From: salem@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Bruce Salem)
Subject: Expertise, was Re: Progressive Creationism Part 2
Organization: Stanford Univ. Earth Sciences
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 05:30:20 GMT

	In case it is not clear, my views in no way are to be taken as
those of the School of Earth Science, Stanford, where I have an account,
at least not necessarily.

In article <1992Oct2.151016.15275@nsisrv.gsfc.nasa.gov> jgacker@news.gsfc.nasa.gov (Class Guest3) writes:
>Bruce Salem (salem@pangea.Stanford.EDU) wrote:
>: 	The kind of reconciliation of Scripture with Geology
>: which Mr. Acker submits is highly suspect. Even with his disclaimer
>: that he doesn't agree with all of it, one suspects that Jim's willingness
>: to post it implies that he thinks that it is a worthwhle approach.
> 	
>	Hmmm... a worthwhile approach?  From a strict scientific viewpoint,
>I could care less if Scripture jives with what science has determined.  From a
>religious viewpoint, I find the discussion interesting.  I gather from 
>reading Boice that this is a series of lessons on Genesis he presented to his
>church.  Since there are 60 chapters, somebody must have thought it 
>worthwhile.  (Boice is pastor of 10th Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia.)

	You see, in view of my confusion about your use of language within
the two spheres, science and religion, I read your posting as at least a
partial endorcement of the views therin. There is one disclaimer at the
front of the first article and no discussion about where this dividing
line between what you take to be science and what you take to be something
else. Clearely the articles have something to say about science and religion,
but you being silent on which is which, and which comments belong in which
contexts is very serious stuff in this group.

>	The conference on origins I attended at Washington Cathedral basically
>said this:  The scientific or religious investigation of origins is valid.
>But they should not overlap -- they are different spheres and pursued
>for different purposes.

	I would like to hear you elaborate on this. What can either sphere
say in its own sphere and not say in the other?

>: 	Now, having seen Jim's bio, I can say that someone who writes
>: papers on the chemistry of minerals in aqueous systems, and I presume
>: something about diagenetic processes, is not necessarily an expert on
>: subjects such as stratigraphy, geochronology, etc.
>:

	Notice I said NOT NECESSARILY. I have met geologists who did
useful work in some area but heald views, such as Creationist, which
are in direct conflict with another major area of science.

>	Not an expert.  When one chooses to specialize in a field up to
>the Ph.D. level, you become an expert in that field.  My expertise lies
>in chemistry, surface reactions, seawater composition, surface weathering
>processes, etc.
>	But you pick up a lot of knowledge on the way.  For example, 
>water masses are dated with bomb-produced carbon-14 or tritium.  I might
>need to know a little about geochronology to understand that.  Also, 
>sediment deposition rates are determined from thorium isotopes, which
>have a high scavenging efficiency for particulates.  The exact isotopes
>are in the book behind me, if you want them.

	Of course C14 or H3 have short enough half-lives to fit into a
Young Earther's time scale, so even a Young Earth Creationist could use
these. I suppose that Th isotopes with half-lives on the order of 10**6
years might present some problems, though. Mind you, I know that you
are not a Young Earther, but then that gets back to the problem of when
you part company with other Christians who are. You may have a good
argument, but will they hear you?

>	Stratigraphy -- in my surface weathering study in the Catoctin
>Mountains of Maryland, there are several different geologic units with
>differing susceptibilities to acidification.  The Catoctin formation,
>a metabasalt consisting primarily of epidote and albite, has secondary
>calcite that contributes to a high acid-neutralizing capacity (ANC).  The
>Wissahickon quartzite has a much lower ANC;  hence, the streams have a higher
>susceptibility to acidification.  I have to know a little
>stratigraphy, too.  I know what it is, and when somebody tells me that
>a feature is Ordovician and not Devonian, I know he's talking about geologic
>ages though I have to check the chart to remember which one is older.

	OK, but a geologist might be perfectly happy with lithostratigraphic
units and even ignore them as time-rock units. You treated the above units
as lithologies and wern't too concerned with their absolute ages, the
index fossils in them or what period or stage they are assigned in the
geologic column. Even a Creationist geologist could do that.

>	BTW, Bruce, how much do you know about:  the difference between
>first-order and second-order reaction kinetics?  Nucleophilic substitution
>reactions?  Inhibition of calcite reaction rates by adsorption of phosphate
>ions?  The structure of vermiculite?  Clay mineral chemistry (which might
>be important to the formation of the K-T boundary iridium anomaly?)   
>I apologize up front for not being Isaac Asimov, who knew darn near 
>everything about everything.
 
