Contra PZ

I don't agree that this is an either or situation. Personally, I feel that putting Collins in this position was an appeasement gesture on the part of the administration, and one that I do not agree with. Obama wants no taint of atheism associated with his office. Since most scientists are atheists, he (Obama) should consider himself lucky to have gotten a nice evangelical option.

I'm reserving judgment with Collins. I tend to agree with PZ's argument, but I want to see how it works out.

Anyway, to address your point, Matt, this is similar to the issue that I ran into when I declared (correctly) the cop who busted Skip Gates to be racist. Everybody got mad at me because I violated his right to due process. But, I am not a cop, ad DA, a jury, a judge, and I don't have a prison. I'm just a person with an opinion, I expressed it, and I could have been wrong or right. I agree that Collins, an openly evangelical christian, in this position is quite clearly a slap in the face and a bad move if from the view of science education which is currently under attack by the same exact faction. The separation of his view points or outside activism from his job applies within his job, with respect to HR policy and so on. But Collins himself has let the evangelical cat out of the bag, so there it is, politically fair game.

It's roughly equivalent to expressing tolerance of vegetarians so long as they eat meat.

Would you be opposed to a vegan member of PETA being head of the FDA, or USDA, or a similar state or federal government organization?

It seems to me that the problem with Collins isn't primarily that he evangelizes - it's that he puts his Christianity ahead of his science in his decision-making. Now has a position of authority with which to force other scientists to follow his Christian-informed decisions (by limiting or granting funding on certain projects), when it's been pretty obvious for a while now that doing science that way is, as they say, doing it wrong.

And there's the whole issue of whether not a scientist who believes in supernatural beings really understands science on a gut level.

The bible certainly advocates being a missionary but the bible advocates plenty of things that no christian actually follows. If you define christianity by what Jesus and the bible generally advocates then most people who claim to be christians are not. They could have absolutely found someone that self identified as a christian participated in church services etc. who was not coming at christianity from a missionary perspective. Christians can feel free to argue among themselves about the merits of being a missionary and attempting to convert. That being said however, to say that being a missionary is as important to christianity as not eating meat is to being a vegetarian is completely absurd. Christianity, as it is practiced today by most people, is not defined by being a missionary and trying to convert people. Vegetarianism defined precisely the group of people who do not eat meat, and if you eat meat you are no longer a vegetarian until you stop eating meat again. People do not declare themselves no longer christian when they stop attempting to convert.

Also, the declaration of independance was not specifically regarding a scientific discovery. If the declaration of independance had been written about Newtons Laws I think the religious references would have taken a different tone. I'm not that bothered by the speech but its still a different matter entirely.

I think it is entirely possible that Collins will do a great job. But there are a hell of a lot of people who could have gotten the job, in fact there are a hell of a lot of christians who could have gotten the job, who do not claim that, for example, human morality could not possibly have evolved, or that the constants have been fine tuned by the creator of the universe for out benefit, or. Again, I don't see these beliefs being a huge problem, but when it comes to the major aspects of his faith its clear that the science gives first. We could have done better.

I think Collins was a good administrator of NHGRI and will probably do a good job as head of NIH. I also think he is an absurd douche.

Erm, you missed this bit in Myers' post, Matt:

...one who has said some awfully stupid things about science...

Read Collins' book or read through the BioLogos site for examples. The subtitle of Collins' book is "A scientist presents evidence for belief." Read the book and try to find some evidence a scientist would present for a hypothesis.

If Christianity "is an intrinsically missionary religion," it is even more the case that ours is an intrinsically secular government. That creates a tension for Christians who wish to serve public office, to figure out how to keep separate their missionary actions from their official function. Some sects insist that such separation is impossible, and say that the good Christian simply shouldn't hold public office. Most Christians seem to think there is some way to legitimately hold public offices in a secular state.

In any case, that is a tension for the Christian to resolve who would hold office. It is fully legitimate for the public, including other Christians, to criticize those officials who too much blur their religious and public roles.

