Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
The DI is engaged in their usual dishonest spin, this time over the issue of the origin of the ID movement. They're responding to this post by Nick Matzke at the Panda's Thumb where he points out that "intelligent design" was chosen as a new label for "creation science" after the 1987 Edwards v Aguillard ruling. Nick writes:
As everyone now knows, even though the ID guys will never admit it, "intelligent design" as such originated in the 1989 ID textbook Of Pandas and People, with "intelligent design" being the new label chosen after the 1987 Edwards decision made creationist terminology difficult to use in textbooks. Pandas was the first place the term "intelligent design" was used systematically, defined in a glossary, claimed to be something other than creationism, etc. In a desperate attempt to obfuscate this basic historical point, ID guys have dug up various random instances of the words "intelligent" and "design" placed together (although they missed the 1861 Darwin letter, and the 1847 Scientific American article), most of them with absolutely no evidence of having influenced the actual actors in the 1980s who created the ID movement (there are some legitimate precursors, but they are in explicitly creationist works, e.g. Lester and Bohlin's (1984) The Natural Limits to Biological Change, so the ID guys won't cite them post-Kitzmiller).
Despite the fact that Nick had anticipated their response and answered it in advance, Rob Crowther predictably ducks into the punch over at the DI blog. He does exactly what Nick predicted by simply changing the subject, trying to find instances in the past where someone else used the term "intelligent design" as if this answered Nick's argument in any way:
Matzke reiterates the old canard that the phrase "intelligent design" was concocted after the Edwards v. Aguillard supreme court case in which creationism/creation science was ruled out of bounds for public high school science classes. This is simply a Darwinian urban legend.
This is simply a lie. Nick did not claim that the phrase intelligent design was invented for the first time in late 1987; he said that this was the first time the phrase was "used systematically, defined in a glossary, claimed to be something other than creationism, etc." In other words, it was only after the Edwards ruling that this phrase began to be used by anti-evolutionists as a label for their alternative position, and thus began to be used as the label for their movement.
The evidence for this is absolutely undeniable. One need only look at the book Of Pandas and People, which was written by multiple fellows at the DI (Dean Kenyon, Charles Thaxton, Michael Behe, Nancy Pearsey, Paul Nelson, etc) and hailed by the DI as the world's first intelligent design textbook. In that book, not only did the phrase "intelligent design" suddenly appear only after the Edwards ruling came down, but it appeared with the exact same definition as the phrase it replaced, "creation science." In the early 1987 version of the book, then called Biology and Origins, they offered this definition:
"Creation means that various forms of life began abruptly through the agency of an intelligent creator with their distinctive features already intact - fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks and wings, etc."
In the late 1987 version of the book, then using its final name Of Pandas and People, they offered this definition:
"Intelligent Design means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency with their distinctive features already intact: fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks and wings, etc."
Now remember, this book was written by DI fellows. It was hailed by the DI as the first intelligent design textbook. And this very book uses the phrase "intelligent design" as being identical to the "creation science" that was ruled out of public school science classrooms in 1987. This "new" idea was advocated by the exact same people using the exact same arguments. Yet the DI wants you to believe that there's no connection at all between ID and creation science, that they are entirely different movements. Only someone truly deluded - a group that rarely includes Federal judges, thankfully - would believe them.
Comments
I believe this sort of defense originated in the case of Dorothy vs. the Wizard of Oz and is commonly known as the "pay no attention to the man behind the screen" maneuver.
Posted by: Mike O'Risal | August 18, 2007 12:05 PM
Posted by: Alex, FCD | August 18, 2007 12:51 PM
The dishonesty of the DI people somehow never ceases to amaze me.
Posted by: Strider | August 18, 2007 1:40 PM
I don't so much find the lying of flim-flammers surprising, but what does amaze me is the intellectual dishonesty of the legions of lay persons who go along with it for some supposed higher purpose. Then again, I guess I've watched the religionists sacrifice morality on the altar of their superstition all my life, so perhaps I'm being naive.
Posted by: Julian | August 18, 2007 2:09 PM
LOL. That DI post was kind of a going-away present for me I think.
Posted by: Nick (Matzke) | August 18, 2007 2:10 PM
Of course, Bill Dembski's expert witness report at the Kitzmiller trial completely agrees with Nick:
"Of Pandas and People was and remains the only intelligent design textbook. In fact, it was the first place where the phrase "intelligent design" appeared in its present use."
Strangely, I have never heard the DI complain of Dembski's "canard".
Posted by: Andrea | August 18, 2007 8:54 PM
Ooh, good catch.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | August 18, 2007 9:30 PM
I can't help remembering the judge in the Kitzmiller case expressing his dismay that the representatives of so-called religious morality were so willing to lie in furtherance of their cause.
Posted by: PalMD | August 18, 2007 11:25 PM
Oh, come on. It's entirely plausible that they started with "intelligent design", switched to "creation science" because it just had that certain zing, and then went back to "intelligent design" when they felt that "creation science" felt just a little too 1987.
Creation science was a blip. The New Coke, if you will, for the creintelligent designists advocates.
Posted by: pough | August 19, 2007 12:34 AM
Don't you see Andrea ... when they have to show that ID is not a mere post-Edwards rebranding of Creationism they insist its a very old "theory" ... and when they have to explain why they do not have even a single scientific result using ID, its because its a very young "theory".
Makes perfect sense. :)
Posted by: Dave S. | August 19, 2007 10:24 AM
So what?
None of this means that atheism is correct.
The questions remain, hide from them though you will.
