Posted on 01/30/2003 9:33:28 AM PST by matthew_the_brain
At any rate VLS is at least the classical definition of a theory in that it has both the potential to be proven, and the potential to be disproven. Obviously, from the tone of your post, you're already thinking of the implications of the theory if proven...the portal of the mind of God. It truly gives a new perspective to the citation below:
1)The heavens declare the glory of God: and the firmament showeth his handiwork.
2) Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge.
3) There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.
4) Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun.
Truth never becomes "truer", but the light does become brighter...Walter Martin.
regards,
CDL
If God wanted to explain the origins of the universe to people living thousands of years before us, and if those origins were consistent with our current scientific theories, he still would not do so using the language of 20th century scientific inquiry, or he would confuse the hell out of everyone. He would make basically the same description, then, whether or not what science currently tells us is truly the case. This means that we cannot conclude which of these two situations took place, from the description in the Bible,
First, if God had used 21st Century Scientific inquiry language, it would be confusing and inadequate. There is still far too much that science cannot explain, i doubt that anyone has seriously disputed that, having learned their lesson the year before Einstein published his paper on the theory of General Relativity.
My point exactly! So we agree - It would not make sense for Him to do so. So even if the explanation was vastly more complicated, in essence what we are saying is the same thing: His language was tuned to his audience, as a full explanation would've been impossible.
If the descriptions are the same (and the grammar structure is such that they are simple declarative statements), then there is no reason to resort to a metaphorical interpretation...
...except for what we just agreed upon, i.e. that any explanation of excessively complex phenomenon would've have to have been greatly simplified, my some means or other. Since we can't get what really happened anywhere, as Creation must've been indescribable, we have to describe what we can, using human language, limited as it is. Clearly, then, metaphor, analogy, simile, and symbolism would be logical techniques to use in order to do this, since the literal fails our imperfect (human) language.
By "these two situations" i assume that you mean evolution or special creation, yes?
Actually, no - Sorry to be unclear. What I meant to say was this:
- The wording of the description given in the Bible was meant to be understandable by folks living a couple thousand years ago.
- We can agree that Creation would be indescribable, in our language - It's simply too complicated. - Therefore (I posit), we would not be able to tell the difference between a description of Creation where it was literally "let there be light," and one where the process by which light was created was so complex and difficult to understand that, in order for folks living a couple of thousand years ago to get the message, it was simply written as "let there be light."
Again, sorry about the lack of clarity - I was having trouble finding the most succinct way to put this. This is what led to my next statement:
See what I mean? In short, we cannot assume that the Bible was meant to be taken literally.
Regarding all the stuff about assumptions, I think that relates to our misunderstanding, so I'll let that go for now.
With regard to the matter of interpretation, we agree that all literature is interpretable; therefore, we cannot dismiss Biblical interpretation.
The problem with defining the Bible as a historical narrative is that it assumes that it is a historical narrative :) In the literal sense, that is. That doesn't mean I am disputing that what it describes happened - But it is a far cry from a history textbook, or even Homer. In addition, since you mentioned it, we know better than to believe that Scylla and Charybdis really existed, if that comparison is to be made. Only if we read The Odyssey as the literal truth would it be nonsense, by our standards. The Metamorphasis is a story about alienation, not about a giant cockroach. See what I mean? We can read it literally, but we'll miss the point.
In terms of specific examples, though, again I refer folks to this link:
http://users.pipeline.com.au/groucho/Documents/The_biblical_flat_earth.PDF
Those are examples of passages where, if we read them completely literally, we would conclude that the sky has water above it, that the earth rests on pillars, is flat, and has four corners, and that the sun rotates around it. Those are demonstrably false. How shall we interpret this?
Thanks for reading,
DFS
DFS
Guess where.
That's right, Ithaca. Teacher Joan Bokaer has a column in the Ithaca Journal in which she defends the professor on "the right of professors to write references to whomever they choose."
She also spends paragrapsh railing against the vast Christian conspiracy in this county in terms that are reminiscient of a Nazi's Anti-Semetic propapganda. Ithaca is the City of Evil.
Come now sir, consider your statement. The Potolemiac model of the universe was admitedly, flawed. However, it did make predictions that were accurate enough for man's use. Merchant sailors were able to navigate by stellar "motion". In that it was a model in which useful predications could be made, and useful data could be obtained. The science was wrong, as was the Copernician model, but it was hardly necessary to refer to allegory in the scriptures in either case. In point of fact, a flawed hermenutic was used by the church to support a flawed "scientific" model!
