Why Dawkins is Wrong

Summary of Postings

• Nicholas 16 Nov Dawkins communicates persuasively but his rhetoric is deeply flawed...
• Diarmid 16 Nov Well, I can certainly see why Dawkins would upset a Christian...
• Steven 16 Nov   Determinism/Freewill is an interesting subject...
• Odessa  16 Nov  re: Cause & Effect That's one of those "working hypotheses"....
• Nicholas 17 Nov the doctine of freewill asserts .. that there is a 'dimension' of (extended) causality called freewill...
• Steven 17 Nov Tell me where I said freewill does not exist...
• Diarmid 18 Nov Well argued post...
• Nicholas 18 Nov Let's try to make this as simple and clear as possible...
• Steven 18 &19 Nov IOW, moral responsibility, spirituality etc have no effect on the decisions taken freely...
• Nicholas 19 Nov  Surely you realise that what ...happens ...is ..that the rational free being weighs up the reasons...
• Steven 19 Nov And by what criteria do we make our free choice? ...
• Nicholas 19 Nov What we mean by 'freewill' is (~) something for which AF applies...
• Martin 19 Nov I was stopped in my tracks in a most confident discourse on God's omniscience with regard to the future...
• Steven 19 Nov if Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle is true there is no such thing as 'both the position and velocity ...
• Odessa 23 Nov 98 ...if Heisenberg is correct, it is man who is uncertain, not God. :) :)
• Diarmid 15 Nov two related issues worth addressing ... Firstly ...that a purely rational ... view of the universe leaves it 'pointless', and secondly that beauty, pleasure or love then become inexplicable.
• Odessa 19 Nov It [seems] to me that the main topic ...has been structured to have "creationism" to represent "religion."...
• Fr Gregory 19 Nov ...One of the reasons why inclusivists such as myself keep quiet is...
• Nicholas 19 Nov ... I certainly don't intend [this] How can I best re-structure the debate pages so that this impression does not occur?...
• Odessa  19 Nov  In giving my comments on the "Faith and Reason" television program ...I think I might make clearer my earlier post...
• Steven Carr 19 Nov ..What's wrong with putting the record straight on Galileo?...

Detailed Postings

• Nicholas Beale 16 Nov 98

Richard Dawkins communicates persuasively but his rhetoric is deeply flawed. He is a zoologist and popular writer - his professorship is in public understanding of science rather than in either science or philosophy - and although his gift for memorable images and pithy phrases/sound bites helps communicate the valuable parts of his ideas, he has such a distorted agenda that almost every other page of the books of his I have read contains an error.
 The transcript of Dawkins tying himself in knots when questioned about his current views on science & religion borders on the hilarious.
 Just one example: he admits that "we can override biology with free will.", claims that "the Darwinian explanation for life is ...self-sufficient..every stage is explained." and assets that "nothing extra" is needed but then admits that he has no explanation of free will.
( He also talks about the re-incarnation of Jesus.  Wow - new doctrine!)
 It's also interesting to see what a real world-class bio-scientist says about Dawkins
• Diarmid Weir 16 Nov 98 Well, I can certainly see why Dawkins would upset a Christian. Even I find his description of religion as a virus quite strong, although I agree with the point he is making! I don't believe he ties himself in knots over free will at all. I think his explanation of free will as an illusion created by the complexity of the universe is the only one that makes much sense. It's one I'd come to before reading this.

 Where Dawkins might, I think, be criticised - although I suspect this is largely a question of emphasis - is that he suggests too exact a correlation between specific genes and specific morphology. However I don't see why this can't be resolved by giving a larger role to a changing non-organic environment, and to the actual interactions between lots and lots of different genes, in the way they modify each other's expression. Adding 'a complicated higher intelligence' still doesn't appear to be the only way of resolving the difficulties -  indeed this is where the real 'knots' start!
  Indeed - I might be prepared to go a step further and suggest to Richard Dawkins that contraception is not actually counter-Darwinian at all. In a world where population growth relative to resources is excessive, it is a good technique for allowing us to concentrate on solving the resource problems without suffering from the stress of sexual frustration! Another problem our naturally-selected big brains have sorted out for us.
 By the way - watch out for those 'ad hominem' debating points, Nicholas - they suggest anxiety! Maybe Dr Weir's patent antiviral remedy is more powerful than he thought?
• Steven Carr 16 Nov 98  Determinism/Freewill is an interesting subject. It is a little frustrating as we don't know if the universe is determined or not. I'm pretty sure it is not, but I could be wrong.

