NRO Article

[Gibbens, Daniel G.]

In part Steve and I agree, as he states the main question as well as
I've tried to do.  Where did all the matter/energy come from that went
into the big bang?  Is there any evidence that life forms started with
the some accidental interaction between energy and matter?  Science has
no clue.  That's not to demean the value of scientific information about
the developmental processes.  Indeed, once one gets past the critical
starting points, "a lot more than nothing" is an understatement.  My
point is simply that one cannot infer from the incredibly interesting
and valuable information science provides that science has information
about beginnings, and in teaching science that needs to be made quite
clear.  

Dan 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: religionlaw-bounces at lists.ucla.edu
[mailto:religionlaw-bounces at lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Steven Jamar
Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 2004 10:05 AM
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
Subject: Re: NRO Article

 

Hmm. Science does provide lots of information about origins and about
how processes began. Except for the answer to "Why is there anything
instead of nothing?" We can't yet look behind the big bang. But we
understand chemistry pretty well. And how it "began". And we understand
aspects of life and how it began - albeit with a lot more hypothesis and
less proof than in the case of chemistry. It is wrong to say "no
scientific information, however, exists about how these processes
began." Scientific information is not the same as scientific proof or
irrefutable proof. But we know a lot more than nothing. 

 

Steve 

 

On Tuesday, March 16, 2004, at 10:41 AM, Gibbens, Daniel G. wrote: 

	Specifically, science has provided reliable information about
the processes and development of the physical universe and life within
it.  No scientific information, however, exists about how these
processes began....  Specifically, the science curricula must include
clear communication that science provides no information about these
origins.  This is true regardless of whether schools teach creationism
or intelligent design elsewhere in the nonscience curricula."   55
Okla.L.Rev. 613 (2002). 

	 

	Dan Gibbens 

	University of Oklahoma College of Law 

-- 

Prof. Steven D. Jamar vox: 202-806-8017 

Howard University School of Law fax: 202-806-8428 

2900 Van Ness Street NW mailto:sjamar at law.howard.edu 

Washington, DC 20008 http://www.law.howard.edu/faculty/pages/jamar 

 

"A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of a
living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to
the circumstances and the time in which it is used." 

 

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in Towne v. Eisner, 245 U.S. 418, 425
(1918) 

 

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