Coyne, Why Evolution is True

A book review of Jerry A. Coyne, Why Evolution Is True (New York: Viking, 2009).

Jerry Coyne’s, Why Evolution is True is an artifact of the battle between religion and science that has been raging since Darwin published The Origin of the Species in 1859. It presents the case for biological evolution. In its manner, attitudes, and tone , it is also as much a work of fundamentalist theology as it is of biology. Coyne has chosen to accept the fundamentalists’ construction of God and to openly debate the merits of creationism and intelligent design theories (ID) with a disdainful tone that is as ignorant of theology as it is arrogant in attitude. Coyne would have been far better served if he had stuck to his biology, made his case for evolution, and forgone his numerous ill-targeted jabs at God and creationism.

There are numerous reviews of Why Evolution is True online, and rather than add one more typical review, I will address here one of the issues raised by Coyne’s defense of evolution, namely his understanding of God. Why Evolution is True, in fact, reminds one of ancient Christian apologetic works defending orthodox theology against various heresies. The actual writings of the heretics no longer exist so that all we know about them we learn from their orthodox critics. We do not know what the “heretics” actually believed and how they expressed themselves.  If, two thousand years from now the only references to “ancient Christianity” were contained in a musty, fragile copy of Why Evolution is True, one shudders to think how future scholars would understand early 21st century religious faith.  For, what we find in this book is not a fair and knowledgeable description of religious faith’s relationship to science but more of a caricature of an ignorant, willful monster that must be slain.

It is somewhat ironic but probably inevitable that Coyne would appropriate his fundamentalist protagonists’ understanding of God. It does him no credit that he does not seem to realize that there are other ways to understand and talk about God. The result is a “theology” that is at once willful and ignorant. Coyne’s superficial understanding of God seems to be that God is an individual entity of some sort that designed the universe much the way an engineer designs a bridge or an architect designs a building. Based on this theology, Coyne then repeatedly mocks God’s skills as a designer of nature because of all of the “bad designs” of individual species produced by evolution (see p. 54 cf. p. 69). His argument: evolutionary adaptation has led to strange compromises in terms of organs and structures in many species, which make no sense if God designed them. He writes, “There is no reason why a celestial designer, fashioning organisms from scratch, like an architect designs buildings, should make new species by remodeling the features of existing ones.” (p. 54)   Only evolution, in his view, reasonably accounts for the forms that we actually find in nature.

Dr. Jerry Coyne

Coyne’s God is a tiny guy who vaguely somehow cobbles together each species a la Genesis 1 narrowly constructed. This, apparently, is the God who walked around in the Garden looking for Adam and Eve. So, what we have is an ancient Hebrew view of a human-like God tacked onto a Newtonian clockmaker or architect God who draws up the specs on each species. In other words, rather than understanding that theology is itself an evolving field, Coyne has plucked a couple of theological caricatures of the divine from two very different eras and scrunched them together into a God that he then sees as obviously non-existent. His fundamentalist protagonists “do theology” this way, and Coyne blithely follows their lead.

There are other ways to understand God’s role in creation. Knowing what we know about the extent, complexity, and majesty of the universe from science, for example, it makes more sense to understand that God is the author of the ongoing process of creation. Biological evolution itself embodies freedom and law in immensely creative ways and the human race can be seen as one expression of divine creativity built into the process of evolution.

Coyne himself stands in awe of the beauty of evolution and its massive creative force. He considers it wondrous, marvelous, and even speaks of drawing “spirituality from science.” (pp. 232-233) How is it that he doesn’t seem to stop even for a moment and contemplate the possibility that there is a “something,” a “presence,” or a “force” that “was” before creation and “is” larger still than the universe, which set the evolutionary forces of creation in motion. This Something Beyond is unimaginably greater than his tiny little designer guy God.

For Coyne, however, there is nothing Beyond. He contends, rather, that evolution teaches us that, “like other animals, we are contingent products of the blind and mindless process of natural selection.” (p. 192) This characterization is a theological (or ideological) statement of personal belief based solely on conjecture. Coyne provides no proof, and we can be sure he would provide us with data to make his point if there was any available. Instead of data he gives his readers an anthropomorphic description of evolution as being “blind and mindless.” It’s as if evolution is a category of (human) being that could have eyes and a mind but doesn’t. What he apparently means is that evolution is a self-starting, self-driven process that is unguided by anything outside of itself. Fair enough. Where’s the data? How does he know that evolution is not a guided process?

