Creationism? Just an attempt to make it sound more "intelligent"? Or is there a difference?
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Is "Intelligent Design" just another name for...
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philadiddle
Drumming circles around you
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Deamiter
I just follow Christ.
Among a very few people there is a difference. In particular, Behe accepts both an old age and the process of evolution but simply claims that irreducible complexity means that evolution could not have accounted for ALL the variation among species. In that sense, many would not consider him a creationist.
That said, the recent Dover trial showed that there are many who tried (still try?) to use Intelligent Design to legally insert creationism into public education after creationism was legally banned as purely religious a few decades ago. The simple replacement of "God" with "Intelligen Designer" in the textbook "Of Pandas and People" is evidence of this.
In general, I personally have noticed that most people who support ID are creationists who simply use the argument of irreducible complexity as another argument against evolution. The wide popularity of the term is primarily due to the legal restriction of creationism in classrooms.
That said, I don't think ID is NECESSARILY equivalent to creationism. If irreducible complexity could be shown to be unevolvable in a number of structures, it could stand apart from creationism (supposedly Behe has re-defended his claims in his most recent book, though a peer-reviewed article would hold much more weight with me). At the moment, that's not how ID is used -- it's used primarily as a tool to get creationist beliefs into science classes and as long as creationists use (or misuse) the concept, it won't hold much weight on its own.
That said, the recent Dover trial showed that there are many who tried (still try?) to use Intelligent Design to legally insert creationism into public education after creationism was legally banned as purely religious a few decades ago. The simple replacement of "God" with "Intelligen Designer" in the textbook "Of Pandas and People" is evidence of this.
In general, I personally have noticed that most people who support ID are creationists who simply use the argument of irreducible complexity as another argument against evolution. The wide popularity of the term is primarily due to the legal restriction of creationism in classrooms.
That said, I don't think ID is NECESSARILY equivalent to creationism. If irreducible complexity could be shown to be unevolvable in a number of structures, it could stand apart from creationism (supposedly Behe has re-defended his claims in his most recent book, though a peer-reviewed article would hold much more weight with me). At the moment, that's not how ID is used -- it's used primarily as a tool to get creationist beliefs into science classes and as long as creationists use (or misuse) the concept, it won't hold much weight on its own.
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Thanks for the info Deamiter!
That's kind of what I thought -- I see from what you've said that there is a slight difference, but not really
.
Thanks!
That's kind of what I thought -- I see from what you've said that there is a slight difference, but not really
.Thanks!
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PaladinValer
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Often? Yes. Absolutely? Possibly not.
I would definitely say they are related however.
I would definitely say they are related however.
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busterdog
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The idea that it is an excuse for anything is a bit tendentious. THough, Deamiter makes a good case.
Fallingwaters is a lovely YEC posting mostly in the creationist forum. She just says rather simply, you know what, the earth just looks young to me, not old.
Isn't that a funny thing to say?
One reason its funny is that it goes against our many assumptions. Not how things appear, but what we assume because of what we are taught. We are taught that a coal seem is something that is obviosly very old, for example.
SO, I appreciate what she says, like a breath of fresh air.
Now, ID does a couple of things. FIrst, it tries to buy into the scientific model and yet acknowledge a creator at the same time. But, it has managed to get so boluxed up with scientific "debunking" that its original message is a pretty diluted, and perhaps forgotten.
THe other thing it does is appeal to is real and what isn't. If God is real, ID is a no brainer. God is more real and more involved than anytyhing else. Of course ID must apply to everything. What seems obvious unfortnately is lost in the scientific debate.
It should be this simple. Do you need an explanation for the incredible complexity of so many living things? If you look at a mere spider, the creator is obvious.
WHat is the objection to ID? THat it somehow clashes with scientific methods in disciplines. Said otherwise, yes, God is the fact, the factor, the cause, the ground of all reality, the ultimate realty, the master of dimensions we cannot see, ultimate power, the only true and perfect wisdom and the greatest aggregation of causes, known and unknown, for all that we see and experience. Yet, the ultimate reality must be ignored because it clashes with our methods. What nonsense.
