Nice. To bad they have eyes but cannot see, ears but cannot hear....
Your point about accepting common descent doesn't make sense. In the modern lexicon, the word "Creationist" has taken on a specific meaning attached to those who have pushed for "Creation Science" as a direct "rebuttal" of evolution.
There is no hard and fast definition of it anymore, as the line in the sand has become blurry. Those who seek to undermine evolution for purely religious reasons usually evoke the "Creationist" label, whether they literally believe in a six-day creation or not. Making the definition so general to include all who believe in god is certainly not very informative either.
Creationist: someone who believes, to some nonzero but unspecified extent, that invoking supernatural intervention is necessary to explain the natural world.
Hmm, isn't the concept of God's part in the initial creation the underpinning of creationism? Wouldn't this more of a definition of a sort of deistic interventionism?
Malm, isn't deistis interventionism theism? If it's not how is it different.
GCT, The term Creationist is very imprecisely used, that's kinda the point of Davids post. Tying it to biology and/or common descent is one of the ways it is misused. I think it is wise to eliminate these as they restrict the definition in the wrong way.
Creationist is probably a far too politially loaded word these days anyway. I am not sure it is possible to define it in a useful, non politicised way as it most people who use the term tend to have their own agenda as to what it is used for.
I have been described as a creationist. When I asked what was meant by this the person suggested literal 6 day creationism. I replied that on the balance of things I don't think it was a literal six days, they simply redefined their definition to include me and then dismiss my views because I was a creationist.
This kind of semantic slieght of hand is common in highly politicised debates where many people are less interested in real debate and more interested in shouting down the opposition, name calling and ignoring the real issues for debate.
Yes I am a Creationist on both of Davids Definitions. As well as on both definitions of Russells (on the second part of Russells I do think Science can at least, in part detect the miracluous, even if it can't explain it - all this of course depends on how you define Science as well).
The problem with all of this is it is about labelling people rather than interacting with them. I doubt many "anti-creationists" (however you define it) would actually ever take the time to listen to me outline my take on all this. And I suspect the converse is also often true.
I am not sure where all this is going, and I have a meeting to go too, so I'll sign off now
Matt, it is that very politicization that has caused uasge of that word to evolve to what it is now. I agree that it's not well defined, but I don't think it's a misuse to tie it to the anti-evolution element of society. Certainly, those who (as I said above) seek to undermine evolution for purely religious reasons should fit the definition.
GCT -
I think David's point is that when a group of scientists uses a label, that label should be well-defined. You can't do science if your terms are poorly understood. The problem with defining "Creationist" as "someone engaged in political/cultural attacks on Darwinism" is the same as defining "racist" as "Republican" and "fundamentalist" as "Christian Republican" - the definition is really about a particular cultural battle rather than precisely defining a group.
I do agree with you that the group of people fighting evolution are probably all creationists, but I disagree that it defines the set (if that was your point; if not, then we are all in agreement).
Well, my point is that it certainly helps to define the set. Mr. Heddle seems to think that having anti-evolution in the definition at all is rubbish, but I think that it is integral.
The "supernatural intervention" bit in the definition is too broad. Under that definition, an atheist who believed in ESP would be considered a "creationist".
I'd define "creationism" as: "The belief that all evidence relating to the origins-of-things should be ignored or discarded without further consideration, whenever it conflicts with a given religious dogma."
So a person who thinks that the world is 6,000 years old and that scientists are involved in a massive conspiracy to fool everbody is a "creationist". A person who believes that God caused the Big Bang isn't a creationist, because his beliefs aren't in conflict with the current evidence.
What about a person that believes god caused the Big Bang and then went about creating humans billions of years later? That too would be "Creationist," because it would directly conflict with current evidence.
If you really think Darwin was a creationist . . . it's an untenable definition.
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