Ted Davis Waxes Theological, Todd Wood Responds

Ted Davis, like the rest of us, is tired of how the origins debate is playing out between mainstream and non-mainstream science.  He has great praise for those that display clear-headed thinking on both sides in the debate such as Michael Ruse and Todd Wood.  He writes:

I also tip my hat to YEC proponents Todd Wood and Paul Nelson. Each was featured in the YEC film, Is Genesis History?, but neither dismisses proponents of EC with the back of his hand. They both have the courage and conviction to seek the truth, even if takes them places where their creationist friends don’t want them to go. For example, on the same day the film was released, Dr. Nelson dissented from how his ideas were presented in the film. Dr. Wood didn’t do that, but he does candidly admit elsewhere that “Evolution is not a theory in crisis,” that “it is not teetering on the verge of collapse,” nor has it “failed as a scientific explanation.” He finds “gobs and gobs” of evidence for evolution,” denies that it is “just speculation or a faith choice or an assumption or a religion,” affirms that it “has amazing explanatory power,” and frankly says, “There is no conspiracy to hide the truth about the failure of evolution. There has really been no failure of evolution as a scientific theory. It works, and it works well.”

I am quite sure that this last quote will haunt Todd Wood to the grave because most evolutionary creationists (including myself) keep it in their back pocket. Wood has taken on some heavy hitters who have misused science and has done so in an honest and thoughtful way and he has truly striven to understand biodiversity as it pertains to his way of thinking. Furthermore, unlike many in the young earth creationist camp, his posts are free of invective and insult.  For these things and others, he should be commended.

Davis continues:

There’s always the danger than one can overplay one’s hand, or forget that those who see things differently are also made in the image of God. Sometimes, one’s opponents in a public disagreement really are mean-spirited, arrogant, or intellectually dishonest, tempting one to respond in kind. In such situations, do your best to take the high road. Stick with the facts, spell out why you hold different opinions, and be fair to ideas defended by others, even when you strongly disagree: no one has a monopoly on truth. Intellectual honesty and humility do not imply cowardice or lack of commitment to the Gospel. 

This is something I am often guilty of. I find it all too easy to take a blowtorch to the writings of Answers in Genesis in a nasty way, typically because I am writing in anger.  This often happens when I discover a post or article in which it is clear that the person writing the article has little knowledge of the subject about which they write and their tone is insulting or condescending.  It is all too easy to open up both barrels. He finishes with an admonition to avoid indoctrination:

Individual Christians have every right to think for themselves, without being browbeaten into submission by fear, accused of holding dangerous views simply for favoring a different interpretation of Genesis, or publicly shamed as intellectual cowards for accepting consensus science.

There is a great danger in taking the attitude that if two people have a disagreement about something, that one of them is not in the spirit. This behavior results in arrogance, haughtiness, broken relationships and lots of finger-pointing. We are all guilty of sin, especially the sin of self-righteousness.

Todd Wood responds by adding another way that he would like to see the debate change: less of “diagnosing the enemy”: 

There's two big problems I see with Diagnosing the Enemy. First of all, it's just a profoundly arrogant thing to do. How can anyone seriously think that reading a Facebook comment or blog article would actually reveal all the intricacies and complexities of human thought? Some days, I can barely put two words together, and you think that's going to actually reveal the inner workings of my mind and years of study and research and prayer and thought?

Also arrogant is the ulterior motive of Diagnosing the Enemy: I have the cure. Because, let's face it, diagnosing a problem isn't really the point, right? The point is: if only my enemy would watch my video or read my book or do what I tell them, then everything would be fine. Because not only can I diagnose your problem by engaging in a superficial reading of superficial comments, I'm the guy who's gonna cure you! When you think about it like that, it's obviously and embarrassingly silly, but it still doesn't stop us from reading certain triggers and sticking people in that pigeonhole.

