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?

[otseng]

I just got a copy of the book today from the library. It looks like a fairly easy read so hopefully I'll finish it soon.

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

It could. But, I think it can coexist under other ways as well. One other way that springs to mind is directed evolution. But I also think my view of creationism also allows science and religion to coexist.

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?

Yes... finally.

[McCulloch]

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 religion has finally been defined and merged when Collins says that science should answer the natural and allow God to answer the supernatural?

What is the chance that religion will stop making claims regarding the natural universe? I think that unless religion resigns itself to ever increasing irrelevance, it will continue to make claims about the natural world.

What is the chance that the realm of the alleged supernatural will stay beyond the purview of science? Science is beginning to look at the origin and formation of ethics.

[Goat]

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?

There are some 'assumptions' about it that are also appealing to the god of the gaps,. Tenant 1 and 6 are appealing to the 'God of the Gaps' too. First of all, there wasn't 'Nothingness', there was a singularity. If/when science gets to understand that, that is a 'god of the gap' process there.

Then, the matter of 'living coming into existance' .. that is a problem being worked on, and has the potential of being solved. That is also an appeal to the God of the Gaps.

and lastly, insisting the Man is unique in ways that can not be explain by evolution is also a fallacy. We are beginging to understand the mutations that allowed homo sapians to develop. To say that science 'can not' explain that is ignoring that also.

Those basic tenents might be ok for NOW, but science will advance, and drive those assumptions backwards too.

IMO , it is better not to try to codify something like that.. and just say that religion can deal with spiritual matters, and the relationship with god/nature/the unverse, the afterlife(or not), and of daily living, and not concern itself with backing up into a corner when science finds something the contradicts a religious assumption.

[Confused]

I just got a copy of the book today from the library. It looks like a fairly easy read so hopefully I'll finish it soon.

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

It could. But, I think it can coexist under other ways as well. One other way that springs to mind is directed evolution. But I also think my view of creationism also allows science and religion to coexist.

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?

Yes... finally.

It is easy reading, very simplistic, but slams creationism altogether. Creationism can't allow science to coexist. Science says the earth is 4.5 billions years old, creationism, much less. Creationism says man has been around ~a few thousand years, yet we have mummies older than that.

Directed evolution points to a fairly weak God who isn't very organized if He must continuously come to earth to fix mistakes or improve the latest version of His creation.

[Confused]

1) Universe came into being out of nothingness, ~14 billion years ago

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.

Goat:

There are some 'assumptions' about it that are also appealing to the god of the gaps,. Tenant 1 and 6 are appealing to the 'God of the Gaps' too. First of all, there wasn't 'Nothingness', there was a singularity. If/when science gets to understand that, that is a 'god of the gap' process there.

Then, the matter of 'living coming into existance' .. that is a problem being worked on, and has the potential of being solved. That is also an appeal to the God of the Gaps.

and lastly, insisting the Man is unique in ways that can not be explain by evolution is also a fallacy. We are beginging to understand the mutations that allowed homo sapians to develop. To say that science 'can not' explain that is ignoring that also.

Those basic tenents might be ok for NOW, but science will advance, and drive those assumptions backwards too.

IMO , it is better not to try to codify something like that.. and just say that religion can deal with spiritual matters, and the relationship with god/nature/the unverse, the afterlife(or not), and of daily living, and not concern itself with backing up into a corner when science finds something the contradicts a religious assumption.

You can read assumptions into #1 all you like, but it is your interpretation, not the writers. In his book he says science cannot explain how the universe came into existence, it just did. He in no way alludes to a creator . He simply says first there was nothing, then there was a universe. Science=natural, God=supernatural. No God of gaps here.

#6) Religious, yes. Supernatural, yes. God of gaps, how?

Once again, living coming into existence in no way alludes to a God of gaps. In his book he postulates it could be dust from supernovaes that contained carbon that somehow made it to earth to start the building blocks of life. I didn't include this, because it is his opinion, not fact. But life exists, no doubt there. No where does he say God started it.

