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| Author | Topic: ID Failing--at Christian Institutions | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Omnivorous Member  Posts: 3992 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 7.5 |
A piece by Laurie Goodstein appearing in tomorrow's NY Times looks at how Intelligent Design is striking out at Christian academic institutions and, intriguingly, already struck out at the conservative Templeton Foundation.
You can check the full article out here if you are signed up with NYT:
Intelligent Design Might Be Meeting Its Maker First, from the Templeton Foundation:
The Templeton Foundation, a major supporter of projects seeking to reconcile science and religion, says that after providing a few grants for conferences and courses to debate intelligent design, they asked proponents to submit proposals for actual research. "They never came in," said Charles L. Harper Jr., senior vice president at the Templeton Foundation, who said that while he was skeptical from the beginning, other foundation officials were initially intrigued and later grew disillusioned. "From the point of view of rigor and intellectual seriousness, the intelligent design people don't come out very well in our world of scientific review," he said. They wanted to give money away to ID researchers and couldn't draw a single proposal. How about Christian schools? Goodstein notes:
While intelligent design has hit obstacles among scientists, it has also failed to find a warm embrace at many evangelical Christian colleges. Does she back that up? You bet. From Vanguard University, a Pentecostal institution:
"It can function as one of those ambiguous signs in the world that point to an intelligent creator and help support the faith of the faithful, but it just doesn't have the compelling or explanatory power to have much of an impact on the academy," said Frank D. Macchia, a professor of Christian theology at Vanguard University, in Costa Mesa, Calif., which is affiliated with the Assemblies of God, the nation's largest Pentecostal denomination. Wheaton Univ., an evangelical university:
At Wheaton College, a prominent evangelical university in Illinois, intelligent design surfaces in the curriculum only as part of an interdisciplinary elective on the origins of life, in which students study evolution and competing theories from theological, scientific and historical perspectives, according to a college spokesperson. At Baylor, a Baptist univ. and former home of William Dembski:
Derek Davis, director of the J. M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies at Baylor, said: "I teach at the largest Baptist university in the world. I'm a religious person. And my basic perspective is intelligent design doesn't belong in science class." Mr. Davis noted that the advocates of intelligent design claim they are not talking about God or religion. "But they are, and everybody knows they are," Mr. Davis said. "I just think we ought to quit playing games. It's a religious worldview that's being advanced." And what does the Discovery Institute think?
John G. West, a political scientist and senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, the main organization supporting intelligent design, said the skepticism and outright antagonism are evidence that the scientific "fundamentalists" are threatened by its arguments. "This is natural anytime you have a new controversial idea," Mr. West said. "The first stage is people ignore you. Then, when they can't ignore you, comes the hysteria. Then the idea that was so radical becomes accepted. I'd say we're in the hysteria phase." My, my. A scientist who regards skepticism as evidence of hysteria: isn't that like one preacher seeing another preacher's faith as a sign of demonic possession? I think that's hysterical, too, Mr. West, and I'll sleep a little better tonight This message has been edited by Omnivorous, 12-03-2005 09:50 PM
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3992 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 7.5 |
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3992 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 7.5 |
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3992 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 7.5 |
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3992 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 7.5 |
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3992 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 7.5 |
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