Two Beautiful Books: Science... err... correction: Nature and Scripture (Appendix)

In the previous six posts, I put forth what I believe to be a biblical view of science and Scripture, and I gave some advice on how to hand apparent conflicts between "science and religion," "science and Christianity," "science and faith," or however we label the tension. In that series, I said several times that I was not trying to tell you what to believe on certain sub-topics of science and Christianity (e.g. the age of the universe) but trying to teach you how to think biblically about science and consistently as a Christian. Well, there are a number of sub-topics on which I am sure you would like more information, so in this post I will list a number of resources that I think you may find helpful. But, if you still cannot find what you are looking for, feel free to comment and ask about something I do not mention here.

• Confessions:
• The Westminster Confession and its Larger and Shorter Catechisms
• The Belgic Confession
• The Canons of Dort
• The Heidelberg Catechism
• Creeds:
• The Apostles Creed
• The Nicene Creed
• The Athanasian Creed
• The Creed of Chalcedon
• Christian ministries that can help you understand and interpret scientific data:
• Reasons to Believe
• Stand to Reason
• Discovery Institute
• My science tag on my blog
• Books on naturalism and worldviews:
• The Story of Reality by Gregory Koukl (I love this book. Read my review here.)
• Miracles by C. S. Lewis
• Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False by Thomas Nagel (If you read this, check out my blog post about it first for information on its importance and a link to Plantinga's very helpful review.)
• Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism by Alvin Plantinga
• A World of Difference by Kenneth Richard Samples
• Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview by J. P. Moreland and William Lane Craig
• To Everyone an Answer: A Case for the Christian Worldview eds. Francis J. Beckwith, William Lane Craig, and J.P. Moreland
• What's Your Worldview?: An Interactive Approach to Life's Big Questions by James N. Anderson
• Stealing from God: Why Atheists Need God to Make Their Case by Frank Turek
• Books on a biblical approach to science:
• Redeeming Science: A God-Centered Approach by Vern Poythress
• A Reformed Approach to Science and Scripture by Keith Mathison (This book is available for free on Kindle.)
• God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God? by John C. Lennox
• Science and Faith: Friends or Foes? by C. John Collins
• Books on creation and evolution:
• 40 Questions About Creation and Evolution by Kenneth Keathley and Mark Rooker
• Icons of Evolution by Jonathan Wells
• Origins of Life: Biblical and Evolutionary Models Face Off by Fazale "Fuz" Rana and Hugh Ross
• Darwin's Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design by Stephen C. Meyer
• Creating Life in the Lab by Fazale "Fuz" Rana
• More Than a Theory: Revealing a Testable Model for Creation by Hugh Ross
• Did Adam and Eve Really Exist? by C. John Collins
• Who was Adam? by Fazale "Fuz" Rana and Hugh Ross
• Books on Genesis and the days of creation:
• The Genesis Debate ed. David Hagopian; contributing authors Hugh Ross, Gleason Archer, J. Ligon Duncan III, David Hall, Lee Irons, and Meredith Kline
• Genesis in Space and Time by Francis Schaeffer
• A Matter of Days by Hugh Ross
• Books on Christian apologetics in general:
• Reason for the Hope Within ed. Michael Murray
• On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision by William Lane Craig
• Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis
• Mere Apologetics by Alister McGrath
• Without a Doubt: Answering the 20 Toughest Faith Questions by Kenneth Richard Samples and Ronald Nash
• The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism by Timothy Keller
• Unbelievable?: Why after ten years of talking with atheists, I'm still a Christian by Justin Brierley (Great into to apologetics book! Read my review here.)

I hope these are helpful to you as you think biblically about science and consistently as a Christian. Remember, feel free to comment and ask for a recommendation on a topic not listed here. I may not have a good one that I have read, but it never hurts to ask.

By His Grace,

Taylor

Dr. Fazale "Fuz" Rana in Atlanta

My friends, you have seen me write a number of posts about evolution, science and religion, Adam and Eve, and icons of evolution. It should be quite clear by now that I do not believe the scientific data supports an evolutionary view of our world's history, and I am not the only Christian with a science background who thinks this. On Thursday, March 21, 7:30 pm at Perimeter Church, Dr. Rana from Reasons to Believe (a man with far more knowledge in this area than I) will give a lecture on science and the biblical account of creation. It would be well-worth your time, if you can make it.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Does "Progress" Trump Faith?

