There are easy creationist answers to problems evolutionists pose

A lot to unpack in your long description, but thanks again for the effort put in here. I just have more clarifying questions, you can answer or not at your discretion.You mention here and throughout the rest of your answer of a "movement", which makes it sound more-or-less like a formal group. So assuming that is correct, would a person that is not part of this 'movement', but that holds similar beliefs as you describe, be a creationist?Any formal movement put aside, would a person that does not believe in the particular literalist belief of the Creation stories in Genesis, but that does believe in Divine Creation apart from evolution, be considered as a creationist?
I'm think your answer here would be "No", and I'm thinking here primarily of differences between those holding to a young earth (~6000 years old -YEC?) vs someone who holds to an old earth. But your wording describing this later is a little confusing. So, I do understand that in your view, someone that does believe in Divine Creation is not necessarily a creationist. The deciding factor appears to be merely whether the attitude opposing evolution is based solely on a religious stance. Otherwise, a person could believe (but not necessarily) in Divine Creation and evolution and not be a creationist. Where would you categorize someone that accepts Divine Creation and that opposes evolution based on a non-religious stance, such as having scientific reasons for rejecting (some aspects of) evolution? Though much of this was stated by you prior, I'm quoting this again to just point out how the flow is lending to my understanding of what you mean. Someone that believes in Divine Creation is not necessarily a creationist. Someone that rejects evolution is not necessarily a creationist. Someone that believes in Divine Creation AND opposes evolution is not necessarily a creationist. But if someone in the category last mentioned does oppose evolution on primarily religious grounds, and/or has a belief in a particular literalist belief of creation described in Genesis, then they are a creationist. Here's your sign! So any legalistic maneuvers to try to ban the teaching of evolution based on a religious motivation would be an additional sign of a creationist. What about someone that does not want evolution banned in teaching anywhere, nor wants religious ideas taught in public schools, but that wants academic freedom to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of evolutionary theory, while privately holding a belief in Divine Creation? Would they be considered a creationist?So besides these already strict standards, the rest of your characterizations also appear to have a strict and formal structure. I do not agree with every characterization or extension you mention. But in the descriptors that I have no reason to initially doubt, I suspect that today they are not very prevalent, as I have not encountered anyone that even comes close to embodying majority of the many features and tactics you describe. It seems most of your experiences are with limited cases and occurred a long time ago. Where have these factors been displayed in the 21st century?

That subterfuge has been tried with intelligent design.Now you can't do creationism. Can't do creation science. Can't do intelligent design.So, this non-religious Divine Creation is the next ploy?See you in court.

And yet you still didnt answer the question. So I wonder what your position in court will be.Besides, you're going to be arguing with dwise1, since it's his definition and standard that I'm trying to unpack.

The same as in Dover - you guys lie.

