The third day began with a wonderful breakfast with John Baumgardner, a
young-earth creationist with whom I had corresponded back in the late 70s
and early 80s. I saw John there on Wednesday night at dinner and invited him
to have breakfast with me on Saturday. I think it surprised John. While my
views have changed dramatically from those days his hadn't and we have had a
few run ins on internet. I wanted the chance to clear the air and renew an
old acquaintance. At least I felt that we had a better understanding of
each other after the breakfast. John did ask me a question that other
young-earth creationists have asked me, "Why are you so gullible as to
believe what the geologist teaches." I told John what I tell all
young-earth creationists who ask that--I had no geology courses and fully
believed in the young-earth years ago. No professor brainwashed me, I
changed because of the data I worked with every day. It didn't fit within a
young-earth perspective and when I would ask my fellow young-earthers how do
we deal with the data, I got no satisfactory answers. If John didn't agree,
at least he accepted the answer.
John was also appalled at the way the organizers of the conference had
let the naturalists dominate the program. John had come there with a high
school kid who was obviously hearing things he hadn't heard before. I even
had the pleasure of speaking with this young man after Bob DeHaan's talk. I
told him why I had left young-earth creationism--that nothing I had been
told about geology by apologists was correct. I am sure John would rather me
not have told that young man that. From John's perspective, the conference
was obviously not a successful defence of Christianity.
Despite our differences, though, I thoroughly enjoyed seeing an old friend.
The first session on Saturday was on evolutionary ethics. The two
participants were Larry Arnhart and Dallas Willard. One friend had
characterized Willard's speech as ridiculous because it argued
against getting ethics out of Darwinian evolution.He said that
evolution didn't try to do that. This friend missed the point
that Arnhart was trying to make. Arnhart was arguing
precisely that naturalism could give rise to ethics, knowledge of
good and evil, right and wrong. Arnhart was making the case that my freind
says
naturalism has no pretentions to. If Willard's response to Arnhart's speech
was absurd, it was because Arnhart was even more absurd--even silly. And
both of these talks were another great reminder of why I left philosphy grad
school never to return.
In the first session, I sat on the second row. Christian de Duve sat down
next to me, and Larry Arnhart, the speaker sat right in front of me. I
chatted with de Duve(as I reported earlier) and he couldn't understand why
there was such a strong anti-evolution movement in this country. After the
session was over, I used my location to be the first to ask Arnhart a
question.
***************
Larry Arnhart, Northern Illinois University
Arnhart started out by using Howard Van Till's phrase, "Robust Formational
Economy" and by arguing that ethics could arise without further outside
intervention by means of the powers given to the universe.
He then launched into his personal history [which by the end of it, I wanted
to wretch. --grm] As a young man in West Texas Arnhart was a young-earth
creationist. He read the Bible cover to cover each year. He looked forward
to the day when he could get into biology class and demolish evolution in
front of his class mates. Unfortunately, when he got to High School biology,
arguments in hand, he was disappointed to learn that all references to
evolution had been erased from his textbook and his teacher's plan. As a
young man he thought that evolution was false on the scientific evidence,
bad because it gave rise to hedonism and ugly because it was materialistic.
Today he knows that evolution is true on the evidence, good because it gives
rise to a natural moral sense, and beautiful because it elicits a sense of
wonder. Today, he reads the Bible in the morning, not as much as he used to,
but some mornings he starts his morning by reading Darwin, instead of the
Bible. [which is what I wanted to wretch at. If there is anything that the
religious anti-evolutionists in the audience believe (and fear) it is that
evolution is a religion. This idiot just proved to them that it IS a
religion. And besides this whole story above, makes me think of Tiny Tim
singing 'Tiptoe through the Tulips' as we merrily worship Darwin and the
Bible in an oh so liberal and open-minded way. This whole story was a very
sad, even pathetic attempt by him to prove how religious, scientific and
open minded he was. Like I said, I wanted to puke--grm]
Arnhart then gave three areas where naturalism gives rise to ethics:
marriage, a moral sense and incest taboo. Arnhart cited Adam Smith saying
that the sexual bonding of a male and female is proportional to the care
given to the young. Because humans must give such care to their young,
evolution has evolved in us a penchant to bond with one of the opposite sex.
