Thanks Marc for a very good review. I've just picked up The Language of God from its place high on my bookshelf (where it had been forgotten) thanks to this review. You're right that it isn't "for the casual saint," but I'm finding it so refreshingly honest and clear. I love his discussion the The Big Bang and the idea that scientists finally climbed the mountain of ignorance and just as they scaled the highest peak found a band of theologians who have been there for hundreds of years.

I did my best to like The Language of God, but I was looking for something else.

Having said that, I did appreciate his efforts educate readers who may be creationists. That kind of education is sadly lacking.

Whatever happened to intelligent faith, faith that accepts God's word as the answer to the imcomprehensible or "ununderstandable"; faith that takes God at His word from His Word?

For me, "By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth ... God spoke (as recorded in Genesis 1) and it was done, He commanded and it stood forth" (Ps 33:6,9).

Why is it so difficult to accept that:
* God used a common design rather than a common ancestor
* God spoke as His word declares
* God is inimately, rather than "from a distance" interested in His creative activity and His creation
* human science has been wrong in the past and is not always correct in its assertions and theories (surely evolution theory is also built on "faith" - there is no "proof" only evidence?

toneli, I guess you would have to read the book.

Thank you Dick but I would posit that if the review presented by Marc Wagner is true to the essence of the thesis, then the nub of the thesis is contained within the review, much like an executive summary or a research paper's abstract.

If this is so, then theistic evolution as described in the review is non Biblical and hence heretical. Scripture calls for faith in an omnipotent, omniscient, transcendant and immenent God, and His word, not in the suppositions and theories of fallible humankind.

A very well known author has penned, "There are in the Bible many things which they (those young in the Christian life) cannot explain, or even understand. ... God never asks us to believe, without giving sufficient evidence upon which to base our faith. ... Yet God has never removed the possibility of doubt. Our faith must rest upon evidence, not demonstration. ... It is impossible for finite minds fully to comprehend the character or the works of the Infinite One. ..." (White, EG 1908 Steps to Christ Review & Herald Publishing Association pp105,106).

For those wishing to consider an additional article on this subject I would refer them to God and Nature: a biblical approach to origins, L James Gibson, Ministry Magazine, Vol79 Num11, (November 2007), pp 16-20.

The attitude to a divergent view expressed in this post I find most interesting if a little anachronistic. Toneli is clearly not involved in or appreciative of the scientific endeavor. Publication of ones observations and hypothesis in scientific journals is an open process. One subjects ones views to public scrutiny and peer review. In his book Collins adopts this same open scientific approach and presents his views in an open and honest fashion without qualms about their orthodoxy. He indeed believes his faith is authentic and honest yet he is judging by Toneli as a heretic because it is not identical to Toneli 's 19th century orthodoxy. One would have to ask where Toneli sympathies would lie at the time of Galileo. Would he support the heretic or the orthodoxy of the church of Rome?
In Australia we have experienced this obsession with orthodoxy before. In the 1980s adventist ministers under suspicion for heresy were asked to sign a document affirming a belief in the orthodox view. They had the option of being dishonest and affirming a belief they did not consider true and remaining a minister in good and regular standing or being open and honest and ceasing church employment. Many did take the latter option. This attitude of telling lies for God is yet alive in the Adventist community among some who would see no prospect of new light or change. The conundrum for an Adventist biologist in the Toneli world is that one cannot be both honest and Adventist. To be adventist one can only pretend to engage in the scientific enterprise. One doesn't really believe the scientific conclusions because they must always be subject to the fixed traditional Adventist interpretation of the bible. If a scientist suggests that truth can be gained by the open process of hypothesis testing and experimentation and that such truths can supersede some of the views that tradition has wrested from the canon then he is heretical and no longer Adventist.
Collins book portrays a man that does not pretend. Like many scientists within the Adventist tradition he is both an authentic Christian and a seeker after truth by way of the scientific method. He is prepared to follow the evidence where-ever it leads. That search for truth lead him from atheism to Christianity. I am sure his book will provoke some scientist to consider the claims of Christ that would certainly not be provoked by an uninspiring emphasis on tradition.

Toneli, are you Cliff?

After reading Francis Collins I tried as a life long Adventist to pull my thoughts together on this subject. I would welcome comment.

SCIENCE and FAITH or PROGRESSION vs RESTORATION
Living With the Chasm Between Two Worldviews

(A personal understanding in progress)

Science and faith represent two world views seemingly in conflict. How is a Bible Christian to live with this clash of views. Are there only two choices; either ignore scientific advancement or abandon faith? It is my observation that most Christian believers embrace science when the evidence becomes overwhelming. Witness our acceptance of scientific medicine and a scientific view of the visible universe. It seems clear that “(s)cience is the only legitimate way to investigate and understand the natural or physical world.”* It is understood through the scientific language and model of Darwinian evolution. Yes, science can make mistakes. But the nature of science is self-correcting. No major fallacy can long persist in the face of a progressive increase in knowledge.
However, science is not the only way of knowing or understanding. Science cannot answer all the important questions of life. The spiritual worldview provides another way of finding truth. Albert Einstein saw the poverty of a purely naturalistic world view. He wrote “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.” The spiritual world is known and understood through the spiritual language and model of the Bible narrative.
The dilemma presented by these two worldviews is symbolized to me by the words “progression” and “restoration”. Progression describes the evolutionary model moving from simple to complex, undeveloped to diverse, primitive to organized. While restoration describes the primary Biblical theme or model of paradise, paradise lost, paradise regained. These two worldviews seem, at this time, to be irreconcilable, a chasm separates them. So are we forced to choose between them? That is do we choose science and abandon faith or do we choose faith and discard scientific advances? Is it all one or all the other? Can we not respect both science and faith?
The resolution in my view is to accept the dichotomy: The Bible is not a book of science and science is not a religion. When contemplating the physical world, including life forms, we need to use the language of science including evolutionary vocabulary and long age scenario to understand the truth about the world we live in. “. . . (T)he relatedness of all species through the mechanism of evolution is such a profound foundation for the understanding of all biology that it is difficult to imagine how one would study life without it.”*
But conversely “. . . science offers no answers to the most pressing questions of human existence.”* The intention of the Bible is to reveal the nature of God to humankind. When contemplating the spiritual world we need to use the language and the stories of the Bible to understand spiritual truth. At this time I simply choose to live with the abyss between these two worldviews and hope (or pray) for a clearer answer and understanding in the future. Someone we often quote has written: “Skeptics who read the Bible . . . may, through an imperfect comprehension of either science or revelation, claim to find contradictions between them; but rightly understood, they are in perfect harmony.” (PP 114.1) Will God or science provide that perfect harmony?
The science is overwhelming but the faith is overpowering.

* The Language of God -- (c) 2006 by Dr. Frances S. Collins, Head of the Human Genome Project

I thought this might elucidate further Collins's views on these issues:

The audience’s questions tended to focus on Collins. For example, one questioner (who had read Collins’ book) correctly identified Collins’ alleged “evidence for belief” as fundamentally a God of the gaps argument. According to Collins, naturalistic science can’t account for human Moral Law (Collins’ capitalization) or the origin of the universe and its (alleged) fine-tuning, and therefore belief in a God is at least partly justified. To his credit, Collins answered that he wasn’t claiming “proofs” (his word) but rather only indications or pointers.

Source

My only real point in posting this is to clarify Collins's position.

Glen Davidson

Like Toneli, I have always felt secure by choosing to interpret the scientific data regarding origins as the result of Common Desing instead of Common Descent, until I read Chapter Five of Francis Collins' book "The Language of God."

If I were a scientist, I would study Collins' arguments carefully in order to figure out why he chose to reject the Common Design argument as an explanation for the origin of life. It is true that he does believe in God, but it is a strange God who bears no resemblance to the biblical Deity who intervened not only in the creation of life, but also in the life of his creatures as recorded from Genesis through Revelation.

