Science and Religious Belief

[Daniel Peterson]

It would seem your experience has not adequately been represented by the whole of creationism or its history then.

Perhaps so. Still, I can only speak from my own experience, which, like most everything about me, is manifestly inadequate if not sinister.

This is a tad strange as you've directly and favorably cited Hugh Ross who runs an explicitly old earth creationist apologetics organization.

Maybe I have. I don't recall. He certainly doesn't play a major role in my life, thinking, or writing, though. And, if you wish to charge me with having devoted too little effort to studying the nuances of his thought, I readily plead guilty.

Why do think terms like "day-age creationist," "gap creationist," "progressive creationist," and even "young earth creationist" exist if not to distinguish between the sub-varieties of creationism?

Of the four, I've heard only the latter.

I always presumed that it emphasized the commitment of such folks to a six-day or six-thousand-year period of creation, as opposed to somebody who might imagine, say, that God's acts of special creation included the dinosaurs (for example) at a much earlier period. I hold to neither position.

Or there could be an extensive body of evidence that this what they've done. Ron Numbers would be an appropriate citation here, but I think I'll go with Barbara Forrest's expert testimony in the Dover trial. But in my experience, when the details of these sort of things are brought up, you end up being much, much to busy to participate. So in anticipation of that, I wouldn't want to bring down your busy schedule. I hope you enjoy the opera, poetry reading, or academic conference that you'll be attending shortly.

The personal insult is duly noted.

The fact is that I've paid attention to none of this, so your allegation that I've adopted an alleged strategy from the ID theorists collides with the fact that I'm unaware of any such strategy on their part. You're simply wrong in your mind-reading, and no amount of sneering will change that.

I'm accusing you of being influenced by intelligent design writing milieu that proposes all creationism really is young earth creationism.

And I'm responding, from a position of privileged, direct, personal knowledge, that your accusation is flatly false.

This is wrong on several levels, the one of which I focused on being historical. I think this is likely because you show a history of being influenced by ID writings and that is the primary source that myth flows from. I think you can believe that reasoning without being part of, or even, aware that this is a conscious strategy to dissociate for ID from creationism for legal and rhetorical purposes. I'm consciously avoiding that question. If you choose to continue on this point, we can adopt the more conservative statement that you misunderstand the history, relatively recent no less, of the term creationism and creationists.

I have no idea why this minor point, which you yourself claim is off-topic, is so important to you.

In any case, if you want to insist that I misunderstand the history of the terms creationism and creationist, feel free to do so. I'm not at all convinced that you're correct, but I don't really care that much.

So even right after I point out this is a strawman argument that misrepresents my views, you continue to use it.

You had just defined creationism, very expansively, as referring to a conviction that "there is empirical evidence of that proposition [that God is 'a creative force behind life'] in the features of life."

So broad a definition would make even Gerard Manley Hopkins a "creationist." I find that rather ridiculous.

That that's gusto. Here are the alternatives for the definition of the word creationism you are allowing on the table:

1) Young earth creationism.

2) Any view that holds that God acts as a creative force in the biological world.

Nope.

Your view, expressed above, seems to be that anybody is a "creationist" who believes that God's creative force in the biological world is discernible. I think that's absurd, and so vague and broad as to be trivial and useless.

Since I disagree with 1, I somehow must be endorsing two. It's an fun tactic, but after it's been corrected, you're supposed to stop doing it.

I never did it.

For those who think that old earth creationism is just to vauge to be useful, it bears repeating that it approximately refers to the types of beliefs and arguments found in a social/apologetic movement that called/calls itself creationism and accepted/accepts an old age for the earth. If you want a generic definition creationism that avoids both these categories, it is a system of thought closely associated with anti-evolutionism that argues life or some aspect of it was designed and there is empirical (read: scientific) evidence of this. Hopefully that will be sufficient to keep you from arguing that rejecting defining creationism in terms of young earth creationism implies that anyone who believes that God created life must be a creationist.

In that sense, I'm open to the idea of "creationism."

I'll let the evidence go where it goes. I won't dogmatically exclude the possibility, a priori, of evidence for design. That seems to me to be a properly scientific attitude.

[Ralph Man]

Perhaps so. Still, I can only speak from my own experience, which, like most everything about me, is manifestly inadequate if not sinister.

You know, some people exaggerate their flaws in order to sarcastically imply they don't have them. I'm sure glad we're not like that, though.

Maybe I have. I don't recall. He certainly doesn't play a major role in my life, thinking, or writing, though. And, if you wish to charge me with having devoted too little effort to studying the nuances of his thought, I readily plead guilty.

It's not the nuances of his thought. It's the primary thing for which he's known. And you've demonstrated you are quite familiar with him and his apologetics organization in heartily recommending his writing:

While I am on the issue, permit me also to commend a book by Hugh Ross, an astrophysicist/cosmologist and former postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology, entitled The Creator and the Cosmos.13 Dr. Ross has established an organization in southern California called "Reasons to Believe," which specializes in often quite intriguing scientific apologetics for a conservative form of Christianity. Like Professor Behe, he argues for the presence of intelligent design in the universe.

-Daniel C. Peterson

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/review/?vol=8&num=2&id=218

Yet here you are, barely aware of who he is, and seemingly oblivious to the fact that "Reasons to Believe" is an explicitly old earth creationist organization.

Of the four, I've heard only the latter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day-Age_creationism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gap_creationism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_creationism

You're welcome.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

I'm not familiar enough to say, though there's nothing all that broad about defining creationism in terms of a collection of arguments closely associated with anti-evolutionism that assert there is compelling scientific evidence that life was created in the features of life. Essentially, creationism is a label to describe the morass of modern biological design arguments. Ironically, it originally was developed because it sounded technical and sciency, but now is run away from precisely because it is so heavily associated with being unscientific.

