D*****r
发帖数: 6791 | 1 发现DNA双螺旋结构的弗朗西斯.克里特解释为什么偏向无神论
My parents were religious in a rather quiet way. We had nothing like family
prayers, but they attended church every Sunday morning and when we were old
enough my brother and I went with them. The church was a nonconformist
protestant one, a Congregational Church, as it is called in England, with a
substantial building on Abington Avenue. As we did not own an automobile, we
often walked to church, though sometimes we made part of the journey by bus
. My mother greatly admired the clergyman because of his upright character.
For a time my father was secretary of the church (that is, he did the church
's financial paperwork), but I did not get the feeling that either of them
was especially devout. Certainly they were not overly narrow in their
outlook on life. My father sometimes played tennis on Sunday afternoons, but
my mother warned me not to mention this to other members of the
congregation since some almost certainly would not have approved of such
sinful conduct.
I accepted all this, as children do, as part of our way of life. At exactly
which point I lost my early religious faith I am not clear, but I suspect I
was then about twelve years old. It was almost certainly before the actual
onset of puberty. Nor can I recall exactly what led me to this radical
change of viewpoint. I remember telling my mother that I no longer wished to
go to church, and she was visibly upset by this. I imagine that my growing
interest in science and the rather lowly intellectual level of the preacher
and his congregation motivated me, though I doubt if it would have made much
difference if I had known of other more sophisticated Christian beliefs.
Whatever the reason, from then on I was a skeptic, an agnostic with a strong
inclination toward atheism.
This did not save me from attending Christian services at school, especially
at the boarding school I went to later, where a compulsory service was held
every morning and two on Sundays. For the first year there, until my voice
broke, I sang in the choir. I would listen to the sermons but with
detachment and even with some amusement if they were not too boring.
Fortunately, as they were addressed to schoolboys, they were often short,
though all too frequently based on moral exhortation.
I have no doubt, as will emerge later, that this loss of faith in Christian
religion and my growing attachment to science have played a dominant part in
my scientific career not so much on a day-to-day basis but in the choice of
what I have considered interesting and important. I realized early on that
it is detailed scientific knowledge which makes certain religious beliefs
untenable. A knowledge of the true age of the earth and of the fossil record
makes it impossible for any balanced intellect to believe in the literal
truth of every part of the Bible in the way that fundamentalists do. And if
some of the Bible is manifestly wrong, why should any of the rest of it be
accepted automatically? A belief, at the time it was formulated, may not
only have appealed to the imagination but also fit well with all that was
than known. It can nevertheless be made to appear ridiculous because of
facts uncovered later by science. What could be more foolish than to base
one's entire view of life on ideas that, however plausible at that time, now
appear to be quite erroneous? And what would be more important then to find
our true place in the universe by removing one by one these unfortunate
vestiges of earlier beliefs? Yet it is clear that some mysteries have still
to be explained scientifically. While these remain unexplained, they can
serve as an easy refuge for religious superstition. It seemed to me of the
first importance to identify these unexplained areas of knowledge and to
work toward their scientific understanding whether such explanations would
turn out to confirm existing beliefs or to refute them.
Short Graphic Rule
Even a cursory look at the world of living things shows its immense variety.
Though we find many different animals in zoos, they are only a tiny
fraction of the animals of similar size and type. J.B.S. Haldane was once
asked what the study of biology could tell one about the Almighty. "I'm
really not sure," said Haldane, "except that He must be inordinately fond of
beetles." There are thought to be at least 300,000 species of beetles. By
contrast there are only about 10,000 species of birds. We must also take
into account all the different types of plants, to say nothing of
microorganisms such as yeasts and bacteria. In addition, there are all the
extinct species, of which the dinosaurs are the most dramatic example,
numbering in all perhaps as many as thousand times all those alive today.
The second property of almost all living things is their complexity, and in
particular, their highly organised complexity. This so impressed our
forebears that they considered it inconceivable that such intricate and well
-organized mechanisms would have arisen without a designer. Had I been
living 150 years ago I feel sure I would have been compelled to agree with
this Argument from Design. Its most thorough and eloquent protagonist was
the Reverend William Paley whose book, Natural theology -- or Evidence of
the Existences and Attributes of the Deity collected from the Appearances of
nature, was published in 1802. Imagine, he said, that crossing a heath one
found on the ground a watch in good working condition. Its design and its
behaviour could only be explained by invoking a maker. In the same way, he
argued, the intricate design of living organisms forces us to recognize that
they too must have had a Designer.
This compelling argument was shattered by Charles Darwin, who believed that
the appearance of design is due to the process of natural selection. This
idea was put forward both by Darwin and by Alfred Wallace, essentially
independently. Their two papers were read before the Linnean Society on July
1, 1858, but did not immediately produce much reaction. In fact, the
president of the society, in his annual review, remarked that the year that
had passed had not been marked by any striking discoveries. Darwin wrote up
a "short" version of his ideas (he had planned a much longer work) as The
Origin of species. When this was published in 1859, it immediately ran
through several reprintings and did indeed produce a sensation. As well it
might, because it is plain today that it outlined the essential feature of
the "Secret of Life". It needed only the discovery of genetics, originally
made by Gregor Mendel in the 1860s, and, in this century, of the molecular
basis of genetics, for the secret to stand before us in all its naked glory.
It is all the more astonishing that today the majority of human beings are
not aware of all this. Of those who are aware of it, many feel (with Ronald
Reagan) that there must be a catch in it somewhere. A surprising number of
highly educated people are indifferent to these discoveries, and in western
society a rather vocal minority are actively hostile to evolutionary ideas.
[ Francis Crick is Kieckhefer Professor at the Salk Institute in La Jolla,
California, USA. He shared a Nobel Prize with James Watson and Maurice
Wilkins in 1962 for the discovery of the double-helix structure of DNA.
When Prof. Crick was informed about the Golden Jubilee of the Atheist Centre
he was immensely happy and presented his latest book What Mad Pursuit an
autobiographical account of his life as a scientist, to the Atheist Centre
with his best wishes for the Golden Jubilee. This book is published by Basic
Books, Inc., New York. Here are a few extracts from that book to acquaint
readers with Crick's views on religion. ] | x****g
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【在 D*****r 的大作中提到】
: 发现DNA双螺旋结构的弗朗西斯.克里特解释为什么偏向无神论
: My parents were religious in a rather quiet way. We had nothing like family
: prayers, but they attended church every Sunday morning and when we were old
: enough my brother and I went with them. The church was a nonconformist
: protestant one, a Congregational Church, as it is called in England, with a
: substantial building on Abington Avenue. As we did not own an automobile, we
: often walked to church, though sometimes we made part of the journey by bus
: . My mother greatly admired the clergyman because of his upright character.
: For a time my father was secretary of the church (that is, he did the church
: 's financial paperwork), but I did not get the feeling that either of them
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