Tuesday, February 09, 2010
Lying For God
Heh! Here we go again!John Lynch's excellent article in the Newsletter of the History of Science Society about the need for historians to engage the distortions of creationists about the historical significance of Darwin's ideas, blaming him, as they do, for all "bad things," including Hitler, the Holocaust, communism, Stalin, the Columbine shooters, Charles Manson, the Holocaust Museum shooter, the Ft. Hood Massacre, Mao Tse-tung, and Dr. Josef Mengele, among others, has drawn a complaint by Discoveryless Institute Fellow Richard Weikart. It's the usual stuff ... ID isn't creationism because only young-Earth creationism is "creationism." But then he gives away the farm:
If, on the other hand, by creationism Lynch and other historians simply mean someone who believes in some kind of intelligent being who by some means creates something or other at some time, then of course the vast majority of ID proponents are creationists (except maybe for a few skeptics, such as David Berlinski). Most people, I suspect, are not going to find this definition of creationism useful, however, since it includes the vast majority of people in the world, including multitudes of scientists. Using this definition, many biologists who clearly believe in Darwinian evolution, such as Francis Collins, would be creationists. Most theistic evolutionists would also be creationists, if we use this expansive definition.
This distinction was made clear enough in Epperson v. Arkansas, not to mention Kitzmiller v. Dover, where the motives of the proponents of a position to be taken by schools is to be scrutinized. Weikart. admits that the motives of ID apologists are, for all intents and purposes, religious and, therefore, illicit.
And don't forget ... ID is all about science and has nothing to do with religion.
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Labels: ID Not Religious
