Who won the Collins-Dawkins Debate?

I will accept any help offered in framing this topic (and its title) better. I was up in arms hunting for a place to answer two comments I read about the Dawkins-Collins debate. Here they are:From Open Source TheologyGrumble, grumble, grumble...bullarkey.Collins does not accept this. It always irritates me when people say this.The scientific method is not the only way to the truth. There are many other forms of evidence. Eye-witness testimony is pretty unreliable in distinguishing one stranger from another, and it is never 100% reliable. Nonetheless, testimony and experience runs the gamut of reliability from pretty much worthless to extremely reliable. For example, your spouse's testimony that it rained at your home while you were out of town is pretty much "proof" that it happened, yet it is not scientific evidence. Her testimony on other matters may not be that reliable, but the fact is that we all attach a standard of reliability to things we hear and experience. We can refine our judgment on those things as we learn, but in the end the reliability of experience and testimony and anecdote is not zero.That said, all Collins has to prove is that science cannot exclude the possibility of God. Thus, on a completely scientific level, he can explore the possibility of God with Dawkins. Once he it is agreed that scientifically, God cannot be excluded, then Collins and other believers are entirely free to determine the possibility of God's existence on the basis of other things than science, such as experience, testimony, and even wild theorizing about things seen in science and nature.Which brings me to the other quote, from Evolution News & ViewsOnce it is established that science is not the means to determine God's existence, then looking at all the evidence we can find is. If some of that evidence, perhaps circumstantial, but nonetheless useful, comes from scientific facts or conclusions, then so be it. Just because science can't determine whether God exists does not mean that it cannot weigh in on God's existence, and it doesn't mean that those who are seeking experiential evidence of God cannot pull some ideas, thoughts, and influences from science.Finding truth is not an easy thing. It is hard work. Science has weighed in on the existence of God. For example, Darwin himself weighed in, making it clear that the amazing power of an eye (and it really is amazing) is not proof of God. He was able to show from nature, that it can develop, well, naturally. The same with the lung (which developed from the swim bladder, which was awe-inspiring to a non-scientist like myself). Science explained all sorts of things that originally seemed to need a God.Does that mean it will explain all of it? Science may well eventually find a theory of everything (the unifying theory), but that will establish only the orderliness of everything. Will they explain every religious experience? Some already write all such experiences off as the result of brain activity, but such a conclusion is not even remotely warranted at this point, despite the fact that it is certainly understandable that many postulate this.We who believe in God will continue to point, not to gaps that science has not explained, but to the power of a relationship with God and to what man feels in his heart, which is what we've always pointed to at the base of it. Like Collins, I love exploring the universe. It is mandated by my belief in God and in the Scriptures, that say day to day utters speech and night to night give knowledge.However, our belief in the existence of God is not based on science, and the scientific methor is not the only way to seek truth, or we would have disbanded courtrooms long ago.This looks like "Faith & Belief" forum to me ("objective reality vs. subjective concept").

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

BumpIs no one really interested in this? It was very interesting to me.

You titled the topic "Who won the Collins-Dawkins Debate?"I think that might be part of the problem finding folk to discuss it.What stopped me from really replying was that I think the issue is self-evident.We cannot know whether or not GOD exists.We can believe GOD exists, even believe very strongly that GOD exists, but in the final analysis it will be reality that determines the truth of that belief.If GOD exists, She does exist regardless of any evidence GOD does not exist.If GOD does not exist, He does not exist regardless of any evidence It does exist.I think debating the existence or non-existence of GOD is somewhat futile. We simply cannot determine the truth of the matter.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

You didn't provide a link to the actual debate, and that may have helped keep people away. It turns out the "debate" was actually an article by Time Magazine's David van Biema about a discussion with Richard Dawkins and Francis Collins. The article was titled God vs. Science. There's a lot of preliminary introduction by Biema, and the actual discussion with Dawkins and Collins doesn't begin until page 3.While Dawkins says a fair amount that I can agree with when he writes in isolation, his tone is always a problem, and when he speaks to Christians his approach is absolutist, boorish, confrontational, and ultimately just plain unconstructive and unhelpful.--Percy

Good post TL.I've heard Dawkins a lot now, mainly on TV. His arguments are intelligent, and usually correct but when it comes to God he won't observe the true importance of the agnostic position. He seems to put technically logically correct positions in a mediocre light, in favour of putting his own spin on the God-concept. i.e. persuasive argumentation in order to negate logial argumentation. For that reason he isn't an objectivite, IMHO.I think the problem is that people think science owns truth.The truth is that some truth has been found by science, successfully, but also, falsity has been found. So science is at best a torch in the dark.So this following reasoning will be fallacious;Because science is the only successful finder or truth, there can be no other or we can use science as a subject that disproves faith and any other notions.The correct inference, is that science CAN reveal truth, but because of the UNKNOWN amount of truth faith consists of, and any other subjects then this infact doesn't mean that science owns truth or can have an opinion about other subjects.And so the variables;1--Science can uncover SOME truth.
2--It is unknown as to the capacity of truth, faith holds.
3--How much truth has been uncovered, is unknown, but is highly likely to be little truth when weighed on the scales of full truth.As you can see, number 2 means that it is illogical to dismiss a subject based on ignorance.I admitt that science is the King-shit in this modern era, but I think that it ends at describing how the chocolate bar is made, and should never try to explain why it's so tastey.