Working on my replies. I was away in Phoenix for the weekend and had just returned last night.AZPaul3 is quite correct. I don't understand why you think that my definition is so different from his.The anti-evolution movement in the US started in the early 20th century and really picked up momentum after WWI -- BTW, most of anti-evolution claims linking evolution to Nazism are just slight redressing of the earlier movement's linking evolution to their anti-German stereotypes ("The Hun", as Edgar Rice Burroughs called a German villain in one of his Tarzan novels). They weren't an actual organization, but rather a collection of church groups all outraged that their high school children were being taught evolution. They didn't know anything about evolution, but they were certain that it was anti-Christian (there was a similar negative reaction to evolution by the clergy in the late 1800's, but they soon learned what it was and came to realize that it posed no actual theological difficulties, something that the Fundamentalists never could grasp).While not explicitly organized, small local groups did campaign locally to pressure schools and school boards and even individual teachers to not teach evolution. State-level organizations lobbied state legislatures to pass "monkey laws" and also to pressure textbook publishers to leave any mention of evolution out of the textbooks. It was a form of populism. Their spiritual leader was the populist politician William Jennings Bryan. Yes, he was involved in the John Scopes Trial and, yes, he did die shortly thereafter.Even though they had won the Scopes Trial (and the ACLU's plan to take his conviction to the US Supreme Court to get a decision striking down the "monkey laws" failed when the appeals court reverse his conviction on a legal technicality regarding how he had paid his fine), the publicity it gave them was public humiliation, plus their spiritual leader, Bryan, had died, so they seemed to have faded out of sight. But the "monkey laws" were still in place as was their pressure on teachers, schools, school boards, and textbook publishers, so they just maintained their status quo suppression of the teaching of evolution for the next four decades.That status quo ended in 1968 with Epperson v. Arkansas concerning a teacher running afoul with Arkansas' "monkey law" because her school required her to use the BSCS textbook (written by actual biologists instead of the usual textbook hacks) whose evolution-rich content (because it was written by actual biologists) brought her in conflict with the "monkey law" that would punish her very severely just for mentioning the "e-word" in class, let alone teach it.That US Supreme Court decision led to the striking down of all the "monkey laws" and suddenly the anti-evolution movement, which to this point could just sit there fat, dumb, and happy, had lost its primary bulwark against evolution. So they had to spring back into action.Also in the 60's a new generation of creationists had been organizing and developing what would later become "creation science". Duane Gish and Henry Morris (the Father of Flood Geology having co-written The Genesis Flood in 1961) tried in vain to get the Christian organization, American Scientific Affiliation, to take a more young-earth position so they left the ASA and formed their own YEC organizations eventually leading them to found the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) which became the primary source for creationist materials, claims, and arguments.Now up to the mid-70's the anti-evolution movement was unabashed about the fact that they opposed the teaching of evolution for purely religious reasons. And they renewed their battle against evolution education in the same manner as before by not hiding their religious purpose (it has been said that when a new war starts the generals start fighting the last war). In court they repeatedly lost their lawsuits precisely because they wanted to bar the teaching of evolution solely for religious purposes.That is when that legalistic deception, "creation science", was created for the precise purpose of circumventing the courts. Though it also worked well to deceive the general public. Their big lie was "We do not oppose evolution for religious reasons. We oppose it for purely scientific reasons, nothing religious about it."Gee, does that sound familiar to you? Maybe if we were to examine what you had stated and to which AZPaul3 had replied: As he said, we have seen that subterfuge used by creationists and IDiots so many times in this past half century.Over the decades, creationists had been building up a body of claims about scientific research supporting their theology of a young earth, etc. Most of it was done by a church, Seventh Day Adventists (SDA). This new generation of creationists got most of their "scientific" claims from the SDAists and Henry Morris stole (er ... "researched") much of the material for his "Genesis Flood" from the infamous SDAist "geologist" George McCready Price.Also, the ICR's publishing house, Master Books, had been preparing textbooks for teaching creationism in the schools, including public schools. They were filled with Bible verses and references. Now that they suddenly discovered that religious content would keep their books out of the schools, they created their "public school edition". All they did was to perform a superficial scrubbing of all overt Bible and religious references from the book.That was one of the first steps in their deliberately deceptive game of "Hide the Bible". Plus their materials retained their blatant proselytizing in that at the end of each lesson after they had misrepresented and distorted the science they would implore the students to choose right there and then whether to believe in their "unnamed Creator" (nudge, nudge, wink, wink, know what I mean?, know what I mean?) or the "atheistic evolution model". Compelling belief like that is diametrically opposed to the goal of education, which is for the student to understand the material and not to compel belief in the material; rather the goal of religious indoctrination is to compel belief. When these materials have been used, students have responded by choosing atheism because "the creationist theory was so stupid, he thought. Well, if religion requires me to believe this, then I don't want to have any part of it." (quoted on my quotes page, an account of what happened in Ray Baird's Livermore elementary grade class is reposted here).They created and deployed their Two Model Approach (TMA) in which the "creation model" only made vague references about some "unknown Creator" while the "atheist evolution model" was everything else "including most of the world's religions, ancient and modern" (Dr. Henry Morris' exact words to me).There is so much more we could discuss about the TMA, but it suffices here to mention that it formed the basis of their entire approach to "creation science". It led directly to their "balanced treatment" and "equal time" campaigns to get their "balanced treatment" "educational" (proselytizing, actually) materials into the public schools. Their entire debate system for which they are infamous consisted entirely of attacking their fake "evolution model" while avoiding any discussion or defense of their "creation model". In fact, the very first thing they would do in a debate would be to state the Two Model Approach.OK, we've gone over the first two phases in the Evolution of Creationism: OK, let's move on.The "creation science" generation of creationists went on to try to pass their own "monkey laws" under the guise of "balanced treatment". The most famous examples are the Arkansas and Louisiana laws passed around 1981.The Arkansas law required the inclusion of "creation science" if evolution is taught (AKA "balanced treatment"), but if evolution is not taught then there would be no need to include "creation science". IOW, the threat of having to include "creation science" could be enough to eliminate evolution from the classroom, a case of "... -- the idea of killing evolution instead of playing these debating games that we've been playing for nigh over a decade already." (from a letter admitted as evidence in the trial).The trial, McLean v. Arkansas, was held in federal court and was followed closely. Teachers testified as to the near-impossibility to find any suitable materials to form a creationist curriculum. The ICR materials, which were the best to be found, were just so blatantly religious as to be totally unsuitable. All that they could find was an article in Reader's Digest about polonium halos, but that claim by Robert Gentry has since then been soundly refuted. One teacher broke down in tears on the stand because the law would require him to lie to his students.But the Achilles Heel of that law was that it committed the Cardinal Sin of creationism: providing a definition of "creation science". The First Rule of Creationist Club is that you do not define creationism. Here's my page reposting what the ICR's lawyer Wendell Bird had published in the ICR's newsletter in 1981 to "differentiate" between the "scientific" and biblical creation models: The Creation Model. To quote Austrian Emperor Joseph II, "Just look at it!" Placing them side by side as Bird did we can plainly see that they are identical except for some superficial lawyerly word-magick.That definition of "creation science" in the law proved to be the smoking gun which led to the law being struck down because it failed to pass the Lemon Test by having a religious purpose.The legislators in Louisiana were watching what was happening in Arkansas because their law was identical, so when they saw the fatal mistake of the Arkansas law they immediately removed their definition of "creation science". Their law was challenged in court (Edwards v. Aguillard) and made its way all the way up to the US Supreme Court which in 1987 struck it down for failing the Lemon Test by having a religious purpose.But the key part of that decision was as AZPaul3 said quite correctly, "Can't do creation science." In their decision, the court recognized "creation science" as being purely religious in its nature. That meant that as of 1987 nobody could use "creation science" any longer as a deceptive ruse to circumvent the courts. "Hide the Bible" no longer worked. They needed a new game, one of "Hide the Creationism".Well for the previous decade or so, a separate branch of anti-evolution had been forming: Intelligent Design (ID). Most observers of creationism think that ID was invented immediately after Edwards v. Aguillard since that's the first that they had ever heard of it, but years before that I saw ID founder and lawyer Phillip Johnson on NOVA where he based his entire case for Darwin on Trial on the most stupid analogy possible. He attacked evolution because it did not follow courtroom rules of evidence. That means that his analogy for how science should work was for it to always follow courtroom procedure and standards. The problem for that idea is that a far better analogy for science would be a police investigation where you search for and find clues which then lead to other clues which leads to evidence and to more evidence until you have enough to build a case. It is only after you have been able to build a case that courtroom procedures and standards would apply. If you had to follow those courtroom procedures from the very beginning of the investigation, you would never have gotten anywhere. So regardless of how brilliant that lawyer may be, he's a complete idiot (or IDiot) when it comes to understanding anything about science.BTW, to poke a pin in your conceit of "non-religious" reasons for opposing evolution, in an essay Phillip Johnson wrote that his main reason for rejecting evolution is that "it leaves God with nothing to do." Bone-headed idiocy!Also, this is one case where my memory does not fit the actual timeline. I remember seeing Johnson in the early 1980's, but his book wasn't published until 1991, four years after ID was adopted and adapted by creationism. I do remember having heard of Johnson before 1987. I cannot explain this discrepancy.So, back to the thread. The ID community had been in contact with the creationist community looking for common ground despite their differences. Creationists are primarily YECs, so they are tied closely to young-earth beliefs. They are also rather explicitly religious, usually with a fundamentalist bend, and hence very tied to the Bible. Creationists are fairly monolithic in religious matters. Their opposition to evolution is primarily for religious reasons, which are mainly that their beliefs don't fit reality.IDists are more eclectic religiously and as a group are not tied too strongly to specific religious beliefs nor to trying to prop up the Bible. They are not tied to ideas of a young earth, which is by far the weakest part of YEC -- most of my research into and refutations of YEC deal with young-earth claims.Even though some are hiding their deeper religious reasons for opposing evolution, most IDists claim that their objections are purely philosophical. Those objections are primarily their rejection of materialism, but there again they don't understand what they are talking about.Science practices methodological materialism, which means that science can only deal with the physical universe and has no ability to deal with the supernatural, so anything supernatural just has no place in the business of science. That does not deny the possibility of the existence of the supernatural, just that science cannot do anything with the supernatural.BTW, YHWH (AKA "HaShem" (apparently the basis for the Vulcan hand salute), AKA "G-d", AKA "God" to goyim) is supernatural by its very nature.There is also philosophical materialism, which is the philosophical idea that the supernatural does not exist. This is referred to disparagingly as "molecules to Man", etc. This is what IDiots wrongly believe that science uses, but they are dead-headed wrong!So IDiots don't know the simple and abundantly clear difference between methodological materialism and philosophical materialism. And because they don't understand that difference, they want to "reform" science to include the supernatural. Just how the flying Frak is that supposed to work? Everything happens through "goddidit"? That answers absolutely nothing.Just because IDiots don't understand science, they want to obliterate it. FRAK THEM! We had a topic back in 2007, So Just How is ID's Supernatural-based Science Supposed to Work? (SUM. MESSAGES ONLY), in which I posed the question of just how IDiots' reformed science was supposed to actually work. 396 message in total. No answer to my fundamental question of just how it is supposed to work.I should also note that "creation science" claims are all BS and as far as I've seen ID arguments are also all BS. However, creationists normally make their claims based on science that is outside of their own training, so not only do they not understand what they are talking about but they cannot respond to any questions or challenges. IDists normally try to stay closer to their areas of expertise and so are better able to respond to questions or challenges. Creationist claims are based on misrepresenting science, even basic science, and so are easily refuted by almost anybody with any basic knowledge of science. IDists also do their share of misrepresenting, but they couch most of arguments in byzantine mathematics -- they are usually also fairly well versed in math -- which means that anyone trying to address or refute an ID claim must also be highly trained, especially in math. So, creationism is pure BS and so is ID, but ID's BS is much stronger than creationism's. Refuting creationist claims is like shooting fish in a barrel, while ID claims present a much harder target.So since creationists could no longer use "creation science", they created their new game of "Hide the Creationism" by adopting the "complexity" arguments of ID and hiding behind an ID smokescreen (stronger BS and all).So the third phase in the Evolution of Creationism is: OK, so now we are in the "Hide the Creationism" phase where the creationists are using ID-esque complexity claims as a smokescreen. And that is pretty much the current situation. I mean, they have nowhere else to go.But AZPaul3 says "Can't do intelligent design." I don't know of any sweeping court decision to support that, but I do know what he is referring to. Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District (2005). District court, so not binding nationwide like a US Supreme Court ruling would be. It revolved around an "ID" (reason for those scare quotes below) textbook, Of Pandas and People. The ID side lost in large part because of the smoking gun which proved that that book was a "creation science" book and therefore religious in nature and purpose as per Edwards v. Aguillard (1987).The book, Of Pandas and People, was in the process of being written when Edwards v. Aguillard (1987) went down destroying any and all "creation science" efforts. Of Pandas and People was a "creation science" book from the very start. Now that being a "creation science" book would keep it from being adopted by any school district, they had to play the game of "Hide the Creationism" and give it the traditional superficial scrubbing of all incriminating references.As per proper practice, the book was being written on a word processor, so they just did a global find-and-replace to change all references to creation and creationism to "intelligent design" and creator to "intelligent agency", and "creationists" to "design proponents". Well, global editing commands don't always work perfectly. The smoking gun for what they were doing was one instance of "creationists" that wasn't changed cleanly, creating the word "cdesign proponentsists". That revealed the true creationist nature of that book.In the ruling, Intelligent Design was found to be religious in nature. But while that does establish a case history of ID having been found to be religious in nature (hence AZPaul3's comment), its scope is much more limited than a US Supreme Court decision would be.So that leaves us with creationists still able to continue their "Hide the Creationism" with their ID BS deception. 
Now as a summary:  
So despite your attempt to mischaracterize your position as "non-religious", reality proves you wrong on that point.Edited by dwise1, : Added indents to improve readability

