Senior Scholar Jeff Schloss Reviews “Faith vs. Fact” by Jerry Coyne in The Washington Post | The BioLogos Forum

Faith & Science Conversation
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To be subjective in social studies, and other humanities, is simply right. You just must be clear about what is subjective. Subjectivity and objectivity can go hand in hand, but they cannot be in a blended mess where fact = opinion and opinion = fact. And always, opinion is the loser.

Rejection of subjectivity runs wild at universities in my impression. You cannot believe in the human spirit, or God on a subjective basis, in the culture at universities, you are required to have evidence for them, or they do not exist. Only objectivity is allowed.

I still say you do not give proper acknowledgement of the validity of subjectivity. There is acknowledgement of “raw” facts, data. And no acknowledgement of caring about humanity as a subjective criteria for doing social studies.

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@Wayne

What hard data is there to confirm multiverse theory? How do you prove that the multiverse exists before you accept any evidence to prove that it exists?

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I don’t think this is true. I got a degree at a secular grad school and there was plenty of talk of the human spirit, justice, ethics, beauty, and other subjective concepts. And we had lots of fun “deconstructing” things that were at one time considered to be objective facts.

I think material naturalists don’t like overlap when it comes to hard sciences and other less empirical disciplines. But in reality things like culture, philosophy, ethics, and justice do overlap with the interpretation and application of hard science.

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147

Trying to explain altruism as having ‘survival value’ in a Darwinian sense has not met with much success. Richard Dawkins (following upon Teilhard, but not acknowledging him) put forth the proposal that “memes, the new replicators” (i.e.,human thought acting independently of genes) has introduced at least a modium of selflessness and altruism into our modern culture. Quote from Chpt.13, The Selfish Gene: “We can even discuss ways of deliberately cultivating and nurturing pure, disinterested altruism–something that has never existed before in the whole history of the world.” (emphasis mine).
Al Leo

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@Wayne @Christy
The current intellectual discussion (well over 100 position statements) is what makes BioLogos so unique and attractive. But discussing the fine philosophical points of religion and how they relate to the philosophy of science can miss the basic raison d’être for religion: how to live life at the most purposeful and satisfying level. Perhaps it is more important to find Truth that has personal rather than objective meaning. **. I am reminded of the painting, ‘Christ at Heart’s Door’ from the Warner Sallman collection, where Jesus is knocking at a door that has no doorknob. It must be opened from the inside. It is our personal experiences that prompts us to be open to Christ’s presence. He is not going to force himself on us by intellectual reasoning or logic.
Al Leo

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Kids should shut up and learn how choosing works in school, the mechanism of creation, and then religion will flourish again.

People already have the knowledge to accept religion, which is the knowledge inherent in common discourse about how choosing works, but people need to be conscious of this knowledge on an intellectual level, if they develop their intellect much (get an education). If somebody has no intellectual knowledge on how choosing works, only has knowledge in terms of cause and effect, being forced and stuff, on the intellectual level, than that will likely stop them from having a fullfilling religious life.

I do much computer work, and most all of it has a logic of being forced. So there is a noticeable switch from computer work, to social interaction. My mind is stuck in cause and effect logic, and then I have to switch to spontaneously expressing myself.

It is the same with education I suspect, when students only learn about things being forced, then they are stuck in that cause and effect thinking, incapable of making the switch to thinking in terms of choosing.

My guess is that if you ask educated people how choosing works, then they will more likely respond it works with the logic of sorting. A sorting algorithm has a logic of being forced. The result of the sorting is predetermined by the sorting criteria, and the data to sort.

If you ask uneducated people how choosing works, they will more likely respond explaining choosing in terms of spontaneity, in terms of emotions.

The uneducated people are more likely to have the correct fundamental definition of how choosing works, compared with the educated people.

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150

Sorry, Mohammad, you lost me with your latest response.
Al Leo

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Just like Merv, you’re also confusing between objective observations and empirical analysis. The sun rising in the east is an objective fact which will be the same for everyone regardless of culture. What can differ is their interpretation of the phenomenon or their explanation for it. Facts don’t change, but explanations can. Which is precisely why we have the scientific method. It is the only method available that weighs the observations, postulates hypotheses, conducts tests and experiments and conclude which explanation best accounts for the evidence.