I won't dogmatically exclude the possibility, a priori, of evidence for design. That seems to me to be a properly scientific attitude.

And thus imply that's what I'm doing. Even though I'm not.

[Daniel Peterson]

You know, some people exaggerate their flaws in order to sarcastically imply they don't have them. I'm sure glad we're not like that, though.

Some people want to make every disagreement personal.

I'm not like that, though.

It's not the nuances of his thought. It's the primary thing for which he's known. And you've demonstrated you are quite familiar with him and his apologetics organization in heartily recommending his writing:

While I am on the issue, permit me also to commend a book by Hugh Ross, an astrophysicist/cosmologist and former postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology, entitled The Creator and the Cosmos.13 Dr. Ross has established an organization in southern California called "Reasons to Believe," which specializes in often quite intriguing scientific apologetics for a conservative form of Christianity. Like Professor Behe, he argues for the presence of intelligent design in the universe.

-Daniel C. Peterson

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/review/?vol=8&num=2&id=218

Yet here you are, barely aware of who he is, and seemingly oblivious to the fact that "Reasons to Believe" is an explicitly old earth creationist organization.

You had better brush all that straw off of your clothes. Your straw man is finished.

I never said that I was 'barely aware of who he is." I know where he did his doctorate (Toronto) and his post-doc (Caltech), and that he's still based in or near Caltech (in Pasadena, near where I grew up).

I know that he accepts a very old earth, but I don't recall seeing him characterize himself as an "old earth creationist." If I did see it, it didn't register. I don't really care. And if that's not my only citation of Hugh Ross (in the course of hundreds and hundreds of published pages), which it may well be, it's close. If you're really determined to establish Hugh Ross as a significant influence on my thinking and even on my English usage, you're going to need to do quite a bit better than supplying a single brief quotation from very nearly fifteen years ago.

I'm curious: What, exactly, hangs on the question, for you, of whether my use of the term creationism was or was not influenced by ID theorists? Why, more and more plainly, do you seem determined to convince somebody or other -- it certainly can't be me! -- that I'm lying when I say that it was not?

Why do you obviously find it so irritating that I say that my personal experience with the usage of the term is entirely consistent with the fact that, as the relevant Wikipedia entry says (basing itself upon something from Ronald Numbers), "in 1929 in the United States the term 'creationism' first became specifically associated with Christian fundamentalist opposition to human evolution and belief in a young Earth" (emphasis mine)?

Why does this matter so much to you?

And, incidentally, yes, I will have to leave off from this discussion fairly soon. About a year ago, realizing that I would need an excuse to escape this thread, I scheduled Middle East Studies/Arabic 495 for this afternoon, and arranged for my office consultations to follow immediately thereafter.

[Ralph Man]

It's not the nuances of his thought. It's the primary thing for which he's known. And you've demonstrated you are quite familiar with him and his apologetics organization in heartily recommending his writing:

While I am on the issue, permit me also to commend a book by Hugh Ross, an astrophysicist/cosmologist and former postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology, entitled The Creator and the Cosmos.13 Dr. Ross has established an organization in southern California called "Reasons to Believe," which specializes in often quite intriguing scientific apologetics for a conservative form of Christianity. Like Professor Behe, he argues for the presence of intelligent design in the universe.

-Daniel C. Peterson

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/review/?vol=8&num=2&id=218

Yet here you are, barely aware of who he is, and seemingly oblivious to the fact that "Reasons to Believe" is an explicitly old earth creationist organization.

And here's another interesting quote from you:

If he really failed to distinguish the two, I think it was a serious mistake on his part. I think the distinction vital. I know that people like the biochemist Michael Behe and the mathematician William Dembski and the astrophysicist Hugh Ross and the Mormon plant physiologist Frank Salisbury are often quite explicit about the substantial difference between Intelligent Design thinking and young-earth creationism.

So here you are

1)Showing more reason to think you are influenced by prominent ID advocates like Micheal Behe and William Dembski in defining creationism in terms of young earth creationism.

and

2) Showing that you've even read Hugh Ross extensively enough to reference his views on what creationism is. You know, the guy who runs the old earth creationist organizationReasons to Believe.

[Ralph Man]

I know that he accepts a very old If you're really determined to establish Hugh Ross as a significant influence on my thinking and even on my English usage

Speaking of strawmen. All I was establishing is that you should be familiar with the existence of creationism also referring to old earth creationists what with you heartily recommending people go look into works of old earth creationism and all.

I'm curious: What, exactly, hangs on the question, for you, of whether my use of the term creationism was or was not influenced by ID theorists?

Nothing, which is why there is no need to focus on it.

Why do you obviously find it so irritating that I say that my personal experience with the usage of the term is entirely consistent with the fact that, as the relevant Wikipedia entry says (basing itself upon something from Ronald Numbers), "in 1929 in the United States the term 'creationism' first became specifically associated with Christian fundamentalist opposition to human evolution and belief in a young Earth" (emphasis mine)?

I'm not sure why, but you cut off part of that quote that is relevant "...though its usage was contested by other groups who believed in various concepts of creation." That that is in reference to the fact that creationists came in a variety of flavors, with each group applying the label. The Adventist apologists' efforts to coopt the label probably played a role in their later success in winning over most creationists, actually. By the 1980's, as Ron Numbers would say, the YEC's were successful in making people first think of them when they thought of creationists, but that does not invalidate the existence of other types of creationists or circumscribe the meaning of the term to only YEC. Charles Thaxton had every right to call himself a creationist, use terms like "creation hypothesis" to describe his views, and be aptly be described so before he coined the use of "Intelligent Design" to describe the same views.