Just in case you missed it in my other reply (my Message 65 to your Message 63), AZPaul3 in his Message 62 very correctly called bullshit on your question quoted above (also quoted by him).Let me explain it again where you cannot overlook it.The entire "creation science" deliberate deception was based on this big lie: "We oppose evolution for purely scientific reasons. Has absolutely nothing to do with religion." When in reality "creation science" is purely religious in nature and in purpose. So that big lie was intended first to deceive the courts and then to deceive the public. That claim of "rejecting evolution for scientific reasons" is nothing but a massive fraud.Now, look at that and look at what you had written. Aren't they virtually identical in what they claim?We have watched creationists for decades lying out of every orifice of their bodies and shoveling tons of bullshit all over everybody.How else could you expect us to view you when you try to shovel that same old bullshit lie on us as you just now did? 
Now let me quote to you a disclaimer from my cre/ev website:

quote:

---

From the start, my approach has been to examine and critique creationist claims.
My position is that:

• If you want to oppose evolution, then you need to do so honestly and truthfully.
• Using false and deceptive claims must be avoided because of the damage that that does to your cause, which I assume to be The Cause of Christ.
• Using false and deceptive claims both drives away potential converts (especially those with any knowledge of science and hence can readily see how bogus your claims are, so you just gave them very good reasons to reject your religion from this point on) and entraps believers into a vicious circle of lies that will either corrupt them morally or eventually destroy their faith.
• You also need to learn as much as you possibly can about actual science, including evolution. Going to war against an enemy (as you are warring against evolution) without knowing anything about that enemy will lead you to defeat, so it is in your own best interest to learn all that you can learn (HINT: not from creationist sources, since they will only feed you misinformation).

​

I never attack religious belief, but rather warn against using lies and deception to support and defend religious belief. Over the decades, I have received vicious emails denouncing me for attacking the Bible. Nothing could be further from the truth, since I almost never even mention the Bible. Rather, I oppose the use of false and deceptive claims and arguments to support or promote a religion. Nor do I oppose belief in Divine Creation, but rather "creation science" which is a deliberately crafted legal deception which escaped the petri dish and has infected the Body of Christ. In short, using falsehoods and deception as the basis for your faith and as a means to defend your faith and proselytize to others can only be counter-productive at best and self-destructive at worst.

---

And

quote:

---

My position basically boils down to this:

If you honestly and truly want to fight evolution, then at least do it right!
Learn everything you can about evolution and then attack it, not some stupid strawman caricature of it.
And do so honestly and truthfully!

​

By refusing to fight evolution honestly and truthfully, but rather using "creation science" instead, you are constantly shooting yourself in the foot, dooming your cause (ie, the Cause of Christ) to failure and your followers to losing their faith.

---

What part of "then do so honestly and truthfully" are you unable or unwilling to understand?

That was mainly speculation of whether you'd turn out to be a hit-and-run troll like Mikey the Whiz has a long history of being on this forum.AKA "drive-by flaming" (or Robin Williams' "run-by fruiting"), characteristic of many absolutely vicious emails "about" my website I've received from "good Christians" full of "Christian love" accusing me of horrible things that are nowhere to be found on my site. And almost invariably when I would respond and ask them to tell me which page they were referring to (about 35 pages in the creation/evolution section) and which specific sentence they were objecting to, they would not respond, even when I sent follow-up emails.Sadly, that's what decades of bitter experience have taught us to expect from creationists. Though it does get worse, a lot worse.As I seem to recall, you do seem to lean strongly towards creationism even though you appear to try to hide it behind the popular "intelligent design" smokescreen. I seem to recall that I included that game of "Hide the Creationism" in my message that you replied to. "Creationist" is not the only term that depends on context to tell you what it means. Almost every single term we use in all fields depend on context for their actual meaning.When you buy or use ketchup, why is it always labeled "tomato ketchup" and not just simply "ketchup"? What do they think, that there are other kinds of ketchup? Well, that is the case. Ketchup was a Malaysian fish sauce from before any tomatoes had ever been exported from the New World. On YouTube, Townsends has presented a number of different 18th century ketchups, none of which use tomatoes (they might have still thought tomatoes were poisonous). So to refer to the only kind of ketchup we have ever known, we need to modify it with "tomato" to provide the proper context.Similarly, you don't use a napkin but rather a "paper napkin". Just plain napkins are made of cloth, so we have to specify that we are using a paper napkin. Same thing with paper towels. And with many other common items which are different than their original form.Going further, many different endeavors and trades have their own specialized vocabularies (AKA "jargon") in which they still use common words but with different very specific meanings within the trade. For example, when working with a movable type printing press, you need to use coins. Not money, but rather pieces of metal used to fill in the empty space at the end of a line in order to hold the print in place.Another example from my personal life is "rhythm." I was never able to learn how to dance the freestyle 60's stuff( which in German was called "Auseinandertanzen", "dancing away from each other" ... I only know the name for it in German but not in English). I was told to follow the rhythm, but nobody ever pointed out to me what that was -- I was and still am a listener who hears and listens to what all the instruments are doing, the downside of which was that if I need to follow one particular instrument for the key to dancing I keep getting distracted by all the melodic instruments. I studied music theory, in part to finally learn about this elusive thing, rhythm. In music, that's how you divide the beats within a measure. Not how it's used in dance. I finally came to realize that both music and dance use the same word, "rhythm", but differently -- kind of similarly, but still differently -- causing much confusion.So, context is King! You need to determine what the context is so that you can know what the terms mean. Devoid of context, a word could mean anything.Now, there is a very typical deceptive creationist trick which has been called "semantic shifting". They use it to "quote a scientific source" and still change that quote to mean something quite different than what the source actually said. The key is to remove that quote from its context or else (or also) stick it into a different context. In doing so, you "shift the meaning" of that quote which enables you to misquote your source without having to change a single word. One example of changing the meaning by lifting it out of context would be to quote the Bible as saying "There is no God."Most commonly, the creationist would quote the scientific source in which those terms had very specific meanings and present it to their audience/readership in colloquial terms, street English, where those terms have quite different meanings.The example that comes to mind is "transitional fossil forms". Is a fossil transitional between two other forms? Let's take Archaeopteryx as an example of a transition from a particular kind of dinosaur to birds. The scientists will say that Archaeopteryx is not transitional, but they are using a very specific definition of "transitional" which is quite different than the street use of that term (kind of like "tentative" in lawyer-speak, but that's another story). So creationists lift the words of the scientists out of context and plop them into the street meanings, thus misquoting their sources without ever having to change a single word.On the street, all that means is whether that fossilized critter was on a line of descent from one form to another (eg, from a particular kind of dinosaur and birds). But in one of the sciences that study such things (eg, systematics, cladistics) for a fossil to be transitional all its characteristics must be intermediate between the before and after forms. Since it very rarely works that way (different characteristics change at different rates and at different times), creationists can find examples of scientists saying that a particular fossil is not transitional in the strict, scientific sense of that term when that fossil is clearly transitional in the street sense which is the sense that the creationists are misrepresenting the scientists as using.BTW, in the notes from their two-model class at San Diego State University (it was the only true two-model class I have ever heard of until the campus Christian clubs rebelled and had it shut down), Awbrey and Thwaites compared 27 features of birds, Archaeopteryx, and Coelurosaurs (a kind of theropod dinosaur). In two features, all three groups were the same (eyes having sclerotic ring and scapulae having same shape). In two other features, birds and Archaeopteryx were the same and different from Coelurosaurs (body covered with feathers and fused clavicles [wishbone]). In 17 other features, Archaeopteryx is different from birds and the same as the coelurosaurs (femur, fibula, sternum, ribs, gastralia, cervical vertebra type, caudals, vertebral column, humerus, ulna, carpometacarpus, teeth, palate, snout (instead of a beak), occipital condyle and foramen magnum, anteorbital and external mandibular skull openings, and external nostril openings near the tip of the snout (instead of near the eyes). In 6 other features, Archaeopteryx is intermediate between birds and Coelurosaurs (metatarsals, bones being hollow and pneumatic, coracoids, pelvis, orbits, braincase). So Archaeopteryx is obviously intermediate between Coelurosaurs and birds, though technically not transitional in the strict technical sense of that word. Hence creationists deny Archaeopteryx as being transitional and claim that it's either 100% bird or 100% reptile and sometimes they even make both claims in the same article (as Duane Gish has done).  There's an entire line of misleading creationist argument that points out that there are several different kinds of evolution. In that argument, they misrepresent "evolutionists" (what is the definition of that pejorative creationist term?) as knowing nothing about evolution. Besides being an attempt to play "gotcha" (like catching somebody misusing the imperative as an interrogative), their argument also reveals their own confusion about what evolution is; what they understand evolution to be is a long unanswered question.According to one dictionary, the word "evolution" first appeared in the English language around 1610, more than two centuries before Darwin used the term. The basic meaning from the roots is "turning out". It is generally used to refer to change over time, so we can talk about the evolution of the telephone, the evolution of Western art, the evolution of the English language, the evolution of Christianity, stellar evolution, etc. It also has some more specialized meanings, like biological evolution (note the need for a modifier, like in "paper napkin", to distinguish it as differing from the general usage) and Navy evolutions.From this point on, our context is that "evolution" refers to biological evolution primarily of the Darwinian and neo-Darwinian varieties. Other forms of evolution will be indicated with a modifier (eg, stellar evolution).Creationists often try to create analogies between evolution (which they never define so I don't know what they think they're talking about) and the evolution of the designs of all kinds of other things, like cars or Mikey's drone. Those analogies are false, because the way that evolution works and what it is restricted to work with are very different from changing the designs of cars or drones or whatever -- biological evolution does not nor ever would have an option like dropping a Mitsubishi engine into an American minivan; life does not even begin to be able to work that way! Hence, Mikey's argument for intelligent design based on his false analogies falls apart. How so? What other uses for "creationist" do you see except for adherents of creationism which is one side of the contrived dichotomy, "creation/evolution", which is a creationist invention intended to promote the deception that there is some kind of "controversy". One goal of that "controversy" is to severely damage science education with campaigns calling for "teach the controversy" which is just a newer form of their "balanced treatment" and "equal time" campaigns of the past.That "controversy" is still tightly bound with their other false dichotomy, the Two Model Approach (TMA), despite most creationists' ignorance of it (along with their ignorance of professional creationists, since they get most of their creationist material from their church or by word of mouth -- Mikey the Whizz had it completely turned around when he claimed that "evolutionists" don't read what the creationists write; rather it is most creationists who don't do that reading). The TMA posits two mutually exclusive "models", the "Creation Model" (CM) and the "Evolution Model" (EM), and attempts to "prove" the CM solely by "disproving" the EM. In a true dichotomy that would work (and is used in some mathematical proofs using "proof by contradiction" -- assume the complete opposite of what you are trying to prove and prove that opposite to be false, therefore the original proposition must be true). However, there are strict requirements for a true dichotomy, none of which the TMA meets, therefore the TMA is a false dichotomy (AKA "false dilemma"). The only purpose that a false dichotomy serves is to deceive and to mislead your audience and followers.I have already discussed the TMA elsewhere, plus this subject needs its own message for a full discussion. The problem with mike's usage is that it is typical of creationists in that they will claim that every believer is one of themselves even while decrying most believers to be "atheistic evolutionists" because they do not reject evolution. IOW, they have usurped the title of "creationist". Here is what was written on this by an evangelical Christian who did not reject evolution, went on to earn his PhD in Physical Geology, and opposed "creation science":

