Intelligent Design

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January 15, 2009

Origin of Life Breakthrough?

Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Science
[7] Comments 

LiveScience reported on a new “breakthrough” in origin-of-life (OOL) research.  Robert Roy Britt began the article by describing the current state of OOL research: “One of life’s greatest mysteries is how it began.  Scientists have pinned it down to roughly this: Some chemical reactions occurred about 4 billion years ago – perhaps in a primordial tidal soup or maybe with help of volcanoes or possibly at the bottom of the sea or between the mica sheets – to create biology.” 

I like how Britt “pinned it down” to chemical reactions in a soup, or maybe volcanoes, or maybe the sea, or maybe between mica sheets.  The specificity is overwhelming.  Can you imagine if homicide detectives worked like this?: “Captain, we haven’t caught the killer yet, but we’ve pinned it down to a human being, living on some continent, on this planet.”  Good work guys.  I’m glad you narrowed it down for us.  Now I can check outer-space off my list as a possible location for the origin of life.  Oh wait, some scientists think life did originate in outer-space!  Maybe the killer isn’t living on this planet after all.  Someone better alert the detectives to broaden their search.  End of sarcasm.

So what was the big breakthrough?: a self-replicating RNA molecule.  Some background information will be helpful.  One theory of how life originated from inorganic material by purely chance, natural processes is the RNA-world hypothesis.  According to this hypothesis, RNA strands formed from nucleotides, which later gave rise to DNA, proteins, and the basic cell.  Among its many problems, however, is the fact that no RNA strand has ever self-replicated in the lab.  But Gerald Joyce and his team at the Scripps Research Institute was able to get RNA to do just that.  This isn’t much of a breakthrough, however, at least not as it concerns OOL research. 

Joyce was able to get RNA to replicate only by engineering the RNA molecules to copy “word-by-word” rather than letter-by-letter (nucleotide by nucleotide).  But that is not how RNA replicates in natural conditions, so why think this experiment tells us anything about how RNA might have been able to self-replicate on the early Earth, and how life got started?  If anything, it seems to demonstrate that for RNA to replicate apart from the cell requires an intelligent agent to manipulate it into behaving in ways it does not behave in nature.  And if that’s what we’re doing, then the results of the experiment don’t tell us anything about the chance, physical process by which life emerged. 

Then there is the matter of the nucleotide strings Joyce and his team put in the beaker with the RNA.  These raw materials are necessary for RNA replication, but why think they would have been available in the early Earth, and/or available in the quantities and locations needed?  If an ancient RNA molecule needed thousands of nucleotides at location X for replication to occur, but only 50 were present at location Y, there would be no replication.  As Stuart Kauffman wrote:

The rate of chemical reactions depends on how rapidly the reacting molecular species encounter one another-and that depends on how high their concentrations are. If the concentration of each is low, the chance that they will collide is very much lower. In a dilute prebiotic soup, reactions would be very slow indeed. A wonderful cartoon I recently saw captures this. It was entitled ‘The Origin of Life.’ Dateline 3.874 billion years ago. Two amino acids drift close together at the base of a bleak rocky cliff; three seconds later, the two amino acids drift apart. About 4.12 million years later, two amino acids drift close to each other at the base of a primeval cliff…. Well Rome wasn’t built in a day.[1]

Is it any surprise that if you provide the right kind of “RNA food” in the right quantities, in the right location, and re-program the RNA so that it is able to join itself to those nucleotides, that it does so?  No.  Because it is not surprising that when an intelligent agent involves itself in the process, what is naturally impossible becomes possible.  Take away that intelligent agent, however, and you are left with the impossible.  Joyce’s work was not a breakthrough for OOL research, but a reaffirmation of what we already know: intelligent agents can do things nature cannot do on its own.

[1]Stuart Kauffman, At Home in the Universe: The Search for Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity, [1995] (Penguin: London, 1996, reprint), 34-35.

 

January 9, 2009

Do We Create the Universe?

Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Intelligent Design, Thinking
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Last month Amanda Gefter opined in New Scientist that when it comes to explaining the fine-tuning of the universe “It Isn’t as Simple as God vs the Multiverse.”  She was referring to recent comments made by Steven Weinberg and Tim Folger to the effect that cosmic fine-tuning can only be explained by a supernatural cosmic designer or a multiverse.  While Gefter thinks the multiverse hypothesis is a good one, she takes exception with this dichotomy as being unscientific:

There are plenty of reasons to take the multiverse seriously. Three key theories – quantum mechanics, cosmic inflation and string theory – all converge on the idea. But the reason physicists talk about the multiverse as an alternative to God is because it helps explain why the universe is so bio-friendly. From the strength of gravity to the mass of a proton, it’s as if the universe were designed just for us. If, however, there are an infinite number of universes – with physical constants that vary from one to the next – our cosy neighbourhood isn’t only possible, it’s inevitable.  But to suggest that if this theory doesn’t pan out our only other option is a supernatural one is to abandon science itself.

How so?  According to Gefter it is because “science never boils down to a choice between two alternative explanations.  It is always plausible that both are wrong and a third or fourth or fifth will turn out to be correct.”  While I would object to an absolutist interpretation of “never,” in general I would agree that in principle, at least, there could be explanations of the cosmic fine-tuning other than a supernatural creator or the multiverse.

But what might they be?  After all, the reason folks like Weinberg and Folger have reduced the debate to a dichotomy between a supernatural creator and the multiverse is because to-date, no other explanations fit the data.  Gefter postulates that maybe we “endow the universe with certain features by the mere act of observation. … [O]bservers are creating the universe and its entire history right now.  If we in some sense create the universe, it is not surprising that the universe is well suited to us.”  What is surprising, however, is the fact that Gefter entertains this wild and incoherent speculation as a rational, scientific possibility (in her own words, “That’s speculative, but at least it’s science.”).

