Thoughts in a Haystack

Contrasts

2009-07-16T13:07:00.002-04:00

PZ Myers points to Sean Carroll's article as if it is a good thing, demonstrating that Carroll is not alone among scientists who concurrently do not understand philosophy but, nonetheless, deride it -- much as Ray Comfort treats evolutionary biology. Interestingly, PZ also points to Daniel Dennett's article on the belief in belief. I'll leave it to the reader to judge how well he makes the case that belief in religious belief is not necessary (though, inevitably, he does better than Carroll did). What I find interesting is this:

"[B]elief in belief" is a common phenomenon not restricted to religions. Economists realise that a sound currency depends on people believing that the currency is sound, and scientists recognise that the actual objectivity of scientific studies on global warming is politically impotent unless people believe in that objectivity, so economists and scientists (among others) take steps to foster and protect such beliefs that they think are benign. That's acting on belief in belief.

A belief in the objectivity of science in general is necessary not only for its political effectiveness (including maintaining its own funding) but for it to be an effective force in the education of lay people about how the natural world works and the very real consequences those workings have, in turn, on social policy.

But if the public sees scientists asserting what are clearly their own metaphysical beliefs but labeling those beliefs as "science," will not that fact hurt the belief in the belief of science's objectivity?
.

Good Science, Bad Philosophy

2009-07-15T21:34:00.006-04:00

[Sigh!]

Here we go again. Scientists are justly upset with people who have no experience or knowledge in their field nonetheless presuming to lecture them on science. For some reason, scientists who have obviously never put much effort into studying philosophy think themselves competent to babble on about it.

The latest to fall victim, in a rather spectacular way, to this syndrome is the physicist Sean Carroll, who is admittedly uninterested in philosophy, but who does not let that stop him. He gets off on the wrong foot (the one with the bullet in it) by claiming that, on the issue of what sort of questions science is competent to answer:

... one popular but very bad strategy for answering this question [is]: first, attempt to distill the essence of "science" down to some punchy motto, and then ask what questions fall under the purview of that motto. At various points throughout history, popular mottos of choice might have been "the Baconian scientific method" or "logical positivism" or "Popperian falsificationism" or "methodological naturalism." But this tactic always leads to trouble. Science is a messy human endeavor, notoriously hard to boil down to cut-and-dried procedures.

I'm quite sure that the generations of philosophers (and scientists interested in philosophy) who have formulated, studied, critiqued and attempted to improve on those systems of thought over hundreds of years, would have been, and are, quite surprised to learn that they've only been working on "punchy mottoes."

I'm afraid that it doesn't take any great skill in prediction to surmise that anyone who thinks those philosophical systems are just popular mottoes, unsuitable to cover the "hard to boil down to cut-and-dried procedures" of science, is getting ready to boil science down to some cut-and-dried procedure embodied in something very like a motto. Carroll does not disappoint the prognosticator, even if he disappoints those who hope that scientists might be a bit more cogent and self-aware thinkers.

Carroll sweeps all those mottoes aside by first presenting an example:

Here is my favorite example question. Alpha Centauri A is a G-type star a little over four light years away. Now pick some very particular moment one billion years ago, and zoom in to the precise center of the star. Protons and electrons are colliding with each other all the time. Consider the collision of two electrons nearest to that exact time and that precise point in space. Now let's ask: was momentum conserved in that collision? ...

... The scientific answer to this question is: of course, the momentum was conserved. Conservation of momentum is a principle of science that has been tested to very high accuracy by all sorts of experiments, we have every reason to believe it held true in that particular collision, and absolutely no reason to doubt it; therefore, it's perfectly reasonable to say that momentum was conserved.

