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October 16, 2006
Branding the Other Guy
John McKay at Archi interacts with Ed Brayton and some of his readers at Dispatches from the Culture Wars on the question of the use of "Darwinism" and "Darwinist" by creationists. John is exactly correct,
By abandoning their own "-ism" name and applying an "-ism" to evolutionary science, the Creationists are using the age-old grade-school debating tactic of claiming "I'm not the poopy head; you're the poopy head." No amount of shouting will change the fact that they, and not we, are the dogmatic poopy heads.
For those who don't know, I made a living in marketing and still dabble in it professionally from time to time. In marketing, we often talk about "branding." There are three goals of branding a product or an idea.
1) Increasing one's own brand name recognition
2) Building positive associations with one's brand name
3) Building negative associations with one's competitor's brand name
All too much of today's political discourse involves focusing almost exclusively on the third goal.
What the creationist marketers are doing is attempting to brand themselves as scientists (who never do science) and to brand scientists as dogmatists (who seldom do marketing). When I use the word "creationists" with regard to the Discovery Institute, for example, I am attempting to brand them with a name I find more in keeping with my view of their positions. I do it consciously and with full knowledge that they would prefer that none of us use that word with regard to them.
If you think I've said something like this before, I did, back in February of 2005. It never hurts to repeat something like this.
Posted by Duane Smith at October 16, 2006 12:59 PM | Read more on Evolution |
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Comments
Creationist is a good term for these people, but as you have been in marketing I assume you understand that the average person likes short, snappy terms.
In that spirit, I suggest rather than creationist we just shorten it to cretin. Short, snappy, and accurate.
Posted by: Ron Chusid at October 16, 2006 4:37 PM
After 25 years of Intelligent Design employment here in Silicon Valley, I got quite a laugh when scientists proclaimed that ID was impossible. My conclusion was that scientists were, on average, quite dumb. With my kids getting Darwinism in every other class, I think it is safe to say the Darwin is a God. Perhaps that is why it is theologians who are fighting hardest to have him glorified!
Posted by: Looney at October 18, 2006 4:42 PM
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