The difference between creationism and intelligent design

In response to Frank Curcio’s March 24 letter “God and science,” I’d like to explain the difference between creationism and intelligent design, which Mr. Curcio seems to use interchangeably. He mixes them up and in the process, may confuse readers.

Creationism holds that the universe and all that is in it was created by a supreme being. Creationists come in two kinds: young-earth creationists and old-earth creationists.
Young-earth creationism is based on an interpretation of the book of Genesis in the Bible. According to young-earth creationists, the God of the Bible created the universe and everything in it in six 24-hour days, the universe is about 10,000 years old, and the fossils were largely created by the global flood of Noah’s time when great masses of sea, aquatic and land animals were swept across the continents to be deposited in clusters, even on mountaintops.

Old-earth creationists allow more latitude in their interpretation of Genesis. They accept standard “scientific” dating, which places the earth at about 4.5 billion years old and the universe at 13.7 billion years old. They also accept “microevolution” as God’s method of adapting existing species to their changing environments, but they reject “macroevolution,” which Darwinism evolutionists asserts are the radical, dramatic changes that produce completely new species.

Intelligent design is different from creationism. Intelligent design does not rely on prior theological assumptions for recognizing intelligent activity, but instead relies on methods developed within the scientific community.

Intelligent design does not identify the designer. Intelligent design theorists hold that organisms show clear, scientific evidence of design and reject Darwin’s claim that random variation and natural selection alone account for apes and humans having descended from a single, common ancestor which oozed out of a primordial soup and eventually walked erect, spoke a language, etc.

Mr. Curcio seems to be intent upon suppressing intelligent design in order to promote his own naturalistic world view.

Read complete article.

You must be logged in to post a comment Login