008 - Thinking About Evolution with Fuz Rana

Today's interview is with biochemist Fazale Rana, the vice president of research and apologetics at Reasons to Believe. He is the author of several groundbreaking books, including Who Was Adam, Creating Life in the Lab, The Cell’s Design, and Humans 2.0. He holds a PhD in chemistry with an emphasis in biochemistry from Ohio University.

We'll be talking to Fuz about RTB's book, "Thinking About Evolution: 25 Questions Christians Want Answered" in which he's a contributing author.

1:25 - Introduction to Fuz Rana, Reasons to Believe (www.reasons.org) and the book Thinking About Evolution.

2:30 - Defining the terms surrounding evolution, as well as the possibility of equivocation on evolution. Micro-evolution, macro-evolution, speciation, chemical evolution, origin of life, etc.

6:45 - Thinking through evolution for yourself. Philosophical pre-commitments. The problem of underdetermination of scientific theories.

10:00 - The structure of the book, overarching goals, and RTB's approach to evolution as it relates to creation.

12:05 - The biases that everyone brings to scientific topics. Acknowledging our biases. The progressive creation model.

15:50 - Fuz's personal journey, uncertainty about God's existence, evolution, design in biological systems, the origin of life.

19:30 - What is theistic evolution / evolutionary creationism? Philosophical challenges and theological implications. "Tacking God onto evolution".

26:50 - Chemical evolution and the origin of life. Philosophical pre-commitments that life evolved. Challenges in origin of life research.

30:00 - Interactions with origin of life researchers. Intelligent agency in origin of life experiments. "The hand of God dilemma."

39:10 - Irreducible complexity in biological systems, and how they may or may not be good arguments for design in biology. Co-option as a possible rejoinder to irreducible complexity.

44:00 - How the concept of biological convergence could be interpreted as common design rather than evolutionary similarities on two different beaches of the evolutionary tree.

48:00 - Does co-option apply to biological convergence? Eye structures in chameleons and sandlances.

51:30 - Does Paley's "watchmaker argument" fail? Biomemetics and bio inspiration. The inverse watchmaker argument.

54:50 - Junk DNA? What is the state of the science? Functions that have been discovered in "junk DNA".

59:30 - Advice to Christians going into science, biology, and technology. The importance of the philosophy of science.

Find more info on Reasons to Believe at www.reasons.org.