[One should tell this to Clinton--grm].Thus fidelity is a nature derived
ethic. In the Descent of Man, Arnhart cited Darwin as saying that animals
with a social instinct would acquire a moral sense as the intellect grows.
[I immediately thought of the question I wanted to ask him.--grm] Thus,
ethics, morality, good and evil are derived from the social interactions as
mankind evolved. And finally, natural selection shaped an incest avoidance
tattoos. Humans are selected to repulse incest. Beyond the nuclear family,
the incest taboo varies with culture and so was not derived from natural
selection but from social interactions. Thus, Arnhart argued, Darwinian
ethics involve communal desires, parental bonding and incest avoidance.
He then turned to trying to explain those who lack a moral sense--he called
them psychopaths. They prove that morality is grounded in the biology. The
causes of psychopaths include injuries to the brain and abnormalities of
birth. The psychopath don't feel the normal sensations associated with the
frontal lobes. They cant be moral because they can't feel sympathy and
shame. Evolution keeps psychopaths in check because no society of
psychopaths could survive.
The religious believers, Arnhart says, would object because there is no
support from God. Many Christians see Darwin as incompatible with Christian
morality. However, Christian morality must conform to natural human
experience. The supernatural revelation and Darwinian evolution are
compatible if not mutually re-inforcing. Darwinian naturalism is a natural
piety. He cited Darwin in the epigram of the Origin of Species citing Bacon
in saying 'Let no man having a weak conceit of sobriety or an ill applied
moderation think or maintain, that a man can search too far or be too well
studied in the book of Gods Word or in the Book of Work; divinity or
philosophy; but rather let me endeavor an endless progress or proficience in
both." Once again he said that he often began his day by reading Darwin.
[given the WAY this guy says it, more puking was elicited. I don't really
beleive anyone begins their day with a Daily Darwin Devotional.---grm]
***********
Dallas Willard, University of Southern California
He defined the primary moral principle as 'the Good Will' or the 'Evil
Will'. He claimed that there is no way to understand the Good Will within
physicalism. There are four different understandings fo the relation between
naturalism and ethics.
1. Naturalism equals the good life. This is a person who lives in accordance
with nature. This is a very old view held by Socrates, Plato, Plotinus
Aquinas, Kant etc. This definition doesn't restrict the human to sensory
data or the causal alone. But it isn't what is meant by naturalism within
the confines of the conference.
2.Ethical naturalism. This view is in opposition to the non-natural view of
ethics. This view holds that there are distinctly moral facts that can't be
reduced to the physical, sensory or causal. G. E. Moore, Ross, Prichards
and others held this view
3. naturalism attempts to take science as a basis of ethics. Science
describes ethics and it may or may not become physicalism. Ethical
distinctions must be understood within the confines of science [what Arnhart
tried to do--grm].
4. naturalism as physicalism/scientism. All there is is the material and
everything must be explained within that confine.
Willard said [correctly--grm] that no one can support from science the view
that the only reality is atoms, quarks and matter. Many represent themselves
as speaking for science when they advocate that view [Dawkins comes to
mind--grm]. Theories, Willard Says, don't provide ontology. He then looked
at the audience and asked, "Where in atomic theory is the claim that all
there is , are physical forces? What physicist discovered this? Where was
it published? Science, Willard says, doesn't speak, scientists speak. An
appeal to science can't support naturalism so these views must be
metaphysical views. There is no reason a priori that science should be
unified and exhaust all knowledge and reality.
Naturalism can stand as humane proposal which is morally advantageous. (in
fact he said that naturalism as a humane proposal is its greatest strength.)
