Genesis 1-3 from a scientist’s viewpoint

Ard Louiswww-louis.ch.cam.ac.uk/postgrad/

www.cis.org.ukwww.faraday-institute.org

www.cpgrad.org.ukDepartment of PhysicsUniversity of Oxford

Crossing cultures?• Many scientific and

religious sub-cultures• scientists v.s.

“normal” people• culture is often

“caught” not “taught”

• We need the global church

WordsCustomsTraditions BehaviourBeliefsValuesAssumptions

The Bible

• B] The Bible, as originally given, is the inspired, inerrant and infallible word of God. Christians must therefore submit to its supreme authority and sufficiency, both individually and corporately, in every matter of belief and conduct.• South East Gospel Partnership DB

Biblical or cultural?

Interpreting the Bible

• What kind of language?• What kind of literature?• What kind of audience?• What kind of context?

•The antidote to bad interpretation is not no interpretation, but good interpretation, based on common sense guidelines

•G. Fee and D. Stuart, “How to Read the Bible for All It Is Worth”, Zondervan (1993), p17

God created and sustains the world

• “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” Gen 1:1

• “All things were made by him, and without him ws not anything made that was made” John 1:3

• “For by him [Christ] all things were created … and in him all things hold together” Col 1:16,17

• “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory … sustaining all things by his powerful word” Heb 1:3

• “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things and by your will they existed and were created”, Rev 4:11

Biblical language of creation• He makes springs pour water into ravines; it flows between

the mountains; the wild donkeys quench their thirst Psalm 104: 10,11 (praising God’s creation)

• "Do you hunt the prey for the lioness and satisfy the hunger of the lions when they crouch in their dens or lie in wait in a thicket? Who provides food for the raven when its young cry out to God and wander about for lack of food? Job 38:39-41

• For behold, he who forms the mountains and creates (bara’) the wind, and declares to man what is his thought, who makes the morning darkness, and treads on the heights of the earth—the Lord, the God of hosts, is his name! Amos 4:13

• “Natural” processes are described both as divine and non-divine actions

• 2 perspectives on the same natural world

‘Science’ studies the “Customs of the Creator” • If God were to stop “sustaining all things” the world

would stop existing• Donald MacKay, The Clockwork Image, IVP

• “An act of God is so marvelous that only the daily doing takes off the admiration”• John Donne (Eighty Sermons, #22 published in 1640)

• “Miracles” are not God “intervening in the laws of nature”: they are God working in less customary ways

• Whether by “ordinary” or “extraordinary” ways, God is in charge.

• Science can only study the “ordinary” or “customary” ways that God works.

Genesis 1-3Genesis 1:1-2:3In the beginning God created the skies and the earth. The earth was without form and void; And the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.Day (yom) one: God created day and nightDay two: God made the sky (firmament) between the watersDay three: God made dry land and vegetationDay four: God made Sun and Moon(greater and lesser lamps) & he also made the stars (sic!)Day five: God made Sea creatures and flying creaturesDay six: God made Land animals. God made Mankind (adam) Male& Female in God’s imageDay seven: God rested from his work.

Genesis 2:4-25•In the day (yom) that the Lord made the earth and the skies before any vegetation or rain.•God formed the man (adam) out of the dust of the earth (adama)•God planted a garden eastward in Eden, where He put the man •God made out of the ground every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil were also in the garden•God took man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it.•God commanded the man not to eat of the tree of good and evil “for in the day (yom) that you eat of it you shall surely die.

Genesis 1-3Genesis 1:1-2:3In the beginning God created the skies and the earth. The earth was without form and void; And the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.Day (yom) one: God created day and nightDay two: God made the sky (firmament) between the watersDay three: God made dry land and vegetationDay four: God made Sun and Moon(greater and lesser lamps) & he also made the stars (sic!)Day five: God made Sea creatures and flying creaturesDay six: God made Land animals. God made Mankind (adam) Male& Female in God’s imageDay seven: God rested from his work.

