Collins' speech, and Coyne's reaction

[noons]

Francis Collins recently gave a speech at Pepperdine university. The subject was naturally about science and Christianity. Jerry Coyne picked up on this, and the important thing to know about him and his blog is that the number one target are theists who accept evolution, and anyone who supports that position. So Coyne called him out on two things: Fine-Tuning and altruism.

Personally, I don't see a problem with an evolutionary explanation for our sense of right and wrong. However, one comment about fine-tuning was particularly interesting:

Based on what we know now (which is certainly wrong, but the best we can do), the range of possible universes is large, and most could not support life as we know it (though they might support forms of life that are wildly different from ours).

Ah, but what is the range of possible universes which could support not naturally-formed life, but supernaturally-formed life?

100%

Think about it. ALL universes, with whatever constants you want, could support life created through supernatural means — for life and mind are not dependent on matter and energy in a supernatural world view. Instead, living consciousness is a mysterious, immaterial essence independent of the physical world. Any physical world.

God exists in all possible universes. So could we… unless you assume mind/brain dependency and the metaphysical naturalism it entails.

So the fact that we apparently exist in what looks like a rare form of universe which can support natural life suggests that we depend on the existence of such a universe. We are natural beings all the way down; mind/body dualism is false; there is no God.

Collins’ Fine-Tuning Argument, therefore, has it backwards. The more it looks like we live in the sort of universe where life and mind can form naturally, then the LESS it looks like there’s a supernatural dependency.

I don't know if his speech is available, but here is the blog post:
whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/07/03/americas-top-scientist-again-peddles-woo-in-public/

Another odd comment:

He has passed from being depressing to me to being disgusting and creepy. Or maybe something is truly organically wrong with his brain. His need to believe is so strong that he has become unethical. I literally can’t look at a picture of his face, his ‘drugged’, glazed eyes, just really awful, yuck. And since none of his scientific achievements have been unique and totally dependent on him, I just don’t bother with him at all in a serious manner. He has become a sordid joke.

It is always about him, about his own juggling of his love of science with his inordinate need to believe.

[noons]

Here's another comment that I found interesting:

Apparently Collins defines the “essential” things about Christianity as “those claims whose scientific accuracy can’t be checked directly.” (i.e. virgin birth, resurrection)

"This is a common them among liberal Christians. They are willing to admit we can let go of, or tortuously re-interpret, those parts of the bible that are essentially denied by what we know scientifically/historically (e.g. much of Genesis, and lots of the old Testament).

But they will cling to things like the resurrection by pointing out that we are not in a position to scientifically disprove the claim. “We weren’t there…and there is no particular scientific evidence it would have left us, so this one science can’t touch and we get to keep believing without contradicting science. Yay!”

This is as irrational as the following:
Ted claims he has super powers and that last night he performed several amazing feats:

1. Ted materialised in Paris and permanently turned the Eiffel Tower into a statue of Rocky Balboa. 2. Ted negotiated and procured peace and full reconciliation between the Arab nations and the Jews. 3. Ted cured all the Aids cases in Africa. 4. Ted turned the moon into water. 5. While alone in his home watching The Family Guy in his underwear, Ted claims he turned invisible for 5 minutes.

The rational approach to evaluating such claims is to look at the evidence for them.
It turns out that we can make observations today that completely undermine cTed’s claims 1 to 4 so we can say they are false claims. (E.g. the Eiffel Tower is still there, the Aids situation is unchanged in Africa etc).

However, we can’t in the same way “disprove” the claim that Ted turned invisible while no one observed him last night. But of course our general experience of human beings leaves us with good reasons to disbelieve anyone turned invisible, even when we weren’t looking.

But also, just as damning, is that every of one of Ted’s miracle claims that we COULD investigate for truthfulness turned out to be false! The rational person notes that this counts as evidence against the reliability of Ted’s claims, giving even more reason to doubt the miracle claims we couldn’t test.

But the Christian takes entirely the opposite, irrational approach. The Christian would say of Ted’s miracles:

“Sure the miracle claims we’ve been able to investigate have been false claims…but we can’t falsify the claim that Ted turned invisible in his underwear…so WE CAN BELIEVE IN THAT MIRACLE! Hey…no one else was there, can’t prove it didn’t happen…so there’s nothing to undermine my having Faith in THAT miracle!”

It’s madness.

Any time the bible makes a miraculous or divine claim we’ve been able to investigate (e.g. Genesis etc) it’s been shown wrong. But instead of learning the lesson they should from this and increasing their skepticism, liberal Christians still cling to the unfalsifiable parts.

For many a Christian, to the degree his own position is unfalsifiable, he can embrace any evidence as being “compatible” with it. And he’ll see this as superior to a system that could, in principle, be falsified. It’s a backwards epistemology in which the unfalsifiable claim, instead of being a liability or suspect, is seen by the Christian as having virtue over falsifiable claims.

These metaphysical/epistemological differences in assumptions – at least when a person’s brain is “doing religion” – are often what makes it so hard to even reason with religious people, even religious scientists when they are talking about their religion.

Vaal."


Edit: Wow, I didn't realize that person's comment was so long. Why is it that people write essays in response to blog posts?

[ignorantianescia]

It is not exactly a video or transcript of his speech, but this article seems to include quite a portion of the speech:

www.christianpost.com/news/francis-collins-atheist-richard-dawkins-admits-universes-fine-tuning-difficult-to-explain-51416/