Evidence · Case 08 · Science
Francis Collins on faith and common descent
One exhibit from the free evidence repository at apologetics.pro.
Collins, who led the Human Genome Project, argues that the evidence for common descent is strong and that it is compatible with Christian faith, with God as the author of the process. Whatever one concludes, his position shows the choice is not simply evolution or God.
Sources
A scientist’s case that common descent and Christian faith fit together.
Objections & responses
- Evolution explains the appearance of design without a designer, so it does make God unnecessary. Isn’t that Dawkins’s point, and isn’t it right?
Evolution can explain the diversity of life without invoking God at each step, and that is a real achievement. What it does not explain is why there is a law-governed universe capable of producing life at all, why the constants are life-permitting, or why anything exists rather than nothing. Unnecessary for explaining species is not the same as unnecessary. Dawkins moves from the first to the second, and that move is philosophy, not biology.