Re: ASA positions on science/faith issues

Jack and Randy,

I have two initial comments on this issue:

1. While I disagree strongly with the science and
Bibilical interpretation of my YEC and OEC
borthers and sisters, I continue to maintain
that, as fellow believers, we have more in common
with them than with the unbelieving world. Our
stand against scientism, Naturalism, atheism,
etc. is more or less the same. I also continue to
affirm that the YEC position is intellectually
credible--given the view of scripture and the
hermeneutic--and for one who holds that
hermeneutic the YEC position becomes a matter of
conscience. I want the ASA to maintain our
openness to an evolutionary creation or theistic
evolution viewpoint. My feeling is that if we
affirm that (and that some fraction of our
membership is open to this viewpoint) then we can
respond as an ASA to CT-like articles. A YEC who
can join our ranks under those conditions and can
tolerate our EC/TE views deserves to be respected
by the ASA.

2. On the whole I see the ASA as being much more
cautious about evolution than I am. Pattle Pun's
recent post in response to Randy gives evidence
of this. The ASA's official statements on this:
*Teaching Science in a Climate of Controversy*
and, to a lesser extent, "A Voice for Evolution
as Science" have some leanings that I personally
find overly cautious. Pattle Pun is probably
correct in noting that the email discussion list
is overly dominated by theistic evolutionists. At
annual meetings I sense that our average
membership is much more sympathetic to OEC and ID
musings than are most of the talkative folks on
this list. Thus, if we were to adopt an official
ASA statement on some of these things, I'm not
sure I'd like where we would end up.

In my opinion the best response is a public one
that informs the scientific community, the
general faith-science community, and the
evangelical community in particular, that the ASA
has among its membership evangelicals who have
thought about this subject a great deal and who
have come to conclude that evolution and creation
aren't necessarily antagonistic. This would
include Randy's b, d, and e with perhaps the
possibility of official statements from the ASA
expanding on the first sentence in this paragraph.

TG

>ASA positions on science/faith issues
>
>To the list:
>
>Unfortunately, Randy Isaacís important questions about ASA policy got buried
>within the thread <CT article: Darwinists, not
>Christians, stonewalling the facts>.
>In a new era of ASA leadership and a period of
>much public interest in faith/science issues it
>seems timely to reassess ASA reluctance to take
>a ëstandí or otherwise contribute to the
>discussion. What think ye?
>Jack
>__________________________________________________________
>Isaac: How do all of you feel that ASA should respond to editorials such as
>Colson's?
>a) Ignore it?
>b) Encourage members to write letters to the editor clarifying some of the
>issues so that maybe one of them might be published?
>c) Just discuss it/criticize it among ourselves but keep quiet publicly?
>d) Use it as a basis for discussion in our respective churches?
>e) Encourage the director to write a letter to the editor? (not an ASA
>position but a personal opinion, identified as the ASA director)
>f) None of the above? any combination of the above? other?
>
>I do believe that Colson doesn't frame the issue very well and that CT
>readers deserve a better perspective.
>
>Thinking beyond Colson and this article, how pro-active should ASA be, as an
>organization, to articulate the relevant perspectives and issues without
>advocating any particular view?
>Randy
>______________________________________________________
>
>
>Haas: The one position statement I can recall, follows.
>
>ASA Position
>AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC AFFILIATION
>A Voice for Evolution As Science
>
>... After polling the membership on its views,
>the Executive Council of the American Scientific
>Affiliation hereby directs the following
>Resolution to public school teachers,
>administrators, school boards, and producers of
>elementary and secondary science textbooks or
>other educational materials:
>
>Because it is our common desire to promote
>excellence and integrity in science education as
>well as in science; and
>
>Because it is our common desire to bring to an
>end wasteful controversy generated by
>inappropriate entanglement of the scientific
>concept of evolution with political,
>philosophical, or religious perspectives;
>
>We strongly urge that, in science education, the
>terms evolution and theory of evolution should
>be carefully defined and used in a consistently
>scientific manner; and
>
>We further urge that, to make classroom
>instruction more stimulating while guarding it
>against the intrusion of extra-scientific
>beliefs, the teaching of any scientific subject,
>including evolutionary biology, should include
>(1) forceful presentation of well-established
>scientific data and conclusions; (2) clear
>distinction between evidence and inference; and
>(3) candid discussion of unsolved problems and
>open questions.
>
>Adopted by the Executive Council of the American
>Scientific Affiliation on December 7, 1991. ASA
>was founded in 1941 as a nationwide fellowship
>of evangelical Christians trained in science.
>Its vision is "To have science and theology
>interacting and affecting one another in a
>positive light." The 1991 resolution was
>preceded by a background statement citing
>various definitions of evolution and identifying
>"scientific creationism" at one extreme and
>"evolutionary naturalism" at the other as
>"essentially religious doctrine masquerading as
>science." First published in ASA's journal,
>Perspectives on Science & Christian Faith (Vol.
>44, No. 4, p. 252, Dec. 1992), the resolution
>and its background statement also appear in the
>1993 edition of Teaching Science in a Climate of
>Controversy, a guidebook for high school
>teachers from ASA, P.O. Box 668, Ipswich, MA
>01938.

-- 
_________________
Terry M. Gray, Ph.D., Computer Support Scientist
Chemistry Department, Colorado State University
Fort Collins, Colorado  80523
grayt@lamar.colostate.edu  http://www.chm.colostate.edu/~grayt/
phone: 970-491-7003 fax: 970-491-1801