by logic or from evidence.
March 11th, 2006 at 8:20 am
Andy, when you say:
“…. i’m also unaware of any religion that advocates “filling in the gaps†of research with religious doctrine insofar as inventions goes. you can make that argument over the origins debate, but it really doesn’t fit when it comes to say, penicillin or any other actual science outside of the origins of the universe.”
Yes, which illustrates the hypocrisy of the creationist position. When the science does not inconvenience their dogma, they have no problem with it (other than perhaps not understanding it). However, as soon as the same methodology or logical or empirical approach contradicts their interpretation of the Bible, they deny the science and attempt to replace it with dogma. They conveniently ignore thye fact that so many things that they use every day (such as the computers that host their websites) were created as a result of scienctific investigation that has equal merit to the theory they are trying so hard to shoot down.
You cannot pick and choose which bits of science to accept and which to deny. Either you accept the validity of science as a method of investigation, or you do not. All of the most successful scientific theories, evolution included, have been derived in the same fundamental way – by comparing theory against evidence and discarding or updating those theories that cannot explain the evidence we see. And, for any partidular area of investigation, all of the evidence must be considered, not just selected pieces of it.
March 11th, 2006 at 8:46 am
The problem I see with banning certain people from getting vaccines is that it puts those who accept evolution in more danger (since vaccines don’t hold for everyone). We’d be better off just forcing those who don’t accept evolution to stay in their homes when they are sick and rely on prayer to get better (but they should be vaccinated whether they want to or not to protect the rest of society).
March 11th, 2006 at 11:00 am
Good grief everyone…..give it a rest! The very point of Phil’s “BA” website/book/blog is to present the “FACTS” of an argument as derived from the scientific method vs. arguments derived from either bad science or blind acceptance by those who refuse to open their minds (i.e., those who would rather live in the period of the Inquisition). Thanks for the “funny joke” Phil.
March 11th, 2006 at 11:29 am
First, this really is a lot of debate over a joke (a fairly common occurence lately).
Second, notwithstanding my first point, here’s my say:
As an aside, I don’t like the common definition of creationist as having a literal belief in the bible’s account of creation. This may be due to my inability to find a word for one who believes in deital creation with a lesser degree of micro-management (particulary with a non-biblical deity). I’m pretty sure the Roman Catholic Church believes in creation but they, reportedly at least, accept the theory of evolution. Anyway…
If all lifeforms are created by a deity, then that includes all those bacteria and viruses that seem to want to kill us for very selfserving purposes. Further, that means what we see as evolutionary changes to those lifeforms in reaction to antibiotics etc is really the deity’s conscious effort to counter such defenses. I would think ID-ists (creationists?) would aggressively avoid vaccination clinics which are clearly nothing less than humankind’s battlefield with God.
March 11th, 2006 at 11:40 am
Andy, you’ve missed the satire. First, the caption clearly indicates ID Creationists – not Christians in general, nor any other religious affiliation. Second – IT’S SATIRE! It isn’t meant to be taken to heart.
If we were to take this sentiment to heart, then while we’re denying all non-believers from using science created by believers we’ll have to remove gun powder and rocketry from availability for all Christians – they were invented by people that don’t believe in a Christian God. Christians will have to stop using Arabic numbers (and revert to Roman Notation, but then the Romans that invented that were pagans) – in fact, a great many things were invented by non-Christians (including the wheel). Cement was invented by the Romans before they believed in the One True God – Christians will have to do with out that, too. Come to think of it, anything that was created by a Christian was built on the foundations created by pagans… They have to stop using any technology (including the Horse and Buggy).
But that wasn’t the point, we will continue to use items created by people that believed in the methods of science regardless of their and our personal belief in a deity. Not all deities are the Christian God, ya know, we need to include ‘em all – read that to say: not all belief in God is a belief in the Christian God (which by definition includes the divinity of Christ and many that believe in the God of Abraham don’t believe in Christ).
This is humor – no one will in fact be denied access to medicine and technology based on their belief. That is our point, in fact, because the opposite side of this “debate” is aiming for exactly that. Denying a proper education concerning science based teachings, including evolution hurts us all. The next Watson, Crick, Pasteur or Salk may be denied their science education and never improve medical science as a result.
In the past, these discoveries were made often dispite their belief – and often contrary to current teachings of their Church. Of course, they were also made without conflict with their espoused religion.
jbs
March 11th, 2006 at 11:41 am
I’m with Andy on this one. I agree with him that this kind of joke doesn’t promote understanding, and is funny to a limited number of people. And the existence of bad jokes from creationists and ID’ists is no real excuse. The whole point of offering understanding is to refrain from offering the mistakes committed by those in error, isn’t it?
And the part about withholding vaccines was a joke (albeit an unfunny part of the joke), but why is there any serious talk in the comments about the pros and cons of withholding vaccines from certain people? The only thing wrong with withholding vaccination is that it should not be withheld from anyone, for any reason. And the granting of vaccinations should be done for the sake of those to whom the vaccination is being proposed, and not merely for the sake of others (though the latter is certainly a good reason in itself). Talking about leaving certain people to prayer alone is, I take it, meant to challenge a type of Christianity that rejects important scientific knowledge; but to a Christian like me, or indeed to any Christian who believes in vaccines and desires them, it can sound like a wish to engineer society so that it will be free of creationists.
It was a joke from Phil, and should be treated like a joke.
Creationists fear social Darwinism (as I do, as no doubt everyone on this site does). Their mistake is to equate Darwinism with social Darwinism, as if the facts of evolution meant that people would come along and say, “If you don’t accept evolution and all its philosophical consequences as we define them, you don’t deserve first-class citizenship” (if that).
As for the joke, pointing out inconsistency and hypocrisy is important, but I am not a fan of this method. As a Christian critical of my tradition, I hear too often that I should accept it all or leave it (when that is not said as a joke). It’s the same line of thinking when a critic of the nation or government is asked why they don’t just leave the country if they’re so goddam unhappy with it (i.e., “Love it or leave it.”)
Do I think Phil was thinking along such lines? No. But some jokes harm the discourse rather than helping it.
March 11th, 2006 at 11:57 am
Gee, what a racket we can make when BA is out. We better hide the beer bottles and wipe the glass rings off the tables before he gets back.
March 11th, 2006 at 1:32 pm
OMG (G=goodness;) … who left that mess on the carpet?!!
March 11th, 2006 at 1:43 pm
Kevin,
I thought it was funny!:)
But I wish these I.D.’ers would see it and think about it.
I guess it’s just one of those “beliefs” some folks have even though some of these “beliefs” have no basis in reality….
Like believing that christianity and science are at odds with each other
(read, God created the entire universe so he created scientific principles too).
Or another one: That at the moment of conception, the fertilized human ovum is not any different from it’s parents, is not a person, is not an unborn baby etc.
March 11th, 2006 at 3:24 pm
Andy and Kevin: “Creationist” is a long way from “Christian”. That is the point. A small number of Christians, creationists, entirely deny evolution. The joke is about Creationists.
The primary method for a Creationist to bolster his position is to tear down mainstream science, effectively denying the validity of the very process that develops modern medicines and vaccines.
