Christian's innacuracies about gaps in scientific knowledge

[Cmass]

I have heard many Christians on this forum - and elsewhere - point out supposed gaps in scientific knowledge as proof that a magical being exists. I have found that sometimes these gaps don't even exist - it is instead a gap in the knowledge of the magical being believer.

Do Christians use their own gaps in knowledge as a means to prove the existence of a magical being?

[WelshBoy]

WelshBoy wrote:
Evolution is the theory of how things were made, not how they work achilles.


Ok simple enough. Just insert "made" for "work" and the sentence reads just as well. No problem.

So after the insertion your sentence now reads:

If you know how a car was made, does this mean that the car wasn't designed by an intelligent being?

Do you now mean that if we know how the universe came into existence, that doesn't rule out it was designed? Well, if we know that the car was made by the accretion of parts directed by a system of survival of the most apt, then we'd also know it wasn't designed wouldn't we?

[QED]

What troubles me most is that we're probably going to be staring into this gap (the making of the universe) for some considerable time to come. As I like to point out, it's truly ambiguous -- whether something is tailor-made for something else or whether that something has adapted to whatever happens to be around...

If you go into a clothes shop and there’s a large stock, you’re not surprised to find one suit that fits you, whereas if there’s only one suit in stock, then you are surprised to find it fits. So, many universes governed by different laws would remove any reason for surprise at the apparent fine-tuning in our universe.

We simply can't tell if the universe is bespoke no matter how perfectly it fits us. But this observation is relatively new (to cosmologists) and it was probably unimaginable to the majority of past philosophers who would have been readily convinced of the existence of a creator on account of all the apparent tailoring alone. Unfortunately I suspect that such a certainty gave much licence to embellish the account in a time already dominated by superstition and a merging of fantasy with the reporting of real events.

[Cmass]

What troubles me most is that we're probably going to be staring into this gap (the making of the universe) for some considerable time to come. As I like to point out, it's truly ambiguous -- whether something is tailor-made for something else or whether that something has adapted to whatever happens to be around...

That is an important statement, QED!

I have heard the following many times, and I think is absolutely critical to think on for a moment. "God made everything because everything it fits us so perfectly well"
First of all, this is not true - and there are many examples of "mistakes" God made in his design (especially the propensity for violence in his name!). Second, while yes, things appear to have been "designed" fairly well for us, this is backward thinking and an illusion. We CO-EVOLVED with with universe so it APPEARS we were designed for it, or the universe was designed for us. But there are billions of creatures that never existed or existed for a short time and then died off. Their co-evolutionary path ran out. Do you hear them off in the echoes of time praying to God....."The universe was designed perfectly for us!" This could have just as well been us and, in fairly short order, I think it will be; I don't think humans will outlive the planet either. I think we COULD but instead our relationship with the universe will crumble and then the universe will not be made for us and we won't be made for the universe any longer.
(I think we have a brain technically capable of longer survival but we have a mutation that will contribute significantly to our demise as a species: The God gene. As long as a large % of the population believe in personal Gods, who think those Gods will take care of everything in the long run, and as long as those people are willing to go to war over the Gods while ignoring environmental destruction, we will not make it. Instead, we will end up in the evolutionary rubbish heap along with most other organisms.)

[achilles12604]

WelshBoy wrote:
Evolution is the theory of how things were made, not how they work achilles.


Ok simple enough. Just insert "made" for "work" and the sentence reads just as well. No problem.

So after the insertion your sentence now reads:

If you know how a car was made, does this mean that the car wasn't designed by an intelligent being?

Do you now mean that if we know how the universe came into existence, that doesn't rule out it was designed? Well, if we know that the car was made by the accretion of parts directed by a system of survival of the most apt, then we'd also know it wasn't designed wouldn't we?

Not necessarily. Your see this is exactly why science can not comment on God's existence. Dawkins doesn't seem to understand the very basic concept that science and theology are not mutually exclusive. While they may both address certain things, they do not comment on one another at all.

