Yet another version of the origins of ID

All the creation science people who now label themselves ID have legally contaminated the ID movement, and now that judge jones has started shovelling dirt on the ID corpse, the ID people will go on to contaminate the next movement.

It's stunning how brain-blastingly, awesomely stupid and lacking in self-awareness these people can be. "Arg...must...defend...ancient superstitions...from...modern...knowledge..."

They're just different faces of the same movement.

Awesome, hilariously embarrising post, by the way, Nick.

Do overstuffed big tents eventually explode? What are the probabilities of that?

Excellent work once again Nick

In other words, creationism was founded by people who were bible-believing christians and they said, since we believe the bible, since we know the bible's true, what does that mean for science?

I think that's a valid question, just like a christian would say, if I'm christian, what does that mean for government, my understanding of government, if I'm christian, what does that mean for education. If I'm christian, what does that mean for the arts, the economy, or the law or whatever, that's part of what building a christian worldview can mean, that kind of question.

But that's not the way you talk to people who don't share your beliefs. If you were to talk to someone who doesn't share your beliefs, you would find common ground with them, you would try to find some area where you can both discuss it together, I mean we all do that.

Hehhehhhehh

Anyone who has read Pearcey's [bleepety-bleep] "Total Truth" will have lost over 20 IQ points unless protected by much prophylactic beer. With most creationist crap I try to use some moderate level of detachment, and a large number of 'post-it' tags and red marker underlinings indicating the gross stupidities, lies and errors. She surpassed all my defenses and I am now a mere drunken shell of my former self.

I propose as the official term for closet IDists who were only "hanging out with" Creationsits until ID came along be the term "cdesign proponentists."

What I had was a borrowed faith. I was a "second-generation Christian." I believed because my parents and teachers told me to. My borrowed faith lasted only until I found out other young people believed opposite things because their parents and teachers told them to. Without being able to put it into words at the time, I realized that this was not an adequate reason to belive. I did eventually become convinced of the truth of the Bible and accept Jesus as my Lord.

I am now a mere drunken shell of my former self.

[Doesn't sound very logical to me.]

Has anything in the ID/Creationist tent ever sounded logical?

Revising history to fit needs is par for the course with this lot. One can take the liberty when the target audience is unlikely to either know or check the history.

Pearcey

If you were to talk to someone who doesn't share your beliefs, you would find common ground with them, you would try to find some area where you can both discuss it together, I mean we all do that.

Sure, Nancy.

The problem arises, Nancy, when your "beliefs" include the "belief" that pants-on-fire lying and willful ignorance is okay when discussing certain topics such as, uh, the evolutionary relationship between chimpanzees and humans.

You see, Nancy, there is no way for someone like you to discuss "it" with someone like me. You and Dembski and Behe and Luskin and Wells and Witt are professional liars and, well, I'm not.

To put it plainly: your brain is ugly.

Feel free to pray for me and my friends, though. I'd rather have you waste precious time doing that than screwing up the brains of kids with your fundie garbage.

anybody else notice the rather LARGE gap between these two paragraphs?

To be fair, I'm sure Pearcey has written up her reconversion (born again?) experience in detail somewhere else. She is a professional christian apologist and prodigious writer. Those two facts guarantee it she has written it up somewhere. I have only read a fraction of her stuff, however.

Just as a small interpretive point, I think what Ms. Pearcey means by 'logic' here is really something more like rhetorical strategy. She is (falsely, I think) claiming that the rhetorical strategy of creationism put belief first and the 'evidence' for creation second, while the rhetorical strategy of ID improves on this (for the purpose of dealing with unbelievers) by puting 'evidence' first and keeping belief out of sight. This has the virtue of admitting (implicitly) that there is no real doctinal difference between the two. Of course, a more credible reading of the history would say that creation 'science' made an effort to put talk of 'evidence' first and keep belief somewhat out of sight, while ID tries ineffectually to keep belief more thorougly out of sight on official occasions. A pretty fine distinction on which to base a constitutional claim to be a non-religious point of view. Oh, and there is this other, sort-of new thing, that is, the fancy new lies about information (added to the same old lies about entropy, dinosaurs and humans and all the rest...). On the larger scale, it's same old, same old-- kind of nice to see that conceded!

Calling dumb views "child abuse" is also overwrought IMO.

Calling dumb views "child abuse" is also overwrought IMO.

Maybe not in a legal sense, but sure.

... and yes, i do kinda realize that a discussion like that wouldn't exactly be "PC" for this particular forum

I have no objections if you wish to remove all comments to the BW, but would like to explore this a bit more if you're interested.

Pearcey

What I had was a borrowed faith.

