Ancient repetitive elements (Collins)
June 25th, 2007 | Published in Evolution, Biology, Science, Quotes | 2 Comments
Unless one is willing to take the position that God has placed these decapitated [ancient repetitive elements in DNA] in these precise positions to confuse and mislead us, the conclusion of a common ancestor for humans and mice is virtually inescapable. This kind of recent genome data thus presents an overwhelming challenge to those who hold to the idea that all species were created ex nihilo.
–Francis S. Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief (2006), p. 136-137
June 25th, 2007 at 4:42 pm (#)
Hi Josh,
I’m curious, most of all, why you posted this quote. It surprised me a little. Do you agree with the thought? Do you find it compelling? What do you think of the idea that man was created ex nihilo?
What caught my attention, though, was the question of whether God would “confuse and mislead” our ’scientists.’ I think there’s a lot of foolishness and absurdity tied up in our ideas of how God ought to behave.
For one thing, shouldn’t creation be understood as a miraculous act of God? If it was a miracle, why do we expect ’science’ and the laws of nature to be able to explain it? Wouldn’t that be like trying to disprove Jesus’ resurrection from the dead on the basis that ’science’ has proven that men, once dead for over 24 hours, are permanently dead? But isn’t that simply the definition of a miracle?
It seems to me the problem is that ’scientists’ aren’t willing to consider a God that’s greater than the god of science. Repetitive DNA elements are only misleading if we’re prideful enough in the first place to try to assume that we can explain god. If, on the other hand, we approach science with a humble respect for the awesome mystery of God’s work in creation (I’m thinking Berry: life is a miracle), then we can make scientific enquiry without feeling the need to prove our pet theory of origins.
A related question that I find enlightening is the question of whether the trees God created on the third day had multiple rings. If Cain had cut down a big tree, could he have proven that his dad wasn’t old enough to have been created in the first week? In other words, did God create trees with rings such that they would appear (by counting the rings) to be older than they really were? For that matter, was Adam created with the appearance of age, or was he created an infant?
I’ve heard people argue that God’s integrity wouldn’t allow for Him to create trees with multiple rings, that that would be a case of God trying to “confuse and mislead” man as to the age of the earth. I think these people aren’t willing to consider God as God. I think we confuse ourselves by expecting to find great big trees without rings, and I suspect that’s just the kind of foolishness what Mr. Collins’ pride has led him to.
I think the problem is that we’re looking for a god that will fit in our little boxes. Like Job and his friends, we want a god that conforms to our understanding. We want to explain the mind of god. If we can’t bring ourselves to consider the possibility that God created trees with multiple rings and man with repetitive DNA elements, I suspect it’s because we can’t bring ourselvs to admit that God’s in charge. In our pride we fail to recognize how limited our understanding is. The result is not only bad religion; it’s also bad science.
If God is proven incompatible with our self-aggrandizing ’science,’ the question isn’t whether God would confuse or mislead us (although He does harden hearts and blind eyes); the question is why our god is so small.
August 15th, 2007 at 3:07 pm (#)
“If [g]od is proven incompatible with our self-aggrandizing `science’, the question isn’t whether God would confuse or mislead us…the question is why our god is so small.”
This argument (it is absurd to imagine that [g]od is trying to “trick” us by placing evidence everywhere that supports evolution) has it’s roots in Theodosius Dobzhansky’s 1973 essay “nothing in biology makes sense accept in the light of evolution”. I highly recommend reading this…The level of faith Dobzhansky had is
inspiring.
Science is a philisophical process - not an entity so we don’t rank it, we use it.
Attempting to assign rank (science vs God) to a method of discovery vs a teleological human argument is futile - who would yield to the truth? Assumed is that the truth of either is already clear (to us) or actually conflicts - maybe niether are true. Life is a mystery? The question is actually when we scientifically discover the mechanisms that lead to life, and speciation and when they appear to be gradual, stochastic and influenced by mobile DNA elements (add in all the other features about life we can observe such as the fossil record, inheritance, geological separations, anatomical similarities…) is the conflicting “ex nihlio” idea really about God or science? I would say niether. Maybe “ex nihlio” is a crazy superstition written by a Jewish editorial committee plagerising earlier superstitions in the process - a classic primate sociological brain glitch.
Couldn’t I make up any story about life’s design and support my arguments by hurling adjectives copiously? The scientific process does not deserve the adjectives self-aggrandizing, foolish, hardened, blind, confused, small….Science proceeds to the good and God is. The ultimate signum fidei is to admit we don’t know the right answer at the outset, but we can properly search for it. We know how tree rings are formed - don’t be ridiculous. Who would be so arrogant as to assume that they really know God while claiming that tree rings aren’t obvious to everyone? I believe the tree. It looks like when the facts are in that the “ex nihlio” god simply is not. What it is. People can have all sorts of crazy ideas, but they never created a mouse. I think I’ll believe the mouse - it’s a simple, innocent creature untarnished by human arrogance, superstition and sophistry.
Science proceeds to the good and God is.