tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17730589396687323992024-03-08T12:25:37.426-08:00Intelligent DesignUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1773058939668732399.post-75234031730864652922012-03-26T20:09:00.001-07:002019-09-03T02:24:25.331-07:00Irreducible match of orchid and moth?<img style="border-width: 0px; padding: 3px; float: right;" src="https://edwardtbabinski.us/facebook/intelligent-design/moth-orchid.jpg" alt="Irreducible match of orchid and moth?" width="350" height="432" />
<p>From a book by Darwin on orchids I had heard contained a passage about a prediction Darwin had made based on the length of the “nectary” of a species of orchid in Madagascar that was ten to eleven inches long. Quite a long “nectary,” which raised the question, what species could reach that far inside the orchid to enjoy its nectar and pass along the orchidʼs pollen to the next orchid? Darwin reasoned that “in Madagascar there must be moths with probosces capable of extension to a length of between ten and eleven inches!” No such moth species was known at the time, and they were only discovered years after Darwinʼs death. The length of the nectary appears to have evolved along with the length of the tongue of a particular moth species (perhaps other moth species were also evolving longer tongues at first, but only this species was able to keep up with the lengthening of the orchid?).</p>
<p>Was a designer playing games in designing this oddly irreducible match between this species of orchid and this species of long-tongued moth? Or did this irreducible match come about by virtue of the moths with the longest tongues surviving to continually lick up a source of nectar available only to them? Any strong opinions either way?<br />
Best, Ed</p>
<p>The writings of Charles Darwin on the web<br />
by John van Wyhe Ph.D.</p>
<p>Darwin, On the various contrivances by which British and foreign orchids are fertilised. London, John Murray, 1862. </p>
<p>Chapter V.</p>
<p>I fear that the reader will be wearied, but I must say a few words on the Angræcum sesquipedale, of which the large six-rayed flowers, like stars formed of snow-white wax, have excited the admiration of travellers in Madagascar. A whip-like green nectary of astonishing length hangs down beneath the labellum. In several flowers sent me by Mr. Bateman I found the nectaries eleven and a half inches long, with only the lower </p>
<p>[page] 198</p>
<p>inch and a half filled with very sweet nectar. What can be the use, it may be asked, of a nectary of such disproportional length? We shall, I think, see that the fertilization of the plant depends on this length and on nectar being contained only within the lower and attenuated extremity. It is, however, surprising that any insect should be able to reach the nectar: our English sphinxes have probosces as long as their bodies: but in Madagascar there must be moths with probosces capable of extension to a length of between ten and eleven inches!</p>
<p>[…]</p>
<p>If the Angræcum in its native forests secretes more nectar than did the vigorous plants sent me by Mr. Bateman, so that the nectary becomes filled, small moths might obtain their share, but they would not benefit the plant. The pollinia would not be withdrawn until some huge moth, with a wonderfully long proboscis, tried to drain the last drop. If such great moths were to become extinct in Madagascar, assuredly the Angræcum would become extinct. On the other</p>
<p>[page] 202</p>
<p>hand, as the nectar, at least in the lower part of the nectary, is stored safe from depredation by other insects, the extinction of the Angræcum would probably be a serious loss to these moths. We can thus partially understand how the astonishing length of the nectary may have been acquired by successive modifications. As certain moths of Madagascar became larger through natural selection in relation to their general conditions of life, either in the larval or mature state, or as the proboscis alone was lengthened to obtain honey from the Angræcum and other deep tubular flowers, those individual plants of the Angræcum which had the longest nectaries (and the nectary varies much in length in some Orchids), and which, consequently, compelled the moths to insert their probosces up to the very base, would be fertilized. These plants would yield most seed, and the seedlings would generally inherit longer nectaries; and so it would be in successive generations of the plant and moth. Thus it would appear that there has been a race in gaining length between the nectary of the Angræcum and the proboscis </p>
<p>[page] 203</p>
<p>of certain moths; but the Angræcum has triumphed, for it flourishes and abounds in the forests of Madagascar, and still troubles each moth to insert its proboscis as far as possible in order to drain the last drop of nectar.</p>
<blockquote id=quote>I am familiar with this puzzling case. But, try to write out a specific detailed Neo-Darwinian genetic sequence for it.</blockquote>
<p>Me? I canʼt even write out a genetic sequence to make Cambellʼs soup. Darwin knew there were moths with longer tongues than most other species of orchid pollinators [like butterflies and bees and flies] and those moth species pollinated orchids with longer nectaries than most. Darwin assumed in this extraordinary case it was a moth with a tongue ten to eleven inches long getting to the nectar. He was right.</p>
<p>Do I know why the orchidʼs nectary evolved to such a length, or why the mothʼs tongue continued evolving to such a length to reach the base of the nectary? Perhaps because as the nectary grew longer the nectar became the sole property of whomeverʼs tongue could reach it, and thus a nitch for food opened up that no other creatures could reach, ensuring that whomever reached that niche could have all the spoils to themselves, a rich prize. And only those whose tongues could reach it, continued to reach it. While the shorter tongued cousins of the long-tongued moths settled for more hotly contested shorter nectaries, or grew extinct.</p>
<blockquote id=quote>Philosophe, If you are out of your depth, perhaps you will accept my suggestion that no one can describe the genetic sequence, which at best would only be a series of guesses.</blockquote>
<p>What is a philosophe? Someone from Voltaireʼs day? And what did it used to mean to call someone “Ms. Philosophe?” (Is Ms. an abbreviation of “Monsieur?”)</p>
<p>I agree with you that I am out of my depth. Who isnʼt “out of their depth” at this point and with our limited knowledge? I bet that moth and its near cousins in Madagascar are no where near having their genomes elucidated and compared and evolutionists are no where near understanding how everything functions and changes in such species.</p>
<blockquote id=quote>For the rest, you seem to be describing a directed evolutionary theory, not evolution with chance alteration of the genome, a path I am confident you do not want to follow. It did not require much ingenuity to propose that such a flower would require an insect with a long tongue, or one small enough to make the trek by foot.</blockquote>
<p>I thought about the question the same way, and thought why not a really small insect like a teeny beetle creeping down that ten to eleven inch long nectary for the nectar? Maybe because a single moth with a long tongue made more sense based on the cousin species of moths that already pollinate cousin species of that species of orchid in Madegascar, and Darwin assumed that evolution works with whatʼs already there?</p>
<blockquote id=quote>Perhaps you might like to try your hand at writing some scenarios for the separate development of the human sex organs. You might even make the explanation amusing, perhaps leading to a Hollywood contract.</blockquote>
<p>Wow, what a challenge! And a Hollywood contract to boot! But didnʼt Woody Allen already do the movie version of <b>Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid To Ask</b>? Seriously, Lynn Marguilis has written on the evolution of sex, though I donʼt know if sheʼs talked much about the evolution of human sex organs. From what little I know it does appear that in the womb early on we are all “female” moreso than “male,” relatively speaking. The gonads remain relatively in place for females while the male of the species has his gonads descend via two openings in the lower abdomen, and the tubules that lead from his gonads to his urethra have to grow longer since they are stretched up and around the tubules leading from his kidneys to his bladder (do I have that right?). The male prostate is another confusing matter, and doesnʼt appear to function very well where it is, causing difficulties with urination, especially as we age. (Speaking of difficulties as we age, whatʼs with “wisdom teeth” anyway?) As you can see Iʼm out of my depth in this matter as well. But are I.D.ers more in their depth concerning such subjects? </p>
<p>Daring scientists to explain one thing and then another thing, first the moth and orchid, then the evolution of sexual organs, including all the environmental/sexual/embryonic selective pressures and the kind and order of genomic mutations that occured over periods of thousands to millions of years, seems quite a task to demand of anyone. </p>
<p>Knowing that such matters have not been explained, I.D.erʼs jump in and explain it their way, by saying “it was a Designer!” I.D. class in college is going to be relatively short if most explanations come down to “Thatʼs just the Designer doing his thing, donʼt ask him how! That would be like trying to peek in Godʼs closet and thereʼs no point to that, since we already <b>know</b> itʼs I.D.” (Less Christian instructors will add that the Designer might also be aliens or time travelers.)</p>
<p>It does not appear to me that the I.D. explanation will take science any where, though it will doubtlessly absorb the minds of children with unquestioning reverence of some sort, toward either God, aliens or time travellers. </p>
<p>Still, I must add that there are also <b>Darwinian</b> Christian evolutionists who have reverence for God. Todayʼs prime example might be biologist <a href="http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/index.html" target="_blank">Kenneth Miller</a> who continues to debate with I.D.ers head to head.<br />
Another such Christian appears to be <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20020228141053/http://news.owu.edu/van-till.html" target="_blank">Howard Van Till</a> who refuses to align himself with the I.D. movement. Around the turn of the century there were others. See <b>Darwinʼs Forgotten Defenders: The Encounter Between Evangelical Theology and Evolutionary Thought</b> by David N. Livingstone. They appear to agree that perhaps a creation that required constant miraculous adjustments over zillions of years wasnʼt such a great reflection on the creator after all. But if creatures evolved naturally and death and change were part of natural processes, as natural as new stars being formed and new elements being formed from simpler elements inside stars, then the Creator was all the more impressive in having been able to set such things up right from the beginning. I mean, itʼs one thing to have to keep pulling rabbits out your hat every day or century or year, but to make human beings out of seventeen-billion-year-old hydrogen, well, thatʼs even more impressive than making a human being out of a single cell in nine months. Itʼs quite a trick, makes the constant dipping into the magic hat look repetitive, tiresome. And then to also produce creatures curious enough to study and rediscover the whole natural process and follow the clues backward, why thatʼs quite an inspiration to enhance curiosity. Can I.D. truly compare with that? </p>
<p>“How I hate the man who talks about the ‘brute creation’ with an ugly emphasis on brute…As for me, I am proud of my close kinship with other animals. I take a jealous pride in my Simian ancestry. I like to think that I was once a magnificent hairy fellow living in the trees, and that my frame has come down through geological time via sea jelly and worms and Amphioxus, Fish, Amphibians, Reptiles, and Apes. Who would exchange these for the pallid couple in the Garden of Eden?”<br />
W. N. P. Barbellion</p>
<p>“When the rationality of the hross tempted you to think of it as a man…it became abominable — a man seven feet high, with a snaky body, covered, face and all, with thick black animal hair, and whiskered like a cat. But starting from the other end you had an animal with everything an animal ought to have…and added to all these, as though Paradise had never been lost…the charm of speech and reason. Nothing could be more disgusting than the one impression; nothing more delightful than the other. It all depended on the point of view.”<br />
C. S. Lewis, <b>Out Of The Silent Planet</b> (a Christian science-fiction novel)</p>
<p>So what if Darwinism gives atheists solace. Are the atheists to be denied solace? Is God, the true God and creator, really as insecure as creationists assert, and always going around blaming people for if they donʼt believe in him and praise him for everything? Maybe heʼs not particularly proud of everything he sometimes gets praise for? Like miraculous football passes, or finding oneʼs eyeglasses? Maybe he leaves a lot up to us, and likewise up to nature, because letting things do their own thing is cooler than being a micro-manager? Maybe thatʼs Godʼs lesson to us. And likewise, maybe he doesnʼt take credit when things go wrong either, like extinctions or volcanoes. A cosmos that runs itself and evolves itself is gonna have things that run into one another, jury-rigging is expected. Maybe this is not the best of all possible worlds, just the best of all possible <b>Self-Evolving</b> worlds? Anyway, thatʼs my three hundred dollars and <b>Two Cents</b> on those matters. </p>
<p>I originally brought up the “irreducible long-tongued moth and long-nectary orchid” because it seemed pretty straightforward: Lengthening nectary, lengthening tongue over time. Seems like it could happen, knowing other moths with longish tongues and orchids with longish nectaries. Though a designer might just as well have left both the length of the tongue and the length of the orchidʼs nectary of average size. (Thereʼs only a single known species of bedbug that stab-rapes other males of the same species so as to inject them with his sperm that then finds its way through the stabbed maleʼs organ into the female he has stab-raped. Other species of bedbug only stab-rape the female in the abdomen and the males do not stab-rape each other. Likewise though the Bombardier beetle has a moving squirt appendage which can direct its heated chemicals. Other cousin species donʼt have the moving appendage, and they spray the chemicals outward and also on themselves. And beetles of that type already produce the hydroquinones that are used in other capacities in beetles and already have anatomical divisions that could be used as the two chambers to store those chemicals. And thereʼs only one bird species than can fly backwards. And thereʼs only one species of orchid and moth with such very long tongues and nectaries. So for every marvelously specialized species there appear to be lots of less highly specialized cousins sharing similar anatomies and physiologies.) </p>
<p>Was the lengthening of the orchid and the lengthening of the mothʼs tongue directed? Who knows? The antlers on the heads of Irish elk apparently grew to increasing lengths over time, and then no more Irish elk, they became extinct. (Because of the increasing size and length of their enormous antlers? I donʼt know. No one knows. But the antlers of the Irish elk do appear to be of an awkward length — jutting out so far to each side — that I imagine just swinging itʼs head quickly from one to side to the other might create enough momentum to strain itʼs neck — not a genuine hypothesis, just a joke based on the momentum of twisting and twirling objects, not to mention how such antlers could make it difficult to maneuver and double park in a forest full of trees). Perhaps that orchid with its long nectary might become extinct one day, having specialized itself into extinction, and if that moth is only especially attracted to that orchidʼs nectar it too could become extinct. There are tapir-like species in the fossil record that show up again later in time with increasingly elongated noses and a pair of elongated teeth until species with longer noses and longer front teeth appear and finally the first elephants with trunks and tusks appear. All thatʼs left today are the modern day tapir and the modern day elephant with those other species between them having gone extinct. If I.D. is life-giving and every one of its irreducible specializations demonstrates the farsighted perfection of an intelligent Designer, then why all the extinctions? Why are the earliest birds more like ancient reptiles than modern day birds? I mean if we found a hummingbird (the only one that can fly backwards) among the earliest birds, Iʼd be surprised, but we donʼt. We find birds with reptilian shaped triangular skulls with the same shaped individual skull bones as reptiles, and other features that label them as “birds in progress.” (How competent a Designer are we talking about?) And then once the progress has been achieved every early birds is wiped out. In this case the early bird did not catch the worm, it caught the grave. And this happens time and again. Mammal-like reptiles. Wiped out. All those mesyonchids with those weird shaped ear bones that resembled early whaleʼs ears, wiped out, not good enough I guess. (How competent a Designer are we talking about?) All those early Eocene whales, Ambulocetus, Rhodocetus, Basilosaurus, wiped out. Leaving only the species we see today, which still pop out embryonic hind legs in the womb where they are reabsorbed — or in some cases are not completely reabsorbed and we find a grown whale with bumps on its hind regions that contain (when x-rayed) a small femur, tibia, fibula and phalanges. (How competent a Designer are we talking about?) </p>
<p>Those are questions that I think are as valid as any others.</p>
<div class="separator" style="text-align:center"><iframe frameborder=0 data-src="https://edwardtbabinski.us/related-content/related-content-23.html" style="margin-bottom:0em; margin-left:0em; margin-right:0em; height:400px; width:600px; border:0px"></iframe></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1773058939668732399.post-32379148597625517152012-03-26T19:53:00.001-07:002019-09-03T02:24:56.420-07:00Review of The Science of God<blockquote id=quote>In reference to: <a href="https://etb-creationism.blogspot.com/2012/03/from-yec-young-earth-creationist-to.html">Testimony of Former Young Earth Creationist</a><br/>
That is a long and thoughtful intellectual trip, more effort expended than I had anticipated when Ed introduced himself to the group. On that occasion I sent to him (direct) a short note, but to date I have had no response.</blockquote>
<p><b>Edward</b>: “To date” (from the posting of my “intellectual journey” to your reply above) is less than 27 hours. Time must rush by at a furious pace for you. I can imagine you standing on your porch waiting for a reply the day after you mailed someone a letter (in ye old snail-mail days). Well, Iʼm here now, and you may ask me anything either in this forum or at my home or work email. My work email is ed.babinski@ and I may be contacted there 9:30AM-6:00PM M-F, but again, with work, there are no promises how soon I can reply.</p>
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<blockquote id=quote>I duplicate it for CED(below) and trust that he has completed all the research necessary for a reply.</blockquote>
