Yet another version of the origins of ID
Check out this post by Karl Mogel at The Inoculated Mind. It reviews an April 28 talk at UC Davis given by Discovery Institute fellow Nancy Pearcey. Although Pearcey is now an official ID advocate, she was originally a young-earth creationist. In fact, she was one of the editors of the young-earth creationist Bible-Science Newsletter from 1977-1991, and for much of that period wrote monthly articles. As I showed in this PT post last year, several of her Bible-Science Newsletter articles became part of the text of the first “intelligent design” book, Of Pandas and People. The draft of the Overview chapter of Pandas, which was the chapter that Pearcey wrote, shows the same changes from creation/creationist to intelligent design/design proponent that the six “excursion” chapters of Pandas show. This was first made public when the draft Overview chapter was introduced into evidence in a July 14, 2005 pretrial hearing in the Kitzmiller case.
Now, given the actual history of Pandas and the actual origin of the modern “intelligent design” terminology in this relabeling event (the relevant PT posts are linked in the “Evolution of Creationism” section of PT), it is extremely interesting that nary a word about this was said about it by ID advocates in the entire 15 year period following the publication of Pandas. It is also quite interesting that it is not mentioned in any of the various pre-_Kitzmiller_ written and oral “histories” of the ID movement, except in extremely oblique form. Now, some of the modern IDists might have not known about the word switcheroo, or at least have plausible deniability (although I suspect that everyone on the long list of reviewers at the front of the 1989 Pandas, which includes many modern IDists, must have seen and commented on pre-ID drafts of Pandas, even if they don’t remember it). But certainly the actual authors of Pandas have a little explaining to do. Jon Buell seems to be the guy taking most of the heat (see here and here for his attempts so far to explain the slightly embarassing situation) so far, but the other (known) authors of the 1989 Pandas are Charles Thaxton, Dean Kenyon, Percival Davis, and…Nancy Pearcey.
Back to Karl Mogel’s post. I don’t remember exactly, but I think Mogel, who lives in Davis, emailed me the week before Pearcey’s talk at UC Davis. We were discussing questions that one might ask Pearcey after her talk, and I highlighted some of the above facts and suggested that they might be interesting to explore. It turns out he did, and he has posted Pearcey’s answer in his blogpost. I copy it here for posterity, and offer a few comments.
[starting at 10:30 on Mogel’s 2nd mp3 of the event]
[based on Mogel’s transcription, with some corrections and adding the original question and beginning of Pearcey’s response]
Karl Mogel: Um, Mrs. Pearcey, you mentioned evolution a couple of times tonight, as one of the things you point to – I noticed you’re from the Discovery Institute. And I believe you’ve maintained that intelligent design is something distinct from creationism or scientific creationism, or creation science, all the various terms for it. But yet I read that you wrote the Overview chapter for Of Pandas and People back when it said creationism in it, and then you said nothing about that fact for 15 years until it was revealed in the Dover case. And so I think this is an excellent followup to what that person there just asked, about integrity. Isn’t it true that you’ve been hiding the creationist origins of ID for 15 years, until it was exposed in Kitzmiller v. Dover?
Moderator guy: OK, the question is, Isn’t it true that you’ve been hiding the creationist background to intelligent design until it was exposed in the Dover case?
Nancy Pearcey: Um, w, what – I was interviewed by a Wall Street Journal reporter, who said something very similar. Um, when I first started writing on this issue, there weren’t any ID people around. If you were interested in this issue, the only game in town was creationism. And so even though I didn’t agree with everything in straight-line creationist thinking, um, I hung out with them, and I wrote on this issue, and I think they have a lot of good – a lot of creationist arguments against evolution of course have been taken up by ID as well.
Um, ID is, the history is real, ID is developed. And so when ID came along, I immediately said oh yeah that’s much more congenial to the way I think, so in terms of my personal, you know, history, as soon as ID came along I said its much more the way I think.
Now what is the difference between ID and creationism, a lot of people wonder. I think it’s the logic, more than anything. In other words, creationism was founded by people who were Bible-believing Christians and they said, since we believe the Bible, since we know the Bible’s true, what does that mean for science? I think that’s a valid question, just like a Christian would say, if I’m Christian, what does that mean for government, my understanding of government, if I’m Christian, what does that mean for education? If I’m Christian, what does that mean for the arts, the economy, or the law or whatever, that’s part of what building a Christian worldview can mean, that kind of question.
But that’s not the way you talk to people who don’t share your beliefs. If you were to talk to someone who doesn’t share your beliefs, you would find common ground with them, you would try to find some area where you can both discuss it together, I mean we all do that. And so intelligent design says is “OK let’s not start with ‘we believe the Bible,’ let’s start with ‘what does the data show?’” Now can you make an argument just from the data itself, can you show that, you know to me the strongest argument is from the DNA. Can you say, well, that at the heart of life is a code, information, language, where does information come from? Well, in our experience, information require mental agents, that’s our experience of it. And so you see it’s that the logic is different.
