Charlie Rose Science Series
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07/25/2006
Francis Collins
A conversation with Francis Collins about religion and science
Keywords:
A conversation with Francis Collins, the Director of the National Human Genome Institute, about religion and science and how the two can successfully co-exist.
DVD
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Charlie Rose DVDs on Amazon.
Audio
Audio available through Audible.com.
Audio available through Audible.com.
Transcripts
Transcripts available through Voxant.
Transcripts available through Voxant.
I knew there had to be a few in the science community that hold mr. collins view.i guess cs lewis made a good case. great show!
science is a tautological system - it explains the same by the same - or in other words it doesn't explain but it describes relationships and processes. So we have contradictions like for example in quantum theory which describes light quanta as duality of waves and particles. How does it explains reality ? It doesn't. In fact the description is not rational although it is accepted. Something cannot be a point and spread in the space like a wave at the same time. Thus when scientist says that religious thoughts are not rational because only science explains world it is simply not true. Science does not explain. scientist doesn't explain - he/she describes without going any further into the matter - can you explain duality of light - or just play with the language ? So Francis Collins could be right.
Francis Collin's comments are a misapplication of science to religious questions. Science cannot answer whether or not there is/are a God or gods because these purported deities are "outside of nature," which specifically excludes scientific validation or refutation. The reason why many, if not most, scientists get upset when a fellow scientist misapplies science to religion is the same as a writer or politican who is quoted out of context in a manner that supports a point of view that they oppose, if not abhor. It's not merely that the rogue scientist is playing for the other team. It's like taking Barak Obama's words out of context in this manner: "Barak Obama said, 'We are a Muslim nation,'" when his actual quote is: "Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers." Obama would have the right to be incensed if someone misquoted him that way. Likewise, it angers scientists when someone, especially someone who should know better, misapplies our hard-won work to a topic that undermines scientific inquiry. The only answer for the question of existence for a God or gods is faith: unquestioning, submissive, thoughtless, irrational, ignorant, oblivious, absurd, delirious faith. TK Kenyon www.tkkenyon.com [url\http://www.amazon.com/Rabid-Novel-T-K-Kenyon/dp/1601640021/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203647803&sr=8-1 [/url\
This conversation can potentially misguide the masses. Science doesn't answer the things Collins described but it does answer the questions that are ``proper" and basically raised by certain Easter religions or Spinoza, Descartes, etc. The present scientific knowledge can serve as an crucial addendum to more refined spirituality. In the East, spirituality has well defined premises such as oneness, ultimate reality, transcendental truth, etc. The present scientific knowledge such as Darwinian evolution indicating commonality among all living things or knowing of fundamental physical constitutes certainly help in making those premises accessible and sensible. This so called faith and the question Why is pretty much an ``easy get away". Now since Collins himself is scientist he has his science to neutralize this otherwise fatal take over by ``Whys" but in certain people without scientific training these Whys could create havocs. I guess Collins should have read Einstein's Ideas and Opinions instead C. S. Lewis.
>You're mischaracterizing his generalizations. >Listen carefully: He doesn't equate the Big Bang >with the creation of something from nothing. Yes he does. 10:16 in the video.
You're mischaracterizing his generalizations. Listen carefully: He doesn't equate the Big Bang with the creation of something from nothing.
I am consistently amazed at the frequency with which religious beliefs get a free pass from rational thought. Dr. Collins showcases his ignorance of other areas of science (e.g., the reference to the Big Bang as the creation of something from nothing) and philosophy (e.g., that atheism is a faith in the lack of a god vs. the lack of faith that there is) and reiterates that religious beliefs exist in the shadows of human knowledge and the fears of human narcissism. To recap, here is one of Dr. Collins's lines of reasoning: 1) He has reviewed evidence of God and has been convinced of God's existence. 2) "If God exists, God is outside of nature." 3) Science is the way we investigate nature, but knowledge of nature "does not help us with this question of God." The only logical conclusion from that, folks, is that Dr. Collins has supernatural powers. (Exactly how did Dr. Collins review this evidence that is not present in the natural world?) There is much more to be said in damning refutation of Dr. Collins's drivel, but I think his own words apparently suffice as evidence that he shouldn't quit his day job.