...though they couldn't necessarily explain why it was that the first thing they saw was the _top_ of an approaching ship :) Agreed, approximations can be made, that's always been the case in science, especially physics - It's where they fail that you're in trouble. BUT, that doesn't mean we toss the whole theory. If you want to say whether a theory is an accurate predictor of physical reality, you need a specific test. Depending on that test, then, our pre-relativistic notions of motion are either accurate or inaccurate - So again, as I said, it all depends on what you mean by "adequately", "longer before", and "for our purposes".
It should be observed that many of those inconsistencies are erronious science, not a flawed biblical hermenutic.
I wouldn't necessarily call it erroneous science that no one noticed relativity in the time of Galileo or Newton... It's erroneous science if they had evidence and ignored it, due to some personal bias, religious or otherwise, but if they either lacked the evidence or simply said "we're not sure", that's just being honest, reasoning logically, and doing the best you can with limited evidence - We can expect no more. We've made a lot of progress since then in our ability to gather information about the physical world, and it's not only likely but basically ensured that we will eventually run into some evidence that contradicts our currently held scientific ideas. When that happens, we will do what we've always done - Modify our theories to explain the new observations, thereby improving them. The new theory will explain all of the things the old theory correctly explained, and will in addition include an explanation of the newest observations the old theory could not cope with.
An example of this would be the phenomena that produced the Gould/Eldridge "punctuated equilibria" theory of evolution. This had nothing to do with creationism or the bible, yet the Darwinian evolutionists are just as vehemently opposed to Gould as they are to Henry Morris or Duane Gish!
And good that this is so! We need debate in the sciences, so that, from the debate, we arrive a little bit closer to an accurate description of the universe in which we live. That a theory, or some aspect of a theory, is controversial, tells us nothing of whether it is accurate, completely flawed, or somewhere in between. That judgement can only be made based on tests of the theory.
Take the theory that the Bible is meant to be read completely literally, for instance - If we find even one example in the Bible where we cannot read it completely literally (such examples exist, I've given some), we have disproved this theory. We must then say that, at most, some parts of the Bible should be taken literally, while others should not.
i am happy that you acknowlege that not everyone will agree with you, it should frighten you if they did, because it would demonstrate that some people are not thinking!
i get very worried when i have no opposition.
I'm absolutely with you on that point. Life would be really depressing if we were all the same...
...Living a life does complicate things, doesn't it?
:) Indeed - Again, sorry for the delay here!!
Thanks for reading,
DFS
Excellent - So we agree that the explanations we have of God's works are necessarily incomplete.
What we do not have liscense to do is attempt to explain away something based on questionable literary techniques,
Metaphor is a questionable literary technique? :)
when we are by definition, the ones who are limited!
Again, we agree. Man is limited, and imperfect - And since it is man's interpretation of the Word of God that we see in the Bible, as men were its authors, the ones who put pen (quill?) to paper and recorded and edited the message, we must consider the end results carefully, keeping this in mind.
Let me ease your mind on this point, and reduce the scope of the argument at the same time. It has always been bad logic to attempt to prove a negative (i.e., that God does not exist). That is the reason that our Judicial system (as opposed to the Napolenic system) places burdon of proof on the accuser.
It's not even bad logic - It can't be done :) Likewise, we can't prove a positive either, scientifically speaking, we can only say that we have yet to find a test to challenge a particular theory.
We agree here, I just want to put everyone else's minds at ease that scientific inquiry cannot disprove the existence of God, and therefore we need not feel threatened by it, because even if some scientist argues that they've done so, we know that they're full of it :) I say this because I do think that some folks find the directions sciences sometimes takes, and the implications, relevant to religious dogma (which is distinct from religious faith, that being unassailable), threatening, and I just want to make the point that it need not be so, that science is not "out to get" religion, just as religion is not "out to get" science.
You have, inadvertently, confirmed the itiliacised portion of my comments above.
Interesting... Let's see:
Forgive me, but i find your statement to be contradictory. Let us examine it in detail.
we have only accounts written and edited by men to understand it by,
The statment implies (by use of the words "only accounts") that God's revelation is either partial, erronious, within "added" material, made up out of whole cloth, or complete and accurate as written.
Not exactly. It implies that our only understanding of God's revelations comes through the written words of mortal men (i.e. not from God himself putting it directly on the page; for this he chose a vehicle, it was man, and man is imperfect). I'm questioning the perfection of man's account of the revelation, not the revelation itself.
