Mark Hoofnagle has a PhD in physiology from the University of Virginia and is currently a 3rd year medical student. His interest in denialism concerns the use of denialist tactics to confuse public understanding of scientific knowledge.
Mark at Boing Boing proposes an excellent new name for Intelligent Design creationists - "cdesign proponentsists". It's in honor of this wonderful observation from "Of Pandas and People" the creati ... I mean cdesign proponentsists textbook:
This is one of numerous examples of their dishonesty in suggesting that they're anything but creationists in disguise.
I like Mark's this idea, this should be their new name. It's a bit of a compromise. They don't want to be called creationists, and we don't want them to get away with lying. It's perfect!
Now as to the pronunciation. How about "see-design proponent cysts"?
Politics
Comments
I've seen folks at the Panda's Thumb use this one for months, now, so it's not exactly new. I still like it a lot, though.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | November 10, 2007 2:32 PM
I've wondered something about this ever since I've heard it.
Ok, so clearly there was a search&replace happening here. But what was it? The direct replacement that this implies, assuming they were trying to change things to 'design proponents', implies that they has the assignment rule:
reation -> Design Proponents
Why would that be chosen? What's going on here?
Posted by: Aaron Lemur Mintz | November 10, 2007 3:20 PM
Aaron Lemur:
It wasn't just a global replace; that would be too likely to result in errors. You have to manually go through and replace each instance with the appropriate word. This error was almost certainly a failed double-click. Move the mouse accidentally between clicks, hit paste (cause you know "Design Proponents" is in the paste buffer), and move on to the next without noticing that you hadn't selected the entire word. Presto! Instant evolutionary history!
Which of course is what makes it so delicious. Just like with biological evolution, it's the mistakes that let us trace the history.
Posted by: Johnny Vector | November 10, 2007 3:50 PM
Aaron -
My guess would be that it was a manual cut-and-paste job that went awry. Someone had typed 'design proponents', highlighted it, and and hit ALT-C to copy. And when they saw the word 'creationists' in the old text they intended to highlight the whole thing and hit ALT-V to paste in the new word over it, but had only highlighted the 'reation' part in the middle instead by accident. Probably they were rushed and missed it.
Posted by: Dave S. | November 10, 2007 3:57 PM
That picture looks horribly familiar :)
Posted by: John Lynch | November 10, 2007 3:57 PM
@ Johhny, Dave -
Thanks, that does make more sense. Although Johnny, your first sentence, It wasn't just a global replace; that would be too likely to result in errors, was very cruel and mocking of the people that wrote this text.
Good job.
Posted by: Aaron Lemur Mintz | November 10, 2007 7:46 PM
Personally, I prefer the label "Johnsonite", after Philip Johnson of course.
It's an obvious parallel to the label "Darwinist".
The clear intent of the labels Darwinism, Darwinist, etc. is to take a working scientific theory and paint it as a cult of personality.
I feel it's only fair we return the favor.
There's also the added bonus that with William Dembski's ego, this will royally piss him off.
Posted by: Jim Ramsey | November 10, 2007 8:20 PM
Bob
Posted by: Bob O'H | November 11, 2007 2:19 AM
Hey, some of us had Macs even back in '87. :)
Posted by: Davis | November 11, 2007 4:38 AM
Man, I had one of those "see-design proponent" cysts removed from my butt a while back. Took forever to heal.
Posted by: booger | November 11, 2007 8:00 AM
Kept me out of 'Nam, though. Me and Rush.
Posted by: Booger | November 11, 2007 8:01 AM
Your "explanations" of the expression "cdesign proponentsists" are only theories!
Posted by: TomS | November 11, 2007 11:05 AM
"Johnsonite" is actually a registered trademark for a brand of industrial flooring. There might be a joke in there somewhere.
Anyway, there's an interesting discussion of the cdesign proponentsists transitional fossil in this thread at the Thumb:
http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2005/11/missing_link_cd.html
Posted by: Julie Stahlhut | November 11, 2007 11:26 AM
Design Proponents - DPs. Pronounce Dips. Or, if the want the 'c' in there, cDPs. Pronounce See Dips.
See Dips Lie.
See Dips manufacture evidence.
See Dips ignore evidence.
See Dick vomit.
Posted by: Billy (A Liberal Disabled Vet) | November 14, 2007 10:23 AM
OneGoodMove blog has a clip with the cut-and-paste explanation--referring to it as a "transitional form," a "missing link"...
http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/2007/11/cdesign_propone.html
Posted by: blog responder | November 14, 2007 11:19 AM