In this episode, we dive deep into the incredible story of Dr. Changu Tan, a former atheist and accomplished scientist, whose life took an unexpected turn. Dr. Tan recounts her early life in China, her academic pursuits, and her eventual move to the US. She candidly discusses her struggles with accepting religious beliefs and the pivotal moments at Harvard that changed her worldview. Packed with insights into how science and faith can intertwine, this episode offers a captivating narrative of personal transformation and intellectual exploration.
If you push God away, you do not have any choice but to accept the idea life came from no life, complicated life evolved from simple ones, all naturally. Because you exclude the supernatural, right?
SPEAKER 04 :
Welcome to Real Science Radio. We have a very special guest joining us today.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s right, Fred. It is great to be back with you. We have Dr. Changu Tan, received her PhD in biochemistry from the University of Pennsylvania, an MS in organic chemistry from Nankai University in Tianjin, China. And she also studied for postdoctoral fellow for the Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School. Tan served as an associate professor in the Division of Biological Studies at the University of Missouri before working as a founder and investigator for the Forest Life Research and Education Center. Dr. Tan’s interests include origin of life and biodiversity. The Relationship of Organisms, Molecular Biotechnology Method Development, Reproduction, and Signal Transduction, some of which she will have to explain to me, most of which she will have to explain to me. Dr. Tan has written nearly 30 referee journal articles, including several for the Answers Research Journal, and she is the co-author, along with Rob Stadler, of an eye-opening book called The Stairway to Life, An Origin of Life Reality Check, in which the authors, Fred, specify requirements for the spontaneous formation of life and evaluate the prospects for natural processes to satisfy these requirements.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, welcome to the show, Dr. Tan. And I got to know, did Doug get your name right?
SPEAKER 01 :
Chang’e in Chinese, but I tell people my name is changed. It’s easier, but most people don’t dare to say my name is changed because it’s too strange. But yeah, when you call me changed, I will respond. When you say Chang’e now, normally I won’t because I forget my real name.
SPEAKER 04 :
It sounded like you got pretty close. Well, Dr. Tan, Sal Cordova mentioned you on a past show, and I recall you have an interesting story and a journey from really the secular mainstream science, you know, the world of, as my co-host likes to say, Harvard. That was pathetic. I know, Doug. to working as a creationist scientist. So can you share, start off by sharing with our audience a little bit about your journey from the secular world of science?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, I was born and raised as an atheist. I became a Christian in late my life.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 01 :
If I can say that. So in 2004, actually, I became a Christian. And then in 2005, I went to University of Missouri as an assistant professor. One year later, I was asked to teach molecular biology, a course that I myself had never taken because I was actually trained as a chemist in China. I had actually a master degree in physical organic chemistry before I came to U.S. to pursue my PhD in biochemistry.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, so Dr. Tan, I have to stop you right there because so growing up as an American,
SPEAKER 01 :
No, no, no. Grow up as English Chinese.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, yes, yes. You grew up as Chinese. Right. So me growing up as an American.
SPEAKER 01 :
Oh, OK.
SPEAKER 03 :
Have no idea what it must be like. So what what are the criteria in China for a woman, a girl to qualify for the pursuit of a college degree, an advanced degree? How do you get on that course being a girl growing up in China?
SPEAKER 01 :
by God’s grace, if you look back. Yeah, actually, because of my family was from a little country from the south of China. I actually I was stopped from going to school pursuing my education at all after I I had five years of elementary school education. And then the political situation changed in China. So from like a person needs to be recommended to go to a university, not by merit, right, but by kind of your relationship with people. Um, so suddenly the situation was changed that, uh, the, then Xiao Ping, so Xiao Ping then, if you know that, you know, he, he changed the policy that, uh, student would go to the college by merit. So my county had a new policy say, we’re going to recruit 100 students throughout the county. by merit. At that time, I was farming. I was not even a teenager. I was a preteen and I was stopped from going to school. So all my teachers in my previous life came to my home asking my dad for me and my dad said you know can you have a cup of tea there’s a no tea how about some food and they said no food we don’t want anything from you but your daughter oh man So at the end, my dad agreed that he would allow me to go to participate in entrance exam. He said, well, if she was accepted, then she can go back to school. But if not, that’s the end of her education. So by God’s grace, you know, I was accepted as one of the hundred students in my whole county. And later on, four years later, I became the first university student in my village ever. And by God’s grace, I came to U.S. later.
SPEAKER 04 :
Do they know to pick you? Like, did they come to your house because they knew that you were special already in education and in your intelligence? Or is it just a random process?
SPEAKER 01 :
uh well my teacher knew i was a good student all right okay i got you so your teacher yeah okay yeah you you needed to take an exam to compete with people all around the country not only the countryside but you know the city city goes city boys so you needed to gather your best student i think to do that all right
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, so made your way to the United States.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, yeah, so just to clarify, so my conception of China is that the state kind of decides everything for everybody’s life. And it sounds like that sort of was the case before Deng Xiaoping changed the policy. What’s it like for kids in China today? Do you have any idea?
