…biology and atheism in an overly religious world…
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Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor is on record as saying atheists are not fully human:
This is a man who some hope to have elevated to the House of Lords. Well, this should in any rational world put him way out of the frame. There’s a petition against punting him up to the Lords here.
Hat tip to Evolved and Rat/i/onal and The Freethinker.
Tags: atheism, Catholicism, religion
I’ve been looking through the internet media for reactions to the launch of Francis Collins’ BioLogos Foundation, which I blogged about, politely (I hope) but unflatteringly, the other day (Theistic Evolution and the BioLogos Foundation). As would be expected, these reflect the author’s own theistic or atheistic views, and in many cases a highly accommodationist approach. My own view is that BioLogos is scientifically flawed in many ways.
What’s interesting is the spread of opinion. I’ve not so far seen commenters from the religious side of the debate who deplore the odd theist evolutionary slant. In fact many people seem to be quite keen to see the Foundation carry out its accommodationist mission – often these opinions derive from the elevated status that Collins has acquired through his genetics and genome sequencing work. I think this is dangerous. The serious criticism comes from those of us for whom atheism follows directly from a scientific and evidence-based world view.
Jerry Coyne’s blog (Why Evolution is True) has featured several related articles which are highly critical of Collins and his bedfellows in BioLogos (for example the Templeton Foundation, who provided funding to help establish the BioLogos Foundation). PZ Myers (Pharyngula) was where I noticed reports of the launch of the BioLogos website, and has continued to blog on related issues, and of particular note is his argument against the Templeton Foundation (The Templeton conundrum).
The New Scientist magazine (which I confess I don’t pay much attention to, particularly since the “Darwin was Wrong” cover fracas) has weighed in with an article highly critical of the “god of quantum physics” stance evident at the BioLogos Website (Quantum arguments for God veer into mumbo-jumbo by Andy Coghlan). Quantum mechanics has the sort of buzz-words beloved of pseudosciences such as quack medicines like homeopathy.
To me, and to other scientists and commentators, Collins is straying into pseudo-scientific speculation simply to keep God in the earthly frame. Believing in God in the first place is by definition a leap of faith, and one that many scientists and many non-scientists are, after careful and reasonable thought, unwilling to take. For those who have trouble accepting that we’re a product of pure chance, there is the option of believing that God set everything in motion.
Larry Moran in his Sandwalk blog also touches on aspects of BioLogos (Theistic Evolution:How does God do it?), including the role of god in evolution – well worth reading, as are many of the comments there.
On the more pro-Collins side, we have Time magazine, which weighs in with an approving article, Helping Christians Reconcile God with Science, which I suppose reflects establishment belief that an eminent scientist is going to have seriosu views on subjects other than their own discipline. Interestingly it seems to me to reinfoce a deep problem with theistic views and the BioLogos accommodationist stance: if there is a god, why are these guys so sure it’s the god of the christian bible? As I noted in my blog article, there’s a deep christian odour through the theistic nonsense that pervades the BioLogos site. What’s notable in this brief article is the lack of any counter-opinion. The article finishes with a quotation from Collins:
“Science can’t be put together with a literalist interpretation of Genesis,” he continues. “For one thing, there are two different versions of the creation story” — in Genesis 1 and 2 — “so right from the start, you’re already in trouble.” Christians should think of Genesis “not as a book about science but about the nature of God and the nature of humans,” Collins believes. “Evolution gives us the ‘how,’ but we need the Bible to understand the ‘why’ of our creation.”
I do think Collins, with all his christian belief, is missing an important point here – that there may well be no “why” at all.
The Salvo Magazine (which I’d never heard of before) blog says (Francis Collins and The BioLogos Foundation):
He is attempting to answer very sincere and obvious questions that aren’t even being asked by much of the scientific community. I’m sure he is going to draw heavy fire from those whose very definition of science rules out even the possibility of God.
Salvo’s agenda is clear from their “about” link, and they do seem to publish material by individuals rather sympathetic to a creationist worldview. I suppose being backed by The Fellowship of St James (for Christ, Creed and Culture) somwhat gives their game away. But they are correct, Collins’ site is drawing heavy fire, but from those who aren’t driven by a bizarre belief system to need to question the scientific evidence.
The GeoChristian blog (The BioLogos Foundation) has an interesting slant, in which the author says:
I’m excited about this because of the stature of Collins in the scientific community and because I see the need for both good science and good theology to counteract young-Earth creationism in the church on the one hand, and irrational atheism among scientists on the other hand.