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<p><b>Edward</b>: You “trust” that I have “completed all the research necessary for a reply.” Not very trustful it would seem. Thatʼs understandable. I hope that you have read as widely as I have, and examined each question in as many ways and from as many angles as I have, though I lack absolute “trust” that that is so. Itʼs not really a matter of trust at this early point of discussion, but of the trickiness inherent in all communication about complex, wide ranging, deeply believed, controversial subjects. On the topics of biological origins and the Bible much has been written, and I doubt both of us have read exactly the same articles, books. So, right from the start our ideas about certain subjects are not going to coincide. Perhaps agreement about many of those subjects will prove impossible without a fairly large number of books, articles, sources of information, that we both hold in common. Even so…the chorus goes, what “ELSE” have you read about this, that, and the other? (In the end, life is short and so is time for study. And for those two reasons I cannot imagine a “God” who condemns people to hell after they have been blown to and fro in this world for a mere couple of decades in a raging sea of ideas and emotions.)</p>
<p>I also think knowing more about you might aid future communications. (Your e-name isnʼt a cover for “Phil” Johnson is it?). What has your “intellectual journey” been like? I find most peopleʼs stories interesting, having read many testimonies of people who have entered and/or exited various religions/philosophies.</p>
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<blockquote id=quote>Dear Ed, Welcome.</blockquote>
<p><b>Edward</b>: Thanks! Happy to be here…Happy to be anywhere in fact.</p>
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<blockquote id=quote>You seem to have developed a strong preference for a position.</blockquote>
<p><b>Edward</b>: I have a strong preference for asking questions (and researching questions. My research projects led to a job at a university library — no I am not a full librarian). I have found various attempts at “concordance” questionable. I found the Bibleʼs creation story(s) questionable. And Iʼve found I.D. hypotheses also questionable. At the moment my question for I.D.ers is simply this, “If there is a Designer, what can we learn about their level of say, competency, by examining various aspects of nature and natureʼs history? A Divine Tinkerer perhaps?” Personally, I am open to theism, even a personal God, personal beings of light, etc. But I do not have any proof, mainly anecdotes, like NDEs. And the Bible no longer constitutes proof of anything to me concerning its cosmology and cosmogony. The way I presently see things, it is relatively easy to explain the origins of ancient Hebrew creation stories and motifs, while an explanation for how things evolved is more difficult.</p>
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<blockquote id=quote>So, let me start with two questions. 1) What do you think is important about Darwinism,</blockquote>
<p><b>Edward</b>: I donʼt think in those terms. I have explained my position in my “intellectual journey” and above.</p>
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<blockquote id=quote>and 2) what type of evidence do you consider most important in validating Darwinʼs theory?<br />
Phil</blockquote>
<p><b>Edward</b>: I have no sacredly held theories of my own, neither Darwinism nor I.D. I have questions. I have read atheists/naturalists and what they have said about nature. I have read I.D. hypotheses and critiques of those hypotheses. I have read young-earth creationism and critques of young-earth creaitonism. I have read old-earth creationists and theistic evolutionists. I have read concordist and non-concordist arguments. I have studied and compared ancient near eastern cosmologies and cosmogonies, and also read attempts to make Genesis (chapters 1 -3) appear to be the first and last word on origins.</p>
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<blockquote id=quote>For concordance of Bible and Science I suggest books by scientist Gerald L. Schroeder(our library has three).</blockquote>
<p><b>Edward</b>: I find Schroederʼs “concordances” more of a demonstration of Schroederʼs agility of mind than “proof” of the truth of the Bible. In fact, Schroederʼs central concordance, that both the Bible and modern science agree there was a “beginning,” ignores the fact that other creation stories agree there was a “beginning” and also agree with Genesis concerning many “less than scientific” matters that Schroeder ignores or attempts to interpret away.</p>
<p>Schroederʼs claim about how much genetic change it would take to create human beings is wrong. According to the latest data, “<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20060627115442/http://www.aar.com.au/pubspta/bt/15jan/bio08.htm" target="_blank">The difference between human and chimp genomes</a> is only about 1.23%, rather than 1.4% as originally thought.”<br />
Even more importantly, modern day chimps and man diverged so the differences that accumulated in each of their TWO genomes over time is greater than the differences between either ONE of them and their common ancestor, which would be less than 1.4% In fact even the present day differences between human and chimp genomes are less than that between the genomes of near identical sibling species of fruit flies. And there is even evidence INSIDE human chromosome #2 that points to it being the result of the fusion of two chromosomes that very closely resemble those found in the chimp which line up band for band to those in manʼs chromosome #2.</p>
<p>Here are some reviews of Schroederʼs books I found on the web that reflect my own questions. I sorted the reviews so they would begin with simpler criticisms and build to more elaborate ones by professors of zoology and physics. It is apparent that Schroederʼs “Kabbalistic” concordance hypothesis pleases neither young nor old-earth creationists and their readings of Genesis:</p>
<p>A young-earth creationist <b>Amazon</b> reviewer of <b>The Science of God</b>:<br />
<blockquote>
<p>“I find many of his interpretations manipulated to his own cause, e.g. Gen. 1:12 which he interprets: “and the earth brought forth life.” A more reliable interpretation of the text renders: “and the earth(or land) brought forth vegetation.” Further, he cites no credible Hebrew scholar who agrees with his interpretation of day for order and night for chaos. He relies much more for his case on the mystical kabbalah, especially Nahmanides, which can only be explained at best as “opinion.” This leaves him in positions which do not square with all of inspired Scripture…For the exact opposite view of Schroederʼs key thesis: clocks ticking faster at the center and slow at the edge of the cosmos— see young-earth creationist, D. Russell Humphreysʼs book “Starlight and Time.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Old earth creationist Hugh Ross reviews Schroederʼs <b>Genesis And The Big Bang</b>:<br />
Source: www.reasons.org/</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“One problem with his view is that it clashes with the scientific data on the timing of Earthʼs origin. Since the earth already exists on the first creation day of Genesis 1, Schroederʼs model would say that Earth began at least 12 billion years ago. Scientific measurements, however, show that it is only 4.6 billion years old.<br />Our view is that Genesis 1:2 establishes the frame of reference for the creation events: “The Spirit of God was brooding (or hovering) over the surface of the waters.” In other words, Godʼs time and space frame in describing creation is the earthʼs surface, a frame in common with all readers of the account. The text gives no hint of Schroederʼs relativistically time-extended creation days. If one seeks Jewish support for a day-age interpretation of Genesis 1, Nathan Aviezer, another Jewish physicist, offers it in a book entitled In the Beginning: Biblical Creation and Science (Hoboken, NJ: KTAV Publishing House, 1990). Aviezer acknowledges that the six creation days of Genesis 1 must refer to long time periods.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Amazon Reviewer of <b>The Science of God</b>: seapapa from Los Angeles</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Schroederʼs thesis is that the author of Genesis is describing a 15 billion year history of the universe and life, even though that was never his understanding or his intention. The true meaning Genesis 1 went undetected until it was discovered by the cabalist author Nahmanides in the 11th Century AD. It was lost again until Schroeder rediscovered it.</p>
<p>“Even accepting the dubious proposition that people can write things that actually mean the exact opposite of what they intend, the match between the Genesis timeline and the scientifically proposed history of the universe makes an ill fit. Schroeder tries to reconcile the two by focusing minutely on certain words in Genesis that could be interpreted to allow for longer time periods, while totally ignoring the text read in its entirety. For example, day three of creation supposedly lasts 1.6-3.6 billion years ago. Genesis said “let the land produce vegetation”. Success, proclaims Schroeder, that matches the plant life on the planet, which is found only in the… water! He conveniently ignores the rest of the verse which calls for fruit-bearing trees and seed-bearing plants. There was nothing but protozoa and plankton back then. This is typical of the book.</p>
<p>“The most absurd argument is that, if properly interpreted, the 6 creation days correspond to 6 actual 24 hour days on earth AND 15 billion cosmic years. How so? Einsteinʼs relativity of time! Schroeder makes such an effort to preserve the 6 days of creation and the order of creation.</p>
<p>“This book is ultimately a polemic. Although brilliant and articulate, one gets the feeling that Schroeder cannot bear to have Genesis undermined. That compromises his scientific judgment.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A Reviewer of <b>The Science of God</b> (at amazon.com):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“contains a few good passages, but also some egregious errors, which are puzzling when made by a PhD in Physics. For example, G. Schroeder completely misinterprets the experiments with particles moving through openings, invents some odd concept of heat diluting in enlarged volumes, misrepresents the story of photoelectric effect, etc. One striking feature of this book is that Schroeder suggests in it the chronological data , which completely contradict his own data on the same subject, given in his first book, without a word of explanation why he changed those data. A useless book.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A Reviewer of <b>The Science of God</b> (at amazon.com) wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“His time dilation calculations are totally at fault. The factor of one million million he uses is totally arbitrary (nothing really special happened at z=1 million million). His redshift/blueshift calculations are also wrong: The background temperature (and the redshift) changed by less than 10% in the last billion years. Nowhere near the rate needed to slow down from a 500 million year per day (Day 5, according to Schroeder) to 24 hours per day.</p>
<p>“Another serious mistake appears in his coverage of evolution: He says the the evolution from chimpanzees to humans requires a million point mutations because the difference in the active DNA between human and chimps is 1,000,000 bases.</p>
<p>“This is simply false. Schroeder himself says that the number of changes needed is no more than 70,000. In most cases a single point mutation is enough to complete a change.</p>
<p>“It would have been better if Schroeder, as a nuclear physicist, asked an expert biologist before writing his chapters about evolution…”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Frank Sonleitner,Department of Zoology, University of Oklahoma, Norman OK 73019 reviews Schroederʼs <b>The Science of God</b>:<br />
Source: www.ncseweb.org/</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“This book is essentially an elaboration and update of Schroederʼs earlier book Genesis and the Big Bang published in 1990. Schroeder is an Israeli physicist who has also extensively studied biblical interpretation. He uses the arguments of the Anthropic principle (the Big Bang and the fine-tuning of the universal constants) as evidence for God; but he also insists that the Bible and science agree. Genesis is not to be taken literally nor dismissed as poetry but must be interpreted correctly following the lead of talmudic scholars such as Nahmanides and Maimonides. Although his interpretation twists, stretches, and sometimes directly contradicts the literal meaning of Genesis, it confirms all the findings of modern cosmology and geology.</p>
<p>“Using a universal time clock based on the stretching of the wavelengths of light as the universe expands, he concludes that the universe is 15.75 billion years old. The six days of Genesis consist of a nonlinear day-age description of the history; day 1 covers the first 8 billion years, and day 6 only the last 1/4 billion.</p>
<p>“Schroeder accepts the standard geologic and paleontologic history of the earth but he balks at evolution (although he admits some sort of genetic continuity as suggested by the evidence of comparative anatomy, biochemistry and embryonic recapitulation). He rejects all transitional forms among higher categories such as classes and phyla, but later admits that there might be transitional forms within classes. (He does discuss the recently discovered intermediate forms of whales.)</p>
<p>“Schroeder rejects evolution because he considers its mechanism to rest solely on pure chance. There is no discussion of natural selection; it doesnʼt appear in the index although the term is used in passing while discussing Dawkins. His “proof” that it is impossible for convergent evolution to produce similar eyes in taxa which did not inherit these structures from a common ancestor uses a mathematical calculation based on two assumptions - (1) evolution is pure chance; and (2) the taxa have no genes in common except those “inherited” from the protozoa. Yet in other places he seems to be aware of the recent evidence that the phyla have many genes in common; he discusses the Hox genes that determine body plans and the Pax genes that are involved in eye formation!</p>
<p>“Schroeder admits that there were “pre-Adamites” (Cro-Magnon and Neanderthals) living for 40 000 years prior to Adam, but questions the existence of earlier hominid species because of the fragmentary nature of their fossils. Again he uses a mathematical model to show that the evolution of humans from an ape ancestor is impossible. This model also assumes that (1) evolution would occur by pure chance and (2) one million mutations would be necessary to produce the ape-human transition!</p>
<p>“It takes more than the Big Bang and the fine tuning of universal constants to demonstrate that the creator is the kind, loving, personal God worshipped by Christians. And there Schroederʼs arguments fall apart. For example, he argues that quantum mechanics provides the basis of free will and that the determinacy of our genes does not prevent our exercising free will, yet later he says that randomness in nature (including random mutations) is necessary for free will! And natural disasters are necessary. We must suffer earthquakes and volcanic eruptions that result from plate tectonics made possible by the earthʼs molten core because the latter is necessary to generate a magnetic field to protect us from the high energy radiation produced by the life-giving sun. But then he says that the biblical Creator could have made stars that didnʼt produce those lethal rays but “they would not be natural” and would offer absolute testimony of the Creatorʼs existence! And still later he contradicts this principle (that the universe is organized “naturally” to hide the existence of the Creator) by saying that the earth is at an “unnatural” distance from the sun and hints that this may be miraculous! (According to Schroeder some exponential law determines the distance of the planets, and the earthʼs distance does not fit the pattern.)</p>
<p>“Evolutionists will justifiably criticize Schroeder for his simplistic and inconsistent treatment of evolution while the real creationists will reject him for his theology which includes rejection of the literal reading of Genesis, acceptance of the Big Bang, an old age for the earth, existence of pre-Adamites, a local flood, and ignoring Christ, Christianity and the New Testament.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Victor J. Stenger, professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Hawaii and the author of Not By Design: The Origin of the Universe (Prometheus Books, 1988), Physics and Psychics: The Search for a World Beyond the Senses (Prometheus Books, 1990), The Unconscious Quantum: Metaphysics in Modern Physics and Cosmology (Prometheus Books, 1995) and Timeless Reality : Symmetry, Simplicity, and Multiple Universes (Prometheus Books, 2000), Review of Schroederʼs <b>The Science of God</b>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“How can both the Bible and science be right? Israeli physicist Gerald Schroeder says he can show us how. Letʼs start with cosmology. The Bible says God created the universe in six days and indicates the passage of only about 6,000 years since then. Science currently estimates the visible universe to be about 13 billion years old, give or take a few billion. Schroeder reconciles the two, explaining that the six days of the Bible refer to a different measure of time. He explains: “there is no possible way for those first six days to have an Earth-based perspective simply because for the first two of those six days there was no Earth” (51).</p>
<p>“Instead, time during this six day period was measured on a cosmic clock. And what else could be used for that clock but the vibrations of light (electromagnetic waves)? Today the light from creation appears as the cosmic microwave background. This is now redshifted by a factor of a trillion (1012) from the period of “quark confinement” when matter as we know it first began to form. Thus the cosmic clock at that epoch ran off a trillion days for each of our modern days.<br />
The six cosmic days of creation thus took about 15 billion years earth time, give or take a few billion. So, according to the author, Genesis is not only consistent with cosmology, it gives the correct age of the universe!</p>
<p>“Each of the six days in Schroederʼs Genesis actually takes a different length of earth time. The duration D, in earth days, of each cosmic day t is calculated from the formula D = (Ao/L)exp(-Lt), where Ao = 4x1012 (the ratio of the frequencies of the cosmic microwave background at quark confinement compared to now) and L = 0.693 (natural log of 2). More simply, cosmic day one is 8 billion earth years long and you divide by two to get the duration of each succeeding cosmic day.</p>
<p>“Cosmic day one starts 15.75 billion earth years ago and covers the creation of the universe, the “breaking free” of light as electrons bind to atomic nuclei, and the beginning of galaxy formation. This is described in Gen. 1:1-5 as the creation followed by light separating from the darkness.</p>
<p>“Cosmic day two starts 7.75 billion earth years ago and lasts four billion earth years. During this period the stars and galaxies are born. This corresponds to Gen. 1:6-8, the formation of the heavenly firmament.</p>
<p>“Cosmic day three starts 3.75 billion earth years ago. During two billion earth years, the earth cools, water appears, and the first life forms appear. In Gen. 1:9-13, vegetation first appears during the third day.</p>
<p>“Cosmic day four starts 1.75 billion earth years ago and lasts a billion earth years. The earthʼs atmosphere becomes transparent and photosynthesis produces an oxygen-rich atmosphere. Schroeder says that this corresponds to Gen. 1:14-19 when “the Sun, Moon, and stars become visible in the heavens” (67).</p>
<p>“Cosmic day five starts 750 million earth years ago and lasts 500 million earth years. During this period, the first multicellular animals appear and the oceans swarm with life. Gen. 1:20-23 says the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures and “birds fly above the earth” (94).</p>
