Collins is “Faithful to God, Science?”

This article, about evolutionist Christian Dr. Francis Collins (director of the [US] National Human Genome Research Institute), is riddled with inaccuracies and misleading statements. For example, according to the article, Collins “entreats his fellow believers to recognize it’s not blasphemous to learn about the world.” By this statement, Collins is furthering the wild idea that Christians who accept the Bible simultaneously reject any knowledge not found in Scripture. Rather, we reject “knowledge” not founded in Scripture-ideas that contradict the knowledge of the true God. In fact, evolutionists do the same thing when they reject creation out of hand, calling it “unscientific” (though it is really not unscientific; rather, it is contradictory to the axiom of scientism, which rejects the idea of revelatory knowledge). But Collins' comment may make unwary readers think there is actually an “Eleventh Commandment” in the Bible that reads, “Thou shalt not learn about the world.” In fact, almost all of our knowledge about the world has its basis in Bible-based science, and certainly doesn't require a Darwinist paradigm.

Later in the Times’ article (after quoting Ken Ham, AiG-US president), Collins’ thoughts are expressed:

[F]rom God’s perspective, perhaps evolution is a logical, even elegant, way to populate the planet. Maybe God intended mutations in DNA over the millennia to lead to the emergence of Homo sapiens. Once man arrived, maybe God set him apart from the other creatures by endowing him with knowledge of right and wrong, a sense of altruism and a yearning for spiritual nourishment.

Furthermore, according to this account, we were set apart because God “endowed” us with the knowledge of right and wrong.

Maybe so-if we speak of “God” apart from what we know of Him in the Bible, and if “logical” and “elegant” mean billions of years of cancer-caused mutations, violent struggle, carnivory and death. Furthermore, according to this account, we were set apart because God “endowed” us with the knowledge of right and wrong. Our ancestor Adam was different from the animals because he was made in the image of God, and he gained the knowledge of right and wrong when he, along with Eve, disobeyed God and ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Collins knew he could never prove any of these ideas, but that no longer troubled him the way it once had.

Collins’ faith is unapologetic, then-completely unlike the faith we’re to have, as instructed by 1 Peter 3:15. Two paragraphs later, the article quotes physicist Steven Weinberg, who comments that attributing the unknown to God serves only to give believers a “warm, fuzzy, reassuring feeling.” And no wonder-Collins’ theistic evolution is just evolution + God in the gaps. In other words, Collins just places “God” in his “unknown” box. If scientists come up with a naturalistic explanation for the origin of the genetic code, will Collins abandon his belief in a creator, lest he be seen as “rejecting knowledge” (like those of us at AiG apparently do!)? That is just one of the many problems of theistic evolution, which essentially accepts science plus God in the gaps.

7. The Times: Mammoths may roam again after 27,000 years

Scientists hope that by using frozen mammoth sperm, they may be able to reintroduce mammoth-like animals to the earth (specifically, animals that are 50% mammoth and 50% Asian elephant-something like heffalumps). This may help baraminologists better determine the exact composition of the elephant kind.

8. UPI: Kenya’s human fossils disturb church

From this short article’s headline, one gets the idea that Kenyan Christians are upset with the existence of the fossils-as though they are so upset that such solid “proof” of evolution exists. But what is Bishop Adoyo really worried about?

“The Christian community here is very uncomfortable that Leakey and his group want their theories presented as fact,” Adoyo said.

What theories? Isn’t the age of these fossils a proven, scientific fact, independent of individual bias? Interestingly, we featured an appendix on our website this week that addresses this question quite directly. See “National Geographic Plays the Dating Game”.