| Rating: | ★★★★ |
| Category: | Books |
| Genre: | Science |
| Author: | Francis Collins |
To many Evolution as a theory is an attack on religion; to Dr. Collins more supple mind it is "the language of God". Collins, one of the scientific leaders of the Human Genome Project, also skewers the counter-arguments of the Young Earth Creationists takes a strong case for what he calls "Theistic Evolution"--a system that might be described as "intelligent design" for grown ups..
The book also suggests a truce over the pointless and seemingly endless debate in America over science and faith. As he writes in his summary chapter, "Biologos":
"Will we turn our backs on science because it is perceived as a threat to God, abandoning all of the promise of advancing our understanding of nature and applying the alleviation of suffering and the betterment of mankind? Alternatively, will we turn our backs on faith, concluding that science has rendered the spiritual life no longer necessary, and that traditional religious symbols can now be replaced by the engraving of the double helix on our altars?
"Both of these choices are profoundly dangerous. Both deny truth. Both will diminish the nobility of humankind...And both are unnessesary. The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. He can be worshipped in a cathedral or in a laboratory."
And he offers strong rebuttal to the smug atheism of "The God Delusion" author Richard Dawkins. This book might not make a believer out of you, but it will give you enough information about all sides of the argument and I think you can't help coming away from even a cursory reading believing that faith is God is not the "woo-woo" wishful thinking some pundits would like many to imagine.
Collins draws a lot of his faith from his personal experiences as a medical doctor. He does not come from a Christian background, so he doesn't write this just because he is trying to straddle some family obligations; he gained his faith in his twenties working with patients as a medical doctor, especially those dealing with death. He found that many of them had a sense of calm and poise that surprised him. One day an older lady facing the end asked him, "Do you believe in God." Collins, then an atheist, suddenly realized that his mind was in flux on the important matter.
After much soul-searching, he decided to do unusual for him up to that point. He visited a church. A pastor he talked to about his gnawing doubts about his original view of the Cosmos recommended he read C.S. Lewis "Mere Christianity". The results of his study of Lewis' book and The Bible opened new avenues of looking at the laws of the universe for Dr. Collins.
Here's an interview with Collins, taken from a video produced by the Faraday Institute at St Edmunds College, Cambridge.
The debate will probably never end. Neither side wants to concede an inch. I myself am not sure what I believe anymore. As a child I was a creationist. After becoming "educated" I lean more towards evolution and Darwinism. I may have to read the book and see what it has to say. Thank you for the thought provoking insight to another book.One of these days I am going to have to start reading more.
ReplyDeleteI think you'll find, Fred, that if you get a chance to read this book, you'll understanding of both religion and evolution and the need to move beyond the rift between the two will "evolve". I know mine has. This is the second time I've read this book--I too don't read as much as I'd like--and Collins work here makes sense to me.
ReplyDeleteI agree as I think for the most part it's something that we hold onto within our own values but this seems to be a superb book. I have not read it as I have been much too busy but within the writes it is very thought provoking. I believe in the theory of evolution yet there was a reason for it all - hence something of a God bound origin in how we come to understand it.
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking I need to head over to B&N tomorrow and take a quick look see at this book. This could be good reading for my daughter. She has taken the hard science stand and this could give her a more balanced view of things.
ReplyDeleteGreat review. Thanks for posting on this.
I agree. No matter someone believes the matters touched on in the book are thought-provoking. Some 40 percent of scientists surveyed do believe in a Higher Power, a level that has stayed consistent for many decades.
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome. I hope the Collins book turns out to be what your looking for to give your daughter.
ReplyDeleteAs you know Doug I hold an opposing view on these matters.Personally I don't see 'science' as monolithic but rather a quite diverse collection of viewpoints that actually holds 'evolution' as problematic as it does 'creation'.
ReplyDeleteI have myself blogged on that topic with reference to the role of viruses in the evolutionary process (a version of Panspermia) that takes issue with 'natural selection' as much as it does with 'intelligent design'.
I was however genuinely surprised to read Collins assertion that "both of these choices are profoundly dangerous. Both deny truth."
It is a very rare thing for contemporary science to speak of 'the truth' as if there were but one truth waiting to be revealed, let alone the view that it already has been revealed to Francis Collins, or anyone else. That statement is in my view one made from a position of faith and not science. It cannot be tested nor falsified and therefore despite the job Collins does his utterances here are not I think in any meaningful way 'scientific'.
