In Intelligent Design: Strengths, Weaknesses,
and the Differences John Morris, president of ICR, writes:
The differences between Biblical creationism and the IDM should become clear. As an unashamedly Christian/creationist organization, ICR is concerned with the reputation of our God and desires to point all men back to Him. We are not in this work merely to do good science, although this is of great importance to us. We care that students and society are brainwashed away from a relationship with their Creator/Savior. While all creationists necessarily believe in intelligent design, not all ID proponents believe in God. ID is strictly a non-Christian movement, and while ICR values and supports their work, we cannot join them.
Good grief. Is thermodynamics or statistical mechanics Biblical or non-Biblical? If these disciplines can’t be shown to be Biblical, then is Morris suggesting these ideas can’t be defended or studied or promoted by the ICR? Given that Maxwell (a creationist) and Boltzmann (a Darwinist) were pioneers in the formulation of statistical mechanics and atomic theory, I suppose by John Morris’s standards, these great theories are non-Christian theories, therefore the ICR can’t join in their promotion and study.
I suppose the ICR would have issue with James Clerk Maxwell (likely a YEC himself), whose famous equations have ushered in the modern world. His famous equations require an old universe. Thus, if the ICR had it’s way, a great scientific discovery would be rejected on account that it was “unbiblical”.
Conversely, is chemistry more truthful because it is promoted and studied by “an unashamedly Christian/creationist organization”? I submit, it is because ID culture invites those who are non-professing Christians and non-creationists that people have more reason to accept IDs conclusions than to accept something from the ICR where every idea can be vetoed by theological fiat, where personal theology has primacy over empirical facts.
The ICR might do well to stop running their organization like a church, and more like a scientific enterprise. They might find they could actually be better evangelists by letting the facts have a more prominent place than their theology.
If ID theories were viewed as hypotheses like any other hypotheses in science, then it is easy to see the fallacies Morris is (perhaps inadvertently) promoting.
(HT: Mike Gene at TelicThoughts)