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If humans evolved, they could not have been originally upright. Our sinfulness and selfishness are then due, not to an historical fall, but, rather, to our evolutionary heritage. This undermines the doctrine of original sin, as well as the Reformed notion of Christ's atonement as a payment for human. Dr. Schneider thus favors a universalism where all humans will be saved.

Dr. Waltke asserts, "We have to go with the scientific evidence…if Scripture has a collectivity represented as an individual, that doesn't bother me.”

The Bible, however, flatly contradicts the dubious notion that Adam and Eve were chiefs of a tribe of 10,000 evolved humans. Genesis 2-3 states: “when there was no man (5)…the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature (7)…Then the LORD God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone’(18)…And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman…(22)…The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living” (3:20).

As Hagerty reported: “Schneider, who taught theology at Calvin College in Michigan until recently, says it’s time to face facts: There was no Adam and Eve, no serpent, no apple, no fall that toppled man from a state of innocence.”

“Evolution makes it pretty clear that in nature, and in the moral experience of human beings, there never was any such paradise to be lost. So Christians, I think, have a challenge, have a job on their hands to reformulate some of their tradition about human beginnings”

They argue that science is unable to resolve the question of Adam and Eve as a whole, but they write: “All science can say is that there was never a time when only two people existed on the earth: it is silent on whether or not God began a special relationship with a historical couple at some point in the past.”

Harvard’s Steven Pinker declared that Collins is “an advocate of profoundly anti-scientific beliefs.” Other leading scientists said far worse. Why? As The New Yorker reports this week, Dr. Collins is “a believing Christian.” As writer Peter J. Boyer explains, “The objection to Collins was his faith—or, at least, the ardency of it.

Even with all of Francis Collins’ achievements, qualifications, and experience, the bare fact that he is a “believing Christian” is enough to draw the active opposition of many in the scientific establishment. Just being a “believing Christian” is reason enough for suspicion, condescension, and opposition from many. Even when Francis Collins presses his case for evolution, he is dismissed by many scientists simply because he believes in God. In other words, when we are told that we have to accept and embrace the theory of evolution in order to escape being considered intellectually backward, remember the opposition to Francis Collins. It just doesn’t work. When Collins’ elevation to the NIH post was announced, evolutionary scientist P. Z. Myers lamented, “I don’t want American science to be represented by a clown.” This is the predicament of those who argue that evangelicals must accept some form of theistic evolution — the guardians of evolution still consider them clowns.

In broad statistical terms, Ecklund’s results are unsurprising: Scientists tend as a group to be less religious (however that term might be construed) than the general population. About 64 percent of the respondents described themselves as atheists or agnostics, as against only about 6 percent of the general public. “Looked at the other way around,” Ecklund writes, “only about 9 percent of scientists say they have no doubt that God exists, compared to well over 60 percent of the general public.” As far as religious practice is concerned, “about 18 percent of scientists attend religious services at least once a month or more, compared to about 46 percent of those in the general population.”However, the views of many scientists turn out to be less rigidly doctrinaire and hostile to religious belief than the raw statistics might suggest:After four years of research, at least one thing became clear: Much of what we believe about the faith lives of elite scientists is wrong. The “insurmountable hostility” between science and religion is a caricature, a thought-cliché, perhaps useful as a satire on groupthink, but hardly representative of reality.

only 15 percent of scientists hold firmly to the “conflict paradigm” — believing there is “no hope for achieving a common ground of dialogue between scientists and religious believers.” Meanwhile, a significant minority of the respondents, 36 percent, acknowledged holding at least some sort of belief in God. These ranged from “I believe in a higher power, but it is not God” (8 percent) to “I believe in God sometimes” (5 percent) to “I have some doubts, but I believe in God” (14 percent) to “I have no doubts about God’s existence” (9 percent).