Re: ASA Perspectives Journal Peer Review

If I may, I'd like to add a few observations of my own. After a little more than half a year on the job, I'm pleasantly surprised at the diversity of thought in ASA. The feedback, however, is only anecdotal and not a systematic assessment of the distribution of opinions. We do not track the opinions of our members so we only hear from the vocal ones. The challenge is to get the whole spectrum engaged in dialog. The tendency is for segregation to occur. I participate in two email discussion groups in this field, this one plus another strongly pro-ID list. I find far too little cross-over: not enough ID advocates on this one, not enough non-ID in the other. Both have a large participation of ASA members.

I don't think that this list is representative of ASA as a whole. Many viewpoints that are well represented in the organization are not expressed here. Our position statement posted on the web says "We are committed to providing an open forum where controversies can be discussed without fear of unjust condemnation. Legitimate differences of opinion among Christians who have studied both the Bible and science are freely expressed within the Affiliation in a context of Christian love and concern for truth." We are rather uneven in meeting this ideal in this list and that serves to diminish diversity.

I'm not convinced that the PSCF should be representative of the organization, if by that term one means that the distribution of views expressed reflect the distribution of views held by the members. Rather, the journal serves a critical function of communication to our members of the results of leading research in the area of science and Christian faith. Regular readers ought to be well-informed of the scholarly work that underlies the major perspectives in science and Christian faith as well as the primary criticisms of those views. They should be hearing from advocates directly rather than merely from others reporting on their views.

Roman Miller works hard to ensure that papers that are likely to be most controversial are cast into a dialog mode with more than one view presented in that issue. Even a balanced handling of controversial issues can have unintended results. Last week I received some "hate mail" from non-members merely for having ID folks in our organization. Some non-members whom we asked to consider presenting at our annual meeting this year declined because we had sponsored an ID Symposium last year, balanced though it was.

The role that ASA has established for itself as a forum for dialog rather than an advocacy group is not an easy one. I'm convinced it's the right one and we will continue to strive to do our best to carry it out effectively.

Randy

----- Original Message -----
  From: David Opderbeck
  To: asa@lists.calvin.edu
  Sent: Monday, March 20, 2006 12:12 PM
  Subject: ASA Perspectives Journal Peer Review

  Just a curiosity question -- is the ASA Perspectives journal peer reviewed or how otherwise are editorial decisions made? The most recent PCSF had a very pro-ID article that drew heavily on Dembski's work, which I'm sure most of the active participants on this list wouldn't agree with. Is this list representative of the organization? Is PCSF representative? Or neither?
Received on Tue Mar 21 23:20:22 2006