This is a fair question esp. given his discussion of “artificial” selection as opposed to “natural” selection. Artificial selection is a rationalized, purposeful, and guided form of evolutionary process conducted by a breeder. In artificial selection, “the criterion of reproductive success is human desire rather than adaptation to a natural environment.” (p. 127) Coyne even goes on to point out that at times artificial selection via human breeding and natural selection ends up with similar designs, for example, the greyhound (artificial) and the cheetah (natural). That is, the product of “blind, mindless” natural selection looks very much like the product of guided, purposeful (mindful!) artificial selection. It is a tribute to the blinders Coyne wears that he does not even pause for a moment to at least consider the implications of guided selection for evolution generally. Is it a mere coincidence that larger evolutionary process can in fact be guided, controlled even, by a rational mind to purposeful ends. Could guided selection not imply—just maybe—that the proper metaphor for God is that of breeder rather than mechanic?

And then there is Coyne’s discussion of the role of culture in evolution. Culture, utilizing sexual selection, can be a surprisingly powerful agent in evolutionary change. Apparently, at the human level, cultural selection gives women the upper hand as their collective, cultural tastes in men can produce evolutionary-like changes in the whole culture. Again, humans exercise an element of control over evolution. We are able to rationalize it (see. p. 215). Coyne says that the role of culture in evolution is still speculative, but it didn’t apparently encourage him to speculate on what “gene-culture coevolution” might mean theologically.

We can only conclude that wittingly or unwittingly Coyne uses a mechanistic metaphor of engineer (or architect) to define God and then complains that God is a bad designer of living beings. Would not the metaphor of God as breeder be more appropriate? How would it change Coyne’s arguments and presentation if he evaluated God’s "skills" in terms of breeding? How would it change his valuation if he saw God as a breeder who is using evolution to ends that we don’t even remotely understand today? Applying the metaphor of breeder, would not the categories of marvelous, wondrous, and even awe-inspiring apply? Coyne, that is, has chosen a metaphor for God appropriate not to his biological subject but one used by his Newtonian protagonists, the fundamentalists and biblical literalists, who still live in a mechanistic, clockmaker world.

Perhaps no single statement better exposes Coyne’s failure to understand the implications of his own fundamentalist theology than the one that reads,

Now, science cannot completely exclude the possibility of supernatural explanation. It is possible—though very unlikely—that our whole world is controlled by elves. But supernatural explanations like these are simply never needed: we manage to understand the natural world just fine using reason and materialism. Furthermore, supernatural explanations always mean the end of inquiry: that’s the way God wants it, end of story. Science, on the other hand, is never satisfied: our studies of the universe will continue until humans go extinct. (pp. 224-225)

Coyne’s admission that supernatural explanations can’t be “completely excluded” is widely granted by other atheistic authors, but it is interesting how quickly he closes down any serious consideration of the possibility with his fanciful, sarcastic introduction of elves. And from elves, he easily jumps to the assertion that supernatural explanations are never needed. If such explanations were only about fairies and elves, any reasonable theist would agree with him. If, in fact, such explanations posit a fundamentalist God, many theists would still agree. But, suppose instead of elves we consider supernatural explanations that draw on the wisest writings of the “high” religions, does his assertion that supernatural explanations are never needed still stand? Well, it might. But, who knows? Coyne has no actual serious data to back up his assertion. He assumes his description of evolution proves the point, apparently, but that data is about physical phenomenon and says not one thing about the world of the Spirit.  Coyne tries to force the conclusion that we never need supernatural explanations by stating that reason and materialism work just fine for understanding the natural world. Of course they do. However, there is much more to life than the natural world narrowly (scientifically) defined. Theists point time and again to relationships, culture, experiences in beauty and ugliness, the power of music to move us, the undeniable impact of deep meditation and prayer, and other non-materialistic phenomena to make the point that the there is more to reality than the natural world narrowly constructed. And in these realms, spiritual understanding does serve to give meaning where materialism is useless and irrelevant.

It is simply not true, furthermore, that “supernatural explanations always means the end of inquiry,” unless one limits theological inquiry to the writings of narrow fundamentalism. John Polkinghorne, writing in Belief in God in an Age of Science (Yale, 1998) demonstrates how Christian theological inquiry shows clear parallels with scientific inquiry (pp. 29ff). Both are open-ended pursuits of truth where new findings lead to further study and another generation of insights. Coyne, however, blithely asserts as an absolute truism that God-talk always terminates inquiry without the slightest bit of data to prove his point—in striking contrast to his careful presentation of biological data in proof of evolution. Anyone who has spent any appreciable amount of time with serious works of theological inquiry knows that Coyne is simply wrong in his assertion.

