Philosophy of Evolution (1) – Session 1 (Tim Barnett)
Philosophy of Evolution (2) – Session 2 (Tim Barnett)
Philosophy of Evolution (3) – Session 3 (Tim Barnett)
Is Christianity Compatible with Evolution? (1) – Session 4 (Tim Barnett)
Is Christianity Compatible with Evolution? (2) – Session 5 (Tim Barnett)
Is Christianity Compatible with Evolution? (3) – Session 6 (Tim Barnett)
Faith and Science – Holland District School Gala (Tim Barnett)
Truth Is What Matters 
I just finished watching the first video. I thought it raised some interesting points, but the main thesis was flawed right from the first premise. It was basically an attempt to reframe the debate from science and religion to theism and naturalism, before knocking down the latter to leave religion triumphant!
He justifies this shift in topic on the grounds that there are religious scientists, like Francis Collins, Gallileo and Newton. So therefore there is no conflict! Except I think there is. Sure, religion does not make science impossible and you can be a great scientist and a devout believer. Yet only 7% of members of the American Academy of Sciences believed in a personal God, despite millions in funding the Institute for Creation Research has yet to make a significant discovery, religious opposition to IVF and stem cell research, more religious countries have poorer science education and religiosity is correlated with a rejection of evolution. In short, science and religion are not necessarily at odds, but often are so dismissing this topic because he can find some religious scientists is I think missing the picture.
But let’s just say there is no conflict. It’s all naturalisms fault. There we run into another problem. This scientism naturalism he opposes is a strawman. Sure there might be some extremists who think everything but science is useless, but most scientists would simply say that science is the best way for figuring out how the universe works. But just because science is great at that doesn’t mean things which deal with other topics are useless. Just because planes are great at travelling long distances doesn’t mean all cars should be thrown on the scrap heap. I think the best evidence for this is the collaborations. Art theory and psychology is working together to figure out why we like art. Neurologists and philosophers are investigating conciousness together. Historians and astronomers are pinpointing when events occurred by figuring out which astronomical events ancient texts refer to. Do these sound like the actions of a group that thinks everything but science is useless? But I think the the worst thing is that there’s no reason to bring this up. Does scientism factor into his final refutation of naturalism? Nope. It just seems to have been brought up to tar the name of science.
But lets assume naturalism and theism is the debate that needs to be resolved. And naturalism is nasty and scientisim-ick. Does his criticism of naturalism stand up? Ha! Every worldview starts from some axioms. A starting point. His is God, and it can account for all sorts of things. But then he asks naturalism to prove itself without axioms, then laughs when it cannot. But theism couldn’t account for anything either if he was not allowed to reference a deity! It’s a double standard; so his final argument is has no legs until he can prove logic and all that fun stuff without God.
In short; I think it addresses the wrong issue, straw mans science and then dismisses naturalism based on a double standard