Who Was Adam?: A Creation Model Approach to the Origin of Man Review

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Who Was Adam: A Creation Model Approach to the Origin of Man ReviewAre humans just advanced apes or have they been specially created in the image of God? Publications by scientists almost never ask the question, whereas publications by theists seldom examine the scientific data that relates to the question.
However, two scientists raised in non-Christian homes, Fuz Rana (Ph.D. in chemistry) and Hugh Ross (Ph.D. in astronomy), have written a new book (Who Was Adam?: A Creation Model Approach to the Origin of Man) that examines the question of human origins by comparing biblical and evolutionary models.
The second in a series of books designed to produce a comprehensive biblical creation model, Reasons To Believe scholars, Rana and Ross present a biblical creation model that makes 13 specific predictions on the nature and origin of mankind, then go on to examine the evidence published in the latest scientific studies. One example from the biblical creation model is the predicted discrepancy between the origin dates for male and female genetic lines. The Bible claims that there was a genetic bottleneck at the Genesis flood. Whereas all females can trace their ancestry back to Eve (through the three wives of Noah's sons), all males trace their Y-chromosomes through Noah (through his three sons). This predicted discrepancy for molecular dates of mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome data is actually seen in the scientific literature. In addition to the mtDNA and Y-chromosome data, Who Was Adam? examines molecular dates from nuclear genes, numerous varieties of non-coding genetic elements, and human parasites. All these data confirm a recent origin date for Homo sapiens sapiens. Other chapters examine the hominid fossil record as it relates to specific evolutionary models compared to the biblical creation model. Chapter 5 examines the question whether we can detect the image of God in modern humans that differentiates them from hominids in the fossil record. Specific hominid species are examined in detail, including Homo erectus, Homo neandertalensis, and chimpanzees. A chapter devoted to the development of bipedalism shows that the extensive changes required for this form of locomotion appeared in early hominids, with no apparent selective Darwinian driving force. An examination of hominid brain sizes shows no gradual increases within species, but large jumps as new species appeared on the scene. Opponents of the idea that humans are intelligently designed often point to the presence of "junk" (non-coding) DNA in the genomes of both apes and humans. Chapter 14 examines the most recent evidence that shows that non-coding DNA is certainly not junk, but provides vital regulatory functions for coding genes.
One chapter stands out as being somewhat out of place in a book on human origins. Chapter 6, "The best possible time" examines the timing of the appearance on humans in the context of the history of the universe and the history of the earth. Although peripherally-related to the question of intelligent design, it would seem to be more relevant to discussions of cosmology and the anthropic principle.
Although the book seems to be marketed to Christians (from the title), it will probably have more broad appeal within secular circles, since it does present an excellent, up-to-date review of the current scientific literature on human origins. Does a biblical creation model for human origins present a scientifically-respectable alternative to neo-Darwinian evolution? Read the book and make your own decision.Who Was Adam: A Creation Model Approach to the Origin of Man OverviewScientists Fazale Rana and Hugh Ross introduce a testable scientific model for humanity's origin--a Biblical model--that sheds light on the latest findings on evolution and the origins of man.

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The Intelligent Universe: AI, ET, and the Emerging Mind of the Cosmos Review