Posted by: Emanuel Goldstein | August 19, 2007 10:14 PM
Emanuel Goldstein wrote:
Congratulations, you win the award for the most ridiculously irrelevant comment of the day. This post has precisely nothing to do with whether atheism is correct, a subject I in fact never discuss here. You might as well have said "so what, I still like cheesecake" and it would have been just as relevant.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | August 19, 2007 10:39 PM
Emanuel Goldstein, one cannot hide from a question; one can only hide from an answer.
Posted by: Crudely Wrott | August 19, 2007 11:36 PM
Emanuel Goldstein, you do realize that many of the anti-creationist posters here (including Ed, by the way) are non-atheists. Hell, many of them are even Christians. I really am curious as to why you think your statement is pertinent to this discussion.
Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | August 20, 2007 12:01 AM
Because like most bible-thumpers, Mr Goldstein sees only two sides to any issue: the Evangelical Pre-millennial Fundamentalist side, and the atheist side. If you point out flaws in a creo argument, it makes your position atheist by default.
Posted by: Chuck C | August 20, 2007 8:39 AM
I notice Goldstein is getting surlier with each pasing month as creationist talking-points get ever-more-clearly discredited. If "None of this means that atheism is correct" is the best retort he can offer, then the argument is pretty much over.
Posted by: Raging Bee | August 20, 2007 9:15 AM
ID is all about conflation, equivocation, and obfuscation. Dembski in particular has the habit of latching onto overloaded terms and overloading them further: information, specified, complexity, chance, design, natural, etc.
So it's no surprise that they equivocate all over the place on the term ID. Even when it's very clear that someone is referring to the movement championed by the DI, they'll pretend that another meaning is intended, and play semantic games until the cows come home. That's what they do best. In fact, that's all they do.
Posted by: secondclass | August 21, 2007 4:47 PM
Case in point: Salvador comments on Ed's post:
Of course, the idea that biological organisms were intelligently designed goes back thousands of years, certainly predating Darwin. But in the current ongoing debate, "ID" is used in a more narrow sense, referring to a specific movement and set of arguments. But by all means keep pretending not to understand that, Sal. Anything to score a few cheap rhetorical points.
Posted by: secondclass | August 21, 2007 5:06 PM
Intelligent Design is NOT the same as Creation Science. The two are very different.
Creation science still exists.
Creationists know that their position is different than ID. And IDists know their position is different than Creation.
So why is it the only people who conflate the two the same people who know the least about both?
As for "Of Pandas and People" it's too bad the publisher wasn't allowed to defend the book at the K v D trial. It's always easier to misrepresent something when reality isn't given a chance to speak up.
And the fact remains that ID can trace its roots back to the time of Aristotle.
Posted by: Joe G | August 22, 2007 8:53 AM
Joe G. - in what way do they differ? From what I've seen, the only differences are:
1. ID carefully tiptoes around the identity of the proposed Designer.
2. ID does not restrict itself to a Biblical 6000-year timeframe.
With those constraints taken off, ID seems to be little more than a declaration that life is too complex to have developed naturally, and arguments to ignorance every time a detail crops up that accepted science has not yet explained. Actually, now that I look at it, the two theories ARE very different - with so much of the foundation of Creation Science removed, ID is free to shift around to dodge the reality-based attacks that so effectively destroyed the Creationist positions.
Posted by: BobApril | August 22, 2007 9:51 AM
This strikes me as a textbook example (pun intended) of the excessive use of accusations of "lying." Matzke argues, in effect, that the phrase "intelligent design" was chosen as the (or a) leading phrase to use following a court case. Crowther responds that the phrase was not "concocted" at that time, and cites a paper that both the phrase "intelligent deisgn" and the ideas underlying it developed over time with much of that development occurring before the court case. It would be perfectly reasonable for you, Ed, to debate whether the claims of Crowther's cited paper are right or not. But to seize on the word "concocted" and use it to accuse Crowther of lying is just ridiculous. Whether or not Crowther's short characterization of Matzke's argument was adequate or not, not everything has to be a "lie."
Posted by: CThomas | August 22, 2007 9:51 AM
Joe G wrote:
So spell out the difference. The only reason the creationist groups like AIG and ICR criticize the ID folks is because, they say, the IDers won't get specific enough and defend the literal word of God in public. But that is purely a tactical choice by the ID movement to avoid all talk of the age of the earth and the Noahic flood and the Bible; Phillip Johnson has quite explicitly admitted as much in interviews. It still remains true that every single argument used by ID advocates comes straight from creationist literature and that it is being advocated by the very same people who advocated creation science before. ID is creation science with most of the testable claims removed.
And what would he have said that would have put my argument here in any dispute? We know what he would have said about why the book used the exact same definition for "creation science" as it used for "intelligent design" because he's already made that claim publicly. He would have claimed, quite absurdly, that they were just using "creation science" and its other cognates as a "placeholder term." In other words, Jon Buell would have perjured himself and lied through his teeth. Seriously, who's going to believe such transparent nonsense? Buell is a creationist. His organization is creationist. They had been pushing creationism for years and they sent out letters to publishers marketing the book, before it was finished, as a creationist textbook. Even after they changed the term to "intelligent design", the book was still listed in their own catalog as a "creation science textbook." The only thing Buell would have done had he gotten on the stand is told a huge and obvious lie, the same one he's been telling in public since then.
But so what? This does not, in any way, answer the argument being made here. Of course the concept, the argument from design, goes back millenia; no one has ever disputed that. But the conscious use of the term "intelligent design" as a substitute for "creationism" in its many forms and as a label for a movement and a (still non-existent) theory began with Of Pandas and People. Dembski has admitted it quite bluntly.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | August 22, 2007 11:47 AM