All I have to do is say "well that is how God designed it to happen, so of course it worked." Science can neither prove nor disprove my statement.

Suffice to say, our greatest minds all have seen a pattern of design in the universe. From einstein who vied the universe as so marvelous as to be God like unto itself, to Hawkins who recently computed the likelyhood of the universe spontaniously and randomly appearing as it did. Even the most avid atheist scholar can still see a design aspect.

In fact your Mr. Dawkins saw this same thing.

In a debate with Collins in Time magazine, they had this very exchange.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 32,00.html

COLLINS: My God is not improbable to me. He has no need of a creation story for himself or to be fine-tuned by something else. God is the answer to all of those "How must it have come to be" questions.

DAWKINS: I think that's the mother and father of all cop-outs. It's an honest scientific quest to discover where this apparent improbability comes from. Now Dr. Collins says, "Well, God did it. And God needs no explanation because God is outside all this." Well, what an incredible evasion of the responsibility to explain. Scientists don't do that. Scientists say, "We're working on it. We're struggling to understand."

COLLINS: Certainly science should continue to see whether we can find evidence for multiverses that might explain why our own universe seems to be so finely tuned. But I do object to the assumption that anything that might be outside of nature is ruled out of the conversation. That's an impoverished view of the kinds of questions we humans can ask, such as "Why am I here?", "What happens after we die?", "Is there a God?" If you refuse to acknowledge their appropriateness, you end up with a zero probability of God after examining the natural world because it doesn't convince you on a proof basis. But if your mind is open about whether God might exist, you can point to aspects of the universe that are consistent with that conclusion.

DAWKINS: To me, the right approach is to say we are profoundly ignorant of these matters. We need to work on them. But to suddenly say the answer is God--it's that that seems to me to close off the discussion.

TIME: Could the answer be God?

DAWKINS: There could be something incredibly grand and incomprehensible and beyond our present understanding.

COLLINS: That's God.

DAWKINS: Yes. But it could be any of a billion Gods. It could be God of the Martians or of the inhabitants of Alpha Centauri. The chance of its being a particular God, Yahweh, the God of Jesus, is vanishingly small--at the least, the onus is on you to demonstrate why you think that's the case.

I love this last part don't you?

[QED]

Hello achilles12604. Hope you are well

WelshBoy wrote:
Evolution is the theory of how things were made, not how they work achilles.


Ok simple enough. Just insert "made" for "work" and the sentence reads just as well. No problem.

So after the insertion your sentence now reads:

If you know how a car was made, does this mean that the car wasn't designed by an intelligent being?

Do you now mean that if we know how the universe came into existence, that doesn't rule out it was designed? Well, if we know that the car was made by the accretion of parts directed by a system of survival of the most apt, then we'd also know it wasn't designed wouldn't we?

Not necessarily. Your see this is exactly why science can not comment on God's existence. Dawkins doesn't seem to understand the very basic concept that science and theology are not mutually exclusive. While they may both address certain things, they do not comment on one another at all.

Well, I think you'd have to admit that there is an awful lot of detail in theology that science can and should comment on.

All I have to do is say "well that is how God designed it to happen, so of course it worked." Science can neither prove nor disprove my statement.

As the most general of theological assertions this one will remain standing among other alternatives until such time as we can take a step back and see the "creation" of the universe from the "outside". Until then our impoverished observational location forbids us from drawing conclusions like "all Indians walk in single file" when one Indian is all we have ever seen.

Suffice to say, our greatest minds all have seen a pattern of design in the universe. From einstein who vied the universe as so marvelous as to be God like unto itself, to Hawkins who recently computed the likelyhood of the universe spontaniously and randomly appearing as it did. Even the most avid atheist scholar can still see a design aspect.