"All science proceeds on the assumption that nature is ordered in a rational and intelligible way. You couldn't be a scientist if you thought the universe was a meaningless jumble of odds and ends haphazardly juxtaposed... to be a scientist, you had to have faith that the universe is governed by dependable, immutable, absolute, universal, mathematical laws of an unspecified origin." ~ Paul Davies

Today Fox News published an article called "Science vs. god: does progress trump faith?" discussing some of the high points between a debate over the existence of God between a set of scientists. It poses the question: "Does science refute religion?", and then points out that three out of five scientists are atheists but that of course means that two out of five are not, showing there is no "consensus" like some claim, at least on the question of God.

I do not have a lot of time to write a full response, especially since I have written about a lot of these issues before, but I wanted to point out a few things. First, as the quote above from Paul Davies' (an atheist) comments, there is faith in science. As I have written about here, here, here, and here, science is far from the purely "objected" and "empirical" tool that atheists claim it is. Now, those of you who know me know I love science and think highly of its ability, but we have to call a spade a spade, it takes faith to do the scientific enterprise. And, those who believe that science is the end-all-be-all of understanding reality are as religious as the most fundamental Christian.

Second, one of the scientists in the debate, Lawrence Krauss (whose book The Physics of Star Trek is awesome, by the way), stated, "Science has taught us we don't need God to exist..." Stephen Hawking's book, The Grand Design was cited as an example of this. That is simply not the case. I have written about that here and here.

Third, the article also states, "Proponents for religion argue that the universe is finely tuned for life, with certain fundamental parameters in nature that make our existence possible. But Krauss turned this argument on its head. 'We would be surprised to find ourselves in a universe in which we couldn't live,' Krauss said." They are trying to make the point that "of course" we live in a universe finely tuned because that is the only universe that would support life. This statement, however, rests on the presupposition that there are many universes in the "multiverse" (which is far from an universally accepted scientific theory) most of which do not have any possibility for life and we find ourselves in the one that "by chance" evolved all the right parameters. If you have enough universes, eventually one will be right for life, right? This is a sophisticated argument but it in no way shows God does not exist or that science does not take its fundamental laws by faith. Paul Davies (another atheist scientist at Arizona State) states in an article that he wrote for the New York Times:

A second reason that the laws of physics have now been brought within the scope of scientific inquiry is the realization that what we long regarded as absolute and universal laws might not be truly fundamental at all, but more like local bylaws. They could vary from place to place on a mega-cosmic scale. A God’s-eye view might reveal a vast patchwork quilt of universes, each with its own distinctive set of bylaws. In this “multiverse,” life will arise only in those patches with bio-friendly bylaws, so it is no surprise that we find ourselves in a Goldilocks universe — one that is just right for life. We have selected it by our very existence.
The multiverse theory is increasingly popular, but it doesn't so much explain the laws of physics as dodge the whole issue. There has to be a physical mechanism to make all those universes and bestow bylaws on them. This process will require its own laws, or meta-laws. Where do they come from? The problem has simply been shifted up a level from the laws of the universe to the meta-laws of the multiverse.

As he states, the idea that Krauss and others put forward is really just skirting the issue. It pushes it back a level, but it is still there. They have in no way shown that science is not taken on faith and that God is not necessary for our universe. For some more reading on this, I would recommend two books: Why the Universe Is the Way It Is and Who's Afraid of the Multiverse? Both are excellent resources in this area. I would also recommend Jeff Zweerink series of articles on "Multiverse Musings."

I will leave it at that. I do not want to make your head explode, nor do I have the time to keep writing (have a sermon on which I should be working). This should give you enough food-for-thought for a while on the whole subject of "science vs. religion" and whether or not science, the physical laws, and the universe can exist without God.

