Georgia Purdom: Episode Description
On this episode of The Inspiration Project, Brendan Corr talks to Dr Georgia Purdom, a Molecular Genetics professor who works for Answers in Genesis. They discuss the idea of Conservative vs Liberal ways of thinking about the world, what led Georgia to earn her PhD in Science, how she came to faith, how Molecular Biology and Science prove the Creation story to be true, the danger of scientism, what role sciences play in our world, understanding how unique we all are and how genetic code reveals how we are created in the image of God.
Episode Summary
- Conservative vs Liberal ways of thinking about the world
- What led Georgia to earn her PhD in Science
- How she came to faith
- How Molecular Biology and Science prove the Creation story to be true
- The danger of scientism
- What role does science play in our world
- Understanding how unique we all are
- How our genetic code reveals that we are created in the image of God
Georgia Purdom: Episode Transcript
Sponsor Announcement
This podcast is sponsored by Australian Christian College, a network of schools committed to student well-being, character development, and academic improvement.
Introduction
Welcome to The Inspiration Project where well-known Christians share their stories to inspire young people in their faith and life. Here’s your host, Brendan Corr.
Brendan Corr
Good morning, everybody and welcome to another episode of The Inspiration Project podcast. This morning I’m having a conversation with Dr Georgia Purdom. Dr Purdom is vice president of Educational Content for the Answers in Genesis organisation. Dr Purdom holds a PhD in molecular genetics from the Ohio State University. She’s published numerous scientific peer-reviewed papers in the Journal of Neuroscience, the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, and the Journal of Leukocyte Biology. She’s a member of the Creation Research Society and Creation Biology Society. She brings expertise in the specific topic of natural selection and how that plays out in terms of some of our theories and our thinking and has experience in making scientific concepts understandable to the general public and a wide variety of people. She also expresses a passion to help females, ladies, and women understand the importance of the Genesis story for them and their context. Dr Purdom, welcome to The Inspiration Project podcast. It’s so delightful to have you here. You’re resident in the US. Is that right?
Georgia Purdom
Yes, I am. I live in Indiana, so in the Midwest.
Brendan Corr
Right in the Midwest. In Australia, we know that from movies that we get a chance to see. Some of us might’ve visited there, but what’s it like living in the Midwest of the US?
Georgia Purdom
I would say it’s very beautiful. So I live in Indiana and we have a lot of rolling hills here and just beautiful geography. We live near the Ohio River, which is the main river in this part of the country, and lots of beautiful trees and forest, and just have a beautiful area like that. I’d say it’s a fairly conservative area too as far as that goes. Our coasts tend to be much more liberal, so it’s nice to live in an area where there are a lot of churches and a lot of people that at least are faithful to Christian principles and ideas.
Brendan Corr
So having gone to Ohio State University at least for some of your studies, it sounds like that’s been the area of the US that you’ve lived most of your life? You grew up and know that culture and know that experience? It’s been part of forming you.
Georgia Purdom
I grew up in Ohio actually, just south of Ohio State University. So all of my career has pretty much been in Ohio except for now I live in Indiana and I work in Kentucky, but it’s all been in this area.
Brendan Corr
What Australians might understand about the Midwest from the popular culture that we get exposed to is that it is vast expanses, small towns, lots of space, maybe a little bit isolated, maybe a little bit protected from some of the 21st-century society. Is that true of the context that you would describe them?
Georgia Purdom
I would say there are a lot of small towns, but then we’re also located near Cincinnati, Ohio, which is a very large city in Ohio. So we have the best of both of those things, I would say, of small-town rural living, but also we have close access to a city. But I would definitely not say that we’re isolated or sheltered as far as the prominent conditions of our day and issues of our day that are going on. They go on with our neighbours and in our schools just like they do anywhere else, pretty much. Maybe not to the extent that they do in some other places, like if you were in New York City for example, or something like that. But we still definitely have those things going on.
Brendan Corr
So you described the area where you’re living in a conservative space that can sometimes, or for some people be seen as a pejorative term that conservative is lesser. It is not informed, it’s not well thought through. It’s not intelligent in some regards. How do you feel about that characterization of a conservative view of life and country and research?
