God vs. Science: Time cover story

This week's (13 Nov 2006) US edition of Time magazine featured the "God vs. science" debate as its cover story. In recent months, atheism has been garnering plenty of media attention, due to the release of Richard Dawkins' book, "The God Delusion". Richard Dawkins is currently on a tour of North America to promote his book.

Hence, it's only fitting that the Time article feature a debate between Richard Dawkins himself and Dr. Francis Collins, Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute and author of the book, "The Language of God". Dr. Collins is a Christian and believes that science is compatible with his faith.

Here are a few interesting excerpts from the debate:

COLLINS: By being outside of nature, God is also outside of space and time. Hence, at the moment of the creation of the universe, God could also have activated evolution, with full knowledge of how it would turn out, perhaps even including our having this conversation. The idea that he could both foresee the future and also give us spirit and free will to carry out our own desires becomes entirely acceptable.

DAWKINS: I think that's a tremendous cop-out. If God wanted to create life and create humans, it would be slightly odd that he should choose the extraordinarily roundabout way of waiting for 10 billion years before life got started and then waiting for another 4 billion years until you got human beings capable of worshipping and sinning and all the other things religious people are interested in.

COLLINS: Who are we to say that that was an odd way to do it? I don't think that it is God's purpose to make his intention absolutely obvious to us. If it suits him to be a deity that we must seek without being forced to, would it not have been sensible for him to use the mechanism of evolution without posting obvious road signs to reveal his role in creation?

From here, we may infer that Dr. Collins does not believe in intelligent design (ID). He believes in evolution by natural selection as the natural process that leads to the creation of complex organisms. Dr. Collins also does not disagree with Richard Dawkins (and with almost all scientists, for that matter), that the Earth is at least 4 billion years old. Meaning, he too doesn't believe in young Earth creationism - an idea that so many evangelical Christians subscribe to. But Dr. Collins believes that God created the laws of nature and twiddled the knobs of the universal constants that made life possible. He also believes that our human evolution has been guided by God's invisible hand, according to His will.

COLLINS: This is an interesting choice. Barring a theoretical resolution, which I think is unlikely, you either have to say there are zillions of parallel universes out there that we can't observe at present or you have to say there was a plan. I actually find the argument of the existence of a God who did the planning more compelling than the bubbling of all these multiverses. So Occam's razor--Occam says you should choose the explanation that is most simple and straightforward--leads me more to believe in God than in the multiverse, which seems quite a stretch of the imagination.

DAWKINS: I accept that there may be things far grander and more incomprehensible than we can possibly imagine. What I can't understand is why you invoke improbability and yet you will not admit that you're shooting yourself in the foot by postulating something just as improbable, magicking into existence the word God.

Here is a good point by Richard Dawkins. Religious people often ask, "How is life/intelligence possible without a designer? It is just too improbable. The only explanation is God." It's true that many scientific theories are incomprehensible and difficult for our minds to imagine, but if the alternative is a divine being; one that is complex, intelligent, outside of nature and space-time, able to read minds and hear prayers, then you are postulating something far more complicated and improbable.

COLLINS: There are sincere believers who interpret Genesis 1 and 2 in a very literal way that is inconsistent, frankly, with our knowledge of the universe's age or of how living organisms are related to each other. St. Augustine wrote that basically it is not possible to understand what was being described in Genesis. It was not intended as a science textbook. It was intended as a description of who God was, who we are and what our relationship is supposed to be with God. Augustine explicitly warns against a very narrow perspective that will put our faith at risk of looking ridiculous. If you step back from that one narrow interpretation, what the Bible describes is very consistent with the Big Bang.

Again, Dr. Collins says here that the Genesis account of creation cannot be taken literally. I think this point is important for many Protestants and evangelicals to take note of, since it comes from a reputable Christian scientist. But if you can't take Genesis literally, what about the rest of the Bible? Can a person still read the Bible and form his/her own interpretations or do you need the church to tell you how to interpret the Bible? But isn't this why the Protestant movement came about in the first place, because they believe that the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church obscured the teachings of the Bible?

DAWKINS: There could be something incredibly grand and incomprehensible and beyond our present understanding.

COLLINS: That's God.

DAWKINS: Yes. But it could be any of a billion Gods. It could be God of the Martians or of the inhabitants of Alpha Centauri. The chance of its being a particular God, Yahweh, the God of Jesus, is vanishingly small--at the least, the onus is on you to demonstrate why you think that's the case.

Another good point by Richard Dawkins. The reason Dr. Collins believes in Yahweh is mainly cultural. Had he been born into a Muslim family or a Buddhist family, he very likely will not be the Christian he is today.

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