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Michael Patrick Leahy Right on Creation Museum, Wrong on Intelligent Design by Joel W. Martin, Phd.  Joel Martin at work in 2005 somewhere in the Pacific Dear Mr. Leahy: Although I greatly appreciated your opinion article in the Los Angeles Times, "The Trouble with Fred and Wilma", and very much agree with your criticism of the Creation Museum in Kentucky and the damage that it does to the credibility of Christians everywhere, I felt that your conclusion had one rather important flaw in it. As a Christian who is also an evolutionary biologist, I thought I should point this out to you. You concluded that: The mainstream media needs to make a clear distinction between the anti-scientific methods of "Young Earth Creationists" and the scientifically based approaches of "Old Earth Creationists" and "Intelligent Design" advocates. Most importantly, the dishonest practice of lumping "Old Earth Creationists" and "Intelligent Design" advocates into the same intellectual trash bin as "Young Earth Creationists" should stop immediately. I strongly disagree. Making a "clear distinction" between these two (creationism and ID) is exactly what the ID advocates are hoping for, but the truth is that there is no scientifically based approach to either Creationism or to ID. If there were any merit to it whatsoever, by this time we should be able to point to something, some new fact, something learned that was previously unknown, that is a direct result of this "science." There is not anything like this that we can point to, of course, because neither creationism nor ID is science. Although as you pointed out there are indeed some differences between ID advocates and young-earth creationists (and even within the ID camp itself) in terms of what they will and will not accept from modern science, the lumping of the ID advocates with creationists is, in my estimation, quite fair. When one looks closely, it is rather easy to see that all that has changed is the language that they use, and the fact that, by necessity, they have now softened on some of their arguments (some - but by no means all -- of the ID advocates will now accept the great age of the earth, for example). That acceptance, plus the inclusion of some very questionable lines of reasoning that the earlier creationists did not employ (such as the argument for irreducible complexity) are really the only differences. I hope you will consider the following passages, which were taken from two different editions of the only textbook that the ID crowd has supported as an "alternative" text book to modern biology texts, one that they want to see promoted and used in our public schools. This was used as evidence in the Dover, Pennsylvania, trial, and it was one reason that Judge Jones called ID "creationism relabeled," which I thought was quite accurate: "Creation means that various forms of life began abruptly through the agency of an intelligent Creator with their distinctive features already intact—fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, and wings, etc." (Biology and Origins 1987, FTE 3235, 3237, p. 2-13, 2-14). "Intelligent design means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency, with their distinctive features already intact — fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, and wings, etc. (Pandas 1993, 2nd edition, pp. 99-100). It is not difficult to see the dishonesty in the above example; the wording is exactly the same with the only change being the removal of "creation" and replacing it with "intelligent design." This does not make the second sentence science, you'll have to agree. I think that the above example -- which is only one of several such examples that came to light during the Dover trial -- helps put to rest, once and for all, any argument that there is a substantial difference between the Creationist and ID camps, even though the particulars of their arguments differ according to who is being interviewed. Brownback, Huckabee, and Tancredo, although clearly more intelligent and more thoughtful than the architects of Kentucky's museum of creation, deserve the ridicule they received, just as surely as if they had said that they do not know for sure whether the earth is really round or flat. They should know. Our nation cannot afford this level of ignorance at leadership levels, and Christians everywhere should be ashamed and embarrassed by such statements. Sincerely, Joel W. (Jody) Martin, Phd. Curator of Crustacea Chief of the Division of Invertebrate Studies Research & Collections Branch Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County Past issues - Print edition - Media Kit - About Christian Faith and Reason ©2007 Christian Faith and Reason
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