Georgia Purdom
I think that’s really sad in a lot of ways because obviously, I mean, I hold a PhD. I have a lot of education. I’ve taught for years and years and years. Well, what I think happens is people that have a very liberal worldview, a very secular worldview, they look on you as well because you’re not open to X, you’re not open to Y, you’re not open to these ideas, and exploring these ideas and things that you are somehow closed-minded because of that. But I would say they’re being just as closed-minded in a lot of ways because they’re starting with a worldview that basically says they determine truth or man decides truth. And I’m starting with a worldview that says God determines truth and the Bible determines truth. They’re both worldviews, they’re both ways of looking at the world, and they just have a different foundation or starting point. I mean, God is infinitely smarter than man will ever be. And so starting with that worldview gives us a much better understanding of the world than it does if we start with just our own ideas and our own opinions and then who is right and who is wrong, and how do you determine that? So they can call me close-minded all they want, but they’re not open many times to the biblical worldview. So we all have worldviews, we all have starting points, and that informs how we look at things and what we think about things.
Brendan Corr
I think that’s a really wonderful response and perspective on that issue, Georgia. The reality is that there can be deeply well-thought-through ideas, philosophies, and frames of reference on either side, and there can be just as superficial interpretations or positions that are adopted on both sides of conservative or liberal. I think you’re exactly right. There can be many, many progressive thinkers who haven’t necessarily plummeted the depths of the implications or what it’s rooted on or what it’s grounded on as equally as there can be those on a conservative view who hold that same view. So let me explore with you your experience growing up in midland, US, a beautiful country, a life that was rich and full. What led you to end up with a PhD in science? What is your experience, your childhood, your family, or your school that led you down a track where this was what you wanted to devote so much time to?
Georgia Purdom
I grew up in a Christian home and my parents loved the Lord and we went to church pretty much every time the doors were open and had a very rich heritage of that. Actually, almost everyone in my family is a born-again Christian. And so I’m thankful for that heritage. But I don’t have anyone in my family that is a scientist. My parents didn’t even attend college, so I didn’t really have a lot of that high level of education in my family. But I knew from the time I was very young that I really loved science and I was really something that I think God gifted me with the ability to do well and to think about well. So from a very young age, I wanted to be a medical doctor. That was what I was going to do and pursue. And when I got into college and I first started learning about what are the other professions that are out there, you don’t just have to become a medical doctor. And I started to learn about research and things that people had done, and one professor, in particular, was being hired by the school when he gave his presentation on some of the immunology work that he had done studying the immune system, I was just completely fascinated by that. That was the end of my sophomore year of college and I was like, “This is what I want to do. This is so amazing. This is so neat.” So at the time though, molecular biology, I mean there were programs in it and stuff, but my college didn’t have a lot in that area. So I had one genetics class and I had one molecular biology class, but I really enjoyed them. And even one of the summers between my junior and senior years I had pursued research through a research program, so I kind of did it firsthand and worked at a university doing that. And so then once I finished college, I actually took a year to work at a university and do research just as a research assistant just to get more of a feel for it and see if I really liked it. And I did. I loved it. And so then I applied to graduate school and got accepted there. But the Lord really during that year used that time. While I really liked research, I really started to think about a teaching career and teaching other people what I loved so much and what I love to learn about because I always loved school. I’m one of those weird kids that loved school and loved. I’m a science nerd at heart, and so I just love learning. I wanted to help other people do that too. So really during that year I really started to think, “Okay, I want to get a Ph.D. so I can teach.” I liked the research, but I wanted to really pursue teaching. Teaching college was what I really wanted to do because I really enjoyed my college experience. I saw the impact my professors had on me, so I wanted to have that same impact on students. So that’s what really led me into it. After I finished my PhD I actually did some teaching while I was at Ohio State and got a taste for it and really liked it. And so then I went straight from there to teaching college and did that for six years before I came to Answers in Genesis.
Brendan Corr
Fantastic. I want to dig a little deeper with you about how you came to understand the place of science in your faith-based worldview. But you mentioned the fact that you, just in passing, felt the Lord opened the doors and the Lord directed you and reflected on a very personal encounter or relationship with God. Without intruding too much, how did that develop for you? When did you find that it was not just the faith of your family, it wasn’t just the faith of your community that you knew God was leading your life and calling you to something?
Georgia Purdom
I was saved when I was eight at a church camp, and I fully understood what I was doing and knew and understood the gospel really well at that point. But at the same time, I think making it my own, I wouldn’t say that happened while I was probably about 14. I was at a Christian youth rally actually and I just really listened to everything. I’d say that’s where my faith really gained its maturity where I really started on that path to spiritual maturity and growing and reading my Bible and praying, and really understanding what all that meant I think was really at that point, and really seeking what God would have me to do, where to go to college, what to major in, what he wanted for my life. One of the things I always tell students is you’re on this path and you think, “Okay, this is what I’m going to do. I’m a planner, so I like to plan.” And God likes to say, “I actually want you to go this way.” And so I tell students to really take it step by step. You can plan and planning is good, but don’t be surprised if God sometimes leads you a different way. And that’s okay. I thought I was going to be a medical doctor. I got a PhD. I thought I was going to go into research, I went into teaching. And lots of other areas of my life where the Lord’s really led me on a different path than the one I thought I was going to go on. And just like working for an apologetics ministry and using my degree in genetics, in ministry, that was something that I had never really thought about. I mean, every job has an aspect of ministry to it, whether I’m in a research lab or what, we’re Christians, we’re doing it for the glory of God and to understand his world better in this case. But it’s neat to see how the Lord led me to really have a passion for defending my faith and wanting to help other people be able to do that well too. I still teach. I still get to teach people things. It’s just in a different capacity.
