The Truth about Science and Religion. Fraser Fleming

limits to the forms of life that scientists can create? If so what would these be and why?

      8. Richard Dawkins has written that “living organisms exist for the benefit of DNA rather than the other way round.”30 Does this statement ring true with the experience of life?

      9. DNA is a remarkably complex molecule performing the intricate task of replicating cellular information. Is DNA designed? What are the indicators for or against DNA being designed?

      Further reading for “The Origin of Life: Who or What Creates Life?”

      1. Fazale Rana and Hugh Ross, Origins of Life: Biblical and Evolutionary Models Face Off. Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2004. Provides a comprehensive summary of recent advances in understanding the chemical and biological origin of life with extensive references to primary literature, reviews, and conference summaries. The material is covered from a Christian perspective, and requires an undergraduate education with familiarity in science.

      2. Pier Luigi Luisi, The Emergence of Life: From Chemical Origins to Synthetic Biology. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Covers the transition from prebiotic chemistry to synthetic biology with a clear focus on identifying the origin of life. Written for graduate students, the material is intensive but clear for those with an undergraduate degree in chemistry or biology.

      3. Michael Denton, Nature’s Destiny: How the Laws of Biology Reveal Purpose in the Universe. New York: Free Press, 1998. Denton surveys a host of biological processes that point to the universe being finely tuned for the emergence of life. The fitness of a diverse set of chemical and biological processes is surveyed in an easily understandable level, and yet the material becomes somewhat overwhelming.

      4. Christian de Duve, Vital Dust: Life as a Cosmic Imperative. New York: Basic, 1995. Biochemist and Nobel laureate de Duve surveys the rise of biomolecules through the primordial soup to the development of modern humans. De Duve does not invoke God or chance directly but seems to concede that because life is statistically unlikely the universe still seems programmed for life.

      5. Paul Davies, The 5th Miracle. The Search for the Origin and Meaning of Life. New York: Touchstone, 1999. Science popularizer Paul Davies engages the most perplexing questions on the origin of life in an easy-to-read style. Davies weaves possible biological theories together with theories of life on Mars, Panspermia, and other planets that build on his earlier writings on cosmology. Davies is one of the finest, fairest writers with a poetic style who keeps the mystery of life and engages a few of life’s grand questions along the way.

      6. Dean Overman, A Case Against Accident and Self-Organization. Rowman and Littlefield, 1997. Overman collects a vast array of information, largely from popular books, to argue that life is too complex to have arisen by chance. Overman presents the material in short sections comprising just a few pages and marshals the arguments like a lawyer, which he is.

15. Einstein, “Religion and Science.”

16. John Paul II, Letter of His Holiness John Paul II to Reverend George V. Coyne.

17. Gen 1:1–31

18. Gen 1:3

19. Gen 1:9

20. Gen 1:24

21. Sagan, Cosmos, 1.

22. Darwin, quoted in Ward and Brownlee, Rare Earth, 67.

23. Ross, Hidden Treasures in the Book of Job, 121.