<p>“Cosmic day six starts 250 million years ago and ends at the time of Adam. During this period we have a massive extinction in which 90 percent of life is destroyed and then repopulated with humanoids and humans. This, Schroeder says, corresponds to what is described in Gen. 1:24-31.</p>
<p>“Technically, Schroederʼs formula gives the present as the end of the sixth day. However, it could just as well have ended a few thousand years ago and not affect the rest of the calculation where things are rounded off at hundreds of millions of years. Schroeder argues that after the six cosmic days of creation, Genesis switches its focus over to humanity and starts measuring time in human terms. The rest of the Bible concerns itself with the 6,000 earth years since Adam and Eve, estimated from the Bible in Bishop Ussher fashion.</p>
<p>“Schroeder does not deny the existence of hominid creatures before Adam. He talks about Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons, and accepts that they had developed tools, pottery, and many human-like qualities. In Lev. 11:33 the Bible talks about pottery. But, Schroeder argues that since it never mentions the invention of pottery, that event must have pre-dated Adam (130).</p>
<p>“According to the author, the Bible has no interest in these pre-Adam hominids because they were not yet fully human and had no souls. Thus they are never mentioned. Adam represents the quantitative change to a large brain, but more important, the qualitative change that makes us different from all other forms of life: “our soul of human spirituality” (133). God breathed this into Adam, the first real human, 6,000 years ago.</p>
<p>“Schroederʼs attempt to connect 31 lines of Genesis to big-bang cosmology and earth paleontology makes entertaining reading, but will convince no one who is not already convinced or totally lacking of critical facilities.</p>
<p>“Let us return to the beginning. Schroederʼs use of quark confinement as the defining moment for his cosmic time scale is completely arbitrary. He seems to have chosen it for no better reason than it gives the answer he wants. The redshift from quark confinement to the present is of the order of 1012. Multiplying this by six days gives 15 billion years, which is consistent with our current estimate for the age of the universe.</p>
<p>“Alternatively, Schroeder might have chosen the moment in the early universe called “decoupling,” which represents the point where radiation separates from matter. Indeed, he relates this event to the separation of the “light from the darkness” described in Genesis day one. But the redshift from decoupling to the present is only of the order of 1,000, which would give an earth time interval of only fifteen years for the six cosmic days of creation. If he had chosen some other moment, he would have obtained yet a different time scale.</p>
<p>“Furthermore, by Schroederʼs own formula the universe creation corresponds to the time of quark confinement. Blueshifting back from that point rather than redshifting ahead, the events prior to quark confinement would recede infinitely into the past, in earth time, and we would have no creation at all.</p>
<p>“Schroederʼs use of an exponential function to give different earth periods for each cosmic day is not justified by his argument that earth time is simply redshifted cosmic time. While an exponential relationship would apply for the inflationary epoch in the early universe, that has ended by the time of quark confinement. Afterwards we have the almost linear Hubble expansion in which the redshift varies as a power law with time, not exponentially. By having each cosmic day half as long as the preceding one in earth years, again a completely arbitrary, unjustified procedure, Schroeder is able to vaguely relate events known from cosmology to those described in Genesis.</p>
<p>“In cosmic day two the “firmament” is created. Note that Schroeder excludes from the “firmament” all galaxies more than 7.75 billion light years away, of which there are many. Furthermore, he sees no problem with calling the expanding universe a “firmament.” Like all apologists, he selects his data carefully, accepting only those which agree with his hypotheses and discarding those which do not.</p>
<p>“Primitive life first appears in cosmic day three. Here again it takes some mighty stretching to associate what is described in the Bible for the third day, including fruit trees, with the primitive life described by paleontology for that epoch.</p>
<p>“Schroeder has the sun, moon, and stars becoming visible in cosmic day four. In fact, Genesis seems to say the that sun, moon, and stars are created at that time - well after the earth was created.</p>
<p>“Cosmic day five has the waters teeming with life. But the biblical verses imply birds as well. Schroeder says that “birds” is a mistranslation and that the Bible here is referring to water insects instead. Translation is so easy when you know what you want a passage to say.</p>
<p>“Cosmic day six contains the mass extinctions of life that occurred 65 million years ago. The biblical verses referenced make no mention of mass extinction. The Biblical Flood occurs well after Adam, but Schroeder needs to end the six days of creation with Adam for other purposes. This is one event he simply cannot make fit, although he is not honest enough to say so and leaves the impression that everything is consistent.</p>
<p>“At times you get the impression that this book is a parody, with quite a few good chuckles when read in that context. However, the sections on evolution soon convince you that no parody is intended. They are just too unfunny, too dull. Schroeder trots out all the old, tiresome arguments about why “life could not have stared by chance” and how the simplest forms, even viruses, are “far too complex to have originated without there being an inherent chemical property of molecular self-organization and/or reaction enhancing catalysts at every step of their development” (85). He applies the usual creationist deception of calculating chance probabilities as if chance is the only operative mechanism, and then saying this “proves” that God intervenes along the way when they come out very low. And, of course, the “staccato aspect of the fossil record” refutes classical evolution. “These rapid changes cannot be explained by purely random mutations at the molecular-genetic level” (87).</p>
<p>“Notice how often theists tell us that something cannot be explained except by God? They never seem to learn from history.”</p>
<p>Revised Title: The Delusions of Gerald Schroeder, December 5, 1997<br />
Reviewer: from St. Louis, Missouri<br />
I was intrigued by the title, but agitated by the contents. The entire book is filled with completely preposterous assumptions and conclusions. After reading such a book, I begin to question why someone, such as Gerald Schroeder, view themselves as scientists.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr style="height:10px; border:0; box-shadow: 0 10px 10px -10px #5c5098 inset"/>
<blockquote id=quote>For an improved perspective on the contributions from Paleontology I repeat what I sent recently to DM: Henry Gee, Editor of Nature, in his “Deep Time”, recognizes all Paleo is ‘scenario elaboration’ synthesized from fragments and the proponentʼs worldview, beyond the reach of experimentation, not encumbered by the testable predictions on which science depends. Phil(a scientist)</blockquote>
<p><b>Edward</b>: What <b>level</b> of “elaboration” was the editor of Nature speaking about?</p>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1773058939668732399.post-76866817337168573012012-03-26T19:50:00.002-07:002019-09-03T02:26:13.527-07:00Intelligent Design: God in the Classroom<img style="border-width: 0px; padding: 3px; float: right;" src="https://edwardtbabinski.us/facebook/intelligent-design/classroom.jpg" alt="Intelligent Design: God in the Classroom" width="350" height="457" />
<p>by John B. Good</p>
<p>AS MANY OF YOU are no doubt aware, there has been an effort of late here in Ohio to shoehorn a bogus “science” known as “Intelligent Design” into science classes in our public schools. Proponents of “Intelligent Design” (henceforth referred to as “ID-iots”) claim that life is too complex to have arisen by natural means, therefore the only “logical” explanation is that it must have been purposefully designed. ID-iots claim that life as it exists today is fundamentally different from hypothetical forms that would or could have evolved naturally without intelligent intervention. They cite this “fact” as proof of their assertions, yet they canʼt, or wonʼt, say exactly how intelligently designed life differs from nondesigned life. They merely assert that it is different, which begs an obvious question that, if ID-iots possessed even a shred of intellectual honesty, should cause them no end of embarrassment. Simply put, how can they even know this let alone hope to prove it, since according to their own beliefs, they have no examples of nondesigned life to serve as a control to test their hypothesis? How can you prove that A is different from B when, according to your belief system, B doesnʼt exist? Little wonder then that ID proponents can offer no real evidence to back up their claims. They simply state that ID must be true for this and that reason and expect the rest of us to take their word for it.</p>
<p>Rather than providing evidential support for their own claims, they try to make their case by attacking the opposition, apparently believing that if they can somehow disprove evolution, ID wins by default. Thatʼs a sure sign that they have no valid arguments of their own to present, and itʼs not how science works. Science, real science, bases its conclusions on careful, painstakingly detailed observation and analysis of empirical evidence, not on unfounded assertions based on religious dogma and/or wishful thinking. ID, on the other hand, bases its case largely on the fallacy of “Irreducible Complexity”, that is certain features, the eye being one of their favorites, cannot have evolved naturally because any transitional “incomplete” versions would not have been functional. Half an eye, they claim, confers no evolutionary advantage upon the possessor. Thus, by ID-iot reasoning, the eye must have been intelligently designed. Never mind that we can today observe firsthand nearly every proposed stage in the evolution of the eye in modern, living organisms. Never mind that experimental data show that even a primitive “half an eye” can sense light, shadow and motion, and never mind that in a primitive world where most of the competition is still blind, this would have conferred an enormous survival advantage. ID-iots wonʼt be swayed by these facts. By and large, they arenʼt the type of folks to let the truth get in the way of their version of it. In actual fact, the eye isnʼt terribly difficult to explain in naturalistic terms. IDʼs objections are groundless. The rotating locomotor flagellum found in some microorganisms, which ID-iots also love to cite, is much more difficult to explain naturalistically than the eye. However, it has been explained, and quite thoroughly at that. Each proposed step in the development of this unique structure has been more than adequately accounted for. By and large, the idea of “Irreducible Complexity” depends on some pretty subjective interpretations, and the entire foundation crumbles when examined with a critical eye. IC is an idea based on personal conviction, not on fact, and is in no way scientific.</p>
<p>So there you have it. Unfounded assertions based on personal conviction and faulty reasoning, wrapped up in a pretty package of technical-sounding terms. Thatʼs “Intelligent Design” in a nutshell. It really doesnʼt matter what “mysteries” ID does claim to explain. Itʼs the points it avoids addressing that doom ID as science and expose it for what it really is. In an attempt to make their arguments seem less religious and more “scientific”, most ID-iots carefully avoid any discussion regarding the identity or nature of this “designer” they postulate, but you donʼt have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out that the “science” of “Intelligent Design” isnʼt science at all. Itʼs the same old creationist nonsense that fundamentalist Christians have been trying to force into our public schools for years. Theyʼve simply watered down or discarded some of creationismʼs more outrageous claims and given it a new pseudo-scientific spin in the hope that it wonʼt be recognized for what it is. Despite vociferous denials by its more prominent supporters, “Intelligent Design” is religion, plain and simple, and has no place in science classrooms.<br>
Source: <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20070708030624/http://home.neo.rr.com/johnbgood/" target="_blank">johnbgood</a></p>
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<img style="border-width: 0px; padding: 3px; float: right;" src="https://edwardtbabinski.us/facebook/intelligent-design/mutations.jpg" alt="Universal Negatives and Random Mutations" width="400" height="312" />
<p>Right in a sense, if only because no one can prove a universal negative.</p>
<p>However we do have proof:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>That mutations take place and alter the genome, especially in non-essential and unused portions of the genome that do not code for proteins. Mutations collect in those areas of the genome very readily, which is the majority of the genome. In fact, less than five percent of the entire human genome codes for proteins, and thatʼs close to the same percentage of the genome that consists of endogenous retroviral DNA (which is foreign DNA from viruses that has implanted itself, hidden and insinuated itself into our human DNA over the eons). Mutations can also be observed directly every so often right after meiotic divisions of the sex cells. So, mutations are known to occur on a regular basis, and at the <b>frequency</b> that evolution requires in order to turn, say, a common ancestor of chimps and humans into both chimps and humans. In fact, the known calculated frequency of mutations in the human genome is more than what is required if evolution via mutations over time were true.</p></li>
<li><p>There is proof that man and chimp are nearer each other genetically than either of them are to the other apes. Indeed, “new genetic evidence that lineages of chimps (currently Pan troglodytes) and humans (Homo sapiens) diverged so recently that chimps should be reclassed as Homo troglodytes. The move would make chimps full members of our genus Homo, along with Neanderthals, and all other human-like fossil species. “We humans appear as only slightly remodeled chimpanzee-like apes,” says the study…Within important sequence stretches of these functionally significant genes, humans and chimps share 99.4 percent identity. (Some previous DNA work remains controversial. It concentrated on genetic sequences that are not parts of genes and are less functionally important, said Goodman.)…” [from “Chimps Belong on Human Branch of Family Tree, Study Says” John Pickrell in England for National Geographic News May 20, 2003]</p>
<p>One early estimate of the genetic distance between man and chimp was done in the 1970ʼs using the technique of pairing up the two halves of DNA strings from different species to see what percentage of the DNA stands would join together and what percentage did not. Humans and chimps were found to be no more dissimilar than sibling species of nearly identical fruit flies. Not much genetic distance there.</p>
<p>And it logically follows that if you were to compare the genetic distance not between man and chimp, but between man and the <b>Common Ancestor</b> of man and chimp, the genetic distance is <b>even less</b>. I am guessing, but Denton may be raising that point in his new book, <b>The Tree of Life</b>, that he is currently writing.</p></li>
<li><p>There is proof that at least 100 known species of Old World apes lived during the Miocene in Europe and Africa. And those species of primitive apes all differed from modern great ape species in that the primitive apes were all relatively nearer to modern day human skeletal anatomy than todayʼs great apes are. For instance, the primitive apes all had small hands, and had legs and arms the same length; while <b>modern</b> great apes all have large hands with long fingers, and their arms are longer than their legs. The primitive apes also had no simian shelf in their jaws, again like modern humans; while the <b>modern</b> great apes all have a simian shelf in their jaws, unlike modern humans.</p></li>
<li><p>There is also proof of upright apes and early pre-hominids, hominids, and eventually the genus homo.</p>
<p>The questions these four points of fact raise in my own mind are many. Perhaps I.D.erʼs ignore such questions, I canʼt speak for them, but here are the questions for me:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Mutations happen regularly and at a rate that is not incompatible with the modern scientific theory of evolution. And also, there are unused portions of the genome, huge portions in fact, collecting mutations. In fact enough endogenous retroviruses have crept into the human genome over the millennia to rival the amount of functional protein-coding DNA that is used to construct a human being. Furthermore there are even remnants of the old centromeres in our human Chromosome #2, remnants of when that chromosome was once two separate chromosomes, each with their own centromere, as it is today in all the great ape species. <a href="http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoEvidence.html" target="_blank">Comparison of the Human and Great Ape Chromosomes as Evidence for Common Ancestry</a> (I have additional info on this if you need it).</p>
<p><b>Question</b>: It would seem that a designer could have designed a lot cleaner genome, or at least taken some of the old viral DNA out of our genome when adding the occasional new mutation. He could have removed some of the remnants of the extra centromere found in human chromosome #2.</p>
<p>In other words, there could be more signs of design instead of just accumulation of unused portions, instead of evidence of a sloppy fusion of two chromosomes into one.</p></li>
<li><p>The genetic distance between chimp and human is quite small, even smaller between chimp/human, and their common ancestor. Itʼs a genetic distance comparable to sibling species of fruit flies.</p>
<p><b>Question</b>: Does it really require a miracle to explain how such a distance might be bridged?</p></li>
<li><p>& 4. There were pre-monkeys before there were monkey, and there were many species of monkey before the first primitive apes showed up, and many species of primitive apes before the first hominids showed up, and different species of homo, before homo sapiens showed up.</p>
<p><b>Question</b>: There were ages upon ages of monkeys and then ages upon ages of apes. Were any of them required before arriving at hominids, and finally of those hominids, one branch of them arriving at man? It may be “design” of a sort overall, but it does not appear very “direct” to create so many bushes upon bushes of creatures and then only have a few ultimately survive on the ends of each bush.</p></li>
</ol></li>
</ol>
<div class="separator" style="text-align:center"><iframe frameborder=0 data-src="https://edwardtbabinski.us/related-content/related-content-23.html" style="margin-bottom:0em; margin-left:0em; margin-right:0em; height:400px; width:600px; border:0px"></iframe></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1773058939668732399.post-26834267835674168152012-03-20T16:09:00.001-07:002019-09-03T02:26:57.852-07:00Mark Twain Questions the Intelligent Design (I.D.) Hypothesis<img style="border-width: 0px; padding: 3px; float: right;" src="https://edwardtbabinski.us/facebook/intelligent-design/mark_twain.jpg" alt="Mark Twain and Intelligent Design" width="350" height="328" />
<p>Not many people know that Mark Twain wrote an article in 1903 that questioned the “I.D.”-like hypothesis of Alfred Russell Wallace, who appears to have argued for an early version of the “anthropic principle.” Twainʼs depiction of evolution below, with the evolution of life taking place in a mere “hundred million years” and with both men and birds evolving from the Pterodactyl, is intentionally farcical. Twain deliberately wants to appear bumpkinish in his ideas of evolution (and in the silly names he invents for species) to make the essays final “I Dunno” all the more poignant.</p>
