Posts
Well, I'll Be Darned
The first I ever heard of Richard Sherlock, a professor of philosophy at Utah State University, was when I purchased the book, The Search for Harmony: Essays on Science and Mormonism. His historical chapters treating the spectrum of reactions to evolution and the B.H. Roberts/Joseph Fielding Smith/James E. Talmage argument were among the best of the book. Later I was a little disappointed when he defended intelligent design in the FARMS Review, which I took issue with on this blog. I was also a little disappointed when, in his founding essay for Square Two, he came out strongly against embryonic stem cell research. "Well," I thought, "I guess we disagree on some things, but those evolution essays were great." Meanwhile I saw his name pop up here and there, such as at FAIR, etc.
Now I see that Sherlock has converted to Catholicism. Another curve ball in life, I guess. I hope he finds fulfillment in his choice, but for not otherwise knowing him from Adam, I have to admit that I'm a little disappointed.
So once again, I guess we disagree on some things. But those evolution essays were great.
3 comments:
"converted to Catholicism"! Wow, I don't know why any Mormon would find his reasons me mentions for switching convincing. Reasons like Catholics have a better approach to the Big Bang? Is he crazy! There is *nothing* in Catholicism that is more in line with modern cosmology than Mormonism.
Last I checked, modern non-crack pot cosmology is *not* ex-nihilio. (It's possible that ex-nihilio is in line with good science but it's definitely dis-favored among cosmologists for dozens of reasons so if you were going to leave a religion over science it would be nice to be doing so for good scientific reasons. :) )
BTW - did you know Google comments won't work if you have any security set for your cookies? I had to disable my settings to say anything.
We were talking about Sherlock's conversion to Catholicism over on LDS-Herm a month or so back. I guess some people weren't that surprised. He surprisingly is apparently really enamored of the kind of "evidence for God" via standard philosophical argument. (i.e. the classic Catholic arguments) Whereas I find those completely non-persuasive in the least.
Given that I suppose it's not at all surprising that he tends to adopt views that are the most in conflict with science. I do find it so interesting that he raised some of the standard complaints about the BoM on scientific grounds (horses, steel) but doesn't apparently see that the problems with ID are of the same class only arguably far, far worse. (ID is arguing for intrinsically missing data whereas the BoM just requires empirically missing some data or ambiguity in the translation process)
If you are interested he gave a talk about his conversion (and put in a few slams on the Church) up at USU a few months ago.
http://usu-shaft.com/2011/audio-of-dr-sherlocks-conversion-story/
Clark,
Your comment even got flagged as spam. Beats me.
Thanks for the link. I can't say that I care much about his reasoning, but it might be interesting simply because, in the age of the New Atheists, Sherlock seems to have embraced an even more religiously conservative position.
Post a Comment