Brendan Corr
So that leading, that over-planning or overriding of planning that you saw happening in your life, would you recognise that at times that was God giving you an impression of a decision you should make? Was it actually a course of your life, the decisions that other people were making that were directing your future?
Georgia Purdom
I distinctly remember sitting in a chair having my morning devotions when I was in my first year of teaching college and just the Lord really impressing me. I was reading 1 Peter 3:15. It was part of my devotion that day and that is basically always be ready to give a defence or an answer for the hope that you have. And the Lord just really, really impressed on my heart - I need to know what I believe and why I believe it. I mean, I know what I believe, but why do I believe it? How can I defend that effectively? And through other things that have been happening, questions people have been asking me, things I had been challenged with even in graduate school, and it kind of all culminated and I was like, “I need to make a decision on this and figure these things out.” So that was one thing. I know for example just from a personal perspective, so my husband and I tried to have children and we really felt that this was God’s will for our life to have children, and we didn’t expect to have any problems with that. But the Lord closed the door on that. We’re not able to get pregnant. But the Lord opened the door for adoption and we were able to adopt our daughter. Sometimes it’s the Lord impressing, sometimes it’s him just closing those doors, but opening up a different door.
Brendan Corr
And it comes back to where we started about the notion you described: why do I believe what I believe? And doing the work to understand how you conceive of God in your life and the way He works and the sovereign decisions that He makes. That’s a lovely personal story. Thank you for sharing that. Georgia, I wonder, again, without being a caricature of the Midwest, the notion of that conservative Bible belt might suggest that science was not necessarily something that was encouraged. The pursuit of a science career may not have been something that was the normal path for people in your community. Did you find that there was encouragement from the people around you? Discouragement? Freedom?
Georgia Purdom
I never was discouraged. I don’t remember anyone ever discouraging me from going into science ever. My parents were always extremely encouraging of me to follow what I felt was God’s goal for my life. I don’t remember anyone saying, “Oh, because you’re a Christian, or science might… Because you’re going to learn about evolution.” I was in the public school system, so I was hearing this stuff. It wasn’t like it was new to me, but I never really. I didn’t necessarily have any role models in the sense of other scientists or people that had become scientists. I never had any of that. I just knew that I really liked it and I wanted to pursue it. So I have heard of that happening to people where I’ve had students sometimes say, “I don’t know if I should go into the sciences because there’s going to be a lot of evolution, a lot of things that challenge my faith and I don’t know if I’m going to be able to. How am I going to be able to handle that?” I personally never experienced that, but I do encourage students to, “Look, don’t be afraid of these things. You are going to be challenged by a lot of things in the world, not just in this area, but in a lot of ways.” So you just have to ground yourself in God’s word. That is really important. Know what God’s word says and you’re going to be able to deal with these things as they come up. We’ve got so many great resources now. Answers in Genesis didn’t exist until I was a senior in college. So we’ve got all these great resources that when you have these questions, don’t be afraid to talk to people. Talk to other adults or teachers, or parents about some of the questions that you have and seek out those answers. That’s what we’re supposed to be doing as Christians. So those answers are out there. You just have to want to seek them and just continue to be grounded in that faith knowing that God’s word is true and nothing can contradict that or go against that.
Brendan Corr
You mentioned that in any area of pursuit, if you pursue it deeply enough and with enough intention, there are going to be things that you will come across that will challenge your faith. What did you find when you were adding degrees, going Ph.D. written molecular, genetics research? What were the things that you needed to really ground yourself in the Word to deal with?
