Life in the Lab

For as long as I can remember, I have been interested in astronomy and related areas of science. This has led to my curiosity about life's origin-- how did it all get started here on planet Earth? Growing up in the Christian church, I heard the story of God's creation. Then along came college. Now all I heard was the evolutionary model, based on the assumption that life was pretty simple to get started. All you needed were the right chemicals and a spark to set it all off. But thanks to Hugh Ross and his organization Reasons to Believe, we now know the real story.

Hugh and Fuz Rana have written extensively about the frustration of origin-of-life researchers over the last few decades. Knowledge about life's intricate complexities has grown to the point where naturalistic explanations seem pretty desperate. International researchers gather at origin-of-life events, tear down each other's theories, and leave more confused than before.

But the problem for theists is simple -- we haven't been able to get the true message out to enough people. Most still believe life came from primordial soup that was zapped by a bolt of lightning. They don't realize what recent advances have done to this picture--naturalistic theories simply don't match the current scientific understanding of the early earth and the intricacies of the "simple" cell.

Dr. Rana has just released a brand-new book that should help clear up some of this confusion. It's called Creating Life in the Lab. In this book he describes what researchers have investigated and discovered as they have attempted to assemble constituent parts of what we call life. He tells of synthetic biology, the most recent frontier in life sciences, which holds out both dangers and promises.

I'm planning to get a copy and read this book. I hope you will consider doing the same. You can go to Reasons to Believe's web site (reasons.org) to order the book. As some of you know, Dr. Rana came to our church a couple of years ago to describe the incredible complexity of the cell. I'm sure he will bring the same insights and clarity to his new topic.