A note of follow-up to suggest it is not without reason BioLogos feels defensive about IDism, when people like Discovery Institute Fellow Cornelius G. Hunter continue to write antagonist things like this, which are obviously wrong:
“BioLogos has continued to promote the false Warfare Thesis.” (26-07-2015)
“I’ve yet to get an answer, though, after asking it for several years now.”
Then perhaps, maybe, possibly you’re asking the wrong question here, Jon, while still calling yourself a ‘theistic evolutionist’?
Nice to meet you Gregory.
I don’t have any technical definition in mind. I just mean the a priori assumption that the universe has a purpose and is going somewhere. I don’t think it’s scientifically provable any more than any of our other a priori faith-based truth claims are. I get that the main beef with ID is ID claims to be able to use science to prove truth claims that others see as beyond the scope of science.
I think what Eddie was pointing out that it is not just within the scope of “scientific proof” that some TE/EC folks get a little edgy when you want to talk about purpose and (lower case) design in a general, “what do you believe” kind of way. Maybe that is just them being over-sensitive and defensive and tribalistic, given the context. Maybe one of the points of this blog post was to address that over-sensitivity.
I’m fine with the idea of non-overlapping magisteria when it comes to scientific investigation and proof. But it seems to me the point of this website is to help people develop worldviews that integrate theology and science. If that’s the case, to some extent we have to be able to talk theologically about science and scientifically about theology.
We have been talking about rhetoric, not necessarily core beliefs. I know that teleology is part of TE/EC thinking, but it not often part of it’s “marketing.” There is a lot more effort and emphasis put into establishing that mainstream science is reliable and beautiful and trustworthy even though the material naturalism that scientific investigation is whole-heartedly committed to is something we ultimately don’t “believe in.” Sometimes the anti-ID rhetoric on BioLogos leaves a person with the impression that the author is anti-design (small d) or anti-seeing-God’s hand-in-nature in anything other than the most general sense.
Speaking of rhetoric, John… 
It seems pretty clear to me that almost everyone on this thread who has talked about “not trusting science” has used the word science as shorthand for “the conclusions, claims, and consensus of the mainstream scientific community.” Not science as a method of inquiry. Of course ID scientists believe the scientific method is a valid method of inquiry. I don’t think anyone is disagreeing with you there.
“Biologos is guilty of…even worse than the warfare thesis.”
That’s really your view of BioLogos?!
Behind the rehetoric is a great truth. If TE or ID or YEC or OEC people are only interested in the differences and boundaries and not in the common bond, then no one will benefit in the end. 
The assertion was not that they rejected science, it was that they don’t trust science. Not trusting means being skeptical. Their headline was “Should We Have Faith in Science?” not “Should We Have Faith in Neo-Darwinian Theory?” I didn’t put the unclear word “science” in their mouths, they chose it. And I think they were using the word science the same way I was. Point taken that I cannot say for certain that the author intends me to think “No, we can’t” and I should read the upcoming posts before making assumptions, but that’s what I did think because he chose words like “creative-story telling” and “outright fraud” in the sentence about what “passes for science.”
But, come on…making “good science” dependent on there being “actually experimental verification of a falsifiable prediction” is a more narrow definition of good science than most people in the scientific community accept. Whole fields of science deal with questions that are not something you can experimentally verify. That doesn’t mean you can’t come up with working models with explanatory power that can be falsified.
I’ll let it go, but I think this insistence that the ID folks never foment distrust of science among their non-specialist followers is just detracting from other more valid observations you’re trying to communicate.
It is noteworthy that you contacted me first in this round, Eddie.
You said about BioLogos, that it “promotes intellectual compartmentalization – which in my view is even worse than the warfare thesis.” Likewise, they display “[v]ery, very bad epistemology” that leads to “unsustainable Christian theology”. These are your own words.
That’s accurately quoting your personal critical (non-DI) view of BioLogos, right?
“I don’t have any technical definition in mind. I just mean the a priori assumption that the universe has a purpose and is going somewhere. I don’t think it’s scientifically provable any more than any of our other a priori faith-based truth claims are. I get that the main beef with ID is ID claims to be able to use science to prove truth claims that others see as beyond the scope of science” - @Christy
Thanks for your reply Christy. I think you’ve got a pretty good handle on why IDT is criticised and how IDists try hard to avoid that criticism. “the a priori assumption that the universe has a purpose and is going somewhere” is part of the lowercase ‘intelligent design’ / design argument. Abrahamic believers have held this view for centuries, long before the ‘technical’ probabilism of the IDM came on the scene.
