Re: [asa] dawkins and collins on "Fresh Air" interview program

I am so angry about this that my hands are shaking. I tried my best,
however, to say something reasonable on Dembski's site. Here is what I
posted there. Let's see if they put me in the moderation bin for be
disagreeable again.

Quoting my comment on Uncommon Descent:

I am the "David" to which Ted Davis refers and whose earlier comments Ted
"echoes" in the discussion thread from the ASA email list which Dr. Dembski
has referenced. The context of that thread was a discussion of Richard
Dawkins' recent "Fresh Air" interview.

The person to whom Ted is directly responding in that discussion, Pim van
Meurs (of Panda's Thumb), was suggesting that Dawkins' main target is ID
rather than religion generally. Pim seemed to be defending Dawkins as a
champion of Science. I reacted strongly to that, and others jumped into the
fray, including Ted.

The suggestion that Ted's post *"is written to Pim van Meurs, as a mentor
would write to his disciple"* is patently absurd, bordering perhaps on
defamatory. If you read through the whole thread, and indeed if you were to
participate regularly on the ASA list, you would immediately see that
nothing could be further from the truth. Ted *never* hesitates to call out
over-the-top nonesense like a defense of Richard Dawkins as a reasonable
chap who is just concerned about ID.

Indeed, in my many online conversations with Ted, I've come to appreciate
deeply his somewhat moderating stance between TE and ID. It is true that
Ted doesn't hesitate to criticize what he sees as the flaws in the "strong"
ID program. But at the same time, he often defends the basic notion of
design from excessive criticism by TE's, and the historical context he is
able to provide to these discussions invariably is invaluable.

Above all, Ted is a gentleman as well as a scholar. From what I've seen of
Ted's writing and of his leadership in the ASA, he has refused to allow the
politics of ID to overwhelm careful scholarship and calm, reasoned
discussion.

It is a shame that we can't say the same for everyone involved in this
discussion, particularly for those who publicly identify themselves as
followers of Jesus. Personally, I used to be much more sympathetic to ID
than I am now. One of the main reasons for my increased skepticism about ID
is that nasty, strident, politicized tone of many ID leaders -- as
exemplified by this unfair attack on a fellow Christian scholar. You may
think you are winning a battle here and there, but you will lose the war if
you keep going down this track. The shame is that it isn't really your war
to fight, and the tools you're using to fight it are not those of the
Kingdom all of us Christian scholars are supposed to represent.

I am a law professor, a Christian scholar along with Ted and Dr. Dembski,
though not possessed of anywhere near their achievements, influence or
stature. We who are called to serve the Church with our teaching and
scholarship, perhaps more than anyone else, ought to model patient, careful,
deep and reasonable discourse. We together name Jesus as Lord and agree
that all Truth is God's Truth. Our bond in those facts should transcend
this sort of petty sniping.

(And now, let's see with what love and grace everyone here treats me for
daring to defend my friend Ted Davis).

On 4/3/07, Ted Davis <TDavis@messiah.edu> wrote:
>
> Bill Dembski writes about my post to Pim:
>
> "As a mentor would write to his disciple."
>
> As a mentor to his disciple? I'm not sure who is laughing harder
> here--Pim, or me. Or, perhaps Bill, since this might be a joke on his
> part.
> Anyone who has followed my exchanges with Pim on various topics, would not
> be likely to conclude that this is the nature of our relationship. How
> many
> times have we actually agreed here, Pim? Maybe half a dozen in several
> years? Bill probably doesn't follow our conversations very closely, and I
> don't know whether he picked this up from someone else; perhaps Pim posted
> my comments on PT, as he sometimes does without my knowledge.
>
> As for my "consistently miss[ing] the mark concerning ID," I am hardly in
> any position to suggest that I know more about ID than Bill does--that
> would
> be a joke even better than his. I hear from friends, however, that some
> ID
> advocates thought that some of my comments on the Dover trial were not
> entirely off the mark. Other friends on the other side had similar
> sentiments, however--so I guess I was completely wrong, after all.
>
> My best, Bill,
>
> Ted
>
>

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Received on Tue Apr 3 09:35:16 2007