From: george murphy (gmurphy@raex.com)
Date: Sat Nov 30 2002 - 09:28:17 EST
John Burgeson wrote:
> George: Let me pick up on just part of your post. You wrote: "it's hard to
> believe that the IDers who say "it might have been ETs" are really serious.
> This would undercut the whole rationale for ID - i.e., the
> assault on "naturalism." I consider such tactics in public debate to be a
> mere fig leaf to cover
> the fact that when they say "Designer" they mean "God.""
>
> Perhaps so, but are you not ascribing (base) motives to them when they say
> otherwise?
>
> What I want to do is remove the debate entirely away from discussions of the
> IDers themselves, what motivates them -- and just talk about the ideas.
>
> To limit the discussion only to OOLOE is to simply confine it to that part
> of the material world we know most about.
>
> An archaelogist finds a non-living item "X" and declares that it appears to
> have been created by an intelligence, and generally that claim is taken
> seriously for many items "X1, X2, ... " Sometimes, however, item X15 (for
> instance) is subsequently judged to have been created through inanimate
> natural causation. And reasonable scientists then debate that.
>
> A biologist finds a living item "Y" and declares that it appears to have
> been created by an intelligence. Generally that claim is NOT taken seriously
> for items "Y1, Y2, ..." even by IDers. But sometimes an IDer will take it
> seriously for item Y15 (for instance).
>
> So the division point seems to be between non-living items (or items that
> appear to be non-living) and living items, presumably on the basis that to
> create a living item of any sort is something beyond the ken of modern
> science and therefore ruled out a priori.
>
> I don't like a priori rules ( as you know) and so I cannot be comfortable
> with the division, at least as I have stated it.
First, I don't think there's any question of _ascribing_ motives.
Prominent
IDers (e.g., Johnson,
Dembski, Wells) make their religious motives quite clear in some of their
statements. What I find objectionable is that, when the issue is
whether or not
ID should be included in science curricula in public schools & in some other
venues, they try to play the "nobody here but us scientists and philosophers"
game.
I think this latest attempt to present some version of
theistic creation
as a scientific alternative to evolution is dangerous both for
science education
and for the mission of the Christian church (for somewhat different reasons).
It need to be confronted by scientifically knowledgeable Christians for what it
actually is, a religiously based cultural and political movement which makes
scientfic claims.
Yes, ID can certainly be criticized on purely scientific grounds (& also on
purely theological grounds) and that needs to be done clearly. But we are
simply missing the point if we don't deal with the ID movement & its wedge
strategy in its totality.
Full disclosure: I do not lightly sound warning cries about
"right wing
conspiracies." I spent more time than I should have as a grad student
campaigning for Goldwater in '64 & my political and theological stances are
still fairly conservative. I'm glad that Bush & his people were the ones who
had the task of responding to 9/11 rather than Gore. But there are a lot of
things wrong with the present-day conservative ethos (some aspect of which
aren't very "conservative"), & the present political climate is one in which
opposition to evolution can flourish. So while I'm all for academic scientific
&/or theological discussions of evolution & ID, we can't afford to
lose track of
the big picture.
Shalom,
George
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