Here’s an accommodationist view in which “good science” and “good theology” should combine to counteract YEC, possibly the most ridiculous form of creationism. The problem with BioLogos is that it’s bad science and, I suspect, also bad theology (though, not being a theologist, I would bow to correction!). The blogger talks of “irrational atheism” – which is quite some non-sequitur really. The rational approach is to require evidence before belief.
The KHdN – Kenneth Hynek (dot Net) blog says (“Faith and science both lead us to truth about God and creation.”)
And it’s especially nice to see that quite a lot of thought has been put into their Questions section; I’ll have to go through it more thoroughly, but I like what I’ve been seeing thus far in my cursory forays into it.
I’m not sure a great deal of thought has been put into the Questions (or more accurately the answers to the questions). Many seem to me to be pretty vacuous. Of course Kenneth is approving of Collins’ stance regarding the validity of the bible, so accommodationism is going sit well with him.
A final note: it’s quite evident from the BioLogos Foundation web page that they are resolutely christian in outlook. This, of course, presents a logical flaw, as I don’t see how one Invisible Magic Friend is in any way better supported than any other. This is reflected in the Google search I carried out: I’ve not seen any blog responses that offer an islamic or jewish opinion.
Tags: atheism, Christianity, creationism, evolution, religion
I came across the BioLogos Foundation website the other day, following a reference to Francis Collins (the director of the international Human Genome Project, and both medically qualified and with a PhD in Physics, and who is a committed christian) and a statement he was purported to have made regarding the second law of thermodymanics and its implications on evolution (Pharyngula: Another disappointment from the Collins site). BioLogos appears to be some kind of neologism coined by Collins to describe a kind of Theistic Evolution – the “L” seems to be intentionally capitalised. Now, Collins is clearly a smart and talented scientist (and an effective scientific administrator), and I’m always interested to find out why such people hold views that seem to me to be so inherently at odds with a scientific approach to evidence. Other members of the BioLogos Team and Board seem to have backgrounds in one of the christian denominations (though it’s not stated for one or two) – this presumably is an explanation for the christian focus of the Foundation. There are many references to a belief in scripture (and in fact there’s a description of how to interpret scripture – presumably necessary if your Foundation disagrees with the literal interpretation of the biblical description of creation).
The website has a list of Questions (there are 33 of them, though the answers to questions 26 onwards are “coming soon”). These begin with a description of what BioLogos is: Question 1: How is BioLogos different from Theistic Evolution, Intelligent Design and Creationism?. As with many of the articles on the site, reference is quickly made to Francis Collins’ book The Language of God (which I’ve not read and, I suspect most visitors haven’t and won’t). It would seem that BioLogos is a form of Theistic Evolution: a god exists, created the universe, interacts with it, and has created life by the use of evolution. The author of the article says of the origin of “BioLogos”:
BioLogos comes from the Greek words bios (life) and logos (word), referring to the gospel of John:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” 1
Well. I would have thought that Question 1 might have involved some explanation of why the believers in BioLogos actually believe in a god. It seems to me there is vast quantities of evidence that demonstrates and supports not only that evolution has occurred and explains the diversity of life but provides a testable mechanism for how it works. In contrast there is no evidence for the existence of a deity, other than a human inability to understand the world around (or more probably an inability to accept there may be things we don’t yet know).
We can perhaps gain an insight to Collins’ theistic belief system from an interview dating from 2006 and available at Salon.com. Here we hear Collins’ account of how as a young man undertaking a PhD in quantum physics he did not see the need for belief in a god. apparently it was while a medical student that his atheist views were challenged – it would seem by seeing how people coped with suffering because of their faith:
[...] I watched people who were suffering from terrible diseases. And one of my patients, after telling me about her faith and how it supported her through her terrible heart pain, turned to me and said, “What about you? What do you believe?” And I stuttered and stammered and felt the color rise in my face, and said, “Well, I don’t think I believe in anything.” But it suddenly seemed like a very thin answer. And that was unsettling. I was a scientist who was supposed to draw conclusions from the evidence and I realized at that moment that I’d never really looked at the evidence for and against the possibility of God.
There’s no explanation of why his atheism seemed such a “thin answer” to him. Stage 2 was reading C. S. Lewis and stage 3 was a revelation received when he encountered a frozen waterfall while hiking. Unfortunately none of this clarifies why he believes in a deity, other than a need to believe.
