Shall I Bow to My Creator? • NO! • YES! – ancient myths – ancient monotheism – eastern religions – ancient Israel – western philosophy – Bible – modern theology – fundamentalism • Continuity of Being • CREATOR/creature – nature > gods > man – God || man | nature – transmutation / evolution – everlasting distinctions • IMPERSONAL FATE & • PERSONAL CHANCE SOVEREIGN – ultimate victimization – ultimate responsibility 1
Science is . . .? “Science . . . is an invented institution not present in all societies . . . it demands some sort of unique soil in which to flourish and [without that soil] is as capable of decay and death as any other human activity” Loren Eiseley, “Francis Bacon,” The Horizon Book of Makers of Modern Thought (95-96). 2
What Wisdom Gave the World “In a forthcoming book . . . I will deal with the origins of the new ways of thinking which seem suddenly to appear among the Greeks in the early sixth century B.C. . . . The roots of this movement can be traced to the earlier literature of Israel. . . . We have in Qoheleth [Ecclesiastes] some of the raw material on which the earliest Greek philosophers built their metaphysical structures. . . .” William F Albright, Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan: A Historical Analysis of Two Contrasting Faiths (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1968), 259, 262 3
Science Develops in the West Middle Ages: monks begin serious studies of nature with some experiments accompanying James Hannam, The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution Rodney Stark, How the West Won Protestant Reformation: Hands on Labor as a Calling of God Nancy Pearcey and Charles Thaxton, The Soul of Science 4
The So-Called War Between Religion and Science Key book: President Andrew White’s book A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology “Their goal was to secularize society, replacing the Christian worldview with scientific naturalism. They understood very well that they were replacing one religion with another for they described their goal as the establishment of the ‘church scientific’.” Nancy Pearcey and Charles Thaxton, The Soul of Science 5
Science and its Funding Sources “A steady increasing share [of research] is conducted for, by, or at the direction of the federal government . . . The solitary inventor . . . has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories . . . The free university, historically the fountainhead of scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes a substitute for intellectual curiosity. . . . The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is gravely to be regarded. . . . We must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.” Dwight Eisenhower, Farewell Address, 1961 6
“Post-Normal” Science “The concept of post-normal science goes beyond the traditional assumptions that science is both certain and value-free . . . The exercise of scholarly activities is defined by the dominance of goal orientation where scientific goals are controlled by political or societal actors. . . . In post-normal science, the maintenance of quality, rather than the establishment of factual knowledge, is the key task of scientists. Scientists have to contribute to society by learning as quickly as possible about different [group] perceptions . . . instead of seeking deep ultimate knowledge.” [UK blogger citing the scholarly work of Funtowicz and Ravetz during the 1990s] 7
The Dynamics of Modern Scientific Communities • Politically funding educational curricula and research • Manufactured consensus • Secular agenda for training children • Not “evidence-based decision making” but “decision-based evidence making” 8
Limitations of Reason “Re a so n” is me re ly a c a lc ula ting ma c hine , no t a le g isla to r o f re a lity Conc lusions Pr opositions Cate gor ie s L o g ic a l Rule s (to o ls Go d ha s g ive n to o rg a nize re ve la tio n a nd disc o ve r so me o f His c o he re nt tho ug ht) Unavoidable de pe nde nc e on wor ldvie w 9
Consistency Correspondence criterion: GOD criterion: man’s man’s ideas can correspond thoughts can be with factual reality outside his orderly because head because both are part of a God’s plan is unified creation orderly Who has put wisdom in the mind? Job 38:36 MAN NATURE KNOWS partially as a creature
Does Math Success Imply a Pre-Established Design? “Nature seems very conversant with the rules of pure mathematics. Nature and our minds work according to the same laws.” Sir James Jeans (1877–1946) “The laws of our thoughts coincide with the regularity of the flow of impressions which we receive from the external world.” Max Planck (1858–1947) 11
Does Math Success Imply a Pre-Established Design? “The success of [scientific] procedure supposes in the objective world a high degree of order which we are in no way entitled to expect a priori. There lies the “miracle” . . . . I think of the comprehensibility of the world as a miracle or an eternal mystery.” Albert Einstein (1879–1955) 12
What is Mathematics? “Is mathematics a collection of diamonds hidden in the depths of the universe and gradually unearthed one by one or is it a collection of synthetic stones manufactured by man but so brilliant that it bedazzles those mathematicians who are already partially blinded by pride in their own creations?” Morris Kline, Mathematics for the Non-Mathematician, p 545 13
Limits of Empirical Knowledge Galaxies 22 20 Ma n c re a te d to ha ve do minio n Solar o ve r na ture sta rting with the 18 System c o rre spo nde nc e Go d c re a te d 16 b e twe e n ma ny o f ma n’ s Deductions 14 e mpiric a lly-b a se d c o nc e ptio ns Telescope e Sun a nd na ture ’ s de sig n Spatial Domain of Natur 12 10 8 Mountains Space: Log 10 (cm) 6 4 Man Conjecture 2 Ultra-speed BUT the sc ie ntific me tho d 0 One cm filming re q uire s spe c ia l a dditio ns -2 (wo rldvie w de pe nde nt Bacteria Microscope c o nje c ture s) in o rde r to -4 pe ne tra te uno b se rva b le Deductions -6 pa st & future do ma ins -8 Deductions -10 Atom Molecules -12 T e mpor al Domain of Natur e Direct Observation -18 -16 -14 -12 -10 -8 -6 -4 -2 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 Historical Visible Light One Second Historical X-Ray Sound One Hour One Year Beginning Universe Testimony Period Period Age of Period Life Period Instruments Time: Log 10 (seconds) 14 Reconstructed from Julio Garrido, “The Theory of Evolution and the Limitation of Human Knowledge,” CRSQ, March 1970, Vol 6, pp. 185-187
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