Morality is not about what people do, but what they could or would do. The
ability to form longterm or lifetime intentions is where morality lies. "If
there were no God you would still have the question addressed by this
conference", he said. What is the nature of Nature?
In the Q&A that followed Arnhart's talk, the questions were rather obscure.
The philosophers were fleet of foot to the microphone. After the session was
over, I asked Arnhart about what morality evolution should be expected to
evolve. He claimed that human bonding, communal desires and incest taboo are
naturally expected. But I cited the case of McGregor in Jane Goodall's
book, _In the Shadow of Man_. McGregor got polio and became paralyzed from
the waste down. Being a life long member of the troop he returned to them
for social comfort. His own troop members attacked him. Goodall had to
stand in between McGregor and a charging chimp in order to protect him.
After this the troop shunned McGregor. Goodall stated that at that moment
she came closer to hating chimps than she ever had before. My question to
Arnhart, since the behavior observed in the chimp troop was a survival
strategy--drive off the sick so that the community doesn't catch the
disease, why shouldn't we humans have evolved a similar strategy? Should we
treat our sick and ill in this fashion and be moral about it? He absolutely
stumbled over this question. He said it was similar to a criticism that
some other philosopher had aimed at him. And he then tried to go back to
the idea that real morality can come from evolution. Ray Bohlin, of
_Natural Limits to Biological Change_ fame was standing there to talk with
Arnhart and after I left, Ray actually gave a better answer. He said that
there is no reason for us to evolve the same set of morality as chimps do.
At least it was an answer. I still didn't like it.
*************
Edward Zalta, Stanford University
Effectiveness without design. A naturalistic Philosophy of Mathematics
Much of Zalta's talk went over my head. I think the rest of the
audience felt the same way. However, the few tidbits I was able to grasp
are interesting. The title of the talk is from a paper by Eugene Wigner
entitled "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics." I have not read
that paper but it is often cited in the Physics/philosophy literature.
Wigner was surprised by the fact that mathematics works so efficiently in
describing nature. Mathematical discoveries often precede the discovery
that nature followed the same path. This effectiveness has often been used
by proponents of design as evidence of the mind of the Designer. Such a view
is related to Platonism's view that there are mathematical objects (forms)
which mirror the world Zalta's talk was an argument against that view.
Platonism says that math is about abstract objects and relations. The
problem is that a definition of abstract means it is not spaciotemporal, not
concrete, and not causal. That is, the platonic world is outside of nature
and indeed supernatural. We have no information channels for knowledge about
such abstract objects. And there is no way to adjudicate a platonic dispute.
How do we observe the abstract objects in order to verify which Platonic
view is correct?
What is needed to avoid the above problems is a non-arbitrary logically
precise existence claim for these objects, an epistemology which justifies
the claims and then a reconciliation with the naturalized world view.
One other powerful argument against the 'math is evidence of design'
argument is that Platonism has no explanation for the unapplied mathematics.
Zalta said that there was a large realm of mathematics which has not found
applications in science. Thus, what scientists are doing is picking and
choosing from all the possible maths in order to find one that works.
Obviously this is a different situation than most Design advocates claim.
Naturalism accepts only those mathematical objects which are required by the
natural sciences or which are required by the logic of scientific theories.
*********
Mark Wilson University of Pittsburgh
Like Zalta's talk, much went over my head. But in some sense it was similar
in tone to Zalta's.
Wilson turned the tables and claimed that there was an unreasonable
uncooperativeness of math in the natural sciences. Each new theory has
required increasingly complex mathematics and this may limit our ability to
every unite quantum with gravity. Our abilities simply may not be up to it.
Yes one can point to lots of cases where math has coincidentally worked
quite effectively, but what do they point to? He then pointed to an old
argument for design that appears quite odd today. Maxwell said that atoms
were the same everywhere and they can't be point masses. They must be
continuous. [I think the idea is that the shape of atoms gave them their
chemical properties--grm] And because there is no a priori limit to the
shapes atoms must take on, there must be some limiting agency. Thus there
must be a creator who made them.
