Boyce: "Just You Wait!"

[_Gadianton]

aha, a very good point Kevin. This holds for both books written by critics and Chapel Mormons. In many of the essays I reviewed, it was implied one shouldn't waste their money on the book they are reviewing. i remember one put it like, there are so many books in the world, and so little time, we should only read the best ones, implying to skip the "garbage" that was the topic of review.

[_Runtu]

Of course, it's more efficient to skip that reading and, based upon Gadianton Scratch's helpful summary, simply proceed to ritualized expressions of astonishment at the stupidity, hypocrisy, dishonesty, arrogance, and viciousness of The Apologists.

Peterson's words, not mine folks. I would invite all of you to carefully consider Peterson's summary of my essay but also read what I actually say. I believe he is misrepresenting me pretty badly here.

Agreed. Boyce appears to want to have it both ways with regard to science and the scientific method. And saying so isn't pointing out that Boyce is stupid, hypocritical, dishonest, arrogant, or vicious. And by the way, I'm going to remember "flipping the Kuhn switch." heh

[_Gadianton]

but the core here is just pointing out science is a sociological process given to human faults and biases with commonly accepted ideas being open to refinement and in some cases upheaval.

Yes, I agree EA. I was disappointed, to be honest. With DCPs endorsement that this was going to be a very interesting argument, I almost prepared myself for something original.

[_EAllusion]

Yeah, it's almost sad how naked the argument is beneath what amounts to a frivolous history lesson that isn't quite right anyway.

If you read his essay, I think it's worth reading this two blog posts that occured in the blogosphere domain I read:

http://scienceblogs.com/evolvingthought ... ualist.php

http://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2009/02/da ... alism.html

Punctuated Equilibria is probably in the top 5 of constantly misused evolutionary concepts on the internet, so it's worth reading just for the simple explanation of what it is.

[_silentkid]

Great review, Gad. Superb. Worthy of slavish praise. I was going to spend some time on Boyce's "review" this weekend but I came down with a migraine. As a graduate student at BYU, I had the opportunity to TA a class that used the Evolution and Mormonism book as a supplement. Dr. Jeffery (who I mentioned in the other thread) wrote the foreword to the text. He provides some interesting insights into the history of the church's complex relationship with evolution. It's a must read. He states:

This work should not be seen as a final synthesis of Mormonism and science, much less of science and religion in general. We Latter-day Saints have fallen too far behind the discussion to envision any such synthesis; the first thing we need to do is a lot of catching up. We have no significant ecclesiastical tradition dealing with the substance of either science or scripture on the majority of science/religion issues.

While there are some points in the Stephens/Meldrum book with which I disagree, I find it admirable that they are willing to discuss evolution in the context of Mormonism. The book helped give a new perspective to many students who felt that evolution and Mormonism were incompatible.

[_Gadianton]

Thanks SK!

What I find interesting is these two authors are expressing their sincerely held views that could easily be considered "Internet Mormon". And like Dr. Hauck, receive a forceful reaction from FARMS.

One might say FARMS is being even-handed here. They are against critics, chapel Mormons, and even some internet Mormons. But there may be something else going on too and I'm going to continue to think about it.

[_silentkid]

Here's a bit of insight:

Evolution and Mormonism was published by Signature Books.