…and this is a 
Atheist fires a shot across scientists' bows
Category: Godlessness
Posted on: August 23, 2007 4:47 PM, by PZ Myers
Sam Harris has a letter in Nature today, urging scientists to unite against religion — even the moderate religion that so many are willing to support.
But here is Collins on how he, as a scientist, finally became convinced of the divinity of Jesus Christ: "On a beautiful fall day, as I was hiking in the Cascade Mountains... the majesty and beauty of God's creation overwhelmed my resistance. As I rounded a corner and saw a beautiful and unexpected frozen waterfall, hundreds of feet high, I knew the search was over. The next morning, I knelt in the dewy grass as the sun rose and surrendered to Jesus Christ."
What does the "mode of thought" displayed by Collins have in common with science? The Language of God should have sparked gasping outrage from the editors at Nature. Instead, they deemed Collins's efforts "moving" and "laudable", commending him for building a "bridge across the social and intellectual divide that exists between most of US academia and the so-called heartlands."
He seems to feel the same way about Collins that I do.
Comments
Oh hell, I suppose this means we'll get another finger-wagging, pearl-clutching post from Nisbet.
Posted by: Tulse | August 23, 2007 4:52 PM
I grew up in the Southern Baptist Church and went to Baylor University. At Baylor I learned (from my Old Testament professor!) that evolution is a fact, and that Genesis is not to be taken literally. In my 20's and 30's I was an agnostic and am now an atheist. I would like to see atheists state they they do not believe in the supernatural, PERIOD, whether it is religion, Tarot cards, numerology, astrology, etc. I'd also like them to explain why they don't believe. BUT I would like them to make these statements without saying "religion is crap" or other antagonistic things. Religion does bring comfort to a lot of people and I think we atheists can stand up for ourselves, oppose efforts to enshrine religious views into law, and encourage rational approaches to science (embryonic stem cell research) WITHOUT saying antagonistic things. We can even discuss the dangers of religion while being polite and reasonable. That's my personal belief.
Posted by: Texas Reader | August 23, 2007 4:53 PM
One day, as I was walking in the Big Blue Room, I rounded a corner and saw a cluster of vines. I realized that they looked like CAT-5 cables. I realized how much information they carried, and that the earth was a giant computer. It struck me, then, that the central symbol in Genesis was... an Apple!
The very next morning I knelt down in the wet grass -- ignoring the welts that developed because of my allergy -- and gave my heart to Steve Jobs.
However, an enlightened person showed me the error of my ways. It was not CAT-5 cables I saw after all! I now realize that it was spaghetti! So, I converted....
You get the picture.
Posted by: Moody834 | August 23, 2007 5:03 PM
Sal Cordova is already whining about this over at Uncommon Descent. He writes:
followed by the text of the letter as you quoted it. It appears that expressing a dissenting opinion constitutes a threat to the freedom of thought.
Soon these nuts are going to start suing people for disagreeing with them. Oh, wait...
Posted by: Altabin | August 23, 2007 5:05 PM
TR -
I tend to agree. There is a difference between being direct ("I do not believe in the existence of god and here's why") and being antagonistic ("religion is crap"). Theoretically I want to express myself in the former mode, but when faced with the dishonesty and irrationality of some religious adherents (especially when they make false empirical claims), it's difficult not to fall into the latter mode. Still, you have a valid point that one can be uncompromising without being an uncompromising prick.
But shame, shame, shame on Nature for publishing this stuff and claiming to bridge any gaps.
Posted by: Midwestern Gent | August 23, 2007 5:06 PM
I just don't get the leap from awe at how wonderful and beautiful nature is to the divinity of Jesus Christ.
There's just no connection there for me.
Sure, I could see getting becoming convinced that there is some sort of all-pervading order and beauty to the Universe, a sense of connection, and maybe wanting to name it. Even deciding that there is some intelligence behind it.
But J.C. that's just childhood conditioning kicking in.
Posted by: dAVE | August 23, 2007 5:06 PM
Do science and rationality support atheism? by Edward Remler. (Hint: his answer starts with 'N'.)
Posted by: Reginald Selkirk | August 23, 2007 5:09 PM
"a beautiful and unexpected frozen waterfall"
Perhaps if Collins had just had a map with him we would be spared all the religion praise-singing.
Posted by: Rey Fox | August 23, 2007 5:09 PM
Hear! Hear! About time someone spoke up on the respect that religion has so little deserved! I rank it up there with that idiotic NOMA concept. Coming to such an astounding conclusion based solely on emotional arguments Collins gets no respect from me either.
