>On Sunday 19th January 1997, Steve Clark wrote:
>"... Bacon was often accused by his peers of not being a
>Christian. This criticism arose because of Bacon's strong belief
>that the glory of God is revealed in the mechanisms of natural
>processes .... Bacon's position is known as the Baconian
>Compromise, or his doctrine of two books."
>
>and:
>"In short, Bacon was a strong proponent of a type of naturalism
>that supported a theistic meta-viewpoint. This, in my opinion,
>is precisely the way that ECs view the mechanistic world."
>
>These are interesting comments, because Steve's earlier posting
>about Bacon was expressing his concern that YEC spokesmen were
>over-influenced by Baconian philosophy.
This is not what I intended to convey in my earlier posting regarding he
connection between Bacon and the ICR philosophy of science. I pointed out
that the ICR definition was Baconian in nature. Yet I made no claim as to
whether or not that definition was influenced by Baconian philosophy. It
is entirely plausible that the ICR arrived at their inductivist philosophy
of science without directly invoking any of Bacon's philosophy. A
convergent evolution of theory, if you will.
Now the focus is on ECs.
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>A recent example comes from the pen of Professor R.J. Berry.
>"God and the biologist" was published in 1996 by Apollos (an
>imprint of Inter-Varsity Press). Chapter 2 has the title
>"Reason" and is a brief historical run through the rise of modern
>science. Bacon gets only a passing mention, but a footnote draws
>attention to his importance:
> "Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was an exemplar of the death of
>scholasticism; he explicitly rejected the deductive logic of
>Aristotle and the Greeks, and stressed the importance of
>experiment and inductive reasoning, that is, that humans are the
>servants and interpreters of nature, that truth is not derived
>from authority and that knowledge is the fruit of experience".
>(p.12)
>
>Contemporary TEs like Bacon partly because of the "Two Books"
>demarcation.
I think that Sam Berry's footnote is very similar to what I posted recently
regarding Bacon's view of the "two texts" (I didn't know that Sam had a new
book out). And you are correct, I very much appreciate Bacon's demarcation.
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>So Baconian ideas are alive and well in many circles within the
>Christian community! That is one reason why I feel it important
>to encourage critical debate about the significance of Bacon.
I fully agree. Bacon provided an initial push into empirical science by
separating metaphysical viewpoints of the world from mechanical workings of
the world. They can certainly influence and instruct each other, but, as
Bacon argued, metaphysics often says nothing about how the world works.
This is very similar to my frequent caution to make sure that we separate
metaphysics from physics. So, in his approach to natural understanding of
the world, I enthusiastically applaud Bacon. However, Bacon's idea
regarding how empirical science operates is, as I posted earlier, seriously
flawed.
Cheers,
Steve
____________________________________________________________
Steven S. Clark, Ph.D . Phone: 608/263-9137
Associate Professor FAX: 608/263-4226
Dept. of Human Oncology and Email: ssclark@facstaff.wisc.edu
UW Comprehensive Cancer Center
CSC K4-432
600 Highland Ave.
Madison, WI 53792
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