Why does this matter so much to you?

One would think I'm talking to myself here.

[Ralph Man]

Double Post.

[Luigi]

Over on another board, focused (mostly in a critical, hostile, and often mocking manner) on Mormonism, a discussion (of sorts) has been going on for a while on the topic "Does religion dampen interest in science?"

I think that Mormons generally have great interest in science given the theological emphasis on learning and education. I am not surprised to see many members of the Church excelling in various scientific fields.

I think there are, however, obstacles that all religious people have with respect to science. Religion implies that certain questions regarding our origins, instincts, abilities and culture are resolved and/or that religious 'truth' contradicts scientific conclusions. For example, evolutionary biology would suggest all our instincts, including love, hate, fear, sympathy, and even spirituality result from the interplay of environment and genetics. It would also be a valid scientific question to explore the origins of the concept of God and spiritual emotions and see how those concepts and emotions were/are beneficial and how those benefits can be obtained by other methods. The point is that I think there are important questions of scientific exploration that I think religious people will either not be inclined to ask or will otherwise avoid.

Certainly there are religious people who set aside their religious beliefs on these matters and explore the science but I think there are many who feel uncomfortable enough with the potential conflict that they avoid the subjects all together. I know that personally, for example, that I found great interest in the subject of biology but decided to not study it after high school because I felt too much cognitive dissonance over evolution. I recognize I'm a single anecdote but I can state that at least based on my own personal experience that yes, religion can dampen interest in certain aspects of science.

[Daniel Peterson]

So you really are determined to reveal me as a liar.

How charming. How conducive to good conversation.

I still don't quite see the motivation. And, of course, I deny the charge.

And here's another interesting quote from you:

So here you are

1)Showing more reason to think you are influenced by prominent ID advocates like Micheal Behe and William Dembski in defining creationism in terms of young earth creationism.

But, of course, I said nothing whatsoever about your topic. I have always used creationism to refer solely or principally to "young-earth creationism." Adding the modifier simply makes explicit what I think.

Why beat around the bush? You think I'm lying. Why don't you just say it?

(Again, why this is important to you -- unless your point is to stigmatize me as a liar -- eludes me. It is, as you yourself have said, off topic. It's also distinctly trivial. And I can't see what hinges on it. Whether you call Dembski and Behe and other ID theorists "creationists" or not is a matter of rather minor importance to me.)

2) Showing that you've even read Hugh Ross extensively enough to reference his views on what creationism is. You know, the guy who runs the old earth creationist organizationReasons to Believe.

I'm unaware of Hugh Ross calling himself an "old earth creationist," or, for that matter, even a "creationist." If he does, that's his business.

Friedrich von Hayek famously called himself a "classical liberal," disdaining the term conservative. Most conservatives, myself included, call him a conservative, regarding his insistence upon the other term as a tad confusing.

Could you, by the way, supply a date for my second reference to Hugh Ross. Plainly, two references to him over the course of thousands of message board posts and perhaps even thousands of published pages demonstrate that he's been a pivotal influence on my thought and even on my linguistic habits. I wonder how many times I've referred to Bertrand Russell, Karl Marx, and Friedrich Nietzsche?

[Daniel Peterson]

All I was establishing is that you should be familiar with the existence of creationism also referring to old earth creationists what with you heartily recommending people go look into works of old earth creationism and all.

Well, I appreciate your input as to what I should be aware of.

But it's nothing that I've ever paid any attention to, and I don't see it as particularly important.

There are lots and lots of other things that interest me much more.

I'm not sure why, but you cut off part of that quote that is relevant "...though its usage was contested by other groups who believed in various concepts of creation."

I cut it off because you yourself have insisted on evidence that its usage has been contested. The rest of the quote seemed redundant, and I don't care to contest what it says.

By the 1980's, as Ron Numbers would say, the YEC's were successful in making people first think of them when they thought of creationists

Which demonstrates, yet again, that there's no need to invoke Hugh Ross to account for my sense of the term.

One would think I'm talking to myself here.

When it's publicly insinuated that I'm lying, I tend to respond.

The specific topic of my alleged lie is of, at most, secondary importance.

[Ralph Man]

So you really are determined to reveal me as a liar.

No. Showing inconsistencies or glaring gaps in knowledge with things you've said doesn't show that you are a liar. You could be incompetent or confused, for instance. You're free to whatever interpretation you like.

Could you, by the way, supply a date for my second reference to Hugh Ross.

If you're that interested, I could. I've seen you positively reference him a couple of times, so just thought I'd pull out a message board quote. I'd have to get it again if I forgot to link it. Does it mean that much to you?

Plainly, two references to him over the course of thousands of message board posts and perhaps even thousands of published pages demonstrate that he's been a pivotal influence on my thought and even on my linguistic habits.

Again with the strawman. All I did was give him as an example of someone famous for old earth creationism, known as an old earth creationist, that you clearly were familiar with and thus should be familiar with creationism referring more to than belief in a young earth. How you've managed to be familiar enough with Hugh Ross to demonstrate familiarity with the Reasons to Believe website and read and endorse his works, but not be familiar enough to know that he's an old earth creationist is beyond me, but I haven't insisted upon calling you a liar.

I wonder how many times I've referred to Bertrand Russell, Karl Marx, and Friedrich Nietzsche?