The joke is not to seriously advocate withholding vaccines to anyone, but to point out the blatant contradiction of the Creation Scientist’s position.
It’s very funny.
March 11th, 2006 at 5:22 pm
Hey, you guys drank all that beer?
I guess I’m the designated driver tonight!:)
March 11th, 2006 at 5:39 pm
Um, Andy, first off, it was a joke.
Second, creationists are probably best known for denying evolution, the foundation of modern medicine. I didn’t make the caption say “Christians”, or “Catholics”, or “Muslims”. It says creationists, and I meant what I wrote and wrote what I meant. Young Earth Creationism is in fact black and white: it’s wrong. Period. The Earth is 4+ billion years old, not 6000, and if someone says it’s 6000 years old, they’re wrong. They can believe the Earth is 6000 years old with all their heart, mind, and soul, but that won’t make it so.
I hope that clears this up.
March 12th, 2006 at 3:23 am
I have pointed this out before and I will again, creationist also interpuret the bible wrong in many cases, not just science. I would think even almost every “god” believing person would not be comfortable with what creationism promotes. I loved the joke and its always a gamble to joke about religion, don’t draw Mohammed. There are even religions who won’t take part in technology or parts of the medical field. let jokes be jokes and take them in the light they’re intended.
March 12th, 2006 at 9:56 am
We are able to move because our muscles work in opposition. None push. All pull,,,
It’s the same with societies, both internal and external.
Conservatives try to preserve old attitudes, because they worked for a long time to preserve social function.
Then the new kids on the block invented FIRE and we’ve been running with that torch for the last few hundred thousand years.
Which is why we mythlogized Lucifer(light bearer,ie, the guy who holds that fearsome torch) and Prometheus.
Consider conservative reaction to fire,” Y’Al stupid kids are gonna burn down the cave, dang it!” and “If a cold water cave was good enough for gramps,,,” Etc,,,
Thus society moves first left, then right, but it DOES move. Beating up on people because they are holding on to old beliefs is not a compassionate thing to do. They’re afraid of all these new fangled ideas, any one of which could burn down the house. Then where would we live,,,
The universe doesn’t care one toot about human beliefs. The laws are what they are. For those of us dedicated to understanding them,,,well, we’re probably mutants and reckless to boot. I know I am, but I love those who gave rise to me. They did what I consider a really good job, though when, in 1957, my grandmother was hysterical about the flight of Sputnik, I thought she was just nuts, today I see her fear as a practical response to the new saber tooth on the block. She was wrong then but only because the new cat was toothless,,,
Peace,
Gary 7
March 12th, 2006 at 2:14 pm
I knew it was all a joke when I saw the term showing the BA was square!
Would someone please define “creationists”???
Even the recent Gallup poll has ambiguity because one can stil be a creationist and open to both old and new earth interpretaions. However, according to the poll, 49% of Americans seem to believe evolution played a roll (my “literal interpretation” of the statistics).
March 12th, 2006 at 9:23 pm
BA: i know it was a joke, but it was a joke in poor taste that makes your camp look bad to outside observers.
as for the difference between creationists/IDers and christians, i think you have a slight mix-up in terminology that is disturbing. just about everybody who believes in a god believes he created the universe. thus, when you say “creationist” you are implying all christians. i understand that you mean creationist/IDer to have the connotation of “new-earth creationism” (which i don’t defend), but people don’t take it that way and it gives the impression that you are lumping all people who believe in a diety creating the universe into the “literal 7-day camp”. that is what i meant when i said you see the entire debate as black and white. i never stated that “new earth creationsism” is not black and white, i said the entire origins debate is not black and white. you leaping from “origins debate” to “new-earth-creationists vs. science” illistrates my point. most people fall in the middle, in that god did create the universe and he did in exactly the way the universe appears to have come into existence. you give disturbingly little attention to this point of view.
/no harsh feelings, love your site and i love debate. otherwise i wouldn’t bother. :p
March 13th, 2006 at 3:49 am
phrank, The phrase you were looking for is Theistic Evolution
Andy – it is 6 literal days, not 7, God rested on the 7th hence the pattern for the working week. How come we all still cling to the Week and the day of rest which was given by the Judeo – Christian tradition. Anyone else got an alternate origin for the 7 day week?
Some of the creationists I have encountered held science qualifications in their own right, and one I used to know was a food micro biologist. Strange though it may seems there are some who look at what they find , and their scientific training takes them away from evolution.
The idea that everything must have occurred naturally, all by itself comes across as a dogma just as much as those from YECs, but on the opposite side.
Re Vaccinations, FWIW Some years ago there was IIRC a Roman Catholic priest, or possibly a school who instructed parents not to go for the MMR, on the grounds that the research to create it used tissue from an aborted feotus. Given the RC teaching on abortion, how could the make use of something that was based on the murder of unborn children etc.
It did make me uncomfortable, because our church group has a similar teaching about abortion, although it just hides in the background and never really raises its head as an issue. We never did get a resolution on that one, but things moved on and the cleric who issued the injuction has now been forgotten. (I could dig through my archive if anyone seriously wants any further citation)
but I digress, if the origin of the MMR vaccine was developed from the tissue of an aborted feotus, would a creationist or IDist want it anyhue :think:
March 13th, 2006 at 5:19 am
@Andy: it’s safe to say ‘creationism’ and ‘creationist’ have well-established colloquial meanings. I think there is little room for misunderstanding about terminology, here.
@Sticks: don’t misrepresent the issue. The handful of scientists in the creationists’ camp certainly had their faith before they undertook a science education. A good example of what a twisted scientific mind that can lead to is amply demonstrated by the case of Michael Behe, the biochemist and popular author of Darwin’s Black Box, who is the often-quoted, leading ’scientist’ of IDers.
However, Behe was thoroughly, and publicly, discredited in the recent Dover trial where he served as the primary ‘expert witness’ for ID. By his own admission under oath, Behe’s definition of ’science’ is flexible enough that it could include astrology!
Under cross examination, Behe also conceded that “there are no peer reviewed articles by anyone advocating for intelligent design supported by pertinent experiments or calculations which provide detailed rigorous accounts of how intelligent design of any biological system occurred”.
(More about Behe in Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Behe)
The “idea that everything must have occured naturally” is no dogma – it’s what all the evidence points at. Dogmas don’t survive in science for very long, for the very reason that if contradicting evidence is found, theories are revised. That hasn’t happened in over a century with regards to evolution. The fact of evolution through natural selection is well established, and plainly written and discernible in our very DNA, in each of the trillion cells in your very own body.
March 13th, 2006 at 6:25 am
For the record I have also been critical of ID, as from a theological view it is a rehash of “God of the Gaps”
March 13th, 2006 at 8:57 am
Sticks wrote: “Andy – it is 6 literal days, not 7, God rested on the 7th hence the pattern for the working week. How come we all still cling to the Week and the day of rest which was given by the Judeo – Christian tradition. Anyone else got an alternate origin for the 7 day week?”
