Help With Hate Mail

Because I host a podcast and write for the public in various ways, I get a modest amount of email out of the blue from people I don’t know. Most of it is generous and encouraging. I’m grateful for that. Who doesn’t like to be told that your work has been helpful?!

And then there’s the other kind.

Less frequently, but still fairly regularly, an email arrives that reminds me that not everyone is impressed with the words I put out. Recently, one of those came from a man named Bob. I was able to guess correctly from the subject heading, “Soft Science”, that Bob wasn’t going to be generous and encouraging. I quote his email to you verbatim, only leaving out his last name to protect the guilty:

Hi James

My sister got me your AI titled book for Christmas. I enjoy reading someone who cannot define evolution There is micro and macro Of couse we evolve But evolution cannot explain big bang or DNA or the Spirit (unique entity from the soul) or fine tuning or the second law of thermodynaics I expect this from someone who defines a scientist as PhD in biology or “medicine” These are soft sciences compared to physical chemistry and mathematics We cannot evolve from darwins “protoplasm” And DNA could Never evolve The mathematics are illogical Ill finish your “book” But im embarrased for you.


Bob
PhD Physical Chemistry

He’s talking about my book, The Sacred Chain: How Understanding Evolution Leads to Deeper Faith. In the introduction I revealed that when the literary agency was submitting the proposal to publishers, they wanted a different title (I had simply proposed, “How Understanding Evolution Leads to Deeper Faith”). These were the very early days of ChatGPT, and one of the agents ran a query asking for suggestions for a title. It returned a list of about ten, and the literary agents liked “The Sacred Chain” and then so did the publisher. I’ll confess that it wasn’t my favorite, but then I found out that a chain as a unit of measurement is the distance between stumps on a cricket pitch. So I went along with it. Bob clearly thinks that was dumb.

My first instinct was to respond to his email in kind. Snark was right there, begging to be deployed. I just about replied that if he was really so concerned with rigor and precision like his disdain for “soft sciences” suggests, maybe he should start with spelling and basic punctuation, that I was embarrassed for him and the clear challenges he has communicating in standard written English. But I didn’t send that.

My second instinct was to argue — to do the philosopher thing and dismantle his claims and insinuations, one by one, showing him the error of his ways. But I received the email right while I was preparing to give a talk at Goshen College this week, which was going to reflect on how quickly disagreements in our culture these days slide into us vs. them territory, where arguments stop being about truth and start being about identity. Once that happens, nobody’s listening anymore, and all we do is preach to the choir.

So instead of trying to win an argument, I decided to practice what I was preaching (almost literally) that week and try to win some trust with him. I replied with curiosity rather than counterpunching. I acknowledged that we clearly disagree, suggested we might at least try to understand each other better, thanked his sister for buying the book, and invited him to share more of his story.

I figured I’d never hear from him again. But Bob wrote back the next day:

Thanks for responding Jim!

I’m already 1/2 way thru the book so it has clearly peaked my interest :-)

I firmly believe that evolution cannot account for the origin of life or species or fossil records akin to the cambrian explosion. The big bang itself is proof that there must be a creator. DNA mathematically could never have evolved, there’s not enough time. Evolution cannot explain irreducible complexity. I believe in an old earth, however, am much more swayed by scientific hypotheses put forth by RTB. I think “trying to think like God thinks” is a fleshly endeavor and tamping out intelligent design thru enforcing every aspect of evolution is hurting curious minds from exploring. Science backs the bible, 100%. I cannot think of an instance where the two contradict.

In Christ,

Bob

I don’t think the smiley icon at the end of the second sentence is supposed be chuckling at an ironic spelling of “peaked” when it should have been “piqued” (though I suppose your interest could “peak” and then go down the other side?). But that was a better start! It felt like the temperature dropped from his previous note. He gave a little more of his views, which seem to misunderstand science of evolution, but perhaps he can be forgiven for that since he is a physical chemist. Then he signed off, “In Christ” which is perhaps a gesture of some sort, even though it’s difficult for me to think of Christ being pleased with someone spouting nonsense.

Then, a bit later, I got one more short follow-up from him:

I know its hard to understand the fine tuning of gravity and the mass of a proton But Biologos should have some hard scientists onboard Some people who understand group theory ans quantum

For the record (and mostly for my own amusement):

• Our founder, Francis Collins, has an MD and a PhD in physical chemistry.

• Our first president, Darrel Falk, was a geneticist (which is not a soft science)

• Karl Giberson was deeply involved in BioLogos leadership early on, has a PhD in physics.

• Our next president, Deb Haarsma, has a PhD in astrophysics and has spent her career thinking about things like… gravity.

By any reasonable standard, we’ve done OK in the “hard science” department. And I might even add that my own education, before switching to the squishy humanities discipline of philosophy (specializing in philosophy of science and symbolic logic), was in mathematics.

But here’s the thing: listing résumés almost certainly won’t move Bob anywhere. It might even reinforce the divide he already assumes is there.

So I’m curious to plumb the wisdom of the hive mind of my readers: Do I reply again? And if so, how? Do I correct the record? Ask a question? Let it go? Try to build a little more trust without pretending the disagreement doesn’t matter?

This is where I’d love your help. Seriously. What would you write next? What might actually move the conversation forward, even a notch? By that I don’t mean winning the argument; I mean bridging the gap between “us and them”; seeing someone you disagree with not as the other, but as a fellow human being who has been shaped by his family and community of origin, as well as the choices he’s made.

Drop a line or two of your advice in the comments. Then I’ll try responding to Bob, and will update in the comments with how it has gone.