SPEAKER 01 :
You still, you know, a lot of things are based by merit. Unless you, of course, unless your family is in a special position, maybe you have a special treat. But most of the time people compete.
SPEAKER 03 :
So the communists did learn something from the free world, that if they introduced merit, they could improve their civilization. Interesting.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, I guess.
SPEAKER 03 :
And so how did you go from a chemist in China, how did you get to America?
SPEAKER 01 :
That’s connected by 1989. I think in 1989 something happened in Tiananmen Square.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, yeah. I remember. I do remember.
SPEAKER 01 :
With the gunshot. So then I decided I needed to… leave the country. But to do that, the only way for me is to go to a university for education, right? So I needed to have, I needed to take exam for TOEFL, so text for English as a second language. and GRE. But at that time, to take those exams, you needed to have permission from your employer You need to have a letter of recommendation to take the exam. And you can get that letter if you have worked for the government for five years after you graduated from college. Or you have relatives in foreign country outside of China. I had none. So I could not even able to take the exam. At the same time, a faculty member in the department where I had my master degree in organic chemistry, he contacted me because I did my research and with a master degree and my research ended up an article but my advisor had left to France. So this faculty member asked me, well, can you actually revise your own article to be published? I said, yes. So I revised my article and that actually was my first scientific publication. So later on, he asked me, well, are you willing to come back to pursue a PhD? Since I could not take the exam to go abroad, because I did not have any relative abroad, I just started working, so it’s like lasting a year. So I… I graduated from my master degree in 1988, and 1989 was the time the Tiananmen Square event happened. So he asked me whether I was willing to go back to pursue a PhD. I agreed because I could not go abroad. I said, okay, maybe I’ll just go to a PhD study inside China. So I went back to pursue a PhD in chemistry. In the meanwhile, I became pregnant with my older daughter, so I stopped in the middle, and then I took a TOEFL exam, a GIE exam, after my daughter was born. And I came to U.S. in 1994 for my Ph.D. study.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, so that got to the United States, pursuing a Ph.D.
SPEAKER 01 :
Right. The reason I changed from chemistry to biochemistry was I was just so intrigued by how human mind works. You know, how can we have a free thought basically, right? We can think about the things or make stories about things that we have never seen. in our life and so how could how could we do that how can we our brain do that all right if it’s only chemistry how could the reaction you know produce some free thoughts all right that’s um that’s my idea of maybe i could use could use my knowledge in chemistry and apply that into biology, that’s biochemistry, I can find some answer. So basically, my life is really driven by my curiosity.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, so that’s when you started having cracks into your atheistic worldview, right?
SPEAKER 01 :
No, not yet.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, not yet? Okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s right. Not quite yet. So we’re still around 1994. You’ve come to America. You’re working on your PhD in biochemistry now.
SPEAKER 01 :
Right.
SPEAKER 03 :
Wow. Fascinating story. And so is that where you began to become interested in origin of life or did that come later?
SPEAKER 01 :
Much later.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay. I remember Sal mentioned that there was a Nobel Prize winner that had recommended you for something. I’m just, you know, I’m relying on my memory on that show that we had with Sal Cordova.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, that’s years later. So I was, I think in 1997, I was invited to go to a Christian gathering, winter conference. where gospel would be presented, right? But of course, I was lured to there, not because I’m interested in Jesus, but I was told, well, you know, you get free food, free lodging, and also we’re giving you $30 of a scholarship for going. So I said, okay, yeah, because I have been studying so hard, so I need a break.
SPEAKER 04 :
You’re hungry.
SPEAKER 01 :
I was hungry and I died. And then I went, I went and one afternoon, so that’s several days gathering, one afternoon, a professor, actually no, not a professor, I think he’s a pastor. He said, I think you’re going to believe in Jesus. I said, you are crazy. So that night, a professor, actually a university professor, he was the speaker. And he talked about the sun, the moon, and the stars. And suddenly, it hit me that I had been using double standards. With science, I was always OK. Regardless of whether I understood it or not, I accepted it. Like, you know, electron clouds. Nobody has seen electron clouds. But I believed it. You know, basically quantum chemistry, right?
SPEAKER 02 :
Right.
SPEAKER 01 :
But with Jesus, you know, without thinking, immediately I say no, right? So one is always open, accepting, regardless of whether I understood it or not. With God or Jesus, it’s refusing without thinking, right? Maybe that was a God-given grace moment. That was my first turning point of becoming a Christian. So I decided, well, now I want to use the same standard about science and about religion.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hmm.
SPEAKER 01 :
So I am going to investigate about the Jesus thing, right?
SPEAKER 04 :
Good.
SPEAKER 01 :
So, yeah, I went back and started to read the Bible from the beginning, from Genesis 1. 1 and 1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. So that was my first turning point, and I started reading the Bible, as I said. And then I reached to the story of Abraham and saw Abraham lied two times, not only once, two times. I said, what? You know, at the same time, I started to go to church once a month because we had a special gathering once a month. in Philadelphia, the Chinese gathering, of course. So I learned that Abraham was the father of faith, but he lied two times. Well, he did not kill me. And I kept on reading until I reached 2 Samuel about David and Bathsheba.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, yeah. I was going to say, you’re reading stories where it’s lending truth to it because it’s talking about, like you said, Abraham lied twice. The Bible documents all the flaws of the kings like David and Bathsheba. And somebody who’s writing a book and they’re trying to fake it, they’re not going to write about all the bad things. Is that kind of part of what led you to… And I did want to get back to, you started with Genesis. So when you first started with it, because you have this atheistic worldview, were you at first like, oh, no, this didn’t happen in seven days. I mean, the earth is millions of years old. Did you have, do you remember your thoughts at all back then?
