Francis Collins, Evangelical Christianity, and the NIH

So President Obama nominated Francis Collins as Director of the National Institutes of Health. I've been debating whether or not to blog about this, because I'm ambivalent about the decision and because it's been so heavily covered already by other atheist bloggers and writers. But I read this story in Newsweek and felt that I should speak my peace about the subject.

On the one hand, we have a man who, through his passionate dedication to the study of evolution, puts the lie to the claim that 'Darwinism' draws a direct line to atheism. His attitude could give some creationists (ID supporters and otherwise) pause; in fact, it was partly through reading his book The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief that I was forced to (re-)recognize the validity of evolution and give up being a young-earth creationist. And his views on certain key issues are promising; for example, he supports the use of discarded embryonic tissue from fertility clinics for stem cell research, a practice which many Christians view as tantamount to murder (regardless of the fact that the tissue was already on its way to an incinerator).

On the other hand, he adopts a distinctly anti-scientific approach to investigation of the universe. He has declared that certain realms of inquiry, such as those involving human emotion and morality, are definitionally inaccessible to naturalistic science - that they can only be made sense of by referring to God. Because Collins' worldview is based on the supernatural, it will color any discoveries or decisions he makes. If we allow for the existence of an omnipotent being as an explanation for phenomena, we put unnecessary and damaging limitations on scientific inquiry. In fact, by asserting that the supernatural could be an explanation, we run into a situation where we can never prove that something supernatural wasn't involved, at which point we can't ever truly claim to have explained a phenomenon. After all, angels might be involved somewhere, perhaps holding our feet fast to the ground or pushing the planets about in their orbits. We'd never be able to show that they weren't. Science has to work within a purely naturalistic framework, or it can't get anything done.

The Newsweek story claims that "there is no evidence that Collins has ever shied from the pursuit of scientific truth" as a result of his religious beliefs. This doesn't seem entirely accurate. In a debate with Richard Dawkins, he said that God is the explanation of those features of the universe that science finds difficult to explain (such as the values of certain physical constants favoring life), and that God himself does not need an explanation since he is beyond the universe. (This is just a cop-out, of course; Collins simply defines God as 'a being beyond the universe' and never bothers to explain why we should ever assume such a being exists since we have no evidence that there is anything 'beyond the universe'. But I digress.) Essentially, Collins is claiming that we will never be able to find a purely natural explanation for the origin of the universe. Whether or not this means that he thinks investigation into the origin is worthwhile or not is unclear; it's always possible that he'll say that whatever explanation we discover is just "how God did it."

I'm not sure how I feel about Francis Collins as director of the NIH. He's certainly qualified for the position, and he's made important contributions to the progress of the study of genetics and genomics, but he's approaching science as a means of coming to understand the mind of God rather than simply learning about how the world naturally works.

A comment on the Newsweek article makes an interesting point:

[The] premise, that Collins should be judged by his work and not his faith, is a good one. But [the] conclusion is simply wrong: If we judge Collins' work, INCLUDING his book about religion, "The Language of God," then his credentials as a scientist are not so impressive. Collins reputation as a scientist is only impressive if you divide his works into scientific / non-scientific and judge him only on his scientific achievements. But that is hardly fair, because his book uses his scientific credentials to bolster his religious agenda. In "Language of God," Collins makes so many logical errors and rationalizations masquerading as rational arguments, it's an embarrassment to scientists everywhere.

Replace Collins' Christianity with Wicca, or Voodoo, Greek Mythology, or any other non-mainstream religion, and imagine the peals of laughter that would follow his book everywhere, or the howls of outrage if he were appointed to head the NIH! Imagine the ridicule Collins would suffer at the hands of his fellow scientists, and of Christians! Yet, by espousing one particular brand of mythology, the Christian religion, Collins remains untouchable, and opinions from the likes of respected journalists ... gloss over the glaring flaws in Collins' philosophy. (Comments continued on Craig A. James' blog.)

The second paragraph seems true enough. In a nation where the majority of the population embraces some flavor of Christianity, being a Christian counts in your favor, regardless of what position you're nominated for. The public would view a person of any other faith (or no faith) askance and would pay much more attention to how their superstitions affect their behavior and their choices. Only Christianity (and perhaps Judaism) gets this free pass.

I think it's this that really bothers me. Collins' faith gives him an undue extra bit of respect and consideration that his atheist colleagues don't get. Sure, he's a decent scientist, but it's hard to imagine that President Obama's nomination of a man of sincere faith to an influential science-related post isn't a mostly political move. It smells to me like the decision was made mostly to assuage the fears of the religious right. I'm willing to withhold judgment until we see what sort of decisions Collins makes, but I'm not too optimistic that he's not going to use his scientific bona fides to promote Christianity.

(For an interesting review/dissection of Collins' book The Language of God, check out this review from evolutionary biologist/philosopher Gert Korthof. There's another rather scathing review from Sam Harris as well.)

Ray Comfort pisses me right the hell off.

This is from an excerpt (PDF) from a book written by Crocoduck enthusiast and creationist troll Ray Comfort, entitled Evolution: A Fairy Tale for Grownups.

This book will no doubt be seen by some as “quote mining.” This is the practice of taking a quote (often out of its context), and using it in a way that was never intended by the author. However, every gold nugget is legitimately mined out of its context. No one seriously values the earth that encases the gold. So, when I uncover an evolutionary expert quietly admitting that he has no evidence to back up his theory, I don’t see any value in the soil of his surrounding words. I merely extract what I believe is of value for those who want to discover the truth about the theory of evolution.