Toward the end of the talk, Wilson cited Hume saying that design doesn't
prove what many design advocates want it to. The universe might have been
designed by an infant deity as he practiced to get better. Or it could have
been designed by an inferior deity and our universe is now the object of
derision by his superior deities. These too are arguments for design.
***********
William Dembski, Baylor University
This was the only talk I was unable to record. My new tape recorder refused
to turn the tape. It took me an hour to figure out why. :-(( Fortunately, I
have found a guy who said he would send me a copy of that talk on tape and
on paper. All the biggies were there, Ernan McMullen, Paul Nelson, William
Lane Craig, Michael Behe, John Baumgarder, Walter Bradley etc.
His talk was entitled "Can Evolutionary Algorithms Generate
Specified Complexity?" In it he examined genetic algorithms and made many
mistakes concerning their properties and the way they worked.
Life is complex and specified, Dembski said. A random sequence is complex
and unspecified; a sonnet is complex and specified. [Thus he made the same
error that Meyer made on day 2--ignoring the reality of spy codes which make
a specified sequence appear random and unspecified. Specification is
nothing more than an agreement between two individuals--it is semantics or
meaning. And the second paragraph of Claude Shannon's seminal paper on
information theory clearly states that information theory is incapable of
dealing with meaning--grm] But Dembski drives on. Evolutionists haven't
explained complex specified information (CSI) at the origin of life or the
subsequent increase in CSI. Dembski used Dawkins 'me thinks it is like a
weasel' example to claim that genetic algorithms have merely played a shell
game in which they shuffle information around. He says that the fact that
Dawkins put a target sequence into his program means that the information is
already there and is being transferred to the string that is being randomly
mutated. There is much truth in this. [assuming Dembski correctly described
the program and I can't find my Blind Watchmaker to verify it--grm]. Dembski
claims that once a letter in Dawkins program is correct, mutations cease at
that location. [If so, it is like a poker hand being drawn. and one is
indeed transferring info from the ideal sequence to the evolved
sequence.--grm]
However, Dembski then goes on to assume that this is how all genetic
algorithms work. He spoke of programs specifying a fitness function over the
landscape and then using mathematical properties of the fitness function to
find the ideal target. This is cheating because one must specify the info in
the fitness function prior to searching for the target fitness. He called
it the no free lunch theorem. [Of course
genetic algorithms make no such assumption. We don't know the fitness
function prior to writing a genetic algorithm and so can't use its
mathematical traits to help us with our search. I was appalled at the poor
understanding of genetic algorithms.--grm]
He then made a third mistake. He assumed that true fitness functions were
flat except for the target which had a high fitness function. In a case
like this, he claimed that it would be impossible to find the target because
the target occupies too small a region of the sequence space for a random
search to have a good shot at finding it. . [This is true but it entails
an assumption which is questionable. While any of the laity in the room
wouldn't understand the assumption that had just been slipped into them, it
was clear to me and a few others. What Dembski is saying by defining such a
fitness function is that there is one and only one molecular sequence which
will perform a given function. The fact that cow enzymes are different from
human which are different from slug enzymes, shows that more than one
sequence performs a given function and that the target area in a sequences
space is not as small as Dembski says--grm]
His fourth mistake was that he seemed to imply that genetic algorithms used
a 20-questions approach to finding the target. The algorithm makes
inquiries of the fitness function and gets a response like the game. The
fitness function tells the program you are getting warmer, no you are
getting colder, etc.[ He claimed that is teleology. It would be if that is
what actually occurred with genetic algorithms.--grm]
He claimed that Stuart Kaufman agrees with him. [That would be an
interesting thing to check on.--grm] He also claimed that there is only one
known generator of specified complexity--an intelligent agent.