SPEAKER 01 :
No, I didn’t. Yeah, I did not stop there to think. That was too far away from me yet. So I read on. I met Abraham and I met David. So yeah, I saw David lying, committing adultery and killing, but he was also known as a person after God’s own heart. right i was like well this is enough if you know if god is as what the bible describes right i do not want to have anything any connection with this God.
SPEAKER 03 :
Because that’s really difficult, right?
SPEAKER 01 :
He is supposed to be all-knowing, right? So he should have known about Abraham and his lies and about David, right? So how could a God who is all-knowing choose somebody as bad as Abraham or even worse as David, right? Yeah, yeah. He should have chosen something body better. David not only killed Goliath, but also my pursuit of Jesus. So that’s the end of my pursuing. I stopped reading the Bible. I stopped going to church. So only by God’s grace, eight years later, when I was in Harvard, a crisis occurred in my life. I did not know what to do, so I decided to fast, even though I did not believe in Jesus or any God.
SPEAKER 04 :
So this is while you were going to Harvard?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 04 :
Of all places, okay.
SPEAKER 01 :
Right, so I decided to fast, which is a real big decision for me. Because going in south of China, I actually, I needed to have a… rice, dry ice, three times a day, three meals, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. If I don’t, you know, then I become hungry very fast and I would have a very severe headache. So that day I decided to fast prepare to be hungry and to have a very severe headache. But I decided to fast and I went to work without breakfast. I just decided to skip breakfast, not even lunch or dinner, just a warm meal. That’s a lot for me already. I went to work. I worked all morning. And suddenly I noticed my watch was pointing to 1 p.m. Wow. 1 p.m.? ? That’s weird because I should be hungry and I should have a very severe headache, right? So what is going on? You know, my son seems to cannot give me any answer. The only reasonable answer I can have is where God is real. and he’s living because otherwise whatever I’m doing would have nothing to do with him, right? I should be hungry, I should have a very severe headache. So facing the kind of reality about all the fact as a scientist, right? Facing the fact, the evidence of God being real and living, the only logical thing I can do is accept it. I have no other choices. So I, yeah, I became a Christian at the end of 2004. Okay.
SPEAKER 04 :
Was this around the same, did you have like an aha moment too with the You know, Darwinian evolution, or did that come later? Later.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay. You want that conclusion, right?
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, I’ll give that to you. But before you go there, Dr. Tan, I want to make clear, there was a crisis in your life. Right? There was a crisis in your life on that day that you fasted, and that crisis in your life brought back to memory this idea about God and double standards, and at some point you accepted the reality that God exists. Am I hearing that right?
SPEAKER 01 :
The crisis brought me to pray to… Pray to God. I don’t believe in him. Right.
SPEAKER 03 :
Absolutely.
SPEAKER 01 :
Praise the Lord. Because that’s the last straw, right? Whatever. So, yeah, I did not know Christ. I did not believe in Jesus. I did not believe in God. But I was like, okay, maybe I can try and see whether I can solve my crisis because I don’t know what to do with it.
SPEAKER 02 :
Wow.
SPEAKER 01 :
So yeah, so I became a Christian in 2004. And then in 2005, I accepted the position at the University of Missouri. Started officially September 1st. We had one year free time to set up our labs. So then in 2006, so one year later, I was asked to teach molecular biology. Okay. By the Nobel Prize winner.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, I was wondering if that was where he comes into the picture.
SPEAKER 01 :
So he asked me whether I was willing to teach molecular biology. Okay. And I said yes. So his ask and my yes forever changed my life without his knowing nor my knowing. Because as I said, I was trained as a chemist, so I had never taken molecular biology myself. I had to self-teach to teach my students. While I was preparing for my lecture for molecular biology, I noticed that the genes involved in DNA replication, transcription, and translation for bacteria and eukaryotes are mostly unrelated. So those bacterial use will be bacterial specific. You do not find anything similar in eukaryotes. Vice versa.
SPEAKER 04 :
So there’s a big gap between prokaryote and eukaryote? Is that what we’re getting at? Yes, it is a big gap.
SPEAKER 01 :
One of those aha moments? Yeah, if you could allow me to show the slide about… DNA replication initiation in bacteria and eukaryote. So this is just bacteria like E. coli and eukaryote like yeast and us, right? DNA replication initiation. On the left is the DNA replication initiation in bacteria like E. coli, and on the right is the DNA replication
SPEAKER 03 :
Greetings out there, brightest audience. This is Doug McBurney jumping into our own show. We’ve run out of time on KLTT. To hear the rest of this broadcast, be sure to check in at the podcast at rsr.org.
