From: Dawsonzhu@aol.com
Date: Fri Aug 23 2002 - 14:09:42 EDT
Peter Ruest observed that:
>
> Although the wide spectrum of theists' opinions about creation and
> evolution has been known for decades, Rennie, in the usual atheist
> manner, keeps throwing all of them together into the same bin. He
> rightly insists that science is restricted to methodological
naturalism,
> but he surreptitiously extends this to ontological naturalism, ruling
> out of court any suggestion that science may perhaps never be able to
> explain "all there ever was or is or will be". His contempt for YEC
> views is understandable, but his haughty manner ("nonsense") of
> conflating all criticisms of evolution with YEC is downright repulsive,
> particularly if his knowledge of the subject is as superficial as his
> article makes it appear.
>
To a certain extent, I think your criticism here has a valid point here.
My feeling about the article was "why in Scientific American?".
SA usually
publishes reports that summarize current scientific research in a way
that makes them accessible to the layman. They are usually written by
professionals actively carrying out this research. Whereas it cannot be
completely devoid of all cultural values in a magazine intended
for popular
consumption, SA's editors have tended to keep the magazine largely
to the
science side of the balance. Certainly, I think this is fair to
say of the
contents
of most of the articles I have read.
However, I must admit that "Rennie's Rant" reminded me more of the
pulp I
might anticipate from "Skeptic Briefs". It would be nice if the
editor and
chief
had given a little more thought about his readership. Are they mostly
registered
members of www.infidels.org? Do most of them quote the great writings
of Richard Dawkins? Yet most such folk already know the places to
run to,
so why did he write to them? His title is also misleading. At least he
could
have been forthright enough to say "Philip Johnson's nonsense".
There are
all different flavors of ID some leaning far to the YEC end, and
some leaning
more toward a some sort of theistic involvement scheme. Would the editor
and chief also class Howard Van Till's work as "creationist" and
"ID"? Good
grief, ID could be defined as "anyone who doesn't agree with John
Rennie"
for all I can tell.
I started to comment on some of your comments, but finally opted to cut
them. I just have this to say on it. Whereas evolution has not
developed
rapidly as a deterministic science, it is strongly hampered by the
complexity
of such problems. The 20th century did see it moving more in the
direction
of a serious science, but there is a long way yet to go. It is hard to
estimate
to what extent it will progress, but with computers becoming
faster and more
accessible to many people, there is a lot of potential to find
ways to model
a more realistic fitness landscape and work out less contrived
models for the
dynamics. From this view, I recommend not to be too aggressively against
it, but let it move its way. I think that over the very long run, good
science
will emerge if the basic idea is right.
By Grace alone we proceed,
Wayne
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