The short answer is no but here's why.
In this blog name we have Intelligent Design and Creationism
coupled together. I think it would be a good idea to say exactly how these two
views differ because they certainly are not the same.
The Creationism I will be talking about is the
Jewish/Christian version mostly because this is the most popular form in the
US. Although there are many different forms of this version of Creationism they
all hold the same views:
- all life was created by the actions of God
- Only God can create new forms of organisms
- the most common theory for the origins of the universe and life are accounted in the Biblical Book of Genesis
- it uses scientific evidence to support scripture
Intelligent Design proponents, on the other hand, have the
following statements:
- all life came about through the actions of an intelligent Designer
- the designer does not have to be God although most proponents of ID believe it is
- their main argument for thinking there is a Designer is the complexity found in organisms – the best theory they believe to explain some types of complexity is an intelligent Designer
The main difference between the two seems to be the use of
scientific evidence. For ID proponents they claim that they make observations
in the world like any other scientist in any other field would and from those
observations propose intelligent design as explanation for the observations. Creationists,
on the other hand, first look at the holy scripture then turn to scientific
findings to support the holy scripture.
It is clear that ID tries to exclude any reference to
religious texts or beliefs. Many claim ID is creationism under the guise of
science but ID proponents are not trying to prove the validity of the bible’s
creation story.
Many also argue that the ID theory is not as scientifically
valid as it claims to be. In searching this topic I have yet to find ID
presenting empirical evidence for the existence of a Designer. Their main
evidence is the complexity of organisms – something so complex could not come
to be by chance – but I wonder if that
is a strong enough piece of evidence as it is not something that they have tested. This is where the line between Creationist and ID theorists blur: neither groups have proposed hypotheses that have been tested empirically nor observed repeatedly.
All arguments for their scientific weight aside, ID and
Creationism are two different alternatives to evolution and at the moment they
seem to be the only major alternative to evolution.
I can't believe I'd never realized that there was a difference between these two viewpoints. I'd always just assumed they were the same, though now that you've pointed it out, I definitely see the differences (and I probably should have been aware of them in the past). This was enlightening. Thanks for giving me further understanding of creationism and ID. The point you make about their lack of empirically proved hypotheses is especially interesting.
ReplyDeleteI feel the same way Katelyn. I wonder why the distinction has never been made clear to us in any of the classes we've taken. Maybe this fact in itself has some implications for our education system...
ReplyDeleteYou bring up some interesting differences between intelligent design and creationism. Namely, that creationism tends to look at the bible before looking at scientific evidence. Personally, I never found the intelligent design argument very compelling. The reason for this is that intelligent design seems to simply be a matter of personal judgement. The proponent of intelligent design seems to just say, "when I look at the universe, it reminds me of me if I could set up a universe." It seems to me just as likely that someone looking at the universe would say the opposite. That is, "when I look at the universe, it does not remind me at all of the way I would set up the universe". It seems to be only matter how this person thinks human intelligence can relate to the universe. If they think it cannot compare to the universe, they're probably more likely to default to the creationist argument; or just accept evolutionary facts and theory at face value without trying to read into the "meaning" behind any of it.
ReplyDeleteI once had to debate against evolution from the ID perspective. I'll say it was very difficult to find the so-called "scientific evidence" for their arguments. Many of the papers I found seemed to use purposefully complex language, as if to make their points seem more "scientific" without any actual empirical evidence. Anyway, I agree that is important to know at least the main perspectives out there, so this was a useful post.
ReplyDelete