Re: Francis Crick

I get the same from one who does not want to receive my comments! It may
also be that the serving is over-rigorous on getting rid of spam
Michael

----- Original Message -----
From: "Al Koop" <koopa@gvsu.edu>
To: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Saturday, July 31, 2004 5:52 PM
Subject: Re: Francis Crick

> I am sorry if this appears twice and clutters up your mailbox. My email
> postmaster is sending me notes about rejections of certain emails. I
> have not figured out why yet.
>
> Randy Isaac wrote;
>
>
> Most of us have read articles or obituaries of Francis Crick this week.
> Nicholas Wade penned a front-page article in the NYTimes on Thursday.
> His fourth paragraph reads:
>
> "The discovery of the structure of DNA resolved longstanding questions
> about the nature of the hereditary material and the manner in which it
> is copied as one generation succeeds another. Their proposal for the
> structure, almost immediately accepted, was electrifying to scientists
> not only because of its inherent elegance but also because it showed how
> biology, evolution and the nature of life itself could fundamentally be
> explained in terms of physics and chemistry. Indeed, the desire to
> replace religious with rational explanations of life was a principal
> motivation of Dr. Crick's career."
>
> If I recall correctly, Crick was not satisfied with any of the theories
> of origin of life and strove hard to find evidence of non-traditional,
> non-religious explanations.
>
> How sad to see a life of such talent dedicated to replacing religion.
> In ASA we strive to complement and integrate, not to replace. Does
> anyone on this list have a good biographical source of Crick or some
> background information that would help us understand what influenced him
> and why he was so focused on replacing religious explanations?
>
> AK:
>
> Unfortunately I think there is too great a tendency for the media to
> promote controversy and exaggerate the differences between parties.
> Part of the polarization among the populace we have today can be
> attributed to the media trying to make a more interesting story and
> emphasizing disagreements that are not as great as they make them out to
> be. I think the reputation of Francis Crick suffers from some of this
> media exploitation as well. One of the major stories about Crick and
> Watson concerns Rosalind Franklin, the X-ray crystallographer who
> gathered experimental data on the DNA molecule, and how she supposedly
> was taken advantage of by Watson and Crick. Yesterday on Science
> Fridays with Ira Flato a woman called in and ranted about this story for
> a considerable time. Yet Leslie Orgel, Crick's friend who was on the
> show, said he knew of no such bad blood. Nicholas Wade even writes in
> his New York Times obit that Rosalind spent her last days as she was
> dying of leukemia in the home of Francis and Odile Crick and that Watson
> and Crick got the data legitimately from a seminar and a publicly
> available paper. It sounds like the storytellers may have exaggerated
> this to make a better story.
>
> With regard to the religious views of Crick I think that there may also
> be media exaggeration here. I suspect that the word "religious
> explanations" as used by Nicholas Wade means "God of the Gaps
> explanations" and that it is understood that way by most scientists and
> most religious people as well. I am quite sure you can get a strong
> read on Crick's views by reading his book, The Astonishing Hypothesis:
> The Scientific Search for the Soul. His opening sentence is: "The
> Astonishing Hypothesis is that "You", your joys and your sorrows, your
> memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free
> will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve
> cells and their associated molecules". That pretty much summarizes the
> book. As Crick points out virtually all neuroscientists share this
> view, with the notable exception of the Nobel Laureate Sir John Eccles
> who developed the dualism-interactionist theory of the mind with Karl
> Popper. Likewise his Book, Life Itself (I think that is the name) is
> an attempt to explain the origin of life without resorting to the
> explanation "God Did It" So there is no doubt that Crick had little use
> for God of the Gaps explanations, but I don't think that is unusual
> among scientists in general, even applying to some Christians on this
> list as well. Flato asked Orgel about Crick's religious proclivities as
> well, and as, I recall Orgel, said that he certainly would agree that
> Crick would not be considered a pro-church individual, but neither would
> an anti-religious fervor seem to be quite the lifelong driving force
> that Wade implies or at least in the way that some of you have
> interpreted it.
>
> I was at the Salk Institute from 1979-1987 and interacted with Crick to
> some degree. I have had a few words with him about the origin of life
> when were at dinner together when taking out a seminar speaker after his
> talk. I also attended a graduate seminar in neurophilosophy that he ran
> along with Patricia Smith Churchland at UCSD. The class had about 7
> students and 30 people like me sitting in on it, although not very many
> scientists. We met for 30 or 40 hours and I would not say that I
> detected any strident anti-religious fervor. I also attended dozens of
> seminars where Crick was also present. He may be the most brilliant
> scientist I ever encountered. He could pick out the essential points in
> any talk and then ask the pointed questions that drove to the heart of
> the matter. He supposedly never read the paper or listened to the news,
> saying that if anything important happened, someone would tell him . He
> also was pretty arrogant and did not suffer fools gladly. I think you
> should read his book, What Mad Pursuit, if you want some
> autobiographical data. My book is buried in a book somewhere and as I
> recall he tells of his upbringing and his interactions with the church
> in his childhood in there.
>
> Finally, I just don't think that scientists are all that anti-religious.
> I think that is something that religious people have trumped up and
> seem almost paranoid about. I really get upset when pastors have
> referred generically to the "atheistic scientists" (and this has
> happened many times in my life). It seems that a lot of Christians I
> know blithely think the term scientist is synonymous with atheist. I
> have had many talks with many of them and find virtually none to be
> antireligious. Most tend to be agnostic and not antagonistic at all
> unless someone starts using the God of the Gaps explanations in
> scientific discussions. Likewise, most scientists are also quite
> unsophisticated about religious ideas and many also consider religion
> synonymous with God of the Gaps. That accounts for much of the
> antireligious rhetoric you see. At the Salk Institute the librarian
> ordered a considerable number of philosophical and religious scientific
> books. I think I was about the only person who ever checked them out.
> It probably accounts for my mediocre scientific career. I spent too
> much time reading about other things instead of devoting all my time to
> the hardcore science like almost every other ambitious scientist did.
>
>
Received on Sat Jul 31 15:02:07 2004