Let's just stop here and note that Carroll is appealing to induction as a process that delivers "truth." But how does he know that? Over 200 hundred years ago, one of those motto producers, David Hume, pointed out that anyone who looks to empiricism cannot justify the truth-delivering qualities of induction because the only possible empiric evidence on the subject comes from experience -- in other words, from induction. We "know" induction produces truth because, in our experience, induction produces truth. That itself is an induction and trying to justify induction by an induction is circular reasoning, a logical fallacy. No one has solved this conundrum in the time since Hume but that doesn't bother Carroll, probably because he is unaware of it and ignorance is bliss.

Carroll continues:

[S]cience does not proceed phenomenon by phenomenon. Science constructs theories, and then compares them to empirically-collected data, and decides which theories provide better fits to the data. The definition of "better" is notoriously slippery in this case, but one thing is clear: if two theories make the same kinds of predictions for observable phenomena, but one is much simpler, we're always going to prefer the simpler one.

This is, of course, Occam's Razor, which is far closer to an empty motto than the Baconian method, logical positivism, falsificationism or methodological naturalism. In fact the razor is a rule of thumb for making a first approximation (less formally known as "a guess"). Carroll cites to the replacement of determinism with quantum uncertainty as an example of science appealing to "the inference to the best explanation." I'd dearly like to know by what metric he determined quantum mechanics to be "simpler" than determinism. In any event, what guarantee of truth does the razor deliver even if you can manage to wield it rationally? As Samir Okasha's Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction states:

The idea that simplicity or parsimony is the mark of a good explanation is quite appealing, and certainly helps flesh out the idea of [the inference to the best explanation]. But if scientists use simplicity as a guide to inference, this raises a problem. For how do we know that the universe is simple rather than complex? Preferring a theory that explains the data in terms of the fewest number of causes does seem sensible. But is there any objective reason for thinking that such a theory is more likely to be true than a less simple theory? Philosophers of science do not agree on the answer to this difficult question.

Simplicity is surely attractive to those who want to think simplistically but does it have any truth-delivering capability? After all, it is the inference to best explanation and Occam's razor that the Intelligent Design Creationists appeal to. As Carroll notes, the IDers, like Carroll, don't see methodological naturalism as standing in their way:

There's no obstacle in principle to imagining that the normal progress of science could one day conclude that the invocation of a supernatural component was the best way of understanding the universe. Indeed, this scenario is basically the hope of most proponents of Intelligent Design.

Carroll may not understand, or may not care, but, if his account of science is correct, then ID cannot be barred from American public classrooms. It is, under his version of science, a valid attempt at science and, even if he thinks it is wrong or unsupported, it cannot be barred from public classrooms just because it has religious implications. Nor is there any basis under our law to bar it just because it is "bad" science. Of course, simply because it will have bad consequences doesn't mean that Carroll's definition of science is wrong but, if your version of science includes something so clearly not science, it may be time to reexamine your definition.

But Carroll isn't done with the razor. Based on it he declares:

In the real world, by far the most compelling theoretical framework consistent with the data is one in which everything that happens is perfectly accounted for by natural phenomena. No virgin human births, no coming back after being dead for three days, no afterlife in Heaven, no supernatural tinkering with the course of evolution. You can define "religion" however you like, but you can't deny the power of science to reach far-reaching conclusions about how reality works.

In short, Carroll is maintaining that philosophical naturalism is a scientific result. I wonder when he will be publishing this in the scientific literature? I'd suggest he try publishing in a philosophical journal but I think philosophers would take him even less seriously.
.

Skilling the Messenger

2009-07-14T21:29:00.004-04:00

Okay, I've made my case for the overreaching of the "incompatiblists." Now it's time to turn to the "accommodationists," in particular Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum. At their blog, The Intersection, they say this:

Science and religion are not mutually exclusive and must not continue to be portrayed as such. Though some very vocal voices in the science community disagree, I assure you they are not representative of the whole. I continue to work day to day with scientists who hold a very broad array of beliefs across fields from molecular biology to physiology to conservation. And when it comes to issues like climate change and ocean acidification, everyone must be engaged if we're to get anywhere. The new atheist movement takes an adversarial approach, but only succeeds in alienating the majority of the planet away from science. When it comes to enacting sound policies on what really matters, this will always be a losing strategy.

