Re: [asa] teaching about origins--possible workshop at annual meeting

Might I recommend one additional concept to add to your mix, Ted? It is the concept of 'process.' Contrasting 'origins' with 'processes' would likely add significantly to the success of your workshop. It would alert your audience to the different ways 'evolution' is used; when it is a scientific concept and when it is ideological. Darwin's famous book titled 'On the Origin' is in some ways a misnomer; it is about processes of change (or read: 'survival not arrival').
   
  Adding 'process' thought would also allow you to get 'outside the box' of purely American discourse, by inviting the likes of A.N. Whitehead and P. Teilhard de Chardin in (instead of carefully keeping them at the door).
   
  I agree pretty much with your assessment of IDists and their non-theology (i.e. their science), TE's and their science-theology discourse. IDists have provoked more discussion about the relationship between science and religion than TE's, while it is quite obvious that TEs actually stand more on the bridge (sometimes overlapping the concepts, e.g. when evolution is divinely guided, and sometimes confusing them, when their theology is swalled by evolutionism) between science and theology. TEs are clearly more willing to discuss theological topics, though apparently they are less willing than IDists to discuss any weaknesses in evolutionary theory across the board (e.g. in anthropology, forensic science, archaelogy, etc.). TE's seem to have little to say about agency, for example, since that is not something that biological evolution prioritizes.
   
  The concept of evolutionary creationist (EC) might be helpful too. Several people on the ASA acknowledged they lean more toward EC than to TE, for good reasons, imo.

  The title 'origins scientist' just sounds strange to me, though I wonder what others think about it.
   
  Gregory
   
  
Ted Davis <TDavis@messiah.edu> wrote:
  Bernie, et al.

I am hoping to offer a half-day seminar on this very topic -- teaching
about origins for lay audiences (churches, undergraduate courses, Christian
schools, even adult learning in community settings) -- at next summer's
annual meeting of the ASA. The details aren't set yet, but if it works out
I will be providing a detailed look at how I do this, together with
materials for getting it done. I hope that some on this list will consider
coming, assuming that the arrangements fall into place.

Yet one more reason to attend the meeting!?

I don't use the DE category, but if I did I'd be tempted to put into that
category some ID advocates (ironically). I say this, b/c they just won't
talk about theology, let alone Christ, in their "official" stuff. The TEs
certainly will do that. Much that is ironic here--the TEs are often
criticized for being deists (and I understand why some of them might fit
that category), but many of the Christian TEs are far more willing to talk
about the Incarnation, the Resurrection, and the Bible than many of the IDs
are. When people focus on the science issues, leaving the theology out of
the picture, then the TEs might look more like deists, since they don't
emphasize miraculous acts in earth history--and some of the TEs (not those
whom I recommend) hold very liberal views of the Bible, such that they don't
believe in biblical miracles or the incarnation. At the same time, when IDs
leave the Bible out of the picture, they too can seem no different from
deists, since they seem uninterested in bringing the Triune God into the
mix; they want to leave things at a very generic theism. While I know that
most IDs are not deists, someone like Anthony Flew or Michael Denton or
David Berlinski seems to fit this pattern well. Are they whom you have in
mind as DEs?

I use the following overall categories in my discussion:

Scientific Creationism (YEC)
Concordism (OEC)
Framwork Hypothesis (can align with OEC, ID, or TE; in theory, can align
also with a recent creation, but the YECs detest the framework hypothesis
b/c it does not claim that the days must be chronological)
TE
ID

I don't get into scientific atheism in this unit, although I do in an even
broader unit that I offer in some courses. There's enough to do with this
part, which emphasizes issues of biblical interpretation and attitudes
toward modern science.

Ted

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Received on Tue Dec 18 05:27:40 2007