But this case is different. I’m talking about questions regarding nature, regarding reality - who are we and where did we come from. I am arguing that such questions can only be answered by empirical analysis (aka Science) for reasons I have explained in detail many times over.
Institutional racism is a phenomenon related to human society & culture and its interpretation is based on the existing norms, views, opinions and laws that govern that particular society.

But we can (and we have) overcome such limitations thanks to science and technology (not due to philosophy or religion). We can study microorganisms which we normally can’t see, we can observe distant stars and galaxies in infrared or ultraviolet, send probes to far away worlds, sequence genomes to establish evolutionary relationships, smash subatomic particles and probe the origins of the universe etc etc. We’re constantly innovating and making what was impossible until yesterday possible today.
We can even virtually step outside of ourselves and see what the world looks from a different perspective, as an article I already posted above explains:

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Dawkins may have been talking about benefits of altruism to the individual. However, evolution hardly acts at the level of one individual, it works on populations. Any behavior that benefits the society as a whole will be selected for naturally. “The Selfish Gene” was published in 1976, but since then many instances of altruistic behavior in animals have been documented, particularly in social animals:
http://news.discovery.com/animals/animal-altruism-lending-a-helping-paw-or-wing-or-fin-photos-150604.htm
It is, therefore, hardly surprising that humans evolved altruistic behavior, since they too evolved in societies.

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Kin selection is not altruism. I am not the only one who is unconvinced by the Sociobiology first proposed by E. O. Wilson. I gather you are unimpressed by the evidence for the Great Leap Forward,which produced modern humans from Homo sapiens with no evidence of genetic change, as supported by Diamond, Tattersall, Morris, and Dawkins.
Al Leo

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Right. Because those such intrinsically empirical questions. Kind of like “what is love?” You can answer with regard to empirically testable, quantitative physical/natural realities, (chemicals, electrical impulses, etc.) but that answer will be highly unsatisfactory to most people posing the question.

Who are we (as humans) and where did we come from (as a society of humans) are human questions and humanity as a concept encompasses more than biology, physics, and chemistry. You are free to leave out all reference to ethics, philosophy, and metaphysics, but don’t pretend the omission is going to produce satisfying answers for everyone else.

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It can only mean you yourself don’t understand how choosing works. As the wiki on free will is a mess of contradictory points of view, it shows we cannot just assume people understand how choosing works, eventhough they talk in terms of making choices all the time in daily life.

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…the question about what love is can only be answered by choosing the answer. Love cannot be copied. Planets, organisms, stars, they can all be copied to a model of it, 1 to 1, resulting in facts. A fact is a 1 to 1 representaion of something.

Only the creation is a matter of fact issue, all what is in the creator category is a matter of opinion, the conclusion about what is in it must be chosen.

157

Dogs adopting orphan kittens, ducklings, tiger cubs etc is not kin selection. It is altruism.

I don’t know what you mean. But genetic change is continuous, it doesn’t stop.

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But there is no love without the brain. Once the brain dies, the person does not show any emotion including love. Therefore love must be the result neurological processes. Love is a form of attachment, a form of bonding which clearly developed due to humans living and evolving as societies. Indeed, other social animals also exhibit such emotions. Elephants are a good example:

This is your problem. If you’re going to approach an issue emotionally, you’ll never arrive at the correct answer. The emotional gloss will always obscure the truth. To understand the truth, one must think with the brain, not with the heart.

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Wayne, the concept of the Great Leap Forward was first put forward by Jared Diamond and was based on the anthropological evidence that the life style of archaic Homo sapiens from the earliest (Omo at 190,000 BP) until about 40,000 BP was very nearly the same as the contemporaneous Neanderthals. Suddenly (on an evolutionary time frame) a modern Homo sapiens appeared, evidenced by skillful paintings, reverent burials with grave goods, and closer cooperation which indicated the use of a more sophisticated language. We would accept them as fellow humans, not because they looked like us, but because they behaved like us. And the Neanderthals and archaic Homo sapiens did not.

