Were religious beliefs/was Islam responsible for the bombings in Boston?

In case you didn't realize it, some people would answer both of the questions above with a resounding "yes!" They would claim that militant intolerance, even violence, are the inevitable consequence of deeply held religious belief.

The Panda's Thumb blog, not exactly a friend of conservative Christian beliefs, at least beliefs on origins, has blasted biologist Jerry Coyne, who, in addition to being an important scientist, is a militant atheist, for his "yes!" responses, and given evidence to show that Coyne, and other people who want to make religious belief the root of all of violence, and other problems, are wrong. There are some pertinent links in the Panda's Thumb post.

Good for the Panda's Thumb!

The Panda's Thumb also posted a reaction to a believer in Intelligent Design, who claimed that "Darwinists" are incapable of showing proper compassion.

Most any tragedy can be used to reinforce our prejudices, and often gets used as such by people with a wide variety of such prejudices. Sigh. 

Medical Students and evolution

There has been a fair amount of discussion, over the past few years, as to whether pre-medical students need to have some background in the basic ideas and theory of evolution. (For more on this, do a search on the phrase "medical student" combined with the word evolution.) Part of this discussion was generated by the story of a pre-med student who was a young-earth creationist, and was denied a recommendation to medical school by a faculty member.

The Panda's Thumb is a multi-author blog, with several contributors. The main thrust is against the Intelligent Design movement, and some of the posts have been strident and intolerant of Christianity in general, as well as of the ID movement. However, some posts do an excellent job of considering scientific evidence bearing on evolution, particularly as it relates to the scientific claims of the ID movement, and some authors seem to understand the concerns of Christians, and sympathize with them. The blog is required reading for anyone expecting to keep up with the Intelligent Design field. A post, a few years ago, by Jack Krebs, considered the question "Why should medical students study evolution?" I was impressed with the tone, and the content.

The author is, or has been, a high school teacher himself, and knows full well that, whatever the subject of a high school class, students won't retain all of it, and may never use the specific course material in their careers. He also knows that that shouldn't mean that students aren't taught anything, and that a few students really may use a lot of the material of some high school classes. (Speaking from experience, the same is certainly true of university classes!)

Although he doesn't define evolution -- an all too common problem with writing on the subject, from many different viewpoints -- he is sympathetic to the claims of religion, and indicates that he opposes a naturalistic world-view.

Krebs goes on to answer his question by including an actual example, where knowledge of the biochemistry, genetics and neurobiology of mice seems to offer some hope of treating bipolar disorders in humans. Almost certainly, if no one had looked at similarities between humans and mice, with a view to learning more about their similarities, this hope would not have been possible.

Krebs doesn't make a knock-down case, but it's a case, and should be pondered carefully by those who believe that studying similarities between organisms is not of use in the medical profession.

Remarkable statement from The Panda's Thumb

"The Panda's Thumb" is a vociferously anti-Intelligent Design blog, and, it usually seems, anti-theistic. However, sometimes, at least some of the authors (there are several) back off a little bit. Here's part of a post from two days ago:

Random heritable variation and natural selection may very well be responsible for all of biological complexity, but I doubt any scientist - even an atheist - would attest to that particular phrasing. (You don’t know what you don’t know and it is entirely possible that something else
amenable to scientific investigation is responsible.) Further, there exist people who fully support evolution and yet also think that some non-natural agent is involved somehow, whether through a mechanism scrutable to science or not. Arguing in favor of the idea that all biological complexity arose only due to random heritable variation and natural selection would needlessly alienate those theists who also support evolution and would make statements that would be potentially rebutted by whatever is discovered to create complexity that isn’t evolution. (The data don’t demand it, it would be needlessly divisive: who else but a creationist would suggest that such language be used?) "Hey Dr. Egnor: At Least Galen Dissected Animals, Not Straw Men" March 14, 2007. A "bhumburg" is given as the author.

The post is in response to a statement by a Dr. Egnor (the reference is given in the original post, if you are interested) who, probably, did set up a straw man in a pro-ID argument (I didn't read his post). There are a couple of remarks that I'd like to make about the quotation above.

First, Amen and Hallelujah! Such a statement doesn't mock or negate the possibility of God's creative activity, and it was a pleasure to read it.

Second, regardless of this statement, I would expect most readers who read "The Panda's Thumb" on a regular basis to come away with the impression that the authors do, indeed, believe that "Random heritable variation and natural selection" are the only agents involved in the existence of "all biological complexity," and even in the existence of life itself. I wonder what other authors of "The Panda's Thumb" think of this part of this post. Such a belief, as bhumburg says, is not a scientific belief, but a faith statement, but anti-theists don't always understand that.

Thanks for reading.