Genesis 2:4-25 cont.•God said: “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him an ally comparable to him”. The LORD God … brought [every beast of the field and every bird of the air] to the mans to see what he would call them. .. But for the man there was not found an ally comparable to him.•God caused the man to sleep, and took his side to make a woman. The man called her wo-man, for she was taken out of man.•For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

What kind of literature?• Genesis 1-2:3• Phrases that occur 10 times:

• 10 times “God said” (3 for mankind, 7 for other creatures)

• 10 times creative commands (3 x “let there be” for heavenly creatures, 7 x “let” for world below)

• 10 x To make• 10 x According to their

kind• Phrases that occur 7 times

(heptads)• “and it was so”• “and God saw that it was

good”

• Genesis 1:2-3• Phrases that occur 3 times

• God blessed• God created• God created men and

women• Other numerical patterns:

• Intro 1:1-2 contains 21 words (3 x 7) and conclusion (2: 1-3) contains 35 words (5 X 7)

• Earth is mentioned 21 times and “God” 35 times

• -- see e.g. H. Blocher “In the Beginning”, p 33 or E. Lucas “Can We Believe Genesis Today” , p 97

What kind of literature?

SHAPED• Day 1

• The separation of light and darkness

• Day 2• The separation of the

waters to form the sky and the sea

• Day 3• The separation of the

sea from dry land and creation of plants

INHABITED• Day 4

• The creation of the lights to rule the day and the night

• Day 5• The creation of the

birds and fish to fill the sky and sea

• Day 6• The creation of the

animals and humans to fill the land and eat the plants

Day 7: The heavens and earth were finished and God rested

FRAMEWORK VIEW

What kind of literature?• Gen2:4-7 -- more patterns:• These are the generations

a. of the heavens b. and the earth c. when they were created d. in the day that the Lord God made e. the earth f. and the heavens.

• Chiastic structure (C. John Collins, Genesis 1-4 P&R (2006))

When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.

• A completely different emphasis!

What kind of literature?• More like Revelation than like Luke• But very clear in its teaching e.g.

• God created the world• Creation is good

• I Tim 4: 1The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. 2 Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. 3 They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. 4 For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, 5 because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.

What kind of literature?• More like Revelation than like Luke?• But very clear in its teaching e.g.

• God created the world• Creation is good • Man is made in God’s image• Mankind (adam) has fallen into sin• A promise of redemption (seed of woman)• MANY! More things• No problems with perspecuity on doctrine

What kind of literature?

• Is it chronological?• "Now what man of intelligence will believe that

the first and the second and the third day … existed without the sun and moon and stars?” • Origen 185 - 254: First Principles, 4.3

• “On this subject there are three main views. According to the first, some wish to understand paradise only in a material way. According to the second, others wish to take it only in a spiritual way. According to the third, others understand it both ways, taking some things materially and others spiritually. If I may briefly mention my own opinion, I prefer the third”• Augustine of Hippo (354-430) De Gen. ad litt VIII,

1. (on the literal interpretation of Genesis)

Jewish Commentators• “…the sages agree that the creation of this earth and sky

was a single divine event and not a series of distinct occurrences spread out over six or seven days• N.M. Samuelson, “Judaism and the Doctrine of

Creation”, CUP (1994) p115• “The text does not point to the order of the [acts] of

creation … the text does not by any means teach which things were created first and which later [it only] wants to teach us what was the condition of things at the time when heaven and earth were created, namely, that the earth was without form and a confused mass”

• Rashi (1040-1105), “Commentary on Genesis”• Many more examples, e.g. Maimonides (1135-1204)

etc…

Writers of “the Fundamentals”

• One of the original “Fundamentalists”• There is not a word in the Bible to indicate that

in its view death entered the animal world as a consequence of the Sin of man.

• When you say there is the “six days” and the question whether those days are meant to be measured by the twenty-four hours of the sun’s revolution around the earth -- I speak of these things popularly. It is difficult to see how they should be so measured when the sun that is to measure them is not introduced until the fourth day. Do not think that this larger reading of the days is a new speculation. You find Augustine in early times declaring that it is hard or altogether impossible to say what fashion these days are, and Thomas Aquinas, in the middle ages, leaving the matter an open question.

