In a reflection on Francis Collins’s sudden resignation, Jonathan Wells mentions his enabling the harvesting of body parts from babies of 18–20 weeks gestation but he focuses on Collins’s book, The Language of God. (2006):
In the past 15 years, scores of people — some of them my personal friends — have told me how Collins’s 2006 book, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, convinced them that a devout Christian can also be a Darwinist. Most of those people, I’m afraid, never read the book, or at least did not read past the first few pages. On those first pages Collins reported that in 2000 scientists released a rough draft of a sampling of human DNA. President Bill Clinton then announced, in a speech Collins helped to write, “we are learning the language in which God created life.”
Yet the remainder of Collins’s book was an argument against that idea. Instead, Collins argued that data from DNA sequencing provide “powerful support for Darwin’s theory of evolution, that is, descent from a common ancestor with natural selection operating on randomly occurring variations.” Probably the most powerful support came from what Collins called “junk DNA.” A creator, he argued, would not have put so much junk in our DNA, so it must have come from unguided evolution. (This is an odd way to argue for a supposedly scientific theory, namely that God wouldn’t have done it that way. Darwin argued similarly in The Origin of Species. But let’s overlook this theological aspect of Darwin’s and Collins’s argument.)
Jonathan Wells, “Recalling Francis Collins’s The Language of God” at Evolution News and Science Today (October 8, 2021)
Of course, we know what happened to the “junk DNA” thesis.
Wells reflects,
It’s not a moral failure to be mistaken about evidence that supposedly supports Darwinian evolution. But the title of Collins’s Language of God was deceptive from the start. And Collins has looked the other way as it has continued to deceive. I consider this one more moral failure of Francis Collins.
Jonathan Wells, “Recalling Francis Collins’s The Language of God” at Evolution News and Science Today (October 8, 2021)
You may also wish to read:
At Evolution News and Science Today:The Appalling Moral Failure of Francis Collins (A prominent theistic evolutionist) John G. West: The disclosures about the experiments followed Collins’s repeal earlier this year of restrictions on the use of aborted fetal tissue in NIH-funded research… researchers also sliced off skin from the scalp of the aborted babies and then grafted the fetal skin onto the mice. In the words of the scientists: “Full-thickness human fetal skin was processed via removal of excess fat tissues attached to the subcutaneous layer of the skin, then engrafted over the rib cage, where the mouse skin was previously excised.” The body parts used for these experiments were harvested from aborted human fetuses with a gestational age of 18-20 weeks. By that age, an unborn baby has brain waves and a beating heart. He can hear sounds and move his limbs and eyes …
and
Casey Luskin reflects on the “official” demise of the term “junk DNA.” Luskin: “these authors remember a day when ‘the common doctrine was that the nonprotein coding part of eukaryotic genome’ consisted of ‘“useless sequences, often organized in repetitive elements.’” Good. Keep the history alive. It won’t be very long before Darwinians start claiming that they never thought it was junk. Then they will start insinuating that WE said it was junk. No, that doesn’t make any sense but if the history is forgotten, it doesn’t need to make sense either.
Yes, it’s still going strong.
Collins is a typical Evolutionist/Darwinist (don’t matter whether he believes in God or not). These guys are nowhere close to design the basic parts of a cell (e.g. cell membrane), let alone to design a simplest cell… but they always have bold claims – e.g. that God wouldn’t have done it that way.
Like i said, Darwinists are clueless how to design the simplest biological systems, SO HOW COULD THEY KNOW WHAT ARE GOD’S INTENTIONS ??????
I always liked Jonathan Wells, i like his voice, and the way he puts things … and i can only agree with him, that “This is an odd way to argue for a supposedly scientific theory”
Such odd arguments reminds me on Seversky’s childish arguments, e.g. that God has a strange way how to show his love, because he created viruses and other pathogens …
Again, HOW YOU DARWINISTS COULD KNOW WHAT ARE GOD’S INTENTIONS ??? Because you think something ? :)))))
Moreover, we see it everyday, you Darwinists are clueless and always wrong … always …
e.g.
