Re: [asa] Grandma's wisdom might be good

One thing needs to be considered. How far has the raucous and inaccurate YEC
and ID lobby added to the problems, creating a situation which is far more
polarised. My objections to both ID and YEC are far less theological and
scientific than they are moral.

    Over the years (many) I have read vast amounts of YEC and ID literature
of all sorts. As I unravelled any scientific argument in them (had to be
geology as that is my field) I found that they were ALWAYS marked by
inaccuracies , misquotation misrepresentation etc. Further no correction is
ever listened to. Hence the root problem is moral and nothing else.

    The question is, can one further the Kingdom of God by using
misrepresentation to further one's own particular view?

    The trouble of simply appealing to common sense is that some science is
needed to assess scientific arguments and it is easy to put objections to
"evolution" in an apparently common-sense way.
Michael
----- Original Message -----
From: "James Mahaffy" <Mahaffy@dordt.edu>
To: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Thursday, October 19, 2006 12:03 AM
Subject: Re: [asa] Grandma's wisdom might be good

>
>>>> On 10/18/2006 at 5:17 PM, in message
> <a7a4e9650610181517n39727f3vc6cdf0a4891228c6@mail.gmail.com>, "David
> Campbell"
> <pleuronaia@gmail.com> wrote:
> [snip]
>>
>>
>> I'm not entirely sure what you're thinking about for getting a
> response.
>> It's certainly true that the average biology PhD knows little about
> many
>> areas of biology outside his own specialty, and that there's much
> need to
>> connect to the average person, who may have more sense than a given
> PhD. At
>> the same time, appeals to the average person against the experts are
> very
>> often made by cranks with a plausible-sounding but incorrect claim.
>
> Dave,
>
> I would tend to agree with you that often the lay folks look to their
> own sometimes not too good experts that work outside the constraining
> influence of established science. What I am suggesting is the wisdom of
> parents and "grandma's) that say that the schools removing all teaching
> of parental moral values and teaching children that God had nothing to
> do with the Creation of creatures (and that is how simple texts often
> tell it) are wrong. They know that it is radically different from their
> faith and the teaching of the Scripture. We can sit here and show them
> that a TE position can really believe in God, but tell me of any Highs
> School text book that teaches science from a Christian perspective and
> tells kids that an option is to believe that God created the world
> using evolution. I am not TE but I would prefer that to the current text
> in High School or even most in intro college.
>
> The people fighting for a different voice in the schools has not
> traditionally been the ASA (although they did make a great try once),
> but the YEc and now the ID has been much stronger in trying to offer
> alternatives to current dualistic secularism in the science. And yes I
> know individual schools may not listen that much to the state and can
> get away with hiring Christian teachers who teach more from their
> Christian perspective especially in rural areas.
>
> bcc to class and Gerry M.
> --
>
> James Mahaffy (mahaffy@dordt.edu) Phone: 712 722-6279
> 498 4th Ave NE
> Biology Department FAX : 712
> 722-1198
> Dordt College, Sioux Center IA 51250-1697
>
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Received on Thu Oct 19 04:38:31 2006