Which brings me to the second big problem: It's dehumanizing. Instead of complex people with complex thoughts and attitudes and personalities, we reduce our enemies to one simplistic issue. There aren't just ideas out there that float around having battles by themselves. Ideas are held by real people with real personalities, and histories, and values, and fears. And all of that immensely complicated personality gets entangled with the way we think about the world and our faith. When disagreements pop up, though, these people for whom Christ died suddenly become defined by one perceived "defect."

I am of two minds about this response. It is certainly correct that people are complex and that a single blog post or Bookface post does not remotely capture their complexity.  As noted above, it is all too easy to fire off a response to a post that you know has gotten some basic information wrong.

The problem is that when an entire body of work of an organization continually misrepresents science and the authors of that body of work show absolutely no interest in correcting this misinformation, a response is necessary. When an entire body of work is continually scientifically inaccurate, it begins to inform about the people who are producing it.  In short, at least on one level, it makes it possible to “diagnose the enemy.”

 If you read all of the posts on my blog or my writings on BioLogos, you would get a pretty good idea of what I think about science and theology. It might even be possible to “diagnose” me a bit. To be sure, you would not have insight into what I think about abortion, gun control or how good a father I am to my children, but it would be pretty clear that I am a card-carrying evolutionary creationist.

Davis's post is a clarion call for both sides to take the high road.  That is often hard to do when you are being called “evil, stupid evolutionists” and you know that what they have written is just plain false.
Wood remarks that it is disheartening to see BioLogos identified as the “middle ground.” If we are not the middle ground, what are we? We are people who are firmly convinced in the salvation of Jesus Christ and the integrity and primacy of God's word to us.  We are also people who want to understand the universe that God has created, but to do so in an honest, forthright, and scientifically sound way.

Evolutionary creationists are dismissed by atheists such as Richard Dawkins, Jerry Coyne and Sam Harris for believing in fairy tales and being scientifically compromised by their faith.  This is a false charge.  We operate within the scientific framework with the understanding that everything around us is God's handiwork.  We are dismissed by many young earth creationists as being “compromisers” and not taking the bible seriously.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

One of the things that seems to drive this invective is that atheists are convinced the Bible is false and that we are idiots for believing in it.  Young earth creationists are convinced that their understanding of scripture is absolutely correct, beyond a shadow of a doubt.

It is easy enough to understand where the atheists are coming from, since they see nothing beyond the observable universe.   It is the YEC perspective that I find perplexing. It leads to people like Wood, himself, saying about evolutionary creationists that they “ought to know better,” even though, by his own admission, there is a massive amount of evidence for evolution.  Ken Ham takes it a bit further by questioning whether we are, in fact, Christians at all, and that if we pass on the EC perspective to our children, we are endangering their salvation.

Is it possible that Wood and his fellow YEC supporters are correct in their scriptural assessment?  It absolutely is.  Is it possible that we have evolution wrong?  Is it possible that the earth was created six thousand years ago?  Again, it absolutely is.  But the weight of evidence currently doesn't support those positions.  In fact, there is little to no empirical support for them.  Many good, devoted Christians are out there are wrestling with these facts.  To be told that they “ought to know better” than to accept them or that they aren't Christians if they do is insulting.  Further, as noted above, it betrays a troubling aspect of this perspective: the idea that our understanding of scripture is unbiblical. 

Secondary to this is that, in all of the young earth creationist literature that I have read, there is a remarkable lack of self-examination when it comes to scriptural interpretation.  To those who support the young earth model: we might be wrong about our interpretation of scripture, but you might be, also.  For the origins debate to change, there must be an acceptance of this on both sides of the aisle.  Only then will progress be made and name-calling cease.  

Jesuit Review: Creationism Isn't About Science, it’s about theology (and it’s really bad theology).