Human beings are well adept at holding conflicting beliefs. They can do science in the lab 5 days a week and then spend their weekends talking to invisible beings. They can use their free time to spread the word about how great their invisible beings are and how everyone should try them. What worries me is that Collins tries to mix Science with his invisible friends. He starts with a conclusion, gathers data that doesn't directly contradict it, and calls it supporting evidence. That is Bad Science, and it's not the kind of behavior I like to see in a NIH director.

Would you be opposed to a vegan member of PETA being head of the FDA, or USDA, or a similar state or federal government organization?

Bad analogy.

The unspoken assumption behind this is that religion is necessarily and irrevocably inimical to science. Pesonally, I look at Collins' history, and I see no evidence that he allows is faith to intrude on his scientific decisions.

Isn't the distinction that the director of the NIH is a *political* appointment?

Most of the time I don't pay much attention to Sam Harris, but once in a while he puts the issue very clearly:

Must we really entrust the future of biomedical research in the United States to a man who sincerely believes that a scientific understanding of human nature is impossible?

I think PZ's main concern (and one laid out by Harris in the article cited above me) is that in Collins', certain questions are off limits to science. Among those questions is the evolution of altruism and morality. Collins' thinks that only the Christian god can account for that. Science has no business.

Collins: âIf the moral law is just a side effect of evolution, then there is no such thing as good or evil. Itâs all an illusion. Weâve been hoodwinked. Are any of us, especially the strong atheists, really prepared to live our lives within that worldview?â

As someone in the position to hand out the cash, he could decide that research in that direction is worthless b/c it excludes god and thus not fund it. IANAS, but it concerns me as well.

Too many unknowns! There's a whole spectrum of ways in which different Christians approach evangelism, some of them far more tolerable than others. I don't know exactly where PZ draws the line, and I know nothing whatsoever about Francis Collins. I will say this, though: that having an evangelical website is not, per se, objectionable.

Christianity is an intrinsically missionary religion. Jesus talked about it constantly. So did Paul and Peter. The Catholic catechism demands it, the Eastern Orthodox practice it, and the Protestant churches are famous (even notorious!) for it. If a Christian is keeping it to himself, he is, as they say, Doing It Wrong.

Be very, very careful before going down this 'no true Scotsman' route. If Christianity is intrinscially missioniary, and those Christians that aren't missionaries are 'Doing it Wrong', then Christianity is intrinsically mysoginistic, homophobic and Creationist - because those are ideas strongly supported by the bible too. If you want to go down that route, then the only logical conclusion is rabid right-wing fundamentalism, and ultimately that Fred Phelps is right.

Posted by: Eric
And there's the whole issue of whether not a scientist who believes in supernatural beings really understands science on a gut level.

You may think you understand science at a gut level, but your gut is fallible.

Science is a way of learning how the natural world/universe works and what the rules/laws governing it are. It isn't a belief or philosophy of life that "true scientists" must apply to be worthy of the accolade of being called a scientist.
That is why devotes of any religion/philosophy can, have and are able to become scientists.
-----------
The concern of natural science is of course natural things, physical objects, which may be described as "what come to be as the result of a change and undergo change." The first task of natural philosophy, accordingly, is to define and analyze physical objects.

The natural way of doing this is to start from the things which are more knowable and clear to us and to proceed towards those which are clearer and more knowable by nature; for the same things are not knowable relatively to us and knowable without qualification. So we must follow this method and advance from what is more obscure by nature, but clearer to us, towards what is more clear and more knowable by nature.
St Thomas Aquinas

Seems like a science method to me and I suspect St Aquinas was religious.

http://www.seop.leeds.ac.uk/archives/fall2008/entries/aquinas/#A5

ad majorem Dei gloriam, inque hominum salutem

Ahhh, nice target Matt. I've been enjoying your function descriptions, and this is probably my first comment, and definitely the first major one. (As an aside, I did my undergrad time just a few hours away in Houston, so don't complain about the heat until you have to simultaneously deal with the gulf humidity!)

Anyway, I think it is eminently fair to require that a person's public life be broadly compatible with the goals of an organization they are tapped to lead. And the higher profile and more responsibility and organization has, the more arbitrarily choosy one can be in picking people to head that organization (see the SCOTUS). Collins has a lot going for him in terms of connections and publications and administrative experience (although personally speaking, to me his science publication record doesn't speak to his scientific creativity, something I find highly valuable, but that's another issue).

