Hold the presses: Collins is being used

I don’t know too much about Collins’ views, but much of what he wrote in the Salon article I find entirely reasonable. Other statements I’d want to hear some clarification on, but on a straightforward reading I don’t find anything damning about them. To be more specific:

Frankly, I think many of the current battles between atheists and fundamentalists have really been started by the scientific community.

If you look at the history of the intelligent design movement, which is now only 15 or 16 years old, you will see that it was a direct response to claims coming from people like Dawkins.

There are definitely atheists, like Dawkins, who are essentially “evangelicals” for their lack of faith. Because these very visible atheists wield clout as scientists, there has been a reaction against science and against evolution on the part of religious people. Note that Collins does not agree with this reaction (see the rest of this paragraph and the next, on p.2 of the interview)– he seems simply to be stating that it happened. And, indeed, a number of the ID people have a chip on their shoulder against people like Dawkins. I don’t see why these statements from Collins are at all controversial. They are not, AFAICT, intended to let ID off the hook.

I have trouble with the argument that altruism can be completely explained on evolutionary grounds. Evolutionists now universally agree — I think Dawkins and Wilson and Dennett would all agree — that evolution does not operate on the species. It operates on the individual.If that’s the case, then it does seem that in any given circumstance, the individual’s evolutionary drive should be to preserve their ability to reproduce at all costs.

Minus the first sentence, I find this paragraph uncontroversial. I’d want some clarification before agreeing or disagreeing with that first sentence– I’m suspicious of it. If he means “Evolutionary mechanisms can’t account for human altruism”, then I disagree. If he means “Human altruism goes well beyond what we might have expected, given what we know about natural selection,” then I’d agree; cultural forces seem to make people generalize the altruistic urge well beyond close kin, which is what I’d expect under natural selection. Yes, I’ve heard evolutionary explanations for, e.g., Mother Theresa, but the explanations I’ve heard have been pretty dubious– more like exercises in hand-waving than empirically-supported science.

All of these altruistic things seem to be a universal feature of human beings. And yet, they’re a scandal to evolutionary biology because they motivate people to do things that are exactly the opposite of what evolution would require.

This, too, seems quite reasonable. As a biologist, I find it fascinating that humans go out of their way to help people who they’re unlikely to see again. Is this a holdover from the days when we lived in small groups of kin– can it be accounted for by kin selection? Is this a relic from group-level selection in our past? Did this urge toward altruism evolve because altruists earn social status and therefore may increase their fitness? Or is it some cultural pressure gone so far that it makes people do what’s not in their genetic self-interest?

Collins seems to be suggesting that the human moral impulse can be taken as evidence for God, and I wouldn’t follow him that far– it smells too much like ID– but I don’t think it’s warranted to say that he’s denying the existence of research on the evolution of altruism. Maybe I’m not being suspicious enough, but I think you’re taking your suspicions entirely too far.

It looks to me as though people are reacting not to what Collins has actually said or done, but are instead basing their reactions on whether or not they approve of religion. Those who can get along with religion are giving him the benefit of the doubt; those who hate religion are looking for reasons to dislike him.

Collin’s claim as to the history of ID flies in the face of how it actually developed, or did you miss that whole trial at dover thing?

ever think that Collins might be projecting on to Dawkins exactly what he should be projecting on to ID?

Ever consider that’s exactly what you are doing as well?

Um, you completely missed the point of my post. I don’t think anyone’s claiming that all of the motivation of the ID’ers arose from the statements of people like Dawkins, Dennett, etc. However, it’s true that ID was kick-started when Phil Johnson read “The Blind Watchmaker” and decided to write his own screed to counter it. Hence “Darwin on Trial”. That’s the sense in which I think Collins is correct: ID started as a direct response by Johnson to Dawkins’ book.

Oh, and yes, I know the history of the ID movement– I’ve taught a course on the subject.

Kindly don’t assume that, because I criticize the statements of a few scientists, that I don’t find Dobson, Kennedy et al. a thousand times worse. It’s not an either/or game, STJ. I pointed that out in my original post.

If you think that the statements of, say, Dawkins or Dennett or Provine or Sagan don’t help to motivate the IDers, then why are the IDers constantly repeating quotes by these folks?

Sorry, it’s not me who missed something. You seem to have read into my post an awful lot of stuff that I didn’t intend.

This is simply unhistorical. The ID movement was a direct reaction to Edwards vs. Aguillard; its replacement of ‘creation science’ was a response to the court decisions barring teaching of creation from school.

See above. Collins is correct about the founding of the ID movement; of course, as soon as it was sparked, all the creation science folks shifted over to it.

Pretending that altruism is a ‘scandal in evolutionary biology’ is nonsense. It’s an active and fertile area of research.

Of course it’s an active (and fascinating) area of research. It’s active and interesting because the phenomenon in question appears at first glance to fly in the face of what we would expect. I think Collins is putting it too strongly here, as I said, but– as I also said– I think people are making this more of a referendum on Collins’ attempt at reconciling science and religion than on what he actually said. I doubt that what he actually said would strike you as heretical if it had come from someone less religious.