Emerging Voices
"The BioLogos Forum" frequently features essays from The BioLogos Foundation's leaders and Senior Fellows. Please note the views expressed here are those of the author, not necessarily of The BioLogos Foundation. You can read more about what we believe here.
Today's entry was written by Karl Giberson. Karl Giberson directs the new science & religion writing program at Gordon College in Boston. He has published more than 100 articles, reviews and essays for Web sites and journals including Salon.com, Books & Culture, and the Huffington Post. He has written seven books, including Saving Darwin, The Language of Science & Faith, and The Anointed: Evangelical Truth in a Secular Age.
Recently BioLogos' Karl Giberson was interviewed by Marcio Campos for the Brazilian newspaper Gazeta do Povo's Tubo De Ensaio (i.e. "Test tube") section. What follows is a translated transcript of that interview, which we will be posting in three installments. Here is an expanded version of the final installment.
Campos: The current Pope, when he was still a cardinal, wrote that he wished for an open debate on how legitimate the metaphysical claims made in name of Darwin's theory are. Do you see this debate happening today? Have the likes of Dawkins "kidnapped" Darwin in the same sense the "dark companions" from Chapter 3 of Saving Darwin did in the past?
Giberson: Yes. I think that Dawkins and the New Atheists have kidnapped Darwin. We have allowed them to frame the debate in terms of scientific explanation, rather than metaphysics. Science gets credit for whatever it can explain and God gets credit for the rest. If God is not needed to explain the scientific story, then God is not needed for anything. We have allowed an “anti-theologian,” Dawkins, to tell us what theology is permitted to do!
This is a particularly naïve approach. In his interviews Dawkins often appears mystified for why people would believe in God unless there was something unexplained by science that only God could explain. This is why we need to avoid invoking God to “explain” things—like the flagella of the bacteria, or the origin of information—because then we play right into Dawkins’s argument that belief in God must be based on how this belief accounts for certain scientific phenomena.
Campos: In many parts of the book you describe creationism as an American phenomenon, but warn in Chapter 5 that it's going global. Right now one of the most famous creationists in the world is a Muslim Turk, Harun Yahya (although he's an Old-Earth creationist) of "Atlas of Creation" fame. How is it possible to stop the spreading of creationism?
Giberson: If young earth creationism, which rejects much of mainstream science, was able to take root in America during the very decade when we were putting a man on the moon, there is no chance to prevent it taking root in a country like Turkey. Creationism has an unfair advantage over science—for some reason, ever since it began, creationists have found it acceptable to just recycle whatever arguments were effective even after they were refuted. This process is so prevalent that even Answers in Genesis, to its credit, has a page on its web site devoted to anti-evolution arguments that have been refuted. But many creationists simply don’t care—they just keep recycling the old arguments.
In the case of Harun Yahya, we could get some help from another direction. He has been accused of being connected to organized crime. If he ends up in jail that would help the cause of science in Turkey!
Campos: 2009 has been "Darwin's year" because of both his 200th birthday and the 150th anniversary of Origins. Now that the year is almost over, how do you evaluate the efforts made along 2009 in both counterattacking creationist claims and promoting "peace" between evolution and religion?
Giberson: There were several interesting developments in 2009. For starters, the New Atheists set much of the agenda, aligning themselves against both creationism and religion in general. A considerable reaction from religious thinkers cemented this polarization, which will probably be the loudest part of this conversation for years to come.
In between these two extremes, however, two moderate voices emerged. On the one hand, several non-religious/agnostic intellectuals challenged the “religion is bad and must die” position of the New Atheists. Michael Ruse, Chris Mooney, Eugenie Scott and others continue to argue that alienating religious people in the name of science would only create further problems for science and nurture the grass roots of anti-evolution. The other development was the emergence of the BioLogos Foundation, started by Francis Collins to advance the argument that evolution and Christianity are compatible. Despite being a bridge between science and faith, BioLogos has been criticized from both sides of the spectrum, upsetting everyone from the people at Answers in Genesis and the Discovery Institute, to Sam Harris and Jerry Coyne, two of the leading New Atheists.
Our experience at BioLogos has been encouraging. We are the only voice within evangelicalism arguing for the harmony of science and faith, a position that entails, of course, the acceptance of evolution. Our expectation was that we would be a small lonely group, hoping to grow. What we have found is exactly the opposite—there seem to be a great number of Christians—generally the better-educated—who have been in the background because there was no public voice for their position. BioLogos is emerging as the Pied Piper of Science for Christians and we are getting tremendous support. Almost daily someone emails us wanting to get involved.
We are hoping to build some bridges to fellow Christians currently in the Intelligent Design camp. Some of them are actually very close to where we are and we are hopeful that we might be able to find some common ground.
Overall, the reaction to BioLogos has been encouraging and makes me wonder if there might be some light at the end of this long tunnel of anti-science.
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January 7th 2010
Karl (continued) -
As I have stated before - and allow me now to state it even more strongly - I, as a Deist, find commendable yours and Darrel’s efforts in trying to reach some common ground with those “Christians” who have rejected evolution for personal religious reasons, without realizing that their religious belief isn’t threatened by their acceptance of biological evolution as valid science. It is analogous to E. O. Wilson’s efforts at seeking common ground within this community, so he can help foster a strong conservation biology ethic. However, unlike Wilson, I get the impression that you would prefer to “sugar coat” acceptance of biological evolution as valid science merely to win “converts” to your cause. May I ask if you would be disposed for such accomodation if the science involved pertained to Relativity and Quantum Mechanics?
