Intelligent Design vs. Creationism

"intelligent design" 8,420,000 results creationism 3,410,000 results

The Vatican has come out in support of evolution, so somewhere on this chart you should show that evolution and some form of creationism are compatible. It doesn't really make any sense to me, but I'll not argue with it!

Finally, I understand. So consistent and clear.
I also see that Kansas is using this Intelligent Design thing to recruit businesses to relocate to the state.

Aaarrrggh. Try again.
Finally, I understand the distinctions. Appreciate the consistent and clear explanations.
I also see that Kansas is using this whole Intelligent Design thing to recruit employers to the state.

What the Vatican supports is probably best called "theistic evolution," and (if I understand it) is basically something like "God may have caused abiogenesis and maybe tweaked things here or there, but natural selection (and sexual selection, genetic drift, etc.) explains basically everything else."

It's my opinion the major difference between theistic Evolution and ID Creationism is that while both groups believe that God had a hand in the development of all life on this planet, the theistic evolutionists don't feel that it is possible or necessary to "prove" their beliefs.

OPEN EPISTLE TO KANSAS SCHOOL BOARD
November 8th, 2005
I write with joy and thanks in my heart after having read of your bold decision to promote the Church of The Intelligent Designer and its one true God IDio. Finally, our Church needs no longer cower behind a façade of science.

Now that your blessed action on IDio's behalf has rendered the Constitution, with its irritating religious establishment clause, inoperative, we can proudly proclaim in every Kansas classroom, "There is but one Intelligent Designer and His name is IDio!" We thank the taxpayers of Kansas for donating their money to proselytize for His church. May IDio mutate you all intelligently.

www.godinabox.com

The Vatican has come out in support of evolution, so somewhere on this chart you should show that evolution and some form of creationism are compatible.

— James

A more precise description of their position is that evolution is the mechanism by which God formed living things.

Similar the laws of physics are what He used to create the universe and everything we see around us.

The salient feature of ID is that there isn't any.

It's nice to see that ID is such a verrrry big tent. I can't wait for one of those cartoon moments where the tent begins to wobble, distort with *^%#@<0->`~\/ and puffs of smoke coming out.

Theistic evolution, as jim says above, is the belief that God is a decent (actually perfect) engineer who set the universe in course and didn't need to come in and fix things after that. He would have created the most basic rule(s) (from which all other arise), confident that they would unfold and bring about whatever He wants the universe to do. Life, mankind and cheap wristwatches might be it, or might be a byproduct of the whole ineffable plan.

Personally, I couldn't care less about that - I am happy to believe that He takes an interest in us and would rather not see us self-destroy (my religion is about my personal relationship with God - not about his ineffable plans for the whole of the Universe which is a tad too big thinking for me). Obviously, I have no proof of His existance beyond my faith, and I have no interest in forcing my faith on anyone else, much less through science class (this disclaimer borught by the atheist-religious peaceful cohabitation association).

Hope that helps,

Grey Wolf, hoping that this helps atheists to understand that not all theists are extremist nutjobs.

Actually Grey Wolf, i think you just described Deistic Evolution. Theistic Evolution has to believe that God still does something some of the time.

Basically what the Vatican said was that they are not scientists, and that God created Reality. If Science observes reality to be different from religious beliefs, then people should listen to the Scientists and ignore their previously held religious beliefs.

Basically its making a distinction between Theology and Science.

Pope John Paul II had been pushing for this viewpoint for awhile

Steve, You left out one point in the ID column in rows 3, 4, 7 and 11: "But ID is not about religion."

Google fight

"intelligent design"
9,290,000 results

evolution
244,000,000 results

Looks clear to me!

my religion is about my personal relationship with God

Actually, George, you have a point (two people agreeing on Internet? Must be the end of the world!). Technically speaking, it *would* be Deistic in the sense that it was started and "ignored" - except that I (obviously) subscribe to it and see it as Theistic because I do see God taking a hand whenever some species become intelligent enough to need guidance (and, depending on the day, to provide them with souls, although I am very shaky on the topic of souls). Thing is, I do think he intervenes. Just not on things that run themselves: evolution, physics, etc.

Its the retarded intelligent creatures bent on self destruction that need handling.

Anyway, enough religious ranting for today. It is sort of out of place. Conclusion: yes, I might have described Deistic Evolution. I certainly don't think God needed to come in and help along the way. That would be incompetent.

In the topic of Religion, Science and Reality, Religion should only tell its followers how to respond to what reality is. Unfortunately, that does depend on first telling what reality *is*, which is where it gets into trouble since it is not prepared to accurately describe it. Which is why Science should be listened to and, once you have a clearer picture of what reality is, you can go to your religious authority (if you have one) and let him advise you what you should do about it.

Hope that helps,

Grey Wolf, who had to wait until morning to post this since he was blacklisted between the first message and this one...