In order to accept Collins' Deistic God, I have to reject not only the creation story of Genesis, but all the doctrinal teachings of the Christian church, including the original sin, the plan of salvation, and Jesus portrayal of a loving, caring, and forgiving God, ready to intervene on behalf of his creatures eternal happyness.

The life of Jesus, who came to save sinners, his crucifixion and resurrection, looses al its spiritual meaning if I accept Collins portrayal of a God who set the fine tuning of the universe, and left it unatended to evolve at its own pace and time.

Why should I worship a God who is like a deadbeat parent who plays no part in caring for the children he fathered? I agree that Collins exudes honesty in his defense of his theological views, but he fails to impress me with his heretical views about biblical truth.

I hope someone who understands genetics will have the courage and interest in figuring out where Collins went wrong in his interpretation of the human genome as it relates to his Common Descent belief. I do believe in science, and I am convinced that Collins's rejection of the Common Design is faulty. My problem is that, not being a scientist, I cannot venture to discover where he went wrong! Can someone help?

What follows is a response to Beth's posting on the main page entitled "Favorite Books of 2007." I am including it here because it deals with Collins' book "The Language of God." The Internet link to Beth's comment is: http://www.spectrummagazine.org/reviews/book_reviews/2008/01/02/favorite...

Beth: Thank you for your comments. You state that Science can’t prove design. Well, science can’t prove the lack of design either. Even the most adamant defenders of Darwin’s theory of evolution admit fine tuning for the life to have appeared in the universe. Well, fine tuning requires a fine tuner, and Collins admits that God set the parameters for this fine tuning before the Big Bang, yet he denies the evidence for Intelligent Design.

Am I the only one who detects a non-sequitur here? How can you have fine tuning without design? Those engaged in the SETI project, are constantly looking for fine tuning and design in order to determine whether there are any intelligent beings somewhere else in the universe. Likewise, the moment geologists discover a monument with hieroglyphics, they conclude that they are the result of intelligent action instead of random action of natural forces.

You also state that Intelligent Design cannot be falsified. Did you miss Collins’ quote where he cites Demski’s statement showing how ID could be proved wrong on page 194 of his book? Actually, he claims that science is close to have already achieved such a feat. Nevertheless, I am frankly not convinced of this, since even if science were to demonstrate how the flagellum could have developed by natural selection and random mutation, this would not prove that it actually happened that way. For example, if science were to show how a skyscraper could have been the result of natural forces, this would not prove that it was in fact the result of said non-deliberate action.

You defend Collins by explaining that he did not reject the plan of salvation, the resurrection, and the second coming. This may be true, but his defense of Darwinian evolution deforms God’s character to such an extent that it distorts the picture I get of him from the sacred record. The sacred Book tells me that when the Lord looked at the finished product, it was “very good.” Collins tells me that it was bad, with death, predation, and suffering existing for millions of years prior to homo sapiens rebellion against God’s “moral law” implanted in him.

The Bible tells me that the Lord will wipe the tears of the saved ones, and that death and suffering will be extinguished in the new earth. If the Lord was unable to produce life without suffering and death initially, how is he going to accomplish this at the end? Frankly, if science were to produce unequivocal, one hundred percent evidence that suffering, predation, and death did exist before the appearance of homo sapiens, then I would conclude that said suffering and death were the result, not of God’s design, but rather the design of the great deceiver, the one who has been a “murderer from the beginning.”

In such a scenario, I would adopt Jack Provonsha’s hypothesis assigning life predating Adam and Eve on this planet to be the result of the Devil’s rebellion against his Creator instead of Adam’s sin. This would mean that suffering, predation, and death before Adam and Eve were the result of Satan’s activity; while Adam was responsible for the same after his fall from grace. This does not mean that I am embracing the theory of evolution. In fact I am still hoping that intelligent scientists would eventually find sufficient evidence to tip the scale against Darwinian evolution, and I think that this is already beginning to happen.

Collins rejects the Common Design hypothesis on the basis of the existence and proliferation of “junk DNA and non-functional repetitive genes which are present both in mice and humans. He also admits that this could be the result of our present ignorance, but he opts for rejecting this alternative. I hope that someone who can read the DNA, the language of God, the way Collins does, will one day look at the same data and reach the conclusion that such apparently non-functional genes do actually have a function and are in fact the result of intelligent design.

Collins states that he is impressed with the “elegant relatedness of all living things.” Frankly, I am not impressed with being a relative of monkeys and mice. If he believes that they are his ancestors, I will not dispute said fact, but based on what the Bible tells me, I know that my line of ancestors leads to Adam and God—not mice and chimpanzees!

I would like to end with a question for Collins: If you think that it took the Creator millions of years to produce the first human pair, how many billions of years will it take for him to effect the resurrection of millions of his saints at his Second Coming, which, according to Beth you believe in? Second: If God did not bother to intervene in the evolutionary process, why would he suddenly reverse his past policy and re-create millions of human beings when he returns to this earth? Do you realize that there is a clear disconnect here between the message of the Bible and your heretical dogma?

If Collins is right, then Genesis is about as factual as the stork bringing babies. He's bought into a system, a false one at that, that so dominates his thinking he's been forced to sublimate even the clearest teachings of the Word of God to his system.

In short, Collins is typical of what Christians have been doing for centuries: adapting Christianity to the prevalent views of the time, no matter how antithetical those views are to the most basic reading of the Word.

Science has made no progress in determining beginnings. It has made progress in understanding bio-chemical processes.

If Satan took dominion away from Adam, you can be sure he has been active in distorting the clarity of the Bio-mass. It is most likely that God counted this with His own check-mates.

The Bio-mass we see today, is certainly not the bio-mass on day six of the Genesis Story.

We see design and we design flaws. So in biology as in theology we see demonstrations of good and evil.

Given the dogma of churchmen in the 19th century, I cannot but feel sorry for Darwin. Caught between supposition and observation he went with observation. The church was wrong about how the heavens and earth moved. The church was wrong on the shape of the earth. The church is still wrong about the Shroud of Turin. It is difficult to come away from a lecture on Creationism by a pastor who didn't even have Biology 101 in college. One has to go the the Psalms,Job, and Paul to restore one's faith and confidence in a Creator/Redeeming Loving Father. Tom

Isn't Charles Darwin buried inside Westminster Abbey, otherwise known as the College Church of St. Peters, a cathedral of sorts in London, not far from Isaac Newton?

Is this not one of the places the Church of England buries those it most honors?

Although this says little or nothing about Darwin's own convictions, it does suggest that the most important religious reactions to his ideas were not always hostile.

David

Your not suggesting at all those bried inside Westminster Abbey were endorsed by the Church? The list of the English heros of E.G. White and the Heros of Westminster Abbey are not congrunent. Politics David, Politics. It even exists at Loma Linda, Andrews,Takoma Park and every local and union conference in the world field.

Years ago, my sister received delivery of a case of assorted liquors. She asked the driver what this was all about? He replied that Dr. so and So at this Address had order these items for a New Years Party. My sister said his house is three houses up the street. The driver aplogized took the case and drove on up the hill. That Doctor, heads the list of heros of Loma Linda. We look upon the outslide, God looks upon the heart. Tom

Tom

Nic, I don't understand this statement, "In such a scenario, I would adopt Jack Provonsha’s hypothesis assigning life predating Adam and Eve on this planet to be the result of the Devil’s rebellion against his Creator instead of Adam’s sin."

Could you unpack that for me? Thanks. -Jeff

Jack Provonsha's hypothesis simply put was that the devil took possession of the earth after he was dispelled from Heaven. He began his own creation resulting all the "big bone" anomolies we unearth today. When God created Adam and Eve, the devil attempted to take dominion away from them by deceit.

With the open genetic "kinds" the devil and a field day in 'amalagamation thus the distortions are confusing to both creationists and evolutionists.