Yes. According to Wikipedia’s Week entry:
“# Hindu civilization is known to have had the concept of seven day week with instances in the Ramayana, a sacred epic written in Sanskrit about 300 BC, in which there is a mention of Bhanu-vaar meaning Sunday, Soma-vaar meaning Moon-day and so forth.
# The ancient Babylonians are known to have observed a seven-day week; each day dedicated to a different deity. The significance of seven comes from Babylonian astronomy. There are the seven heavenly bodies or luminaries normally visible to the naked eye (the Sun, Moon, and 5 visible planets), and they associated each with a deity.”
From this website http://webexhibits.org/calendars/week.html
“Extra-biblical locations sometimes mentioned as the birthplace of the 7-day week include: Babylon, Persia, and several others. The week was known in Rome before the advent of Christianity.”
There is no 100% agreement of the origin of the 7 day week, but most sources say the most likely origin was the Babylonians. Egyptians and Hebrews picked it up from them, Christians continued the tradition as they separated from Judaism, and it became standard in the Roman Empire when Constantice converted to Christianity.
So yes. The origin of the 7 day week predates the Bible.
March 13th, 2006 at 10:22 am
phrank Said:
>As an aside, I don’t like the common definition of creationist as having a literal belief in the bible’s account of creation. This may be due to my inability to find a word for one who believes in deital creation with a lesser degree of micro-management (particulary with a non-biblical deity).
There seems to be a lot of confusion over the use of “Creationist”. Creationism is more than a belief that “God did it” – it is a statement of how God did it. It is a declaration of instantaneous appearance, individual and unique origin of each species (or “kind” since many Creationists now accept some evolution, “microevolution”). Creationism is *poof* there’s a rabbit.
What you’re looking for is a term for the generic “God did it” believers – the “Goddidits”. Except we have a word for them – theists. That’s the word for believers in a theity – I mean deity. (Durned Greek to English conversions can’t keep consistent letters.) So if you think that God did it through Evolution, then you are a theist, but not a Creationist.
March 13th, 2006 at 10:43 am
What is that about?
A (hearts) B
There’s no such thing as a verb “to heart”. This is just a stupid habbit that resulted from stickers a la “I [HEARTSYMBOL HERE] NYC” and “I [HEARTSYMBOL] U”. What this sticker actually said was “I LOVE NYC”, or “I LOVE YOU”.
Or do I miss the point and it has become no-PC to use the word LOVE when speaking about anything else but your (one and only) legally married wife? Has the word LOVE been sorted into the same category as ‘accidental’ nipple-slips during Superbowl events?
I am fighting for LOVE! Let LOVE be your enery! Nobody hearts anything, not in brackets and not without brackets. IT’S LOVE!
Ah, if you came across spelling mistakes, grammer problems etc. .. please ignore them, since english isn’t my mother-language
March 13th, 2006 at 10:47 am
LOL .. that’s what happens when you’re upset and writing posts. Let’s get started:
I meant to say “non-PC”, I don’t know whether that’s any better than “no-PC”. Then it’s of course “energy”, not enery .. that much I was able to sort out myself.
March 13th, 2006 at 11:36 am
Building on Andy’s comments about the lack of distinctions between theism and ID/creationism, I also think there’s a large difference between young earth creationism and the ID movement. Phil said that he referred to creationists in the caption, but actually it refers also to IDists. One reason I didn’t find the joke funny was that it was confusing on a basic level; it slipped easily from an announcement about IDers being denied vaccines, to a description of creationists who deny evolution, and finally another announcement about “them” being denied vaccines. Who is “them”?, I wondered, while I re-read it. Is it the intelligent design proponents who accept the age of the universe, or is it creationists, who in my definition are those who propose an earth only thousands of years old? (My definitions are the same as Irishman’s).
Everyone here will agree that the Darwinian discovery that the earth is not thousands of years old counts as one of the great revolutions of Western society. Not to be bombastic about it, but it’s true. Another great part of that revolution is common descent. Yet by that perspective, young earth creationists are holdouts, while the ID movement concedes both the age of the earth and common descent.
I am not plugging ID. I don’t see any science in it; I regard it as theology; and in my opinion it’s bad theology. But there is a large distinction between ID and creationism. Sometimes I read that ID is the successor to creationism, and in some ways I agree with that. But in my own circles I know Christians who find ID attractive, because it tries to inject God into science and does not require a proponent to deny such well-evidenced theories as evolution and the age of the universe. These Christians are not onetime young earth creationists who have changed their minds and conceded some great facts.
And if there are former creationists in the ID movement who accept these great facts, that would be a plus in their favor. In most debates I’ve seen, when people make such great concessions, that’s a big deal; and when people’s views change on hugely important conclusions, such as the age of the earth and the evolution of life, you no longer put them in the same category as before.
March 13th, 2006 at 12:23 pm
The underlying connection between ID and Creationism is subtle. The commonality is the source of the agenda and the arguments used. Creationists have jumped on the ID bandwagon because they looked at it as a way to float their agenda under a new guise, since Scientific Creationism got nixed. However, ID is not strictly Creationism. It is true some of the arguments to support ID come from regurgitating Creationist literature (a la Of Pandas and People). However, ID plays the middle ground more evenly. ID proponents concede Evolution, at least in principle in the small steps. ID proponents just hold out that Evolution isn’t the full story. In that respect, though, they are just Old Earth Creationists. They still want to claim that God was poking around and engaging in selective tinkering. They still hold that God directly interacted through miraculous means. “Design” is just a code word for “God intervened here”. “Evolution couldn’t put all these parts together simultaneously, and couldn’t function if the parts weren’t there at the same time, so God went *poof*.”
Buried in the ideology of ID there is an actual scientific question. True, their motivation and intent is not scientific, and their modus operendi is to circumvent the methods and standards of science and jump to publicity and politics, but the one element that is actually scientific is asking the question, “Are the known mechanisms of Evolution sufficient to account for all the variation of life, or are there other mechanisms that we haven’t identified yet?”
Unfortunately, that’s where the valid science ends in ID. The proposed means for justifying the incompleteness and identifying the missing mechanisms are scientifically unsound. Irreducible Complexity and Specified Complexity are founded on incorrect understanding of how Evolution works and what it says. They are built on bad assumptions, flawed logic, and poor reasoning. They have been informally reviewed scientifically (as opposed to formal peer review), and the results show they are faulty. They just don’t justify that there is anything missing, much less that their proposed means are able to fill in the missing elements. Bad science isn’t valid and shouldn’t be taught. Religious agendas shouldn’t be taught under the guise of science, especially when built upon bad science.
March 13th, 2006 at 12:31 pm
Kevin Rosero Said:
>Sometimes I read that ID is the successor to creationism, and in some ways I agree with that. But in my own circles I know Christians who find ID attractive, because it tries to inject God into science and does not require a proponent to deny such well-evidenced theories as evolution and the age of the universe. These Christians are not onetime young earth creationists who have changed their minds and conceded some great facts.
This is what I was trying to address. The main ID proponents are essentially Creationists at heart. True, they accept old Earth and limited Evolution, but they reject Evolution as they complete story and seek to inject God into science. However, there is more to the ID movement than the main proponents.