If judged on the basis of its science, then, Why Evolution is True, is probably a decent work given especially that it addresses a lay audience. It is well written, flows well, and makes a logical case for evolution. Other scientists may find his commentary lacking at one point or another, but we will leave that to the scientists to sort out. When judged on the basis of his theology, however, Coyne is a disaster—arrogant and ignorant at the same time. He assumes a god that is about as unlike the God of the theologians and millions of faithful believers—aside from worst-case fundamentalists—as could possibly be. He makes rash, unsubstantiated ideological statements that betray superficial thinking about religion.

Maybe, saddest of all, Coyne never does realize that one can be an evolutionist, really and truly, and a theist, really and truly. There is nothing inherently in conflict between the two. He is, instead, a rigid ideological dualist when it comes to science and religion, which is curious when we consider that the whole spirit of science today is drawing us ever deeper into a wonderfully holistic universe of stunning movement, dynamic change, and profound integration.  At any rate, for those of us who have some background in theological studies, Coyne is of a type we know all too well.  His ideology is exclusivist, imperialist, and dualistic.  He is playing a zero-sum game where he always wins, never loses—and is evidently incapable of hearing any voice but those of his own tribe.  We know his type.  He is a fundamentalist.

In sum, Coyne is a decent place to start if one is looking for insights into the truths of biological evolution.  If, however, the reader is seeking a contribution to the dialogue between faith and science Coyne has nothing to contribute.  Why Evolution is True is at best an all too typical example of how ignorant a certain tribe of atheist scientist writers are about religion in general  and theology in particular.  Ideological warfare of this sort is a sad, insidious thing; and we can only note again that such warfare is a form of violence, and violence always has unintended and seldom happy consequences.

Collins, The Language of God

A book review of Francis S. Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief (New York: Free Press, 2006).

Collins' The Language of God addresses a hotly contested subject from an unenviable perspective—the middle.  The author is at once one of America's leading scientists and a self-styled evangelical Christian, and he wrote this book to explore and explain how one manages to be a scientist of faith.  As is clear from the opening and closing chapters, the book is a spiritual and intellectual autobiography in which Collins plays the dual roles of scientist and theologian.

The book is divided into three parts and eleven chapters.  The parts are entitled, "The Chasm Between Science and Faith"; "The Great Questions of Human Existence": and, "Faith in Science, Faith in God."  In addition, the book contains an appendix entitled, "The Moral Practice of Science and Medicine: Bioethics."  Collins' audience, which he addresses directly at the end of the book (pp. 230-234), includes those "seekers" who are either believers suspicious of science or scientists suspicious of  faith.  His message is that a viable "synthesis" (or merging, harmonization) of faith and science is possible.  One can be a scientist and a believer.  He writes, "But this synthesis has provided for legions of scientist-believers a satisfying, consistent, enriching perspective that allows both the scientific and spiritual worldviews to coexist happily within us." (p. 201)  Although he was speaking specifically of what he calls "theistic evolution," these sentiments sum up his general take on the relationship of faith and science.  Collins wants to bridge the cultural chasm between religion and science that seems to dominate American social consciousness.  He regrets the ongoing battle between the two, which he sees as being dominated by extremists on both sides.

Dr. Francis S. Collins

      Collins personally drew on the writings of C. S. Lewis to build that bridge.   Lewis' book, Mere Christianity, played a pivotal in his own conversion by introducing to him the importance of universal Moral Law in proving that there must be a God.  Collins says that the Moral Law, "... shone its bright white light into the recesses of my childish atheism, and demanded a serious consideration of its origin."  He then asks, somewhat rhetorically, "Was this God looking back at me?" (p. 29)  It was, and for much of the rest of the book Collins marshals his argument for a harmonization, merging, and synthesis of science and religion.  As he does so he makes observations such as "...there is nothing inherently in conflict between the idea of a creator and what science has revealed." (p. 81)

     Collins, in making his case, tends to be cautious and circumspect.  This tone is almost certainly partly a reaction to the bombastic, vitriolic  writings of certain atheist scientists and creationists, and it may also reflect his own temperament as a trained scientist who doesn't want to get ahead of the data.  That tone, however, makes for some subdued, almost limp conclusions that fail to carry his case forward persuasively.  For example, he discusses in some detail the "anthropic principle," which argues that the universe's fundamental physical constants are "fine-tuned" for the existence of life on Earth.  The possibility that all of the constants could be so fine-tuned by chance is vanishingly small, and provides a strong argument for the existence of Something Beyond the universe that tuned these constants for life on Earth.    But then, in what seems like almost a throw away line, Collins simply concludes, "But for those willing to consider a theistic perspective, the Anthropic Principle certainly provides an interesting argument in favor of a Creator." (p. 78)  This limp conclusion fails to do justice to the weight of the evidence presented.

