Reposted with permission from AITSE
Report on the 2012 American Scientific Affiliation (ASA) Annual Meeting
About a year ago AITSE and Uncommon Descent featured an article that, between it and the follow-on posts, attracted 3773 hits and 182 comments. Why this high level of interest? Simply because the article pointed out that some of what happened at the ASA 2011 annual meeting near Chicago was not consistent with the values that the ASA posts on their website. There the ASA state that “We are committed to providing an open forum where [scientific] controversies can be discussed without fear of unjust condemnation…” But, at times the atmosphere communicated from the podium was one of thinly-veiled hostility against those who question aspects of consensus science. Details can be found in the original article. However, just as “he whose ear heeds wholesome admonition will abide among the wise,” so perhaps the mark of a good organization is in how they respond to constructive criticism.
And the ASA has. The steps they have taken towards rectifying the situation last year have been remarkable. First, early in the 2012 conference a moderator stated that the purpose of ASA is for Christians to be able to discuss diverging opinions on science without fear of censure. The conference participants were encouraged to be gentle, kind, humble and generally helpful to one another. The tone was set. And the conference continued as it began.
The topic of this conference was “Science, Faith, and the Media,” thus many of the plenary session topics did not directly pertain to science. Nonetheless, on the whole, the talks were helpful to those engaged in educating the public on matters of scientific importance. But the one presentation that specifically addressed a scientific topic was truly inspirational. Dr. John E. Johnson from the Scripps Research Institute gavea lecture on bacteriophage, viruses that infect bacteria. He called them elegantly programed nanomachines. May not sound like a riveting topic, but it was. Personally, I could have listened to him all day. Watch the videos and be amazed.
With regard to demonstrating a friendly, open atmosphere, the parallel sessions were equally impressive. They reflected the range of scientific opinions, and at least in my hearing, there were no comments about scientists with viewpoints differing from the speakers being “scientifically or theologically illiterate.” In fact, I was told that scientists from a range of viewpoints regarding evolution were specifically invited to attend and give presentations. They did and those interactions I witnessed were warm and friendly.
So, does the ASA have a way to go? Of course. First, the book table could have reflected a broader scientific point of view than it did. But, assurances were given that this was noted and will be corrected in future years. Next, one might suggest that an ID-friendly person be recruited to be an administrator on their Facebook page. After all, the Facebook posts pertaining to evolution are decidedly one-sided in nature with few if any links to organizations other than BioLogos and Faraday Institute. The same could be said for the movie night–the movie was distinctly one-sided. Perhaps in the future we could be exposed to movies from other points of view. Finally, in the future one may wish to see scientists with a greater variety of viewpoints on the ASA council. But then, that requires the cooperation of the scientists in question. Regardless, one would hope that this effort on the part of ASA to increase mutual respect despite diverging opinions will not go unnoticed.
Overall AITSE salutes ASA. They responded to criticism and made great strides towards doing what they say they do. The atmosphere made it possible for everyone to safely explore, ask questions, and learn from others–after all, which of us claims to know everything? The resultant open discussion between scientists can only advance science and science education. For this reason, AITSE now has confidence to send those specifically interested in faith and science to ASA in the future–and to work with them in the present.
Do I have this right?
The American Scientific Affiliation and the American Institute for Technology and Science Education are both organisations of people committed to Christian beliefs?
Thanks in advance for any guidance.
AITSE is a secular organization, ASA is an affilliation of Christians.
At issue is whether there is integrity in science by allowing evolution to go unquestioned. After all, even if Jerry Coyne himself says evolutionism is closer to the pseudo science of phrenology than to the real sciences of physics, it stands to reason evolutionism should allowed to be questioned.
AITSE encourages skepticism of ID and Creationism as well. I expect there will be articles at AITSE critical of creationist ideas. Though it might step on toes, I wouldn’t mind some articles written for the AITSE website to debunk the bunk of Kent Hovind.
Scordova posted this:
The nearest I can find is a quote from “Of Vice and Men”, in which he says this:
It is so hard to quote published material accurately. And so hard to be taken seriously when one fails to do it.
So timothya doesn’t understand paraphrasing….
I understand “integrity in science”. I also understand its converse, inverse and reverse. Misquotation is bad, and quotemining is worse.
Sal did NOT quote him, he paraphrased. However on other occasions Sal has quoted him, word for word.
