Reflectorites
On Mon, 18 Sep 2000 12:02:01 -0500, Susan Brassfield Cogan wrote:
SB>Until I read something that FMAJ said in passing I had heretofore thought
>that "The Wedge" was a chapter in Phillip Jonson's newest book (it may
>still be). I did a search on the web for "wedge, discovery institute" and
>got this link:
>
>http://www.infidels.org/secular_web/feature/1999/wedge.html
>
>"A recently-circulated position paper of The Center for the Renewal
>of Science & Culture (CRSC) reveals an ambitious plan to replace
>the current naturalistic methodology of science with a theistic
>alternative called "intelligent design."
This is old news. My recollection is that it was posted to the Reflector
some time ago. Presumably to heighten the impression of some sort of
conspiracy by the ID movement, Susan gives the impression that this is the
first time she had heard of it, which I must say I would find hard to believe.
From memory the link to the CRSC page (which no longer works) was
named "CRSC1", so I suspect that someone struck it lucky trawling for
first draft unpublished documents?
Not that there is anything to be ashamed of in the paper, but it *is*
apparently a first draft by somebody and therefore may not necessarily be
the best expression of the views of the majority of the ID leadership.
There is of course something unsavoury about trawling through web sites
looking for unpublished first draft documents, but such ethical niceties do
not apparently trouble the atheists on infidels.org?
SB>It contains many interesting quotes from the original Wedge document:
>
>"Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the
>materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with
>Christian and theistic convictions."
Sounds OK to me. Note that "consonant" only means "being in agreement
or harmony : free from elements making for discord" (http://m-w.com/cgi-
bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=consonant). Therefore "a science
consonant with Christian and theistic convictions" need only be *neutral*.
The current materialistic-naturalistic philosophy dominating science is
strongly *anti*-"Christian and theistic convictions."
SB>the document outlines the propaganda campaign and who it is aimed at:
>
>"Alongside a focus on influential opinion-makers, we
>also seek to build up a popular base of support among our natural
>constituency, namely, Christians. We will do this primarily through
>apologetics seminars. We intend these to encourage and equip believers
>with new scientific evidence's that support the faith, as well as to
>"popularize" our ideas in the broader culture."
Again sounds OK to me. What is wrong with providing Christians with
"new scientific evidence"? The fact that it supports the Christian faith
should not be opposed by science if science was *genuinely* religiously
neutral.
But of course modern science is dominated by philosophical materialists
who are personally strongly *opposed* to the Christian faith.
SB>and this should be of particluar interest to Stephen Jones and Bertvan,
>since they seem to be totally unaware of this particular feature of the
>Discovery Institute/ID agenda:
I don't know about Berthajane, but of course I am aware of the "Discovery
Institute/ID agenda" and I basically support it!
However, it should be pointed out that it is "The Center for the Renewal of
Science & Culture (CRSC)" which is the specific branch of the "Discovery
Institute" that has an "ID agenda". It is the "ID agenda" of the *CRSC*
that I support, not necessarily any other non-ID agendas of the "Discovery
Institute"
SB>"We will also pursue possible
>legal assistance in response to resistance to the integration of design
>theory into public school science curricula. The attention, publicity, and
>influence of design theory should draw scientific materialists into open
>debate with design theorists, and we will be ready. With an added
>emphasis to the social sciences and humanities, we will begin to address
>the specific social consequences of materialism and the Darwinist theory
>that supports it in the sciences."
Again sounds OK to me. What is wrong with addressing "the specific
social consequences of materialism and the Darwinist theory that supports
it in the sciences"?
Polls show that ~85% of the USA public believe in some form of divine
creation/guidance, and only less than 10% believe in the materialists'
creation story, despite them having had a State-funded monopoly for
decades in teaching their it to the public's children.
In a democracy it is the *materialists* who need to justify their
undemocratic stance in insisting that only *their* materialistic creation
story be taught and trying to deny anyone the right to question it.
SB>I especially enjoyed the last paragraph. It sounds downright Unitarian:
Which in itself is interesting. Religion is OK provided it is *Susan's*
religion!
SB>"Science need not contradict religious faith,
This would only be true if the "religious faith" makes no claims about the
real world. A totally subjective "religious faith" like that of Eastern
mysticism would have no problem with materialistic science nor
materialistic science with it.
But the *Christian* "religious faith" *does* make "claims about the real
world". For starters it claims that there really is a God who created the
world and who has intervened repeatedly in it to impart new information
and direction into it.
This completely contradicts the tenets of materialism (i.e. matter is all there
is) and naturalism (i.e. nature is a closed system of causes and effects into
which nothing outside can intervene).
