In recent weeks (August 2011), we have received multiple inquiries about the historicity of Adam
and Eve, including e-mail questions coming through creation.com,
1 questions after church talks, seminary courses we
have given, call-in questions during radio interviews, and questions after conference
presentations. This has been precipitated by a significant amount of press coverage
of Francis Collins and the other members of his organization,
BioLogos.
2 Collins was the director of
the Human Genome Project, and is currently serving as the director of the National
Institutes of Health, so he is no lightweight in science. Also, Collins claims to
be an evangelical Christian. When a person of his caliber speaks on the relationship
between science and faith, people sit up and listen.
It cannot be overstated that … the two theistic evolutionists are basing
their conclusions on evolutionary assumptions.
Yet, the things he has been saying are completely opposed to what CMI believes and
what the Bible clearly teaches.
3
The rash of questions we have received of late center around his claims that there
is no evidence for Adam and Eve and that there is no physical way we could have
come from two ancestors in the recent past. A high profile article appeared in
Christianity Today last June, in which the following quotes appeared:
“Collins’s 2006 bestseller, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents
Evidence for Belief[4]
… reported scientific indications that anatomically modern humans emerged
from primate ancestors perhaps 100,000 years ago—long before the Genesis time
frame—and originated with a population that numbered something like 10,000,
not two individuals.”
and
“In a recent pro-evolution book from InterVarsity Press, The Language of Science
and Faith, Collins and co-author Karl W. Giberson escalate matters, announcing
that ‘unfortunately’ the concepts of Adam and Eve as the literal first
couple and the ancestors of all humans simply ‘do not fit the evidence’.”5