Here. Collins is the head of the Human Genome Project and author of the recent book The Language of God.
It's a subscription site, but you can read the article if you watch a brief ad. It's quite a lengthy and substantive interview, so it's worth putting up with the few seconds' worth of adverts.
Excerpt below the fold.
As the longtime head of the Human Genome Project, Francis Collins is one of America's most visible scientists. He holds impeccable scientific credentials -- a medical degree as well as a Ph.D. in physics -- and has established a distinguished track record as a gene hunter. He's also an evangelical Christian, someone who has no qualms about professing his belief in miracles or seeing God's hand behind all of creation. The cover of his new book illustrates this unusual mixture: The book's title, "The Language of God," is superimposed on a drawing of the double helix. "The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome," he writes. "He can be worshiped in the cathedral or in the laboratory."
Collins hopes to stake out the middle ground between Darwinian atheists and religious fundamentalists. "Both of these extremes don't stand up to logic, and yet they have occupied the stage," he told me. "We cannot let either side win." Unlike so many of those players most invested in this culture war, Collins sees no inherent conflict between science and religion. Yet his book is likely to alienate plenty of people on both sides of the debate. His frequent references to God's almighty power might be difficult for secular readers to swallow. And his scathing critique of both Young Earth creationism and intelligent design probably won't attract the hordes of readers buying Ann Coulter's latest diatribe against evolution.
"The Language of God" offers an unusually personal look at a leading scientist's search for meaning. Collins recounts his own struggles with faith, as well as his daughter's rape by a man who broke into her apartment and held a knife to her throat. This trauma became a test of faith for Collins and a lesson in how suffering can lead to personal growth. His book also recaps his scientific triumphs, including his discovery of the long-sought gene that causes cystic fibrosis. And later, when he stood by Bill Clinton's side as the president announced that the mapping of the human genome was complete. It turns out that Collins worked with the president's speechwriter to help craft Clinton's religious spin on this scientific breakthrough. "Today," Clinton said, "we are learning the language in which God created life."
Technorati Tags: human genome project, evangelical christian, francis collins, impeccable, medical degree, substantive, adverts, miracles, excerpt, credentials
Technorati Tags: human genome project, evangelical christian, francis collins, impeccable, medical degree, substantive, adverts, miracles, excerpt, credentials
I think there is a flaw in small piece of Mr. Collins's reasoning.
Salon asks:
But you and I have grown up with certain moral lessons. We've been told that we should help people. This is the right thing to do. Couldn't you argue that doing good and helping people is just part of cultural evolution?
Collins replies:
You could argue that, but if it was just a cultural tradition, you ought to be able to find some cultures where it is not present.
As I see it. It might be the case that the cultures without altruism or cooperation were not fit to merit survival. Which would explain why they died out relatively early. So naturally all the surviving cultures were cultures with altruism and cooperation.
Collins goes on to site C.S. Lewis's presentation of the Tao in the appendices of The Abolition of Man as proof that human cultures universally tend toward altruism. But of course Lewis's catalogue of cultures only includes those major cultures of which we are aware. In other words, it is a list of the cultures that have survived long enough to be noticed. If altruism or cooperation lend an evolutionary advantage this is exactly what we should expect to find. I suspect that it could as well be the case that all
Patrick,
Collins is responding not to whether altruism is selected for naturally, but to whether altruism is a cultural phenomenon or a cultural inheritance. So three hypotheses are in play here (at this point in their discussion)
1. Natural selection is the source of altruistic impulses.
2. Cultural inheritance is the source of altruistic impulses
3. God is the source of altruistic impulses.
Collins is implicitly advancing (3), where he says,
"If I'm walking down the banks of a river and I hear someone who's drowning calling for help -- even if I'm not a good swimmer -- I feel this urge that I should try to help, even at the risk of my own life. Where is that coming from?"
What is his argument against (1) and (2)? Against (1) he argues that natural selection pressures occur at the individual level, not the species level (or group level). All of the arguments for the survival advantages of altruism appeal to survival of the species (not the individual). So they have their evolutionary theory wrong.
But then if (2) is right--and altruism is *just* a cultural inheritance (i.e., something that is not selected for naturally) then we should expect find some cultures lacking altruism. But we don't. Since the alternative hypotheses are mistaken, there is no challenge (in the context of their discussion) to concluding that (3).