 By His Grace,
Taylor

The Beginning of the Universe

"He asserts that the universe came from 'nothing' rather than from God. However, the different 'nothings' that Krauss appeals to for his explanations are really 'some things'—'some things' that demand nothing less than the existence and involvement of the biblical God." ~ Dr. Hugh Ross, "Universe from Nothing?: A Critique of Lawrence Krauss' Book, Part 1"

Another set of Big Bang news articles have hit the popular media. This time with headlines like "The Big Bang Didn't Need God to Start Universe, Researchers Say." This is similar to what Stephen Hawking wrote in his book The Grand Design, which I wrote about a while ago. The impetus behind such assertions is the desire to remove God from the equation when it comes to the origins of the universe. This has been a problem for naturalistic scientists ever since the first indications that the universe is expanding. So, let's talk about Big Bang cosmological theory and see if the above claims stand up within that framework.

Why is this such a big deal to Big Bang cosmologists? Well, it is often believed that "Big Bang" automatically means an atheistic world-view, but, while that may seem to be common now, that was not the original response to Big Bang cosmology. In fact, the Big Bang was originally seen by steady-state cosmologists as an inherently religious idea. Geoffrey Burbidge, for example, once lamented that his fellow scientists were running off to join the "First Church of Christ of the Big Bang." Sir Fred Hoyle first coined the phrase "Big Bang" in a 1949 BBC broadcast as a pejorative name because of its religious significance (though he did later recant). Why did they see it as religious? Because saying that the universe has a beginning means that it must have had a Beginner, and they did not want to admit the possibility of a Beginner.

Recently, however, many noted scientists have begun theorizing how the universe could have created itself from nothing. That is, of course, the holy grail of a naturalistic world-view--if you can show that the universe did not need a Beginner, then God is not necessary (at least, that is the assumption). So, we get articles like the one list above and books like Hawking's The Grand Design. As I have already written about Hawking's work, I will make a few comments about the recent articles.

The basic premise of such arguments is that "the Big Bang could've occurred as a result of just the laws of physics being there. With the laws of physics, you can get universes." What I find most interesting about this is that the scientist quoted (Alex Filippenko of the University of California, Berkeley) admits that the laws of physics cannot explain themselves. He even admits that they would require a divine Creator, though he goes on to ask who created the divine Creator, which he believes leads to a never-ending chain of causes. But does it really? Basically, Filippenko is showing the validity and necessity of the Kalam Cosmological Argument, which is a classic argument for an uncaused Cause or a Creator. Eventually the chain of causality throughout the history of being has to have a beginning. String Theory posits a type of multiverse to explain the beginning of our universe. Filippenko and Hawking posit that the laws of physics cause the universe to create itself. Both of these simply push the need for a Creator back a step. They simply add another link to the chain of causality. Where did the multiverse come from? Where did the laws of physics come from? Believing they are simply "brute realities" takes as much faith as, if not more than it takes to believe in a Creator (I have written about this here, here, here, and here). Such theories do not solve the problem but are basically mathematical ways of skirting the question.

Furthermore, Filippenko positing quantum fluctuations as a creative event has problems. (Warning, this is going to get a little bit technical.) A consequence of the uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics is that quantum fluctuations in the fabric of space-time will generate particles out of "nothing" (it is not really nothing as we will soon see). Seth Shostack from SETI asserts, "Quantum mechanical fluctuations can produce the cosmos." In the article, Filippenko draws on this idea and says, "If you would just, in this room, just twist time and space the right way, you might create an entirely new universe. It's not clear you could get into that universe, but you would create it." The first problem with this, that is not mentioned in the articles, is that while the uncertainty principle allows for the random creation of particles, it also requires that these particles revert back to fluctuations before they can be observed. They will not stick around long enough to create anything, about a quintillionth of a second (that is 0.000000000000000001 seconds)! The second problem is even larger than the first. The article and the scientists call this creation from nothing but it is in no way creation from nothing. It is creation from other "some things" (as the quote from Dr. Hugh Ross above states). When he says, "If you would just, in this room, just twist time and space the right way..." Filippenko reveals a major problem in his theory: quantum fluctuations require space-time (which is something, not nothing) to already exist for any type of particles (or universes) to be created. Rather than coming from nothing, they come from pre-existent physical laws and pre-existent space-time. Space-time must already exist for quantum fluctuations to create anything. So, one must again ask, "Has the need for a divine Creator really been removed from the situation?" Not hardly. If the fabric of space-time is necessary for quantum fluctuations to create anything, then space-time first had to be created by something or Someone else. Again, this pushes the need for a Creator back a step but in no way rids us of that need.

