Re: [asa] Collins' book is reviewed by the Arizona Origins

Science guys
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I have no sympathy for the views of the Arizona YEC folks that kicked
off
this thread. However, I recently finished Collins' book, and I have
to say
I found it mostly disappointing. The story of his conversion to faith
certainly is inspiring, and it's refreshing to hear how this eminent
scientist's faith has reinforced his commitment to science. However, I
found the book jarringly disjointed in many respects.

As the biggest example, Collins spends the first third of the book
arguing
that the fine tuning of the universe, along with the human moral sense,
strongly support a theistic perspective. In the second third of the
book,
however, he argues that any teleological or design arguments in
biology (i.e,
the arguments we label "ID"), are worthless "god of the gaps" arguments.

Well, which is it? It seems to me that Collins' critics are right
here --
the "god of the gaps" objection applies with just as much force to
cosmological (fine tuning) and sociological (the moral sense)
arguments as
it does to biological ones. He never explains why there's any material
difference between cosmological and biological teleogy / design
arguments.

Collins also, IMHO, misrepresents ID theory. Now, Collins may or may
not be
right about the ultimate merits of ID theory, and I'm not intending
to open
that can of worms. But statements like this -- *"ID portrays the
Almighty
as a clumsy Creator, having to intervene at regular intervals to fix the
inadequacies of His own initial plan for generating the complexities of
life"* -- are bunk. Nothing I've read in the ID literature suggests any
such value judgments about the capabilities or purposes of the
designer. Even if we assume ID is really a religious theory about the
"Almighty," from a Christian theistic perspective, we'd say that if
God did
"intervene" in natural history, that intervention was perfectly good and
wise, fully in accordance with God's character, even if we don't know
the
ultimate reasons for that "intervention."

Perhaps more significantly for Collins' argument, the very same
"bumbling
god" scenario can apply to theistic evolution. We can just as well
ask --
and skeptics do ask -- why God should have required billions of years of
slow, painful trial and error for the creation to reach its present
state.
Why didn't God just snap his fingers and be done with it? Thoughtful TE
theorists offer good responses to this question, which also
ultimately boil
down to the ineffable wisdom and goodness of God's purposes -- the
very same
responses an ID "interventionist" would give. But in his zeal to rip
ID,
Collins shoots us all (and himself) in the foot.

On top of all this, I found Collins' scriptural arguments deeply
unsatisfying. Again, to be clear, I'm not by any stretch YEC; I
probably
lean more TE than not. But it just won't do to assert that Genesis 1
and 2
are "allegory" and consider the question settled. What on earth is that
supposed to mean? How does that relate to a coherent doctrine of
scripture? Who is Collins to say that Genesis 1 and 2 seem less like
eye-witness narrative than other parts of scripture or to make
doctrinal /
theological statements about why that should matter even if it were so?

Collins either doesn't understand, or doesn't want to confront, the fact
that the doctrine of scripture is the 800-pound gorilla in the room of
faith-science debates. Progress will be made only as we flesh out a
coherent doctrine of scripture that respects the veracity, integrity,
and
authority of the text as scripture. Lots of work has been done here
-- from
Bernard Ramm and Conrad Hyers in past decades through C. John Collins
and
Peter Enns today -- but Collins seems to ignore all of it.

Finally, the last third of the book, which broadly surveys some
contemporary
bioethical issues, seems tacked-on and superficial. There are huge
ethical
and legal implications to, say, somatic cell nuclear transfer, but
Collins
seems to shrug them off. And the bioethics appendix is yet another
jarring
non-sequitor to the rest of the book. What does any of this have to
do with
the teleological, design, and moral arguments for theism? Perhaps
there are
good reasons to challenge some of the conservative Evangelical /
Catholic
political stances on things like SCNT, but this particular book
doesn't seem
the time or place for it, and the challenge isn't well explained.

So, I suppose I'll be called a "lawyer" for deigning to criticize
Collins
here, but that's my two cents on his new book.

On 9/29/06, David Campbell <pleuronaia@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>> Funny thing is that after reading it, I would not have a serious
>> problem
>> with adding my name to the list, even though I am certainly an
>> adherent
to
>> big bang cosmology. It is really only asking for continuing
investigation
>> into alternatives.
>
>
> The wording of the Discovery Institute statement on evolution is
> similarly
vague in its wording.
>
> It's perhaps worth noting that the reviews of Collins' book in Nature
relied heavily on Dawkins as an authority and were not especially better
than the young-earth review at the start of this thread. Science
just had a
somewhat better review, but it failed to note that Dawkins and others
who
claim that science entails atheism are disproven by Collins. It also
brought up a particular issue that it claimed should have been
discussed in
the book in a way that suggests a particular axe to grind on the part
of the
reviewer. (Collins' predecessor in the position left over concerns
about
the ethics of patenting genomic data versus free access; the reviewer
evidently regards that position as morally better than cooperation with
commercial efforts, which did take place.)
>
>> --
>> Dr. David Campbell
>> 425 Scientific Collections
>> University of Alabama
>> "I think of my happy condition, surrounded by acres of clams"
>

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Received on Thu Oct 5 23:00:14 2006