Threat to ASA (Was Re: NTSE Note #3) (fwd)

Joel Cannon (cannon@alpha.centenary.edu)
Tue, 25 Feb 1997 12:25:17 -0600 (CST)

> Murphy writes: "This reference to the ASA is significant & ominous.
> Johnson
> seems to be saying that it will soon succumb completely to his notions.
> I can only hope he is as wrong about it as he is about everything else."
>
> What Phil said was his prediction of what will happen. "Succomb"
> is a very imprecise word (IMO) to use. And his prediction is not at all
> about the demise of evolution -- not even the demise of Darwinism --
> only about the opening of the definition of science to allow
> non-natural hypotheses to be investigated. That is a much
> more modest prediction than what you appear to have read into my
> original post; I apologize for being unclear.
>

My sense is that Burgy's quote was accurate, and succomb did express
Johnson's beliefs. I understood him to mean that within a year from
now virtually nobody would hold to what he called theistic evolution,
which I take/took to mean any postition who holds that theism and
evolution could both be true. I recall him saying that there was a
discussion to be held (I purposefully avoid the term battle which he
may have used) this summer at the ASA meeting but after that people
like many of us would be swept away by the evidence supporting
his/their position. This was in the middle of hime saying that the
movement was growing, evidenced my the fact his invitations to speak
come from more and more respectable groups, and the coming CT
articles, accompanied by some comment that this was quite amazing
because CT had been afraid to do that for years (something quite close
to that).

-------
Joel W. Cannon
Dept. of Physics
Centenary College of Louisiana
P. O. Box 41188
Shreveport, LA 71134-1188

(318)869-5160
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