by woodleywonderworks
Good, Bad, and Government Funding:
[Via Discover Magazine | RSS]
The National Institutes of Health funds research on the biology of morality in the human brain, as well as the evolution of human morality by comparing humans to other primates. Francis Collins, who has been nominated to head NIH, has repeatedly criticized this sort of research–and has used its failure as evidence for the existence of God. In 2008, for example, he said, “I think human altruism can be seen as one of strongest signposts to the existence of a personal God. I can see no fully satisfactory explanation for it coming from biology.”
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I am going to discuss and rebut the idea that some rational, science-based approaches can provide direct evidence of a Creator. Simply because I do not feel that Collins’ argument holds up does not mean that anyone who has faith in a Creator is wrong. It simply means that this is not an approach that will be successful for proving there is one. There is a reason it is called faith.
Collins may be a good scientist but the quote attributed to him displays a shocking lack of understanding of the history and science behind his special pleading argument. Simply because we may not fully understand all aspects of something does not mean that a designer had to have been responsible. This God of the gaps is a tool often used by creationists. It is disturbing to see it used by a prominent scientist.
The faith that Collins demonstrates about God’s hand in human morality, thus providing for human exceptionalism, reminds me of Alfred Russel Wallace, another scientist who attempted to use science to prove the existence of a Creator. The same ‘rational’ underpinnings used by Collins are at least 120 years old. Wallace, besides being involved with the development of the theory of evolution by natural selection, also believed that Darwin’s theory could not explain many attributes of human consciousness and morality. In fact, Wallace ended his book entitled Darwinism: An Exposition of the Theory of Natural Selection with Some of Its Applications with these words:
We thus find that the Darwinian theory, even when carried out to its extreme logical conclusion, not only does not oppose, but lends a decided support to, a belief in the spiritual nature of man. It shows us how man’s body may have been developed from that of a lower animal form under the law of natural selection; but it also teaches us that we possess intellectual and moral faculties which could not have been so developed, but must have had another origin; and for this origin we can only find an adequate cause in the unseen universe of Spirit. (Courtesy of The Alfred Russel Wallace Page)
Some things just do not change, do they? This book was first published in 1889. Yet over 100 years later, after all the research we have done, we still have researchers who say that the fact that Man has certain moral and intellectual benefits proves there is a God because those facts can not be explained any other way, such as by natural selection. That because we may not have an explanation for morality then that means that God did it.
‘Man could not have evolved the intellect and morality he shows today unless the hand of a Creator had been present.’ But what is the scientific underpinning for their special pleading? For if there is no science, and they are only speaking because of their faith, then why should they be listened to any more than a minister or priest?
Wallace actually tried to explain the need for special pleading using the scientific knowledge he had available to him. I do not see Collins doing the same thing.
Both Wallace and Collins do not believe that Man was specifically created, that an episode of special creation is required. From the same chapter in Wallace’s book:
The facts now very briefly summarised amount almost to a demonstration that man, in his bodily structure, has been derived from the lower animals, of which he is the culminating development. In his possession of rudimentary structures which are functional in some of the mammalia; in the numerous variations of his muscles and other organs agreeing with characters which are constant in some apes; in his embryonic development, absolutely identical in character with that of mammalia in general, and closely resembling in its details that of the higher quadrumana; in the diseases which he has in common with other mammalia; and in the wonderful approximation of his skeleton to those of one or other of the anthropoid apes, we have an amount of evidence in this direction which it seems impossible to explain away. And this evidence will appear more forcible if we consider for a moment what the rejection of it implies. For the only alternative supposition is, that man has been specially created–that is to say, has been produced in some quite different way from other animals and altogether independently of them. But in that case the rudimentary structures, the animal-like variations, the identical course of development, and all the other animal characteristics he possesses are deceptive, and inevitably lead us, as thinking beings making use of the reason which is our noblest and most distinctive feature, into gross error.We cannot believe, however, that a careful study of the facts of nature leads to conclusions directly opposed to the truth; and, as we seek in vain, in our physical structure and the course of its development, for any indication of an origin independent of the rest of the animal world, we are compelled to reject the idea of “special creation” for man, as being entirely unsupported by facts as well as in the highest degree improbable.
