Robert wrote
<< If ASA sponsors an explicityly OEC education project, we would de facto
commit ASA to a position that some of its members cannot accept and did not
expect to support when they joined.
I think a better approach would be for the ASA member who wants to
underwrite such a project to create a non-profit think tank organizationally
separate from the ASA. No doubt many ASA members would support the project-I
would, for one-but ASA qua ASA would not be the sponsoring organization.
>>
A separate think-tank might be a better approach; but, it should not be
overlooked that the ASA almost from its inception has opposed the YEC
position, which is why not long after the inception of the ASA, the founders
of the Creation Research Society left the ASA and founded their own
organization. The ASA has also published books and booklets in the past which
stand quite clearly if not overly aggressively in opposition to the YEC
position.
As Ronald Numbers has written, "Thus, leaders of the American Scientific
Affiliation, organized in 1941, waged a two-pronged campaign in the 1940s and
1950s to discredit "flood geology" as pseudo-science ..."
Exposing YECism as pseudo-science is part of the ASA tradition.
Paul S.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Jan 06 2001 - 23:08:53 EST