Book Review: The language of God

The language of God: A scientist presents evidence for belief, by Francis Collins. London: Pocket Books/Simon & Schuster (2007).




Arguments over the existence of God have been raging since Richard Dawkins published The God delusion. We are used to hearing from theologians as to why Dawkins is wrong, though to my mind they often seem to repeat the same arguments that Dawkins himself takes apart in his book. What is far less common is to hear the case for God made by eminent scientists. That is why The language of God caught my attention.


Francis Collins is one of the world's leading scientists. In particular, he headed up the Human Genome Project, ensuring that the results were placed in the public domain, thus heading off the threat (as many saw it) of the genome being patented by Craig Venter's private enterprise initiative. For this, he and his team certainly deserve all our thanks. But Collins is also an atheist-turned-Christian. In this book he argues for both evolution and God, thus challenging both the biblical literalists (and other varieties of creationist) and those who would argue that God has effectively been abolished as the creator of life.

The language of God makes an impressive case for the evolutionary view of life, focusing particularly on refuting the claims made by the proponents of Intelligent Design (ID) and young earth creationism (the latter term distinguishes those who believe the earth is just a few thousand years old from those who believe that God set up the conditions for evolution to occur). For example, a key claim made by ID proponents is that the structures of organisms show "irreducible complexity". This means that, whilst it might be plausible for a single component to have evolved, there are actually multiple interlinked components and the probability that these could have coevolved is vanishingly small.

Darwin himself fretted that his readers would find it hard to accept that a structure as complex as the eye could have evolved. However, a study of different organisms shows how the eye could have developed in a series of discrete stages. Even the very simplest organisms derive some advantage from a pit containing a few light sensitive cells. In other organisms an additional advantage has been conferred because this pit has evolved into a cavity with just a "pinhole" to admit light. In yet other organisms, the addition of a jelly-like substance allows for a degree of focusing. And so on. It is also worth noting that the eye, had it been deliberately designed, would have to be considered something of a botched job, given that the light receptive rods and cones are placed beneath a layer of nerves and blood vessels (and the positioning of the optic nerve means that we have blind spots in our visual field).

Collins also notes that the "poster child" for ID, the bacterial flagellum can be accounted for by natural selection. This has multiple interacting parts which, the ID people say, could never have co-evolved. But protein sequencing of different bacteria shows that various components of the bacterial flagellum are related to an entirely different apparatus. So, just as natural selection predicts, this apparatus has been constructed by taking components that were used for one particular function and co-opting them for use in an entirely new function.

In short, the arguments put forward by the proponents of ID rest on invoking a "God of the gaps". The strategy is to identify a phenomenon that has not (allegedly) been explained by science and then invoke an intelligent designer (God) to account for the phenomenon. This is a flawed kind of argumentation; just because a phenomenon has not yet been explained by science does not mean that an explanation will not be forthcoming. And, as noted, science is increasingly showing how complex structures have evolved from simpler ones, just as Darwin predicted.

Francis Collins sees no conflict between his acceptance of evolution and his belief in God. He takes the position that God, in creating the universe, set up the conditions for evolution to occur. Collins notes that many among the religious faithful might find it hard to understand why God would have used such "an apparently random, potentially heartless, and inefficient process as Darwinian evolution" (p.204). But for Collins, God truly is a supernatural entity, someone who is outside of nature, outside of space and time, and can therefore know every detail of how evolution will unfold. From God's perspective, there is no randomness; everything is specified.

This is all well and good, but skeptics will ask "Why believe in God in the first place?" (noting that the book is subtitled A scientist presents evidence for belief). Collins' main argument is presented in the first chapter, titled From atheism to belief, and is referred to at various points throughout the book. In human behaviour Collins sees evidence for something he refers to as "The Moral law". I struggled to find a definition of this law; given that laws in science are precisely defined, this was something of a surprise. However, what Collins seems to be flagging up is that humans have a sense of right and wrong, and that we sometimes show selfless altruism - what C.S. Lewis (much cited in the book) called "agape" (pronounced ah-GAH-pay). The rather woolly specification of this Moral Law is rather worrying, though, given some rather strong claims that are later made, such as the suggestion that the religion you hold does not matter in bioethical debates because "The Moral Law speaks to all of us, whether or not we agree on its origins. Basic principles of ethics can be derived from the Moral Law, and are universal." (p.244)

Collins claims that we have no evolutionary or cultural explanation for why people would show selfless altruism, and again utilises an argument made by C.S. Lewis; this says that if God is outside the universe then he would not somehow reveal himself within the physical universe, but he would show himself within ourselves as an influence or a command to behave in a particular way. But as I read this chapter the only voice echoing within my own head was saying: "It's the God of the gaps, the God of the gaps!" In fact, just as the claims about irreducible complexity are being show to be wrong, so a resurgence of work in the psychology of moral judgment is showing just how selfless altruism could come about (see for example this review article by Krebs).

For example, evidence suggests that our early ancestors lived in groups of 100-150 people, where most people would have been related to each other to varying degrees. In such conditions, helping another person is likely to be equivalent to aiding the propagation of one's own genes. Thus, altruistic behaviour in modern life may occur partly because we are predisposed to regard those around us as our kin. Needless to say, though, people do not always behave in an altruistic fashion and, here again, psychologists are increasingly specifiying the conditions under which altruism is more or less likely to happen.

Regardless of how well advanced one regards the psychology of moral behaviour, the fact remains that Francis Collins' argument is invoking the God of the gaps, the very thing that he himself argues against later in the book when refuting the claims of the ID proponents. He also argues that the atheist position is a weak one because belief in a God of some kind is found in all cultures, thus it is atheists who need to justify their views more than theists. But, aside from the fact that not all cultures do believe in a deity as such (some preferring to believe in spirits of the earth, for instance), Collins argument here is essentially a version of the "Argument from Popular Opinion". This is always a weak argument, verging on a fallacy. Douglas Walton notes that this argument type can be strengthened where some of those asserting a particular view are "in a position to know", but that hardly seems to be the case here - in fact, some would regard it as blasphemous to claim to know God's intentions (though much of the time this is exactly what relgious people do).

Of course, the question as to why so many people hold supernatural beliefs, especially those involving belief in a God or Gods, is itself a question of interest to scientists. However, reading The language of God, I had the feeling that psychology is somewhat off the radar for Collins. In effect, he is arguing that the physical structure of organisms is the result of evolution, a process that was set up by God who had the foresight to know how things will work out. At the same time, he is arguing that "The Moral Law" cannot be explained by evolution and has somehow been implanted in us by God. But given that our thoughts and impulses, conscious and unconscious, arise through the operations of the brain and nervous system, and given that these are physical structures, then it is contradictory to invoke evolution for one but not the other.

In short, I found the arguments of the first chapter so weak that I almost did not make it to the rest of the book. In that sense, I cannot imagine that many atheist evolutionists will become theists as a result of reading this book. On the other hand, if this book is able to convince any young earth creationists / ID believers that the evolutionary viewpoint is correct, then that can only be a good thing. And it certainly is the case that Collins does an excellent job of showing why their views are untenable. But given how trenchant people's views tend to be on this topic, I wouldn't bet money as to how many creationists do turn their back on their views.