Covenant: Biologos, NIH and Stem Cell Research

[Stephen Fox]

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010 ... ntPage=all

Remarkable feature story in current New Yorker magazine. How GOP Strategists, John McClain included are mendaciously misrepresenting Obama's Christian leader of the NIH.

[KeithE]

I recommend Francis Collins' book . He was the leader of the Genome Project which mapped the human DNA and is currently the head of the National Institute of Health (NIH). Good testimony as well as a good discussion of evolution and faith. He argues for the compatibility of the Christian faith and the Theory of Evolution.

Personally I have not been convinced of the Theory of Biological Evolution (and have tried to be). But it is certainly possible (not incompatible) to believe in Christianity and Evolution. It is just that as a "hard science" scientist, I have not yet seen enough proof that the whole amino acid- to-today's full range of biota evolution could have a probablilistic chance within the age of the earth (thought to be 4.5 B years old) or even within the Big Bang timeline (thought to be 13.7 B years ago).

I do agree with Collins's assessment (page 88-93 in the Language of God) that "chemical evolution" - the formation of the first self-replicating molecules (amino acids, proteins, RNA, DNA) from a primordial soup - cannot be by purely natural chance processes - No way, no how. A Creator is necessarily postulated. I agree completely with his (and others) assertions after doing analysis in two differing ways:
1) compare the odds that an all Left-handed amino acid could randomly occur given the max number of random interations/collisions possible even if the interactions happened in the shortest possible time (time for light to pass a hydrogen atom) since the Big Bang 13.7 Billion years ago
2) compare the total number of molecules in the unverse (about 10^^80) to the occurence fractions of amino acids (let alone a DNA); amino acids are preferably selected and is the simplest form needed for self-replication (after self-replication the independence assumptions of these analyses breakdown).

These analytical calculations are spelled out more thoroughly in Stephen Meyer's . Yes, I know the fundamentalistic Discovery Institute (that Meyer is the head of) is home to William Dembski, but truth is truth wherever it comes from.

The website (originally founded by Collins) contains many articles on related subjects (including recent discussions with none other than Al Mohler.). But even there, there is not what I would call evidence that places biological evolution in the realm of the likely (probablistically - speaking).

Collins's book is a promising source of apologetics (he is the editor) although I have not read much of it yet.

And Collins's latest book (which I do not own) is said to focus on the marvels of DNA and it's medical potential including stem-cell research.