  What is freewill free from?
  Let us define a cause as something which exists prior to an event and which influences the chance of that event taking place.
  Consider a situation where I find an old lady in an alley who has dropped her purse. I can either help her pick up her purse or mug her and run off with her purse. What tips the scales one way or the other?
 We can try to list all the causes of my behaviour. Perhaps my genes, or conditions in the womb, the state of my hormone system (adrenaline, testosterone etc), the amount of alcohol or cannabis in me etc etc. Perhaps we should list the contents of my stomach. If I am very, very hungry that would increase the chance of robbery and so count as a cause.
  We can also include other things as causes. We can imagine religious teachers who have tried to instil moral values into me, with the direct intent of influencing my behaviour in just such situations. If I am a deeply religious person, my religious background must influence the chances of what I do.
 When we add up all the causes we can think of, perhaps they will fully determine what I do. Perhaps they won't.
 It is usually agreed that behaviour which is not fully determined is what is known as 'freewill'. But it seems clear that if all the causes present do not fully determine behaviour, then what tips the scales has no cause - it is random.
 This random behaviour (and I actually believe that people do sometimes behave randomly) may be subject to statistical laws, but then so is a roulette wheel.
 So it seems clear (IMHO) that causes determine behaviour and if behaviour is not determined, then it does not have a cause - almost by definition of what a cause is.
 The difficulty is when Christians say that behaviour which is not fully determined by causes (freewill) is the thing which has the most moral value.
 Why do actions which are random, which have no cause, have a moral value?
 At least on the deterministic model, we can say that what determines my behaviour, is my upbringing, my moral values, my genes, my hormones. At least there is an element of personal connection which we can try to tie morality to. On the model that my actions are ultimately not determined and have no cause, we have nothing to tie morality to.
 The only 'out' for Christians seems to be to say that the moral teachings of Jesus were not designed to influence behaviour, or that something designed to influence behaviour can't be said to be a factor in causing that behaviour to happen, or that actions are morally good if they are caused by something which is morally good (as opposed to hormone levels, or alcohol levels), which is just circular reasoning and has nothing to do with free will anyway.
 BTW, it is no solution to say that freewill means my behaviour is caused by my choices. The question 'What influences your choices?' follows immediately and you are back to saying that you behave determinstically or randomly.
• Odessa Eliott 16 Nov 98

re: Cause & Effect That's one of those "working hypotheses" that derive from the classical Greeks thinking about the observable phenomena, while at the same time realizing that their thoughts were not observable. :)
in re: free will Jews and Christians who take biblical witness seriously affirm that YHWH created the universe, including homo sapiens and angels. Angels and homo sapiens had free will -  that is, these organisms  had the ability to think and to speak to each other.
 Lucifer defied YHWH, became an outcast, and returned to the Garden of Eden as a snake.  He persuaded the first homo sapiens also to defy YHWH.  Since that time, homo sapiens has demonstrated remarkable ability to choose evil, rather than good; to try to do good and do evil instead;  to do nothing, out of fear of doing evil, and find evil results anyway.  Very puzzling behavior, unless one is given the grace to "read, mark, and inwardly digest" Scripture.
PS  The day any geneticist finds a gene and declares:  "Eureka!  the sin gene at last!"   I shall read with interest the description of the experiments that lead him/her to this announcement.
• Nicholas Beale 17 Nov 98

