Two years ago, John F Haught, professor of theology at Georgetown University gave a lecture at Duke University entitled "God After Darwin: Evolution and the Question of Divine Providence." I found the lecture to be very helpful in understanding the major points of Haught's book, which I reviewed on the "Books" page of this website.

The lecture is concisely summarized by the following quote:

"Theology can accept Darwin not in spite of but because of evolution's recipe: accidents, natural selection, and deep time."

The full lecture can be viewed here.

I have decided to take a more pro-active role as an advocate for science education. So, I have started a new blog focused solely on the teaching of consensus scientific understandings in public schools:

stand up for REAL science

Check it out!

Over at the KCFS Discussion Forum, Greg Myers has posted an essay that I think nicely summarizes the theological problems with Creationism.

Here's his introduction:

After some years of trying (with little success) to convince creationists that the evidence for evolution is overwhelming, it has become clear that the objection is primarily theological, and not evidential. The reason that creationists will not accept evolution is because it contradicts their theology, and no amount of reasoning concerning evolution will address that.

This leads me to the conclusion that more attention needs to be placed on the theology of creationism. There are at least two faulty assumptions creationists make. First, that the Bible should be taken as “literal” truth, and second, that the God of the Bible would deceive humans (plant misleading evidence) as to the origins of the natural world by making it seem that the world is one way (old), while it is actually some other way (young).

You can read the rest here.

Methodological naturalism, as I understand it, is not a "naturalist world view." It is simply a term that describes a practical and fruitful technique for learning about physical phenomena.

Science involves the testing of hypotheses. In order to be scientifically useful, a hypothesis must make predictions that can be tested and verified by repeatable observations. If a hypothesis cannot be tested and verified by repeatable observations, then it does not qualify as a scientific explanation. That doesn’t mean the proposed explanation is necessarily wrong, just that it’s not scientific.

Science does make a few philosophical assumptions, but they are what most people would consider common sense. For one, science assumes that phenomena are continuous. In other words, in order to do science we assume that the past really happened and that what we observe happening today will continue into the future. Science also assumes that there is an external physical reality apart from our internal consciousness. That’s really about it as far as assumptions are concerned.

Despite claims to the contrary, science does not assume naturalism. In general, scientists do not rule out non-natural explanations a priori. If you can propose a testable hypothesis based on it, then it can be scientifically tested. Indeed, so-called "supernatural" causes have been the subject of scientific investigations (i.e. prayer efficacy studies). However, at this point, "supernatural" causes have not been incorporated into scientific explanations because none of the experiments designed to test them have yielded positive results that were independently verifiable. Of course, if such experiments ever did yield positive results, scientists would most likely drop the "supernatural" label.

Some people say that methodological naturalism is a restriction on science. I see it as more of a description of science. Science is based solely on "natural" explanations simply because the things we call "supernatural" have yet to yield repeatable, verifiable observations.

When investigating an unknown phenomenon, the history of science has shown that a "natural" explanation is the best bet. "Methodological naturalism" is merely a description of the fact that scientists routinely bet on "natural" explanations.

I recently wrote a guest commentary that was published in the Garden City Telegram:

"Science must be silent on God."

I wrote the commentary to argue against the religious bias that permeates the new Kansas Science Standards. You'll probably notice that some of the text of my commentary comes from my previous blog entries.

Interestingly, another commentary about the science standards was published on the same day in the same paper. It was titled "Critics are Anti-Christian."


Hmmm...kind of ironic, don't you think?

Keith Miller, editor of the book from which this website takes its name, has written an open letter (.doc) to the Kansas State Board of Education. Miller objects to the Intelligent Design Network's pamphlet that calls Kansas Citizens for Science as a "tool" used to "promote a materialist world view that seeks to demean the idea of creation, … effectively promoting non-theistic religions and world views over traditional theistic views."

Here's how Miller ends his letter:

"As a parent, I do not want my child told in science class that evolution is a meaningless and purposeless process that God has nothing to do with. Ironically the current Board standards ask that teachers do just that. In their misguided attempt to make God a part of science, they have instead instructed teachers to teach that evolution is a Godless process. How very sad!"

In my recent experience, I have found that promoters of Intelligent Design are masters of unintentional irony. For instance, here is how the Discovery Institute's "Stand Up for Science" website refers to people like me:

"However, there are some in Kansas, and around the country, now using their voices to try to undermine Kansas' science standards and stifle discussion of the scientific evidence they don't like."

In my opinion, this statement correctly describes the Kansas State Board of Education, not those of us who oppose what the Board majority has done.

After all, they are the ones who have made it known to the public that they don't like evolution. They are the ones who have undermined Kansas' science standards by subverting the normal procedure for developing the standards and ignoring the recommendations of the committee they appointed. They are the ones who are trying to stifle discussion of the scientific evidence by promoting "criticisms" of evolution that have been widely rejected by the scientific community.

It's time for the people of Kansas to stand up for REAL science!

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

Exodus 20:16

I have put together a few web pages to address a particularly disingenuous story regarding a supposed "memo" written by a member of Kansas Citizens for Science. The story is being passed around by Intelligent Design (ID) proponents who are actively campaigning for "conservative" candidates in the 2006 Kansas Board of Education elections.

You can read about it here: Evolution of an ID Canard

Although it pains me to suggest that my fellow believers are conveying falsehoods, the time has come to pluck this canard.