Thank you, Ted. I agree with you!
I now remark that this says something about the judgment of Moreland,
Johnson, Pearcey, Schall, Hahn, Wells and Behe (the people who endorsed
Wiker's book on the back page of the book) as well as Dembski who uses
the book in his course. It seems to me that these ID people were
predisposed to hear the social Darwinism message, and that reinforces my
view that there is a close tie between ID (of the Discovery Institute
flavor) and social Darwinism.
Don
Ted Davis wrote:
>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
>
>
-- Donald A. Nield Associate Professor, Department of Engineering Science University of Auckland Private Bag 92019 Auckland, NEW ZEALAND ph +64 9 3737599 x87908 fax +64 9 3737468 Courier address: 70 Symonds Street, Room 235 or 305 d.nield@auckland.ac.nz http://www.esc.auckland.ac.nz/People/Staff/Nield/Received on Thu Mar 2 00:33:59 2006
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