ID speaks to the common christian even more than Creationism, because it wears the guise of science. It pretends to be science, and uses science terminology. There is limited acceptance of science so it circumvents the Young Earth stance, which makes regular christians more comfortable with it. That makes it more accessible, while still validating the “God is behind it” precept. However, it is still wrong, still bad science, and still Creationist at heart.
March 13th, 2006 at 1:10 pm
We men are more comfortable with writing “I heart something”. Of course we would normally use the heart shape but that is sadly lacking from our computer keyboards (my good old commodore 64 had it!).
March 13th, 2006 at 1:25 pm
Irishman, I agree with much of what you say. Whether I agree with all you say about the connections between ID and YEC (young earth creationism) may have to wait while I learn more about both; what I know comes from personal experience and from reading what’s in the media, including the blogs.
Phil said that the caption referred to creationists, and that YEC was a black-and-white issue, in the sense that all the belief in the world would not make the world 6,000 years old. I heartily agree that the question, whether the earth is not billions but rather 6,000 years old, is a black-and-white question. Andy was trying to get at where the debate, as a whole, was not so black-and-white. I agreed with him, and you, too, have said that the link between IC and YEC is “subtle.” I couldn’t think of a better antonym than “subtle”, for the phrase, “black-and-white.”
You also speak of being Creationist “at heart.” Some examples you offered included the insistence that Darwinian evolution was not the whole story. Yes, that is a commonality between ID and YEC. Another is the lack of true science, which you note. But you also mention the idea that “God is behind it” and “God intervened here.” That would cover every Christian who believed that “God did it” (I’m quoting another of the comments in this post), as well as Christians who believe either that God performs miracles to intervene in history (a staple of Judeo-Christian theism) or that God somehow guides their personal lives and is responsible for things that happen to people. Such a wide umbrella could even encompass astrologers, in the sense that they, too, believe that spiritual energies, and not modern science alone, can account for the whole story.
Yet that would not make astrologers Creationists at heart. This site has certainly kept a distinction between astrologers and creationists.
Why no distinction between creationism and ID?
ID has to be defined more precisely than merely anyone who believes that God created the world at one time and continuously participates in the larger work of creation today. No doubt you would agree, and in your post you defined the specific work of IDists; I’m just pointing out that some of the things you offered as making people “creationist at heart” would make many more millions of people also creationist at heart.
I might call myself “creationist at heart” in the sense that I believe there is a Creator. (Someone else in the comments mentioned this possible definition of the word “Creationist”). But “creationist” really has an agreed-upon meaning of someone who rejects modern scientific discoveries wherever such are incompatible with a literal reading of the Bible. I don’t see how that applies to ID, despite the commonalities that exist between ID and creationism.
March 13th, 2006 at 2:37 pm
Kevin, I’m not sure you understand what I meant.
>You also speak of being Creationist “at heart.†Some examples you offered included the insistence that Darwinian evolution was not the whole story. Yes, that is a commonality between ID and YEC. Another is the lack of true science, which you note. But you also mention the idea that “God is behind it†and “God intervened here.†That would cover every Christian who believed that “God did it†(I’m quoting another of the comments in this post), as well as Christians who believe either that God performs miracles to intervene in history (a staple of Judeo-Christian theism) or that God somehow guides their personal lives and is responsible for things that happen to people.
No, I don’t equate God guiding personal lives or being ultimately responsible for life origins and diversity with Creationism. I equate God’s direct intervention in the form of instantaneous appearance as Creationism. I very definitely am making the distinction between that God did it and how God did it.
Evolution as God’s mechanism, his tool, his method is NOT Creationism. God snapping his fingers and *poof* a hamster appearing fully formed, right next to the rat and the gerbil and the Guinea pig, each being a unique creation of God’s, a unique design, a unique plan that he drew up on paper and listed out the particular and unique features of each and then made each one from his bag’o'parts – that is Creationism.
The act of insisting Darwinian Evolution isn’t the whole story isn’t what makes them Creationist. It is the specifics of why they believe that that makes them Creationist. That is the distinction I am trying to make.
IDers and their followers try to argue that Evolution is a dogma because the essential question is off limits in science. That just isn’t true. The essential question of whether Evolution occurs is a valid science question, it’s just that it has already been answered by volumes of data. Mountains of data. Change over time is essentially proven, as much as anything can be proven. The open scientific question, though, is whether there are any other mechanisms contributing to Evolution other than Mutation, Natural Selection, Sexual Selection, and gene resequencing in meiosis? Or whatever the actual list identified by biologists (of which I’m not certain I’ve included). That question is NOT off limits. However, to make the case one needs more than speculation based upon faulty interpretations of what Evolution does say and lack of information in specific cases.
>Why no distinction between creationism and ID?
Their philosophical roots are the same. Their motivations and intentions are the same. Much of the evidence and many of the arguments they use to justify their position are the same. There is a distinction between Young Earth Creationism and Old Earth Creationism – ID is mostly OEC that doesn’t quite state that declaratively to allow some wiggle room for support from the YEC’s. ID has a new veneer with some new terminology and new scientific sounding arguments, but it’s still just a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
March 13th, 2006 at 9:57 pm
Irishman, my apologies if it seemed that I missed your distinctions. It was clear to me, from the context of your original statements, that you were not criticizing theism per se. But my concern has been to use specific and accurate terms, or phrases. So it was a concern for me when you wrote, in defining the link between IDists and creationism, “They still hold that God directly interacted through miraculous means.” Those words describe mainstream, traditional theology, and such theology may be held by IDists, but it certainly cannot be what distinguishes them. But now that you’ve emphasized the distinctions in your argument, I doubt we have a disagreement over terms anymore — at least on this point.
“Old Earth Creationism” is another problem, though. I’m reading at Wikipedia that OEC is the term for a phenomenon I’ve seen before, namely the non-literal reading of Genesis in order to reconcile it with scientific knowledge. I have never equated that practice with the term “creationism” (which I think nearly everyone, for better or worse, takes to mean YEC). OEC and YEC are hugely different. One is highly flexible with the Bible because it means to accept the findings of modern science even when they seem to conflict with Christian belief; the other totally rejects modern science wherever it conflicts with a strict fundamentalist reading of the Bible.
I see a huge difference, at any rate, between fundamentalist Christianity and any Christianity which reads the Bible without strict literalism. The contrasting views between these groups, on the widest variety of issues, could not be more different. And even from the perspective of a scientist defending evolution, they should look different. I’ve heard frustrated Darwinists say often that creationists in debate will not listen. I’ve experienced similar things in debating creationists, and I presume it’s because they hold a strict commitment to the Bible that they don’t intend to break. You just don’t have that with ID (or with OEC).
One benefit of defining ID as a new form of OEC creationism, as you have, is that it makes evident at least two degrees of separation between YEC and ID. It avoids simply defining ID as a new form of “creationism”, since that word, for me and countless others, is a synonym for the 6,000-year-old earth and the complete denial of Darwinism, astronomy, the Big Bang, etc.
