Re: [asa] Education, Medicine, and Evolution

The trouble with a great deal of discussion in this area - & in particular the statement by Ratzsch below - is that it deals with the question entirely as a question of philosophy of science. As is often the case, I have to ask why there is no attention to theology. Serious Christian reflection on this issue should not be limited to discussions of "the supernatural" in the abstract but to the action of the God revealed in Jesus Christ. & as I have argued at length, the theology of the cross points us to the hiddenness of God's activity in the world. See, e.g., http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2001/PSCF3-01Murphy.html .

Too many Christians dealing with these matters are content with generic theism rather than robust trinitarian theology. The good is enemy of the best.

I don't suggest that one can derive MN from a theology of the cross in a rigorous way. But when that theology suggests that what goes on in the world can be understood in terms of natural processes, & when science operating on those terms has had a remarkable amount of success, then the burden of proof, at least for Christians, is on those who challenge MN.
 
Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: David Opderbeck
  To: Stephen Matheson
  Cc: asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Monday, June 02, 2008 4:22 PM
  Subject: Re: [asa] Education, Medicine, and Evolution

  Good points Steve -- but then again, some of the most elegant and erudite proponents of not excluding the "supernatural' from "science" -- or maybe better stated, "critics of methodological naturalism" -- are Calvin guys: Del Ratzsch and Alvin Plantinga (well, a former Calvin guy), not to mention Jamie Smith's questions about the agency of the Holy Spirit in creation (http://www.calvin.edu/scs/scienceandspirit/).

  I'm not sure it's fair to put Ratzsch, Plantinga, and/or Smith into the "warfare" camp (agree?), but they are raising the same questions Don raised.

  For example, here's a 2003 excerpt from an interview with Ratzsch (available at http://www.iscid.org/del-ratzsch-chat.php):

  Michael
  As a philosopher of science, do you think that ID is well developed enough (now or in the future) to challenge the reigning methodological naturalist paradigm?

  Del Ratzsch
  Good [question]- because it's a tough one. I think that methodological naturalism as anything more than simply a strategy is hard to defend. ID has raised some legitimate questions about it, but they have not yet been perceived - even by many of those not hostile to ID - as powerful enough to dislodge MN. In the future that may happen - but as someone once said, prediction is difficult, especially when it involves the future.

  On Mon, Jun 2, 2008 at 3:52 PM, Stephen Matheson <smatheso@calvin.edu> wrote:

    Ted--

    Thanks for a typically excellent commentary. One aspect of it, though, is making me uneasy. Your post deals with the warfare model and its unthinking acceptance by various players. I'm with you, and I think just about everyone here is with you. Denouncing the warfare model is practically a reflex at Calvin College. Don Calbreath, I'm sure, agrees with us on this.

    But look again at Don's posts. It seems to me that he's not attacking the warfare model. Instead, he's decrying the exclusion (in various ways) of *the supernatural* from science. Those statements from AAAS and the National Academy, which he quotes here and elsewhere, are manifestly *not* elaborations of a warfare model.

    I don't have any idea how Don wants the supernatural to be included or acknowledged by science, and I think that's an interesting topic for Christians and for the ASA. But I think it is very important to separate the legitimate questions regarding the purview of science with respect to the supernatural -- questions on which Christians can be expected to disagree -- from illegitimate claims of warfare or incompatibility between science and faith. Without that important distinction, your excellent comments could be misunderstood (or misappropriated) as a defense of a specific position on the question of whether and how science can detect or study the supernatural, and thereby (ironically) be employed in the very warfare we all seek to discredit. As it stands now, I worry that bystanders who have read your response to Don might wonder if I am embracing the warfare nonsense when I declare my strong agreement with the positions of the AAAS and the National Academy.

    Just my opinion, of course, and I hope I was clear.

    Steve Matheson

>>> "Ted Davis" <TDavis@messiah.edu> 06/02/08 1:45 PM >>>

>>> 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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  --
  David W. Opderbeck
  Associate Professor of Law
  Seton Hall University Law School
  Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology

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Received on Mon Jun 2 16:57:27 2008