To say we create the universe through our observation is to say we cause the universe (including its past and present forms) to exist, and to exist in a certain way.  But this is absurd for several reasons:

  1. It would require backward-causation, in which present causes (our observations) produce historical effects.  What philosophical or scientific reason is there to believe this is plausible, yet alone possible?
  2. If our act of observation is the sufficient cause of the universe’s existence, then prior to our observation (the cause) there was no universe (effect).  If there was no universe, what were we observing?  Nothing.  If there was nothing to observe, there was no effect to affect.
  3. Where did observers come from?  If, for observers to exist, the universe must be finely-tuned to produce them, then the universe must precede its observers both causally, logically, and temporally.  If a finely-tuned universe must precede its observers, then it is the cause of us-we are not the cause of it.
  4. If observers cause the universe to exist, and the universe in turn causes observers to exist, then we must exist prior to existing, which is incoherent.
  5. If observers endow the universe with certain features by the act of observation, and observers observe different (and sometimes conflicting) things, why isn’t the universe endowed with different laws, and a different history simultaneously?  Why doesn’t the universe have an eternal past when observed by a proponent of the Steady-State model, and a finite past when observed by a proponent of the Big Bang model?  If the universe is a real existent, it cannot be both eternal and past-finite simultaneously.  One of the observers must be mistaken.  If that observer cannot alter reality by his observation, then it follows that our observing the universe has no causal relationship to the universe.

Far from demonstrating the inadequacy of the creator-multiverse dichotomy, Gefter confirms it.  If the dichotomy can only be avoided by postulating something so absurd as the notion that we create the universe by observing it, surely it is more rational to stick with the dichotomy.

HT: Colliding Universes

 

December 2, 2008

The Multiverse, God, and Reason

Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Intelligent Design, Naturalism, Science, Theistic Arguments
[5] Comments 

The universe is incredibly finely-tuned, not only for its own existence, but for the existence of complex, intelligent life.  This fact does not set well with naturalists and atheists.  It is enormously difficult to explain the unfathomable specificity and precision of the cosmos on the basis of chance alone.  Indeed, the value of some physical constants were initial conditions present at the universe’s origin, and thus cannot possibly be explained by random chance processes.  So how do non-theists explain how our universe got so lucky?

While there are a few different approaches floating out there, the one garnering the most attention and support recently is the multiverse hypothesis (a.k.a the Landscape).  Multiverse theory proposes the existence of a near-infinite number of universes.  Given the multitude of universes–it is reasoned–there is bound to be at least one that is life-permitting.  As David Berlinski writes, “[B]y multiplying universes, the Landscape dissolves improbabilities.  To the question What are the odds? the Landscape provides the invigorating answer that it hardly matters.”[1]

Scientist who subscribe to the multiverse view it as the only viable naturalistic alternative to a divine creator.  As Tim Folger wrote:

Physicists don’t like coincidences. They like even less the notion that life is somehow central to the universe, and yet recent discoveries are forcing them to confront that very idea. Life, it seems, is not an incidental component of the universe, burped up out of a random chemical brew on a lonely planet to endure for a few fleeting ticks of the cosmic clock. In some strange sense, it appears that we are not adapted to the universe; the universe is adapted to us.

Call it a fluke, a mystery, a miracle. Or call it the biggest problem in physics. Short of invoking a benevolent creator, many physicists see only one possible explanation: Our universe may be but one of perhaps infinitely many universes in an inconceivably vast multi­verse. Most of those universes are barren, but some, like ours, have conditions suitable for life.

The idea is controversial. Critics say it doesn’t even qualify as a scientific theory because the existence of other universes cannot be proved or disproved. Advocates argue that, like it or not, the multiverse may well be the only viable non­religious explanation for what is often called the “fine-tuning problem”-the baffling observation that the laws of the universe seem custom-tailored to favor the emergence of life.[2]

What I find particularly interesting is how fine-tuning is viewed as a problem in the first place.  No theist would view it as a problem.  It is only problematic to atheists and naturalists because it implies a designing intelligence, and such a being is anathema to them.  In order to avoid the obvious conclusion that an intelligent being was responsible for fine-tuning the universe for existence and life, they propose a naturalistic theory that is, admittedly, not even scientific (because it is neither provable nor falsifiable).  Proponents of the multiverse are honest about this fact.  Consider Andre Linde.  When asked if physicists will ever be able to prove the multiverse hypothesis, he responded:

“Nothing else fits the data.  We don’t have any alternative explanation for the dark energy; we don’t have any alternative explanation for the smallness of the mass of the electron; we don’t have any alternative explanation for many properties of particles.  What I am saying is, look at it with open eyes. These are experimental facts, and these facts fit one theory: the multiverse theory. They do not fit any other theory so far. I’m not saying these properties necessarily imply the multiverse theory is right, but you asked me if there is any experimental evidence, and the answer is yes. It was Arthur Conan Doyle who said, ‘When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’?”

In other words, it doesn’t need to be proven by evidence.  It doesn’t even need to be probable.  It only needs to be the last man standing.  I’ll agree with Linde that no other naturalistic hypothesis has more explanatory power than the multiverse (even though it has no empirical support), but when the list of live options is expanded beyond naturalistic hypotheses, there is a better explanation of the data: theism.  But Linde excludes theism a priori from the list of live options.  Why do that?  Theism has more explanatory plausibility and rational evidence in its favor than the multiverse, and thus should be preferred.

The reason those like Linde take the multiverse hypothesis seriously, is not because they are following the evidence where it leads, but because the evidence points to a designer of the universe, and they wish to avoid such a being at all costs, even if it means believing in an improbable, improvable theory.  As Bernard Carr, a cosmologist at Queen Mary University of London said, “If there is only one universe you might have to have a fine-tuner. If you don’t want God, you’d better have a multiverse.”  Apparently “it is better to have many worlds than one God.”[3] If ridding themselves of one supposed fairy tale (theism) requires belief in another, so be it.

The father of multiverse theory, Leonard Susskind, is very clear about the anti-theistic motivations of theories such as the multiverse.  When asked if we are stuck with an intelligent designer if his Landscape theory doesn’t pan out, he responded:

I doubt that physicists will see it that way. If, for some unforeseen reason, the landscape turns out to be inconsistent – maybe for mathematical reasons, or because it disagrees with observation – I am pretty sure that physicists will go on searching for natural explanations of the world. But I have to say that if that happens, as things stand now we will be in a very awkward position. Without any explanation of nature’s fine-tunings we will be hard pressed to answer the ID critics. One might argue that the hope that a mathematically unique solution will emerge is as faith-based as ID.[4]

His point could not be clearer.  The desire of naturalists is to find a plausible naturalistic explanation on par with the design hypothesis is their driving motivation.  Any theory will do, even if, according to Susskind, it is as faith-based as Intelligent Design.  It appears that blind faith is acceptable in science, so long as its object is not God.  They’ll blindly believe in the existence of universes they cannot see, but not in the existence of a God who has made Himself known in the very cosmos they study.