Eric Sundrup has an editorial in the Jesuit Review about what is wrong with young earth creationism.  He has some very good observations: He begins:

The Creation Museum is a $27 million example of how Christians can lose their way fighting the culture wars. After spending time there this Christmas, I left convinced that as wrong as the museum’s science is, the most frightening driver of its “logic” is an impoverished theology, which is coupled with a desire to win moral arguments. This toxic combination propels devout people into strange and unnecessary battles with modern science.

This is a point that I and many different researchers have made over the years: young earth creationism misses the broader picture. It reduces the majesty, glory and awe of the Bible and the message that God is telling us in favor of a flat, sterile, superficial understanding of the passages in Genesis. He continues:

Mr. Ham’s motivations for founding the museum and its parent organization clearly grew out of the culture wars. Answers in Genesis argues for the inerrancy of the Bible and specifically for a literal interpretation of Genesis because they think this provides them a strong footing in public discussions. And that, I think, is exactly how this group of Christians got lost. They are trying to win moral and theological debates with what look like scientific arguments.

Strangely, in their attempt to provide definitive empirical answers to moral and theological questions, creationists like Mr. Ham have more in common with some of their most strident scientific opponents than with the broader Christian tradition. They are proponents of the strictest form of biblical inerrancy and literalism. And in this mode they are actually advancing a mirror-image of scientism, in which God’s revelation, both in Scripture and in creation, is meant to convey a list of facts.

I think that this is one of the reasons that young people are leaving the church. Not only do they discover that they have been fed bogus science that doesn't stand up to even the barest scrutiny, when they have issues that require them to reach deeply into their faith, there is nothing there, just cold, impersonal facts. 

Mr. Sundrup's analysis is also not so unlike Joel Edmund Anderson's, in that, in his book The Heresy of Ham, Anderson notes that by focusing on science (or their understanding of science, anyway), Ham and other young earth creationists have, like their atheist counterparts, held up science as the ultimate arbiter of faith.  Modern science HAS to conform to the biblical passages.  If it does not, we are all lost.  This is nonsense for one simple reason: if biblical scripture in Genesis conforms to our understanding of 21st century science, then they are necessarily out of step with 20th century science, 19th century science, 18th century science and so on.  Since young earth creationist arguments don't change (except to move the goalposts), every new scientific discovery has to be shoehorned, manipulated, mangled and adjusted to fit the prevailing narrative. Scientific integrity be damned.  It never occurs to them that the narrative, itself might be wrong.

Creationism Not To Be Taught in Ohio Schools

World Religion News is reporting that the kerfuffle going on regarding the use of the Adnan Oktar (nee Harun Yahya) video on creationism has prompted the CEO of Youngstown, Ohio schools to issue a statement that creationism will not be taught.  Elisa Meyer writes:

The Ohio school curriculum has required that teachers show a creationist video as part of the tenth grade education program. The video, “Cambrian Fossils and The Creation of Species“, depicts the creationist theory of the origin of life.

However, things are going to change across Youngstown schools with the new decision made by Mohip. The CEO said they will follow a curriculum that will be completely in line with the guidelines as laid down by the Education Department of Ohio. Ohio has directed schools and institutions to base their education completely on a scientific approach and to avoid religious and pseudo-scientific beliefs and theories altogether.

World Religion News paints it as an ‘iconic’ victory for atheists, which is fundamentally myopic but indicative of how this disagreement is being framed these days.

More Stones Thrown at the Phrase "Theistic Evolution"

Forbes has a post by John Farrell, the science and technical writer, about the inadequacy and inappropriateness of the term “Theistic Evolution.”  He points out that those who label themselves as such are often pariahs not just to modern young-earth creationists but to atheists as well.  Both sides regard them as “compromisers.” But, beyond that, he notes that there are problems with the appropriateness of the term, as well.  He quotes Stacy Tracanos, who writes: 

“Think about it. If you are a believer, it is already implied that you see all biological and physical processes as created and held in existence by God. You do not need “theistic” in front of biological terms. Who speaks of theistic reproduction? Or theistic gestation, theistic meiosis, or theistic menstruation? Plus, to qualify a biological process as ‘theistic’ implies that the opposite is possible, that God may not be involved in creating certain laws of nature.”