I agree. This is not an ontological issue. If someone tells me he believes that God exists, I'll accept that as a personal matter entirely unto him, so long as he will accept my personal belief that, for me, God does not exist. Hence God is not ontological enough to have an existence, not in the philosophical sense, as His being or non-being is only a matter of personal judgement. Ontology deals with matters of existence that can be commonly verified using philosophical principles.”Hoot Mon

I think Dawkins won quote satisfactorily depending on your scoring system. I think that God can be a question of science - not current science but whatever science has become in the future. If science is ever able to completely understand reality, how it came to exist and what it all means - we'd be able to rule out most of the traditional roles of a god. At that point any deity would take the rather undignified position of 'hypothetical/philosophical entity that has no influence in reality, generally agreed to live in some kind of 'super reality' which is entirely seperate from what we know as reality.As Dawkins concludes:

quote:

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If there is a God, it's going to be a whole lot bigger and a whole lot more incomprehensible than anything that any theologian of any religion has ever proposed.

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This is a general answer to the thread, not really just to Percy. I just needed to quote Percy for one answer. Supposedly, they actually staged a 90-minute debate, according to the intro. So the article can only contain excerpts, because it's sure not 90 minutes of speech long.I really didn't think a moderator would think my OP was ready for moving to a topic, so I thought I'd end up renaming the thread. Oh, well.My issue really isn't who won the debate, but what constitutes evidence in relation to those two quotes, which both suggested that Collins said it wasn't a scientific issue, but then made it one.Somebody in this thread said something along the lines that people or scientists think that science has a monopoly on truth. I think scientists approach their discipline very well, but I also think that we get trapped into thinking the scientific method is the lone way to find truth. It's not.My point was really along those lines.

I think it is scientific evidence - it is data collected from a measuring device that you happen to trust the reporting of (ie, your spouse's brain). Unfortunately, it is not an instrument that somebody else necessarily trusts (brains are notorious for deliberately misreporting data so one has to have a good knowledge of the reporting accuracy of the brain before one can make a conclusion (not to mention any factors that might influence the brain to deliberately misreport Since most people have not got any familiarity to your spouse's brain, they cannot trust the brain is correctly reporting), so you can use this piece of evidence that is convincing to you to go collect more evidence that will convince more and more people.This is a little like someone who reports their machine has detected cold fusion. A lot of such devices have been shown to be highly affected by background noise, so without intimate knowledge of the experimental setup (probably via replication), few people will accept the results.Unfortunately, reconstructing your spouse's brain is not a practical possibility - so its brain's report is questionable scientific evidence.

Although there is little reason for your wife to go wrong (on this very obvious natural phenomenon) I don't see how her testimonial can be a scientific evidence.There is the issue of trust here. The only reason why you believe it rained outside is because you trust your spouse word. While scientific evidence isn't based on trust.I might be wrong....

If I had a tape measure that I knew had accurately recorded lengths and I measured my table to be three foot long I'd trust it without further evidence.Some tape measures are not accurate. If we knew, that certain tape measures were sometimes out by a factor of ten and I told you my table was three feet long you'd think it was between 3.6 inches to 30 foot, pending further information.Now, if I had a device that detected rain placed in my garden but that device recorded false positives 1% of the time, I could say that it was a scientific piece of evidence for it having rained if it recorded that it rained whilst I was away.In these cases we know the error margins.What if my device was manufactured by Acme corporation? Acme are devils and some of their devices register false positives as much as 100% of the time, sometimes as few as .0001% of the time. One cannot know which one it is until you had tested it.If I had tested my machine and recorded that it has over a period of 5 years never recorded a false positive on its rain count for any day, I can be confident that my positive result for rain means that it did in fact rain whilst I was away.That would be scientific.One final step. If I didn't bother to test my device by observing it for 5 years and I bought another Acme device that connects to the first and tells me how accurate it was I would find myself in a similar position to the rest of the world with the wife scenario.The second device can produce false results occasionally as well you see. The second device says the first is reliable and this is a valid piece of scientific evidence. It is less likely that both the devices are unreliable, but not impossible.In analogy terms my wife's brain is the first device and my brain is the second device.As with any scientific evidence only relying on two measurements is hardly good science (especially when both evidences are using Acme devices human brains). There is still a good chance we're getting false positives. Our conclusion is highly tentative. The more evidences we have (and the more evidence we have that the evidence is reliable evidence) the more certain we can be that the conclusions we draw from the evidence are accurate.

I'm going to have to concur with Percy. There is no link to the actual debate which is vitally necessary in order for us to critique it. All that we have to go by is the critique offered by two magazine articles which could easily be construed as biased or slanted in any direction.If you can track down footage of the debate, or maybe even transcripts, only then will I be able to participate. Looking for footage of the debate, I did find this rather amusing though.

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"A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell." -C.S. Lewis

Typical British understatement, that was a hoot! Oh, wait a minute, you're from Oregon.Richard Dawkins has more courage than I ever would have guessed for going on TV with that comedian.--Percy

Bold added by Larni.Surely though the validity of faith can be tested for its truth holding properties? If not, on what basis does one have that faith can ever have truth revealing qualities? Chocolate is so tasty because of the interplay between molecules and the effects it has on the brain. Taste is a very interesting field as is smell and indeed any sense based field. I recall as an undergrad doing experiments in the area of scent preference.All covered under the heading of science.Edited by Larni, : No reason given.