Sometimes it's a good idea to let the other side have a say. It can be very revealing. This is from The Epistemological Deficiencies of Barbara Forrest. It's written by DonaldM.Denyse O’Leary writes about Barbara Forrest’s fact-free attack on Frank Beckwith, which recently appeared in Synthese. While Denyse focused more on Beckwith’s response to Forrest’sSo now you know. The intelligent designer doesn't have to be God. It could be the Wizard of Oz or aliens from Betelgeuse.scholarly articlediatribe, it might be worth taking a closer look not only at Forrest’s article, but the entire issue of Synthese in which it is found. First Forrest. In the abstract for her article with the breathtaking title “The non-epistemology of intelligent design: its implications for public policy”, Bar writes:Intelligent design creationism (ID) is a religious belief requiring a supernatural creator’s interventions in the natural order. ID thus brings with it, as does supernatural theism by its nature, intractable epistemological difficulties.Okay, so we’re only 2 sentences into the abstract and we can already see that Bar has no clue what ID is about. I don’t know what ID books or articles she’s actually read, but claiming that ID is a “religious belief requiring a supernatural creator’s intervention” demonstrates how little she understands ID. Perhaps Bar could enlighten us as to what religion ID adheres. Since ID advocates come from a broad range of faith traditions as well as no faith tradition at all, it would seem a bit problematic for her to identify exactly which religion we’re talking about here. Further, I know of no ID advocate that makes the claim that ID “requires” a “supernatural” creator. While ID may be compatible with certain theistic beliefs, it by no means requires it. If Forrest has done even a cursory review of any ID literature she’d know that. (Actually, I suspect she does know that, but because she has a clear agenda, she fudges on the truth.)
Whenever I see the phrase “Intelligent Design creationism”, red flags go up all over the place. This traces back to Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics, a ponderous tome from 2001 edited by Robert Pennock, and in which Forrest herself had a chapter. The clever illusion of the title is to give the appearance of an unbreakable link between Intelligent Design and Creationism, no doubt because the term “creationism” carries with it the allusions to young earth creationism and all that goes with that. To Pennock and Forrest et.al., Intelligent Design is just a modifier for Creationism. But any informed reader already knows something is amiss when we see that phrase.
And intelligent design does not require a creator so it isn't a form of creationism. The universe could have sprung into existence spontaneously and the intelligent designer only started meddling when life got interesting. And his meddling didn't involve any "creation," just a little tweaking here and there.
In case anyone's really interested in Barbara Forrest's expertise you can read the transcript of her testimony in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District [Trial transcript: Day 6 (October 5), AM Session, Part 2]. You'll find an interesting explanation of why she knows that Intelligent Design Creationism is about God and why it's a form of creationism.
The fun part of her testimony is when she shows that the word "creation" was replaced by "design" in the drafts of Of Pandas and People. This was in the 1980s. Maybe that's before DonaldM was born?
The surprise is not that the IDiots have dug themselves into a hole. We all know that. The real surprise is that they keep digging and digging.
