Exactly. There are not scientifically valid “arguments for creationism”, because creationism isn’t science. Creationism starts with the premise that there is something outside the bounds of physical reality.
Now, some might argue that ID could posit some superior race of beings (maybe giant spiders living on one of Jupiter’s moons) that have genetically engineered us to be what we are. But there is no evidence for that, and then you’re still left to explain, scientifically, how those giant spiders came into being. Which puts you right back at the drawing board with evolution by natural selection.
You should. It is an attempt to create a kind of balance between Creationism and Evolution where none exists. Evolution is science and there’s no debate about the vast majority of evolution among scientists. There is no confusion by anyone who is informed in the subject.
The only debate takes place in the political realm, and it’s not based on facts but on emotions and religious goals. That debate is real (and somewhat deplorable) but it has nothing to do with the established facts of evolution.
Practically speaking, you’re right. In theory, ID could be science, if it was pursued scientifically, and if there was any evidence to support it. If there had been miracles in the past, there might be evidence for them now.
Alas, we find little evidence for any divine intervention, with a possible exception for origins, as we have no good theory for the origin of life. But in that case, the only “evidence” is “ignorance”. We don’t know: that doesn’t mean it has to be a miraculous.
Spelling and grammar checkers are going to turn us into a horde of morons with poor spelling and grammar. I wonder if the checkers would balk at a diacritical mark, which is what we might use over the 2nd e if we weren’t typing.
Scientific hypotheses can be as nutty as you like. I’d suspect that most get falsified without the creator of the hypothesis telling anyone else about it. Continents floating around is pretty crazy, after all. After that they need testable predictions. When the hypothesis is falsified and there are better explanations for the existing data keeping the hypothesis moves one from science to nutjobbery.
Creationism 300 years ago was a reasonable hypothesis, and did make testable predictions. When none came true reasonable scientists abandoned it.
“Preexisting” with no hyphen is American style, as shown in the American Heritage Dictionary. It does have the hyphen as a second choice, but in that dictionary the second choices are usually British style. American English disregards the hyphen in just about all words like that, with some exceptions.
Good point, and allow me to segue into this modified proverb: “In the land of the blind, the partial-eyed man is king”. Many millions of years ago, the world was the land of the blind- an organism that had evolved even partial vision gained a significant advantage.
I heard Kenneth Miller talk about his Dover trial experience, and he showed the graph in the “humorous take” link. It’s pretty obvious that the creationists are getting around the Supreme Court ruling by calling it ID.
Miller made the comment that Watergate should have taught people to get rid of the paper trail [the Of Pandas and People publishers missed a few uses of the terms “creationists” and “creationism” in their cut and paste editing job of replacing those terms with ID].
