Kudos to Time Magazine for the remarkable fairness of their issue on Evolution vs. Intelligent Design. I can assure you that such a thing was not possible ten and twenty years ago. Indeed it convinces me that talk radio and the blogs are making a real impact on pushing the media dinosaurs toward more balanced presentations.
Astoundingly praiseworthy is the forum on pages 34 and 35. They allow four brilliant individuals, three of whom believe in God, to present their personal assessment of religion and evolution. Each one is given enough space to offer a cogent and well-written exposition of a viewpoint. To prove how truly open and fair this was, I should note that one of the four is Michael Behe, the man who is pointedly excluded from the leftward-rigged forums, as Hunter Baker has observed.
Even the main article is remarkably close to being down-the-middle. A few coded stink bombs are thrown in to appease the New York crowd (like mentioning that Behe has nine children and home-schools them), but it is quite balanced and informative.
And since the Darwin Wars are heating up, this might be a good time to reread my widely quoted and reprinted battle plan, written at the beginning of this year.
I've seen some interesting pieces lately in The New Republic and the LA Times on Intelligent Design. The general gist, and one I agree with, is that ID is not a solution to a scientific quandary, but rather a religious one.
ReplyDeleteIntelligent design is the attempt to reconcile a belief in science with a belief in Scripture, pure and simple. You see, science puts the lie to Scripture as literal truth. This places doubt on faith. What is the faithful person to do?
ID is the attempt to reconcile creationism with modern scientific thought. It's not even science, but it's bad theology:
As Luke Timothy Johnson said, "God's self-disclosure in creation, therefore, is not like the traces of the watchmaker in his watch. God is revealed in the world first of all not through the 'whatness' of things but through the 'isness' of things. That anything exists at all is the primordial mystery that points us to God."
ID is really no solution at all. Not for scientists, and not for the religious. In today's modern world, it's just a shot in the dark at the "wishing makes it so" sort of thinking.
James, I'm guessing you've read zero from the leaders in ID. Your comment reveals no knowledge whatsover of the contentions made. Religion is not the ballgame here. It's a beneficiary, but not the main point at all. The presence of design doesn't necessarily mean God.
ReplyDeleteRead Behe's book "Darwin's Black Box" and get back to me. It hasn't been refuted yet and I don't suspect it will be. And I don't mean go find several people saying Behe is wrong. Read it and confront his argument and his evidence for yourself. Otherwise, this discussion is pointless.
ReplyDeleteAgain, read Behe. I'll wait till you read Behe.
ReplyDeleteI can only speak for myself. But prior to my law school work on ID, I had very little interest in the whole origins stuff. In fact, when I spoke at evangelical churches I purposely dodged questions about evolution, simply because I was sympathetic to theistic evolution and didn't care much for engaging the issue. So, for me, the retooling of Creationism carnard makes no sense, historically or conceptually.
ReplyDeleteI know that some of the ID guys--including Dembski, Meyer, Johnson, and Behe--come from similar backgrounds, and have little if any prior connection to the creationist movement outlined in Ron Numbers' works, for example. Clearly, some of these folks run in the same circles; but that is also true of the other side, whose ciricles overlap humanist, atheist, and freethinker communities. So, I think the NCSE narrative of ID being retooled creationism is paranoid nonsense.
The other problem is that most of the critics of ID are what I call "Protestant" skeptics. What I mean by that is that they don't think there's such a thing as natural theology. So, if let's say in a secular venue Bill Dembski defends ID but claims he cannot demonstrate the identity of the designer, but in a church venue he claims the designer is God, the critics say "gotcha." But, here a little Aquinas should help. According to Thomas, there are some truths that may be proven only by reason--the facts of chemistry, e.g. There are some truths that may be only known by faith--e.g., the doctrine of the Trinity. And there are some truths that may be known by both faith and reason--e.g., the existence of God. So, when Bill is in a secular venue--one which does not accept the truths only known by special revelation--he sticks only to those truths that can be only known by reason while not addressing the revelatory aspect of those truths that can be known by faith as well. However, when he is in a church venue--one which does accept the truths known by faith--then he brings that data into the picture.
All that Dembski is being is a good Thomist. But since the ID skeptics don't believe that in principle theological claims can arise from rational arguments, these distinctions are not even on their conceptual rader. My suggestion is that they become acquainted with the tradition they are dissing rather than relying on Isaac Asminov's Guide to Religion or some crap like that.
Listen Dr. Beckwith, these guys wouldn't know who Ronald Numbers was if he bought 'em a drink. They're functionally illiterate in this debate. (Hear the sound of them desperately doing a quick google search?)
ReplyDeleteDebate, Locke? When was the last time you actually wrote down some facts and tried to have an intellectual discourse? You're more of the "pithy comment to back up what I believe/Must ignore rebuttal that shreds my beliefs" kind of guy.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with your argument, Dr. Beckwith, is that you assume once having read Aquinas et al., we will AGREE with his basic conclusions. They're interesting, but what if we don't AGREE? By your logic then, we aren't allowed to express dissenting opinion?
ReplyDeleteWhat do you do when some members of both sides believe that the very APPROACH of their opponent is flawed?
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ReplyDeleteJames. If you would read with a charitable eye, you will gain understanding. Reread what I wrote. All I was saying was that critics of ID tend to be "Protestant" in their understanding of natural theology, and for that reason they come to this issue with an epistemological grid that prevents them from considering the possibility that there are a cluster of beliefs that are both the deliverances of faith and reason. I did not say that Aquinas was correct (though I believe he is). All that I am suggesting is that he may be right, and that possibility should give pause to lesser minds such as ours who tend to confuse technological sophistication with actual wisdom.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting that you suggest that reading someone and not being convinced proves that the text is somehow flawed. Could it be that the reader is? After all, ID supporters who read defenses of philosophical materiailsm as a necessary condition for doing science and are not convinced of the arguments they read are told that the readers, and not the texts, are flawed, This seems like an instance of special pleading.
Since I read your suggestion and was not convinced, I can reject it on its own grounds.