Re: Francis Collins complains about creos, new atheists

On Apr 23, 12:12 pm, John Harshman <jharshman.diespam...@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Glend wrote:
From the middle of his piece:

"As one of a large number of scientists who believe in God, I find it
deeply troubling to watch the escalating culture wars between science
and faith, especially in America. A spate of angry books by atheists,
many of them using the compelling evidence of Darwin�s theory of
evolution as a rhetorical club over the heads of believers, argues
that atheism is the only rational choice for a thinking person. Some
of these go so far as to label religious faith as the root of all
evil, and to insinuate that parents who are teaching their children
about religion are committing child abuse.

"Partially in response to these attacks, believers, especially
evangelical Christians, have targeted evolution as godless and
incompatible with the truths of the Bible. Many Americans see the
earth as less than 10,000 years old, a �young earth� belief that
clashes with mountains of data from cosmology, physics, chemistry,
geology, paleontology, anthropology, biology, and genetics.
Intelligent Design, proposing that evolution is insufficient to
account for complexity, enjoys wide support in the church despite
rejection in the scientific community.

"What a sad situation. Are we not all seeking the truth? I believe
that is what God calls us to. It seems unlikely that God, the author
of all creation, is threatened by what science is teaching us about
the awesome complexity and grandeur of His creation. Can God be well
served by lies about nature, no matter how noble the intentions of
those who spread them?"

http://www.science-spirit.org/newdirections.php?article_id=749

I certainly didn't think Dawkins helped science by saying that Collins
is "not very bright."

Aside from that, I do think all should be allowed to speak their
minds, from angry atheists to theistic evolutionists, and even the
lying IDiots.

Right now, though, the noisier people are the atheists and the ones
who want to make evolution out to be inherently atheistic.  Part of
the problem is, in fact, that too many theistic evolutionists just
aren't getting out there and defending science, though Collins is one
who does.

When did Dawkins say that Collins is "not very bright"? I don't claim he
didn't, but I would like a reference. And I would have to say that
Collins' explanation for believing in god wasn't very impressive.

Oh Lord, why can't you look it up, instead of acting like I can't be
trusted? I wouldn't say it because I believe the IDiots or some such
thing. It was pretty well publicized, and I found it again
immediately, at SciAm:

"Dawkins says Francis Collins "is not a bright guy"

"Apr 16, 2008

"On Friday night, Bill Maher had evolutionary biologist and author of
The God Delusion Richard Dawkins on his show Real Time with Bill Maher
for a powwow on atheism. Aside from equating a belief in God to having
an "imaginary friend," the two discussed how it is that some
scientists can also be religious.

"Perhaps predictably, Francis Collins, the head of the Human Genome
Project, who at 27 converted to evangelical Christianity and in 2006
wrote the book The Language of God came up. Take a look at the video
below to see how Bill Maher caused Dawkins to lose some of his esteem
for Collins "

http://science-community.sciam.com/blog-entry/Sciam-Observations/Dawkins-Says-Francis-Collins-Bright/580000708

The caveat I would make is that I haven't (and don't intend to) watch
the video. I really miss transcripts, because it's certainly not
worth wading through most of the video clips put out there.

However, I trust SciAm, so I don't at all suppose they'd have lied
about it. Perhaps the context changes things somewhat, but they're
definitely quoting Dawkins as saying that Collins is "not a bright
guy" (OK, I didn't quite quote it right, but didn't substantially
change anything, if anything softening it from the original).

And the fact that Collins's argument for God is far from impressive,
and I would say quite inaccurate in many ways, does not excuse
Dawkins's claim that Collins "is not a bright guy." It's clear that
he doesn't think about God with the same standards that he thinks
through his science, but that doesn't necessarily have anything to do
with his intelligence.

Be careful when you talk about "theistic evolutionists". The term can
mean a great many things, from those who think that god created the
universe with laws that enabled evolution to happen naturally (such as
Kenneth Miller) to those who think that regular intervention is required
(e.g. Michael Behe). The former don't see a place for god in science,
while the latter at least claim to.

Yeah, so? All I said was that they ought to be allowed to speak their
minds, in a statement that was primarily aimed at noting that Dawkins
and his ilk should be allowed to speak their minds (clearly the
theistic evolutionists are given a clear pass, while atheists
frequently are not).

Whether evolution presents evidence for or against the existence of god
is a complex question, separate from the question of intervention. And
at least in Dawkins' case, evolution is only a small part of the argument.

Yeah, and? Was I disputing such statements?

Nor was a defense of science the point of his recent book. I think that
if you will look around a bit, the defenders of science have about the
same proportion of theists and non-theists as you will find in the
general population (of scientists, that is, who are considerably less
likely to be theists than the population at large).- Hide quoted text -

Again, is any of this speaking to my points?

- Show quoted text -


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