[1]David Berlinski, The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions(New York: Crown Forum, 2008), 124.[2]Tim Folger, “Science’s Alternative to an Intelligent Creator: the Multiverse Theory” in Discover magazine; available from http://discovermagazine.com/2008/dec/10-sciences-alternative-to-an-intelligent-creator; Internet; accessed 11 November 2008.
[3]David Berlinski, The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions (New York: Crown Forum, 2008), 135.[4]Leonard Susskind, in an interview with Amanda Gefter of New Scientist, “Is String Theory in Trouble?”, December 17 2005 edition, p. 48; available from http://www.newscientist.com/channel/fundamentals/mg18825305.800.html; Internet; accessed 5 January 2006.

 

May 5, 2008

Alien Designer, Yes. Divine Designer, No.

Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Dawkins, Evolution, Intelligent Design
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Modern science is guided by the philosophy or methodology of naturalism. This means they either believe that, or go about their discipline acting as if God does not exist, or at least is not involved with the cosmos. As a result, most scientists deny that a designing intelligence is the cause of life on Earth. And yet the more scientists seek to find a naturalistic explanation for the origin of life on Earth, the more impossible it seems. Some have gone so far as to suggest that life must have been seeded on Earth by an alien civilization. This, of course, allows for the presence of a designing intelligence. To my amazement, Richard Dawkins holds this out as a scientific possibility. In the documentary, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, Ben Stein asked Richard Dawkins how life began. After admitting that scientists do not know, Dawkins held out the possibility that life on Earth was seeded by aliens, and considered this a scientific hypothesis. The exchange was as follows:

BEN STEIN: What do you think is the possibility that Intelligent Design might turn out to be the answer to some issues in genetics or in evolution.
DAWKINS: Well, it could come about in the following way. It could be that at some earlier time, somewhere in the universe, a civilization evolved, probably by some kind of Darwinian means, probably to a very high level of technology, and designed a form of life that they seeded onto perhaps this planet. Now, um, now that is a possibility, and an intriguing possibility. And I suppose it’s possible that you might find evidence for that if you look at the details of biochemistry, molecular biology, you might find a signature of some sort of designer.

Four things are of interest, here. First, when scientists have to resort to aliens to explain how life on Earth could have originated, you know they have no clue at all about the origin of life!

Secondly, Dawkins admits that design is empirically detectable. If that is true, then contrary to the anti-ID talking points, Intelligent Design is a genuine scientific theory.

Thirdly, this hypothesis—even if true—would not explain the origin of life in general, but only the origin of life on Earth. Alien life would go unexplained.

Fourthly, he is willing to countenance the possibility that a designing intelligence is responsible for life on Earth, so long as that designer is not a divine being. This reveals the fact that he not truly opposed to the existence of genuine design in biology, but simply prejudiced against the existence of a divine designer.

This says a lot.

 

April 25, 2008

What I’ve Been Reading: Five Views on Apologetis | Who Was Adam?

Posted by Jason Dulle under Book Reviews, Intelligent Design, Science, Theology
[8] Comments 

Who Was Adam? by Fazale Rana and Hugh Ross

Rana and Ross build a Biblical model of human origins, and then subject it to scientific testing. Point by point they show how a Biblical model of human origins fits the data much better than an evolutionary model. Anyone who doubts that creationist models can be tested scientifically or that human evolution is a shut case should read this book.

There is a good survey of major fossil finds, and how anthropaleontologists have gone about interpreting them. It’s interesting to discover how the experts are far from decided on the proper interpretation. There is not one evolutionary tree of human origins, but multiple trees. And the more data we gather, the more the trees appear to rot.

A lot of time is spent on research into the age and relationship of humans and other hominids. Good stuff.

Five Views On Apologetics edited by Steven Cowan

If you aren’t into (and I mean really into) apologetics, you probably won’t enjoy this book. But if you are, it’s a must read. It is one of Zondervan’s Point-Counterpoint books. Five apologists are featured, each making a case that his apologetic philosophy and methodology is the preferred strategy. There is a good discussion on the role of apologetics in evangelism, what we should expect our apologetic to do, whether faith is warranted without evidence, and the like.

 

October 9, 2007

Council of Europe Condemns Creationism and Intelligent Design as Dangerous

Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Evolution, Intelligent Design
[4] Comments 

The Council of Europe has now condemned Creationism and Intelligent Design as dangerous to democracy and a threat to human rights! Unbelievable. The statements they make about the role of evolution in society are very “religious” in nature. It seems the document is a witch-hunt against those who dare to question Darwinism, and a statement of faith in naturalistic evolution.

 

June 26, 2007

The Silencing of Conservative Viewpoints in Europe

Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Politics
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Check out this article in The Brussels Journal about how Europe is silencing conservative viewpoints. Last week a German pastor was sentenced to one year in jail for pro-life statements. His crime? He compared abortion to the Holocaust. He’s not the only pro-lifer to be convicted for being public about his views either. Even calling abortion unjust can land you in jail in Germany.

The Council of Europe (human rights organization) is set to vote on whether to allow Creationism and Intelligent Design. Some are arguing these viewpoints should not be tolerated because they are connected with religious extremism, and detrimental to democracy and human rights.

Read the article for details, as well as other views Europeon countries are trying to silence.

Update: The Council of Europe vote regarding Creationism and Intelligent Design has been called off. I also discovered that even if it had been voted on, and passed, it would not be binding on the 47 member states.

Update: LifeSite, who issued the news about the pro-lifer jailed in Germany, has retracted the story. Apparently their source was bad. The man was jailed for denying the Holocaust, not for comparing abortion to the Holocaust. Although he has been jailed in the past for pro-life activities.

 

May 18, 2007

Dawkins Stumped by an Honest Question

Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Dawkins, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Science
[11] Comments 

A younger Dawkins is stumped, then ducks the question of where we find new genetic information being produced in the biological world. The video is rather funny. Dawkins replies to the video here. You be the judge of whether his explanation is just a further dodge or not. If you’ll notice…he still doesn’t answer the question!

