Luskin's Latest Redefinition

Casey Luskin is back with a brand new dance, a tap dance around all those pesky little previous statements by ID advocates that come back to haunt them every time they try and claim that the "intelligent designer" doesn't have to be supernatural. He's complaining that a news article referred to the Discovery Institute as "creationism's main think tank". Proof of media bias, he says:

Despite Holden's editorializing, ID is not creationism because creationism always postulates a supernatural creator, and/or is focused on proving some religious scripture. But intelligent design does neither.

Let's take them one by one, shall we? ID is not creationism because it does not postulate a supernatural creator. Hey, Bill Dembski, what do you think of that claim?

"The fine-tuning of the universe, about which cosmologists make such a to-do, is both complex and specified and readily yields design. So too, Michael Behe's irreducibly complex biochemical systems readily yield design. The complexity-specification criterion demonstrates that design pervades cosmology and biology. Moreover, it is a transcendent design, not reducible to the physical world. Indeed, no intelligent agent who is strictly physical could have presided over the origin of the universe or the origin of life."

Hmmm. And what about all the wailing and gnashing of teeth that we hear from ID advocates about the need to overthrow "naturalism" and how ID is going to destroy that pernicious idea forever? Surely if the ID program aims to destroy naturalism, the designer himself cannot be a part of the natural order but must be outside of that natural order or, as Dembski says above, transcendant and not reducible to the physical world.

As far as the Discovery Institute being a creationist organization, I just can't imagine where a reporter would get the idea that they are creationist. Unless, perhaps, the reporter had read the Discovery Institute's own declaration of its goals when the Center for Science and Culture was created. The famous Wedge Document declares that their goal is "To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God." Hmmmm. Theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God....gee, that does sound a bit like creationism, doesn't it?

And where could they ever get the idea that ID is designed (pun intended) to prove some religious scripture? Bill Dembski to the white courtesy phone, please:

"Intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John's Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory."

Oops. This isn't looking good, is it? But pay no attention to our own statements behind the curtain! This is proof of media bias. They've been reading our own words and repeating them to us as though we meant them! How biased could they possibly be? And let's not forget that the creationists said the very same thing about "creation science" that ID advocates - some of them the very same people - are now saying about ID, that it doesn't require any religious concept at all, just pure science. Here's Dean Kenyon, author of Of Pandas and People, in his affidavit defending creationism in the Edwards case in 1987:

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.

Kenyon is now a Discovery Institute fellow. So what they want us to believe is essentially this: 20 years ago we said that creation science does not require a supernatural creator, nor does it defend the truth of any religious text or religious idea. Today we say that creation science did require those things, but intelligent design doesn't. And even though we were wrong before and have now totally flipped our position, you should believe us. Because this time, we really, really mean it. And never mind all those statements we made in the past about how ID will destroy naturalism and restore theism and that it's all just religion....we didn't mean that either. But we really, really mean what we're saying now. A used car salesman could scarcely be less believable.

Update: Here is another terrific Dembski quote on the question of whether the designer could really be an alien or whether it must be something transcendant and supernatural:

Intelligent design, as a scientific research program, attempts to determine whether certain features of the natural world exhibit signs of having been designed by an intelligence. Whether this intelligence is ET or a telic principle immanent in nature or a transcendent personal agent are all, at least initially, live options. The problem with ET, of course, is that it implies a regress -- where did ET come from? The same question doesn't apply, at least not in the same way, to telic principles or transcendent personal agents because the terms of the explanation are different. ET is an embodied intelligence, and that embodiment itself needs explanation.

A telic principle in nature, of course, would also need explanation: how did it get there? Who or what designed it into nature? And of course, if the designer were merely a telic principle built into nature itself, then all of the ID movement's anti-naturalism rhetoric becomes utterly pointless. All of the actual ID arguments point solely to a supernatural designer, all of their protests to the contrary notwithstanding.

More like this

Sometimes I wonder if their smoke screen is even worth the effort, but then I remember what Saul Bellow once said:

A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.

The problem, of course, is that faith is not enough; a proof of God's existence is necessary or the worldview collapses. Otherwise, there would be no reason to challenge science. After all, science is only an ever-evolving model of the universe, and even now is not incompatible with a non-literal interpretation of Genesis.

In the Middle Ages, the Church depicted Faith and Reason as twin pillars on which men depended. The irony is that the ID crowd reject reason because they need a crutch for their faith.