“…current concepts are reviewed…”
“…uprooting current thinking….”
“…latest findings contradict the current dogma….”
“… it challenges a long-held theory…”
“… it upends a common view…”
“… it needs a rethink … ”
“… the findings are surprising and unexpected …. ”
“… it shakes up the dogma … ”
“… earlier than thought…”
“… younger than thought….”
“… smarter than thought ….”
“… more complex that thought ….”
Speaking of being purposely deceptive with evidence, yesterday I stumbled across a pdf of Jerry Bergman’s book, “The ‘Dark Side’ of Charles Darwin” in which he lists many instances where Darwin himself was being purposely deceptive in ‘selling’ his theory.
Martin_r @2,
Nicely summarized in your list!
And regardless of the shattering evidence, those same announcements always say that this brings us closer to understanding how evolution musta worked rather than admitting they were totally wrong . . . as with spontaneous generation, missing links, 100+ vestigial organs, so-called living fossils (that didn’t evolve), and junk DNA.
-Q
Atheists fail again!
https://uncommondescent.com/junk-dna/casey-luskin-reflects-on-the-official-demise-of-the-term-junk-dna/
Martin_r/2
Darwinists ask the questions that Christians are afraid to ask. They ask why God allows the creatures He is supposed to love above all others to suffer in the many ways they do. Apparently, for Christians, when their God says “Jump!”, the only question they ask is “How high?”.
I realize this will come as a shock to you, but science doesn’t make any claims to Absolute Truth (TM). That’s for religion. Scientific theories are provisional. They change as new information comes along which is what they are supposed to do. Hence the comments you list above.
Bornagain77/3
Looking at the chapter headings, Bergman’s book looks like an extended and fallacious ad hominem attack on Darwin.
It never seems to occur to ID/creationists to ask why, if Darwin’s theory is so obviously and demonstrably wrong, would it be necessary to attack it – and its author – so desperately?
So Seversky, the fact that Darwin, by his own admission in many cases, was being being purposely deceptive about the lack of evidence for, and implications of, his theory is to be dismissed simply because it is an ad hominem against his character? But alas Seversky, that particular character flaw of deceptiveness goes to very question of whether his theory is valid or not. So it is not just to fallaciously dismiss his argument solely by calling his character into question, i.e. an ad hominem, but it is to realize the truth of the fact that that particular character flaw of deceptiveness goes to the very heart of the question of whether his theory is even true or not, and is also to realize Darwin ‘sold’ his theory to the general public under false pretenses.
You said it was ‘desperate’ to point this character flaw out. Yet, if a knew that a used car salesman was purposely, and deceptively, trying to sell you a worthless lemon and did not warn you about that, what would your reaction to me be then? I’m pretty sure your reaction to me knowingly allowing you to be taken to the cleaners would be far from you calling me ‘desperate’. Indeed, your question to me would in all likelihood be, ‘How could you dare allow him to take me to the cleaners like that?” Indeed, I’m pretty sure you would never forgive me for knowingly allowing you to be deceived in such a way.
seversky @6
I realize this will come as a shock to you, but so far, Darwinists were always wrong…
no more comments needed …
seversky @6
In order to prove that life on Earth is a result of lucky chemical accident, Darwinists should not ask whether God is good or bad, or whether God should do things the way Darwinists may like … instead, DARWINISTS SHOULD GO BACK TO THEIR FANCY LABS, AND WORK MUCH HARDER to demonstrate that life of Earth is a result of lucky chemical accident …
But after 150 years of Darwinism, the fact is, that Darwinists are nowhere close to prove anything :)))))
So they keep saying and asking irrelevant things ….
🙂 If this is true then what are you arguing about? Don’t you think you should wait until “provisional” become ” absolute” ? Oh you would be dead until then.
Now that’s a good answer .On the other way if you spend more time thinking of darwinists than to God what is your real benefit?
Just the opposite.
I commented here several times recently that this is the best of all possible worlds and you have failed to challenge it.