quote:

---

Introduction

​

I am an evangelical Christian and a creationist. I am also a Ph.D. candidate in geology, believe that the earth is approximately 4,600,000,000 years old, and have taught evolution in historical geology courses. Does this sound contradictory to you? Well, read on...

​

. . .

​

These results shouldn't be surprising since a 1991 poll on religion by the Graduate School of the City University of New York (New York Times, April 10, 1991) indicated that 86% of Americans profess to be Christian and only 7.5% claimed no religious affiliation.

​

I draw two inferences from these polling results:

1. Most Americans believe in God and believe that humans were created by God.

​

2. Most Americans are scientifically illiterate and have no idea how difficult it would be to scientifically justify an ex nihilo creation of man less than 10,000 years ago.

Unlike many atheists, however, I do not believe these two issues are necessarily related. People believe in God because God exists. People are ignorant of science because our public school system does not effectively teach them science, our culture does not value science, and the Christian Church has generally been either indifferent or hostile to science. For the most part, the public school system teaches that science is a system of facts to be memorized (which is why many students dislike science) and not that science is a way of investigating the world around us (which is fun and interesting).

​

. . .

​

"Scientific" Creationism

​

I've read many of the materials written by young-earth creationists such as Steve Austin, Thomas Barnes, Carl Baugh, Duane Gish, Ken Ham, Henry Morris, John Morris, Gary Parker, and Harold Slusher among others. I'm also very familiar with the material put out by Answers in Genesis, the Institute for Creation Research and the Creation Research Society. In addition, I've even attended lectures and seminars by several well-known young-earth creationists.

​

In general, I've been dismayed by the lack of scholarship, research, and ethics displayed by these men who claim to be devout Christians. They totally misrepresent mainstream science and scientists, ignore evidence contrary to their claims, and display an amazing ignorance of even the most basic fundamentals of science and scientific inquiry. Their materials are aimed toward laypeople who are in no position to evaluate their claims. I don't mean to sound arrogant, but who is better qualified to judge the accuracy of K-Ar dating, an evangelist who reads creationist literature and has never taken a physics or geology course in his life or a Ph.D. in isotope geochemistry (who may also be a devout Christian) who has spent 25 years studying K-Ar dating in granites?

​

As an example of some creationist's arrogance, intellectual laziness, and apparent abandonment of any allegience to the truth, I offer the following quotation which I recently came across from Pastor James B. Coffman of a Church of Christ in Houston, Texas. Coffman claims, in speaking about the flood in his Commentary on Genesis (1985, Abilene Christian University Press), that:

A scientific community that has no explanation whatever for how marine fossils are found at elevations above the snowline in the Cordillera and the Himalayas are not at all convincing in their shouted denials that what is recorded here is a record of what really happened [p. 121].

Is he serious? No explanation whatever? Has the Pastor Coffman ever heard of plate tectonics, the unifying theme of modern geology for the past quarter century? Perhaps before trashing the work and reputation of geologists (many of them Christians), he should have read an undergraduate textbook or two. I can give dozens of examples like this from creationist literature that are factually wrong. Not just differences of opinion, but factually wrong. Read my detailed criticism of John Woodmorappe's claims about radiometric dating.

​

. . .

​

A Fine Line

​

Keeping all of the above in mind, I think it's time for Christians to reclaim the word creationists from the Biblical literalists. To be a creationist means to believe that God created the heavens and the earth and all life therein. This is the historic, orthodox Christian position and implies nothing about the age of the earth or the mechanisms (or lack thereof) of biological evolution. Let's speak of Biblical creation or young-earth creation when distinguishing the beliefs of those who accept a literal reading of Genesis.

​

In regard to the Biblical-creation/evolution controversy, I think it's probably best for Christians not to become dogmatic one way or another, to accept that devout Christians can hold differing viewpoints on the issue, to be willing to examine the evidence with an open mind, and to remain humble in the knowledge that only God knows the whole Truth. I think we'll all be surprised when we one day stand face-to-face with our Creator!

---

IOW, the "creation science" crowd has usurped the title of "creationist" and believers like this individual feel that they need to take that title back.This also means that Mikey Whizz is not using the term "creationist" any differently than I have been. He just does not understand that most actual creationists would not believe most of what he does.So why do you have the mistaken idea that I'm talking about something different from what everybody else is talking about? Creationists are not a formal organization, but rather people who adhere to certain biblical literalist beliefs and who have bought into the false claims of "creation science". I honestly do not understand why you would think that I'm talking about a formal organization.Where are you getting those ideas from?Edited by dwise1, : {ABE -- 21-Apr-21 0834}

Edited by dwise1, : In ABE added " for no other reason than that they do not accept a young earth"

Frankly, I cannot tell what you are talking about because you keep using the word "creationist" with different meanings and without any attempt to identify which meaning you are using, thus committing the creationist sin of "semantic shifting" whether intentionally or not.Before I start to drill down and try to untangle your mess (I do have lots of other tasks to attend to), here is the site abstract from the creation/evolution section of my web site, which should clear up a lot of your confusion. And an added bonus is that it explains more about the Two Model Approach which is fundamental to "creation science":

quote:

---

Creation/Evolution Site Abstract:

The focus of this web site is "creation science" (AKA "scientific creationism") in the USA. The existence of "creation science" in other countries are primarily due to the export of "creation science" from the USA.

