Origins of Life: Biblical and Evolutionary Models Face Off - Hardcover

Rana, Fazale; Ross, Hugh

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1576833445 ISBN 13: 9781576833445

Publisher: Navpress Pub Group, 2004

Synopsis

Two researchers reveal a testable creation model for life's earliest beginning that makes sense of the scientific evidence.

About this title

About the Author

Fazale "Fuz" Rana is president, CEO, and senior scholar at Reasons to Believe (RTB) and holds a PhD in chemistry with an emphasis in biochemistry from Ohio University.
Fuz conducted postdoctoral work at the Universities of Virginia and Georgia and worked for seven years as a senior scientist in product development for Procter & Gamble. He has published articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals, delivered presentations at international scientific meetings, and addressed the relationship between science and Christianity at churches and universities in the US and abroad. Since joining RTB in 1999, Fuz has participated in numerous podcasts and videos, authored countless articles, and published several books, including Humans 2.0, Creating Life in the Lab, and Fit for a Purpose.
Fuz and his wife, Amy, live in Southern California.

Reviews

Convinced that "creation is a testable idea that can fall within the domain of science," biochemist Rana and astrophysicist Ross do not shrink from scientific findings about the long and tumultuous history of the earth. Conceding that "the beginning of life (relative to cosmic history) under hellacious conditions poses initial problems for creationists and evolutionists alike," the authors argue that the origin and survival of life on earth over the past 3.8 billion yearsâ€"now seen by most researchers as an awesomely improbable set of eventsâ€"parallels biblical models of God "hover[ing] over early earth like a mother eagle brooding over her young." Although Rana and Ross are Christian apologists with the "Reasons to Believe" organization, their forays into theology are generally modest and brief. Their primary focus is compiling results from biology, chemistry and geology that illustrate how deeply puzzling the origin of life has become. Discussions of the "primordial soup" of prebiotic chemistry, the enigmatic origin of cell membranes and homochirality (the unexplained preponderance of left-handed amino acids and right-handed sugars essential to life) all take readers further than is typical in the creation/evolution literature. Whether or not Rana and Ross quite prove a creation modelâ€"proof being in the eye of the beholderâ€"they certainly tell a compelling story of the early history of life that inspires curiosity and a sense of wonder at what is still, for all we know, a unique habitable and inhabited world.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Navpress Pub Group
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1576833445
• ISBN 13: 9781576833445
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256