What a strange phrase. I wonder: who was the preacher who coined it?

The Christian fundies in this country come up with quite a few head-scratchers. This idea of a "borrowed faith" that is somehow less worthy than the "not borrowed faith" which Nancy is prone to brag about reminds me of something that I heard in Joe Carter's peanut gallery once upon a time: "Faith equals overwhelming evidence."

It's hard to imagine a more blatantly un-Christian sentiment. Do the fundies worship Jesus or Doubting Thomas?

Regardless, the idea that creationists are enamored of "evidence" is a joke and Nancy's claim to have found objective (i.e., "non-borrowed") "proof" that her deity is the One True Deity is 100% poppycock.

Nick, in his excellent post, writes:

Judge Jones figured out where the evidence for the evolution of new genetic information was and put it in the Kitzmiller opinion. Why can't you guys get a clue?

Oh, they know perfectly well what the problem is and we all know that they know. Nancy and her D.I. friends are simply flooding the stage with their garbage in hopes that the inconvenient facts will either be washed away or sufficiently obscured by misleading tripe so that the rubes, in their perpetual confusion, will clutch their holy blankets and toss a coin in the collection cup.

I'll wait to continue until it's clear whether you think it appropriate to continue a discussion of this nature in your thread.

If you don't, as I said, feel free to wipe related comments away and I'll start a thread over on ATBC.

last thing i want is Dave Spingerbot over on UD claiming we call all Xians "child abusers" or something like that, simply because I personally wanted to explore this aspect of things.

http://www.da-tulareco.org/child_abuse.htm

There are four forms of child maltreatment: emotional abuse, neglect, physical abuse and sexual abuse.

Emotional Abuse: (also known as: verbal abuse, mental abuse, and psychological maltreatment) Includes acts or the failures to act by parents or caretakers that have caused or could cause, serious behavioral, cognitive, emotional, or mental disorders. This can include parents/caretakers using extreme and/or bizarre forms of punishment, such as confinement in a closet or dark room or being tied to a chair for long periods of time or threatening or terrorizing a child. Less severe acts, but no less damaging are belittling or rejecting treatment, using derogatory terms to describe the child, habitual scapegoating or blaming.

i.e., "That's God's punishment for what you did;" "When you do that, you make Jesus sad" "Do you want to go to hell?" etc., when spoken to 3-6 year olds.

Whether that sort of stuff can constitute child abuse hasn't been addressed directly, as far as I know. The big bad atheism-promoting ACLU hasn't gone there, to my knowledge.

Many people -- even self-identifying "libertarians" -- believe that parental autonomy is a fundamental right. It's an interesting and (IMHO) an important political issue but one that this country is far far away from ever seriously addressing.

this country is far far away from ever seriously addressing.

Yeah, it probably makes sense to split off the child abuse issue over to ATBC. I'll leave these comments for context, feel free to link to the new thread.

I guess I was right, Nick, you are a god! J/K.

I don't often drop my jaw, but when I read the passage about the dinosaurs it literally dropped, funny that you told us to pick up our jaws off the floor! Dude! I wish you sent that to me before the lecture! (Or that I asked to see the scanned documents you mentioned before the lecture!)

I was disappointed to find that my Tangled Bank submission on Pearcey's lecture bounced back (problem with email address apparently), and now delighted that it was picked up so quickly by Nick and the Thumb.

I shall not disappoint - I'm working on the second edition based on the followup questions. :)

I knew she was (is?) a YEC, but I didn't know it, you know? The contemporaneity of man and dinosaurs? Nooo! release my brain cells from this nonsense!

Also, both my partner and I noticed that for once in a long while there was a woman giving the creationist lecture. But as she remarked after applauding that fact, 'different body, same bullshit.'

Well of course the whole problem these people face is that to actually justify their belief they MUST convert others. Why believe in a pile of stinking elephant dung when people are going to ridicule you?
Elephant dung is ...well smelly and useless.

Converting others to their magical reality or simply stopping the leakage of believers from it, is far easier when you develop a rhinoceros like hide that is impervious to mere facts. Once that Rubicon is crossed there is no going back for them, its only kinky the first time.

The addiction is self supporting and like a crazed gambler the more they lose the more they bet(intellectual capital) to try and 'win back the house'.