However, given the large pool of excellent American biomedical scientists we have to pull from, it is a bit odd that Collins would be such an "obvious" shoe-in given his very odd and very public stances that are highly invested in co-mingling his version faith and science. Read his book and browse the BioLogos site for a flavor. As most prominent atheists have main painfully clear, this would not be a litmus test disqualification. But, why not pick any of a large number of Christians (or god forbid, an out of the closet atheist for once) who might pause before lending their scientific credibility to theological issues.

For example, Collins is on the record as giving public lectures promoting the idea that science provides pointers to the existence of god. Whereas it is extremely common to demand that atheists remain silent about whether science speaks to god or not, Collins very much says science requires this question be asked. While I encourage you to watch the whole video (warning it is 2 hours long), you can fast forward to 28:30 for one particularly egregious section where he lays out extremely dubious connections between science and religion. And even shortly thereafter anthropomorphizes evolution by making the claim (near 35:30): "evolution would say [of Oskar Schindler's altruistic actions] THAT'S a scandal! Schindler is really mixed up here about what his purpose in life is!".

His argumentation is rather muddled apologetics that make rather spectacular claims about what natural observations require and puts strawman teleological motives behind natural forces like evolution in order make a secular perspective absent god seem immoral by comparison. He buys the fine tuning argument, he likes the quantum god of the gaps, etc. These are pretty dubious positions for many Christians even, and I expect that any NIH director wouldn't be a public proponent of theology that is controversial within his own arbitrary branch of human superstition, let alone outside it. I mean, if what Collins pushes extremely publicly is in conflict with my Christian friend (who studies quantum mechanics and chemistry) on points of theology and how they interact with science, why IS Collins' appointment not being objected to more strenuously?

Obviously it is because, regarding religion, the tyranny of the majority reigns supreme. If someone were only fractionally as outspoken about atheism as Collins is about one arbitrary flavor of Christianity, there is very little doubt that in today's climate such a person wouldn't be acceptable as such a high profile appointment. Can't Obama at least appoint someone who acknowledges the controversy and bald theological flavor of Collins' publicly promulgated beliefs and steers clear of public advocacy of such beliefs?

I mean no offense, but:

" If he added religious messages to government announcements that would be a problem, but as far as I can tell the whole issue is a single line he helped write in a speech of president Clinton about DNA. "Today we are learning the language in which God created life. We are gaining ever more awe for the complexity, the beauty, and the wonder of God's most divine and sacred gift." Which is generically religious, but certainly no more so than a (mostly) atheist Jefferson composed for the Declaration of Independence."

a blog titled "built on facts" using a straw man? Am I missing something?

Have you been to the BioLogos site? Pretending that a single comment is all that atheists have a problem with is completely disingenuous.

Credibility is built on accountability. How do you account for using straw man arguments? This is almost as bad as Miller's rebuttal of Harris.

I remain optimistic that Collins might separate his religion from his job at NIH (since it's not like we can do anything about it now), but the question over this appointment is valid because he is not a private Reagan style Christian, but an evangelist GW style Christian. Why is it that "rabid" atheists are the only ones that seem to recognize this?

Maybe your just desensitized to overt evangelism? I grew up in a fundimentalist/evangelical household, his kinda folk rarely think "secularly" about anything.

What would have happened if an atheist had been nominated that had made some public statements about atheism and science? A large segment of the population would go ape shit over the "atheist fundamentalist".

The criticism of Collins isn't that he is some kind of ultra fundamentalist. He isn't. The problem is that cognitive dissonance has driven him to an untenable position with no value to either science or religion. Thus the intellectual decline of religion will continue. Otherwise he seems a nice enough person.

Maybe you should post on the fine tuning argument.

Posted by: ppnl
..........
The problem is that cognitive dissonance has driven him to an untenable position with no value to either science or religion.........

I realise that it is a fashionable statement used by some atheists to deride people, but could you explain why you believe that there need be any cognitive dissonance involved in Collins being a "true" scientist?

Or is it just an aspersion, cast without thought, at those who don't agree with your beliefs/philosophy?

I don't object to Collins simply because he is a Christian, or even because he's an evangelical Christain.

