Thoughts in a Haystack

I've always been there. Read my work carefully. The problem is that it is very difficult for those so committed to the culture war motif of this debate to actually believe someone can be interested in ID, have doubts about it while think it has some merit, but still oppose philosophical materialism on a variety of other grounds.

There were two articles that really influenced me early on in my career. The one was by a member of my PhD dissertation committee, James Sadowsky, S.J. And the other was by Dallas Willard, a professor of philosophy at Southern Cal. Here's Sadowksy's: http://www.anthonyflood.com/sadowskydarwindesign.htm Here's Willard's:
http://www.dwillard.org/articles/artview.asp?artID=42

Each, in his own way, made the argument that Darwinian evolution did not preclude design (or better, "final causality") in nature. I just recently re-read Etienne Gilson's outstanding work on this matter: From Aristotle to Darwin and Back Again (UND Press). Now out of print, it will be republished this October by Ignatius Press.

I made my peace with Darwin over two decades ago. Thankfully, that has not precluded me from thinking critically with no axe to grind about things like ID in terms of the legal and policy questions.
 

I'm sorry, then I think Forrest is right. I have no problem with you opposing philosophical materialism or even taking ID to be an interesting theology. But, then, there is no justification for advocating that that it is science for purposes of government endorsement in science classes. It's not like philosophical materialism is being taught as true in K-12 education (or, if it was, the proper response is to stop it from being taught, not to "counterbalence" it with equally unconstitutional teaching). The other option is to argue that our entire 1st Amendment jurisprudence is wrong and government should be allowed to endorse religion.

Frankly, I don't see how those options fail to be such stark contrasts that close reading would be unnecessary in order to know which you are advocating.

Nor do I see, then, how your position is close to Barr's. Do any "theistic evolutionists" argue that their views should be treated as science in government schools rather than theology?

If you made your theological peace with Darwin long ago, it's then time you make it with our Constitution.
 

Never said it was "science." Again, read carefully. I actually argue that the question of what constitutes science is in a sense unanswerable and irrelevant to the issue.

Having said that, I do not believe "ID" should be taught in public schools. In fact, that was never my project. My project addressed the question of whether certain sorts of arguments critical to philosophical materialism could be offered in a modest and tangential way in a public school science class. And the answer, of course, is clearly yes. ID was, of course, the most interesting proposal at the time I was in law school (2000-01). Today, if I had to rewrite my dissertation, I would be more careful to distinguish different sorts of challenges that are not affiliated with the ID movement. I sort of did that by treating ID as a kind of general category for all points of view that deny philosophical and methodological materialism. But today, again, I would have done it differently. In fact, I am presently working on a law review article on just that very distinction. It's tentatively titled, "How to Be An Anti-ID Advocate." It should be published sometime in Spring 2010.

Remember, just because universities divide disciplines into departments does not mean reality is divided that way as well. At the end of the day, all of this should just be about arguments and their plausibility and not about metaphysical litmus tests.

In any event, I can't make you unbelieve what I know to be false about myself. All I can hope to do is to offer an account of my own beliefs in the best and clearest way I can. But sometimes, alas, I fall short.

Peace,
Frank
 

I see, you don't say ID is science you just said that science can't be even tolerably well defined and we might as well just go ahead and include metaphysics in science classes. Why call them science classes at all then?

There has always been ways that arguments critical to philosophical materialism could be offered in a public school ... they're called philosophy classes. But then you and the IDers couldn't claim that your theology/philosophy is science, which is the real objective of ID Creationism.

If what I believe about you is false, you could go a long way towards convincing me if you publicly and prominently disavowed the clearly dishonest program of the Discovery Institute ... unless you're going to tell me we can't really tell truth from lies.
 

I actually argue that the question of what constitutes science is in a sense unanswerable and irrelevant to the issue.

In a sense it's unanswerable. And then on the other hand, in a sense it is. Lol, now what...

Let me guess: it's irrelevant.
 

For somebody who doesn't like metaphysical litmus tests, he sure has a lot of metaphysical litmus tests.

For somebody who doesn't like categorizing reality, he sure has a lot of categories.