Favorably? I wonder too. But if you denied that atheists were sometimes communists, I can assure you I might be hunting down instances in which you've referenced Karl Marx. You might accuse me of accusing you of being a liar at that point and insist you didn't know of the relationship between Marx and communism, but like I said, I'm not interested in calling you a liar. If you didn't know. You didn't know.

[Greg Smith]

No. Showing inconsistencies or glaring gaps in knowledge with things you've said doesn't show that you are a liar. You could be incompetent or confused, for instance. You're free to whatever interpretation you like....

Again with the strawman. All I did was give him as an example of someone famous for old earth creationism, known as an old earth creationist, that you clearly were familiar with and thus should be familiar with creationism referring more to than belief in a young earth. How you've managed to be familiar enough with Hugh Ross to demonstrate familiarity with the Reasons to Believe website and read and endorse his works, but not be familiar enough to know that he's an old earth creationist is beyond me, but I haven't insisted upon calling you a liar.

This strikes me as kind of silly.

I have in front of me a copy of Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design (Barbara Forest and Paul R. Gross).

Now, obviously this is not a book that thinks very highly of creationism (in any form), and it clearly treats the ID movement (which tends to have a lot of old earth creationists).

Despite this, in their introductory chapter, they write of ID that it is "an upgraded form of the religious fundamentalist creationism long familiar in America." [p. 6]

So, ID is a change or "upgrade" from religious fundamentalist creationism.

They then go on to label ID as "Neo-creationism"--a designation that would hardly be necessary, if ID was universally and widely understood to be simply "creationism" tout court, tout simple. Phillip Johnson (arguably the grand-father of the ID movement) is discussed on p. 10 as "A Neo-creationist's Progress".

They continue:

Creationists, including the newest kind

[Greg Smith]

Found another one:

The old-style, young-earth creationism is unlikely to be tolerated on mainstream campuses, even religiously affiliated ones like Baylor.... [p. 310]

Again, one sees the standard usage as referring to YEC, with ID a relatively novel variant....

GLS

[changed]

I think that Mormons generally have great interest in science given the theological emphasis on learning and education. I am not surprised to see many members of the Church excelling in various scientific fields.

I think there are, however, obstacles that all religious people have with respect to science. Religion implies that certain questions regarding our origins, instincts, abilities and culture are resolved and/or that religious 'truth' contradicts scientific conclusions. For example, evolutionary biology would suggest all our instincts, including love, hate, fear, sympathy, and even spirituality result from the interplay of environment and genetics.

I think most religious people would agree that love/hate/fear stem from our environment. We just think our environment includes more... includes being influenced by God/the Holy Spirit. Religion, when done right, adds more, rather than taking away.

If you are not a scribe/Pharisee - we can embrace all that true science offers and gain additional insights by adding our spiritual knowledge to secular knowledge. Ignoring God ignores vital puzzle pieces, without which, it is impossible to see the entire picture...

true science - there is the psudo-science / agenda driven false science - which should be perfectly fine to point out "This is not science!!!" Some people think you are denying science when you deny false theories... Everyone should be aware that false science does indeed exist, that there are multiple theories, and that it is part of the sci meathod to question, and not agree with some theories. Let's not confuse questioning and disagreeing with something as being anti-science, because it's not. Science thrives on questions, and disagreements. I find it sad that there is so much name-calling which goes on when someone questions or disagrees with something. Questions and alternative theories are encouraged by true scientists.

Alma 30:44...all things denote there is a God; yea, even the bearth, and call things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator.

Fred Hoyle (British astrophysicist): "A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question."

George Ellis (British astrophysicist): "Amazing fine tuning occurs in the laws that make this [complexity] possible. Realization of the complexity of what is accomplished makes it very difficult not to use the word 'miraculous' without taking a stand as to the ontological status of the word."

Paul Davies (British astrophysicist): "There is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all....It seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature

[cdowis]

(For the record, I regard ID efforts to date as singularly bad science and generally bad apologetics. Few testable propositions have yet been provided, and those that were testable have failed tests (e.g., the supposed irreducible complexity of the human clotting cascade, for example).

In order to put your comment into context ==>> could you take the other side of the coin, and provide us a testable hypothesis in macro evolution (I think we agree that simple adaptations have been demonstrated), one which has been tested and found valid.

Just an example or two. And you might tell us how many years after Darwin that these hypotheses were tested and proven. Ten.... twenty years. Or is it a matter a several decades, etc.

To put this into context, the history of evolution has been replete with exciting discoveries, only decades later to uncover misinterpretation of the data, if not outright charlatans and contrived evidence.

[Greg Smith]

In order to put your comment into context ==>> could you take the other side of the coin, and provide us a testable hypothesis in macro evolution (I think we agree that simple adaptations have been demonstrated), one which has been tested and found valid.

Sure. The existence of DNA was not even a blip on Darwin's radar. Yet, Darwinian theory pretty much requires a segregating method of inheritance (the "blending model" common at Darwin's time would result in variant traits being invariably swamped out).

Thus, the existence of Mendelian and post-Mendelian genetics is a big hit.

Following the DNA line of thinking, Darwinian macroevolution implies common descent and a nested hierarchy of organisms. DNA sequencing demonstrated this in spades. A field that didn't even exist in Darwin's time would converge upon the same explanation as Darwin macroevolutionary theory. You can take cytochrome from a yeast cell (40% sequence homology with humans) in a human cell, and it will work. That's cool. Sequence differences have no functional significance, since they work in any cells. Yet, the sequence divergence in eukaryotic organisms is exactly the pattern that macroevolutionary theory would predict. But, Darwin didn't know about DNA, cytochrome, or anything like unto it. Anyway you slice it, that's a nice hit, from completely different assumptions and an utterly unrelated data set.