James Orr1844-1913

The Bible and Science

• All truth is God’s truth, so, properly interpreted, science and the Bible cannot contradict

“The Bible must not be placed under any other authority! …no authority, even one at the apex of the scientific world, may impose his authority on the Bible in order to dictate how it is to be understood, even with the best intentions.”“Instead of an authority, however, a ministerial, servant-role apears possible. ….. The knowledge derived from the observation of reality (`science’) would help us to understand the language of the Bible better.” •Henri Blocher “In the Beginning” IVP (1984) p 25

The Bible and Science

The lesson of Galileo, …, should remind us that careful observation of the natural world can cause us to go back to Scripture and reexamine whether Scripture actually teaches what we think it teaches. Sometimes, on closer examination of the text, we may find that our previous interpretations were incorrect.•Wayne Grudem, “Systematic Theology” IVP (1994) p 273

Wayne Grudem

The Bible is not a science textbook

• The whole point of scripture is to bring us to a knowledge of Christ --- and having come to know him (and all that this implies), we should come to a halt and not expect to learn more. Scripture provides us with spectacles through which we may view the world as God’s creation and self-expression; it does not, and was never intended, to provide us with an infallible repository of astronomical and medical information.

John Calvin1509-1564

Advice from Schaefer

• We must take ample time, and sometimes this will mean a long time, to consider whether the apparent clash between science and revelation means that the theory set forth by science is wrong or whether we must reconsider what we thought the Bible says.

• Francis Schaefer

Francis Schaefer1912-1984

History of life on earth

earth forms fromspace dust

Grandeur of God?•humans -- last 2 seconds of 24 hr day•not unlike astronomy: the heavens declare the Glory of God - Psalm 19•What is man that you are mindful of him? --Psalm 8

History of life on earth

• Does where we come from determine who we are and how we should live? = controversy?

Aside: Defining Evolution• Evolution as Natural History

•the earth is old (+/- 4.5 Billion years)•more complex life forms followed from simpler life forms

• Evolution as a mechanism for the emergence of biological complexity

•generated by mutations and natural selection(note: most Christians agree that God created this mechanism)

• Evolution as a “big picture” worldview (scientism)George Gaylord Simpson: "Man is the result of a purposeless and materialistic process that did not have him in

mind. He was not planned. He is a state of matter, a form of life, a sort of animal, and a species of the Order Primates, akin nearly or remotely to all of life and indeed to all that is material."

or Richard Dawkins:"Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.”

Christian approaches to emergence of biological

complexity• Origins: does where we come from determine who we are and how we should then live?

• Christian approaches:• Young Earth Creation Science

• Earth is about 10,000 years old• Genesis 1,2 are historical in the modern sense• mainly in the last 50 years

• Progressive Creationism• Earth is old• Complexity came about through miracles • Varied views on exegesis of Genesis

• Theistic Evolution• Earth is old• Complexity came about through normal processes of God• Genesis 1,2 are theological (framework view --prose poem)

• Intelligent Design• All the above views are strictly ‘creationists’ and believe in intelligent

design• Capital ID is a more recent movement, could be YECS, PE, or TE.

Case study:Is the earth old?

Science is a tapestry -- you can pick at a few strings, but that doesn’t break the whole cloth

•Radiometric dating (many overlapping isotopes) •ice cores:up to 8000 years -- volcanoes like Vesuviusup to 740,000 years•Milankovitch cycles•Tree rings•All these methods (when used properly) agree. There is no scientific controversyhttp://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/Wiens.html

Case study: Is the earth old?

Milankovitch Cycles: here seen in 420,000 years of ice core data from Vostok, Antarctica research station.

What kind of literature?• Strong internal hints at “elevated prose”, more

like Revelation than like Luke• Two separate narratives (tablets)• Numerical patterns• Thematic patterns• A common understanding of church fathers, early

Jewish commentators and early Evangelical leaders.

• Main theological teachings are crystal clear (perspicuity)

• Physical interpretation less so -- there science can take a “servant role” and help you decide.

• We must be very careful not to import our own cultural biases into interpretation

Aside:Emergence of Humans?