Georgia Purdom:
I think one of the big things for me, so I never really believed in biological evolution just because, well, because I knew what God’s word said about creation, but also because I was studying genetics and it’s extremely complex. So there’s no way this just happened by random chance over aeons of time. I wasn’t buying that. But the age of the Earth was something that actually really challenged me because I didn’t have a lot of geology background. And so I was like, “Well, if they’re saying it’s millions of years and maybe it is, and so maybe I should accept that and somehow figure out how to make that work with what the Bible says.” So the more I started to study that though, I started to study what people were saying in the area of geology. I started to realise that things like radiometric dating and all that, they’re all based on assumptions. Everybody starts with a worldview. Everybody starts with certain assumptions. So even radiometric dating starts with certain assumptions. The radioactive decay rate has always been constant, which studies show it hasn’t been. And there are things like. Well, without getting too technical, like, “Oh, you start with all this parent material and all the daughter material has to come from that.” Well, how do you know there wasn’t any daughter material to start with? So I didn’t realise there were those assumptions going into that. And so once I started to really understand that, I was like, “Oh, okay.” And then I think for me, the biggest thing was really a theological thing, understanding that you can’t have death before sin. So sin didn’t come about until Genesis chapter 3. And 1 and 2 are the creation of everything, all animals, and Adam and Eve. So the fossil record or the rock layers are supposedly millions of years of death, disease, suffering, and bloodshed. That’s how evolution works. So I hadn’t thought, “Oh, if I have that, then how does that work with what God’s word says?” I mean, God’s word makes it clear that death came about as a result of sin. So the Bible can’t have that contradiction. And so if that’s true, then these layers were a result of the flood. They’re not a result of millions of years of evolution and really understanding that the Word is true. We can add the years up and there’s only about 6,000 years total if we add up to today. Sometimes we just don’t understand the science well enough. We haven’t really delved into that and see how we can use God’s word and understand that and how the state of that doesn’t actually contradicts it, it goes along with it.
Brendan Corr
Let me push a little further into that. You said we don’t understand the science enough. There is a common view in our current context of society that there is an infallibility to science and an inevitability that it’s going to provide the answers and it’s going to piece together the theory of everything. As a scientist in the field, practising, is that how you see science? Do you see it as this panacea for all the things that are wrong and all the missing bits of information that we have?
Georgia Purdom
I think that’s a great danger. We call that scientism. Everything has to be looked at and understood scientifically. And it’s just all material. There’s no immaterial and it’s what we observe, and that’s all there is. So I think there is a great danger in that, and I think it’s important to understand too, that there’s a difference between what we would consider observational science, which is what we do in the lab every day. It uses the scientific method. So you have a hypothesis, and you do experiments. Does it support or not support your original hypothesis? I call that here-and-now science because this is what we do in the lab, but that’s very different from historical science, which deals with things that have happened in the past. So evolution and creation both fall into that category because they’re not testable, they’re not repeatable, and they’re not observable because they’re past events. They’re history in that sense. And so what we believe about those things is very much based on our worldview. Who are we trusting to tell us the truth about the past? Do we trust God’s word or do we trust man’s ideas about what they think happened? So that’s very different. That’s very worldview based, whereas I think science that we do in the here and now, people that do good science and use the scientific method are doing that, then it’s not as worldview based or it doesn’t have to be. Because, again, you can observe it, and see whether or not support the original ideas that you had. If people are honest about it, the problem is there can be a lot of dishonesty. And I’ve seen it. I’ve seen scientists that are so hooked on their idea of what they think is true that they won’t accept anything else, even things that go to the contrary. And that’s not good science if a scientist is doing that. But if they’re being true to it, then we can observe things and see things. But they’re two very different types of science.
Brendan Corr
I know that this is your area, and it might be an unfair question to ask a scientist, but is there a place for science in our world? Is it worth doing all the hard work and investing all the resources that our world does into science? What’s the role of science in our world?
Georgia Purdom
Oh, that’s a good question. I think it’s important. From my Christian perspective, I would say that it’s important to discover what God has created all of these things. I mean, as much as we know, I think when we sequence the human genome, we’re like, “Oh, this is awesome. We’ve done it.” That’s just the tip of the iceberg because now you have to figure out what it all means? What does it actually do? How does it actually work? How does it function? So just knowing the letters or knowing the basis doesn’t tell us that. And so we have to still investigate that. So I think that’s really good to do, and I think it’s good to do from the perspective of we do live in a fallen world and we’re trying to mitigate the effects of the curse on people. So it’s good to study and understand these things to help people, and that can be through a variety of things. Even improving crops, animals, all of these things. We have dominion. We’re given dominion over God’s word. That doesn’t mean we rule harshly over it, but we take care of it and we should be stewards of what God has created. So I think just a natural curiosity and finding out what God has created and understanding it, but also how can it help people and how can it help us better take care of the world that he’s created?
