(no subject)

[tree_and_leaf]

Interesting article by the Rev'd Canon John Polkington FRS on scienc and theology, the use and abuse of the term creationism, and the Michael Reiss debacle. Polkington is a physicist and Anglican priest.

Comments

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

I found the misrepresentation of Michael Reiss almost hurtful, and his resignation baffling in its defeatism. Polkington is succinct and sensible, but he is writing in an age where "It's more complicated than that" is too often seen as evasion rather than a prelude to greater enlightenment.

[tree_and_leaf]

Reiss should never have resigned, and if he offered to, then it should have been refused.

he is writing in an age where "It's more complicated than that" is too often seen as evasion rather than a prelude to greater enlightenment.

In many ways, this is the most depressing aspect of all.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I find myself wavering between the two viewpoints. But I cannot forget that in this country, by far the biggest creationist group is among Muslims, and that creationism there does not come as a single phenomenon, but as part of a whole worldview which is both inimical to our own and wholly impermeable to debate. Any science teacher who tries to debate creationism with a Muslim teen-ager who learned it at the mosque or on the net will not meet an open mind, but a sullen and resentful silence. And what is more, the whole thing will be interpreted as weakness by the enemy camp as a whole. So - speaking as a Christian whom straussmonster would no doubt smear as a Creationist - I think the effort is not worth the result. The only thing that can properly be done with radical Islam in this country is to make it clear that it is incompatible with this country's basic value (that does not, of course, apply to all or most kinds of Islam and Islamic practice). Arguing with it does not work; it only strengthens their sense of themselves.

[straussmonster.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I enjoy little asides like this--very cute.

I really couldn't say what your beliefs are unless you explicated them, but going by official Catholic doctrine, you wouldn't fall into that camp. Here in the States we do get a good dose (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duane_Gish) of the people who are very much akin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_Creation_Research) to Harun Yahya (http://darwin.eeb.uconn.edu/uncommon-ground/archives/2007/06/the_atlas_of_cr.html) and his ilk, though.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

http://fpb.livejournal.com/269309.html

[straussmonster.livejournal.com]

Governor Mike Huckabee is a Creationist - one of the old kind we thought defeated after the eighties.

That's the thing--those types are alive and well over here, particularly at the city level of government. (I do see less of it living in New England than I did in the Midwest.) It's very frustrating because they're hard to have any kind of discussion with at all, on both the more abstract philosophical level and on the educational content policy level.

[overconvergent.livejournal.com]

I think that the more extreme partisans on both sides felt threatened by him; he's a religious authority figure who believes in evolution, so there's something to dislike for all sides :(

[straussmonster.livejournal.com]

But I am certainly not a creationist in that curious North American sense

Yes, what one could say about the kinds of those what we have over here...

[dreamer-marie.livejournal.com]

That was a very interesting article! Thanks for sharing.
P.S.: Alfred Hitchcock was a Catholic and looked like Tom Cruise when he was young? Who knew!

[harriet-wimsey.livejournal.com]

Oh, thanks, I look forward to reading that and sharing it with my father. He's an elder in our church and also a physicist, so he deals with science and faith, and especially creationism issues, quite a bit.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I met John Polkington once, at a garden party in Cambridge.