In my view it is that sort of scientific and spiritual positivism that is dangerous, when science claims a higher source of knowledge than that which can be replicated in the laboratory we are I think skating on very thin ice.
Obviously Collins like anyone else is entitled to his own point of view, but I don't think it has any more scientific validity than any other viewpoint held by anyone else.
I too have difficulties with Richard Dawkins thesis and have argued against sociobiology for about 30 years as a part of my own particular interest in the genetic model of mental illness and it's weaknesses.
Dawkins' brand of genetic determinism is I think in fact the mirror image of Collin's theism and in that sense they are both 'peas in a monocausal pod' in my opinion
I am sceptical of both camps and am encouraged by other explanations which seem to sit with current cosmology as much as they do with molecular biology and that is that viruses are deeply implicated in the processes of evolution.
This is a key to that old chestnut, the 'problem of diversity' or so some people are now claiming
I am not sure whether either intelligent design or sociobiology has given much thought to the ubiquitous existence of viruses, or their complex interaction with the host cell, but if we are really interested in evolution that is I think, where we must look... because viruses evolve up to 30 times per day.
All this is happening at a level that in evolutionary terms pre-dates Collins area of expertise, there is a debate about in science as to whether viruses are actually 'alive' or not.... this is really DNA at a fragmentary level and it does not depend necessarilly on either God or genetics to explain it.
Thanks for posting this contribution to what must be the most important debate of our current Age of late modernity/post-modernity.
It seems to me that these debates are taking place entirely within a 'faith community' and that faith is the hitherto scientific belief in a homogeneous and isotropic universe.
And that is why I hold out such hope for the CERN experiment when it restarts later this year, it just may give us better questions than the ones we have now about the origins of the universe and a theory of everything.
To me both science and spirituality are currently at a crossroads.
Thanks for the review Doug, interesting stuff.
I find I am quite comfortable not believing in a god; however it is always nice to hear of balanced and sane writing. Interesting review.
ReplyDeleteThanks for bringing in the topic of viruses and research matters I don't think Dr. Collins brought up in this book, AA. (Although there is naturally a lot on chromosones and DNA/RNA bonding research that is right in his balliwick.)
ReplyDeleteI think Collins would likely agree with in you in that we need to always seek out new data to ask better questions.
It's always hard to find to summarize a book that goes into so many different scientific and theological directions. I never intend, on a topic like this, to somehow claim that any one "guru" has The Solution, only that his or her understanding strikes a chord within my own learning path.
But I hope this book is being read by those of religious leaders of certain branches of Christianity who have turned away from science as somehow an enemy of faith. Even St. Augustine lamented 1600 years back that "it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian talking nonsense on these topics [ i.e., the elements of the world] ; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show a vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh (him) to scorn." And also readers of Sam "The End of Faith" Harris and Dawkins who, as you state, have their own brand of determinitist smugness to spread over the airwaves and in much spilled ink.
Yes, balanced and sane is a good way to sum this book up, Iri Ani. I find hearing and reading Collins is rather listening to a nice tenor sax jazz solo, (which I am as I type this). "The Language of God" gives you the author's view and his myriad research to back it up without the sense of stridency that comes from a professional apologist or contrarian.
ReplyDeletewhich would be an extreme relief to anyone. The jazz sounds nice.
ReplyDeleteIt is nice. Thank God for John Coltrane :-)
ReplyDeleteI have been a member of the Church of England since I was three years old. I was involved in every aspect of it, until a year ago. But I always struggled with totally believing god made the world. I go with science on that. Like aaranaardvark I look forward to the CERN experiment restarting, in the hope it will give us a clearer picture.
ReplyDeleteI realise my doubts don't in anyway prove there isn't some order higher than us. However, when people, ask a vicar, why would god let the world get in such an awful mess? The answer is always the same, we have free will! I said to my vicar, who lives in a rather large rectory supplied by the church, what would you do, if you stopped believing in god? And his answer was.............keep my mouth shut!
I do feel that if religion helps people cope with life, much like a placebo pill, who has the right to take that faith away?
I think many people struggle with blind faith and all that science throws at us. I find science rivetingly interesting and we're coming along in leaps and bounds. I wonder what the future holds in terms of faith and actual fact? My guess is, there never will be an answer, how could there be?
Interesting Doug, I'll have to read the book!
Thank you!
Cassandra