Jim has taken my meaning in a way I did not intend. The creation/evolution
debate does turn, often enough, on the 'definition of science'. In the
past, that thrust was driven most by anti-creationists, as a way to quickly
defeat creation as "unscientific by definition."
That drive FREQUENTLY includes an attempt to define (or rather, re-define)
science so as to favor evolution and naturalism. The trick is to do it
sufficiently subtly that people don't recognize the bias.
The attempts are lampooned immediately by recognizing that science ALREADY
allows intelligent designers, and always has. Intelligent designers show up
in archaeology, in SETI research, and in the Piltdown case, to name a few.
That is a fact. And that is why I view Glenn's present fixation on
"dictionaries" as somewhat silly. I showed him a dictionary that refuted
his claim anyway.
The battle is over the evolutionist's re-definition of science. I would add
that virtually EVERY keyword of the origins debate has been reworked (and
redefined) into evolutionary illusions: fitness, primitive, advanced,
derived, ancestral, lineage, phylogeny, intermediate, transitional -- to
name a few. Yes, this is partly (even largely) a battle over evolutionary
illusions that are created with words.
Those illusions work their way into our textbooks (and dictionaries) in
multifarious ways, typically NOT involving corporate dictates of the type
Jim Foley envisioned. The infusion is less direct, but no less real.
Walter ReMine
P.O. Box 28006
Saint Paul, MN 55128