I can't believe that these specious, long-winded ID arguments are getting so much attention. Its all so much NOTHING! I think Shakespeare's Macbeth sums up ID quite nicely.

It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing

Right on, Billy!

Grey Wolf, who had to wait until morning to post this since he was blacklisted between the first message and this one...

Google fight

"intelligent design"
9,240,000 results

theory of evolution
49,200,000 results

clearly the right theory won but "evolution" is a word which has other meanings...

Any simple categorization is bound to be incomplete, of course, but, nonetheless, a couple of criticisms of your chart.

1) When you say that "Evolution and belief in God are incompatible," that's a little over-simple. If evolution means that there is no purpose to the universe, or to life, then believing Christians should and do reject that. If, however, evolution means that living things have descended from no more than a few original types, and have diverged greatly, perhaps even into different phyla, then many, at least in the Old-Earth Creationism column, can and do accept at least that much.

2) When you say "Usually no, occasionally yes, . . ." you seem to expect that everyone who fits in one of just three categories should be alike. Why should they? There are more categories than three, although the divisions you make are useful. People in these three columns are not three monolithic groups.

Shakespeare's Macbeth sums up ID quite nicely

— Alexander

Martin LaBar,

Your sarcasm-meter is past due for calibration.

Google fight "intelligent design" 9,240,000 results theory of evolution 49,200,000 results clearly the right theory won but "evolution" is a word which has other meanings...

Any simple categorization is bound to be incomplete, of course, but, nonetheless, a couple of criticisms of your chart.

— Martin LaBar

1) When you say that "Evolution and belief in God are incompatible," that's a little over-simple. If evolution means that there is no purpose to the universe, or to life, then believing Christians should and do reject that.

If, however, evolution means that living things have descended from no more than a few original types, and have diverged greatly, perhaps even into different phyla, then many, at least in the Old-Earth Creationism column, can and do accept at least that much.

2) When you say "Usually no, occasionally yes, ..." you seem to expect that everyone who fits in one of just three categories should be alike. Why should they? There are more categories than three, although the divisions you make are useful. People in these three columns are not three monolithic groups.

Theistic evolution can also mean...

God is the unseen hand that tips the dice.

Key word that makes this compatible with a God who is involved: tips.
Key word that makes this compatible with science: unseen.

hello all,

I think that Muslims are against ID even though they share pretty much the same beliefs as them:

"Intelligent Design" Is Another of Satan's Distractions --
http://www.harunyahya.com/new_releases/news/intelligent_design.php

I just don't see how satan is involved tho.

Trust me, if Harun Yahya is involved, Satan is no less involved ;-\

hugs,
Shirley Knott

Trust me, if Harun Yahya is involved, Satan is no less involved ;-\

Evolution and belief in God are... Incompatible?

Someone has a serious faulty logic problem here. If God is defined as the creator of the universe then God exists outside the laws of physics and cannot be limited by them. That means (theoretically) God and evolution can coexist where evolution is simply another designed by God and under "His" control.

In short, God could have evolved man like you fast forward a tape in a vcr if God created the universe.

Also, intelligent design simply states there are outside forces at work influencing evolution that make the normal traceable evolutionary history impossible. Unexplicable gaps in the evolutionary tree can be found and attributed to external influences whose effects seem to match no discernable pattern other than they are clearly not random, just not predictable.

Geneticists and molecular biologists are the primary investigators of both evolution and intelligent design, and not once is creationism even mentioned in sceintific arguments for intelligent design.

Unexplicable gaps

Geneticists and molecular biologists are the primary investigators of both evolution and intelligent design

sceintific arguments for intelligent design

I keep thinking of a cartoon image with evolutionary theory being represented as a dike composed of all the evidence gathered over the last 150 years. A dike 15 feet high that goes on for miles. then, there are a couple of teeny holes near the base that IDer's are trying to force God's fingers into, while a scientist impatiently stands by waiting for these folks to get out of the way so he can plug the holes with yet more evidence.
Meanwhile, God is getting pretty pissed that someone keeps trying to force his huge fingers into such tiny holes (holes that in no way threaten the structure or integrity of the dike to begin with).

Also, intelligent design simply states there are outside forces at work influencing evolution that make the normal traceable evolutionary history impossible.

— Jake Lockley

Geneticists and molecular biologists are the primary investigators of both evolution and intelligent design...

...and not once is creationism even mentioned in sceintific arguments for intelligent design.

Geneticists and molecular biologists are the primary investigators of both evolution and intelligent design

, and not once is creationism even mentioned in sceintific arguments for intelligent design.