Posted by: Randy | August 23, 2007 5:11 PM
Every time I have a nice bowl of spaghetti I knee down in appreciation for The Spaghetti Monster and His Noodley Appendage.
But, really, this just goes along with the common misbelief that casual religion is OK and should be tolerated. You know, forgetting that it's both moderates and extremists who unite to discriminate against homosexuals and come together to vote on ONE faux issue.
Posted by: Tom @Thoughtsic.com | August 23, 2007 5:11 PM
Texas Reader:
Where did Harris say that? Where did Harris say anything that was insulting? The problem is that many people seem to think any discussion of that topic is impolite just by virtue of the claims. Any questioning of religion, no matter how civilly stated, will be attacked by some supporter.Posted by: Tulse | August 23, 2007 5:16 PM
I tend to agree with Texas and Midwestern as well; however atheists are often accused of being pompous pricks simply for pointing out that, ahem, god is not real, and neither is astrology or tarot or any of it. Even when they're being entirely civil (which, IMHO, Harris is, in this letter).
Posted by: J Daley | August 23, 2007 5:16 PM
Harris's letter was refreshing.
But, I must ask: why did Collins wait until the next morning to kneel in the dewy grass ...
wait. How can there be a frozen waterfall AND dewy grass?
I'll bet he made the whole damn thing up.
He should have knelt in the snow right by that unexpected block of ice. Actually--why even would the waterfall be unexpected? Wasn't he on the designated hiking trail?
As for JC, well, shoot, obviously the block of ice looked like JC, much like my BBQ potato chips often bear a striking resemblance to Cheney.
His road to Damascus sure could have used Mapquest.
Posted by: Inky | August 23, 2007 5:16 PM
Ahhh, my favorite quote!
Brings sweet insults to my lips.
What a maroon!
Lets have an encore, Francis. Give it up for Jesus. Your saviour calls, the waterfalls beckon!
Posted by: CalGeorge | August 23, 2007 5:16 PM
"Oh hell, I suppose this means we'll get another finger-wagging, pearl-clutching post from Nisbet".
Texas Reader @ #2 was apparently already primed and clenched.
Posted by: Gil | August 23, 2007 5:17 PM
The article in Nature was quite incorrect, other than as a persuasive piece to convince Muslims to adopt science.
I actually think that the interview at Salon and an article in Physics today were produced to some degree in order to counter the whitewashing in Nature of Islam's rejection of science (of ancient science) prior to the devastations wrought by colonialism. The Islamic world almost certainly failed in competition with the West in part because of its rejection of openness and often even of ancient intellection (no doubt due in part to other events, like the Mongol invasions, however it's not likely that such rejection was only in reaction to outside causes). Non-religious authoritarianism played its role, naturally, but Islam appears to be to blame along with the other factors.
The Nature article was pushing for that non-existant golden age of Islam when Muslims were open to new ideas because the Mohammed enjoined Muslims to study. Yes, well, the Koran also inhibits openness and study, as well as perpetuating ancient oppressions. Like the Bible, only Muslims take the Koran's injunctions more literally and seriously than, in the overall sense, Jews and Xians understand the Bible.
It wasn't all bad, because it did speak to Muslims in a way that I suspect might persuade a few toward science. It was not, however, anything like the truth about the problems faced by science in Islam, and, God forbid, perhaps in our theocratic future (not soon, I'll wager, but I can't be sure it'll never happen).
One has plenty of doubts about the propriety of such a propaganda piece in Nature, even if it might be appropriate in some places. Science ought to be rather indifferent to religion, and not proclaiming that any religion promotes or enables science, since none have been shown to do so (relative to other religions, perhaps, but not relative to non-religion at all).
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | August 23, 2007 5:17 PM
fantasticle
Posted by: matthew | August 23, 2007 5:18 PM
Nah. He was so intent on finding a sign, he would have confused the map with the territory anyway.
Posted by: Kseniya | August 23, 2007 5:19 PM
Religion is crap. I'm sorry if it hurts your feelings, and I'm sorry that you've been deluded into funneling your money into the pockets of an authoritarian huckster (not to mention abdicating your capacity for reasoned thought), but it's true. It's a big stinky pile of crap, and it's floating there in all our drinking water.
Posted by: stogoe | August 23, 2007 5:20 PM
Are you sure it's not just a Baby Ruth?
Posted by: Maggie O'Hooligan | August 23, 2007 5:23 PM
I think you're being too hard on Collins, PZ. I mean, I went out hiking in Arizona two years ago, found a frozen waterfall, and not only yelled "Jesus!" but dropped to my knees. (That last was to take photos, of course, but intent doesn't matter, just empirical results.)