Remember Jack was trying to explain a human dilemma. I know think God got caught in any kind of biological trap. We just don't know how much leaway God gave Satan. We know that God allowed Satan to manipulate man to kill God's own Son!

I certainly can't explain exploding stars or black holes.
If the universe is perfect except planet earth. Tom

Nic
I just wanted to comment on a couple of things. And I'm saying this more for anyone else reading because it sounds like your mind is already made up (which is fine, we are all struggling in our own way to make sense out of it all.) First, science cannot prove anything. Because it is constantly self-correcting based on evidence, it can never say something is proven. It can only say that this is the best explanation based on the evidence. It cannot prove that the earth is older than 6000 years. It can say (and it does) that all the evidence contradicts that and, while it is possible that the earth somehow in every way only LOOKS old, that is not a helpful scientific explanation (though some have used it as a theological explanation).

Science is always open for new interpretation. By definition though, that interpretation must be naturalistic and it must fit the data. Science looks to naturalistic explanations because that is what works best in explaining the natural world. That does not mean that that is all there is, only that science must explain things using naturalistic explanations. Supernatural intervention is not a naturalistic explanation.

ID (Intelligent Design) says that some parts of the natural world cannot be explained naturally and thus require an unnamed extra design. This claim, that it COULD NOT have happened without intervention can be falsified and often has been. This is different from saying how it DID happen. You are absolutely right that science cannot say ID did not happen. Science cannot disprove a supernatural explanation by definition because supernatural explanations do not follow scientific rules. An example. A earthquake hits California. I can provide a scientific naturalistic explanation or I can say God/Satan/Thor/Apollo did it. How would I prove scientifically that Satan did it or did not do it? Or to be more like ID, that some Unknown Designer did it. One is a scientific explanation, one is a "super-natural" explanation. It is certainly possible Satan did it and we can believe Satan did it. It is just not scientific (which does not mean it is false). ID claims that there are natural things that you cannot explain naturally. Whenever scientists offer specific naturalistic explanations for those claims, ID adherents just keep saying, "Well that's not good enough." In essence, "La,la la I can't hear you because I need to believe that there is proof my Christian God did this." Scientists say, "Fine believe what you want, just don't call it science and don't try to teach it in public schools as an alternative SCIENTIFIC explanation for the diversity of life." Provonsha's hypothesis would fall in this category too.

I also wanted to clarify that origins of the universe, Big Bang cosmology etc. is not a part of TofE. The TofE only addresses how life changed once it got here. This is true despite numerous efforts on the part of anti-evolutionists to confuse TofE with life origins and the creation of the universe . Abiogenesis is looking for naturalistic explanations for how life might have started because it is science but that doesn't mean that God had nothing to do with it. Nic, you claim that "even the most ardent defenders of Darwin's theory of evolution admit fine tuning for life to have appeared in the universe." There are two problems with this. First like I said above, TofE is not concerned with universe or even life origins so, while the scientists have a curiosity I'm sure, it is a completely separate field. It's not even biology. It's like chemists commenting on physics. Second, it's, um, overly optimistic. It is true that there are some scientists who are struck by the narrow parameters that have been met for life to have existed and, for some, it has strengthened their belief in a God. Collins is an example of a scientist for whom this is true (though it is not his field.) This is an interesting discussion in the scientific field that brings in philosophy and ways of knowing. It is, by no means though, a set assumption that a fine tuner was necessary. If fact, many argue that it is not a helpful explanation because who fine tuned the fine tuner? If something is so complex that it must have had a fine tuner, wouldn't the fine tuner also be complex and why wouldn't it also have needed a fine tuner? For Christians raised in the faith it is an automatic assumption that it is evidence for a Christian God. Of course God doesn't need a "first cause" because God is that "first cause" but scientists are much more likely to challenge assumptions. I'm not taking sides here, just pointing out that those who believe the fine tuner argument are in the minority.

You have presented theological arguments against some of the scientific findings. Maybe someone else with more theological energy can address some of those. I agree that there are some real challenges to the traditional Christian narrative. A major question is what do we do when science directly contradicts beliefs? And how do we sort out what science can comment on and what it can't address. I hope I've clarified some of that above. For some, one must always choose a literal interpretation of the Bible and that is ok. Collins would not be a helpful book for those people because for them, it doesn't matter what science says. If it is different from the Bible it is wrong. For others though, arguing that TofE cannot be true because it does not fit my theology isn't enough. For those who put more stock in the scientific method, it is helpful in pointing out how one can better reconcile his/her faith. As I've said before, I don't think Language of God is the best book for that because he makes the same mistake IDers make. He says one cannot explain moral law naturalistically. Nonsense. He is trying too hard to prove God scientifically which is a lost cause. However, to his credit as a scientist, he does seem willing to accept additional information as Glen pointed out in his post above.

Perception is truly interesting. I looked at my cadaver's hand and marveled at the creator's design for movement...yet my partner saw mere evolution.

Isn't it impossible to prove a negative?

Would it be worth betting that everyone here would not rely totally on the Bible's recommendations for: treating diseases, the earth or sun's rotation, or many more? The Bible was NEVER intended to be a book of explanation of HOW everything we observe now once began. It is similar to other culture's epics or origin, and strongly resembles the Epic of Gilgamesh, which predates the Genesis story only by a thousand years. The flood story as well as others found in the Bible, were told long before those found in the Bible.

One can believe that she is created in the image of God, without declaring exactly how it all occurred. See the two contradictory stories in Genesis 1 and 2 where man was created before plants and animals.

As for Provonsha's "interesting hypothesis," it is only his way of attempting to correlate two conflicting stories and in so doing, muddied the waters only more.

Beth, I, as a trained scientist (Chemical Synthesis PhD) would be interested to hear you explaining "moral law naturalistically"

Ryan,
I don't intend this as a definitive response by any means, but let me share briefly that in my undergraduate evolutionary psychology (evolution of behavior) class at a public university, the professor basically did just that. He argued that the "rules" for a functioning society evolved in the mental landscape at the same time the physiology was evolving. It could be said we're half evolved in this area--we have a sense of how we need to act, but we still feel the urges of our animal past and those get in the way of the social needs of this new organism.

I'm not saying I support this view, but that's the basic argument. I don't know what Beth had in mind, so I'll wait with curiosity for her response.

ID is a very wearisome thing, because it repeats its claims no matter how many times it has been shot down. I'm going to repeat here some comments that I made on Panda's Thumb regarding ID and evolution, but with nicer language. Starting with an IDist's claims:

IC, CSI, the existence of the cosmos and life itself are ALL compelling evidence for design. What’s denied is that any of these can be taken to be evidence for actual design, even in principle, because we already know a priori that nature posses all the creative power she needs through the blind, purposeless forces of matter and energy acting through chance and necessity to explain everything

No, there isn’t anything in “IC” or “CSI” that indicates design. Do you know why nature is called “nature”, and not artifice? It’s because artifice and “nature” (obviously in this sense we’re using "nature" as something opposed to human action, though the default meaning includes human action) are readily, easily distinguishable. That is to say, organisms don’t actually even “appear designed,” except to those who are culturally conditioned to see it that way. And indeed, organisms were credited to God’s doing because they were not the sorts of things that humans can or do make, or would even imagine making prior to seeing them.

Actual designs (including alien designs that we should be able to detect) are distinguishable through their rationality, apparent purposefulness, their lack of evolutionarily-imposed constraints, and by novelty and/or promiscuous borrowing. Not every one of these must appear in each artifact, but one or more must whenever we are not familiar with the objects and their creation.

Do you really think that we’d mistake the aliens for being machines, and their machines for being aliens? Of course we wouldn’t, at least not if the two haven’t become hopelessly entangled through interventions. We’d know the aliens because they show evidence of having evolved (and not having been rationally designed), and we’d know their machines precisely because they had not evolved (not as biology evolves, in any case) and were designed with evident rationality, and mostly likely with apparent purpose.

