Re: Student perceptions re evolution

From: Sarah Berel-Harrop (sec@hal-pc.org)
Date: Wed Aug 27 2003 - 15:09:53 EDT

  • Next message: Alexanian, Moorad: "RE: Student perceptions re evolution"

    On Wed, 27 Aug 2003 12:35:02 -0600
      "Terry M. Gray" <grayt@lamar.colostate.edu> wrote:
    >Brian Harper wrote:
    >
    >>
    >>This issue does seem to be problematic. Is methodological
    >>naturalism
    >>really the way of doing science or is it just a way to
    >>circumvent ID?
    >>If it is (and I agree that it is), then why is it one
    >>sided? Why doesn't
    >>MN also constrain the atheist scientist?
    >>
    >>This lack of symmetry will continue to provide fuel to
    >>the
    >>flames of rhetoric until its corrected.
    >
    >I'm having some difficulty in this thread understanding
    >why we don't think that Dawkins violates MN. (I'm going
    >to leave Gould out--I'm somewhat surprised at how hard
    >we're coming down on him--he's a totally different beast
    >than Dawkins in my opinion.) When Dawkins promotes
    >atheism (or anti-theism) in the name of science, he is
    >NOT doing MN.

    The error here, I would say, is an error of inappropriate
    extrapolation. It is not per se a violation of MN, it
    is an inappropriate conflation of MN & ON. He's making
    the argument that the results you get when you use MN give
    useful metaphysical information. They don't.

    >He's not constrained by it because he's not
    >just about promoting a science agenda, but also a
    >religio-philosophical agenda. (There's this "life is
    >religion" part of me that says that he is being more
    >honest and wholistically human about his religious view
    >than we Christians and others who encourage the
    >elimination of religion-talk from our science-talk.)
    >
    >Personally, I enjoy and find myself agreeing with 90% of
    >what Dawkins says. For that 90% I suspect he is adhering
    >to MN.

    Problem is, the way he writes, people who don't
    know much about evolution end up knowing less
    about evolution, a lot about adaptation & NS,
    and thinking they know a lot about evolution.



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