Critique of  the book "The Language of God" by Francis S. Collins:

This book by Dr. Francis Collins is well written, is easy to follow, even entertaining, covers a lot of ground, is up-to-date on a lot of science, seems to accept almost all the findings of secular scientists (e.g. Einstein's Relativity Theory, Quantum Theory, Big Bang, stellar evolution, geological evolution, tectonic evolution, and biological evolution).  This book may prompt people to study science further and may prompt people to support funding for secular scientific research (funding which is often controlled by governments, which is affected by what citizens want).

This book was written for the already converted.  It will not, as far as I can see, have any affect on changing the minds of atheists.

Much of the book is good science, but I have included a few comments of correction of the Introduction, Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 7.  I could have made comments on Chapter 11, but I thought enough said in my comments on the earlier chapters.  I say Chapters 4 and 5 are his best, although  Dr. Collins made good points in Chapters 6, 8 and 9 
With the vast amount of science covered by this book, I have limited my comments to certain items of interest.  
The quotes from Dr. Collin's book will have quotation marks around them and will be in RED.  My comments will follow each of these.  Usually the page number will be given for each comment section.

Click on the links below to see the comments for each chapter:

Contents

(1) Introduction
(2) Chapter 1
(3) Chapter 2
(4) Chapter 3
(5) Chapter 4
(6) Chapter 7

Another similar, but I think, more direct approach to the science part of this book is found on YouTube by the Catholic Biologist Ken Miller:
Check on:  http://www.youtube.com:80/watch?v=JVRsWAjvQSg
Biologist Ken Miller YouTube presentation may take a minute to load (it may seem like nothing is happening during that time) because it is almost 2 hours long, but well worth listening too.

A final introductory comment:
In doing a book review I find it easiest to spread the review over a number web pages with links wherever necessary.
I'm very poor at oral debating or impromptu discussion because I need to think through each part of a given topic or question before giving my perspective.
In any book review and debate I prefer specific responses to general ones - a general response is very difficult to counter or respond to whereas a specific quoted statement can be critically analyzed, positively and/or negatively in a reasonable way.
An example of a general response that I get quite often is: "Your review is totally wrong in every way." I want to know precisely where I'm wrong, so that I can make further detailed analysis so that I can make corrections if needed!

In a book review the specifics tell the tale.

My critique is not inerrant. Here and there a word may be misplaced and the grammar may be unusual.

Read on,
Orland Hooge
ohooge@shaw.ca