I’ll give a common-sense answer. I would not expect a scientist who has never studied Hebrew or Greek to read detailed scholarly articles on the Old or New Testament filled with Greek and Hebrew characters. Nor would I expect a philosopher or theologian who has taken maybe some high school math and science but not much university math or science to be able to follow the symbols and equations in technical journals. But a scientist could read a good translation of Augustine’s City of God into English, and a theologian or philosopher could read a layman’s summary of current evolutionary thought written by a competent evolutionary theorist who has himself digested the technical articles. Parts of Gould’s Structure of Evolutionary Theory are accessible to the intelligent layperson who knows some basic science, and I have read some of that work; there are also writings of biologists such as James Shapiro, Gunter Wagner, Scott Turner, etc. which summarize what goes on their fields accurately. And of course nothing is stopping a philosopher from reading some of the scientific classics, including many works of Galileo, Darwin, Gilbert, etc. which I have read. In short, one should try to find out about other fields at the highest level at which one is capable of digesting them.
The situation is never perfect, because we never can know enough about every field to claim perfect understanding. But we can try. What I’m objecting to something like this: EC biologist picks up a book on science and faith by EC chemist, who has himself no real training in theology, and EC biologist then relies on EC chemist’s loose and undocumented use of “providential” and adopts and repeats it uncritically in her own writings, waxing eloquent, say, on the harmonization of providence and randomness. Instead, I say, EC biologist should not rely on the other EC author, but should look up the doctrine of providence in some good reference books, followed up by some primary sources in translation, and only then make arguments that “randomness” and “providence” go together, based on an understanding of how “providence” is actually understood by competent theologians. I don’t think that’s too much to ask, that before a scientist makes public statements about how science and theology go together, the scientist learns some minimal theology from good sources – not from other evangelical scientists who don’t know any more theology than he or she does. I’ve made a point of doing the same thing regarding Darwin. Before I posted a thing anywhere on Darwin, I read the Origin of Species in its entirety, many of Darwin’s other works, biographies of Darwin, Darwin’s Autobiography, etc. I made sure I understood what Darwin said before I offered any opinions about his thought. That’s really all I’m asking for.