<p>Following Twainʼs essay is another titled, “Little Bessie” from an uncompleted work, The Myth of Providence, that fits in with the theme in the essay below.</p>
<p>I do <b>not</b> present these essays as the last word in the I.D. / Darwinism debate, though I do think that whomever reads them may gain a firmer grasp of the fact that the present dispute is not likely to be “settled” any time soon. (My own middle of the road “Divine Tinkerer” hypothesis does not appeal to many though I find it hopeful without being unrealistic.)</p>
<p>Best, Edward T. Babinski</p>
<p><b>“Was The World Made For Man?”</b> [1903]</p>
<p>“Alfred Russell Wallaceʼs revival of the theory that this earth is at the center of the stellar universe, and is the only habitable globe, has aroused great interest in the world.”—Literary Digest</p>
<p>“For ourselves we do thoroughly believe that man, as he lives just here on this tiny earth, is in essence and possibilities the most sublime existence in all the range of non-divine being—the chief love and delight of God.”—Chicago “Interior” (Presb.)</p>
<p>I seem to be the only scientist and theologian still remaining to be heard from on this important matter of whether the world was made for man or not. I feel that it is time for me to speak.</p>
<p>I stand almost with the others. They believe the world was made for man, I believe it likely that it was made for man; they think there is proof, astronomical mainly, that it was made for man, I think there is evidence only, not proof, that it was made for him. It is too early, yet, to arrange the verdict, the returns are not all in. When they are all in, I think they will show that the world was made for man; but we must not hurry, we must patiently wait till they are all in.</p>
<p>Now as far as we have got, astronomy is on our side. Mr. Wallace has clearly shown this. He has clearly shown two things: that the world was made for man, and that the universe was made for the world—to steady it, you know. The astronomy part is settled, and cannot be challenged.</p>
<p>We come now to the geological part. This is the one where the evidence is not all in, yet. It is coming in, hourly, daily, coming in all the time, but naturally it comes with geological carefulness and deliberation, and we must not be impatient, we must not get excited, we must be calm, and wait. To lose our tranquillity will not hurry geology; nothing hurries geology.</p>
<p>It takes a long time to prepare a world for man, such a thing is not done in a day. Some of the great scientists, carefully deciphering the evidences furnished by geology, have arrived at the conviction that our world is prodigiously old, and they may be right, but Lord Kelvin is not of their opinion. He takes a cautious, conservative view, in order to be on the safe side, and feels sure it is not so old as they think. As Lord Kelvin is the highest authority in science now living, I think we must yield to him and accept his view. He does not concede that the world is more than a hundred million years old. He believes it is that old, but not older. Lyell believed that our race was introduced into the world 31,000 years ago, Herbert Spencer makes it 32,000. Lord Kelvin agrees with Spencer.</p>
<p>Very well. According to Kelvinʼs figures it took 99,968,000 years to prepare the world for man, impatient as the Creator doubtless was to see him and admire him. But a large enterprise like this has to be conducted warily, painstakingly, logically. It was foreseen that man would have to have the oyster. Therefore the first preparation was made for the oyster. Very well, you cannot make an oyster out of whole cloth, you must make the oysterʼs ancestor first. This is not done in a day. You must make a vast variety of invertebrates, to start with—belemnites, trilobites, jebusites, amalekites, and that sort of fry, and put them to soak in a primary sea, and wait and see what will happen. Some will be a disappointments - the belemnites, the ammonites and such; they will be failures, they will die out and become extinct, in the course of the 19,000,000 years covered by the experiment, but all is not lost, for the amalekites will fetch the home-stake; they will develop gradually into encrinites, and stalactites, and blatherskites, and one thing and another as the mighty ages creep on and the Archaean and the Cambrian Periods pile their lofty crags in the primordial seas, and at last the first grand stage in the preparation of the world for man stands completed, the Oyster is done. An oyster has hardly any more reasoning power than a scientist has; and so it is reason ably certain that this one jumped to the conclusion that the nineteen-million years was a preparation for him; but that would be just like an oyster, which is the most conceited animal there is, except man. And anyway, this one could not know, at that early date, that he was only an incident in a scheme, and that there was some more to the scheme, yet.</p>
<p>The oyster being achieved, the next thing to be arranged for in the preparation of the world for man, was fish. Fish, and coal to fry it with. So the Old Silurian seas were opened up to breed the fish in, and at the same time the great work of building Old Red Sandstone mountains 80,000 feet high to cold-storage their fossils in was begun. This latter was quite indispensable, for there would be no end of failures again, no end of extinctions—millions of them—and it would be cheaper and less trouble to can them in the rocks than keep tally of them in a book. One does not build the coal beds and 80,000 feet of perpendicular Old Red Sandstone in a brief time—no, it took twenty million years. In the first place, a coal bed is a slow and troublesome and tiresome thing to construct. You have to grow prodigious forests of tree-ferns and reeds and calamities and such things in a marshy region; then you have, to sink them under out of sight and let them rot; then you have to turn the streams on them, so as to bury them under several feet of sediment, and the sediment must have time to harden and turn to rock; next you must grow another forest on top, then sink it and put on another layer of sediment and harden it; then more forest and more rock, layer upon layer, three miles deep—ah, indeed it is a sickening slow job to build a coal-measure and do it right!</p>
<p>So the millions of years drag on; and meantime the fish-culture is lazying along and frazzling out in a way to make a person tired. You have developed ten thousand kinds of fishes from the oyster; and come to look, you have raised nothing but fossils, nothing but extinctions. There is nothing left alive and progressive but a ganoid or two and perhaps half a dozen asteroids. Even the cat wouldnʼt eat such. Still, it is no great matter; there is plenty of time, yet, and they will develop into something tasty before man is ready for them. Even a ganoid can be depended on for that, when he is not going to be called on for sixty million years.</p>
<p>The Palaeozoic time-limit having now been reached, it was necessary to begin the next stage in the preparation of the world for man, by opening up the Mesozoic Age and instituting some reptiles. For man would need reptiles. Not to eat, but to develop himself from. This being the most important detail of the scheme, a spacious liberality of time was set apart for it—thirty million years. What wonders followed! From the remaining ganoids and asteroids and alkaloids were developed by slow and steady and pains-taking culture those stupendous saurians that used to prowl about the steamy world in those remote ages, with their snaky heads reared forty feet in the air and sixty feet of body and tail racing and thrashing after. All gone, now, alas—all extinct, except the little handful of Arkansawrians left stranded and lonely with us here upon this far-flung verge and fringe of time.</p>
<p>Yes, it took thirty million years and twenty million reptiles to get one that would stick long enough to develop into something else and let the scheme proceed to the next step.</p>
<p>Then the Pterodactyl burst upon the world in all his impressive solemnity and grandeur, and all Nature recognized that the Cainozoic threshold was crossed and a new Period open for business, a new stage begun in the preparation of the globe for man. It may be that the Pterodactyl thought the thirty million years had been intended as a preparation for himself, for there was nothing too foolish for a Pterodactyl to imagine, but he was in error, the preparation was for man, Without doubt the Pterodactyl attracted great attention, for even the least observant could see that there was the making of a bird in him. And so it turned out. Also the makings of a mammal, in time. One thing we have to say to his credit, that in the matter of picturesqueness he was the triumph of his Period; he wore wings and had teeth, and was a starchy and wonderful mixture altogether, a kind of long-distance premonitory symptom of Kiplingʼs marine:</p>
<p>ʻE isnʼt one Oʼthe regʼlar Line,<br />
nor ʻe isnʼt one of the crew,<br />
ʻEʼs a kind of a giddy harumfrodite [hermaphrodite] —<br />
soldier anʼ sailor too!</p>
<p>From this time onward for nearly another thirty million years the preparation moved briskly. From the Pterodactyl was developed the bird; from the bird the kangaroo, from the kangaroo the other marsupials; from these the mastodon, the megatherium, the giant sloth, the Irish elk, and all that crowd that you make useful and instructive fossils out of—then came the first great Ice Sheet, and they all retreated before it and crossed over the bridge at Behringʼs strait and wandered around over Europe and Asia and died. All except a few, to carry on the preparation with. Six Glacial Periods with two million years between Periods chased these poor orphans up and down and about the earth, from weather to weather—from tropic swelter at the poles to Arctic frost at the equator and back again and to and fro, they never knowing what kind of weather was going to turn up next; and if ever they settled down anywhere the whole continent suddenly sank under them without the least notice and they had to trade places with the fishes and scramble off to where the seas had been, and scarcely a dry rag on them; and when there was nothing else doing a volcano would let go and fire them out from wherever they had located. They led this unsettled and irritating life for twenty-five million years, half the time afloat, half the time aground, and always wondering what it was all for, they never suspecting, of course, that it was a preparation for man and had to be done just so or it wouldnʼt be any proper and harmonious place for him when he arrived.</p>
<p>And at last came the monkey, and anybody could see that man wasnʼt far off, now. And in truth that was so. The monkey went on developing for close upon 5,000,000 years, and then turned into a man - to all appearances.</p>
<p>Such is the history of it. Man has been here 32,000 years. That it took a hundred million years to prepare the world for him is proof that that is what it was done for. I suppose it is. I dunno. If the Eiffel tower were now representing the worldʼs age, the skin of paint on the pinnacle-knob at its summit would represent manʼs share of that age; and anybody would perceive that that skin was what the tower was built for. I reckon they would, I dunno.</p>
<hr style="height:10px; border:0; box-shadow: 0 10px 10px -10px #5c5098 inset"/>
<p>Also by Mark Twain, “Little Bessie,” The Myth of Providence</p>
<p>“In His wisdom and mercy the Lord sends us afflictions to discipline us and make us better…All of them. None of them comes by accident; He alone sends them, and always out of love for us, and to make us better, my child.”</p>
<p>“Did He give Billy Norris the typhus, mamma?”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>“What for?”</p>
<p>“Why, to discipline him and make him good.”</p>
<p>“But he died, mamma, and so it couldnʼt make him good.”</p>
<p>“Well, then, I suppose it was for some other reason. We know it was a good reason, whatever it was.”</p>
<p>After a pause: “Did He make the roof fall on the stranger that was trying to save the crippled old woman from the fire, mamma?”</p>
<p>“Yes, my child. Wait! Donʼt ask me why, because I donʼt know. I only know it was to discipline some one, or be a judgment upon somebody, or to show His power.”</p>
<p>“That drunken man that stuck a pitchfork into Mrs. Welchʼs baby when…”</p>
<p>“Never mind about it, you neednʼt go into particulars; it was to discipline the child - that much is certain, anyway.”</p>
<p>“Mamma, Mr. Burgess said in his sermon that billions of little creatures are sent into us to give us cholera, and typhoid, and lockjaw, and more than a thousand other sicknesses and, mamma, does He send them?”</p>
<p>“Oh, certainly, child, certainly. Of course.”</p>
<p>“What for?”</p>
<p>“Oh, to discipline us! Havenʼt I told you so, over and over again?”</p>
<p>“Itʼs awful cruel, mamma! And silly! And if I…”</p>
<p>“Hush, oh hush! Do you want to bring the lightning?”</p>
<p>“You know the lightning did come last week, mamma, and struck the new church, and burnt it down. Was it to discipline the church?”</p>
<p>(Wearily) “Oh, I suppose so.”</p>
<p>“But it killed a hog that wasnʼt doing anything. Was it to discipline the hog, mamma?”</p>
<p>“Dear child, donʼt you want to run out and play a while? If you would like to…”</p>
<p>“Mamma, Mr. Hollister says there isnʼt a bird or fish or reptile or any other animal that hasnʼt got an enemy that Providence has sent to bite it and chase it and pester it, and kill it, and suck its blood and discipline it and make it good and religious. Is that true, mamma, because if it is true, why did Mr. Hollister laugh at it?”</p>
<p>“That Hollister is a scandalous person, and I donʼt want you to listen to anything he says.”</p>
<p>“Why, mamma, he is very interesting, and I think he tries to be good. He says the wasps catch spiders and cram them down their nests in the ground - alive, mama! - and there they live and suffer days and days and days, and hungry little baby wasps chew the spiderʼs legs and gnaw into their bellies all the time, to make them good and religious and praise God for His infinite mercies. I think Mr. Hollister is just lovely, and ever so kind; for when I asked him if he would treat a spider like that, he said he hoped to be damned if he would; and then he…”</p>
<p>“My child! oh, do for goodnessʼ sake…”</p>
<p>“And mamma, he says the spider is appointed to catch the fly, and drive her fangs into his bowels, and sucks and sucks and sucks his blood, to discipline him and make him a Christian; and whenever the fly buzzes his wings with the pain and misery of it, you can see by the spiderʼs grateful eye that she is thanking the Giver of All Good for…well, sheʼs saying grace, as he says; and also, he…”</p>
<p>“Oh, arenʼt you ever going to get tired chattering! If you want to go out and play…”</p>
<p>“Mamma, he says himself that all troubles and pains and miseries and rotten diseases and horrors and villainies are sent to us in mercy and kindness to discipline us; and he says it is the duty of every father and mother to help Providence, every way they can; and says they canʼt do it by just scolding and whipping, for that wonʼt answer, it is weak and no good - Providenceʼs invention for disciplining us and the animals is the very brightest idea that ever was. Mamma, brother Eddie needs disciplining, right away; and I know where you can get the smallpox for him, and the itch, and the diphtheria, and bone-rot, and heart disease, and tuberculosis, and…<br />
Dear mama, have you fainted?”</p>
<div class="separator" style="text-align:center"><iframe data-src="https://edwardtbabinski.us/related-content/related-content-23.html" style="margin-bottom:0em; margin-left:0em; margin-right:0em; height:400px; width:600px; border:0px"></iframe></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1773058939668732399.post-42746684740302473192012-03-20T15:13:00.001-07:002019-09-03T02:30:02.428-07:00Question for I.D.ers (Intelligent Design) concerning the “waste” and “junk” in nature<img style="border-width: 0px; padding: 3px; float: right;" src="https://edwardtbabinski.us/facebook/intelligent-design/pseudogenes.jpg" alt="“waste” and “junk” in nature" width="350" height="263" />
<p>Question for I.D.ers (in several parts):</p>
<p>How much “waste” and “junk” is there in nature?</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Do you accept that “pseudogenes” exist inside all animal genomes? What proportion of the human and/or chimp genome contains them? What is the proportion of pseudogenes to functional genes?</p></li>
<li><p>Do you accept that “endogenous retroviral DNA” exists inside all animal genomes? What proportion of the human and/or chimp genome contains “endogenous retroviral DNA?” What is the proportion of the genomes that codes for endogenous retroviral DNA, compared with the proportion of the genome that codes for functional genes?</p></li>
<li><p>Do you accept that remnants of misplaced “telomeric chromosomal regions” and remnants of misplaced “centromeric regions” exist inside the human chromosome number two? If you agree both things exist inside the human chromosome number 2, do you think they constitute evidence of a possible “sloppy” fusion of chromosomes in our past ancestors? (Note: When the human chromosome number 2 and the chimpanzee chromosomes 2 and 3 are compared, their overall lengths and the individual bands of human chromosome number 2, and chimpanzee 3 and 4, line up with one another. And, there are remnants inside the longer human chromosome number 2 of “teleomeric regions” and “centromeric chromosomal material,” found in the wrong places inside the chromosome number 2, “as if” the human chromosome number two were formed by the “sloppy” fusion of two separate chromosomes.) </p></li>
<li><p>On rare occasions a whale is born with (atavistic) hind limbs. Would you consider those to be a “waste” or “junk?” (Or do you deny with AIG [Answers in Genesis] that such atavistic hind limbs exist on modern day whales?)</p></li>
<li><p>A single bacterial cell that divides every twenty minutes, will multiply to a mass four thousand times greater than the earthʼs in just two days. That doesnʼt happen, because of the inconceivably huge death rate of bacteria. If all the eggs from one mother housefly lived, she would produce more than five trillion offspring in just one season. A single oyster, left to its own devices, produces more than one-hundred-twenty-five million eggs in a season. A female sea turtle lays a hundred or more eggs, but after they hatch [and not all do] in a nest buried beneath the sand on the beach, only a handful of baby sea turtles make it to the safety of the ocean. About one hundred million sperm cells are found in each cubic centimeter of human ejaculate. Yet only one sperm lives to fertilize the femaleʼs egg. The rest die. And many fertilized eggs never reach maturity. There are equally bountiful numbers from the world of seed-bearing plants. Among the young of both plants and animals, a large percentage of them are taken by disease and or infected by parasites. In fact, two hundred and fifty years ago one-half of all children born died before reaching the age of seven. Similar figures, or worse, are true of many other animal and plant species as well. Could any of this massive fecundity and death of most of the young of animals and plants be indicative of “waste?”</p></li>
<li><p>When asteroids have struck the earth throughout geologic time and killed billions of creatures and caused mass extinctions of species, could that be indicative of “wastefulness” of any kind?</p></li>
</ol>
