PZ Myers. 2004 Jun 11. Casey Luskin and the evolution of an IDEA. <http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/casey_luskin_and_the_evolution_of_an_idea/>. Accessed 2008 Dec 04.

Posted on M00o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr on Friday, June 11, 2004

Casey Luskin and the evolution of an IDEA

Echoed on the Panda's Thumb

I've written before about Casey Luskin and his IDEA club, which exists to promote Intelligent Design on college campuses. I've criticized it for having purely religious motivations (which Luskin tries desperately to conceal), and for their very poor understanding of the science they claim to criticize. Jack Krebs and Wesley Elsberry at the Panda's Thumb have also ripped into Luskin over both of these issues.

Luskin, as you might guess, is indignant. In particular, he is irate that he was caught with a current listing at a conference that describes the IDEA club as a "ministry". It wasn't his fault, he protests. At length. At extravagant length.

At http://www.pandasthumb.org/pt-archives/000246.html, there are some comments being made about the description of the IDEA Center. Namely, at "http://www.idconference.org/html/youth_conference.html", my bio was given as: "Co-president of the Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness (IDEA) Center, a ministry focused on equipping students to promote Intelligent Design." I never gave them a bio for me nor did I ever instruct them to say anything about me. Quite frankly, I agreed to speak at this conference a long time ago and my name wasn't even up on the site until very recently, much less this description of the IDEA Center.

Obviously the word "ministry" implies we are a religious organization. Let me say that I was very shocked to see this wording, and as soon as I just read over the PandasThumb thread and found out about all this, I e-mailed Sondra Lantzer, a staff member at the church hosting the conference, and I asked her to change it to: "Co-president of the Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness (IDEA) Center, a non-profit organization focused on helping students to understand and debate intelligent design theory." The latter is an accurate description of what we are. I don't think it is fair to call us a "ministry" because quite frankly, we spend the vast majority of our time talking about scientific issues and a very small minority of our time talking about religious matters. When IDEA Clubs form, we encourage them to register as educational organizations because that is what they are: they host debate forums where people can have friendly, informed, and informal discussion about ID and evolution with individuals of various viewpoints.

He was shocked. Shocked, I tell you, that anyone would assign a religious intent to his organization.

Well, thanks to a tip from Nick Matzke who pointed out that several examples of the IDEA club web page can be found using the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, we can see what the IDEA center has said about itself in the past. Here are several versions of the IDEA mission statement, and we can see how it has (dare I say it) evolved over the years.

From 2001:

Formerly the "IDEA Club at UC San Diego", the IDEA Center is officially Christian-affiliated, existing under the auspices of Faith Seminary and is based out of San Diego, California. As seen in our mission statement, some of our primary goals are to:
  • promote, as a scientific theory, the idea that life was designed by an Intelligence,
  • facilitate discussion, debate, and dialogue over these issues in a warm, friendly, and open atmosphere where individuals feel free to speak their personal views, and
  • coordinate student-run IDEA Club chapters on university and high school campuses to achieve these goals among students.

From 2002:

The IDEA Center today is a non-profit organization based out of San Diego and existing under the auspices of Faith Seminary. Our mission statement says we aim to:
  • Promote, as a scientific theory, the idea that life was designed by an Intelligent Designer
  • Hold, through other arguments, that the identity of the Designer is consistent with the God of the Bible
  • Educate people about scientific problems with purely natural explanations for the origins and evolution of life
  • Challenge the philosophical assumptions of Darwinism, naturalism, and materialism
  • Facilitate discussion, debate, and dialogue in a warm, friendly, and open atmosphere where individuals feel free to speak their personal views
  • Host lectures, conferences, and other events for churches, educators, and those interested
  • Start student-run IDEA Club chapters on campuses
The Center hopes to host classes, conferences, and discussion groups whenever possible to fulfill our mission statement and to include universities, churches, high schools, community institutions, and any other accepting venue in the Center's activities as opportunities and resources avail themselves.

From 2004 (the current statement):

The IDEA Center is an autonomous non-profit organization based out of San Diego, California. Our mission statement is as follows:
The purpose of the IDEA Center shall be to:
  • Promote, as a scientific theory, the idea that life was designed by an intelligent designer,
  • Educate people about scientific problems with purely natural explanations for the origins and evolution of life,
  • Challenge the philosophical assumptions of Darwinism, naturalism, and materialism,
  • Facilitate discussion, debate, and dialogue in a warm, friendly, and open atmosphere where individuals feel free to speak their personal views,
  • Host lectures, conferences, and other events for churches, educators, and those interested,
  • Help establish and maintain student-run IDEA Club chapters on school campuses or wherever interest exists.
The Center hopes to host classes, conferences, and discussion groups whenever possible to fulfill our mission statement and to include universities, churches, high schools, community institutions, and any other accepting venue in the Center's activities as opportunities and resources avail themselves.