Brendan Corr
Yeah. That’s great. I agree with you that if it is done well, it can reveal the glory of God in his creation and help us fulfil our role as stewards of that creation. Let me ask you, Georgia, the counterpoint. You’ve done a great job of describing the role of science and the value that it has, but there’d be some Christians who would say, “Look, I know Jesus. I know he saved me. He died and I’ve got this good thing going with God right now. Does it really matter that I don’t understand the beginnings and I don’t fully get my head around the creation account? Can you share what you believe is, why is it important that we wrestle with that idea and those concepts?
Georgia Purdom
I think there are a couple of reasons. One, I think that God has revealed these things to us in his word. And so we are supposed to know God’s word, what it says, and understand it. Just because it’s hard or difficult, or we may not see the relevance. It may just be that we haven’t delved deep enough into it to really look at it and understand it. He gave us all these words in the Bible for a reason. So including Genesis, Revelation, and including all of it in between. Even when you get to passages like a lot of genealogies and numbers and things, and you think, but it’s important. That’s part of his word. And so we need to understand those things and think about those things. So I would argue that we’re to study his word and know his words, and that’s part of it. I actually heard this the other day. It was interesting. Somebody was talking about what are some things where Christians can agree to disagree on, and what are some things that they can’t basically. And they would say, “Well, you have to agree that Jesus was a virgin born. You have to agree that Jesus resurrected.” And I would agree. Every Christian needs to agree on those things. Now they said, “Well, but creation, that’s a secondary issue. That’s not as important.” I would not agree with that because I think we really need to think about how foundational Genesis is and what is given there to a lot of the issues that we’re dealing with in our world today. Things like, for example, sexuality. Things like the sanctity of life when it comes to the abortion issue. Things like marriage and how it’s defined. You think about all those issues. Well, where does all that start? It starts in Genesis, and that’s where it’s defined that we’re made in the image of God, that we’re made male and female, and that marriage is one man and one woman. So I think by ignoring those things and not realising the foundational importance of Genesis, we’re missing out. And two, I mean, I’ve been in this field for over 17 years and I have watched sadly many people who are professing Christ, they’re professing Christians. Now, I don’t know their heart. I can’t see that, but that’s what they’re professing. And I’ve watched them say, “Well, it’s okay that the earth is millions of years old. Well, it’s okay that evolution is true. Well, it’s okay that Adam and Eve evolved from some sort of apelike creature. Well, it’s okay that maybe Genesis is really just an analogy, or an allegory or something. It’s a myth.” Well, there wasn’t really the fall and maybe Jesus just came to show us how to be a good person. I mean, I’ve seen that. And these people, they’re professors at Christian colleges and they’re saying this and it’s problematic. And that’s why I say they’re professing Christians because if you believe Jesus just came to show you how to be a good person, you’re not a Christian. I mean, that’s not the gospel. So that’s a false gospel. So it’s just that slippery slope that once part of God’s word isn’t true, it’s easier to say that more of it isn’t true. And then possibly deny it altogether.
Brendan Corr
Yeah, I hear what you’re saying in that space that it’s a package deal and the revelation of understanding that the Bible is God’s revelation of himself to humanity. And it wasn’t something that humanity created independently of God moving through those writers to document, “This is who I am, and therefore it’s important to understand who you’re relating to and what your relative position is to the God of the creator of the universe.” That’s well said. I’d be interested to explore a little bit more your area of specialty in terms of genetic biology, and most people who go through high school science will remember that the father of modern genetics, Mendel was a practising priest, that it was in his Christian faith that he started to investigate the inheritability of characteristics. All those testing come down to the discovery of DNA and the code that captures all the specifications for the manufacturer of proteins that form our DNA. The appearance would be that it makes some valid sense that our DNA is so similar to the DNA shared by all of the other creatures of the world. As a Christian coming to that view and investigating the specifics of genetics, what’s been your understanding of how separate we are, how unique we are, how in the image of God we are when there is so much of that genetic code that seems to be borrowed from the natural world?