Also, to Inky: you can definitely have ice and dew in the same setting. Easy. Ice can exist with daytime air temps above Zero C for a surprising amount of time,especially if the air is moist enough to condense dew which then refreezes at night.
Posted by: Chris Clarke | August 23, 2007 5:23 PM
I might have stumbled upon that waterfall of Collins' on a trip last year - I certainly stumbled onto some views that brought honest tears to my eyes. I've never quite felt so awestruck or humbled as I've felt surrounded by the natural world. I've had something like a religious experience, an enlightenment, that the only thing I could say with certainty is that we don't know the half of what there is to know about the Earth - and even less about the universe. Never once did I think, 'Wow, this is just so beautiful I'm going to go pick a religion to practice!'
I have never understood why we cannot appreciate our little slice of insignificance in its own right - what we have been 'given' is supremely awesome without having to bring God to the table.
Posted by: Karen | August 23, 2007 5:29 PM
I'm often moved to tears by experiences of breathtaking beauty. Sometimes I'm even deeply moved by the loveliness in religious-themed works. However, feeling all warm and fuzzy doesn't indicate the existence of a god; and apparently even solidly-rational minds can slide into difficult-to-unseat superstition.
And why "Jesus", anyway? Why not Allah, or YHVH, or one of the many manifestations of buddhas?
Because Collins's background made him predisposed to fall for the christomyth.
You'd think he'd be bright enough to figure that out.
Posted by: Warren | August 23, 2007 5:29 PM
TR, I wish I could agree with you. I think civility and polity and kindness are all exceedingly important, but I have found quite often that though I may say merely that "I don't believe in gods", the religious hear "religion is crap". And they're not entirely wrong, either; how can I say that I don't believe that the Bible is true without implying that the Bible is false? Which futher implies that I believe that that which they base their lives upon, that which they gain comfort from, that which they cherish as the ultimate truth, is at worst a lie, and at best a waste of time? Is there a way to say "I don't believe you're right" without being perceived as saying "you're wrong"?
Posted by: factlike | August 23, 2007 5:30 PM
I don't think Collins' essay is appropriate for a science journal, but I completely respect his right to his own personal beliefs. I'm about as unbelieving as they come, but I don't want science mucking about in peoples' heads, any more than I'd want the government or a state-sponsored religion doing so. I support, as Amnesty International calls it, freedom of conscience.
I too had a beutiful blue cables experience, at which point I realized they are but noodly appendages of the flying spagetti monster. So I went out to eat.
Posted by: tourettist | August 23, 2007 5:32 PM
Collins is a latter day Romantic (capital R) without the writing chops of a Wordsworth or Blake or Hawthorn. In the Collins quote there is a quantitative degree of similarity to Blake poetry. Romanticism stands opposed to objectivism, empiricism, and the Enlightenment: Collins is a deeply confused man.
Posted by: caynazzo | August 23, 2007 5:36 PM
"There is a difference between being direct ("I do not believe in the existence of god and here's why") and being antagonistic ("religion is crap")"
This is a hard one. I mean what about believing in fairies? or UFOs? are they crap? However, saying religion is crap might be productive on a blog - where it is open on a general discussion and gives a public view of opinion. To say so to another human being individually face to face is not productive. It will make them very defensive. I am not sure what the best approach is, but I think being interested and exploring the limits of their belief can help - do you also believe in ghosts? fairies? dowsers? It might make them realise what realm hey are in.
Posted by: sailor | August 23, 2007 5:39 PM
Meanwhile, back at the convent: Mother Teresa's Crisis of Faith
Posted by: Reginald Selkirk | August 23, 2007 5:45 PM
I'd also like them to explain why they don't believe. BUT I would like them to make these statements without saying "religion is crap"
Well, I don't believe because religion is crap--will you still want to hear me explain?
Posted by: AlanWCan | August 23, 2007 5:46 PM
Posted by: Reginald Selkirk | August 23, 2007 5:47 PM
Ditto. I don't get the necessary leap from awe to Jesus. Maybe if he wasn't so busy with his misty watercolor Jesus fantasies he might have noticed the fraud going on under his nose.
Posted by: CJ | August 23, 2007 5:47 PM
But here is Collins on how he, as a scientist, finally became convinced of the divinity of Cthulhu: "On a beautiful fall day, as I was hiking in the Cascade Mountains... the majesty and beauty of Cthulhu's creation overwhelmed my resistance. As I rounded a corner and saw a beautiful and unexpected frozen waterfall, hundreds of feet high, I knew the search was over. The next morning, I knelt in the dewy grass as the sun rose and surrendered to Cthulhu."
