Comments on: Florida Creationist Pressure Mounting

By: John Pieret

John Pieret — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 15:16:34 +0000

And here is an amusing one from Leadership U. under the title “Designer Universe:Intelligent Design Theory of Origins”:

Hence, we ask: Should Intelligent Design theory and its research programs be dismissed as “creationism dressed up in a cheap tuxedo,” as one scientist contends? Or is ID’s gradual acceptance into the mainstream of scientific discussion warranted? First, one must understand exactly what ID theory is–and is not. As explained in detail in the Intelligent Design FAQ, below, “…This new approach is more modest than [earlier creationist approaches to biological and cosmic origins]. Rather than trying to infer God’s existence or character from the natural world, it simply claims ‘that intelligent causes are necessary to explain the complex, information-rich structures of biology and that these causes are empirically detectable.'” The door to theism and, for many biblical Creation, is left open. Or, more accurately, it is no longer slammed shut.

http://www.leaderu.com/focus/intdesign.htmlBut ID has nothing to do with religion! … Nosiree, Bob!

By: Dave S.

Dave S. — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 14:16:19 +0000

Heck yeah, "theory of origions" and its cognate "origins theory" is well worn Creationist boilerplate. And not even ID creationism, but the Young Earth kind. Indeed, its how they rationalize separating evolution from other sciences...you see, evolution is origins science (which is of course historical and metaphysical, not really a science at all) and something like chemistry is "operational science" (and somehow metaphysical problems magically can be ignored). Evolution and Creationism are just two theories of origins.Here's Roger Patterson from Answers in Genesis:"Therefore, evolution is not an operational theory. For these reasons evolution could be considered an historical theory, along with creation models and other origins theories."And here's Duane Gish explaining it all in gory detail. You see Creationism isn't a science, but neither is evolution, because both are origins theories! Don't know when he wrote that one, but none of his refs are more recent than 1983.

By: John Pieret

John Pieret — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 13:39:36 +0000

Actually, “theory of origins” is a pretty old “creation science” term, IIRC. Here is an example:www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/FAQ48.htmlThe massivly misnamed British site TruthInScience uses it this way:

Few schools have taught this controversy. This is partly because many popular textbooks present Darwinism as the only scientific theory of origins and give little coverage to alternative theories, sometimes misrepresenting them.

http://www.truthinscience.org.uk/On the other hand, why would we expect anything new under the creationist sun?