In the Q&A I raised the issue of biomolecular companies who use genetic
algorithms to search for novel functionality. He claimed that it wasn't
important and that such programs could
never be used to design anything. Then much to my amazement, John
Baumgardner said "'Glenn's point was exactly correct.' I nearly fell on the
floor. He told Dembski that they were using genetic algorithms at Los Alamos
to design lots of things. Two or three other people said the same thing.
[One of these, a man named Eide Trotter, I later learned is a well
connected Southern Baptist who goes to First Baptist in Dallas. He sat next
to me and the next table on Thursday morning when I had breakfast with Paul
Nelson, Mark Kalthoff and Tom Judson(?). After breakfast he said that he
liked much of what I had said. Gerald Eichoefer, of Greenville College
(don't know where that is) tried to come to Dembski's defense. He said that
genetic algorithms were terrible inefficient search methods. He was shot
down by a guy in the back who said that genetic algorithms vastly outperform
a random search. and indeed a genetic algorithm isn't a random search.
Later that day in the last session, Frank turned to me and said that
Eichoefer claims to be a prophet of God. I must admit he looked like one
which may explain why I took his name down off of his name tag.--grm]Hands
were upraised all over the room. Dembski had the deer in headlights look.
He turned it over to the next speaker.
********
Robin Collins, Messiah College
Collin's is a philosopher of relativity which is why William Craig Lane came
to this session.. Collins talk was entitled, Can an Inflationary
Many-Universes Hypothesis Explain the Fine-Tuning?". He started with the
normal observation that the strong force is fine-tuned to 1 part in 10^40
and that a 2% variation would wipe us out. There are two major explanations
for this: a designer or the Many Worlds Hypothesis. The many world's
hypothesis can be held in two forms--atheistic and theistic. The atheistic
view of course holds that there is no designer, but it pushes design up one
level. Who or what made the vacuum upon which the many universes are
created? Inflation has been claimed to require the many world's view since
once started, inflation would continue forever. But it requires a finely
tuned inflaton field. In the pre-universe space time looks like
----o-----o---------o-----------o-----------o-------
where the o's are the universes that are being spit out of the pre-space.
space expands so that the bubbles don't collide. Each universe then takes on
a particular value of the Higgs field. The universe will fall into a local
minimum of the Higgs field and continue to grow from there. This Higgs field
then gives the universe the particular values for the fundamental constants.
The present Grand Unification theories (GUTs) don't have enough variation in
the Higgs fields to explain how one could fine tune the physical constants
we see. The most widely accepted view, SU5 has only 3 vacuum fields. Given
that there isn't enough variability in the situation that set up the
universe fine tuning becomes a problem for a purely naturalistic view of the
universe.
String theory doesn't help. This is the relatively new view that there are
10 dimensions to the universe and that the particles are 10 dimensional
objects with most of the dimensions rolled up too tightly to be observed.
The problem is that there is no experimental support for anything string
theory says. However, it is the only game in town with any hope of
explaining things. However if we are to explain the MWH via this means, we
need a string potential function and we need millions of local minima in the
Higgs field. So far this hasn't been solved.
Collins cited what Weinberg had cited--that the fine-tuning in the
cosmological constant is amazing it is 120 orders of magnitude too small.
It should have been large during inflation and then gotten larger. Collins
then cites other evidences of design. He called it a conspiracy of laws to
give an expanding space with lots of energy.
1. there must be a vacuum with negative energy
2. Einstein's GR must be true
3. Energy must be exchangeable with matter (E=mc^2) which governs the
coupling between inflation and matter
4. there must have been a high temperature inflaton field
5. String theory needed compactification
6. We had to have the Pauli exclusion principle
7. Gravity must form in all universes.
Does all this suggest design? Collins says yes. Naturalism doesn't' explain
the beauty of the laws or, the fine tuning of the laws. As an example he
points out that even a small nonlinear term in Schroedinger's equations
would make everything in the universe too interconnected for life.
