02-11-2022, 05:24 AM
I find it most interesting that people from varying backgrounds, religious or not, have worked together, and contiue to work together, on some of the most difficult problems in science.
Francis Collins was director of the National Human Genome Research Institute at NIH from 1993-2008, and retired as director of the National Institutes of Health in 2021, and he is an avowed Christian. The human genome project was an important, and significant scientific undertaking. Those are facts, and whether I agree or disagree with Collins' faith is beside the point. It is also a fact that he had a platform at the highest levels of government. This is when his personal religious views clouded the scientific success of that project. I personally do not appreciate that work on the genome project became politicized across three US administrations. His 2006 book "The Language of God" managed to piss off many young-earth-creationists and many scientists.
One specific example of collaboration is that of Christof Koch (former Catholic) and Francis Crick (avowed atheist) who worked together on the “hard problem” of consciousness in the 1980's. (Crick/Watson/Wilkons received the Nobel in 1962 for their 1953 discovery of the DNA's double helix structure. It is unfortunate that a Jewish woman, Rosalind Franklin, did not receive the recognition she was due, that was crucial to the work of Crick et al, until long after the Nobel was awarded in '62, more likely because she was a woman, than because of her religion.).
From an interview with Steve Paulson in the Atlantic, 2012, Koch was asked, “Given your own background as a Catholic, did you talk much about religion with Crick?”
Koch answered: “We did. He was gentle with respect to my faith. When I first met him I still went to church and took my family there. He didn't push me in any aggressive way. He knew I had some religious sensibilities but it didn't impede our ability to have vigorous discussions about the neural correlates of consciousness. I guess his ardor for fighting against religion had cooled by the time I met him.”
Up to the present day, scientists of many different beliefs, or non-beliefs, have collabororated to move science forward, and I don't know that many worry about a "non-overlapping magesteria" between science and religion, as posited by Stephen Gould in 1997. They're too busy working.
Francis Collins was director of the National Human Genome Research Institute at NIH from 1993-2008, and retired as director of the National Institutes of Health in 2021, and he is an avowed Christian. The human genome project was an important, and significant scientific undertaking. Those are facts, and whether I agree or disagree with Collins' faith is beside the point. It is also a fact that he had a platform at the highest levels of government. This is when his personal religious views clouded the scientific success of that project. I personally do not appreciate that work on the genome project became politicized across three US administrations. His 2006 book "The Language of God" managed to piss off many young-earth-creationists and many scientists.
One specific example of collaboration is that of Christof Koch (former Catholic) and Francis Crick (avowed atheist) who worked together on the “hard problem” of consciousness in the 1980's. (Crick/Watson/Wilkons received the Nobel in 1962 for their 1953 discovery of the DNA's double helix structure. It is unfortunate that a Jewish woman, Rosalind Franklin, did not receive the recognition she was due, that was crucial to the work of Crick et al, until long after the Nobel was awarded in '62, more likely because she was a woman, than because of her religion.).
From an interview with Steve Paulson in the Atlantic, 2012, Koch was asked, “Given your own background as a Catholic, did you talk much about religion with Crick?”
Koch answered: “We did. He was gentle with respect to my faith. When I first met him I still went to church and took my family there. He didn't push me in any aggressive way. He knew I had some religious sensibilities but it didn't impede our ability to have vigorous discussions about the neural correlates of consciousness. I guess his ardor for fighting against religion had cooled by the time I met him.”
Up to the present day, scientists of many different beliefs, or non-beliefs, have collabororated to move science forward, and I don't know that many worry about a "non-overlapping magesteria" between science and religion, as posited by Stephen Gould in 1997. They're too busy working.
(02-10-2022, 10:39 PM)CRNDLSM Wrote: As a functional crazy person, I think the key to this universe is having just enough illogical comprehension to handle the unthinkable that absolutely happens on a daily basis. Logic itself is a dangerous rabbit hole that collapses under real events. Like a stiff board breaking under pressure, be flexible.Try reading "The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood" by James Gleick (2011). If nothing else, it will help you become crazier quicker.
(02-10-2022, 02:14 PM)busker Wrote: ... you will never have perfect information about most things in life.Amen to that, brother.