The July/August issue of Books and Culture contains an interview by Karl Giberson with Francis Collins on his views of science and faith - now available on line: Evolution, the Bible and the Book of Nature.
Here is a brief taste of the article - read the whole - better yet subscribe! (pictures from wikipedia)
On the general approach Collins takes to issues of science and faith:
Giberson: You take both the Bible and evolution seriously. Did the harmony you find between evolution and your faith just come naturally?
Collins: You know, it really did. When I became a believer at 27, the first church I went to was a pretty conservative Methodist church in a little town outside Chapel Hill. I'm sure there were a lot of people in that church who were taking Genesis literally and rejecting evolution.
But I couldn't take Genesis literally because I had come to the scientific worldview before I came to the spiritual worldview. I felt that, once I arrived at the sense that God was real and that God was the source of all truth, then, just by definition, there could not be a conflict.
On the claim that scientists are misled by their preconceptions:
Giberson: History shows that paradigms are sometimes misleading. For example, the paradigm that there couldn't be change in the heavens caused people to miss data for many centuries about new stars. The ID scientists would say that people like you wouldn't see the design in nature because you work under a paradigm that excludes that possibility.
Collins: Sure, we have paradigms that we use to try and organize things, but one of our goals is to upset these paradigms. If laboratories did experiments and said, "Hey, wait a minute, here is some data suggesting that evolution is wrong, it is not capable of explaining something," that would be a lightning rod for excited investigation. This idea would not be ignored because it wasn't consistent with a reigning paradigm.
On the key question - which experts should we trust?
Giberson: We are all part of social groups, and people we trust tell us things. ... But how are people outside the scientific community supposed to navigate this complex web of social authority, to try and figure out which voices they should listen to, and which voices they shouldn't?
Consider credentials. On paper the credentials of the better creationists and id people are like yours and mine. Take you and Michael Behe. You both have PhDs. You have both done research and published articles. So if somebody wants to put Behe up against Collins and say, "Well, here's a guy and I like what he says. And here's another guy and I don't like what he says. And you're asking me to follow Collins over Behe? Well, why should I do that?"
Collins: Well, that is a fundamental problem we're facing in our culture, especially in the United States. It's why we have such a mismatch between what the scientific data would suggest and what many people believe about things like the age of the Earth and about whether evolution is true or not.
If you ask about data-driven questions, about what is true and what is the evidence to support it--you would want to go to the people who are the professionals who spend their lives trying to answer those questions and ask, "Is there a consensus view?" So you ask, "What is the age of the Earth?" Well, who does that work? It is the geologist and the cosmologists and the people who do radiocarbon dating. It is the fossil record people and so on. So you ask, "Is this an unanswered question?" And the answer you would get is that the issue is settled. The age of the earth is 4.55 billion years.
What do you think of these answers - or any of the rest of the article? Lets open the discussion here.
If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail [at] att.net.
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RJS (#24)
You call comment #29 there "ridicule"? I totally disagree. I was challenging the writer to judge both sides by the same standard. If you are going to look at those 2 comments, please also look at comments 14, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23.
Have you ever read The Panda's Thumb blog or PZ Myers? These are "scientists" who are far worse than what Luskin wrote. The Collins interview you post on is far worse than what Luskin wrote. I could cite multiple false or misleading statements in it, but it would take too much time.
I also remind you of the bizarre attack by Karl Giberson:
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/06/wheres_the_dialogue_alas_colle.html
You really do have a serious double standard when it comes to civil discourse, in my opinion. Perhaps it is related to your metaphysics, worldview, paradigm? :)
Here is my olive branch: I know I have my blind spots too. Rest assured, I feel like I know you pretty well and very much respect your knowledge, thoughts and style overall.
Have a good weekend.
If anybody is still reading this thread (perhaps we can hope not), I agree with RJS here.