I object to him because his religious beliefs clearly interfere with his scientific judgment. He doesn't just claim that Christianity is compatible with science, he claims that scientific evidence favors the existence of God. And, as J.J.E. noted (#15), his arguments are quite bogus.

Of course, any scientist is bound to make stupid scientific arguments at times. The key here is that Collins is clearly twisting science in favor of his religion. That's certainly his perogative, but I sure don't want to see him doing that while he's directing NIH!

My guess (and hope) is that he'll be fine as NIH Director, and won't force anyone else's science to conform to his religion. Nevertheless, his own speech and writing shows he has that potential. For that reason, he was a bad choice.

I realise that it is a fashionable statement used by some atheists to deride people, but could you explain why you believe that there need be any cognitive dissonance involved in Collins being a "true" scientist?

Well, I won't speak for ppnl, especially because the term "cognitive dissonance" is misused. (Actually, this is quite often the case, and I've done it on occasion.)

I'm not sure anyone can make this argument on an individual by individual basis without a lot more knowledge about a person. However, on the aggregate I think there is something to the connection between apologetics (like that of Lewis and Collins) and resolving cognitive dissonance. I think the key point is that Collins holds ideas that rarely coexist indifferently. While I won't make the assertion here that religion and science (especially cosmology or evolutionary biology) are in conflict*, it is often the case that a disproportionate amount of effort is expended to reconcile the two by people who attempt to simultaneously hold both ideas. One might even conclude that such people initially believed them to at least potentially in conflict, otherwise why is so much religious apologetics concerned with either rejecting evolution and cosmology or rationalizing compatibility?

Apologetics of all stripes fits the paradigm of the theory of cognitive dissonance quite well insofar as it is primarily motivated by the desire to reduce the perceived conflict between religion and other ideas (quite often science and philosophy) by attempting to change or rationalize the readers' attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.

Of course it is formally possible that this vigorous attempt by the religious to reconcile faith and science may not stem from simultaneously holding beliefs that they feel are contradictory. But if not, why is so much more effort spent in reconciling faith and science than art and science or sports and science, which almost everyone seems to agree are quite orthogonal to one another? The pattern of reconciliation between faith and science certainly does bear superficial similarities to the reconciliation attempted between conspiracy theories and science carried out by the conspiracy theorists. Some of the paradigmatic examples of reduction of cognitive dissonance are found in cases of the unfashionable doomsday cults. (If Christianity had fewer adherents, it'd be considered a cult as well. In its early days, Christianity was clearly a doomsday cult if you've ever read the book of Revelations.)

* Disclaimer, I actually believe they are.

A few brief comments re: the comments.

#13: Gulf heat and humidity? I used to live right across the lake from New Orleans. Now there's some weather. Also mosquitoes the size of birds...

#16: You've missed the point. I was dealing with the objection that Collins injects sectarianism into government - since his site is entirely a private endeavor, what's on it has no relevance in that context. It may have relevance if you think the opinions therein expressed are disqualifying even in the private sector, which was what I was getting at in the first place.

#20: At the time of its writing, Revelation (no final s) would have been thought of less in terms of a final End Of The World as it would have been about Roman persecution, probably under Nero. Which isn't to say it's not apocalyptic literature, but "the" apocalypse isn't its only or even necessarily primary message.

"Cult" is kind of an ambiguous word in the modern vernacular. Not all small religious movements are "cults" in the common sense. The Shakers aren't, for instance. And the Scientologists are, despite not being a small religion.

@21

Yeah, you got some humidity cred. I can think of very few places that aren't tropical that get worse than that.

And to add to your list of small religions that aren't cults, I suggest Zoroastrianism. I think there is a historical component as well as a size component to what the term "cult" evokes in listeners. What Zoroastrians and Shakers have in common is the ability to draw on ties to several hundred (or thousand) years of history to legitimize them. Which is why I meet few people willing to call Mormonism a cult (although my fundamentalist grandmother was very adamant that Mormonism is a cult, and Catholics were almost as bad). Despite the Mormon's recent and odd innovation, they can call on Christianity for historical credibility.