That is why almost all Biology textbooks have to have a section debunking
the *Christian* doctrine of creation at the start of their section on
evolution. If the Christian doctrine of creation is allowed to stand, then
Darwinism, which claims that all genetic changes in the 3.9 billion year
history of life have been random with respect to adaptive improvement,
cannot be established as true.
This whole "Science need not contradict religious faith" line pushed by atheists like
Gould is what Johnson calls "the two-platoon" system:
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The Two-Platoon Strategy for Marginahzing Religion
Larson and Witham brought their findings right into & heart of the;;
political effort by science organizations (especially the U.S. National
Academy of Sciences) to portray "evolution" as having no important
implications for religion. Their conclusion gains added weight because it
appeared in Scientific American, one of the most secure bastions of
scientific materialism:
"Whether God exists or not is a question about which science is neutral,"
the [National Academy's report on science education] cautiously begins,
before launching its broadside of scientific arguments against religious
objections to teaching evolution. But the irony is remarkable: a group of
specialists who are nearly all unbelievers and who believe that science
compels such a conclusion-told the public that "science is neutral" on the
God question...There many outstanding members of this Academy who are
very religious people, people who believe in evolution, many of them
biologists offered NAS president Bruce Alberts of course he did not claim
that these "very religious" NAS members believed in a God as defined in
Leuba's survey-traditional Jewish, Christian or Muslim theism, that is-but
that would have been the natural interpretation of his statement by many in
the general public.
Larson and Witham label as "irony" what seems more like deliberate
deception to me. The National Academy's way of dealing with the religious
implications of evolution is akin to the two-platoon system in American
football. When the leading figures of evolutionary science feel free to say
what they really believe, wriers such as Edward O. Wilson, Richard
Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Carl Sagan, Steven Pinker, Stephen Jay Gould,
Richard Lewontin and others state the "God is dead" thesis aggressively,
invoking the authority of science to silence any theistic protest. That is the
Offensive platoons and the National Academy never raises any objection to
its promoting this worldview.
At other times, however, the scientific elite has to protect the teaching of the "fact
of evolutional from objections by religious conservatives who know what the
offensive platoon is saying and who argue that the science educators are
insinuating a worldview that goes far beyond the data. When the objectors are too
numerous or influential to be ignored, the defensive platoon takes the field That is
when we read those spin-doctored reassurances saying that many scientists are
religious (in some sense), that science does not claim to have proved that God
does not exist (but merely that he does not affect the natural world), and that
science and religion are separate realms which should never be mixed (unless it is
the materialists who are doing the mixing). Once the defensive platoon has done its
job it leaves the field, and the offensive platoon goes right back to telling the public
that science has shown that "God" is permanently out of business."
(Johnson P.E., "The Wedge of Truth,"., 2000, pp.87-89)
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SB>although its findings have
>sometimes
>exposed superstitions such as the geocentric theory, a world-wide catastrophic
>flood,
Whoever wrote this doesn't know his history of science. Both "the geocentric
theory" and "a world-wide catastrophic flood" were actually once mainstream
scientific theories that were shown to be wrong. But that they were wrong does
not make them "superstitions".
SB>and Tillich's God "up there."
Whoever wrote this does not his theology either. Paul "Tillich" was a pantheistic
(or even atheistic) liberal philosopher/theologian who (according to Time
magazine when he died), had a sideline of seducing his friends' wives. He in fact
denied that there was any "God `up there'" (i.e. a transcendent God) and used the
immanent, impersonal term "ground of being" or "ultimate concern".
But what is *really* signifant about this is that the writer thinks that science has
"exposed" as "superstition" the belief that there is a "God `up there'". So what
becomes of the original statement that "Science need not contradict religious
faith"? It would reduce down to "Science need not contradict religious faith" as
long as the "religious faith" does not maintain that there is a "God `up there'"!
And since the world's major monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity and
Islam) claim that there is a "God `up there", the statement that "Science need not
contradict religious faith" would reduce down to as long as the "religious faith" is
not Judaism, Christianity or Islam!
SB>The real irony in all of this is that
>the Discovery
>Institute's well-laid plans are doomed to failure from the outset. Even if they
>succeeded brilliantly in manufacturing the consent needed to replace
>science with
>theism,
The actual CRSC document says: "...materialist worldview, and to replace it with a
science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions."
It is interesting how that the writer automatically equates "science" with a
"materialist worldview"!
SB>it would only be a matter of time before we began to question the world
>around us and to turn once again to science as a constructive means for finding
>answers to our questions.
See above.
SB>If all of our knowledge were wiped away tomorrow and
>replaced with theistic dogma,
So science is automatically materialism and theism is automatically
"dogma". Sort of undermines his original claim that "Science need not
contradict religious faith"
SB>another Thales or an Aristotle would come along to
>begin the process anew.
