Flint
Posts: 478 Joined: Jan. 2006
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Louis,
I really don't have any better explanation. My observation of creationist engineers I've known is that the gating factor is whether their particular faith is threatened. From their perspective, it's a matter of whether or not God Has Spoken on a given topic. Anything that God Has Spoken about, however idiotic, is simply not questionable. It is TRUTH. Their minds don't, and as far as I can tell *can't*, engage the topic in any intellectual sense.
They can, and many like Behe do, construct elaborate intellectual defenses around the territory God staked out as being outside reason or evidence.
Like C.J.O'Brien, I was fascinated by Behe sitting there while it was rubbed in his face that when asked for evidence, he could only state conclusions. When asked what, besides faith, his conclusions could possibly be based on when no evidence or research existed, Behe was reduced to saying "But it's still science!"
Even more, although it was clear that Behe was the central cause of Jones finding no possible way to decouple ID from creationism, Behe (before the decision was handed down) expressed complete satisfaction that he had shown magic to be science. AFTER the decision, he cobbled together a stunning rationale for how he couldn't possibly have been wrong.
Behe, in other words, simply could not intellectually engage with any idea denied by his faith. And so I have to think this is *wiring*, it's physiological in the brain, it lies beyond the influence of conscious thought.
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