Scientists, whether Christian or not, really do not like Richard Dawkins!
I discovered this curious fact in The Journal for the Public Understanding of Science. It recently published research by Rice University, Texas on how scientists feel about the public perception of their disciplines and this was one of their findings.
Delving deeper
The figures were somewhat more complex than that. The study was based on a survey of 20,000 scientists in eight different countries and did not itself raise the name of Richard Dawkins. It was just an attempt to understand how scientists felt about their reputation. But the frequent appearance of Dawkins’ name in responses was noteworthy. Of those UK scientists who did mention his name in an extended interview, 80% referred to him in negative terms. The Independent newspaper concluded: ‘Most British scientists in a new study dislike Richard Dawkins, with some arguing that he misrepresents science and is misleading the public.’
One job
This is quite an indictment when we remember that he was the University of Oxford’s Professor for the Public Understanding of Science from 1995–2008. It reminds us of those popular images circulating on social media of a completely botched task with the caption ‘You Had One Job’! Oxford was supposed to have a Professor contribute to the understanding of science among the populace, not be best known as a ‘fundamentalist atheist’ on a ‘crusade’ against faith. You had one job, Richard!
Conflict myth
However, Dawkins has had success. He has enabled the narrow-minded to play on a fallacious image of Christianity and science being in conflict. This conflict myth dominates conversations and leads to complete misunderstanding. In reality, we find that Christians are actively involved in the highest levels of their fields in every area of science. This was true historically (Francis Bacon, Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler) and remains true today.
Christian senior scientists
The team who first mapped the entire human genome was led by evangelical Christian, Francis Collins. When the Economist chose the four top science books of 2009 they included the work of evangelical climate researcher Mike Hulme. If you were interested in the environment you might turn to the Encyclopedia of Forest Sciences, edited by the Chair of the Forestry Commission’s Expert Committee on Forest Science, church elder Julian Evans (who also authored Day One’s excellent God’s Trees). What about paleontology with all the complex issues surrounding Genesis and geology? Clearly Christians have different perspectives on the interpretation of Genesis and the age of the earth, but plenty of evangelicals have continued to grapple with these areas and contribute to scientific progress. Who first proposed that dinosaurs were warm-blooded and was even caricatured in Spielberg’s Jurassic Park: Lost World ? This could only be Christian paleontologist Robert Bakker, who observed: ‘The wonderful pageant of prehistory is the proud legacy of evangelicals who searched for the truth in the pages of Scripture and the chapters written in stone.’ He points out that it was an evangelical Congregationalist in Victorian times who first realized that dinosaurs were more like birds than lizards.
The list could go on and on. But is there some deeper pattern or reason that connects Christians, and evangelical Christians in particular, to the sciences?
The basis of science
History demonstrates that there is. The biblical worldview, informed by an understanding of the Creator God, the orderly universe and a purposeful plan, provided a basis for the development of science. In his history of the rise of modern science, Reijer Hooykas observed: ‘Contrary perhaps to what one would have expected, a more fully biblical world view has, since the 16th century, favoured the rise of modern science and of the world picture connected with it.’ Far from impeding science and discovery, Christians have been and continue to be at its coalface.
Asked what was the greatest enemy of science education in America today Robert Bakker replied: ‘The likes of Richard Dawkins and his colleagues.’ The real conflict is not between science and faith, it is between a materialist philosophy and a biblical worldview. In apologetics and witness we need to continue to clarify this. In doing so we find that even non-Christian scientists are in agreement with us, sharing our distaste for the misuse of their work in crude, atheist propaganda.