Makes as much sense... And if Cthulhu isn't your cup of tea, you can go to FSM, Krishna, Mohamed or anyone your heart desires.
Posted by: Moses | August 23, 2007 5:49 PM
he should have cut out the middleman and started worshipping the waterfall. at least the waterfall objectively exists
hooray for animism!
Posted by: skyotter | August 23, 2007 5:56 PM
I realize now that Collins' words came from his book reviewed in Nature, so my point about appropriateness for a science journal is irrelevant, seeing as how he's not the one who put them there.
I'm still uncomfortable with the editors of Nature weighing in on religion and building bridges - or even condemning it as Harris does. I think it can only encourage religious types to meddle in science more than they already do.
Posted by: tourettist | August 23, 2007 5:57 PM
I think Dr. Collins succumbed to Christianity because the waterfall was frozen in THREE STREAMS - revealing the Trinity. (I assume each stream was discretely frozen -- everyone knows that crossing the streams "would be bad.")
Posted by: Kseniya | August 23, 2007 6:02 PM
Collins is in deep.
February National Geographic:
Horgan: Physicist Steven Weinberg, who is an atheist, asks why six million Jews, including his relatives, had to die in the Holocaust so that the Nazis could exercise their free will.
Collins: If God had to intervene miraculously every time one of us chose to do something evil, it would be a very strange, chaotic, unpredictable world. Free will leads to people doing terrible things to each other. Innocent people die as a result. You can't blame anyone except the evildoers for that. So that's not God's fault. The harder question is when suffering seems to have come about through no human ill action. A child with cancer, a natural disaster, a tornado or tsunami. Why would God not prevent those things from happening?
http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0702/voices.html
Gee... could it be because HE DOESN'T FUCKING EXIST!?
Posted by: CalGeorge | August 23, 2007 6:10 PM
"I would like to see atheists state they they do not believe in the supernatural, PERIOD, whether it is religion, Tarot cards, numerology, astrology, etc. I'd also like them to explain why they don't believe."
That's too bad because some atheists do believe in those things. I don't want the lie that atheists are necessarily naturalists or irreligious to spread. Naturalists are naturalists, irreligionists are irreligionists, and atheists are atheists. It just so happens that most who identify as atheists are also naturalists and irreligious.
Posted by: Alex | August 23, 2007 6:15 PM
RS, I skimmed the article you linked to in #7... it is sophistry extraordinaire. I'll save other readers the time and summarize it in 6 words: cosmological argument and argument from incredulity. It also make the pointless observation (of which many theists are so fond) that the existence of a god would not necessarily conflict with anything we can observe or learn through science. Ugh... when will people learn that you don't get any points for such an "observation" when you posit an omnipotent being with whom, by definition, anything at all is possible. Sure, such a being could have guided evolution, or set forth all the laws of physics, or snapped all of us into existence 5 seconds ago with memories of our supposed lives already intact--without any evidential basis for such scenarios (and moreover, without any means to investigate them), such hypotheses--including the asserted existence of such a being--are utterly worthless.
For a much more interesting read on the matter at hand, I recommend Sam Harris's review of Collins' book, The Language of God, on truthdig.
Posted by: J Myers | August 23, 2007 6:16 PM
Sometimes I unexpectedly happen upon a big steaming pile of shit when I'm out hiking and I realize how amazing the digestive system really is....
PRAISE JESUS!
Posted by: Turd Ferguson | August 23, 2007 6:16 PM
"...everyone knows that crossing the streams "would be bad.")"
Don't cross the streams!!!!!
Posted by: matthew | August 23, 2007 6:18 PM
Harris: "What does the 'mode of thought' displayed by Collins have in common with science? The Language of God should have sparked gasping outrage from the editors at Nature."
Outrage? Nonsense.
Let's suppose Collins had written the following:
On a beautiful fall day, as the sun streaked into her bedroom window and cascaded around her face, I really saw, for the first time, all that my little daughter could be. I know that my mind and heart were changed. She was female, but with every potentiality I had and deserving of each and every opportunity I had. Sexual discrimination is evil and wrong, and I will fight it and for my little girl as long as I have breath.
Such an epiphany could lead to changed views, but it is necessarily unevidenced. We all have unevidenced baseline assumptions. Would Harris and the commenters above be similarly gasping with outrage at such an "unscientific" event? Somehow I think not.
Imagine that.
