I wrote:
You're
the one who compared modern science with the Spanish Inquisition.
Okay, do tell us, how they are the same?
Edward Haslett wrote:
They both try to close out any
critical reflection on their claims by anyone outside fo the elite group
making the accusations and claims.
Fine. We both have theological credentials. How do you feel
when scientists write books on religion? Read Paul Davies,
God
and the New Physics if you want to see what I mean. What does
he know about the God of the Bible? It's a two-way street.
They don't know flip about God (in my opinion), yet because of their fame
in science, they feel qualified to write about Him too. By the same
taken, what does Phil Johnson know about either science or
religion? Doesn't stop him from acting like he does. And so I
say, let's keep the uniformed off the streets and sitting on the side
lines while those with essential credentials battle it out.
My objections are more general in
that many different theories of how evolution occurred and the mechanisms
involved exist. The school textbooks over which this conversation
started, act as though it is a uniform theory, and anytime anyone
criticizes the mechanisms involved, scientists circle the wagons and act
as though there are no problems with evolutionary
theory.
Well, there are less "problems" than you may think.
Science doesn't know how life came about, but that shouldn't stop
scientists from making educated guesses as long as they tell us up front
they are guessing. I'm on record as stating that random genetic
drift alone appears to be insufficient to produce all the necessary
variation required upon which natural selection can act. But some
qualified scientists have said the same thing. Give them enough
time and they will figure it out. But they are less likely to
"circle the wagons" if there isn't a hoard of savage Indians
after their scalps, if you catch the metaphor.
I am not opposed to the idea of
evolution, just the claims that scientists know exaclty how it occurred
instead of that it did occur.
There are many on this list who agree with that. Including
me.
Description and observation with
prediction seem valid in evolutionary theory to me, but speculation and
claims about the how and why of evolution are attempts at fortune
telling, yet present in every book I have evr read on the subject, an I
have read 10's fo thousands of pages in scientific journals, books etc.
A semi valid point. We presume that a fortune teller has no clue
what the future holds. Now if Richard Leakey proposes why and when
apes came down out of the trees to begin the steps toward becoming human,
I think you would have to admit that a world-renowned paleoanthropologist
who has spent his life studying that particular area of science has a
better chance of getting it right. And who would you or I be to
criticize him if we thought he was wrong?
Dick Fischer -
Genesis Proclaimed Association
Finding Harmony in Bible, Science, and History
www.genesisproclaimed.org
Received on Wed Jan 19 15:06:14 2005