Sunday, October 24, 2010

Stand Up for Science Asks: Are God and Keplerism Compatible?

The Panda’s Thumb points us to a hilarious story from the blog “Stand Up for Real Science.” It is a parody of the recent Discovery Institute article on “Can you be a Darwinist and a theist?” by Jay Richards, on which I posted here. Titled: “Are God and Keplerism Compatible? Some Catholic, Jewish and Protestant Authors Say No”, it reads in part:
“Too few people have carefully teased out the various scientific, philosophical, and theological claims at stake in believing that the earth revolves around the sun,” says Ray Hitchens, director of research for Stationary Institute’s Center for the Renewal of Culture & Science, and editor of God and Revolution. “As a result, the whole subject of God and revolution has been an enigma wrapped in a shroud of fuzz and surrounded by a blanket of fog. To help clear the air, we are no longer denying that our motivations for rejecting it are completely religious.”
God and Revolution includes chapters by Willard Rembski, author of The Decline of Revolution; Steve Meyerson, author of Signature in the Solar System: Epicycles and the Evidence for Intelligent Design; Denise O’Lambert, co-author of The Spiraling Drain; Davis Hoffenkling, editor of Signature of Controversy: Responses to Critics of Signature in the Solar System; John Wellington, author of Icons of Revolution; and Jonathan East, author of Kepler Day in America;
The book is a response to growing efforts by some Keplerists to enlist the support of the faith community by downplaying Keplerism’s core principles. Chapters of the book detail the failures of theistic revolution, address the problem of retrograde motion, and explain how intelligent design is consonant with orthodox belief in the fixity of the earth.
This is sort of along the lines of NCSE’s “Project Steve,” that wonderful spoof of the DI’s Dissent from Darwin. Parody of the highest order.

3 comments:

  1. I'm glad so many people enjoyed my little attempt at humor. I sure had fun writing it!

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  2. Anonymous5:44 PM

    Jim, Jeremy,

    I've tried to get a few YECs I know to understand how it must have seemed to Bible-believing Christians several centuries ago. It must have seemed obvious that geocentrism was true, since both science and the Bible seemed to support it. But they of course realize that admitting this puts YEC on the reconsideration chopping block to be reconsidered too, and therefore they try to argue that it should have been obvious even back then that the Bible was only speaking figuratively. In other words, what the Bible "seems" to say about geocentrism seems to not be an effective argument against YECs. Oh well.

    Darryl

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  3. One of the points that Conrad Hyers makes is that if we are to believe that the Bible is harmonious with modern science then, by extension, it was out of sync with the science of the 19th century, the 18th century and so on.

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