Evolution vs "Creationism" Why the Term is Predijudical

[exchemist]

so, all that can be summarized down to : matter, the universe is merely 'dead' inert matter and consciousness is nothing but chemical reactions...and there is no "spirit" in anything....
Is that what you are saying?

No. What it is saying is that Intelligent Design is pseudoscience. Which it most certainly is.

In fact ID is far worse than that. It is a social engineering project, dreamt up by a lawyer from the fundamentalist right, to insert God into US school science teaching. The (accidentally leaked) Wedge Document makes that clear.

So, while ID pretends to be scientific in order to evade the prohibition on teaching religion in school, it has no roots in science, but in religious politics. Worse still, ID is actually a science stopper, because it encourages the researcher to give up, and attribute whatever is not yet understood to a supernatural miracle.

 

[MNoBody]

No. What it is saying is that Intelligent Design is pseudoscience. Which it most certainly is.

In fact ID is far worse than that. It is a social engineering project, dreamt up by a lawyer from the fundamentalist right, to insert God into US school science teaching. The (accidentally leaked) Wedge Document makes that clear.

So, while ID pretends to be scientific in order to evade the prohibition on teaching religion in school, it has no roots in science, but in religious politics. Worse still, ID is actually a science stopper, because it encourages the researcher to give up, and attribute whatever is not yet understood to a supernatural miracle.

ok, copy that......so, ID is like a cult with an agenda like scientology if I read your post correctly...
interesting info, thanks for the heads up....
so, does this mean then, that you are implying that this is what is being promoted here? [i hadn't noticed that, so i was looking for some clarification since you brought it up]
and second, does that also mean that anyone who suggests there may be a 'conscious' element to the known Universe in ways we haven't yet figured out, is some kind of member of this "cult" and all such talk is thus nonsense and pseudoscience?

 

[exchemist]

ok, copy that......so, ID is like a cult with an agenda like scientology if I read your post correctly...
interesting info, thanks for the heads up....
so, does this mean then, that you are implying that this is what is being promoted here? [i hadn't noticed that, so i was looking for some clarification since you brought it up]
and second, does that also mean that anyone who suggests there may be a 'conscious' element to the known Universe in ways we haven't yet figured out, is some kind of member of this "cult" and all such talk is thus nonsense and pseudoscience?

Well no, not a cult, a political project. At least, that is how it was conceived by its founders and that is how it is being pursued by the people at the Discovery Institute who lobby for it.

Aside from these people, there are some more or less well-meaning creationists that adopt it as they think, quite wrongly, that it enables them to square the circle of reconciling their particular version of Christianity with science. What they overlook, sometimes in innocence, sometimes deliberately to pursue their agenda, is that ID is not science! This is both for the reasons I have given and for the reason @Dan From Smithville gives, viz. ID makes no testable predictions, which is something any theory must do to be considered science.

 

[Skwim]

Now I do not claim to talk for everyone here as I hardly know anyone. But I have seen a pattern here, and this is it. People who believe in God and the account of creation in the Bible are usually labeled "creationists."

Yup. Sounds reasonable.

But if you look at what a creationist actually believes and what the Bible teaches and what the majority of people who believe in the creation account of the Bible you will know that most people who believe in the Bible are not creationists.

Well, let's see. The Biblical "account of creation" involves god creating Everything, as is, in six days. So if there are people who believe his to be true why don't they deserve the label "creationist"?

Moreover, your claim that

"what a creationist actually believes and what the Bible teaches and what the majority of people who believe in the creation account of the Bible you will know that most people who believe in the Bible are not creationists"​

brings up the question of, just what is it that creationists---those who "believe in God and the account of creation in the Bible"---believe that disqualifies them from being a creationist?

Many people who believe in creation and in the Bible DO NOT believe in creationism.

You seem a bit confused here. As I've always understood the term, "creationism" is the belief that the universe and living organisms originate from specific acts of divine creation, as in the biblical account, rather than by natural processes such as evolution. So why wouldn't a person who believed in divine creation not believe in creationism?