It all reminds me of the evolving banners at the Discovery Institute.

Note how it moves from explicitly "Christian-affiliated" to "under the auspices of Faith Seminary" to "autonomous". This is odd, since you can also look at who is on the Board of Directors, which "makes all official decisions about the direction and status of the Center", from the 2001 board to the current leadership. Several new people have been added, but the original core group is still running things: Michaeel Adams, dean of Faith Seminary, Eddie Colanter, Assistant Professor of Apologetics and Ethics at Faith Seminary, H. Wayne House, Distinguished Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies at Faith Seminary, Casey Luskin, Steve Renner, and Scott Uminsky. As Luskin has no doubt noticed, pretending to be a source of scientific information while nestled under the wing of a seminary is not a great idea.

Note also that one rather significant clause in the 2002 document, "Hold, through other arguments, that the identity of the Designer is consistent with the God of the Bible", has been deleted. It's also politically unwise to expose your narrow sectarian religious beliefs while pretending to be scientific, so that had to be jettisoned.

So, yes, I can see why Casey Luskin was shocked that the organizers at a conference sponsored by the Community Bible Church of Highlands, NC would call his organization a "ministry". They were blowing his cover.

Luskin, in his outraged defense against the indignity of being called a "ministry", implores people to call the conference organizer and check that his excuse was valid. I did. She replied with nearly the same words Luskin used, taking all the blame for the mistake, although she didn't say how she came up with the idea that the IDEA club was a ministry.

While I had her on the phone, though, I did ask her one other question. This conference, which has also been mentioned by John Lynch, is titled "Two World Views: what's the difference". Here is its purpose:

Conference Purpose:   To introduce Jr. and Sr. High Youth to two worldviews.
1.   The secular worldview which is humanistic in nature placing man at the center of all philosophy.
2.   The Biblical worldview which looks to the Bible as the ultimate authority of all truth.

It lists 5 speakers, Mark Eckel, Kenneth Boa, Michael Behe, Chuck Colson, and Casey Luskin. The first two are ministers, Behe is the anti-evolutionist author of Darwin's Black Box, Colson is the crook who found Jesus, and Luskin is...whatever. The obvious question, and the one I asked the organizer, is given the intent of the conference to present two worldviews, and with that list of speakers, who is presenting the secular worldview?

To my surprise, she was very quick with the answer, and even gave me a brief summary of what he'll be talking about. It wasn't Behe, and it certainly wasn't Luskin: it's Eckel. Yes, that's right, the Associate Professor of Educational Ministries at the Moody Bible Institute is going to give an overview of secular humanism to the kids, warning them of what they can expect when they go off to college. That's their idea of presenting the secular worldview.

A question that only Luskin can answer is what the heck he's doing, inviting himself to a bible camp meeting*, if he's so embarrassed by the religious foundation of his IDEA club.

*The exact wording of the conference organizer was that they came up with the bio after Luskin "asked to be a part of the conference." So much for the implication that he was invited to participate.

Posted by PZ Myers on 06/11 at 09:53 AM
Creationism • 0 Trackbacks • Other weblogs • Permalink
  1. I think they need a Raelian disclaimer.
    #: Posted by Les Lane  on  06/11  at  10:03 AM
  2. I must say, I've met Caesy as a grad student at UCSD and he maintains this obvious charade by being extremely bouncy and peppy all the time.
    #: Posted by  on  06/11  at  10:17 AM
  3. Three words:

    Nailed.

    His.

    Ass.
    #: Posted by  on  06/11  at  10:21 AM
  4. They lie...all the time...their single consistency. I wonder why their bottoms aren't blistered...reddened...3rd degree...all "unguentined" (if that smelly stuff is still made and I've even come close to spelling it correctly): "Liar, liar, pants on fire."

    And then I looked below and find your comments about Mr. Vonnegut, turn to his extraordinary essay and like you, I think of my attraction to such blessed ideas and wonder why me and why not them. But I'm glad I like these ideas for they are certainly worth the struggle to even come close to living, day to day, week in a week out, year after year. I guess I'm a socialist, too.
    #: Posted by  on  06/11  at  10:26 AM
  5. I found the evolution of the IDEA mission statement unsurprising. After all, it takes slow people some time to get their act together. I was struck by one phrase that did not evolve.