Whole tribes or countries can be easily subverted with this form of madness (literally actually...a loss of sense..to lose ones senses) with a few fanatical people in positions of power who have control of the media channels (education is one) that the polity form their reality with, a social reality is created... provided they can remove dissent from those channels. Reality for the subjects IS whatever the leaders want it to be. No test for truth survives in those camps simply because truth for them is untestable, any fantasy no matter how 'unreal' IS reality. In fact the more fantastic the image projected on the 4th wall (or preached from the pulpit)the better because to defend it the followers MUST become martyrs. Goebbels perfected this in the 1930's ...now get this...he got the whole idea FROM religion. He couldn't believe his own luck and was quite open about using the techniques, people automatically worked harder to support the fantasy and the bigger the lie the harder they worked. What is the motivation for that martyr-hood? Simple; create and vilify an (imaginary) enemy.

The Jim Jones Cult to North Korea's social realism spring to mind however as Pilger points out,our own reality is not immune from the subtle influence of pervasive propaganda, remember WMD's and the huge volume of 'here are the reasons and justification for the Iraqi invasion' in all the media channels and god help you if you disagreed.

The confluence of conservative religion and conservative politics in positions of influence and power together with a subservient and uncritical press ensures that the man in the street will be wary of stepping outside of what is acceptable commentary lest they be sent to political retraining camps in the case North Korea or just 'left out of the loop ' in everyday and public life in western society. To counter liberal criticism and dissent in western societies the Fundamentalist conservatives have created a parallel universe of public institutions (Bible colleges,PNAC,privatized church based welfare delivery,a privatized corporate paramilitary adjunct for 'national security' ...invading countries etc) with the aim of completely neutering that dissent, democracy and facts/evidence for them are just a minor inconvenience. Creationists are living proof but the overall problem of an unbending powerful authoritarian theocracy is much bigger, thankfully a few brave souls are not going to let that happen too easily. Keep pointing out the emperor has no clothes.

Why believe in a pile of stinking elephant dung when people are going to ridicule you? Elephant dung is ...well smelly and useless.

— k.e.

I can't say that I agree with the thrust of this post - an excoriation of ID supporters for being like creationists. Of COURSE these people hold these opinions because of their religious convictions - there's no other reasonable explanation for tenaciously sticking to such unwieldy chains of logic. However, their essential claim is that, all personal beliefs aside, ID is supported by the data, and I think these claims (which, after all, are not hard to refute) should be taken at face value. Whatever their emotional motivation, these people at least have the integrity to publicly state that evidence is more important than faith for the purposes of this debate, and the fact that they are forced to make this claim after decades of argument is itself a victory for science and truth. Of course, much of "creation science" has been making the same facts-first claim for decades, but this is not the way in which being like creationism is bad. The worst way to be like creationism is to publicly claim that bible trumps fact (e.g. as anybody working for ICR must attest). Certainly they believe this in their hearts, but when they don't incorporate it into their argument they shouldn't be attacked for it. Where they are like creationism for making the same facts-first claim, they shouldn't be attacked for being like creationism because this is not a bad thing; and where they are like creationism for using all the same old cretinous arguments, they shouldn't be attacked for being like creationism, but rather attacked for using crap arguments. Showing they are "derived from" creationism doesn't get to the heart of the matter. If they want to claim they are reformed and arguing from evidence, this can be fought purely by attacking their ability to argue from the evidence. As a secondary issue only, where their arguments are ludicrously bad AND conveniently consistent with a religious rather than a scientific view, I think we are entitled to infer that their motivation is religious. But there is no need to invoke their religious motivations as a primary attack on the quality of their arguments.

I never in my wildest dreams believed that the Dover trial would so successfully destroy ID. Between Forrest's testimony and Jones's judgement, the main proponents of ID, especially the DI fellows, have been shown up so clearly as frauds, liars and uninterested in science that they now have to spend their whole time defending clearly ridiculous positions, usually by asserting some dark conspiracy. Until Dover and the aftermath, the IDers got a lot of sympathy for their faith - reporters would take the view that even if they might be ignorant or wrong about evolution, but their quest for Truth was sincere. Now that their lies about ID's heritage, the wedge strategy and the blatant perjury of the school it's impossible for them to get away with that pretence. This isn't to say that ID doesn't now have a lot of grass roots support from creationists that it didn't have, say two years ago, but we've won the legal battle and more importantly the media battle.

Elephant dung is ...well smelly and useless.

Except to dung beetles ;)

Hey STJ,

While you're considering the ramifications of starting a thread on "teaching kids religion = child abuse" on PT vs. AtBC, there's something else I'd like you to consider.

Up 'til now, I've found myself appreciative of your comments, abrasive though they sometimes are, but the stuff you've been posting in the last 24 hours (here and at AtBC) has the whiff of bigotry about it. I suggest you do some self-reflection and make sure that you're not crossing that line.

