Re: [asa] Symposium on ID at Villanova

Ted,

A few comments to piggyback on yours:

1) It's also rather alarming that this is occuring at a conference center associated with a respected Catholic university. It's probably significant that no one from Villanova U. is participating (as near as I can tell from the announcement info).? But I suppose money talks, and YEC and ID have never lacked for that.

2) ID keeps protesting that it's not rehashed YEC, but Behe's association with these folks sure makes it easy for others to dismiss his claims.

3) At least the biology department at V.U. is offering an intellectual alternative by presenting Ken Miller with their Mendel Medal for 2009.? See http://campusevents.villanova.edu/vuevents/EventList.aspx?view=EventDetails&eventidn=3459&information_id=11422

Karl

****************

Karl V. Evans (ASA member)

cmekve@aol.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Ted Davis <TDavis@messiah.edu>
To: asa@lists.calvin.edu; Ted Davis <TDavis@messiah.edu>
Sent: Fri, Oct 9, 2009 8:05 am
Subject: Re: [asa] Symposium on ID at Villanova

The symposium I just alerted people to is alarming to me in its design. If I
could attend I would, and perhaps some other ASA members will be able to attend.
I have a family commitment that weekend that prevents me from going.

What alarms me is the strong YEC bent that it appears to have, albeit with a
Roman Catholic flavor. Mike Behe can never be called a YEC, and I know that I
don't have to elaborate on that here. At least two of the other speakers,
however, are almost certainly YEC in their views -- namely, John Sanford and
Hugh Miller (it's ironic that the famous Hugh Miller from the 19th century
entirely rejected the YEC view). Futhermore, the Kolbe Center for the Study of
Creation also appears to be a Catholic YEC organization. I don't know anything
about them, but this is my inference from their web site. (Their claim that the
patristics were nearly unanimous on the 24-hour day view is one that many
Catholic scholars would dispute, especially if put forth without qualification.
There have *always* been questions about the meaning of the "days," esp the
first three "days" which precede the creation of the sun. And, quite a few
fathers took the view that creation happened instantly, wi!
 
 th the "days" being metaphorical devices; Augustine had predecessors in that
view.)

I don't know anything about the other Catholic organizations, but I can guess
what they might do with the view that "science" doesn't support "evolution," esp
human evolution, and that it doesn't even support mainstream dating methods in
natural history.

Ted

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Received on Fri Oct 9 12:23:20 2009