So even though there’s some overlap in some of the arguments, the – I think the logic is quite different. And is it – it’s not a matter of, you know, ‘hiding,’ it’s just a matter of you know, that was 20 years ago and as soon as ID came along, I found it much more congenial with what I already believed.
Let’s see, now let’s do it with comments interspersed:
Nancy Pearcey, UC Davis, 4/28/06 wrote:
Moderator guy: OK, the question is, Isn’t it true that you’ve been hiding the creationist background to intelligent design until it was exposed in the Dover case?
Nancy Pearcey: Um, w, what – I was interviewed by a Wall Street Journal reporter, who said something very similar. Um, when I first started writing on this issue, there weren’t any ID people around. If you were interested in this issue, the only game in town was creationism.
So, Pearcey still follows the old talking points that “ID is a new movement began in the 1980’s” , not the newer “ID stretches back to the origin of Western thought” talking point. Good to know.
And so even though I didn’t agree with everything in straight-line creationist thinking, um, I hung out with them,
I hate to be a bother, but Pearcey worked for the Bible-Science Newsletter for 13 years. At the top of every single issue of the newsletter (until it changed into the Bible-Science News in the early 1990s), next to the title, is a disclaimer. This one is from 1986:
**BIBLE-SCIENCE NEWSLETTER
DEDICATED TO:
Special Creation Literal Bible Interpretation Divine Design and Purpose in Nature A Young Earth A Univeral Noachian Flood Christ as God and Man – Our Saviour Christ-Centered Scientific Research**
In 1989, it had changed slightly:
**BIBLE-SCIENCE NEWSLETTER
_Dedicated to:
Special Creation Literal (natural) Bible Interpretation Divine Design and Purpose in Nature A Young Earth A Univeral Noachian Flood Christ as God and Man – Our Saviour Christ-Centered Scientific Research The Inerrancy of Scripture_**
This looks a wee bit like “straight-line creationist thinking” to me. Here’s a screenshot of a scanned front page of the May 1989 Bible-Science Newsletter, where Pearcey’s first Pandas-text essay appeared:
You may have noticed that Pearcey’s essay is entitled “Of Fins and Fingers.” Some weird alliteration thing was being played around with at certain points in the development of Pandas; the only remaining vestige of this appears to be the title, Of Pandas and People.
Back to Pearcey’s comments:
Nancy Pearcey, UC Davis, 4/28/06 wrote:
and I wrote on this issue, and I think they have a lot of good – a lot of creationist arguments against evolution of course have been taken up by ID as well.
Exactly our point.
Nancy Pearcey, UC Davis, 4/28/06 wrote:
Um, ID is, the history is real, ID is developed. And so when ID came along, I immediately said oh yeah that’s much more congenial to the way I think, so in terms of my personal, you know, history, as soon as ID came along I said it’s much more the way I think.
So, Pearcey is saying that she is not a creationist in ID clothing, she was actually a cryptic IDist in creationist clothing. In 1989, when ID came along, she realized that her true calling was ID!
That’s funny, because in a January 1993 issue of Bible-Science News, Pearcey wrote this for the front page:
Bible-Science News Volume 31:1
Mission: Bible-Science Association, Inc., exists to inform, educate, and persuade people of the reliability of Scripture by disseminating the foundational truth of the literal account of creation in order to effect evangelization and discipleship from a Christian world view.
Teaching Creationism by Nancy Pearcey
I grew up in a Lutheran home where I was taught orthodox Christian doctrine from an early age. I went to a Lutheran grade school. I knew the word “evolution” and I knew in some vague fashion that “they” were wrong and “we” were right. But the how’s and why’s, specific scientific theories and evidence, I was never taught.
Halfway through high school, I realized I did not believe the Christianity I had been taught for so many years. I was hanging onto it out of respect for my parents. But I personally had no reasons for believing it to be true. I had no criterion for holding to creation instead of any other world view. I decided the only honest thing to do was reject the faith. I embarked on a tumultuous and painful search for years through agnostic philosophies and eastern religions.
What I had was a borrowed faith. I was a “second-generation Christian.” I believed because my parents and teachers told me to. My borrowed faith lasted only until I found out other young people believed opposite things because their parents and teachers told them to. Without being able to put it into words at the time, I realized that this was not an adequate reason to belive.
I did eventually become convinced of the truth of the Bible and accept Jesus as my Lord.
[p. 2]
It is a major concern of mine to help children make creationism their own. That happens only when the child, on whatever level he is able, thinks the issue through for himself. I hope not only to teach the subject of creationism, but to teach children how to think.