Mike,
Thanks for the clarification, though I think I am still inclined to challenge Collins's conclusion that (3) is the correct decription of what is going on the case of his jumping in to save the drowning stranger.
Evolutionary Biology has trouble accounting for altruism. So, why not bracket that explanation, and look to other impulses in humans that might otherwise explain the behaviour involved.
Perhaps, our ability to empathize with others, which is useful for predicting their behaviour in the future and assesing the relative threat level they present to us, has a curious byproduct: it causes us to occasionally commit selfless acts because we so strongly empathize with others.
I suppose I am suggesting that we help because we can imagine the terror and fear we'd feel in the same situation, and our response to that terror and fear, not some altruistic implulse from heaven, motivates to interdict. We do so to alleviate feeling in ourselves, and therefore it is a self interested act.
I am sure someone has made this argument better than I can. but it seems right to me.
Patrick,
Yes, I can see how something like this seems right (especially to Humeans),
"I suppose I am suggesting that we help because we can imagine the terror and fear we'd feel in the same situation, and our response to that terror and fear, not some altruistic implulse from heaven, motivates to interdict."
But as usual we run out of explanation when it comes to why we are so disposed to empathy. It is a very interesting question at what point we arrive at brute facts. I'm guessing Collins would prefer the sort of explanation that comes with necessary existents.
I wonder if empathy would even be needed if stress could explain altruistic behavior. That is, perhaps the obvious distress of an animal - humans in this case - generally causes stress in other members of the same species. Individuals are generally predisposed to eliminate stress, and mentally complex organisms like humans would have innovative ways of solving this problem - such as saving the one in distress - that would not be available to animals like birds or canines. It just so happens that some of these innovative methods are apparently altruistic.
I'm also not sure the cultural inheritance theory should be dismissed so lightly. Cultures are intricate, complex things, and I don't think they can be neatly divided between 'altruistic' and 'non-altruistic.' The same kind of problem would be seen if one were to try to categorize cultures as 'individualist' or 'collectivist.' There are simply too many disparate elements in individual cultures to say a culture is entirely one or the other.
So I guess the reply to objections to the cultural inheritance theory would be for them to find a culture that did not have non- or anti-altruistic elements in it.
"There are simply too many disparate elements in individual cultures to say a culture is entirely one or the other"
Collins, I don't think, is making the assertion that cultures divide up neatly in the way you oppose. What he finds inexplciable on the cultural inheritance model is that altruism should be a salient feature of every culture. It needn't be the exclusive feature. Also it would be good to keep distinct altruistic actions from altruistic motives, since of course the former are observable culturally. But apart from all that, Collins comments are in the context of a brief interview, so I would not take it as his best or most complete word on the topic.
It seems to me that what Collins should say, to get right to the point about altruism, is that whether it evolved or not is, in itself, of absolutely NO relevance to whether altruism is GOOD.
In any case, I am tickled pink that a prominent Christian science is denouncing all forms of god-of-the-gaps frippery, whether Young-Earth Creationism or ID.
..."prominent Christian scientist," sorry.
"What he finds inexplciable on the cultural inheritance model is that altruism should be a salient feature of every culture."
I didn't intend to oversimplify Collins, nor do I mean to imply that I am taking what he has said in a brief interview as his final word. I do however think there are cultures in which altruism is not a salient feature, which certainly poses a problem for his argument.
"I do however think there are cultures in which altruism is not a salient feature, which certainly poses a problem for his argument".
I guess I'm less sure about that. Maybe there are cultures in which it is not a salient feature (purely incidentally, do you happen to know which and where they are/were? To be more exact, cultures in which altruistic behavior is not valued or perhaps disvalued? That would be good to know.) His question would then move to why the feature is salient in *so many* cultures. Why not instead a random distribution of altruistic/non-altruistic cultures, given that the explanation of the feature is a contingent cultural fact rather than it's survival value. So I guess I don't see his position seriously compromised by the discovery of a culture that does not promote or value altruism. His point is well-taken, I think, even if his claim is the sort of empirical generalization so often made in social sciences (i.e. empirical generalizations that do not pretend to be exceptionless). But, as I said, his discussion of the topic is so truncated it's hard to know just what he had in mind.
FWIW, I thought I'd stop in and link to Brandon's jottings on the Collins affair. Brandon makes a great point when he writes: