Reflectorites
I am trying to clear my email before my exam next week.
Therefore, after this I won't be able to respond for a
week or so.
Subject: Re: IDC being pushed
On Fri, 9 Jun 2000 22:37:33 -0500 (CDT), Wesley R. Elsberry wrote:
[...]
>WE>I use the "IDC" term based upon the evidence, not "in spite of"
>>the evidence. Stephen is welcome to differ in his interpretation.
>>As he notes, convincing the ideologically committed is
>>unnecessary.
>SJ>There is no need for "interpretation" in this case. The plain
>>fact is that Todd Moody is an *agnostic* professor of
>>philosophy and a valued member of the ID movement. Here is the
>>"evidence" again:
[...]
WE>The existence of fellow-travelers (I figure that phrase is
>less objectionable than the similar and possibly more
>applicable phrase "useful idiots") like Moody ...
This sort of language by Wesley, against a person who he
presumably knows almost nothing about, only shows Wesley's
prejudice. The fact is that Todd Moody *is* a philosophy
professor and an agnostic and yet a member of the ID
movement, and no amount of rhetoric or abuse will change
that.
WE>...doesn't set
>aside the fact that the IDC movement is primarily populated by
>people whose religion underlies their anti-evolutionary
>activity and which finds its largest base of support among
>theistic anti-evolutionists.
No one has ever denied that the ID "movement is primarily
populated" in fact by white, male, Protestant Christians
who would designate themselves as some form of *creationist*.
But if the ID movement is only *primarily* populated by"
same, then it is incorrect to call it "Intelligent Design
*Creationism*".
WE>The IDC concepts are constructed
>with regard to the legal problems encountered by YEC
>activists.
As for the "YEC activists" part, the fact is that among the ID leadership
group (i.e. Johnson, Behe, Dembski, Nelson and Wells), there is only one
"YEC"(Nelson). The rest are OECs of some sort. And among the rest of
the ID movement, it is my impression that the majority are old-Earth
creationists. IMHO IDers primary `natural constituency' is not YECs (they
have their own movement) but OEC/Progressive Creationists and
moderate Theistic Evolutionists.
And as for the "legal problems" part, the fact that the USA Constitution
prohibits the establishment of a religion, and this has been held to apply to
those creationist views that are clearly based on the Bible (like a 6,000
year-old-Earth and Flood geology), is only of marginal relevance to the ID
movement which holds a generic, not specifically religious, position on
intelligent design based on *nature* which is independent of the Bible.
For example, ID takes no position on who the Designer is, how old the
Earth is, or even on the common ancestry of man from apes (Mike Behe
believes in that, as I do).
If ID gets into court is going to be pretty hard for the NCSE or ACLU or
the NAS, to make the charge that ID is *Biblical* creationism.
And even the Supreme Court would balk at try to stretch the
`establishment of religion' prohibition to apply to a philosophical theism.
That would so *obviously* be an entrenchment of atheism, that there
would be a voter revolution and the US Constitution would probably get
amended to make it clear what the founding fathers obviously meant, ie.
there was to be no particular religion to be established as a State church, as
in Europe.
WE>The property of "traveling light" with regard to
>theology stems from a purposeful attempt to evade one of the
>prongs of the Lemon test.
Since "the Lemon test" is about *legislative statutes*:
"In Edwards the Supreme Court applied what it calls its three-pronged
Lemon test (first announced in the 1971 decision in Lemon v. Kurtzman,
403 U.S. 602). This test says that a challenged statute comports with the
First Amendment's Establishment Clause only if (1) the legislature had a
secular purpose; (2) the statute's principal effect is not to advance or inhibit
religion; and (3) the statute does not excessively entangle government with
religion." (Johnson P.E., "Darwin on Trial," 1993, pp.171-172)
it has no relevance whatsoever to ID, because ID is not contemplating
enacting any statutes!
I think Wesley is confusing (or trying to confuse) ID with "scientific
creationism", which adopted the tactic of downplaying the *obvious* Bible
base to their young-Earth/Flood geology theories:
"The anti-evolution statutes of the 1920s were not enforced, but textbook
publishers tended to say as little as possible about evolution to avoid
controversy. The Supreme Court eventually held the statutes
unconstitutional in 1968, but by then the fundamentalists had changed their
objective. Creation research institutes were founded, and books began to
appear which attacked the orthodox interpretation of the scientific evidence
and argued that the geological and fossil record could be harmonized with
the Biblical account. None of this literature was taken seriously by the
scientific establishment or the mass media, but the creation-scientists
themselves became increasingly confident that they had a scientific case to
make. They also began to see that it was possible to turn the principles of
liberal constitutional law to their advantage by claiming a right to debate
evolutionists on equal terms in school science classes. Their goal was no
longer to suppress the teaching of evolution, but to get a fair hearing for
their own viewpoint. If there is a case to be made for both sides of a
scientific controversy, why should public school students, for example, hear
only one side? Creation-scientists emphasized that they wanted to present
only the scientific arguments in the schools; the Bible itself was not to be
taught." (Johnson P.E., "Darwin on Trial," 1993, pp.6-7)
But since ID is *not* based on the Bible, but on the evidence for design in
*nature* (and design arguments from nature have been around since at
least the ancient Greeks), there is no real comparison between the two.
WE>While these demographics apply to
>ID proponents, I feel no problem at all in using the IDC
>label to characterize them.
This is a straight-out fallacy. That a high proportion of IDers may be
creationists, does not mean that the ID movement itself is therefore
"creationism", any more than that a high proportion of Republicans might
be creationists makes the GOP creationist.
What would make the ID movement "creationism" is if it *restricted its
membership* (formally or informally) to creationists. But in fact there
is nothing to stop even *non-theists* being members of the ID movement,
and in fact some are-for example Todd Moody.
WE>Get back to me.
I am not overly concerned to "get back"' to Wesley. As I have said before,
it is my personal position that the ID movement should not waste too
much effort trying to convince the ~10% like Wesley who are
philosophically opposed to design and therefore could not accept it, even
if it was staring them in the face (which it is). A much more fruitful field
for the ID movement is the ~90% who already believe in some form of
design.
If Wesley wants to believe that the ID movement is really the "IDC"
movement, then that is his problem! Those who make that claim are using
the same discredited `guilt by association' tactics that the McCarthyists
used in the 1950's. But the general public today is much more
sophisticated, and I am confident it will eventually backfire on those using
it. The existence of Todd Moody - an *agnostic* professor of philosophy -
alone will guarantee that.
WE>...when the theistic anti-evolutionist proportion of the ID crowd
>drops below 50%.
I note the shifting of Wesley's argument from "creationist" now to "anti-
evolutionist". So perhaps it should now be "IDA-E"? :-).
But Wesley would be wrong even in that - Todd Moody is also an
*evolutionist*! There is in fact nothing to stop even evolutionists being
members of the ID movement, and some are. The only evolutionists who
would not be welcome in the ID movement are those who would deny that
design is, at least in principle, *empirically detectable*.
That is why *theistic* evolutionist who deny that design is empirically
detectable would not be welcome within ID, and *agnostic* evolutionists
who do not at least rule out that design might be empirically detectable
are. It might even be that extreme YECs who claim that we cannot know
anything about how God created from nature, but only from Scripture,
would be equally unwelcome within ID.
This alone shows that ID is primarily a *scientific* movement, not a
religious or philosophical movement which makes no testable empirical
claims about the real world.
Re: Atheist anti-evolutionists
On Fri, 9 Jun 2000 09:52:32 -0500 (CDT), Wesley R. Elsberry wrote:
[...]
>WE>Just because Susan didn't mention Raelianism doesn't mean that
>>it doesn't exist.
>
>SJ>I note that Wesley also does not "show what else an atheist can
>>believe in except some form of evolution"!
>
>>Thus Wesley as well, confirms my point that "atheists have no
>>option but to believe in some form of evolution":
[...]
WE><http://www.rael.org/int/english/philosophy/philosophy.html>
>
>Raelians are anti-evolutionists, but not theists. The set of
>atheist anti-evolutionist Raelians is non-empty. Stephen's
>assertion is counter-factual.
Thanks to Wesley for the above URL. He may have the advantage here
because I know very little about "Raelians".
But maybe Wesley should check the web page he posted the link to again?
Because: 1) it does not say that the Raelians are atheists; and 2) it states
only that the Raelians "came from another solar system and created all life
on earth"-it does not explain how the Raelians themselves originated in the
first place:
--------------------------------------------------------------
The Raelian Philosophy
"We came from another solar system and created all life on earth
scientifically, including man in our image....You mistook us for gods...
We loved you as our own children and sent you wisdom through the
Prophets...You distorted our teaching and used it to fight...
Now that you can understand who we are, we would like to establish
contact at an official embassy."
- Quote from the Elohim to humanity, 13 Dec 1973
Welcome to the Philosophy page, a subsection of the Raelian Revolution
Website. As well as the option of a Quick Summary, from the horizontal
bar above, you can also access a fuller account of The Message addressed
to humanity by the Elohim, a review of the social Values which the
Elohim advise humanity to live by in order to create a world of love,
creativity and fulfillment, and an explanation of the Keys necessary to
unlock human potential.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Ultimately there are only three possibilities. They Raelians can either
claim that:
1. One or all of them did not originate at all but had always existed - this
would effectively make them god(s) and Raelianism a form of theism;
2. They were ultimately originated by a personal being (or beings) who
had always existed - this would make Raelianism a form of creationism;
3. They were ultimately originated by an impersonal natural process - this
would make Raelianism a form of evolutionism.
Raelianism may hold some combinations of the above (like 1. & 2; or 2. & 3);
but *ultimately* it has to be one of 1-3.
And of the three possibilities, 1. and 2. are not atheistic. That leaves 3., a
form of evolutionism, as the only atheistic possibility!.
Raelianism in fact seems to be a religious form of Directed Panspermia,
and thus confirms what Phil Johnson says of Directed Panspermia on one
of his tapes: "it is the scientific materialist's version of supernatural
creation"!
Steve
Steve
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"I have quoted some voices of dissent coming from biologists in eminent
academic positions. There have been many others, just as critical of the
orthodox doctrine, though not always as outspoken - and their number is
steadily growing. Although these criticisms have made numerous breaches
in the walls, the citadel still stands - mainly, as said before, because nobody
has a satisfactory alternative to offer. The history of science shows that a
well-established theory can take a lot of battering and get itself into a
tangle of contradictions - the fourth phase of 'Crisis and Doubt' in the
historic cycle and yet still be upheld by the establishment until a
breakthrough occurs, initiating a new departure, and the start of a new
cycle. But that event is not yet in sight. In the meantime, the educated
public continues to believe that Darwin has provided all the relevant
answers by the magic formula of random mutation plus natural selection -
quite unaware of the fact that random mutations turned out to be irrelevant
and natural selection a tautology." (Koestler A., "Janus: A Summing Up",
Picador: London, 1983, pp.184-185)
Stephen E. Jones | sejones@iinet.net.au | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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