Intelligent Design Proponents Distance Themselves from Creationists [El Tejon litigation]

American Chronicle ^ | 12 January 2006 | Wayne Adkins

[PatrickHenry]

Links added by me. You gotta feel sorry for the Discovery Institute. They opened this Pandora's box, and now they're stuck with the consequences.

Prior thread on this topic: California High School Sued for Teaching 'Intelligent Design'.

[PatrickHenry]

Evolution Ping The List-O-Links

A conservative, pro-evolution science list, now with over 340 names. See the list's explanation, then FReepmail to be added or dropped. To assist beginners: But it's "just a theory", Evo-Troll's Toolkit, and How to argue against a scientific theory.

[VadeRetro]

Too little, too late. Nobody believes it. Without creationist money, ID would have been broke long ago. Now, leave me alone. The NFL playoffs are on.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

It was obvious that the California class was YEC, not just ID. That of course doesn't mean that ID isn't creationism. It will be fun to see the ID'ers and the YEC's duke it out.

[dread78645]

I wonder how Howie Ahmanson is doing these days.

[phantomworker]

The NFL playoffs are on.

Yay! Hawks!

[Physicist]

I love a good game of let's-you-and-him-fight.

[SteveMcKing]

I heavily distance myself from others. This is conceit, in one view.

However, this arrangement helps to lower the annoyance of hearing stupid conversations like, "I just downloaded 'Hey Ya' to my iPod. Want to hear it? -- OH YES PLEASE I WOULD!"

Such is the gap between schools of our genesis.

[M203M4]

ID - a perversion of religion and a perversion of science. Satan is likely envious that it wasn't his idea - or was it?

[phantomworker]

So ID is the new hip generation without substance while creationists are the more well-mannered establishment???

[Stultis]

And yet a supposedly classic work of ID (and I'd bet advertised as such by the Discovery Institute) like Phillip E. Johnson's Darwin On Trial is filled from cover to cover with typical "Creation Science" arguments. The whole section on the fossil record, for instance, literally makes no sense apart from a young-earth/flood-geology perspective. Johnson's claim to be an old-earther or agnostic on the subject (I forget which stance he takes) is merely a point of incoherence; or evidence that, like many a lawyer, he adopts arguments opportunistically without understanding their full implications.

Besides, nothing in standard "scientific" (or "Biblical") creationism actually contradicts anything in "Intelligent Design". Officious ID'ers may claim that the two are not wholly identical, but they can't sensibly deny that one is a subset of the other. It would be like the AMA trying to claim that surgeons are doctors but internists aren't.

[PatrickHenry]

It would be like the AMA trying to claim that surgeons are doctors but internists aren't.

The entire edifice of ID is a transparent fraud, designed by charlatans to slip creationism past the courts, because the judges -- so the ID gurus imagine -- are too dumb to notice that ID is pure creationism. But at the same time, out in the trailer parks, the creationism crowd is supposed to be wildly cheering for ID because they get it, while the federal judges somehow can't figure it out.

Brilliant strategy. But it seems to be falling apart. Judges aren't the idiots that the Discovery Institute thinks they are, and the ID enthusiasts in the trailer parks just can't let go of their young-earth-creationism. How embarrassing. Eventually, the "Discovery" Institute will actually discover something -- that they're not quite as smart as they thought.

[Larry Lucido]

I'm a young earth creationist. I don't think the planet is a day over 3 billion years old.

[willyd]

I don't understand your comment.

[phantomworker]

So ID is the new hip generation without substance while creationists are the more well-mannered establishment???

...But they're still playing the same song! LOL!

[phantomworker]

And da devole made ya do it! LOL!

[DallasMike]

The whole section on the fossil record, for instance, literally makes no sense apart from a young-earth/flood-geology perspective

I think that he is officially agnostic on the whole young earth/old earth thing, but I seriously doubt that he personally believes the earth is only 6,000 years old. A great many scientists are skeptical of or troubled by the over-reaching claims made by the evolution-only folks, but few endorse the young earth idea.

[shuckmaster]

the course inaccurately mixes intelligent design with young earth creationism or Biblical creationism.

Wouldn't that be a little like mixing butter with grits? So, is this an evangelical rift or just biting the hand that feeds you?

[Oztrich Boy]

FRANCIS: And the Judean Popular People's Front.

P.F.J.: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Splitters. Splitters...

LORETTA: And the People's Front of Judea.

P.F.J.: Yeah. Splitters. Splitters...

REG: What?

LORETTA: The People's Front of Judea. Splitters.

REG: We're the People's Front of Judea!

LORETTA: Oh. I thought we were the Popular Front.

REG: People's Front! C-huh.

FRANCIS: Whatever happened to the Popular Front, Reg?

REG: He's over there.

P.F.J.: Splitter!

[Stultis]

Just dug out my copy of Darwin on Trial to refresh my recollection. I was incorrect in claiming that the whole section on the fossil record presupposes a young-earth/flood-geology P.O.V. Some arguments do, while others imply a progressive creationism view. IOW it's completely incoherent.