Thursday, July 09, 2009

Talkin' 'bout P. Z. Myers' generation

At his blog Pharyngula, P. Z. Myers worries that Francis Collins, the former head of the Human Genome Project, will taint the office with "embarrassingly insane nonsense," by which he means to refer to Collins' Christianity, which he calls an "antique and ineffective superstition."

Apparently, Myers would rather the office be occupied by someone who shares his more up-to-date, mid-19th century materialism.

4 comments:

One Brow said...

Actually, I think Myers would be happy with a person of any religous bent wh none-the-less kept their religion out of the office entirely. In fact, he specifically for secular values, not materialistic ones.

Anonymous said...

Considering that the 19th century materialism is all that is still left standing today (Lord Kelvin's theism and 20 million year old earth anyone?) with theistic "theories in a shambles, Myers isn't doing too badly.

-Truti

Martin Cothran said...

One Brow:

What is the difference, practically speaking between materialist values and secular values?

Martin Cothran said...

Anonymous,

In what way is 19 century materialism still standing? It's now a small minority position of a few aggrieved atheists in university science departments and was considered a naive and simplistic view of the world my most intellectuals by the turn of the century (19th/20th).

Obviously you don't like theism, but I'd love to hear the argument you think took it out.