FIVE YEAR OBJECTIVES * Major Christian denomination(s) defend(s) traditional doctrine of creation

ID advocates like Michael Behe accept common descent

Bill Dembski is also on record accepting common descent.

hey, i have the video debate between Dembski and Ruse where he admits the evidence for common descent and essentially accepts it, could you point me to where he says the opposite? i gotta add that to my collection.

cheers

See here for instance:

http://www.pandasthumb.org/pt-archives/000506.html

Or really, just read what the guy writes. I have a suspicion that in the video you refer to, Dembski says something like "If common descent is true, then ID can live with it". But he never says that common descent is true, or that he personally accepts it. He always treats it as an open question.

More significantly for the educational curriculum, however, is that intelligent design has no stake in living things coming together suddenly in their present form. To be sure, intelligent design leaves that as a possibility. But intelligent design is also fully compatible with large-scale evolution over the course of natural history, all the way up to what biologists refer to as "common descent" (i.e., the full genealogical interconnectedness of all organisms). If our best science tells us that living things came together gradually over a long evolutionary history and that all living things are related by common descent, then so be it. Intelligent design can live with this result and indeed live with it cheerfully. But -- and this is the crucial place where an ID-based curriculum will differ from how biological evolution is currently taught -- intelligent design is not willing to accept common descent as a consequence of the Darwinian mechanism. The Darwinian mechanism claims the power to transform a single organism (known as the last common ancestor) into the full diversity of life that we see both around us and in the fossil record. If intelligent design is correct, then the Darwinian mechanism of natural selection and random variation lacks that power. What's more, in that case the justification for common descent cannot be that it follows as a logical deduction from Darwinism. Darwinism is not identical with evolution understood merely as common descent. Darwinism comprises a historical claim (common descent) and a naturalistic mechanism (natural selection operating on random variations), with the latter being used to justify the former. According to intelligent design, the Darwinian mechanism cannot bear the weight of common descent. Intelligent design therefore throws common descent itself into question but at the same time leaves open as a very live possibility that common descent is the case, albeit for reasons other than the Darwinian mechanism. What, then, are teachers who are persuaded of intelligent design to teach their students? Certainly they should teach Darwinian theory and the evidence that supports it. At the same time, however, they should candidly report problems with the theory, notably that its mechanism of transformation cannot account for the complex specified structures we observe in biology. But that still leaves Eugenie Scott's question, "What happened when?" There is a lot of persuasive evidence for common descent that does not invoke the Darwinian mechanism, notably from biogeography and molecular sequence comparisons involving DNA and proteins. At the same time, discontinuities in the fossil record (preeminently in the Cambrian explosion) are more difficult to square with common descent. To establish evolutionary interrelatedness invariably requires exhibiting similarities between organisms. Within Darwinism, there's only one way to connect such similarities, and that's through descent with modification driven by the Darwinian mechanism. But within a design-theoretic framework, this possibility, though not precluded, is also not the only game in town. It's possible for descent with modification instead to be driven by telic processes inherent in nature (and thus by a form of design). Alternatively, it's possible that the similarities are not due to descent at all but result from a similarity of conception, just as designed objects like your TV, radio, and computer share common components because designers frequently recycle ideas and parts. Teasing apart the effects of intelligent and natural causation is one of the key questions confronting a design-theoretic research program. Unlike Darwinism, therefore, intelligent design has no immediate and easy answer to the question of common descent.

Dembski...dembski...dembski...

Let's start with his favorate root word in that piece..."Darwin"

We rightfully give Darwin credit for his work, but who else is sick evolution being called "Darwinism" or "Darwinian Theory" and people who accept evolution being described as "Darwinists"?

I can accept evolution being refered to as "Darwin's Theory", the same way I can accept phrases like "Newton's Laws of Motion". However (correct me if I'm wrong), I don't think anyone has ever complained about the "Newtonian Mechanism".

Though it is annoying, I know why IDers and creationists call evolution Darwinism. They have made many efforts to give science an air of religion; they seem to accuse scientists of enforcing a "dogma", for example. Fundamentalists are as quick to decry the views of moderates, "pagans" and other fundamentalists who disagree with them as quickly as science...forgetting that science develops it's view of the world in a completely different way than religions do, and that there are certain questions that science, by definition, cannot touch. However, fundamentalists (off all stipes) think that ANYONE who disagrees in the SLIGHTEST WAY with their EXACT view of the world MUST be evil and unholy and inspired by Satan.

When they clump science in the same catagory with astrology, Hinduism, Islam, the church across the street, etc, why wouldn't they think of evolution as a religion?

When they clump science in the same catagory with astrology, Hinduism, Islam, the church across the street, etc, why wouldn't they think of evolution as a religion?

don't get all paranoid, now. I too was unable to access PT until this morning. maybe a router issue somewhere along the line, or a local site issue. It's a very rare thing someone gets banned from here. in over a year, I have only seen it happen 3 times, and believe me, those folks were rude, obnoxious, foul-mouthed individuals who anybody would ban in a second.

