Denis Alexander also has discussed several models, and this survey puts him as “Model C” because he says that’s his “working model”. Do you think it would be also inaccurate if someone said that GAE is one of your “working models”?
Maybe you should not be on this list at all, since you haven’t disclosed your personal view and you are operating as a scientist in this public arena, not a scientist-theologian. I think most of the people on the list have committed to some view that are associated with them as something they would advocate for in the public arena.
That makes sense. Except, Denis Alexander has only one working model. I have several. Seems like that list of models needs to be included. I’m not actually tied to any of them, because I am not advocating any particular view.
I should also add that all three models are variants of GAE in one way or another. But most people have yet to figure that out. WLC has though, and realizes that his model is an ancient GAE. Ironically, the same is true of the RTB model. Each model just overlays differently on the science and theology, but all of them have AE as genealogical ancestors of everyone, and have people outside the garden.
I think it is better to understand the GAE as a paradigm or a framework, and individual instances of it as models.
I totally agree! And I understand that you haven’t disclosed your personal view. Yet from my observation, it seems that even in secular science, people will tend to become associated with the views that they develop and write about the most publicly, no matter what their personal views really are. For example, does Kemp really personally believe in his model? I don’t know.
The other issue is that in the GAE book, the 6 kya Adam is presented as the most prominent hypothesis (even if it’s far, far from being the only possible GAE model). I will not be surprised if in the next few years this view will be associated with you as the “Swamidass model”. It may not actually be your personal view, but most people do not know you personally and only encounter what you defend professionally. They might not be aware of your less well-known work in exploring variants of this model. Can you really blame them for this?
In contrast, if you had written the GAE book from a broader perspective (for example, devoting equal time to the Kemp, Loke, RTB, and other GAE variants), then one would be better-positioned argue that you really are just advocating this as a general framework. However, I’ve seen you in FB discussions differentiate Kemp’s model from yours (even as you also say that his is also a variants of GAE), which indicates that you do have certain preferences, even if you don’t want to personally commit to a narrow set of parameters in one model.
I’m clear my rationale for this. I’m trying to press into the question of “what is human?” and unsettle certainty about what is supposedly ruled out by science. That option isn’t necessarily my personal preference, but it is forcing the conversation I want to have. It is also innovative and surprising. So it is my preference only in what it does for the conversation, and I haven’t staked this out as my personal preference or position. I’m using it to push on the boundaries.
Well, more like “recent” which is sufficiently vague to mean anything less than 40,000 years ago, given context.
Yes I can “blame” or at least object. I’ve been at the leading edge of critiquing Venema’s work in population genetic to make space for WLC and RTB, and this has been equally important.
Sometimes the emphasis on a recent GAE has been used to ignore what I’ve said about Venema’s scientific work. Likewise, my scientific critique has often been falsely written off as just advocating my personal narrow view, ignoring everything I did to make space for positions very far from a recent GAE.
There is a difference between having no preference versus not publicly asserting a preference.
And sometimes a preference is only temporary, in that one particular GAE scenario seems to respond to someone’s concerns or questions better than other versions of the GAE scenarios.
Do you really think Joshua is devoid of preferences?