Re: George Coyne and Richard Dawkins

Richmond <dnomhcir@gmx.com> wrote:

Martin Harran <martinharran@gmail.com> writes:
 

On Tue, 21 May 2024 14:58:19 +0100, Richmond <dnomhcir@gmx.com> wrote:
 

Martin Harran <martinharran@gmail.com> writes:
 

On Tue, 21 May 2024 10:54:16 +0100, Richmond <dnomhcir@gmx.com> wrote:
 

Martin Harran <martinharran@gmail.com> writes:
 

On Mon, 20 May 2024 17:16:16 +0100, Richmond <dnomhcir@gmx.com> wrote:
 

In this interview, at the point I link to:
 
https://youtu.be/68ejfHahFK4?t=254
 
Father Coyne offers Neodarwinian Evolution as an explanation for,
among other things, the origin of the universe. And Professor
Dawkins agrees with him. How does evolution of any kind have
anything to do with the origin of the universe? surely it would
need something to evolve from?

 
I got the impression that he was using "evolution" in a wider
sense than just *biological* evolution, that life itself "evolved"
from chemical reactions.

 
I suppose you could interpret "origin of the universe" as "origin of
the content of the universe" and then say that it evolved from pure
energy. But I am not sure if that is evolution strictly, or just
changing from one thing to another. And I am not sure if energy is
different from content, or if universe is different from content of
the universe. In summary, I am not sure.

 
When talking about a subject in what is essentially a metaphysical
way. I think we shouldn't get too hung up on the precise meaning of
specific words, it's the ideas behind the words that matter.
 

 

 
A fascinating interview that I had not seen before, thanks for the
link. Whilst I was aware of George Coyne, I never really explored
his ideas before and I was fascinated by how much what he was
saying echoed my own beliefs and ideas - there was nothing he said
that I would argue with and I thought he handled Dawkins extremely
well.

 
The TV series from which it was excluded was quite entertaining. I
think in that series Dawkins was struggling to keep the lid on his
temper at times, although that could just be his natural expression.

 
I wasn't aware of that series. Any idea why this episode was
excluded?

 
At the beginning of the video Dawkins explains that it was left out as
there was too much overlap with an interview with the Archbishop of
Canterbury.

 
OK, I forgot that your link started ~4 mins in. I'll be interested to
hunt down the Archbishop of Canterbury episode, but I'd expect it to
have a lot of overlap with George Coyne. I think that a lot of USians
make the mistake of regarding the likes of Ken Ham as a representative
of mainstream Christianity when he isn't - at least not outside the
USA!

 
Coyne sounds rather confused to me. He doesn't seem to know what God
is. He says God is not an engineer, and then he says God created the
universe, that he is a prime mover, and gave us brains, and then he says
God is superflous and doesn't explain things.
 

Coyne doesn’t think we are apes, so I disagree with him there. But at
around 56:31 when Dawkins asks him about ensoulment (a bugbear of mine)
Coyne says he doesn’t believe in the soul. Coyne explicitly says around
56:43 that he doesn’t “believe this idea of at some time in the
evolutionary process God put a soul…” Dawkins interrupts him. Seems he
rejects ensoulment doctrine. But then he invokes a Teilhardian spiritual
emergence via evolution that God was somehow involved in. More bottom up
than top down? More continuous than instantaneous. A bit fluffy though. Y

Coyne believes he survives death not a soul so he can have a gin and tonic
and play some tennis. He’s got jokes. There were places earlier in the talk
with Dawk that I found myself departing from Coyne’s rhetoric but will need
to review for details and time stamps.

It was a cordial talk, but Coyne commands some respect due to his
astrophysics background. Dawkins hit him with some tough pointed questions
where you could see Coyne grappling with the reconciliation of his theistic
evolutionism.