"Darwin of the Gaps" - Review of The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief by Francis S. Collins

Francis Collins book, the Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief has much that is valuable to add to the conversation about design and the evidence for God. But there are some areas of disagreement that some have raised against Collins understanding of Intelligent Design and Common Descent.

Jonathan Wells reviews Collins' work here.

Here is is summary. Click here to read the whole article.

SUMMARY
Francis Collins criticizes intelligent design (ID) on the grounds that it fails to suggest approaches for experimental verification, but then he cites experiments that he says prove it wrong. He also criticizes it for being a God of the gaps argument, but only after redefining ID as an argument from ignorance. Collins feels that ID poses a serious problem to Christian belief because it rejects Darwinian evolution, which he feels is supported by overwhelming evidence. But the only evidence Collins cites for Darwin’s mechanism of variation and selection is microevolution – minor changes within existing species. And the principal evidence he cites for Darwin’s claim of common ancestry is DNA sequences that he says have no function – though genome researchers are discovering that many of them do have functions. Collins’s defense of Darwinian theory turns out to be largely an argument from ignorance that must retreat as we learn more about the genome – in effect, a Darwin of the gaps.