I have to take you to task on your assertions here. What I think you might be doing is conflating an acknowledgment of the appearance of design (hence designer) with the actual acknowledgment of a designer. It's a very tired old straw-man argument to calculate probabilities for things popping into existence at random and I'm quite sure that's not the entire story behind Hawking's calculations. Probability calculations can never be made in isolation of any potentially influential factors. Seeing as we have had a number of pleasant debates that have skirted around this issue before, I would most appreciate your take on the "multiverse" scenario.

Clearly to me, if the probabilistic state-space to which our universe belongs is infinite, then no matter how unlikely Hawking's calculations make our universe appear to be, then that number still pales into insignificance with infinity. This is one extreme however. A finite state-space may still exceed any magnitude arising from his calculation. The mental image I have of this potential is of a foam of "bubble universes" (like a foam bath that fills all the world's oceans - and then some ).

Now I understand perfectly well the most obvious reaction which is to say that all this is hypothetical in the extreme, and it's a feat of pure invention to avoid the conclusion that God carefully tuned just one creation especially for us. But I'm afraid to say that it really is touché. None of the observational evidence found so far, the calculations, the hunches, can actually disambiguate the two competing scenarios

But I'd like to understand the way someone can convince themselves that it has already been disambiguated. The numbers can't do it, and neither can the first wave of written hunches inherited from Mythological times past -- but I can get a glimmer of a feeling that it's just too crazy to think that we're here out of all the possible places that we could (or couldn't be!). But then again we are faced with the very same dilemma on a much more personal basis: why are we what and where we are ourselves? We could be some poor fellow in Sub-Saharan Africa or, for that matter, a person in some other age! This might be even more puzzling for someone in a unique position -- say Prince Charles, the son of Queen Elizabeth II. Should he believe there is something really special about him? I don't think so. It had to be someone and that someone is him.

This line of reasoning seems valid to me, so the thought that it'd be crazy for us to be the ones that were lucky enough to wind-up in such a good-fitting universe is likewise absent of any real significance.

In fact your Mr. Dawkins saw this same thing.

Surely he's a treasure for us all

In a debate with Collins in Time magazine, they had this very exchange.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 32,00.html

COLLINS: My God is not improbable to me. He has no need of a creation story for himself or to be fine-tuned by something else. God is the answer to all of those "How must it have come to be" questions.

DAWKINS: I think that's the mother and father of all cop-outs. It's an honest scientific quest to discover where this apparent improbability comes from. Now Dr. Collins says, "Well, God did it. And God needs no explanation because God is outside all this." Well, what an incredible evasion of the responsibility to explain. Scientists don't do that. Scientists say, "We're working on it. We're struggling to understand."

COLLINS: Certainly science should continue to see whether we can find evidence for multiverses that might explain why our own universe seems to be so finely tuned. But I do object to the assumption that anything that might be outside of nature is ruled out of the conversation. That's an impoverished view of the kinds of questions we humans can ask, such as "Why am I here?", "What happens after we die?", "Is there a God?" If you refuse to acknowledge their appropriateness, you end up with a zero probability of God after examining the natural world because it doesn't convince you on a proof basis. But if your mind is open about whether God might exist, you can point to aspects of the universe that are consistent with that conclusion.

DAWKINS: To me, the right approach is to say we are profoundly ignorant of these matters. We need to work on them. But to suddenly say the answer is God--it's that that seems to me to close off the discussion.

TIME: Could the answer be God?

DAWKINS: There could be something incredibly grand and incomprehensible and beyond our present understanding.

COLLINS: That's God.

DAWKINS: Yes. But it could be any of a billion Gods. It could be God of the Martians or of the inhabitants of Alpha Centauri. The chance of its being a particular God, Yahweh, the God of Jesus, is vanishingly small--at the least, the onus is on you to demonstrate why you think that's the case.

I love this last part don't you?

