品牌：Collins
基本信息
·出版社：Free Press
·页码：294 页码
·出版日：2007年
·ISBN：9781416542742
·条码：9781416542742
·装帧：平装
内容简介
Dr. Francis Collins, head of the Human Genome Project, is one of the world's leading scientists. He works at the cutting edge of the study of DNA, the code of life. Yet he is also a man of unshakable faith in God and scripture.Dr. Collins believes that faith in God and faith in science can coexist within a person and be harmonious. InThe Language of Godhe makes his case for God and for science. He has heard every argument against faith from scientists, and he can refute them. He has also heard the needless rejection of scientific truths by some people of faith, and he can counter that, too. He explains his own journey from atheism to faith, and then takes readers for a stunning tour of modern science to show that physics, chemistry, and biology can all fit together with belief in God and the Bible.The Language of Godis essential reading for anyone who wonders about the deepest questions of faith: Why are we here? How did we get here? What does life mean?
媒体推荐
From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com
Here we are, briefly, under the sun, one species among millions on a gorgeous planet in the remote provinces of the universe, our very existence a riddle. Of all the words we use to mask our ignorance, none has been more abused, none has given rise to more strife, none has rolled from the tongues of more charlatans than the name of God. Nor has any word been more often invoked as the inspiration for creativity, charity or love.So what are we talking about when we talk about God? The geneticist Francis S. Collins bravely sets out to answer this question in light of his scientific knowledge and his Christian faith. Having found for himself "a richly satisfying harmony between the scientific and spiritual worldviews," he seeks to persuade others that "belief in God can be an entirely rational choice, and that the principles of faith are, in fact, complementary with the principles of science."As a researcher who helped discover the genetic basis for cystic fibrosis and other diseases and as the director of the Human Genome Project, Collins brings strong credentials to the scientific side of his argument. For the spiritual side, he draws on Christian authorities such as Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Aquinas and C.S. Lewis. His aim is to address "extremists on both sides of the science/faith divide." On one extreme are those scientists who insist that the universe is purely and exclusively matter, and on the other are literal interpreters of the Book of Genesis who reject the last two centuries of scientific discovery. Although Collins's purpose is grand, his manner is modest and his prose clear, as befits a man more concerned with sharing his views on the nature of things than with displaying his ego.Collins writes just enough about his youth for us to learn that he was brought up in a household indifferent to religion; he became an agnostic in college and an atheist in graduate school, where he studied chemistry. Only in medical school did he reverse that trajectory, gradually accepting the existence of God and embracing evangelical Christianity -- led to belief, like St. Augustine, less by longing than by reason.Reason persuaded him that the universe could not have created itself; that humans possess an intuitive sense of right and wrong, which he calls, following Immanuel Kant, "the Moral Law"; and that humans likewise feel a "longing for the sacred." The source of this longing, the Moral Law and the universe, he came to believe, was the God described in the Bible, a transcendent Creator, Companion, Judge and Redeemer. He found additional evidence of a Creator in the eerie ability of mathematics to map the universe and in the numerous material properties -- from the slight imbalance between matter and anti-matter in the Big Bang to the binding energy within the atomic nucleus -- that seem to have been exquisitely tuned to fashion a world that would give rise to complex forms of life.The God in whom Collins believes is no aloof Prime Mover who set the show in motion and withdrew to watch. He's a deity who intervenes (albeit rarely) in the course of things. Why God permits the suffering of innocents is a puzzle Collins does not pretend to solve, although he speculates, following C.S. Lewis, that we may need to suffer in order to learn. The resurrection of Jesus is, for Collins, the key intervention by a God "who takes personal interest in human beings." Late in the book, after a lucid account of genetic research and a spirited defense of evolutionary theory against proponents of creationism and "intelligent design," he reveals that on his path toward faith, Jesus was a crucial "bridge between our sinful selves and a holy God."One can respect his belief in the divinity of Jesus without agreeing that such a belief logically follows from his argument for the existence of God. Likewise, Collins goes beyond the evidence when he speculates that "God's intention in creating the universe" may have been "to lead to creatures with whom He might have fellowship, namely human beings." Many readers will doubt that all 10 or 15 billion years of cosmic history merely prepared the way for us, a pack of inquisitive primates pondering the starry expanses from our speck of planetary dust. Still, it's bracing to be reminded, in our disenchanted day, that an eminent scientist can read the genetic code as sacred speech.Reviewed by Scott Russell Sanders
Copyright 2006, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.
编辑推荐
From Publishers Weekly
Collins, a pioneering medical geneticist who once headed the Human Genome Project, adapts his title from President Clinton's remarks announcing completion of the first phase of the project in 2000: "Today we are learning the language in which God created life." Collins explains that as a Christian believer, "the experience of sequencing the human genome, and uncovering this most remarkable of all texts, was both a stunning scientific achievement and an occasion of worship." This marvelous book combines a personal account of Collins's faith and experiences as a genetics researcher with discussions of more general topics of science and spirituality, especially centering around evolution. Following the lead of C.S. Lewis, whoseMere Christianitywas influential in Collins's conversion from atheism, the book argues that belief in a transcendent, personal God—and even the possibility of an occasional miracle—can and should coexist with a scientific picture of the world that includes evolution. Addressing in turn fellow scientists and fellow believers, Collins insists that "science is not threatened by God; it is enhanced" and "God is most certainly not threatened by science; He made it all possible." Collins's credibility as a scientist and his sincerity as a believer make for an engaging combination, especially for those who, like him, resist being forced to choose between science and God.(July 17)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.