 

October 17, 2006

Evolution and Theism are Incompatible

Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Naturalism, Theism
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I have written on this subject before, so I won’t repeat myself here. I do, however, want to share with you another quote I stumbled on, reinforcing why it is that evolution and theism are logically incompatible. In “Darwin Would Put God Out of Business,” David Klinghoffer wrote:

 

When it comes to Darwinian evolution and the challenge it presents to belief in God, a lot of thoughtful men and women seem intent on not facing up to a tough but necessary choice, between Darwin and God.

…

The key point is whether, across hundreds of millions of years, the development of life was guided or not. On one side of this chasm between worldviews are Darwinists, whose belief system asserts that life, through a material mechanism, in effect designed itself. On the other side are theories like intelligent design (ID) which argue that no such purely material mechanism could write the software in the cell, called DNA.

…

To put it starkly, Darwinism would put God out of business. God’s authority to command our behavior is based on His having created us. … If the process that produced existence and then life was not guided, then God is not our creator.<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[1]

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It won’t help to say God indirectly created us since He was the one who created the laws of nature responsible for bringing us, and everything else into existence. The eminent evolutionist, William Provine, explains why:

Of course, it is still possible to believe in both modern evolutionary biology and a purposive force, even the Judeo-Christian God. One can suppose that God started the whole universe or works through the laws of nature (or both). There is no contradiction between this or similar views of God and natural selection. But this view of God is also worthless. Called Deism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and considered equivalent to atheism then, it is no different now. A God or purposive force that merely starts the universe or works through the laws of nature has nothing to do with human morals, answers no prayers, gives no life everlasting, in fact does nothing whatsoever that is detectable. In other words, religion is compatible with modern evolutionary biology (and indeed all of modern science) if the religion is effectively indistinguishable from atheism.<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[2]

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Well said!

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[1]David Klinghoffer, “Darwin Would Put God Outof Business”; available fromhttp://www.beliefnet.com/story/198/story_19844_1.html;Internet; accessed 18 September 2006.

[2]William Provine, review of Trial and Error: The American Controversy over Creation and Evolution, by Edward J. Larson (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985, 224 pp.), in Academe, January 1987, pp.51-52.

 

October 17, 2006

God Allows the Universe to Create Itself?

Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Naturalism, Science
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Mark Hollabaugh, an astronomer and Lutheran, wrote an article for The Lutheran entitled “God allows the universe to create itself—and evolve”. Hollabaugh had this to say about evolution, Intelligent Design, and the relationship of science and religion on this matter:

 

As an astronomer, everywhere I look in the universe—from the largest galaxy to the smallest organism—I see evolution. As a Lutheran Christian, I also confess that God created me and all that exists. For me, there is no conflict.

…

Moreover, ID is poor theology. ELCA member and Minneapolis Star Tribune commentary editor Eric Ringham wrote: “[Intelligent design] attempts to define, and limit, the mind and power of God.” Why couldn’t God just let the universe evolve?<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[1]

<!–[endif]–>

I was not able to read the entire article (because it required a paid subscription, and I’m too cheap to pay for that) to see if Hollabaugh explains himself further, but given the title of his article, how can he confess that God created him and everything that exists? Either the universe created itself, or God created it. It can’t be both. The only way I can see how Hollabaugh confesses both is if he understands religious belief as subjective sentiment rather than objective truths about the world.

ID is poor theology? For one, ID is not theology; it is science. Furthermore, even if the Designer of Intelligent Design happens to be a supernatural divine being, how would what ID says about this being be bad theology? Considering the fact that ID doesn’t say anything about the Designer other than that He designed, it’s difficult to figure out what Ringham is complaining about. Before you can say someone’s theology is bad, they first have to have a theology! Simply saying someone/something designed our universe is not much of a theology.

According to Ringham ID is bad theology because it “attempts to define, and limit, the mind and power of God.” ID does not speculate about the nature of the designer, so how can it be said to be defining and limiting him? But what if they did speculate about the nature of the designer? Would Ringham’s charge make sense then? No, because the very things he defines as bad theology are the very things that every theology does. Anybody who believes in a divine being(s) attempts to define him in some way. Even saying “God is indefinable” is to define the type of being he is: an indefinable being. All theology attempts to define God, making Ringham’s charge meaningless and foolish.

What about the limiting of God? Every thing that exists, exists as something in particular. There are particular things true of that thing, and particular things not true of that thing. To exist as something concrete is to be limited.

Limit the mind and power of God? I don’t even know what Ringham is thinking on this one? My mind is not imaginative enough to figure out how ID could be limiting God’s power and mind by claiming he designed. If anything, they marvel at the magnificence of the design, which indirectly magnifies the magnificence of the Designer’s mind.

Using Hollabaugh’s own criteria for bad theology, what should we make of Hollabaugh’s theology? Does He not attempt to define God when He says (implicitly) that God is not the kind of being who would create our world? Does He not attempt to limit God’s power when He claims that something could happen apart from God’s power? Then his theology is poor as well.

What this really boils down to is a bunch of rhetoric, not clear thinking. It’s easy to throw out clichés and straw man attacks. It’s much harder to substantiate it with proof and solid reasoning.

 

[1]Mark Hollabaugh, “God Allows the Universe to Create Itself—and Evolve”; October 2006 issue of The Lutheran, available from http://www.thelutheran.org/article/article_buy.cfm?article_id=6093; Internet; accessed 09 October 2007.

 

October 16, 2006

Yes sir, belief in materialism does require an imagination!

Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Atheism, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Science
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Darwinist, Robert Eberle, shows his faith in materialism and his willingness to mischaracterize ID in a recent review of Francis Collins’s book, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief. Eberle wrote:


 

Although elsewhere in the book he is highly critical of the “god of the gaps” argument employed by Intelligent Design creationists, who chase down the gaps in scientific knowledge to proclaim that this is where God intervenes, Collins’ deduction that evolution cannot account for the Moral Law is just another gap. He reviews some of the modern evolutionary explanations for the evolution of the moral sentiments, but he dismisses them as inadequate, and then draws his conclusion. This is the fallacy of personal incredulity — “I can’t think of how X can be explained naturally, ergo X must have a supernatural explanation.”[1]

 


These sort of comments about ID are aggravating. All creationists are IDers (in the basic sense of the word), but not all IDers are creationists. The two views are different in principle. Calling ID a creationist movement is a rhetorical device intended to dismiss ID out of hand (since the courts ruled the teaching of creationism in school unconstitutional, and since scientific data seems to disconfirm creationism proper).