He's only saying what I've been saying here: that there's an ambiguity about it all. That there's no known principle by which we can reliably infer design in things. Maybe I've been reading it wrong all along. I've been thinking that the point of Dawkin's material (I haven't picked up many of his recent books) is simply that there are natural self-organizing processes that can produce the appearance of design in things. I don't know of any insightful works that can demonstrate that everything is of this nature. I see it more as an attempt to explain why we shouldn't "jump the gun" with our conclusions. This is what Christianity and other organized religions are doing nonetheless.

[achilles12604]

Hello achilles12604. Hope you are well

I am thanks!

WelshBoy wrote:
Evolution is the theory of how things were made, not how they work achilles.


Ok simple enough. Just insert "made" for "work" and the sentence reads just as well. No problem.

So after the insertion your sentence now reads:

If you know how a car was made, does this mean that the car wasn't designed by an intelligent being?

Do you now mean that if we know how the universe came into existence, that doesn't rule out it was designed? Well, if we know that the car was made by the accretion of parts directed by a system of survival of the most apt, then we'd also know it wasn't designed wouldn't we?

Not necessarily. Your see this is exactly why science can not comment on God's existence. Dawkins doesn't seem to understand the very basic concept that science and theology are not mutually exclusive. While they may both address certain things, they do not comment on one another at all.

Well, I think you'd have to admit that there is an awful lot of detail in theology that science can and should comment on.

Hmmmm. Like what? I can think of a few things but not an "awful lot." Lets get specific here. What are some examples of what you are refering to?

Suffice to say, our greatest minds all have seen a pattern of design in the universe. From einstein who vied the universe as so marvelous as to be God like unto itself, to Hawkins who recently computed the likelyhood of the universe spontaniously and randomly appearing as it did. Even the most avid atheist scholar can still see a design aspect.

I have to take you to task on your assertions here. What I think you might be doing is conflating an acknowledgment of the appearance of design (hence designer) with the actual acknowledgment of a designer. It's a very tired old straw-man argument to calculate probabilities for things popping into existence at random and I'm quite sure that's not the entire story behind Hawking's calculations. Probability calculations can never be made in isolation of any potentially influential factors. Seeing as we have had a number of pleasant debates that have skirted around this issue before, I would most appreciate your take on the "multiverse" scenario.

Oh by no means am I trying to assert that Hawkins or Einstein were religious or even made their statements with religious implications in mind. On the contrary I believe that Hawkins formulated his theory with the purpose of showing just how amazing and lucky we are to exist. Of course I am more than happy to twist his intentions around for my own diabolical schemes.

Clearly to me, if the probabilistic state-space to which our universe belongs is infinite, then no matter how unlikely Hawking's calculations make our universe appear to be, then that number still pales into insignificance with infinity. This is one extreme however. A finite state-space may still exceed any magnitude arising from his calculation. The mental image I have of this potential is of a foam of "bubble universes" (like a foam bath that fills all the world's oceans - and then some ).

Now I understand perfectly well the most obvious reaction which is to say that all this is hypothetical in the extreme, and it's a feat of pure invention to avoid the conclusion that God carefully tuned just one creation especially for us. But I'm afraid to say that it really is touché. None of the observational evidence found so far, the calculations, the hunches, can actually disambiguate the two competing scenarios

True. In fact I believe I came to about this same conclusion via a different path. The observational evidence can prove or disprove anything about the relationship between God and Science.

In fact your Mr. Dawkins saw this same thing.

Surely he's a treasure for us all

Long live king ricky.

In a debate with Collins in Time magazine, they had this very exchange.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 32,00.html

COLLINS: My God is not improbable to me. He has no need of a creation story for himself or to be fine-tuned by something else. God is the answer to all of those "How must it have come to be" questions.

DAWKINS: I think that's the mother and father of all cop-outs. It's an honest scientific quest to discover where this apparent improbability comes from. Now Dr. Collins says, "Well, God did it. And God needs no explanation because God is outside all this." Well, what an incredible evasion of the responsibility to explain. Scientists don't do that. Scientists say, "We're working on it. We're struggling to understand."