<div class="separator" style="text-align:center"><iframe frameborder=0 data-src="https://edwardtbabinski.us/related-content/related-content-23.html" style="margin-bottom:0em; margin-left:0em; margin-right:0em; height:400px; width:600px; border:0px"></iframe></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1773058939668732399.post-28531464475348886562012-03-20T12:35:00.001-07:002019-09-03T02:30:33.626-07:00Human Value According to the Cosmos and also According to the Bible?<img style="border-width: 0px; padding: 3px; float: right;" src="https://edwardtbabinski.us/facebook/intelligent-design/value.jpg" alt="Human Value According to the Cosmos and also According to the Bible?" width="350" height="425" />
<p>How intrinsically “valuable” are human beings according to the cosmos and also according to the Bible? In the cosmos all living things die, including human beings, and even some of the tiniest forms of life live by sucking the life out of the ones with the largest brains and/or the biggest hearts. As for the Bibleʼs view of humanityʼs intrinsic “value,” even more questions arise, a wide variety in fact.</p>
<p><b>First</b>, letʼs review the most direct and common recognitions of humanityʼs place in the cosmos:</p>
<h3>The Cosmos and Human “Value”</h3>
<p>Every living thing in the cosmos dies. There is plenty of evidence that our home planet, the earth, has been struck by large objects from space. Visible fiery meteors continue to enter the earthʼs atmosphere from time to time some even videotaped, and some larger objects from space have passed so close to the earth in the past few decades that their pathways were within the distance from the earth to the moonʼs orbit. Also, a little behind the arm of the Milky Way in which our solar system lies, there are stars being drawn into our galaxy from a nearby smaller galaxy, and so over a million stars are entering our galaxy and their gravity is interacting with stars found in our galaxy which can cause grave problems for any planets on those stars as they pass nearby each other. Lucky for us the arm of the galaxy where our solar system lies has just recently (in galactic time) already passed through that danger zone where the stars keep entering our galaxy. Also note that a solar flare from our own sun came so near the earth in the 1990s that it disabled satellite and cell phone communication. The earthʼs magnetic field is also diminishing (viz., the earthʼs poles shift in polarity and power over time, and a “few generations from now” our planet will soon be in a down phase, lacking a magnetic shield, and no one knows for sure how that might effect life on earth, or affect how electronic-based technology—computers and telecommunications function). I also read that dangerous gamma radiation was detected striking the earth in bursts coming from the vicinity of a “magnestar” that blew up in our general part of the galaxy. That could be quite dangerous if the star were just a bit nearer. Others have supposed that radiation from a star going nova in our vicinity might have instigated some extinctions in the past. Though if any star went nova near the earth that might be it for all life on earth. So this cosmos provides uncertainties galore concerning the continuance of life. Even stars and galaxies in our cosmos have finite lifetimes (though the question of what sort of infinite matrix all cosmoses might lie within, or how that matrix generates new cosmoses, remains an open one in physics and philosophy).</p>
<p>Astronomers have evidence of rings of matter and even planets surrounding distant stars, so there might be planets in the cosmos other than earth on which sentient beings live (found in the “galactic habitable zone” of our galaxy or of distant galaxies, since thereʼs over a hundred billion other galaxies out there, each of them containing a billion or so stars). It is not inconceivable that such beings should they exist, live on planets like ours in which every living thing dies. One is therefore left with far more questions than answers concerning cosmic “value.”</p>
<h3>God and Human “Value”</h3>
<p>Assuming God exists, how do we know for sure that God “values” human beings or to what degree He does? Iʼve already reviewed questions regarding the nature of such “value” based on the cosmic situation in which God has placed humanity, and also based on the fact that neither nature nor God provide every embryo a whole and healthy start in life, but instead the opposite is true, since disabilities, nutritional deficiencies, and childhood illnesses, including deaths during birth and deaths during infancy and early childhood are very common among all species, including human beings.</p>
<p>The Bible says and/or implies that God finds human beings “valuable,” even created in Godʼs own “image,” however human beings wrote those books, and any sentient being would probably find it difficult to imagine a deity not created in <b>their</b> own image.</p>
<p>However, being “created in Godʼs image” does not even mean that humanity was so valuable as to be granted the equally god-like gift of immortality. Instead, early authors of some books in the Bible also expressed in numerous places that everyone went to the same place after they died, Sheol, the grave, the land of shades. Such authors of early books of the Bible taught that only God was immortal, while human beings were created from dust and to dust would return. Iʼm not saying the Bible teaches a uniform view of the afterlife, but simply noting that there are different ideas in the Bible of the afterlife. One was that humanity was animated dust and was not immortal like God. Such a view was common in the ancient world. Among the Greeks for instance, they viewed humanity as mortal , but a select few “heroes” could be taken up to be with the gods and live forever like Hercules (the early Hebrews likewise pictured only a few like Enoch and Elijah being taken up, but in other places the Bible emphasized humanityʼs mortality and a place known as Sheol where all ended up). So some strands of the Bible picture humanity as being “valued” while they lived and breathed, but after death they were “valued” no more than say, “dust” or mere “shadows.”</p>
<p>Speaking of the Bible, the same people who wrote some of the earliest books in the Bible also assumed the cosmos was created in six evenings and mornings as measured by evenings and mornings on what we today know to be but one planet, earth. This does not impress humans living today who have learned that all planets have their own days and nights, evenings and mornings, rather than the earthʼs evenings and morning being central. Was the very first light created “in the beginning” for the sake of instituting our planetʼs earth days and nights, evenings and mornings? And all the rest of the cosmos was likewise created “based on earthʼs days and nights,” six of them, whether in metaphor or fact? But if that is what “revealed” books of the Bible teach, then how can we be sure of other matters in such books, including statements that God “values” humanity?</p>
<p>Even the pains and pleasures that people and nations experienced were interpreted by the Bibleʼs authors as being signs of “Godʼs” pleasure and displeasure, or signs of Godʼs “punishments” or “blessings.” While today people question such easy black or white supernatural interpretations of disasters and boons, of good times and bad times. It would appear that it is indeed the writers of the Bible who are interpreting what happened to them and their nation in terms of “God,” just as they interpreted the earthʼs status in cosmic creation myths, with light created for the earthʼs evenings and mornings, and the earth created even BEFORE the sun, moon and stars were “made and set… above the earth… to light it, and for signs and seasons” on earth, merely one planet out of the entire cosmos?</p>
<p>The ancient Greeks likewise viewed their nation as lying at the “center of the earth” with their oracle of Delphi lying at the earthʼs navel, and the earth itself being the foundation of creation with a dome above it where the sun, moon and stars lay. The ancient Greeks also thought they “knew” why good and bad things happened during the Trojan war to certain warriors and nations. They “knew” it was due to the pleasure or displeasure of their “gods” and the exertion of their supernatural powers to decide battles or bless the land (read Homer).</p>
<h3>The “Value” Of Humanity in the N.T.</h3>
<p>Only in the New Testament are human beings portrayed as having such “value” that God would put Himself through suffering, death, and hell, including God “becoming sin”—becoming something that God cannot stand—hence God punishing God, in order to spare humanity from “hell.” That is quite a claim concerning humanityʼs “value” but note the lateness of such a claim even in the “revealed religion” of the Bible.</p>
<p>Also, think about the self-centeredness of such a portrayal of humanity. Humanityʼs self-centeredness began with claiming it was created in Godʼs image, then in the intertestamental period believing it would live eternally, and now in the N.T., humanity claiming its own “sins” or failures are why God had to put God through pain, death and hell, with God Himself becoming sin, and shunning and punishing Himself, thus creating a rift, albeit temporary, in God. Quite a jump from humanity being simply mortal dust that returns to dust and winds up in Sheol, the land of shades. For now the human writers of the N.T. have even divinized humanityʼs faults, imagining God had to take humanityʼs faults so seriously as to tear God Himself into pieces in a manner of speaking, God punishing God (or to use a metaphor from nature and animals) God smeared Himself with our poo and hated Himself, disassociating God from God, creating a rift in the Godhead all because of US. Thus humanityʼs ego and hubris appears to have grown over time and throughout “revealed revelations” in the Bible, such that even our poo is made to eventually smell good or come out good, regardless of the consequences to “God.”</p>
<h3>The “Value” of Humanity Vis-à-Vis the Question of Hell</h3>
<p>Even one human groupʼs self-centered dislike of other nations or other human beings differing from them, has sought justification in the “Divine,” namely “Divine condemnations.” Such hubris not only gave birth to the interpretation that when other nations suffered they were being “punished by God,” but also applied later in the sense of eternal punishment (book of Daniel) other intertestamental works, and of course the N.T.</p>
<p>In intertestamental works the idea of “evil” demons and Satan ruling this world, their power over this world, and fears thereof, all grew immensely, leading to elevated suspicions and hatreds projected onto “outsiders.” In the N.T. the projection of such fears was also projected onto believers who loved the same holy books, and who were labeled, “heretics.” Thus Christians began persecuting fellow believers as soon as the first Christian emperor gained the throne of Rome, and Christians proceeded to kill more Christians in a few years during the Arian-Athanasian controversy than were killed during the previous three hundred years under non-Christian Roman emperors; even killing each other over matters such as whether or not a bishop had ever denied his faith under duress during the earlier days of persecution or remained “pure” (the Donatist controversy). Today Christians continue to debunk each otherʼs practices and beliefs far moreso than non-believers have ever done.</p>
<p>The notion of hell raises the question of the “value” of humanity in other ways as well. Though some Christians declare that hell is Godʼs “great compliment” to human beings, that simply begs the question of what God would do to someone He wished to “insult” rather than “compliment.” Furthermore, if God already sees the past and future, then God would know in eternity that there was no “choice” for some souls but hell. What “value” does such a view place on human life?</p>
<p>Hellish conundrums continue when one considers the view that Adamʼs sin (as Augustine taught) automatically damned all humanity, and it was up to God to grant the gift of saving grace to whomever He would, but he only grants it to some, and denies it to the rest, which means God “values” only some, and damns the rest. Jonathan Edwards put it in Augustinian terms and added darker metaphors, teaching that we all deserve the utmost punishment, because Godʼs disgust toward all of Adamʼs children since the fall is similar to the disgust we feel when we see a horrid insect or worm. Doesnʼt sound like everyone is extremely “valuable” in Godʼs eyes.</p>
<p>Christians have also argued that heretics and other non-believers in this life are not very “valuable” at all, since they spread the disease of unbelief that kills people eternally. Some Christians have even argued that we should treat heretics and/or unbelievers no better in this life than God is going to treat them in the next, in hell. For example see these statements by Luther and Melanchthon regarding the Anabaptists, a diverse Reformation movement of Bible readers and preachers, many of whom wanted to live in a land were religious beliefs were totally a matter of conscience, and there were no state churches, nor coercion, nor indelible national creeds (neither Lutheran nations nor Calvinist ones nor Catholic ones), but instead each person could read the Bible and love and follow Jesus as they were led by God.</p>
<p>“They [the Anabaptists] are not only blasphemous, but highly seditious, urge the use of the sword against them… We may not, therefore, mete out better treatment to these men than God Himself and all the saints.”<br />
—Luther in letter (written early in 1530) to Menius and Myconius who were composing a work against the Anabaptists</p>
<p>“They [the magistrates] should apply to them [the Anabaptists] the law of Moses against blasphemy and treat them as the Roman Emperors treated the Arians and Donatists.”<br />
—Melanchthon in a letter to Myconius (Feb. 1531)[SOURCE: Mackinnon, James (Ph.D., D.D., Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History, University of Edinburgh), “Luther and the Anabaptists,” p. 57-75 in Luther and the Reformation, Vol. IV., Vindication of the Movement (1530-46), (New York: Russell & Russell, Inc, 1962), pp.64 & 69]</p>
<h3>A Few Final Questions of “Value” According to the Bible</h3>
<p>How “valued” is humanity in the “primeval history” stories in Genesis in which God “repents” of having made man, and floods the earth, drowning nearly every breathing thing on it? How about in Exodus where God tells Moses He would like to let all the Israelites in the desert die and raise up a people from Moses alone? (Even if the story is interpreted as being a ruse on Godʼs part or a temptation or testing of Moses by God, anyone reading it cannot help to also see in it a certain callousness toward human life by God. Note that it states elsewhere in the Bible that God does not “tempt” people so why would he “tempt” Moses with an offer to let the Israelites die and set Moses up as a new Abraham giving birth to a new people? Admittedly, theologians finely divide, some say “gerrymander,” the words “tempt” and “test” in this case). And one could also ask what “value” God places on human life when He commands Joshua to slaughter every breathing thing inside certain cities, including babes and pregnant women? Makes life seem relatively “cheap” in Godʼs eyes.</p>
<p>Revealed biblical religion even states that God “sends lying spirits” into prophets, and God “hardens” peopleʼs hearts in order that they might be destroyed utterly as in the book of Joshua (“The Lord hardened their hearts to meet Israel in battle in order that He might destroy them utterly, that they might receive no mercy”). Or, God sends plagues and famines, or God says He will put people in the situation where they will be forced to eat their own children just to survive. Or in the N.T. God “sends them great delusion” that they might not turn and be saved. Sounds like a cavalier way to treat human life.</p>
<h3>*A Final Note on “Hell”*</h3>
<p>From Originʼs day to ours Christian theologians have continued to debate just how much of Jesusʼs apocalyptic speech about “hell” needs to be taken literally. Some say such speech is an accommodation to the ideas of Jesusʼs day concerning ideas of heaven and hell already in circulation since the inter-testamental period; and thus we donʼt even know for sure just how much of what Jesus spoke about hell was an accommodation to ideas and concepts his audience already took for granted.</p>
<p>The Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge (1908) by Schaff-Herzog says in volume 12, on page 96, “In the first five or six centuries of Christianity there were six theological schools, of which four (Alexandria, Antioch, Caesarea, and Edessa, or Nisibis) were Universalist; one (Ephesus) accepted conditional immortality; one (Carthage or Rome) taught endless punishment of the wicked. Other theological schools are mentioned as founded by Universalists, but their actual doctrine on this subject is not known.”</p>
<p>Augustine (354-430 A.D.), one of the four great Latin Church Fathers (Augustine, Ambrose, Jerome and Gregory the Great), admitted: “There are very many in our day, who though not denying the Holy Scriptures, do not believe in endless torments.”</p>
<p>Origen, a pupil and successor of Clement of Alexandria, lived from 185 to 254 A.D. He founded a school at Caesarea, and is considered by historians to be one of the great theologians and exegete of the Eastern Church. In his book, De Principiis, he wrote: “We think, indeed, that the goodness of God, through His Christ, may recall all His creatures to one end, even His enemies being conquered and subdued….for Christ must reign until He has put all enemies under His feet.” Howard F. Vos in his book Highlights of Church History states that Origen believed the souls of all that God created would some day return to rest in the bosom of the Father. Those who rejected the gospel now would go to hell to experience a purifying fire that would cleanse even the wicked; all would ultimately reach the state of bliss.</p>
<p>The great church historian Geisler writes: “The belief in the inalienable capability of improvement in all rational beings, and the limited duration of future punishment was so general, even in the West, and among the opponents of Origen, that it seems entirely independent of his system.” (Eccles. Hist., 1-212)</p>
<p>Gregory of Nyssa (332-398 A.D.), leading theologian of the Eastern Church, says in his Catechetical Orations: “Our Lord is the One who delivers man [all men], and who heals the inventor of evil himself.”</p>
<p>Neander says that Gregory of Nyssa taught that all punishments are means of purification, ordained by divine love to purge rational beings from moral evil, and to restore them back to that communion with God….so that they may attain the same blessed fellowship with God Himself.</p>
<p>Eusebius of Caesarea lived from 265 to 340 A.D. He was the Bishop of Caesarea in Palestine and a friend of Constantine, great Emperor of Rome. His commentary of Psalm 2 says: “The Son ‘breaking in pieces’ His enemies is for the sake of remolding them, as a potter his own work; as Jeremiah 18;6 says: i.e., to restore them once again to their former state.”</p>
<p>Gregory of Nazianzeu lived from 330 to 390 A.D. He was the Bishop of Constantinople. In his Oracles 39:19 we read: “These, if they will, may go Christʼs way, but if not let them go their way. In another place perhaps they shall be baptized with fire, that last baptism, which is not only painful, but enduring also; which eats up, as if it were hay, all defiled matter, and consumes all vanity and vice.”</p>
<div class="separator" style="text-align:center"><iframe frameborder=0 data-src="https://edwardtbabinski.us/related-content/related-content-40.html" style="margin-bottom:0em; margin-left:0em; margin-right:0em; height:400px; width:600px; border:0px"></iframe></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1773058939668732399.post-64851430376891661182012-03-20T11:05:00.001-07:002019-09-03T02:31:02.008-07:00“God” and Chaotic Inflation Theory<img style="border-width: 0px; padding: 3px; float: right;" src="https://edwardtbabinski.us/facebook/intelligent-design/chaotic-inflation.jpg" alt="“God” and Chaotic Inflation Theory" width="350" height="299" />
