>
> One just cannot paint professions and various disciplines of study with a
> broad brush.
>
> Jeff
I agree, Jeff. As I said, there are many exceptions. However, this doesn't
mean that the exceptions are the rule. I believe that different professions are
trained differently, and learn different meanings of the same words, different
methodolgies, different vocabularies, and different systems of shared values of
their respective communities. As a group, scientists are trained to be
objective. Sometimes they aren't. Sometimes we even wish they weren't.
In the case of Dawkins, Sagan, Burke et al., we are dealing with science
popularizers who certainly have a philosophical axe to grind. And it is common
for scientists who win a Nobel prize to begin to pontificate about all kinds of
things outside their speciality, particularly religion. Isn't that annoying?
For a long time ASA has hoped to gain such a person: a member who wins a
Nobel prize. Why is this so? Don't you think we would be pleased to have a
Nobel prize-winning scientist stating that God exists, that the Gospel is true,
the Bible is intellectually respectable, etc.?
I think the point is that to me there appears to be a symmetry between
Christians complaining about bias, subjectivity, and dishonesty on the part of
secular scientists, and secular scientists complaining about bias, subjectivity
and dishonesty on the part of Christians. This is the way it is in the Age of
the Lawyer. "Things fall apart; the center cannot hold."
Paul Arveson, Research Physicist
73367.1236@compuserve.com arveson@oasys.dt.navy.mil
(301) 227-3831 (W) (301) 227-1914 (FAX) (301) 816-9459 (H)
Code 724, NSWC, Bethesda, MD 20084