In a message dated 10/5/2000 5:11:36 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
sejones@iinet.net.au writes:
> This is old news. My recollection is that it was posted to the Reflector
> some time ago. Presumably to heighten the impression of some sort of
> conspiracy by the ID movement, Susan gives the impression that this is the
> first time she had heard of it, which I must say I would find hard to
> believe.
>
Nice ad hominem
> From memory the link to the CRSC page (which no longer works) was
> named "CRSC1", so I suspect that someone struck it lucky trawling for
> first draft unpublished documents?
>
> Not that there is anything to be ashamed of in the paper, but it *is*
> apparently a first draft by somebody and therefore may not necessarily be
> the best expression of the views of the majority of the ID leadership.
>
So is it or is it not? What is the final draft?
"In searching for authenticity of "Wedge," ii was able to contact Jay
Richards, Senior Fellow and Director of Program
Development for CRSC. Although he would not confirm "Wedge" as an actual CRSC
document, he did say that most of what you see in the paper can be found in
Johnson's Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds book. He also said the
document is an "older, summary overview of the 'Wedge' program."
"Doubting Thomas has also tried contacting Dr. Stephen Meyer, Director of
CRSC, but he has been unavailable for comment at press time. DT hopes that
there will be an update soon on its web site."
http://www.freethought-web.org/ctrl/archive/thomas_wedge.html
> There is of course something unsavoury about trawling through web sites
> looking for unpublished first draft documents, but such ethical niceties do
> not apparently trouble the atheists on infidels.org?
>
Another ad hominem. If people are placing documents on their webserver then
these documents become publically available.
> SB>It contains many interesting quotes from the original Wedge document:
> >
> >"Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the
> >materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with
> >Christian and theistic convictions."
>
> Sounds OK to me. Note that "consonant" only means "being in agreement
> or harmony : free from elements making for discord" (http://m-w.com/cgi-
> bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=consonant). Therefore "a science
> consonant with Christian and theistic convictions" need only be *neutral*.
> The current materialistic-naturalistic philosophy dominating science is
> strongly *anti*-"Christian and theistic convictions."
Again we see Stephen make the logical fallacy of conflating ontological
naturalism with philosophical naturalism. Science is not strong anti-science
although some scientists might be. It is regrettable to see such errors be
made since they do not tend to further the discussion much. Lamoureux
addresses similar errors in Johnson's arguments in "Darwinism defeated?".
"Philosophical naturalism itself exists in two forms: (1) ontological or
metaphysical naturalism and (2) methodological
naturalism. The former is philosophical naturalism as described above; the
latter is the adoption or assumption of philosophical naturalism within
scientific method with or without fully accepting or believing it. As will be
exhaustively discussed below, science is not metaphysical and does not depend
on the ultimate truth of any metaphysics for its success (although science
does have metaphysical implications), but methodological naturalism must be
adopted as a strategy or working hypothesis for science to succeed. We may
therefore be agnostic about the ultimate truth of naturalism, but must
nevertheless adopt it and investigate nature as if nature is all that there
is. This is methodological naturalism."
http://humanism.net/~schafesd/naturalism.html
The rest of this excellent article addresses other relevant issues to
Stephens assertions as well.
>
> SB>the document outlines the propaganda campaign and who it is aimed at:
> >
> >"Alongside a focus on influential opinion-makers, we
> >also seek to build up a popular base of support among our natural
> >constituency, namely, Christians. We will do this primarily through
> >apologetics seminars. We intend these to encourage and equip believers
> >with new scientific evidence's that support the faith, as well as to
> >"popularize" our ideas in the broader culture."
>
> Again sounds OK to me. What is wrong with providing Christians with
> "new scientific evidence"? The fact that it supports the Christian faith
> should not be opposed by science if science was *genuinely* religiously
> neutral.
>
ID and the term "intelligent" or "intelligence" is often confused or
conflated with the more common usage of intelligence. Indeed if ID cannot
exclude natural selection as an intelligent designer then surely that is not
the meaning that ID'ers seem to give to it.
> But of course modern science is dominated by philosophical materialists
> who are personally strongly *opposed* to the Christian faith.
>
So what? Their are countless scientists who are methodological naturalists
and also have a strong Christian faith.
> However, it should be pointed out that it is "The Center for the Renewal of
> Science & Culture (CRSC)" which is the specific branch of the "Discovery
> Institute" that has an "ID agenda". It is the "ID agenda" of the *CRSC*
> that I support, not necessarily any other non-ID agendas of the "Discovery
> Institute"
>
And what is this agenda that you support then?
>
> Polls show that ~85% of the USA public believe in some form of divine
> creation/guidance, and only less than 10% believe in the materialists'
> creation story, despite them having had a State-funded monopoly for
> decades in teaching their it to the public's children.
