You've been following the battles in the Accommodationist Wars for several years. If you've been paying attention you will by now have acquired a good understanding of the main arguments on both sides. You should be able to recognize which arguments are valid and which ones are false—in terms of their logic.Now it's time for the test.
Read the following passage by Michael Zimmerman1 on The Huffington Post. He is defending the proposition that the evolution/creation controversy is not a conflict between science and religion [Redefining The Creation/Evolution Controversy]. Your task is to identify the logical flaw(s) in this argument. For the purposes of this test, we're not interested in who's right and who's wrong in the Accommodationist Wars. I'm just interested in knowing whether you can recognize a good argument and a bad one.
The mere existence of the Clergy Letter Project, an international organization I founded that is comprised of thousands of clergy members and scientists, demonstrates that religious leaders and scientists are not inherently at odds. After all, more than 12,400 Christian clergy members from all across the United States have signed the Christian Clergy Letter, a powerful, two-paragraph statement promoting a shared understanding and acceptance of evolution and Christianity.
What could be clearer than these sentences from that Letter? "Religious truth is of a different order from scientific truth. Its purpose is not to convey scientific information but to transform hearts[...]. We urge school board members to preserve the integrity of the science curriculum by affirming the teaching of the theory of evolution as a core component of human knowledge. We ask that science remain science and that religion remain religion, two very different, but complementary, forms of truth."
1. Michael Zimmerman is an ecologist at Butler University in Indiana (USA). He started The Clergy Letter Project.
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