American Scientific Affiliation — Whatever happened to its mission?
| April 23, 2007 | Posted by William Dembski under Philosophy, Religion, Science |
The ASA (American Scientific Affiliation) is an organization of scientists who are Christians. It has traditionally been strongly pro theistic evolution. Its most prominent member is Francis Collins. I’m also a member.
About three years ago I received the following mass mailing from the ASA’s Jack Haas (I’ve known Jack since 1990 and our exchanges have always been cordial). In this letter he describes how the ASA had, in times past, been concerned to address “the sweeping tide of scientific materialism,” but had recently decided to change its emphasis to combat young-earth creationism.
If the problem with young-earth creationism is that it is off by a few orders of magnitude about the age of the earth and universe, the problem with scientific materialism is that is off by infinite orders of magnitude about what is ultimately the nature of nature. When I received this letter, I was so upset that I decided to let my membership (which I had maintained since the 1980s) lapse. Only at the instance of some fellow ID proponents in the organization did I decide to stay.
I write this post to put into perspective Denyse O’Leary’s recent remarks about the “gutting of a spiritual tradition from within” (see here — the relevance of her remarks to the ASA cannot be missed) and to highlight that with the efforts by Dawkins, Dennett, and Harris to ramp up their propaganda for atheism since this letter by Jack Haas was written suggests that the ASA was mistaken in shifting its emphasis away from “the sweeping tide of scientific materialism.”
Lay Education Committee of the
American Scientific Affiliation
PO Box 668 ~ 55 Market Street
Ipswich, MA 01938November 2003
Greetings,
I am writing to report the progress of the Lay Education Committee (LEC) on the “educational package for the person in the pew designed to promote a better understanding of the place of science within a Christian worldview.”
ASA’s original concern “for the waning faith of modern youth subjected to the sweeping tide of scientific materialism” was set aside for other interests as the times changed and the organization grew larger. As a result, our direct impact on the local church has been minimal.
At the 2000 Annual Meeting at Gordon College, some members discussed the difficulties that evangelicals have with questions deemed to have both scientific and biblical input. Later, the ASA office received a letter and a substantial gift from one participant challenging us to reach out to the church laity. He noted:
[BEGIN BLOCKQUOTE]The young-earth message has bitten deeply into the evangelical culture, and people trust this message. What will it take to show people believably that the young-earth view is not the only possible one, without undermining the Christianity or sincerity of those that hold that position?[END BLOCKQUOTE]
The ASA Council directed the formation of a committee to respond to the challenge. The LEC first met at the 2001 Annual Meeting. It was decided to develop an educational package that could be adapted for church adults and high school students, Christian schools and home schools. The package will consist of a 300-page book, 60-minute DVD and teaching/study guide. At this point, much of the book has been completed and we are starting work on the DVD and teaching/study guide. Publication is expected by mid-2005 unless we run into a financial roadblock.
Much of the project is expected to be funded by foundation grants. We have already received encouraging responses. The total budget will exceed $250,000 which includes production and marketing costs. Many of us have given large blocks of time in planning, writing and management of this project. Now we need your financial help! We need your gifts both to accomplish the project and to indicate to foundations our commitment to it. At the same time, I want to express my concern that you not forget the need to support the general budget of the ASA. Executive Director Don Munro reports that member contributions are significantly down this year. Any gifts to the LEC project should be in addition to your usual ASA contribution.
I would be pleased to respond to any questions via [email protected] Thank you for hearing me out — and for your support. Please make out your check to the ASA marked as LEC project.
Jack Haas
For the LEC Committee
93 Responses to American Scientific Affiliation — Whatever happened to its mission?
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rblinne,
and all evolutionary creationists,
and all ID creationists,
and all ID evolutionists:
many of you TEs prefer to call yourself “evolutionary creationists”. I think that is good, and whoever is comfortable with it should call themselves “evolutionary creationists” when the situation warrants it.
And I salute you, evolutionary creationists! You are not ashamed or embarassed to identify yourself with creationists!
Similarly, I suggest that ID advocates should not hesitate to call ourselves “ID creationists” or “ID evolutionists” when the situation warrants it.
I am ID advocate – 30% leaning to evolution, 70% leaning to creation.
Making clear who we are and what we believe – not science, but belief – is the best answer to those who laid charges against us calling us Creationist Trojan Horse.
And it also prepares us for future court battle, saying loudly that ID can be creationists or evolutionists!
Calling yourself ID creationist does not reduce the status of ID as a scientific enquiry, just like calling oneself evolutionary creationist does not reduce the status of evolution as a scientific enquiry.
But I wonder, how is it possible for evolutionary creationists not to accept Intelligent Design? Do you evolutionary creationists understand Intelligent Design? How is it possible for God to initiate evolution leading to the creation of man without intelligent design?
This is simply not true. If we find information written in a language (including within a cell), that is excellent evidence of intelligent agency. Only intelligent agents create language. But language does not require or prove the miraculous.
ID has never proposed or required doing experiments on God. (Nor does the ID inference require that the intelligence is God.) We can, however, make observations about intelligence and intelligent agency in distinction from natural processes. Those are certainly within the reach of scientific research.
Thank you for your honesty about excluding the possibility that scientific arguments could infer “intelligent intervention beyond natural processes”. My central point about the pivotal distinction between TE and ID has been that TE embraces methodological naturalism (or scientific materialism) and rejects by definition the possibility of an inference to intelligent agency for any natural effect.
That said, it is clearly not true that we cannot infer intelligent intervention beyond natural processes. As MatthewTan said, “If we see a watch on Planet Mars, does it mean that science cannot determine that the watch is designed?” If we receive a message from outer space, we will also surely infer intelligence and not natural processes.
When you say “I reject the possibility of a legitimate independent natural theology” I will note in passing that the apostle Paul does not share your view (cf. Romans 1). Aside from that, I hope you will eventually realize that you have been creating a straw man and then rejecting the straw man. ID does not provide an independent natural theology. When you come to understand what ID in biology is actually claiming and why, you will see that it cannot even claim to infer the supernatural, let alone deity. It is infering intelligence.
Some who acknowledge that intelligence is necessarily do in fact argue for natural intelligence, rather than supernatural, and they were doing so a decade or more before what you have depicted in your paper as the start of the ID movement.
You were a bit “concerned” earlier about the prospect that someone might not be willing to try to truly understand TE. I hope you will apply that same standard to yourself toward the end of gaining a more accurate understanding of ID.
My Cracks and Serials…
I can not agree with you in 100% regarding some thoughts, but you got good point of view…