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Rewriting History & Twisting the Law Doesn’t Turn ID Into Creationism
- From Discovery Institute
By Discovery Institute - A Positive Vision of the Future
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Ironic
that Luskin accuses the NCSE of rewriting history and law when both clearly established the evolution of creationists via cdesign proponentsists to "design proponents". The link between the ignorance of its predecessors is continued in ID via the work of such 'luminaries' as Jonathan Wells who repeats much of the same flawed arguments against evolutionary theory.
Judge Jones was not fooled by the attempts to explain, after the fact, the obvious transition which coincided (design inference) with the Edwards ruling which ruled creationism to be unconstitutional. In an obvious attempt to shed any reference to God, delegating Him to an irrelevant role, ID has attempted to circumvent the rulings of law. And it has not worked, because ID is based on the same flawed arguments that doomed creationism (sudden appearance is still an essential component) and the argument is that ID cannot distinguish between the natural and the supernatural. However, real science can deal quite well with the natural but when it comes to the supernatural, design inferences have historically been unreliable.
Look at the recent findings related to the bacterial flagellum which have totally undermined Behe's argument for design. Has Behe admitted that his inference for design was flawed? Has he admitted the impact of such falsification on ID? Of course not. It's best not to inform ID supporters of these inconvenient facts of science.
If ID were all in favor of teaching the controversy, it seems reluctant to explain the controversy.
As to twisting the law, Luskin's attempts to dismiss Judge Jones's ruling are self evident even though Luskin, who is a lawyer himself, should know better. Hearing Casey use the term revisionism in his own posting is just the pinnacle of irony.
Never mind though, Luskin has managed to give away the playbook for the next season and I am sure the NCSE is looking forward to the next encounter. So far, they have quite a winning streak in supporting science.
- PvM
September 23, 2008 9:30AM
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Perhaps the Discovery Institute could calm for a moment?
What's a "Darwinist?" Can someone who says that the other side is mishandling terms really afford to label someone as "Darwinist?" I neither worship Darwin nor accept his writings as absolute truth. ID, on the other hand, may be compatible with a wide range of faiths, but they don't seem terribly interested. The only proponents of ID I've ever spoken with are Christian.
If there was the presence of an Intelligent Designer, who else would it matter to? Pantheists don't care; they already think the world's workings are in harmony according to overlapping plans. Agnostics are noncommittal about the designer, not the least because there's no proof of intelligent design. So all of those meet science without presuppositions and with respect for what is real.
The Abrahamic religions center most strongly around a judgemental god. If there were not the idea of judgement, would the possibility of an intelligence with the power to create life even matter? It's only the idea that this is the god that humanity answers to that makes Christians push for the reality of ID's design and the idea that it should be proselytized.
- sharky
September 24, 2008 7:46AM
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You can run, but you can't hide
Luskin quotes:
"May not the principle of uniformity then be used in a broader frame of consideration to suggest that DNA had an intelligent cause at the beginning?"
This would seem to be the usual trick of "origins science" - an attempt to claim that abiogenesis is impossible.
But another opinion is:
"The book argues that the origin of new organisms is "in an immaterial cause: in a blueprint, a plan, a pattern, devised by an intelligent agent.""
This refers to "new organisms" - that would mean new species, not abiogenesis.
And:
"creation means that various forms of life began abruptly"
This is definitely anti-evolution creationism without specifying a creator explicitly.
Then:
In a new draft of Pandas, approximately 150 uses of the root word "creation", such as "creationism" and "creationist", were systematically changed to refer to intelligent design. The definition remained essentially the same, with "intelligent design" substituted for "creation", and "intelligent creator" changed to "intelligent agency".
So, the definition remained the same, only the nouns were changed. I wonder why the judge ruled that this really was the same old creation story?
"the basic arguments for design pre-date Christianity"
Fine. The philosophers didn't have a clue about evolution back then and you still don't have a clue today.
- onein6billion
September 30, 2008 8:40PM
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