First Calvert now Luskin?
I have always found it fascinating how ID proponents try to avoid dealing with the real issues and instead focus on strawmen. For instance, Calvert and now Luskin are obsessed with the idea that:
Darwinian logic often contends that because a given proportion of ID proponents are creationists, ID must therefore be creationism. It’s a twist on the genetic fallacy, one I like to call the Darwinist “Genesis Genetic Argument.” As noted, it implies that each any and every argument made by a creationist must be equivalent to arguing for full-blooded creationism.
Much is wrong with this claim. If it were only so simple.
What scientists have pointed out is that there is a strong link between creationism and Intelligent Design which helps understand the scientific vacuity of Intelligent Design. In other words, creationism is the explanans for the scientific vacuity of ID.
Intelligent Design arose from the ashes of Edward v Aquillard to fight the materialism of the world in what the creationists hoped to be an acceptable variation on a theme. Creationism became Intelligent Design, Creator becames Intelligent Designer etc but the arguments did not change much from the appeal to ignorance so common amongst other creationist ‘arguments’.
Forrest in a recent new paper titled “Understanding the Intelligent Design Creationist Movement: Its True Nature and Goal” which was quoted and linked to originally by Calvert but is now only mentioned as a title (IIRC), describes the creationist history of the Intelligent Design movement.
In other words, science does not reject ID because it is creationism, science rejects ID since its creationist history has forced ID to remain scientifically vacuous.
So let’s see why the Discovery Institute is spending so much effort on attacking Forrest and Judge Jones?
Judge Jones wrote:
As Plaintiffs meticulously and effectively presented to the Court, Pandas went through many drafts, several of which were completed prior to and some after the Supreme Court’s decision in Edwards, which held that the Constitution forbids teaching creationism as science. By comparing the pre and post Edwards drafts of Pandas, three astonishing points emerge: (1) the definition for creation science in early drafts is identical to the definition of ID; (2) cognates of the word creation (creationism and creationist), which appeared approximately 150 times were deliberately and systematically replaced with the phrase ID; and (3) the changes occurred shortly after the Supreme Court held that creation science is religious and cannot be taught in public school science classes in Edwards. This word substitution is telling, significant, and reveals that a purposeful change of words was effected without any corresponding change in content, which directly refutes FTE’s argument that by merely disregarding the words “creation” and “creationism,” FTE expressly rejected creationism in Pandas.
leading to the inevitable conclusion that
Judge Jones wrote:
The weight of the evidence clearly demonstrates, as noted, that the systemic change from “creation” to “intelligent design” occurred sometime in 1987, after the Supreme Court’s important Edwards decision. This compelling evidence strongly supports Plaintiffs’ assertion that ID is creationism re-labeled.
And about the renewed attempts by ID to circumvent the courts, Judge Jones remarks
Judge Jones wrote:
Moreover, ID’s backers have sought to avoid the scientific scrutiny which we have now determined that it cannot withstand by advocating that the controversy, but not ID itself, should be taught in science class. This tactic is at best disingenuous, and at worst a canard. The goal of the IDM is not to encourage critical thought, but to foment a revolution which would supplant evolutionary theory with ID.
And finally the Judge remarks that
Judge Jones wrote:
It is our view that a reasonable, objective observer would, after reviewing both the voluminous record in this case, and our narrative, reach the inescapable conclusion that ID is an interesting theological argument, but that it is not science.
and
Judge Jones wrote:
In making this determination, we have addressed the seminal question of whether ID is science. We have concluded that it is not, and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents.
And that is why ID is rejected by science and many theologians. And that is why Judge Jones and Barbara Forrest are feared by many ID proponents because they have clearly outlined not only the scientific vacuity of ID but also its true motives and goals and its creationist foundations and motivations.