Excerpt from TIME (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1211593,00.html) Monday, Jul. 10, 2006

Reconciling God and Science

By DAVID VAN BIEMA

The pious young scientist had a question about human origins and the attention of one of the foremost geneticists in the world. Standing up in a crowded Hilton-hotel conference room in Alexandria, Va., the inquisitive Ph.D.-M.D. candidate asked Francis Collins, who mapped the human genome, about an attempt to reconcile science and faith: Did Collins think it possible that all species are products of evolution--except for humanity, which God created separately? "Based on everything we know," the young man asked, "would that tie together evolution and [a literal reading of the Bible] and make room for God to intervene?"

Collins showed no surprise that a star scholar poised to contribute to the future of medicine should entertain the idea that evolution might not apply to humans. Indeed, the question was almost predictable, since the room was filled with Harvey Fellows, high-performing young academics devoted to bringing a Christian presence to fields where Evangelicals are underrepresented. And Collins, that rarest of raritiesa superstar evangelical biologistand author of the new book The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief (Free Press; 304 pages), was perfectly qualified to answer. He did. That notion "gets you into a series of real problems," he replied. He sketched one out: the human genome contains nonfunctional elements in the precise spot where they can be found on the chromosomes of lower animals. If God was creating humans afresh, Collins asked, "why would he insert a pseudo-gene that has lost its ability to do anything in the same place that it appears in a chimp?" Barring evolution, "you're forced to the conclusion that God was trying to mislead us and test our faith--and I have trouble with that kind of conjecture."

Except from Christianity Today (http://www.christianitytoday.com/workplace/articles/interviews/franciscollins2.html):

Francis Collins: Love God With a Scientific Mind (Part 2)

By Marcus Goodyear

You describe DNA as the language of God. How has your study of DNA changed your understanding of God's Word, the Logos, that John writes about? "In the beginning was the Word."

Logos carries broad connotations. The Word is God; the Word was with God; the Word is Christ. For a scientist studying how life works looking at the language of DNA, it is not a wild connection to compare the language of life, that DNA alphabet, to what God was doing when He spoke life into being, including all of us. So how do I put together what I know as a scientist about life through the language of DNA, and what I know about God as the creator who speaks life into being? In the Greek terminology that's Bios, the word for life, through Logos, the word. I call this BioLogos: life through God speaking His Word.

I've heard people say BioLogos is just another name for Christian evolution. Are you comfortable with being the spokesperson for Christian evolution?

I see evolution as God's plan. As a scientist who studies DNA, I cannot avoid the conclusion that the evolutionary process is in fact how God worked out that creative plan. Some people express concerns that evolution is inconsistent with a literal interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2, but 1,600 years ago St. Augustine had already explained why a literal reading of those passages is risky and unnecessary. Certainly those passages of the Bible have been debated for centuries without theologians being able to agree precisely on their meaning. Beyond that concern, I see no conflict in what I have learned about living things from the study of DNA and what I know about God's plan as a creator—right down to the creation of you and me, and our having this conversation.

One of the great tragedies of our current era is that evolution is being portrayed as a threat to God. If science is God's gift to us, along with the intelligence to explore his world, God could hardly be threatened by what we discover. It's all his creation. The truth is the truth, and it's all God's truth. I reach out as much as I can to my Christian brothers and sisters and try to make a case that this is an unnecessary battle. We can embrace evolution as God's plan and worship him in the process, without feeling anxious or apologetic.