Hergest Ridge

I am a scientist and a believer, and I find no conflict between those world views. - Dr. Francis Collins

Dr. Collins is director of the Human Genome Project. In case that doesn’t mean anything to you, lets just say that we’re not talking about some fringe, back water mad scientist. He is well respected, and known around the globe. His credentials are long, and that’s what makes his statement such a travesty.

The quote comes from a CNN special. You can read it in full, or simply stay with me while I debunk some of his ‘logic’ right here. No science knowledge is required for either piece, just a bit of history for mine.

First, I’d like to address one of the stats Dr. Collins throws our way, that of “40% of scientists being believers”. While Dr. Collins deals with the sciences of life, there are many scientists in areas unrelated to that of human existence. These are scientists that work on developing biodegradable plastics, GM crops, and renewable energy. The qualifications of those scientists in the “origins of life” area are at par with those of a dentist, or chiropractor. The statistic is based on those kind of scientists. As such, it lends no scientific credo to the existence of any Gods.

One of Dr. Collins’ own convictions that God really exists is due to the fact that science cannot answer questions like “What is the meaning of life?” or “Why do humans have a moral sense?”.

By that logic - assuming that answers to those questions exist - at one point feelings like love would be considered proof of God’s existence. We now know that the enhanced secretion of the chemical b-Phenylethylamine (b-PEA) is responsible for falling in love, and we also have a good idea about what triggers the process. What once may have appeared to be the invisible hand of God and his angel the Cupid turns out to be a matter of science and more specifically chemistry.

Personally, I do not believe that anything or anyone can ever give us the answer to the meaning of life question because there is no universal answer.

Why, for so many, does the existence of the human species rest on the delusion that such an answer exists? Try to imagine a world without such an answer, and you will find that our world is exactly like that you’re imagining.

Life cannot be summed up in a sentence that we can print on a plaque, refrigerator magnet, or bumper sticker. That is the beauty of it. As Ludwig Mies van der Rohe once said and Einstein later reiterated, “God is in the details”. I don’t know a great deal of history on Rohe, but do know that Einstein wasn’t talking about a personal God. Theists like to put Einstein into their court by taking his quote out of context. All Einstein was saying is that if you want to find God, look not up, but around you. This is as real as he gets. The details are god.

While God fills a void in the lives of many people, that does not constitute proof of his existence. We’ve all heard the classic “I was a lost soul on the way to disaster until God entered my life”. This again is not proof of God, but the “after this, therefore because of it” fallacy.

If we ignore all the evidence, and for a second assume that the God theory works, we are pitted against Occam’s razor: “All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best one.” [When multiple competing theories are equal in other respects, the principle recommends selecting the theory that introduces the fewest assumptions and postulates the fewest hypothetical entities. The term razor refers to the act of shaving away unnecessary assumptions to get to the simplest explanation.] (Source) To refute or minimise the impact of Occam’s razor is to ignore the 700 years of trial during which the principle has been put to the test.

God cannot be found in science for one simple reason: scientifically, God is the biggest question of them all. Science cannot verify his existence, past, present or eternal, and as such he cannot be the answer to any query posed by science. If you are looking for God, do not conduct your search in a lab, but in the unfounded faith that the church offers; for God will never leave its walls, will never step into the real world.

The earth and this life are the ultimate gift. Cherish it, live it well, and look around you instead of up.

Russell’s declaration, in his 1925 essay ‘What I Believe’

I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive. I am not young and I love life. But I should scorn to shiver with terror at the thought of annihilation. Happiness is nonetheless true happiness because it must come to an end, nor do thought and love lose their value because they are not everlasting. Many a man has borne himself proudly on the scaffold; surely the same pride should teach us to think truly about man’s place in the world. Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cosy indoor warmth of traditional humanising myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigour, and the great spaces have a splendour of their own.