Humanities desk
< January 8	<< Dec \| January \| Feb >>	January 10 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

January 9

Difference between evolutionary creationism and intelligent design

What's the difference between evolutionary creationism and intelligent design? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:569:7733:AD00:91AB:8A81:12EB:DAF (talk) 09:31, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Both are so vague that they overlap a lot. But most forms of "creationism" are fairly open about who the creator is (usually the Abrahamic god), while Intelligent Design is more oblique. There is strong evidence that ID was explicitly designed (intelligently ;-) to get around restrictions about teaching religion in US schools - see Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District and Of Pandas and People for some history. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:47, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

But evolutionary creationism doesn't seem to be controversial unlike intelligent design and young earth creationism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:569:7733:AD00:91AB:8A81:12EB:DAF (talk) 09:55, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Well firstly, evolutionary creationism does not seem to be as actively promoted, and things are often less controversial when there's less reason to care about them. (As far as I can tell, the The BioLogos Foundation seems to be the biggest promoter and they only started in 2007. Even the wider field of Theistic evolution will it may have some degree of acceptance often isn't actively promoted.) Perhaps more importantly, AFAICT it seems that at the moment, most "evolutionary creationists" are trying to convince Christians who reject evolution to embrace it and they tend to do so in a semi-religious context (i.e. dialogue etc from one Christian to another rather than science lessons to kids) [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]. Their specific views may not be entirely in agreement with science in all aspects, but if they're a lot less anti science than IDers and other creationists and they're not trying to teach something as science which isn't, they're naturally going to be less controversial at least to supporters of science. Of course, if they ever do start to promote the teaching of any warped ideas they have about science in science lessons, this is likely to be controversial and get significant pushback, no matter whether their ideas aren't quite as bad as IDers and other creationists. Nil Einne (talk) 10:43, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding, both from our articles Theistic evolution and Intelligent_design, what I've read about them elsewhere, and what I've seen their proponents claim, is that:

Evolutionary creationism/theistic evolution basically accepts everything that mainstream biological science claims, but adds on the (untestable) claim that "God is behind it all".
Intelligent Design rejects mainstream scientific claims about evolution, claiming instead to have scientifically proven that evolution is impossible without intervention from an intelligent agent. The "scientific proof" they use for this argument is generally either badly done or not actually scientific (and in many cases, actually disprovable and disproven). Proponents also generally prevaricate about who/what they think this "intelligent designer" actually is, although they invariably realy mean God.

In short: Evolutionary creationism is an honest attempt to reconcile religion and science. Intelligent design is a dishonest attempt to pass off religious beliefs as science. Iapetus (talk) 11:47, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Tangientially relevent reading may also be Non-overlapping magisteria and Hume's fork and Fact–value distinction and other similar philosophical concepts. --Jayron 32 11:56, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The trouble with Hume's fork is that it won't even skewer an over-cooked sausage. Martinevans123 (talk) 18:51, 9 January 2018 (UTC) [reply]

People usually don't really care if you believe in nonsense (many people believe that people should have the right to believe in stupid stuff), unless you force your nonsense down the throats of innocent victims. I think that is the reasons why evolutionary creationism is not very controversial, while intelligent design is. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 13:29, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A possibly useful distinction. The intelligent design proponents are not eager to question the findings concerning evolution. What they are specifically rejecting is the mechanism of natural selection. Instead of random mutations having long-term consequences, they believe that the so-called "designer" pretty much programmed everything to take place, with some kind of plan in mind. Dimadick (talk) 14:46, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The major differences between creationism (which includes Theistic evolution) and intelligent design is that the first is theology, and the second is pseudo-science dressed up to support theology. Neither can exist without a god, and as gods cannot be scientifically observed, identified or defined, then neither can be considered a science. DOR (HK) (talk) 10:16, 11 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Scientology promotes Intelligent Design without a god. --Kharon (talk) 13:49, 11 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Kharon: Xenu is basically a god right? (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 02:16, 12 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Where exactly is Taejon-ni ?

The article Hiroshi H. Miyamura discusses an April 1951 battle "near Taejon-ni, Korea". I'm trying to either fix that red link, or at least provide a bit more specificity. Note that this wasn't the Battle of Taejon, which took place the year earlier. Searching Google for the placename "Taejon-ni" was rather too productive, finding at least:

this place in South Chungcheong Province
this place in North Gyeongsang Province
this place, a point near to the Imnam Dam's lake, in southern North Korea

So one might think the conflict was at that last place (the others are too far south, for that period of the war). But this map shows the battle lines in April 1951 in a border area east of the reservoir of the Hwacheon Dam - so maybe 40km SE of the Imnan Dam's lake. I can't see anywhere in that area with a name (looking at both Bing and Google maps) that seems to be Taejon or an alternate transliteration of Taejon. Can anyone figure out where this specific battle took place? Do we (or at least ko.wikipedia) have an article about the location?

Incidentally, am I correct in assuming that the suffix "-ri" or "-ni" simply means something like "-village" (as there are many Somewhere-ri places in Korea)? -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 23:38, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Here's a hint: its "...south of the Imjin River". Per: "Korean War Pub_Revised June 12-2013" (PDF). p. 60. — Presumably, conflict in question relates to Battle of the Imjin River (22–25 April 1951). —2606:A000:4C0C:E200:847D:597D:2CE4:7BE1 (talk) 00:33, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Ri: 里 in hanja, 리 in hangul. I think. Could it possibly be one of these?--Shirt58 (talk) 02:09, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Japanese language Wikipedia article says "1951年4月24日から25日にかけて ... 大田里..." which would be "~~Daejoen~~" Daejeon in the Revised Romanization. Taejon - the romanization that was in use in the army at at the time? --Shirt58 (talk) 02:27, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

JoongAng Ilbo, 25 June 2010: "He [Miyamura] recalled that the following year, as midnight approached on April 24, he was given orders to “hold the hill” in Taejon-ni, present-day Daejeon." Was Daejeon village-sized in 1951? That source appears to say so. --Shirt58 (talk) 02:53, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I'm sure that Taejon and Daejeon are the same letters romanised differently, but as there are evidently several Taejons, they should all be romanised to Daejeon. The present day city of Daejeon is well over 100 miles away from where the fighting was at that time of the war, so it certainly wasn't there. -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 13:24, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, also, for the list on the KO wikipedia - I'll trawl through those and see if any match the location of the conflict. -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 13:30, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

No worries, Finlay. ♫♪♫ I did my best, it wasn't much ♪♫♪. The Japanese language article for "大田" - literally "big rice paddy" - lists a whole bunch of places (and people} of that name. Given (a) Sino-Korean vocabulary, (b) I don't even speak a word of Korean, (c) "Daejeon" would appear to me similar to "Springfield", and (d) "all of the above, but most specifically (b)"... Seems I got little bits right but the more important bits wrong. Pete AU aka --Shirt58 (talk) 09:38, 12 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@2606:A000:4C0C:E200:847D:597D:2CE4:7BE1 - yes, I'm sure you're right, looking more that that map and the one I linked (which are adjacent maps in the same set, it turns out). Althought the Battle of the Imjin River article mostly discusses UK forces, it does say that Miyamura's division was part of that battle. -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 13:30, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Miyamura should be mentioned in the 'Awards and citations' section of Battle of the Imjin River, (but proper source needed) -- and other US actions, as described here: "American actions during the Battle of Imjin River". nationalarchives.gov.uk. The National Archives. —2606:A000:4C0C:E200:4583:DE9C:CC50:DAA3 (talk) 16:33, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]