My guess is that your comment has been answered several times and shown to be irrelevant for the Christian God. Why do you continue to make specious claims?
One reason is you are an ID supporter and Christian and are here to show that those against either haven’t a coherent argument against them. On that you have succeeded.
Darwin’s ideas were amazing insight and accepted by ID.
They just don’t have anything to do with Evolution.
Darwin made one unwarranted conclusion not justified by his ideas. Nor supported by any evidence since his original work.
That is the issue. Not Darwin’s ideas/observations about the natural world. So anyone anywhere criticizing Darwin is doing a disservice to science. He got one essential thing wrong but the basic ideas were amazing insight.
Does anyone disagree that genetics is a valid science? That is what Darwin started. Along with Mendel at the same time. Each was missing a major element though Mendel read Darwin.
That’s what Watson and Crick contributed to with their discovery of the structure of DNA and then how it produced proteins. Little to do with what life is or Evolution but the basis of genetics.
When all this is delineated the discussions become more rational and evidence based.
What were Darwin’s amazing insight?
(1) there were variations added to the germ genomes. Absolutely verified by science.
(2) these variations were inherited. Absolutely verified ny science.
(3) natural selection based on adaptation to the environment affected which of these variations may become prominent. Absolutely verified by science.
Nothing to do with Evolution which was his invalid conclusion but the basis for a lot of what is seen in the world.
seversky remains willfully ignorant as there isn’t any scientific theory of evolution. Charles Darwin definitely did NOT provide one.
And only the willfully ignorant accept the claim that the bulk of our genome is junk.
Sev, when you die, you can ask God that directly, after the realm you thought impossible is unfolded before you, when your sense of foreboding reaches critical mass, and your life review starts. You will see the perfect justice for all, where the pain and suffering of the temporary realm is but an amusing afterthought, and those who suffered have had every tear wiped from their eyes, as their perfect eternal life begins.
And all these conversations where you suppressed the truth will be played back to you, and you will be without excuse.
Become wise. Gain understanding. Before it’s too late.
There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death. Proverbs 14:12.
‘Darwinism is true, because there is some problem with Christianity’ does not follow. Darwinists should argue against the design inference instead.
Bornagain77/8
The fact that he was occasionally a naughty child – and openly admitted as much – does not mean that his scientific work was fraudulent or deceptive. His honesty about his childhood behavior suggests otherwise, in fact.
Absolutely not. His theory, like all others, must stand or fall on its own merits. The character flaws of its author are irrelevant. If they weren’t then we would have to toss a great deal of science, philosophy and religion, including Christianity.
Exactly what it is now. In fact, it poses an interesting moral dilemma for an atheist. If I believe that you, as a believer in Christianity, have bought a religious “lemon”, should I point that out to you or say nothing, given that, according to your own testimony, it has brought you a great deal of comfort and support?
Martin_r/10
… Which is exactly what they’re doing.
Patience is a virtue. If it took Nature billions of years to create life from non-life, I think we can give science a bit longer to work on it.
Hanks/11
I’m arguing against the ID/creationist presupposition that science must be wrong if it’s not dead right, first time every time.
Jerry/12
Okay, what are your grounds for thinking this world is the best possible?
AnimatedDust/15
If that ever happens then I certainly have a few questions I’d like to ask. I just don’t understand why, out of all these people reporting NDEs, not one of them thought to ask any of these questions?
Promises, promises. For example, do you think that all those parents who have endured the pain and grief of watching a beloved child die of a cancer that even the best of human medical science is unable to cure will think of that suffering as an “amusing afterthought”? Wouldn’t they be asking why it was necessary for anyone to go through it at all?
I would like to know the truth. The problem is that the Christian Bible and the Christian God won’t give us a straight answer.
Origenes On Vacation/16
I agree so it’s just as well that’s not what I was arguing.
In case you hadn’t noticed, that’s what some of us have been doing.
.