<p><a href="http://www.huge-entity.com/forum/discussion/151/it-doesnt-take-all-that-much-to-create-a-universe/" target="_blank">Excerpts from “It Doesnʼt Take All That Much To Create A Universe</a></p>
<p>Danieru wrote: It doesnʼt take all that much to create a universe. Resources on a cosmic scale are not required. It might even be possible for someone in a not terribly advanced civilization to cook up a new universe in a laboratory. Which leads to an arresting thought: Could that be how our universe came into being?</p>
<p>“When I invented chaotic inflation theory, I found that the only thing you needed to get a universe like ours started is a hundred-thousandth of a gram of matter,” Linde told me in his Russian-accented English when I reached him by phone at Stanford. “Thatʼs enough to create a small chunk of vacuum that blows up into the billions and billions of galaxies we see around us. It looks like cheating, but thatʼs how the inflation theory works—all the matter in the universe gets created from the negative energy of the gravitational field. So, whatʼs to stop us from creating a universe in a lab? We would be like gods!”<br />
[…]<br />
“You might take this all as a joke,” he said, “but perhaps it is not entirely absurd. It may be the explanation for why the world we live in is so weird. On the evidence, our universe was created not by a divine being, but by a physicist hacker.”</p>
<p>Lindeʼs theory gives scientific muscle to the notion of a universe created by an intelligent being. It might be congenial to Gnostics, who believe that the material world was fashioned not by a benevolent supreme being but by an evil demiurge. More orthodox believers, on the other hand, will seek refuge in the question, “But who created the physicist hacker?” Letʼs hope itʼs not hackers all the way up. - The Big Lab Experiment<br />
The idea that universes somehow ‘evolve’ stems naturally from this.</p>
<p>A universe capable of maintaining life expands, cools and grapples with its own entropic forces<br />
The life evolving within that universe has enough time and resilience to achieve a level of intelligence equal or greater to our own<br />
That life becomes aware of other universes (perhaps of an infinite variety) residing in higher dimensions of reality<br />
The desire to join in the multiversal fun grows beyond all reason…</p>
<p>At this point a baby universe is made in a lab, or by whatever means, and branches off. The baby universe contains enough of the ‘genetic’ information of the parent universe for it to be deemed a relative.</p>
<p>Perhaps intelligent life tweaks the contributing factors in its baby universe, effectively altering its composition to suit their self-reflective needs. In this way universes would evolve, intelligent life being their means of procreation. Perhaps all reality is this way. Perhaps our universe is still in its infancy, a larger, protective parent exerting its gravitational force across the many planes of the multiverse.</p>
<p>Perhaps…</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Dr. Orphusi writes:<br />
I like this hypothesis.</p>
<p>Itʼs not unlikely that our universe has already spawned a baby universe, fostered to life by an intelligent species in some far off galaxy that had a head-start on us. I wonder what sort of universe they have created?</p>
<p>But hereʼs a question…</p>
<p>We speak of spawning baby ‘universes’, but perhaps we can only really create galaxies/worlds within a single sub-universe, or more precisely, a single reality, the one which is created by our hands in our reality. How can I explain this…?</p>
<p>When and if we create a baby universe of our own, I think that it could be a part of the same sub-universe as the one created by the hypothetical ‘other’ intelligent species in some far away galaxy.</p>
<p>So their baby universe is really just a part of the sub-reality in which our own baby universe is a part…</p>
<p>And it keeps cascading downwards, one reality at a time…</p>
<p>Although itʼs possible that because the nature of the consciousness of each species (human, extraterrestrial) is different (is it, I wonder?), then the universes we create will naturally be separately realized.</p>
<p>Either way, itʼs an intriguing question. However I believe our universe is beyond its infancy… we canʼt guess at the extraterrestrial chances of self-reflection, but when man first perceived the world and himself, it was then that the universe changed… like a blind baby recently emerged from its motherʼs womb, opening its eyes for the first time. But more analogously, I think our universe is akin to a child that can begin to remember, that can speak and make sense of its thoughts. Its growing up as we grow up.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Ishmael writes:<br />Iʼd be interested to know how Lindeʼs theory comes to terms with the first law of thermodynamics—while itʼs probably pointless for a non-physicist such as myself to wonder about such things, the technical details of a pocket universe would seem to offer some clue as to their nature.</p>
<p>For instance, assuming that they do obey the laws of thermodynamics—that no energy is created in the creation of a new universe, and that they simply subsist on the energy of the tiny chunk of matter that they are created from in the parent universe, does that mean that their energy levels are simply “scaled down” from ours? And what of the sizes of fundamental particles? Are their protons small than our protons? But that would seem to contradict one of the most interesting passages in the article, namely that such constants are variable:</p>
<p>But then Linde thought of another channel of communication between creator and creation—the only one possible, as far as he could tell. The creator, by manipulating the cosmic seed in the right way, has the power to ordain certain physical parameters of the universe he ushers into being. So says the theory. He can determine, for example, what the numerical ratio of the electronʼs mass to the protonʼs will be. Such ratios, called constants of nature, look like arbitrary numbers to us: There is no obvious reason they should take one value rather than another. (Why, for instance, is the strength of gravity in our universe determined by a number with the digits 6673?) But the creator, by fixing certain values for these dozens of constants, could write a subtle message into the very structure of the universe. And, as Linde hastened to point out, such a message would be legible only to physicists.</p>
<p>(Insert here the obligatory reference to Contact. Note also the relationship between the present topic and Stephen Baxterʼs excellent Manifold trilogy, in which (spoilers) the first book resolves the Fermi Paradox by positing multiple universes, some sterile, some life-bearing, and one (ours) just lucky enough to eke out one sentient civilization—a fluke—but a fluke that enables the protagonist to have a hand in the creation of another, more promising universe.)</p>
<p>But then, perhaps pocket universes do not obey the first law—at least in the sense that we know it. Let “Existence” denote the sum of all universes and pocket universes. Perhaps the total amount of energy in Existence is constant, but fluid throughout its constituent universes. That is, energy does exit and enter any given universe* while coursing through the totality. This idea could gel in several ways with Dr. Orphusiʼs ideas of multiple realities; i.e., energy is constant within a reality, but does not travel between them. This would still mean, though, that there is a “direction” to the flow of energy throughout Existence. That older universes die while young ones are born, the energy leaving them and pouring into the new creations, and actually, unless there is some bracketing factor such as Orphusi suggests, the multiplicative proliferation of new universes would demand more energy than Existence is able to provide, and none of the pocket universes would have the energy to develop into universes at all, much less life-bearing ones. Essentially, itʼs heat death all over again. Or have I missed something essential?</p>
<p>*Note the presence of undeveloped and probably incoherent ideas here about dark energy and the weakness of gravity. Prompted in part by Danieruʼs poetic conclusion “across the many planes of the multiverse,” and in part by some Scientific American article I read long ago about gravityʼs strange weakness compared to the other fundamental forces, perhaps accountable by its operation through many universes.</p>
<p>There is also the question, returning briefly to my inquiries about scale, of instability below the Planck length. If, as the article says, a pocket universe would not expand outward, consuming its parent, but would curl inward until it is imperceptibly tiny, at what point do new universes become impossible because of the random energy fluctuations that permeate space? Or does it possess its own space? I hope someone here knows more about physics than I do…</p>
<p>Annnd, winding up now, for now, let us not forget virtual universes, a subject near and dear to my heart. What are the possibilities, if any, for sentient life (or simply life, if you see a difference…) to develop in a virtual universe? Such a universe would necessarily be limited by the physical constraints of its parent universe (its largest possible scope being the parent universe itself, if you buy the idea of our universe as a giant computer), but as we have seen on the Exponentially Small Planet Earth, one hardly need simulate a universe to obtain life. It would seem not to, in fact, take a village to raise a child, if by “village” you mean galaxy or interstellar community, and if by “child” you mean us. Many more thoughts here, but methinks I ought best stop typing.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Danieru writes:<br />
Many thoughts Iʼll dare to dwell on… Lovely replies…</p>
<p>Gravity is the only force thought to permeate the dimensional barriers. As Ishmael alludes to, gravity is undoubtedly the weakest force we have knowledge of (a magnet the size of a pea can overcome the gravity of the entire planet Earth when used to pick up a paper clip). Yet gravity is the true craftsman of reality, carving pathways which galaxies, planets and people can roam; building pockets of entropically divergent matter where life finds time to evolve.</p>
<p>I like the idea that the beginning of the universe, i.e. the big bang, is a black hole in reverse (a white hole). Michio Kaku manages this image better than I:</p>
<p>If the singularity at the center of a black hole lies in the future, representing a final state, the singularity of a white hole lies in the past, as a beginning, as in the big bang. So if our universe is a white hole, the big question is: is there a black hole universe on the other side of the big bang?<br />
So, youʼve spawned your baby universe in your massively expensive laboratory, but you are worried it will off-set the balance of nature (the first law of thermodynamics)? What if that first law could be balanced both in and outside the system we understand as this universe?</p>
<p>The baby universe is on the opposite side of a black hole for all intents and purposes. Perhaps it continues to feed off the energy of its parent, or maybe its black hole status is short lived; the bubble segmenting off from our reality and floating off into the multiverse alone. Either way, because energy is mass (Einstein says hello) and because all matter exerts gravity across the multidimensional planes, the baby universe and the parent universe would balance each other out. The baby universe might be obtaining energy from this reality, but in turn its gravitational presence acts as a stabilizing force, effectively keeping equilibrium in check across the planes.</p>
<p>Now, my physics here is shaky, granted, but you get my over all point: nothing, not even a universe, is completely self contained. Beyond the temporally formalized singularity we call ‘the beginning of time’ there is surely a primeval source of energy, and beyond that countless infinities more besides. Perhaps, if you take the perdurantist view on temporality, time itself should not be factored into the model we have drawn. In this way energy could enter the system at any point along the time axis, just as long as the first law of thermodynamics kept balance in balance in balance in balance throughout the entire system*….</p>
<p>Gets you thinking though for sure. Do all black holes lead to baby universes?</p>
<p>*The entire system in the perdurantistʼs view encompasses all the universe from the ‘beginning’ to the ‘end’ of time. Imagine time as a 4th dimension, effectively turning the universe into one fat 4 dimensional block of cheese. Slice through the cheese at the 14.3 billion year mark and youʼll find me typing this, you reading this or an empty forum in want of a conversation. Only by looking at the whole of the cheese can you be said to be perceiving the universe…</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Author writes: I canʼt quite get my head around the fact that Iʼm looking at the inside of a sphere, which has a radius of the distance traveled by the light of the big bang; when Iʼm seeing the outside of the smallest sphere imaginable, seeing as how I look back to the beginning of time in all directions.</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<div class="separator" style="text-align:center"><iframe frameborder=0 data-src="https://edwardtbabinski.us/related-content/related-content-23.html" style="margin-bottom:0em; margin-left:0em; margin-right:0em; height:400px; width:600px; border:0px"></iframe></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1773058939668732399.post-60015514632844888512012-03-19T20:02:00.002-07:002019-09-03T02:31:29.984-07:00Intelligent Designer or Tinkerer?<img style="border-width: 0px; padding: 3px; float: right;" src="https://edwardtbabinski.us/facebook/intelligent-design/tinkerer.jpg" alt="Intelligent Designer or Tinkerer?" width="238" height="814" />
<p>In the beginning, or, rather, before the Big Bang, the Designer fine-tuned six cosmological constants. But that merely resulted in heating and lighting vast realms of lifeless space, and created a cosmos with colliding galaxies, exploding stars, quasars emitting dangerous radiation, black holes sucking star systems into oblivion, meteors, asteroids and comets pounding the life out of whole planets - in other words, a universe coming to death blows with itself, imperiling any life that may arise in it.</p>
<p>If you are an “Intelligent Design” proponent who accepts the earth is ancient, then you must also accept that the Designer used all his care, wisdom and power to design millions of creatures that arose at precise times over periods of hundreds of millions of years. But He didnʼt use that same care and wisdom and power to spare his little darlings from falling asteroids, glaciations, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, droughts, floods, storms, viruses, bacteria, parasites, and the fangs and claws of their fellows. In fact, the Designer utterly destroyed species after species in five great extinctions, not to mention many lesser extinctions that mark the end of nearly every period in the geologic record. Also, as Malthus and Darwin pointed out, some animals lay tens of thousands of eggs and some plants produce tens of thousands of seeds. Relatively few survive. They are born only to die.</p>
<p>Nor did this Designer get things right the first time. He has had to keep tinkering with creatures over periods of millions of years. He tinkered with reptiles in order to produce synapsids, “mammal-like” reptiles with double jaw joints; then tinkered with those synapsids to produce true mammals by shrinking the second jaw joint until it became an inner ear bone. Such a transition can be traced in the fossil record.</p>
<p>He also tinkered with feathered dinosaurs until he had a few that could fly, but not very well, since the earliest ones all retained reptilian features that hindered their ability to fly, like the lack of a large keel bone to anchor large flying muscles. They also had teeth and long bony tails. So early flying reptiles were heavier, making it more difficult to fly. Their skulls were still triangular and thick like in reptiles, instead of smooth, light and helmet-shaped like modern birds. Their long bony tails added drag, and their wrist bones were not fused, which limited maneuverability and steadiness in flight. So, the Designer tinkered with the first feathered fliers every few million years, until he designed better ones. No evidence here that such a Designer was perfect or could get it right the first time. Again, why did the Designer have to tinker with monkeys for millions of years, then tinker with larger brained primates for millions more, before producing “man?”</p>
<p>Iʼd say the “Intelligent Design hypothesis” should be renamed, the “Tinkerer hypothesis.” For all we know this Tinkerer may have even fiddled with creating more than one cosmos which was incapable of sustaining life before discovering the right “cosmological constants” that could produce a cosmos capable of sustaining life as precariously as ourʼs does. Of course the hypothesis that “cosmological constants were tinkered with before our cosmos was born” is impossible for us to verify or deny. But the “Tinkerer hypothesis” seems to fit what we do know about the cosmos and life on earth after the Big Bang, and for that reason, it has more to recommend it than the “Design hypothesis.” [B. and Kenneth E. Nahigian]</p>
<p>Suppose that upon some island we should find a man a million years of age, and suppose we found him living in an elegant mansion, and he should inform us that he lived in that house for five hundred thousand years before he thought of putting on a roof, and that he but recently invented windows and doors; would we say that from the beginning he had been an infinitely accomplished and scientific architect? [Robert Ingersoll]</p>
<p>Some ID-ers believe in a Designer who instantaneously created different plants and animals and plopped them down at different points in geologic time. This means that a vast multitude of animals and plants were created only to suffer pain and death over periods of millions of years and then have their species become extinct. “Designing” creatures for pain, suffering and extinction, and then having to “design” some more for that same “purpose,” was repeated again and again, all before man arrived on the scene.</p>
<p>At least in an evolutionary scheme, no animal or plant arises just for the “purpose” of going extinct, but so that it may play a part in the ever branching struggle to occupy new niches and continue the evolution of life on earth. Thus, evolution allows theists to make more sense out of millions of years of animal life, death and extinction, than the “Intelligent Design hypothesis” does. - B.</p>
<p>“How do you explain the beauty and harmony of nature?”</p>
<p>Answer: “Throughout the animal kingdom, animals prey upon each other or die of hunger (or nature kills them in a myriad other ways). For my part, I am unable to see any great beauty or harmony in the tapeworm. Let it not be said that this creature is sent as a punishment for our sins, for it is more prevalent among animals than among humans. I suppose the questioner is thinking of such things as the beauty of the starry heavens. But one should remember that stars every now and again explode…” [Bertrand Russell, “What Is an Agnostic?”]</p>
<p>How can one speak about the “mercy and goodness” of a nature in which so many animals devour animals, where so many mouths are slaughter-houses and stomachs are tombs? “Observe,” said the minister to his son, “the beneficent design with which the crane is fashioned - legs, bill, and feet - to catch fish with ease and be fed.” “Yes,” replied the boy, “I think I see the beneficence of God, at least so far as the crane is concerned, but donʼt you think the arrangement a little hard on the fish?” [E. M. Mcdonald, Design Argument Fallacies]</p>
<p>A butcher-bird impaling its victim on a thorn, or a lion killing a gazelle, or a cat biting a mouse, or a tick feeding on the eye of a fowl, or an intestinal worm eating in the entrails of a priest are all part of the “divine plan” which theists say exists. [Woolsey Teller]</p>
