Thanks Bryan for these well written posts. I want to read through a few times and comment on some excerpts - overall I think I understand what you are saying and it makes a lot of sense. I suspect that you unintentionally distort certain things which were never stated in any of these discussions. For example you suggest that a scientist might "introduce a belief in God" as part of a proof or paper or lecture or demonstration. I dont remember anyone asserting that. The question pure and simple is : if you have three candidates for a job that involves science, with three equal c.v., i.q. g.p.a. etc, but one of them is wearing a yarmulke (Jewish) and the second has a dot on his forehead (Hindu) or a turban (Sikh) while the third is known to be an outspoken Atheist, then from Bryan D.'s statements I would assume that Bryan would feel COMPELLED to hire the Atheist, all other things being equal BECAUSE as Bryan says: "The more one is willing to believe what one is told without evidence--and let's be honest, this is the essence of religion--the less well-suited one is for science."
Now if Bryan were in charge of Personnel at say Los Alamos and this practice could be demonstrated in a court of law then I think Bryan and Los Alamos would be found in violation of the law. That does not mean that laws are always right or just or make sense, but it is a point to be taken into consideration.
Bryan writes "the religious tendency in humans acts at cross-purposes to scientific inquiry." Now it is equally obvious to me that the sexual tendencies in humans are at cross-purposes to scientific inquiry for if someone spent ever waking moment thinking about sexual matters and flirting and pulling people into broom closets then little inquiry would be accomplished so THEREFORE I should falsely conclude as Bryan does that the ideal scientist would have ZERO sexual inclination and perhaps feel a tad of loathing towards any scientist who does have sexual feelings. Obviously this is a foolish way to think. Obviously there are individuals who are more or less sexual and it is very rare that someone is asexual, but people who live in "meatspace" as Bryan says are able to compartmentalize and prioritize their agendas and instincts and emotions.
Now as to the Yarmulke wearer and the Turban wearing scientist, I think it is too simplistic to say that they LITERALLY believe everything in their religion with childlike simplicity. Let us take Blaise Pascal's WAGER argument as an example. Suppose someone is convinced by Pascal's wager that they should get baptized and go to Mass once in a while because if it is all TRUE then they have much to gain but if it is all a story then they have lost little. Certainly there are people raised Jewish or Sikh or Hindu who were culturally conditioned by their upbringing and participate or observe their religious customs for many and various reasons OTHER than pure childlike conviction in the existence of these "invisible friends." Think of all the famous people who play golf. Now golf is a totally irrational activity. One achieves nothing meaningful be earning a good golf score. There are famous successful people who spend more hours per year at golf than many religious devotees. So would an avid golf enthusiast be less suitable for science than someone who is logical enough to realize now irrational all sports activities are?
It is totally coincidence that this morning I posted a link about the man who was head of the genome commission. He was raised by parents who were not really religious. He spent a number of years being atheist. Then he began to work with terminally ill patients. He read something by C.S. Lewis and then one day in the middle of a hike he decided to become an Evangelical. I posted that simply because I am a member of the microblog
http://www.plurk.com/Sitaram and my
posterous.com blog automatically feeds plurk and twitter and some other things. One of my Plurk friends saw a post about Science and Atheism and mentioned this Evangelical geneticist as a a good example.
Bryan, you did a great job expressing your views. Thank you. I like to read these sorts of things with my morning coffee and try to dash off some kind of meaningful response. I think I see your points and they are good points for you since you are as you are because of the sum total of years of past experiences while I am as I am because of the sum total of my experiences. I shall read some more of this thread and perhaps comment further.
Religious views
Collins has described his parents as "only nominally Christian" and by graduate school he considered himself an atheist. However, dealing with dying patients led him to question his religious views, and he investigated various faiths. He familiarized himself with the evidence for and against God in cosmology, and used Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis as a foundation to re-examine his religious view. He eventually came to a conclusion, and finally became an evangelical Christian during a hike on a fall afternoon.
In his 2006 book The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, Collins considers scientific discoveries an "opportunity to worship." In his book Collins examines and subsequently rejects creationism and intelligent design. His own belief system is theistic evolution or evolutionary creation which he prefers to term BioLogos. Collins appeared in December 2006 on The Colbert Report television show and in a March 2007 Fresh Air radio interview to discuss this book.
In an interview with National Geographic published in February 2007, interviewer John Horgan, an agnostic journalist, criticized Collins' description of agnosticism as "a cop-out". In response, Collins clarified his position on agnosticism so as not to include "earnest agnostics who have considered the evidence and still don't find an answer. I was reacting to the agnosticism I see in the scientific community, which has not been arrived at by a careful examination of the evidence. I went through a phase when I was a casual agnostic, and I am perhaps too quick to assume that others have no more depth than I did."
During a debate with the biologist Richard Dawkins, Collins stated that God is the explanation of those features of the universe that science finds difficult to explain (such as the values of certain physical constants favoring life), and that God himself does not need an explanation since he is beyond the universe. Dawkins called this "the mother and father of all cop-outs" and "an incredible evasion of the responsibility to explain", to which Collins responded "I do object to the assumption that anything that might be outside of nature is ruled out of the conversation. That's an impoverished view of the kinds of questions we humans can ask, such as 'Why am I here?', 'What happens after we die?' If you refuse to acknowledge their appropriateness, you end up with a zero probability of God after examining the natural world because it doesn't convince you on a proof basis. But if your mind is open about whether God might exist, you can point to aspects of the universe that are consistent with that conclusion."
Collins remains firm in his rejection of intelligent design, and for this reason was not asked to participate in the 2008 documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, which tries, among other things, to draw a direct link between evolution and atheism. Walt Ruloff, a producer for the film, claimed that Collins was "toeing the party line" by rejecting intelligent design, which Collins called "just ludicrous."
In 2009, Collins founded the BioLogos Foundation to "contribute to the public voice that represents the harmony of science and faith." He served as the foundation's president until he was confirmed as director of the NIH.
In October 2009, an article about Collins in the New York Times alleged that many scientists regard outspoken religious commitment as a sign of mild dementia.The article prompted a defense from journalist/blogger Brad A. Greenberg, who called the accusation baseless and likely fabricated, as well as from James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal editorial board, who wrote that "What the Times is really saying is that 'many scientists'--how many is not specified--are prejudiced against religious people."