For Richard Dawkins, this evidence was a bitter pill to swallow: human behavior did not arise as the result of chance mutations taking small steps in no particular direction. In his book “The Ancestors’ Tale” (p.34-35) he accepts the reality of the GLF for humanity, admits he has no explanation for it, and goes on for >600 pages showing how Darwinian evolution accounts for all the other marvelous life forms on planet Earth.

If I am not mistaken, Wayne, you will have the same difficulty in accepting the GLF as Dawkins did. These are some of the sources that helped me accept its reality. You may not have read all of them.
Ian Tattersall (curator, Human Origins section; N.Y. Museum of Natural History): (1) “Becoming Human”; (2) “Masters of the Planet”; (3) "The Strange Case of the Rickety Cossack"
Simon Conway Morris: (1) “The Crucible of Creation”; (2) “Life’s Solutions”

Perhaps you would find a more compatible view in Chpt. 13 “Rewire the Brain” in Christian de Duve’s book “Genetics of Original Sin”. There he states “the wiring of the brain is an epigenetic phenomenon”. Dawkins, in Ancestors Tales, said the GLF was as if the Homo sapien brain was suddenly "programmed’. I think we can all agree that there is much to learn about how Brain morphs into Mind, both in the distant past and currently as we instruct our kids.

[quote=“Wayne, post:157, topic:2392”]
genetic change is continuous, it doesn’t stop.
[/quote]Genetic change may be continuous, but at times it seems ‘regressive’. Medical science (product of Mind) has allowed disadvantageous genes (e.g. diabetic) to persist in our gene pool at a level ‘ordinary’ Darwinian evolution would not have allowed. Will our Mind-directed ethics (guided by religions) act wisely enough when gene replacement becomes commonplace?
Al Leo

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To All who have responded to the review of Coyne’s ‘Faith vs. Fact’: If you have not done so already, I recommend you read “The Genetics of Original Sin” by the Nobelist, Christian de Duve–not that he has answers for all the questions we have discussed, but it might be an even more rewarding topic of discussion than Coyne’s.

De Duve is definitely pessimistic about where humanity’s evolutionary success is leading us. “If it continues in the same direction, humankind is headed for frightful ordeals, if not its own extinction.” "*Original Sin is none other than the fault written into human genes by natural selection.“The only possibility of redemption from the genetic original sin lies in the unique human ability to act against natural selection.” (Echoes Dawkins here.)

He goes on to list seven options to avert this impending calamity–options that will give the BioLogos community a field day for criticism. He notes that ‘directed evolution’ via human cloning presents ethical problems and, in any event, will be ineffective. His Option 3, rewire the brain, which he notes is an epigenetic phenomenon, is mainly directed to education. His observation that “religious leaders are particularly well placed to propagate the recommendations the world needs” is somewhat unexpected. Although brought up as a Catholic and educated by the Jesuits, de Duve was either agnostic or atheist in later life. He opted for euthanasia (in the presence of his family) a couple of years ago.

One cannot help but wonder why de Duve, in choosing a career in science, lost his faith, while others, like Simon Conway Morris and Francis Collins, are comfortable with theirs. Sometimes it is just a single personal experience that sets one’s course in life
Al Leo

161

Altruism is a property with many grades. I will grant your example of dogs playing with kittens is at one level–that of infants of any species being attractive to other species(eliciting release of oxytocin?) . To me it makes sense to limit altruism in humans to actions that actually or potentially can be more deleterious to the operator. I have in mind the Doctors Without Borders who risked their lives in Africa dealing with the recent ebola outbreak.
Al Leo

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You have a more narrow definition of truth than I do, and I think, than most people do. I think there are many truths in life that are accessed through emotion, intuition, and imagination, which are all essential parts of the mind.

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Hi Christy,

I have no idea what you’re trying to say here. For example, how can the objective, empirical truth “RNA is the genetic material of rabies virus” be reduced to a mathematical statement or formula?

[quote=“Christy, post:130, topic:2392”]
To communicate and convince, you have to understand where another person is coming from and say something that makes sense to them.
[/quote]I agree. So kindly rigorously explain your claim in the context of biology–virology, in this example.