Re: [asa] Who are the famous TE's?

Bernie,

Your question is hard to answer succinctly, IMO, b/c you put a series of
adjectives that widen the field, rather than narrow it. To wit, you have
"most famous", "modern," "outspoken", and then the noun "celebrities" --
who, by the way, advocate any form of Theistic Evolution.

Most famous *to whom,* that is, for which particular audience? The larger
international science/religion "dialogue"? American evangelicals (who might
view most or all TEs with suspicion)? Secular scientists? Christian
scientists? Pastors? I hope my point is being clarified, rather than
clouded, by this set of questions. Anyway, I think one could also get
different answers for "outspoken" and "celebrities."

As for me, let me suggest this. Francis Collins, a top scientist, is
perhaps the "most famous" TE for Americans presently. Certainly his being
on the cover of "Time" makes him a "celebrity," and his book is very popular
for good reasons. However, IMO, his importance lies in his visibility and
courageous witness, not in any subtlety or depth of analysis in his book.
Howard Van Till (and I second what James Mahaffy has said) is well known,
but not nearly as well known as Collins, though he thinks a lot more about
this than Collins does. John Polkinghorne sells the most books, to the best
of my knowledge, though many of them aren't really about evolution at
all--unless the reader is a YEC, in which case a lot of what he write is
about "evolution," since he's a physicist and he often writes about the big
bang. Ken Miller is very well known--we filled our chapel when he came to
campus a few years ago, and a lot of people were from off campus--but
internationally Polkinghorne is the best known of all of these folks. He's
perhaps the best scientist in this group, also, though it's hard to compare
a physicist to a biologist. Being an FRS, obviously, he has plenty of
credibility. Polkinghorne probably has more credibility among secular
scientists than any other Christian scientist I can think of, and not just
b/c of his science. He is a genuinely humble person who can disarm people
who come looking for a fight, b/c he doesn't think atheists are stupid and
he has a deep understanding of both the process of science and the nature of
religious belief. But most evangelicals I talk to dismiss him (very
inaccurately and unfairly, usually without reading anything he's written) as
a process theologian (when he's very clearly and quite strongly dissented
from process theism on some key points) or a deist (which is absurd, given
his unconditional support for the Incarnation and the Trinity). And, among
scientists, Conway Morris probably knows as much about the actual history of
life as anyone alive, but he doesn't really write much about Christianity.
He's definitely a Christian, and he write a lot about evolution as a kind of
"front loaded" or "guided" process, which is a classic sort of TE position,
so you can put him on that list too.

But, my "short list" of 3 for your panel would probably look like this. My
goal here is to get a range of TE positions within (at least what I would
consider) orthodox Christianity. I'd put Polkinghorne, George Murphy, and
(to make sure there's a biologist) either Ken Miller or Conway Morris on the
panel.

Ted

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Received on Sat Dec 15 22:18:02 2007