She is correct about this. This is why I tend to favor the term “evolutionary creationist.” It takes the emphasis off the “evolutionist” and puts it on the “creationist.”  This differentiates it from “progressive creationist” or “young earth creationist.” Farrell finishes with this:

The main point is Christian scientists who accept evolution have a much broader understanding of God than—chief engineer. And ‘theistic evolution’, as its summarized for example at Wikipedia, simply misrepresents their position.

Atheists have voiced many arguments for wondering how Christians can maintain belief in a benevolent deity in a world that features so much apparent waste and suffering ‘built in’ to the program, as science has revealed.

But ‘theistic evolution’ isn’t one of their answers, at least not among the serious scientists I know who are theists. And it’s well past its sell-by date.

Probably true.

William Provine Has Died

William Provine, a tireless crusader for evolutionary theory and opponent of creationism, has died.  He was 73.  Provine was a professed atheist, as the NCSE story relates:

Provine was a vocal and persistent opponent of creationism. He wrote thoughtfully on evolution and creationism, e.g. in his essay on "Evolution, Religion, and Science" in The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Science (2006), but he was perhaps most famous for his views on the connection between evolution and atheism. He once asserted, "As the creationists claim, belief in modern evolution makes atheists of people" — a consequence that he welcomed. His views were formed in graduate school, where, he related in his memoir, "[a]fter reading [Theodosius] Dobzhansky several times and listening to [Lynn] Throckmorton, my belief in purposive nature disappeared for good." He was eager to share his views.

Evolution only makes you an atheist if you have a very limited view of God that has to fit into a young earth creationist box.  I wonder if he ever read the writings of B.B. Warfield and Bernard Ramm.  I do not know if he ever debated a theistic evolutionist, but I do know that constantly debating young earth creationists might very well give one a jaded view of organized religion.

I have long thought that atheism derives, largely, from socio-cultural perspectives and that science cannot “make” someone an atheist.  The fact that the BioLogos Institute exists at all ought to be a good indication of that.

Put another way, if two people examine the same data and conclude that they support evolutionary theory in exactly the same way and one person comes away thinking  “Well, this obviously shows there is no God,” and the other person comes away thinking “Wow, look at the awesome power of God's creation,” then the driver is clearly not science.

The story does not relate the cause of death but I do know that Provine lived decades longer than he thought he was going to be able to.  He came to the University of Tennessee in the late 1990s to give a talk on evolutionary theory and intimated at the time that he had a malignant brain tumor that he thought was untreatable.  Apparently, they treated it very effectively. 

Update: Alabama "Strengths and Weaknesses" Bill: The Mask Comes Off

The Anniston Star has a story that makes clearer the motives of Mack Butler, the Alabama Republican representative who has introduced the "Strengths and Weaknesses" bill in the legislature.  Ostensibly, the bill was to require the teachers to promote inquiry and discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of all scientific theories.  Not by half.  Amanda Woolbright writes:

Butler called the bill one that “doesn’t promote anyone’s agenda” and said it would foster open and honest debate in science classrooms all over the state.

“There are some teachers who are uncomfortable teaching evolution as fact, and some are scared to tiptoe around alternate theories,” he said.

Yet, how local educators are currently teaching students wouldn’t drastically change.

“I’m a little puzzled why we have to create a law stating that. They are teaching evolution theory, as well as creation, so it’s currently taking place now,” said Mike Newell, director of operations for the Jacksonville Board of Education.

Many teachers in the state say they are already allowing students to explore various theories, including both creationism and evolution.

