Intelligent Design is not creationism

Another Way to Defeat the ID = Creationism Meme

Casey Luskin


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 and every argument made by a creationist must be equivalent to arguing for full-blooded creationism. This fallacious argument is easy to defeat on logical grounds by pointing out that some ID proponents are not creationists, and in fact have been persuaded to support ID in the absence of religion. Thus something other than creationism or religion must be fundamental to the set of views underlying ID (big hint: it's the scientific data indicating real design in nature)!

Michael Egnor recently observed that William Provine and Gregory Graffin have published the results a poll which provides a poignant rhetorical rebuttal to the Darwinian "Genesis Genetic Argument." Provine and Graffin (both evolutionary biologists) surveyed 149 evolutionary biologists and found that 78% were "pure naturalists," and strikingly, "only two out of 149 described themselves as full theists."

So the next time a Darwinist tries to tell you that ID is creationism because some percentage of ID proponents are creationists, you can remind them that polls indicate that the vast majority of evolutionary biologists are atheists who reject traditional theism. By the logic of the Darwinist "Genesis Genetic Argument," evolutionary biology would be equivalent to "pure naturalism." Of course, that logic is false, which is why ID is not creationism any more than evolutionary biology is atheism.

 

Would Dr. Arno Penzias, Nobel Laureate in Physics, Be Blacklisted at Iowa State?

by Michael Egnor

Guillermo Gonzalez is the outstanding astronomer who was blacklisted from tenure at Iowa State University because of his support for intelligent design. As my colleagues here on ENV have pointed out, Dr. Gonzalez’ academic record is superb. Since his arrival in 2001, Dr. Gonzalez has been the most productive astronomer in his department, judged by the impact factor of his publications.

It’s clear that Dr. Gonzalez was denied tenure for only one reason: he stated publicly that he believes there is evidence for design in the universe. As I observed in a previous post about Georges Lemaître, the Catholic priest who is the father of the Big Bang theory, many of the most prominent astronomers in history have shared Dr. Gonzalez’s opinion about the evidence for design in the universe. Nowadays, it is very dangerous to state such beliefs in science departments of many universities, including Iowa State University.

Who else, besides Dr. Gonzalez and Dr. Lemaître, would qualify for Iowa State’s blacklist? Nobel laureate Dr. Arno Penzias meets Iowa State’s implicit criteria for denial of tenure. He has discussed his opinions regarding the philosophical ramifications of his discovery quite openly, and, in many ways, has done so in a way that was more explicitly religious than Dr. Gonzalez.

Penzias, along with his colleague Robert Wilson, worked at Bell Telephone Laboratories in Holmdel, New Jersey. In 1964, they detected diffuse isotropic radio noise of very low energy. After ruling out terrestrial sources, they realized that the noise was the cosmic microwave background radiation, a remnant of the Big Bang. They shared the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physics for their seminal discovery.

Penzias stated to the New York Times on March 12, 1978:

The best data we have [concerning the Big Bang] are exactly what I would have predicted, had I nothing to go on but the five books of Moses, the Psalms, the bible as a whole. In a subsequent radio interview, Penzias was asked what there was before the Big Bang:

“We don’t know, but we can reasonably say that there was nothing.” An upset listener called immediately, accusing Penzias of being an atheist. He wisely replied: “Madame, I believe you are not aware of the consequences of what I just said. Before the Big Bang there was nothing of what now exists. Had there been something, the question could be: where did it come from?” He continued commenting that if there was nothing and suddenly things began to appear, that was sign that Somebody had taken them from nothing, and concluded saying that his discovery could bring about the overcoming of the historic enmity between science and religion.

Dr. Penzias, like Dr. Gonzalez, thought deeply and has spoken quite publicly about the philosophical and theological implications of 20th century discoveries in astronomy. Fortunately for Penzias, his scientific accomplishments were evaluated by the Nobel Prize Committee, not the tenure committee at Iowa State University.

 

ID = Creationism simply because

Wikipedia
Intelligent design is the claim that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection."
It is a modern form of the traditional teleological argument for the existence of God, modified to avoid specifying the nature or identity of the designer.
Its primary proponents, all of whom are associated with the Discovery Institute, believe the designer to be God.
Intelligent design's advocates claim it is a scientific theory, and also seek to fundamentally redefine science to accept supernatural explanations

.........

