When Scientists Debate Theology
Yesterday I wrote, “I’d like to see Ken Miller and Karl Giberson respond to Coyne’s critique,” commenting on an article by Jerry Coyne that concludes there’s no way to reconcile science and religion, and harshly criticizes Miller and Giberson for suggesting otherwise.
Here are those responses, from Ken Miller and Karl Giberson.
The opening of Miller’s piece:
My colleague and friend Jerry Coyne is a brilliant scientist, an excellent writer, and a thoughtful, outspoken atheist. He believes that God does not exist, and that any reasonable person should think as he does, rejecting the elixir of faith as pointless delusion. In taking that position, even though it is one with which I disagree, he places himself in distinguished company, no question. If Dr. Coyne’s review of recent books by Karl Giberson and myself (Only a Theory, and Saving Darwin, respectively) sought only to make that argument, thereby to distance himself from a couple of deluded Christians, I wouldn’t have much to complain about. On the issue of faith, there’s plenty of distance between us, even if I think Coyne is on the wrong side of the question.
But Coyne did something quite different from that.
In addition to making the usual claims about the lack of evidence for God, Coyne flatly states that faith and science are not compatible, arguing that the empirical nature of science contradicts the revelatory nature of faith. What about the tens of thousands of scientists, now and in the past who were people of faith (including roughly 40% of all working scientists in the US, members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science)? Coyne waves them away with scorn, literally comparing them to “adulterers” who have subverted their vows to be true to science—or at least to Coyne’s view of science. More on that later.
Coyne claims that “theistic evolutionists” like me exhibit three of the four hallmarks of creationism, making me really no different from the folks I opposed at the Kitzmiller trial. He couldn’t be more wrong about that. I share exactly one thing in common with creationists, which is my belief in God. The other points of supposed agreement are figments of Coyne’s imagination—or of his overwrought efforts to slander any believer by placing them in the “creationist” camp.
Frank says:
