Re: [asa] Polkinghorne quote on time required for the evolutionary process

Merv wrote:

Even to someone who has no theological hangups with evolution, -- even a level headed atheist, this should be grounds for criticism, shouldn't it??? There are times, I believe, when a teacher over simplifies something so a student can understand (speaking of accommodation!), but this seems more an indoctrination into something not yet understood by the would-be educators, but merely assumed.?? And that assumption isn't even scientific, but a religious proposition.? I applaud Polkinghorne if he challenges these habits.?? YECs should not be seen as giving the only alternative answer to such sloppy pretense of certainty.? A museum should not be afraid to use the words "we don't yet know this", and yet apparently they are afraid.

I don't recal Polkinghorne saying this either.

However, I can see your point here. When we use science as?our "god",?we must?offer an answer for everything. When we use science?as a "tool",?we use?it properly for?the purpose a tool?is made for. Of course, one can improvise with a tool, and one can discover new uses for a tool?he/she didn't realize could apply.? But tools should be used with discression.

This is not the first time we have had this discussion.? It has come up time and again since I have been on this list.? The issue is, as you point out, that even the atheist (if their honest about their faith) should resist using science as a tool?to justify?their faith. It is for exactly the reasons you point out above, that this sloppy kind of just-so presentation is used because the writers were embarrassed to admit that they don't have an answer.??And it impoverishes our thinking because even the atheist should realize that there may be more than he/she knows or even can know in principle.? To?present such speculation as?authoritative?fact actually stifle scientific progress, because we?some people will?just stop asking questions.? Good science always?inspires more questions than it answers in my experience.? And science progresses because we learn how to ask the right questions.

The central conclusion I have observed is that we should resist assertions of randomness as "undirected and purposeless".? That is a statement of faith, not a statement of fact.? All we know is that the process appears to be random with the "tools" we have. That may be all we ever know, but it proves nothing. Moreover, we should (indeed must) resist scientism.? We should resist the claim that matter is all that is and that science can explain everything. Maybe it can, but that is certainly not a?known fact. It is not the "randomness" that is wrong, it is the use of this randomness to prop up one's faith that we should resist.??Such dogma does stifle asking questions.? When this is done as though it were the big stamp of "science proves", it is a distortion of science.

by Grace we proceed,
Wayne (ASA member)

-----Original Message-----
From: Merv <mrb22667@kansas.net>
To: asa@calvin.edu
Sent: Sun, 11 Nov 2007 11:06 am
Subject: Re: [asa] Polkinghorne quote on time required for the evolutionary process

Sorry -- this isn't an answer to your question, but just a thought provoked.

As John Walley wrote, it's a needed critical response to a sloppy habit where science interfaces with the public / educational arena.?? I remember going through the Denver natural history museum which (typically I'm sure) had great graphical presentations of atoms and molecules randomly coming together and forming a more complicated molecule and onward -- to the first cell.?? I don't remember there being any technical substance to the presentation of this particular exhibit (forget about amino acids, proteins, etc.); it was obviously geared for an elementary audience.? The main thrust of the content seemed to be the implication of "randomness" in its typical? metaphysically inflated role.?? And there was no hint of speculation anywhere in it.? A young child may just as well have thought he was seeing some actual video footage of this kind of thing happening.??

Even to someone who has no theological hangups with evolution, -- even a level headed atheist, this should be grounds for criticism, shouldn't it??? There are times, I believe, when a teacher over simplifies something so a student can understand (speaking of accommodation!), but this seems more an indoctrination into something not yet understood by the would-be educators, but merely assumed.?? And that assumption isn't even scientific, but a religious proposition.? I applaud Polkinghorne if he challenges these habits.?? YECs should not be seen as giving the only alternative answer to such sloppy pretense of certainty.? A museum should not be afraid to use the words "we don't yet know this", and yet apparently they are afraid.

--Merv

Steve Martin wrote:

?

I remember seeing a quote by Polkinghorne to the effect that it mystified him how evolutionary biologists were so confident in their account of the development of life on earth. ?? How could they be so sure that 3.5 billion years was enough for the evolutionary process to explain the development of single celled organisms all the way up to the current state of terrestrial diversity? ?? As a physicist and a bottom up thinker, he felt that more detailed calculations should be provided before conclusions were so confidently proposed. ?? (I'm pretty sure he closed the paragraph saying he trusted the evolutionary biologists anyways).?

?

My question: Does anyone know where this quote is from?? I'm skimmed through a couple of Polkinghorne books now and can't seem to find it. ?
?

-- 
Steve Martin (CSCA)
http://evanevodialogue.blogspot.com 
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