While I agree that science and religion are not necessarily mutually exclusive, it is certainly true that some religions and religious beliefs are in such conflict with science that glossing over that fact is not helpful to reaching any general accommodation between science and the religious. In fact, scientists not only have the right but, I think, the duty to portray, for example, young-Earth creationism as deeply unscientific and harmful to the country's well-being, insofar at that depends on the public understanding of science.

Just as I think that it is unrealistic for some "atheist-scientists" to think that religion will go away soon, Mooney and Kirshenbaum are being unrealistic to think the atheists and their harsh criticism of religion is going anywhere either. A significant group are going to continue to portray science and religion as mutually exclusive and Mooney and Kirshenbaum need to deal with it. Their continual whining (and that is, I'm afraid, what it is) over that fact is exactly what they claim the atheists are engaged in: a losing strategy. It is an adversarial relationship that only succeeds in alienating people who, by all objective measures, are already the kind of effective communicators that Mooney and Kirshenbaum wish more scientists were. That, in turn, actually draws more attention to the atheists' position and makes the controversy loom larger in the public consciousness.

If, in fact, as Mooney and Kirshenbaum imply, there is a wellspring of accommodationists in the scientific community, their time would be much better spent encouraging those scientists to speak out and giving them the kind of communication skills Mooney and Kirshenbaum are so fond of talking about, rather than in hectoring atheists.
.

Designing Design

2009-07-13T23:22:00.003-04:00

Okay, this is just cute:

"There have been 23 elephant-like animals in history, and yet only two survive today (and we add, they're not doing very well). Clearly, this is the mark of an all-powerful creator who is stuck on the same stupid idea and can't figure out why the hell they keep dying off. Hmm, perhaps it's because giant, big-eared mammals with huge, prehensile noses are ridiculous? I mean, WTF? A giant, powerful, grasping... nose? It looks like something a preschooler would make up."

You know how there are some people who think there is a good Designer and an evil Designer and I wondered which one was responsible for inept design in the world? Now maybe we need to posit a third Designer, who we could call the Dusfus Designer. As RaulVB at Daily Kos points out, the DD would have a tailor-made spokesperson who just happens to be between jobs ...

Of Methods and Madness

2009-07-12T23:27:00.004-04:00

Here is a bit more on the "incompatiblist" position on religion and science. An "Anonymous" commenter [Konrad Scheffler] on my last post stated this:

As often with this sort of debate, it seems to come down to quibbling about definitions. The word "science" is commonly used to denote at least four distinct concepts:
1. A body of knowledge
2. An "establishment" consisting of people and organizations, and an associated set of rough consensus views
3. A methodology for producing knowledge
4. A philosophical system of thought.
John (as well as, I assume, most religious scientists) is using definition 3; Larry et al (along with, I hope, a majority of scientists) are using definition 4.

The point is somewhat moot because most non-scientists use other definitions such as 1 or 2 (in which case "science" is obviously compatible with all but the most fundamentalist religions - no debate required).

While the commenter is certainly correct that there are many ways that the word "science" is used and, moreover, that more than one definition is "correct," what we are discussing is the proper nature of the process of science, which is the area that the incompatiblists claim is in conflict with religion. It could hardly be said to be incorrect to speak of "science" as "a body of knowledge" or as "the scientific community and its consensus views." Some, but not all, religious beliefs conflict with some, but not all, of that body of knowledge and/or the consensus of the scientific community.

However, the commenter expresses a preference for the process of science being viewed as "a philosophical system of thought." I disagree strongly for at least two reasons.