Regarding ‘over-sensitivity’ about IDT, Eddie’s of course right that a considerable amount of it here at BioLogos has to do with people who grew up in a YECist or fundamentalist situation. That’s not an issue I’m interested to debate here (I wasn’t brought up in such a situation), only to point out that BioLogos is in fact facing the challenge of YECism head-on, while the DI has a quite different mission, i.e. to try to ‘revolutionise’ biological sciences (and provoke a trickle-down of IDT into other natural-physical and later social-cultural scientific fields).
The ‘over-sensitivity’ at BioLogos, however, is not what makes ex-YECist TE/ECs speak against IDT or to suggest that the term ‘design’ needs to be ‘reclaimed’ from fanatics, ideologists and marginal ‘scientists’ based at the DI. I’m not sure if Eddie would ever acknowledge that BioLogos is a much more ‘balanced’, mainstream and credible organisation compared with the DI’s CSC. But that point itself is imo worth discussing in BioLogos’ defense against IDist rhetoric & PR.
I agree with your sense of balance and see the notion of “mainstream science is reliable and beautiful and trustworthy” as a reaction to how YECs/IDists often portray the opposite. As a sociologist of science, this is one of the main themes of my work; to try to understand how people perceive ‘science’ based on who they are, where they come from and what they believe. There is no doubt both IDists and BioLogos are ‘reacting’ to others already involved in the conversation (e.g. fundamentalists and cdesignproponentists).
That said, I don’t share your view, Christy, that “Sometimes the anti-ID rhetoric on BioLogos leaves a person with the impression that the author is anti-design (small d) or anti-seeing-God’s hand-in-nature in anything other than the most general sense.” I’ve never had that impression about BioLogos authors, pretty much all of whom accept, as both Falk and Haarsma have openly affirmed, lowercase ‘intelligent design’, i.e. the natural theology design argument for the Christian God.
If you are seeking for yourself a more ‘specific sense’, that’s simply not a ‘scientific’ problem. And I’m not sure about you, but I am not brash enough to point a finger at BioLogos leaders and claim their beliefs constitute an “unsustainable Christian theology”. That’s rather presumptuous for online ‘chat.’ 
It is an on-going and well-documented IDist strategy to ask for more than the DI can provide, but wish that they could. I saw this 1st hand in the DI’s summer program. They demand ‘evidence’ of “seeing-God’s hand-in-nature” in a specifically ‘strictly scientific’ sense. But that type of ‘strictly scientific evidence’ is not what ‘theistic evolution’ is or has ever been aimed at providing. So it is a mistaken request by IDists (based on their own insular ideology) that they have yet to recognise (just like the possibility that the DI has stained the term ‘design’).
To believe God is immanent in nature’s ‘unfolding’, i.e. in natural history is any given person’s theological position, not dependent on science. But IDists nevertheless demand ‘strictly scientific’ evidence of uppercase 'Intelligent Design’ as part of their ‘theory.’ From a TE/EC position, IDism thus goes too far, doesn’t recognise the important ‘technical’ distinction and asks for too much from theists who ‘do science.’
As Ted Davis says, theistic evolution is “the belief that God used evolution to produce humans and other organisms” / “God used the evolutionary process to create living things, including humans”. Thus, TE/EC is more flexible to actual developments and discoveries that happen in natural sciences than IDT, which would rather overthrow current natural sciences with their “Intelligent Design Revolution.”
In any case, it seems to me that you’re on the right track, Christy, even if some of the controversy over IDT is indeed professional shop talk for philosophers of science.
Yes, Eddie, you tried to “build a bridge by yielding a point”. It was admittedly a rather small point re: Hunter, who is one among many IDists, even a DI Fellow, who write such things regularly. In any case, thanks for doing that.
I was still quite surprised that you actually think what BioLogos does is “worse than the warfare thesis,” when that is expressly not their mission, quite the opposite. So I wanted to check if that is what you actually meant, before responding about the anti-science dynamic in the IDM and a possible solution for it. Apparently you do really believe that, which puts you in a category all by yourself.
Again, please note carefully that being contra-IDT doesn’t mean rejecting the natural theology of ‘intelligent design’ or ‘design argument’. It simply means rejecting the DI’s particular brand of IDT, “using the words in a technical sense, rather than in the sense accepted by every Christian”. It would be a much bigger ‘bridge’ to try to build if you admitted that, Eddie.