All that said, I hasten to point out again that I don't regard myself as an "evolutionist"--I merely think the best data should always be used, and have found those that critique the "modern synthesis" of evolution usually don't appear to know what they're talking about, or don't deal with the most robust cases. All I know about the evolution controversy for sure is that the evolutionary argument is never (or virtually never, but I have yet to encounter a counter-example) fairly represented if it is mentioned in a gospel context. This strikes me as A Very Bad thing, even if evolution is completely false--because, people eventually get to college or university and find that the straw-man that has been beaten up so handily in (say) Seminary class isn't the real deal.

I do think making sure that the discussion is actually framed in accurate terms is important--even (or especially) if we disagree with it. For only by really understanding the arguments will I (or we) recognize a good answer when one comes along, and only then will we see genuine flaws. It is better to clear out the false answer(s) and say "I don't know" than to keep the hoary old nonsense.

If one does not know that 2+3=5, that is unfortunate. It is even more unfortunate if one is convinced that it is 7, 8, or 5,301,302. One will make better decisions and judgments treating it as an unknown than as a "known" false value.

[Greg Smith]

Just an example or two. And you might tell us how many years after Darwin that these hypotheses were tested and proven. Ten.... twenty years. Or is it a matter a several decades, etc.

Sorry, I provided two examples, but didn't give dates.

1) Mendel was published pre-Darwin, but there's no evidence that I know of that Darwin incomporated his insights. Indeed, this lack of a understood method of inheritance is arguably one of the theory's biggest problems in Darwin's lifetime. Darwinism actually faded in the last part of the 19th century; there were various evolutionary theories, but they were not by natural selection, had some directionality in them, etc. The resurgence of Darwinism required the rediscovery (circa 1900, IIRC) of Mendel, and incorporation of population genetics models (e.g., JBS Haldane) to form the "modern synthesis". (It is not surprising that the Roberts-Joseph Fielding Smith-Talmage affair regarding evolutionary theory happened when it did, because that's when Darwinism was very much back on the front burner. (One doesn't often get this sense from the Whig histories of science that portray the Darwinian model as inexorable because it is the current one--a good book on this is by one of the leading historians of evolutionary thought--Peter J. Bowler, Evolution: The History of An Idea ISBN 0520261283. He also has two others that presumably tell more detail, which are on my to do list but I haven't read yet:

* The Eclipse of Darwinism: Anti-Darwinian Evolutionary Theories in the Decades Around 1900 ISBN 080184391X

* The Mendelian Revolution ISBN 0485113759

2) Sequence homology of cytochrome c. I know some of this work had been done by the 1970s, IIRC. Since Watson and Crick didn't work out the structure of DNA until 1953, it would be sometime in the mid to late 1970s, I suspect, but I don't know the very first time the notion was applied to macroevolutionary theory. (Sequencing wasn't really technically possible before the 1970s, and DNA stuff didn't really get going until the last half of the decade.)

Thus, in either case, the confirmatory data was available several decades after Darwin and Wallace at least.

GLS

[cdowis]

Sure. The existence of DNA was not even a blip on Darwin's radar. Yet, Darwinian theory pretty much requires a segregating method of inheritance (the "blending model" common at Darwin's time would result in variant traits being invariably swamped out).

Thus, the existence of Mendelian and post-Mendelian genetics is a big hit.

And how does that differentiate between evolution and ID. Cannot a Intelligent Designer use DNA to design and propagate that design? Your proof needs to examine differential aspects of evolution, such as random mutation producing the complex organisms we see today vs a conscious design, for example.

Following the DNA line of thinking, Darwinian macroevolution implies common descent and a nested hierarchy of organisms. DNA sequencing demonstrated this in spades.

Please give us specific proof of common descent. For example, research has shown a close relationship between the whale and the bovine. Tell us how that has worked out.

A field that didn't even exist in Darwin's time would converge upon the same explanation as Darwin macroevolutionary theory. You can take cytochrome from a yeast cell (40% sequence homology with humans) in a human cell, and it will work. That's cool. Sequence differences have no functional significance, since they work in any cells. Yet, the sequence divergence in eukaryotic organisms is exactly the pattern that macroevolutionary theory would predict. But, Darwin didn't know about DNA, cytochrome, or anything like unto it. Anyway you slice it, that's a nice hit, from completely different assumptions and an utterly unrelated data set.

Interesting, yes; cool, yes; proof, no. Do you understand the scientific method -- testing a hypothesis. Twenty-twenty HINDSIGHT is not science but apologetics.

All that said, I hasten to point out again that I don't regard myself as an "evolutionist"--I merely think the best data should always be used, and have found those that critique the "modern synthesis" of evolution usually don't appear to know what they're talking about, or don't deal with the most robust cases.

With all due respect, you have shown a lack of knowledge of what it means to prove something through scientific methods, and how to differentially prove evolution and simultaneously exclude ID.

[Greg Smith]

With all due respect, you have shown a lack of knowledge of what it means to prove something through scientific methods, and how to differentially prove evolution and simultaneously exclude ID.