What the doctine of freewill asserts is that there is a 'dimension' of (extended) causality called freewill, which affects the course of events along with material causality and randomness, and that this is a fundamental (indeed arguably the fundamental) fact about the Universe.  If you assume {this parenthesis was wrong - sorry N: ("is usually agreed that" - not by the vast majority of the human race who believe in freewill it isn't) Steven was talking about freewill not randomness here - I should have quoted "it seems clear"} that this dimension does not exist then you may see a "difficulty" but this is caused by your assumptions, not the doctrine.
  It's one thing (to pretend) not to believe freewill exists - but Dawkins ties himself in knots by admitting it exists, claiming Dawinism explains everything, and admitting that Darwinism doesn't explain freewill.
 BTW the notion of material causality is nothing like as simple as your posting suggets: causes may influence events without determining them.
• Steven Carr 17 Nov 98

Tell me where I said freewill does not exist. I asked what tips the scales when people choose to do one thing rather than other. You say it is caused by 'freewill' which affects the course of events (tautology but never mind). I asked what influences people's freewill to choose one course of action rather than another. I pointed out that people either do things for a cause or they do things for no cause.
 Your reply is that freewill is different from material causes.
 What difference does this possibly make? I said nothing about whether causes are 'material' or not. It makes no difference to my argument.
 Do people exercise their freewill randomly or not? If they do not, what, in your opinion, influences their choices? And if something influences
their choices, do you call it a cause or not? Why do people choose to do one thing rather than another if they have no cause to prefer one choice
to another?
 What is the moral value of having a freewill which makes random choices for no cause?
 I'm not complaining about 'freewill' but about the Christian claim that determinism is bad. The alternative to a determined event is a random
event.
 BTW, I notice the only way that you can say 'nothing like as simple as your posting suggests' is to cut out the bit where I said :-
 'Let us define a cause as something which exists prior to an event and which influences the chance of that event taking place.' and you also
cut out 'When we add up all the causes we can think of, perhaps they will fully determine what I do. Perhaps they won't.'
 I defined a cause as something (I did not specify material) which influences the chance of an event talking place and I pointed out that
causes may determine events.
 My whole case is that while causes may not determine events, once you get rid of causes you are left with randomness. Your only response is to
accuse me of arguing for determinism and the only way you can do that is to cut out the bits where I grant that determinism may not be the case.
 I'll make it as simple as possible for you. Are people's choices determined by causes (eg their love of God or desire to obey Christian teaching) or are they random? Which option has the most moral value?
 Do your moral values determine what you do, despite your claim that determinism is a 'bad thing'?
 {b} Is your position that you want your moral values to determine what you do, but what you do is not determined by your moral values, and that your moral values have not been influenced by God's teaching?
• Diarmid Weir 18 Nov 98 Well argued post. Perhaps the explanation for your conclusion is that it allows believers to claim a false moral superiority. They really want to be bad like the rest of us, it's only because they are so good that they aren't! Sounds like the moral philosophy of the nursery school!
• Nicholas Beale 18 Nov 98 I was using 'material' in your sense of 'something that can be examined'.  I'll say 'efficient' or 'non-freewill' if you like.  It makes no difference to the argument.  However you are right that I mis-attributed your 'it is usually agreed' - sorry.  Let's try to make this as simple and clear as possible.

Axiom of Freewill (AF): In addition to all other causes of events and randomness there exists a type of elementary un-caused cause called Freewill, (associated with persons, moral responsibility and spirituality).
Steve's Assumption (CN): "once you get rid of causes [other than freewill] you are left with randomness"
Surely anyone (including you and Diarmid) can see that CN contradicts AF, and without CN, your argument breaks down.
{b} moral values influence what we do, but clearly don't determine them, alas.
{c} It is generally agreed that without AF there can be no coherent notion of legal or moral responsibility.  This view may be wrong, but it would be interesting to know how you and Diarmid see legal and moral responsibility if you don't believe in AF.
{d} In any event, if Dawkins accepts that AF is true (and not just a widely held but mistaken belief) then he cannot consistently also maintain that Darwinism explains everything whilst admitting that Darwinism does not explain why AF is true.
• Steven 18 &19 Nov 98