But I’m skeptical of the charge that ID is a new form of OEC which does not openly declare itself in order to curry favor with YEC (that is, an OEC wolf in sheep’s clothing). YE creationists, and at least one Roman Catholic cardinal who wrote that Op-Ed in the times, will support ID for battling naturalism; but supporters are not the same as proponents. YEC has “jumped on the ID bandwagon”, as you say, but in a supportive role (I think you hold the same premise). Young Earthers have not given up their Biblical literalism (and if they did, as I said, it should be a plus in their favor; such a concession concerning a religious conviction is huge).
There are many connections, historical and philosophical, etc., between ID and creationism; I wouldn’t dispute that. But following Wikipedia’s links, I even found this statement seemingly rejecting ID, at an OEC site (the wolf rejecting the wolf):
http://www.reasons.org/resources/fff/2002issue10/index.shtml#more_than_id
March 14th, 2006 at 10:03 am
My understanding of what is said by YEC is that they are not rejecting science but an interpretation of available data. The creationis looks at say the fossil record and sees gaps, lack of transitional forms and occasional mis interpretations (Peking Man??) and frauds (Piltdown man). The evolutionist looks at the same data and see a tree of progression showing evolution.
There was an episode once of CSI where the evidence of what seemed like an attempted murder could be interpreted two ways. A passenger or a car jacker. When ther guy woke, it turned out it was just a RTA with no one else involved. I showed a good example of a case where data could be interpreted more than one way. So who, in that episode was anti-science?
The YEC starts with a premise of there being a creator god, The Evolutionist when they look at the logical conclusion of evolution is that nature does it all by itself with no god. These two groups look at the same data, with different preconceptions, and come to two different conclusions.
March 14th, 2006 at 11:15 am
First, there is no lack of transitional fossils. The claim that there is a lack of transitional fossils is a flat-out lie (not by you, but by the people who originated the claim). And there have been far more misinterpretations and frauds done in the name of christianity than in the name of evolution (such as pretty much the entire holy relic industry from the middle ages). The difference is that mistakes and frauds in science are discovered by scientists, but the mistakes and frauds in religion are discovered by scientists (whoops, I guess that isn’t a difference).
And YECs do reject science. In order for the YECs to be right and that the world was created less than 4 billion years ago and all creatures were created in their present state, besides rejecting evolution (and thus the rest of biology which is fundamentall based on this principle) pretty much everything we know about physics, relativity, quantum mechanics, Newtonian mechanics, chemistry, geology, climatology, anthropology, paleontology, astronomy, astrophysics, planetary science, mineralogy, biochemistry, meteorology, oceanography, taxonomy, zoology, microbiology, genetics, particle physics, cosmology, seismology, materials science, ecology, anatomy, cladistics, cytology, epidemiology, linguistics, and sociology must also be wrong (as well as some areas I might have missed). Additonally, if all these are wrong than the scientific method that was used to develop these branches of science must also be invalid, so that would mean all the rest science (the little that is left) would also have to be wrong. In order to continue holding their beliefs, YECs much reject all these areas of science and reject the scientific method. I do not see how rejecting all of these areas of science and completely rejecting the scientific method that is the cornerstone of all science could possibly be construed as not rejecting science itself. Lets also not forget that absolutely all our knowledge of ancient history must also be wrong.
Sticks says: The YEC starts with a premise of there being a creator god,
Correct, YECs start with a conclusion and find (or more often make up) evidence to support that conclusion. That is not a valid method of reaching conclusions about the natural world. They are not reaching their conclusion by looking at the data that scientists look at. They had already reached their conclusion long before they even began to look at the data. They simply cherry-pick, modify, or outright fabricate data to make it fit the conclusion they had already reached. That is not how science works.
Sticks: The Evolutionist when they look at the logical conclusion of evolution is that nature does it all by itself with no god.
NO THEY DON’T! No matter how many times you make this claim it is still completely and utterly wrong. Evolution does not say God was not involved. It makes no statement regarding God whatsoever. This is a lie pushed by the YECs in order to fabricate a science vs. religion controversy that does not exist! God may have been involved. All evolution says is that God did not HAVE to be involved, nature COULD have done it on its own. But it in no way, shape, or form rules out the possibility that God may have been a guiding force in the history of the world.
Sticks says: There was an episode once of CSI where the evidence of what seemed like an attempted murder could be interpreted two ways. … So who, in that episode was anti-science?
Neither. In many situations there is ambiguity, there are more than one conclusion that are all fit the facts equally well. However, it WOULD be anti-science for one of the CSI agents to come in and say “God killed him”. That is what the IDers claim. It would also be anti-science for a CSI agent to come in and claim that God killed him just seconds before the CSI agents arrived, then arranged his body, modified the wounds and state of decay, and arranged all the evidence to make it look like he was killed in a completely ordinary and very specific manner years before with the express purpose of tricking the CSI agents. That is what the YECs claim. Do you really see CSI agents trying to make those arguments in court?
March 14th, 2006 at 2:13 pm
Thank you, Kevin, I want to be understood.
I suppose some concern is focused on the differences between OEC and YEC, versus Theistic Evolution. From what I see, OEC is still Creationist – they still reject the mechanisms of Evolution accounting for the diversity and development of life, and insert God in the process with some magical intervention. Theistic Evolution takes Evolution as God’s method, no magical intervention required.
In other words, are we as humans able to explain and understand the mechanisms of how life became diverse? Yes, through Evolution – that is not a Creationist. No – there is some other intervention that we can never explain or understand, that is God intervening – that is Creationism. OEC may accept that the Earth isn’t just 6000 years old and try to meld their belief structure with the findings of science in general, but they still want to insert magical intervention in the process. Theistic Evolutionists are comfortable going the extra step to say magical intervention isn’t necessary, and God is still there. That is why I see ID as OEC. They allow much of scientific evidence to stand, they accept the mechanisms of Evolution in a limited sense, but still want to interject something else. That something else they interject is still magical intervention. It goes by the name of “Design by some unidentified Intelligence” rather than “God’s Will”, but it is essentially the same thing. They don’t explain what Design is, how it works, or how it helps us understand all the variations and changes that were made. It explains nothing, ergo it is magic, just magic with a scientific sounding name.
>There are many connections, historical and philosophical, etc., between ID and creationism; I wouldn’t dispute that. But following Wikipedia’s links, I even found this statement seemingly rejecting ID, at an OEC site (the wolf rejecting the wolf):
The distinction here seems to be more over the methods employed rather than the reasoning or beliefs. It boils down to a difference of approach between two organizations – “Intelligent Design proponents” (aka the Discovery Institute) and “Reasons To Believe” (aka Hugh Ross). The Discovery Institute has come up with this new label and new approach which RTB thinks is wimping out. But that doesn’t make the beliefs different, only the approach to arguing them. RTB wants to address the religious claims directly because they also wish to fight “vague spirituality”, or essentially the not-True Christians. Thus they don’t want to cling to the Discovery Institute’s label that uses a different approach.
>But I’m skeptical of the charge that ID is a new form of OEC which does not openly declare itself in order to curry favor with YEC (that is, an OEC wolf in sheep’s clothing).
