Bjoern,
I and some others like Keith Miller on this list study fossils and I
would love to comment on your questions (they are good). However, I
NEVER am able to write a post without a lot of thought an time.
Especially because sometimes my perspective differs a bit from some on
this list. And right now is not a good time to take that sort of time
since I am grading long essay questions from the end of the semester.
However, if you look at the archives at
http://www.calvin.edu/cgi-bin/archive and search for fossil or perhaps
fossils, you will find a lot of interesting posts. They may give you
something to react to.
But let me save my comments for a quick reaction to something that
George said.
> --- george murphy <gmurphy@raex.com> wrote:
>
> The
> > previous paragraph is
> > then inapplicable, but I would add that it is at
> > least as important,
> > especially if arguments about design & evolution are
> > major parts of the
> > discussion, that the teachers have expertise in
> > science as in
> > philosophy.
>
To which Bjoern responded.
> Perhaps this is the real problem here, they aren't
> scientists.
I agree with George that is very helpful to know something about the
subject matter you are talking about. But I would respectfully disagree
that you have to be a scientists to comment on evolution. Yes you
should at least have read good secondary sources - but today's
scholarship is so specialized that very few broadly trained scholars
exist. The best you can expect is for someone to be trained in one
aspect that he is talking about and read good secondary sources. To his
credit Phil Johnson did do that originally. Some of the other ID folks
like Dembski and Behe restrict their argument to the areas they are in
and don't bother to cite secondary sources on evolutionary theory or
worse simply cite other ID folks.
But many of the ID folks are good scientists with established records of
doing good science. (e.g. Behe in biochemistry and Dembski in
mathematics and philosophy). The fact that they can speak as
established scientists does do a lot for their influence. The fact that
they generally think the neoDarwinian synthesis is flawed probably is
also important in giving them an audience among evangelical seminaries
and churches in a way that ASA can not because it may be perceived
(rightly or wrongly) as compromising too much with a secularizing
neoDarwinian philosophy. But yes I think it is critical for the ASA to
have more dialog with lay evangelicals.
-- James and Florence Mahaffy 712 722-0381 (Home) 227 S. Main St. 712 722-6279 (Office) Sioux Center, IA 51250
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