RE: [asa] Education, Medicine, and Evolution

>>> Donald F Calbreath <dcalbreath@whitworth.edu> 6/2/2008 1:20 PM >>>
asks:

I agree with you. I have been a scientist and a Christian for over forty
years and see no problem in integrating the two on a practical basis as
long as I keep my theology as the priority. My point is that "official"
definitions of science, as offered by AAAS and NAS, are not being challenged
openly by Christians who are scientists. We Christians try to dance around
the problem and end up with some form of "supernatural explanations have no
place in science". But what are we saying when we say this? What are the
implications of these kinds of statements? The comments of individuals are
one thing. But I don't see anyone saying that there should be wide-spread
disagreement among Christians with these statements made by organizations
that claim to speak for science. Debating individuals is valuable, but
where do we take on the Establishment (good grief! I sound like a hippy of
the 60s. I did go to college in the 60s, but my only "mind-altering
substance" was black coffee and I had a crew-cut).

***

Well, Don, it very much depends on what you mean by "take on the
Establishment." I can speak only for myself, and I'm not a scientist--I'm
an historian of science with a science background.

My entire scholarly life, in and since grad school, has been devoted to
debunking the cultural myth that science and Christianity are engaged in an
ongoing, inevitable "warfare" that science is clearly winning. As I say,
that's a myth. Lots of scientists buy into it, some even actively promote
it, but it's historically bankrupt: that is, the history of science does not
support that conclusion. I don't have to convince most of my fellow
historians that this is so much rubbish--they already understand this. It's
the scientists and science journalists who need to be convinced, but frankly
many of them don't really understand historical scholarship very well, and
some of them who seem to understand it don't want to accept what we're
telling them. In terms of cultural authority, who is the "person in the
street" more likely to believe--someone like me, an historian who teaches at
an evangelical college, or someone like the late Carl Sagan, whose ignorance
of my field was profound but who taught at Cornell? You can do the math.
But even historians at prestigious schools are often given the automatic
credibility that a Sagan or a Gould or a Dawkins is given, simply b/c
science itself has such a large footprint in our culture.

As I say, Don, I'm happy to take on the Establishment every day. My
writing does it in a variety of ways and in a variety of places, and my
teaching does it here and sometimes elsewhere. My work not only debunks the
warfare view as a whole and in part, but it also advances a more accurate
and more helpful picture of the history of science & Christianity; that is,
it has a dual function. I'd be glad to send you a few samples upon request.
 By and large, however, with a few exceptions it hasn't been written for a
general audience and perhaps for that reason most of it isn't very well
known.

Many other ASA members have also done it, for many years. To name just a
few, there are Dick Bube, Francis Collins, Karl Giberson, Keith Miller,
Guillermo Gonzalez, George Murphy, Don Petcher, Davis Young. Many other
Christians have also confronted warfare thinking and/or provided helpful
alternatives, including John Polkinghorne, Denis Alexander, Bob Russell,
John Houghton, and the late Thomas Torrance. Not to mention Alister
McGrath, who has probably responded the most directly to scientific atheism.

There are so many people in this category, indeed, that I often wonder why
so many people seem to think they don't exist. I think they are often
overlooked, at least most of these folks, b/c they mostly don't reject
evolution; rather they reject the extrapolation of evolution or any other
part of science into a naturalistic worldview. The rise of ID and the
popularity of "creationism" have, IMO, created a climate in which Christians
expect Christians in the sciences to respond to scientific atheism by
directly attacking the science, not the atheism. In that climate, those who
accept the science while rejecting the atheism are not being seen as "taking
on the Establishment." Heck, even Ken Miller took on the establishment in
his book, "Finding Darwin's God," in the chapter about those who promoted
unbelief using science as a weapon. But I rarely find him being credited
for that; rather, I find him being attacked for rejecting ID and
creationism. As I like to say, in the politics of science, the politics
drives the science. What Ken did in that book is admirable, IMO; instead,
he gets to wear horns as an enemy of the faith, in many circles. Nuts,
IMO.

Ted

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Received on Mon Jun 2 13:45:56 2008