Re: [asa] Re: [asa] YEC--What can we offer them?

Wayne - Yes, I like the way you say this. Not wrong,
just incomplete. The way I come at evolutionary theory
as presented in social sciences, e.g. Comte, Spencer,
Durkheim, Ward, Sumner, Dewey, Parsons, Merton,
Habermas, Luhmann, etc. allows for space that doesn't
point fingers at 'ancient' views of (our) existence.
They are not wrong, just incomplete. Entanglement is a
problem whenever the 'observer' is involved with
interpretation (i.e. in social sciences, almost
always!). "Kicking and screaming into new paradigms"
contains some true reflections of history of science,
but we are also now 'beyond' the Kuhnian paradigm of
'paradigms'! :-)

"It seems you can say, when you start things, it is
much easier
to get it backwards." - Wayne

Yes, this is exactly what has happened in the case of
certain evolutionary theories. When they started they
got things backwards. Now, just stating that, for some
people, barriers will go up and resistance has already
begun. But we have not settled on what 'evolution'
means and I have clearly and repeatedly said I am
speaking in the social-humanitarian sphere, not of
evolutionary biology or evolutionary natural science.

Evolutionary social science got it backwards and this
is why there is such thing now as neo-evolutionary
social science. In the latter case, there is both
backwardness and forwardness, anticipation and (to use
the awkward concept of one Dutch legal studies
philosopher-Christian) retrocipation, progress and
potentially regress, etc.. My point here is to say
that natural scientists and theologians should not
feel their hair stand on its ends when someone
challenges evolutionary theories for their
backwardnesses. It should just be, as Karl Popper
noted, part of the business of doing science that an
alternative to the concept/percept of 'evolution' be
allowed place for dialogue (and I didn't say an I-word
or a D-word!), especially when questions of meaning,
value, purpose and teleology are concerned.

YE and OE views seem to be mainly settled. In America,
I highly doubt OEs will often succeed to convince YEs
with scientific arguments. However, there are
supra-scientific approaches that may indeed bear
fruit, while at the same time promoting good science
based on responsible and professional consideration of
'the evidence.'

Now I'd like to repeat David O.'s question because it
gets at something very important for social scientists
to consider on the issue of worldview (though
unfortunately, most social scientists never do
consider it):
"Can you imagine a street-corner evangelist thundering
about Adam the Neolithic farmer who basically lived
like tens of thousands of other hard scrabble new
stone age people, or Adam the mytho-poetic symbol?"

This doesn't seem to be an issue for natural
scientists to need to discuss, but rather to assume
when they are in their laboratories. However, the
implications for social scientists (e.g. Emile
Durkheim's "Elementary Forms of Religious Life") are
undisputably significant. For theologians, the
language appears, at least to me, to be 'adapting' or
'adjusting,' 'modifying' or 'varying' in degrees
rather than in kinds of rhetoric.

Enjoying homeland, relatives and friends,
Gregory A.

p.s. creativity is a wonderful thing - thanks for
lifting it up Wayne!

--- Dawsonzhu@aol.com wrote:

...
It seems you can say, when you start things, it is
much easier
to get it backwards. So the ancient world was not at
all to blame
for not knowing there frame of reference.
 
Earth scientists early last century were wrong about
plate tectonics because they (often vociferously)
derided the idea of continental drift. In both these
cases--QM and plate tectonics--experimental data
shoved scientists by the seat of the pants kicking and
screaming into new paradigms.

Yeah, OK, with QM there is the issue of entanglement.
So philosophy
new and radical ideas were introduced that have
troubled us ever
since. But still, the classical physics was not
wrong, just
incomplete.

With plate techtonics, it seemed to me more like
another creative
idea that got violently supressed by some
know-it-alls. I guess
for them, it was a pardigm shift. It's more like what
they did to
Boltzmann and I think Faraday too. Darwin was probably
just lucky
he didn't get thoroughly smooshed. Creativity in
science is about
as respected as it is in art.

by Grace we proceed,
Wayne (ASA)

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Received on Thu Jul 5 16:37:44 2007