Cdesign proponentsists
From RationalWiki
| “ | Evolutionists think the former is correct, cdesign proponentsists accept the latter view. | ” |
| —Of Pandas and People, 1987 version. | ||
The term "cdesign proponentsists" came into being following the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial in Pennsylvania over the legitimacy of teaching intelligent design as science.
A crucial piece of the defense (pro-intelligent design) was a book called Of Pandas and People which was marketed as a science textbook for middle and high school children. During the trial, previous copies of the book were subpoenaed for review. It was demonstrated that, whenever previous versions of the book had the word "creationist" or "creationism" or some similar form, it had been replaced in almost all cases with the term "intelligent design" in later editions.
Contents |
[edit] Example from the trial
Example of earlier creationist edition (our emphasis):
| "Creation means that the various forms of life began abruptly through the agency of an intelligent creator with their distinctive features already intact. Fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, and wings, etc." |
Example of new Improved Intelligent Design edition (our emphasis):
| "Intelligent design means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency, with their distinctive features already intact. Fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, wings, etc." |
This evidence and things like the Wedge Document helped lead John E. Jones III to his verdict that intelligent design was the same as creationism and that the ID movement was a subversive attempt to inject creationism into the classroom.
[edit] cdesign proponentsists
Investigations subsequent to the case showed that, in one particular case, an editor had apparently copied and pasted "design proponents" over the word "creationists" but had not even done a proper job resulting in a weird neologism "cdesign proponentsists".[1][2] This typo has been mocked by some as the missing link between creationism and intelligent design, notably ironic considering creationists don't accept transitional forms. It's possibly this aspect alone that has promoted the meme to be as famous as it is.
[edit] A new meme
The story has now been promoted to "Internet legend" status, and one can now find versions of this story which claim:
- That every instance of the word "creationist" was changed to "Cdesign proponentsists". In fact only one word was changed in this way, the rest were "correctly" changed.
- That this particular error was noticed during the trial. It was not, in fact, noticed during the trial as this transcript shows.[3]
The reality remains.
[edit] Originally stoled from
A chunk of this article came from raght heah. But we've since corrected the errors, such as declaring the entire thing to be "minor". It's not particularly minor, considering various attempts to get ID or creationism into science textbooks - putting stickers into biology texts remind people that it's only a theory being one of the other notable ones - the contents and history of a supposed science textbook is very key to the development of Intelligent Design and the conclusion that it's just creationism in a cheap suit. The talk page of the article is also pretty good, but we declined to steal that.
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ How the text changed to Cdesign proponentsists
- ↑ Missing link: “cdesign proponentsists”. entry is recommended reading for its hilarity.
- ↑ Actually, it was noticed before the trial, but wasn't used. According to Gordy Slack's (2007) The Battle Over the Meaning of Everything: Evolution, Intelligent Design, and a School Board in Dover, PA, the lawyers for the plaintiffs were told of the "cdesign proponentsists" language, but decided not to use it at trial: "The plaintiff's attorneys, after much discussion, decided not to use that page as evidence [in the trial]. 'It would have rubbed salt into the wound, when the wound was a decapitation', says Matzke." (Slack 2007, p. 215, note 11)
