Re: [asa] ID question? - TE does or doesn't 'limit evolution'?

I will simply second what Ted and George said . I haven't posted because I
get fed up with the repeat comments when it is clear that no one is listened
to and the activities of "TEs" over the last 150 years are simply not
acknowledged.

Or just within my own family nearly 80 years

It gets tedious and frustrating like a snadstorm in a desert

Michael
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ted Davis" <TDavis@messiah.edu>
To: "asa" <asa@calvin.edu>; "Gregory Arago" <gregoryarago@yahoo.ca>
Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2009 5:43 PM
Subject: Re: [asa] ID question? - TE does or doesn't 'limit evolution'?

The only short response that occurs to me, Gregory, is to say that the term
"Theistic evolution" means quite different things to different people. In
many ways it's not a satisfactory term. Denis Lamoureux, e.g., refuses to
describe his own position as TE. Instead, he calls it "evolutionary
creation." I still use the term often, perhaps b/c I'm an historian, and
historically a lot of people have used the term to mean the belief that God
created humans and other organisms through evolution (i.e., through descent
with modification).

As you may know, Gregory, the term "creationist" or even "creation" has been
co-opted quite forcefully by the YECs, such that the rest of us who believe
the universe is a divine creation have to take time to explain what we mean
by "creation," in order not to be misunderstood when we talk about it. No
one likes to be misunderstood, and we're no exceptions.

To echo George, however: the kind of thinking you are calling on ASA members
to do, if I correctly understand what you are calling for, is what we've
been doing for a long time--probably longer than you've been alive. This is
one of those cases, Gregory, in which a visitor to the ASA list has almost
no idea who the ASA is, in reality; no idea of what sorts of ideas our
members have affirmed, debated, and discussed. It is people like us, not
Michael Ruse (who used the term in a recent book), who have routinely used
the term "evolutionism" to separate legitimate biological theory from
unwarranted extrapolations of it into other realms. If you don't realize
this, Gregory, it's only b/c you haven't been reading our journal for
decades as many here have been doing.

It's high time, Gregory, for you to join the ASA and learn a lot more about
who we are. Then, you won't be dropping in here calling for us to do what
we have already been doing for decades. A lot of us have been puzzled by
some of your "requests," if I can put it that way.

Ted

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Received on Thu Oct 29 15:33:25 2009