From: Howard J. Van Till (hvantill@chartermi.net)
Date: Tue May 13 2003 - 07:39:15 EDT
>From: "Josh Bembenek" <jbembe@hotmail.com>
> Yet at the same time, Van Till has written explicitly that we should
> wait patiently for science to uncover the unknown physical laws that will
> enable us to understand more completely how evolutionary processes created
> biological systems without God's constant "tinkering" (i.e. non-embodied
> form-conferring interventive action.) Here we have a double-speak, on one
> hand our efforts to view (excuse the sloppy label) Theistic Evolution as a
> true and reliable theory partly involve future discovery of relevant
> physical laws/ processes that science will uncover. On the other hand, we
> can dismiss arguments about the ability of natural systems operating alone
> as inept for creating biological complexity because we cannot perform
> calculations and we don't know all the relevant factors involved, nor might
> we be able to. Thus we are perfectly fit snuggly into our ignorance. Our
> ignorance thus equally protects our inability to rigourously explain the
> ability of laws to produce biological systems while simultaneously
> preventing anyone from trying to argue that they are insufficient.
> Beautifully convenient, the ignorance trump card has become. In the end, no
> matter how much we understand of the universe, there will be an unknown and
> perhaps infinite degree of ignorance that we can appeal to for support of
> our particular theory, even more wonderfully convenient!!
Josh, I dislike double-speak as much as you do, and I do my best to avoid
it. Nonetheless, I presume that there is room for improvement. So, help me
out here. Please re-read my essay "Is the Creation a 'Right Stuff'
Universe?" in the December, 2002, issue of PSCF and find specific instances
in which I employ the kind of double-speak to which you refer in the above
posting.
Howard Van Till
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