Comments on: My $0.02 on Francis Collins http://salamandercandy.wordpress.com/2006/08/07/my-002-on-francis-collins/ Writing about biology and other sweet things Wed, 07 Oct 2009 04:10:24 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: Todd http://salamandercandy.wordpress.com/2006/08/07/my-002-on-francis-collins/#comment-53 Todd Tue, 22 Aug 2006 19:19:13 +0000 http://salamandercandy.wordpress.com/2006/08/07/my-002-on-francis-collins/#comment-53 I'm not sure about the way you frame 'atheism' vs. agnosticism. Of course, any debate about that is a debate about semantics, so I'll just say that my personal preference for the meaning of agnosticism falls back to the man who coined the word, Thomas Huxley. For Huxley, it had to do with scientific method and the nature of knowledge (gnosis). You only <i>know</i> things for which you have evidence; without evidence, there is no knowledge. Huxley meant that any positive statements of 'existence' must be based on evidence at hand, and because there is no evidence for the existence of god, there is no knowledge of god's existence. Therefore, although I think Huxley would agree with you that agnosticism is the rational choice, I think he might disagree with you as to why; that is, Huxley would never have argued that science is mute on the existence of God. What I like about Huxley's notion of agnosticism (which has been lost in a haze of fence sitting) is that it is scientific in its orientation by asserting that there is no god because there is no evidence of god, but were evidence for god's existence to emerge, it would reverse our knowledge. Science isn't mute, but rather says you cannot study something that does not evidentially exist, because it cannot be observed/experimented upon/measured. Apologies to Huxley for imputing, projecting, and otherwise putting words in his mouth. And apologies to Salamander for splitting hairs, because in general I agree with your post. I’m not sure about the way you frame ‘atheism’ vs. agnosticism. Of course, any debate about that is a debate about semantics, so I’ll just say that my personal preference for the meaning of agnosticism falls back to the man who coined the word, Thomas Huxley. For Huxley, it had to do with scientific method and the nature of knowledge (gnosis). You only know things for which you have evidence; without evidence, there is no knowledge. Huxley meant that any positive statements of ‘existence’ must be based on evidence at hand, and because there is no evidence for the existence of god, there is no knowledge of god’s existence. Therefore, although I think Huxley would agree with you that agnosticism is the rational choice, I think he might disagree with you as to why; that is, Huxley would never have argued that science is mute on the existence of God. What I like about Huxley’s notion of agnosticism (which has been lost in a haze of fence sitting) is that it is scientific in its orientation by asserting that there is no god because there is no evidence of god, but were evidence for god’s existence to emerge, it would reverse our knowledge. Science isn’t mute, but rather says you cannot study something that does not evidentially exist, because it cannot be observed/experimented upon/measured.

Apologies to Huxley for imputing, projecting, and otherwise putting words in his mouth. And apologies to Salamander for splitting hairs, because in general I agree with your post.

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