If you look at writings on the Discovery Institute website aimed at the religious believers, rather than the supposed papers aimed at the critics and scientists, you will see that they play down any conflict with YECs and state at most that the primary goal is getting God back into science, and later the Christians can debate the merits of any particular versions of how God did it. They are catering to the YECs to get support from the YECs, just like they are muddying terminology so that they can get support from regular christians who aren’t fundamentalists. But William Demski is very much Creationist, which is clear from his writings on the Discovery Institute website. He seems to accept Old Earth, but still fights Evolution on religious and not scientific grounds.
March 14th, 2006 at 2:28 pm
Sticks Said:
>My understanding of what is said by YEC is that they are not rejecting science but an interpretation of available data.
YEC’s begin with the premise that the Bible is literally true. 6 days of creation = 6 rotations of the Earth (6 light/dark cycles). Anything in science that directly contradicts the Bible is wrong. Therefore, data must be reinterpreted to match that assumption. It may be a reinterpretation of the data, but the two interpretations are not of equivalent worth. One has the underlying assumption that a certain story is true and all data must fit that story. The other does not have that assumption, it does not assume any story, and lets the data lead the interpretation.
>The Evolutionist when they look at the logical conclusion of evolution is that nature does it all by itself with no god.
No, Evolutionists begin with the assumption that the processes of the universe are understandable, studyable, and that they are consistent. There is no assumption about God or no God, just that the processes can be understood and described. God can be the cause of those processes without invalidating those processes.
There are Atheists who take the understandability and explainability of nature and these processes (including Evolution) to help justify their non-belief. That is the “God is not necessary” argument. It is not, though, a premise for Evolution.
March 14th, 2006 at 2:59 pm
Am I too late to join the party?
Is there any beer left?
Anyway, here I go…
Sticks, you said:
“Some of the creationists I have encountered held science qualifications in their own right, and one I used to know was a food micro biologist. Strange though it may seems there are some who look at what they find , and their scientific training takes them away from evolution.”
Yes, Sticks, some creationists do understand bits of science. Even Michael Behe (ID proponent) has a PhD in biochemistry (I don’t know which institution awarded it to him). This doesn’t prove that the arguments are correct, however. (That is a logical fallacy known as the argument from authority). Note also that a food microbiologist is not necessarily any kind of expert on evolution.
I fundamentally object to your phrase “their scientific training takes them away from evolution”, because you give us no context in which to judge such a brash claim. My own interpretation divides into two possibilities: (1) their scientific training was woefully lacking, or (2) it was not their scientific training, but possibly some theological preconceptions. A good scientist will examine the evidence impartially, and will favour whichever theory most credibly explains all of the evidence. I have been reading around the topic of creation “science” recently, and so much of it seems to rely on ignoring whole swathes of contrary evidence, while loudly claiming that two or three observations support the creationist position. And in this case, it was mostly YECs.
March 14th, 2006 at 3:16 pm
Sticks said “These two groups look at the same data, with different preconceptions, and come to two different conclusions.”
TheBlackCat already gave a good explanation of the error here (the CSI analogy was particularly spot-on), but to summarize: these two groups may be looking at the same data, but one is applying the scientific method to all available evidence, while the other is selectively choosing pieces of evidence that would favor his pre-conceived religious faith. While the latter method may be comforting to some people, it is definitely *not* science. See the tidbit I posted above about the lack of any peer-reviewed research supporting ID, and for better measure, read the transcript and the judge’s decision in the recent Dover trial.
The question of the ultimate existence or non-existence of a Deity isn’t exactly a scientifically testable hypothesis (it isn’t falsifiable, any more than the existence of Russell’s Teapot or the Flying Spaghetti Monster is falsifiable). Thus, most scientists don’t much concern themselves with it, letting the theists and philosophers argue it out ad nauseam.
However, the notion that life on Earth was designed by a Creator is a somewhat more testable hypothesis, and has been tested by science time and again, and found wanting: if the life forms inhabiting this planet indeed were designed, somebody did a mighty botched job at it (well, He was supposedly on rather tight deadline, but that’s no excuse). ID might as well stand for Incompetent Design. The “Blind Watchmaker” by Richard Dawkins is a concise layman’s introduction to the subject.
Now, as for the scientific method. It’s often overlooked that the current results of science (say, the fact that we know the Earth is round, or the fact that we know we evolved from primaeval slime) don’t *really* matter, which is why they aren’t holy, and why there can be no dogma in science.
The one and only thing “sacred” in science is the *scientific method*. It is the best way yet discovered for winnowing the truth and facts about reality from lies, delusion, superstition and wishful thinking.
Even if all our current scientific knowledge were to be inexplicably and irretrievably lost, and we had to start from a blank slate, that wouldn’t necessarily be tragic as long as we preserved the idea of the scientific method. Since our scientific knowledge, as embodied in our scientific theories, describe *reality* (you know, the thing that exists whether you believe in it or not), they could – and would, eventually – be rediscovered provided the right tool for probing that same reality.
Forget about trivial details like the theory of gravity. The discovery of the scientific method is the most important single development in mankind’s history so far. It’ll help us, as a species, to gradually outgrow our small-minded delusions and mature to face the universe as it really is, in all its immensity and majestic, chaotic glory.
March 14th, 2006 at 4:29 pm
Arto said
“the thought of Bible-thumping illiterates having control of all aspects of today’s technology, including our weapon stockpiles, even while refusing to understand the very principles on which this technology was based, is surely enough to give anyone pause.”
err.. checked the whitehouse lately?
pause hell.. it’s a thunk on the head with a big pipe.
great site, great commenters
March 14th, 2006 at 5:03 pm
Arto says “The one and only thing “sacred†in science is the *scientific method*. It is the best way yet discovered for winnowing the truth and facts about reality from lies, delusion, superstition and wishful thinking.”
You do realize that the scientific method can’t be proven as a true scientific tool by the scientific method? In essence, the scientific method is simply assumed to be the best way. However, that cannot be proven, and is just an accepted method. Don’t forget that it was long accepted that the world was flat.
March 14th, 2006 at 6:05 pm
Tyler: you did notice the ‘yet’ qualifier?
I don’t necessarily dispute your statement; but digging deeper into your assertion would take us into the murky realm of philosophy, where the waters are deep and there are few certainties indeed. How can one ‘know’ anything for certain? Enter Descartes’ Devil et al.
For the moment, however, we should be quite satisfied with the practical point of view, namely that the scientific method functions most splendidly, as empirically demonstrated by our ever-increasing knowledge and mastery of Nature.
After all, it’s precisely due to logical tools and methodology, like the concepts collectively named the ’scientific method’, that we are even able to reliably reason about things such as the Earth not being flat. If the methodology needs fine tuning, it is not immediately evident. It’s hardly rocket science, after all – anyone with common sense can understand the principles
March 14th, 2006 at 7:54 pm
Irishman, I think we’re coming to many agreements.
The guiding principle you seem to be using is whether a person claims a magical “poof” (as you said, God making each species instantly “from his bag’o’parts – that is Creationism”). You contrasted this with evolution, and presented it in the form of a question with a Yes or No response possible:
“are we as humans able to explain and understand the mechanisms of how life became diverse? Yes, through Evolution – that is not a Creationist. No – there is some other intervention that we can never explain or understand, that is God intervening – that is Creationism.”
I think it’s a useful contrast that highlights two very different things, though I’m confident you would agree that the degree to which people invoke divine intervention varies greatly.
YEC does not come about by merely adding an intervention to evolution. It comes when interventions are added massively and always at the cost of rejecting major conclusions from evolutionary science. If a person does that, I’d call them “creationist”, which is the usual term for YEC.
As for the formal term “creationist,” I acknowledge that it has a wider meaning. And I think the defining characteristic is the Bible. Creationists of all stripes don’t seemed concerned with opposing evolution that has occurred in the last 6,000 years. Their guiding principle is Genesis, and that seems to be the safest way to judge whether someone is a creationist: whether they’re concerned with validating the specific claims of the Genesis creation story. If they do so literally, they’re YEC. If they do so flexibly, they’re OEC.
ID is not, for all I can see, involved in the claims of Genesis. Perhaps ID’s leaders are Biblical creationists of the Old Earth variety. But if ID grows, I can’t see how it wouldn’t evolve from its OEC roots (that is, presuming that these are in fact its roots). I have to study the movement more.
For now, I’m confident that even if ID has OEC roots, it’s very different from YEC, and from what most of understand by the term “creationist.” Formal uses of the term notwithstanding, the public at large understands “creationism” to be a literal embrace of Genesis and a basic rejection of Darwin. I suggest that if ID is to be compared to or included within creationism, that “Old Earth Creationism” be the term. Simply using “creationism” will inflame the conversation; and any useful part of the conversation will end when an IDist points out the many ways in which ID is not young earth creationism. An IDist can easily do that; and the argument will be considered won or lost on those useless terms. At least using “OEC” will get people thinking about specific terms; and if the idea is to get people to see that ID is Old Earth Creationism, then that full term should be used. Otherwise the idea will never successfully get across.
March 16th, 2006 at 9:33 am
Kevin, I agree that we’re agreeing.
>As for the formal term “creationist,†I acknowledge that it has a wider meaning. And I think the defining characteristic is the Bible. Creationists of all stripes don’t seemed concerned with opposing evolution that has occurred in the last 6,000 years. Their guiding principle is Genesis, and that seems to be the safest way to judge whether someone is a creationist: whether they’re concerned with validating the specific claims of the Genesis creation story. If they do so literally, they’re YEC. If they do so flexibly, they’re OEC.
I would quibble that there are a few out there who would reject evolution of any sort and define “microevolution” as minor variations within a constrained framework. In other words, it’s not really evolution, it’s just variance within a standard. But the essence I accept – the distinction is over how literally they take Genesis. Creationism as a blanket is defined by the need to conform to Genesis.
>ID is not, for all I can see, involved in the claims of Genesis.
This is a little more subtle. The framing and approach of the ID movement is to limit the scope of the particular arguments and frame them in a scientific manner. Effectively, they want to bypass all the philosophical underpinnings while addressing the explanations involved. However, their motivations and philosophical underpinning is driven by Biblical belief. They just skip that part of the talk when addressing “scientific” audiences. But peruse the Discovery Institute site and read the articles (especially by Demski) there and you will see the motivations are definitely driven by OEC premises about Genesis and rejecting Evolution on those grounds. Ask yourself why do they think Design is necessary? They reject that Evolution is sufficient. Why do they reject Evolution as sufficient? Not because there’s any evidence, though they come up with fancy arguments to suggest that there is evidence. But the reason they reject Evolution as sufficient is because it conflicts with the Bible. Ergo, they are Creationists. Mostly OEC, but still C.
March 16th, 2006 at 9:40 am
>Formal uses of the term notwithstanding, the public at large understands “creationism†to be a literal embrace of Genesis and a basic rejection of Darwin. I suggest that if ID is to be compared to or included within creationism, that “Old Earth Creationism†be the term. Simply using “creationism†will inflame the conversation; and any useful part of the conversation will end when an IDist points out the many ways in which ID is not young earth creationism. An IDist can easily do that; and the argument will be considered won or lost on those useless terms. At least using “OEC†will get people thinking about specific terms; and if the idea is to get people to see that ID is Old Earth Creationism, then that full term should be used. Otherwise the idea will never successfully get across.
I agree. Too many disagreements on topics come from sloppy terminology and people using words differently. It would be fine, but people attach emotional evaluation to those interpretations. The value judgments make clearing up the definition discrepancies difficult, because poeple get worked up about the value judgements and don’t realize the disagreement on terminology. I think you are right, calling IDers “Creationists” without any clarification only inflames the middle ground people who don’t know the underlying context and only see rejection of their faith, so they swing to support the folks who share their faith rather than the perceived attackers. Thus it is critical that us Evolution supporters stop feeding the fire. We need to break in our discussions the topic of the science from the metaphysical implications. We need to stress the argument is not over christianity and God, but over slow change over time or instantaneous appearance. The science battleground is different than the belief battleground – we should be aware of and highlight that difference.
March 16th, 2006 at 1:22 pm
“…calling IDers ‘Creationists’ without any clarification only inflames the middle ground people who don’t know the underlying context and only see rejection of their faith, so they swing to support the folks who share their faith rather than the perceived attackers.”
Irishman, you express my own reaction to the debate as well as I could have myself
I have found evidence that ID leaders and proponents are motivated by Christianity and the Bible. I’m looking also at non-Christians (secularists, Jews) and non-Christian beliefs (ET) within the movement.
At the moment I remain disinclined to define ID as OEC, even if technically the definition could work. The reason for my skepticism is that I see two sides saying very similar things about each other. The common charge that ID is politically astute with its non-Christian vocabulary but motivated underneath by Christian fundamentalism is countered by the charge that those who affirm Darwin in any way are really motivated by atheism, social Darwinism, etc. As I say, there’s evidence that ID has Christian beliefs; and it’s also probable to the point of certainty that there must be atheists and secularists fighting ID and creationism who are more politick with their words, more respectful of religion, than they feel in their hearts.
So there’s truth, as I see it, when both sides speak of a wolf in sheep’s clothing; it’s just that I don’t like such ways of looking at things unless a full look at the evidence really justifies it. I prefer that people’s words be taken at face value, and that people be opposed for their actions or claims, not for their thoughts.
What is left to do now, for me, except to study more about ID? Thanks for the discussion, I’ve learned from it.
March 16th, 2006 at 2:33 pm
The fact that some OECs and YECs reject ID does not mean that ID is not almost entirely made up of OECs and YECs. ID is more on the moderate side of extremely reactionary fundamentalism, naturally many of the insanely reactionary fundamentalists see that as a threat. Any moderate within a movement relative to the movement itself (in this case someone who is only extremely reactionary as opposed to insanely reactionary), anyone seen to be trying to make the slightest compromises, is seen as a direct threat by the extremists within the movement. That has been shown time and again. The fact that the extremists within the Creationists movement reject ID does not mean that ID is not Creationist, it just means ID is willing to make some compromises (albiet temporarily and half-hearted ones, according to their “Wedge Document”). The MORE extreme members of the Creationist movement (I must stress that the ID movement is extreme itself) do not want to make any compromises whatsoever so they see ID as a threat to the solidarity of their cause.