To help our young people find their way through the creation-evolution debate, we need to teach them how to handle basic scientific concepts. What is the difference between a fact and a theory? Between data and interpretation? How can the same data be explained by different conceptual schemes? What constitutes evidence? What does it mean to say a piece of datum is evidence for or against a theory? How can we misuse evidence, or mislead with statistics?
It is not enough to teach children to memorize individual proofs for creationism. It is good to know, for example, about the implications of the contemporaneity of man and dinosaurs. However, it is all too easy to be satisfied when our pupils have merely learned to repeat such proofs, to give the “right answers.” It is more important that they understand the reasoning used than that they remember all the specifics. For if you understand the reasoning, then you can approach new data and be able to evaluate them and assess their implications for creationism. But if you have merely memorized proofs, you are at a complete loss when faced with anything new.
[Pearcey, Nancy (1993). “Teaching Creationism.” Bible-Science News (continues Bible-Science Newsletter), 31(1), pp. 1-2. Last bold added, other formatting original.]
I’ll give everyone a moment to pick up their jaws off the floor and reset their irony meters. Seeing a creationist write words in the same paragraph recommending the ability to “approach new data and be able to evaluate them” and endorsing “the contemporaneity of man and dinosaurs” can be quite a shock to the ol’ irony meter. Sorry I didn’t give you a warning.
OK, back to Pearcey’s statements at Davis. Her claim that “as soon as ID came along I said it’s much more the way I think” is totally ludicrous in the light of her 1993 article in Bible-Science News, which is all about “Teaching Creationism”, getting the kids to buy it early, and teaching them “critical thinking” and “reasoning” – but using a solid foundation of long-discredited, completely hopeless creationist “proofs” like the notion that humans and dinosaurs lived together. Does anyone see any ID here?
Moving on to Pearcey’s next statements at Davis:
Nancy Pearcey, UC Davis, 4/28/06 wrote:
Now what is the difference between ID and creationism, a lot of people wonder. I think it’s the logic, more than anything. In other words, creationism was founded by people who were Bible-believing Christians and they said, since we believe the Bible, since we know the Bible’s true, what does that mean for science? I think that’s a valid question, just like a Christian would say, if I’m Christian, what does that mean for government, my understanding of government, if I’m Christian, what does that mean for education? If I’m Christian, what does that mean for the arts, the economy, or the law or whatever, that’s part of what building a Christian worldview can mean, that kind of question.
But that’s not the way you talk to people who don’t share your beliefs.
So, ID is an arm of conservative Christian apologetics? There’s a shocker.
Nancy Pearcey, UC Davis, 4/28/06 wrote:
If you were to talk to someone who doesn’t share your beliefs, you would find common ground with them, you would try to find some area where you can both discuss it together, I mean we all do that. And so intelligent design says is “OK let’s not start with ‘we believe the bible,’ let’s start with ‘what does the data show?’” Now can you make an argument just from the data itself,
For some reason, I’m not just not seeing the big distinction between creationism and ID here. “Creation scientists” also swore up-and-down that their views were based on empirical evidence, not the Bible. Dean Kenyon swore it under oath in the lead expert affidavit the creationists used as their key argument for the constitutionality of creation-science in the Supreme Court’s Edwards v. Aguillard case.
In fact, Pearcey makes exactly the same “data-first” claim for creationism in that 1993 BSN article, that she is making for ID in her 2006 talk. According to Pearcey, the empirical data show that humans and dinosaurs lived together. Therefore the earth is young. This just happens to match the literalist interpretation of Genesis. Data first, not the Bible!
Nancy Pearcey, UC Davis, 4/28/06 wrote:
…can you show that, you know to me the strongest argument is from the DNA. Can you say, well, that at the heart of life is a code, information, language, where does information come from? Well, in our experience, information require mental agents, that’s our experience of it. And so you see it’s that the logic is different.
Earth to IDists/creationists: do everyone a favor and READ ABOUT THE NATURAL ORIGIN OF NEW GENETIC INFORMATION!! Your personal shocking ignorance about where new genes come from cannot be extrapolated to represent human experience about “where does information come from?” Judge Jones figured out where the evidence for the evolution of new genetic information was and put it in the Kitzmiller opinion. Why can’t you guys get a clue?
Nancy Pearcey, UC Davis, 4/28/06 wrote:
So even though there’s some overlap in some of the arguments, the – I think the logic is quite different. And is it – it’s not a matter of, you know, ‘hiding,’ it’s just a matter of you know, that was 20 years ago and as soon as ID came along, I found it much more congenial with what I already believed.
So, Pearcey is telling us that the logic of ID is different from creationism, even though the actual sentences shared between creationist and ID versions of a book are exactly the same, except for an imperfect terminology switch. Doesn’t sound very logical to me.
[Minor corrections made, 5/24/06. Thanks to Karl Mogel]