# Is the USA the only country that even bothers with Intelligent Design bullshit? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 30, 2007, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-usa-the-only-country-that-even-bothers-with-intelligent-design-bullshit/424549 "2007-10-30T06:01:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2007, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-usa-the-only-country-that-even-bothers-with-intelligent-design-bullshit/424549/41 "2007-10-30T22:43:17Z")
Turkey, of all places, appears to outrank the U.S. in disbelief in Evolution. > **[The New York Times \> Science \> Image \> Chart: Belief in Evolution,...](https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2006/08/14/science/sciencespecial2/20050815_EVO_GRAPHIC.html)** > > Only adults in Turkey expressed more > doubts on evolution than adults in the United States. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2007, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-usa-the-only-country-that-even-bothers-with-intelligent-design-bullshit/424549/42 "2007-10-30T22:49:24Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] Which is the biggest thing wrong with this country in my opinion. As much press as the ID debate gets, I do not know a single person who even credits it as more than a ‘stupid redneck’ joke. People get all up in arms about it, but really how prevalent is it here in the states. Sure I believe it’s more prevalent than elsewhere, but I everyone I know pretty much tacitly accepts evolution. [/QUOTE] You must not have watched the Republican presidential debates - though if you call the current slate a stupid redneck joke, I won’t argue. 🙂 Everyone I know voted for Kerry - but it didn’t help. Surely you’ve seen the poll numbers about how many people in the US believe in creationism? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2007, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-usa-the-only-country-that-even-bothers-with-intelligent-design-bullshit/424549/43 "2007-10-30T22:55:52Z")
[QUOTE=Lobohan] I met a guy at my last job who believed that the world was 6,000 years old. He was a seventh day adventist… And I live in central California. [/QUOTE] Central California, for you who don’t live around here, is a fur piece from the Bay Area. I went to a wedding in Folsom and it was downright scary. On the other hand, I spent the half hour I got to review the new set of biology books my district was going to use for their evolution coverage, and they were pretty much uniformly excellent. (The lowest level book was pro-evolution, but had an ontology recapitulates phylogeny error.) The AP book had a two page interview with Dawkins! ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2007, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-usa-the-only-country-that-even-bothers-with-intelligent-design-bullshit/424549/44 "2007-10-30T23:00:37Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager] You must not have watched the Republican presidential debates - though if you call the current slate a stupid redneck joke, I won’t argue. 🙂 [/quote] Heh, yeah, I suppose so. > [@](#): > > Everyone I know voted for Kerry - but it didn’t help. Surely you’ve seen the poll numbers about how many people in the US believe in creationism? Creationism is one thing ID is another. I know people who believe in both Creationism and Evolution. “Genesis is allegorical.” I have talked to people who don’t try to pass it off as science. I guess I still draw a distinction between Creationism and Intelligent Design. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2007, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-usa-the-only-country-that-even-bothers-with-intelligent-design-bullshit/424549/45 "2007-10-30T23:14:50Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] I know people who believe in both Creationism and Evolution. [/QUOTE] 😕 It’s logically possible to believe God created the Universe at the start – set off the Big Bang – and then just let everything, including evolution, happen – but that’s not what the word “Creationism” is usually taken to mean. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2007, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-usa-the-only-country-that-even-bothers-with-intelligent-design-bullshit/424549/46 "2007-10-30T23:18:48Z")
**mswas** , I think [Theistic Evolution](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theistic_evolution) might describe your beliefs better than intelligent design. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2007, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-usa-the-only-country-that-even-bothers-with-intelligent-design-bullshit/424549/47 "2007-10-30T23:21:24Z")
[QUOTE=Ludovic] Induction requires both a linkage to the next instance and proof or definition of a beginning. There’s no philosophical way to explain the beginning of the multiverse as we understand it, it would be equivalent to claiming that God has existed for an infinite amount of time. [/QUOTE] Not quite; we know that universes exist as we live in one, we know that they **can** exist; we know no such thing about gods. [QUOTE=mswas] Creationism is one thing ID is another. I know people who believe in both Creationism and Evolution. “Genesis is allegorical.” I have talked to people who don’t try to pass it off as science. I guess I still draw a distinction between Creationism and Intelligent Design. [/QUOTE] There isn’t one. ID is just creationism with a thin coat of pseudoscience slapped onto it. VERY thin; as **Mangetout** points out, there isn’t really much of anything **to** ID. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2007, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-usa-the-only-country-that-even-bothers-with-intelligent-design-bullshit/424549/48 "2007-10-30T23:32:40Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] Heh, yeah, I suppose so. Creationism is one thing ID is another. I know people who believe in both Creationism and Evolution. “Genesis is allegorical.” I have talked to people who don’t try to pass it off as science. I guess I still draw a distinction between Creationism and Intelligent Design. [/QUOTE] Creationism usually refers to a belief in biological “_special_ creation”, which is the belief that all species (especially the _human species_) were “created” as is without any intermediate steps. in other words “creationism” most often refers to a belief about the origin of _people_, not just the universe. A belief that God created the universe but then used or allowed evolution as the means to create humans is commonly referred to as “Theistic Evolution.” ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2007, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-usa-the-only-country-that-even-bothers-with-intelligent-design-bullshit/424549/49 "2007-10-30T23:39:37Z")
