- An article by Marcus R. Ross, Journal of Geoscience Education, v. 53, n. 3, May, 2005, Who Believes What? Clearing up Confusion over Intelligent Design and Young-Earth Creationism
- ABSTRACT
The question of what differentiates young-Earth creationism (YEC) from Intelligent Design (ID) has resulted in inaccurate and confusing terminology, and hinders both understanding and dialogue. Though both YEC and ID groups have drawn distinctions between themselves, previous attempts to classify design-based positions on origins have been unable to adequately resolve their relationships. The Nested Hierarchy of
Design, a multiple-character classification system, categorizes teleological positions according to the strength of claims regarding the reality, detectability, source, method, and timing of design, and results in an accurate and robust classification of numerous positions. This method avoids the philosophical and theological pitfalls of previous methods and enables construction of accurate definitions for a suite of teleological positions. The incorporation of the Nested Hierarchy of Design in classroom discussion could 1) better represent the suite of opinions among students, 2) clarify the many
teleological positions, and 3) help to reduce tensions between educators, students, and the public.
Interesting ranking, but I would disagree with the characterization of “Materialist Evolutionist” in Figure 1 has having “more science” than the “Theistic Evolutionist”. In my mind, they both do “science” in the same way, and accept the same evidence. It’s only that TE scientists hold philosophically to a non-materialist metaphysics. But that has nothing to do with science.
Oh…also in Figure 1, I wonder what criteria separate “Theistic Evolutionist” and “Evolutionary Creationist”. I thought they were different terms for the same thing?
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There are issues with any term. I now use Christian naturalist and still just have to explain I’m a Christian who thinks most of it is myths and accept the scientific consensus that the scientific community comes to on most things like the theory of evolution and I don’t believe in any form of intelligent design. Anyone who thinks God intervened and upset the natural order of things guiding the process is basically the same to me regardless if it’s young earth creationist or evolutionary creationist who believe in supernatural selection.
Does an “evolutionary creationist” necessarily believe in “supernatural selection”–whatever that means? I don’t think that God intervened in evolution (just like you apparently) but still would have called myself an evolutionary creationist/theistic evolutionist (I still don’t know the difference between those two terms).
It’s religious jargon. There is no one definition for them. Some use one, some use the other, some means this and some means that and some use both and some use neither. It’s more just general terms to get you in the general direction. It’s like saying Christian. A liberal who rejects intelligent design and believes that god revealed himself as many different gods to different people uses Christian mist like a conservative red hatter who believes humans used dinosaurs to build the pyramids as grain storage few thousand years ago. The people says gays burn in hell forever uses Christian just like the gay Christian universalist uses it.
Theistic evolution and evolutionary creationism is just the same. People use them how they see fit and it’s basically the same thing to some and not to others. Either one just means, within the Christian context, that someone mostly accepts the theory of evolution and believes in god. Pick whichever you like the most and use it in the way you like it the most and you’ll typically end up on the ballpark of where you are wanting to head by using them.
Am I out of line in objecting to the phrase “the” theory of evolution. There are many theories of evolution, some more scientifically respectable than others.
Which, btw, contrasts with Intelligent Design, where there is, as far as I know, there is no theory of ID. (Can anyone state what sort of things are ID, and how they differ from those that aren’t? Is there anything which is not ID?) Flat Earth & Geocentrism are represented by theories, I think.
- Ahhh! mystery unraveling …
- The paper is dated 2005 and the author, Marcus R. Ross
(born 1976) is an American young earth creationist and vertebrate paleontologist. Ross was featured in a February 2007 New York Times article about the conflict between his young Earth creationist beliefs (which hold the Earth to be only thousands of years old) and his doctoral dissertation (which involved animals extinct for millions of years). His dissertation was on tracking the diversity, biostratigraphy, and extinction of mosasaurs, an extinct group of marine reptiles whose remains are found in Late Cretaceous period (100–66 [Ma]) deposits around the world. - Clearly, I missed that.
- Thanks for reminding me of one of the things I was searching for which led me to Ross’ article. I was looking for “Young Earth Creationism, Bibliolatry, and Flat Earth Theory”.
- Falling Flat: A New Book by Dr. Danny Faulkner Refuting the Flat Earth
- Ignoring the Plank: A Young-Earth Apologist Inadvertently Writes a Brilliant Critique of Young-Earth Creationism
- Flat Earth vs Creationism – A Biblical perspective