Advice from C.S. Lewis

When the author of Genesis says that God made man in His own image, he may have pictured a vaguely corporeal God making man as a child makes a figure out of plasticine. A modern Christian philosopher may think of the process lasting from the first creation of matter to the final appearance on this planet for an organism fit to receive spiritual as well as biological life. Both mean essentially the same thing. Both are denying the same thing -- the doctrine that matter by some blind power inherent in itself has produced spirituality. (C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock Eerdmans (1970), p 46)

e.g. at what age is a child spiritually responsible to God?John Stott on “Homos Divinus”

Advice from Billy Graham "I don't think that there's any conflict at all between

science today and the Scriptures. I think that we have misinterpreted the Scriptures many times and we've tried to make the Scriptures say things they weren't meant to say, I think that we have made a mistake by thinking the Bible is a scientific book. The Bible is not a book of science. The Bible is a book of Redemption, and of course I accept the Creation story. I believe that God did create the universe. I believe that God created man, and whether it came by an evolutionary process and at a certain point He took this person or being and made him a living soul or not, does not change the fact that God did create man. ... whichever way God did it makes no difference as to what man is and man's relationship to God.”

• - Billy Graham quoted by David Frost• Source: Book - Billy Graham: Personal Thoughts of a Public Man

(1997, p. 72-74)

Warfield on evolution

• B. B. Warfield (1851-1921). A biblical inerrantist as evolutionist. Livingstone DN, Noll MA, 1: Isis. 2000 Jun;91(2):283-304.

• The theological doctrine of biblical inerrancy is the intellectual basis for modern creation science. Yet Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield of Princeton Theological Seminary, the theologian who more than any other defined modern biblical inerrancy, was throughout his life open to the possibility of evolution and at some points an advocate of the theory. Throughout a long career Warfield published a number of major papers on these subjects, including studies of Darwin's religious life, on the theological importance of the age of humanity (none) and the unity of the human species (much), and on Calvin's understanding of creation as proto-evolutionary. He also was an engaged reviewer of many of his era's important books by scientists, theologians, and historians who wrote on scientific research in relation to traditional Christianity. Exploration of Warfield's writing on science generally and evolution in particular retrieves for historical consideration an important defender of mediating positions in the supposed war between science and religion.

B.B. Warfield1851-1921

C.S. Lewis

When the author of Genesis says that God made man in His own image, he may have pictured a vaguely corporeal God making man as a child makes a figure out of plasticine. A modern Christian philosopher may think of the process lasting from the first creation of matter to the final appearance on this planet for an organism fit to receive spiritual as well as biological life. Both mean essentially the same thing. Both are denying the same thing -- the doctrine that matter by some blind power inherent in itself has produced spirituality.......

Does this mean that Christians on different levels of general education conceal radically different beliefs under an identical form of worlds? Certainly not. For what they agree on is the substance, and what they differ about is the shadow. When one imagines his God seated in a local heaven above a flat earth, where another sees God and creation in terms of Professor [Albert North] Whitehead’s philosophy, this difference touches precisely what does not matter.

(C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock Eerdmans (1970), p 46)

The Westminster Confession's doctrine of the clarity of Scripture (1:7) goes hand in hand with its inspiration, infallibility, and authority. Yet it implies that not all parts of the Scriptures are equally clear or full. Here we must follow Calvin's great motto that where God makes an end of teaching, we should make an end of trying to be wise.(11) With Augustine and E. J. Young, the revered teacher of our senior faculty members, we recognize that the exegetical question of the length of the days of Genesis 1 may be an issue which cannot be, and therefore is not intended by God to be, answered in dogmatic terms. To insist that it must comes dangerously close to demanding from God revelation which he has not been pleased to bestow upon us, and responding to a threat to the biblical world view with weapons that are not crafted from the words which have proceeded out of the mouth of God.

http://www.wts.edu/news/creation.html

Westminster Theological Seminary

More reading• www.cis.org.uk• www.faraday-institute.org• The Design of Genesis -- The Briefing Oct 2006 (ask

Tom)• Henri Blocher “In the Beginning” IVP (1984)• Ernest Lucas “Can We Believe Genesis Today”, IVP 1989• Paul Marston “Understanding the Biblical Creation

Passages”, Lifesway (2007) -- via www.cis.org.uk• C. John Collins, “Genesis 1-4: A Linguistic, Literary, and

Theological Commentary”, P&R (2006)• Derek Kidner, Genesis Tyndale Old Testament

Commentary, IVP (1967)

The Bible...

• The Bible:• God created the world• Nature attests to God’s qualities (Rom 1, Psalms)• God sustains the universe• Biblical language of Divine action (God sent the

rain)• Bible is not a science textbook, but ...