First of all, I do not think that is an accurate description of how the scientific process works. Let's start with a thought experiment: suppose Michael Behe were, tomorrow, to come out with some original and important work in biochemistry that happened to be valuable to Larry Moran's area of research (I know you said you are a teacher now, rather than a researcher, Larry, but it is a thought experiment). Would Larry ignore Behe's work because he has the "wrong" philosophy? Certainly, because Behe has trashed his own reputation within the scientific community over the past decade by doing pseudoscience, Larry would likely want to check the work very carefully, perhaps going to the trouble of recreating the work in its entirely, since merely citing to Behe's work might not be enough to convince other scientists in the field. But, assuming that Larry was convinced that Behe's work was accurate and useful to Larry's scientific work, would Larry refuse to use it? In short, what is more important, the science or the scientist? I think it is obvious that it is the scientific results that are more important to the process of science and to Larry's work within that process.

This shows, I believe, that the process of science is a methodology, where it is the results that count, not the "right-thinking" of the researcher. Nor is my belief founded only on thought experiments. Theodosius Dobzhansky is generally regarded as one of the giants of evolutionary biology of the 20th Century and rightly so. He is, of course, well known for his phrase: "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution," from a speech by that title. Less well known is that, in the same speech, he said: "I am a creationist and an evolutionist," by which he meant he was what we now call a "theistic evolutionist." Do contemporary biologists, such as Jerry Coyne, ignore Dobzhansky's work because he did not share Coyne's "approach to the world" or his "worldview" or his "scientific attitude" or whatever else Coyne is calling his personal philosophy today? Other important scientists did not or do not share Coyne's personal philosophy, such as R.A. Fisher and, contemporarily, Francisco Ayala.

As I said before, these examples are not given to show that their philosophies/theologies are compatible with Jerry Coyne's philosophy; they are given to show that even Jerry Coyne treats science as a methodology instead of a philosophy, where good scientific work is an equalizer that makes personal opinions unimportant.

The other reason not to conceive of science as a philosophy is that there is no way to objectively determine which is the "proper" philosophy and, therefore, no way insure that the philosophy in any one community of scientists or in the scientific community as a whole is actually conducive to good science. The result can be Lysenkoism or Nazi "racial science" or "Republican science" or less obvious, but no less damaging, distortions of the process of science. Jerry Coyne's philosophy might not damage the scientific process but, once science is just another philosophy, there is no guarantee that such will always be the case. On the other hand, if science is judged only on the empiric results at hand, there is an objective test of good science that does not depend on the vagaries of the currently popular philosophy.
.

Blogflation

2009-07-12T17:11:00.004-04:00

Thony C., the longtime and generally rational commenter on John Wilkins' blog, Evolving Thoughts, has taken the deeply irrational step of starting his own blog, The Renaissance Mathematicus -- the intellectual equivalent of owning a boat, i.e. a hole in the water into which you pour all your money. Thony will now be pouring all his thought into a hole in his time (as I well know). The reason he gives for that decision:

The doorbell rang and when I opened the door this albino gorilla with a thick Aussie accent said, "Yer should start yer own effin blog or I'll sit on yer!" so here I am…

... at least has the merit of avoiding mayhem. And Thony's loss is the gain for the rest of us ... once you find the place, which it has taken me a month to do* ... meaning I'm going to be losing more time catching up.

Drat it!

_____________________________________

* Hat tip to John Farrell, whose blogs are also worth a perusal.
.

Joint Philosophies

2009-07-12T11:30:00.005-04:00

That well-known New Agnostic, Larry Moran, has once again entered the Accommodationist-Incompatiblist fray with at least something new (to me, that is, as far as my memory goes), the so-called "Doctrine of Joint Belief." Larry cites to a short piece by Clay Shirky at The Edge on "Religion and Science" that asserts that:

The idea that religious scientists prove that religion and science are compatible is ridiculous, and I'm embarrassed that I ever believed it. Having believed for so long, however, I understand its attraction, and its fatal weaknesses.

