Genome

Review: The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief

This review appears in the October issue of The American Spectator. To subscribe, click here. The Language of God:A Scientist Presents Evidence for Beliefby Francis S. Collins(Free Press, 304 pages, $26) RECENTLY ASTROPHYSICIST and stalwart Darwin-defender George Coyne lectured before the largest scientific organization in the world, the American Association for the Advancement of Science. As he railed against biological arguments for Read More ›

The Human Factor

A review of:The Language of GodA Scientist PresentsEvidence for Beliefby Francis S. CollinsFree Press, 304 pp., $26 Head of the Human Genome Project, Francis Collins is among the country’s foremost author ities on genetics, a staunch Darwinist, and a prominent critic of Intelligent Design. He’s also an evangelical Christian who dramatically describes the moment he accepted Jesus as his personal Read More ›

Doing the DNA dance

The uncoiling, unraveling and decoding of the DNA structure by the Humane Genome Project and the Celera Genomics Group is a magnificent scientific achievement and monumental medical milestone. But what does it really mean to the rest of us mortals? To begin with, it means much less than most people think, hope or worry. As diagnostic physicians, we've been trying to come up with a good analogy. Perhaps figuring out the sequence of the chemical elements in human DNA is like finding a huge pile of ancient document scraps in an unknown language and using computers to help sort out the correct order and position of the symbols. But even when sorted out, how could we figure out what the symbols mean? In DNA, scientists have figured out the ordering of the language symbols but don't know what most of the message means. Read More ›