Re: Defining Intelligent Design

David Campbell (bivalve@mailserv0.isis.unc.edu)
Tue, 27 Jan 1998 17:32:53 -0400

>Beyond the fact that the universe was designed, and many biochemical
>structures are irreducibly complex, and Darwinism is not capable of
>explaining it, where else do these guys fit on the theological timescale
>:-) I have always assumed that the ID crowd accept an old earth and
>perhaps micro-evolution, but is this correct? Are they old-earthers or
>YEC? Do they accept micro-evolution but not macro, and thereby approximate
>Progressive Creationists? Do they allow for *any* evolution? How do we
>define them, using the usual labels?

As several have pointed out, people identifying themselves as ID
include a wide range of views on the extent of biological evolution by
"natural" processes and on the age of the earth. A confounding factor is
the tendency for popular YEC to seize on anything that sounds vaguely
anti-evolutionary or young-earth. For example, a post quite some time ago
reported a Jehovah's Witness publication citing Behe's ideas as supporting
their YEC position, whereas Behe accepts "natural" evolution as possibly
adequate from the first living organism on. [Similar tendencies occur in
old-earth atheists, but they are unlikely to be confused with ID.] The
current ID movement seems united in denying that God created life
"naturally". [By "natural" I mean "following the usual way in which God
runs things, which we approximate by scientific laws.]
Microevolution and macroevolution are not the best terms in this
context, since the biological and paleontological use of the terms is
different.

David C.