Intelligent Design is not creationism

The Discovery Institute and the Theory of Intelligent Deception
(Wayne Adkins, American Chronicle, July 15, 2006)

Each time an article appears somewhere that carries the words "intelligent design" and "creationism" in the same sentence the Discovery Institute feels compelled to respond. They desperately want to distance themselves from biblical creationists because they know it will hurt their chances of slipping intelligent design into classrooms in our public schools. The latest attempt by Bruce Gordon to disassociate intelligent design with creationism is over the top. He actually claims that "most current ID theorists of consequence not only are not creationists, some of them aren't even theists". Most are not creationists?

Well let's take a look at what the definition for a creationist is. Merriam-Webster's says a creationist is a proponent of "a doctrine or theory holding that matter, the various forms of life, and the world were created by God out of nothing and usually in the way described in Genesis". So a creationist is someone who believes everything was created by God, usually, but not always as described in Genesis. Do most current ID theorists of consequence fit that bill? You bet they do. Let's look at what the Discovery Institute, the organization that bills itself as the "nation's leading think researching intelligent design" has said about it.

In the now infamous "Wedge Document" authored by the Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture, now called the Center for Science and Culture, goals of the organization were defined. One of their two "governing goals" was "to replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God". That certainly fits the definition for creationism. But that's not all they reveal about their intentions. Under the "spiritual and cultural" heading their goals include "major Christian denomination(s) defend(s) traditional doctrine of creation and repudiate(s) Darwinism".

Notice here that they don't cite any theory they want to advance, but the "doctrine of creation" is what they want to defend. And what do we call people whose stated goal is to defend the traditional doctrine of creation? We call them creationists and rightfully so. Included under the same heading is the goal of "positive uptake in public opinion polls on issues such as sexuality, abortion and belief in God".

How can this be reconciled with what Bruce Gordon is claiming? He says "Young earth creationists are biblical literalists who circumscribe their approach to science by deduction from Holy Writ. Intelligent design theorists are scientists or philosophers of science who derive their conclusions inductively from the empirical study of nature, following the evidence where it leads without regard to antecedent constraints artificially imposed by theodical desiderata or philosophical naturalism." First off, ID proponents like to use the qualifiers "young earth creationists" and "biblical literalists" when trying to distance themselves from creationism as Dr. Gordon does here. But one can be a creationist without being a young earth advocate or a biblical literalist.

Creationism, as stated earlier, is just a belief that everything was created by God. As Dr. Gordon put it in his article, "being cheddar is a sufficient but not a necessary condition for being cheese."

Second, Dr. Gordon says that ID theorists follow the evidence where it leads "without regard to antecedent constraints artificially imposed by theodical desiderata" (theologically desired things). So how can one follow the evidence regardless of ones theological desires and still pursue the stated goal of replacing "materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God"? Those two goals are mutually exclusive.

In the Discovery Institute's "So What" response to the Wedge Document, they say "Even so, our critics insist that the "Wedge Document" shows that the case for intelligent design is unscientific because it is based on religious belief. But here again they fail to grasp an obvious distinction- the distinction between the implications of a theory and the basis of a theory". It is the Discovery Institute that repeatedly fails to make that distinction. An implication is "a logical relationship between two propositions in which if the first is true the second is true" (Merriam-Webster's). ID proponents have assumed the second proposition (creation by God) is true and their stated goal for advancing the first proposition (intelligent design) is to support the second proposition. That makes creationism the basis for their "theory", not an implication of it.

The reason the Discovery Institute has to constantly battle the idea that intelligent design and creationism are inexorably linked is that creationism is the basis for, not an implication of, intelligent design. Those with any inclination towards honesty will continue to make that connection. But undoubtedly the Discovery Institute will not. Honesty is not one of their stated goals. Defending the traditional doctrine of creation is.