>
Again Stephen is confusing ontological naturalism with methodological
naturlism.
> In a democracy it is the *materialists* who need to justify their
> undemocratic stance in insisting that only *their* materialistic creation
> story be taught and trying to deny anyone the right to question it.
>
Nobody is denied the right to question it, another strawman or unsupported
assertion.
> SB>I especially enjoyed the last paragraph. It sounds downright Unitarian:
>
> Which in itself is interesting. Religion is OK provided it is *Susan's*
> religion!
>
It's interesting how Stephen is putting words in people's mouths. Is that
what you feel Susan?
> SB>"Science need not contradict religious faith,
>
> This would only be true if the "religious faith" makes no claims about the
> real world. A totally subjective "religious faith" like that of Eastern
> mysticism would have no problem with materialistic science nor
> materialistic science with it.
>
> But the *Christian* "religious faith" *does* make "claims about the real
> world". For starters it claims that there really is a God who created the
> world and who has intervened repeatedly in it to impart new information
> and direction into it.
>
> This completely contradicts the tenets of materialism (i.e. matter is all
> there
> is) and naturalism (i.e. nature is a closed system of causes and effects
> into
> which nothing outside can intervene).
>
Again you are confusing ontological naturalism with methodological
naturalism. Science does not say that matter is all there is. Such
confusions, although quite common, are not very good at promoting
understanding.
> That is why almost all Biology textbooks have to have a section debunking
> the *Christian* doctrine of creation at the start of their section on
> evolution. If the Christian doctrine of creation is allowed to stand, then
> Darwinism, which claims that all genetic changes in the 3.9 billion year
> history of life have been random with respect to adaptive improvement,
> cannot be established as true.
>
Another unsupported assertion. Could you provide us with some quotes?
Darwinism and Christian doctrine of creation are quite easily reconciled. Nor
does Darwinism deny the existance of a God. Darwinism and more recently
neo-darwinism describes in natural terms how life has evolved based on the
evidence to support this. If the evidence contradicts with the faith of some,
one should not blame science for such contradictions.
> This whole "Science need not contradict religious faith" line pushed by
> atheists like
> Gould is what Johnson calls "the two-platoon" system:
>
There are countless "darwinists" who have shown that indeed "science need not
contradict religious faith".
[Johnson's confusion deleted]
> SB>although its findings have
> >sometimes
> >exposed superstitions such as the geocentric theory, a world-wide
> catastrophic
> >flood,
>
> Whoever wrote this doesn't know his history of science. Both "the
> geocentric
> theory" and "a world-wide catastrophic flood" were actually once mainstream
> scientific theories that were shown to be wrong. But that they were wrong
> does
> not make them "superstitions".
>
Nope, they were superstitions because they were based on a faith based
assumption.
> SB>The real irony in all of this is that
> >the Discovery
> >Institute's well-laid plans are doomed to failure from the outset. Even if
> they
> >succeeded brilliantly in manufacturing the consent needed to replace
> >science with
> >theism,
>
> The actual CRSC document says: "...materialist worldview, and to replace it
> with a
> science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions."
Science is at present consonant with the latter. It is interesting to see how
the CRSC confuses as many others seem to have done so, ontological
materialism with methodological naturalism.
> SB>If all of our knowledge were wiped away tomorrow and
> >replaced with theistic dogma,
>
> So science is automatically materialism and theism is automatically
> "dogma". Sort of undermines his original claim that "Science need not
> contradict religious faith"
>
That conclusion is not supported by the statements of Susan.
>
> SB>Science is our most reliable tool for understanding the
> >universe in which we live.
>
> When "science" is based on repeatable experiments who would disagree?
>
So where lies the problem then?
> But a "science" based on a materialistic philosophy which in the end denies
> that the mind itself is real:
Strawman. It would help Johnson to take notice of his colleagues van Till,
Lamoureux and others in "Darwinism defeated?".
And many others
http://www.jisonline.org/samplearticle.htm
"Methodological naturalism does not affirm or deny God or values, it simply
considers them to be outside of the framework of scientific inquiry--as
opposed to philosophical, ethical, theological, and other interpretations.
Thus, Ruse
criticizes Richard Dawkins and other scientists for equating methodological
with metaphysical naturalism, and smuggling into science subjective
(non-empirical) value assumptions like atheism. However, the implication that
all values are subjective, "unscientific," and hence not amenable to rational
inquiry or irrelevant with regard to an objective assessment of the real
world, is erroneous (Kaplan 1989: 146)."
Here we notice that 1) methodological naturalism is not equivalent to
metaphysical naturalism 2) that while scientists might be guilty of confusing
the two, so are those who oppose metaphysical naturalism and claim that this
is an inherent part of science.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Oct 05 2000 - 21:09:39 EDT