Re: [asa] YEC and ID arguments

Chuck, thanks -- I'm glad you mentioned Shonborn. He made what I thought
were some reasonable philosophical points like this a while back in First
Things. But Shonborn got pummelled, and lumped in the "YEC-ID" category, by
the intelligentsia for his comments.

On 10/21/06, Austerberry, Charles <cfauster@creighton.edu> wrote:
>
> Several Roman Catholic thinkers recently have made the following
> argument:
>
> 1) Darwinian evolutionary theory can indeed easily slide towards
> atheism/materialism, and this must be countered.
>
> 2) Arguments against atheistic/materialistic Darwinism need not be
> religious, nor scientific, but rather philosophical. Thus, such arguments
> are indeed based on reason rather than faith, but they do not employ
> scientific reasoning.
> Below is a remarkable quote (see
> http://stephanscom.at/edw/katechesen/articles/2005/12/02/a9719) from the
> Vienna Cardinal Schonborn, who is certainly skeptical of what he calls
> Darwinism (by which I think he means atheistic evolution):
>
>
>
> *Here is another analogy that has been eagerly used since the
> Enlightenment: the analogy of a watchmaker, who produces a watch which then
> runs on its own until it has to be wound up again or occasionally repaired;
> the little thing runs as soon as it is made. The fact that Richard Dawkins
> sees no use for such a watchmaker in explaining our world, is not the point
> that makes him an atheist. Steven Weinberg, whom I cited above, formulates
> as follows the usual assumption about scientific method: "The only possible
> scientific procedure consists in assuming that no divine intervention takes
> place and then in seeing how far science gets on this assumption" (Dreams of
> a Final Theory). The scientific method, as understood by Weinberg and many
> others, is thus a conscious rejection of any "divine intervention." They
> want to see how far we can get with this method without having to posit a
> watchmaker or a pool player or a starter at the beginning of the game.
>
> Sometimes the way in which the scientific method excludes any divine
> intervention is called "methodological atheism." I do not see it that way;
> this excluding is simply authentic scientific method and has nothing to do
> with atheism. The scientific method should not assume a watchmaker who
> intervenes; it searches for the explanation of mechanisms, connections,
> causal relations, and events.*
>
>
> Schonborn's anti-Darwinism is quite different from the William Paley-type "watchmaker"
> apologetics of most American ID proponents. It's the "Watchmaker (God)
> of the gaps" approach of the U.S. ID movement that the Dover case
> correctly identified as 1) serving no scientific purpose, and 2) exclusively
> serving one particular sectarian purpose, thus promoting one particular
> religious view over other views (both religious and non-religious).
>
> Cheers.
>
> Charles (Chuck) F. Austerberry, Ph.D.
> Assistant Professor of Biology
> Hixson-Lied Room 438
> Creighton University
> 2500 California Plaza
> Omaha, NE 68178
>
> Phone: 402-280-2154
> Fax: 402-280-5595
>
> e-mail: cfauster@creighton.edu
>
> Nebraska Religious Coalition for Science Education
> http://nrcse.creighton.edu
>
> Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2006 08:54:13 -0400
> From: "David Opderbeck" <dopderbeck@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [asa] YEC and ID arguments
>
> Dave Siemens said: *You are confusing scientism-materialism with
> Darwinism-evolution.
> *
> Roger said: *I sure wish I could see your and Arago's POV, but for the
> love of God, I surely don't. What are you trying to get at anyway?*
> **
> Dave and Roger, I understand some of your frustration with me and Greg.
> Like you, neither of us (I think Greg would agree with me here -- correct
> if I'm wrong) think the Dawkins-ites are *right *in conflating common
> descent with scientism-materialism; and neither of us (again, Greg, correct
> if I'm
> wrong) are suggesting YECism is acceptable. All of us agree: common
> descent doesn't in itself have to imply scientism-materialism, and clearly
> false positions such as YECism should be rejected.
>
> But Greg and I, working in social sciences, see that people in our
> disciplines overwhelmingly *do *conflate common descent with
> scientism-materialism. And not only that, as we study the history and
> sociology of science, we see that people in *your* disciplines -- at least
> in biology -- do so as well. And further, we see that in the culture at
> large, conflating common descent with scientisim-materialism is a huge, huge
> problem; I at least would daresay it's a bigger threat to faith than
> YECism. This is why I mentioned the Wired article. Turn also to the
> "science" column in the Wall Street Journal (today's essentially positivist
> column on "why false beliefs persist in the face of contrary evidence" is a
> good example), the New York Times, etc., and you will see the same thing:
> faith in anything beyond "science" is derided as irrational, and Darwinism
> is Exhibit A in the supposed triumph of "science" over "faith."
>
> So what I'm a bit frustrated by, and where I have trouble understanding
> your perspective, is that you don't seem to understand how big this problem
> of scientism-materialism-positivism is becoming in our culture. On this
> list, we can cheerfully affirm that Darwinism doesn't necessarily imply
> materialism, and technically, that's true. But out in the "real" world,
> Darwinism is exactly used to imply materialism.
>
> And this leads, for me at least, to the problem of teleology and design
> arguments. For the love of God, I don't understand what I sense is a deep
> hostility to any sort of teleology or design argument in biology among some
> (not all) in the TE camp. I do understand caution, since there are some
> plainly flawed teleology / design arguments, and many of those are employed
> by YECs. But when I read someone like Francis Collins with the one hand
> employ teleology / design arguments in cosmology and with the other blithely
> dismiss the very same sorts of arguments in biology, I say "huh?" It seems
> to me that the brick wall against any design / teleology arguments in
> biology lends aid and comfort to those who say Darwinism does imply
> scientism-materialsm.
>
>

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Sat Oct 21 18:59:42 2006