• world has a beginning• stars, sun, and moon are not Gods etc...

Biological self-assembly

http://www.npn.jst.go.jp/ Keiichi Namba, Osaka

• Biological systems self-assemble (they make themselves)• Can we understand?• Can we emulate? (Nanotechnology)

04/19/23

Biological self-assembly

• Self-assembled from identical subunits (capsomers).

• Characteristic number T.• Capsid T: 12 pentamers, 10(T - 1) hexamers.

viruses

Self-assembly of “computer viruses”

Monte-Carlo simulations: stochastic optimisationhttp://www-thphys.physics.ox.ac.uk/user/IainJohnson/

Computer viruses?

Self-assembly with legos?

Thinking Christianly about biological complexity ....

• Wonder and Worship• Fearfully and wonderfully made ...

Francis CollinsDirector, National Human Genome Research Institute, USA

“The work of a scientist in this project, particularly a scientist

who has

the joy of also being a Christian, is a work of discovery which

can also

be a form of worship. As a scientist, one of the most

exhilarating

experiences is to learn something….that no human has

understood before.

To have a chance to see the glory of creation, the intricacy of

it, the

beauty of it, is really an experience not to be matched.

Scientists who

do not have a personal faith in God also undoubtedly

experience the

exhilaration of discovery. But to have that joy of discovery,

mixed

together with the joy of worship, is truly a powerful moment

for a

Christian who is also a scientist”

See also his book “The Language of God” (2006)

Christian approaches to emergence of biological

complexity• Origins: does where we come from determine who we are and how we should then live?

• Christian approaches:• Young Earth Creation Science

• Earth is about 10,000 years old• Genesis 1,2 are historical in the modern sense• mainly in the last 50 years

• Progressive Creationism• Earth is old• Complexity came about through miracles • Varied views on exegesis of Genesis

• Theistic Evolution• Earth is old• Complexity came about through normal processes of God• Genesis 1,2 are theological (framework view --prose poem)

• Intelligent Design• All the above views are strictly ‘creationists’ and believe in intelligent

design• Capital ID is a more recent movement, could be YECS, PE, or TE.

The Bible and creation

• The Bible:• God created the world• Nature attests to God’s qualities (Rom 1, Psalms)• God sustains the universe• Biblical language of Divine action (God sent the rain)• Bible is not a science textbook

• world has a beginning• stars, sun, and moon are not Gods etc...

Church fathers and non-chronological

interpretations• “What man of intelligence, I ask, will consider as a reasonable statement that the first and second and third day, in which there are said to be both morning and evening, existed without sun and moon and stars, while the first day was even without a heaven

• Origen 185 - 254 (First Principles, 4.3)• Augustine

Aside:Emergence of Humans?

Advice from C.S. Lewis

When the author of Genesis says that God made man in His own image, he may have pictured a vaguely corporeal God making man as a child makes a figure out of plasticine. A modern Christian philosopher may think of the process lasting from the first creation of matter to the final appearance on this planet for an organism fit to receive spiritual as well as biological life. Both mean essentially the same thing. Both are denying the same thing -- the doctrine that matter by some blind power inherent in itself has produced spirituality. (C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock Eerdmans (1970), p 46)

See also: Can we believe Genesis today,IVP (UK) Ernest Lucashttp://www.ivpbooks.com/product/1844741206.htmsee also www.cis.org.uk/resources/books/books.shtml

In the Beginning : The Opening Chapters of Genesis, Henri Blocher, Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, (1984).

e.g. at what age is a child spiritually responsible to God?John Stott on “Homos Divinus”

Advice from Billy Graham "I don't think that there's any conflict at all between science today

and the Scriptures. I think that we have misinterpreted the Scriptures many times and we've tried to make the Scriptures say things they weren't meant to say, I think that we have made a mistake by thinking the Bible is a scientific book. The Bible is not a book of science. The Bible is a book of Redemption, and of course I accept the Creation story. I believe that God did create the universe. I believe that God created man, and whether it came by an evolutionary process and at a certain point He took this person or being and made him a living soul or not, does not change the fact that God did create man. ... whichever way God did it makes no difference as to what man is and man's relationship to God.”

