A_Wanderer
ONE love, blood, life
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”.
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.”
linkCollins 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.
The argument of design even extending into the softer form of theistic evolution is not a proof for the existence of God, life and humanity arose from purely mechanistic processes occuring within what may be an infinite series of particle permutations, while a tremendously complex system this does not infer design, the self-organising nature and feedback mechanisms that enable such complexity in the absence of a guiding hand are inherent in the evidence.
The idea that mankind will not continue to evolve is also a bit too speculative, we are not forever cut off from natural selection and a more artifical intervention will eventually take place. When mankind is on Mars there will be divergence.
Believing is not as good as knowing. The supernatural interfering into a natural world is still a logical problem even if you believe in miracles.
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