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Our Commentary on Francis Collins
Our commentary on Francis
Collins
[ http://www.defendscience.org/ds_commentary16.html ] has created some controversy - more so than any recent thing we have
written. In reading over the responses, some in agreement and
expressing concern about the implications of Collins’ appointment,
others passionately in opposition to what we wrote, we felt both that
there were, in some cases, real disagreements being expressed and also
some lack of clarity about what we were actually saying. And we
also feel that there are very important issues for science at stake in
this, and so we are sending out this email.
We feel that we have to apply the same standard - the same underlying
principles - to Obama that we did to Bush. When, as for example
in his stem cell policy, Obama utilizes the same underlying Christian
fundamentalist moral norms as Bush to set the limits for what the
government will fund in terms of stem cell research, we would be
derelict if we did not criticize that. (See our stem cell
commentary “Obama's Stem Cell
Research Policy: Needed Science Remains Banned and Constrained by
Christian Fundamentalist Ideology”
http://www.defendscience.org/ds_commentary15.html )
An important part of the way we criticized the Bush attacks on science
was crystallized in the original Defend Science statement, which we
will quote again:
“…one thing the overwhelming majority of scientists have in common is
their understanding that, when conducting scientific investigation and
applying the scientific method, it is essential to use as a starting
point previously accumulated scientific knowledge -- the storehouse of
well-established scientific evidence about reality which has previously
been arrived at through concrete and systematic scientific observation
and experiment and has been subjected to rigorous scientific review and
testing. This is what we scientists stand on as our foundation when we
set out to further investigate reality and make new discoveries. This
is how science has been done and how it has advanced for hundreds of
years now, and this has allowed science to benefit humanity in
countless ways. "Genuine science never proceeds from, or uses as its
starting point, any set of subjective "beliefs," "opinions" or
"faith-based edicts" handed down by religious or secular authorities
and proclaimed to be beyond human questioning, testing and
investigation. To bring into the scientific process assumptions,
religious or otherwise, which were not arrived at by scientific
methods, and which by definition cannot be tested by scientific
methods, would destroy science as science."
Secondly, the biggest controversy in our last email was over our
criticism of the particular way that Obama and also Collins have used a
version of “the compatibility of religion and science”. We were
accused by some of arguing that no one who is religious should hold
government office; in other responses, we were accused of saying that
religion and science are incompatible. We actually did not argue
either of these things, and we did not address philosophical or
religious questions in their own right. What we did argue was
that there is actually an attack on science going on under the guise of
arguing for the compatibility of religion and science. We did not
say that everyone who believes that religion and science are compatible
is attacking science. We did say that there is a real logic in
Collins’ position that he has repeatedly stated which undermines the
scientific method and scientific thinking. He has clearly stated
his views repeatedly and in public forums, and we think we accurately
portrayed them in our previous email.
(http://www.defendscience.org/ds_commentary16.html)
Some expressed disagreement that Collins’ position is in conflict with
evolution or that it is a variant of creationism. They pointed to
the fact that he seems to accept evolution and even criticizes some
creationists. There has been much good exposure written in recent
years about cruder forms of creationism including: young-earth
creationism, old-earth creationism and most recently “intelligent
design” but not much about so-called “theistic evolution”. A key
aspect of the ID approach to undermine science is the “god in the gaps”
approach. Applied initially to gaps in the fossil record, it has
evolved (pun intended) into a general approach to look for still-open
questions of science, declare that these questions cannot be answered
by evolutionary theory (or more generally by science) and, in the ID
case, hold this up as an indication of evolution being “in
crisis”. Famous examples of this approach have included the
evolution of the eye, and the bacterial flagellum – both of which have
been shown to be explained entirely by evolutionary theory.
Putting forward “god did it” as the answer to questions about the
natural world, whether it is the origins of various biological
processes like life and evolution, or how notions of good and evil
developed in human societies or as-yet-open questions about the
apparently fine-tuned constants involved in current physics and
cosmological theories, is anyone’s right – but it is not science.
It is un-testable religious belief. And injecting it into the
science arena from one of the highest positions of science in the
federal government – and calling that a way to reconcile science and
religion - undermines science.
(It is interesting and somewhat ironic that in his talk at Berkeley,
Collins warned people about which unresolved questions of science one
could base one’s faith in god upon, and in particular he said he
wouldn’t recommend picking the question of the origin of life because
in his view, that question may get resolved soon by science.)
Some felt it was positive politically for evolution to have high-level
support from Collins, coming from his religious perspective. To
those who raise this argument we must ask what is the reality of this
kind of “support”? We don’t feel that we should be engaged in
some kind of bargaining over what basic principles of science and the
scientific method we should be willing to give up in exchange for
political support. We do welcome genuine support for science from
all quarters – and this does involve many people who will pick and
choose what aspects of science they want to uphold. But the head
of the NIH is not just anybody, and there are real consequences from
the appointment of Collins that must be confronted. As we stated
in our original letter:
“Placing Collins in the position of authority as Director of NIH will
have harmful effects on science itself, and beyond that, will only
embolden opponents of science from the Discovery Institute to their
many right-wing Christian Fundamentalist backers. They will interpret
Collins’ injection of his brand of creationism into the heart of the
federal government's medical and health research establishment as an
opening to them injecting their brand of anti-scientific poison into
the science classroom.”
Some argued that all this is a minor matter, that compared to the
assault on science by Bush, what is going on now and what Collins
represents does not warrant criticism by Defend Science. We agree
that the frontal assault on scientific thinking and method that took
place under Bush is not identical to what is going on today. But
what have we been reduced to if our standard is “better than
Bush”? We do think that there are significant and important
dangers to science and the public understanding of science in what is
now unfolding under Obama, and we don’t think this is a minor
matter. Obama has yet, so far as we can tell, to say a word
(either since becoming president, or during the campaign) to call out
and oppose the continuing creationist assault on teaching evolution in
the schools. This is not a neutral position – this is harmful, it
encourages the creationists, and it gives no backing to the defenders
of evolution. Many people are confused – in part because Obama
has deliberately sought to create an aura of a friend of science, and
an upholder of scientific integrity. It is remarkable that the
very same day he announced how much of an upholder of scientific
integrity he is, he also set stem cell policy based on Christian
fundamentalist norms – and there was very little criticism from the
scientific community; in fact in large part this was hailed as a big
advance.
In terms of the question of the “compatibility of science and religion”
we actually did not try to and do not think it is our job to address
this philosophically – we do think that there is, under Obama, an
approach with potentially dangerous implications for scientific
thinking in society, which is being justified and disguised by the
phrase “science and religion are compatible.” Many people want
science and religion to be compatible, for a variety of reasons:
some because they believe in both; some because there is a knotty
political/cultural mess that they would prefer to sidestep. But
we think that we have to look at reality and draw conclusions based on
that even if they don’t make life easy.
Some raised that Defend Science has served its purpose and no longer
has a purpose under Obama. We think that there is a continued
need for there to be a voice which points out the kinds of things that
we are addressing in this email – there are important questions that
need to get sorted out and Defend Science can play an important part in
that process. We invite both those who agree and those who do not
to let us know what you are thinking, and welcome suggestions about
what you think we should be addressing.
We welcome more
comments. Email
us your comments.
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