[I left during the Q&A, my brain had reached the wall after 2.5 days of
this. As I walked to the next talk, I ran into another conference
participant who is a home schooler. At first she was suspicious of me
because I told her I was an evolutionist. She relaxed when I told her
that I believed in a historical Bible. She then asked me if I was a
Christian. I told her I was. She told me that she had been embarrassed
by Schaefer's talk on Thursday night--this was the one that
followed Weinberg. She couldn't believe that Christians were putting forth
such bad arguments. She also told me that she was an evolutionist and was
absolutely disgusted at the poor quality of science material being given to
home schoolers. She was afraid of telling her fellow home schoolers that
she believed in evolution but that after this conference she thought she
would. We talked for a long time. I am glad I left the Q&A--this was one
of those divine appointments. We have shared some e-mail since then.
************
John Searle
The last session of the conference involved the question of whether or not
consciousness could arise naturalistically. John Searle said that we should
cease trying to ground epistemology in certainty. We are living in a
post-epistemological age. Because of that we should dismiss the mind
body problem and scrap dualism. There is no spirit or soul. Consciousness
is an inner qualitative subjective state of thoughts feelings et. Dreams
are a form of consciousness. Conscious states only exist when experienced
by a person or animals but this doesn't mean that we can't have a science
of consciousness just because it is subjective. matter is ontologically
objective and a tickle is ontologically subjective. Conscious experience
is caused by neurons--a higher level feature of neurons. What science
needs to do is:
1 prove a neural correlation of consciousness
2. see if that correlation is causal
3. develop a theory of consciousness.
He thinks that much of what passes as consciousness research today is
barking up a wrong tree. Larry Weissrend[sic?] had a patient who was blind
but when presented zeros and x's to his blind field of vision could guess
the correct letter 97% of the time. Supposedly this is supposed to tell us
about consciousness. Same thing with binocular rivalry where you put a
horizontal grid over one eye and a vertical grid over the other. The brain
will switch between the states making first, one eye be dominant in the
conscious state then the other. The problem with such experiments is
that the patients are all conscious! These experiments really don't tell
us about consciousness.
He believes that consciousness works like:
Intention motion
| |
| |
| |
causes causes
& &
realizes realizes
| |
| |
| |
neural------------------->-----physical mechanism
mechanism
Between the intention and the motion is not a sufficient cause for the
motion.
***************
Nancy Murphy, Fuller Theological Seminary
She started her talk saying that Christians do not need to be dualists.
Dualism is defined as the spirit/body separation. She claimed that dualism
was a later addition to Christianity in which Greek concepts were read into
the texts. Dualism has not been rejected because the immortal soul was
thought to be necessary to Christian theology. But the Scripture talks about
the Resurrection of the body. Sentience and Consciousness are due to
complexity just like life is. Our bodies are sufficient to create
consciousness. Indeed, her model of consciousness was very similar to that
of Searle. The one thing she ruled out was consciousness can not be an
epiphenomenalism. because it rules out mental states as causes.
She also thought that Christianity could get along without the soul or other
spirits. In the question and answer session, one guy asked how would Julius
Caesar be resurrected if there were no soul. She responded consistently,
that the Bible spoke of the resurrection of the body. [I do wish my son had
been there to remind me of this. When speaking with him about this talk, and
telling him that someone thought we could get along without the dualism, he
cited Jesus saying, that which is born of the spirit is spirit and that
which is flesh is flesh. He then looked at me and said, 'That is
dualism--how can you possibly avoid it in Scripture?" I must confess to be
at a loss to answer him and wish someone had raised this with her.--grm]
******************
Howard Ducharme, University of Akron
At this time I told Frank I was ready for this guy to give his speech and
let us get out of there--put us out of our misery. I had told someone that
day that the organizers must hate this guy to have put him at the end of a
3 day conference. I was in no mood to listen.
He began his speech with a quote to the effect that dualism was not so much
a position to be taken as a cliff over which to push your opponent. Then he
told the other two speakers in this session that he didn't need to be pushed
because he had already jumped.