ID stands for that simple proposition. It is common sense.
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I apologize if my wording offended - I was making a little play on words more than anything
I just want to make it clear that I DO believe in a Creator -- I just hold the belief that evolution was involved. Not because God *couldn't* just poof things into existence, but because He created this universe and natural world with certain physical laws and I don't believe He'd violate those laws.
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busterdog
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I apologize if my wording offended - I was making a little play on words more than anything
I just want to make it clear that I DO believe in a Creator -- I just hold the belief that evolution was involved. Not because God *couldn't* just poof things into existence, but because He created this universe and natural world with certain physical laws and I don't believe He'd violate those laws.
Sorry - Deamiter was tendentious -- not really a bad thing, certainly not an offense. Just means he has an evolutionary ax to grind.
Sorry about the misunderstanding.
About those physical laws, quite often "poof" ends up making more sense. But, with that rather large caveat, I agree with you.
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Smidlee
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This is like asking is evolution/ Darwinism just another name from atheistism since I find a lot of atheist use evolution to show there is no need for God. (there are examples of atheist pushing and preaching evolution /Darwinism very religiously) Of course creationist uses irreducible complexity to point to the Creator and why wouldn't they. Now Behe uses irreducible complexity to point to the "front loading" idea. I don't find too many creationists jumping on "front loading" wagon like I do with those in ID. IMO ID has just as much, if not more, in common with TE.
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KerrMetric
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Hilarious, agreed.
No it goes against verifiable facts. The assumptions come later when working on other problems.
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Kind of. Any theist believes God created with purpose and design. It doesn't follow that we try to locate that purpose and design in an "unevolvable" bacterial flagellum.
Yet, so far, evolution provides the best scientific explanation for that incredible complexity. The creator is just as obvious via the evolutionary explanation as any other.
Yes, God is the ground of all reality, the ultimate reality, and that is precisely why God cannot be treated as a part of that reality, as if God can be found in this bit of reality (bacterial flagellum) but not in this other bit (changing frequency of alleles).
This is the heart of the ID problem. It wants to identify God with bits and pieces of reality instead of with all of reality.
It is precisely because God is the ground of all reality---including all the reality studied by scientific methods--that one cannot do that.
Scientific method does include God, because it has no way of excluding God. And for that very reason it cannot test for or falsify God.
But until we learn to see God in all we know instead of searching for God in as yet unsolved questions, we continue to overlook the obvious.
ID is nothing but an extended argument from incredulity.
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That would be true if biology textbooks used to named atheist books, and there were copies of the books where it said, evoatheistlution like the creDesgineration in Pandas and People.
Using your argument, atheist use science to argue against God, I guess this means science is just another word for atheism, also. Good thing most Americans don't believe that and actually like science.
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busterdog
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Hold on now.
Evolution teaches about some rather remarkable jumps in development. But, the evolutionists won't give even that much credit to God. They say its "random", meaning we have no [wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth] clue, and will teach that as gospel, but won't give a fact (ie God) written credit. THat is the ID problem right there. IT is consistent with evolution, but it is dismissed out of pique.
If God is a fact, why can't you put that in writing?
If God is all you say, why is it that there are no methods and revelation to go with all that truth? All the acknowledged methods are solely man's methods. All the written credit goes to man, within science. The fact is, excluding God is excluding fact from the presentation.
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busterdog
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Do you really want to have a debate about hidden agendas? Every "movement" has one somewhere -- even Darwinism.
Do you think every single ID proponent has a hidden agenda?
That is certainly not reasonable.
LEt's just deal with the merits of the argument and not with conspiracy theories.
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Such as?
It also teaches that such "jumps" are artifacts of preservation which in reality were the result of the accumulation of small modifications in cladistically separated lineages.
