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First, the tone was much more subdued than in Harris's usual tirades against religion. Perhaps the Times' op-ed editors tamed Harris's prose, but I suspect the reasonableness of the tone is a tribute to Collins's stature as a scientist.  I wonder if the religion vs. science debate might be a little less heated if it were more often conducted by scientists, and we evangelicals were less eager to credit any claim that seems to score points against the scientific community.

 

Second, Harris complained that Collins may stifle research in neuroscience that seems to suggest 'that minds are the products of brains, and brains are [simply] the products of evolution,' since this calls God into question. My initial reaction was (and is) that Collins seems very unlikely to interfere with valuable scientific work, regardless of where it might lead.

 

But I also think it's important to cast a skeptical eye, if not on the work itself, at least on the claims made for this work. This isn't my field, but my sense is that the claims made for the neuroscience findings we have thus far often go far beyond any reasonable interpretation of the science. Some scholars claim, for instance, that criminal laws should not focus on 'desert' (that is, the badness of criminal behavior) because criminal behavior is simply a product of our brains. This is an area in which I suspect that Christian lawyer-scientists might make important contributions.

 

 

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