The first word in Intelligent Design establishes creationism.
There may well be some dissenters within Discovery Institute who say intelligent space aliens created the universe, but the head honchos do not.
Even so, just to propose the Intelligent - need not be God - but could be - more than adequately constitutes creationism.

ID'ers stuck themselves. Creationism resides in the name - Intelligent Design.

 

The Chronicle of Higher Education records:

• Gonzalez had no major grants during his seven years at ISU
• had published no significant research during that time
• had only one graduate student finish a dissertation

Gregory Geoffroy, President of Iowa State University states: that

• he specifically considered Gonzalez's refereed publications,
• Gonzalez's level of success in attracting research funding and grants
• the amount of telescope observing time Gonzalez had been granted
• the number of graduate students Gonzalez had supervised
• and most importantly, the overall evidence of Gonzalez's future career promise in the field of astronomy

Chairman of Gonzalez's department states:

• he [Gonzalez] had no research funding,
  Des Moines Register shows:
• Iowa State sponsored $22,661 in outside grant money for Gonzalez
• In that same time period, Gonzalez's peers in physics and astronomy secured an average of $1.3 million

That Guillermo Gonzalez lives in a nice neighborhood, has good personal hygiene, reads books, promotes ID, is a Creationist, etc, are irrelevant and of no importance over his lack of qualifications for the post.
The damage to any hopes of his tenure was already there in the record.

Just like all the others who primarily don't make the grade. Many not ID'ers, so on what irrelevant incidental grounds should they now appeal.

 

I still don't get the Intelligent Design argument. Natural selection / adaptation seems to be sufficient reason explaining the evolutionary process. Whether evolution is the result of intelligence or fluke is a separate question.

 

The question is pertinent, as there is a world of difference between the concept of random existence, and existence from intelligence...

The passion in the arguments is not based in pure intellectual speculation, it runs much deeper than that on both sides of the debate.

If either side could actually prove their case, it would rock the world of the other side...

There is an overwhelming amount of emotional investment by both the fundamental theists and fundamentalist atheists...

 

.... or result of just more natural process

 

ISU President Geoffroy and the Elephant in the Living Room

by John West

The President of Iowa State University, Gregory Geoffroy, has issued a statement defending his denial of the tenure appeal of Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez. In the statement, Geoffroy claims that he concluded that Gonzalez “simply did not show the trajectory of excellence that we expect in a candidate seeking tenure in physics and astronomy.”

Ah, yes, President Geoffroy has such high standards of excellence that only the most outstanding professors are allowed to achieve tenure at ISU.

Geoffroy’s high standards must be why he approved 91% of the tenure applicants at ISU in 2007 (and why the tenure approval rate has gone up each year at ISU for the past five years).

Geoffroy’s high standards are presumably also why he promoted to full professor this year Hector Avalos, the ISU faculty member who argues in his “scholarship” that the Bible is worse than Hitler’s Mein Kampf. Yes, according to President Geoffroy’s exalted standards, only the best and brightest are allowed to stay at ISU!

But there’s more.

Geoffroy adds that he based his decision on Dr. Gonzalez’s
refereed publications, his level of success in attracting research funding and grants, the amount of telescope observing time he had been granted, the number of graduate students he had supervised, and most importantly, the overall evidence of future career promise in the field of astronomy. Let’s look at the three most important factors identified by Geoffroy:

"Refereed publications." Refereed publications are supposed to be the primary standard for excellence in research according to Gonzalez’s own department’s tenure and promotion policies. So how did Gonzalez perform according to this primary criterion? He published 68 refereed articles in science journals—350% more than the 15 articles his department regarded as the normal standard for demonstrating research excellence. Even if one only looks at articles published by Gonzalez after he arrived at ISU, he still produced 25 since 2002—which again is significantly more than the 15 articles that “ordinarily” are supposed to demonstrate research excellence according to his department’s standards. In addition, according to the Smithsonian/NASA Astrophysics Data System, Gonzalez has the highest number of “normalized citations” to his work among the astronomers in his department for articles published between 2001 and 2007. If President Geoffroy really considered Gonzalez’s refereed publications, the answer as to why Gonzalez deserved tenure should have been obvious.