Once again, how that is done is critically important, but Butler is sticking his nose into the mix with a smoke and mirrors law because he doesn't like evolution. He could care less about controversies in gravitational theory, geology or any of the other hard sciences. But that is not the underlying reason that the bill is being put forth in the first place. For that we go to the last sentence in the article:

“There is animosity to anything Christian. We are getting so secular and hostile toward Christianity. I’m just trying to bring back a little balance,” Butler said.

Evolution = atheism

The dichotomy couldn't be more stark, or more misleading.

David MacMillan: Understanding Creationism

Over at Panda's Thumb, David MacMillan is writing a short series on the subject that has baffled people like me for years: why, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, do young earth creationists continue to reject evolutionary theory. From Part 1:

We understand the theory of evolution to be a series of conclusions drawn from over a century of research, predictions, and discoveries. This theory allows us to understand the mechanisms in biology and make further predictions about the sort of evidence we will uncover in the future. Its predictive power is vital to success in real-life applications like medicine, genetic engineering, and agriculture.

However, creationists don’t see it the same way. Creationists artificially classify medicine, genetic research, and agriculture as “operational science,” and believe that those disciplines function in a different way than research in evolutionary biology. They understand the theory of evolution, along with mainstream geology and a variety of other disciplines, as a philosophical construct created for the express purpose of explaining life on Earth apart from divine intervention. Thus, they approach the concept of evolution from a defensive position; they believe it represents an attack on all religious faith.

This defensive posture is reflected in nearly all creationist literature, even in the less overt varieties such as intelligent-design creationism. It dictates responses. When creationists see a particular argument or explanation about evolution, their initial reaction is to ask, “How does this attack the truth of God as Creator? What philosophical presuppositions are dictating beliefs here? How can I challenge those underlying assumptions and thus demonstrate the truth?” Recognizing this basis for creationist arguments is a helpful tool for understanding why such otherwise baffling arguments are proposed.

This kind of thought is always on display with Ken Ham, who continually refers to evolution as “their secularist religion” despite literal pleading from scientists who know better. The problem is that Ham is very persuasive and holds vast importance in the evangelical community. It doesn't matter that, as MacMillan notes earlier in his post, there are no young earth creationists that understand evolution even rudimentarily. They simply aren't interested in learning about it.  Why should they? On the other hand, the idea that evolution is presupposed on atheistic terms is ludicrous to your average evolutionary biologist.  Scientific research does not and cannot convey truth. It is just science, no more and no less. As someone recently wrote in the comments on this post:

When I do math and I don’t pray or think about God, it’s not atheistic math, it’s just math. When I drive and am not thinking about God, it’s not secular driving, it’s just driving. And when I go into the lab and I’m thinking about the lab experiment and not theological issues, its not agnostic science, it’s just science. Adding an adjective implies some sort of intentional avoidance of theism or purposeful distance from theism, when the real truth of the matter is that nobody is avoiding anything, they are just focused on their jobs/hobbies/whatever.

Amen. Ham and like-minded creationists are adding an ontological layer onto the practice of evolutionary biology that does not exist.  If you simply study the fossil record and modern genomics, the evidence for evolution is enormous.  Calling it a “secular religion” won’t make that go away.

Ian Philbrick: Why Science and Atheism Are Incompatible

Ian Philbrick has a piece for the Georgetown Voice that tackles the controversy concerning Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey and its host, a professed agnostic with tinges of religious antipathy.  He writes:

Tyson’s perspective is even more relevant to the increasingly antagonistic relationship between science and faith. Perhaps first popularized in American public discourse by the 1925 Scopes so-called “Monkey Trial,” modern “active atheists” (in Tyson’s words) have elevated acrimony to new levels. This activism has been spurred by the emergence of science intellectuals, including Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Dawkins, whose vociferous atheism is inextricably wedded to their public personas.