Where is that Sev? I’ve given you an inference to design that you NEVER argue against. You run from it instead. Am I wrong about that Sev? In 1948 did John Von Neumann (using some of Alan Turing’s ideas from 1936) give a series of lectures where he predicted that a system of symbols and non-integrable constraints was the critical requirement of an autonomous open-ended self-replicator? Were each of the pieces of that system then confirmed by experiment in the 1950 and 1960s? Has anyone actually shown the rise of symbols from dynamics? Is it not the case that you have absolutely nothing on that front, and therefore accommodate yourself by avoiding that documented science and knowledge altogether? Tell me your refutation of the semiotic argument, Sev. Let’s hear it.
Seversky, perhaps you should actually read the book before commenting. Besides Darwin being purposely deceptive as a little child, he was also purposely deceptive when he presented his theory to the general public. Specific he presented his theory as being based on the inductive logic of the scientific method, yet it was not based on the inductive logic of the scientific method,
As Adam Sedgwick scolded Darwin, “Many of your wide conclusions are based upon assumptions which can neither be proved nor disproved. Why then express them in the language & arrangements of philosophical induction?”
In fact, Charles Darwin himself honestly admitted to Asa Gray, professor of biology at Harvard University, that he had failed to properly use the inductive logic of the scientific method. Specifically he stated “I am quite conscious that my speculations run quite beyond the bounds of true science.” and “What you hint at generally is very, very true: that my work is grievously hypothetical, and large parts are by no means worthy of being called induction.”
In short, Darwin was being deceptive in how he presented his theory to the general public in his book ‘Origin of Species’ as being based on inductive logic and he knew it.
You object that his character flaw of deceptiveness has nothing to do with the truthfulness of his theory. His theory stands or falls on the merits of empirical evidence, and that is true.
But alas, Darwinists then, and Darwinists now, could less that the empirical evidence has falsified Darwin’s theory many times over. Darwinists simply refuse to allow their theory to ever be falsified by empirical evidence. And that is the primary reason that Darwin’s theory does not even qualify as a hard and testable science.
Here are a few falsifications that go to the core of Darwin’s theory that Darwinists simply refuse to ever accept as falsifications of their theory,
Quote and Verse
.
“Once more” Seversky says.
He is clearly sending a signal that this is something he’s considered carefully and has argued for before:
The first …
Done. No one has observed a natural process that results in encoded memory containing a set of descriptions of the constraints required to decode that memory … (along with a set of descriptions of the physical parts required to cause the memory to be read and the products of it to be produced in order for the system and its constraints to persist over time so that we might discover it). It clearly, unambiguously “has not been observed”. His first criterion is satisfied..
The second …
Done. The “phenomenon” in question is a completely unique physical system that has been described and identified by physics for the past five decades. It is a self-referent system using rate-independent control of a rate-dependent process, preserving its constraints, just exactly as it was predicted to be. The prediction was confirmed by experimental result. All the necessary parts of the system were found, one by one. All of it abundantly recorded in the literature. Nobel Awards were passed out. And the only other instance where that particular type of system can be found and described (by physics) is in human language and mathematics – two universal correlates of intelligence. It doesn’t merely “raise the possibility” of intelligence; the only other examples are immediate correlates of intelligence.
So what say you Seversky?
I’m still waiting for seversky to tell me a couple of the most strongest arguments/evidences he has to support macroevolution.
So what say you Seversky?
Just guessing here : usually crickets, but, occassionally non-sequitor
Jerry: I commented here several times recently that this is the best of all possible worlds and you have failed to challenge it.
The world of the angels isn’t better than this?
What about the New Jerusalem? No pain, no death, no sorrow, no suffering.
Well, I sure hope it’s better than this world.
Seversky: I would like to know the truth. The problem is that the Christian Bible and the Christian God won’t give us a straight answer.
A fair demand.
Sev
“If that ever happens then I certainly have a few questions I’d like to ask.”
Obviously Sev you have not thought through what it would be like to come face to face with ones creator.