Possibly relevant is the answer to Question 19: What is the “fine-tuning” of the universe, and how does it serve as a “pointer to God”? (), an article which really addresses what is known as the anthropic principle:
[...] the physical constants of nature — like the strength of gravity — and the beginning state of the Universe — like its density — have extremely precise values. The slightest variation from their actual values results in a lifeless universe. For this reason, the universe seems finely-tuned for life. This observation is referred to as the anthropic principle, a term whose definition has taken many variations over the years.
Once again, we’re referred to Collins’ book. This article has quite a succinct explanation of why the second law of thermodynamics cannot argue against evolution of life (essentially because the Earth isn’t a closed system – energy is continually entering the system in the form of solar radiation). The author of the article goes on to say “it seems that out of an unfathomable number of possibilities, our universe is one of very few which is capable of hosting life. Consequently, many of these observations have been used as pointers to God”. My own response to this kind of statement is that it’s irrelevant how unlikely that set of constants may be, if they were incompatible with the appearance not only of life but of intelligent life, we’d not be here to observe it. This seems to me to be an excellent rebuttal (but then I would!). The author counters that argument with a quotation (from John Leslie – the author is quoting from a secondary source, so this blog article represents a tertiary quote!) – that the argument is akin to a survivor of the attentions of a firing squad saying:
“Of course all of the shots missed, otherwise I wouldn’t be here to notice that I’m still alive!” A much more logical approach would be to seek out an explanation for why such an unlikely event occurred. A good scientific explanation satisfies curiosity, whereas this kind of explanation does nothing to offer any resolution.
No. “Why” is an inappropriate question in the context, inappropriate in the same way as the expectation there “has” to be a “meaning” to life. The fact that our existence is dependent on a narrow range of physical constants isn’t any kind of evidence for a deity.
My problem with the concept of BioLogos is that it critically depends on the belief in the existence of a deity to start things off and to keep an eye on life as it evolves. Interestingly the BioLogos site maintains that BioLogos is compatible with the three principal monotheistic beliefs (one wonders what the many interpretations of those belief systems make of that statement), but the website has an overwhelming acceptance of christianity.
In closing, I’d like to note that Jerry Coyne’s posted a demolition of the BioLogos website, in stronger terms than I, in his excellent Why Evolution is True blog (Shoot me now: Francis Collins’s new supernaturalist website).
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Tags: atheism, creationism, Darwinism, evolution
The Atheist Blogger complains (Telegraph Caught Lying For Jesus) that The Telegraph has been somewhat lax with the truth in an article about the National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies (AHS). The Telegraph article (Atheists target UK schools) appears to be suggesting that:
The federation aims to encourage students to lobby their schools and local authorities over what is taught in RE lessons and to call for daily acts of collective worship to be scrapped. It wants the societies to hold talks and educational events to persuade students not to believe in God.
While I’d actually support such activities, it would appear that this isn’t what the AHS are up to. In actual fact, the AHS are working to encourage open thinking among students – as The Atheist Blogger writes:
What the AHS actually wants to do is encourage interfaith discussion through a variety of events, focusing on both scientific and religious education, as well as supporting charity work. The aims of the current initiative are outlined in brief here:
- To teach students how to debate and create dialogue between school faith groups.
- Provide the school with fun and educational events and activities, including two student-led courses: ‘Perspectives’ in which a speaker from a faith group gives a talk followed by Q&A, and our ‘One Life’ course, which considers moral and ethical issues without god. Many events will also support the scientific curriculum.
- Encourage charity volunteering.
- Give students the experience of running a group and managing events.
- Show students that it’s ok not to believe in god and encourage critical thinking.
- Bring out issues concerning religious privilege in schools such as collective worship and incomplete or biased religious education.
Of course, the Telegraph isn’t the most liberal of newspapers, and it appears to have been on the receiving end of a communique from The Christian Institute. who’s Mission is presented on their web page:
The Christian Institute exists for “the furtherance and promotion of the Christian religion in the United Kingdom” and “the advancement of education”.
The Christian Institute is a nondenominational Christian charity committed to upholding the truths of the Bible. We are supported by individuals and churches throughout the UK.
We believe that the Bible is the supreme authority for all of life and we hold to the inerrancy of Scripture. We are committed to upholding the sanctity of life from conception.
So that’s OK then. Well, perhaps not. The Christian Institute sounds like it’s at the forefront of the “Christians as Victims” school of thought. As they say in a news report about the Equality Bill:
Christian groups are concerned that the Bill will reopen many of the discrimination issues which have left Christians bottom of the pile when it comes to ‘equality and diversity’.