Christy is clearly right about how IDists are perceived when they regularly cast doubt on current (‘evolutionary’) science and scientists. Even more substantial is that the leadership of the DI are intentionally ‘challenging science’ when it comes to evolutionary biology, claiming they have come up with better science; the so-called ‘science’ of IDT. “We are in the very initial stages of a scientific revolution,” wrote Stephen C. Meyer. What he really means, of course, is an “Intelligent Design Revolution,” doesn’t he Eddie? That’s another much bigger bridge opportunity to meet rather than merely Hunter.
“nothing is stopping Deb Haarsma or Jim Stump or anyone else from writing a letter to John West at Discovery” – Eddie
And nothing is stopping you from writing a letter to the shock IDist journalist Denyse O’Leary asking her to tone down her attacks on science, peer review, academia, ASA, BioLogos, etc. and to stop throwing out rhetoric like “truth-optional scientist”. Is it? She just accused Jim Stump of being committed to “metaphysical naturalism and mindless materialism”. That is a loud public voice for the IDM at the IDM’s most active blog and of course lawyer Barry Arrington is even worse.
With regard to writing the DI a letter, however, that’s what I recommended to BioLogos above. So, it’s good that we agree on that. But your hyper-IDist approach is making you suggest them to ask the wrong questions, Eddie.
You seem to think simply reading more about IDT will make IDT acceptable to people. Sorry, Eddie, but I was at the DI’s Summer Program and soaked up the best of their best IDT in lectures, seminars and texts from DI leaders up close for 9 days and it lead me to further see the vacuity at the heart of IDism. IDT and the DI are far more dangerous for evangelical Christians than BioLogos, the latter which has a legitimate educational mission, rather than merely a ‘revolutionary’ one.
Here are more appropriate questions for BioLogos to put to West or Meyer at the CSC-DI:
The effect of question 3) is that the DI would have to give up the pretense that IDT is a ‘strictly scientific’ theory based on probabilities and ‘information bits’. Eddie surely would waffle about that because equivocation (and exaggeration: Dembski as “the Newton of INFO theory”) is the IDist’s preferred rhetorical strategy.
To help with question 1) one simply needs to be aware of the many anti-IDT or non-IDT varieties of ‘design theory’. Noting those non-IDT varieties of ‘design’ would be a welcome first step in ‘reclaiming design’ from a political-educational movement that has claimed ‘design’ for itself and damaged this term in the eyes of many people involved in science, philosophy and theology/worldview discourse.
To face question 2) – well, that’s a hinge for the DI to face or ignore. Ignore has been its preference so far. And that’s why ‘design’ needs to be ‘reclaimed’ from the DI and its IDM.
Again, in case you missed it Eddie: people who promote ‘intelligent design’ but don’t insist on its ‘scientificity’ are not actually defending the DI’s very specific definitions of IDT. Is that you?
Non-DI ‘design theory’, just for starters:
“The best way to predict the future is to design it.” – Buckminster Fuller
“I regard design thinking as one of the several forms in which human intelligence operates, and so it seems natural to want to understand that intelligence, to understand ourselves.” – Nigel Cross
‘Design’ quite obviously needs to be ‘reclaimed’ from the DI & IDM. Opponents of this view need first to show that the DI & IDM haven’t ‘claimed’ it in the first place. Good luck!
p.s. ‘Left-wing cafés in Paris vs. BioLogos forum – wow! What is the one-word opposite of ‘compartmentalisation’ that identifies “people at an ID forum”, in your opinion? Just the one-word, not an explanation is what I’m asking for.
p.p.s. bolding style simply means to draw attention - if you want to comment, don’t forget these main points - not to ‘shout’, thanks for understanding
Synthesis?! Capitalised ‘Intelligent Design’ is far from a credible answer for this. 
Compartmentalized? Discovery Institute actively promotes dehumanising compartmentalisation. Behe is an easily demonstrated example.
But Haarsma vs. Meyer would be a fascinating discussion about ‘compartmentalisation,’ I agree. Let DI & ENV not play tricky PR if such a discussion were ever to take place.
The question is not: Is there design?
The question is: What is the design?
The answer to the question is the Logos.
No one, not ID nor Darwinism nor Evolutionary Creationism, wants to respond to the meaning of evolution through the Logos, which is the only way to understand how it really works to create our universe.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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