For more on this topic, I would suggest you read Dr. Hugh Ross' review of Lawrence M. Krauss' book A Universe from Nothing. Krauss' book is a much more highly developed argument than the article I have been citing or even Hawking's book. Dr. Hugh Ross does a very good job of laying out the issues with it in part 1 and the theological explanations in part 2.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Galileo's Trial: An Epic Struggle of Science Against Religion?

"The notion that Galileo's trial was a conflict between science and religion should be dead. Anyone who works seriously on Galileo doesn't accept that interpretation anymore." ~ Thomas F. Mayer

It has long been held in popular media and high school textbooks that the trial of Galileo in 1633 was the righteous stand of science against the oppressive, outdated traditions of the Roman Catholic Church. It is said that this started the unstoppable rise of science that would soon overtake and make irrelevant church tradition. This conception provides an exciting story; the only problem is that it did not actually happen that way. The popularized view is simply incorrect, as stated above in the quote by Dr. Mayer taken from this popular article. It has been overblown by those who want to exaggerate an alleged chasm between science and religion. Any good history of science book, like Science and Religion edited by Gary B. Ferngren (relevant article by Richard Blackwell), will give a more accurate picture of the Galileo affair.

So what really happened? The Aristotelian, Ptolemaic geocentric view of the solar system had dominated the scientific and theological discussions of the solar system for centuries. Then, in 1543, the heliocentric view developed by Nicolas Copernicus was published over 70 years before Galileo came on the scene.

In 1610, Galileo built his first telescope and began using it to observe the sky. He used it to gather all sorts of data on stellar objects like caters on the Moon, the Galilean moons orbiting Jupiter (named for him, of course) the phases of Venus (like we see with the Moon), and spots on the Sun. His observations, particularly the moons orbiting Jupiter and the phases of Venus, brought him to question the dominant geocentric model and start to look more seriously at the heliocentric model. Though the growing body of data supported the the Copernican model, Galileo could not conclusively prove that it was correct. (This is a fact that is often missed. All theological discussions aside, the scientific community of the time was not fully convinced of the heliocentric model. It did not gain full acceptance until many years after Galileo's death.)

Being a devout Catholic, Galileo knew that the model he was developing should agree with Scripture, so in 1616 he went to the Scriptures in order to reinterpret several key passages so that he might harmonize his model with God's Word. This is where things started to get hot and when we consider this we cannot forget what time Galileo was doing this. This was the early 17th century, only about 100 years after Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of Wittenberg. The Reformation had taken the sole authority to interpret Scripture away from the clergy and the Catholic Church was intent on taking it back. The Protestant Reformation and the following Catholic Counter Reformation over the past century had heightened sensitivity in the Roman Catholic Church. The Council of Trent had just reaffirmed that only bishops and church councils count interpret the Bible. In this first trial, Galileo was not as much in trouble for his heliocentric view (though that certainly was a factor) but because he tried to prove it by interpreting Scripture at a time when the Catholic Church was really sensitive about that. The impact of this drama between the Reformation and the Counter Reformation on the whole Galileo situation cannot be overstated. Blackwell states in Science and Religion:

If Copernicus’s book had been published either one hundred years earlier or one hundred years later, the Galileo affair would probably not have happened. But, in fact, it was published in 1543, when the Reformation was in full bloom and the Counter Reformation was just beginning. Hence it was that by 1616 all of the actors and cultural forces were in place for the drama of the Galileo affair to begin.

To be blunt about it, both Galileo and the Catholic Church were at the mercy of really bad timing.