Georgia Purdom
I mean, the way I look at it definitely is that we all do have. I mean all organisms have a lot of similarities in their DNA. That’s because we’re all designed by God and we all have to. And just like you Van Gogh, paintings all have a similarity to them that you can detect when you look at them. So it just makes sense. That’s how designers work. They have a certain style and a certain way that they do things. And two, if you’re talking about mammals, for example, which humans fall under that category, our bodies have to do a lot of similar things. So it makes sense that God’s going to have the same, why do it differently in the different organisms. If it works, then it makes sense that it would be in multiple organisms. So I think just like car parts, I mean, there are certain car parts that are going to be basically the same regardless of the type of car that it is because it’s a design that works. So I think we see that common designer, those ideas throughout a lot of different organisms. But I will say that a lot of times I hear this spout all the time still that, “Oh, chimps in humans are like 98% the same.” But it’s not a factually true problem. So if you look at how those comparisons are done. For example, if you look at one of the original papers that declared that, they say. And again, this is where you have to look at why you have to. It’s important to not just take whatever the media says. Sometimes you got to look at that scientific paper or at least people that are scientists that are evaluating it maybe from a different perspective, but in looking at it. But it says that in order to get that 98% number, they had to exclude basically one-third of the genome. Okay. So right there tells you that you’re not looking at the whole thing. We’ve got, what, 3 billion bases, and they’re not looking at all that. They’re looking at a much smaller portion. They’re looking at a smaller amount. So right there, that’s a lot of differences. And also they’re only typically counting one type of difference. So they’re not counting what we would call gaps or indels when they do this. They’re not counting duplications. There are certain things that they don’t do in the overall count. They don’t count basically as differences. Now, they would say, and actually, I’ve watched a video on this and it was kind of entertaining. It was made by evolutionists. It was made by people that are geneticists that know what they’re talking about. But it was interesting because they said the basic idea was, “Well, we did it this way where we just looked at if you have a sequence in the human and you have a sequence in the chimp and you just look at the letters that are different so when they match up, these letters match, but then this letter doesn’t match.” So they only counted those letters that don’t match. That’s all they counted. If there was a gap where there was maybe human DNA, but not chimp DNA, they didn’t count that. So they said, “Well because it was hard.” And I was like, “Well, scientists need to do hard things.” So I’m like, “Okay, I get that it’s hard.” It’s hard to make those comparisons when there are things, but you have to figure out a way to say, “That is a difference. There is something missing there and not there.” And you need to figure out how to count it. So Dr. Jeffrey Tompkins, who’s a geneticist, actually a genomicist, so he works at Clemson University for 10 years as the head of their genomics lab there. He’s done a lot of research on this comparing human and chimp DNA, and he said in papers that he’s published, it looks like it’s more around 70% similarity when he tries to count all of the differences. So that’s significant. When you’re talking millions of bases that are different, which cannot be accounted for in any evolutionary time frame, you could get millions of differences even over millions of years. No evolutionary geneticist would believe that. And so it really is problematic for them, and it really shows that we are very unique and different from the chimps and thus from any other living thing as well. When we talk about the image of God, I don’t believe that to be something genetic. That’s something that God endows us with as humans that he’s given us distinctly and uniquely, that we are created in his image. So I don’t think that has anything to do with genetics necessarily.
Brendan Corr
So that’s an interesting segue into another thing I wanted to talk with you about, Georgia is the notion of obviously our genetic code, our DNA, that we inherit each parent, it is prescribing physical attributes and it’s very material in its orientation. We understand that our humanity is a complex combination, both of material. We are physical creatures, but we are not just physical creatures. And yet it does seem as though there is research that is suggesting our genes play a huge part in determining personality attributes, and nonphysical capacities. How do we make sense of that?
Georgia Purdom
I would not buy that. I think it’s very, very challenging to make that assertion and that connection. And one of my main problems with that is because we’re still at a very rudimentary level of understanding the genome and how it works, and how you even determine that this gene makes this behaviour so to speak. Is that true in every individual that has that version of the gene that has that behaviour? You would have to have a lot. I just don’t think the studies out there have enough to be able to show those kinds of things. Certainly, we do know that there can be some disorders like schizophrenia and personality disorder, psychological disorders. There have been some suggestions of some mutations that may predispose a person to that or may have a role in that. And certainly, I’m open to that idea, but I don’t really think that we have a lot of good solid studies out there that are linking behaviour to genetics. And you got to understand too, the reason that people want to do that is because they’re materialist and they don’t believe there’s anything else. So it has to be explained that way. In an evolutionary materialistic worldview, every aspect of you has to be explained by your genetics. It cannot be explained outside of that because you have no spirit or soul according to that. There’s nothing immaterial about you. Everything is material. So they’re looking for that because they believe that’s what’s true, and so that must exist. But I worry about things like that because usually the scientists that are doing this, usually it’s the media that takes that information and makes it into something it isn’t. The scientists themselves are usually a lot more reserved in saying what the connection is between those two things.
Brendan Corr
That’s interesting. That’s another part of your expertise I want to explore is the difference between the science world that you work in and the science that is understood by the media world that we live in and how you are attempting to bridge that gap or to bring more integrity between those two spheres.
