Re: [asa] Teaching ID and teaching that Gobal Warming is not real

My impression is that the political link and the anti-authority
attitude to science are the main links. However, I wonder if there
are some theological links as well.

It's possible that a belief that God frequently intervenes
miraculously in the course of evolution could go with a belief that
God is likely to intervene and prevent human-caused environmental
changes from having much effect. I have encountered the two ideas
separately, however, and do not recall seeing a specific claim that
global warming is not a concern because God will fix it, though I've
seen the basic claim made for other environmental issues. Similarly,
the idea that we need not worry about the environment because the
second coming is definitely just around the corner seems to have the
greatest appeal in a dispensationalist context, and the idea of God
working in disparate ways in creation is a somewhat dispensationalist
view of providence.

I do recall a YEC paper, I think by Vardiman, that included a comment
to the effect that we didn't need to worry much about climate change
under the particular YEC scenario because it rejected most of the data
on past climate variation (because the fluctuations are compressed
into a span of no more than a few years). This conclusion does not
follow-under the YEC scenario we have less information about past
climate variation, but that only makes predictions less certain; it
does not necessarily produce greater optimism.

-- 
Dr. David Campbell
425 Scientific Collections
University of Alabama
"I think of my happy condition, surrounded by acres of clams"
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