He then started to reel us in with the assumption of materialism. The Ego,
the "I' equals nothing more than the material body. Then he looked at the
audience and asked us to tell him something that we know to be true about
ourselves. He asked, "How many of you went to kindygarden." He said it
with that childish type of accent--kindygarden. Most of us fools raised our
hands. He asked if we were really certain about that. We kept our hands up.
He then showed us the problem.
1 'I'=my body alone
2 I went to kindygarden
3. if 1 is true then 2 is false; if 2 is true then 1 is false.
Why? Because my body, this 5'9" 200 pound object simply didn't go to
kindygarden. A different body which weighed about 40 pounds or less and one
that was much shorter went to kindygarden.
Frank leaned over and said "He reeled us in on that one." And most of the
audience was laughing at this time having been tricked by Ducharme. He woke
us up and made us listen to the very last talk of the conference.
He went through the objections. Brain cells live forever and thus our
brains went to kindergarden. Nope, Ducharme said, and quoted a medical text
to the point that even brain cells are created as we age. Every 6 years
every cell in the body is turned over. Then is it our DNA that went to
kindergarden? Of course not [and I find this to be a really ridiculous
out--grm]. If the 'I" equals the genetic code, the I and my twin can be in
two places at once. Secondly, genetic changes occur during life and thus the
DNA identity is not the same. His argument was longer but it boils down to
this. I think I know an out to this argument but I will see if anyone else
has the out.
Two facts that he cited which are of some interest as trivia. Any two people
differ by only about 1/10% in their DNA. Second interesting trivia is that
the 18-year-old who died from those gene therapy treatments last year was
found to have those liver genes in his gonads when he died. They didn't
test to see if they had been incorporated into his sperm, though. It does
raise some interesting ideas.
During the Q&A some guy got up to ask a question to Ducharme. I don't
recall the question, but I do recall Frank leaning over and saying, "you
aren't going to wrestle this guy[Ducharme] to the ground." And Frank was
correct.
We left before the Q&A was over as I had a 4 hour drive home. Frank and I
left
together with me wanting to say good by to Bob DeHaan and
Frank wanting to give some info to another fellow. But while the Q&A was
going on, I got stopped over and over by several organizers and others as I
tried to slip out. Nelson stopped me to say good bye to me, Tom Pearson of
this list (with whom I sat during the Friday Night Banquet)stopped me to
say good bye, Meyer wanted to talk for a minute, Behe said bye to me, and a
couple of other fellows. By the time I got outside, Frank was no where to be
see. So I didn't get to say good bye to him. However, I was touched that
these people took note of my leaving. Most places I go, no one cares.
I will post a summary and observations of the political and effectiveness
issues separately. One final item, I met Walter Bradley at the
conference--the second time for me; the first time for him (he hadn't
remembered me from about 10 years ago--no one knew). He found out about some
of the friends I was hanging out with--some antichristians,
anti-creationists,
young-earthers, old-earth creationists etc. He remarked "You have a very
eclectic group of friends." I responded that I did. But then as I thought
about it further, I became worried about what exactly he had meant by this.
I went up to him and told him that I wanted to re-respond to his statment
about my friends. I told him that "Jesus had a very eclectic set of
friends." Walter assured me that he had not meant that statement in a
negative sense and was delighted that I had such a set of friends. The
unfortunate reality is that I wanted to re-respond to Walter because too
many Christians cloister themselves away from the world, and think it
inappropriate to associate with atheists and agnostics. It is sad that one
can't always be sure what is meant by that in a Christian context. It says
something sad about us. Someone has to be a witness to those who are
atheists and agnostic.
And thus ended the Baylor Conference. I left,warmed inside, with many new
and renewed friends, and intellectually filled to bursting.
glenn
Foundation, Fall and Flood
Adam, Apes and Anthropology
http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/dmd.htm
Lots of information on creation/evolution
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