New term for creationists: “cdesign proponentsists”

MAKE senior editor Phillip Torrone reviewed NOVA's Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial.

When the advocates of Intelligent Design during the trial said that the book “Of Pandas and People” had nothing to do with creationism, they lied; it turned out the original drafts were all about Creationism. After the drafts were subpoenaed (thousand of pages) it was discovered that a simple search and replace was used to change the text from creationism wording to something, well, less creationism sounding. It was changed because the Supreme Court in 1987 ruled it was unconstitutional to teach creationism in public schools. When I say “search and replace” I really mean they found examples of where the words didn’t exactly get changed enough. You can see it here…

Wherever the word “creationists” appeared it was replaced with “cdesign proponentsists” - that’s merely creationists without the “reation” and with “design” and “proponents” replaced in.

Link

• [Umbriel]

  Stefan Jones — That’s a fair indictment of whatever the Discovery Institute has to say about ID, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that there are no sincere proponants of ID, or that they all have some broader political agenda.

  I don’t happen to think that ID should be taught as science, but I don’t think that Darwinian evolution should be taught as theology either.

• [JoshuaZ]

  This is incorrect, the phrase “cdesign proponentsists” only occurred once in the draft (in the second 1987 draft of Panda’s). See http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2005/11/missing_link_cd.html for more details. Also see http://www2.ncseweb.org/wp/?p=80 which has scans of the original texts. Note the the first copy of “creationists” is changed to “cdesign proponentsists” while the second time “creationists” is correctly changed to “design proponents”. So “wherever” is clearly incorrect. Also this isn’t at all “new”- the NCSE link above is November 7 2005, so this was known about two years ago.

• [cayton]

  I agree with UMBRIEL to some extent. If Darwinian evolution is taught, then so should ID. Or neither, whatever.

• [Cpt. Tim]

  Intelligent design isn’t science for a simple reason.

  Science makes observations and builds theories around those observations. when a fact contradicts the theory, you have to go back to the drawing board.

  I.D. takes the conclusion, and tries to pick out specific facts out of context that support that conclusion. i.e. “Science says complex systems break down, evolution violates this.”

  starting with your conclusion is not science.

• [mikelotus]

  yea, ID is just another form of superstition like most religions are. Evolution is such a fact, you either have no understanding of biology or are brain dead if you think other wise. And by no means does evolution violate the second law of thermodynamics. In fact, nothing violates it.

• [absurdidad_racional]

  This debate between science and creationism boils down, I think, to a debate between instrumental and speculative reason.

• [tim]

  #7 you’re misquoting umbriel in #5. What s/he said was
  “I don’t happen to think that ID should be taught as science, but I don’t think that Darwinian evolution should be taught as theology either.”

  That is *extremely* different to your statement. I.D. (and how I *hate* them for usurping the initials previously used for my profession) is a political farrago intended to be part of the general religionist strategy of fighting science, free thought, honest enquiry and the entire concept of the rule of law. Darwin’s theory of evolution is a rather successful scientific theory explaining how evolution proceeds. It is not a theory *that* it happens. It is a theory of *how* it happens. Evolution *happens* whether Darwin was right or wrong.

• [tehmoth]

  When creationists bring up the second law they conveniently leave out the “closed” part.

  “The entropy of a closed system cannot decrease.”

• [JohnnyWeird]

  #13, your phrasing is admirably elegant, but I fear that the terms are unknown to me. While I could proably look them up with ease, I beg you to elaborate for me so that I can understand your meaning as clearly as possible.

• [semiotix]

  To me, it sounds like the Latin name for an organism. I recommend that the next newly evolved strain of bacterium we find be designated c. design proponensis regardless of its actual place in the taxonomy.

• [mdhatter]

  What else would you expect from such deep thinkers?

• [Cpt. Tim]

  Pam: Here’s what we think happened. Michael’s sidekick who, all through the movie is this complete idiot who’s causing the downfall of the United States, was originally named Dwight. But then Michael changed it to Samuel L. Chang using a search and replace. But that doesn’t work on misspelled words. Leaving behind one “Dwigt”. And Dwight figured it out. Ooops.

• [JohnnyWeird]

  Why leave c-ists in? It seems like such a profoundly stupid move that it must be the result of some impressive wrongthinkery.

• [Stefan Jones]

  Lest anyone think that “Intelligent Design” has anything to do with the pursuit of knowledge:

  Go look up a document called “The Wedge Strategy.” It’s the Discovery Institutes’s game plan for pushing intelligent design.

  Not because it is a better theory, but because it fits their political goals of re-secularizing society.