Intelligent Design

Creationism masquerading as science. Asserts that the universe is too complex to have come about on its own and must have been designed by some intelligent being (we are, of course, to assume this being is God).

This is the argument from incredulity, which can be restated as, "I don't understand how this happened, so God must've done it." It may satisfy some, until we actually do understand how something happens and no longer need God as an explanation.

The Intelligent Design movement is actually an agenda of the Discovery Institute, a Young Earth Creationist organization devoted to evangelizing by spreading misinformation about such things as the theory of evolution. In their leaked "wedge document," they detail a plan to insert Intelligent Design as an alternative to the theory of evolution in public school science curriculums. This, they believe, will stem the dissemination of accurate scientific information in favor of ideas that don't contradict their beliefs.

By removing the religious trappings of creationism (they are careful not to mention the Christian God, Jesus, or the Bible), they hold Intelligent Design up as genuine science. Apparently they've never bothered to check the definition of "science," since it mentions things like falsifiable hypotheses, evidence, stuff like that. Intelligent Design is pseudoscience and a real danger to education in the U.S.

ID proponents want Intelligent Design taught in science classes instead of evolution, not alongside it. They may claim only a desire for fairness, but that's only the beginning. If we let ID into our classrooms, they won't stop there.

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Darwinism

First used by Thomas Henry Huxley in a review of Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species in the April 1860 issue of Westminster Review, it has since become a term used by creationists to poison the well when discussing (attempting to discredit) the theory of evolution. By adding the -ism, they imply a system of beliefs or an ideology, hypocritically equating Darwinism to any other crackpot idea.

Calling someone a "Darwinist" or "evolutionist" is about as ridiculous as calling someone who accepts the fact of gravity a "gravitationalist," or someone who believes the earth is spherical a "sphericist."

Darwinism is wrongly thought by many fundamentalists to be the "religion" of atheists. It's true that most atheists accept Darwin's theory, but that fact is irrelevant to their nonbelief in a deity. They simply see no reason to reject something that's obviously true (i.e., it doesn't contradict some other belief that they refuse to give up).

Darwinism isn't a belief system or an ideology. A person who accepts Darwin's theory (after 150+ years and mountains of evidence in its favor) is merely non-delusional.

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