It's like playing the telephone game, if you ever played that when you were a kid - Where one person says something to another, and another, and another, and by the time you get from the original message to the final one, you end up with something that is very different from the original. This implies no judgement, vis-a-vis the original, only that the end result isn't the original message. Thankfully, this effect may be somewhat less extreme than that in real life, but we ignore it at our peril.
if we find that our interpretation of those accounts does not jibe with scientific inquiry, that hardly means that we need doubt God's special revelation to us - That is not what's unreliable.
Based on the account given above, it is in fact, a possibility to be considered! We are lead to the possibility that either scientific inquiry is incorrect, our interpretation is incorrect, or the record of scripture is incorrect.
Right. To expand on those possibilities:
So we agree that it is possible that one or more of the above statements is true - No problem.
This is a contradiction of your premise that we need not doubt God's special revelation.
Not really :) God's message was, by definition, perfect. The men it was given to were, by definition, imperfect. I'm simply arguing for a recognition that we cannot expect a perfect product from such a process. The original message is not in doubt - But that's not what we're getting. What we're getting is man's best attempts to write down and edit and make understandable that message, which, as we agreed previously, is anyway necessarily incomplete, in human terms. Hopefully this clears things up.
In other words, you eliminate the possibility that scientific inquiry might be erronious!, it becomes "transmission of special revelation", or our interpretive process. It seems that you are actually begging the question here, as well as offering a limited alternative falacy.
I'm sorry if it seems that way - It was never my intention to do so, as we both know that the results of scientific inquiry, like all of man's creations, are necessarily imperfect - It's a good thing, too, or I'd be out of a job :)
It's certainly possible that the first of my hyphenated statements is true. I will not deny that - It is possible that, as indicated in a literal reading of the Bible, the earth is flat and has four corners and the sun goes around it, and the heavens above are full of water, held back by floodgates, etc., etc., and that all evidence to the contrary is false.
Is that our most reasonable explanation?
Thanks for writing!
DFS
...does that mean I'm...50%...less clever...than I am? My head hurts :)
Evolution is a religion -
A small but vocal minority of people may treat it this way, but you and I and CDL and the rest of the intelligent folks here know that it really isn't.
and evolutionists are usually NOT open to other scientific explanation.
I would say only that it's dangerous to generalize - That would be like saying that "creationists" (whatever that means) are usually not open to other explanations for the origins of the universe. I think this is true again with a small but vocal minority, but I think that, as reasonable and intelligent and open-minded folks, this need not be the case with us, or indeed, with most people. We can't condemn everyone for the actions of a few, though.
I think it's also fair to say that there isn't one of us who couldn't use a little work, with respect to seriously considering the ideas of others, even when they are diametrically opposed to our own - We're all trying to do the best we can. I know that I have not always been as willing to listen as I should've been, with respect to arguments like this one - I will readily admit that - But I am trying my best, as an imperfect being, to understand how others feel about this, and maybe reach some common ground... I accept evolution as our best current scientific explanation for the origins of man, and I believe that it in no way contradicts the message of the Bible or the central tenets of Christianity, and I know numerous others who are like-minded as well. I am willing to listen to you, so I hope you will not completely give up on folks who accept the theory of evolution.
Some good scientists have proffered evidence of intelligent design...at least as much as that supporting evolution.
OK, let's talk about that. How are we defining intelligent design? I am not saying I disbelieve you here, but depending on how you talk about intelligent design, it is or is not contradictory to the theory of evolution, yes? So, just to get things straight, before I go any farther, which theory of intelligent design do you refer to?
Whichever it is, of course, we must also consider seriously all well-supported theories, and look at the evidence for each - Whether they are bsaed on intelligent design or evolution, or something else entirely.
Evolutionist have also weakened their claim to science because of the several knowlingly fraudulent claims that have been promoted as evidence (Jonathan Wells - Icons of Evolution) - the act of a devotee, not a scientist.
If you're looking for evidence that scientists are human, too, and that they err, and they can be overproud, you have it. This has no relevance on the theory of evolution - It only means that scientists are people too :) I have witnessed, in my own field, people becoming wedded to their own ideas regarding how something works. This does not change how well their ideas describe the physical world - It only changes their ability to change their mind in the presence of contradictory evidence. The existence of false observations supporting the theory evolution is not the same thing as the existence of accurate observations contradicting the theory of evolution.
So by your own definition of the distinction between science and faith, evolution is a faith - because its adherents reject the notion of an alternate view.