Posted by: Sinbad | August 23, 2007 6:20 PM
Sinbad,
There is a world of difference between realizing the potential in your child and deciding that a common waterfall is evidence for an invisible bearded man in the sky that loves you.
Posted by: matthew | August 23, 2007 6:25 PM
Reginald Selkirk,
Old arguments wrapped in wordplay. The number of different questions he claims to answer in so short a space is also astounding.
Posted by: Numad | August 23, 2007 6:26 PM
Sinbad,
Yes, it would be foolish to base your political ideas directly on subjective experience. To recognize that you love your daughter, or love the world - that's a perfectly valid way to reach that. But to go beyond that and change your view about external reality based on the fact that you had an aesthetic experience - well, that's just plain stupid. Such an experience might lead you to investigate sexual discrimination, and whether it's right or wrong; but to decide the facts of the matter on a temporary seizure is infantile.
Anyone who hasn't had an aesthetic experience of that kind is missing out on something valuable. But so are celibates and people who never ate basil sherbet. To be unable to distinguish between the appropriate motivators for how you live (how you experience the world) and motivators for the facts of the matter is the sign of a sort cognitive deficiency. The outside world is not identical to the inside world.
Posted by: frog | August 23, 2007 6:27 PM
Posted by: Reginald Selkirk | August 23, 2007 6:39 PM
You know, I can almost see experiencing the beauty of nature and suddenly believing there is "something more" the universe, maybe a Creator or some kind of magical something to it.
But what I can't understand is why you would instantly pick one of the proposed hundreds of such magical entities as the one you felt must surely be behind it all, one that even has what appears to Americans to be a first and last name: Jesus Christ (really it should be something more like Yeshua of Nazareth, the Christ). Isn't that just odd? I would have more sympathy for Collins's having extra-natural beliefs if they were referenced vaguely, as in "I don't know, I just feel there is something knowing and magical behind the natural world". But clicking right onto one of the stories out there strikes me as just arbitrary.
Posted by: cm | August 23, 2007 6:39 PM
tourettiste:
Has anyone called for Collins to be forever banned from the hallowed pages of Nature? Or a cut-off of grant money?
This kind of pseudo-tolerance really gets on my nerve. Of course, no one should go with a gun to Collins' home and force him to recant. But that doesn't mean that people and organizations don't have a right to their own public opinion on Collins' opinion.
Where else does science belong than in people's heads? Or are you calling for all people and organizations to withhold any public opinions about other people's opinions? Now that's authoritarian! Shut down the churches and even Amnesty International - they're always ranting that human rights are universal, but that's just intolerant of my fascist friends' opinions.
Posted by: frog | August 23, 2007 6:39 PM
cm: "But clicking right onto one of the stories out there strikes me as just arbitrary."
It was probably more for convenience than anything...
Posted by: matthew | August 23, 2007 6:42 PM
#41: "There is a world of difference between realizing the potential in your child and deciding that a common waterfall is evidence for an invisible bearded man in the sky that loves you."
Had you read the book you would note that a great deal of thought and consideration led to his moment of epiphany. But regardless of how much Collins considered it, you ignore the point that we all have unevidenced baseline assumptions. You might come to different such assumptions than Collins would or anyone else would, but there is no basis for Harris to express his condescending "outrage," gasping or otherwise.
#43: "It would be foolish to base your political ideas directly on subjective experience."
As the book makes clear, the subjective experience described came after a good deal of soul-searching.
"Such an experience might lead you to investigate sexual discrimination, and whether it's right or wrong...."
Such an investigation might lead to reasons to support my unevidenced assumption, but no evidence that it's correct. Are you outraged at my support for sexual equality, especially if you think my "motivators" are "inappropriate"?
Posted by: Sinbad | August 23, 2007 6:44 PM
Sinbad,
I don't believe anyone would be outraged at how to came to believe in gender equality. But they can question your motivations if you reveal them. However, gender equality has other strong arguments to support. Belief is Jesus Christ as being the son of god and your personal savior has no good argument based on evidence.
You're analogy doesn't really work.
phat
Posted by: phat | August 23, 2007 6:49 PM
Wow, that's a lot of typos.
That would be, "you came to believe", "to support it", and "Belief in Jesus".
Whew.
Posted by: phat | August 23, 2007 6:51 PM
But regardless of how much Collins considered it, you ignore the point that we all have unevidenced baseline assumptions.
...Like?
Posted by: Martin | August 23, 2007 7:00 PM
As the book makes clear, the subjective experience described came after a good deal of soul-searching.
And how is this soul-searching any less subjective of an experience?
