From: Glenn Morton (glenn.morton@btinternet.com)
Date: Sun Feb 02 2003 - 03:24:21 EST
Hi Jon,
>-----Original Message-----
>From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu]On
>Behalf Of jdac
>Sent: Saturday, February 01, 2003 1:13 AM
>First of all we must defer to Michael's research. As I recall his data
>indicates that no more than 10% of Anglican clergy were YEC in the
>first half of
>the 19th century.
It is not his research I am disputing. It is his conclusion. The concept
that because the clergy were all one way doesn't logically require that the
laity were that way also. My point is that like today, most clergy are not
rejecting of science, yet much of modern US laity appear to be. Thus, while
Michael's research can be correct, it doesn't follow that they actually led
the people on this issue.
The handful of people who published from this
>perspective is
>consistent with this. So does your estimation that 10% of Miller's
>book is aimed
>at refuting YEC. Also almost no person in high office in the CoE
>was YEC and
>many of the clerical geologists also held high office. The YEC's
>did not have
>the performance, profile, and public and scientific impact of
>people such as
>Conybeare, Whewell, Buckland, Sedwick, Miller, Fleming or
>Playfair. The YEC
>stream of 19th century thought should not be ignored, but it should not be
>over-emphasised either. The impression you are giving me
>(doubtless incorrect)
>is that you want the YEC stream to be dominant.
Let's look at it this way. Would you write an apologetical book spending 10%
of the time refuting geocentrism? Of course not. You would bore your
readers to death. Yet, I can point you to modern Christians who believe in
geocentrism. But they are such a small minority as to be unworthy of
comment. Thus, you find no books refuting their position. You don't even
find a chapter refuting their position. Yet with Miller, you and Michael
seem to be giving the impression (also most likely incorrect) that there
were hardly any YECs in the mid to late 19th century. I see no logical
reason to agree with that given the observation that Miller spent time
refuting those positions. Indeed Miller quotes some of these people. Are
you all saying that they spent large chunks of their books refuting a tiny
minority position which would not have been of any interest to their
readers? I would also note that the social structure of the UK in the 19th
century was such that the upper classes (which often included the clergy)
engaged in a discussion with themselves and ignored or saw as irrelevant the
views of the lower classes.
I would quote Hitchcock: "Too often, however, up to the present time, has
the theologian on the one hand, looked with jealousy upon science, fearful
that its influence was hurtful to the cause of true religion; while on the
ohter hand, the philosopher, in the pride of sceptical spirit, has scorned
an alliance between science and theology, and even fancied many a
discrepancy." Hitchcock, 1851 p. 476
Why would he write 'up to the present time' if there weren't a significant
number of people rejecting the scientific view? Would I or you write, 'Too
often, however, up to the present time, has the theologian rejected
heliocentricity?? I doubt it. There are hardly any of them. Admittedly,
Hitchcock was speaking of North America.
Concerning the lack of acceptance of modern science by the laity I would
quote James A. Secord, who edited Lyell's Principles:
"For most readers, the authority of Scripture continued to outweigh that of
strata-maps and sections, so that biblically-oriented accounts of earth
history predominated in publishers' lists right thorugh the first half of
the cnetury. Sharon Turner's Sacred HIstory of the World of 1832, 'firmly
attached to the great Newtonian principle, of the Divine causation of all
things', went into its eighth edition two years before Lyell's book did.
Books in the same tradition were written by Thomas cHalmers, Edward Hitchcok
Granville Penn, John Bird Sumner, Andrew Ure and Nicholas Wiseman--respected
authors whose writings often sold more copies and were better known than
those of Lyell and his friends." James A. Secord, "Introduction," Charles
Lyell, Principles of Geology, Penguin Books, 1997, p. xxiv
While YECs were certainly in a minority, those who read books from the above
authors may very well have been YEC, just as today many YECs avidly buy the
books fo the generally old-earth ID group. But more importantly, YEC or
not, those in the pews, who were buying those books, did generally believe
in a literal Bible which is also something that much of the clergy didn't by
the mid-part of the 19th century.
You certainly give greater
>emphaisis to the 10% than you do the 90%. If you do not want to give this
>impression, perhaps a bit more empahsis on the 90% would be good
One must be very careful not to equate what is seen with what was there. The
historian can only work with what was preserved. I would draw attention to
the parallel problem of the archaeologist. Archaeologists mostly find stone
tools and non-perishable materials in ancient cultures. Yet study after
study of very rare sites which do preserve perishable material show that the
technology was much, much different than what is in the normal site.
“As early as the 1960s, the late Walter Taylor noted that in his excavations
in a series of dry caves in Coahuila in the 1940s, finished perishable fiber
artifacts were four times more common than artifacts of wood and twenty
times more common than stone tools. This same ratio has been found again
and again in hundreds of dry caves, rockshelters, and other contexts where
conditions favored the preservation of all of a group’s technology. Much
the same ratios of fiber, wood, and stone artifacts are found in
hunter-gatherer societies of more recent times, even in Arctic and
sub-Arctic settings." James Adovasio and Jake Page, The First Americans,
(New York: Random House, 2002), p. 287-288
In the 19th century, the laity didn't have the money to get their views
published and thus, those views are like fiber artifacts. We know they
were a significant force ONLY because Miller and others of the time spent a
large part of their books fighting them.
>Cheers
>
>Jon
glenn
see http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/dmd.htm
for lots of creation/evolution information
anthropology/geology/paleontology/theology\
personal stories of struggle
>
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