With all the attention focused on Darwin at the moment (and the irritating spectacle of dear old Attenborough misrepresenting the Bible!)I have read/heard a couple of good things on the web recently. As readers of this blog know, I am not impressed by either the fundamentalism of the new atheism which reduces all human experience to science; nor by the fundamentalism of so-called creationism which denies the validity of scientific discovery. Both, it seems to me, are locked into rigid thought systems which do not do justice to the very principles of their respective fields, human experience, language or key texts.
http://www.st-edmunds.cam.ac.uk/faraday/CIS/lucas/index.html
http://www.st-edmunds.cam.ac.uk/faraday/CIS/lucas/index.html
This link is Earnest Lucas' Faraday Lecture on Science and Faith, available both in text and audio formats.
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/whats.wrong.with.darwinism/22647.htm
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/whats.wrong.with.darwinism/22647.htm
Here, the ever contraversial Tony Campolo attacks the ethical implications of Darwinism, especially the social-Darwinism that Darwin himself spent so much of his later life promoting. This is a newpaper article, not an academic paper, stimulating nevertheless.
i know three medical doctors who are ardent proponents of dawkins and the new atheism. campolo's seemingly alarmist critique of it rings horribly true in their cases where their pro-abortion and pro-euthenasia views are but part of their wider appreciation of eugenics.
ReplyDeleteI'll try to get a space to read these references soon. I'm enjoying the Lucas book on Genesis (as recommended by you - thanks!).
ReplyDeleteI'm finding Attenborough's so called 'scientific' analysis of creation very jarring and inconsistent - the price of populism?