 


Furthermore, ID is not supported by “god of the gaps” (GOG) reasoning (where God is invoked to explain that which we are ignorant of). A genuine GOG argument is an appeal to God when we lack understanding, not when we possess it. In the case of ID, it does not invoke an Intelligent Designer to explain what we do not understand, but rather to explain what we do. Design is being inferred from positive knowledge, not ignorance. It is illegitimate to label a position a GOG argument as Eberle has done, when an Intelligent Designer is appealed to as the best explanation of the evidence.


 

Looking at Eberle’s last two sentences, it seems as if he recognizes this. Collins examined all the naturalistic explanations, and found them explanatorily inferior to the Intelligent Designer hypothesis. The existence of an Intelligent Designer better accounted for the data, and thus Collins concluded an Intelligent Designer does exist. Eberle called this a lack of imagination. Why should Collins have to imagine anything? I thought science was about an empirical investigation of the world, not speculation! Why should Collins have to imagine possible future evidence that would unseat ID? Why can’t he just accept that as a valid and true conclusion? Why is that conclusion off-limits? Because science has been hijacked by materialism, and demands that our explanation of the cosmos be limited to purely natural causes.

This restraint is not only unfair and unprincipled, but silly. We should draw our conclusions on the evidence available to us now, not some imagined evidence that could theoretically surface in the future. If no naturalistic proposal works, and the theistic explanation makes the best sense, how can Collins be faulted for opting for it? Could a naturalistic explanation be found that is superior to the theistic one? In principle, yes. But until that day he is justified adopting the best explanation given the current evidence. The author would rather have Collins exercise faith in materialism than follow the evidence where it leads.

 

The real problem is not Collins’s lack of imagination, but Eberle’s overactive imagination. He is so committed to a particular philosophy that when science does not confirm it, he dogmatically maintains his faith, hoping his philosophy might be vindicated in the future. It just goes to show that belief in materialism requires an imagination, not evidence.

[1]Robert K. Eberle, “The Language of God: If God Could Talk What Would he Say?” Review of Francis Collins’ book, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief; available from http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/06-10-03.html; Internet; accessed 03 October 2006.

 

October 16, 2006

DNA Only Seems Designed

Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Science
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ScienceDaily reported on work being done by Martin Egli, Ph.D. of the Vanderbilt University Medical Center on the origins of DNA. The article begins:

 

DNA’s simple and elegant structure—the “twisted ladder,” with sugar-phosphate chains making up the ‘rails’ and oxygen—and nitrogen—containing chemical “rungs” tenuously uniting the two halves—seems to be the work of an accomplished sculptor. Yet the graceful, sinuous profile of the DNA double helix is the result of random chemical reactions in a simmering, primordial stew.

Just how nature arrived at this molecule and its sister molecule, RNA, remains one of the greatest—and potentially unsolvable—scientific mysteries. But Vanderbilt biochemist Martin Egli, Ph.D., isn’t content to simply study these molecules as they are. He wants to know why they are the way they are. “These molecules are the result of evolution,” said Egli, professor of Biochemistry. “Somehow they have been shaped and optimized for a particular purpose.”<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[1]<!–[endif]–>

 

Isn’t it strange that something so elegant and complex doesn’t need a designer? Outside of the realm of biology (which has theistic implications), would the author make such ridiculous assertions? Would he speak of the elegant structure of the space shuttle, but then go on to claim it is the result of random chance processes occurring in a primordial junk yard? Or would he say that the simple and elegant structure of the pyramids—which appear to be the work of historical designers—are just the result of random chance processes in the desert? Of course not! I find it amazing how scientists can grasp the amazing complexity, specification, and elegance of the universe and its living inhabitants, and yet deny that such required a designer.

 

What I find really amazing is the quote from Dr. Vanderbilt. He claims the DNA molecule is the result of evolution, and yet also maintains that it was “shaped and optimized for a particular purpose.” What! That is a Darwinian no-no. He is sneaking teleology into evolution. The two are incompatible. Theism, not evolution, allows for teleology. If there is no intelligent designer designing the universe, and all that is came about by random chance processes, then whatever is just is. Evolution does not foresee what it is creating. It does not select one mutation over another for some ultimate goal in the unforeseen future. Natural selection selects whatever is beneficial for immediate survival; nothing else. Evolution has no foresight, and no purpose.

 

Even evolutionists cannot escape the recognition that the universe contains purpose. Sometimes they even slip and admit it publicly. Unfortunately they fail to recognize that purpose implies design, and design implies a designer.

<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>

<!–[endif]–>[1]<!–[endif]–>Science Daily, “Uncovering DNA’s ‘Sweet’ Secret”; available from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/10/061003143520.htm; Internet; accessed 4 October 2006.
 

October 9, 2006

Richard Dawkins admits a supernatural creator would be detectable through science

Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Dawkins, Intelligent Design, Science
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Oxford’s Richard Dawkins, the world’s most famous evolutionist and atheist, continues to vilify religion in his new book, The God Delusion. In an essay explaining and promoting the book on his website Dawkins offered a lot of food for a lack of thought. Concerning the kalaam cosmological argument Dawkins writes:

 

Accepting, then, that the God Hypothesis is a proper scientific hypothesis whose truth or falsehood is hidden from us only by lack of evidence, what should be our best estimate of the probability that God exists, given the evidence now available? Pretty low I think, and I spend a couple of chapters of The God Delusion explaining why.

Most of the traditional arguments for God’s existence, from Aquinas on, are easily demolished. Several of them, such as the First Cause argument, work by setting up an infinite regress which God is wheeled out to terminate. But we are never told why God is magically able to terminate regresses while needing no explanation himself. To be sure, we do need some kind of explanation for the origin of all things. Physicists and cosmologists are hard at work on the problem. But whatever the answer – a random quantum fluctuation or a Hawking/Penrose singularity or whatever we end up calling it – it will be simple. Complex, statistically improbable things, by definition, don’t just happen; they demand an explanation in their own right. They are impotent to terminate regresses, in a way that simple things are not. The first cause cannot have been an intelligence – let alone an intelligence that answers prayers and enjoys being worshipped. Intelligent, creative, complex, statistically improbable things come late into the universe, as the product of evolution or some other process of gradual escalation from simple beginnings. They come late into the universe and therefore cannot be responsible for designing it.