{AF} IOW, moral responsibility, spirituality etc.. have no effect on the decisions taken freely. The decisions taken by freewill are not influenced by moral responsibility as something which exists prior to an event taking place and which influences an event taking place is what is generally known as a 'cause'.
{CN} I see your argument is an axiom while my argument is an assumption :-)
 Perhaps you could quote philosophers who think that an uncaused action has not taken place at random? You would also struggle to find
philosphers who say it is axiomatic that people's decisions are not caused by anything. Freewill/compatibilism/determinism has not yet been solved to the extent that it is all axiomatic.
 BTW, where did I ever say 'once you get rid of causes (other than freewill)? It appears you are once again deliberately misrepresenting me. I fully believe in freewill and fully accept that our decisions are caused (in part at least)  by freewill. (Freewill is compatible with determinism, but that is not essential to my argument). I am even happy to accept  for the sake of argument that  freewill is uncaused.
 I merely point out that if causes do not fully determine actions, then people are exercising their freewill at random. If causes do not fully determine actions (including exercising our freewill), then the best we can possibly say is that , for example, in a given situation 75% of people will do option A freely, 15% of people will do option B freely and 10% will do option C freely, but will be unable to predict exactly what one person will do.
  Now this is well and good and probably what happens, but the trouble for Christian theology is that it says there is moral value in people choosing exactly what they will do without regard to their moral values, spirituality, love of God etc. For if they did regard their moral values, spirituality, love of God etc, then that would influence their choice and be a cause, and you are adamant that nothing causes your final choice.
Again you have to find this peculiar way that an action is non-determined and also non-random. Good luck.
{b} I agree, but if something is not determined, it is random. Your 'alas', means that you can see that the Christian view, that moral actions are not determined by anything, is not obviously a moral good. It would be preferable to have our actions determined by our moral values.
{c} First of all I believe in freewill, but unless we exercise our freewill according to our genes, level of hormones, our knowledge, our personal history, moral values etc then there can be no talk of moral responsibility. The trouble is you believe that people who do things for no cause that even they can come up with are acting with true moral responsibility.
 Your only hope is to show that people choose to do moral good or moral evil in a non-deterministic and non-random manner.
 Do you agree that anything which exists prior to an event and which influences the chances of an event happening is a cause, including
moral values, love, desire to obey Christian teachings etc etc?
 If people's freewill is truly uncaused (something you will never ever concede), then what tips the scales when people choose freely one way or the other?
 What is freewill free from? Your case is that freewill is free from all causes but is 'associated with persons, moral responsibility and spirituality'.  This is just incoherent. You can't delete causes and then smuggle them back in by calling them 'associations' simply because you don't like the overtones of the word 'cause'.
{AFb} I suppose you are aware of the Kalaam Cosmological Argument championed by the creationist inerrantist Christian apologist William Lane Craig.  It has an axiom 'Everything that begins to exist has a cause.'
 Which is the true Christian axiom? One axiom says that freewill is uncaused and the other axiom says that a person's freewill has a cause,
as it began to exist at some time. Christians hold both axioms to be true and self-evident.
 If you decide to make a moral choice, did your decision begin to exist at some time and did it, according to Craig, have a cause?
• Nicholas Beale 19 Nov 98a I haven't got time to disentangle all the misconceptions in your post - sorry.

{AF} Surely you realise that what Christians claim happens with freewill is (roughly) that the rational free being weighs up the reasons for doing A and B and then decides, freely, to do A or B. If he/she choses wrongly, it is sinful.  This is obviously not a process in which "moral responsibility, spirituality etc have no effect" but we have a free choice as to the weights we attach to each.  It's an axiom because it's definitive of what we mean by freewill.  Your 'Chance & Necessity' assumption denies the validity of AF.
{AFa}All mainstream Christian philosophers believe in free Freewill - try Swinburne as a recent example.
When you add Freewill to the other causes, you then have the reason why someone does A rather than B.
{b} 'alas' means that we don't always do what we know to be morally right.  The Christian view is that moral actions are 'determined' by Freewill, if they are not they are not moral actions.
{c} What on earth do you mean by "freewill" unless you accept AF?  You keep asking questions about freewill based on SA (for which you have no evidence) which, as I have demonstrated, contradicts AF.
{AFb} The existence of freewill in humans is caused by the love of God who has created us in His own image also having (a limited amount) of freewill - God of course is perfectly free.  It is the existence of freewill that makes love possible, and is the key to most of the features of the Universe.
• Steven Carr 19 Nov 98 {1}{AF} And by what criteria do we make our free choice? By random criteria? Do the criteria determine our free choice? I agree we have a free choice, but we must choose according to some rules, or else we are choosing at random.

