Re: ASA, ID, Blogs and my observations

Glenn, Denyse,

Let's not forget that words have meaning, sometimes very technical meanings.

I am reminded of Dick Bube's discussion of the term Creation in his
1971 essay, "We Believe in Creation"
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1971/JASA12-71Bube.html where he
defended the use of the term "creation" and "creationist" yet
distanced himself (and the ASA) from the young-earth creationist
belief. Creation is too important of a Biblical concept to give up
the term. Yes, we do still get lumped together with YEC's (and
rightly so on the most critical questions), but that doesn't mean
that we give up on the word or the attempt to clarify its meaning to
the broader "secular" and/or atheistic audience.

Perhaps someone needs to take the lead and write a similar essay, "We
Believe in Design" where we explain our belief in this concept that
flows directly out of the doctrine of Creation, but distances us from
the more technical use of the term "Intelligent Design" by Dembski
and company. (Of course, the ASA welcomes IDers to our membership and
to the inter nos discussion, but not all of us share these views as
is evident from our response and from our critiques.) No doubt, our
views will be lumped together with the more limited views of Dembski,
just because we use the term "design" and believe in a "designer".
Perhaps this is all that Denyse is saying. But we can distinguish
ourselves from the Dembski view.

Personally, my goal in distinguishing myself from the YEC and the
Dembski ID view (let me be clear that I'm not suggesting that they
are the same thing) is to continue to make room for a fully theistic
evolutionary view, where I will, when appropriate, talk about God's
choice to create and uphold that Creation in whatever means he
chooses, possibly using secondary causes such as evolution (broadly
speaking). I will also talk about design. The universe is what it is
because of God choice to make it that way--it reflects his purposes
and designs. In my view, everything is designed. Of course, this is
very different from Dembski's ID which wants to point to specific
instantiations of design (usually to be used for apologetic reasons).
In my debates with ID folks I *always* stress creation and design as
being part of my view.

I'm in full agreement with the view that we need to resist atheism
and secularlism. But this debate is fundamentally a philosophical and
theological debate--not a scientific debate. The scientific views
that are being debated and that seem to be at the center of the more
technical ID question are not the heart of the matter. That's why
Christians (in the ASA and elsewhere) disagree over them. The belief
that YEC or ID (in the technical sense) is in error does not negate
the notion of Creation or Design.

Once again, to say this is to risk being lumped together from the
perspective of secularists with YEC and ID. So be it. But again we
patiently try to clarify the issues and distinguish between science
and philosophy/theology.

I, and many others in the ASA who share my persuasion have offered to
work with Phil Johnson, Bill Dembski, Paul Nelson, Mike Behe, and
others to resist philosophical naturalism and atheism, but nearly
always they insist on a strategy that draws what we regard a dubious
science into a central place in the debate. When we question this we
labeled by the ID (technical) crowd as "compromisers",
"brain-washed", "confused", "dozy", "irrelevant", "vacuous", etc.
Their condition for working with us is that we remain silent
concerning their questionable scientific claims in the interest of
the bigger philosophical/theological claims. In the interest of
truth, we can't do that.

TG

-- 
_________________
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