First off, why isn't teaching kids your values child abuse? Play devil's advocate, pun intended. What if you're wrong about the way the world works? What if teaching kids your values is crippling them, preventing them from understanding vital moral truths? What if people really are stuck doing wrong and harmful things because they can't reach that first step in the 12-step program-- the realization that their moral problems are bigger than they themselves can handle? In short, what if the core of the Christian worldview on morals-- the idea that people naturally do bad things and are not capable of fixing themselves-- has some truth about it? I am sure that you would not be so arrogant as to insist that you have been given absolute knowledge that your worldview is right and that the Christian worldview is completely wrong!

Second question: whenever I see someone describe their view toward another group of people as HATE (in all caps, no less), red flags go up. How much do you really know about missionaries, STJ? (I could extend that question to a number of other posters, here and at AtBC, who are or have waxed rabid on the subject.) Is "The Poisonwood Bible" a fair rendering of what missionaries are and what they do? Or is it a stereotype? How would you know? And-- last but certainly not least-- what the f*** have YOU done recently to improve the lives of people in the Third World? Do you realize how much medical care, how much education, how many basic needs missionaries provide?

Are a lot of missionaries nothing better than empty-headed proselytizers who go to foreign cultures with nothing more in mind than trying to get people to mouth their magic formula and act like Westerners? You bet a lot of them are. And a lot of them are saving lives that you never even thought about saving. When you get off your can and take some of that work off their hands, you can gripe about missionaries.

STJ, I respect you, even though this e-mail may not make it sound that way. In fact, I respect you enough to assume that, unlike the jerks on the ID side that we constantly deal with, you've got the maturity to reflect on some of the stuff you've been posting and back down from it if you feel it's appropriate. Ditto for Registered User and k.e. and the other folks who seem to frequently assume that everyone here at PT shares the opinion that religion can be perfectly equated with some sort of psychological illness.

To that latter bunch: kindly think before you post. Think outside your box. Try to see the world through somebody else's eyes. Capacity for self-reflection and self-criticism is one of the vital traits that makes the community of evolutionary biologists infinitely wiser than the ID community. Let's cultivate that same spirit of self-criticism in areas other than science.

Nick: please feel free to relocate this to AtBC. I probably would have posted it there in the first place, but I can't recall my password for the life of me.

Those of you who disagree with what I've written here: this is a lot more combative than the post I'd probably make if I had gotten more sleep over the last 48 hours. (IOW, I don't have a really strong interest in defending it.) Sorry for making this a drive-by posting, but I won't be checking in frequently to engage in any sort of debate. It's the end of the semester, I've got papers to grade up the wazoo, and the wazoo is a nasty place to have papers. If you like, dismiss this post as the inappropriate, frustrated venting of someone who's read one too many term papers that cite Wikipedia as a scientific reference.

"How can we misuse evidence, or mislead with statistics?" -Nancy Pearcey

What possible motivation could she have for doing that?

I can't say that I agree with the thrust of this post - an excoriation of ID supporters for being like creationists.

— snaxalotl

However, their essential claim is that, all personal beliefs aside, ID is supported by the data...

Regardless, the idea that creationists are enamored of "evidence" is a joke and Nancy's claim to have found objective (i.e., "non-borrowed") "proof" that her deity is the One True Deity is 100% poppycock.

— Registered User

snax

Whatever their emotional motivation, these people at least have the integrity to publicly state that evidence is more important than faith for the purposes of this debate

The "integrity"?

Spare me.

More like "the nerve."

They are professional liars. "Evidence" for them is just sand to kick in others' faces, nothing more.

My advice is that every time you are compelled to give creationists "credit" for something they claim to do, DON'T.

It may make you feel good to be "cut them some slack" but rest asured they'll take the slack and run with it to left field and start right up again throwing feces at "materialists" and "homos" and whoever else is "destroying our culture."

Man Nick...that wasn't a response that was an absolute massacre! Poor Nancy...

I do love a good bitch slap smack down like this. The thing is, she makes sooooo easy to do!

I am constantly in awe at the utter dishonesty these pious, God-fearing, holier-than-thou Christians continuously demonstrate. I guess as long as you are lying in the name of your god, it is OK to lie.

Think outside your box. Try to see the world through somebody else's eyes.

That's good advice, Mr. Spitzer. It's a reasonable way for people to behave.

The problem is that you are giving your advice it to the wrong people.

You see: I'm not a religious fundamentalist. I'm not teaching kids lies to promote my "belief" in invisible omniscient beings. I'm not fighting to keep gay families from being treated equally by the government.

I want kids to see through the world through their own eyes, unclouded by bigotry-laden and willfully ignorant mythologies.

I realize that's virtually impossible but at least I can try.