​

In the USA, the most common discussions about creationism are within the context of a very narrowly sectarian set of Christian beliefs about Divine Creation which ignores the beliefs of the majority of Christians about Creation. I have heard many mainstream creationists complain bitterly about the Fundamentalists having usurped the word "creationism". Keeping those objections in mind, for the sake of brevity on this site I will still use "creationism" to refer to fundamentalist Christian creationism, which is primarily what we're talking about anyway.

​

Basically, creationism is belief in supernatural creation and a creator. Within Christianity it is belief in their God as that Creator. Generally they don't try to get into the details and they accept what science learns about the world and the universe as discovery of the nature of God's Creation. As such, they find no contradiction between science and Christianity.

​

Fundamentalist Christian creationism is primarily what is called "young-earth creationism" (YEC) and is typically bible-literalist in nature. Basically, YEC insists on a literal interpretation of Genesis, especially of the creation accounts. In so doing, they use their beliefs to dictate how the world and universe must be in order for their religion to be true. When reality ends up being different, which it most often is, they reject reality in favor of their beliefs. That leads them to reject the findings of science that conflict with their beliefs and even to have an attitude that science conflicts with religion to the point that they think science is attacking their beliefs.

​

The basic tenets of YEC include:

1. A young earth that was created about 6,000 years ago.
   ​
2. That Noah's Flood literally happened as reported in Genesis.
   ​
3. The fixity of species, such that there is no such thing as evolution.
   ​
4. The origin of Man being completely separate from the origin of other animal species.

See my page, The Creation Model, for a more complete list of the tenets of YEC as taken from a creationist article. That same creationist article also reveals how they play the game of "Hide the Bible", in that it presents their "two different creation models", one biblical and the other "scientific", side by side such that we can plainly see that they are identical save for very superficial rewording. Well, it was written by a lawyer.

​

Sadly, a far-too-common YEC belief is that if their claims are not true then the Bible is totally wrong and God does not exist. Of course, their claims are not true, so basically YEC has the unfortunate and unintentional effect of teaching that if the world is really as it actually is, then that disproves God. Therefore, YEC accomplishes what even the most anti-God anti-theist could never accomplish: disproving the existence of God (but only if you accept their false premises).

​

 
Basically, "creation science" is a form of YEC that is a deliberately crafted legalistic deception designed in the early 1970's to circumvent the US court system's then-new rules disallowing religious reasons for barring the teaching of evolution in public schools -- basically that killed the "monkey laws" that had been in effect since the 1920's. Since they could no longer use their actual religious reasons for opposing evolution, creationists invented the lie that they were opposing evolution for "purely scientific reasons, nothing religious about it." They created this deception by superficially scrubbing their materials and arguments of all overt religious references (eg, remove Bible quotes), even reducing God to "some unnamed Creator". Critics of this approach have long called it "the Game of 'Hide the Bible.'"

​

The application of "creation science" is to provide a fake façade of opposing evolution for "purely scientific reasons". This was originally intended to circumvent the Lemon Test which blocks them from basing their opposition to evolution on their actual religious grounds, but they quickly applied it to make appeals to the general public's sense of fairness by calling for "equal time" and "balanced treatment" -- indeed, most creationist state laws and school board policies have been based on "equal time" and "balanced treatment" arguments.

​

Their intellectual framework is the "Two Model Approach" (TMA) which posits two-and-only-two-mutually-exclusive "models", the "creation model" and the "atheistic evolution model". Even though many rank-and-file creationists have never even heard of the TMA, it does form the basis of almost all "creation science" strategy, tactics, and arguments. The application of the TMA is to make very vague statements about the "creation model" (being very careful to avoid any specifics) and then "prove" it solely by attacking their "evolution model" in order to "disprove" that, thus "proving" "the only alternative" without ever having to present, discussion, support, or defend that "creation model". The TMA has been described by critics as a book consisting of two chapters: Chapter One "Evolution", and Chapter Two "Everything That's Wrong with Chapter One." Evidence of its wide-spread use by creationists is in how many creationist books and debates (especially from the ICR) start out establishing the TMA and then consist almost entirely of attacking the "evolution model"; in debate, creationists are notorious for avoiding their own "creation model" even to the point of adamantly refusing to present it, to discuss it, or to defend it. Indeed, virtually their entire "mountains of evidence for creation" end up being nothing more than attacks against their "evolution model" (which bears almost no resemblence to actual evolution).

​

The TMA is a form of fallacy called a false dichotomy (AKA "false dilemma"), which is a contrived either-or argument whose sole purpose is to deceive your audience. Its problems are many; here are just a few:

• Although it's described vaguely as "any ideas about a Creator", their "creation model" is actually highly specificly fundamentalist Christian young-earth creationism -- refer to my page, The Creation Model, which quotes directly from an ICR article describing their "creation model". All other "ideas about a Creator" get consigned to their "atheistic evolution model", though creationists will usually avoid talking about those with a lot of mumbled equivocation.
  ​
• Everything that does not belong in their "creation model" goes into their "atheistic evolution model". According to the late Dr. Henry Morris of the ICR (President and co-founder), that includes "most of the world's religions, ancient and modern." So the irony is that their "evolution model", which they describe as being "atheistic", is predominantly theistic! Furthermore, since most Christian ideas about creation do not agree with the strictly young-earth-creationist tenets of their "creation model", then they end up in the "atheist evolution model" which leads us to a double irony of Christian ideas being deemed "atheistic."
  ​
• Even the non-religious elements of their "evolution model" bear almost no resemblence to actual evolutionary theory or teachings. Instead, they're a horrendously huge mish-mash of old abandoned ideas and misconceptions about evolution that have nothing to do with actual evolutionary theory. Therefore, despite all the creationist attacks on these elements of their "evolution model", they never actually strike anywhere near evolution. All they end up disproving are those wrong ideas and misconceptions. In addition, they are able to misrepresent scientists criticizing and rejecting those wrong ideas and misconceptions as them rejecting evolution.
  ​
  Make no mistake about it, actual evolutionary theory is part of their "evolution model". They just leave it completely alone and never go near it.
  ​
• You cannot possibly prove their "creation model" through the TMA. The only way you could do that would be to disprove each and every single individual element of their "evolution model" -- this would be necessary since none of those elements depend on each other and even contract each other. Given the vast number of those individual elements, that task would be intractable (ie, theoretically possible, but it would take so much effort and time as to be practically impossible). Given that the vast number of those elements are theistic and given our inability to test or disprove the supernatural, that makes that task impossible.
  ​
  It would be far easier and much more practical to prove their "creation model" by presenting it and presenting actual evidence for it. But that is one approach that they avoid like the Devil.
  ​
• The TMA is a sword that cuts both ways and can be used far more easily to disprove the "creation model". This can be done in two ways:
  • Since every part of their "creation model" depends on each other, showing just one of them to be false would be enough to disprove the entire "model". Since the claims of young-earth creationism are false (eg, the earth being young, Noah's Flood), that would be easy to do. And, by the logic of the TMA, disproving the "creation model" automatically proves the "evolution model."
    ​
  • Since showing just one part of the "evolution model" to be true would prove the "evolution model", by the logic of the TMA that would automatically disprove the "creation model." Actually, I think that creationists do realize this possibility, which is why they are so strongly motivated to keep it from happening, even though they're the ones who created this logic bomb to begin with.
  But of course, since the TMA is a fallacy, its logic is invalid. Though that's little comfort for creationists who have bought into it.
  ​
• The creators of the TMA had a fundamental misunderstanding of what a model is. Basically a model is a detailed description of how something works. A model is constructed from an understanding of the mechanism it is to describe based on actual evidence gathered. Key to the development of the model is repeated testing and confirmation against actual evidence. Therefore, an inevitable by-product of model-building is the accumulation of evidence.
  ​
  The TMA's two "models" are not proper models. If they were, then in the construction of their "creation model" they would have ended up with a large body of actual evidence for creation (as opposed to false attacks against their misconceptions about evolution). But their inability to ever present any such evidence very strongly suggests that none exists.
  ​
  We should note that another name for "model" is "theory".

​

In 1987, the US Supreme Court exposed the "creation science" deception (Edwards v. Aguillard (1987)), thus eliminating its usefulness in court. At that point, creationists quickly adopted a parallel creationist movement, Intelligent Design (ID), in what has been described as a new game of "Hide the Creationism." Now most of the arguments presented to the public are about complexity and there is almost no mention at all of young-earth claims, but among the faithful the same old YEC claims and arguments continue to circulate and be presented. Although ID has been exposed as nothing but a smokescreen for creationism (Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District (2005)), no replacement for ID has appeared yet.

