Posted on 01/13/2009 6:20:49 PM PST by mnehring
I ran across "The Language of God" at the library a couple of weeks ago, and snatched it up.
I had read brief interviews with the author, Dr. Francis S. Collins of the Human Genome Project, and I was curious. He is a world-renowned geneticist who is unabashedly Christian, so I figured Collins would have an interesting perspective on pretty much everything.
I was right. "The Language of God" is a very engaging book, well written and thoughtful. It's a couple of years old, but it weighs in on some topics mentioned in this column and in the resulting online discussions, so I figured a review was in order.
The subtitle on the hard-cover copy I picked up, "A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief," is a tad misleading. Collins does indeed present evidence for belief, but it isn't scientifically-tested evidence -- and I think he'd be among the first to acknowledge that. If you pick up the book hoping to see Collins present a precise measurement of the speed of an electron that proves hands-down that God exists, you won't find it.
What you will find is a very intelligent guy making an intelligent case for religious belief along with a passionate defense of doing science the right way -- observation, hypothesis, test and repeat, show your work, answer the questions, test and repeat, more observation, test and repeat, experiment, test test test test and so on. Collins' Christianity is very important to him, and so is the scientific method. Nothing he's learned in science has given Collins any reason to doubt his faith, and he does his science in such a way as to keep his faith from leading him around by the nose.
All in all, after reading this book I get the feeling Collins would be a fascinating person to sit down and drink a beer with. He apparently plays a pretty mean guitar, too.
Collins' evidence for belief amounts to philosophical arguments based on the existence of basic bottom-line morality (humans generally seem to agree some things are just plain morally wrong) and on the pretty much universal human desire to relate to something more, something spiritual, something beyond (we might disagree on what we're looking for or what we've found, but many of us seem to be seeking something). Neither is a particularly new argument, but neither is a particularly bad argument. It's not a slam-dunk that will send atheists rushing into churches, but it is interesting stuff and fuel for deep conversation.
Collins' approach is even-handed and not preachy. He tells you how he came to believe, rather than tell you why you're a moron if you don't believe. It seems Collins' primary goal is not to convince readers to join him in faith, but to demonstrate that science isn't necessarily an enemy to religion.
I think Collins succeeds, but my perspective is that of a scientifically-minded, tries-to-be-spiritually-open-minded reader. A reader who believes in a literal holy book probably won't find Collins convincing, but still might find his thoughts interesting.
Collins writes about his team's work on the Human Genome Project and relates it to evolution theory and to his sense of wonder and faith. He also discusses Darwin, Galileo, intelligent design, creationism, theistic evolution and more. If you're wondering, he finds the evidence for evolution to be compelling, the evidence for Young Earth Creationism to be completely made up and the scientific case for intelligent design to be lacking to date.
He also has some things to say about atheist icon Richard Dawkins, primarily arguing that Dawkins is wrong to believe science can disprove the existence of God. Having read both men's work, I'll give the nod to Collins on this question. I'm betting the universe -- or multiverse? -- is way too vast and old to justify Dawkins' certainty.
Collins also includes chapters on bioethics matters such as abortion, cloning, in vitro fertilization and stem-cell research. In some cases, he raises more questions than he answers; much of this stuff is still on the frontiers of medical knowledge, so that's understandable. Collins makes a case for science and faith to be at the table when discussing bioethics policy.
Despite the weighty topics, Collins' book is a fairly breezy read. He makes science easy for a layman to grasp.
Most people probably don't change their entire religious outlook after reading a book, so I doubt Collins will win converts to Christianity, and I'm not sure he'll change the minds of people who think modern science is atheistic bunk. He does, though, make a convincing case that you don't have to surrender rationality to believe in God.
I think this book would be particularly valuable to people who have sat on the sidelines of the whole science vs. religion fracas, turned off by all the shouting. Collins provides a rare and important voice in such discussions -- that of a bona fide scientist with a genuine Christian faith.
Older books, even if less then 10yrs old, are a source material for ideas, being “out of fashion” they have no buzz attached to them and most stand or fall on their own merits.
I do love his intellectual curiousity though, in Scientific Circles, such a open acknowledgement is tantamount to being a “young earther”.
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