Let's start with the stupid Pledge of Allegience and then scrub the junk of our money.

As for "missionaries," guess what? You don't have to be religious to want to help starving people. If all the religions in the world disappeared tomorrow, folks would still be helping each other and killing each other, just like they are today. The only difference would be that we could actually have a rational problem-solving discussion instead of pretending that certain solutions might "anger the Gods."

Certainly they believe this in their hearts, but when they don't incorporate it into their argument they shouldn't be attacked for it. Where they are like creationism for making the same facts-first claim, they shouldn't be attacked for being like creationism because this is not a bad thing; and where they are like creationism for using all the same old cretinous arguments, they shouldn't be attacked for being like creationism, but rather attacked for using crap arguments.

A simple question will uncover the creationists masking as ID-ists: "Do you accept the scientific conclusion that all species, including humans, are descended from a common ancestor?"

The only one who might answer yes would be Behe, but when you scratch the surface, he probably doesn't either. Certainly Pearcey wouldn't say yes. Therefore, she's a creationist. Pure and simple. So are Dembski, Minnich, Harris, and all the others.

"How can we misuse evidence, or mislead with statistics?" -Nancy Pearcey What possible motivation could she have for doing that?

For those of you who had input on the question i raised, I created a new topic to discuss it here:

http://www.antievolution.org/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi?s=44746f18d971802b;act=ST;f=14;t=2055

If you wish, you can paste your responses there so we don't have to bounce back and forth.

cheers

A simple question will uncover the creationists masking as ID-ists: "Do you accept the scientific conclusion that all species, including humans, are descended from a common ancestor?" The only one who might answer yes would be Behe, but when you scratch the surface, he probably doesn't either. Certainly Pearcey wouldn't say yes. Therefore, she's a creationist. Pure and simple. So are Dembski, Minnich, Harris, and all the others.

There may be good reasons for thinking that humans are redesigned monkeys. Even so, a design-theoretic perspective does not require that novel designs must invariably result from modifying existing designs. Hence, there may also be good reasons for thinking that a redesign process didn't produce humans and that, instead, humans were built them from the ground up (pun intended). Design theorists have yet to reach a consensus on these matters. Nevertheless, they have reached a consensus about the indispensability of intelligence in human origins.

— Dembski

Why are we altruistic? According to evolutionary ethics and evolutionary psychology (currently two of the hottest evolutionary subdisciplines), altruism is not a designer's gift to us and the apes; it does not reflect a designer's benevolence.

— Dembski

...the intentions of a designer and even the nature of a designer (whether, for instance, the designer is a conscious personal agent or an impersonal telic process) lie outside the scope of intelligent design.

— Dembski

While you're considering the ramifications of starting a thread on "teaching kids religion = child abuse" on PT vs. AtBC, there's something else I'd like you to consider.....kindly think before you post. Think outside your box. Try to see the world through somebody else's eyes. Capacity for self-reflection and self-criticism is one of the vital traits that makes the community of evolutionary biologists infinitely wiser than the ID community. Let's cultivate that same spirit of self-criticism in areas other than science.

— B. Spitzer

I respect you enough to assume that ... you've got the maturity to reflect on some of the stuff you've been posting and back down from it if you feel it's appropriate.

please feel free to relocate this to AtBC

What if teaching kids your values is crippling them, preventing them from understanding vital moral truths?

ack. change you're to your.

not enough coffee today.

A brilliant post Nick. Despite the non-YEC protests of Behe and Dembski ID is simply too tainted with YEC and of course would never come clean on the age of the earth. This has become far more apparent since 2000.

Meanwhile over here ID still appeals to thsoe who are repelled by Dawkins and dont want to be YEC, but get seduced that way anyway.

I teach MY kid MY values.... -it is not for me to judge how YOU raise YOUR kids - I'll raise my kids etc. The reason there is a debate is that fundies are not content with this, THEY want to corrupt the public school system to teach MY kids THEIR values, THAT's the crux of the problem!

Until Dover and the aftermath, the IDers got a lot of sympathy for their faith - reporters would take the view that even if they might be ignorant or wrong about evolution, but their quest for Truth was sincere.

A simple question will uncover the creationists masking as ID-ists: "Do you accept the scientific conclusion that all species, including humans, are descended from a common ancestor?" The only one who might answer yes would be Behe, but when you scratch the surface, he probably doesn't either. Certainly Pearcey wouldn't say yes. Therefore, she's a creationist. Pure and simple. So are Dembski, Minnich, Harris, and all the others.

ID is simply too tainted with YEC and of course would never come clean on the age of the earth. This has become far more apparent since 2000.