	I think that I have publically acknowledged your expertise
in geochemistry. I do recognize some of the buzz, and it has been (gasp!)
20 years since I took a Geochemistry course for Conrad Krauskopf here
at Stanford. You are probably much more expert than me in geochemistry
and lots of other things. That does not mean, though, that your
statements on areas outside that focus is not as flawed as someone
without a science degree. I misread you and spoke out of turn about
you, but your carelessness in the use of language let you in for
the criticism. I honestly thought that I was talking to someone who
did not know what science was.

>: 	What really bothers me is the lack of care already evident
>: about language, the kind found in Scripture and the kind found in
>: scientific work, as though they must be reconciled. They cannot be
>: reconciled as if they use the same standards of knowledge, or the
>: same type of experience, or the same standard of objectivity. Religion
>: is not science and vice versa, and the language of the former cannot
>: be reconciled with the language of the latter. It is that the contexts
>	
>	True!  But in order to show that not everyone is so 
>unreasonable as the ICR hacks, I'm posting Progressive Creationism to show
>that intelligent inerrantists still grant a lot more weight to science than
>our San Diego friends.  What is Progressive Creationism, exactly?  It's
>an attempt to show that the simple framework of the Genesis story doesn't
>have to be at odds with the detailed knowledge of Earth's origins 
>determined by science.  It isn't a theory by itself (anybody reading it
>can tell that) -- it's a conscious attempt to calm the troubled minds
>of believers.  It's Davis Young's search for the calm center.

	But to calm the believers, when in this group, you need to set your
context very carefully. Even if you can reconcile Scripture with science
you need to be clear about why you need to, and how selective you are
and why. I think that Ted Holden is trying to reconcile science with
Scripture, but look at the result. One of the points worth making is that
you do not read evey verse of Scripture in the same context. Even literalists
make judgments about HOW to read each verse, and they don't read each one
the same way. This results in wide latitude in how to read each piece.

	If you need to calm the faithful, you need to soothe the non-believers
that you don't intend to bugger the facts to fit your beliefs. Many people
who have posted here are not careful about that or even are just plain
dishonest about it.

	Now, I think that sacred texts of all sorts have their value, but
it is least to do with agreement with science. It is a common mistake in
this day and age for theists to think that they must present their Scriptures
as if they had the same kind of knowledge as a legal brief, or a scientific
journal, and are to be read the same way. I think that this is a basic
misuse and distortion of religion and sacred works. It may even be argued
that people who hold the view that their beliefs must be made to conform
in some way with the findings of science have some weknesses of faith.

>: cannot be bent to become the same. The epistemological bases are not
>: reconciliable. I prefer to make appeals to faith personal and psychological
>: having no external correspondence, and to leave science with a weak
>: claim to knowledge as weak as humanly possible, and to not allow for
>: Mankind the knowledge he gives to Gods, including his ability to know
>: Gods or to speak for them. Scripture is human speech of what humans
>: thought God said to them, nothing more. Those prophets can have nothing
>: more in knowledge any of the rest of us can have.
>	
>	Right.  But just to throw another light on it...
>	If you completely ignore whether or not the prophets were inspired
>by God(s), the fact that these texts were preserved gives insight into the
>way that the historical peoples related to and interpreted the world 
>around them.  Only a few privileged individuals in any society are given
>the lofty title of "commentator":  George Will, Jonathan Swift, C.S. Lewis,
>Thomas Paine (? on name, author of "Common Sense"), Jean-Paul Sartre,
>etc.  Perhaps they do have more in knowledge than the rest of us have, 
>whether or not that knowledge is God-inspired.
>
>: Bruce Salem
>
>	Jim Acker
>	jgacker@neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov

	Just to play divil's advocate, I'm sure that "Mein Kaumph" by
Hitler, may well be preserved on the same basis. Sacred texts the world
over point to paths to enlightment, spiritual richness, correct living,
and to Man's struggle to find meaning for himself. They have universal
value. The questions addressed by faith are eternal and are asked by all
of Mankind. The problem is that words are not the ideas, or the ideals.
Words betray us. They change meaning over time and through translation.
Even if we can know of words in one language translate into another, we
do not have the original conotations, especially of idioms. The OT
prophets often heard of God in dreams, but if you lived in a time when
everybody beleived that dreams were the means to talk to spirits or gods,
then it follows that God talked to people in dreams, and some of these
people could express themselves better or were more respected than others
and were therefore conferred the status of Prophet. Now, I go through this
not to denigrate prophets, but to show how an idea which could have been
current at one time is lost and we read a text from that time with a
different connotation. Dreams are now regarded as inventions of our own
psyches, not communications with Gods. By the same token the polytheism
of the Greeks and Romans seems to have a functionality similar to psychological
theories of personality, foibles and all. Maybe in that sense we should not
try to understand religion of the Classical era in the same way we
understand our own.

Bruce Salem