Re: Social Darwinism and ID: My article "Intelligent Design on Trial"

Don,

As you suspected, I worded that part carefully--I did mean that ID's do not
"typically" engage in collapsing evolution into racism, homosexuality, etc.

We agree that Ben Wiker's book is pretty bad.

I am not free to discuss some conversations I have had with certain
individuals, relative to Wiker's book. I will say only this much here. I
regard it as the worst book about science that IVP has published in the past
10 years. I've told IVP this myself, in a context I am not at liberty to
discuss further. The very worst part of the book, however, is the part on
the scientific revolution. Wiker has an axe to grind all the way through
the book, an axe vs Augustinian theology--the same theology that produced
Luther and Calvin, hence a terrific irony that IVP published the book at all
(a point I have made them notice), and in the section on the scientific
revolution this bias simply sinks his whole ship. The keystone chapter in
the book, tying his comments on ancient atomism to his comments on
modernity, just falls apart. The historical analysis is flat wrong, and if
you look closely at his comments about atoms (I mean atoms, those little
particles that we use to explain chemistry; I do not mean atomism, the
atheistic philosophy in antiquity) and about mathematical science itself,
you will see why I am esp angry about IVP publishing that book. It will
give students of the physical sciences inappropriate reasons to hesitate
following through with their studies. Wiker wants us to restore
Aristotelianism, not just to restore our ability to talk about final
causation; he wants us to abandon both the mechanical philosophy (in its
modern forms, such as atomic theory) *and* the formalisms of mathematical
physics. It's still just so hard for me to believe that IVP would want to
sent that message to science students. I've even formally asked them to
remove the book from their catalog. Perhaps lots of letters from people who
do the work of studying the book, if they think I'm right about this, would
possibly persuade them to stop the bleeding.

But I doubt it.

Ted

Edward B Davis, PhD
Distinguished Professor of the History of Science
Box 3030
Messiah College
One College Avene
Grantham, PA 17027
717-766-2511, ext. 6840
Received on Thu Mar 2 00:17:47 2006