RDehaan237@aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 4/11/01 11:30:59 AM, grayt@lamar.colostate.edu writes:
>
> << In summary, critiquing the science is not the unique task of theists. It is
> the joint task of the entire evolutionary biology scientific community and
> I maintain that they are actively engaged (as a community) in such a
> critique. >>
>
> Terry,
>
> Of course. But my question was, what have TEs contributed to this critique?
> All the examples you gave, as I understand them, were from non-theistic
> members of the evolutionary biology community. Or to put it another way, in
> my observation TEs have been more involved in _defending_ evolutionary theory
> than in critiquing it.
>
> But let me expand my question. In your original post, you stated: "As I've
> said many times before, the critique that we ought to be making of the
> atheistic scientific
> community is at the philosophical/theological level and not at the practical
> science level." Have TEs been making these critiques? Again, my observation
> is that TEs have been more involved in critiquing, and often attacking,
> YECs than the philospical/theology of "atheistic scientific community."
1) Christians who are involved in science relevant to the discussion of
evolution, and who hold a position something like "functional integrity of
creation", will "critique" evolutionary theory _qua_ scientific theory in the same
way that non-Christian scientists will.
I suspect that this discussion is clouded a bit by the affect of the word
"critique", which is a lot like "criticize", which may suggest a commitment to
"refute" the theory. But of course the kind of critical thinking appropriate to
science doesn't require this kind of commitment. A critical study of evolution in
this sense will conclude that it's a pretty good theory, the best we have at
present, though certainly not perfect.
(The linguistic problem here is similar to one that puts the "critical
study of scripture" at a disadvantage with some audiences: "How dare they
criticize the Bible?")
2) On your 2d point, many TEs do criticize (in both senses) attempts to
extrapolate evolution to a worldview which rules out all purposes, divine
creation, etc. The distinction between evolution as a scientific theory &
"evolutionism" has often been made. This is the appropriate type of criticism "at
the philosophical/theological level". But that isn't the same thing as trying to
use philosophical or theological arguments to undermine evolution as a scientific
theory.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
"The Science-Theology Dialogue"
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