That's right, Ray, rationalize your deceptive behavior. After all, it's okay to lie for Jesus, like when you introduce Charles Darwin as "a man who became disillusioned about God [and] formed a theory that all this amazing order and complexity came from nothing and randomly evolved over time."

For a quick overview of the kind of idiocy Ray Comfort considers 'evidence' that evolution is a fairy tale, check out his blog post about the book. Skip right over mass of the nonsense and look for some comments by a user named 'Carl' where he shows precisely why Ray is such a fan of quote mining (or just making quotes up from whole cloth).

I almost wish there were a hell so that there could be special places reserved in it for people like Ray who fill other people's heads with misinformation and who promote the "values" of gullibility and credulity.

Betraying the Lie

Advocates of the non-science of Intelligent Design often respond indignantly to the claim that ID is really nothing more than a religious claim dressed in a thin garment of scientific-looking language.

We know, definitively, that this is the case, and the words of Michael Egnor of the Discovery Institute - the major pro-ID group - demonstrate this repeatedly.

A recent post on the Discovery Institute's "Evolution News and Views" blog offered a rebuttal to a blog post by Dr. Jeffrey Shallit. Dr. Shallit was reviewing

a piece by McGill philosopher Margaret Somerville in the OCUFA publication Academic Matters. (OCUFA is the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations.)

I haven't bothered to read the whole piece yet; it seems to be the typical drivel about how universities are becoming "intolerant" of "alternative ideas" and that anyone the author doesn't agree with or whose position the author doesn't understand is a "fundamentalist" scientist.

In his review, Dr. Shallit said:

With respect to religion, why should religious dogma, which maintains ridiculous and unverifiable claims, be treated in the same way as science and rational thinking?

The following is quoted verbatim from the Discovery Institute's post:

The existence of God is not a “ridiculous and unverifiable claim;” it's the conclusion reached by the vast majority of human beings living today and who have ever lived, and is a viewpoint held by most of the best philosophers, ethicists and scientists in history. While there are thoughtful arguments that can be made for atheism, the arguments advanced by Shallit and his comrades like Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, Myers, and Hitchens are puerile. For example, the assertion that Christianity is disproven by assertions such as ‘If God created the universe, who made God?’ or ‘some bad things have been done by Christians, therefore Christianity is untrue’ would get a failing grade in any respectable introductory philosophy course. You'll get more genuine insight from a paragraph of Aristotle or Aquinas than from a library of Dawkins and Dennett.

Subtle arguments about God being the ground for existence and about the role of Christianity in Western politics and culture aren't "ridiculous and unverifiable;" these arguments are central to philosophy and to any informed understanding of history. New Atheist boilerplate trivializes the profound issues that religious belief raises, and the New Atheist contribution to meaningful discussion of these fundamental issues is ...well... nil. For New Atheists, ‘rational thinking’ takes a backseat to ideological spittle.

There it is, folks. Now, for sure, there's nothing particularly inflammatory about this response, apart from the blatant straw men, dismissal of theological problems as non-issues, etc.

But that's not the real issue here, which is in fact twofold. First, this is a blog hosted by a site that is supposed to be about a scientific claim, and yet it's discussing theological issues. If this were a purely scientific institution, this post wouldn't even be there. It wouldn't be relevant. Science is indifferent and impartial on the subject of eugenics, which is fleetingly referenced in the original piece. In other words, this is word straight from the mouth of the Discovery Institute that they consider religious claims relevant to science. They are not, and should not factor into scientific discovery one bit. Ethics, yes; religion, absolutely not.

The second issue is the aforementioned discussion of eugenics. In the original piece, the word 'eugenics' and its variations appear twice. In Dr. Shallit's response, three times.

In the Discovery Institute's blog post, it is mentioned forty three times, even appearing in the title of the post:

Dr. Jeffery Shallit on Eugenic Morality: "Why, exactly, would the world be better off with more Down's syndrome children?”

The implication here could not be any clearer: The DI blog wants to make its readers believe that Dr. Shallit is a proponent of eugenics. This is in keeping with the DI's (and by extension the ID creationists') theme of "evolution led to the Holocaust". I'm not simply fear-mongering here; they explicitly mention the Nazis in the post:

In the 1950's, Fredrick Osborn, the president of the American Eugenics Society, advocated a shift away from the more explicit negative eugenics that had been discredited by the Nazi's uncommonly skillful implementation of eugenic theory.

This is also directly in keeping with the theme of "evolution is atheism" as explicitly stated in the post:

In the atheist/Darwinian view, eugenics is moral, even virtuous. The Darwinian understanding of man’s origins is that man arose through a struggle for survival. Our highest traits are the result of Natural Selection. The kindness and charity that are inherent to civilization threaten mankind, because it impairs Natural Selection, which is the source of our humanity.

There you go. According to the Discovery Institute, evolution equals eugenics, Nazism, holocausts, praise for the destruction of the weak, atheism, and basically all that is wrong with the world. And Dr. Shallit is their unfortunate victim. Clearly their interest in intellectual honesty is minimal, in comparison to their affinity for character assassination.

P.S.: Notice that they don't even bother to spell his name properly. They're too busy building their case against the "evilutionist" straw man to care who it is they're talking about.