And from a TE perspective, that is the design--that plan for generating biodiversity is the design. Not particular modules of particular species.
Do you think randomness precludes God? In the bible, random events (casting lots) were used to determine the will of God. I see nothing anti-God about using random events as part of an overall directed purpose. And let's remember that the selection which drives evolution is not random.
http://foru.ms/t5892304-common-misconceptions-2-process.html
It is dismissed for the perfectly good reason that it claims to be science when it is not. It is also IMO bad theology.
Because a scientific fact 1) has to be material and/or detectable by material methods; 2) has to be falsifiable i.e. able to be discriminated from some alternative "fact"; and 3) has to be isolated in some way from other facts.
God is none of these things. God is not material and cannot be detected by material methods. As ultimate reality there is no alternate "fact" which could render God falsifiable. And as ground of all reality God cannot be isolated from any reality.
There are the methods God has chosen to give us: sense and reason and revelation. God made us and made our possibilities of comprehending truth, both natural and spiritual. When creationists claim these are insufficient, they are like pots complaining about how the Potter made them. I prefer to believe God made our world and our methods of finding truth about it commensurate with each other.
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If this is the case, are you also against probability because it doesn't include God in the Poisson distribution? Are you against non-linear dynamics because God isn't included in the unpredictable trajectories? Why should evolution include God when no other science or math subject makes any mention of Him? Why pick on just evolution?
So you want science to be a Christian subject, then? What about Hindu scientists? Should we accept their evolutionary theory that includes Vishna in the theory of recombination?
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busterdog
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Let's get back to the context of ID and my post. We are talking about teaching the most vulnerable and precious people in our nation - children - about the world. Yet we demand that fact be omitted from that teaching ie, God.
You may wish to reduce my argument to the absurd. In fact, here is a better absurdity. Why should we teach a2 + b2 = c2 and leave out a a variable that represents God? The equation should be a2 + b2 = c2 + G. Lets boil our sophistry down to terms everyone can understand. That way everyone will know that your straw man doesn't work. You cannot rightly apply the Pythagoreum theorem to your life as architect unless you thank God for the provision that makes it possible to build buildings. You cannot rightly understand what is best for the city where you want to build your skyscraper unless you allow the Lord to give wisdome for that choice.
And by the way. God has not given any math classes. But, he has give a pretty big geology and astronomy class. He has also taught that death (ie evolution) entered creation later -- at least in my view. That is the very obvious context in which I speak. You needn't admit my context has the truth in it. But you can save us all time by not pretending the context for my remarks are anything else -- such as non-linear dynamics . If you cared about hearing me, you would have known this from the get-go.
As for the Hindus, I am not sure how I am to be persuaded by the teachings of a demonstrably false religion. If all religions were equal, I would be worshipping snakes and hanging weights from my you-know-what as a religious discipline -- all perfectly good Hindu practices.
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Deamiter
I just follow Christ.
Wait, we demand that children not be taught about God? Since when? Different classes teach different subjects -- French class teaches a language, English class teaches grammar, science class teaches science. Should we insist that science be included in French class because our children must learn science? Of course not. Similarly, teaching our accumulated observations about the world around us need not include French or theology.
The claim that anybody (besides perhaps the odd Dawkins in our midst) insists that children not be taught about God is absurd. We've collectively decided that instead of throwing any one concept of deity rather awkwardly into science and French and English classes, we'd teach one subject at a time. Yes, it means your child will not learn protestant theology in biology class, but on the plus side, your child will not be taught Native American theology as science, nor will your child be taught that science has disproven God. If your child HAS been taught Native American theology or atheism philosophy in a public science class, do mention it to the ACLU and they'll take action as they do in many such cases.
As for the rest of your post, you directly insinuated that God would not use random factors in his actions. You suggest that when something is random, it means we have no clue. Not only is evolution NOT random, but the argument that God would not use a process that includes an element of chance is both denied by the Bible and by the many other natural processes (like the Poisson distribution) that are heavily based on chance.
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