In 1616, when Galileo’s case was brought to trial before the Roman Inquisition, they issued a precept that ordered him to cease to promote and defend the heliocentric model, which Galileo promised to obey. Fifteen years later, there was a newly appointed Pope and Galileo decided to ask the new Pope if he could publish a review of the heliocentric and geocentric views. The new Pope, unaware of the previous trial, granted him permission. Galileo, however, failed to mention the precept during his request and it was this omission led to Galileo’s second trial, his conviction, and his house arrest. During this second trial, the trial that ultimately led to Galileo's recanting, the issue was not the two solar system models but Galileo's disregard for the precept. As Dr. Mayer has shown in his paper on the subject and talks about in this popular article, the issue of the precept was raised in very narrow legal terms and was compounded by sloppy records of the earlier trial and Galileo's own testimony. Mayer argues that the Inquisition was actually trying to give Galileo a way to negotiate a settlement, a common practice with precepts at the time, but Galileo dug himself a big hole by first claiming not to have received the precept, then saying he did not violate the precept (the one he just claimed he did not receive), and then quoting from the precept (again, the one he just claimed he did not receive). In the popular press Dr. Mayer said, "When push came to shove in the second part of trial, [Galileo] made every imaginable mistake."

So, this event in history, which has long been hailed as the clash of the science and religion, is really more about who has the authority to interpret Scripture (because of the drama of the Reformation) in the first trial and a legal matter in the second (compounded by sloppy record keeping and Galileo's inconsistent testimony). Rather than being a monumental clash between science and religion, where the Catholic Church is painted as a "monolithic, omnipotent organization conspiring to bring down the astronomer", Galileo’s final conviction was a legal matter confused by sloppy record keeping and handled poorly by Galileo himself.

By His Grace,
Taylor

99% Chimp... but also 35% Daffodil?

"In the context of a 35% similarity to a daffodil, the 99.44% of the DNA of human to chimp doesn’t seem so remarkable. After all, humans are obviously a heck of a lot more similar to chimpanzees than to daffodils. More than that, to say that humans are over one-third daffodil is more ludicrous than profound. There are hardly any comparisons you can make to a daffodil in which humans are 33% similar." ~ Dr. Jonathan Marks, What it Means to be 95% Chimpanzee: Apes, People, and their Genes

You have probably heard it before, "Humans are 99% chimp!" The percentage number of genetic similarity reported ranges from 90-99% (the actual number is probably closer to 90% when one takes into account indels--insertions and deletions in the DNA sequences--but that is not really important for our purposes here). This statement is based on work done by Mary-Claire King and A. C. Wilson in 1975. Their work showed several human and chimpanzee proteins display a 99% agreement in amino acid sequence. This indicated that humans and chimpanzees are closer genetic relatives than anyone at that time had thought. Soon popular evolutionary news caught wind of this and the field has never been the same since. It seems like compelling evidence for an Darwinian paradigm. Is it?

Not really, actually. As Dr. Marks states above, we could also say that humans are 35% daffodil based on this method of comparison, which is absurd. Comparisons based on the percent similarity of genetic sequences is basically meaningless. It being meaningless has led others, like Science correspondent Jon Cohen, to write, "Now it’s totally clear that it’s [the 99% genetic similarity] more a hindrance for understanding than a help." Most of the scientific community that supports naturalistic evolution has largely abandoned this comparison since it has no value. Yet, this icon of evolution is still floating around in popular media and text books.

Why does this comparison have little value? Well, let me try to explain it using an example. Assume that you and I each have a box of colored pencils. Each of our boxes contains 100 pencils. When we compare the boxes we find that 99 of our colors are the same and we each have one color the other does not have. If we each start to draw are we going to come up with pictures that are 99% similar? No, of course not. Why? Because the pictures depend not so much on the colored pencils we use but on the way we express ourselves in our drawings, how the colored pencils are used functionally. We may be using the same supplies but we would use them in vastly different ways. Well, genes are like that. Genetic similarity in organisms counts for nothing, it is how the genes are expressed that really matters. Having similar genes means nothing because functionally they operate very differently in different organisms.

Recent work on the FOXP2 gene creates a great example of this. (This is going to get a little technical but I think it is very helpful in illustrating my point above with an important, real-life example.) This gene has gotten a lot of attention lately because of its importance to language capability. This gene codes for a DNA-binding protein, which are proteins used in differential gene regulation--the controlling of activity in genes much like a volume control. They can turn genes "on" or "off" or regulate their activeness anywhere in between. The FOXP2 gene plays this role in humans and other organisms, like chimpanzees.