​

 
Conclusion

While young-earth creationism is an actual religious belief, it has the unfortunate feature of making strict demands on how the real world must be in order for their faith to survive. Since those demands are contrary-to-fact, that creates serious problems for believers such that they must either keep themselves ignorant or they must engage in serious self-delusion in order to keep their faith. Unfortunately for them, they cannot always succeed in those efforts.

​

"Creation science" is a deliberately crafted legalistic deception that had been used to deceive the courts, the public, school boards, and state legislatures in order to advance their agenda of removing evolution from the schools (and now any other science they don't like, such as climate change). Those efforts continue in the present, albeit under the guise of "Intelligent Design".

​

This form of creationism depends on false and deceptive claims and on misrepresenting science and evolution and it makes its followers' faith dependent on those false claims. Over the years, I have encountered many ex-creationists, many of whom either lost or nearly lost their faith because of YEC and its false claims. In addition, it presents Christianity as depending on lies and deception, which drives many people away. Use of those false claims are not only counterproductive, but also destructive. It not only does not serve their cause, but it also works against it.

---

 
BTW, in Message 57 I requested of you a definition for "evolutionist": Well?

Another interim post sharing some more information from my C/E index page which should prove useful or at least interesting. What I'm posting here is a very short summary, so follow the links to the rest of the text.From the section, A Few Basic Facts:  
From the next section, My advice to both creationists and non-creationists:

You both seem to have reading comprehension issues. I was asking a question. AZPaul3 replied with some statement that seems to be trying to force some group identity regarding what I was asking about, yet he never answers the question. Then he (apparently) referenced some old legal decisions. AZPaul3 didn't give a definition.If you all would actually care about context instead of trying to project something on me without any basis, you might have noticed that the question quoted of me is all couched in trying to unpack your (dwise1) prior descriptions of what a "creationist" is. I was just asking about a potential scenario that you had not explicitly covered. Though you later talked about a (formal?) group that shared similar sounding characteristics to the scenario I was asking about, the context of my question gives you no warrant to assume that I was speaking about that particular group. All very interesting. I appreciate the history lesson.
And yet, since I was not referring in any way to the legal state of things in my question, none of what you posted here is germane. No, it doesn't sound familiar, because aspects of your history lesson were not what I was asking about. You and AZPaul3 are falling prey to the formal fallacy of 'affirming the consequent' by assuming I must be referring to the prior practices of "creation science" advocates. But I was not doing so.Recall, it was your (dwise1) words I was commenting on:

quote:

---

Therefore a simple operational definition of "creationist" would be one who practices or supports creationism. So what is creationism? It is a movement or position of opposing evolution for religious reasons basic[sic] on the mistaken idea that Divine Creation and evolution are somehow mutually exclusive. General belief in Divine Creation does not involve rejection of specific science like evolution, so that would not be the defining characteristic needed to identify a "creationist".

---

Per your description, creationism involves, in part, opposing evolution for religious reasons. You also clearly state here that one having belief in Divine Creation on its own is not enough to classify one as a creationist. So thinking about a scenario that was not covered by what you said here, I wanted to ask about how do you classify someone 1) opposing evolution on non-religious grounds and 2) holds to a belief in Divine Creation (which you already stated on its own is not sufficient to describe a creationist).Where you and AZPaul3 are committing the fallacy is in assuming that my hypothetical person holding these parameters is being purposely deceitful. And that is very apparent by both of you characterizing the parameters of my scenario as "subterfuge". You assume that I mean one of those people that claim to oppose evolution on scientific grounds, but they are really lying and only are opposing it on religious grounds. I agree, according to that assumption and based on your history lesson, that would place a person in the "creation science" camp.But you have no cause to assume that a person holding that position is being false. Perhaps you might be thinking that anyone holding a position of opposition to evolution on non-religious grounds is impossible. You have no warrant for that stance, it would just be your subjective opinion. (And then your treading into the no-true-Scotsman fallacy territory) The only other possibility that might work for you would be you think belief in Divine Creation and evolution are actually mutually exclusive, but then you're contradicting your prior statements.Frankly, simply answering my question as: "Yes, that would be a creationist." would have been a sufficient. We could have moved on from there.Instead, the whole rest of the post is more of the same, history and characterizations (many of which I do not agree with). Again, that is not germane to what I was asking about. No, you were the one mischaracterizing my position. Considering it was a hypothetical situation anyways, you had no reason to characterize a position that was explicitly stated as "non-religious" in the premise to being "religious".------Your next post solidifies what I have been saying. Either you are fallaciously implying intent where none is warranted, or you are being disingenuous. According to your statements, "creation science" opposes evolution. And it claims it does so for purely scientific reasons, though in reality its reasons are religious, not scientific. So they are lying when they say opposition is for scientific reasons. Fine, for the sake of the argument I can accept that premise.Now, how about a different person/group that truly did oppose evolution for scientific reasons. Do you allow that this is possible? You should, cause you have no warrant to exclude such a possibility. If so, this 2nd person/group would not be lying and would NOT be a part of "creation science". For the "creation science" group, based upon the premise that we are both agreeing to, this is true.But for the 2nd person/group, which my question was hypothetically establishing, there is no deception. They are honestly opposing evolution on non-religious (or scientific) grounds.If you are instead trying to infer that one can never oppose evolution on scientific grounds, you need to go back and rewrite your whole argument. But I hope that is not what you mean, as you would then have the result of undermining the whole scientific endeavor to arrive at that kind of claim. No, they are not virtually identical. No, I didn't. You just assume I did. I never made any statement that could be considered a lie. I simply suggested a scenario and asked you for your categorization. You are affirming the consequent by linking my scenario with a formal group you want it linked with, and then projected that groups presumed motives onto my scenario. You are changing the premises to suit your desire, and you cannot logically do that.But if you insist on that and try to reason that it is correct to do so, then you are being disingenuous with your next part. How would one "honestly and truthfully" fight evolution? You obviously dont allow any religious arguments. And frankly, I don't blame you on that front. They are entirely different categories?Since evolution, in the context being used here, is a scientific study, and any evidence used in favor of it is scientific, then any evidence against it should also be scientific in nature.Yet you apparently will not allow that either. If by default there can be no scientific evidence against evolution, as any claim in that manner is, to you, a lie because it really is a religious argument, then there is no viable option to "fight evolution" and "do it right!". You ask for honesty and truth, but exclude any possible evidence in that manner as unable to be honest or true.Thus, if you are not using the formal fallacy, you are then being disingenuous. I have no problem understanding that term. The funny thing here is, so far in this thread, I have not submitted any arguments for or against evolution. I have merely questioned your definition of what a creationist is. The suggestions by you otherwise point to you not paying attention to what has been written and projecting an unwarranted classification. You're tilting at windmills.

But those who pretend to be doing this (concluding from non-religous reasons) never have any. It is the repetition of the claim with utterly inadequate backup which the gentlemen you have been discussing with are all to familiar with.