Major Christian denomination(s) defend(s) traditional doctrine of creation

My point is that the IDists have taken on the rhetoric of objective, data-first analysis. They say (1) this distinguishes them from creationists and (2) they're doing objective science. But reality shows (1) the creationists used this same rhetoric also and (2) the evidence shows (dinos-humans and the origin of information, in this post) that they just have no idea what they are yammering about when it comes to science.

— Nick

I'll add that my argument only applies to the extent that someone is arguing a pure ID position in isolation. Where someone is representing, say, the Discovery Institute I think it's quite reasonable to highlight the DIs long history of explicit religious motivation.

I propose as the official term for closet IDists who were only "hanging out with" Creationsits until ID came along be the term "cdesign proponentists."

[I wonder why that would be]

The Wedge Document was supposed to be 'secret'....

Until it got leaked out, that is.

The Discovery Institute blurp you get connected to when you click on her name claims that she is a senior fellow, but she is only listed as a fellow. Is this a mistake? You'd think that Witt would do something for his fellowship money. Why hasn't he corrected glitches like this and listing Meyer and West as plural Directors and assistant directors. What was his English PhD for?

[Why hasn't he corrected glitches like this and listing Meyer and West as plural Directors and assistant directors. What was his English PhD for?]

Does the term 'functional retards' cross anyone's mind when discussing the DI(Deluded Idiots)?

The Discovery Institute blurp you get connected to when you click on her name claims that she is a senior fellow, but she is only listed as a fellow. Is this a mistake? You'd think that Witt would do something for his fellowship money. Why hasn't he corrected glitches like this and listing Meyer and West as plural Directors and assistant directors. What was his English PhD for?

[The DI fellows list has evolved over time]

Thats' right, Dumby(er...Dembski). The truth is that you can't escape evolution.

It's important not to equivocate between two sorts of creationist: the explicitly bible-first, and the later evolution of fact-first rhetoric. In (1) IDists are clearly saying they're distinct from the former, and I don't think it's much of an argument to say "yeah but, you're still like the latter".

If they were like the former then it would be fair to attack them for explicit religious motivation. But being like the latter is precarious grounds for attacking their motivation, when it's sufficient to demonstrate that their fact arguments are logically baseless. We can infer religious motivation because the arguments don't agree with any reasonable thought process, but do dovetail with peculiarly christian belief. I couldn't agree with you more on (2), but to me the only solution is to keep returning to the point "but that's a crap argument", rather than getting mired in an unnecessary fight over how the argument is bad because creationists used to use it.

Dear all,

I do not know if any of you are aware of this, but the Answers in Genesis website has a few essays written by Nancy Pearcy. Seeing that AIG finds the Intelligent Design Movement to be one gigantic sell-out, I do not think that they would allow Ms. Pearcy the right to publish on their website unless she toed the line on the matters most dear to them.

This, I believe, is another iron in the fire. I suppose if you wanted to give Ms. Pearcy's presentation at UCD the most charitable of all interpretations, you could simply assume that her thinking had changed over the years and she had changed her mind about some of the things she once endorsed while writing for the Bible/Science Newsletter. However, the fact that her essays are presently available on the AIG website makes this, in my view, somewhat improbable. Nancy Pearcy has not changed her mind and she, like Paul Nelson, is yet another recent creationist working for the Discovery Institute.

This also makes her statements at UC Davis seem quite confused or simply untruthful. I think we are all awaiting Ms. Pearcy to clarify what intellectual journey she might have taken when going from BSN to DI.

That's how I see it

MB

Re "The DI fellows list has evolved over time,"

You mean it wasn't intelligently designed? ;)

Henry

snax

Integrity is in very short supply within ID, so I'm asking that some credit be given when they show a little integrity in selecting some of their ground rules.

Let's see.

ID peddlers are mostly bald-faced liars or ignorant people who insist that they aren't ignorant.

So when one of them appears to be telling the truth, we should "give them credit"?

Screw that.

It has almost become "conventional wisdom" that ID is different from creationism because it is data first, has more PhDs, has more peer-reviewed articles, uses more technical arguments, etc., but actually these are all just plain myths derived from ID talking points and wishful thinking.

Funny how that happens.

It's the miracle of propaganda!

you are insufficiently cynical

— nick

my specific beef here is that the ID movement is pretending that they are different from creationists because the ID movement says indignantly that they are data first

Give me a break, snax.

Yes they are pitifully ignorant of the history of creationism

No, they're not. They read Judge Jones decision. Surely Casey Luskin knows Barbara Forrest's book very well.