This is what the IDists with all of their unthinking analogies forget, that with aliens not hugely more advanced than ourselves we’d be able to see what was "natural" (in the narrower sense) life, and what was artifice, because we know the characteristics of each–and these happen to be substantially different.

Dembski has to conflate rational simplicity with “complexity” in order to obscure this fact for the scientifically naive persons who want to believe him, because in fact much design is not very complex (even if it is unlikely to form without intelligence working on it), and much of nature is very complex indeed.

In addition to the above, which is mostly pasted in, I would repeat a challenge that I've made previously in various forums, including the old Spectrum blog: The IDists have to explain to us why any designer would make all vertebrate wings out of forelimbs originally adapted for moving on the ground (the Wright brothers did not, of course), why the taxonomies appear as predicted by evolution, and why asexual prokaryotes appear to have evolved quite differently from sexual eukaryotes, essentially as predicted by our knowledge of biological evolution. All of these are readily explained by evolution, and are inexplicable through any design principles.

Glen Davidson

Hi Glen,
I've "seen" you over at Panda's Thumb and Pharyngula. Had to laugh at your comment about cleaning up the language - different blogs can certainly have different ways of expressing things. I enjoy those though.

Now Ryan,
I guess I can try and give a summary but I'm not exactly sure how to talk about years worth of work. There are plenty of people more articulate than I that have written about it. If you are really interested, just google "The evolution of. . . " and plug in any trait you are curious about. You'll find lots of articles suggesting ways the various traits evolved. Here's a good overall article about the development of morality:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/science/20moral.html?_r=1&ref=science&...

A brief explanation of the moral code would be something like this. It can be helpful in terms of survival for animals to live in close community with each other. When they do,it is helpful for the animals to have rules of conduct. These rules make it easier for animals to interact and maintain the benefits of social living. By sacrificing some initial individual benefit, the animal gets another different benefit from the group. Traits like cooperation and sharing can be beneficial in helping a social organism survive and thus would be selected for up to a point. If a behavior trait has evolved in humans (who are social animals) we would expect to see behaviors that are at least somewhat similar in the animal world and we do. If it was every beast for himself all the time, social interactions would not be beneficial to survival.

Do we know exactly how morality evolved? No. Collins was arguing though that it COULD NOT have evolved and thus is evidence for divine intervention. The study of evolution has moved way beyond the idea that all an organism can do is fight tooth and nail for survival. One can explain very easily the evolutionary benefits of cooperative behaviors which could lead to a basis for morality in a cognitively complex organism.

One must point out that we are talking about behavior. All of these suggestions about the evolution of behavior are going to be hypotheses, some more supported than others. It is much more difficult to pin down causes of behavior because many factors go into behavior, only some of which are genetic. There is quite a bit more wiggle room and one cannot say with any degree of certainty that we know why say a bird that is part of a flock will give an alert call if a predator is near thus drawing attention to itself and putting itself at risk for the benefit of the flock. We can offer hypotheses that explore the benefits and test those hypotheses but we won't get as clear an answer as we might when focusing on the evolution of structures. To say though that the bird does it because God gave it a moral sense that tells it to would be a science stopper. One could not test that and explore it further.

Collins makes a specific point about altruism and argues that it is unique to humans. Researchers have begun studying altruism in animals and there are all sorts of interesting articles. Here are just two examples and one can find many more:
sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/07070373345.html
bio.davidson.edu/people/vecase/Behavior/Spring2002/perry/altruism.html

There are even examples of interspecies altruism and here's a quick article that discusses that interesting phenomenon.

http://www.surrey.ac.uk/qe/articles/The%20Guardian%20Dec2004.htm

It is foolish to pretend that it is the same process for animals as humans because humans have greater cognitive abilities but it is equally foolish to argue that humans are unique because they have a moral code and exhibit altruism. If Collins had done even some brief checking he would have known that we find all sorts of animal examples.

In fact, humans do follow an evolutionary model pretty well by taking better care of their relatives than strangers, by showing tribal alliances, by sharing and cooperating when it is beneficial, and only rarely exhibiting truly altruistic behavior. It is rare enough that it makes national news when it happens and we all celebrate it as well we should. One could ask the God-given moral law model to explain these behaviors and it really couldn't (other than to say generically that we are sinful which is decidedly true but unhelpful as an explanation for specific behavior).

Now, having said all that, does that mean that God had nothing to do with us developing a moral code? Of course not. A materialistic explanation does not invalidate a supernatural one. Just because we can explain something using natural explanations does not mean a) that that explanation is the way it HAD to be and b) that God had nothing to do with it. Collins sets himself up by saying it has to be a supernatural explanation. A classic God of the Gaps problem. Science comes along and says, "Um well what about this explanation?" and suddenly one is left wondering if the evidence for God is then somehow contradicted. I stick by my assertion that we will never have scientific evidence for God but that does not mean that I cannot see God everywhere in science.

Here are the links to the two altruism articles. They didn't go through the first time.

http://www.bio.davidson.edu/people/vecase/Behavior/Spring2002/perry/altr...

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070703173345.htm

OK here's my last link. NY Times very fortuitously just today published an article addressing many of these issues. Very interesting read.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/magazine/13Psychology-t.html?pagewante...

Beth, I printed out the NYTimes aticle earlier this am on "The Moral Instinct" and having returned from church, plan to read it.

A companion book review of Andrew Lewis' "Freedom for the Thought We Hate: A biography of the First Amendment" is another article I'm also anxious to read. It can be found at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/books/review/Rosen-t.html?

Cliff: I agree with you that what Francis Collins did was to try to adapt Christianity to the prevalent views of our time; nevertheless, by doing so, he distorted Christianity beyond recognition. He sounds like a very honest man, and I believe that the Lord used him in his genome research project for the benefit of humanity, but by retaining his belief in evolution, he twisted the clear teachings of Scripture that emphasize that sin, predation, and death are the direct results of sin and rebellion.

Tom: You suggested that Satan has been active in distorting the clarity of the Bio-mass. Could you elaborate and clarify this? Did this distortion include the fossil record?

Jeff: I hope Tom’s comments were helpful regarding Dr. Jack Provonsha’s hypothesis dealing with the existence of suffering, predation, and death prior the creation of Adam and Eve. I had the privilege of sitting at his feet for a couple of decades in his Sabbath School class. He was very popular, and he was forced to hold two sessions every Sabbath because if you were a few minutes late for his main 9:30 session, you had to seat on the floor.

I remember that when he returned from a science field trip, he told us that after deep soul searching, he decided that in the event the fossil record were to prove beyond any doubt that suffering, predation, and death did predate the creation of Adam and Eve by millions of years, then he would conclude that said geologic record of animals should be attributed to the activity of Satan after he rebelled against the God of heaven. Under such a scenario, the death of animal would still be the result of sin—not Adams sin, but rather the sin of Lucifer.

Beth: I am glad that we agree that Collins seems to jump to an unwarranted conclusion by suggesting that by falsifying the Intelligent Design hypothesis evolution is proved to be the logical explanation for origins. If science were to show how life could have started by spontaneous generation, this would not prove that evolution is the only explanation for life. Collins argues that certain aspects of the development of the flagellum machine could be explained by natural selection and the random gene mutation. In the event science could explain how the entire machine could have originated without the intervention of an intelligence design, this would not prove that this is necessarily the way the flagellum originated. Intelligent design would still remain as an alternative option.

If you were to find on a beach the word “Hello!” scribbled on the sand, and you could explain how the wind, the sea waves, or the activity of birds could be responsible for said curious sand formation, this would not prove that the random activity of nature did produce this. The alternative hypothesis that this was evidence of intelligent design would still remain as an option!