The Doctrine of Joint Belief isn't evidence of harmony between two systems of thought. It simply offers permission to ignore the clash between them. Skeptics aren't convinced by the doctrine, unsurprisingly, because it offers no testable proposition. What is surprising is that its supposed adherents don't believe it either. If joint beliefs were compatible beliefs, there could be no such thing as heresy. Christianity would be compatible not just with science, but with astrology (roughly as many Americans believe in astrology as evolution), with racism (because of the number of churches who use the "Curse of Ham" to justify racial segregation), and on through the list of every pair of beliefs held by practicing Christians.

The unstated premise, of course, is that "science" is a "system of thought" on the same level as theology, i.e. that science is a philosophy or a belief. Philosophies and beliefs can be "heresies" because they go to the same level as the theology resides at. And, of course, some theologies (such as young-Earth creationism) can and do make the methodology of investigation of the natural world part of their theologies and, therefore, are incompatible with science. But other theologies don't, including Catholicism, the single largest religion in the world. It is also true that, as is the case of all philosophies, they can be misunderstood or misapplied so that there may be confusions in particular cases but the very reason for discussing these issues is to clarify them and, perhaps, reduce the tensions between scientists and the lay public.

Contrary to Larry's claim, however, if you don't accept the premise that science is a philosophy or belief, there is no logical fallacy in "Joint Belief" because no method need be applied to everything, anymore than all tools need to be hammers. The point of giving examples of religious scientists who consistently employ the scientific method to science is to demonstrate that, contrary to the claims of the incompatibilists, the method is not a philosophy.

There is no question that the method of science is "incompatible" with the "method," such as it is, that the philosophy/theology of religion employs ... a fact admitted by the "accommodationists," who clearly state that religious claims cannot be "scientific." Nor is there any question that religion is incompatible with the philosophies of some scientists.

The question is and has always been whether the philosophies of some scientists are the same thing as "science." Thus, unlike Larry, I do not see Jerry Coyne, in his post "Eugenie Scott and Chris Mooney dissemble about accommodationism," as exhibiting "a great deal of patience when he explains, for about the millionth time, why the doctrine is logically absurd." In fact, Coyne is, once again, simply asserting that his personal philosophy* is coextensive with science, without justifying that claim or reconciling it with the methodological naturalism of science that he has (sometimes) recognized.

Merely repeating the same assertions without addressing the real claim involved, as Coyne does, is not addressing the logic of anything. Instead, it bears more in common with the sort of blind assertion we expect from creationists.

That Coyne asserts that disagreeing with him on this point is "dissembling" is symptomatic of his level of intellectual discourse.

_____________________________________

P.S. Larry has said, in response to a comment of mine at his place:

[T]he logical fallacy has nothing do do with whether science and religion are compatible. It has to do with whether the existence of Francis Collins proves that science and religion must be compatible. Or, for that matter, whether the existence of Jerry Coyne proves that science and religion are NOT compatible.

Although I did address that above, let me expand on it yet some more. The existence of religious scientists who scrupulously apply the scientific method to science (without any objective signs of the much-misunderstood concept of "cognitive dissonance," so let's not go there) is not offered to show that science (when conceived of as a philosophy) is consistent with the philosophy/theology of religion. It is offered, instead, as evidence that science is not a philosophy but a methodology that can be utilized appropriately by many different people who have very different philosophies. Larry, Shirky and Coyne are misconstruing what the evidence is being offered for and, therefore, have not identified any logical error but their own.

_____________________________________

* Coyne has added yet another descriptor for his personal philosophy, "approach to the world," to go with his previous "worldview" and "scientific attitude."
.

Novel Religion

2009-07-11T12:00:00.005-04:00

Sometimes I think David Klinghoffer is more un-self-conciously honest than the other Discovery Institute drones because he is more literary and, therefore, cannot help but reveal himself through the stories he uses as tropes. The latest, and perhaps the funniest, is his "argument" against Simon Conway Morris' claim, adopted as well by Ken Miller, that the well-known cases of convergence in evolution (multiple evolutionary origins of eyes and wings, for example) suggest that an intelligent creature was bound to arise somewhere in the universe through evolution.

