Recommended Blog: Quintessence of Dust

Evangelical biologists have only recently started speaking out publicly about their support for biological evolution. I could be wrong (ie. I’m inviting correction), but I don’t think any Evangelical biologist spoke out publicly about their support for evolution prior to 25 years ago. And all the books targeted to a lay audience have appeared in the last 10 years (See books by Collins, Falk, Colling, and Wilcox).

Books like these are important for initiating a discussion on evolution and faith within the Evangelical community, but I think other mediums, including weblogs, can also perform a positive role. As such I’d like to recommend a new weblog by Calvin College biologist Stephen Matheson called Quintessence of Dust. He states that on his blog he:

… will deal with issues of science and Christian faith, focusing on genetics, development, evolution, neuroscience and topics related. I'll regularly address intelligent design and creationism, among other scientific issues that attract the attention of evangelical Christians. My main theme will be scientific explanation.

Since I have no formal training in biology, my own explanations for evolution often demonstrate my relatively shallow understanding of the details. So I’m very happy to welcome to the blogsphere someone who shares a commitment to the integrity of science and scripture, but whose understanding of the details of biological evolution is anything but shallow. Matheson has already contributed two excellent posts. In On common descent and Explanation he discusses the explanatory power of common descent. In Which came first, The bird or the smaller genome? he examines the fascinating link between the ability to fly and small genomes, and how common descent can explain this pattern – something that ID can not.

I’m looking forward to following this blog – check it out.