[See my comments on why such generalizations are not really fair, no matter who we apply them to]
Michael Behe - biochemistry, William Dembski - mathematics, Jonathan Wells - molecular and cell biology, (and several others) are all serious scientists that present an alternate theory to evolution.
I would like to know more about their theories, and the support they claim - Are they all of the same mind in this respect, or do each of them have a unique take on things? If you could provide some links or somesuch, I am certainly willing to take a look, and give what they have to say some thought...
Inasmuch as their ideas are debated on the grounds of their work, their premises, their logic, their evidence - it is honest scientific debate,
Glad to hear it! As it should be...
and a few evolutionists accept that challenge. But most reject their arguments BECAUSE OF THEIR CONCLUSION - a hallmark of faith and its intolerance of apostacy.
Well, again, I must respectfully disagree with the idea that "evolutionists" all think alike and are all extremely intolerant folks, but with that said, what have been the results when the "evolutionists" engaged in debate? Were they completely one-sided, or was it really more up in the air? I agree with you, however, that, unhappily, such close-mindedness and intolerance can indeed be a hallmark of faith, and that such an attitude will necessarily destroy our ability to have a reasoned discussion on such important issues...
The situation of a Catholic school, established and maintained for the specific purpose of educating and training Catholic scholars is clearly different than that of of a typical university.
If science is a religion, as you have repeatedly stated, wouldn't the training of scientists be an analogous process? I agree with you that, in practice, it should not be this way, I am simply trying to point out that science is not a religion.
If you want to establish a university for the education and training of evolutionary scholars, THEN we have some equivilance.
...but if the University is supposed to train biologists, and the theory of evolution is the currently accepted explanation for the existence of things biological, then how can we have a University that claims to train biologists, that lacks this equivalence?
But the professor, who was the genesis of this discussion, does not teach at a school of evolution -
That's not the school's primary role, no - But it is a role, in the context of the biology curriculum, simply because this appears to be the best scientific explanation there is, so far, and it would not make sense to talk about the origins of life, from a scientific standpoint, without talking about this theory.
This professor sets his criteria in such a way as to include ONLY evolution as an acceptable theory (creationism is not science),
Again, not exactly - He sets it up such that you have to give a scientifically supported explanation for the origins of life. If someone had given a scientifically supported explanation for the origins of life that involved intelligent design and then he had refused to write a recommendation, that would be wrong, and he would clearly be at fault - But so far as I know, that has not happened.
requires that a student accept both his false criteria
Would you say that everyone agrees that the criteria or false? Is that issue completely settled? Is that opinion or fact?
and his religion -
...Catholicism? :) Seriously, though, science isn't religion.
and he does this under the false colors of the honest pursuit of truth and fact and furthermore, his standard is immaterial to the situation. As proof of such immateriality, let me pose this question - Would you, if faced with a delicate, risky and necessary medical procedure, insist that your doctor be an evolutionist?
Depends on the procedure, and the consequences of the presence of absence of that belief - I am not willing to assume (because it would be an assumption) that it would never ever ever be relevant, especially considering the discussion on the (micro)evolution of bacteria, for instance. Perhaps I'd been treated with antibiotic A previously, and there was good reason to suspect an evolved resistance. If I had a doctor who denied that such an evolved resistance could occur, and gave me the same antibiotic, and it didn't work, I might very well be in trouble. But of course, it would need to be a specifically relevant situation - I wouldn't insist on a neurosurgeon to look at a wart, either :)
Or would you seek the most highly skilled doctor available?
Yes :) This is the more important question, though, and it's not an "either / or" thing. If acceptance of the theory of evolution makes a doctor more highly able to deal with a situation, great, that's who we should look for - I think there are some situations where this could reasonably be the case, but admittedly there are not too many. If it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, and we shouldn't care either way.
Do you assume that such skill and a belief in creation are mutually exclusive?
Absolutely not! That would be silly. Do you assume that a belief in creation and an acceptance of the theory of evolution are mutually exclusive?
I can answer that those issues would come to my mind - because I would not knowingly place my life in the hands of a person who believed that life in general was merely a happenstance and of little significance. I would want my doctor to have a firm belief in and commitment to life as sacred and purposeful generally and mine in particular.
...and I think it would be a mistake, and an insult to doctors everywhere, and a second-guessing of the Hippocratic oath, to imply that acceptance of the theory of evolution in any way dilutes how much a doctor values human life. It seems like this is what you are saying, but I hope I am mistaken.