While there has been occasional lack of civility by various people (probably including me, not any from RJS that I recall), it seems like one cannot say anything remotely critical here about the Discovery Institute without PDS jumping down their throat and hurling accusations of "misinformation". This happens even with clear points, like that the DI's outlook is mainly anti-evolution, that they are fighting in the "culture wars", or that many associated with the DI (Jonathan Wells, Phil Johnson, Dembski's Uncommon Descent blog) portray theistic evolution (and people like Francis Collins) as despicable. I'm glad Steve Meyer is supporting Collins; there are also some reasonable people associated with the DI and if I have ever implied otherwise I apologize.
Anybody who wants to see if characterizations of the DI are accurate can check out their website (particularly the "science and culture" part; note the prominent promotion of the culture-war film "Expelled" which even some anti-evolutionists like Hugh Ross spoke against), and also the Uncommon Descent blog (where there is currently a nasty anti-Collins thread, started by a post that mainly regurgitates the blog post from a DI Fellow that I pointed to the other day). Or read about their efforts on the "creationist" side in school board controversies in Kansas and other states.
Yes, we all have blind spots. For example (maybe frustrated by seeing harm to the witness of the Gospel among the scientifically literate), sometimes I make blanket negative statements about "ID" that really only apply to some of the movement, and fail to recognize that there are people under that label (or at least lower-case id) who are better behaved (Behe, Mike Gene, Simon Conway Morris, Michael Denton [another theistic evolutionist who left the DI], Telic Thoughts). PDS, if people like me try harder not to paint all ID people with a broad brush, will you drop your apparent stance that they are above criticism?
No need to look far to confirm RJS's point about the Discovery Institute's treatment of theistic evolutionists. Just check out Discovery Institute fellow David Klinghoffer's blog here at Beliefnet.
He has a recent post comparing Fracis Collins to "Peace in our Time" Neville Chamberlain who negotiated an accomodationist peace treaty with Hitler. The Discovery Institute sneeringly refers to theistic evolutionists as "accomodationists." Very nice touch to compare theistic evolutionists to Hitler. Such a comparison is offensively inaccurate.
http://blog.beliefnet.com/kingdomofpriests/2009/07/peace-in-our-time-with-francis-collins-how-far-is-too-far.html
I had submitted a comment containing links to numerous DI posts criticizing theistic evolutionary "accomodationists," but apparently it contained so many links that Beliefnet treated it as spam. The accomdationists relentlessly criticized over the years include Collins; physicist Stephen Barr, posting at "First Things;" Kenneth Miller, author of the leading high school biology textbook and "Finding Darwin's God;" the Catholic Church, the Templeton Foundation and Vatican Astronomer and Jesuit priest, George Coyne. The term "accomndationist" was apparently coined by Discovery Institute Fellow Phillip E. Johnson in "Defeating Darwinism."
RJS is undeniably correct in the observatiosn regarding the Discovery Institute's treatment of theistic evolutionists.
I particularly object to the DI's misrepresentations and mockery of Catholic teaching.
AHH (#26)
You said,
"it seems like one cannot say anything remotely critical here about the Discovery Institute without PDS jumping down their throat and hurling accusations of "misinformation"."
I correct factual errors. All you have to do is be accurate and use civil discourse. If you do not use "misinformation," I will not point out your "misinformation."
Your colorful language ("jumping down their throats" and "hurling accusations") is, well, colorful. And not helpful here.
You said,
"will you drop your apparent stance that they are above criticism?"
I already said in #22:
"I have no problem with good, honest, civil criticism of the Discovery Institute. You do not have to walk on egg shells."
What is not clear about that? Why can't you address my position accurately?
I acknowledged in my comments to the post on the Luskin article that Luskin was misleading in his quote. Luskin himself corrected the error in response to the RJS criticism. That is more than many of the TE folks seem willing to do.
peelingdragonskin.wordpress.com
AHH-
Another interesting aspect of Collins' attack on ID:
1. ID doesn't propose any falsifiable hypotheses, so it is not "science."
2. ID is being falsified. See p. 192 of The Language of God.
AHH- Want to take a crack at defending Collins? Will you admit he is both wrong factually, and inconsistent logically? If so, see my comment #20.
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