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The Intelligent Universe: AI, ET, and the Emerging Mind of the Cosmos ReviewHaving read Gardner's earlier work Biocosm: The New Scientific Theory of Evolution: Intelligent Life Is the Architect of the Universe, I was prepared for "The Intelligent Universe" to be the work of a visionary thinker who is not afraid to speculate about the cosmological principles underlying our universe. I cherish the work of authors who are not afraid to think big. Gardner does not disappoint in the grandeur of his vision. If you think there is nothing new under the sun, I encourage you to read "The Intelligent Universe". One can't help but find enlightening material in the book. Oliver Wendell Holmes said "Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions." This sentiment certainly applies to my reading of Gardner's book.
Gardner's book is, however, not without flaws. One criticism I won't make of the book is that the ideas are hopelessly speculative. The book employs the kind of theoretical flights of fancy that John Horgan dismisses as "ironic science" in his book The End of Science (Helix Books), a book which says that science is asymptotically approaching a point at which there won't be any major new scientific theories, not because of science's failures but because science has been so successful. I mention Horgan because the scope of Gardner's vision encourages me to believe that we haven't even begun to exhaust our potential to develop breathtaking scientific theories of the cosmos. I came away from The Intelligent Universe with an excitement about the power of large-scale thinking about the universe.
Having said that, while Gardner presents an original "story", weaving together the work of numerous cosmologists and other scientists, perhaps paradoxically, the book often reads as a rehashing of the ideas of numerous big-picture thinkers. Maybe both perspectives can be accurate: Gardner summarizes the work of many while putting together the pieces in a unique way. There is nothing wrong with synthesizing the views of one's peers. However, the book too often lapses into a series of synopses of the big ideas of other scientific thinkers, brilliant though these thinkers may be.
To give you an idea of Gardner's method I reproduce the train of thought found in a few early chapters. Gardner uses extended paragraph-long quotations to run through the following thinkers (not all of which Gardner ultimately endorses):
Fred Hoyle on the fine-tunedness of physical constants, Francis Crick on directed pansperma (the idea that extraterrestrials seeded the biosphere with the first life forms on Earth), Stephen Wolfram and Ed Fredkin on cellular automata principles underlying physics, Seth Lloyd on the cosmos as quantum computer, Erwin Schrodinger on quantum physics underlying life, John Wheeler's on the "participatory anthropic principle" (the idea that only with conscious life does the universe summon itself into being), John Koza on genetic programming, Roger Penrose on the quantum physical underpinnings of consciousness, (leading to a gloss on the implications of combining quantum computing and genetic programming). Then Gardner begins the next chapter with Mark Bedau on artificial life, with an interlude about the perils of nanotechnology run amok, alluding to Michael Crichton's techno-thriller Prey. After that, we move on to topic of the technological singularity, where Ray Kurzweil plays a prominent role, both for his vision of smarter-than-human artificial intelligence and his optimism about the prospects for immortality. In the same chapter Gardner describes how Vernor Vinge forsees the arrival of super-human intelligence as more likely to result from intelligence amplification (at least at first) than from artificial intelligence.
Many of the later chapters work in a similar fashion, cycling through the big ideas of major thinkers. If a book is going to run through thinkers as this one does I guess what I would wish for is a book with the kind of comprehensiveness of The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (Oxford Paperbacks). Instead, too often there is only a superficial treatment of one thinker before we move on to another superficial treatment of the big idea of the next thinker. Such a technique is particularly unsatisfying for someone who is already familiar with many of the thinkers presented. I would relish a deeper engagement with the work of many of the thinkers treated. So one problem that I have with the book is simply that it is not in-depth enough. The body of the text takes up 196 pages, with an additional 46 pages comprising reprints of three articles from the International Journal of Astrobiology and Complexity magazine (2 articles).
I don't mean to dismiss Gardner's writing style. The value of his approach was demonstrated to me by his discussion of Beatriz Gato-Rivera's proposed solution to the Fermi Paradox. I had never heard of Gato-Rivera but Gardner's treatment of her position in The Intelligent Universe provided a nice jumping off point to her work. It is easy to see how the book could function as a window into a lot of other scientific topics. I was wondering how Gardner would reconcile the Fermi Paradox with Gardner's view that the universe is "hard-wired" to produce intelligent life, and Gato-Rivera's work figures prominently in his proposed resolution to the conundrum, although, characteristically, there is no attempt made to contradict this hypothesis or to pronounce on the merits of any alternative explanations.
"The Intelligent Universe" ultimately attempts to answer what Brian Greene has called the biggest of the big questions: Why is the universe life-friendly? Gardner, bold and original thinker that he is, thinks he knows the answer. His solution is the Selfish-Biocosm Hypothesis. The central claim of his Selfish-Biocosm Hypothesis is "that the ongoing process of biological and technological emergence, governed by still largely unknown laws of complexity, could function as a von Neumann controller, and that a cosmologically extended biosphere could serve as a von Neumann duplicating machine in a conjectured process of cosmological replication." In other words, the universe comes to life and then reproduces itself through the creation of other universes. This comes right out of Gardner's first book Biocosm. In this picture, human beings (or other intelligent life forms) might be thought of as the mitochondria of the cells that make up the universe as organism. The Intelligent Universe can be seen as the exploration of this basic storyline, and this includes dealing with the religious implications of the radically new perspective afforded by the Selfish-Biocosm Hypothesis. All in all, the story is well worth reading.The Intelligent Universe: AI, ET, and the Emerging Mind of the Cosmos Overview

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