Posted on 07/09/2006 8:40:40 PM PDT by SirLinksalot
fyi.
Here's a related article from the man who helped crack the Human Genome...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2220484,00.html
Man leaves Earth, he will be evolvin' -- and evolvin' in directions nobody can predict.
Glaciers come back, man will be evolvin' -- and quick.
Good size meteor hits Earth and it all goes to pot, man will be evolvin' -- hopefully quick enough.
The idea that we are through evolving does not stand up to the test of history.
I aree.
A sidebar to the work of Collins...
Here's link to a story on Craig Vetner, the fellow who to a large degree
forced the acceleration of genome sequencing:
http://www.time.com/time/poy2000/mag/venter.html
While I appreciate Vetner and the jump-start he gave to high-throughput
genetic work...Collins surely is a great scientist and a very decent fellow to boot.
I've just ordered his book for my husband. "The Language of God..." by Francis Collins.
So many of these arguments can be summarized as "Here is an impossibly complex reality, it must have been made by a thinking God." Thus we explain that which is too complex for our understanding by postulating a God who must be much more complex in order to have created that which we see. Sorry, makes no sense to me.
I just finished "The Question of God" by Armand Nicolosi.
In a way, that book's comparison of worldviews of Freud v. C.S. Lewis reminds
me of Vetner v. Collins.
In other words, the materialistic v. spritualistic.
(I don't actually know of Vetner's spirtual point of view...but he does strike
me as more likely in the materialistic camp.)
Wouldn't those examples be natural selection, not evolution?
Natural selection works on the range of variation within a population.
That range of variation is supported by mutations.
If a change, say in climate, occurs, one end of a range (for example, skin color) may be slightly favored over the other end. Hot climate favors darker skin, low sunlight favors lighter skin up to a point.
Over time the range of variation within that trait expands again (its like a bell curve). In this way populations can adapt to changing conditions, as long as conditions don't change too fast.
This change over time is called evolution.
I don't see that in this particular experience/opinion, and I think often it is more along the lines of an undeniable intelligence than impossible complexity, but I will say that for me accepting that something as complex as say the reproductive system of mammals or the cardiovascular system simply evolved is a much greater stretch than believing in a Creator.
So is the scientist who headed up the team that cracked the human genome qualified to teach public school science classes?
"a richly satisfying harmony between the scientific and spiritual worldviews"
Works for me...
Just got int to The Science of God, by Gerald Schroeder. If your hubby enjoys such books, get that one for him too. It has a particularly interesting explanation of how time from bang appears very different (we're in the seventh day by God's perspective) than from our now back to the bang (15 billion give or take a few hundred million).
ping for later
So's Venter.
Venter really drove this and began genomics with TIGR following his development of ests.
Absolutely. Scientifically Venter is and has been innovative and independent. But as far as scientists, he's typical, whereas Collins seems to be a bit of a renegade in admitting and braodcasting his beliefs in God.
...or simple adaptation...
The ACLU would sue him and the usual suspects here would condemn him as a crackpot.
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