Part of Collins' concern is to avoid the trap of trying to make the case for God by squeezing God into the "gaps" in understanding left by science.  For example, there is still much that science does not understand about the origin of life, but this does not give theists an opportunity to insert God into the process on the basis of their ignorance.  As Collins observes, "...this is not the place for a thoughtful person to wager his faith." (p. 93)  Yet, when it comes to such things as evolution, while they do not reveal anything about God, they do provide opportunities for believers to feel more awe, not less (p. 107).

In the course of The Language of God, Collins touches on virtually every subject and controversy involved, and therein lies what is one of the major weaknesses in his arguments.  He is seldom able in less than 250 pages to invest sufficient detail to make a strong case for his arguments.  They tend to be superficial and to assert conclusions or observations that are not all that well nailed down in his presentation of the facts.  For example, after summarizing the case against the  arch-atheist Richard Dawkins in a brief two pages, Collins asserts that the "major and inescapable flaw of Dawkins's claim that science demands atheism is that it goes beyond the evidence.  If God is outside of nature, then science can neither prove nor disprove His existence." (p. 165)  Dawkins and other atheist scientists simply reject the whole idea that God could be outside of nature as being nonsensical—unscientific!  Collins is not likely to convince thoughtful seekers inclined toward atheism with such assertions based on a brief, hasty, incomplete analysis that contributes little if anything to the debate itself.  He does no better, really, when he addresses seekers inclined toward faith.  In his chapter on "creationism" (pp. 171-179), his basic argument is that young Earth creationists are wrong when they say that God created some of the supposed evidence of science (e.g. for evolution) to test the faith of Christians.  God is not a trickster.  Those conversant in the Bible, can immediately counter with the Book of Job or God's demand that Abraham sacrifice his son, Isaac, as clear examples of God testing the faithful (see the posting, "Does God Test Us?" at Believers.org for a list of passages that "prove" that God does test us).

Image via Wikipedia

Speaking as one who shares Collins's commitment to a synthesis or harmonization of science and theology, The Language of God is more of a disappointment than not.  It's not because Collins is wrong.  If one accepts his perspective, he generally taps the nail on the head, the problem being that he seldom drives it home.  Chapter 10 on his particular understanding of the relationship of faith and science, which he labels with the neologism, "BioLogos, is particularly troublesome in this regard.  In the previous three chapters, Collins rejects atheism, agnosticism, creationism, and intelligent design as being false options.  BioLogos, that is "theistic evolution," is the only viable way to frame the relationship between faith and science so far as Collins is concerned.  There are a number of reasons why his presentation is disappointing.

First, Collins does not articulate clearly the actual relationship between faith and science that he advocates.  At times he sees it as a merging of the two.  Sometimes he says he wants to harmonize them.  At other times, he wants a synthesis.  These are very different things, and it matters whether we are attempting to merge, create a synthesis, or harmonize faith and science.  A merger suggests the two become one new thing in which the constituent parts no longer exist.  A synthesis results when two simpler things are brought together to create a new, more complex whole.  When things are brought into harmony, however, they remain independent of each other and are no longer in conflict.  These are very different things, and it matters whether we try to merge, synthesize, or harmonize science and or with faith.  In the end, Collins seems to lean towards a harmonization of the two, but only after using the three terms interchangeably.

Second, he seems to discard entirely the notion of providence, that is God's rule over and care for the world.  On page 200, Collins lists six basic premises of "theistic evolution," which is another term for BioLogos.  The fourth premise is that, "Once evolution got under way, no special supernatural intervention was required."  What then of God's Presence in the universe and the relationship of God to humanity?  What then of prayer?  It sounds as if he is proposing a kind of Deism, which is fine (as far as it goes) if that is what he really intends, but it certainly doesn't offer a bridge that most Christians will want to cross in seeking a harmonious relationship with science.  It is particularly troubling that Collins seems to cast this point to the wind almost blithely, apparently not understanding its implications.  As a rule, scientists make poor theologians, and Collins tends to be a case in point in spite of his deep faith.