Posted by: TheBlackCat | August 23, 2007 7:11 PM
Sinbad,
I don't think that's analogous. Sexual discrimination is a normative issue -- one of values that necessarily involves aesthetics and emotion. The question of God's existence is entirely descriptive: either he exists or he does not. There are no normative values here, and to use aesthetics or emotion to answer the question is committing a kind of reverse is-ought fallacy.
Posted by: AL | August 23, 2007 7:18 PM
Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs.
No one is entitled to their own reality.
If you claim that your beliefs have truth values, and they concern reality, you're no longer necessarily entitled to them.
Posted by: Caledonian | August 23, 2007 7:18 PM
Damn, I found ice cubes in my freezer -- and immediately I knew I loved jebus.
Posted by: Crikey | August 23, 2007 7:21 PM
Crikey, what no soul-searching? That seems to be very important.
phat
Posted by: phat | August 23, 2007 7:22 PM
the forces of unreason - Sam Haris
Trumped, naturally, by the wisdom of man.
Posted by: Salt | August 23, 2007 7:26 PM
Caledonian wrote:
Says who?Posted by: Ian H Spedding FCD | August 23, 2007 7:27 PM
Sinbad:
So Collins got it backward, eh? First you have the seizure, then you come to a decision after investigating the idea.
This is like saying, "Well, I researched whether to be a Maoist, and I couldn't really come to any convincing reasons or evidence for that position, but then I got really drunk one night and I accepted the the Little Red Book. At that point, I was sure - it was a really good drunk!"
Now, I can't really make heads or tails of "Such an investigation might lead to reasons to support my unevidenced assumption, but no evidence that it's correct." You appear to be distinguishing between "evidence to support" and "evidence to prove." You know, we never have evidence to "prove", just a preponderance of evidence. If you want little Jesus to come down from heaven and tell you the Absolute Truth, you're never going to get it (short of a schizophrenic episode). You always work from the best evidence we have, not absolute proof.
It's good you believe in gender equality. Even if you are too stupid to recognize the vast amount of evidence that would support gender equality in a contemporary society, it's good you got lucky. But I'd rather not trust in luck - tomorrow you might see a dandelion in a field and decide that gender equality is good, but the Jews are the spawn of Satan.
Posted by: frog | August 23, 2007 7:29 PM
I don't really know why Nature's editors were so impressed with Collins, but I don't know why Harris expected them to be 'outraged,' either. Human psychology is an amazingly variable thing. The aspects that we call 'religious experience' are as variable as any of them. As for a scientist like Collins having an experience like he described...well, I think it's a bit odd and PZ thinks it's worse, but really, why not? Lots of people do not have perfectly consistent world views and lots of people compartmentalize successfully. I myself, and I expect PZ and most of you, insist on maintaining a consistent world view but I suspect we are in the minority. I also am strongly rationalistic, which I also suspect is a minority view.
I studied Cultural Anthropology for many years. If you expect all 'mystical' or 'magical' thinking among humankind to be replaced by consistent empiricism, don't hold your breath. Anyway, if you try to be perfectly consistent about your empiricism, you still end up having to admit that you accept the existence of an external world corresponding to your senses on faith. (Hume ran into this problem. His advice is to exercise some common sense and *not* to follow his own system to this conclusion.)
As for Collins himself, meh. Don't really care. So he found Jesus but is still a scientist. Good for him. Pat him on the head and give him a cookie.
Posted by: Antiquated Tory | August 23, 2007 7:45 PM
That is one interesting article. Mother Teresa interpreting absence of evidence as evidence of presence, and ending up wanting to be a bodhisattva. Impressive.
Posted by: David Marjanović | August 23, 2007 7:54 PM
Tory:
Nope, you seem to be making the same mistake that Sinbad is, and that most philosophers have. You want a logical system that goes from one initial premise and explains everything. The world doesn't work that way - human beings don't work that way.
There's somethings that you know without evidence but not on "faith", at least if you want to have that word have any real meaning. You accept them because you have no choice in the matter - if you don't believe in the external world, well you wouldn't be having this conversation or any conversation. You would have long ago walked off a balcony or onto an expressway. External reality is not faith - it is a necessary axiom. "Faith", in the way the word actually has meaning, is believing without sufficient evidence in something that it is not necessary to believe - just read some Paul, he's very explicit about it. I know that there's an external reality - I don't have faith in it all!
If you call "external reality" a "faith", then my dog has "faith" in external reality, and my fish has "faith" in water. A bit absurd, eh?