Before, we were talking about going out of our way to look for a doctor who accepted the theory of evolution. We agree that, in and of itself, this is silly, and that what is really important is the ability of the doctor to make the best medical judgement in a specific case - If that depends on evolutionary theory, we should find one who accepts it - If not, we need not do so.
What you seem to be telling me now, though I hope I am reading this wrong, is that you support active discrimination against doctors who do accept the theory of evolution, because you feel they will not value life as much as those who reject the theory of evolution in favor of one involving intelligent design or Biblical Creation.
Is this really what you mean? If so, how can you reconcile this with your previous arguments against discrimination?
The professor's criteria has absolutely no bearing on a student's fitness for consideration for an advanced degree -
Maybe, maybe not - What if they take their Biology degree and go into, well, Evolutionary Biology?
it is placed there soley as forced obesience to his faith and nothing more.
Science isn't faith; if he rejects a well-supported alternative theory, then we can bring him to task, but not before.
As such, it is grossly out of place and an offense to science itself.
Here we absolutely agree - It is always an offense to science when we cannot be uniformly skeptical of those things we believe to be true, for the purposes of being objective in our conclusions.
Thanks for reading,
DFS
Mmmmmm... Leftist fruitcake...
:)
DFS
Fair enough! Again, sorry for the delay, things have been really, really busy around here...
i'm working on other things at the moment any way. If you haven't bookmarked it, i did, so we can always call it back up.
:) Yep, I'm right there with ya...
i probably will not reply to anything tonight, because i'm between this and translating Ephesians 3 from Greek to English, preparing for Sunday school (what you find in the original will suprise you, then when you look at the English, it was there all the time!).
Wow, Greek is tough stuff - That's pretty cool! BTW, if you're looking for some good Sunday School material, I recently ran into this, and thought it might be something really accessible to children, to get them interested in the Bible and make it more visual:
http://www.thereverend.com/brick_testament/
Basically, someone had way too much time on their hands :) I'm not sure what this guy's motivations were, and I wouldn't blindly give the link out to children without thoroughly checking out this guys website and the links on it, but still, some interesting and potentially useful pictures, to go with the text...
DFS
Military History eh?
Yup! Compelling stuff... I must admit we didn't spend as much time on the Civil War as we might've, the series of classes I took mainly focueds on the effects of changes in technology on the nature of warfare, while following the transformation of leadership from the heroic style of Alexander the Great to the "anti-hero" (Wellington) to the nature of things today... We also looked a lot at what happened when the tactics did not keep pace with the technology... In the Civil War, of course, there was the first Gatling gun (It was Roger or Robert Gatling who invented it, I think), not to mention the widespread use of rifled small-arms (cartridges were starting to be used as well), but with the tactics of the previous generation, which resulted in just horrific casualties (same story in WWI)... Likewise, the Civil War saw the first major use of rifled artillery, in the reduction of Fort Pulaski, on the Savannah River inlet, by federal batteries on nearby Tybee Island - They had generally superior range and accuracy, and so this fort (one of Robert E. Lee's early projects, as a former engineer himself, interestingly), while well-constructed for the previous generation of warfare, was forced to surrender... You've also got the first ship sunk by a submarine (the CSS Hunley, with a spar torpedo), foreshadowing the advent of submarine warfare, and the first all-steel ships... We also studied the Russo-Japanese war and the building of the HMS Dreadnought, and how all-big-gun battleships and improved fire control basically made all other ships of the time obsolete, and then the later demise of the battleship, due to air power... Lots of other stuff as well, I really enjoyed it...
Do you get a chance to read much "alternate History"? i'm a huge fan of Harry Turtledove myself. The "How Few Remain, and "The Great War" series is quite good...As well as the alternate history of WWII called "first Contact" (Aliens from the second planet of Tau Ceti invade Earth in 1942).
Funny you should mention it :) I read the Guns of the South (AK-47 makes it back in time to the Civil War - an interesting read for sure), and I really enjoyed the First Contact series - Really a great read! My favorite was when the aliens detected an incoming "missile" on their radar and tried to shoot it down, all to no avail...then discovered that the "primitive humans" had lobbed an enormous artillery shell at them :) "Keep It Simple, Stupid" - Technology isn't everything :) I just found that highly amusing... I never read "The Great War" or "How Few Remain", but I may have to check those out - Thanks for the info!
DFS
It sounds, from your comments following this quotation, that Ms. Bokaer has taken things too far, which is not a big surprise, as you point out, considering how liberal things tend to be in Ithaca.
