Re: OOL: was [asa] Quoting Evolution [was Darwin] out of context

Hello Rich, Don and other ASA Readers,
   
  Thanks for speaking on this topic. I have troubles/objections with what Rich has written in his paper and voiced this earlier in the thread. Still I await his replies. Answers like 'the theology works' are not especially helpful, since the interpretation is what gives the reader information about 'why' a person thinks as they do. My questions go beyond Rich's text, which I used as a sounding board to reach others who might wish to engage the involved issues.
   
  The question I posed was not 'incorrect' but actually referenced the paragraph fragment in which his question was posed. Rich has now gone on to say that "Adam and Eve did not exist. They were not conscious in hte garden of eden." It seems like he's got some explaining to do to convince scientifically-minded Christians of that.
   
  Don's claim that "the number of OOL researchers is substantial" I am both surprised and intruiged by - I would have thought the opposite. What does 'substantial' mean - 2%, 10%, 50%? I'm curious to hear what percentage of natural scientists actually *do research* on origins of life. Surely engineers rarely do OOL or OOH(uman consciousness) research.
   
  Of course, the number of paleontologists researching human origins is rather high. And archaeologists are also concerned with human origins, though perhaps not predominantly, given the number of theories about human artifacts and excavation sites in the past 4000 and less years.
   
  I am glad that Don noted "most scientists who are not OOL researchers do not make pronouncements on OOL," and wonder if that is really the case or not. It seems there are many scientists willing to trust scientific research done by others, that supports their preconceived notion of OOL, given the highly speculative 'nature of' that particular scientific endeavour. Or maybe OOL research is not that speculative after all and I'm just overstating it.
   
  Then again, it is agreed, this topic runs as a tangent to the main issue of quoting evolution out of context. This over-stretching of evolution (e.g. 'evolution run mad') was the issue I'd hoped Rich would acknowledge.

  Gregory

   
  p.s. origin(s) of human consciousness (what it appears is what Rich really wants to talk/think about) cannot be reduced to a purely natural scientific question without significant consequences for theology, among other fields - 'the beginning' is a rather strange way to phrase emergence of consciousness, and Joseph Campbell, William James, along with some others that Rich quotes are not who I prefer to entertain in a Christian approach to science, philosophy and theology.
   
        In a message dated 8/21/2006 7:16:40 PM Eastern Standard Time, d.nield@auckland.ac.nz writes:
  Apologies to Rich for the misunderstanding. It was to Gregory that I was
responding.
Don
  No apology necessary. I believe it was Gregory's incorrect question that arose out of my text which I needed to point out had nothing to do with OOL.
   
  rich faussette

                 
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Received on Tue Aug 22 10:06:25 2006