In humans this gene is critical for language capability. A study done by the Max Plank Institute (published in Nature in 2001) showed that any modification of this gene in humans cripples language capability. It not only disables the ability of the humans to make the sounds necessary for language but it also disables their ability to comprehend language completely. In this study they also looked at the amino acids that make up the protein that this gene produces--the FOXP2 protein--in chimps, mice, and humans. Out of the 715 amino acids that make up the protein in chimps, mice, and humans, the mouse and human protein differed by only three amino acids and the chimp human protein differed by only two amino acids (that is about a 0.3% difference).

In a recent paper also published in Nature, a team of scientists from several universities reported on an analysis they did of how this difference in the FOXP2 gene for humans and chimps affected biological development. In order to study the effect they culture two sets of neurons that had the FOXP2 gene removed from them. (They did this so they could have the same starting point for each gene they were studying.) In one set they introduced the human FOXP2 gene and in another set they introduced the chimp FOXP2 gene. They then observed how the neurons were affected by the different genes. What they found was profound. In the set of neurons with the human gene there were 60 other genes that were up-regulated (more active) by this protein compared to the chimp neurons and there were 50 other genes that were down-regulated (less active) by this protein compared to the chimp neurons. So, the introduction of one human gene that is 99.7% similar to the chimp version of the gene had a profound affect on 110 other genes in development! A two-out-of-715 amino acid difference had significant biological consequences.

This study illustrates how a 90-99% genetic similarity between humans and chimps really means nothing. Even if one were to grant that the similarity is 99% (as I briefly mentioned above, the number is closer to 90%), that 1% genetic difference has profound implications when it comes to gene expression in each species. Gene similarity is meaningless. Gene expression is what is important.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Tetrapod Problems

"This is a huge discovery... the breakthrough of the year. It is going to be hard to imagine other discoveries happening throughout the course of the year having this type of implications... It is a paradigm buster." ~ Dr. Frazale Rana

The above quote comes from biochemist Dr. Rana's comments on a paper published in the journal Nature back in early January named "Tetrapod trackways from the early Middle Devonian period of Poland". This paper discusses the discovery of fossilized tetrapod footprints in an abandoned rock quarry in the Holy Cross Mountains (south-eastern Poland). Such "trace fossils" (fossils that display records of biological activity but not the fossils of the organism itself) would not normally be that interesting if it were not for the date associated with the fossils. The paleobiologists who discovered these footprints used several different dating methods to establish that these trace fossils date to 397 million years ago. That date is very disturbing for evolutionary biologists because it means that the alleged transitional species between fish and tetrapods (which date from 385 to 365 million years ago) are, in fact, not transitional species at all since they appear after the tetrapod footprints.

"Tetrapod" is the scientific name for vertebrate animals with for limbs. You and I are tetrapods as are dogs, cats, lizards, etc. Being able to explain how tetrapods emerged in evolution is a very important facet of evolutionary models. It has been alleged by naturalistic evolutionary biologists that the fossil record documents the transition from fish to fishapods (transitional species) to land-base tetrapods. There are three species of fishapod that supposedly document this transition: Panderichthys (roughly 385 million years ago) which evolved into Tiktaalik (about 375 million years ago) which evolved into Ventastega (about 365 million years ago) which evolved into true land-based tetrapods like Acanthostega and Ichthyostega. Now, ever since these fossils were discovered and the "family tree" was drawn there have been many issues that cast serious doubt on this story but none so big as this one. Did you notice the dates? These fishapods (that are supposedly transitional species between fish and tetrapods) first show up in the fossil record about 12 million years after these recently discovered tetrapod footprints. That means they cannot be transitional species because they do not even appear on the scene until after tetrapods were walking the earth.

This is another example of "proof" for naturalistic evolution (that presumably has fossil evidence to support it) that has been overthrown by a single fossil find. This line of fishapods has been touted for quite a long time as documented evidence for evolution but with this new find we see that it cannot be. If that is the case then what other "well established" evolutionary explanations are awaiting overthrow?

By His Grace,
Taylor