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September 25, 2005

Creationism and anti-HIVism: "Opposite Sides of the Same Coin"

Mike the Mad Biologist has a very good post on the thought processes of Intelligent Design Creationists and "anti-HIVists." He uses the recent death of three-year-old Eliza Jane Scovill from AIDS-related pneumonia and her HIV positive mother's HIV denial as an extended illustration. Here is the bottom line from the Mad Biologist post,

. . . ID and this anti-HIVism are opposite sides of the same coin. I have argued that one of the real appeals for people of ID and creationism for those who are not biblical literalists is that ID deals with issues of meaning and purpose. Many are afraid that scientific materialism necessarily implies philosophical materialism: that in a world that can be explained by physical mechanisms, there is no room for morality (please, don't get all het up, I'm just explaining the argument).

Anti-HIVism appears to follow the opposite logic. It's frightening to think that one acquired a potentially lethal disease, merely because one was exposed to it. Whether bad luck or bad decision, the cause was simply successful exposure–again, microbes don't care about your 'values.'

Please go read the whole thing. It is very instructive.

Josh owner/operator of Thoughts from Kansas makes an important point in a comment on Mad's post,

Don't forget that Phil Johnson, father of the modern design movement, is an HIV denier.

Posted by Duane Smith at September 25, 2005 9:37 AM | Read more on Evolution |

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Comments

Much thanks for the link to Dembski philosophical musings. Phil Johnson made claims more or less similar to this when his first book, Darwin on Trial came out. Ooo, so in Intelligent Design we have the amalgamation of the worst of the anti-science left with the worst of the anti-science right. One more example of an adaptive mutation via horizontal idea transfer.

Posted by: Doran at September 25, 2005 2:32 PM

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