Re: textbook problems, from Cobb County...

I affirm what Keith Miller (KSU geologist) has written about Ken Miller
(Brown Univ cell biologist), that Ken is a person of Christian faith who is
trying to sort out these issues.

I also reaffirm what I wrote, namely that one is indeed puzzled to find
certain statements about the nature of science in his biology texts,
statements that do seem to imply philosophical materialism, at least when
they are not read side by side with Finding Darwin's God. Unless I am
mistaken, it was one of Ken Miller's statements about the undirected,
purposeless process of evolution in one of his texts, that was heavily (and
properly) criticized by Alvin Plantinga and Houston Smith a few years ago,
leading (I think) the NABT to revise its own statement about evolution.

Yes, at the level of the mechanisms themselves, at the level of matter and
motion, the process should be conceived of as lacking any direction/purpose.
 But at the cosmic level, at the level of primary causes, whether it should
be understood this way is indeed a religous/metaphysical question that
biologists are not competent to answer within their own discipline. The
fact that this isn't sorted out in standard textbooks is part of the
problem, IMO.

ted
Received on Mon Jan 31 13:30:03 2005