COLLINS: Certainly science should continue to see whether we can find evidence for multiverses that might explain why our own universe seems to be so finely tuned. But I do object to the assumption that anything that might be outside of nature is ruled out of the conversation. That's an impoverished view of the kinds of questions we humans can ask, such as "Why am I here?", "What happens after we die?", "Is there a God?" If you refuse to acknowledge their appropriateness, you end up with a zero probability of God after examining the natural world because it doesn't convince you on a proof basis. But if your mind is open about whether God might exist, you can point to aspects of the universe that are consistent with that conclusion.

DAWKINS: To me, the right approach is to say we are profoundly ignorant of these matters. We need to work on them. But to suddenly say the answer is God--it's that that seems to me to close off the discussion.

TIME: Could the answer be God?

DAWKINS: There could be something incredibly grand and incomprehensible and beyond our present understanding.

COLLINS: That's God.

DAWKINS: Yes. But it could be any of a billion Gods. It could be God of the Martians or of the inhabitants of Alpha Centauri. The chance of its being a particular God, Yahweh, the God of Jesus, is vanishingly small--at the least, the onus is on you to demonstrate why you think that's the case.

I love this last part don't you?

He's only saying what I've been saying here: that there's an ambiguity about it all. That there's no known principle by which we can reliably infer design in things. Maybe I've been reading it wrong all along. I've been thinking that the point of Dawkin's material (I haven't picked up many of his recent books) is simply that there are natural self-organizing processes that can produce the appearance of design in things. I don't know of any insightful works that can demonstrate that everything is of this nature. I see it more as an attempt to explain why we shouldn't "jump the gun" with our conclusions. This is what Christianity and other organized religions are doing nonetheless.

[/quote]

Remember that the gun was jumped before the gun was even invented. Religion came first. Then came science. Then came Collins with the baby carriage.

I disagree with Christians who claim that Religion trumps science. I disagree with scientists who believe that science trumps religion. And I disagree with both of them for the same reason . . .

Because science and religion are mutually exclusive for the most part. They can both be true and accurate at the same time.

[Confused]

achilles12604 wrote:

In a debate with Collins in Time magazine, they had this very exchange.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 32,00.html

Quote:
COLLINS: My God is not improbable to me. He has no need of a creation story for himself or to be fine-tuned by something else. God is the answer to all of those "How must it have come to be" questions.

DAWKINS: I think that's the mother and father of all cop-outs. It's an honest scientific quest to discover where this apparent improbability comes from. Now Dr. Collins says, "Well, God did it. And God needs no explanation because God is outside all this." Well, what an incredible evasion of the responsibility to explain. Scientists don't do that. Scientists say, "We're working on it. We're struggling to understand."

COLLINS: Certainly science should continue to see whether we can find evidence for multiverses that might explain why our own universe seems to be so finely tuned. But I do object to the assumption that anything that might be outside of nature is ruled out of the conversation. That's an impoverished view of the kinds of questions we humans can ask, such as "Why am I here?", "What happens after we die?", "Is there a God?" If you refuse to acknowledge their appropriateness, you end up with a zero probability of God after examining the natural world because it doesn't convince you on a proof basis. But if your mind is open about whether God might exist, you can point to aspects of the universe that are consistent with that conclusion.

DAWKINS: To me, the right approach is to say we are profoundly ignorant of these matters. We need to work on them. But to suddenly say the answer is God--it's that that seems to me to close off the discussion.

TIME: Could the answer be God?

DAWKINS: There could be something incredibly grand and incomprehensible and beyond our present understanding.

COLLINS: That's God.

DAWKINS: Yes. But it could be any of a billion Gods. It could be God of the Martians or of the inhabitants of Alpha Centauri. The chance of its being a particular God, Yahweh, the God of Jesus, is vanishingly small--at the least, the onus is on you to demonstrate why you think that's the case.