I believe that ID, correctly inderstood, provides a scientific alternative to evolution. There is no need to identify this entity with a divine agency. It could be merely aliens. Scientists have been searching for evidence for the existence of intelligent beings elsewhere in the universe, and nobody is arguing that SETI should be relegated to the religious seminaries. If scientists engaged in this scientific program were to detect signals coming from space within specific narrow parameters, it would be evidence that the signals were produced by intelligent entities. Likewise, the origin of life bears evidence that it could have been produced by the activity of a highly intelligent entity which you could identify as either an alien or a divine being. By including the ID hypothesis as an explanation for the origin of life, we are not crossing the line separating science from theology.

I have to disagree with your suggestion that the theory of evolution is not concerned with the origin of life. All you need is to take a look at the biology textbooks currently used in schools, including some of our SDA academies. I also disagree with the suggestion that positing the existence of a fine tuner forces us to explain the origin of a fine tuner. Let me use an example from the police work. When experts are assigned to a crime scene, their task is to determine the cause of death: Was it accident, suicide, or murder?

Suppose the crime expert determines that it was murder, this does not mean that his conclusion would be invalidated because we ignore the origin of the murderer. Finding the identity and origin of the murderer is a completely separate task, and even if the police fail to solve this enigma, the fact will remain that they have a murder case. This means that if the origin of life on our planet is attributed to the intelligent activity of an extraterrestrial agent, this fact will not be negated by arguing that we have no explanation for the origin of said agent. In other words: If we attribute the origin of the universe to a fine tuner, we have no need to solve the problem of the origin of said entity.

You claim that those believing in the hypothesis that the universe evidences fine tuning are in the minority. Let me remind you that the most vociferous defenders of the theory of evolution do unashamedly admit this. Have you read the books authored by Dawkins? As far as I have seen, those arguing on both sides of the ID controversy do admit fine tuning. The difference is that in one case the fine tuning is assigned to a fine tuner and the other to the random activity of natural forces.

Beth & Elaine: I admit that there is no need to read the Genesis record in a strictly literal manner. It is true that the order of creation events found in chapter one of Genesis does not necessarily agree with what is recorded in the following chapter. The Bible was not the result of dictation, but rather inspiration, where the writer was forced to use his experience and expertise to explain God’s ideas in human imperfect language. Some SDA theologians even suggest that the author of Genesis was forced to express God’s time in human terms. I would not go this far. Nevertheless, we cannot take the liberty of distorting the core message of the Bible which asserts that suffering, predation, and death are the result of sin and rebellion, and that the solution to the sin problem is forgiveness through Jesus Christ.

It is true that we will never prove God’s existence. It is also true that science will never prove that we share a common ancestor with chimpanzees and mice. All we can do is examine the scientific evidence and draw our conclusions, but the common sequence of genetic information we share with mice can also be explained by the common design alternative hypothesis.

You state that the moral code can be explained on the basis of survival. Do you mean the survival of the group or the survival of the individual? Why would non-humans be interested in the survival of the group, quite often at the expense of the life of the individual? For example, if there is no intelligent design, why would male penguins risk their own survival for months in frigid weather for the sake of incubating the next generation of penguins while their mates are fishing in the ocean?

Glen: I believe that the Intelligent Design hypothesis is alive and well, and this is why, after a century and a half of evolutionary indoctrination in our public schools paid at taxpayers’ expense, a clear majority of Americans still believe that we are the result of intelligent design instead of natural selection and the random mutation of genes. I have asked several SDA scientists who understand the intricacies of the human genome to review Collins book in order to figure out where he went wrong in rejecting ID. I hope one of them will respond.

Hey Nic,

I'll put down a few of my thoughts for you in the form of a response to a section of Marc Wagner's review of Collin's book, The Language of God.
_________

Collins takes the view of theistic evolution, or "BioLogos" as he calls it. He speaks of it this way:

"The need to find my own harmony of worldviews ultimately came as the study of genomes�our own and that of many other organisms on the planet�began to take off, providing an incredibly rich and detailed view of how descent by modification from a common ancestor has occurred. Rather than finding this unsettling, I found this elegant evidence of the relatedness of all living things an occasion of awe, and came to see this as the master plan of the Almighty who caused the universe to come into being and set its physical parameters just precisely right to allow the creation of stars, planets, heavy elements, and life itself."

So, Collins sees evidence for God's existence in the precise set of physical parameters that exists in this universe. He doesn't see how this precise ordering of the laws of nature could have happened without a God or God-like intelligence. That is a key point. It means that at some point Collins recognizes that a solid belief in God requires that at least some phenomenon of nature go well beyond what could reasonably be explained by non-deliberate natural processes.

BioLogos rests upon several premises: The universe came into being out of nothingness, approximately 14 billion years ago. Despite massive improbabilities, the properties of the universe appear to have been precisely tuned for life.

Here is where Collins argues for evidence of the "Anthropic Principle". Though limited and though Collins might argue otherwise, this principle is a form of Intelligent Design theory.

While the precise mechanism of the origin of life on earth remains unknown, once life arose, the process of evolution and natural selection permitted the development of biological diversity and complexity over very long periods of time. This argument is very interesting in context. On the one hand Collins argues that the precise ordering of the laws of nature give clear evidence of requiring a Designer for the universe itself while on the other hand the precise ordering of the building blocks needed to produce a living thing, while equally unexplanable, are probably still the result of some as yet unknown non-deliberate force of nature?

Collins seems to me to be talking out of both sides of his mount here. You can't have it both ways. If the basis for your belief in God is, on the one hand, based on phenomena that go clearly beyond what known non-deliberate forces of nature can achieve, then it would seem reasonable, from that perspective, that any other phenomenon that does the same thing would constitute good evidence of deliberate intelligent activity as well.

Once evolution got under way, no special supernatural intervention was required. If this is true, and if one can find evidence to support this truth that is indeed overwhelming, this "truth" would make the idea that God is "good" quite laughable indeed.

Surely Collins realizes that the Darwinian mechanism of random mutation and natural selection is a brutal and insanely cruel process. Yes, it is a real force of nature and it does actual work to preserve what already exists in a beneficially functional state. However, to suggest that it was God's original plan to have this horrific mechanism being his primary "creative" force is to paint God in the most evil light possible. This view requires that God intentionally used a method that would cause great suffering and pain to exist on this planet for sentient beings over the course of many hundreds of millions of years.

Would anyone really stand in moral awe of such a God or actually love such a brutal "creator"? How could the Biblical authors actually portray this sort of evil, suffering, death, and survival of the fittest as abnormal in God's universe? Why would they write about the New Heaven and the New Earth as a place were lions "eat grass like an ox"? and where nothing will "harm or kill" ever again? Or, how can such a God be described as feeling pain whenever a sparrow falls wounded to the ground?

It seems, from the perspective of the Biblical authors anyway, that our current reality on this planet, where such evolutionary forces are indeed in play, is a aberration in God's universe. These authors argue that this aberation is of recent origin and that it will be completely dealt with "soon" and will no longer exist throughout the rest of eternity.

Beyond these moral problems, there is a great deal of scientific evidence that suggests that the proposed evolutionary mechanism of random mutation and natural selection is not the creative force Collins claims it is. Sure, it can give rise to some novel functional systems. There are a great many undeniable examples of this.

However, if one looks closely at these examples, it becomes very clear that all of them are very low-level functions, requiring no more than a few hundred fairly specified protein building blocks (amino acid residues) at minimum. In fact, with each additional minimum structural threshold requirement, the evolutionary mechanism shows a stalling out effect that is exponential in nature.

As it turns out, no novel system of function has ever been shown to evolve when it has a minimum structural threshold requirement beyond 1,000 fairly specified amino acid residues or codons of DNA. Yet, every single living thing has many systems that are far more complex than this. How did these systems come to be?

Well, by Collins logical employ of a "God" to explain the precise ordering of the laws of nature needed for life to exist in the universe, the same logic could be used to suggest that God is also needed to form the precise ordering of high-level systems beyond 1000aa - systems that could not evolve via random mutation and natural selection this side of trillions upon trillions of years without the input of pre-existing high-level intelligence and deliberate creative power.