They need to get over it. There is no proof of God in the intellectual sense, and spiritual proofs are impossible to describe in proper logical language.

Moreover, it is a transcendent design, not reducible to the physical world

This is perhaps the most ignorant statement I've ever read from a supposed scientist. How could one even begin to understand such a thing without realizing it as a figment of imagination?

It would make it so unknowable as to be essentially meaningless to those in the physical(real) world.

Oh and great quote up there Sdanielmorgan.

I suspect all these folks realize that reason and science to a large degree makes their religions(whatever they are) quaint. Hence they, like other apologists, contort many things to salvage that which they arrived at for faulty reasons in the first place. All it really does is make them self deluded.

I personally don't find reason all that compatible with religion. Now faith in some forms yes, but not much in terms of religion.

If the need for a supernatural creator were not ID's primary argument, then I can't imagine that the Discovery Institute would even exist. After all, I don't really think that the IDists lose sleep over the idea that schoolchildren aren't being taught that super-intelligent Venusians created all life.

By Sexy Sadie (not verified) on 03 Jun 2006 #permalink

Nobody believes their continuing protests about not being creationists. They are, and everybody knows it, and denying it just tells people they're liars.

Ah, perfect steve. From Luskin himself, in the FAQ file for the IDEA club that Luskin founded at UCSD:

Fear not the creationists!!!: Hi there, thanks for coming to our FAQ page. IDEA exists on the UCSD campus to serve those at our school interested in having meaningful, critical, friendly, and informed discussion over issues related to creation and evolution among people of many viewpoints. Those from "both sides" of the creation-evolution issue at our club are dedicated to truth, friendship, and self-criticism above all things. As creationists, we have nothing to hide... If any of this appeals to you, we hope you would come to the club! Please read on as this FAQ tries to explain more about the club:

Just another old statement that comes back to haunt them. Even though they self-identified as creationists before, now by golly, it's proof of media bias to claim that they're creationists. And remember, such lies are in the service of fostering morality!

I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: "O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous!" And God granted it.

--Voltaire

From the website steve s links:

⢠Is IDEA a "Young-Earth Creationist" Organization?

No. For some as-of-yet undetermined reason, it is a common misconception among those who visit our website that IDEA is a Young-Earth Creationist organization. While our club membership and leadership has creationist viewpoints of various kinds (and many members are not creationists--see the next 2 questions), IDEA is NOT a young-earth creationist organization. The leadership adhere's to a pro-intelligent design viewpoint, which is a position that is a completely separate issue from the age of the earth. While the age of the Earth is an issue of interest to many in the creation - evolution issue, it is an issue rarely discussed at IDEA Club meetings.

So a Creationist is someone who holds to a Young-Earth, even though there are creationist viewpoints of various kinds. And creation and intelligent design are pretty much interchangeable, except that ID does not adhere to a Young-Earth, even though ID makes no claims about the age of the Earth.

So we just can't understand why people confuse us with creationists. Belief in a Young Earth is clearly a necessary component of being a creationist, even if there are other creationist viewpoints besides Young-Earth creationism. Even though we call ourselves creationists, we also explicitly deny it.

I hope that clears things up.

And how about some other choice quotes from the same link:

As a passage from the early pro-ID textbook Of Pandas and People explains, there is "intelligence, which can be recognized by uniform sensory experience, and the supernatural, which cannot.... All [ID] implies is that life had an intelligent source."

But before it was an early pro-ID textbook, it was a late pro-creationism textbook. Nothing was changed except that "creationism" and variants was word-seached and replaced with "intelligent design" and the corresponding variants.

Who could ever forget the delightfully transitional form, "cdesign proponentsists".

In September, 2002 they [ed. the AAAS] issued a press release condemning ID. Are scientific organizations acting like scientists when they issue a citation-less press release against an idea?

And yet another irony meter EXPLODES into a million irreducibly complex pieces.

Even the ardent Darwinist philosopher of science Michael Ruse has noted that there is an anti-ID political bias from the AAAS:

Wow...the American Association for the Advancement of Science is biased against stuff which isn't science. Those bastards!

One can call contemporary design arguments "creationism" or "fundamentalism" but none of these labels do anything to address the physical evidence or arguments put forward by design scientists.

Those arguments have already been addressed for the most part back when ID advocates still called themselves creationists openly.