From:    John F Blanton                         
To:      All                                    Msg #37, Apr-07-93 10:50AM
Subject: Michael Ruse and the FTE

Organization: Texas Instruments, Inc
From: blanton@mksol.dseg.ti.com (John F Blanton)
Message-ID: <1993Apr7.185021.2966@mksol.dseg.ti.com>
Newsgroups: talk.origins

The following is a letter from Jon Buell, Director of the
Foundation for Thought and Ethics (FTE), a Creationist "think" tank
located here in Dallas.  FTE has previously produced the book
"Pandas and People," promoting the intelligent design concept to
replace naturalistic evolution in the public classrooms.  See
Frank Sonleitner's critique of the book for more on that.

Last year FTE hosted a symposium at the SMU campus that featured
a debate between Michael Ruse and Phillip Johnson.  FTE fared
well in this friendly environment, but I had not previously heard
from them since.  Now it appears they are claiming "victory." I
think they are grasping at straws.  I doubt Michael Ruse has
reversed himself since then and certainly not on the basis of his
talk with Johnson and his encounter with FTE.  I rather believe
we are seeing the depths of self-deception that prevail in these
groups.

The letter that follows may look somewhat odd.  That's because I
transcribed it in from hard copy using an OCR scanner, which
preserved the formatting of the original letter.  The OCR seems
to have missed very few characters, which I hopefully corrected. 
The remaining errors were in the original letter.  I would
appreciate any follow up information on Ruse's AAAS talk and his
thoughts on Buell's statement.  Does anybody have Ruse's e-mail
address?

John Blanton
Secretary, The North Texas Skeptics
blanton@lobby.ti.com
=========================
April 1993

Dear Friends of the Foundation:

You will not  believe  what
has just happened!      Re-
member  our  symposium   on
Darwinism  on  the   campus
of   Southern     Methodist
University of a  year  ago?
We told  you  at  the  time
of its outstanding  qual-
ity.     Well,  its   impact
has   just   spilled   over
into  the  highest   levels
of science.  Go  get  a  cup
of cof fee, and  come  back
to enjoy some  really  good
news--consider    this    a
"happiness break!"

The name of the Symposium was, "Darwinism:  Scientific
Inference or Philosophical Preference?" signifying  the
thesis of the program's debate, whether or not  Darwin-
ism relies on unproven, a priori metaphysical  assump-
tions (some people would just say "faith!") to make  its
case.  The chief spokesman for the Darwinian  view,  that
it does not, was Dr. Michael Ruse.

Dr. Ruse, a leading philosopher of science, was the
chief expert witness before the U.S. Supreme court  in
the "Arkansas Creation Trial" (McLean vs.  Arkansas)  a
decade earlier, and his testimony was largely  responsi-
ble for the Court's adoption of the "fact/faith  dicho-
tomy," which defines science as strictly based on  fact,
and religion as strictly based on faith.  Thousands  of
school administrators still dutifully recite Ruse's
testimony to protect Darwinism from competing  theories,
and millions of school children are the losers.

Now, at the Annual Meeting of the American  Association
for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Boston (not  a
partisan Christian group, by any means!) Dr. Ruse  was
addressing the audience.  He had been assigned to
critique Dr. Phillip Johnson's book, Darwin on  Trial.
As the chief spokesman for the intelligent design  side
of our Symposium, Johnson had been Ruse's primary
opponent there, and the debate between the two had  been
the centerpiece of the Symposium program.

(When Ruse began his presentation in the Symposium
Johnson, he was obviously charmed.  He laughingly said, "Jon
Buell's pretty wife come up to me several minutes earlier and
introduced herself, saying: 'We want to welcome you to Dallas,  we
hope it goes well for you tonight, and we hope you get
clobbered!"')

Last month in Boston, instead of the book bashing expected by  the
AAAS audience, something fascinating began to unfold.  Ruse told
the audience that he had been invited to a scientific meeting by
a group of evangelical Christians in Dallas, and really  enjoyed
his encounter with Johnson.  He said, "its a lot easier  to  hate
these people in print than it is in person!"

He went on to describe how Johnson argued that there were
assumptions underlying Darwinism that could not be proven  (the
major contention of the intelligent design side in the  Symposium)
and that indeed, this was true.  In a dramatic reversal  of  his
testimony in the Arkansas Creation Trial, he told the AAAS:
" ... evolution ... akin to religion, involves making certain a
priori or metaphysical assumptions, which at some level cannot  be
proven empirically."

[-------------------------------------------------------------------]
[ Note: the following is THE FULL VERSION of the Michael Ruse quote:]
[                                                                   ]
[ "But I am coming here and saying, I think that philosophically    ]
[ that one should be sensitive to what I think history shows,       ]
[ namely, that evolution, just as much as religion -- or at least,  ]
[ leave "just as much," let me leave that phrase -- evolution, akin ]
[ to religion, involves making certain a priori or metaphysical     ]
[ assumptions, which at some level cannot be proven empirically.  I ]
[ guess we all knew that, but I think that we're all much more      ]
[ sensitive to these facts now.  And I think that the way to deal   ]
[ with creationism, but the way to deal with evolution also, is not ]
[ to deny these facts, but to recognize them, and to see where we   ]
[ can go, as we move on from there."                                ]
[-------------------------------------------------------------------]

He repeatedly reassured his audience that he did not agree  with
creationists, but was very clear on this main point.  More  than
once he added, you wouldn't want to say this in a court of  law,
or where a school board could hear it, but it is nevertheless  the
truth.  When he opened it up for questions, his audience  sat  in
stunned silence!

[-------------------------------------------------------------------]
[ Well, it strikes me that this is obviously a lie.  The            ]
[ creationist's are so taken with their "giant secret conspiracy    ]
[ of evil scientists" model of western society that they seem to    ]
[ _believe_ things said in a AAAS meeting are somehow secret from   ]
[ school boards and courts of law.  Beyond this they seem to assert ]
[ that Ruse believes this.  At least we can be heartened that the   ]
[ chap that produced this newsletter had to spend a couple of days  ]
[ at the hospital getting his arms fixed after he broke them patting]
[ himself on the back.                                              ]
[                                                                   ]
[ Talk about things you don't dare say where other people can       ]
[ hear... Thanks for bringing this to our attention, Mr. Blanton.   ]
[ Dan Danwell@IASTATE.EDU                                           ]
[-------------------------------------------------------------------]

In a sense, Ruse put the keys, which had locked so many  public
school classrooms, back onto the table.  This is a big step
forward for the nation's students.  Only because of  your  prayer
and financial support was this influential Symposium  possible,
and you may not have known it at the time, but you were in
Boston!  Thank you for being part of our team!

Sincerely,

Jon Buell