Religion and evolution

[onager]

64. It's the Knob-Twiddling God o' the Gaps again!

1. Here's another look at the weaselly Saint Francis and his "Language of God." He put words in the mouth of Richard Dawkins, or allowed a proxy to do so.

In June 2011, Christianpost.com ran an article with the title - "Francis Collins: Atheist Richard Dawkins Admits Universe's Fine-Tuning Difficult to Explain:"

Comment 49 by Richard Dawkins: I don't remember talking to Francis Collins about this, but it is one of the commonest questions I am asked, and this is how the conversation usually goes:

Questioner: "What is the best argument you have heard for the existence of God?"

RD: "I have never heard a good argument for the existence of God."

Q: "OK, but if you were forced to choose the best of a bad lot?"

RD: "Sorry, no, I repeat, I really don't think there are any good arguments for the existence of God."

Q: "But surely there must be one argument that, however bad, comes closest to being a good one?"

RD: "Well, if you really twist my arm and force me to choose, I suppose I'd say the fine tuning argument, but I must stress that it is still not a good argument."

Questioner (later, when I am no longer present): "Aha! Gotcha! Dawkins admits that fine tuning is a strong argument for the existence of God. The walls of atheism are crumbling. The tide has turned. The forces of Jesus are on the march and scent victory!"

It's a version of the Eddington Concession, and I suppose I really should learn not to offer them even an inch or they'll take a mile.

http://richarddawkins.net/articles/641942-francis-collins-atheist-richard-dawkins-admits-universe-s-fine-tuning-difficult-to-explain

2. The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning: Why the Universe Is Not Designed for Us by Victor J. Stenger

A number of authors have noted that if some physical parameters were slightly changed, the universe could no longer support life, as we know it. This implies that life depends sensitively on the physics of our universe. Some influential scientists, such as National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins, think so. Others go even further, asserting that science "has found God."

In this in-depth, lucid discussion of this fascinating and controversial topic, physicist Victor J. Stenger looks at the same evidence and comes to the opposite conclusion. He states at the outset that as a physicist he will go wherever the data takes him, even if it leads him to God. But after many years of research in particle physics and thinking about its implications, he finds that the observations of science and our naked senses not only show no evidence for God, they provide evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that God does not exist.

Calling Stenger just a "physicist" is sort of like referring to Napoleon as a "soldier." Stenger is a quantum physicist who participated in the experiments that helped establish the properties of strange particles, quarks, gluons, and neutrinos. He also has a Ph.D. in philosophy and teaches that subject.

http://www.amazon.com/Fallacy-Fine-Tuning-Why-Universe-Designed/dp/1616144432/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1309325450&sr=8-1