Are you willing to follow the evidence wherever it leads? Revolutionary developments in biology, such as purpose, agency, and decision-making at the cellular level, are providing stronger evidence than ever before of a purposeful creator God. My guest, Dr. Sy Garte, will show how a reductionist view of life ignores new advances in science and why we need to look beyond the evolution debate. Come join the conversation and bring your questions!

Sy Garte (PhD in Biochemistry) has been a tenured professor at New York University, Rutgers University, and the University of Pittsburgh; division director at the Center for Scientific Review of the National Institutes of Health; and interim vice president for research at Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. He has published more than two hundred peer-reviewed scientific papers and five books. Currently, Dr. Garte serves as editor-in-chief of the American Scientific Affiliation’s (ASA) online quarterly magazine, God and Nature, and also as vice president for the Washington, DC, metro chapter of the ASA. He also served as a member of the board of advisors of the John Templeton Foundation. Dr. Garte converted to Christianity from an atheist family background, and he is now a certified lay servant in the United Methodist Church in Rockville, Maryland.

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Content Discussed

  • 0:00 Intro
  • 1:58 What’s your journey from atheism to Christianity?
  • 8:58 Did Darwin make it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist?
  • 13:30 Is a Christian explanation automatically “God of the Gaps”?
  • 17:19 Why should we get beyond the evolution debate?
  • 23:34 Why can’t evolution be used to explain inheritance?
  • 28:12 Can the RNA World Hypothesis explain the origin of DNA?
  • 31:08 What if there is an unknown naturalistic explanation for the origin of life?
  • 35:09 LISTENER QUESTION: RNA to DNA evolution?
  • 40:00 LISTENER QUESTION: Is the RNA World Hypothesis dead?
  • 42:23 LISTENER QUESTION: Is it possible that we just don’t have enough time to study the origin of life?
  • 46:08 Can Punctuated Equilibrium be used to explain the problem of time?
  • 48:30 LISTENER QUESTION: What if we are confusing life today with early life?
  • 52:15 Agency, cognition, and teleology in biological systems
  • 1:01:48 What has led to the shift in using teleological language in biology?
  • 1:06:19 What do we mean when we say that bacteria are learning?
  • 1:12:42 What is the extended evolutionary synthesis, and what is your view of it?
  • 1:17:42 What is epigenetics, and do you think it is challenging evolution?
  • 1:23:38 Have you found there to be an anti-supernatural bias in the sciences?
  • 1:28:18 Why is multicellularity one of the most difficult problems in evolutionary biology?
  • 1:31:48 LISTENER QUESTION: What is your advice to Christians who are skeptical of scientists?
  • 1:35:42 If evolution is true, then why be a Christian or hold to the Bible?

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