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

Well they posted it! Only sane thing on the blog. It just illustrates how Dembksi and others simply do not want to engage with others.

I frequently disagree with what David, Ted and Pim say, but so what! However we can have a constructive discussion which is clearly absent from Uncommon Descent. I note some silly nonsense on UD on global warming too.

When I got to know Dembski's work 10 years ago I was first hostile and then warmed. At the ID conference at Wisconsin in June 2000 I was beginning to lean towards ID and despite initial misgivings felt there was a lot I could agree with.

Several things turned me off

1. I find IDers cant cope with questioning and seem to want people to be entirely with them. I find that too coercive and insist on some latitude so I can work things out for myself. But " if they are not for me 100% then they are against me"

2. The political activism of ID over Ohio, Kansas and Dover and now truthinscience in the UK

3. The high level of distortion in the writings of Johnson and Wells in particular

Ted has said some of the same.

Michael

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: David Opderbeck
  To: Ted Davis
  Cc: pvm.pandas@gmail.com ; Jim Hofmann ; Rich Blinne ; asa@lists.calvin.edu
  Sent: Tuesday, April 03, 2007 2:34 PM
  Subject: 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 11:32:41 2007