While campaigns, petitions, and protests are certainly the prerogative of individuals, they become dangerous when applied wholesale to a discipline like science that derives its foundational credo and central legitimacy from objective inquiry. While dogma and impartiality can certainly exist as facets of an individual (as can religious belief and scientific rationality), the two are less easily reconciled on an institutional scale. Reconciling active atheism and science becomes a problem of participation and fundamentally conflicting ideology. Science, which must resist pigeonholing and generalization by its skeptical nature, is inherently incompatible with an activist movement that brands all faith practices invalid.

In their wonderful book, Science Held Hostage, Howard van Till, Davis Young and Clarence Menninga highlight the pitfalls of using science either in support of a belief position or an atheist position, instead arguing that science, practiced properly, cannot confer meaning in any sort of ultimate sense. It is simply a vehicle by which we understand the working of the universe.This is my general discomfort with the ID movement: using science, you can never show that God exists.  The movement's only recourse is to try to show that ID exists as a plausible notion, often at the expense of mainstream science.  This has resulted in an almost complete scientific sterility because there is no theoretical basis from which to work.  What sort of hypothetical question could you construct for which the null is "God doesn't exist."

by the same token, atheists, such as Richard Dawkins are out of their depth when dealing with religious subjects because atheism doesn't flow from the scientific enterprise.  Consequently, his book The God Delusion, was not well-received.  Dawkins, it was said, was a good scientist, but a rotten moralizer.

Science is best practiced as it is. It tells us how things work and, within its own confines, how they work, but it does not tell us what their ultimate purpose is. 

New Post at CFSI

My latest post at the Center for Faith and Science International is up. It is thoughts on Evolution, Randomness and Worldview. Comments are welcome.

Science and Religion: Always in "Mortal Combat?"

Matthew Reicz of the Times Higher Educational Supplement has an interesting article on the conflict between religion and science.He writes:

One person who has looked closely at this issue is Elaine Howard Ecklund, assistant professor of sociology at Rice University in Texas. She surveyed nearly 1,700 natural and social scientists in elite American universities - "Arik" is a pseudonym for one of the academics she interviewed in depth - and she presents the results in her new book, Science vs. Religion: What Scientists Really Think. By asking them about how religion and spirituality have had an impact on their lives, she hopes to offer "a balanced assessment of information gathered scientifically from scientists themselves".

Although they are undoubtedly less religious than the American public as a whole, the scientists Ecklund interviewed are far from a uniform band of militant atheists. Only 34 per cent say they concur with the statement "I do not believe in God" (and 30 per cent confess to agnosticism), 71 per cent believe "there are basic truths in many religions" and 18 per cent attend religious services at least once a month. Close to half could be said "to have a religious tradition" in some sense, and the age data in Ecklund's survey suggest that levels of faith among US scientists are rising.

This is similar to the numbers that Neil De Grasse Tyson was quoted as using and is encouraging, if nothing else because scientists are normally thought to be outside the norm of mainstream religion in the US. This has especially become a problem as of late with the GOP's more moderate members embracing the party line of the Discovery Institute while the evangelical base of the party leans toward the young earth creation perspective.

Reicz quotes Karl Giberson of the BioLogos Institute, who has a special dislike for young earth creation groups. Of people in the United States, he writes:

Many, notes Giberson, are left with "the impression that there is a religious objection to every scientific advance. Yet the most aggressive critics of the Creation Museum are more moderate Christians, not militant atheists. They believe young-Earth creationists have to be rejected, for turning Christians into anti-intellectual hillbillies."

Atheists, such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, typically ignore the YEC groups and go after the mainstream population, pointing out how ridiculous these groups are. Increasingly, as the GOP continues to go down this path, these atheists will point out how ridiculous it is to be a Republican. As long as those of us who are EC are considered by many evangelicals (including people like Ken Ham) to be apostate, the battle will be an uphill one.

The article is long but very illuminating. As Glenn Reyolds would say: "Read the whole thing."

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Karl Giberson: Atheists, it's Time to Play Well With Others.