And Scientology is about as new as they come, and vastly smaller than competitors like Islam or Christianity (and there are actually even fewer Scientologists than Jews, though the cultural/religious/racial ambiguity of the label "Jewish" makes defining a Jew a bit tough. I coincidentally qualify genetically as my maternal grandmother's maternal grandmother just happened to be Jewish, so I guess I'm one of those few millions? I dunno.).

I don't know enough history to be certain, but I suspect that a 2nd century Jew or Roman would probably consider Christians a cult. Or at least proto-Christian contemporaries at some arbitrarily early date would consider them cultists. Just goes to show what a determined and organized following and a few centuries can do for credibility. I think it is conceivable that in a few centuries, Scientology will be perceived as equally valid as Christianity.

And of course, I should of course be kicked for adding that extra 's' to Revelation. Normally, a single character error would probably just be a typo, but this time it was actually unconscionable ignorance combined with laziness. I haven't read the Bible since college, and being that I'm no longer religious, I haven't really had the motivation to read it again, as the versions I have are all icky "Life application" versions based on the KJV with irrelevant opinions about how you should live your life added by some random editor(s). The reson I have no excuse is because, when I was 8, I know I could recite all books of the New Testament in the canonical order by memory (not the Old Testament though). Hell, now I'd be lucky to get about half of them in roughly the right order.

Chris,

"I realise that it is a fashionable statement used by some atheists to deride people, but could you explain why you believe that there need be any cognitive dissonance involved in Collins being a "true" scientist?

Or is it just an aspersion, cast without thought, at those who don't agree with your beliefs/philosophy?"

From a scientific point of view religious faith is epistemological madness. Faith does not and cannot make any scientific sense. As long as you carefully separate the domains of each you can get away with holding both views. Thats not to say that its a good idea. But it can be done.

Once you cross over to using bad science to deliver bad religious apologetics you damage the intellectual credibility of both. And religion in particular has very little intellectual credibility to spare these days.

"If you're against Collins, you're not a Christian and you're against all Christians"

Good job there, Matt.

Stick to the physics.

#22: Very interesting, and I think something I can mostly agree with. The early Christians did tend to be looked on as a cult in the modern sense. IIRC, this tended to stem from Roman interpretation of the Eucharist as cannibalism. For that matter, the Romans tended to think of it as a form of atheism, having just one God rather than the classical pantheon.

#24: Try not to smoke too close to that strawman.

@JJE #20
@ppnl #23

But it needn't be apologetics nor an attempt to reconcile what you may consider unreconcilable things

From my point of view religious faith is epistemological madness

I corrected your statement, science doesn't have a viewpoint, it is a method of examining the world/universe we live in and trying to understand it.

But the claim that religious faith is epistemological madness depends on your priors.

But back to the aspersion cast of cognitive dissonance.

There is no dissonance of any kind required if your priors include:
1) a God who has created a lawful universe and a species (mankind) who is endowed with intelligence and the ability to understand the laws/rules that govern the universe.
2) a belief that it is to the benefit of mankind and part of the glorification of God to understand said universe.
3) that we are duty bound to try and understand said universe, withersoever it lead us, as to do otherwise would be to disparage the intelligence granted us and that this would be a sin.

This doessn't mean that religious beliefs are correct, just that no dissonance (cognitive or otherwise) is required.

The link below explains better than I can how the early High Middle Ages and the Renaissance European Christians believed in a rational mathematical designer God who had created a rational mathematical world and that it was their duty to discover and expose the underlying rationality of this world to the greater glory of their God.

It also explains why this idea isn't actually Christian in origin, rather it is Platonic.

http://thonyc.wordpress.com/2009/08/05/two-quotes-for-the-christians/

@26

I know the thread is becoming "stale" (2 days since a reply), and likely only Matt will read this... But out of curiosity, since you are going all Bayesian on things, do we get to know how much weight is put on your priors? And what do your posteriors look like after investigating the world? Because in any sensible Bayesian analogy to understanding the world, your "priors" should in principle be movable by "data". And out of personal experience (both mine as well as scientist Christian friends who have continued to maintain faith well after I abandoned it) I know that the tension is palpable in many people. Perhaps not you, and I know many people who seem sincere when they claim there is no tension, but I think there are far too many cases of true cognitive dissonance to simply discard that hypothesis out of hand as simple snark. For example, many people like me managed to resolve said cognitive dissonance by abandoning faith. Kurt Wise resolved it in a different way.

