Boing Boing strikes gold - a new name for evolution denialists

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:

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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"?

More like this

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?

By Aaron Lemur Mintz (not verified) on 10 Nov 2007 #permalink

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.

By Johnny Vector (not verified) on 10 Nov 2007 #permalink

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.

That picture looks horribly familiar :)

By John Lynch (not verified) on 10 Nov 2007 #permalink

@ 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.

By Aaron Lemur Mintz (not verified) on 10 Nov 2007 #permalink

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.

By Jim Ramsey (not verified) on 10 Nov 2007 #permalink

Move the mouse accidentally between clicks

In 1987? Oh, you youngsters! :-)

Hey, some of us had Macs even back in '87. :)

Man, I had one of those "see-design proponent" cysts removed from my butt a while back. Took forever to heal.

Kept me out of 'Nam, though. Me and Rush.

Your "explanations" of the expression "cdesign proponentsists" are only theories!

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.

By Billy (A Liber… (not verified) on 14 Nov 2007 #permalink