Humans are part of this process, sharing a common ancestor with the great apes. Kinda makes you wonder what would make God come to Earth to die for an advanced ape who's only moral heritage is, "Survival of the Fittest".

But Humans are also unique in ways that defy evolutionary explanation and point to our spiritual nature. This includes the existence of the Moral Law (the knowledge of right and wrong) and the search for God that characterizes all human cultures throughout history.

So, the argument is that God stepped in at some point and put the moral law into the hearts of humans? - after they had evolved from amoral apes? All along the rule of survival had been based on selfishness, and then, one day, suddenly, God tweaks something so that humans have a conscience that urges them to be totally selfless, giving, caring, and empathetic? - to actually abhor the result of the very "creative" evolutionary process that produced them?

"If one accepts these six premises," Collins says, "then an entirely plausible, intellectually satisfying, and logically consistent synthesis emerges: God, who is not limited in space or time, created the universe and established natural laws that govern it. Seeking to populate this otherwise sterile universe with living creatures, God chose the elegant mechanism of evolution to create microbes, plants, and animals of all sorts.

Most remarkable, God intentionally chose the same mechanism to give rise to special creatures who would have intelligence, a knowledge of right and wrong, free will, and a desire to seek fellowship with Him. He also knew these creatures would ultimately choose to disobey the Moral Law.

This perspective makes it possible for the scientist-believer to be intellectually fulfilled and spiritually alive, both worshiping God and using the tools of science to uncover some of the awesome mysteries of His creation.

From my perspective, anyway, I could not love or worship the God Collins envisions. If I actually saw the evidence for the existence of Collins' God, I'd hate him. I might be impressed by his power, but I would by no means be impressed by his methods.

The method of creation proposed by Collins are cruel tortuous methods by any definition of the terms and I for one would not like to live forever in such a universe with such a God. Given my own druthers, I much prefer the God described in the Bible as one who is far more pained by this place and its state than I am and looks eagerly to "making everything new" - like it was originally intended to be. A place where death and sorrow are no more.

I also think that this "preference" of mine is backed up by the overwhelming weight of evidence that I've come across so far. I think very brilliant minds, like Collins', have simply been confused by certain interpretations of the data that are not what they might appear at first approximation.

And yes, I do think that Collins is only looking at the data supporting the evolutionary mechanism superficially. A closer examination of this same data would show limits for the evolutionary mechanism that are just as clearly defined and "fined tuned" as the laws of nature Collins points to as clear evidence of God's existence.

Thank you Sean for taking the time to comment on Collins' book. I think that you have provided an adequate response from a true Christian perspective that preserves the basic message of the Bible running from Genesis through Revelation. I commend you for your dedication to a cause that is foundational to our faith in the Biblical Creator who spoke the universe and all living things into existence.

Nevertheless, I feel tempted to insert here a few quotation from Collins' book in the event you might be tempted to add a few words to what you have said so well:

"Visiting my daughter in North Caroline in November 1992, I spent a long afternoon praying in a little chapel, seeking guidance about this decision ... A few days later I accepted the offer." [page 119] [This I interpret to be evidence that God might have impressed him on the need to work on the genome project.]

"What does all this mean? At two different levels, it provides powerful support for Darwin's theory of evolution, that is descent from a common ancestor with natural selection operating on randomly occurring variations. ... Darwin's theory predicts that mutations that do not affect function (namely those located in 'junk DNA) will accumulate steadily over time. ... If, as some might argue, these genomes were created by individual acts of special creation, why would this particular feature appear?" [pp. 127-130]

"Truly it can be said that not only biology but medicine would be impossible to understand without the theory of evolution." [p. 133]

"Even more compelling evidence for a common ancestor comes from the study of what are known as ancient repetitive elements (AREs). These arise from 'jumping genes,' which are capable of copying and inserting themselves in various other locations in the genome, usually without any functional consequences. Mammalian genomes are littered with such AREs, with roughly 45 percent of the human genome made up of such genetic flotsam and jetsam." [pp.135-136]

"Of course, some might argue that these are actually functional elements placed there by the Creator for a good reason, and our discounting of them as 'junk DNA' just betrays our current level of ignorance. ... Unless one is willing to take the position that God has placed these decapitated AREs in these positions to confuse and mislead us, the conclusion of a common ancestor for humans and mice is virtually inescapable." [pp.136-137]

"If humans arose as a consequence of a supernatural act of special creation, why would God have gone to the trouble of inserting such nonfunctional gene in this precise location?" [p. 139]

My dilemma is trying to understand how such a seemingly honest, talented, and intelligent scientist was led to misinterpret the scientific data after having spent an afternoon seeking guidance from above prior to accepting the task of reading "the language of God."

In the event you feel tempted to add a few comments to what you have already stated, I would be grateful. The reason for quoting these passages from Collins' book is to make sure that whoever reads your comments, will understand that you did actually read these troublesome arguments and are rejecting them on a scientific basis, not merely a religious one. I wish I could do this, but, unfortunately I do not possess a scientific background.

Hey Nic,

I'll respond line-by-line for you:

"Thank you Sean for taking the time to comment on Collins' book. I think that you have provided an adequate response from a true Christian perspective that preserves the basic message of the Bible running from Genesis through Revelation. I commend you for your dedication to a cause that is foundational to our faith in the Biblical Creator who spoke the universe and all living things into existence.

Nevertheless, I feel tempted to insert here a few quotation from Collins' book in the event you might be tempted to add a few words to what you have said so well:

"Visiting my daughter in North Caroline in November 1992, I spent a long afternoon praying in a little chapel, seeking guidance about this decision ... A few days later I accepted the offer." [page 119] [This I interpret to be evidence that God might have impressed him on the need to work on the genome project.]"

I'm sure God works with and impresses those who pray to him - - even those who believe in Darwinian-style evolution. If God didn't listen to the prayers of those who had misconceptions about him, he wouldn't hear any one of us. That also doesn't mean that just because he does help us out on an issue in our lives that we will suddenly be immune from making any further mistakes or will cease to retain our previously held misconceptions.

"What does all this mean? At two different levels, it provides powerful support for Darwin's theory of evolution, that is descent from a common ancestor with natural selection operating on randomly occurring variations. ... Darwin's theory predicts that mutations that do not affect function (namely those located in 'junk DNA) will accumulate steadily over time. ... If, as some might argue, these genomes were created by individual acts of special creation, why would this particular feature appear?" [pp. 127-130]

Collins is talking about neutral evolution here. Neutral evolution is random mutation without the influence of natural selection. It is basically the blind random walk of a portion of a genome through sequence space.

This sort of evolution is real and it does happen, but it doesn't help to explain Darwinian-style evolution of novel systems of function. It doesn't explain how a fish grows legs and eventually turns into a lizard. In fact, it is one of the big problems with Darwinian-style concepts on functional evolution. The reason for this is because the gaps between islands of potentially beneficial sequences in the vastness of sequence space get wider and wider, in a linear manner, at higher and higher levels of functional complexity. As this gap distance increases the average random walk distance needed to find these islands gets exponentially longer. This is what is responsible for the stalling out effect of functional evolution with each step up the ladder of functional complexity.

As far as the question as to why neutral evolution would occur given an original special act of creation, I don't really understand the problem. Why wouldn't neutral evolution occur? The reproductive machinery God used to copy one generation to the next just so happens to be less than a perfect copying machine. It makes errors, which are known as mutations. Could God have created a perfect machine that never created mutations? I suppose he could have.

But, we have to remember that we are also in a state of seperation from God, in a state that is less than ideal given his original plan for us and for life on this planet. We are told that we are actually in a state of decline, both morally and physically. The degenerative effects of random mutations are clearly seen in our human gene pool over time. We are in fact declining in overall genomic health - toward extinction. We are not actually improving here.