<p>Can we find “design” in the fact that even in every drop of every sea is a battlefield in which the strong devours the weak? [Robert Ingersoll]</p>
<p>People who believe in “intelligent design” point us to the sunshine, to flowers, to the April rain, and to all there is of beauty and of use in the world. Did it ever occur to them that a cancer is as beautiful in its development as is the reddest rose? That what they are pleased to call the adaptation of means to ends, is as apparent in the cancer as in the April rain? By what ingenious methods the blood is poisoned so that the cancer shall have food! By what wonderful contrivances the entire system of man is made to pay tribute to this divine and charming cancer! What beautiful colors it presents! Seen through a microscope it is a miracle of order and beauty. All the ingenuity of man cannot stop its growth. Think of the amount of thought it must have required to invent a way by which the life of one man might be given to produce one cancer. Is it possible to look upon it and doubt that there is a design in the universe, and that the inventor of this wonderful cancer must be infinitely powerful, ingenious and good? [Robert Ingersoll]</p>
<p>The cosmos is a gigantic fly-wheel making 10,000 revolutions a minute. Man is a sick fly taking a dizzy ride on it. Religion is the theory that the wheel was designed and set spinning to give him the ride. [H. L. Mencken]</p>
<p>We are all naturally like that madman at Athens, who fancied that all the ships were his that came into the Port of Pyraeus. Nor is our folly less extravagant. We believe all things in nature have been designed for our use. Ask any theologian why there is such a prodigious number of stars when a far lesser number would perform the service they do us, and he answers coldly, “They were made to please our sight.”<br>
[Bernard de Fontenelle, A Plurality of Worlds, published in 1686]</p>
<h3>Was the Universe Made for Man or Flea?</h3>
<p>Until the 1800s almost everyone had fleas and lice. In the 1600s it was considered bad manners to take lice, fleas or other vermin from your body and crack them between your fingernails in company.<br>
[Tim Woods and Ian Dicks, What They Donʼt Teach You About History]</p>
<p>Obviously only a Designer would have had the infinite wisdom and compassion to create “the flea” - a tiny insect with a thin body for moving easily through hair, and with immensely powerful legs for leaping many times their body length onto passing prey; and with the added ability to not just harry and bite, but to spread infections, including plague germs which killed tens of millions of people in Europe and Asia in a few short years. [B.]</p>
<p>My dear fleas, you are the cherished work of God; and this entire universe has been made for you. God created man only to serve as your food, the sun only to light your way, the stars only to please your sight, etc.<br>
[Voltaire, “Sermon Preached Before Fleas”]</p>
<p>Can anyone really think itʼs all there just for us? A goldfish in a bowl has as much right to imagine the galaxy was built for it. [Kenneth E. Nahigian]<br>
It took billion of years to prepare the cosmos and billions more to prepare the earth for man, impatient as the Creator doubtless was to see him and admire him. Civilized man has been here maybe less than 32,000 years. If the Eiffel Tower were now representing the worldʼs age, the skin of the paint on the pinnacle-knob at its summit would represent manʼs share of that age; and anybody would perceive that that skin was what the tower was built for.<br>
[Mark Twain, “Was the World Made For Man?”]</p>
<p>Are we really so splendid as to justify such a long prologue? The philosophers lay stress on values: they say that we think certain things good, and that since these things are good, we must be very good to think them so. But this is a circular argument. A being with other values might think ours so atrocious as to be proof that we were inspired by Satan. Is there not something a trifle absurd in the spectacle of human beings holding a mirror before themselves, and thinking what they behold so excellent as to prove that a Cosmic Purpose must have been aiming at it all along? Why, in any case, this glorification of Man? How about lions and tigers? They destroy fewer animal or human lives than we do, and they are much more beautiful than we are. How about ants? They manage the Corporate State much better than any Fascist. Would not a world of nightingales and larks and deer be better than our human world of cruelty and injustice and war? The believers in Cosmic Purpose make much of our supposed intelligence but their writings make one doubt it. If I were granted omnipotence, and millions of years to experiment in, I should not think Man much to boast of as the final result of all my efforts.<br>
[Bertrand Russell, “Cosmic Purpose” in Religion and Science]</p>
<p>Weʼre just a virus with shoes.<br>
[comedian Bill Hicks, CD, Rant in E-Minor]</p>
<p>Thereʼs these Christian fundamentalists, the ones who are trying to get creationism taught in school as a science. I think it would be great because it would definitely be the shortest class of the day. “Welcome to creationist science. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. On the seventh day he rested. See ya at the final!” - Bill Hicks (comedian)</p>
<p>I believe in equal time for creation science. But since creation only took six days and evolution took billions of years, the equivalent time spent teaching creationism should be six seconds for every twelve years of evolutionary science.<br>
- Skip Church, _The Damned Say the Damndest Things_</p>
<blockquote id=quote>
<p><b>ftom24</b>: when God created all was <b>Good</b> and right, no collisions, no death, none of what we see today…but thatʼs a subject for another board….</p>
</blockquote>
<p><b>Edward Babinski</b>: Well, if youʼre going to ignore modern geology and respond to what I wrote with a totally unevidenced theological defence that the world was originally “perfect” with “no death, none of what we see today,” then canʼt I respond with some simple questions of my own?</p>
<h3>Mosquitoes In Paradise?</h3>
<p>It doesnʼt matter to me whether Adam and Eve were created with or without bellybuttons.” I want to know, were they created with or without anuses? Did they fart? Did they defecate? Did their feces stink? How about their armpits? Did God feel the least bit obliged to give Adam and Eve the recipe for soap? In other words, wouldnʼt Adam and Eve have been “ashamed” of any number of things long before they were “ashamed” to discover they were “naked?”<br>
Or, as Adam once put it, “Eve, pick some of those soft leaves next time, Iʼm getting chaffed!”<br>
- Skip Church</p>
<p>Some creationists insist that the original creation was so perfect there was “no decay.” No decay my ass! Or should I say, “Adamʼs ass?”<br>
- Skip Church</p>
<p>There was also pain in paradise. How do I know? It says in Genesis that God “cursed woman” by “increasing or multiplying” her pain in childbirth, and you canʼt “increase or multiply” what isnʼt already there.<br>
- Skip Church</p>
<p>He made a man and a woman and placed them in a pleasant garden, along with the other creatures. They all lived together there in harmony and contentment and blooming youth for some time; then trouble came. God had warned the man and the woman that they must not eat of the fruit of a certain tree. And he added a most strange remark: he said that if they ate of it they should surely die. Strange, for the reason that inasmuch as they had never seen a sample of death they could not possibly know what he meant. Nor would he or any other god have been able to make those ignorant children understand what was meant, without furnishing a sample. The mere word could have no meaning for them, any more than it would have for an infant of days.<br>
- Mark Twain, Letters from the Earth</p>
<p>(Scene: Garden of Eden. Afternoon. A glade in which lies a fawn all awry. Adam is staring in consternation at the fawn. Eve arrives and notices the animal.)<br>
Eve: What is the matter with its eyes?<br>
Adam: It is not only its eyes. Look. (He kicks it.)<br>
Eve: Oh donʼt! Why doesnʼt it wake?<br>
Adam: I donʼt know. It is not asleep.<br>
Eve: Not asleep?<br>
Adam: Try.<br>
Eve: (Trying to shake it and roll it over) It is stiff and cold.<br>
Adam: Nothing will wake it.<br>
Eve: It has a queer smell. Did you find it like that?<br>
Adam: No. It was playing about; and it tripped and went head over heels. It never stirred again. Itʼs neck is wrong. (He stoops to lift the neck and show her)<br>
Eve: Donʼt touch it. Come away from it… Adam, suppose you were to trip and fall, would you become like that?<br>
Adam: (He shudders)<br>
Eve: You must be careful. Promise me you will be careful.<br>
Adam: What is the good of being careful? We have to live here for ever. Think of what for ever means! Sooner or later I shall trip and fall. It may be tomorrow; it may be after as many days as there are leaves in the garden and grains of sand by the river. No matter: some days I shall forget and stumble.<br>
Eve: I too.<br>
- George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah</p>
<p>How can some Bible believers state with a straight face that there was “no animal death before the fall of man?” Was the movement of every creature in Eden finely choreographed? Monkeys swinging wildly from tree to tree, but never crushing an insect on a branch or upsetting an egg in a nest? Brontosauruses dodging ants, worms and small mammals with each gargantuan step? Iʼd love to see a ballet like that on the Arts and Entertainment network!<br>
- Skip Church</p>
<h3>Excerpts from “The Diary of Adam and Eve”</h3>
<p><b>(A PARODY)</b><br>
Friday: She [Eve] engages herself in many foolish things: among others, trying to study why the animals called lions and tigers live on grass and flowers, when, as she says, the sort of teeth they wear would indicate that they were intended to eat each other. This is foolish, because to do that would be to kill each other, and that would introduce what, as I understand it, is called “death”; and death, as I have been told, has not yet entered the Garden.<br>
Thursday: She is in much trouble about the buzzard; says grass does not agree with it; is afraid she canʼt raise it; thinks it was intended to live on decayed flesh. The buzzard must get along the best it can with what is provided. We cannot overturn the whole scheme to accommodate the buzzard.<br>
Friday: She says the snake advises her to try the fruit of that tree, and says the result will be a great and fine and noble education. I told her there would be another result, too - it would introduce death into the world. That was a mistake - it had been better to keep the remark to myself; it only gave her an idea - she could save the sick buzzard, and furnish meat to the despondent lions and tigers. I advised her to keep away from the tree. She said she wouldnʼt. I foresee trouble. Will emigrate.<br>- Mark Twain</p>
<p>Ah, fair Eden of creationist lore, where sharks spit out tiny fish they accidentally swallowed after taking a large bite of seaweed. And where spiders assisted in the release of insects that accidentally flew into their webs.<br>
- Skip Church</p>
<p>Thereʼs these Christian fundamentalists, the ones who are trying to get creationism taught in school as a science. I think it would be great because it would definitely be the shortest class of the day. “Welcome to creationist science. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. On the seventh day he rested. See ya at the final!”<br>
- Bill Hicks (comedian)</p>
<p>I believe in equal time for creation science. But since creation only took six days and evolution took billions of years, the equivalent time spent teaching creationism should be six seconds for every twelve years of evolutionary science.<br>
- Skip Church, _The Damned Say the Damndest Things_</p>
<blockquote id=quote>
<p><b>DNAunion</b>: The author obviously does not know the differences between ID and Creationism. I know the differences. I was hoping to address both at once by use of the phrase, “arose at discrete times.” I carefully avoided saying exactly HOW they would arise. This becomes clearer the more one reads the posted material - direct references to Adam and Eve, no death before “The Fall”, God of the Bible, the Bible itself, Christian Fundamentalists, teaching Creationism in school, etc. The authors are obviously addressing Creationism specifically in almost every instance, yet they claim to be discussing ID.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><b>Edward Babinski</b>: ID in its ideal form has nothing to do with those things, but the majority of folks who make up the ID movement are self-proclaimed “Bible believers” including the major editors and contributors to Origins and Design like Dembski (a creationist, old or young I am not sure), Paul Nelson (young-earth creationist), Philip Johnson (creationist). In fact, my first response on this board was from an IDer who told me flat out that he believed in a “perfect” creation with “no death” in a way that young-earth creationists espouse.</p>
<p>Best, Ed</p>
<blockquote id=quote>
<p><b>Mike</b>: It is clear that Ed confuses ID with a metaphysical notion about the way things ought to be. That is, he seems to be assuming that if ID was true, the designer would not only be designing every aspect of reality, but would be doing so such that Paradise (the Best of All Possible Worlds) would be designed.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><b>Edward Babinski</b>: The _extent_ of massive extinctions and animal suffering and pain over geologic time with creatures being evolved/created merely to become extinct, long before man even arrives on the scene was what I was pointing out. You apparently “got” that point and seem willing to agree to some extent that this is NOT the “best of all possible worlds” that an infinitely good and infinitely wise creator is capable of designing.</p>
<blockquote id=quote>
<p>The truth of ID (or the teleological viewpoint) does not entail the non-existence of earthquakes and fangs.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><b>Edward Babinski</b>: I wasnʼt disagreeing, I was merely pointing out that the world could also be explained as the product of a divine tinkerer rather than an infinitely wise and infinitely loving designer. You seem to be agreeing with me that that is a possibility.</p>
<blockquote id=quote>
<p>Ed relies completely on subjective impressions to argue that this is an example of “not getting it right.” An intelligent designer may very well have designed gradually.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><b>Edward Babinski</b>: “Gradually,” yes. “Less than optimally” was what I was pointing out. The earliest birds are not nearly as well designed for flight as later examples. And Iʼm sure that double jaw joint in reptiles was less than optimal, and proved a bit of a problem for that animal until the second jaw joint got incorporated as ear bones. Again, the notion of a tinkerer comes to mind.</p>
<blockquote id=quote>
<p>That is, by carefully choosing a stem population best poised to accept such modifications, one could use guided interventions to carefully tease out and exploit the potential of any organism and then strategically guide its evolution to a targeted end-state.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><b>Edward Babinski</b>: “Carefully teased out?” I guess the author does not accept that God “rested” on the seventh day of creation, but instead is still carefully teasing out creation. Well there goes Genesis. Also, weʼve gone from a God who “commands, and it is done,” to a God who is “carefully teasing things out.” Nor is this Designer capable of having water bring forth birds and fish directly, and having the earth bring forth animals directly as it says in Genesis. Instead, creatures are “carefully teased out” of one another. And what if God isnʼt “careful enough?” What if He misses a “tease” or two? What results then? The ID explanation leaves a lot to be desired when viewed in a biblical theological vein, not to mention the fact that the “Designer” has made it so that the cosmos sends asteroids to destroy His “carefully teased out” creatures. Whereʼs the “care” in that?</p>
<blockquote id=quote>
<p>While Ed might assume that such evolution was a consequence of random mutations and natural selection,</p>
</blockquote>
<p><b>Edward Babinski</b>: I did not highlight “random mutations and natural selection” in my piece. In fact, I made it clear that I was arguing for an ID explanation that appeared as rational and logical as any other ID explanation, namely, <b>A Divine Tinkerer</b>. Itʼs obvious that the IDers who have responded to my piece thus far have not understood what I originally wrote, but instead concluded that I was misunderstanding THEM. Baloney. I know ID and the I know the difference bewteen ID and creationism. But they donʼt know when someone like me is suggesting a less than grandiose version of ID, a “Divine Tinkerer.”</p>
<blockquote id=quote>
<p>The third problem is that Ed ignores the many examples where, even according to his standards, things were gotten right from the beginning. The genetic code itself makes for a very good example that was gotten right.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><b>Edward Babinski</b>: Yeah, the genetic code, the human genome, 99% of which is heavily mutated junk with no on-off codons. Why not study and discuss shared homologous pseudogenes, and also shared homologous retro-viral sequences in both man and the nearest living species to man — with whom we share a lot of the same junk. I guess the Designer designed all that junk for a reason. Or maybe just maybe DNA isnʼt exactly an optimal “<a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/molgen/" target=_blank>design</a>.”</p>
<p>Also see the chapter on pseudogenes and genetic junk in the new book, Genome : The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters — Matt Ridley</p>
<blockquote id=quote>
<p>Or what about the eukaryotic cell cycle? Cell cycle genes from humans can replace those in yeast, indicating that billions of years of evolution have not “improved” these genes in either lineage. Better yet, consider ubiquiton. Here is a 76-amino acid protein that plays an essential role in regulated protein degradation. When one compares the amino acid sequence of this protein from various protozoans and yeast with those of mammals, there are only three differences and all involve conserved substitutions. Yet among bacteria, Ub does not even exist. Thus, here is an another example where something was gotten right in the beginning and has not since been improved by billions of years of evolution. If Ed wants to use examples of change as examples against ID,</p>
</blockquote>
<p><b>Edward Babinski</b>: My piece wasnʼt an argument against ID, but simply argued for the possibility of a less than impressive Designer, a “Divine Tinkerer.” Nor can the fact that a few genes are found in nearly exactly the same form throughout much of the animal kingdom (and have to retain their exact sequences in order to work effectively), be used as an argument against evolution by either design or natural selection.</p>
<blockquote id=quote>