Actually, one might argue that the AHS are actually seeking equality for all, including those of no faith. According to the AHS website,
The AHS will be seeking corrections from the Sunday Telegraph after the paper misrepresented the AHS’ new schools initiative, which encompasses fostering interfaith events, scientific and religious educational activities and charity work.
Bet they don’t get a correction.
Tags: atheism, Christianity, education
Here’s a video of Christopher Hitchens engaging in a debate with a bunch of christians (hat tip PZ Myers). Myers appears to have considerably more stamina than I, as I found it pretty hard to get beyond the drony guy doing the introduction and selling his magazines. What did strike me visually as I watched the five speakers twitching and adjusting their microphones etc, was the resemblance to the Last Supper…
But, with the first speaker, here we go with very dubious “evidence” for God. It’s all Ray Comfort-level thinking, or rather non-thinking, anthropic principle, belief in a deity though a lack of understanding and knowledge. After Hitchens we’re back to more bullshit and calls to the anthropic principle, requirement for god for moral values. At this point I couldn’t take any more…PZ Myers must have a stronger stomach than I – check his report!
Tags: atheism, Christianity, religion
There are a set of 12 new “God Trumps” trading cards over at New Humanist (God Trumps Part II). I happen to particularly like the Jedi Knight card (click on the thumbnail). Also be sure to check out the first set of trading cards here.
Just before Richard Dawkins made a visit to address an audience at the University of Oklahoma (I believe as part of a Darwin 200 celebration), The Oklahoma Legislature passed a wacko motion (Oklahoma hates Richard Dawkins):
WHEREAS, the University of Oklahoma is a publicly funded institution which should be open to all ideas and should train students in all disciplines of study and research and to use independent thinking and free inquiry; andWHEREAS, the University of Oklahoma has planned a year-long celebration of the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s theory of evolution, called the “Darwin 2009 Project”, which includes a series of lectures, public speakers, and a course on the history of evolution; and
WHEREAS, the University of Oklahoma, as a part of the Darwin 2009 Project, has invited as a public speaker on campus, Richard Dawkins of Oxford University, whose published opinions, as represented in his 2006 book “The God Delusion”, and public statements on the theory of evolution demonstrate an intolerance for cultural diversity and diversity of thinking and are views that are not shared and are not representative of the thinking of a majority of the citizens of Oklahoma; and
WHEREAS, the invitation for Richard Dawkins to speak on the campus of the University of Oklahoma on Friday, March 6, 2009, will only serve to present a biased philosophy on the theory of evolution to the exclusion of all other divergent considerations rather than teaching a scientific concept.
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE 1ST SESSION OF THE 52ND OKLAHOMA LEGISLATURE:
THAT the Oklahoma House of Representative strongly opposes the invitation to speak on the campus of the University of Oklahoma to Richard Dawkins of Oxford University, whose published statements on the theory of evolution and opinion about those who do not believe in the theory are contrary and offensive to the views and opinions of most citizens of Oklahoma.
THAT the Oklahoma House of Representatives encourages the University of Oklahoma to engage in an open, dignified, and fair discussion of the Darwinian theory of evolution and all other scientific theories which is the approach that a public institution should be engaged in and which represents the desire and interest of the citizens of Oklahoma.
THAT a copy of this resolution be transmitted to the President of the University of Oklahoma, the Dean of the College of Arts and Science at the University of Oklahoma, and the Chair of the Department of Zoology at the University of Oklahoma.
I confess to being darkly amused by the bit where the foolish legislator says: “an intolerance for cultural diversity and diversity of thinking”.
According to PZ Myers’ account over at Pharyngula (The greasy fingerprints of the Discovery Institute are all over it), not only was this a watered down version, the original version of which was highly critical of the University of Oklahoma’s Department of Zoology, but there are suggestions that the Discovery Institute was connected with the motion.
WHEREAS, the University of Oklahoma is a publicly funded institution which should be open to all ideas and should train students in all disciplines of study and research and to use independent thinking and free inquiry, not indoctrinate students in one-sided study and thinking; and
WHEREAS, the Department of Zoology at the University of Oklahoma has, as evidenced on the departmental homepage, been framing the Darwinian theory of evolution as doctrinal dogmatism rather than a hypothetical construction within the disciplines of the sciences; and
WHEREAS, not only has the Department of Zoology at the University of Oklahoma been engaged in one-sided indoctrination of an unproven and unpopular theory but has made an effort to brand all thinking in dissent of this theory as anti-intellectual and backward rather than nurturing such free thinking and allowing a free discussion of all ideas which is the primary purpose of a university;
Nevertheless, Richard Dawkins did visit the University, and member of the audience appears to have recorded the opening few minutes of his presentation:
I think that one of the things that this clip illustrates is the bizarre way that religious fundamentalists, particularly those that are so ignorant that they cannot grasp either the scientific method, nor the discoveries so made feel they have a right to bash away like that.
