Evangelical Scientists in Britian and USA

I would like to comment on some of the statements in Pinsky's "USA Today" article. He wrote "The pioneering work of Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler all came into conflict with church authorities and doctrines, although these astronomers and cosmologists insisted they were sincere believers." While this statement is true, it should be pointed out that the conflict existed simply because the Church adopted the Ptolemaic system as on a par with the Scriptures. The Church was defending Ptolemy, not the Bible. They merely used surface reading and proof texting of the Bible to support Ptolemy. Galileo recognized this. In his letter to the Grand Duchess Christina he wrote "With regard to this argument, I think in the first place that it is very pious to say and prudent to affirm that the holy Bible can never speak untruth-whenever its true meaning is understood. But I believe nobody will deny that it is often very abstruse, and may say things which are quite different from what its bare words signify. Hence in expounding the Bible if one were always to confine oneself to the unadorned grammatical meaning, one might fall into error. Not only contradictions and propositions far from true might thus be made to appear in the Bible, but even grave heresies and follies. Thus it would be necessary to assign to God feet, hands and eyes, as well as corporeal and human affections, such as anger, repentance, hatred, and sometimes even the forgetting of things past and ignorance of those to come. These propositions uttered by the Holy Ghost were set down in that manner by the sacred scribes in order to accommodate them to the capacities, Of the common people, who are rude and unlearned. For the sake of those who deserve to be separated from the herd, it is necessary that wise expositors should produce the true senses of such passages, together with the special reasons for which they were set down in these words. This doctrine is so widespread and so definite with all theologians that it would be superfluous to adduce evidence for it."
He further expounded on this for another paragraph and then wrote that sentence that is so often only partially quoted: "This being granted, I think that in discussions of physical problems we ought to begin not from the authority of scriptural passages but from sense experiences and necessary demonstrations; for the holy Bible and the phenomena of nature proceed alike from the divine Word the former as the dictate of the Holy Ghost and the latter as the observant executrix of God's commands."
Neither Galileo nor Copernicus were in conflict with the Scriptures. They were in conflict with those who took Ptolemy as authoritative over the Scriptures. Galileo had a very high regard for the Bible.
Pinsky then wrote in the next paragraph, "Even so, among contemporary American scientists, many — perhaps a majority — have declared themselves skeptics, secularists, agnostics and atheists." It seems obvious, from recent articles, lawsuits, and Stein's movie 'Expelled...', that such a declaration is considered a requirement to work and teach in the secular fields of Science, at least in the US. To take these scientists' statements at face value and not ask why they are made, in light of this, appears to me to be disingenuous.
Two paragraphs later Pinsky had this to say: "While impossible to quantify, a surprising number of prominent British researchers at the pinnacle of their fields, with worldwide reputations in the physical and biological sciences, proclaim their evangelical Christian faith. And they are not perfunctory adherents, merely showing up for Sunday worship; they believe in acting on their beliefs. Some have taken up weekend pulpits."
As we find out later in this article, these "prominent British researchers" give intellectual assent to Darwin. They merely disagree on who started life at the beginning. The scientific community is perfectly willing to accept that difference, as long as Darwin is bowed to.
And that is the difference with evangelical US scientists with which Pinsky struggles. The US evangelical scientists do not bow to Darwin. And through his article we seem to hear the question 'How can a person claim to be a reputable scientist and not accept Darwininsm?'
About halfway through his article Pinsky noted about US evangelical scientists, "They bash mainstream scientific conclusions in papers such as "Evolution Exposed," and they also seem to challenge the scientific method itself. " But we need to ask Pinsky what his definition of the scientific method is. If it is to follow the empirical evidence no matter where it leads, then he would find no conflict with these evangelical US scientists. But if it is to follow it unless it points to God, as Darwinists demand, then we can understand why Pinsky is so puzzled by the stand of the US scientists and why he so admires the British scientists.
Quotes for Galileo were taken from The Galilean Library (www.galilean-library.org)

I find it very curious that Pinsky takes such a biased approach in his comparative analysis of Bristish Evangelical Scientists with US Evangelical Scientists.

First he associates US Evanglical Scientists views with fundamentalist Muslims. Then he goes on to compliment the British Scientists for not being dragged into the "hotbed" of cultural issues as if such involvement is a bad thing. Yet he does not explain why such invovlement should be considered bad at all. However, the tone is clear as he is building his biased comparison.
Next, Pinsky seems to praise the Bristish Scientist for embracing theistic evolution. Now why should the adoption of such a view be praised? That is very simple: because it is very friendly to Darwinism. And any within the scientific community will tell you that if you oppose Darwinism, your crediblity is destroyed. The compromise with such a godless philosophy is self-evident and when it is coupled with recent behavior in the scientific community (just ask Ben Stein), it is easy to see why any Scientist who opposes anything that resembles Darwinism would be mocked. It would seem to me that this article is another attempt to discredit any Scientist who is determined to accept the truth of Scripture regarding a literal six-day creation as a scentifically valid position.
Finally, Pinsky drives the nail in the coffin when he associates US Scientists with "fundamentalists". There is hardly a word that is more insulting in evangelicalism today than the term "fundamentalist". As my grandpa used to say, "these are fighting words".

What Pinsky does not realize is that it is not our science that is to inform us of our religion, or to put it more accurately, to inform us of who God is and what He is like and the nature of what He has created. Rather, it is our religious views, that is to say, our views about God and Scripture that are to inform our Science. This is another case of faith being displaced by reason. I am reminded of Augustine's quote, "I believe so that I may understand." The epistemology inferred by Pinsky is clearly not supported by Scripture.

In summary, Pinsky seems to want to assume that the Bristish positions are supperior without actually making any case for why this is the case. Since he associates the views of global warming and Darwinism more closely with that of the British Scientists, he seems to be implying that this and this alone proves that they have advanced more the their US counterparts and therefore are more credible. Since this is the case, Pinsky seems to be saying that the US Evangelical Scientist has much to learn from their Bristish colleagues. Even his analysis of why the two groups are different only serves to beg the question. Pinsky offers no compelling argument for his view. Instead he makes one implication after another without attempting to establish a basis for his propositions.

Very interesting article. And what a great term, "scientific evangelical." It's a perfect description of how I view myself ("programmer evangelical" doesn't have the same panache!). Those crazy Brits just might be on to something. Seems like we spend a lot of time here in the USA hotly debating things that will never be resolved to the complete satisfaction of either side.