They only appear ignorant because they have to be careful about shooting themselves in the foot and/or shooting out one or more of the poles holding up the Big Tent.

I think it's unfortunate for clarity that even the IDists have now accepted that wearing the creationist label automatically makes you a loser,

Whatever. It's unfortunate too that even white heterosexual bigots have now accepted that wearing the blatant racist label automatically makes them losers. Gosh, I sure do feel bad for them.

much as Bill O'Reilly considers any argument won when he satisfactorily demonstrates that someone is a liberal.

Actually it's not like that at all, snax, but I'll leave it up to you to figure out why.

I feel that those creationists who have disavowed bible-first epistemology, and can make a face-value claim of their focus not being bible-directed (because hey, anybody could just happen to believe one fact which is consistent with the bible) have earned the right to have their argument heard as a type III creationist.

Ah yes. I'm not against gay marriage because the Bible says so. I'm against gay marriage because I read a study that shows that gays are more likely to molest kids. So I guess I've "earned my right to have my argument heard," whatever the heck that means.

Where they lose the right to argument is their frequent refusal to engage in rational debate, not in being type III creationists (which is merely a consequence of refusing to think clearly).

Frequent refusal? You see, snax, you're just spreading the myth that Nick was talking about. It's not a "frequent" refusal. It's EVERY FREAKING TIME.

When has a creationist or ID peddler ever engaged in a rational debate about evolutionary biology?

The answer is never. When you pretend otherwise by using words such as "frequent" (implying that they infrequently do debate evolutionary biology honestly and rationally) you do us all a disservice.

Please stop. Either that or start being fair with your generosity, i.e., let's invite the Grand Wizard back into mainstream discourse for his "views" on black culture. Most of the time he's a toxic creep but occasionally ...

or endure a tireless whine about argument by association.

Short version: arguments by association can be very effective arguments in the context of political battles, especially when those arguments are supported by damning evidence.

Sleep on it, snax.

Um, when I first started writing on this issue, there weren't any ID people around. If you were interested in this issue, the only game in town was creationism. And so even though I didn't agree with everything in straight-line creationist thinking, um, I hung out with them, and I wrote on this issue, and I think they have a lot of good --- a lot of creationist arguments against evolution of course have been taken up by ID as well. Um, ID is, the history is real, ID is developed. And so when ID came along, I immediately said oh yeah that's much more congenial to the way I think, so in terms of my personal, you know, history, as soon as ID came along I said its much more the way I think.

— Nancy Pearcey

so, registered user. the enemy is always bad. we should always be extremely rude to the enemy regardless of whether they are making a point which is good, bad or indifferent. because of course they are always bad. all of them. because we have past examples of them being bad. and them always refers to the same people. and always being rude to them under every circumstance means we are always fighting the enemy. and fighting the enemy is always effective because, well, they're the enemy.

have you considered fundamentalist christianity? I think it might suit you.

I feel that those creationists who have disavowed bible-first epistemology

have you considered fundamentalist christianity? I think it might suit you.

Now now snax RU is just calling a spade a spade (in the non-American sense.
The general PC hand wringing where liars are not ACTUALLY called liars, but nice people who just haven't told the truth ...yet... and we can all wait around until they change their spots and be nice and.... you know not upset anyone ....IS WHY WE ARE HERE....sorry didn't mean to shout.
You might like to check out "Pseudoscience and Postmodernism: Antagonists or Fellow-Travelers?" . by Sokal;right click and download pdf

The really clever tactic that propagandists use is to take advantage of the misgivings YOU have on calling out mendaciousness because in normal society one does not yell out when someone is lying. Peer pressure has enabled them to succeed.
How about if you went to your bank and they outright lied to you, what would you do?
The ID gets buckets of money to FORM public opinion...they are the lowest form of lying liars and are absolute scum ....and that is putting it nicely.
They don't give a flying fig if YOU are nice to them or not, they DO rely on your impotence tho.

I still think they mostly see themselves as being different from bible first (type I) creationists.

Major Christian denomination(s) defend(s) traditional doctrine of creation

The DI fellows list has evolved over time, and sometimes fellows move back and forth from fellow to senior fellow status. There was a rumor/joke at one point that Paul Nelson was demoted for not finishing his book On Common Descent. But I don't think anyone has done a systematic analysis of the fellows list. Someone should get the old lists off of Wayback and see if any patterns emerge.

strange as it may seem, I consider calling someone a "fundy" as an insult actually means progress is being made wrt to general rejection of the "fundy tradition".

That would be a nice slap in the fat face of the Fundies!

Creationist=someone who believes in special creation.