Why would an intelligent designer create this sort of machine? Intelligent designers create machines all the time that degenerate and decay. The real problem people have here is that the intelligent designer in our case is supposed to be all-powerful and all-knowing and all-loving. Why would such a being create us to degenerate like this? That's where we need to read the Bible to see why we are in fact in such a state. This is where I believe the SDA idea of the Great Controversy is very helpful.

"Truly it can be said that not only biology but medicine would be impossible to understand without the theory of evolution." [p. 133]

Biology and medicine were both pioneered by creationists. It is hard to argue then that neither would be possible without a clear understanding of Darwinian-style evolution. That's simply not true. In fact, most practically useful advances in both biology and medicine are still achieved without any real help from or implications for the Theory of Evolution. I myself have published several papers dealing with pathologic disorders in medicine - and I'm a creationist. Many advances in the treatment of various cancers are also achieved without the need to employ Darwinian ideas.

Of course, one might argue that understanding phenomena like antibiotic resistance or various forms of drug resistance requires a knowledge of Darwinian-style evolution. In such cases I would actually agree. I'm not saying that Darwin contributed nothing to our understanding of life and how it works. He did contribute a great deal. However, his contribution is far more limited than many in mainstream science seem to understand.

His ideas only help to explain very low-level functional differences that exist between different living things and complex systems that are part of living things. This limitation is drawn at systems that require a minimum structural threshold of less than 1,000 fairly specified amino acid residues working together at the same time.

"Even more compelling evidence for a common ancestor comes from the study of what are known as ancient repetitive elements (AREs). These arise from 'jumping genes,' which are capable of copying and inserting themselves in various other locations in the genome, usually without any functional consequences. Mammalian genomes are littered with such AREs, with roughly 45 percent of the human genome made up of such genetic flotsam and jetsam." [ pp.135-136]

This flotsam and jetsum is turning out to have useful, sometimes vital, functionality. No one knows yet just what the big picture of genetics will look like once this hidden layer of information is made visible. "Indeed, what was damned as junk because it was not understood may, in fact, turn out to be the very basis of human complexity ," Mattick suggests.

Pseudogenes, riboswitches and all the rest aside, there is a good reason to suspect that is true. Active RNA, it is now coming out, helps to control the large-scale structure of the chromosomes and some crucial chemical modifications to them—an entirely different, epigenetic layer of information in the genome.

In fact, the most detailed probe yet into the workings of the human genome has led scientists to conclude [as of June 14, 2007] that a cornerstone concept about the chemical code for life is badly flawed. Reporting in the British journal Nature and the US journal Genome Research on Thursday [June 14, 2007], they suggest that an established theory about the genome should be consigned to history.

In between the genes and the sequences known to regulate their activity are long, tedious stretches that appear to do nothing. The term for them is "junk" DNA, reflecting the presumption that they are merely driftwood from our evolutionary past and have no biological function. But the work by the ENCODE (ENCyclopaedia of DNA Elements) consortium implies that this nuggets-and-dross concept of DNA should be, well, junked .

The genome turns out to a highly complex, interwoven machine with very few inactive stretches, the researchers report. Genes, it transpires, are just one of many types of DNA sequences that have a functional role. And "junk" DNA turns out to have an essential role in regulating the protein-making business. Previously written off as silent, it emerges as a singer with its own discreet voice, part of a vast, interacting molecular choir .

·Wyatt Gibbs, The Unseen Genome: Gems among the Junk, Scientific American, November 2003, pp 45-53 ( Link )

·ENCORE Project Consortium et al., Identification and analysis of functional elements in 1% of the human genome by the ENCODE pilot project, Nature 447, 799-816 (14 June 2007); Richard Ingham, Landmark study prompts rethink of genetic code, Yahoo News, accessed June 15, 2007 ( Link1, Link2)

For more information see my essay on so-called "Junk DNA" at the following Link.

"Of course, some might argue that these are actually functional elements placed there by the Creator for a good reason, and our discounting of them as 'junk DNA' just betrays our current level of ignorance. ... Unless one is willing to take the position that God has placed these decapitated AREs in these positions to confuse and mislead us, the conclusion of a common ancestor for humans and mice is virtually inescapable." [ pp.136-137]

More and more of what where once thought of as pseudogenes are now being found to have imporatant functions. These functional elements, while having the appearance of non-coding pseudogenes, actually are functional in that the effect genes that do code for proteins or are sometimes spliced into coded genes when needed at different points in time - and are spliced out when not needed.

Many other mobile genetic elements are also being found to have important functions. They simply cannot be seen as nothing more than evolutionary junk any longer. Someone like Collins should know this and include these new discoveries in his book.

For more on the functional aspects of pseudogenes and other mobile genetic elements see the following Link.

"If humans arose as a consequence of a supernatural act of special creation, why would God have gone to the trouble of inserting such nonfunctional gene in this precise location?" [p. 139]

Often, they're not "nonfunctional" . . . And, when they do seem to be, there are regions all genomes that are known as genetic hotspots that are actually more prone than other genetic regions to sustain mutations and often certain types of mutations or even viral genetic insertions or insertions of other types of mobile genetic elements.

"My dilemma is trying to understand how such a seemingly honest, talented, and intelligent scientist was led to misinterpret the scientific data after having spent an afternoon seeking guidance from above prior to accepting the task of reading "the language of God."

Did God dictate the meaning of the genetic data Collins was given? Or, was the interpretation left up to Collins's own erring human mind?

Thank you, Sean! I knew that someone who understands both science and the intricacies of the human DNA would be able to demistify the troublesome conclusions of a great scientist who, in spite of his great knowledge, still carries a heavy baggage from his atheistic past.

" How could the Biblical authors actually portray this sort of evil, suffering, death, and survival of the fittest as abnormal in God's universe?"

As a matter of well-known fact, these biblical authors DID describe evil, suffering, and death as all part of God's actions. The flood? The orders to totally destroy entire tribes, and the slaying of the first born in Egypt?

"Would anyone really stand in moral awe of such a God or actually love such a brutal creator? Why would they write about the New Heaven and the New Earth as a place were lions "eat grass like an ox"? and where nothing will "harm or kill" ever again? Or, how can such a God be described as feeling pain whenever a sparrow falls wounded to the ground?"

Yes, both of those descriptions are contained within the Bible. God is seen as all-powerful: he sends the rain on the just and unjust. He allows Satan to destroy all Job's property and family. This is the same God is it not? It is easy to write about a loving God who will subdue formerly dangerous animals, but who also sends wild animals to kill. Is God consistent? Or do we have a problem explaining the evil acts? The Bible also says that he makes good fortune and creates calamity (Is. 45:7) and will do whatever he chooses (Is. 46:10). Who are we poor humans to question God or worse, to assume we know his intentions and purposes?

The link to the pseudogenes is:
http://www.detectingdesign.com/pseudogenes.html

We attempt to reconcile the Biblical story with human deductions of fossil evidence; both are flawed since both the Bible Story is man written although by inspired men, and the fossil evidence is deductions by comparison with contemporary processes and assumptions. Dr. Jack Provonsha and now Hans Kung have attempted reconciliations. Collins reminds me a little of my first day a Junior Camp. The canoes were tied to the dock. We where told not to get into the canoes. I could't wait. I got one foot in when a little friend push the other end of the canoe away from the dock. I got my foot back but lost my balance and grabbed the bow of the canoe with both hands with my toes attempting to get enough traction to pulled canoe back to the dock. No luck. I did a belly flop in the shallow water a dock side. In my best "traveling clothes". I don't think there is any reconciliation between the Bible account and scientific assumptions. I don't think God has sought to give us any more clues. If we can accept the Christ event by faith, the creation event is simple. Tom

P.S. even the Bible admits to evil prior to the creation of this earth. "There was war in heaven.". Tom

"There was war in heaven" but then God decided to send it to the earth he had created. Doesn't that place the responsibility for evil on earth to the Creator?

