On CNN.com, there was this little nugget, telling Why [Francis Collins'] believes in God:
So, some have asked, doesn’t your brain explode? Can you both pursue an understanding of how life works using the tools of genetics and molecular biology, and worship a creator God? Aren’t evolution and faith in God incompatible? Can a scientist believe in miracles like the resurrection?
Okay, so brains exploding is kinda silly. The point, however, that Collins is making is that one can utilize the tools of science, but believe in a god or gods. Well that’s great, but what Collins leaves out is that by applying the methods of empiricism, reproducibility, and deductive analysis, one cannot help but refute the existence of god(s). Theism rests on miracles that occur less frequently than the placebo effect, personal revelation of the most subjective kind, vague arguments from “intuition,” etc. Skeptical inquiry debunks it all, unless one falls back to the “it’s all a metaphor” approach.
But to Collins’ questions: That’s just silly; yes, but that doesn’t make it non-delusional; anything is compatible with theism; I don’t see how.
PZ has a longer comment.








Blog Against Theocracy
6-8 April, 2007
By: ivy privy on April 5, 2007
at 12:06 pm
Is the idea behind the “Blog Against Theocracy” a post a day over those three days, or just whatever I can contribute?
By: Dan on April 5, 2007
at 12:50 pm
There are no real guidelines to this. The idea is to post at least once from Friday to Sunday Easter Weekend, April 6-8.
I read it as (at least) one post total, not one post per day.
By: ivy privy on April 5, 2007
at 2:29 pm