Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
As I've worked on writing the preface to our book on the Dover trial, it has struck me how many of the arguments made by ID advocates today are identical to the arguments made, sometimes by the very same people, in defense of creation science in the McLean and Edwards cases in the 1980s. For example, we often hear them argue that ID is not a religious idea because it does not reference the Bible at all and in fact it doesn't mention any particularly religious idea. As the DI themselves have stated,
Unlike creationism, intelligent design is based on science, not sacred texts.Creationism is focused on defending a literal reading of the Genesis account, usually including the creation of the earth by the Biblical God a few thousand years ago. Unlike creationism, the scientific theory of intelligent design is agnostic regarding the source of design and has no commitment to defending Genesis, the Bible or any other sacred text.
But this was the very same argument that was made about creation science as well. A bit of history is in order. Following the decision in Epperson v Arkansas (1968), which said that you could not ban the teaching of evolution on religious grounds, the antievolutionists' first attempt at a "balanced treatment" approach, passed initially in Tennessee, required that whenever evolution is taught it had to be balanced by also teaching "the Genesis account in the Bible." This approach was struck down by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in 1975 in the case of Daniel v Waters.
Following that failed attempt, they changed strategies. They kept the dual model or balanced treatment approach, but instead of requiring that the Genesis account itself be taught, they required that "creation science" be taught. In neither the Arkansas law or the Louisiana law later struck down by Federal courts is there any mention of the Bible at all and their defenders made the very same argument, that creation science is not a religious idea at all but a purely scientific one that looks solely at the scientific evidence, not at sacred texts. Dean Kenyon, the principal author of the book Of Pandas and People and current fellow at the Discovery Institute, filed an affidavit in the Edwards case where he made this exact argument:
It is my professional opinion, based on my original research, study, and teaching, that creation-science is as scientific as evolution...It is my opinion, although not in the area of my expertise, that creation-science is as nonreligious as evolution....Creation-science means origin through abrupt appearance in complex form, and includes biological creation, biochemical creation (or chemical creation), and cosmic creation. Evolution-science is equivalent to evolution. Evolution is generally understood by scientists (although some would disagree) to include biological evolution (or organic evolution) from simple life to all plants and animals, biochemical evolution (or chemical evolution or prebiotic evolution of the first life), and cosmic evolution (including stellar evolution) (of the universe). Creation-science does not include as essential parts the concepts of catastrophism, a world-wide flood, a recent inception of the earth or life, from nothingness (ex nihilo), the concept of kinds, or any concepts from Genesis or other religious texts.
At each stage of the ironically evolutionary history of creationist alternatives to evolutionary theory, the antievolutionists have claimed that their "theory" has nothing to do with religion at all, it's a purely scientific theory. At each stage, the courts have seen through this claim, and in the next stage they make their theory more and more vague so as to make the connections less and less obvious.
First they argued that creationism was purely scientific and not at all based on the Genesis account. When that failed it transformed into, "Okay, okay, so creationism was purely religious just like you claimed (and we denied), but ID is not, and this time we really, really mean it." In the immortal words of that great ID advocate, President George W. Bush, ""There's an old saying in Tennessee -- I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee -- that says, fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again."
Comments
For the IDers and with apologies to the late Clara Peller, "Where's the data"?
If it's science, show me the data. If you can't, it's not science.
Posted by: Jim Ramsey
| April 3, 2006 6:51 AM
Jim Ramsey,
"If it's science, show me the data. If you can't, it's not science."
I don't think ID is science, but your definition seems a bit odd. It would seem to imply that any theoretical physics, done before the experiments that provide the data, is not science.
Posted by: David Heddle
| April 3, 2006 9:48 AM
David Heddle wrote:
There's a big difference between theoretical physics hypothesizing done before the experiments and ID - the former actually proposes experiments and goes about testing them, while ID does not. That's why we keep hearing this rhetoric about a "robust scientific research program" without any actual research ever bothering to materialize. And if you want to put multiverse hypotheses into the category of non-science because there doesn't appear to be any way at all to test them, I'll be happy to go along with that. If there's no way to test an explanation at all, it's not a scientific explanation it's just a stab in the dark.
Posted by: Ed Brayton
| April 3, 2006 10:30 AM
Ed,
No disagreement with anything you wrote in the comment. The multiverse theories are as non-scientific as ID. But Jim Ramsey did not mention falsifiability in his comment, only the lack of data. I'm just pointing out that a lack of data is not a valid reason for claiming something is not science.
Posted by: David Heddle
| April 3, 2006 10:43 AM
Wasn't there a recent post or three discussing Henry Morris' (I think) complaints that the ID crowd was stealing all of their (scientific creationists) arguments? And speaking of "Of Pandas and People", the word-processing search-and-replace makes a good case for repeating scientific creationism as ID.
Posted by: mark
| April 3, 2006 11:08 AM
Hmmmm.
I hadn't thought about theoretical physics. Still, don't you think that physicist are diligently looking for ways to build experiments to validate these theories? When that happens, it tends to ground that piece of theory much more solidly.
I was actually thinking in a much simpler vein. When Darwin came back to England, he came back with literally a boat load of data. There's now another 150 years worth of data and the whole thing is tied together by the theory of evolution. It's an interlocking fabric.
You don't replace something like that with warm feelings.
Posted by: Jim Ramsey
| April 3, 2006 1:58 PM
"Still, don't you think that physicist are diligently looking for ways to build experiments to validate these theories?"
Typically, yes, although some theories, such as the super string landscape, cannot be tested.
Posted by: David Heddle
| April 3, 2006 2:23 PM
David,
At some point, doesn't even string theory have to check-in with our reality? At that point, won't someone want to see if the theory fits reality?
Posted by: Jim Ramsey
| April 3, 2006 4:42 PM
Here's another one in the "ID is not creationism!" crowd.
http://dualisticdissension.blogspot.com/
Featuring the amazingly novel argument "the human retina is efficiently designed".
Posted by: windy
| April 3, 2006 5:01 PM
It's those words, "design" and "creation" that involve the belief in a known entity, otherwise "designer" and "creator" which are nothing but revised synonyms for certain obvious deific references. The balls must be swingin' wide in Seattle....
Posted by: Jaime Headden
| April 3, 2006 5:46 PM
Jim,
You would hope so, but many scientists are unhappy with that lack of predictions coming from string theory. See, for example, Columbia Mathematician Peter Woit whose blog is entitled "Not Even Wrong"
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/blog/
The reason it is called that is that in his opinion string theory is so bad (because it predicts nothing) that it "is not even wrong."
Posted by: David Heddle
| April 3, 2006 8:38 PM
The creationists and ID crowd can claim all they want that ID is not religious in nature, yet the fervency with which they seek their theory's placement alongside evolution betrays the religious core of ID. Would they really care so much to see ID receive the same scholarly respect that evolution has gained if ID didn't reflect their religious beliefs? The fact that they fight so much for ID's inclusion in the biological sciences underlines the fact that ID is fundamentally a religious concept.
Posted by: Sexy Sadie
| April 3, 2006 9:43 PM
David,
Maybe that means the border between scientific theory and philosophy isn't that well marked.
OTOH, biology and paleontology seem to deal with a far more familiar reality.
Posted by: Jim Ramsey
| April 3, 2006 10:18 PM