Georgia Purdom
And scientists can get caught up in this too. They’re sinners just as much as anyone else. And so they tend to get big egos and they tend to want money and notoriety, popularity for discovering something. So sometimes they jump the gun on things, I think in talking to the media about it. I think it’s hard. I always thought there should be more people that are knowledgeable about science in the media that truly know the science behind these things and can write about it intelligently. I was reading an article the other day. It was on the CNN website, and I’m like, “Why did they use that word there? What does that mean in relation to DNA? That doesn’t make any sense.” I think that is a major issue and I think we need more of that. I think it’s because I can’t write well. I would have a problem writing well about geology because I don’t know geology that well, so it would be great. I don’t know how to resolve that. I don’t know how to do that because they want the headlines and they want to beat everyone to it. But just really taking that information and having people that are scientists review it and make sure it’s accurate and right. But it’s just hard. It’s hard in a very media-driven world.
Brendan Corr
It’s two interesting things for me that fall out of those comments, Georgia was the notion of a world of scientism where science is celebrated as a triumphalist movement, the attraction for career aspiration, and celebrity in the problematics of the science, but then there’s also the oversimplification or the misunderstanding. Can science be made accessible to the public or are there parts of science that cannot be simplified to allow a public consumption or a public understanding of those ideas? Is that always going to be mysterious?
Georgia Purdom
I think there are definitely aspects of things that you can make understandable to people. So I’ve worked very hard at that for a long time. I have a whole talk talking about the differences between human and chimp DNA. And so that was challenging because when people don’t understand the basics of DNA and getting people to understand that so that I can talk about it at a certain level. And I’ve had people say to me after that presentation, they’re like, “Wow, I actually understood that. That made a lot of sense.” I’m like, “That’s the best compliment I could get.” So I think you can do it. Are there some things that are always going to be harder to understand if you don’t have the background? Absolutely. There are going to be some things that are just. I can’t talk about it at a certain level because I don’t have a way to simplify that. You have to have so much basic knowledge, even just this foundational knowledge, and if you don’t have that, I don’t have anything to build on to get up to this level. And most people, I’m just trying to explain the basics with, and I don’t have time a lot of times to get up to that higher level because of that. And so you have to spend so much time getting the basics down that you can’t get to that level. So I think there always are going to be. When you talk about that, I think about epigenetics, which is like how the genome is controlled by different things. And I have been able to explain that at a certain level, but to go into it deeper would be harder because people just don’t have the genetics background to really appreciate that.
Brendan Corr
I think those recent comments, speaking of that idea that you really have to know your subject area really well to know what are the things that can be simplified, what are the things that aren’t able to be simplified, and to simplify it in a way that doesn’t create misunderstanding, that doesn’t lead people on a track that they shouldn’t be led down.
Georgia Purdom
I’ve had to really learn that over the years because there’s so much stuff you’d like people to understand, but you realise that. But to me, it’s not good for me to know the science and not be able to articulate it to people. So if I can’t get to these other things, it’s okay. I have to just live with that and say, “These are the basics that they need to know. What do they really need to know?” I mean, I like knowing all this other stuff, but they don’t really need to know that. What did they need to know to defend their faith well and be able to overall just understand this well? And so you have to just be able to discern that.
Brendan Corr
Yeah, that’s good. That’s really good. So let me pull our thoughts together. I mean, for me, it’s been an interesting journey. We started talking about your own story and the notion of how God intervened in your life as a person, a personal God with intentions and wills and a relationship with you, took action that steered you in different directions. Completely irrelevant to what was your genetic code, what was your programming? We’ve come around to that same view that says, “Yes, we are partly identified by the sequences of the base pairings.” But that is not the defining quality of who we are or where we are headed. There is more to us than our code. And that’s been a lovely circle around to say, “Well, here’s the factual part of it. There was the experiential part of it at the start.” But I wanted to give time to explore with you your particular notion of why Genesis and the story of Genesis might have some specific or particular relevance for women. Can you help us understand what views you are presenting there? Why is it something that’s important to you?