• - Billy Graham quoted by David Frost• Source: Book - Billy Graham: Personal Thoughts of a Public Man (1997, p. 72-74)

History of life on earth

earth forms fromspace dust

Grandeur of God?•humans -- last 2 seconds of 24 hr day•not unlike astronomy: the heavens declare the Glory of God - Psalm 19•What is man that you are mindful of him? --Psalm 8

History of life on earth

• Does where we come from determine who we are and how we should live? = controversy?

--OUTLINE --• Thinking about science:

• Mechanism and meaning• Nothing buttery• Scientism and the limits of science• God of the gaps and miracles

• Thinking about biological complexity

Mechanism v.s. Meaning

• Conflating mechanism and meaning is origin of most confusion

why is the water boiling?

Nothing Buttery

enough P for 2000 matches

humans are collections of chemicals:

enough Fe for 1 nail

enough Cl to disinfecta swimming pool

enough fat to make 10 bars of soap

Nothing Buttery

enough P for 2000 matches

humans are collections of chemicals:

enough Fe for 1 nail

enough Cl to disinfecta swimming pool

Nothing Buttery

enough P for 2000 matches

humans are collections of chemicals:

enough Fe for 1 nail

enough Cl to disinfecta swimming pool

enough fat to make 0.1 bars of soap

Scientism“The cosmos is all there is or

ever was or ever will be”

“The most important questions in life are not susceptible to solution by the scientific method”

Carl Sagan, Cornell U

Bill Newsome, Stanford U.

Limits of Science?

• Science is a great and glorious enterprise - the most successful, I argue, that human beings have ever engaged in. To reproach it for its inability to answer all the questions we should like to put to it is no more sensible than to reproach a railway locomotive for not flying or, in general, not performing any other operation for which it was not designed.

-- Sir Peter Medawar, The Limits of Science, (Oxford University Press, Oxford (1987))

God of the gaps?

• that couldn’t have happened by “natural means” --> God into the gap• “When we come to the scientifically unknown, our correct policy is not to rejoice because we have found God; it is to become better scientists” Prof. Charles Coulson, Oxford U

‘Science’ studies the “Customs of the Creator”

• God only present through interventions?• God present in the whole thing?

• “For by him [Christ] all things were created … and in him all things hold together” Col 1:16,17

• “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory … sustaining all things by his powerful word” Heb 1:3

• If God were to stop “sustaining all things” the world would stop existing

• Donald MacKay, The Clockwork Image, IVP

• “An act of God is so marvelous that only the daily doing takes off the admiration John Donne (Eighty Sermons, #22 published in 1640)

• Nature is what God does (St. Augustine of Hippo)

• “Miracles” are not God “intervening in the laws of nature”: they are God working in less customary ways

Newton and the planets

• “This most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent being.”

• Sir Isaac Newton

Newton and the planets

18th century Orrery from a London coffee house, used to show the perfection of the orbits, which reflect God’s perfection

Leibnitz objects

“For, as Leibnitz objected, if God had to remedy the defects of his creation, this was surely to demean his craftmanship”

•John Hedley Brooke, Science and Religion, CUP 1991, p147

Leibnitz objects

•“And I hold, that when God works miracles, he does not do it in order to supply the wants of nature, but those of grace. Whoever thinks otherwise, must needs have a very mean notion of the wisdom and power of God”

Laplace and Napoleon

• Mécanique Céleste (1799-1825)

• Napoleon: Why have you not mentioned the creator?

• Laplace: "Je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là.”

Chaos and the planets

• Our understanding of the Solar System has been revolutionized over the past decade by the finding that the orbits of the planets are inherently chaotic. In extreme cases, chaotic motions can change the relative positions of the planets around stars, and even eject a planet from a system.

• The role of chaotic resonances in the Solar System, N. Murray and M. Holman, Nature 410, 773-779 (12 April 2001)

Science and BeautyA Scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing, and if nature were not worth knowing, life would not be worth living.Henri Poincaré 1854 – 1912

History of life on earth

• Does where we come from determine who we are and how we should live?

--OUTLINE --• Thinking about science:

• Mechanism and meaning• Nothing buttery• Scientism and the limits of science• God of the gaps and miracles

• Thinking about biological complexity• Language matters!