Well, if you say so. :-) I had thought my undergrad studies in research physiology, my time in graduate level classes of physiology research, my two summers of research in cellular physiology and the epidemiology of human injury, and then my medical degree had taught me a thing or two about science and how to do it. :-)

You're obviously asking for something different than I understood: you want a "proof of evolution that also disproves ID." That's a slightly different thing conceptually than asking for "a testable hypothesis in macro evolution." Testable hypotheses I can give you. If you want

[cdowis]

Well, if you say so. :-) I had thought my undergrad studies in research physiology, my time in graduate level classes of physiology research, my two summers of research in cellular physiology and the epidemiology of human injury, and then my medical degree had taught me a thing or two about science and how to do it. :-)

You're obviously asking for something different than I understood: you want a "proof of evolution that also disproves ID." That's a slightly different thing conceptually than asking for "a testable hypothesis in macro evolution." Testable hypotheses I can give you. If you want

[Ralph Man]

This strikes me as kind of silly.

I have in front of me a copy of Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design (Barbara Forest and Paul R. Gross).

Now, obviously this is not a book that thinks very highly of creationism (in any form), and it clearly treats the ID movement (which tends to have a lot of old earth creationists).

Despite this, in their introductory chapter, they write of ID that it is "an upgraded form of the religious fundamentalist creationism long familiar in America." [p. 6]

So, ID is a change or "upgrade" from religious fundamentalist creationism.

They then go on to label ID as "Neo-creationism"--a designation that would hardly be necessary, if ID was universally and widely understood to be simply "creationism" tout court, tout simple. Phillip Johnson (arguably the grand-father of the ID movement) is discussed on p. 10 as "A Neo-creationist's Progress".

It's called neo-creationism because it is the latest iteration of the creationist movement. It's also sometimes called "3rd wave" creationism with the 1920's era being the first, the scientific creationism era being the second, and this being the third. Creationism mostly disappeared off the public radar after the Supreme Court defeat in '87 until it reemerged during ID's public efforts in the mid to late 90's. Why would young earth creationism require the modifiers as well? Because it is a sub-variety. More to the point, ID isn't the only other kind of creationism. Traditional old earthers have been around as long as young earthers, with their relative fortunes in the creationist community rising and falling depending on the era.

Intelligent Design first emerges as a simply relabeling of a creationist textbook that was being developed in the early 80's. Literally everywhere where terms like "creation" and "creationists" appear, they just rewrite it to say "intelligent design" and "intelligent design proponents." The book was authored by progressive creationists, though it is respectful of young earthers in the text.* However, it would be unreasonable to expect the ID movement going forward to be entirely stagnant. So while the basic form of arguments never really changed for intelligent design advocates, the specific content has evolved. No one was applying the "what good is half a wing?" argument to the vertebrate immune system until Behe came along. (Though you can find the irreducible complexity argument prefigured in the creationist literature going back at least a few decades.) So we can distinguish ID as a new wave of creationism by its arguments in that respect. Their public relations and legal strategies are more sophisticated as well.

*Of Pandas and People treats the age of the earth as a point of dispute among "design proponents" (i.e. creationists). It favors the old earth position, but points out respectable scholars do argue for a young earth.

Again, it seems clear that the YEC are the predominant mode.

They still are in the lay public. Somewhere around 40% of the US population believes in young earth creationism, and among creationists that number is just as much a prevailing majority as it was in 1982. The difference is the ID movement, which is the principle face of creationist advocacy in the media right now, is roughly 66% old earth / 33% young earth with the old earthers leading the way. Back in the nadir of "scientific creationism" young earthers like Gish were the principle leaders. It is worth mentioning that by the court battles of the 80's, they were willing to take the same positions IDists do, at least for legal purposes, in that they just offered generic anti-evolution / design arguments and argued that the creator need not be a god per se.

Just because people in America are first inclined to think protestants and to a lesser extent Catholics when they hear the word "Christian" it does not follow that it is reasonable to refer to them as what constitutes a Christian. If someone naively does this at first, I can understand, but after correction it ceases to be a simple mistake.

They write too about how this kind of creationism is new and likely to appeal to a different subset beside the fundamentalists--strongly implying, it seems to me, that most creationism heretofore was of limited appeal save in fundamentalist (i.e., YEC) circles:

That's true.

Indeed, the whole title of their book seems predicated on the notion that people generally may well not realize that ID is a type of "creationism"--specifically because it is a "disguised" Trojan Horse that doesn't look like the old school creationism.

Yep.

So, are there many types of creationist? Yes, of course. But, this is not immediately obvious to those who have not followed the data closely,

This isn't a point I would disagree with with two caveats as they apply to DCP. First, if you are old enough to remember the height of scientific creationism, it was at that time apparent that there were old earth and young earth varieties if you paid even a little attention. "Day-age" creationism usually was the main variety of your old earther. Second, in addition to reading creationist writing extensively DCP has read the arguments from people like Forrest for why there are other variants of creationism, so he should constitute someone who has followed the data closely.

why necessary, if it is commonly understood that creationism is both old and young earth?) and then note of the many YEC also in the ID movement:

As Forrest and Gross argue, because creationism has been effectively ruled as unconstitutional to teach in public schools. ID advocates by and large are intensely interested in returning creationism to public schools, so it is necessary to distinguish themselves from creationists. So, some, though not all, take the tactic of arguing that creationism is YEC and since they are not YEC, they are not creationists. At the same time, creationism does have an negative reputation among many segments of non-fundamentalist society, so just for rhetorical purposes it helps to be not associated with it. ID acts as their "Trojan Horse" for teaching creationism.

On an aside, the 1979 CES OT manual seems inclined towards old earth "day-age" creationism while treating young earth views as a respectable minority position. In any case, it is able to clearly spell out various creationist positions on the age of the earth while being very much of its time.