Posted by: frog | August 23, 2007 7:56 PM
It's not a matter of personfications. Who is irrelevant. 'Says what?' is the correct question.
Posted by: Caledonian | August 23, 2007 8:07 PM
But I'd be interested to see how you would convince others that you can know that there's an external reality corresponding to to your senses. Go ahead, try.
Posted by: cm | August 23, 2007 8:24 PM
OT: Neil deGrasse Tyson is going to give a lecture in Cornell University on Monday, October 1, 2007 at 7pm in the G10 Biotech Building. It's free and open to the public!!
The lecture's topic is "Footprints in the Sands of Science".
Posted by: Brigit | August 23, 2007 8:28 PM
Sinbad @ 48: Had you read the book you would note that a great deal of thought and consideration led to his moment of epiphany. But regardless of how much Collins considered it, you ignore the point that we all have unevidenced baseline assumptions.
Yes, we do. I myself probably have loads that I'm not even aware of.
And do you know what I do when I discover one of my assumptions? I examine the evidence for it. And if it can't be supported, I dump it. I did it with my cherished faith, I've done it since, and I'll do it again. To do anything less would be an abdication of my responsibility as a scientist* and an intelligent agent.
*self-flattery there
Posted by: fontor | August 23, 2007 8:32 PM
BUT I would like them to make these statements without saying "religion is crap" or other antagonistic things.
Religion is crap. Get over it.
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | August 23, 2007 8:36 PM
By all means, unite against ignorance and superstition, condemn all absolutist modes of thought - whether religious or political - for all the human deaths and suffering they have inflicted, extol the virtues of skepticism and encourage critical thinking.
By all means, expose the hypocrisy, charlatanry and bigotry of those who betray the very beliefs they proclaim by using them to accumulate personal wealth and political power.
By all means, highlight the inconsistencies and outright contradictions embedded in all faiths.
Just don't expect it to eradicate religion.
You don't get people to learn new things, change their minds or modify their beliefs by calling them "idiots" or "delusional". My mother, who was a teacher for many years, knows that well. I'm sure that those here who teach for a living - the likes of PZ and Scott Hatfield - would agree.
Posted by: Ian H Spedding FCD | August 23, 2007 8:36 PM
A year ago I read 'The Language of God,' much to the chagrin of my later self. I felt very mislead by the cover page, 'A scientist presents evidence for belief.' Collins may be a very good scientist, but he shows no evidence of it in this book. (And he relied so heavily on the writings of CS Lewis, I at one point put down the book and exclaimed, I might just as well be reading CS Lewis!)
Very disappointing read. In fact, I had to immediately follow his book up with some Dan Dennett to get the taste out of my brain.
But I worry about the intolerance of religion that is so well-articulated here. May I stick my neck out, and remind us all that we do not yet completely understand this social phenomenon of 'religion' that has been with us for so long? That is, we just don't know what makes otherwise perfectly intelligent and reasonable people believe strange things, like religion, like the abominable snowman, like fairies. (For that matter, what the hell is wrong with republicans?!)
I think the scientific community needs to do what it does best, and gather data. Let's figure out what we are dealing with, here. Because I do not believe that all these religious people are simply "IDiots," as a few have oh-so-wittily claimed on this wonderful blog.
But I'm also a fool, if I think that my hypothesis is correct, without a shred of DATA to show for it. Where are all our social scientists on this one? Where are the psychologists? The geneticists? If we think that religion is a like a disease, then let's find the pathology. Because the cure isn't just yelling at it to 'get better.'
I hypothesize that if scientists study religion, and similar beliefs in other supernatural nonsense, they will find that many human beings are not rational, and do not think about these things rationally. I think it would be very difficult --- and oppressive! --- for the rest of us to force these people to understand their universe in a rational way.
I think that if we really understood why people act in such infuriating ways (coughBenSteincough), then maybe we might be better able to tolerate sharing a society with them.
Now, I firmly believe that we have to stand our ground when it comes to policy issues like ID in the classrooms, reproductive rights and stem cell research. But beyond that, I think some understanding (through science!) and some tolerance of what people believe in the privacy of their own hearts and minds would be a good thing.
Posted by: kristen in montreal | August 23, 2007 8:37 PM
Attributing Francis Collins' religious conversion solely to the "waterfall and dewy grass" moment makes him sound like a delusional ignoramus.
Whereas reading the book and realizing that there were other influences, including his experiences with dying patients as a young physician...not so much, maybe.
