Kerkut also kept me from being TE in the 70s but I never ever flirted with
YEC as I have always been so totally convinced by all geological argument
for a vast age and contra Wally consider them as proven as any other
science. However the consequences of denying the age of the earth are not as
serious as discounting the acceleration due to gravity as it gets rather
painful if you decide g is 9.81 cm/sec2 rather than 981.
Michael
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ted Davis" <TDavis@messiah.edu>
To: <gwcollins@algol.co.uk>; <pruest@mail-ms.sunrise.ch>;
<pruest@mysunrise.ch>
Cc: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 2004 5:24 PM
Subject: Kerkut (was: Re: A case for Christianity that does use ID orYEC
arguments)
> I too read Kerkut a long time ago, judging from the color of my
photocopies
> of portions of the book it must have been *at least* 22-25 years ago, and
I
> have only rarely gone back to it since.
>
> My notes show that the introduction was quoted at length by Paul Little,
> Know Why You Believe. Little was hardly a garden-variety creationist.
>
> Like Peter, I too was struck by those statements about the a priori nature
> of much evolutionary theory, at least as Kerkut saw it in 1960. My notes
> jog my memory enough to say, that Kerkut was probably one of the main
> reasons why I was not a TE until several years later. My theological
> hesitations about accepting TE, mainly driven by concerns related to an
> historical Adam/fall (reflecting my background in the reformed tradition,
a
> tradition that I still substantially retain), were coupled with objections
> to "macroevolution" taken from genuine scientists like Kerkut. Indeed I
> don't recall any other scientific authorities who wrote more clearly and
> frankly about the limitations of the state of knowledge at that time. My
> sense is, that if Kerkut had been published in (say) 1995, he'd be seen as
> an "ID" advocate, or at least would be widely cited by ID authors. I
don't
> see much citing of him nowadays, however.
>
> ted
>
>
>
Received on Tue Feb 3 16:31:42 2004
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