Geneticist sees God in the small detail
She wants to see the world changed.
She sees in science opportunities to alleviate suffering. Today Dr RUTH
BANCEWICZ is spreading the word about how science and faith go together. Ruth
tells Nigel Bovey about some of the elements of her work and
faith
Ruth, why did you become a scientist?
Science was my best subject at school and I
liked finding out how things worked, especially in biology. I wanted the area
of science I worked in to mean something to people. I wanted to change the
world.
I went to Aberdeen University and then did a
masters and doctorate in genetics at Edinburgh University.
In what kind of work within genetics did you specialise?
I was working in developmental biology, looking
at the way an organism develops in the womb or the egg. I was examining the
interaction between the genes and the environment during that development.
In particular, I was looking at the development
of the eye. There have been a number of instances when babies have been born
with serious eye defects and people have suspected that it was because of the
environment their mothers had been exposed to during pregnancy.
 For example,
one report said that after the Gulf War more babies were being born in Iraq
with eye defects possibly because of depleted uranium in the weapons that were
used. This kind of social justice issue was part of what attracted me to the
subject.
The reseach I did for my doctorate was triggered
by the case of families who were suing a chemical company. They claimed their
children had been born with eye defects because the mothers had been exposed to
agricultural fertiliser during pregnancy.
Through working on fish eyes, we found that some
fish can be susceptible to even quite low levels of an environmental toxin
because they carry a faulty gene. Whether that also applies to humans in their
more complex environment remains to be seen.
There needs to be more research, but the outcome
should be taken into account when people are deciding which chemicals to use in
agriculture and other industries.
You are no longer a research scientist. What is your job
now?
I am project leader for Test of Faith, which is
a series of resources developed at the Faraday Institute for Science and
Religion. We have produced a three-part documentary on DVD, an accompanying
book and study guides.
How important is it for Christians to be informed about
science?
It's important for everyone to be informed about
science. Most people are curious and want to know how things work. We also need
to understand the issues facing us as a society, such as climate change or new
medical technologies. For example, people need to be able to understand what
their GP might offer them in the area of genetics, particularly if they are
trying to start a family or if they have a sick child. They may be offered
various tests and treatments, but do they really understand what it all means?
Do they know the alternatives? Often in those crisis times people are
traumatised yet are trying to take in scientific detail. They need someone to
explain the facts to them, and often a GP doesn't have sufficient time.
I'm passionate about helping people to have
basic knowledge and confidence in science so that they are able to listen to
those with difficult decisions to make and to help them talk through the
options.
 The fact is, the
Bible doesn't mention stem-cell research, gene therapy or IVF. But there are
guiding biblical principles which can help people make decisions in these tough
areas.
You have worked in schools and universities. What kind of questions
do young people want answered by Christian scientists?
The main issues are bioethics and the
environment. For most students, working out the relationship between the
Genesis story of creation and evolutionary biology is very important. How do
Genesis and evolution go together? Where do Adam and Eve fit in? A lot of
students haven't thought much about this before.
On the other hand a lot of prominent and
influential atheists have. They say science has disproved God. One of the
reasons why Test of Faith exists is to show that there is no conflict between
faith and science - the prominent atheists are wrong, science has not disproved
God, and we can show how faith and science do go together.
What similarities are there between the Genesis account of Creation
and the narrative of evolutionary biology?
They are different kinds of accounts, which tell
us different things.
The evolutionary account tells us how
animals and plants came to be here. Genesis tells us why God created
the Earth. The opening chapters are poetic - like the psalm, for instance,
which speaks of God making the clouds his chariot and riding on the wings of
the wind - rather than historical or scientific literature.
All Christians would agree on the ‘why',
but the ‘how' is much debated. In Test of Faith we simply show what the
scientists and theologians we interviewed think, and then allow people to come
to their own conclusions.
While atheists use science to promote their world view, aren't
Christians also trying to claim science as their own?
In a way, a Christian has a lot less to prove
than an atheist. A Christian believes in God as Creator. This is not based on
science; this is God's revelation of himself through Jesus, through the Bible
and through the history of the Church.
