Re: [asa] American Scientific Affiliation * Whatever happened to its mission?

The point you make about the relevance of discernment about a writer's
integrity is a HUGE part of this issue for the public -- the importance
of which is easy for impatient professionals to forget among
themselves. Even here where many of us have some professional tie to
science and presumably can go further in discussion and understanding
than average Joe public, we still lean considerably on other specialists
to help us "evaluate" which authors are more on mark than others. Or at
least I do. How much more my students who are even more easily
intimidated than I? So if my science student's uncle impresses upon
him how great Kent Hovind's videos are, then to him, Kent Hovind can say
no wrong. And they are prepped to write off anything sounding
contrary. Professional scientists who laugh at such things don't seem
to understand that the vast majority of the public does not have their
capability to evaluate resources at the same primary level. And their
professional ignorance of this common human condition is less excusable,
I think, than the said trait itself -- while the scientist scoffs, it
remains yet a deadly serious issue to the lay man voting in the next
school board election. And all the voter perceives is that the scoffing
scientist must be anything but trustworthy on issues dear to the voter's
heart.

On the other side of this, if I had been exposed to writings like
Dawkins' when I was a less equipped (but somewhat interested) teenager,
I probably would have been blown away. So there is something to be said
for sheltering and choosing exposure wisely for the more vulnerable.
But yet this is just a different level of the Uncle's "equipping" a
young student with a saturation of Hovind. I may think Hovind is a
menace to the quest for truth, but I can nevertheless sympathize with
the Uncle's motivations. A couple youth at my church (so I've heard)
have taken hard line positions against Christianity or theism in general
probably because of their chosen immersion in Dawkinsonian style world
views. I don't know that they have actually read authors like Dawkins,
but their reaction seems to be more against right-wing politics &
creationism (which to them means YECism). This is an echo (no surprise)
of their parents' thinking as well, only their parents seem able to
separate Christian theism from all the other politics and scientific
views that would hijack it. So what is the smoking gun on these
youthful prodigals? Is it scientific materialism they got in public
schools? Or is it YECism that conflated itself with Christianity to
their impressionable minds? Or is it a cowardly absence of non-warfare
model theists (i.e. me) from their horizon? Or more hopefully -- they
are kicking against establishment hypocrisy and if/when they come back,
their faith will be their own. That's my prayer.

--Merv

Dave Wallace wrote:
>
> I know ad hominem arguments can be deadly and very un fair. However,
> when reading outside of one's field of expertise one has no choice but
> to trust the writer's integrity both in matters of science or
> mathematics but also to some extent at least in world view. Certainly
> at a professional conference ad hominem arguments have no place in
> general but some people that one has prior confidence in have much
> greater credibility than unknowns.
>
> To quote George:
> I think that Dawkins' statement - or at least the one I recall - was
> that Darwinism "made it possible for a person to be an intellectually
> fulfilled atheist."
>
> If Dawkins were a civil engineer and designed a bridge then I would
> have no problem driving over it. However, given that he writes on
> origins and that he needs a particular view of origins, namely
> Darsinism to flush out his world view, I at least take his writings
> with a large grain of salt. Yes I do understand that his early
> writings are good but I wanted to read something like Ken Miller's and
> Keith Miller's books before tackling Dawkins. I think this is part of
> the reason why some people want textbooks in some subjects written by
> Christians.
>
>
> Dave W
>

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Wed Apr 25 22:31:33 2007