Karl Giberson has written an article for USA Today on the necessity of civil discourse concerning the evolution debate. He writes:

Few idiosyncrasies are more perplexing than the ways people connect science and religion. Widespread rejection of evolution, to take a familiar example, has created a crisis in education, and it now appears that biology texts might be altered to satisfy anti-evolutionary activists in Texas. Many on the textbook commission believe their religion is incompatible with scientific explanations of origins — evolution and the Big Bang — so they want textbooks with more accommodating theories and different facts.

Understandably, many thoughtful and well-educated people, believers and non-believers alike, find this unacceptable. Most of these critics emphasize that informed religious belief — even conservative evangelicalism with its insistence on an inerrant Bible — can accommodate modern science, including evolution. Leading Old Testament scholar Bruce Waltke made this argument recently and was driven by theological gatekeepers to resign from his seminary. But Waltke was immediately snapped up by a similar seminary, indicating that partial thawing has begun even on the frozen waters of fundamentalism.

The thawing that Karl mentions does not immediately seem self-evident, given that there are many more stories about townsfolk or school boards being indignant about the teaching of evolution than there are stories of acceptance of it. I certainly hope that he is correct that the seminaries are becoming more open to the idea of acceptance of evolution because the large anti-evolution organizations and their followers sure aren't. These are becoming increasingly insular in their attitudes and teachings and are becoming, as Waltke wrote and as Karl reminds us, "a cult." I am still exploring the possibility that this YEC viewpoint constitutes a heresy.

For this article, though, he focuses on the "new atheists," who seek the purging of religious belief from society. These include Richard Dawkins, Jerry Coyne, and P.Z. Myers, to name a few. Each has vocally argued that people that practice science cannot have religious sensibilities and be credible scientists. To this, Karl writes:

There is something profoundly un-American about demanding that people give up cherished, or even uncherished, beliefs just because they don't comport with science. And the demand seems even more peculiar when it is applied so indiscriminately as to include religious believers with Nobel Prizes. What sort of atheist complains that a fellow citizen doing world-class science must abandon his or her religion to be a good scientist?

I am of two minds about this. Those of us that are theistic evolutionists argue that examination of the natural world is perfectly compatible with an understanding that God is the author of that world and that his power is demonstrated through the interworkings of it.

Having said that, we, as theistic evolutionists, are a little bit over a barrel in the sense that while we accept that God is the creator of that world, we do not accept all interpretations of how that world was created. We argue that those who believe that religious belief is damaging to a complete understanding of science are wrong. Yet we also argue that those who hold to a young earth creation position to the exclusion of other interpretations of scripture are also wrong and are damaging to the very same cause of Christ. While we might, on the surface, be okay with people holding that particular viewpoint, deep down we are not okay with them teaching it to other people, especially in the context of the public schools or home school curricula. Put simply, we want to have our cake and eat it too. We want people to have plurality of thought, but we want, at the same time, for them to abandon their "cherished" belief in young earth creationism. We seek to convince those adhering to a young earth position of their error of their ways and are exasperated when they simply ignore the evidence that we provide them.

I believe that those that choose to educate their kids at home in recent earth creationism have the individual right to do so. It simply means that they will be inadequately prepared for college when they do get there. It may also mean that they have severe crises of faith, such as that by Glenn Morton. I would recommend that anyone that teaches their children the YEC point of view at least ought to read that account. They might not agree with it but it might give them an inkling of what they are up against.

The same cannot be said for the public schools. Here, the teachers have an obligation to teach the best science that is available because the kids are a captive audience. True, some parents can remove their children if they find that what they are being taught is objectionable, but most parents don't have the wherewithal to do that.

An additional consideration is that if creationism is taught alongside old earth science, it might backfire in a very bad way. The vast majority of young earth creationism arguments don't hold up to even the most cursory examination and this would give an enterprising science teacher the opportunity to, after demolishing the arguments, say, "just how stupid are those Christians, anyway?"

