Hello Loren,
Greetings from GMT +3! Thank you for your message and glad to meet you for the first time on-line! I’ve read your paper “Is Intelligent Design Scientific” and must say that I find it to be one of the most helpful and balanced articles available – this was at ASA’s annual conference 2005. I even posted a link to it on some ID-friendly sites (goodness knows where, the world moves too fast and broadband is not everywhere to check) so that a more thoughtful perspective could prevail amidst the extremism.
“Umm, which theistic evolutionsists / evolutionary creationists have you been reading?” – Loren Haarsma
I’ve been reading Peacocke and Polkinghorne, Geroge Ellis, Ian Barbour, Nancy Murphy, Keith Miller, Ken Miller, Denis Lamoureux, George Murphy and Ted Davis, to name a few contemporary authors. Denyse O’Leary is not on my list; that is journalism, promotionalism and polemics, not science and scholarship. The science and religion dialogue would, however, in my opinion function more smoothly if it was instead expanded to a science-philosophy-theology triad, as you suggest in your paper – ‘evaluate scientific parts on scientific merits, philosophical parts on philosophical merits and theological parts on theological merits.’ It doesn’t seem to me that you are unfairly favouring any of the three spheres of knowledge, but rather suggesting that each belongs/exists in its own place.
Between March 14th and March 28th, 2006, Ted Davis had ample opportunity to comment on the thread “Things that don’t evolve” (see link below), but he didn’t. Sure, sometimes people become busy and are unable to comment on a thread, and that is understandable. But the fact that he continued to comment on other threads and would not answer a direct question to him about ‘what things don’t evolve,’ the only way I am left able to read it is that he had/has no answer or doesn’t wish to volunteer one.
“Yes, it is my view that evolution functions as a ‘theory of everything’.” – Ted Davis
This is a philosophy of science viewpoint. According to Ted, apparently everything evolves, just as it does (similarly) for Dennett and did for de Chardin. The question is not whether or not everything merely ‘changes.’ I think the thread (linked below) went some distance to tease apart those two related terms – change and evolution. It is nonetheless absolutely clear to me, and as it seems also to others at ASA, that not everything evolves; there are things that don’t evolve. The fact that Ted would not say so seems to prove the point.
Let me be direct and upfront in clarifying that I am neither an IDist nor a YECist nor a ‘creation scientist,’ though I have read (relatively) much on these perspectives and the respective authors in those schools/camps of thought. Nor am I an anti-evolutionist in the American sense. It would indeed be unfortunate if Ted felt the need to label anyone who attempts to ascertain or discern what things don’t evolve from what things do evolve as simply a member of some ‘other’ group outside the mainstream. This would appear a case of unjust exclusion or marginalization, simply because a person questions a universalistic model of evolutionism.
According to Ted, Ken Miller “directly challenges Gould, Dawkins, Wilson, etc, in his chapter on ‘the Gods of Disbelief.” This may indeed be true and if so I am glad for it.
Ted continues, “Yet this is often conveniently ignored when his book is trashed by those who do not agree with his TE perspective.”
Please excuse if I highlight that attacking Gould, Dakwins and Wilson does nothing whatsoever to challenge the tendency toward evolutionism outside of natural sciences. Wilson’s socio-biology has given way to evolutionary psychology and the link with morality exhibited in the opening post, and there are few to answer to growing evolutionism in these disciplines. In general, I applaud the work of Ken Miller. It would also be supportive if there were others like him able to situate the relevance of evolutionism in spheres of knowledge outside of his ‘natural’ science specialization.
Ted wrote: “I don't think all TE/EC advocates challenge evolutionism, though I'd want to think more systematically before being confident of that.”
This, then, is the opportunity to say clearly and systematically about just how TE/EC advocates challenge evolutionism. If Ted is willing to challenge evolutionism, then let’s hear it. If, otoh, Ted cannot come up with an example of something that doesn’t evolve, there is nothing left to conclude than that his imagination is not all that imaginative.
Ted wrote: “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.)”
Ted clearly speaks for more people on the ASA list than I do and I am not suggesting people should even broadly wonder about the last (MN) sentence. Nevertheless, the definition of ‘evolutionism’ Ted provides seems lacking. An ‘ism’ is by linguistic form, representative of an ideological approach to a certain topic. Studying nature is fine; extending the definition of ‘nature’ to ‘naturalism’ is deemed unacceptable (given certain caveats). Being a scientist is fine; practicing or preaching ‘scientism’ is excessive. In the same sense, I am not challenging scientific-evolutionary theories, when applied in their ‘proper’ domains. What I am though challenging, is the ideological misuse of evolution, for example, when it is extended into a universalistic theory or worldview that ‘tends’ to cast doubt on the Biblical view of human origins, creation, the image of God, and sometimes the entire biblical narrative. Can these things not be considered comparatively, distinctly? Ted’s
definition of ‘evolutionism’ (i.e. “the transformation of science into a form of religion”) seems more like what I would call ‘scientism’ than ‘evolutionism,’ especially since I don’t think accepting MN necessarily makes one an ‘evolutionist.’
For me, it doesn’t matter if all the whos (scientists/scholars) in who-ville (biological sciences) think that evolution is the one and only way to consider ‘change-over-time;’ they haven’t convinced me that their claims to universalism are not merely a local phenomenon capable of occurring only at one end of the modern age of (western) scientization and scientology. The size of the Grinch’s heart ‘evolving’ or ‘not evolving’ (cf. changing) can be studied by anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists and philosophers, as well as (in addition to) biologists, zoologists, ethologists and comparative anatomists respectively. The perspectives, conclusions and ‘proofs’ will be different in most cases. But one single disciplinary viewpoint should not dominate all of the others or condemn the validity of other perspectives to being less valid (‘soft’) or even useless. Since Ted has already acknowledged at ASA the importance of sociologies of science, I assume that he also agrees
with a balanced, integrative approach.
The last thing I wish to do here is bear false witness against a Christian sister or brother. That being said, it seems fully respectable to challenge someone within the fellowship who uses evolution to an extreme degree. To quote from the earlier thread, “I believe that the concept of ‘evolution’ actually can be situated or properly contextualized so that it does not grow ‘out-of-control’ or turn into a ‘theory of everything.’ Can this not also be considered an appropriate Christian thing to do?
With warm spring regards,
Gregory
P.S. please forgive if I am not able to respond promptly, since during this week I am committed to making several interviews on the topic of ‘science and religion’ and also to other projects that will keep me temporarily away from the internet
http://www.calvin.edu/archive/asa/200604/0083.html
http://www.calvin.edu/~lhaarsma/IsIDScientific_ASA2005.doc
~~
Ted Davis <tdavis@messiah.edu> wrote:
>>> Loren Haarsma 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
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Received on Tue May 2 18:02:25 2006
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