[QUOTE=Larry Borgia] **mswas** , I think [Theistic Evolution](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theistic_evolution) might describe your beliefs better than intelligent design. [/QUOTE] Theistic evolution is what the Catholic Church and people like Ken Miller believe in. From the outside, it is identical to evolution, it just posits that something jiggered with evolution to produce us. Since believers in this need to figure out the steps, they work identically with atheistic evolution, and can be just as scientific. To **mswas** While it is true that ID and Creationism are not identical, hardly anyone but Behe treats them that way, and he only seems to make the distinction in NY Times Op-Ed pieces and I assume at Lehigh. Just about everyone else uses the term to try to evade the constitutional restriction on teaching creationism in school. If you remember the Dover trial, the “ID” textbook was identical to the Creationism textbook except for s/Creation/Intelligent Design/g If Behe had any ethics, he’d be speaking up for evolution (which he accepts) to his Creationist audiences. But he’d probably lose his lucrative speaking engagements then. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2007, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-usa-the-only-country-that-even-bothers-with-intelligent-design-bullshit/424549/50 "2007-10-31T00:15:37Z")
[QUOTE=Der Trihs] ID is just creationism with a thin coat of pseudoscience slapped onto it. VERY thin; as **Mangetout** points out, there isn’t really much of anything **to** ID. [/QUOTE] It’s almost entirely negatively defined, with no substance of its own. Proponents of ID are ever so quick to shout that its _ **not** _ creationism, or in response to an assertion that ID is just a god-of-the-gaps argument, respond that ID _ **isn’t** _ like that, or when faced with any argument about what ID does, respond that ID _ **doesn’t** _ do that. Isn’t, doesn’t, can’t, wouldn’t, won’t, not like that. But ask the same (remember, very aggressively vociferous) people, who argue constantly that ID isn’t getting a fair crack of the whip, to lay out a description of, OK, what ID _ **is** _, what it _ **does** _, and how it could be taught. the response? [crickets](http://www.creationtalk.com/message-board-forum/about1413-0-asc-0.html) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2007, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-usa-the-only-country-that-even-bothers-with-intelligent-design-bullshit/424549/51 "2007-10-31T00:53:13Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager] Theistic evolution is what the Catholic Church and people like Ken Miller believe in. From the outside, it is identical to evolution, it just posits that something jiggered with evolution to produce us. [/QUOTE] How does that differ from Intelligent-Design theory? It sounds exactly the same. ---
**Author:** ![coffeecat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coffeecat/32/3405_2.png) [@coffeecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coffeecat)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2007, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-usa-the-only-country-that-even-bothers-with-intelligent-design-bullshit/424549/52 "2007-10-31T01:00:24Z")
India’s done it (more or less): > [@BBC](#): > > Hindu officials persuaded the Indian government in September to withdraw a report on a construction project because it treated a prominent bridge as a natural stone formation instead of (as Hindus say) a bridge created by the god Ram and his army of monkeys. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2007, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-usa-the-only-country-that-even-bothers-with-intelligent-design-bullshit/424549/53 "2007-10-31T01:37:34Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] How does that differ from Intelligent-Design theory? It sounds exactly the same. [/QUOTE] The difference, as I understand it, is that ID claims that God directly created a variety of aspects of life that cannot have evolved because they are “irreducibly complex”; without demonstrating that any such things actually exist of course. “Theistic evolution” claims that evolution occured as the evidence showed, but that God guided it in the direction it went. Which since it looks just like real evolution conveniently means that they don’t need to provide any evidence whatsoever; it’s even emptier than ID. Which oddly is a good thing, since the influence of religion on science is innately destructive, the fact that theistic evolution can never be proven or disproven means that it’s followers are less likely to try to force science to lie to support them. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2007, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-usa-the-only-country-that-even-bothers-with-intelligent-design-bullshit/424549/54 "2007-10-31T06:47:31Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] How does that differ from Intelligent-Design theory? It sounds exactly the same. [/QUOTE] ID, as Behe sees it, requires direct intervention to accomplish the design of structures that cannot evolve by themselves. (That there are no such structures is a problem.) In theistic evolution, God subtly directed things to produce humans in his image. In non-theistic evolution that the first intelligent beings looked like us was pure accident. If you trace our genes back, there are surely countless times when our ancestors escaped death in order to reproduce by pure chance. Theistic evolution says that god tripped the predator, or that God created this mutation or that one. Say that to prosper you need to win $10,000 in a casino, and walk out with it. The non-theistic evolutionary explanation is that you got lucky. The theistic evolution explanation is that God gave you good cards. The ID explanation is that the money got teleported from the cashier to your pocket. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2007, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-usa-the-only-country-that-even-bothers-with-intelligent-design-bullshit/424549/55 "2007-10-31T07:11:19Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager] If you trace our genes back, there are surely countless times when our ancestors escaped death in order to reproduce by pure chance. Theistic evolution says that god tripped the predator, or that God created this mutation or that one. [/QUOTE] That’s not the position I was taught by Catholic teachers. If you posit that God is omniscient, then it’s perfectly reasonable to believe that he could set in motion a chain reaction whose end result would be human beings. An omniscient creator does not need to trip the predator, he just needs to set his dominos in just the right places and the predator will inevitably trip – perfect knowledge means perfect foresight. ---
**Author:** ![wolf\_meister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf_meister/32/15202_2.png) [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2007, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-usa-the-only-country-that-even-bothers-with-intelligent-design-bullshit/424549/56 "2007-10-31T07:50:18Z")
Wow, I started this thread 24 hours ago and I’m glad to see it went on to a second page. The discussion has been quite lively and insightful. As far as Intelligent Design vs creationism, personally I do not draw any sharp delineation between them (but I’m sure the advocates of _either_ would say differently). I think Intelligent Design is just the newest attempt to sneak God into the science class. The reason I don’t bother studying those creationism vs intelligent design differences is that maybe intelligent design will die out in a couple of years and someone else will “discover” a profound _new_ explanation that absolutely must be taught with equal treatment along with evolution. This is nuts. To me, it seems as pointless as debating with astrologers as to whether they have or have not demoted Pluto from their astrological charts. What would be the point in studying the reasons why they have (or have not) demoted Pluto? October, 2007 marked the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik. Having been a student at the time I remember educators (as well as the population in general) were seriously worried about how lacking the US educational system was. I can remember the curriculum changing and nobody was talking about creationism or intelligent design foolishness. Now, 50 years later, in terms of math and science knowledge, American students have been last (or nearly last) compared to other industrialized countries. With such a poor standing, I think the last thing America’s educational system needs is this manufactured “answer” to the Evolution “controversy”. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2007, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-usa-the-only-country-that-even-bothers-with-intelligent-design-bullshit/424549/57 "2007-10-31T08:29:14Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] As much press as the ID debate gets, I do not know a single person who even credits it as more than a ‘stupid redneck’ joke. People get all up in arms about it, **but really how prevalent is it here in the states**. Sure I believe it’s more prevalent than elsewhere, but I everyone I know pretty much tacitly accepts evolution. [/QUOTE] [Quite prevalent](http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_publi.htm), it would seem. You must move in enlightened circles! ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2007, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-usa-the-only-country-that-even-bothers-with-intelligent-design-bullshit/424549/58 "2007-10-31T20:59:45Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] [Quite prevalent](http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_publi.htm), it would seem. You must move in enlightened circles! [/QUOTE] I like how they have the beliefs of 93% of Everyone and 110% of Scientists. ---
**Author:** ![Valteron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f17d59/32.png) [@Valteron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valteron)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2007, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-usa-the-only-country-that-even-bothers-with-intelligent-design-bullshit/424549/59 "2007-10-31T21:05:49Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] I doubt there’s anyone in Japan who takes their national Shinto [creation myth](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_mythology#Creation) literally any more; and Buddhism has no creation myth as such. [/QUOTE] If we are going to give kids ALL sides of the story, and not just Evolution, as the creationists demand, then surely the Japanese Shinto creation version must be part of what American kids are taught. After all, as George W. said, why are these Evolution people so afraid of a little competition, of letting all kids be exposed to more than one version? ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2007, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-usa-the-only-country-that-even-bothers-with-intelligent-design-bullshit/424549/60 "2007-10-31T21:10:00Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] I like how they have the beliefs of 93% of Everyone and 110% of Scientists. [/QUOTE] I’ve checked all the tables, and I think your adding up re. scientists is wrong. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-usa-the-only-country-that-even-bothers-with-intelligent-design-bullshit/424549.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-usa-the-only-country-that-even-bothers-with-intelligent-design-bullshit/424549.md?page=4)