If I see Francis Collins' pious, simpering facade one more time, I'm going to get really pissed off. Can someone please give that man a Templeton Prize and let him retire to the Cascades, where he can stare at waterfalls to his heart's content? CNN has an article on "Why this scientist believes in God", and it's just more vapid crap distilled from his vapid book.
But OK, let's take him at his word. He claims to be presenting reasons to believe … what are they? Do they meet any kind of scientific standard?
I've thrown out most of his essay, and pulled out just those parts that actually address the issue. Not much was left.
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And that's it. Collins is given space to make an argument for the existence of his god, and this is the best he can do: nostrums, nonsense, noise. He should have been more honest and simply said he believes because he wants to believe, and he has no evidence, scientific or otherwise, to give his belief greater credibility than that of any unlettered church-going yokel.
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I have tried to give Collins a lot of leeway. He is a brilliant fellow. He has done a lot for humanity's knowledge base through the genome project. But his failings when faith come into play are telling.
He believes in evolution. But it is a work of God. Okay. We can debate, philosophically, how it all started. But it does not end there.
He then proceeds to go on to morality.
Proof of God.
After all, He gave it to us. And it is beyond any other life form. We, alone, are blessed.
Though...we are seeing the early signs of morality in animals quite like our ancestors. That would seem to counter his faith based argument about morality's origins. But why would science give pause to ones faith-based knowledge? Even for a scientist.
It's a shame.
But it is a reminder that brain capacity and/or amount of education do not make one immune to magic thinking.
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