The Graffin study: How evolutionists pretend that "religion" and evolution are compatible!
by Richard Peachey
Greg Graffin is well-known as the lead singer/songwriter for the punk rock band Bad Religion. Under Cornell historian of evolutionary biology Will Provine, Graffin earned a PhD in zoology. His research topic was "the intersection of evolutionary biology and theology and the various forms of compatibility." (Bold print in the quotations below indicates emphasis added.)
(1) Graffin informally summarized his results in an e-mail to a Christian correspondent:
"I have found that evolutionary biologists debase religion to a significant degree to make it compatible with science. They think they are doing religious people a service by subscribing to a form of compatibilism—that is, by maintaining that religion and evolutionary biology are compatible. In most evolutionary biologists' view, there is no conflict between evolution and religion on one important condition: that religion is essentially atheistic! I know it sounds crazy, but that is the result of my dissertation" (E-mail to Preston Jones. In Preston Jones [ed.], Is Belief in God Good, Bad or Irrelevant? A Professor and a Punk Rocker Discuss Science, Religion, Naturalism & Christianity. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006, pp. 21f.)
(2) On a more formal occasion Graffin and his advisor Provine offered this comment in a scientific article:
"Evolutionary scientists are strongly motivated to ameliorate conflict between evolution and religion. Sociobiology offers them an apparent conciliatory path to the compatibility of religion and evolution, avoiding all language of inescapable conflict. Sociobiological evolution is the means to understand religion, whereas religion as a 'way of knowing' has nothing to teach us about evolution. This view allows a place for religion and sounds superficially comforting to compatibilists."
The conclusion of that article refers to a questionnaire that was part of Graffin's PhD study:
"Only 10 percent of the eminent evolutionary scientists who answered the poll saw an inevitable conflict between religion and evolution. The great majority see no conflict between religion and evolution, not because they occupy different, noncompeting magisteria, but because they see religion as a natural product of human evolution. Sociologists and cultural anthropologists, in contrast, tend toward the hypothesis that cultural change alone produced religions, minus evolutionary change in humans. The eminent evolutionists who participated in this poll reject the basic tenets of religion, such as gods, life after death, incorporeal spirits or the supernatural. Yet they still hold a compatible view of religion and evolution" (Greg Graffin and Will Provine, "American Scientist 95[4]:294-297, 2007.)
http://www.creationbc.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=61&Itemid=74
by Richard Peachey
Greg Graffin is well-known as the lead singer/songwriter for the punk rock band Bad Religion. Under Cornell historian of evolutionary biology Will Provine, Graffin earned a PhD in zoology. His research topic was "the intersection of evolutionary biology and theology and the various forms of compatibility." (Bold print in the quotations below indicates emphasis added.)
(1) Graffin informally summarized his results in an e-mail to a Christian correspondent:
"I have found that evolutionary biologists debase religion to a significant degree to make it compatible with science. They think they are doing religious people a service by subscribing to a form of compatibilism—that is, by maintaining that religion and evolutionary biology are compatible. In most evolutionary biologists' view, there is no conflict between evolution and religion on one important condition: that religion is essentially atheistic! I know it sounds crazy, but that is the result of my dissertation" (E-mail to Preston Jones. In Preston Jones [ed.], Is Belief in God Good, Bad or Irrelevant? A Professor and a Punk Rocker Discuss Science, Religion, Naturalism & Christianity. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006, pp. 21f.)
(2) On a more formal occasion Graffin and his advisor Provine offered this comment in a scientific article:
"Evolutionary scientists are strongly motivated to ameliorate conflict between evolution and religion. Sociobiology offers them an apparent conciliatory path to the compatibility of religion and evolution, avoiding all language of inescapable conflict. Sociobiological evolution is the means to understand religion, whereas religion as a 'way of knowing' has nothing to teach us about evolution. This view allows a place for religion and sounds superficially comforting to compatibilists."
The conclusion of that article refers to a questionnaire that was part of Graffin's PhD study:
"Only 10 percent of the eminent evolutionary scientists who answered the poll saw an inevitable conflict between religion and evolution. The great majority see no conflict between religion and evolution, not because they occupy different, noncompeting magisteria, but because they see religion as a natural product of human evolution. Sociologists and cultural anthropologists, in contrast, tend toward the hypothesis that cultural change alone produced religions, minus evolutionary change in humans. The eminent evolutionists who participated in this poll reject the basic tenets of religion, such as gods, life after death, incorporeal spirits or the supernatural. Yet they still hold a compatible view of religion and evolution" (Greg Graffin and Will Provine, "American Scientist 95[4]:294-297, 2007.)
http://www.creationbc.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=61&Itemid=74