Vivid
by the way …
i never understood Darwinian train of thought regarding the Junk DNA …
i would expect the contrary ( if natural-selection claim is true) – that 2% of DNA is JUNK, and 98% of DNA is being used by the organism.
I heard lots of very absurd claims from Darwinists, i am used to it, but to claim, that basically the whole genome is junk, it seems like if Darwinists took a huge dose of THC …
This is the best of all possible worlds
Why? Whoever created this world and it was created was an entity of immense knowledge and power. Such an entity is not a trivial being snd does not make mistakes.
So it was possible to make this world in many different ways. But why would this entity of immense power and knowledge make it one way and not another? Only if there was an objective in making it this particular way.
To suggest there was a better world is to suggest that this being of immense knowledge and power didn’t know how to do it. This is an absurd argument so the issue is why/how this world is best?
The argument from evil which is often brought up to counter the power and knowledge of the creator is an absurd argument. If supposedly bad things have a purpose and are necessary are they then not bad but necessary? The question is what is the purpose of bad things? That is the question that must be asked.
If one examines the so called bad things, then one is led to the conclusion that everything is bad. They are all relative in how bad they supposedly are. Because eliminating any of the so called bad things just leaves more things that will be judged bad.
Which points to that there may be something that is objectively not bad and not relative. But what is it?
Aside but relevant. Whenever humans design something it has a purpose, maybe just to amuse us. We don’t design something to frustrate our objective.
It’s absurd to think that the entity that designed this world did not have an objective. So with immense knowledge and power it’s absurd to think this entity didn’t get it right.
You can’t do that with provisional truths( about origins )that science provide now . You have to wait until science finish to study everything and start to provide absolute truths about origins.
It’s about war between believers of different colours(atheists,theists,etc) it’s not science vs theists as atheists wrongfully claim .
UB, right you are. KF
Jerry @32. You didn’t answer my questions @28.
Maybe what you mean is that our world is the best possible world for the Creator’s current purposes for mortal humans?
Is there a world of bliss waiting after this world, for some humans who are currently stuck on this world?
Do the angels and the resurrected Jesus live in a better world than this?
Your questions are irrelevant because they are not the world we live in.
The worlds you discuss are equivalent to the argument from evil where so called bad things have been eliminated. The creator obviously thought such worlds did not meet the objective for creation and was not a good idea.
A thought experiment for Sev: if there was a way to remove all the “junk DNA” from your genome, would you go for it? After all, if a significant fraction of your genome is indeed “junk”, serving no useful purpose, then getting rid of it would make your body much more efficient. You would be able to live a lot better without all that genetic baggage and you might even live longer! You could become a superman of sorts, and if you could pass on those cleaned-up genes to your children, you might start a new race of improved humans! What do you say, would you go for it?
What we know about the Creator was revealed to the Hebrew prophets. Where in the scriptures does it say that we live in the best of all possible worlds?
-Q
Where in the scriptures does it say the Hebrew God is limited in knowledge and power?
I did not mention any religion or religious documents in my reply. No need to.
Aside: is the creator of the universe more knowledgeable and powerful than the Hebrew God?
Jerry: The worlds you discuss are equivalent to the argument from evil where so called bad things have been eliminated. The creator obviously thought such worlds did not meet the objective for creation and was not a good idea.
The Bible describes the earth being transformed into a better world when Jesus rules in person.
Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea… God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Rev 21)
Seems like a better world to me.
Do you reject Rev 21?
Sev you act as if the NDE is something that you or anyone else has some control over.
News Flash–Guess what: You don’t call the shots.
That’s why your pride won’t let you see that obvious fact. Plenty of NDEs on Hell too. You should watch those videos.
Querius @38
Paul is quoting Isaiah 64:4; 65:17. So, yeah, weird that a Christian or Jew is not looking forward to a better world. Hard to imagine what Jerry has in mind. But, he’s gone silent.
Ram,
No worries. Jerry has popped up again in several other threads. He just leaves a thread when his arguments get shot down.
Jerry @39,
Fine. You answer my question and I will answer yours.
-Q