Third, in that same list of the basic premises of theistic evolution, Collins lists the following statement under number six, "But humans are also unique in ways that defy evolutionary explanations and point to our spiritual nature."  He points to the Moral Law and the search for God as cases in point.  But, are humans actually unique in a spiritual way?  The answer is, "Possibly not."  As noted in a previous posting here, "Primatologist Jane Goodall is convinced that chimps display, 'an unadulterated sense of spirituality.'"  Skeptical scientists will reject Collins' assertion that there are spiritual aspects of human life that it can't understand, saying probably correctly that it is only a matter of time until they do.  Human spirituality is a legitimate field for scientific inquiry.  Collins, that is, has unwittingly fallen into the "god-of-the-gaps" trap that he himself warns others about.  A little later, he again falls into the same trap.  He asserts that science "was never intended to address" such questions as how the universe was created (p. 204).  Only religion can these questions.  What he seems to have meant is why rather than how the universe was created, and the why question may be indeed beyond science's purview.  Surely, the factors that caused the creation of the universe (the how) is open to scientific investigation, and in fact the "Big Bang" theory is science's current best answer to that very question.  Perhaps, Collins misspoke, but his mistake is elemental and troublesome, one that creates a scientific gap (science can't study certain how questions) that science wouldn't even recognize as being a gap.

Fourth, Collins' assertion that Genesis 1-2, "can best be understood as poetry and allegory rather than a literal scientific description of origins" (p. 206) is also troubling.  In the discussion of Genesis 1-2 that follows, he seems to assume that those two chapters were intended to be either literal scientific truth or allegory; there is no third choice: .  He concludes that God does not expect us to, "deny the obvious truths of the natural world that science has revealed to us." (p. 210)  That leaves us with poetry and allegory.  But those are not the only choices we have for understanding Genesis 1-2, and in fact neither one of them is a viable choice.  It is more helpful to acknowledge that in ancient times the Genesis story of creation was believed to be objective truth and made entire sense to those who believed it.  They did not intend that it be taken to be scientific truth because science hadn't been invented.  The stories were not written to be read as allegorical, and today they don't make much sense as allegories.  They do contain theological insights, rather than allegories, that still make sense to faithful Jews and Christians today, such insights as God's status as creator of the universe and that we are created in the creator's image.  Collins' discussion of these matters is superficial and misleading.  Some of his most sympathetic readers, furthermore, will surely be troubled by his warning against "unrestrained forms of 'liberal' theology that eviscerate the real truths of faith." (p. 209)  This is an undeserved, stereotyping side-swipe at the very audience, theological liberals, most open to his views.  It adds nothing to the argument he is making, and it feels like he is pandering to an evangelical audience hoping to find some wedge into their thinking.

In the end, Collins made a fundamental mistake in trying to address two audiences coming from two very different directions—on the one hand, "seekers" who are coming from the realm of faith and, on the other, "seekers" from the realm of science.  The Language of God attempts to mix messages and arguments addressed to each.  The result is a superficial mixture that fails to address deeper issues and critical objections brought to the table by each side.  Collins would have done better to address each side separately with lines of reasoning crafted to their concerns.  In this regard, it is a disappointing book.

That being said, The Language of God is still an important contribution because it brings into one volume all of the key issues involved in the debate between faith and science, and it provides the key lines of arguments for each issue—if superficially.  The book, furthermore, testifies to the fact that one can be an internationally-known scientist and a person of faith.  It is helpful that the book is generally well-written and carries its arguments forward smoothly and logically.  Collins has organized his subject well, no mean feat given its complexity.  For those who want to understand the debate between faith and science, this is a good place to start.  For those who are asking questions, the "seekers," this may also be a place to get an orientation to the issues involved and possible answers—a jumping off point as it were.  For those who want to understand how a world-class scientist can inhabit the same mind with a man of faith, The Language of God, offers important insights into the kind of spiritual journey that can harmonize the findings of science with the life of faith.

And, finally, Collins must be commended for eschewing the language and attitudes of battle.  This is a civil book on a subject desperately in need of civility and mutual forbearance.  If we learn nothing else from The Language of God, we should at least learn how to address each other.

[A book review of Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief.]
[A book review of The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief.]

Links for Francis S.Collins:

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Collins has a large "presence" on the Web both as a scientist and a Christian.  What follows is only a tiny sample:

Wikipedia article, "Francis Collins."
May 1998 interview with Collins.
PBS 2004 interview with Collins regarding his conversion to the Christian faith.
The Biologos Forum founded by Collins.