As I've already said, I frankly cannot tell what you are talking about because you keep using the word "creationist" with different meanings and without any attempt to identify which meaning you are using, thus committing the creationist sin of "semantic shifting" whether intentionally or not.Also, I'm starting to suspect that you are just trying to muddy the waters and generate confusion. Confusion is a creationist's best friend.I have already established the context of "creationist" that is being used in this forum. If either of us deviate from that established context, then we need to qualify the term; eg, I will refer to "actual creationists" as those who believe in Divine Creation but not in the lies of "creation science". I suggest that you also qualify your terms properly so as to avoid generating confusion. 
In your Message 61: Within the context of this forum, creationists are opponents of "evolution" (in scare quotes because they never ever attack evolution, but rather some strawman boogeyman they've created and labeled "evolution" even though it has nothing whatsoever to do with actual evolution -- what part of the Two Model Approach and its bogus "evolution model" did you not understand?). Traditionally they've been YECs employing the lies and deceptions of "creation science", but creationists have mutated and diversified over time to include old-earth creationists and IDists (who have their own set of lies and deceptions).Do please try to keep up.And why would you think that the anti-evolution movement would be some formal organization complete with membership cards and a national HQ? It's diverse and decentralized, consisting mainly of small local groups usually associated with churches of a certain theological persuasion -- indeed, many such churches actively include "creation science" as part of their doctrine.There are also local creationist groups dedicated to the decades-old anti-evolution practice of pressuring local teachers, schools, and school boards to keep evolution out of the classroom or to get creationist "equal time" "balanced treatment" curricula included. In a number of cases, individual teachers who are creationists (eg, Ray Baird, John Peloza, Roger DeHart) will unilaterally sneak creationism into their classes. Some have even run as stealth candidates to get elected onto the school board and into other public offices that they could use for their cause. Other groups will work on the state level lobbying state legislators to propose state laws restricting evolution or promoting the inclusion of creationism. Some groups will work to pressure textbook publishers to remove evolution from the textbooks (not sure how well that effort is going).There is no national leadership, but there are nationally known organizations (eg, ICR, Answers in Genesis) and creationist writers and lecturers (eg, Kent Hovind, who doesn't write but rather gives presentations and does debates) whose words, claims, and arguments get taken up by the sprawling landscape of small local creationist groups.And the Internet has made the dissemination of creationist nonsense far easier and wide spread. One classic example that keeps cropping up is a "shrinking sun" claim that talks about 300 years of data gathered at "Boyle Observatory". In reality, that data was gathered at the Royal Observatory between the years 1863-1953, so ninety (90) years, not 300. But some creationist made those mistakes and now it's plastered all over the Internet. Garbage in, Gospel out. But now you should know that whenever you read about "300 years of observational data collected at Boyle Observatory" that you are reading a totally bogus claim.That's all, nothing mysterious about it. Message 61: Even though their activity ebbs and flows (not to be confused with the 60's rock duo, Flo and Eddie), they have not gone away. Since most of their activity is local and rises no higher than the state level in some other state, news of their activity remains local and hence we don't hear about them. But they're still there doing their thing. The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) would report on such activities, being the national-level clearinghouse for the Committees of Correspondence, and their website used to post news of creationist activity in various states, especially new creationist state bills and laws as well as any court action (when I checked their site the other day, they had redone their site and I couldn't find that "in the news" section). 
Now please try to get this straight. You keep worrying questions of motivation and other trivial matters (like a dog worries a shoe by chewing on it all the time). That is not the issue! Stop letting that distract you!Rather, the issue is that:

1. The basic creationist deception is that they oppose evolution for purely scientific reasons, not any religious reasons in any way or manner. The truth is that their opposition is for purely religious reasons which are suspect even within the realm of Christian doctrine.
   ​
2. They don't even oppose evolution, never had, never will. Rather, what they oppose is their fraudulent "evolution model" which has nothing at all to do with actual evolution. They have created a monstrous strawman boogeyman which they call "evolution" even though it has nothing to do with evolution. They keep attacking their strawman boogeyman proclaiming that they are disproving "evolution" and all the while they are keeping as far away from actual evolution as they possibly can.
   ​
3. Not sure about how it was in the beginning of the anti-evolution movement, but it did certainly become a YEC movement rather quickly (eg, Seventh Day Adventist George McCready Price advancing his "flood geology" in the 1920's and 30's). The general sentiment among creationists tends to be that if you do not believe in a young earth then you are an "atheistic evolutionist" -- they may have relaxed that since assimilating ID, but I'm not so sure. A great many "scientific" claims in "creation science" are young-earth claims. And they are all bogus.
   ​
4. The major problem with "creation science" is that it is a pack of lies and deception.
   ​
   When I started studying "creation science" in 1981, I was particularly interested in the young-earth claims. Refer to my page, Why I Oppose Creation Science (or, How I got to Here from There), for the full story. Basically during my time with the Jesus Freak Movement in 1970 I was given two specific creationist claims: living molluscs carbon-dated to be thousands of years old (it took a few decades before I could find a scientific reference, surprisingly from a Kent Hovind presentation, and it turns out to just be the "reservoir effect" and the clams were using dissolved carbon from limestone instead of from the atmosphere -- radiocarbon techniques depend on it being atmospheric carbon that is incorporated into the tissue) and the infamous "NASA computer that found Joshua's Lost Day" (refer to a Christian's essay on that, Thoughts on "Joshua's Long Day" -- while there, check out his other essays; he has a few things to say about "God of the Gaps" which plays such an enormous role in ID with their love of "goddidit").

Then in 1981 when Dr. Duane Gish's traveling snake-oil show came to town, I was surprised that they were still around, so maybe they have a point to make after all -- I had duty that night and could not attend the show.From that point on, every single time a creationist brought up an "objection", i knew precisely why it was wrong.

Absolutely untrue! Perhaps even bordering on a damned lie!First, it should be intuitively obvious to even the most casual observer (an engineering catchphrase that was popular when I was at Hughes Aircraft) that a religious argument would be inappropriate in a scientific discussion, so why would you even begin to raise such a specious objection? Is that a tell (a term I recently learned in my poker class)? Are you yourself being disingenuous? Are you yourself a dishonest creationist? We have most certainly seen far too many creationists start out posing as innocent and fair-minded only to then reveal how died-in-the-wool creationist they are. Is that what we are seeing here?And, no, it is not at all a situation of: You are ignoring the simple fact that creationists never ever address evolution nor ever present any evidence against evolution, but rather they have created an incredibly stupid strawman boogeyman which they have called "evolution" to scare themselves with.If you actually want to address evolution, then address evolution itself, not some stupid strawman of your own invention! What is wrong with you people? How can you not understand that?And even your religious objections are misguided and just plain wrong. As is said of guided missiles that have lost lock on their target, you keep going stupid. What is wrong with you? You have created your strawman boogeyman to pose some kind of existential threat to your religion that actual evolution simply does not pose. Just so you can go into some religious frenzy that actual evolution would never cause. Again, what is wrong with you people? Is it that idiotic Christian persecution complex where you have to imagine that you are being persecuted and when that persecution doesn't exist you have to create it yourself? Jebus H (BTW, check out my very informative page, "Jesus H. Christ": Why "H"?, but you have to be willing to learn a little Greek). 
Yes, there can indeed be scientific evidence against actual evolution. Your fake "evolution" boogeyman is nothing but pure bullshit which falls apart the moment that it is examined. So your accusation is nothing but a bullshit lie.You want to actually fight evolution? Well then fight evolution itself, not your monstrous bullshit lie that you call "evolution". And in doing so don't use bullshit creationist lies about evolution, but rather address the actual problems with actual evolution. And do so honestly. That is how you would fight evolution honestly and truthfully. The truth is right there in front of you and you refuse to see it. What is wrong with you?Could there be any evidence against evolution that would be honest or true? Yes! So present it already! What the frak is wrong with you?Two professors at San Diego State University (SDSU), Frank Awbrey and William Thwaites (I have to be careful to avoid any reference to T&A) were leading debaters against the ICR master debaters (such as Drs. Henry Morris and Duane Gish whom I have seen them go up against in 1985 -- do please play with "master debaters" as much as you may please, since it would be appropriate for creationist arguments). They created the only true two-model class I have ever heard of in which half the lectures were given by members of the ICR which at that time was less than 30 miles away. Their class was shut down after all the campus Christian clubs rebelled against it. Guess Christians cannot tolerate truth and honesty.Here's the thing, after 15 years of those debates, they retired. Read their article about their decision, Our Last Debate: Our Very Last. In that article they describe having entered into the debates with the hope and expectation that:

quote:

---

... a creationist would dig up a real biological paradox, one that would prove to be an interesting brain-teaser for the scientific community. We hoped that we could use the creationists to ferret out biological enigmas much as DEA agents use dogs to seek out contraband. ... While we had discovered that every creationist claim so far could easily be disproved, we still had hope that there was a genuine quandary in there somewhere. We just hadn't found it yet.

---

What they did discover after those 15 years was that none of the creationists ever presented any real paradoxes or genuine quandaries. The creationists had no actual case to present.Creationism has proven to be nothing but pure bullshit. Period. What part of that do you still not understand? 
So if you really want to fight evolution, then do so honestly and truthfully.Honestly means that you address and fight evolution itself, not some bullshit lie pretending to be evolution.Truthfully means that you use real objections that address real and actual problems with evolution, not bullshit creationist lies.It can be done. So why do you refuse to do it? Is there something wrong with you?

As you indicated, this is the second time you have said that. But WTH are you talking about??? Go ahead, show me where I have 'used the word "creationist" with different meaning? Where? Go ahead and show me where I have done a semantic shift? Provide your evidence!I don't think you can. Perhaps once you fail at that, you can work on your reading comprehension. You definitely are the one that is confused. But it is not because I'm doing anything unusual. You apparently cannot read something and understand it, and you apparently cannot remember what you yourself wrote. Projecting your own faults onto others is not a good sign. You are beginning to look paranoid. Defining of terms is important. I applaud that request.
But then you give an example that is puzzling. Perhaps you are giving this example purely as an example form, and we are not to take your example as actually how you are defining something. I will accept that it being merely a form of what you are proposing, since you included the 'exempli gratia' before your example. I hope you can confirm this. Because if you actually are defining ""actual creationists" as those who believe in Divine Creation but not in the lies of "creation science"", then you have some warped contextual usage or are just plain contradicting yourself.I'm very interested in how this may play out. Have you here modified your definition? In post Message 61 you stated:

quote:

---

Within the context of these discussions, a "creationist" would be a member of the anti-evolution movement which was originally based almost completely on a particular literalist belief in the Creation stories in Genesis.

---

and

quote:

---

Therefore a simple operational definition of "creationist" would be one who practices or supports creationism. So what is creationism? It is a movement or position of opposing evolution for religious reasons basic on the mistaken idea that Divine Creation and evolution are somehow mutually exclusive.

---

So, prior, you indicated a "creationist" would be someone that opposed evolution base on some specific conditions. But this time you omitted the conditions. Was that just perhaps an error, or are you now assuming that the prior stated conditions are a given in this thread? If neither, than you are "semantic shifting". Do try to improve your reading comprehension. Reading comprehension time!
Let's see. From my words, a formal group is defined as: "A formal group is a collection of persons, who came together for achieving a specified goal. It has its own set of distinct characteristics. These include well-defined rules and regulation, an organizational structure, and determined objectives and policies"
Your word that you used frequently, movement in a sociological sense means: "consists of a number of people organized and coordinated to achieve some task or a collection of goals".
So the overlapping meaning in both terms is referring to a group of people that is trying to achieve some task or set of goals.Your further description in Message 46 also was "thus identifying creationists as practicing "creation science"", of which you said: ""creation science", which itself is a deliberately crafted legalistic deception designed to circumvent the plethora of US court decisions against the anti-evolution movement's attempts to bar the teaching of evolution on the basis of their actual motivation which is purely religious". You also mentioned: "Fundamental to "creation science" is their "Two Model Approach" (TMA)...". So here we have, by your own words, a set of practices that need to be met (a set of policies) , a practice that would necessitate involvement in the courts (that would need well-defined rules and regulations to follow, and probably involve some organization structure to accomplish), and a set of guidelines and practices all referred to with official double quotes and an acronym. [I actually did a search on the web which led me to the ICR site that actually confirmed that the "Two Model Approach" was an official thing.]
- all this is at least supporting the concept of a formal group.And by the way, churches are formal groups, as is ICR and AiG. .Yet I never said anything like it "would be some formal organization complete with membership cards and a national HQ" That is of your own projection. Besides, if you notice from where you quoted me, I said your descriptions " makes it sound more-or-less like a formal group". Reading comprehension time! More-or-less means: "approximately; to a varying or undetermined extent or degree". So my statement was hardly anything close to firmly claiming it as "some formal organization complete with membership cards and a national HQ"Then, my next statement was a question, starting with the words: "So assuming that is correct,..", which means for the sake of the singular thought that follows and according to the prior statements, the 'creationist movement' is considered a formal group. And then my question was regarding the converse case, how would you classify someone that doesn't follow the formal group practices, but still holds roughly the same beliefs.
And just to further support this, my very next sentence started with: "Any formal movement put aside,..." which means we are no longer considering anyone as a formal group.You could have answered that question easily and simply. Instead you misunderstand context and you freaked out. Tilt! This one made me laugh. Of course the internet has made it easier for the dissemination of creationist nonsense, but it has also made it easier for the dissemination of anti-creationist nonsense, evolution nonsense, anti-evolution nonsense, and every other nonsense topic out there. Whoopee!
But then you fret about this "shrinking sun" story. So I looked up on Google: "Boyle Observatory shrinking sun", thinking I'm going to get a whole bunch of entertaining pages. And what is the result? Of the first 70 or so results, only 5 had anything to do with creationism. And of those 5 results, 3 of the pages were dated or had references dating to well prior of year 2000, and 1 of the results was actually a thread for these EvC Forums from 2001 with an oh-so impressive 7 posts. On the last page I could not find a reference date, but the HTML looked like an old style (pre-2000) and the link from where it claimed it got its information was no longer active.And this is what you consider is "plastered all over the Internet". LOL Never indicated it had all gone away. But of the ebb and flow, it seems to be be greatly ebbing. Considering your internet case mentioned above, the great majority of all the history you've put into the posts, and your own website links, it doesn't appear that much of anything has happened since the 1990's. I get the feeling you are still mentally in those times, reliving your fight-the-creationists-glory days of 2+ decades ago. Really? This is too good!!!You complain that I'm too worried about motivations, and then first thing you list as to what the issue really should be about, is: creationist motivations.GOLDEN!!! From this point on, the points are getting irrelevant. Though because you have mentioned this item a few times, and it does relate to your post following the one referenced here, I'll ask you to please provide an example of this monstrous strawman boogeyman.

Ya, you go boy. Clutch those pearls!!! Reading comprehension time!My words:

quote:

---

How would one "honestly and truthfully" fight evolution? You obviously dont allow any religious arguments. And frankly, I don't blame you on that front. They are entirely different categories?

---

"You obviously don't allow any religious arguments." and "I don't blame you on that front. They are entirely different categories.*" is pretty much a match for "a religious argument would be inappropriate in a scientific discussion"
* I do note now I put a "?" mistakenly at the end, but I think in context it's easy to see it should be a "."My words:

quote:

---

Since evolution, in the context being used here, is a scientific study, and any evidence used in favor of it is scientific, then any evidence against it should also be scientific in nature.

---

Here, I'll simplify it for you. "evolution...is a scientific study....[and] then any evidence against it should also be scientific in nature." That pretty much again matches up with "a religious argument would be inappropriate in a scientific discussion"There is nothing specious about this. If you actually removed the back of your hand from your forehead and stopped panting, you might be able to actually read what I said and comprehend it. You can lighten the grip on your pearls. Normally, I would think you're exaggerating here. But via all your posts and tone, I now doubt it.So, per your definition in Message 72, "Within the context of this forum, creationists are opponents of "evolution"". That means opposing evolution == creationist. And per you, "creationists never ever address evolution nor ever present any evidence against evolution" (which you even bolded)" We already agreed that scientific evidence is the only valid kind. So if opposing evolution == creationist and creationists never ...present any evidence against evolution, then it results in what I effectively noted that according to you, "by default there can be no scientific evidence against evolution".You say that it is possible to fight evolution honestly and truthfully, but your premises actually make that impossible. Whenever any even begins to try to put up a fight, you automatically categorize them as creationists, which you have a priori already determined is a category group that cannot present valid evidence.And that, makes your stance disingenuous.I did give you a way out though. All you have to do admit you have been using the formal fallacy "affirming the consequent" and then realize that anyone that opposes evolution is not necessarily a creationist. How is that for a dichotomy?!? As for this, I'll reiterate my prior request. Provide an example, THE EXAMPLE! First I'll address the last part of that statement. So far in this thread, I haven't provided any arguments regarding evolution itself. So once again, you are projecting some false status on me.But you now speak of addressing "evolution itself". What is that exactly? Well, in Message 69 you describe "actual evolution" as: So, evolution is "what happens when life does what life does"? So profound. **snicker**
There's more? Oh goodie. "If you've got populations of organisms living and reproducing, then evolution is happening." Amazing! **guffaw**Wow! And creationists cannot understand that?Wait, there is more. Some good advice from the same message - OK. I'll admit I did a bit of creative editing on that last one. But it flow so much better now, don't ya think? LOL
----
And to round this out, I'll answer some questions posed a while back Umm, OK. Lets type this in google..... and.....
{noun. a person who believes in or supports a theory of evolution, especially in biology. a person who supports a policy of gradual growth or development rather than sudden change or expansion.}
That seems fine to me. Not really. I'm sure I've heard the term before and guessed as to it's meaning. But no, I have not used it often. As others have pointed out, it is a bit of an anachronistic and unneeded term. See above for definition.
It's not a word I would normally use, but if I was forced to, I suppose you would classify an evolutionist as "a person who believes in or supports a theory of evolution, especially in biology". *shrug*
I have no idea what the other characteristics of an evolutionist would be. To find out, I suppose I would have to review some out of date websites from the 1990's.Oh, and by the way, in case you haven't figured it out yet.....I'm not a creationist.