Abstract. I revisit Paul Tillich's theological methodology and contrast his practice of correlation with the syncretistic methodological practices of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. I argue that the method of correlation, as referred to in Robert John Russell's 2001 Zygon article, fails to uphold Tillich's self‐limitation of his own methodology with regard to Tillich's insistence upon the theological circle. I assert that the theological circle, as taken from Tillich's Systematic Theology I, is a central facet within his methodology and that this often‐ignored concept needs to be resuscitated if one is to remain authentically Tillichian in one's approach to the science‐and‐theology dialogue. 相似文献
Human languages vary in many ways but also show striking cross‐linguistic universals. Why do these universals exist? Recent theoretical results demonstrate that Bayesian learners transmitting language to each other through iterated learning will converge on a distribution of languages that depends only on their prior biases about language and the quantity of data transmitted at each point; the structure of the world being communicated about plays no role (Griffiths & Kalish, 2005 , 2007 ). We revisit these findings and show that when certain assumptions about the relationship between language and the world are abandoned, learners will converge to languages that depend on the structure of the world as well as their prior biases. These theoretical results are supported with a series of experiments showing that when human learners acquire language through iterated learning, the ultimate structure of those languages is shaped by the structure of the meanings to be communicated. 相似文献
The ability to understand and generate hierarchical structures is a crucial component of human cognition, available in language, music, mathematics and problem solving. Recursion is a particularly useful mechanism for generating complex hierarchies by means of self-embedding rules. In the visual domain, fractals are recursive structures in which simple transformation rules generate hierarchies of infinite depth. Research on how children acquire these rules can provide valuable insight into the cognitive requirements and learning constraints of recursion. 相似文献
Christians hold divergent views about cosmological and biological origins. Creationists read the early chapters of the Biblical book of Genesis literally, postulating a young earth and a limited role for mutation and natural selection in the development of biological diversity. Theistic Evolutionists accept current scientific accounts of biological evolution, seeing these processes as the mechanisms of God’s creative purpose. Advocates of Intelligent Design doubt whether the complexity and fitness-for-purpose of many aspects of the physical and biological world could have come about without the intervention of a Designer.
Examining the basis of these positions could help their adherents to be less zealous and divisive. Creationists could accept that their beliefs arise not principally from science, but from their hermeneutic stance, and that this stance is not necessarily correct, nor integral to receiving the Bible's theological teaching. Theistic Evolutionists could accept that excluding the possibility of God directly intervening at points in prehistory is illogical, given their belief in the incarnation, miracles and the efficacy of prayer.
The Creationist and Theistic Evolution positions share a strong desire to defend God’s honour and a sense that they more comfortably fit an authentic picture of God. These powerful affective judgements, while not irrational, do not constitute compelling logical arguments. A dispassionate evaluation of their validity and strength could be of much benefit. Advocates of Intelligent Design could admit that scepticism about the adequacy of current scientific explanations does not logically entail an insistence that direct intervention by a designer must have occurred: the explanatory power of science has been underestimated before. All parties are encouraged to accept that a detailed account of biological history is inaccessible and likely to remain so. A due humility is commended. 相似文献
Abstract. At its best, the emergence debate provides a helpful model of what religion‐science scholarship can and should involve. (At its worst it represents the faddishness and bandwagon effects to which our field is also prone.) Those involved in the debate must pay close attention to concrete theories and results in the natural sciences. They rely on the careful conceptual distinctions that philosophers of science draw concerning complexity, novelty, and organization. The resulting views about human mentality and consciousness are tested against these results and checked for their adequacy to the phenomena of human experience. Emergentist theories of nature and personhood have entailments for one's theory of religion and for theological reflection; conversely, theological accounts may constrain one's interpretation of emergent phenomena. In my response to the four symposiasts I draw out these deeper dimensions of the emergence debate. 相似文献
A philosophically comprehended account is given of the genesis and evolution of the concept of protein. Characteristic of this development were not shifts in theory in response to new experimental data, but shifts in the range of questions that the available experimental resources were fit to cope with effectively. Apart from explanatory success with regard to its own range of questions, various other selecting factors acted on a conceptual variant, some stemming from a competing set of research questions, others from an altogether different field of inquiry, and still others from the external environment. These results are best explained on, hence support, an evolutionary model of the progress of experimental investigation, whose outlines are briefly discussed. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date. 相似文献