I’ve found God, says man who cracked the genome

[Marcus Marulus]

From The Sunday Times

June 11, 2006

I’ve found God, says man who cracked the genome

Steven Swinford

THE scientist who led the team that cracked the human genome is to publish a book explaining why he now believes in the existence of God and is convinced that miracles are real.

Francis Collins, the director of the US National Human Genome Research Institute, claims there is a rational basis for a creator and that scientific discoveries bring man “closer to God”.

His book, The Language of God, to be published in September, will reopen the age-old debate about the relationship between science and faith. “One of the great tragedies of our time is this impression that has been created that science and religion have to be at war,” said Collins, 56.

“I don’t see that as necessary at all and I think it is deeply disappointing that the shrill voices that occupy the extremes of this spectrum have dominated the stage for the past 20 years.”

For Collins, unravelling the human genome did not create a conflict in his mind. Instead, it allowed him to “glimpse at the workings of God”.

“When you make a breakthrough it is a moment of scientific exhilaration because you have been on this search and seem to have found it,” he said. “But it is also a moment where I at least feel closeness to the creator in the sense of having now perceived something that no human knew before but God knew all along.

“When you have for the first time in front of you this 3.1 billion-letter instruction book that conveys all kinds of information and all kinds of mystery about humankind, you can’t survey that going through page after page without a sense of awe. I can’t help but look at those pages and have a vague sense that this is giving me a glimpse of God’s mind.”

Collins joins a line of scientists whose research deepened their belief in God. Isaac Newton, whose discovery of the laws of gravity reshaped our understanding of the universe, said: “This most beautiful system could only proceed from the dominion of an intelligent and powerful being.”

Although Einstein revolutionised our thinking about time, gravity and the conversion of matter to energy, he believed the universe had a creator. “I want to know His thoughts; the rest are details,” he said. However Galileo was famously questioned by the inquisition and put on trial in 1633 for the “heresy” of claiming that the earth moved around the sun.

Among Collins’s most controversial beliefs is that of “theistic evolution”, which claims natural selection is the tool that God chose to create man. In his version of the theory, he argues that man will not evolve further.

“I see God’s hand at work through the mechanism of evolution. If God chose to create human beings in his image and decided that the mechanism of evolution was an elegant way to accomplish that goal, who are we to say that is not the way,” he says.

“Scientifically, the forces of evolution by natural selection have been profoundly affected for humankind by the changes in culture and environment and the expansion of the human species to 6 billion members. So what you see is pretty much what you get.”

Collins was an atheist until the age of 27, when as a young doctor he was impressed by the strength that faith gave to some of his most critical patients.

“They had terrible diseases from which they were probably not going to escape, and yet instead of railing at God they seemed to lean on their faith as a source of great comfort and reassurance,” he said. “That was interesting, puzzling and unsettling.”

He decided to visit a Methodist minister and was given a copy of C S Lewis’s Mere Christianity, which argues that God is a rational possibility. The book transformed his life. “It was an argument I was not prepared to hear,” he said. “I was very happy with the idea that God didn’t exist, and had no interest in me. And yet at the same time, I could not turn away.”

His epiphany came when he went hiking through the Cascade Mountains in Washington state. He said: “It was a beautiful afternoon and suddenly the remarkable beauty of creation around me was so overwhelming, I felt, ‘I cannot resist this another moment’.”

Collins believes that science cannot be used to refute the existence of God because it is confined to the “natural” world. In this light he believes miracles are a real possibility. “If one is willing to accept the existence of God or some supernatural force outside nature then it is not a logical problem to admit that, occasionally, a supernatural force might stage an invasion,” he says.

[source]

[Strengthandhonour]

Interesting article.
I don't know what to think of it really. I think some crazy evangelical nuts might take it the wrong way. I do disagree with the statement that men won't evolve further though.

[Marcus Marulus]

Originally Posted by Strengthandhonour

I think some crazy evangelical nuts might take it the wrong way.

The "crazy evangelical nuts" you might be referring to have a worldview possibly light years away from that of this scientist, because they are mostly Biblical literalists and deny the evolution as such. I do not think they would be touched by this in any way.

The existence or non-existence of God cannot be proved by empirical-rationalistic method. I do not even see that this would be what this scientist says. He did not say that he "scientifically" proved the existence of God. He is just recounting his experiences and drawing some indirect conclusions based on some deeper insight into the essence of things, which includes, but also transcends the results obtained by emprical research.

Originally Posted by Strengthandhonour

I do disagree with the statement that men won't evolve further though.

Who knows...

[Galaico]

Originally Posted by Strengthandhonour

I do disagree with the statement that men won't evolve further though.

I actually believe that to be true. If you look at evolutionary processes, new species always appear in very small and isolated populations. Nowadays Globalisation and world wide communications makes it impossible for a human population to remain isolated, unless we're talking about some primitive tribes from the Amazon, New Guinea or somewhere else.

If human evolution still has some way to go, it must evolve at a world wide level, collectively, what would make it almost impossible, or at least it would make it very very slow.

Racial separation wouldn't change things a lot, as even the most isolated and fewer in number races (Australoids?), are made up by hundreds of thousands of individuals, while our ancestors, the last pre-Sapiens Homo rhodesiensis were probably not more than a few hundreds of individuals.

It would be interesting though, to see how the future eugentic programmes will affect human evolution, either accelerating it or definitely stopping it.

[Perseus]

Well Collins didn't 'crack' the genome - he was just the bureaucratic director of the whole project which included many many scientists working all over the world. So this just seems to be self promotion.