I'm undoubtedly in the minority here, to suggest that Collins' contributions to medical genetics override any sticker-burrs you might have up your butt about the nature and origin of his religious beliefs. He's provided a supportive lab environment for numerous postdocs, students, and physician-scientists, and I've never heard any one of them-Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, FSMist, atheist, or godless liberal-ever complain about a biased atmosphere or inappropriate comments. In my experience, he gives interesting and informative medical genetics talks, and he's approachable, engaged, and pleasant at meetings (which is more than I can say about a lot of scientists of his stature and influence). After the 1996 incident, with the grad student in his lab falsifying data, I heard Collins give a talk at a major meeting, in which explained the mechanics of the deception in detail, took responsibility for not overseeing the student's project adequately, and at least seemed to express genuine regret and humility.
And no, I've never spent any time in Collins' lab, nor have I published any papers with him as co-author; my impressions primarily arise from collaborations and interactions with his former students or postdocs. I'm a godless liberal humanist who has to listen to conservative Christian and creationist references almost every day at work (water off a Duck's back, by now). I know I'd much rather be an atheist grad student in the lab of a tolerant Christian like Collins, than a religious grad student in the lab of an atheist advisor who publicly and repeatedly derides religious individuals as deluded morons.
Posted by: Barn Owl | August 23, 2007 8:40 PM
Rightly or wrongly, religion meets basic human needs in a way that science cannot.
Like, what? Comfort? Disconnection from reality? A sense of purpose? Tequila meets those needs cheaper and more effectively than religion, also in ways that science cannot.
So your point is "people are stupid and delusional, but it's cute to let them traipse around that way" if I understand it correctly?
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | August 23, 2007 8:40 PM
And that's without even considering "You're analogy."
Posted by: McA | August 23, 2007 8:42 PM
I have never met an intelligent and reasonable person who believed in any of those things; such may have been possible once, but not in the modern world.
Posted by: Caledonian | August 23, 2007 8:42 PM
Does Harris's recommendation have a scientific purpose, or is it simply another manifesto for non-belief? (with a grin) Not that there's anything wrong with that....
The existence of a believing scientist such as Frances Collins, or an account of his sentimental conviction of faith in a popularization, how does this actually affect the practice of science?
Posted by: Scott Hatfield, OM | August 23, 2007 8:49 PM
cm:
The whole point just swooshed over you, didn't it? I would never try to convince someone that there is an external reality - they either believe it already or they're dead. If they say they don't believe it, they're liars.
The point is that "trying to prove external reality" is a non-sense statement. It looks like a grammatical sentence in English, but it means absolutely nothing at all. If I were to convince you, we would have to have a discussion. If we were to have a discussion, that must presume that you already know that we have an external reality. Therefore, what the hell are we discussing? Whether you're jerking me around?
Hume is so badly out of date - he was working philosophy in a Christian milieu that presupposed so many bits of nonsense that even a genius could barely scratch out some sensible ideas.
Hume didn't know that his arguments regarding "a priori" knowlege made no sense, because he was presupposing some sort of universal viewpoint - even if you abandon an explicit belief in God, you're still stuck with a universe and logic that assumes that Godliness even makes sense; that a philosophical system must prove out of logic existence, rather than the other way around. Once you abandon that assumption, an assumption that must be abandoned in order to make sense of math and physics, you're left with no such problem of the connection of the outside world with the inside world. Without that connection, we have nothing - not this discussion, no philosophy (what? you're just talking to yourself --- I believe you!), no reason whatsoever of any kind.
You can't have organisms without it, words, sentences... It only makes sense as a question if you're a college sophomore first being presented with the "brain in a box" problem. Very few get that the proper response is to punch the professor.
If you want to claim that you're insane, feel free to do so. I won't believe you though - you wouldn't make the claim if you didn't agree that there's an external reality.
Posted by: frog | August 23, 2007 8:49 PM
Kristen:
Maybe because they've fallen into language traps? They forget that even though the idea of a unicorn exists, that doesn't mean that unicorns do?
It's a pretty easy trap to fall into. You simply think that because a statement sounds meaningful, it actual is a meaningful statement. Statements like "Why are we here?" It sounds reasonable, if you don't think about it too hard, but the word "why" is normally used to link causal events, as in "Why did John kiss Mary?", or "Why am I taller than Kim?" It follows the same template of asking a cause and an effect. Except "Why are we here?" is atemporal, unless you're asking why did we drive to Denny's instead of a decent place to eat, so there can be no causal answer.
Once you made that mistake, you're lost. You answer the question, except it was never a properly formed question, so it can't have a properly formed answer. I might as well say 42.
Posted by: frog | August 23, 2007 8:58 PM