The argument goes that our own example -- going from an obscure and highly localized primate on the edge of extinction to world-spanning, environment manipulating and resource dominating super-organism, in a few tens or hundreds of thousands years -- is a testament to the selectionist power of intelligence. The importance of this, theologically, to Conway Morris and Miller is that it suggests that there may be at least some sort of directionality to evolution which, in turn, would make it more "suitable" for use by a provident god as a means of creating creatures "in his image."

Needless to say, there are many objections to this notion. Atheists such as Jerry Coyne are against it as much as conservative theists are, and for much the same reason: neither want evolution to be seen as compatible with religion. There is certainly something appealing about the notion that, once we "hit" upon intelligence (actually, a combination of intelligence, social organization, ability to manipulate the environment, particularly through fire, and who knows what other traits), we were destined to be an evolutionary success. The problem is that there is no way to settle the argument as long as life on Earth is our only example. Determining whether we are a fluke or inevitable based on a single instance of developing life is like trying to determine if a coin is fair or rigged on a single toss.

But Klinghoffer's attempt to answer the question is, shall we say, telling:

Picture a majestic T. rex receiving the tablets of the Ten Commandments in its undersized forelimbs, or an elegant octopus crucified on an old rugged cross with four crossbars instead of one.

Such images are what Kenneth Miller presumably has in mind with his comforting Darwinist thought that intelligent creatures were guaranteed to pop up even in the course of an evolutionary process of purely unguided, purposeless churning. ...

He and others (such as Obama's favorite geneticist, Francis Collins) invite us to imagine God being delighted with such creatures, noble and impressive in their way, as the culmination of the evolutionary process that He chose not to guide. But what if the intelligent creature that resulted from all the purposeless churning, and that was intended to reflect God's own image, had been something really horrible. [Emphasis in original]

And what example does Klinghoffer choose to illustrate that possibility? Why, the deliciously frightful fiction of H.P. Lovecraft:

Sure, they're just stories -- and often kind of silly ones at that, though wickedly entertaining. Yet after reading him, you can't comfortably go back to the naïve Ken Miller way of thinking that Darwinian evolutionary was somehow certain to provide God with children over whom He would approve with the Biblical formulation, "And behold it was very good."

But what is the Bible but just stories -- often silly ones at that -- that only the naïve could take, given the genocide, casual cruelty, hateful bigotry, murder, et al., it details, as representing the "very good"? As one commenter, "JPL," pointed out:

Of course, to us Cthulhu, with his tentacles and such, would appear grotesque and abhorrent. However, to such a being, WE would doubtless prove to appear the same.

Obviously there is no particular cosmic standard of beauty between squid and man, snake and bird, dolphin and planaria. Even within traditional theology, beauty remains a subjective concept in the eye of the beholder, at least at the physical level.

As for the non-physical, of course Cthulhu would seem abhorrent to us...he is opposed to our very existence. (Although honestly, he's simply indifferent to it...man matters not to the Great Old Ones, just as ants matter little to man.) Of course, you can rest assured that to animals in factory farms, or deer on the run from hunters, we too seem terrifying and abhorrent. This is nothing more than a matter of perspective.

Perhaps there is room for discussion and debate concerning evolution, intelligent design, et. al. But the idea that the specific physical form of man as a bipedal hominid somehow reflects perfect beauty, and the likeness of God, requires the most facile and thoughtless reading of Scripture imaginable.

And, of course, a nuanced reading of Lovecraft is that he was holding a mirror up to our own internal ugliness -- our soul, if you must. What Klinghoffer and other creationists object to about evolution is that it makes it harder to maintain the fiction that we are something noble and impressive in our own right, despite all the evidence to the contrary, and that we need not work -- very hard indeed -- to aspire to even approach our pleasant poetry about ourselves.