…

Even before Darwin’s time, the illogicality was glaring: how could it ever have been a good idea to postulate, in explanation for the existence of improbable things, a designer who would have to be even more improbable? The entire argument is a logical non-starter, as David Hume realized before Darwin was born.<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[1]<!–[endif]–>

Obviously Dawkins does not do much reading of theistic apologists, because his “clever” objection has been answered time and time again. Such ignorance is unacceptable for an Oxford scholar.

 

But let’s say the answer was not accounted for. Does that matter? Would it lessen the force of the argument that the universe needs a cause, and that the cause must be supernatural (immaterial, non-spatial, and non-temporal)? No! Assuming God had a cause, the fact that we would not know what caused Him no more argues against His existence and causal necessity than the fact that I don’t know who my great-great-great-great grandparents were argues against the fact that my great-great-great grandparents are the cause of my existence.

 

What does Dawkins think the failure of OOL (origin of life) research does to the strength and coherence of Darwinism?

 

The origin of life on this planet – which means the origin of the first self-replicating molecule – is hard to study, because it (probably) only happened once, 4 billion years ago and under very different conditions. We may never know how it happened. Unlike the ordinary evolutionary events that followed, it must have been a genuinely very improbable – in the sense of unpredictable – event: too improbable, perhaps, for chemists to reproduce it in the laboratory or even devise a plausible theory for what happened. This weirdly paradoxical conclusion – that a chemical account of the origin of life, in order to be plausible, has to be implausible – would follow from the premise that life is extremely rare in the universe. And to be sure, we have never encountered any hint of extraterrestrial life, not even by radio – the circumstance that prompted Enrico Fermi’s cry: “Where is everybody?”

How convenient. No evidence is evidence; failure is success. It can never be demonstrated, therefore it is true; to be plausible it must be implausible. Yes, Richard, that is quite weird. In fact, it’s more than weird. It’s irrational and foolish. How is the failure of scientists to give a purely naturalistic account for the OOL evidence that the OOL came about through purely naturalistic means? Without any empirical evidence that life can come from non-life (yet alone that it did in the past), how can it be considered a fact? How can he, a lover of science, be so certain that life originated naturally if there is no scientific evidence that it did? Ahh…it’s because his conclusion is not rooted in science, but in the philosophy of materialism. As is often the case with atheistic scientists, philosophy trumps science when the two are in conflict.

 

Dawkins shows how he is part of the new brand of atheists who affirm the more modest claim that there is no good reason to believe God exists, rather than the strong claim that there is no God: “We cannot, of course, disprove God, just as we can’t disprove Thor, fairies and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. But, like those other fantasies that we can’t disprove, we can say that God is very very improbable.”

 

Why is Dawkins so hostile to religion?

 

Scientists have a particular reason to be hostile to any systematically organized effort to teach children to reject evidence in favour of faith, revelation, authority and tradition. Religion teaches people to be satisfied with petty, small-minded non-explanations or mysteries, and this is a tragedy, given that the true explanations are so enthralling. Moreover, such hostility as I have is limited to words. I am not going to bomb anybody, behead them, stone them, burn them at the stake, crucify them, or fly planes into their skyscrapers, just because of a theological disagreement.

Here is the typical faith vs. science dichotomy in which faith is blind but science is pure objective rationality. Nothing could be further from the truth. Faith is not blind, but a reasoned judgment in reality. Faith is informed by the evidence, not in spite of it.

 

One of the more surprising quotes is this one:

 

Just as Darwinian biology raised our consciousness to the power of science to explain things outside biology, and just as feminists taught us to flinch when we hear “One man one vote”, I want us to flinch when we hear of a ‘Christian child’ or a ‘Muslim child”. Small children are too young to know their views on life, ethics and the cosmos. We should no more speak of a Christian child than of a Keynesian child, a monetarist child or a Marxist child. Automatic labelling of children with the religion of their parents is not just presumptuous. It is a form of mental child abuse.

No comment is necessary. This speaks for itself.

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<!–[endif]–>

<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[1]<!–[endif]–>Richard Dawkins, “Richard Dawkins Explains His Latest Book” available from http://richarddawkins.net/mainPage.php?bodyPage=article_body.php&id=170 as of 9/20/06, but subsequently removed on 9/23/06. It was reproduced at http://id-idea.blogspot.com/2006/09/richard-dawkins-explains-his-latest.html; Internet; accessed 03 October 2006.

 

October 9, 2006

What Makes Man Different from Chimps?

Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Science
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TIME magazine’s latest cover story, “What Makes Us Different?”, explores just what it is that makes man different from chimps. Do you think they identified it as a qualitative difference rooted in the fact that we are made in the image of God? Of course not. Genetics explains it all. Of the many quotable quotes, this really caught my eye:

Yet tiny differences, sprinkled throughout the genome, have made all the difference. Agriculture, language, art, music, technology and philosophy–all the achievements that make us profoundly different from chimpanzees and make a chimp in a business suit seem so deeply ridiculous–are somehow encodedarranged in a specific order, that endow us with the brainpower to outthink and outdo our closest relatives on the tree of life. They give us the ability to speak and write and read, to compose symphonies, paint masterpieces and delve into the molecular biology that makes us what we are.<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[1]<!–[endif]–> within minute fractions of our genetic code. Nobody yet knows precisely where they are or how they work, but somewhere in the nuclei of our cells are handfuls of amino acids,

…

Laid side by side, these three sets of genetic blueprints [human, chimpanzee, and Neanderthal]—plus the genomes of gorillas and other primates, which are already well on the way to being completely sequenced—will not only begin to explain precisely what makes us human but could lead to a better understanding of human diseases and how to treat them.<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[2]<!–[endif]–>

Two things should be noted. First, notice their use of design language: “encoded,” “arranged in a specific order.” Natural selection is blind and random. It can’t encode or arrange anything. Only designers can do that. It’s amazing how often those who deny design affirm it in the way they speak. They simply cannot escape their intuitive recognition of design.