You misunderstand man being unique to evolution etc... He refers only to the spiritual side. You forget, he headed up the Human Genome Project. He has DNA proof of evolution. There is a tribe in Indonesia (I think) that for some reason can't seem to articulate language of any form. After viewing their DNA sequence, Collins found a genetic error in the same chromosome found in great apes. No. Collins is a big proponent of evolution and is a firm beleiver that science should explain natural and God supernatural.

[Confused]

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 religion has finally been defined and merged when Collins says that science should answer the natural and allow God to answer the supernatural?

What is the chance that religion will stop making claims regarding the natural universe? I think that unless religion resigns itself to ever increasing irrelevance, it will continue to make claims about the natural world.

What is the chance that the realm of the alleged supernatural will stay beyond the purview of science? Science is beginning to look at the origin and formation of ethics.

That would be the reason I started the other thread about religion showing it's ignorance about science. I have yet to understand why a jury of Christians can convict a rapist on DNA evidence alone, yet don't trust it enough to believe its geneology.

[Cathar1950]

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 religion has finally been defined and merged when Collins says that science should answer the natural and allow God to answer the supernatural?

What is the chance that religion will stop making claims regarding the natural universe? I think that unless religion resigns itself to ever increasing irrelevance, it will continue to make claims about the natural world.

What is the chance that the realm of the alleged supernatural will stay beyond the purview of science? Science is beginning to look at the origin and formation of ethics.

That would be the reason I started the other thread about religion showing it's ignorance about science. I have yet to understand why a jury of Christians can convict a rapist on DNA evidence alone, yet don't trust it enough to believe its geneology.

There you go Confused being all logical and stuff.
It is a good question. Maybe they should be asked if they are creationist before they become part of a jury or given IQ tests. Of course if it doesn't deal with DNA maybe they could still be on a jury. We could have a number of juries some for dumb stuff and then others.

[otseng]

It is easy reading, very simplistic, but slams creationism altogether. Creationism can't allow science to coexist. Science says the earth is 4.5 billions years old, creationism, much less. Creationism says man has been around ~a few thousand years, yet we have mummies older than that.

Creationism is not so simple as that.

There are a wide variety of creationists with different beliefs. They differ in how old the earth is. Some say billions of years, some say thousands. They differ in views of evolution and how much evolutionary process explains the diversity of life. Some believe in a global flood, some do not. But, the one element they have in common is the acknowledgement of a supernatural diety that plays a part in the creation of this world.

Directed evolution points to a fairly weak God who isn't very organized if He must continuously come to earth to fix mistakes or improve the latest version of His creation.

That's not what directed evolution means. It's not that God is tinkering with the evolutionary process along the way. But that evolution would inevitably lead from a single cell to man. It was preprogrammed to happen even before the first DNA replicated itself.

I don't believe in this. But some, such as Denton, argues for this.

[Confused]

It is easy reading, very simplistic, but slams creationism altogether. Creationism can't allow science to coexist. Science says the earth is 4.5 billions years old, creationism, much less. Creationism says man has been around ~a few thousand years, yet we have mummies older than that.

Creationism is not so simple as that.

There are a wide variety of creationists with different beliefs. They differ in how old the earth is. Some say billions of years, some say thousands. They differ in views of evolution and how much evolutionary process explains the diversity of life. Some believe in a global flood, some do not. But, the one element they have in common is the acknowledgement of a supernatural diety that plays a part in the creation of this world.

Directed evolution points to a fairly weak God who isn't very organized if He must continuously come to earth to fix mistakes or improve the latest version of His creation.

That's not what directed evolution means. It's not that God is tinkering with the evolutionary process along the way. But that evolution would inevitably lead from a single cell to man. It was preprogrammed to happen even before the first DNA replicated itself.

I don't believe in this. But some, such as Denton, argues for this.

Once again, we have a stalemate at the many opinions of creationism. Tell me, is there any central tenets to this? If you believe in creationism, then do you not have to believe in Genesis?

What exactly would directed evolution mean? Is it another word for intelligent design?