The Discovery Institute claims to be the nation's leading think tank researching intelligent design. One would have to assume that to make that claim they feel that their fellows are among the "current ID theorists of consequence". So who among them are not creationists? Bruce Gordon says "most current ID theorists of consequence … are not creationists". I doubt that is true. He would certainly struggle to name a few who are not creationists and could not back up his assertion that most are not creationists without limiting his definition of creationism to young earth, biblical literalists creationism. Why would someone who is not a creationist conduct research for an organization whose stated goal is to defend the doctrine of creation in the first place? It would certainly not be for career enhancement.

The better question is-why would someone like Bruce Gordon make the claim that most ID theorists of consequence are not creationists? The answer is because the courts have ruled that teaching creationism in public schools is unconstitutional and the only way creationists can see around that is to dress creationism up as a scientific theory. But they know that the flaw in their disguise is that virtually all of the people promoting this "scientific theory" are creationists. So they replace creation with design and God with intelligent designer and label themselves scientists or theorists instead of creationists.

Well you can be a scientist and a creationist. You can be a theorist and a creationist. But apparently you can't be honest and be a creationist. If you contradict yourself and say on the one hand that your goal is to defend the doctrine of creation and promote belief in God and say on the other hand that you are not a creationist and you have no regard to antecedent constraints artificially imposed by theodical desiderata or philosophical naturalism, then you are dishonest, both with yourself and others.

Intelligent Design is to Creationism, as Peanut Butter is to peanuts.

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The Discovery Institute and the Theory of Intelligent Deception
(Wayne Adkins, American Chronicle, July 15, 2006)

Each time an article appears somewhere that carries the words "intelligent design" and "creationism" in the same sentence the Discovery Institute feels compelled to respond. They desperately want to distance themselves from biblical creationists because they know it will hurt their chances of slipping intelligent design into classrooms in our public schools. The latest attempt by Bruce Gordon to disassociate intelligent design with creationism is over the top. He actually claims that "most current ID theorists of consequence not only are not creationists, some of them aren't even theists". Most are not creationists?

Well let's take a look at what the definition for a creationist is. Merriam-Webster's says a creationist is a proponent of "a doctrine or theory holding that matter, the various forms of life, and the world were created by God out of nothing and usually in the way described in Genesis". So a creationist is someone who believes everything was created by God, usually, but not always as described in Genesis. Do most current ID theorists of consequence fit that bill? You bet they do........

Most IDers are not young earth (or six day) creationists. By far they are not. But the definition cited gives the impression that they are.

Many (if not most) IDers are theistic evolutionists. They believe God created the Earth, the universe, etc and then used processes including evolution to bring about what we now see.

I would add however that this is a very poor definition of the term. A better definition of creationist would simply be "a proponent of a doctrine or theory holding that matter, the various forms of life, and the world were created"

The member "real life" has absolutely no shame in making his absurd arguments. "Intelligent Design" is the direct, lineal descendant of the argument from complexity--the "watchmaker hypothesis." If all or even most of the proponents of "intelligent design" were theistic believers in evolution, then there would be no need for arguments about the complexity of the eye or of other organs or tissues--a theistic believer in evolution would simply stipulate god as the cosmic origin, and then would be on-side with a theory of evolution thereafter.

Truly, "real life," you have no shame.

Theistic evolutionists (generally , not always) believe that God not only 'initiated' or 'planned' the process of evolution (this by itself would be a kind of 'deistic evolution') , but also that He continually guides and directs the process at various times and in various ways.

rl

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Theistic evolutionists (generally , not always) believe that God not only 'initiated' or 'planned' the process of evolution (this by itself would be a kind of 'deistic evolution') , but also that He continually guides and directs the process at various times and in various ways.

Its fascinating that we can be lectured on "processes of theistic v deistic vCreation" all of these POVs without a single basis in evidence other than "He continually guides and directs the process at various times and in various ways". Thats why science proceeds in its merry way , unimpeded by any of this. However, Im not so sure about the future of science in the US if any of this worldview gets some legs.

Scientists Say They've Found a Code Beyond Genetics in DNA

By NICHOLAS WADE
Published: July 25, 2006
Researchers believe they have found a second code in DNA in addition to the genetic code.

