Re: Evolutionary Psychology and Free Will

>>> Loren Haarsma <lhaarsma@calvin.edu> 05/02/06 11:32 AM >>>writes:

  Every single book, and the vast majority of articles, written by TE/EC
advocates that I've read (and I've read quite a few) has devoted
considerable time to challenging evolutionism.

Ted comments:
I can't quite say the same thing--I don't think all TE/EC advocates
challenge evolutionism, though I'd want to think more systematically before
being confident of that. I certainly agree, however, that this very common
charge (that TE's do not challenge evolutionism), promoted by Denyse O'Leary
and others, is just flatly untrue. I've called attention to this many times
here and elsewhere, naming names of appropriate examples, yet I keep hearing
it repeated. I'm almost ready to start identifying this as one of the
"great myths" about science and religion. The IDs and YECs love to talk
about some of the other great myths, such as the claim that Christianity
promoted belief in a flat earth or the claim that Christianity and science
have been in conflict for centuries--and they are absolutely right to call
attention to the good historical scholarship debunking those myths that
serve the interests of anti-religious people (it's no accident that AD
White's warfare book is available at infidels.org). But it really doesn't
help at all, when they turn around and create a self-serving myth of their
own, and foist it off on the ordinary churchgoingn public. The same myth is
behind the selective reading of books like Ken Miller's Finding Darwin's
God, in which he does exactly what TEs are said not to do: he directly
challenges Gould, Dawkins, Wilson, etc, in his chapter on "the Gods of
Disbelief," yet this is often conveniently ignored when his book is trashed
by those who do not agree with his TE perspective. As a highly visible
work, his book is just the tip of iceberg on this type of thing.

I almost think that religious opponents of evolution (ie, the science of
evolution) are using a different definition of "evolutionism" (ie, the
transformation of science into a form of religion) than the usual one. If
one accepts MN, apparently, then one is an "evolutionist," even if one very
vociferously rejects ontological naturalism and accepts (for example)
biblical miracles as authentic events. (Many on this list would fit this
category.) It boggles the imagination.

Ted
Received on Tue May 2 12:37:06 2006