And Aristotle was a proponent of *design*:
"The Problem of Teleology. No discussion of causality is complete which
does not come to grips with the problem of teleology. This problem had its
beginning with Aristotle's classification of causes, one of the categories
being the "final" causes. This category is based on the observation of the
orderly and purposive development of the individual from the egg to the
"final" stage of the adult. Final cause has been defined as "the cause
responsible for the orderly reaching of a preconceived ultimate goal." All
goal-seeking behavior has been classified as "teleological," but so have
many other phenomena that are not necessarily goal-seeking in nature.
Aristotelian scholars have rightly emphasized that Aristotle- by training and
interest was first and foremost a biologists and that it was his
preoccupation with biological phenomena which dominated his ideas on
causes and induced him to postulate final causes in addition to the material,
formal, and efficient causes. Thinkers from Aristotle to the present have
been challenged by the apparent contradiction between a mechanistic
interpretation of natural processes and the seemingly purposive sequence of
events in organic growth, reproduction, and animal behavior. " (Mayr E.,
"Toward a New Philosophy of Biology," 1988, p.29)
SB>Mephistopheles thinks he holds us tight with religious
>illusion, but human beings are greater than the gods and devils who would
>keep us in ignorance.
See above on "Science need not contradict religious faith"!
SB>Science is our most reliable tool for understanding the
>universe in which we live.
When "science" is based on repeatable experiments who would disagree?
But a "science" based on a materialistic philosophy which in the end denies
that the mind itself is real:
"The confusion that the hard problem [of consciousness] stimulates
is illustrated by the contrasting views of two leading philosophers
of mind, John Searle and Paul Churchland, who could be described
as the bookends marking the boundaries of the materialist
viewpoint on the subject. Churchland champions "eliminative
materialism," which holds that mental states do not exist. When we
speak of people having beliefs, thoughts, desires and sensations, or
making decisions based on reflection, we are engaging in a kind of
fiction termed "folk psychology." According to eliminative
materialists, such mental entities are as unreal as ghosts or fairies.
The goal of neuroscience is to replace the primitive folk-
psychological talk with scientific descriptions of the nervous
system's physical mechanisms such as patterns of activation in
populations of neurons. Don't bother to object that eliminative
materialism conflicts with common sense. Of course it does, but to
eliminative materialists common sense is just one of those fictitious
categories that a mature neuroscience will eliminate. This bizarre
theory is merely the reductio ad absurdum of materialism. If in the
beginning were the particles, chance and the laws of physics-and
nothing else-then everything that has happened since must be the
products of those fundamental causal factors. No God or
nonmaterial vital essence or "ghost in the machine" can possibly
intrude. In that case it is logically inevitable that our mental activity
can in principle be explained solely on the basis of physical causes,
regardless of how far from a solution we may be at the present
time. "If you don't like our conclusions," an eliminative materialist
can argue, "then try to find an alternative set of assumptions that is
acceptable to science." The irony is that eliminative materialism
itself is fatal to science, since it implies that even the scientists are
no really conscious and that their boasted rationality is really
rationalization. In that case, why imagine that scientific reasoning
can make true statements about ultimate reality? Extreme forms of
modernist rationalism thus merge seamlessly with postmodernist
relativism. (Johnson P.E., "The Wedge of Truth, 2000, pp.118-119)
will in the end destroy the very concept of "understanding" and therefor
"science" itself.
SB>"And I by the power of thought," Pascal wrote, "may
>comprehend the universe."
See above. Since materialism claims that "all is matter" then "thought"
must in the end be matter too. This, as even the Darwinist J.B.S. Haldane
had to admit, would destroy the very *reason* for believing that
materialism was true:
"It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product
of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the
motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my
beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not
make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for
supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. In order to escape
from this necessity of sawing away the branch on which I am
sitting, so to speak, I am compelled to believe that mind is not
wholly conditioned by matter." (Haldane J.B.S., "Possible Worlds:
And Other Essays," 1932, reprint, p.209).
BTW "Pascal" was a Christian:
"PASCAL, BLAISE (1623-62) . Pascal, whose early genius
emerged in mathematics, experimental physics and practical
inventions, was converted to Jansenism (see Augustinianism*) at
Rouen in 1646. He participated in the social, intellectual and
cultural life of Paris until his 'night of fire' (1654), an experience of
intense assurance, joy and peace through Christ, leading to the total
consecration of his life to God." (Preston D.G., "Pascal, Blaise," in
Ferguson S.B., Wright D.F. & Packer J.I., eds., "New Dictionary of
Theology," 1988, p.492)
[...]
Steve
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"Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of
having been designed for a purpose." (Dawkins R., "The Blind
Watchmaker," [1986], Penguin: London, 1991, reprint, p1)
Stephen E. Jones | Ph. +61 8 9448 7439 | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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