The genetic code specifies all the proteins that a cell makes. The second code, superimposed on the first, sets the placement of the nucleosomes, miniature protein spools around which the DNA is looped. The spools both protect and control access to the DNA itself.

The discovery, if confirmed, could open new insights into the higher order control of the genes, like the critical but still mysterious process by which each type of human cell is allowed to activate the genes it needs but cannot access the genes used by other types of cell.

The new code is described in the current issue of Nature by Eran Segal of the Weizmann Institute in Israel and Jonathan Widom of Northwestern University in Illinois and their colleagues.

There are about 30 million nucleosomes in each human cell. So many are needed because the DNA strand wraps around each one only 1.65 times, in a twist containing 147 of its units, and the DNA molecule in a single chromosome can be up to 225 million units in length.

Biologists have suspected for years that some positions on the DNA, notably those where it bends most easily, might be more favorable for nucleosomes than others, but no overall pattern was apparent. Drs. Segal and Widom analyzed the sequence at some 200 sites in the yeast genome where nucleosomes are known to bind, and discovered that there is indeed a hidden pattern.

Knowing the pattern, they were able to predict the placement of about 50 percent of the nucleosomes in other organisms.

The pattern is a combination of sequences that makes it easier for the DNA to bend itself and wrap tightly around a nucleosome. But the pattern requires only some of the sequences to be present in each nucleosome binding site, so it is not obvious. The looseness of its requirements is presumably the reason it does not conflict with the genetic code, which also has a little bit of redundancy or wiggle room built into it.

Having the sequence of units in DNA determine the placement of nucleosomes would explain a puzzling feature of transcription factors, the proteins that activate genes. The transcription factors recognize short sequences of DNA, about six to eight units in length, which lie just in front of the gene to be transcribed.

But these short sequences occur so often in the DNA that the transcription factors, it seemed, must often bind to the wrong ones. Dr. Segal, a computational biologist, believes that the wrong sites are in fact inaccessible because they lie in the part of the DNA wrapped around a nucleosome. The transcription factors can only see sites in the naked DNA that lies between two nucleosomes.

The nucleosomes frequently move around, letting the DNA float free when a gene has to be transcribed. Given this constant flux, Dr. Segal said he was surprised they could predict as many as half of the preferred nucleosome positions. But having broken the code, "We think that for the first time we have a real quantitative handle" on exploring how the nucleosomes and other proteins interact to control the DNA, he said.

The other 50 percent of the positions may be determined by competition between the nucleosomes and other proteins, Dr. Segal suggested.

Several experts said the new result was plausible because it generalized the longstanding idea that DNA is more bendable at certain sequences, which should therefore favor nucleosome positioning.

"I think it's really interesting," said Bradley Bernstein, a biologist at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Jerry Workman of the Stowers Institute in Kansas City said the detection of the nucleosome code was "a profound insight if true," because it would explain many aspects of how the DNA is controlled.

The nucleosome is made up of proteins known as histones, which are among the most highly conserved in evolution, meaning that they change very little from one species to another. A histone of peas and cows differs in just 2 of its 102 amino acid units. The conservation is usually attributed to the precise fit required between the histones and the DNA wound around them. But another reason, Dr. Segal suggested, could be that any change would interfere with the nucleosomes' ability to find their assigned positions on the DNA.

In the genetic code, sets of three DNA units specify various kinds of amino acid, the units of proteins. A curious feature of the code is that it is redundant, meaning that a given amino acid can be defined by any of several different triplets. Biologists have long speculated that the redundancy may have been designed so as to coexist with some other kind of code, and this, Dr. Segal said, could be the nucleosome code.

But for me, the idea that the universe appeared ex nihilo with no cause (violating the First Law of Thermodynamics),

and built itself (violating the Second Law of Thermodynamics)

into incredible complexity (from the micro-level such as DNA to the macro-level of intricately interdependent chemical and physical processes and systems) by chance,

rather stretches credulity.