.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

so, all that can be summarized down to : matter, the universe is merely 'dead' inert matter and consciousness is nothing but chemical reactions...and there is no "spirit" in anything....
Is that what you are saying?

No that's not what I said at all. Where in that post do you see me referencing or talking about anything related to "spirits" or the "universe" or whatever?

I'm talking about scientific models that seek to explain how bio-diversity is obtained.

And the point is that evolution is a comprehensive, well-established and well-tested scientific theory with extreme explanatory power, while ID is just a religion pretending to be science.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

ok, copy that......so, ID is like a cult with an agenda like scientology if I read your post correctly...

Yes. And that cult is fundamentalist christianity.

interesting info, thanks for the heads up....
so, does this mean then, that you are implying that this is what is being promoted here? [i hadn't noticed that, so i was looking for some clarification since you brought it up]

Look... I'm sure that if you would gather up 10 random people who identify as ID'ers would give 10 different answers to relatively basic questions concerning this supposed model of reality... Mainly because there is no such detailed model, just a vague idea at best which pretty much requires belief in the supernatural. They'll say, or some will anyway, that "the designer" could be "anyone" - we all know that they really mean an immortal god.

In any case, here's the point....
Anyone who would actually bother to honestly look up what this ID model is really all about, would know about cdesign proponentsists. They would know about the leaked wedge document.
Also, they would notice that there is no comprehensive model. That there is anything there there. So in depth study of this is impossible, since there is nothing there to study. You can't get a doctorate in ID, because ID isn't anything. There literally is nothing to study besides at best a few pages of apologetics, which will mostly only attack established science.

SO...

What I can conclude is that anyone who mentions it in all seriousness on some forum... That person did not do in depth studies of this. He just repeats something he vaguely read somewhere. He didn't take a course in it, because no such courses exist.

All that tells me that whatever is being said - there's no need to take it terribly serious. No, an IDist is not going to have discovered THE disproof of an established theory like evolution.

There is no research.
There is no material.
There is nothing.

There's just religion and find & replace error that resulted in the gem cdesign proponentsists


All that together does indeed put me in a place where I'll be instantly dismissive, at least in my head, whenever a person brings up intelligent design.

and second, does that also mean that anyone who suggests there may be a 'conscious' element to the known Universe in ways we haven't yet figured out, is some kind of member of this "cult" and all such talk is thus nonsense and pseudoscience?

Well, first I'ld query that person and ask him/her to clarify what he/she exactly means by that... And why it's necessary to include it. And once clarified, if it can be tested in some way. And if not, why I should give a darn?

 

[exchemist]

ok, copy that......so, ID is like a cult with an agenda like scientology if I read your post correctly...
interesting info, thanks for the heads up....
so, does this mean then, that you are implying that this is what is being promoted here? [i hadn't noticed that, so i was looking for some clarification since you brought it up]
and second, does that also mean that anyone who suggests there may be a 'conscious' element to the known Universe in ways we haven't yet figured out, is some kind of member of this "cult" and all such talk is thus nonsense and pseudoscience?

Perhaps, now that I have disposed of ID in post 23, I ought to come back and address the rest of what you asked.

I write as a somewhat agnostic Catholic, so you can safely assume I have no difficulty, intellectually, with the idea of a creator God. But I am also a person with a scientific outlook and education. I see no need for God, assuming He exists, to tinker with His creation as if it were a badly made car. What is for sure is there is no reproducible evidence of this. It seems to me creation unfolds from the fundamental order there is in nature - what people sometimes call the "laws" of nature, though I am not terribly keen on the phrase. So if a creator created something, I think this order is what it was, and is.

Such evidence as some of us feel we have for God comes I think from subjective experiences we may have as individuals, or an aesthetic sense, rather than anything objective in the physical world.

The error of ID (assuming for the sake of argument it is a hypothesis made in good faith - though actually it isn't) is to try to pretend there is objective evidence for God intervening in the physical world.

 

[Brickjectivity]

I've been on a few forums over the years. I recently joined this one and haven't taken too much time on it as of yet. Although I have already met some very interesting and nice people as well as the exact opposite.