    "Facilitate discussion, debate, and dialogue in a warm, friendly, and open atmosphere where individuals feel free to speak their personal views,"

    I am not a biologist. I can't even begin to understand why my personal views on evolution should be of any interest to anyone other than myself. What is the purpose of "debate, and dialogue" among the uninformed? The only purpose I can imagine is to perpetuate ignorance.
    #: Posted by  on  06/11  at  11:09 AM
  6. Also check out Casey's personal views of the "intelligent designer":

    "...Casey also believes that the Intelligent Designer happens to care about people, and that there is ample evidence He is the God of the Bible, who has shown the world His love and offered forgiveness through His Son, the predicted Jewish Messiah, Jesus Christ..."

    http://www-acs.ucsd.edu/~idea/organizers.shtml
    #: Posted by  on  06/11  at  01:11 PM
  7. I'm miffed. I wasn't invited to present the Christian worldview, and frankly, I don't see it at that conference. As an elder in my church, and as vice chair of the Dallas Textbook Coalition, which involves the three Abramic faiths and a several others, I am quite accustomed to dealing with different world views and am amply armed to give them the Christian view.

    Of course, they don't want the Christian view, which says the stuff guys like PZ Myers observes is as good as any other testament.

    They don't even represent a majority of Christianity, let alone two different "worldviews."

    Why not be honest? They should use as their symbol the view of the world from a periscope -- limited, narrow, and without any peripheral vision.

    Has Behe spoken before any science groups in the past three years that anyone knows? I've seen him listed at several of these church conferences -- but does he do any science conferences at all?

    I suppose he's already tenured, and so has given up trying to look like a researcher? Does anyone know?
    #: Posted by  on  06/11  at  02:03 PM

  8. Has Behe spoken before any science groups in the past three years that anyone knows? I've seen him listed at several of these church conferences -- but does he do any science conferences at all?

    I suppose he's already tenured, and so has given up trying to look like a researcher? Does anyone know?


    It is my understanding that Behe is tenured... which brings to mind that old "sea-squirt" quip (credit due to Daniel Dennett);

    "The juvenile sea squirt wanders through the sea searching for a suitable rock or hunk of coral to cling to and make its home for life. For this task, it has a rudimentary nervous system. When it finds its spot and takes root, it doesn't need its brain anymore so it eats it! (It's rather like getting tenure.)"


    It seems that Behe devoured his own brain quite some ago...
    #: Posted by  on  06/11  at  05:28 PM
  9. Ha ha ha...hey! I got tenure last year! That can't possibly be funny.
    #: Posted by PZ Myers  on  06/11  at  05:39 PM
  10. FWIW, I bet that the first mission statement is actually the same as the second one (but the third version is the modified one. Archive.org doesn't archive the full mission statement from 2001, just the listing of "some of our primary goals", which are presumably not all of them. So I bet that the "Hold, through other arguments, that the identity of the Designer is consistent with the God of the Bible" was in the 2001 mission statement as well.

    (Not that this matters much, since it was definitely in the 2002 statement and then removed from the current statement.)

    It is, of course, perfectly fine to have religious views and to advocate them. It's even fine to argue that your religious views are right and that the scientific mainstream is horribly wrong. If one believes this, one should just be proud of it and be up-front about it. That's why I kind of respect Reasons to Believe -- scientifically, they are basically identical to the ID movement: they accept the old earth (RtB explicitly, ID implicitly), and then argue that God is evidenced in anthropic coincidences and biological design. Probably for constitutional reasons, the ID movement tries to disguise its agenda, although slip-ups are quite common -- the fundamental motivations come out in almost any unguarded moment.
    #: Posted by Nick  on  06/12  at  05:26 PM
  11. Another IDEA Club/ISCID figure, John Bracht, engages in the same sort of thing. We were having an email exchange a couple of years ago, and I asked about his creationist views. He said that he was not a creationist. I linked to and quoted from an online article that he had co-authored with, surprise surprise, Luskin in which it was made quite clear that not only were the authors creationists, but YECs. He hemmed and hawed, saying that he hadn't really co-authored it.

    Then he was too busy to exchange emails anymore...
    #: Posted by  on  06/14  at  01:49 PM
  12. PZ or anyone else,

    I was wondering whether one of the reasons the IDEA Club has changed its affiliation from "under the auspices of Faith Seminary" to "autonomous" is due simply because it really is now currently autonomous and once was not. If that is the case then it seems to follow that modifying the affiliation is in fact warrented. Right?

    T. Russ
    #: Posted by  on  06/14  at  05:03 PM
  13. T. Russ: Oh, you're no fun at all!
    #: Posted by  on  06/14  at  05:13 PM
  14. That would be a possibility, if there was the slightest hint of any substantive change in their status. There has been no change in leadership or the people advising the group in those years, though—it's still the same bunch associated with Faith Seminary.
    #: Posted by PZ Myers  on  06/14  at  05:17 PM
  15. I guess it all depends on what one means by "affiliation."

    Thanks
    #: Posted by  on  06/14  at  06:06 PM
  16. why must you go after the people with the views. Are people not allowed their own thoughts. Names do not need to be mentioned or called
    #: Posted by  on  07/13  at  10:54 PM