Comments on: Darwin and Church History, Part 3 http://programmerthoughts.com/thoughts/darwin-and-church-history-part-3/ Sun, 25 Jul 2010 16:59:04 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: Tim Dolch http://programmerthoughts.com/thoughts/darwin-and-church-history-part-3/#comment-33 Tim Dolch Wed, 28 Jan 2009 21:06:35 +0000 http://johnandkaren.com/blog/?p=86#comment-33 John--sorry I never got back to your blog to see you follow-up here. I'd like to send you my paper on causal closure, as we discussed, but I do not have your e-mail. I have started a blog too, as you can see. I have a few reactions to your answers here. I would say if a discovery conflicts with scripture, it could be our interpretation of scripture that is wrong, or it could be that our "discovery" is more theoretical or conjectural than we suppose, and thus possible also an erroneus interpretation. Allowing correction in only one direction doesn't seem right. Also, I think the definition of science from Wikipedia is too narrow; it suggests that science never makes hypotheses! It also conflates simulating phenomena with explaining how things work, probably because the latter has to involve hypothesizing entities or laws that are not just given in the phenomena. With that said, I canot agree that philosophy and science are so neatly separable. I am happy, though, that we seem to basically agree on #3 and #6. I have recently had the chance to read portions of Roy Clouser's The Myth of Religious Neutrality, which is all about scientific and philosophical theorizing. I heartily recommend it. Clouser is not a young-earth creationist, but his treatments of religion and theory are very lucid and worth consideration. John–sorry I never got back to your blog to see you follow-up here. I’d like to send you my paper on causal closure, as we discussed, but I do not have your e-mail. I have started a blog too, as you can see.

I have a few reactions to your answers here. I would say if a discovery conflicts with scripture, it could be our interpretation of scripture that is wrong, or it could be that our “discovery” is more theoretical or conjectural than we suppose, and thus possible also an erroneus interpretation. Allowing correction in only one direction doesn’t seem right. Also, I think the definition of science from Wikipedia is too narrow; it suggests that science never makes hypotheses! It also conflates simulating phenomena with explaining how things work, probably because the latter has to involve hypothesizing entities or laws that are not just given in the phenomena. With that said, I canot agree that philosophy and science are so neatly separable. I am happy, though, that we seem to basically agree on #3 and #6.

I have recently had the chance to read portions of Roy Clouser’s The Myth of Religious Neutrality, which is all about scientific and philosophical theorizing. I heartily recommend it. Clouser is not a young-earth creationist, but his treatments of religion and theory are very lucid and worth consideration.

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