I asked what makes people exercised their freewill to choose A rather than B, and your answer is that people exercise their freewill by  adding in their freewill.  Isn't philosophy easy? Freewill is not deterministic and not random, but is 'free'. Sorry, but simply saying freewill is free because people make a free choice does not cut any ice - {2} we want to know what it is free from.
{3} This is just the normal Christian way of 'explaining' something by saying 'X is X because it is X' . Professor Ward explains that God creates the world with 'creative action' and causes things to happen by using 'causal activity'.
{4} Now we learn that freewill is free because it is free. Things are wrong because they are sinful. We choose what weight to assign to our choices by assigning weights to our choices.
 People show love because they reflect God's love (another X is X because it is X 'explanation')
  No wonder Christian theology has made so little progress in 2,000 years.
{5} {AFa} All mainstream Christian Philosophers? St. Thomas Aquinas in 'Summa Contra Gentiles': '[]... it is evident, next, that God is the cause of the operation of everything which operates.... Now, every power in every agent comes from God as the first principle of all perfection. Therefore, since every operation results from some power, the cause of every operation must be God.... God alone can move the will, as an agent, without doing violence to it. Hence it is said (Prov. 21:1) 'The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, he directs its like a watercourse wherever he pleases. ' and (Philippians 2:13) 'for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.'
 St. Thomas Aquinas continued  []'Some people, as a matter of fact, not understanding how God can cause a movement of our will in us without prejudicing the freedom of the will, have tried to explain these authoritative texts wrongly: that is, they would say 'God works in us, to wish and to accomplish' means that he causes in us the power of willing, but not in such a way that he makes us will this or that. ....   These people are, of course, opposed quite plainly by authoritative texts of Holy Writ. For it says (Is. 26:12) 'Lord, you have worked all our works in us' Hence we receive from God not only the power of willing but its employment also.'
• Nicholas Beale 19 Nov 98b Steven: {1} What we (Mainstream Christians) mean by 'freewill' is (~) something for which AF applies. CN contradicts AF. One or other may be true but both cannot be.  It is therefore pointless for you to argue that the Christian understanding of freewill is contradictory by invoking CN. Do you have any evidence (not just assertion please) that CN is true?

{2} What do you mean, 'free from'?
{3}  Surely you can see that if God exists God is primary and the created world is secondary. So of course Christians will explain contingent things like matter from basic entities like freewill. In this respect we are no different from Physicists.  You may of course disagree with our basic philosophical principles, but its not a valid criticism to say that our basic principles are basic.
{4} wrong choices made with freewill are sinful - they are not wrong because they are sinful, they are sinful because they are made with freewill and wrong.  People are created to love because they are created by God in love.  This is neither vacuuous nor circular. By definition, in order to love, you have to have freewill.  We do beleieve that love is the ultimate good: "God is Love". (Have you a better ultimate good?).
BTW: Christian theology has made all its progress in 2000 years, and is surely the only coherent integration of spirituality, justice, philosophy and science.
{5}I'm not a Thomist and Aquinas is not Holy Writ.  Nevertheless nothing he says in the passage you have quoted (where he is using very technical language to address a very technical problem of theology) contradicts AF. See eg Copelston pp193-196, who concludes "As for Aquinas' theory of the relation between divine efficient causality and human free acts, its interpretation is a matter of controversy."
• Martin Clarke 19 Nov 98 I'm replying to the discussion@starcourse.org list for the first time.