No matter how poorly a stick-to-your-guns approach works for a group extremists, there will always be those who reject, either verbally or in some cases violently, even the slightest effort to compromise even if only temporarily. That does not mean that anyone who is insulted by a group of extremists is really a member of the group, but it does mean that just because someone is insulted by a group of extremists does not mean they aren’t a member of the group, either.
March 17th, 2006 at 7:51 pm
Evolution doesn’t equal darwinism. Hey, Lamarck was an evolutionist. ID, as wrong as it might be, depends on the idea that species evolved, or else there’s no ID, there’s instant creation. You know, as Isaac Newton, the astrologer, understood it, unlike most religious people of his time! Anyways, vaccines were created some good 200 years before the darwnistic evolution reached mainstream. I wonder if this means atheists can’t use scientific advanced because it was a deist jew who proposed the theory of relativity and a catholic priest who proposed the big bang theory.
What I would like to remind all the happy ID-bashers (I’m not an ID man, so I don’t care) is: ID is not science, OK. ID is a philosophy. Good. Materialism, even methodological materialism are the same. Not science. Philosophy. So everyone can and should enjoy science, be them bag lady fire-and-brimstome atheists, deist jews, gnostic pantheists, gaia workshipers, shinto buddhists, orthodox christians or your avarege irreligious agnostic guy. Peace.
A note: the avarge person knows that ID is the same as creationism. The fact that darwinists insists on this point to discredit their opponents makes it looks like a) darwinists have a weak case and b) they are trying to fool them. But hey, I don’t pick sides, so go nuts and make more people sympathetic do ID by using a weak argument against them.
March 19th, 2006 at 12:08 am
Delance Says:
“Evolution doesn’t equal darwinism.”
Here’s a hint: calling natural selection “darwinism” is an extremely good way to piss people off. There is no such things as a “darwinist”, it is a derogatory term made up by Creationists as a insult to those who accept evolution, implying that they somehow worship Darwin or something. It implies that Darwin is somehow the focus of evolution, not the scientific theory itself. It implies people “follow the teachings of Darwin”. It also implies that evolutionay theory hasn’t progressed in the slightest since Darwin’s time. That perspective couldn’t be further from the truth.
The fact is that Darwin’s theory of natrual selection was ultimately wrong. It was closer than anyone had yet come to the truth, but we know know it had some serious flaws and limitations. Most, if not almost all, those flaws and limitations have been fixed since then. Some involved developing entirely new theories of evolution, some wich are somewhat similar to Darwin’s and others that aren’t. But even natural selection is very different today than it was 150 years ago. Science develops and progresses. That is one if its defining features. It would be like calling planetary astronomers “Galileoists” or “Keplerists”, it completely ignores the massive amount of progress in every imaginable aspect of the field since that time.
Calling it “darwinism” is an insult to all scientists and to anyone who accepts the truth of evolution. Using the term is not a good way to make friends.
As for you basic claim, evolution does not equal natural selection, you are missing a fundamental point. There are two aspects to evolution. One is that all populations of organisms change significantly over time, with one type of organism often changing into one or more others gradually over time. This is the fact of evolution. Lamarck supported this fact, as did Darwin and pretty much every scientist alive today. The other evolution is the collection of scientific theories that have been developed in order to explain why this fact is true. The fact is true to as much of a degree as anything possibly can be. What natural selection and other related evolutionary theories do is explain why this is the case. That is the theory of evolution, and natural selection is one of the central theories within the theory of evolution.
Delance Says:
“ID, as wrong as it might be, depends on the idea that species evolved, or else there’s no ID, there’s instant creation. ”
No, it doesn’t. The IDers directly state that evolution cannot form life as we see it today. They claim there MUST have been instant creation. That is the fundamental point of their argument. Your claim is flat-out wrong. IDers reject evolution as an explanation for life as it exists today.
Delance Says:
“You know, as Isaac Newton, the astrologer, understood it, unlike most religious people of his time!”
I’m sorry, I hve no idea what this sentence means. What is “it”? Natural selection? Instant creation? Evolution? Lamarckism? Astrology? You need to be more specific.
Delance Says:
“Anyways, vaccines were created some good 200 years before the darwnistic evolution reached mainstream.”
Technically, it was apparently about 2000 years, but they didn’t actually come into widespread use until about 50 years before Darwin wrote his book.
However, that does not change the fact that MODERN vaccines are planned, developed, and utilized based on knowledge gained from the study of evolutionary biology. If IDers want to scratch cowpox into their skin to fight a disease that doesn’t even exist anymore, that is fine by me. But it is hypocritical of them to protect themselves against modern diseases using modern vaccines developed using science they claim is false. I won’t legally force them to stop, but it is still extremely hypocritical.
Delance Says:
“I wonder if this means atheists can’t use scientific advanced because it was a deist jew who proposed the theory of relativity and a catholic priest who proposed the big bang theory.”
No, because athiests are rejecting those peoples’ religious beliefs (actually, I doubt many athiests would have much of a problem with Einstein). Athiests are not rejecting the scientific theories proposed by those people. They accept the science, thus they make use of the science. They reject the religion, but the religion is ultimately unrelated to the science. IDers and creationists, however, reject the science, but still want to make use of it. Once again, the religious side is irrelevant. If they rejected evolution on non-religious grounds the issue would still be the same. They are rejecting the science but still taking advantage of the benefits it brings them.
Delance Says:
“ID is not science, OK. ID is a philosophy.”
No, it isn’t. ID is religion.
From encarta:
re·li·gion
religion beliefs and worship: people’s beliefs and opinions concerning the existence, nature, and worship of a deity or deities, and divine involvement in the universe and human life
phi·los·o·phy
philosophy examination of basic concepts: the branch of knowledge or academic study devoted to the systematic examination of basic concepts such as truth, existence, reality, causality, and freedom
No whether something has to have a god to be a religion is a matter of debate, but something that is based on a god is definitely religion. ID, by its very nature, requires the existance of a god, an omnipotent, unprovable god. Therefore it is a religion. Not a science, not a philosophy, a religion. Materialism is not a religion in any sence of the word.
Delance Says:
“A note: the avarge person knows that ID is the same as creationism.”
I will assume you mean “doesn’t know”. Otherwise this sentence directly contradicts the rest of the paragraph, leaving the paragraph nonsensical.
Delance Says:
“The fact that darwinists insists on this point to discredit their opponents makes it looks like a) darwinists have a weak case and b) they are trying to fool them.”
Perhaps, but it is extremely effective at keeping ID out of schools. That is where the thrust of the ID attack currently lies. Schools is the most important battlefield, if ID can get itself into schools and can indoctrinate today’s student’s with its BS, it will gain a major advantage. Arguing ID is the same thing as creationists, which SCOTUS has already ruled cannot be taught in public schools, has and will be extremely effective at getting pro-ID science curriculums thrown out in (or even before) court. If we can get ID science curriculums banned by SCOTUS, then that will be a major rout for science against antiscience. The general PR campaign is being waged in other ways by other people, but the creationism/ID link absolutely central to prevent ID from getting a foothold in science classrooms, that is why it comes up so often.