Second, I am struck by the reductionism advanced in this article (reductionism is when what is perceived to be two things are reduced to one). For the authors, we don’t simply have genes; we are our genes. What makes us human can be reduced to our genes (“genetic blueprints…explain precisely what makes us human”). Furthermore, behaviors peculiar to human beings such as ingenuity, creativity, and speech, can all be explained entirely in terms of genetics. If we were able to insert the genes for writing and creativity into a chimp, he may become the next Shakespeare.

The authors commit the fallacy of deducing causation from correlation. This fallacy mistakenly assumes that if there is a correlation between A and B, A must be the cause of B. If a particular gene (A) correlates with a certain behavior (B), it must be the cause of that behavior. To see why this reasoning is fallacious consider the following example: every morning the rooster crows, and then the sun rises; therefore, the rooster’s crow causes the sun to rise. This is obviously fallacious. Consider another example: studies have shown a correlation between reading ability and feet size. Those with very small feet cannot read, while those with larger feet can. Larger feet, therefore, cause one’s ability to read. That might sound persuasive until you learn that those with very small feet are toddlers who have not yet been taught to read!

The authors mistakenly assume that if there is a correlation between a particular gene and a particular human behavior/ability, that the gene must be the cause of the behavior. That could be, but it cannot be assumed based on the correlation alone. As dualists, we would argue that the soul utilizes the genes to perform such behaviors and exercise such abilities, but that the abilities themselves are grounded in the soul. This does not deny the causal involvement of the genes, but it removes them from being the ultimate cause to a mere intermediate cause. It’s one thing to say certain genes are involved in certain behaviors/abilities, but wholly another to say certain genes cause those behaviors/abilities.

<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>

HT: Scott at Uncommon Descent

<!–[endif]–>

<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[1]<!–[endif]–>Michael Lemonick and Andrea Dorfman, “What Makes Us Different?”, TIME magazine, 01 October 2006; available from http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1541283,00.html; Internet; accessed 05 October 2006.

<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[2]<!–[endif]–>Michael Lemonick and Andrea Dorfman, “What Makes Us Different?”, TIME magazine, 01 October 2006; available from http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1541283-2,00.html; Internet; accessed 05 October 2006.

 

October 4, 2006

The pope truly understands what’s at stake in the Darwinism vs. Theism war

Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Naturalism
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From the pope’s 9-12-06 homily address at Regensburg:

 

We believe in God. This is a fundamental decision on our part. But is such a thing still possible today? Is it reasonable? From the Enlightenment on, science, at least in part, has applied itself to seeking an explanation of the world in which God would be unnecessary. And if this were so, he would also become unnecessary in our lives. But whenever the attempt seemed to be nearing success – inevitably it would become clear: something is missing from the equation! When God is subtracted, something doesn’t add up for man, the world, the whole vast universe. So we end up with two alternatives. What came first? Creative Reason, the Spirit who makes all things and gives them growth, or Unreason, which, lacking any meaning, yet somehow brings forth a mathematically ordered cosmos, as well as man and his reason. The latter, however, would then be nothing more than a chance result of evolution and thus, in the end, equally meaningless. As Christians, we say: I believe in God the Father, the Creator of heaven and earth – I believe in the Creator Spirit. We believe that at the beginning of everything is the eternal Word, with Reason and not Unreason. With this faith we have no reason to hide, no fear of ending up in a dead end. We rejoice that we can know God! And we try to let others see the reasonableness of our faith, as Saint Peter bids us do in his First Letter (cf. 3:15)!

Just one more nail in the coffin to the argument that Darwinism and theism are compatible. Agnostic/atheist scientists such as Stephen J. Gould and Niles Eldredge claim the realm of science and the realm of religion are entirely separate. The twain shall never meet, and thus can never contradict one another. One can believe in Darwinism and embrace theism. Don’t believe such an absurdity! Darwinism is the creation story of materialistic philosophy: a way of accounting for existence without a supernatural creator. Even if God exists, they argue, He was not necessary to bring the universe into being, let alone into its present form. But if God is not necessary to explain our existence, then He is equally unnecessary in our lives as well. Although Darwinism does not necessarily exclude the possibility of God’s existence, it definitely excludes God’s involvement with the cosmos. And if God is not involved with the cosmos, then Christianity is false, and God is useless to us. We have no contact with him, and he has no contact with us. In fact, he doesn’t want to. This sort of deism is not reconcilable with the Christian conception of God.

 

October 4, 2006

Quotes of the Day

Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Atheism, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Naturalism, Quote of the Day
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Barry A (from William Dembski’s blog) wrote:

 

Many people say Darwinism is a scientific theory, and as such does not speak to morality or ethics. Strictly speaking, this is true, but like ID, Darwinism also has profound implications for morality and ethics. It is not for nothing that Dawkins said Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. And as Nietzsche was honest enough to admit, an atheist is compelled to say that morality, ethics and justice are illusions. The only thing that exists is a brutal competition of wills. There is no right and wrong. There is only strong and weak. The 20th century was one long bloody lesson in the practical application of Nietzsche’s ideas.

We must always be very careful to distinguish between our science and our metaphysics. ID is science and Darwinism is science. Neither ID nor Darwinism addresses morality, ethics or justice, but both have implications for these matters. ID is consistent with my hope that a loving God exists Who has established a transcendent moral order. Darwinism is consistent with atheism, which in turn is inconsistent with the very idea of objective morality.

“Salvation obtains when accurate knowledge is combined with active trust.”—Greg Koukl, “Truth is Stranger Than it Used to Be”

 

October 3, 2006

Amazing Video on the Cell

Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Intelligent Design, Science
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Check out this amazing video showing the inner workings of the cell. Talk about making it come alive!

 

September 28, 2006

Stone Markings: How Did They Know it Was Designed?

Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Archaeology, Intelligent Design
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Archaeologists recently discovered a stone with unknown markings in Mexico. While the meaning of the symbols is unknown, archaeologists did not hesitate to identify it as a written language—probably the oldest in the Americas. Stephen Houston of Brown University explained:

 

When I saw the block, as did the rest of us, we knew we were in the presence of something very special…. It had completely unknown signs, but they were arranged in these long sequences we felt just had to be a new form of writing…. It’s not just a set of symbols that might be placed together the way you might see on, let’s say, a medieval French or English painting. Rather, they are arranged in a sequence that is meant to reflect a language with grammatical elements and with a word order that makes sense.<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[1]<!–[endif]–>

Houston experienced what design theorists call a “design inference.” The specification and complexity of the markings made it clear that an intelligent agent, rather than chance processes, produced it. The fact that the identity of the designer is unknown (although it is believed to be from the Olmec civilization), and the design itself is currently unintelligible to us, does not mitigate our intuitive awareness that it was in fact designed. In the same way these archaeologists detected design on nature, we can detect design in nature: empirically. This is all the more so when you consider the multiplicity of the complexity and specification of the universe over these stone markings.