“Evolutionism” is a paraphrase of “evolutionary biology”? Perhaps on your version of reality.
Timothya you state:
Are you trying to say that you don’t believe that Darwinism is pseudo-science as Coyne’s quote indicated?
Well let’s, by all means, dig dipper to clear up such a ‘quotemined’ slander against your cherished atheistic religion of neo-Darwinism tim!!!:
Materialists like to claim evolution is indispensable to experimental biology and even led the way to many breakthroughs in medicine, Yet in a article entitled “Evolutionary theory contributes little to experimental biology”, this expert author begs to differ.
In fact, as to the somewhat minor extent evolutionary reasoning has influenced medical diagnostics, it has led to much ‘medical malpractice’ in the past:
I found this following paper particularly interesting for broadly outlining how evolution misses the mark for a true science and is, in reality, a pseudo-science:
No, Bjornagain.
I am pointing out that Sal appears to have misquoted Jerry Coyne. I suspect he did so deliberately, but I am prepared to be corrected.
timothya- Sal did NOT quote Jerry Coyne therefor he could NOT have misquoted him.
tim you state
To my question. So please do tell us exactly why your materialistic (religious) theory, which has ZERO empirical support that it can actually generate highly sophisticated molecular machinery and computational systems is not, in reality, a pseudo-science. Or are we just suppose to take your word because you want us to?
Evolutionary biology is a scientific discipline. Evolutionism is a creationist term of abuse. Sal’s call.
Evolutionary biology IS evolutionism. Or have evolutionary biologists become IDists?
That was not a quotation, that was a commentary on what he said. I didn’t use quote marks.
Apparently you’re really sensitive to the word “evolutionism” because it emphasizes the dogmatic aspect and lack of science in the discipline. The fact Coyne likens “evolutionary biology” to phrenology isn’t exactly a compliment in terms of the “science” in evolutionary biology. Hence, evolutionism is more accurate a term for the discipline, since, according to Coyne himself “evolutionary biology” is closer to the pseudo science of phrenology than it is to the real sciences found in physics.
Even supposing for the sake of argument there is no ID in biology and that we evolved via blind purposeless forces, there is the matter of due process in the scientific method. Speculations and story telling (which is the heart of evolutionism) are not the same as experiment and direct observation to establish hypotheses (the heart of operational science). Hence, evolutionism is a lousy example of the scientific method. Contrast evolutionism to the development of the theories of electromagnetism, optics, celestial mechanics, etc. There is no contest. Evolutionism is “lurks somewhere near the bottom” in sciences pecking order. Hence evolutionism’s excessive promotion is not consistent with its scientific content, hence it lacks scientific integrity, hence organizations committed to scientific integrity have reason to encourage skepticism of evolutionism.
Evolutionism is a more accurate label for the dogmatically held belief in evolution than “evolutionary biology” (which make it sound like evolutionism is actually science). Evolutionism is far closer to the pseudo science of phrenology than the real sciences found in physics.
tim of related note to the fact that you can produce ZERO empirical evidence of Darwinian processes EVER producing a molecular machine, or encoding functional information sequences into DNA, and thus separating (your religion of) Darwinism from the accusation of pseudo-science, I can produce evidence for intelligence producing both:
There, timothya, does that make you feel better?
But if a quote mine you want, a quote mine I’ll give
Oh by the way, Darwin letter to Herschel
The post was filed under “humor” and it said “[quote mine]“.
So, this one should also.
timothya says:
LOL, let us just step over the use of the term “creationist”.
Ideologues like Tim care nothing for facts, everything is manna to use in the political battle against those things they fear. Below is an instructive conversation from a website as to what to do with the word “evolutionism”. Should they list it? Should they throw it out?
Here you go timothya,
timothya, as to the ‘ism’ part of evolution that you object to, perhaps the information in this video is more to the point of explaining exactly why it is very fitting to tack on ‘ism’ to the word evolution:
Caroline –
I, too, have noticed an opening up of ASA. I don’t expect them to turn en masse to ID, but it is very good to see that they are no longer, at least as an organization, dogmatic Darwinists and materialists. The helped promote the Engineering and Metaphysics conference, and, overall, I have seen lots of positive things coming from them.
It doesn’t take a lot of of work to quote someone correctly.
So we are back to timothya not understanding paraphrasing.