I love this last part don't you?

QED wrote:
He's only saying what I've been saying here: that there's an ambiguity about it all. That there's no known principle by which we can reliably infer design in things. Maybe I've been reading it wrong all along. I've been thinking that the point of Dawkin's material (I haven't picked up many of his recent books) is simply that there are natural self-organizing processes that can produce the appearance of design in things. I don't know of any insightful works that can demonstrate that everything is of this nature. I see it more as an attempt to explain why we shouldn't "jump the gun" with our conclusions. This is what Christianity and other organized religions are doing nonetheless.

Actually, I have the entire interview with Collins and Dawkins. Keep in mind that Collins is not only a highly respected scientist with credentials beyond reproach, he is the head of the Human Genome Project, but he is also a devout Christian. I don't think that you would find many of the respectable scientists (www.asa3.org) who are also believers who could be classified as jumping the gun. Now, granted, most of their beliefs are centered on a Christian God, but I think Collins has made his "Biologos" concept generic enough to accept any religions God. Dawkins admits to Collins that while he disagrees with the necessity of a God, he respects the fact that Collins leaves enough room for religion to remain in the supernatural realm without compromising the natural. Collins completely rejects the current concepts of intelligent design and creationism, denies that they are scientific at all, and states firmly that as long as religion adheres to their strict tenets that makes them blind to reality, religion is dooming itself. It has no business entering the scientific world. Dawkins actually tells Collins that he is impressed at Collins ability to maintain such high standards of scientific research without allowing his religion to compromise them. Collins says that religion has no business interfering with his work. Collins speaks of ID and their God of gaps with disdain. Because of this, many churches have actually requested their members to boycott his "The Language of God" book because they call it heretical. This was one of the reasons that Dawkins first took notice of Collins. How pathetic is that, your own religion turns its back on you for denouncing creationism, etc. Granted, most of the churches that allegedly boycotted his book were evangelical Christians or denominations that still consider the bible to be inerrant and literal. Collins states he doesn't have a problem with it. His main purpose of publishing his book was to not only bring awareness of the validity of genetics and how they cannot be refuted, but to also show that one can remain true with God and still see the world as it was meant to be seen through natural and scientific eyes.

[QED]

Well, I think you'd have to admit that there is an awful lot of detail in theology that science can and should comment on.

Hmmmm. Like what? I can think of a few things but not an "awful lot." Lets get specific here. What are some examples of what you are refering to?

I believe it was Plato who introduced us to the term "Theology" even though it's most often associated with the study of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God. But long before, as well as since, Plato's day there have been countless accounts of one or other God(s) acting directly on the world to bring about some observed phenomenon or other.

I really don't understand your surprise here. Surely it's precisely the detail presented in works such as the Old Testament that science can most readily comment on -- the stories about creation, the fall and catastrophic floods for example -- specifics that run counter to the consilience of understanding regarding the history of our solar system and the galaxy that hosts it.

Surely it's the non-specific concept of a creator and the philosophical curious relating to purpose and meaning that are the things least amenable to science?

[QED]

Hello Confused.

Actually, I have the entire interview with Collins and Dawkins. Keep in mind that Collins is not only a highly respected scientist with credentials beyond reproach, he is the head of the Human Genome Project, but he is also a devout Christian.

So does he subscribe to "the fall" I wonder? The issues of sin and redemption seem to me to be at the very heart of Christianity and I cannot understand why anyone would count themselves as a Christian if they did not go along with the notion that we were once "perfect" and subsequently "lost our way" rather than seeing it somewhat the other way around. I'm not suggesting that we should think ourselves perfect now, but I am suggesting that our evolving mental capacities are gradually overcoming (or at least showing the potential to overcome) our less refined instinctual heritage.