"Research funding and grants." Although Gonzalez has received enough funding to maintain a strong record of publications, he has not brought in big bucks to his university. So what? Research funding is not even listed as a standard in his own department’s tenure and promotion policies. It is also difficult to believe that the 91% of applicants approved for tenure this year at ISU were mega-fundraisers. As previously reported, we have been trying for several weeks to get grant and publication data for all of those considered for tenure by ISU, but the university has stonewalled our open records request. It now claims it will start to deliver the requested information next week. Once we get the data, we will see whether grant funding is truly a required criterion for tenure at ISU. If it is, ISU needs to revise its own published policies on tenure and promotion. If it isn’t, ISU’s effort to use fundraising as a reason for denying tenure to Gonzalez is clearly a sham. Regardless, Gonzalez exceeded his department’s stated criterion for research excellence—refereed publications—and he should have been evaluated on that basis.

"Overall evidence of future career promise." Surely the main evidence of an academic scientist’s future career potential is his ability to generate refereed publications as well as the impact of those publications on his discipline. Yet it is clear that Gonzalez stood out in both areas.

Which brings me to the proverbial elephant in the living room that Geoffroy’s statement conspicuously avoids: intelligent design. As previously reported, at least two members of Gonzalez’s department (including his department chair) have publicly acknowledged that intelligent design played a role in the tenure denial. Two additional department members have been tied to a national statement denouncing intelligent design as “creationist pseudoscience.” This is in addition to the 2005 petition in which more than 120 ISU professors argued that all faculty at ISU have a duty to repudiate intelligent design, thus imposing an ideological litmus test at ISU. Yet Geoffroy in his statement is completely silent on the controversy over intelligent design at ISU. He acts as if it doesn’t exist. When pressed to comment by the Ames Tribune, Geoffroy reportedly insisted that intelligent design played no role in his decision. What about in previous evaluations of Gonzalez at the lower levels of ISU before the tenure application reached Geoffroy? Can Geoffroy assure the public that ID was not considered at these lower levels when ISU faculty have stated otherwise? And how can Geoffroy expect people to believe that his own decision was not tainted by the anti-ID prejudice among faculty at ISU, especially when his decision seems contrary to ISU’s published standards for tenure?

 

.... that remains irrelevant.

There was consensus from the President of Iowa State University AND the Tenured Department Faculty, AND the Department Chair, AND the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, AND the Dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences, AND the executive Vice President and Provost, that Guillermo Gonzalez should not get a post.
"Based on recommendations against granting tenure and promotion at every prior level of review,..."

Get over it. Guillermo Gonzalez wasn't up to the job. There was an appeal. No one in authority found him suitable for the post. The Discovery Institute doesn't decide who will and who won't be suitable for positions requiring an excellence in physics and astronomy. If they did, the earth would be flat, supported by pillars, with an Intelligent creator sat upon a dome stretched over the sky


Artificial controversy and attempted character assassination is that all Intelligent Design proponents have left ?
With no grounding to support their claims , ID can only try to make spurious argument in hope of attracting attention to itself.

 

Stu wrote:

Nonsense. Design detection is not based on the premise of supernatural agency but on the observation of phenomena which would in other contexts clearly indicate intelligent agency. ID does not say, "We have no idea how non-intelligent forces could have possibly created such complexity, therefore, God must have done it," rather ID says "We have ample experience with complexity of this sort, and our experience tells us that intelligence is required to produce it. Therefore, absent coercive contrary evidence, intelligent agency is the best explanation."

The only way this perspective can be described as creationism is to water down the definition of creationism to the point that theistic evolutionists would be creationists. Proponents of directed panspermy such as agnostic Fred Hoyle and atheist Francis Crick would also fall into the category of “Creationist” under Stu's warered down version of creationism.

Yet imagine the Institute of Creation Research put out a pamphlet stating, “Creationist Francis Crick (who helped discover the Double Helix nature of DNA) was so incredulous of abiogenesis that he proposed the first life forms were designed and deposited on this planet.” I think it obvious those previously proposing the watered down definition would now accuse the ICR of misrepresenting Crick as a creationist, indicating that they really don’t take their watered down definition seriously. Clearly, if the definition of “Creationist” can include an atheist proponent of Darwinian evolution, then the definition adds smoke, not light, to the debate.

Let’s expand on this. Let’s say the Answers in Genesis group writes an article crediting Creationists for discovering the double helix and sequencing the human genome. Upon reading, we find that the creationists are Francis Crick and Francis Collins. How do you think the critics would respond? It would be interesting to then watch them come up with a tailor-made definition that works to exclude Crick, Collins, Miller and others from the creationist label, yet include people like Behe.