Reply to this commentJanuary 7th 2010
Karl (continued) -
Of course this raises the question whether you would endorse Ken Miller’s declaration that those who belong to faiths hostile to science should discard their memberships in such faiths ASAP. Here, at least, I think Ken is recognizing first his responsibilities as a scientist and science educator first, before giving any consideration to his personal religious convictions (A sentiment which was echoed incidentally by Vatican astronomer - and Jesuit brother - Guy Consolmagno during a World Science Festival panel discussion on Science and Faith here in New York City last June, which included Ken, physicist Lawrence Krauss and philosopher Colin McGinn as participants.).
Reply to this commentJanuary 7th 2010
Karl (continued) -
Although I strongly disagree with both the content and tone of New Atheist accusations against “accomodationism”, I think their concern is justified if there are those who believe that the best means of reaching out to evolution denialists is to try to make the fact of biological evolution as palatable as possible. To be perfectly honest, I don’t think this is done for anyone who subscribes to the notion of a Flat Earth or Ptolemian astronomy. Why should this be done with regards to biological evolution?
In closing, I believe BioLogos should be among the first to condemn the ongoing un-Christian activities being done in the name of Christ by organizations like the Discovery Institute and Answers in Genesis. In plain English, that means you should recognize the crypto-Fascist orientations of organizations such as these and refrain from giving any overt (or even implicit - e. g.
Darrel’s review of “Signature”) support to such organizations. Were you to do this, I believe you would gain far more credibility within the scientific community and even within that shrill subset of malcontents known as New Atheists.
Sincerely,
John
Reply to this commentJanuary 7th 2010
@ pds -
I am disappointed. I would hope you would join me and beaglelady in expressing our collective outrage against organizations such as the Discovery Institute and Answers in Genesis who claim to work on behalf of Jesus Christ, but instead, demonstrate daily, by their repugnant behavior, that they are acting not in his name, but against, and indeed on behalf of the Deceiver known as Lucifer.
Reply to this commentJanuary 7th 2010
John (#1863),
The Discovery Institute does not “claim to work on behalf of Jesus Christ.” This assertion of yours is completely false, as are many others. Ask Michael Medved and David Berlinski, who are Jewish. Perhaps your hatred of that organization is due to all the misinformation you have chosen to believe about it. What Barbara Forrest has written about it is highly selective and misleading.
I wonder how many times you have to call the fellows of the DI “Satanic” and “diabolical” before your posts are deleted here?
Reply to this commentJanuary 7th 2010
@ pds -
I could also ask my “favorite” fellow Brunonian, David Klinghoffer, who seems to take special delight in being recognized as the “official” Jewish Discovery Institute Senior Fellow, and who does such a remarkable job extolling the links between Charles Darwin and Adolf Hitler. No doubt he would insist that the Discovery Institute isn’t covertly or overtly supported by the Fundamentalist Protestant Christian Right, even after I would observe that it has received substantial financial support through the years from the aflluent social and politicial conservative Howard Ahmanson, Jr., a Christian Reconstructionist, who has supported many conservative “Christians” and their causes for years.
Reply to this commentJanuary 7th 2010
“We are hoping to build some bridges to fellow Christians currently in the Intelligent Design camp.”
Good thing. Too bad you are still burning them as I type with all the criticism of Meyer.
Might as I ask: when do you intend to begin building bridges? Or maybe I should ask: When do you intend to stop burning bridges so you can begin building them?
Here’s to new year’s resolutions
Reply to this commentJanuary 7th 2010
Hi Mark,
What would be your suggestion of how BioLogos could build bridges with people in the intelligent design camp?
Meyer’s new book will get its time in the spotlight for commentary and criticism. His article published by Sternberg set off fireworks. Most of the reviews of that paper by natural scientists were not very supportive. It is easy to be a conspiracy theorist and to complain about peer review.
But Meyer is not a geneticist or a biologist, so I wonder what qualifies him to write about cells as an expert? He is a physicist (bachelor’s degree) turned philosopher of science who specializes in ‘origins of life’ studies. Do you think ‘origins of life’ is a rigorous science, Mark?
It would be great if some ID advocates would stop worrying about law suits and school board hearings and instead engage in doing science and in discussion with other religiously-interested persons who may have insights that they don’t have on topics related to origins, processes, creation, evolution and divine action in the universe.
We’ll see if any ID figures will take time from their PR schedules and church visits to come here and communicate their views. Logos implies ‘Mind’ after all!
Reply to this commentJanuary 7th 2010
Mark -
I find BioLogos’s interest in trying to “build some bridges to fellow Christians currently in the Intelligent Design camp” quite laudable, and perhaps evern desirable. But I have yet to see from BioLogos the type of “bridge building” that I have seen from a former Evangelical Protestant Christian, eminent evolutionary biologist E. O. Wilson, who has reached out to those in the Evangelical Protestant Christian community by extorting them to join him to help preserve Creation (Earth’s biodiversity), while also stating politely, but most forcefully, that they should recognize the scientific fact of biological evolution too.
Reply to this commentJanuary 9th 2010
Gregory,
In addition to evolution, are there any other English words you and BioLogos think I should not use? I’d hate for you to get your pants tied in a knot over nothing.
Reply to this commentJanuary 11th 2010
Where did my comments go?
Reply to this comment