I don't think that you would find many of the respectable scientists (www.asa3.org) who are also believers who could be classified as jumping the gun. Now, granted, most of their beliefs are centered on a Christian God, but I think Collins has made his "Biologos" concept generic enough to accept any religions God.

But where is the expression of doubt, an acknowledgment of the ambiguity inherent in our observations thus far? Look at how Collins deals with the multiverse for example:

Certainly science should continue to see whether we can find evidence for multiverses that might explain why our own universe seems to be so finely tuned. But I do object to the assumption that anything that might be outside of nature is ruled out of the conversation.

The objection in the second sentence is irrelevant to the matter of the multiverse he addresses in the first. The existence of a multiverse could explain entirely all the apparent providence we see around us. As far as modern physics is concerned there is nothing particularly radical about the suggestion. And we must not forget that there are many different forms that an effective multiverse can take. The term is used loosely to describe any unseen extension to our own observable universe (which is definitely known to be greater than the portion within our own 13 billion-year light cone).

"Jumping the gun" is to weigh-up the (possibly eternal, possibly infinite) multiverse with a God having similar properties and then declare, with no scientific justification, that God is the winner. Doing so with some sort of caveat is fine - but to describe oneself as a "devout Christian" seems to me to allow for no such thing.

Dawkins admits to Collins that while he disagrees with the necessity of a God, he respects the fact that Collins leaves enough room for religion to remain in the supernatural realm without compromising the natural. Collins completely rejects the current concepts of intelligent design and creationism, denies that they are scientific at all, and states firmly that as long as religion adheres to their strict tenets that makes them blind to reality, religion is dooming itself. It has no business entering the scientific world. Dawkins actually tells Collins that he is impressed at Collins ability to maintain such high standards of scientific research without allowing his religion to compromise them. Collins says that religion has no business interfering with his work. Collins speaks of ID and their God of gaps with disdain. Because of this, many churches have actually requested their members to boycott his "The Language of God" book because they call it heretical. This was one of the reasons that Dawkins first took notice of Collins. How pathetic is that, your own religion turns its back on you for denouncing creationism, etc. Granted, most of the churches that allegedly boycotted his book were evangelical Christians or denominations that still consider the bible to be inerrant and literal. Collins states he doesn't have a problem with it. His main purpose of publishing his book was to not only bring awareness of the validity of genetics and how they cannot be refuted, but to also show that one can remain true with God and still see the world as it was meant to be seen through natural and scientific eyes.

I'm sorry to be so slow with this, but I still can't see how he can describe himself as a devout Christian. I guess I should read his book!

[Confused]

Hello Confused.

Actually, I have the entire interview with Collins and Dawkins. Keep in mind that Collins is not only a highly respected scientist with credentials beyond reproach, he is the head of the Human Genome Project, but he is also a devout Christian.

So does he subscribe to "the fall" I wonder? The issues of sin and redemption seem to me to be at the very heart of Christianity and I cannot understand why anyone would count themselves as a Christian if they did not go along with the notion that we were once "perfect" and subsequently "lost our way" rather than seeing it somewhat the other way around. I'm not suggesting that we should think ourselves perfect now, but I am suggesting that our evolving mental capacities are gradually overcoming (or at least showing the potential to overcome) our less refined instinctual heritage.

I don't think that you would find many of the respectable scientists (www.asa3.org) who are also believers who could be classified as jumping the gun. Now, granted, most of their beliefs are centered on a Christian God, but I think Collins has made his "Biologos" concept generic enough to accept any religions God.

But where is the expression of doubt, an acknowledgment of the ambiguity inherent in our observations thus far? Look at how Collins deals with the multiverse for example:

Certainly science should continue to see whether we can find evidence for multiverses that might explain why our own universe seems to be so finely tuned. But I do object to the assumption that anything that might be outside of nature is ruled out of the conversation.