[Daniel Peterson]

This isn't a point I would disagree with with two caveats as they apply to DCP. First, if you are old enough to remember the height of scientific creationism, it was at that time apparent that there were old earth and young earth varieties if you paid even a little attention. "Day-age" creationism usually was the main variety of your old earther. Second, in addition to reading creationist writing extensively DCP has read the arguments from people like Forrest for why there are other variants of creationism, so he should constitute someone who has followed the data closely.

I can't help but sensing at least a degree of personal animus (I seem to bring this sort of thing out in certain critics) in Ralph Man's rather obsessive insistence that my use of a term in a way of which he disapproves, but which, he implicitly acknowledges, has support in the common culture -- and with regard to a very minor issue in which I've never had much interest -- constitutes "baiting" (though the "bait" clearly caught him) and demonstrates me to be either dishonest (or, at least, disingenuous) or incompetent.

I've never paid any attention to what label, if any, Hugh Ross has adopted for his own position -- don't really care much -- and, for the record, have never read (nor even heard of) Forrest.

Happily, though, seeking a way to avoid engagement with Ralph Man, I've come up with a day (today) filled with classes and meetings through 9:30 PM, and then an early morning departure for Chicago that will have me there, and quite busy, through Monday evening. It's not, to borrow Ralph Man's earlier sneer, "the opera, poetry reading, or [an] academic conference," but it is a number of private meetings and a pair of public lectures that will, I have little doubt, reinforce Ralph Man's conviction that I flee serious discussion. (As if his pursuit of me on this matter constituted one!)

Here's a question for consideration, though: Perhaps ID theorists have a rhetorical/strategic reason for seeking to avoid being branded with the title creationist. Isn't it quite reasonable, though, to suspect that their critics have an equal and opposite rhetorical/strategic reason for insisting that they be branded with it? I inclined to think so. But, as I say, this is not, and has never been, a question of primary or even secondary importance for me. I'm much more interested in the substance of the discussion.

[Ralph Man]

I've never paid any attention to what label, if any, Hugh Ross has adopted for his own position -- don't really care much -- and, for the record, have never read (nor even heard of) Forrest.

First, Hugh Ross's notoriety derives principally from his old earth creationist advocacy. Not being aware of this while simultaneously reading his works and recommending others look into them is the equivalent of not being aware that Jeff Lindsay is an LDS apologist while heartily recommending people read his website as you have done. It's possible, but it is strange. I merely pointed this out reasonably following an organic development in the conversation.

You said you have read Forrest's testimony re: the Jones decision in the Dover trial when specifically pointed out to you. You were "unimpressed." Apparently not. Quotes are going to be difficult to dredge up here if possible at all, and if I take the effort to do so, this will be taken as single-minded obsession on my part. Heads you win, tails I lose. I guess that leaves little room for any assertion you make to be challenged.

[Daniel Peterson]

First, Hugh Ross's notoriety derives principally from his old earth creationist advocacy. Not being aware of this while simultaneously reading his works and recommending others look into them is the equivalent of not being aware that Jeff Lindsay is an LDS apologist while heartily recommending people read his website as you have done. It's possible, but it is strange.

Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn whether you regard it as "strange" or not.

I'm perfectly well aware of the fact that Hugh Ross argues for evidence of divine action in the structure of the universe and the origin of life and that he rejects the notion of a young earth. That he calls himself a "creationist," or whether he does, is something of which I know nothing and for which I care pretty precisely nothing. If he does, I've paid no attention. I don't care. It mattereth not unto me.

Your analogy with Jeff Lindsay is flawed for that very reason. To read Jeff Lindsay and be unaware that he defends Mormon claims would indeed be odd. But it would be less odd, by far, or so it seems to me, to be unaware of (or to care nothing about) the question of precisely which school or filiation of Mormon apologetics (if such there be) he has been assigned to by somebody.

You said you have read Forrest's testimony re: the Jones decision in the Dover trial when specifically pointed out to you. You were "unimpressed."

Obviously, that was true. The name rings no bells. I thought the overall case (a) irrelevant to any interests of mine and (b) not particularly well thought out. On either side.

Quotes are going to be difficult to dredge up here if possible at all, and if I take the effort to do so, this will be taken as single-minded obession on my part. Heads you win, tails I lose. I guess that leaves little room for any assertion you you make to be challenged.

I think that the whole enterprise of pretending to know better than I do what I think and what is important to me is silly from the start. Unless, of course, it's your goal to demonstrate that I'm a liar or a cunning dissembler.

If that's it, let's just stipulate right here and now that I'm a deceiver and not to be trusted when I express my opinions.

Happy?

[Greg Smith]

It's called neo-creationism because it is the latest iteration of the creationist movement. It's also sometimes called "3rd wave" creationism with the 1920's era being the first, the scientific creationism era being the second, and this being the third. Creationism mostly disappeared off the public radar after the Supreme Court defeat in '87 until it reemerged during ID's public efforts in the mid to late 90's. Why would young earth creationism require the modifiers as well? Because it is a sub-variety. More to the point, ID isn't the only other kind of creationism. Traditional old earthers have been around as long as young earthers, with their relative fortunes in the creationist community rising and falling depending on the era.

Yes, I certainly don't dispute this. I'm simply suggesting that it is not surprising that someone who hasn't followed the discussion terribly closely would not be aware of the nuances of reference, as Dan says he wasn't. As I said, I follow the discussion reasonably closely, and when I hear the unmodified term "creationist," I think YEC--partly because ID has become the dominant mode for OEC people to express their views and (as you note below) there are both strategic and rhetorical reasons for them not to want to overly or frequently label themselves as "creationists."

