That said, please understand that if your new term catches on, it’ll take about 5 years for that term to also become prejoratized by the creationist community. Therefore I recommend that you start working on your next term as soon as your first term is presented.

The linguistic world is replete with examples. To welsh on a debt, an Irish temper, and German engineering are just a few of the examples of baggage that otherwise neutral names can pick up (in the last example, a good one, in contrast to some other baggage the word German has acquired). This process cannot be halted by fiat. It is picked up first by fair generalizations, and secondly by unjustified prejudice. The precise amounts of these two processes can be debated. Once people figure out what the new terms are, the old stereotypes are immediately reapplied.

Attempts to circumvent this process do not last. Consider the sequence Negro, black, and (in the U.S.) African-American, or the sequence (American Indian, Native American, indegenous, and multiple other names that have been applied. When I was in college, I worked for a summer as a sanitation engineer, which used to be a garbageman. Now they are environmental services specialists.

It doesn’t really matter what you call them. Until the underlying reality changes, changing the name only obfuscates, and that temporarily. Creationists, and to a lesser extent (other) ID advocates (there are some who are both), will always think that Darwinists, or whatever you want to call them, are wrong on the big picture. So whatever new name someone comes up with will in short order carry much the same baggage.

The only thing that will change some of this is if the new breed stops trying to oust people from academia based on their disbelief in philosophical naturalism. Then there will be a change in content, and then the new name will actually mean something different.

I regard the complaints about “Darwinist” as mostly whining, especially in view of Larry Farfarman’s comments at (46). But then, I would have been happy at one time with the term “garbageman”. In my book it is a bureaucratic mindset that wants to call a spade a manual digging implement.

Yes, but you forget the flip side. It is also the case that any teleologist will be objectionable to a Darwinist. What is “methodological naturalism” except a convenient way of imposing that objection on science and institutionalizing it? TEs, by the way, are also on board with that imposition. That is why we need the three terms, “Intelligent design, “Darwinism,” and “Theistic evolution.”

He objected to the notion of randomness on the grounds that it was ultimately an ontological stance.

In a conversation with me on this site, MacNeill withdrew his objection if random was replaced with non-forsighted. As for Lamarckian evolution, to the extent that it exists, it is seen as a mechanism that was developed via RM+NS. In fact, human-induced genetic engineering is also seen as a mechanism that was developed via RM+NS.

There are only three mechanisms in all of the MET — non-forsighted variation (including events such as asteroids), natural selection, and mechanisms that are ostensibly developed from those two. There are lots of twists and turns within thest parameters, but they all are within these simple parameters.

As to teleological v. non-teleological, in general I would agree with you. However, the only non-teleological explanation that has been proposed for life’s variety are the above three mechanisms. I am sure that the non-teleologists would be happy to conjur up another mechanism, but so far they have not done so. The ID theorists have simply suggested that if RV+NS is unable to explain something, then foresight is required. If foresight is required, then intelligence must be required. If intelligence is required then either that intelligence is itself a product of RV+NS (think aliens), or that intelligence is “other”.

And please, don’t go suggesting that there is much more to the MET than RV + NS. We’ve hashed through HGT, genetic drift, variations on mutations, retroviruses, the list of 40 some odd twists on the theme that MacNeill published. They come down to RV+NS and mechanisms that ostensibly developed from these two.

I’ve looked back at what MacNeill said at UD. He objected to the notion of randomness on the grounds that it was ultimately an ontological stance. He alluded to more like 200 sources of variation in reproduction. And he referred to himself as Darwinian, Larmarckian, and some other things.

I mention “Darwinian” and “Lamarckian” because they are particularly interesting. Darwin actually ascribed to Larmarckian inheritance. Darwinism is crisply distinct from Lamarckianism in the minds of people today only because Lamarckian evolution was debunked. The scientific community did not swallow Darwin’s theories hook, line, and sinker. Now Lamarckian inheritance is somewhat “un-bunked,” according to MacNeill.

If I recall correctly, Darwin never invoked randomness in his theorizing. Randomness comes by way of Mendel, whose work was not widely known until the 1890′s. It seems to me that what most ID proponents object to in their conceptualizations of Darwinism is the denial of teleology. Show me an ID proponent who does not conceive of the designing intelligence as goal-oriented.

“ID vs. Darwinism” is framed as it is because most ID proponents do not deny that there is some sort of evolution. There is great disagreement among IDers as to how, precisely, intelligence directs evolution. But all IDers are teleologists, as best I can tell. And what they are really taking Darwinists to task for when they reduce Darwinism to “RV + NS” is denial of purpose in evolution.

The debate is over teleology, I believe. Any non-teleologist or anti-teleogist will be objectionable to an IDer (teleologist).

I consider the term “creationist” to be one who overtly interprets the scientific evidence throught the filter of the “divinely inspired” creation story. It is clear, however, that the scientific community uses the term creationist to describe anyone who does not hold to strict naturalism.

The term Darwinist has a long history within the scientific establishment. However, as you feel that the term Darwinist has somehow been tainted, prejoratized, by the creationist community, would you please find me another single word that describes those who hold to modern evolutionary theory — the theory that random (non-forsighted) variation and natural selection are the two mechanisms that built up all of the variety of life on earth.

That said, please understand that if your new term catches on, it’ll take about 5 years for that term to also become prejoratized by the creationist community. Therefore I recommend that you start working on your next term as soon as your first term is presented.

Inputs from where? Once we use the passive voice to describe active events, suddenly that which is logically impossible can begin to seem possible. Putting self refuting words in the same sentence is not the same thing as describing a plausible reality. Either life was created or else it created itself.

—–”Then again, maybe there are not even desired short-term effects. Perhaps it’s simply fun to perturb the system randomly and watch what happens.”

Where do we get the system and who is doing the perturbing?

—–“There are many positions one can take. The whole thing of “camps” is very primitive, to me.”

Explain that to the Darwinists, who insist that only those in their “camp” are doing science. Which is more primitive–for me to call them Darwinists or for them to persecute ID scientists for daring to be non-Darwinists.

From this point on Itzhak Perlman must be referred to as a fiddler!

Joel, you may be getting on to something here. Let’s think this through. If you referred to someone who believe the Earth was created in 6 literal days and that Biblical genealogies should be accepted as the final authority as to the age of the Earth as a creationist would he/should he be offended?

If you referred to someone who believe that it was firmly established beyond any debate that random changes to the genome + NS is the only reasonable explanation for biodiversity as a Darwinist why do you think that person should be offended?

What would you call such a person?

I’ll grant you that if you don’t hold to RM+NS as the only reasonable explanation for biodiversity and are called a Darwinist you should seek to correct the perception just as one who uses objective metrics rather than faith to declare biodesign should object to being called a creationist.