>LH> For an excellent case-history in the historical sciences, I recommend a
> > chapter from _Portraits_of_Creation_. (It's either chapter 3, 4, or 5,
> > I don't remember which.) It gives the history of the geological
> > sciences, especially through the 18th and early 19th century. Geology
> > was largely dominated by Christians, confronting the evidence about the
> > age and history of the earth, trying to make sense of it all. The
> > chapter probably gives good references for further reading. (I don't
> > have the book here with me.)
DT> I suppose my general response would be to question the phrase
> "dominated by Christians". Was Hutton a Christian? He was a Deist
> and a champion of empiricism - that we know. What about Werner?
> Did he ever show any interest in Biblical revelation? I do accept
> that Christians were among the geological community - but my concern
> is that they did not develop a Christian epistomology.
That's a serious charge to not make. ;-) If you ever do make it,
you'll need some serious historical evidence to back it up.
DT> The Baconian
> Two - Book approach dominated and geology developed as an autonomous
> discipline (despite some rearguard attempts to harmonise). I'll keep
> reading on this one!
First issue: What would you say are the necessary elements of a
"Christian epistomology" in the natural sciences? A lot depends upon
what conotations you hang on the words "autonomous" and "harmonise"!
Second issue --- and a very interesting one: To what extent do the
"leaders" in a scientific field influence its meta-scientific
interpretations? That's a tough question to answer regarding modern-day
questions; it'll be even tougher to answer it for the late 18th and
early 19th century.
No doubt some of the leaders of geology at that time were Deists, and
some leaders were Christians. Likewise for the "rank-and-file." I
couldn't guess how the percentages broke down without doing some
historical research.
But let's stick with this question: the influence of scientific
"leaders" on meta-scientific interpretations.
Consider quantum mechanics. You will find leading figures of physics
advocating a variety of quantum mechanics interpretations: standard
Copenhagen, many worlds, operationalist, non-local hidden variables, and
a version of Copenhagen which relies on consciousness to "collapse the
wave function." Yet the overwhelming choice of the rank-and-file
physicists, for many decades, has been and is the standard Copenhagen.
Why? It's not because Neils Bohr was more eloquent than advocates of
the other interpretations. If I had to guess, I'd say it's because the
standard Copenhagen most closely matches the general "realist" outlook
of physicists.
A better analogy to 19th century geology is the development of Big Bang
cosmology --- another "historical science." In the mid 20th century,
most cosmologists had strong philosophical reasons for prefering the
steady-state model. "Steady state" is not the only model which can be
made to fit philosophical Naturalism, but it is the simplest and most
appealing. (Whether it logically *should* be considered that is another
discussion.) But steady-state was dropped in face of the data, despite
the initial preferences of both leading and rank-and-file physicists.
In the same way, most 18th-century geologists believed in a young earth.
Young earth is not the only consistent and orthodox reading of Genesis,
but it is the simplist. It was dropped in the face of the data, despite
the initial preferences of most geologists.
Loren Haarsma