Georgia Purdom
So when I started with the ministry, I definitely never saw myself talking about this to women or specifically trying to train women in apologetics and teaching them about these things. But the more that I started to look at different women’s conferences and what was out there for women understanding their faith and understanding the scriptures, I realised we call it fluff and stuff. And so it’s very surface, very superficial, I believe. A lot of the material that’s produced for women, doesn’t really encourage them to get into the word and understand the word. It is a very superficial understanding of it. And that saddens me. I mean, I’d love to learn, and that includes God’s word, obviously. I don’t understand why women are being looked at or thought of differently. We don’t need to know these things. So I really got burdened by that, and I said, “We need to do something about this.” So I was the first female speaker that Answers in Genesis had hired. And so I was like, “Well, I have a unique opportunity then to be able to maybe go to women’s conferences and speak.” And then, “Well, 12 years ago, we actually started our own women’s conference at Answers in Genesis called Answers for Women. So we’re in our 11th year because of COVID, even though it was 12 years ago. But we sold out this last conference, and that’s almost 2,000 women. So it’s really neat to see the hunger that women have for really delving into God’s word because that is one thing that I really want to do is understand it. And in the society that we live in, that’s very gender and sexually confused, boy, Genesis speaks to that. I mean, Genesis is really vital for that. And understanding our roles that men and women are of equal value before God. We’re both made in God’s image. We’re both needed to project and help people understand that image. It’s not just man alone. It’s man and woman that we’re not the same. What I see a lot of is almost wanting that sameness like, “Well, women and men are identical.” They’re exactly the same. I’m like, “No, they’re not. I don’t want that.” God created diversity. It’s not good that man should be alone. It’s not that he was lonely, it’s just that it’s not good that he should be alone. He needed a helpmate comparable to him is what the scripture says. And so equal in value, but different in role, different in sexuality, different in gender, different in physical appearance. I mean, we have different aspects, I think of God’s image. I mean, we’re fully made in the image of God, but for example, women tend to be more nurturing. We read in scripture, God has a lot of nurturing aspects to him. And so women are able to fulfil that more than men. And that’s a good thing. Men can do other things that women can’t in leading and doing some of those things. Not that women can’t lead, but I mean they sometimes are more like the leader and the protector. And we see very much that in the scripture of God as well. So I think it’s really neat to see. I want women to really embrace that, embrace who God has made them, and not want to be the same as men, just to embrace their womanhood and how God has created them to be. All of that begins in Genesis. And so it’s important for them to understand that. I just want them to be grounded in their faith because they are a lot of times the ones teaching children. I mean, a lot of educators are women. A lot of women, they’re educating their children in the home. They’re doing it in churches. They’re responsible for training the next generation to a large extent. And so they need to know it well. They can’t give what they don’t have, so they need to know it well so they can pass it on well.
Brendan Corr
Yeah. That is so good, and I really appreciate you articulating those views so clearly. I think in our modern age of gender politics, you’re quite right that religion generally, Christianity specifically and targeted Genesis is dismissed as being anti-feminine and the source of the patriarchy. And having somebody so clearly be able to unpack, that’s not the case. That’s not the argument that Genesis makes, which is an interesting contrast, isn’t it? Because we just had some comments about the tendency to misunderstand science, to misunderstand that aspect of God’s revelation through his creation and misinterpret it. These comments, we have a tendency to misinterpret his revelation through his word and the absolute importance of being able to come up with a humble understanding of, let’s see what it says in each of those records of God’s work. This brings us to teaching. For people to really understand either science or the scripture, they need people that can teach them. Maybe we can finish just by you sharing a little bit about what Answers in Genesis does to try and teach the truths of scripture.
Georgia Purdom
There are so many ways that we do that. So one of the ways is we have an amazing website, answersingenesis.org that has a tonne of free resources on it, videos, articles, and books. I mean, just lots of amazing things there. We produce a lot of books and DVDs, curriculum, and homeschool curriculum. We’re currently working on a Christian school curriculum right now. Just really trying to reach into all of those aspects that people might need resources for teens, for children, for adults. We offer conferences every year. So we do that not just at our facilities, but also we go to places. So I’m coming to Australia in June to teach over there, and I’m super excited about that. So we go all over the world. I was just in Sweden last year. We get to have these amazing opportunities to do that. We also then have our two main attractions, the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter in Kentucky. And so those are great places where we can have people come on-site and be able to learn about God’s word and learn about the flood. We have a life-sized ark that we’ve built in Kentucky. And so that’s great for people to be able to really appreciate the size of what the ark really was. We also do a lot of educational programming, both at the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter. We have a K through 12 schools, Answers Academy now. Trying to put that, in a nutshell, is hard because we have a lot of ways. I just encourage people to get on our website and have a look around because there’s lots of things there that can really help you and assist you.
Brendan Corr
Give us the website one more time.
Georgia Purdom
Answersingenesis.org.
Brendan Corr
Dr Georgia Purdom, it’s been an absolute pleasure to talk with you this morning. This morning, my time, evening your time.
Georgia Purdom
It’s evening.
Brendan Corr
Thank you so much for all the work that you are doing. May God strengthen you and continue to give you all that you need to do his work in the way that he’s called you to. God bless you.
Georgia Purdom
Thank you.