Intelligent Design first emerges as a simply relabeling of a creationist textbook that was being developed in the early 80's. Literally everywhere where terms like "creation" and "creationists" appear, they just rewrite it to say "intelligent design" and "intelligent design proponents." The book was authored by progressive creationists, though it is respectful of young earthers in the text.* However, it would be unreasonable to expect the ID movement going forward to be entirely stagnant. So while the basic form of arguments never really changed for intelligent design advocates, the specific content has evolved. No one was applying the "what good is half a wing?" argument to the vertebrate immune system until Behe came along. (Though you can find the irreducible complexity argument prefigured in the creationist literature going back at least a few decades.) So we can distinguish ID as a new wave of creationism by its arguments in that respect. Their public relations and legal strategies are more sophisticated as well.

Yes, indeed. This is one reason why I think ID has a very long way to go before it is of any theological or scientific use.

They still are in the lay public. Somewhere around 40% of the US population believes in young earth creationism, and among creationists that number is just as much a prevailing majority as it was in 1982. The difference is the ID movement, which is the principle face of creationist advocacy in the media right now, is roughly 66% old earth / 33% young earth with the old earthers leading the way. Back in the nadir of "scientific creationism" young earthers like Gish were the principle leaders. It is worth mentioning that by the court battles of the 80's, they were willing to take the same positions IDists do, at least for legal purposes, in that they just offered generic anti-evolution / design arguments and argued that the creator need not be a god per se.

Right. And since they are so to the lay public, it is not surprising that Dan wasn't familiar with all the nuances.

Gish *shudder*....

Given that the most voceriferous creationists also reject LDS inclusion in Christianity, and given that they certainly (from LDS point of view) get the important theological points wrong, it's never been clear to me why some are enamored of their efforts in this much more peripheral theological issue. If you can't get the basics right (from our point of view), what makes us think they get the more complex periphery right? :-)

Just because people in America are first inclined to think protestants and to a lesser extent Catholics when they hear the word "Christian" it does not follow that it is reasonable to refer to them as what constitutes a Christian. If someone naively does this at first, I can understand, but after correction it ceases to be a simple mistake.

I don't think Dan or anyone else is suggesting that OEC don't likewise merit the title of "creationists," especially if they self-apply it.

As Forrest and Gross argue, because creationism has been effectively ruled as unconstitutional to teach in public schools. ID advocates by and large are intensely interested in returning creationism to public schools, so it is necessary to distinguish themselves from creationists. So, some, though not all, take the tactic of arguing that creationism is YEC and since they are not YEC, they are not creationists. At the same time, creationism does have an negative reputation among many segments of non-fundamentalist society, so just for rhetorical purposes it helps to be not associated with it. ID acts as their "Trojan Horse" for teaching creationism.

Yep. And, this is likely why when I hear "creationist," I still tend to think "YEC," even though I'm well aware of the various submembers of the clade.

On an aside, the 1979 CES OT manual seems inclined towards old earth "day-age" creationism while treating young earth views as a respectable minority position. In any case, it is able to clearly spell out various creationist positions on the age of the earth while being very much of its time.

This is particularly interesting given (say) Joseph Fielding Smith's YEC views. It will be interesting to see how the pending rewrite handles this issue.

GLS

[Greg Smith]

Actually, I am asking you to justify your previous statement.

I'm sorry. Either I have not understood what you're expecting, or you've not understood what I've offered.

ID is "bad science", unproven, etc. Now I asked you to put that same test to evolution, and you quickly tap danced around it.

Make up your mind.

I did not say (that I know of) that ID is "unproven." I don't tend to speak in those terms, because it isn't accurate. If I did, it was an unfortunate lapse into colloquialism. What I said, in fact, was:

I regard ID efforts to date as singularly bad science and generally bad apologetics. Few testable propositions have yet been provided, and those that were testable have failed tests

You see, there is a great difference between "unproven" and "few testable propositions." "Unproven" is really in the eye of the beholder--how much evidence do we require before we allow induction to persuade us that something is "proven"--it varies with the person and subject. I regard it as bad science because it makes few testable predictions, and those testable predictions offered have not panned out. I would very much like them to have panned out, but upon reflection I now don't think it surprising that they would not.

I will try once more to explain the example:

1) any observation of cytochrome c is consistent with the ID hypothesis. This makes that hypothesis relatively trivial and not much use for scientific investigation in this case. If you can suggest a test which hypothetical results could disprove the ID hypothesis, I would be very interested in hearing about it. Absent that, there's not much there.

2) only a few of a near infinity of cytochrome c results would be consistent with the evobio hypothesis. This cannot prove evobio, but provides a fairly robust opportunity for disproof. That has not happened; this makes evobio thus useful for further hypothesis generation and testing. It also may provide a useful explanatory "scaffold" for things like the cytochrome sequence data, especially if multiple similar examples can be found (hint: they have).

As I said, I recommend you check the cetacean and bovine sequence data and see if the same thing holds true. I wager they do.

I repeat, for emphasis: the present scientific status or utility of the ID hypothesis (both low, thus far, in my view) says nothing at all about its truth--unless one (improperly) adopts the criteria of the natural sciences as the only standard of utility and truth. I think that a grave mistake, and one which ID at least tacitly encourages--and, if history is any guide, one that will not end well. Again, see my FARMS Review article for the argument along these lines.

You seem upset about this, and it is not clear to me why. I'm sorry I couldn't be more help. If there's a part of my longer answer that doesn't parse, I could try to explain myself, if that would be useful. Labels of "tap dancing" don't really engage the argument, I fear.

Best,

GLS