Now going through some of the forum topics I stumbled across this one "Evolution vs Creationism." And on other websites I find the same misnomer as well...

That particular section functions as our lightning rod to keep other discussions from constantly derailing into arguments about science. It mostly works, but its not a great section to hang out in. Don't visit it if you've had too much coffee, and don't let yourself get baited into a bad mood. You'll just get a rule violation or get angry, and it won't be pleasant. Some people absolutely believe God has purposely created our physical world, and that is simply what they will always believe. Others will always be skeptical. Its just how things are.

 

[MNoBody]

well, typically these odd experiences are subjective, thus subject to questioning...which makes sense....to a point, and there is no real standard rule to objectively quantify or qualify these matters, so it remains an open case, lots of learned speculation, but still enough truly anomalous details and events that have not been explained away, despite the trying.
So I remain open minded to these issues, as there is not enough to settle the matter either way..
besides ....maybe both sides are misled and the real truths of the matter have yet to be uncovered.
which is what I am sticking with. [besides, you could say I am somewhat biased since I have experienced events which have defied explanation thus far, and it isn't for lack of effort to figure it out either]
thanks for the decent exchange about the subject.
[edit-didn't hit the quote button. response to exchemist's last post]

 

[exchemist]

well, typically these odd experiences are subjective, thus subject to questioning...which makes sense....to a point, and there is no real standard rule to objectively quantify or qualify these matters, so it remains an open case, lots of learned speculation, but still enough truly anomalous details and events that have not been explained away, despite the trying.
So I remain open minded to these issues, as there is not enough to settle the matter either way..
besides ....maybe both sides are misled and the real truths of the matter have yet to be uncovered.
which is what I am sticking with. [besides, you could say I am somewhat biased since I have experienced events which have defied explanation thus far, and it isn't for lack of effort to figure it out either]
thanks for the decent exchange about the subject.
[edit-didn't hit the quote button. response to exchemist's last post]

OK, I've found and read it.

There is no certainty in any of this metaphysics stuff, I agree.

That is also true of science, but science has its own particular rules, the first of which is that reproducible observation of nature is king. Every idea must at some point reference observation.

 

[McBell]

As a result it isn't usefull in any way for anything.

Well, it does give some people a warm fuzzy feeling...

 

[Bear Wild]

polarization
us vs. them
debate mode-adversarial
sounds like the hippy vs square arguments..... refried
it only serves to keep things going in circles

So is it "us" or "them"? Please have your dorsolateral prefrontal cortex coordinate with your ventromedial cortex in concert with your amygdala, anterior cingulate cortex and anterior insular cortex to make your decision. We humans seem to operate that way but on a multilevel us vs them. Of course you have the right to change your "us" or "them" at any time.

 

[Bear Wild]

I've been on a few forums over the years. I recently joined this one and haven't taken too much time on it as of yet. Although I have already met some very interesting and nice people as well as the exact opposite.

Now going through some of the forum topics I stumbled across this one "Evolution vs Creationism." And on other websites I find the same misnomer as well.

I would like to bring it to the readers attention as to what a misnomer is and why it is a misnomer to paint with such a broad brush.

Note what Wikipedia states as to the definition of misnomer:


"A misnomer is a name that is incorrectly applied. Misnomers often arise because something was named long before its correct nature was known, or because an earlier form of something has been replaced by something to which the name no longer applies. A misnomer may also be simply a word that someone uses incorrectly or misleadingly."

Now I do not claim to talk for everyone here as I hardly know anyone. But I have seen a pattern here, and this is it. People who believe in God and the account of creation in the Bible are usually labeled "creationists."

But if you look at what a creationist actually believes and what the Bible teaches and what the majority of people who believe in the creation account of the Bible you will know that most people who believe in the Bible are not creationists.

Simply put, a creationist is someone that believes that the literally heaven and earth were created some 7 thousand years ago in 6 literal 24 hour days.

Many people who believe in creation and in the Bible DO NOT believe in creationism. Thus this word is used incorrectly, and sometimes misleadingly toward them.

So what would your title be for this section of the forum?