  I was stopped in my tracks in a most confident discourse on God's omniscience with regard to the future (even though I baulk at his omnipresence 'in' it) last night when the implications of Heisenberg's Uncertainity Principle and then those of my my whole New Scientist reading
layman's edifice of quantum mechanics, chaos and Goedel's Incompleteness Theorems and their collective validity for the creation and on paper settled a little further than they had before, paradoxically raising the question, which I had always assumed to be settled with 'of course he does', as to whether God can know both the position and velocity of a particle?
 Wouldn't his transcendence mean, intuitively, that 'of course he does', or is it the quantum mechanical equivalent of asking whether he can move an immovable object (which is purely linguistic nonsense, I realise; can 1 =not 1, black = white or more analogously can zero or the indivisible be
divided ... hmmm; let alone the physics absurdities) or how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
 If God cannot know, then chaos is real and so is free will.
If he does know, then there is no free will whatsoever - even in him, which I don't believe he - Love - has anyway - and chaos is simply our
perspective.
  Surely his omniscience of current states would demand that all future states are known, states of all attributes of each of an infinity of 11 - 17
dimensional quanta, by perfect extrapolation alone, let alone by prescience?
 Or is he as bound by Godel - no set of observations explains itself - and even Heisenberg as we, and the only way around the utter logical inability for even transecendent omniscience to know the future is NOT by extrapolation, but by prescience or at the very least by will?  Which may be beyond the definition of omniscience.
 That is my main concern and it's fed by these other layman's ill-informed questions:
 Planck's limits apply to quanta in this universe, but could there be smaller phenomena 'beneath' it?  Within which Linde's quantum perturbations allow for breeding, inflating - which I thought HAD to be so, because Eistein had demonstrated that the mass equivalent and therefore gravity of the < 0.5 nanosecond big bang would have kept the universe as big as a grapefruit - universes in the cosmic foam?  If reality - energy in space time - continues  down the scale of all of its dimensions, does it end?  What about up the scale?
Even if Linde is wrong and Hawking is right about this being a one off universe, is Hawking right that time itself is as bounded as the Earth's latitude?  That to talk about what happened before the universe and therefore time began is like asking what is south of the south pole?
 I realise that Stephen is the Devil's advocate for materialism here at least, but I respect your thinking Steven and wonder if you could respond
according to the posit that a transcendent, omniscient God in whom all exists as his - quantal? - thought, exists.
 PS I loved Lucas' Theorem.  Is the method applicable to the foregoing?
• Steven Carr 19 Nov 98a Of course, if Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle is true there is no such thing as 'both the position and velocity of a particle'. This is no limitation on omniscience. An omniscient being can only know things which exist and not things which don't exist. Not even God knows the name of Sherlock Holmes' grandfather's cousin's best friend's favourite author!

It isn't really my job to resolve predestination, freewill, omiscience and determinism.
• Odessa Eliott 23 Nov 98 I think the simple answer is: if Heisenberg is correct, it is man who is uncertain, not God. :) :)

 What we are discussing here is man's perception of himself and the universe in which he lives. Throughout recorded human history, men have sought a "unified theory of knowledge."  Some have even had the arrogance to proclaim they have discovered "the laws of nature."
 Jews and Christians have the obligation to not only themselves walk humbly before God their Creator and Redeemer, but also to suggest humility as a proper response to the marvels of the universe on the part of all human beings.
 Is it not the case, Martin, that  man needs to know the velocity of particles, for various and sundry schemes, but God the Creator and Redeemer does not?
• Diarmid Weir 15 Nov 98 (this was actually in response to a post by Steven Carr but it makes more sense here)