It may very well be that the best way that we can show that there is a way of following after Christ and accepting the findings of modern science is to be the best Christians we can possibly be, without arrogance or condescension but acting in love and humility of spirit. Then we can let the science speak for itself. This does not mean that we should sit idly by while untruths are taught. Indeed, I think it is our obligation to correct those misstatements, but we should respond to those teaching them in love and kindness, lest we, too, become "a boorish bunch of intellectual bullies"


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Anthony Flew Has Died

Anthony Flew, the renowned atheist who caused quite a stir a bit back when he endorsed Intelligent Design, has died. The article states:

Flew had become well known to a generation of students as an official atheist philosopher, much to the chagrin of his father, a Methodist minister, who is said to have prayed for him every day. In an early, seminal essay, Theology and Falsification (1950), Flew tried to show that the hypothesis of an almighty and loving God was unfalsifiable and therefore empty. He claimed the "endemic evil" in theology was that, however terrible the world, religious folk continued to believe in an all-powerful, benevolent deity. For them, no horror was, even in principle, allowed to count against this. But then, how could there be meaningful evidence for God's existence? Thus, theism suffered a "death by a thousand qualifications".

Thus, it came as shock to some of his humanist friends when in 2004, he confessed to a change of mind concerning God. He announced in a video entitled Has Science Discovered God? that aspects of biological order, especially in DNA, had led him to believe in intelligent design after all. Commentators seized on this, but the revelation was less dramatic than it appeared. He still disbelieved in revealed religion and immortality. He did, however, express concern about the damage his writings on the subject could have done.

He is preceded in death by Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein, also of this persuasion. Flew's review of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins a year and a half back is not to be missed.

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"Atheists" Are Mad at Creationists

According to an article making the rounds from the PRNewswire, "atheists" are hopping mad because of the giveaway of the version of On the Origins of Species with the special introduction that attacks evolutionary theory. The story notes:

Despite threats of "unilateral resistance," book burnings, and prominent atheist Richard Dawkins' public encouragement to students to rip out the Introduction, Comfort says his group has decided to continue giving away books.

"It's our aim to get this edition into the hands of students in every university in the United States, then Europe, and then the rest of the world," [Ray] Comfort said. "We have the manpower to do it because of our television program that is aired in 70 countries."

Comfort co-hosts an award-winning television program with actor Kirk Cameron.

"If the Introduction is as weak as atheists maintain, why would they rip it out because it would strengthen the case for evolution? But it does the opposite, and that's why they are so threatened," Comfort says. "Among other things, they don't want students to discover how Hitler used evolution as the catalyst for his 'final solution.'"

Well, this is just a thought but I am guessing they are ripping it out because it contains half-truths and misinformation. I am reminded of what Todd Wood said in the post that I quoted a few days ago:

I'm motivated this morning by reading yet another clueless, well-meaning person pompously declaring that evolution is a failure. People who say that are either unacquainted with the inner workings of science or unacquainted with the evidence for evolution. (Technically, they could also be deluded or lying, but that seems rather uncharitable to say. Oops.)

Uncharitable but, in some cases, correct. Whether Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort have been apprised of the facility of their position and the whopping amount of evidence for evolution is not clear. What is clear is that they have a whole lot invested in their ministry and little invested in learning the truth.

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Now playing: Todd Rundgren - Sidewalk Cafe
via FoxyTunes

American Humanists to Gather

The American Humanist Convention is being held at Tempe, Arizona in early June to celebrate the right to not believe in a higher being. Of course, front and center are PZ Meyers, Donald Johanson and Barbara Forrest. Meyers is an evolutionary biologist and runs the Pharyngula blog. Johanson is the discovery of the Lucy fossil in 1973 and Barbara Forrest was one of the key witnesses for the prosecution at the Dover trial in 2005. Yet another example of "godless evolution" making the newspapers. The creationists will have a field day.