I do get the sense that @pevaquark is advocating for some sort of scientism – the idea that science is the gold standard of everything. Under such a position, science will dictate one’s understanding of Scripture requiring Scripture to continually “update” itself in terms of current science. I take this to be what @swamidass is referring to as the Galileo approach as it requires a certain concordism that is driven from science to Scripture with no real sense of a reciprocal relationship.
I take Josh’s concern to be that even if, pace @TedDavis in the other thread on this topic, Galileo was further developing Kepler hermeneutical ideas, Kepler did not go as far as Galileo in promoting/suggesting that science become the norm of Scripture. Galileo, perhaps unwittingly, collapsed the entire Two Books model into a One Book model, while Kepler was very intentional about keeping Two Books on a level playing field.
Hopefully this is an adequate brief summary of positions?
That being said @pevaquark has a point:
However, I’m not quite sure that I find this intellectually dishonest as that would require some sort of deliberate intent to alter the data at the level of science. The problem is that WLC is NOT doing science. It is not that he is trying to alter the course of scientific understanding through funny business at the scientific level – he is not tinkering with experimental practice. Thus, his “predetermined” theological conclusions are not affecting the science one iota.
What he is doing is trying to square his theological convictions with what the actual science is (and perhaps is not) saying. Thus, the level of inquiry here is something larger than science. He is seeking understanding, exhibiting wisdom in his search. The dishonest move would be to ignore the science (or the theology).
He will filter, but it will be a sort of filtering that all of us do with scientific data (even the scientists) in our daily lives (again a much larger context than science or theology alone). Switch the metaphor to politics. I imagine that everyone on this site has pretty strong ideas about what certain scientific findings have to say about various social policies they believe important. The science is actually silent on any given policy and what to do, but all of us will filter the scientific data through our x, y, z, political lens, deciding about the best course of action to USE the scientific data. Is this being dishonest? Or have we entered into a new sort of conversation that requires a different sort of rule-set to govern the conversation, a rule set that is larger than the one governing science?
It is yet to be determined if WLC chooses a more Galileo or Kepler style approach once he finishes his investigation. Perhaps, after the investigation, he moves in a more AiG way and attacks the actual science as inadequate. This would be more akin to a reverse Galileo move where those theological convictions demand to “change” the science. My assumption is that @pevaquark is more concerned about such a theological Galileo move as that would then move us closer to something akin to dishonesty. However, what if WLC simply states that after investigation it is still unclear how to bring a conservative reading of Scripture in line with the current human evolutionary history. That it is a perplexing situation where nature looks to be saying one thing and Scripture is saying another and that some sort of skepticism/agnosticism, not against science OR Scripture, at the level of understanding how science/religion relate to each other is the call. This seems to be more closer to a Kepler approach. Again, it isn’t clear where WLC will fall, but I’m still struggling with the idea of dishonesty here.