Multiple and varied explanations follow that scenario. As always, for every complex question there is usually a simple answer--that is wrong.

Elaine

It all depends: God invented choice for both Lucifer and Adam. To that extent God is responsible for the possibility but no for the choice.

I am a simple guy so obviously, I am wrong--But it is fun
communication with someone who is right. Tom

Elaine,

The Biblical authors do indeed describe God as allowing disease, suffering, and death as a result of sin entering this universe. However, the Biblical authors describe God as being greatly pained by the existence of such suffering as the result of sin. They describe God as never intending that such a state should exist in his universe and his efforts to do away with sin, suffering, and death to sentient beings in his universe. This state is by no means God's ideal for his creatures in his universe. It is an abnormal state that is far beyond God's intention and someday, the whole univserse will be restored to the way God originally indended it to be.

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

Whoa, I have never claimed to be right, well at least not ALL of the time :-) Yes, it is true that nearly everything written in the Hebrew Bible, God was recorded as being in charge. This is likely because that is the way the writers' understood God. Today, we have a somewhat different understanding. We have to believe that God wanted a place free of sin and suffering, but his desires were not equal to creating that ideal environment. Allowing humans free choice required that there be decisions they were responsible for.

A parent can place home-baked cookies out to cool with instructions to the small child not to eat; however, what parent would be utterly surprised, let alone willing to punish that child with such a curse as was given Adam & Eve?
Was God omniscient as some claim? Or, did he not fully know what his creatures might do, and so adjusted himself to their actions? He is recorded as willing to "adjust" to Abrham's request for Sodom to be spared under certain conditions made by Abraham.

If God never intended for death, sin and suffering, why did he give Satan freedom to destroy all of Job's property and family? Who was ultimately in charge of that game? Wasn't Job the pawn between the two bettors? If it is far beyond God's intention, then why did he allow Job to be so severely punished?

How hard it is for God to win our approval if He knew in advance sin would come about.

He is "controlling if He doesn't offer 'free will' having made us and all of His creation only robotic."

"He is unloving and uncaring in the world because of all the horrors and evil that have existed in history" because He does not override sinful 'free choices' and consequences"... when we demand He should.

He DID take responsibility for the "free choice" He gave us. He sent His only begotten Son to "willingly" die and suffer and redeem us from "our choices" if we accept His righteousness in our stead.

So is all the "evil" in the world worth what it has cost? Parents, perhaps you can tell us...you who have brought children into this "wicked world of suffering", was it worth it? Did YOU not see the pain your children would at times experience? Did you cause their wrong choices? Are you responsible?

Should we possibly question ourselves while we are questioning God? Or,... "Has it perhaps been worth it even if He and WE knew the consequences?

But the story is not over, "For in my Fathers mansion are many rooms."

"is all the "evil" in the world worth what it has cost?"

How could we know a world without evil? Has anyone who lived on this earth experienced no evil? It's a non-sequitur.

Well, as to parents' responsibility, the courts hold parents responsible for their children (in most states) until they're 18. So yes, we parents accept the responsibility, for good or bad, our children's choices until we "cut the cord" and they are on their own. Was it worth it? For the majority of parents it most certainly was. Like a marriage or a job choice: we learn to live with those decisions and accept the consequences. Isn't that what God did?

Exactly,

The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world/cosmos!

How tiresome this blog is becoming. Or rather, this rehashing of evolution, for or against. People out there--in the real flesh and blood world--are dying and living lives not even 1 percent as comfortable as the ones we are living with all of our disposable blogging time.

How wonderful if we'd spend more time trying to find solutions to feeding the hungry and clothing the naked instead of spending ergs and ergs of thinking power on what in the end, is a waste of your time and mine.

Again,

Is it always either/or...or is it gifts and calling? How often we want others to do what we expect of them.

Now at this time while the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint arose on the part of the Hellenistic Jews against the native Hebrews, because their widows were being overlooked in the daily serving of food. 2 And the twelve summoned the congregation of the disciples and said, “It is not desirable for us to neglect the word of God in order to serve tables. 3 “But select from among you, brethren, seven men of good reputation, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may put in charge of this task. 4 “But we will devote ourselves to prayer, and to the ministry of the word.”

Acts 6:1-4.

Elaine: Yes, there are hard questions in the Old Testament for which there is no right answer. This is precisely why we have the New Testament. The O.T.writers did the best they could to give us a true picture of God's character, but they failed, but thanks to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, we have everything we need to understand the true character of God.

Whenever you see somenthing in the O.T. which you cannot explain, read the Gospels. There is only one individual in the entire universe who was able to depict God's character to perfection. His name is Jesus Christ. Let not the O.T. stories confuse you about what God looks like! In the face of Jesus, we see the matchless love of the Creator.

Why then, are there so many "children's stories" heard and read that are from the OT? A previous writer has told us how her children reacted to the death and havoc in the OT as reported by its writers. It is most confusing to a child, and even to those of us who are told two dissonant views: God is vindictive and destroys those who he chooses; while Jesus "loves the little children."

To rationalize the cognitive dissonance created, we "reinterpret" the OT stories by creating a fiction that "not all those destroyed in the flood may be destroyed in the 2nd death;" or "God knows who are his---." That was most comforting to Job, wasn't it: to have a new family and he totally forgot the first? NOT! How cruel! If you lose a child, and later are blessed with another, will you EVER stop loving and remembering the first?

I think that Jesus did address this dilemma in Luke 13:2. Referring to some Galileans worshippers who were slaughtered by Pilate, Jesus warned his hearers not to think that their moral guilt was directly related to their fate. In fact, he said, that unless they repented, they would all suffer a similar fate. This prediction took place in 70 A.D. when the Romans slaughtered Jews by the millions.

Suffering and death are the result of sin, but not necessarily the sins of individuals, but quite often the collective sin of humankind. When an airplane is highjacked by terrorists, innocent passangers suffer the consequences of the terrorists' actions. Bush relied on faulty intelligence, and thousands of innocent iraqis died as a result, including nearly four thousand American soldiers. In a war, there is indiscriminate killing of both saints and sinners.

If I were living in Old Testament times, I would be tempted to assign moral guilt to those who suffer and die. Jesus rejected this Deuteronomic way of thinking. Likewise, the book of Job was written to show that suffering was not directly connected with moral guilt. Personally, I doubt that a literal reading of the book is the right approach. Those long speeches do not sound credible. There might have been someone who lived by that name, but the story was probably embellished to make a theological and moral point.

The Old Testament contains many wonderful stories, but we have no need to conclude that all of them are historically accurate in all the minutest details, including the moral lessons drawned from them by the writers. God did neither author nor did he dictate the content of the O.T. He rather inspired men to record for posterity their own interpretation of many events. Those stories must be viewed and interpreted by the picture Jesus gave us of God's real and true character.

I believe that many morally innocent human beings perished in Noah's flood, especially children. The same took place during the conquest of Canaan by the Israelites. The same can be said about all the wars that followed. Moralizing about the deaths of the innocents makes no ethical sense. Jesus was the most innocent individual in the universe, nevertheless he was subjected to the most cruel death. Does this make moral sense? I do not think so.

The Lord allowed this to take place to show us that God is not immune to suffering as a result of sin and rebellion. My daughter died at age nineteen in a car accident. She was to my judgment a saint. Does her death make sense. I don't think so. If I compain to God, he will probably say: --"I understand! I also lost my only Son, and it makes no sense. But do not forget that my Son said, 'I am the resurrectiomn and life. Whoever believes in me, will live.'"

As you can see, I cannot explain the suffering and death of those who are innocent. God can't explain this either. It will remain a mystery until death is swallowed up in victory and all tears are wiped away following Jesus' return as King of kings, and Lord of lords.