' "Scientific " Creationism and the End of Modern Science' - taken from Abstracts for the MS Academy of Sciences 2006
By George Phillips
Modern scienc and the scientific method are under attack, and the assault thretens centuries of advancement in reason and rationalsim. the threat to scienc and reason comes from Creationist apologetics (CA) - a growing movement among Evangelical fundamentalists holding that the Christian Bible, interpreted literally, has supremem authority over all instruction including the abillity to observe and interpret natural phenomena. CA is reaching the Christian consumer in the form of books, A/V media, WWWeb sites, "science" museums, home schools, church "educational" programs, and itinerant speakers via a familiar apologetics crusade called "scientific" creationism (SC). Although this oxymoronic institution of scriptural literalism may be of no immediate concern to the rational public mindset, SC proponents have recently found another inroad into the U.S. public school curriculum in the form of Intelligent Design (ID), an 'origins' movement claiming to be neutral on the subject of religion. Publicly, the ID movement advocates the study of design in nature without attributing design to any specific designer. However, an inquiry into 'design' necessitates contemplation of a 'designer' - i.e. a questfor supernatural explanations for natural phenomena. Although also populated by agnostics, theistic evolutionists, and those otherwise religiously neutral [bolded by me - isn't that funny!?] on origins, the ID movement is heavily supported by CA/SC advocates, who believe that all scientific inquiry should be subsumed under and interpreted through strict scriptural exegesis. Unlike modern science, CA/SC doctrinal "scienc" begins with Biblical conclustions and entertains only those facts that support inerrant scripture.
I guess I'm not so modern...
Modern scienc and the scientific method are under attack, and the assault thretens centuries of advancement in reason and rationalsim. the threat to scienc and reason comes from Creationist apologetics (CA) - a growing movement among Evangelical fundamentalists holding that the Christian Bible, interpreted literally, has supremem authority over all instruction including the abillity to observe and interpret natural phenomena. CA is reaching the Christian consumer in the form of books, A/V media, WWWeb sites, "science" museums, home schools, church "educational" programs, and itinerant speakers via a familiar apologetics crusade called "scientific" creationism (SC). Although this oxymoronic institution of scriptural literalism may be of no immediate concern to the rational public mindset, SC proponents have recently found another inroad into the U.S. public school curriculum in the form of Intelligent Design (ID), an 'origins' movement claiming to be neutral on the subject of religion. Publicly, the ID movement advocates the study of design in nature without attributing design to any specific designer. However, an inquiry into 'design' necessitates contemplation of a 'designer' - i.e. a questfor supernatural explanations for natural phenomena. Although also populated by agnostics, theistic evolutionists, and those otherwise religiously neutral [bolded by me - isn't that funny!?] on origins, the ID movement is heavily supported by CA/SC advocates, who believe that all scientific inquiry should be subsumed under and interpreted through strict scriptural exegesis. Unlike modern science, CA/SC doctrinal "scienc" begins with Biblical conclustions and entertains only those facts that support inerrant scripture.
I guess I'm not so modern...
posted by megumi @ 10:34 AM
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