Old Dawkins wasn't pulling his punches was he! I hear he was speaking here in Edinburgh last week, but I only found out too late.
 Despite my previous comments there seem to be two related issues worth addressing from the comments on the programme. Firstly {a}the problem that
a purely rational (ie scientific) view of the universe leaves it 'pointless', and secondly {b} that beauty, pleasure or love then become inexplicable. I believe both these issues can and should be addressed, by those who believe a rational world could be a better world.
{a} To answer the first issue, we should start by defining what we mean by a 'point'. I would suggest that this has to some overarching justification for acting purposefully in the world, rather than simply thinking it is of no purpose whether we starve or eat, live or die, vote or not vote. It seems perfectly possible to argue that from a purely subjective point of view it is almost always possible for each individual to find some action which if carried out could improve his well-being in some way or other. A failure to do so is most often due to a simple lack of information, although this difficulty is frequently compounded by social and economic inequalities. When this failure continues when these have been addressed, we are probably looking at mental illness. (This thought gives some justification to the anti-psychiatry movement, in that there may be a fine margin between social non-conformity and the diagnosis of such illness.) Since the future, especially that beyond life (if any), is unknown there is no theoretical limitation to a human being's capacity to increase his well-being. If that doesn't make life worth living, I don't really see why the presence of an (allegedly) benign dictator in the sky should do so. After all, what is the point of him?
{b} Given that the things we find beautiful are all ultimately constructed of the same material and by the same forces as we are, are often vital to our survival, or are made by other humans to meet their criteria of beauty, a positive emotional reaction to them seems very rational! I don't see why this should make that emotional reaction any less valid or indeed enjoyable. Indeed, a rational attitude to our emotional responses is what makes us humans unique. It is the key to civilisation, democracy, science and medicine. And as soon as we allow emotional reactions or feelings to over-ride (as opposed to usefully complementing) rational analysis we are on a slippery slope to fundamentalism and fascism.
• Odessa 19 Nov 98 I recognize that, as a newcomer, I am still "catching up" on threads/subtopics.   It does seem to me, however, that the main topic of "religion and science" has been structured to have "creationism" to represent "religion."

 To me, this structure immediately prevents any intelligent discussion of either science or Christianity.
 What is so suprising is that no one who has posted any note since I joined this meeting appears to be offering incisive comments about either science or religion.   In fact, a good many posts remind me of college dormitory "bull sessions," in which newly-minted "atheists" shared cliches with each other.    :)
• Fr Gregory Hallam 19 Nov 98 Well said!

 One of the reasons why inclusivists such as myself keep quiet is because others tend to misrepresent our views, polarise these with others or create lovely "aunt-sallys" for mindless pot shots.  I am convinced for example that Steven's exclusivism is based on a caricature of belief represented by the fundamentalist strain.  It reminds me of a priest friend of mine who spent many fruitless years of "dialogue" with an academic Marxist who refused to engage with anything other than his own spurious and eccentric versions of Christianity ... to which, of course, my friend did not subscribe.
• Nicholas Beale 19 Nov 98 Since I'm responsible for structuring the pages, I take Odessa's comment as a strong rebuke.  I can only plead that I certainly don't intend to structure the discussion with "creationism" representing "religion." (and I thought I went out of my way to dispel this).

How can I best re-structure the debate pages so that this impression does not occur?
• Odessa Eliott 19 Nov 98a  In giving my comments on the "Faith and Reason" television program (based on reading the full program transcript), I think I might make clearer my earlier post about setting up "straw men" so as to knock 'em down with cliches.