When a Christian does science, therefore, they
have nothing to lose. They are simply discovering more about the world God has
made.
On the other hand, if an atheist finds that
things in the Universe seem to obey certain laws of motion or seem set up in a
way that allows life to develop, they have to find an answer to the question
‘Why?'
Rather than explaining it with reference to a
creator, one response could be that conditions in our universe are just right
because ours is only one of an infinite number of universes, most of which do
not sustain life.
The problem is that this ‘multiverse
theory' is impossible to verify. Yet it is sometimes used as an argument by
people who claim that being a Christian and a scientist is a contradiction in
terms.
So, to what extent can science prove the existence of
God?
There are no knockdown scientific proofs for
God. I think the Bible shows us enough about God's nature for us to know that
he won't give us some mathematical formula to prove his existence - that's not
how he operated in the past, and it doesn't seem to be the way he operates
now.
The fact that there is consistency, reliability
and order in nature is consistent with the idea of God existing. On their own,
they will prove nothing but together they form part of the cumulative evidence
that there is a God.
If someone wants to know whether God exists,
they need to look beyond science. Look in the Bible, look at the lives of
Christians, look at the history of how Christians have changed the world. Look
at Jesus.
How and when did you become convinced that there is a
God?
My parents were Christians, so from my childhood
they talked to me about their faith, read the Bible and prayed with me. Most
importantly I saw how their faith affected the way they lived. The way they
treated each other, resolved conflicts, made decisions, loved other people and
so on was for me in itself powerful evidence that God works in people's lives.
Even now, I really don't know anyone else who can live that way who isn't a
Christian.
As I grew older I understood things more clearly
and took them on board myself. I was three or four years old when I learnt that
Jesus had died for me and that if I believed in him I would be part of his
family, but I was about ten when I realised that believing in Jesus meant
letting him affect my whole life.
As I got older I developed a hunger for reading
the Bible. When I was about 16 I had to work out the credibility of
Christianity in the face of other philosophies. I weighed the evidence and it
stacked up. Since then I have never seriously doubted that God exists. For me,
it has not so much been about becoming a Christian as growing as a
Christian.
One of the areas that cause many people to doubt - and even to lose
faith - is the question of suffering. How can a God of love allow suffering in
the world?
There is a lot about God that we will never
understand. We don't have the perspective that God has on the world.
But one answer we do have is that Jesus, God's
Son, knew about suffering. He knew what it is like to be abandoned, to have
close friends die, to suffer physically. The Bible tells us that the world is
broken. (Few people need convincing of that.) To the Christian this means that
the world isn't the way God intended it to be.
The hope Christians have is that one day God
will put the world right. Meanwhile there are many things we can do to
alleviate people's suffering and that's what we're called to do.
As a scientist you recognise regular, repeatable patterns in nature.
What is a miracle?
A miracle is something that God does that is
different from the way he normally works in the world. He does it for a reason
and as a sign of his love for us. It is something to do with his interaction
with people, often in response to prayer.
Scientifically, I don't feel a need to
understand exactly how that happens on those occasions. I believe God created
the world, so he can do what he likes with it.
As a scientist you would be expected (either by others or yourself)
to investigate an unusual occurrence. Would you not seek to explain miracles in
the same way?
If I was a medic I might be interested in
meeting people who have been healed through prayer and finding out what
happened to them. I might find there is no physical explanation. On the other
hand, I might actually find a physical explanation for every miracle.
Either way, the most important thing is that the
healing has happened in response to prayer.
As a Christian I am not surprised that miracles
happen. As a scientist who is interested in how things usually work, I am not
sure that knowledge of how a miracle happened is going to be accessible to us.
For example, Jesus walking on the water is not something we are going to be
able to repeat.
I see a miracle as something that God does to
show something of himself to people. A miracle is about God's relationship with
his creation.
When I do an experiment, that is entirely
different. I am trying to look at the way the world which God has made usually
works.
War Cry 5 September
2009
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