Biologos

[Confused]

Just finished Francis S Collins book "The Language of God". As most of you know, he is a very respected scientist who heads the Human Genome Project and also happens to belong to the group of theistic scientists found on www.asa3.org.

In it, he explains the genetic coding and how the entire population can be linked to a group of 10,000 descendants approx 150,000 years ago. He shows all the fossilezed evidence to support evolution as well as the gentic evidence. Fossilized: best example of Macroevolution is the Stickleback fish as it moved from salt water to fresh water environments after the last ice age. They originally had a continuous row of 3 dozen armored plates to protect themselves from predators in saltwater. Now, with less predators in the freshwater environment, these fish have lost most of their plates. For microevolution, we see how the beak of a finch might change shape over time depending on the food source. But the biggest blow that Dawkins loves to play is that evolution can't explain the irreducible complexity of life. Such as the cascading effects of clotting factors. If you miss one step, the entire process fails. His claim is that because of this, unless one can show biological systems that are very complex and integrated, such as bacterial flagella could be formed by gradual Darwinian progress, then evolution can't explain the origin nor diversity of life. The poster child for Dawkins has been the Bacterial flagellum. The argument is the flagellum had no prior useful function so it couldn't have been created in a step wise fashion: Truth: recent research shows that sevreal components of the flagellum are related to an entirely differenct apparatus used by certain bacteria to inject toxins into other bacteria they are attacking (K R Miller "the Flagellum Unspun" in Dembski and Ruse , Debating Design pgs 81-97)

So we have irrefutable evidence of both macro and mircro evolution. Collins rejects Creationism and Intelligent Design (on the basis that it relies so much on the God of Gaps that science seems to be making a mockery of with every new discovery). Instead he proposes Biologos.

He says let science answer the questions it was meant to answer and religion answer the questions it was meant to answer. The central tenets:
1) Universe came into being out of nothingness, ~14 billion years ago.
2) Despite massive improbabilities, the properties of the universe appear to have been precisely tuned for life
3) While the mechanism of origin of life is unkown, once life arose, the process of evolution and natural selection permitted the development of biological diversity and comlexity over very long periods of time
4) Once evolution got under way, no special supernatural intervention was required.
5) Humans are part of this process, sharing common ancestry with the great apes.
6) But humans are also unique in ways that defy evolutionary explaination and point to our spiritual nature (to include the existence of moral law and the search for God that characterizes all human cultures throughout history.

So the questions for debate:

In light of all the discoveries made by science can science and religion coexist and compliment each other under this Biologos?

Is it possible that the bridge between science and relgion has finally been defined and merged when Collins says that science should answer the natural and allow God to answer the supernatural?

[QED]

Careful, FDA in US just re-approved use of silicone for cheerleaders, so they may prefer it over saline. On the flip side, cheerleader can throw out the silicone BOB when they tire of them and not have to worry about unwanted pregnancy or complicated divorces. So perhaps silicone is superior to its carbon counterparts.

I'll set 'em up, you knock 'em down

The Physicist Rober Dicke gave consideration to which elements could form the basis of complex molecules. Apart from carbon, Dicke identified silicon and boron as the closest contenders but boron isn't at all abundant on Earth and silicon can only support a relatively small number of amino acids.

Boron might be present in sufficient quantities on other planets though. On Earth it is most commonly encountered as orthoboric acid in volcanic spring water (forming mineral deposits such as colemanite and borax through evaporation). It seems quite conceivable that higher concentrations might exist on planets elsewhere. Boron based biochemistry would be much more feasible at lower temperatures due to its natural affinity to ammonia which, as a liquid at around minus 80 degrees C, would serve well as a solvent.

If we did find life based on such a radically different chemistry I wonder how it would sit with those philosophers who see an act of deliberate design in the properties of Carbon?

[Cathar1950]

If we did find life based on such a radically different chemistry I wonder how it would sit with those philosophers who see an act of deliberate design in the properties of Carbon?

God can work with anything?
God is like MacGyver.

[QED]

God can work with anything?
God is like MacGyver.

So it would seem, but even if the range of usable materials was severely restricted that in itself does not automatically carry the implication that they were purpose-made for the job. In fact, even the so called "laws of physics" are directly related to the spontaneous breaking of spacetime symmetries in a way that argues strongly against external design. This whole issue is covered very neatly by Victor Stenger in a short paper titled Natural Explanations For the Anthropic Coincidences.

[Confused]

Careful, FDA in US just re-approved use of silicone for cheerleaders, so they may prefer it over saline. On the flip side, cheerleader can throw out the silicone BOB when they tire of them and not have to worry about unwanted pregnancy or complicated divorces. So perhaps silicone is superior to its carbon counterparts.

I'll set 'em up, you knock 'em down

The Physicist Rober Dicke gave consideration to which elements could form the basis of complex molecules. Apart from carbon, Dicke identified silicon and boron as the closest contenders but boron isn't at all abundant on Earth and silicon can only support a relatively small number of amino acids.

Boron might be present in sufficient quantities on other planets though. On Earth it is most commonly encountered as orthoboric acid in volcanic spring water (forming mineral deposits such as colemanite and borax through evaporation). It seems quite conceivable that higher concentrations might exist on planets elsewhere. Boron based biochemistry would be much more feasible at lower temperatures due to its natural affinity to ammonia which, as a liquid at around minus 80 degrees C, would serve well as a solvent.

If we did find life based on such a radically different chemistry I wonder how it would sit with those philosophers who see an act of deliberate design in the properties of Carbon?

But if we consider the latest theories in multiverses in which there are innumerable "pocket" universes with different laws of physic applied to each, then it is possible that in one of these other verses, silicon might actually support more amino acids, or Boron might work better as a solvent. Granted, it is speculation. But if we consider the M theory, which is growing in popularity, then the possibility of a cosmic landscape (as defined by Susskind) could support other forms of life that are non-carbaon based.

In regards to philosophers and design, I like Susskind book (Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and The Illusion of Intelligent Design) so far. I am only half way into the book, but he makes some very valid points in regards to ID ( it is one of the books I am reading to refute Otsengs book debate, so I have to actually pay closer attention than I really wanted to).