{a} I was amused to note that Ms. Wertheim took care to "set the record straight" on Galileo and Bruno...   but nevertheless got in a swipe against "fundamentalism" by citing a 19th century Protestant for distorting the historical record.     :)   :)
{b} Neither she nor anyone else mention Newton's involvement in alchemy.   That wouldn't do, as Newton is a "poster boy" for those most interested in promoting a convergence between "science and faith" that takes no account of the particularity of Christianity.
  And that's the basic problem with the entire television program.    None of the persons participating gave a clear statement of Christanity, although Dr. Collins did mention Christ's healing as a justification for genetic research.
{c}  In that regard, I found it instructive that Fr. Coyne didn't intercede to cite the condemnation of the Roman Catholic Magesterium of using the discoveries of "defective" genes to abort children. Nor the condemnation of using human embryos for medical research.
{d} The asexual reproduction of mammalian species has not yet been done, Dr. Wilmut's show & tell to the contrary notwithstanding.
 How, then, shall we replace the defective gene that will cause Disease XX?
 Let us postulate that, because of a family history of this disease, a wife has her DNA analyzed and lo!  she carries the mutant gene that has been associated with this disease.   But, since the wife does not have the disease, it seems that the disease is produced  by a recessive gene.  Alas!  Her husband is tested and he, too, carries the mutant gene.   Thus, all their children will develop Disease XX.
{e} At this point, we shall also have to postulate that there is proof that the recessive genes, and no other genes or environmental factors, cause the development of Disease XX. This has not yet been proven, in the case of any disease, but we will make the postulation in order to continue the        discussion.
{f}This means replacing the mutant genes carried by both wife and husband with non-mutant genes.There are two methods by which this theoretically could be done:
1)  Ova and sperm could be collected from the husband and wife; and the mutant gene replaced in several ova and  several sperm before fertilization was attempted.   Let's say that , to be on the safe side, the scientists decide to replace the genes in 8 ova and 8 sperm = replacement of 16 genes.   This is the "favored" method, from an ethical standpoint, since no experimentation is done after fertilization creates a new member of the species.  But if all 8 ova are fertilized, 7 embryos may be discarded or "frozen" (in case the first attempt at implantation doesn't work) so the ethical advanage disappears.
2) The second method is to attempt replacement after fertilization but at a very early stage in cell development.  Let's say the scientists halted cell division when 8 cells have developed in the petri dish.  That also would mean replacing 16 defective genes with 16 non-defective genes.
 What are the chances of replacing a single gene in a single cell, without killing the ovum, sperm or embryo?   If such replacement has been done and replicated in mammalians, I have not read about it.
 We already know that fertility clinic operators are not totally candid with desperate couples paying $10,000 and more to reproduce their own DNA;  and I have no reason to believe that those who promise "no defective children"  will be more candid.
 How to give a desperate couple a non-defective child?
{g} Well, scientists have been experimenting with removing the nucleus of a fertilized egg and replacing it with the nucleus of another fertilized egg, to develop mammals carrying commericially-desired characteristics.  One medical doctor has reported having used this method in an in vitro fertilization clinic, using the woman's husband's sperm to fertilize both eggs.   So...  let's say this is done with the couple in our example.  Okay, the baby won't have the mother's DNA, but if she's paid $10,000 or more to have a non-defective child, is she going to have the child's DNA tested to be sure her DNA is present?
{h} Who said God wanted us to "make a better world" than the one he created?   :)  :)
Now I invite all of you reading here to vote.    Am I:  a creationist or a geneticist?
• Steven Carr 19 Nov 98b (about the excellent 'Faith and Reason' TV special on PBS, sponsored by the Templeton Foundation, who I concede, do do some good things)

{a} What's wrong with putting the record straight on Galileo? He had no proof of what he claimed. Why should the Church have accepted without questioning what he claimed to have seen thru his telescope? Should the Church have accepted the later claims of people that they could see Martian canals thru their telescopes?
I thought the talk by Ron Numbers was illuminating on the subject of 'clashes' between evolutionary science and religion.
BTW, does he get many phone calls? The phone rings. He answers 'This is Ron Numbers'. The caller hangs up, apologizing.
{b} Steve Weinberg said that Newton 'was the last of the magicians'.   I'm not sure I understand your point. Are you saying that Newton was not a good Christian (which is a reasonable point of view) or not a good scientist (which is also fairly reasonable, he had strong views on alchemy)  Are you saying that there should be no convergence between science and faith?
{c} Perhaps the subject never came up?
{d}This is an excellent point. The idea of what is or is not a disease is one of the great problems of 20th century medical ethics. Is homosexuality a disease? Is short stature? Is less than average intelligence a disease? Is sadness a disease we should treat with Prozac? Is baldness or infertility something which needs medical treatment and if so, how far should we go to 'cure' infertility? Should we alter genes to alter people to our tastes?
{e} I thought Mendel (a good Christian) had cleared up the idea that genes carried recessive traits.
{f} Another excellent point. Should not such unlucky people accept that they are unlucky and decide not to have children, or decide to foster
children? Heaven knows, there are enough children who need foster parents. How far should we go to protect people from tragedy? Surely we have to accept that bad things happen and not fight against them. The inevitable has to be bowed to.
{h} These are all difficult questions. We surely have a right to fight nature - from wearing glasses and hearing aids, to having anaesthetics
during operations and having artificial hips. How far can we go in fighting nature? As far as technically possible? As far as society allows? Tough questions for everybody.