The objection in the second sentence is irrelevant to the matter of the multiverse he addresses in the first. The existence of a multiverse could explain entirely all the apparent providence we see around us. As far as modern physics is concerned there is nothing particularly radical about the suggestion. And we must not forget that there are many different forms that an effective multiverse can take. The term is used loosely to describe any unseen extension to our own observable universe (which is definitely known to be greater than the portion within our own 13 billion-year light cone).

"Jumping the gun" is to weigh-up the (possibly eternal, possibly infinite) multiverse with a God having similar properties and then declare, with no scientific justification, that God is the winner. Doing so with some sort of caveat is fine - but to describe oneself as a "devout Christian" seems to me to allow for no such thing.

Dawkins admits to Collins that while he disagrees with the necessity of a God, he respects the fact that Collins leaves enough room for religion to remain in the supernatural realm without compromising the natural. Collins completely rejects the current concepts of intelligent design and creationism, denies that they are scientific at all, and states firmly that as long as religion adheres to their strict tenets that makes them blind to reality, religion is dooming itself. It has no business entering the scientific world. Dawkins actually tells Collins that he is impressed at Collins ability to maintain such high standards of scientific research without allowing his religion to compromise them. Collins says that religion has no business interfering with his work. Collins speaks of ID and their God of gaps with disdain. Because of this, many churches have actually requested their members to boycott his "The Language of God" book because they call it heretical. This was one of the reasons that Dawkins first took notice of Collins. How pathetic is that, your own religion turns its back on you for denouncing creationism, etc. Granted, most of the churches that allegedly boycotted his book were evangelical Christians or denominations that still consider the bible to be inerrant and literal. Collins states he doesn't have a problem with it. His main purpose of publishing his book was to not only bring awareness of the validity of genetics and how they cannot be refuted, but to also show that one can remain true with God and still see the world as it was meant to be seen through natural and scientific eyes.

I'm sorry to be so slow with this, but I still can't see how he can describe himself as a devout Christian. I guess I should read his book!

He doesn't specifically address the fall but I will look into what he says at the asa3 website. Perhaps he says something directly related to it there. However, he does state in his book that he views the OT as mostly allegory and sloppy at that. He denounces it as inerrant and literal. So I don't know how he would address it. He spends more time addressing the illogical accounts of creationism and intelligent design but I don't recall him specifically addressing his own views. Interesting that I never noticed this before.

Yes, I see your point on multiverses. And I also concede that if we look at nature we can find as much probability for their existence as we could the claim Collins makes about natures probabilities pointing towards a God.

Only you would know of a technical definition of "jumping the gun". And you wonder why the intimidation factor will always increase any time you post in response to me. It would indeed conflict with being a devout Christian. But then, he doesn't claim to be mainstream Christian. So once again, I will have to look into what he says on the site to clarify what position he takes, if any. I know that he adheres to the tenets of Biologos. But the purpose of his book was to show both religion and science that evolution is a reality. It is a fact. The genetics behind the original hypotheses of Darwin have been found to not only exist, but to exist in the exact position along the genetic coding of each chromosome that one would expect to find them. In other words, predictions made about the process of evolution that would make the hypothetical geneology tree true( using a convergence of evidence such as from geology, paleontology, archaeology, meteorology, biology, chemistry, history, etc) were actually found in the genetic codes of species exactly where they were predicted to be.

If you get around to reading his book, you might enjoy it. It focuses more on genetics than anything else, but towards the end, he blends it in with science and shows how science need not cancel out religion or vice versa. He also slams creationism as well as ID, which I personally loved more than anything else. But overall it is easy and quick reading. You would likely find it easier to understand than a childs fairy tale book.

Overall, he is the first author(scientist or theologian) I have read that actually managed to maintain the respect I had for him and still get his points across without condemning one side or the other and for the most part, his book is relatively impartial. Admittedly, when he goes into his theology of Biologos one can definitely see the works of the Anthropic Principles but in my opinion they are mild at best. I simply like the way he blatantly points out that science should explain what it was intended to explain, the natural, whatever that may encompass.