From Scientific American
A devoutly Christian geneticist such as Francis S. Collins, author of The Language of God and leader of the Human Genome Project, can comfortably accept that "a common ancestor for humans and mice is virtually inescapable" or that it may have been a mutation in the FOXP2 gene that led to the flowering of human language. The genetic code is, after all, "God’s instruction book." But what sounds like a harmless metaphor can restrict the intellectual bravado that is essential to science. "In my view," Collins goes on to say, "DNA sequence alone, even if accompanied by a vast trove of data on biological function, will never explain certain special human attributes, such as the knowledge of the Moral Law and the universal search for God." Evolutionary explanations have been proffered for both these phenomena. Whether they are right or wrong is not a matter of belief but a question to be approached scientifically. The idea of an apartheid of two separate but equal metaphysics may work as a psychological coping mechanism, a way for a believer to get through a day at the lab. But theism and materialism don’t stand on equal footings. The assumption of materialism is fundamental to science.George Johnson is author of Fire in the Mind: Science, Faith, and the Search for Order and six other books. He resides on the Web at talaya.net--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.
专业书评
FromAudioFile
It is possible for the ability to do serious science and the holding of devout religious belief to co-exist in the same person. This is the fundamental point of this book by one of the key scientists involved in the Human Genome Project, the mapping of the complete human DNA sequence. Collins goes beyond a discussion of DNA and records his own spiritual journey, which takes its inspiration from that of C.S. Lewis. Collins is adequate as narrator, neither overly professorial in the academic sections nor too emotional in the personal ones. His diction is not entirely crisp, but this is only a small distraction. An extra CD provides more than a dozen charts and diagrams. R.C.G. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine--Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine--This text refers to theAudio CDedition.
FromBooklist
Head of the Human Genome Project, Collins is one of the most famous and important scientists working today. And he is a former atheist. Collins came to faith slowly, after giving it much thought and, surprisingly, while practicing his scientific profession. In his view, scientific and spiritual worlds aren't antithetical. Rather, belief in God can be completely rational and complementary to the general principles of science. The son of "freethinkers" in rural Virginia, Collins was homeschooled by his unconventional mother. He studied physical chemistry at Yale and there shifted from doubtful agnosticism to full-fledged atheism. But later, as a medical student in North Carolina, he read C. S. Lewis'Mere Christianityand reconsidered. He addresses important questions--How can a loving God permit suffering? How can a rational person believe in miracles?--and explores such topics as the origins of the universe, Darwinism and human evolution, DNA, creationism and intelligent design, and, in the appendix, the morality of bioethics. His stimulating book should provoke much conversation and may change some minds.June Sawyers
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.
Review
"Collins's argument that science and faith are compatible deserves a wide hearing. It lets non-churchgoers consider spiritual questions without feeling awkward."--The New York Times Book Review
"The Language of Godis a powerful confession of belief from one of the world's leading scientists. Refuting the tired stereotypes of hostility between science and religion, Francis Collins challenges his readers to find a unity of knowledge that encompasses both faith and reason."-- Kenneth Miller, Brown University, author ofFinding Darwin's God
"What an elegantly written book. In it Francis Collins, the eminent scientist, tells why he is also a devout believer....A real godsend for those with questioning minds but who are also attracted to things spiritual."-- Archbishop Desmond Tutu
目录
IntroductionPART ONE: THE CHASM BETWEEN SCIENCE AND FAITH
One - From Atheism to Belief
Two - The War of the Worldviews
PART TWO: THE GREAT QUESTIONS OF HUMAN EXISTENCE
Three - The Origins of the Universe
Four - Life on Earth: Of Microbes and Man
Five - Deciphering God's Instruction Book: The Lessons of the Human Genome
PART THREE: FAITH IN SCIENCE, FAITH IN GOD
Six - Genesis, Galileo, and Darwin
Seven - Option 1: Atheism and Agnosticism (When Science Trumps Faith)
Eight - Option 2: Creationism (When Faith Trumps Science)
Nine - Option 3: Intelligent Design (When Science Needs Divine Help)
Ten - Option 4: BioLogos (Science and Faith in Harmony)
Eleven - Truth Seekers
APPENDIX: The Moral Practice of Science and Medicine: Bioethics
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index
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文摘
INTRODUCTIONOn a warm summer day just six months into the new millennium, humankind crossed a bridge into a momentous new era. An announcement beamed around the world, highlighted in virtually all major newspapers, trumpeted that the first draft of the human genome, our own instruction book, had been assembled.The human genome consists of all the DNA of our species, the hereditary code of life. This newly revealed text was 3 billion letters long, and written in a strange and cryptographic four-letter code. Such is the amazing complexity of the information carried within each cell of the human body, that a live reading of that code at a rate of one letter per second would take thirty-one years, even if reading continued day and night. Printing these letters out in regular font size on normal bond paper and binding them all together would result in a tower the height of the Washington Monument. For the first time on that summer morning this amazing script, carrying within it all of the instructions for building a human being, was available to the world.As the leader of the international Human Genome Project, which had labored mightily over more than a decade to reveal this DNA sequence, I stood beside President Bill Clinton in the East Room of the White House, along with Craig Venter, the leader of a competing private sector enterprise. Prime Minister Tony Blair was connected to the event by satellite, and celebrations were occurring simultaneously in many parts of the world.Clinton's speech began by comparing this human sequence map to the map that Meriwether Lewis had unfolded in front of President Thomas Jefferson in that very room nearly two hundred years earlier. Clinton said, "Without a doubt, this is the most important, most wondrous map ever produced by humankind." But the part of his speech that most attracted public attention jumped from the scientific perspective to the spiritual. "Today," he said, "we are learning the language
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