Subject: Re: Of PhDs, priests and logic

Bill Hamilton (whamilto@mich.com)
Wed, 17 Apr 1996 18:40:47 -0400

Denis complains that critics use secondary sources. Jim warns against a
"priesthood mentality". In the creation/evolution squabble a third factor
is involved: an adversarial relationship between the critics and the
practitioners. I don't mean the kind of healthy adversarial relationship
in which the combatants can shake hands and have a beer after the debate,
as I've seen Phil do. I mean the kind of adversarial relationship in which
each side plays to a different audience, tosses brickbats at one another,
but the two sides never talk.

If I wanted to learn about torts, I'd probably talk to an attorney friend
and ask for his recommendations. Perhaps he'd recommend Prosser. Fine.
After I had read some of the material, I'd talk to him to make sure I was
getting it right. Of course if the practitioners of a field see you as a
bombthrower intent on destroying it, they may be reluctant to talk to you.
But that doesn't mean you can't be critical of a field and still talk to
its practitioners. When you talk to the people working in a field like
evolutionary biology, you find out fairly quickly that they're not a bunch
of atheists intent on overthrowing Christianity. In fact quite a number of
them are Christians. But if you never talk, you don't find that out. So,
creationists, when you read a paper by Gould, instead of thinking about how
you might use what he said to show the bankruptcy of evolutionary theory,
maybe it would be better to write Professor Gould a letter.

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William E. Hamilton, Jr., Ph.D.
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