Aside: Defining Evolution• Evolution as Natural History

•the earth is old (+/- 4.5 Billion years)•more complex life forms followed from simpler life forms

• Evolution as a mechanism for the emergence of biological complexity

•generated by mutations and natural selection(note: most Christians agree that God created this mechanism)

• Evolution as a “big picture” worldview (scientism)George Gaylord Simpson: "Man is the result of a purposeless and materialistic process that did not have

him in mind. He was not planned. He is a state of matter, a form of life, a sort of animal, and a species of the Order Primates, akin nearly or remotely to all of life and indeed to all that is material."

or Richard Dawkins:"Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.”

Language: Random or stochastic?

• Random mutations and natural selection...

• Stochastic (Monte Carlo) optimisation• e.g. used to price your stock

portfolio .....

Lego blocks or clay?

• Evo-Devo Lego Blocks:• pax6• sonic-hedgehog• shaven-baby• tinman

• Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo and the Making of the

Animal Kingdom. S.B. Carroll (Blackwell Science 2005)

Why so few genes?

C. elegans (19,500) & P. pacificus (29,000)

Drosophila Melanogaster

(13,500)

E.coli (5416)Mycoplasma genitalium (483)

(300 minimum?)

H. sapiens (22,000)

S. cerevisiae (5800)

Why so few genes?We share 15% of our genes with E. coli

“ “ 25% “ “ “ “ yeast

“ “ 50% “ “ “ “ flies

“ “ 70% “ “ “ “ frogs

“ “ 98% “ “ “ “ chimps

what makes us different?

Gene language

Why are there so few genes?

complexity comes from the interactions

gene networks

systems biology

transcriptional network for yeast: Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Gene language

[Genes] swarm in huge colonies, safe inside gigantic lumbering robots, sealed off from the outside world, communicating with it by tortuous indirect routes, manipulating it by remote control. They are in you and me; they created us, body and mind; and their preservation is the ultimate rationale for our existence.

Richard Dawkins --The Selfish Gene (1976)

[Genes] are trapped in huge colonies, locked inside highly intelligent beings, moulded by the outside world, communicating with it by complex processes, through which, blindly, as if by magic, function emerges. They are in you and me; we are the system that allows their code to be read; and their preservation is totally dependent on the joy that we experience in reproducing ourselves. We are the ultimate rationale for their existence.

Denis Noble -- The Music of Life: Biology Beyond the Genome (OUP 2006)

Contingency v.s.``deep structures’’: Re-run the tape of evolution?

“Wind back the tape of life to the early days of the Burgess Shale; let it play again from an identical starting point, and the chance becomes vanishingly small that anything like human intelligence would grace the replay.” In evolution, there is no direction, no progression. Humanity is dethroned from its exalted view of its own importance

S.J. Gould: “Wonderful Life”; (W.W. Norton 1989)

When you examine the tapestry of evolution you see the same patterns emerging over and over again. Gould's idea of rerunning the tape of life is not hypothetical; it's happening all around us. And the result is well known to biologists — evolutionary convergence. When convergence is the rule, you can rerun the tape of life as often as you like and the outcome will be much the same. Convergence means that life is not only predictable at a basic level; it also has a direction.Simon Conway Morris “Life's Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe”; (CUP, 2003)

Convergent Evolution?

Convergent evolution in mechanical design of lamnid sharks and tunasJeanine M. Donley, et al. Nature 429, 61-65 (6 May 2004)

"For the harmony of the world is made manifest in Form and Number, and the heart and soul and all poetry of Natural Philosophy are embodied in the concept of mathematical beauty." (On Growth and Form, 1917.)

Convergent EvolutionNorth America:Placental Sabre-toothed cat

South America”Marsupial Sabre-toothed cat

Convergent Evolutioncompound eye camera eye

Convergent Evolution?

• Enormous number of examples ... from proteins to vision up to societies to intelligence.

• Are rational conscious beings an inevitable outcome? “

The principal aim of this book has been to show that the constraints of evolution and the ubiquity of convergence make the emergence of something like ourselves a near-inevitability. SCM, “Life’s Solution”, (CUP 2005) pp328

Origins and biological complexity

• Science is fun• Nature is full of self-assembling things• Science and Faith - big, fun questions

• Origins … lots to still figure out

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