It seems to be part of ID's strategy to NOT have a clear statement, becuase without a clear argument, there can be no clear counter-argument, and they can keep spinning their quazi philosophical revelations till the end of time.

That is their entire strategy to achieve their higher aim.

Confuse,confound,conflate

Pick any perceived weak spot in biology and exploit it by running a negative argument.

Don't do any real work, just make everyone disprove their latest scam all the while applying postmodernist (reality denying) reasoning to claim equal time for their pseudo science.

Run a well directed PR scam with slick multimedia handouts, run retreats for simple people to get them on board.

and not once is creationism even mentioned in sceintific arguments for intelligent design.

Keep in mind two things, folks:

(1) ICR gives money and printed materials to Harun Yahya.
and
(2) The IDers in Kansas brought in a member of Harun Yahya to "testify" that if we adopt ID in our schools, the Muslim fundies will like us more.

Odd, isn't it, that none of the foaming fools over at Dembski's lovefest ever mention either of those two things.

Is this true? And do ICR publicly say such? I just find it hard to believe. It's a bit like when Gaddaffi gave support to the IRA.

I was quoting 'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank before.

I am curious about ICR funding Harun yahya. does the ICR admit doing so?
it is a bit like when gaddaffi funded the IRA.

I am curious about ICR funding Harun yahya

More significantly for the educational curriculum, however, is that intelligent design has no stake in living things coming together suddenly in their present form. To be sure, intelligent design leaves that as a possibility.

The Darwinian mechanism claims the power to transform a single organism (known as the last common ancestor) into the full diversity of life that we see both around us and in the fossil record.

If our best science tells us that living things came together gradually over a long evolutionary history and that all living things are related by common descent, then so be it. Intelligent design can live with this result and indeed live with it cheerfully.

I have a suspicion that in the video you refer to, Dembski says something like "If common descent is true, then ID can live with it". But he never says that common descent is true, or that he personally accepts it. He always treats it as an open question.

I hope that the meaning of this blog is that ID is not synonymous with Creationism. I do believe that the God of the Bible created the universe. However, God created the universe in such a way that is rational and explainable. Science can do that. The Lord tells us in His Bible "I would that you were not ignorant." The Bible also makes clear that God will reveal the mysteries of the universe to us if we ask. So, Creationism and Science do not have to be mutually exclusive. One should look to the other for help in answering the questions. Intelligent Design wants us to believe that Xenu or some other weirdly-named alien intellgence seeded the Earth and created life in it's image. (Thus, we have Tom Cruise.) Which ultimately leaves the question of the alien's own Genesis completey unanswered.

Hey Gary, I don't see the reason Tom Cruise has to explain where his aliens came from if you don't have the explanation where your God came from. Oh yeah, maybe those aliens always existed.

The simplest chemical compound could not have occured by chance. Life had to have design and direction and purpose.Matter seems to be composed of force and energy and power and tremendous engineering skills. The bible has been translated 8+ times from increasingly complex languages,the originators we cannot speak with. The "days" of creation could mean eras, times, epochs rather than 24 hours. We must pool science,history, religion, all of our ideas and resources to reach an understanding of why and how we came to exist.

The simplest chemical compound could not have occured by chance. Life had to have design and direction and purpose.Matter seems to be composed of force and energy and power and tremendous engineering skills. The bible has been translated 8+ times from increasingly complex languages,the originators we cannot speak with. The "days" of creation could mean eras, times, epochs rather than 24 hours. We must pool science,history, religion, all of our ideas and resources to reach an understanding of why and how we came to exist.

The simplest chemical compound could not have occured by chance. Life had to have design and direction and purpose.Matter seems to be composed of force and energy and power and tremendous engineering skills. The bible has been translated 8+ times from increasingly complex languages,the originators we cannot speak with. The "days" of creation could mean eras, times, epochs rather than 24 hours. We must pool science,history, religion, all of our ideas and resources to reach an understanding of why and how we came to exist.

I can beleive that we were created by some intelligent alien, but who created them?

Comment #57069 Posted by Charles Lapp on November 13, 2005 10:12 PM (e) (s) The simplest chemical compound could not have occured by chance. Life had to have design and direction and purpose.Matter seems to be composed of force and energy and power and tremendous engineering skills. The bible has been translated 8+ times from increasingly complex languages,the originators we cannot speak with. The "days" of creation could mean eras, times, epochs rather than 24 hours. We must pool science,history, religion, all of our ideas and resources to reach an understanding of why and how we came to exist.

— Charles Lapp

4) The original languages where not more complex then toady's languages.

6 thousand year old

The simplest chemical compound could not have occured by chance

Comment #57268 Posted by Tahir on November 14, 2005 02:55 PM (e) (s) 6 thousand year old you must mean "4 thousand year old" (time of Abraham) or "3 thousand year old" (time of Moses). I do not think the Israelites existed before then (4k yrs ago).

— Tahir