Klinghoffer would rather read some cheap, mindless, bubble-gum of a novel that makes him comfortable than face the heart of darkness.

_____________________________________

Update: That unreconstructed cephalopodist, PZ Megahertz, has taken a hand ... er ... tentacle, as has John Lynch.
.

Peter Principle

2009-07-10T20:14:00.006-04:00

Are we supposed to take Jerry Coyne seriously?

I understand that he is a great scientist but what are we to make of his primitive philosophy and un-self-aware and contradictory statements on science, religion and atheism? Quite apart from the embarrassment of having Martin Cothran at the Discovery Institute Ministry of Misinformation pointing out his philosophical errors, now there is this on the appointment of Francis Collins:

I expect Collins to resign from BioLogos if he wants to maintain any scientific credibility. Yes, the guy has every right to believe what he wants, but a director of the nation's most prestigious research foundation has to have some standards, and BioLogos is beyond the pale. Mixing science with faith as it does, it gives people the wrong view of what science is all about and gives his official imprimatur to essentially private beliefs. Certainly, private expressions of faith are absolutely fine, but Collins has chosen to make his views public, and discuss their relationship to science.

Um ... this is from the same man who complains bitterly about Chris Mooney, who supposedly "wants the atheists who dislike faith/science accommodationism to simply keep quiet about it, as it's strategically bad."

Sometimes all you can do is shake your head.

_________________________________

P.S. While I think Coyne's take here is hopelessly muddled, that is not to say that there are no valid criticisms of Collins. These by PZ Myers are very pointed:

He's a big-science guy, who headed the National Human Genome Research Institute. I have some concern that he has a mindset that may not promote the diversity of scientific research — he represents a very narrow, gene-jockey style of research, which is valuable and does churn out lots of data, but I've often found exhibits a worrisome lack of understanding of the big picture of biology. I'd have liked to have seen a leader with more breadth: someone with an appreciation of systems biology, or environmental biology, and a little less shackled to the purely biomedical side.

He doesn't understand evolution. He has said that he thinks humans are no longer evolving, that junk DNA is functional, and he can't understand how altruism could have evolved. RPM summarized these deficiencies well. I know he argues well against the specifics of intelligent design, but ultimately, he's following the same gods-of-the-gaps formula that the Discovery Institute does ...

I don't think Collins follows the DI's argument in claiming that, because we don't understand something, therefore God must have done it, except perhaps in the case of the "moral sense" of humans, but it is something of a valid concern.

This is a big one for me: he will use his position to act as a propagandist for Christianity, entirely inappropriately. We already saw this in the announcement of the completion of the draft of the human genome project, where he actually brags about getting Clinton to include religious language in his speech, and where he himself made claims about the DNA sequence being "the language of god".

I'm more sangine about such pious platitutes as "language of God," "the God Particle" and statements by even atheist scientists to the effect that finding fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background is like "looking at God" but Collins' deliberate attempts to co-opt government-funded scientific discovery to religious ends is a justifiable objection.
.

Compatible Education

2009-07-10T00:11:00.001-04:00

PZ speaks:

I recommend something different. Our next generation of great science communicators should be flesh-and-blood people with personalities, every one different and every one with different priorities, all singing out enthusiastically for everything from astronomy to zoology, and they should sometimes be angry and sometimes sorrowful and sometimes deliriously excited. They shouldn't hesitate to say what they think, even if it might make Joe the Plumber surly. If you want to improve American science and the perception of science by the public, teach science first and foremost, because what you'll find is that your discipline is then populated with people who are there because they love the ideas. And, by the way, let them know every step of the way that science is also a performing art, and that they have an obligation as a public intellectual to take their hard-earned learning and share it with the world.

Then Ken Miller's flesh-and-blood personality should be valued, since he is certainly excellent at performing the act of sharing science. And maybe we should have science education first and foremost, rather than arguments over who are the true keepers of the keys to the kingdom.
.