> DT> I suppose my general response would be to question the phrase
> > "dominated by Christians". Was Hutton a Christian? He was a Deist
> > and a champion of empiricism - that we know. What about Werner?
> > Did he ever show any interest in Biblical revelation? I do accept
> > that Christians were among the geological community - but my concern
> > is that they did not develop a Christian epistomology.
>
LH> That's a serious charge to not make. ;-) If you ever do make it,
> you'll need some serious historical evidence to back it up.
Fair comment. I'm doing my best not to express unfounded concerns.
But there is a more general point here. Loren speaks to all of us
who appeal to history. Most of us are aware that
Christians were leading participants in the development of most
branches of science - and there is a danger that we do not evaluate
thoroughly the work of these pioneers. For example, there is a
tendency to say that Christians in the 19th Century were receptive to
Darwinism - as though this is a good example for us to follow. But
we do need to know whether these Christians provide good examples of
Christian scholarship. Serious work needs to be done in this area.
> DT> The Baconian
> > Two - Book approach dominated and geology developed as an autonomous
> > discipline (despite some rearguard attempts to harmonise). I'll keep
> > reading on this one!
>
> First issue: What would you say are the necessary elements of a
> "Christian epistomology" in the natural sciences? A lot depends upon
> what conotations you hang on the words "autonomous" & "harmonise"!
One reason for delaying the response is that this is an enormous
question. Is is really possible to gve an answer in less than 100
lines! I would certainly want to emphasise the unity of God's
revelation and the validity of a realist approach to knowledge as
disciples of Christ. My concern with Baconianism is
compartmentalisation - the demarcation of spheres of knowledge where
this unity is concealed. I do think Baconian science has led to
human autonomy, divorced from revelation, and this has taken many
Christians away from biblical patterns of thought.
> Second issue --- and a very interesting one: To what extent do the
> "leaders" in a scientific field influence its meta-scientific
> interpretations? That's a tough question to answer regarding modern-day
> questions; it'll be even tougher to answer it for the late 18th and
> early 19th century.
>
> No doubt some of the leaders of geology at that time were Deists, and
> some leaders were Christians. Likewise for the "rank-and-file." I
> couldn't guess how the percentages broke down without doing some
> historical research.
This is an interesting point.
> But let's stick with this question: the influence of scientific
> "leaders" on meta-scientific interpretations.
>
> Consider quantum mechanics. You will find leading figures of physics
> advocating a variety of quantum mechanics interpretations: standard
> Copenhagen, many worlds, operationalist, non-local hidden variables, and
> a version of Copenhagen which relies on consciousness to "collapse the
> wave function." Yet the overwhelming choice of the rank-and-file
> physicists, for many decades, has been and is the standard Copenhagen.
> Why? It's not because Neils Bohr was more eloquent than advocates of
> the other interpretations. If I had to guess, I'd say it's because the
> standard Copenhagen most closely matches the general "realist" outlook
> of physicists.
Maybe, too, rank and file physicists do not have to grapple with
these concepts in their work. It does not make that much difference
to them which interpretation they choose.
> A better analogy to 19th century geology is the development of Big Bang
> cosmology --- another "historical science." In the mid 20th century,
> most cosmologists had strong philosophical reasons for prefering the
> steady-state model. "Steady state" is not the only model which can be
> made to fit philosophical Naturalism, but it is the simplest and most
> appealing. (Whether it logically *should* be considered that is another
> discussion.) But steady-state was dropped in face of the data, despite
> the initial preferences of both leading and rank-and-file physicists.
In part, I agree. However, the steady state theory always had a
fundamental problem - the "miraculous" appearance of matter/energy
throughout the Cosmos to maintain the status quo. This was an even
more difficult pill to swallow than the Big Bang singularity.
> In the same way, most 18th-century geologists believed in a young earth.
> Young earth is not the only consistent and orthodox reading of Genesis,
> but it is the simplist. It was dropped in the face of the data, despite
> the initial preferences of most geologists.
Now it is my turn to point your style of argument back at you. How
do you know that it was the data that led to the demise of the "young
earth" belief? This is a historical assertion that needs some
support. If the Baconian approach to science was active in geology,
it is entirely predictable that there would be no creation, no fall,
and no Flood. These belonged to "God's revelation in nature" and
hadf no place in "God's revelation in nature". Before Hutton,
numerous "theories of the earth" were proposed by various people, all
picking out certain features which they wanted to explain within a
broader model. Some were young earth, some were old earth.
Evaluation was very difficult, as these theories were all selective
in what data they chose to work with. Hutton was the first to
propose a systematic methodology for INTERPRETING the data. It was
based on his empiricist philosophy. Despite the catastrophists, who
continued to see processes in the rocks which did not fit the
Huttonian paradigm, Hutton's methodology prevailed.
Uniformitarianism came to dominate geology. My point is this:
changes in the way people understood the earth's geological past came
with changes in the way they understood the data. The interpretative
framework was the key. The "data" is not self-evident. It needs
interpretation, and this requires a framework within which the data
can be viewed.
Best wishes,
*** From David J. Tyler, CDT Department, Hollings Faculty,
Manchester Metropolitan University, UK.
Telephone: 0161-247-2636 ***