#27

Well in this case the priors tend to be fixed as God is an undecidable proposition by scientific methods.

True, some people move away from belief based on scientific results others see God in the majesty revealed by science.

There are also those who, because science is so succesful at explaining the world we live in, adopt its method as the foundational philosophy of there life. Others see it as affirming their belief in God and their priors, look see the world/universe follows laws/rules and is understandable; my investigations aren't in vain etc.

My objection to the claim of cognitive dissonance isn't because I don't believe it exists in many people (politicians especially, unless they're simply liars), but to claim that someone suffers from it when the claimant neither knows the person nor is appropriately trained (most on line posters I suspect) is poor form.

That is why I assume it is used as an insult rather than a factual claim. In science factual claims should be backed by data not by surmise, so it is strange that those claiming to defend science use it willy nilly.

In the case of Collins; he is, I understand, a Roman Catholic so his basic theology is likely to be Thomist in nature. For that reason alone I'ld tend to discount dissonance or compartmentalisation.

@26

That works for deism. Now try to reconcile Jesus turning water into wine.

@28

Well in this case the priors tend to be fixed as God is an undecidable proposition by scientific methods.

Which means as long as you construct your priors carefully enough such that no data can ever be collected that bears on them, then your posterior will be identical to your prior. It is common in science to trim complications that don't contribute substantially to understanding observations. I would guess that any idea that refuses in principle to interact with data in the empirical realm (like a god that can't be touched by science) would naturally conflict with the impulse to wield Occam's razor. I would think anybody, especially scientists, that posits an explanation for the world that is (either by design or by chance) incapable of guiding research would have some level of cognitive dissonance that

Of course, if those people are like many Jews (but not all Jews by any means) or "liberal" Christians or Buddhists, then truly no conflict exists. Some actual subset of religious people do treat their religion in similar ways to art, literature, and sports. In subjective ways, it enriches their lives, gives them a lens to examine their human interactions, gives pleasure, and community. But they (this arbitrary subset of people) don't really take it so empirically as to let it influence their ideas about matters of objective observation.

Collins clearly doesn't fall into this category as he posits a "moral law" that is impossible without god, knob-twiddling by god, and insertion of god into areas where science can't productively make predictions (especially his quantum god of the gaps argument for the inevitability of humanity as guided by god). So, your argument applies to some subset of the 6.5 billion people in the world, but not to Collins. And in fact, most religious scientists that I know personally have moved more towards the cultural/community perspective of religion, thereby decreasing potential cognitive dissonance. It is notable that most of fundie friends from grade school have left the literal interpretation of the Bible intact and have instead modified their acceptance of science and the scientific method. Collins is unique in that he neither rejects the active role of god nor the veracity of most science; instead he makes an argument which doesn't appear clear or logical to me. Perhaps I'm too dense, but I'm not alone in not understanding HOW his reconciliation works. So, in the absence of a rationalization intelligible to me, it is natural to chalk Collins' attitude up to a minor delusion that serves the purpose of relieving his putative cognitive dissonance. I would of course change my mind if I could understand his perspective. But he really does try hard to communicate his ideas and many people proclaim his clarity. So, I'm left thinking it is more likely that he has an a priori commitment to accepting mainstream science and Christianity which trumps his other desires.

Of course, he'd likely say the same about me, and so the argument continues. Not that I think they are equally valid perspectives, but they are both very persistent ones.

Some things got mangled in post #30:

1) the first paragraph should have been blockquoted (don't know why it didn't take;
2) One sentence should have read:
"I would think anybody, especially scientists, that posits an explanation for the world that is (either by design or by chance) incapable of guiding research would have some level of cognitive dissonance that requires some resolution."

#29

A one off event that won't be repeated for 100googleplex times the age of the universe, that Jesus was lucky enough to be around for.

Or God stuck her finger in that once.

Either way, as a one time event it isn't subject to science, science requires reproducability.

I suspect that if science could reproduce it some religious people would be upset, it is normally classed as a miracle.