 

I previously mentioned that archaeologists believe the Olmec civilization is responsible for the stone markings. But how do the archaeologists know they were the creators of this stone writing? Did they see anyone from the Olmec civilization writing on this stone? No. Do they possess written records from a nearby tribe ascribing these sorts of markings to the Olmec civilization? No. Then why are they suggesting the Olmec civilization is responsible for creating the markings? I would imagine it’s because that was the only civilization of human beings living in that region at the time. But this presupposes that the markings were the product of intelligence, rather than chance natural processes. There is no evidence that this is true. No one has a date-stamped photograph of an Olmecian tribesman writing on the stone. The only basis for ascribing the stone markings to the Olmecs—or any other intelligent agent for that matter—is a design inference. The stone markings bear the marks of an intelligent designer, therefore—they reason—it must have been designed. And since the Olmecs were the only ones in that region at the time, they reason that they must be the designers. Again, design in the universe is just as easily inferred from what we know about the universe as it is inferred from what we know about this stone. Design is empirically detectable. Design inference is a scientific discipline.

 

<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>

<!–[endif]–>

<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[1]<!–[endif]–>Christopher Joyce, “Earliest New World Writing Discovered”, NPR; available from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6077734; Internet; accessed 21 September 2006.

 

September 25, 2006

In the Beginning Watches Came from Non-Watches

Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Science
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The notion that life came from non-life is one of the most absurd aspects of evolutionary biology, and yet it is believed without evidence by many seemingly intelligent people. To see the absurdity of such a notion check out this short video. It makes mockery of a naturalistic view of life’s origin by rewriting the Darwinian story a little. Check it out!

 

 

HT: William Dembski

 

September 21, 2006

Intelligence comes from chance, not intelligence?: the absurdity of atheism

Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Atheism, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Naturalism
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Science fiction stories are filled with visions of artificial intelligence (A.I.). Recent movies depicting robots with human-levels of artificial intelligence include I-Robot and A.I. Is this pure science fiction, or is it a genuine possibility in not-so-distant future? Peter Kassan answered this question in an article written for Skeptic magazine.

 

Kassan argued persuasively that the quest for A.I. has been, and will continue to be a dead-end street. Scientists have been unable to duplicate the intelligence of even the simplest of creatures, yet alone human beings. For example, although scientists have studied and mapped the neural patterns of the simple C. elegans worm, no one has been able to duplicate its base level of intelligence. C. elegans possesses a mere 300 neurons, compared to the human brain which contains 100 billion (100,000,000,000). Our cerebral cortex alone contains 30 billion neurons, and 1000 trillion synapses (1,000,000,000,000,000). That is 100 million (100,000,000) times the number of neurons, and 100 trillion (100,000,000,000,000) times the number of synapses of C. elegans. In light of such figures it becomes painfully obvious why developing human A.I. is nowhere on the horizon.

 

Advocates of A.I. retort that the task of replicating human intelligence is only a problem of time. They observe that computers double in capacity and speed every 18 months. Based on this they argue that given enough time, computers will be large enough and fast enough to create A.I. comparable to the human brain. But as Kassan points out, computational speed of computer processors is not the problem! The problem is the software. A.I. would only be as good as the program being run by the computer. While computers double in performance and capacity every 18 months, computer programs don’t. They increase in complexity at a far slower rate. Furthermore, experience has shown that the larger software programs get, the slower they become. Additionally, the larger the program the more room for error. A software program simulating the human brain would contain 20 trillion errors at a minimum. Kassan describes this “programming problem” by way of analogy:

 

If each synapse were handled by the equivalent of only a single line of code, the program to simulate the cerebral cortex would be roughly 25 million times larger than what’s probably the largest software product ever written, Microsoft Windows, said to be about 40 million lines of code. As a software project grows in size, the probability of failure increases. The probability of successfully completing a project 25 million times more complex than Windows is effectively zero.

What I found so interesting about the article was not so much what it had to say (although it was very interesting), but who was saying it. While I do not know Kassan’s precise beliefs about God, the fact that he wrote an article for Skeptic magazine tells me he is probably an atheist and advocate of Darwinian evolution. As such he does not believe the universe is the result of a designing intelligence, but rather blind, unintelligent, random chance processes. As part of the universe, human intelligence must have been produced by the same chance processes. Herein lies the absurdity of Kassan’s worldview.

 

Kassan recognizes the near-inconceivable complexity of human intelligence, and argues persuasively that intelligent designers (humans) will never be able to re-create it artificially. While I agree with Kassan this invites a question: How can time + chance create what time + intelligence cannot? If time + intelligence cannot produce anything similar to the complexity of human intelligence, surely time + chance would fail as well. Kassan would have us believe time + chance is better equipped to create complex intelligence than time + intelligence; that blind, unintelligent, random chance processes are better designers of intelligence than the most intelligent beings on the planet. That is a rational absurdity! How is it possible for chance to be better equipped to create an extremely complicated machine than human beings? How do natural processes create something that is 25,000,000 times more complex than the most complex program created by intelligent beings?

 

When Kassan boots up Microsoft Windows on his personal computer, does he ever think for a second that this extremely complex program consisting of 40 million lines of coded information was produced by unintelligent, random chance processes? Of course not! It is far too complex for that. How, then, can he look at something 25,000,000 times more complex than Windows and say it was created by time + chance? The disconnect in Kassan’s worldview is so glaring that I cannot understand how he can miss it. While atheists pride themselves on being rational, believing time + chance can produce complex intelligence whereas time + intelligence cannot is anything but rational.

 

This is just one more example demonstrating that atheists’ problem with Christianity is not one of the intellect, but one of the will. Christianity is not only intellectually plausible, but explanatorily superior to atheism. It is rejected, however, because people do not want to bend the knee. They want to be their own lord. Rationality takes a back seat to their perverted will.

 

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