Howard wrote: "By ascribing these sentiments to other unnamed members of
a hypothetical "Darwinian establishment" Bill was able technically to
claim no responsibility for these sentiments and their tone of voice.
However, by choosing not to quote any representative member of this
"establishment" and to craft his own concept of what "their" attitude
was, Bill chose not to distance himself more that a micron from that same
judgement. "
Let me be more direct then. At the NTSE I had several very civil
conversations with Schafersman which were directly to these sentiments. I
wrote of these conversations briefly in my article on the NTSE which
appeared in the ARN magazine some months later (a copy appears on my web
site). To the best of my knowledge, Schafersman echoed these sentiments,
both in private conversations and in his talk. He may not have been as
abrasive as what Bill reports (although I've seen stuff from Dawkins
which might qualify). In conversation, he expressed real bewilderment
that the TEs could cling to a religion which had so little (he may have
said "none") evidence for it except wishful thinking. He said he would
probably not choose to hire, or even work with, a scientist if he were a
theist, anymore than he would hire a plumber who approached his job
looking for supernatural causes to why the toilet was stopped up. He
genuinely could not understand how a person could be, at one time, a
theist and a scientist. He echoed these sentiments in other, group,
conversations. I did not hear him use pejorative language, but I would
have to call it somewhat patronizing language.
Schafersman is a gentleman and it was enjoyable to dialog with him. We
subsequently exchanged a few emails, as my article developed (since I
referenced him, I wanted to let him see the draft), but I've lost ouch in
the past few years since he moved on from Miami (Ohio) University.
The net of this -- while I would not probably use Bill's words for his
claim, the claim is factually true, at least in the case I have
described.
John Burgeson (Burgy)
http://www.burgy.50megs.com
(science/theology, quantum mechanics, baseball, ethics,
humor, cars, God's intervention into natural causation, etc.)
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