You are depicting an entire scientific community as a bunch of imitators who are not doing research, not critiquing one another’s papers, not incorporating new data, not pushing the major theory in their field in the direction of greater accuracy and power.
How is this respectful?
While we’re discussing things: As a non-biologist, how do you even know whether what you assert is in any way accurate? Have you been reading all of the articles published in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology that have been published since Kerkut wrote his book in 1960 so as to reach your own independent conclusion about the state of biological research?
And how, exactly, does venturing from a “special theory” to a “general theory” make something junk? What, exactly, do you consider the difference between a “special theory” and a “general theory” to be? And more importantly, what evidence do you have that your concept of a “general theory” accurately describes modern state-of-the-art 21st century evolutionary science anyway?
How do you know this isn’t what’s happening with “creation scientists”? Honestly, it’s exactly what I see with most YEC laypeople.
I was recently given a YEC book to read by my preacher. People reading this book believe it and cite it as a source. In chapter 2, the author cited a paper and made conclusions that he said the author of the paper would agree with. Most people reading that book aren’t going to look at the actual paper. I did, and I found that the paper author had the exact opposite conclusion as the book author. The book author was lying as the foundation for his whole argument. I see this time and time again in “creation science”. They lie, misrepresent, and withhold information. But people believe it because it fits what they already think.
And people wonder why young people leave the church when they realize these creation scientists have been lying to them all along, and their churches have been teaching them that the Bible and evolution can’t both be true.
I had a Sunday School teacher using an anti-evolution book that even AIG says not to use. Sorry but I don’t remember the title. But it had some real howlers in it.
Good for them. I wasn’t meaning to just find fault in some books; by reading different ones, I am learning how it’s hard to keep to the straight and narrow. I’ve certainly stuck my foot in my mouth many times.
I read Kerkut in graduate school (definitely outside the curriculum) and found him very interesting. He was the “go to guy” for anti-evolutionists for a few decades, but I haven’t seen his name for some time. I used to have annotated photocopies of several parts of the book, which I couldn’t afford to buy when I was a student.
Chris, the main problem I have with your comment is the claim that these organizations “always have respected science,” while harboring “disdain” for “junk science.” Well, the great age of the earth and universe, regardless of whether the Big Bang Theory is substantially true (as I believe it is), just don’t qualify as “junk science.” So, whatever criterion is used by ICR and CMI (and AiG for that matter) to detect “junk science” isn’t working. It leads them to disrespect a great deal of very good science. That criterion appears to be nothing less than this: whatever scientific claims contradict Ham’s particular interpretation of the Bible, qualify as “junk science.” They gotta do a lot better than that. Basically, Ham classifies as untrustworthy “accommodationists” everyone in Christian history who finds other interpretations of biblical texts more persuasive–anyone who uses non-biblical information (whether from science, history, or ANE literature) as part of the interpretive mix.
Probably after really hashing things out with Jesus, we’ll discover we all are both more heretical; and those we disagree with, more Christlike, than we first realized. Donald Cole of Moody Radio remarked that we each have enough heresy to sink a battleship, yet God accepts us any way. I have at least that much!
We must mall realize that we are saved not by our theology, that is not by our orthodoxy, but by grace through faith. Jesus pointed out that people can have great theology, but no faith, and people can have bad theology and much faith.
However this does not mean that theology is irrelevant. The purpose of theology is to target our faith. If we have a poor understanding of Who God is our faith can be misdirected and we could be worshipping a false God, which is the reason the Fathers of the Church called Ecumenical Councils to define our basic understanding of Who God is and Who Jesus Christ is.
The purpose is not to condemn heretics, but to determine the facts about God, just as the purpose of science is to determine the facts about nature. People can teach “creation science,” but it is not science as we know it. .
That depends on the church. In very large churches (usually megachurches), the personality of the pastor can dominate whatever power (de facto or legitimate) held by others, whether or not the power structure is defined by the church’s constitution or whatever.