— Sir_Toejam

I don't think we can say that "special creation" is a weasel word, the term goes back to the 1800's and was the standard way that everyone referred to the view of divine creation of organisms. I'm not sure what the original etymology of the word was, maybe it referred to "creation of species or perhaps there was once a distinction between "general creation" and "special creation" or something.

In other words, I'd be a happier camper if the creationists referred to their view as "special creation." "Intelligent design" is the important set of weasel words here...

As the slow grind of rational debate and reality forces them to make forceful public utterances of a reasonable nature, these utterances become internalized into the next generation of termites. It looks to me like they're slowly evolving into theological evolutionists.

if they are going to pretend they're motivated by facts then you attack them on that basis or endure a tireless whine about argument by association.

In (1) IDists are clearly saying they're distinct from the former, and I don't think it's much of an argument to say "yeah but, you're still like the latter". If they were like the former then it would be fair to attack them for explicit religious motivation. But being like the latter is precarious grounds for attacking their motivation, when it's sufficient to demonstrate that their fact arguments are logically baseless.

Of COURSE these people hold these opinions because of their religious convictions - there's no other reasonable explanation for tenaciously sticking to such unwieldy chains of logic.

However, their essential claim is that, all personal beliefs aside, ID is supported by the data, and I think these claims (which, after all, are not hard to refute) should be taken at face value.

Whatever their emotional motivation, these people at least have the integrity to publicly state that evidence is more important than faith for the purposes of this debate, and the fact that they are forced to make this claim after decades of argument is itself a victory for science and truth.

Of course, much of "creation science" has been making the same facts-first claim for decades, but this is not the way in which being like creationism is bad. The worst way to be like creationism is to publicly claim that bible trumps fact (e.g. as anybody working for ICR must attest).

As a secondary issue only, where their arguments are ludicrously bad AND conveniently consistent with a religious rather than a scientific view, I think we are entitled to infer that their motivation is religious.

But there is no need to invoke their religious motivations as a primary attack on the quality of their arguments.

In other words, I'd be a happier camper if the creationists referred to their view as "special creation." "Intelligent design" is the important set of weasel words here...

— Nick Matzke

Of course, "paramount" was meant where I wrote "tantamount".

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/b8ykm

To me the issue here is simple.
-ID claims, both implicitly and explicitly, to be distinct and separate from Creationism.
-We know this isn't the case.
-Calling them on a lie is calling them on a lie.

They want to limit the definition of Creationism strictly to YEC (when it suits them in court, but not when you're writing books to win the hearts and minds of the masses), which is a falsehood. They want to deny their connections to earlier forms of Creationism, which is dishonest. They claim to be evidence-based, which is untrue.
This isn't simple guilt by association, this is exposing demonstrable lies in their talking points. It's the same thing that's been going on for years and years. Even if the whole idea was to say "You're just Creationists," that's not as empty as it sounds because all of the Creationist arguments that ID uses have already been debunked, so they can't pretend they're offering anything new. Since their strategy is to worm their way into every aspect of culture by changing their name to avoid the rightly-earned stigma carried by Creationism, pointing out that they are in fact Creationism under a new label is not a fallacious tactic.
This is all besides the fact that we HAVE been dealing with all their other arguments and talking points ad nauseam.
I don't see a justification for the complaining about showing them to be Creationists. We know what they're doing, THEY certain know what they're doing because we have "secret" documents and published materials establishing outright their MO of name-changing. They can't be called ignorant of the history of Creationism, because the majority of them actively participated in that history as shown in this very post we're discussing. It is precisely because of ID tactics that exposing them as Creationists is necessary.

The whole "we aren't creationists" ploy is simply a legal necessity.

— lenny

Creationists have "talked the science talk" for 80+ years

— nick

Merely bad science is not outlawed, while religiously-motivated bad science is...Why are we supposed to pretend that we can't figure it out as well?

— Glen

[Re "The DI fellows list has evolved over time,"

You mean it wasn't intelligently designed? ;]

The intelligent designer would never design creatures as dumb as the DI fellows. If he did, he wouldn't be an INTELLIGENT designer anymore.

*g*

Relying on overt similarity to creationism is setting yourself up for a loss against the first group which can do a decent job of hiding their motivations behind the facade of an organisation which only avows follow the facts.

— snaxalotl

This is a very fair comment, especially as it alludes to the situation that many in this sector are pretty much anti-education in general. They only change as much as they are forced to by the evolutionary pressure of law and good science and I don't advocate relaxing this pressure.

oh they certainly never admit they're wrong, and they don't give a fig for scientific developments. It's scientific pressure (thanks to nick etc) not scientific development which changes them.

oh they certainly never admit they're wrong

Oh, the irony.