With that said, however, I think we do have to ask whether professors have this right or not - And if not, what do we do? Can we really force them to write recommendations they don't want to write? And how meaningful would they be?
What do you think?
DFS
He agrees that Dr. Dini has the right to set his criteria however he wants, and that people can choose to go to other professors for a recommendation if they are unhappy with this.
He agrees that, as scientists, we have a responsibility to draw the most well-supported scientific conclusions, even if the implications make us uncomfortable or go against a deeply held belief, religious, scientific, or otherwise.
BUT, he thinks that the criterion involving the origins of man, as stated, is one that could conceivably alienate people who might otherwise be good scientists.
This, I can agree with, and in that respect I see problems with the criterion of maximum objectivity, in its purest form - Not because of its lack of validity, because I think it's always relevant - But because of the presentation, and the specific and (to some) controversial example chosen, in this particular case, and the likely result.
As my friend said, even if Dr. Dini wanted to do this, he should be able to make this judgement and even achieve the same results, in the end, if he were so inclined, by sitting down and talking with someone and making up his mind that way. It's not really necessary to explicitly state it in this form, 'cause you're not likely to win over anyone by doing so (and, from a self-serving standpoint, you avoid getting sued this way).
He also agreed that a federal lawsuit and the expenditure of a few million in taxpayer's money is a ridiculous response, and that our money would be much better spent elsewhere.
Comments? Thoughts?
DFS
Absolutely. And I agree with your prior comments as well - Certainly there's good science and, well, not so good science :) And supportable theories, and unsupportable ones. It is also very important, as you point out, for all of us to recognize the limits of any particular means of understanding the world, be it scientific inquiry, religious faith, etc. Just as the Bible cannot tell us the mass of an electron, science cannot tell us whether God exists or not. Yet science and religion are both of the utmost importance to us, and they both affect our daily lives.
Scripture has been around longer than science.
Here I must respectfully disagree. Numerous constructions around the world, like the Great Pyramids in Egypt, various Aztec and Inca structures in Latin and South America, and constructions like stonehenge (just to name a few) show that a number of pre-Christian cultures had significant knowledge of science (with respect to the precise astronomical alignment of many of these structures) and engineering (with respect to the ability to build them).
But again, "who's been around longer" doesn't really matter, anyway - If the Bible had been written yesterday, its message would be no less important.
Any professional in the sciences who refuses to consider science on a consistent fashion with Scripture lacks the wherewithal so vital to the professional.
...but how can we treat scientific inquiry and the scripture in the same fashion? Of course we should try to be as fair and objective as possible in all of our judgements, but I'm not sure how much further we can go with this parallel... As we've talked about, and I think we agree, science and religion are two different realms that tell us about two different things, so at some point we have to distinguish the two. Simply based on the idea of faith alone, which is as out of place in science as it is necessary to religion, we can see that the two should not be treated in an identical fashion... I'm not sure I see your point here...
For this reason, good ground exists to deny the professor authority in the domain of science
...you mean we should fire him? How shall we deny him authority in the domain of science? I'm not sure what this implies...
since he displays antagonism towards his fellow professionals
:) If we're going to sack anyone who antagonizes their fellow professionals, be they scientists or otherwise, we're gonna run out of professionals really fast...
and seekd to limit future professionals to only those who reject the knoeldge of others.
I agree that it would be a shame to bring up a generation of scientists who would dismiss without serious consideration any well-supported theory. And again, I think if Dr. Dini was presented with a well-supported alternative to the theory of evolution, and refused to even consider it, then we would have something to talk about... But this is not what he has done, to the best of my knowledge anyway.
I also agree, (see above), that his presentation could be better in this respect. Even though it may not seem like it, I think he is actually trying to encourage the opposite of this rejection you're talking about, by showing the necessity of objective thought.
If we are truly objective in making scientific judgements, we will never reject out of hand a well-supported theory - Whether we "like" the implications or not is irrelevant. I really believe that this is the point he is trying to make, which is actually the same point you're making! There's nothing wrong with that principle, and in fact I think we can agree that it is vital to scientific inquiry.
Thanks for reading,
DFS
One can treat different statements of truth consistently. In regards to South American, Egyptian and other civilizations, Scripture also records the Word of God in speaking of prehistoric issues, before Adam, and before the formation of the our domain. The precepts of Scripture were formed in eternity past. Far earlier than any scientific applicability.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.