Intelligent Falling vs The Theory of Gravity! I love it.
With thanks to Thoughts from Kansas and Pharyngula over at ScienceBlogs.
Tags: atheism, creationism, politics
Andrew Marr has written and presented a three part BBC TV series on the impact of “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea” – I managed to cath the second half of last night’s installment, which was the first. He’s written an article on the BBC News website, The danger of worshipping Darwin, in which he writes about his atheism and asks whether we are elevating Darwin to a religious figure. In fact I don’t think he really thinks this is the case (and I wonder whether the article is really intended as a publicity piece for his TV series). At the end of his article, he concludes
I believe Darwin was right and that as science advances, he is proved more prescient, not less.
But religions are absolute. They bring their truth and then repel all boarders. They divide mankind into the saved and the ignorant damned.
In this story, there is no us and them. Darwinism, as I take it, is a creed of observation, fact, a deep modesty about conclusions and lifelong readiness to be proved wrong.
I don’t say it offers everything that religion can. But I do say that, in this respect, it is better.
However we celebrate the old man, we mustn’t let his work crust into creed or harden to dogma.
I think in the course of his article, Marr answers his question – there is no chance of Darwin’s work, or that of his successors crusting into creed or hardening into dogma – for there lies the difference between science and religion. Being founded on evidence, evolutionary concepts will always be subject to revision and modification. I think that the possibility of the perception of “Darwin worship” has been one of the potential problems with the Darwin 200 celebrations, but I think if there is such a public perception, it is mistaken.
The Guardian trumpets “Four out of five Britons repudiate creationism” – after yet another report emanating from religious thinktank Theos (Faith and Darwin). I haven’t yet had an opportunity to read the report (it’s 116 pages), but Theos helpfully provide a sort of interactive map of their survey results, in which 2060 people were surveyed. The Guardian’s report indicates the survey might well not be worth the paper it’s written on, judging by the general understanding of a proportion of those surveyed:
The poll also revealed some extraordinary views on more recent writings, with 5% of adults thinking Darwin wrote A Brief History of Time, a bestseller on the science of spacetime, which was written by the Cambridge physicist Stephen Hawking and is widely regarded as the most popular science book never to be completed by its readers.
A further 3% of those surveyed thought Darwin wrote The God Delusion, by the arch-atheist and Oxford biologist Richard Dawkins, while 1% thought Darwin was the author of The Naked Chef by Jamie Oliver.
However, I’m not sure how The Guardian comes up with their statement that four out of five Britons repudiate creationism: they go on to say
The survey suggests there is a widespread lack of religious sentiment across Britain. National average figures revealed that less than a third of adults see evolution as part of God’s plan, 89% dismiss intelligent design and 83% reject creationism as plausible explanations for the existence of human life.
It depends on whatoverlap there is between believers in ID and creationism – if they are non-verlapping sets, then belief in creationism is really 28%, since ID is really a creationist proposal. I guess I need to get a look at the numbers myself! I do agree with New Humanist (A godless, rational nation?) that
If the Theos figures are correct and 17 out of 100 people in Britain are indeed creationists, then our education system really needs to address that. It may seem like a small number when compared to, say, the United States, but it’s still 17% too many.
Tags: atheism, creationism, Darwinism, evolution, intelligent design, religion
The other week I received an email enquiring whether I would be interested in appearing on the live Sunday morning programme “The Big Question” (it’s made by an independent TV station for BBC TV) debating whether a belief in the bible could be reconciled with a belief in evolution. As someone with no experience in live TV, I declined. Daniel Florien has posted a link to a YouTube video on his excellent blog Unreasonable Faith (Is Evolution and the Bible Compatible?). Oh I am so glad I declined the invitation!
I imagine from the title of the clip, that the segment on evolution has been split into two sections, this being part one. The creationist guy is so wilfully ignorant it hurts. The creationist arguments are the same tired old crap.
The bottom line for is that yes, it is possible to believe in the bible and evolution, because some people do. Personally, I find it had to see how they can be reconciled, but some evidently do.
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