No special creation. Because a ‘careful study of the facts of nature’ tell us so. Man was not created in a separate incident from the rest of the natural world. But his brain and intellect were specially created.
So, no special creation. Just special pleading. ‘God was still involved. There is apparently no other way to explain morality, to explain altruism or why humans will help others even at the risk of their own life.’ ‘Somehow Man is really different and this proves that God exists.’ ‘There is no selective advantage to being moral so there is no reason for it to ever have evolved.’ “We don’t yet understand everything so God must have done it.’
Except that people doing real research to test the hypotheses that natural selection CAN explain morality, altruism, etc. have produced a wealth of information over the last 120 years. I’ve talked about just a small part of this over the years. Like this work indicating that societies which contained members who would die for others, even those they were not related to, in wars would come to dominate all societies. And that collaboration in times of peace also permit societies to dominate.
Or this one, explaining why lines form and can be important in the behavior of a group. Or this one on why the development of co-operation could be very important in primate cultures?
When Wallace wrote his words, he did not know about genes, genetics, the germ theory of disease, the Spanish Flu, polio vaccines, HIV, yellow fever vaccine, Ebola, antibiotics, viroids, molecular biology, biotechnology, bioinformatics, viruses, Drosophila, mitochondrial DNA, the Golgi apparatus, plasmids, organelles, bacteriophage, the endoplasmic reticulum, the centriole, ribosomal RNA, tRNA, DNA, mRNA, microRNA, siRNA, the double helix, replication, neurobiology, plate tectonics, the age of the planet and of the universe, the Burgess shale, Hox, hedgehog, evo-devo, Mendel, Morgan,Watson, Muller, Sanger, Venter, Lederberg, Crick, Kornberg, Khorana, Baltimore, Lewis, Schrodinger, Gamow, Brenner, McClintock, Benzer, Luria, Delbruck, Cech, PCR, phosphoramidates, NMR, PET, MRI, CAT scans, X-ray crystallography, cryo-electron microscopy, DNA microarrays, Southern blotting, Maxam-Gilbert sequencing, dideoxynucleotides, Mitochondrial Eve, Hardy-Weinburg, metabolic pathways, microcomputers, Genentech, Amgen, Cetus, Beckman, Biogen, immune tolerance, HLA, superantigens, idiotypes, CDR, gene rearrangement, somatic hypermutation, spliceosome, intervening sequence, exon, horizontal gene transfer, Alu sequences, endogenous retroviuses, short tandem repeats, genetic fingerprinting, SNPs, VNTRs, genetic linkage, microsatellites,
and about a billion other things and people involved in a 120 years worth of high powered biology.
Collins does have this benefit. Yet Collins seems to echo the words of Wallace almost identically. At least Wallace had an excuse for his view of human exceptionalism. In his world, there really was a huge difference in the intellectual capacities of Mankind, with ’savages’ not being able to count above two and having no musical or artistic talents at all.
We know now this is wrong, which completely destroys Wallace’s rational argument. But at the time he made the argument, it was based on up-to-date data.
What is Collin’s excuse? What is Collins’ basis for saying he sees no satisfactory explanation? Does Collins really believe that 120 years of biological research has not provided any indication at all that special pleading for humanity might not hold up? At least Wallace worked really hard to present a rational, science-based argument for his exceptionalism.
So what are Collin’s rational arguments? While Wallace’s reasoning was faulty and incorrect, as we know today, at least his arguments were based on then current research. What current research is Collins basing his reasoning on?
There may be a Creator but if the presence of moral codes in a highly social primate is shown to arise by selection, then factual basis for such a belief disappears. Would Collins then renounce his faith? Collins would be much more honest to say he has faith there is a Creator and leave it at that. By trying to present some sort of rational, scientific argument, one that has been around for 120 years without garnering much traction in the scientific world, he opens himself up to rational, scientific counter arguments.
Frankly the counter arguments have greater strength, which would then seem to weaken his argument that there is a Creator at all. For if his conclusions are wrong, that morality could be derived from natural selection, then what IS his rational reason to believe in a Creator?
Better he just keep his faith for the faithful and his science for the scientists.
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