<p>There is no reason to respond to the rest of Edʼs posting. IMO, it amounts to little more than spam which seeks to smuggle in theological/metaphysical arguments in place of the level-headed analysis that is needed to determine if certain biological features more likely owe their origin to intelligent design or a blind watchmaker.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><b>Edward Babinski</b>: It is ID that is attempting to “smuggle” into the scientific enterprise miraculous explanations in place of step by step progress in knowledge that has to be sought diligently and “carefully coaxed” out of nature after much time and experimentation. ID will no doubt continue to attract amateur theologians (like Dembski) and feed the theological sense of awe, i.e., of instantaneous miracles so subtle they require an IDer to point them out to other people and point proudly at exactly which points in creation the Designer had to pull another rabbit out of His hat. IDerʼs also resemble people who want to just shake a box filled with jigsaw puzzle pieces and if they donʼt connect, give up. Or imagine that God has solved the puzzle already and knows where all the pieces go, so there is no need for _them_ to try and solve it as well. Itʼs enough that they remain awed by Godʼs accomplishment.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the theory of evolution will continue to attract people with far more patience and curiosity, whose greatest passion is to fiddle with the jigsaw pieces of the cosmos, putting together the pieces to discover how the elements and their unique molecular bonding properties evolved out of simple hydrogen atoms fusing together (i.e., nucleogenesis inside stars), and how man evolved from billion-year-old carbon, one step at a time. Thatʼs the kind of “awe” that thrills a scientistʼs soul.</p>
<p>Best, Ed</p>
<blockquote id=quote>
<p><b>Tom</b>: My belief in supernatural creation (which in my belief means it was perfect before sin) shows that when sin became reality, then the world began to deteriorate into the state we have today.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><b>Edward Babinski</b>: Tom, Just tell me what you mean by “perfect.” Is the eating the hence the death of plants included in your definition of “perfection?” What about the deaths of any insects or very small multicellular animals attached to those plants which a large plant-eating animal might also ingest with each leaf or piece of fruit it bites into and eats? Or, like I suggested, a shark eating seaweed, and also swallowing small baby fish who were also eating the same seaweed. Thatʼs fish death. Also, speaking of death, if no animals died, but they produced as many offspring as they do today and all the offspring survived, then a single bacterium could envelope the earth with its offspring in something like a few days. A single oyster could envelope the earth with all its offspring and crowd all the water out of the oceans in less than a year. And what about death due to accidental drowning or falling accidents or tipping over the nests of other animals accidentally or stepping on animals accidentally? And of course, thereʼs the process of elimination of gas and solid waste in the colon which doesnʼt seem to be “perfection" to me.</p>
<p>And thereʼs also the death of cells in our own bodies, like skin and hair cells. Even the development of our brains requires an enormous amount of brain cells dying each day after we are born, in order for our brains to develop their own “individual and social reality networks,” whereas without such natural brain cell death, our sensations would probably be overloaded and our thoughts confused. So, “death” seems an inevitability in nature, indeed a necessity in so many ways, part of the warp and woof of the cosmos. Without hydrogen atoms “dying” to become fused into something new and different inside stars, and wasting a helluva lot of energy in the process (entropic energy waste) there wouldnʼt be elements galore, but just hydrogen atoms. What kind of world do possibly imagine could exist without the many “deaths” above? The Bible itself speaks of God “multiplying” Eveʼs pains during childbirth, and you canʼt “multiply” what isnʼt already there. So, there was “pain” in “Eden” too. And even Henry Morris had it out with Robert Kofahl, two young-earth creationists, who debated in The Creation Research Society Quarterly such topics as whether or not the 2nd law of thermo-d was in action prior to “the Fall.” Kofahl pointed out to Morris that without the 2nd law being in effect Adam could not have even digested the fruit he ate.</p>
<p>So, do you have the slightest idea what you are talking about when you speak of the world being “perfect” before “the Fall?” Nor does the Hebrew tale of the expulsion from Eden describe any more “curses” than the introduction of thorns and thistles, the curse of the snake to go on its belly (how it moved about before it was cursed to go on its belly, the story does not say), and the increase of womanʼs pain in childbirth. Doesnʼt sound like the whole of creation was changed radically, just a few discrete changes. Besides to change it radically would have meant recreating it as a whole, and God “rested” after the sixth day.</p>
<p>Your belief in the unspecified “perfection” of creation “prior to the Fall,” kind of reminds me of the way some creationists woo an audience with tales of how “BIG” things used to be on earth “before the Flood,” when the world was “more perfect,” like thirty-foot tall cattails and big dragonflies with huge wingspans and dinosaurs, etc. But I point out to such folks that some dinosaurs were also the size of chickens, and that the biggest plants and animals ever known are living today in our “less than perfect world,” animals like the Sequoia and the Blue Whale.</p>
<p>Lastly, what about fellow ID folks who disagree with your views concerning the “perfection” of creation, but who instead accept the vast age of the cosmos? I should think theyʼd raise many of the same questions I raised above, asking you to please just try to explain what you mean by “perfect.”</p>
<p>Best, Ed</p>
<div class="separator" style="text-align:center"><iframe frameborder=0 data-src="https://edwardtbabinski.us/related-content/related-content-23.html" style="margin-bottom:0em; margin-left:0em; margin-right:0em; height:400px; width:600px; border:0px"></iframe></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1773058939668732399.post-82196931335404715112012-03-19T19:53:00.001-07:002019-09-03T02:31:58.072-07:00The Fine-Tuning Hypothesis, an alternative to the Intelligent Design Hypothesis<img style="border-width: 0px; padding: 3px; float: right;" src="https://edwardtbabinski.us/facebook/intelligent-design/undesign.jpg" alt="The Fine-Tuning Hypothesis" width="350" height="304" />
<p>“Fine Tuners” acknowledge that “accident” may not be the best way to explain the whole cosmos, and they acknowledge “intelligence” in nature. But they also find that the Intelligent Design movement embraces faulty simplistic arguments and “proofs.” Here are some of the shakers and movers among the Fine Tuners:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Michael Denton (one of the “fathers” of the modern day “Intelligent Design” movement) in his second book, <b>Natureʼs Destiny</b>, proposes that evolution is inevitable. See the following in-depth review of <b>Natureʼs Destiny</b> at the “<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20030212095054/http://home.wxs.nl/~gkorthof/kortho29.htm" target="_blank">Was Darwin Wrong?</a>” website.</p>
<p>Even at the ARN website you can read about <a href="http://www.arn.org/docs/odesign/od181/mere181.htm" target="_blank">Denton and Paul Nelson</a> (of the Discovery Institute) going at it on their way to a “Mere Creation” conference: First stop, who gets in but Paul Nelson. Paul and I have known each other. Then Thane Ury (Bethel College) gets in. We start talking and then son-of-a-gun Paul says, “There is Michael Denton”—I couldnʼt believe it. Lean 50-ish guy with a shock of white, close-cropped hair wearing a shirt that looks like the top for a pair of long underwear. I spent two weeks one summer vacation in Montana outlining various chapters from Evolution: A Theory in Crisis just to drive out the Darwinian poisons I imbibed from my motherʼs milk. The biggest shock was finding he is so engaging and approachable! He and Nelson started dukeing it out right away. It was fantastic. Here I was with a bad cold, barely holding on to my name tag, fortunate to have taken all the right turns thus far—and bango, the conference starts en route. Paul says “common ancestry is an assumption.” Denton says, “the such-and-such goes down and around the something else and why doesnʼt it just go straight across?” And Paul says, “But how do you know that the down and around isnʼt optimal?” I remember that point. Then Denton says, “Yeah but when you have delivered as many babies as I have you notice things.” He gestures downward with both hands cupped as though he is about to deliver one. He says “Right after they are born they go like this”—he then does a grasping motion with both hands raised. In my semi-fevered state I saw a new born hominid grasping its mothersʼ fur—right there in the van. He gave a name for the reflex [primate grasp] but even without it I could see that he knew a thing or two about how our kind and kin are born. The conversation in the van was not really a conversation. Denton started talking and gesturing in a very distinctive fashion. He makes his points by jabbing the air with his middle finger—quite unselfconsciously. Possibly this too is a primordial rhetorical reflex with an interesting aeteology. Denton proceeded to develop an evolutionary cosmology, the point of which is that there is abundant evidence for common descent and it is equally clear that evolution is directed and programmed. Indeed Denton affirmed two things—and this is apparently the thesis of his book now under contract at Simon and Schuster—that humankind literally is the point of creation and he is the end product of a divine design. Paul seemed to just let him go, but I sensed Paul was saving up for another time.</p></li>
<li><p>Howard Van Till (Christian evolutionist who teaches astronomy at Calvin College). I have exchanged a few brief emails with him and he once allowed me to cite passages from one of his books in an issue of <b>Theistic Evolutionists Forum</b> that I edited in the mid 1980s. Till was one of the contributors to <b>Three Views on Creation and Evolution</b> (Zondervan 1999) in which Till defended theistic evolution while Paul Nelson (of the Discovery Institute) defended young-earth creationism. Till and Nelson also traded barbs on the question of “Intelligent Design” in Zygon magazine: Howard J. Van Till (1999) “Does ‘Intelligent Design’ Have a Chance? An Essay Review” Zygon 34(4): 667 - 675. Paul A. Nelson (1999) “Is ‘Intelligent Design’ Unavoidable - Even By Howard Van Till? A Response” Zygon 34(4): 677- 682.</p>
<p><a href="http://www2.asa3.org/archive/evolution/200002/0120.html" target="_blank">Here</a> is my review of Till and Nelsonʼs exchange in Zygon, my review was posted at the ASA website.</p>
<p>(I also wrote a review of Nelsonʼs contribution in <b>Three Views on Evolution and Creation</b>. Sent on request.) For Tillʼs view of the I.D. movement see his article, “The Creation: Intelligently Designed or Optimally Equipped?” in <b>Intelligent Design Creationism and its Critics</b>, ed. by Robert T. Pennock See also <a href="http://www.meta-library.net/id-hvt/index-body.html" target="_blank">Tillʼs online essay</a>.</p>
<p>And <a href="http://www2.asa3.org/archive/asa/199904/0008.html" target="_blank">his exchanges</a> at the American Scientific Affiliation archive.</p>
<p>Till also wrote a piece concerning I.D. that was published in <b>Darwinism Defeated</b>?</p>
<p>See 3) below.</p></li>
<li><p>Denis O. Lamoureux (a Christian biology Prof., former creationist and co-author of the book-length debate, <b>Darwinism Defeated</b>? by</p>
<p>Phillip E. Johnson,</p>
<p>Denis O. Lamoureux,</p>
<p>J. I. Packer</p>
<p>Lamoureaux sent me his testimony about his change in viewpoint, and even shared with me a copy of his very first email exchange with Johnson, a letter that later became part of the above book. Lamoureuxʼs articles on “<a href="https://sites.ualberta.ca/~dlamoure/" target="_blank">Evolutionary Creationism</a>” and “The Philip Johnson Phenomenon”.</p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://network.asa3.org/" target="_blank">Other Christian Fine Tuners</a>, besides Till and Lamoureux, have their articles at the American Scientific Affiliation website.</p>
<p>The ASA is an older organization of Christians in science than ICR. The founder of ICR (Henry Morris), used to be a member of the ASA but when some ASA members began to question Morrisʼ young-earth creationism arguments, Morris left to form ICR and made all members of ICR sign a statement of faith concerning the age of the earth that kept out any who questioned Morrisʼ young-earth views.</p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://zygoncenter.org/" target="_blank">The Zygon Center</a> for Religion and Science produces a journal named Zygon with articles by many Fine Tuners.</p>
<p>I already mentioned Van Tillʼs encounter with Paul Nelson in one issue of Zygon above. Zygon also <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20040208145726/http://zygoncenter.org/relscilinks.htm" target="_blank">links to other sites</a> of Fine Tuners.</p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/index.html" target="_blank">Kenneth Miller</a> (Catholic biology Prof., author of <b>Finding Darwinʼs God</b>) His latest critiques of I.D. arguments.</p></li>
<li><p>Frank T. Vertosick, Jr., non-Christian theist, neurosurgeon, and author of <b>The Genius Within: Discovering The Intelligence of Every Living Thing</b> (Harcourt, Inc. 2002). Nice <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20030427070159/http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/issues02/nov02/book_review.html" target="_blank">synopsis and review of that book</a> in Smithsonian magazine.</p>
<p>The Genius Within is only the latest in a series of important and largely ignored books and articles by biologists refuting the widely held presumption that DNA, the cellʼs repository of genetic material, holds the “secret of life.” Remarkably, these challenges to the primacy of DNA-an assumption nearly tantamount to dogma-come from the ranks of the scientific community itself, not from creationists or theologians arguing an “intelligent design” of the universe. Vertosick calls into question the gospel according to double helix decoders Watson and Crick, rooted in the Darwinian idea that life evolves through random events as “a blind process, possessing neither insight nor forethought.” I must admit Iʼve waited more than half a lifetime for this book. As a high school student staring for hours through microscopes, I was filled with wonder about the behavior of single-celled organisms, whose life cycles seemed to encompass both randomness and purpose. I spent summers in the woods, observing spiders and wasps, salamanders and snakes, fascinated by the seemingly intelligent behavior of animals. I perceived sentience in creatures assumed to operate on the basis of instincts and genes alone. But I was taught to dismiss such heresy. The Genius Within has stirred up those youthful notions. Vertosick provides a new framework for understanding the intelligence of all life, from bacteria to cancer cells to brains. There is mind in nature, he argues, and itʼs everywhere. Bacteria may not write sonnets, but they have the capacity for intraspecies communication. “Chemistry is their language,” he says, “and theyʼve been speaking it for millions of years.”</p>
<p>(An excellent companion to Vertosickʼs book would be the very recently published, <b>Darwin in the Genome</b>, that explains certain genomic properties such at the fact that “jumping genes” do not jump into parts of the genome totally at random, but that there are certain parts of the genome that they apparently “jump” into more readily than others, and “jumping genes” can take unused inactive genetic information, i.e., “junk,” and incorporate that information into the genome again in an active section. The author of <b>Darwin in the Genome</b> makes it point to differentiate between “junk” and “garbage.” There is lots of “junk” in the genome, stuff that is not being used, duplicated pseudogenes with lots of stop codons and not being used by the cell and accumulating mutations at a higher rate than the rest of the used genes in the cell. But that does not make such pseudogenes “garbage,” because garbage is something that just needs to be thrown out, but “junk” is something that can lie around serving no use until a use may later arise, like old crates in the attic that you later build bookshelves out of. In other words there is a certain law and order to evolutionary mutational changes.)</p></li>
<li><p>Robert Wright, non-Christian, and author of the bestseller, <b>non-zero</b>, argues that evolution has a direction, as all zero sum games do. He <a href="http://www.nonzero.org/newyorker.htm" target="_blank">critiques Gouldʼs view</a> of “accidental” evolutionary interpretations.</p>
<p>(An excellent companion to Wrightʼs book would be the very recently published work <b>In the Blink of an Eye</b> that outlines the latest hypothesis concerning the Cambrian “explosion,” namely that the evolution of “sight” was the main reason why such an “explosion” took place.)</p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://www.howardbloom.net/" target="_blank">Howard Bloom</a> (author of <b>The Lucifer Principle</b> and <b>Global Mind</b>).</p>
<p>Argues like Wright for a direction to evolution. (Though neither Wright nor Bloom appear to be theists, I could be wrong about that.)</p></li>
<li><p>And of course the authors of the <b>Anthropic Principle</b>, Tippler and Barrow, are also Fine Tuners. Fine Tuners are evolutionists who think that the cosmic constants that lead up to the production of all the elements inside stars (from simple hydrogen), also lead up to the evolution of the first living organisms, such things all being based on those same initially “fine tuned” cosmological constants. They oppose the way the “Intelligent Design / Mere Creation” movement tries to make “theistic evolution” itʼs own idea (ala Beheʼs suggestion that a single “super-cell” was specifically designed in the beginning with a super abundance of genes whose descendants later became less and less abundantly full of each of those genes, until that super stuffed cell slowly “broke down” into every living thing (which was a suggestion that I believe Behe has since dropped). To “Fine tuners,” evolution remains a valid and complex process involving mutations and natural selection.</p>
<p>P.S. The “evidence for design” (of the sort proposed by the Discovery Institute who lead the “Intelligent Design” campaign in the U.S.) is being formally questioned by scientists who are not members of that Religious Right Think Tank, the Discovery Institute. See the soon to be published book <b>Unintelligent Design</b> by Mark Perakh, a physicist and leading critic of Dembskiʼs “proof” of “intelligent design.” Even fellow I.D.er, Del Ratzsch, has subjected Dembskiʼs book, <b>The Design Inference</b> to a thorough critique in the appendix to Ratzschʼs, <b>Nature, Design And Science: The Status Of Design In Natural Science (Suny Series In Philosophy And Biology)</b> A couple of other places on web that discuss “unintelligent design” though not necessarily related to Perakhʼs book: <a href="http://www.talkreason.org/" target="_blank">Talk Reason</a> (many of Perakhʼs articles can be found here).</p>
<p>“<a href="http://www.csicop.org/si/show/presentation_without_arguments_dembski_disappoints" target="_blank">A Presentation Without Arguments</a>: Dembski Disappoints” by Mark Perakh</p>
<p><a href="http://www.theshrubbery.com/udn/" target="_blank">The Unintelligent Design Network</a>, Inc. (no relation to Mark Perakh or his book, though a point made by Kenneth Miller is cited at this website)</p>
<p>“<a href="http://www.csicop.org/si/show/design_yes_intelligent_no_a_critique_of_intelligent_design_theory_and_neocr" target="_blank">Design Yes, Intelligent No</a>,” by Massimo Pigliucci</p>
<p>Cool article below, an atheist defends the fine-tuning argument. He accepts the validity of the fine-tunerʼs arguments, and even defends them against atheist attempts to sweep them aside. But he concludes that the question of why the universe “permits life” is not answered by simply proposing that “God designed it that way,” because…“That suggestion just pushes the question another step further back: for why should a God exist with the right characteristics to create a universe? If the theistʼs reply is that God can exist uniquely without the need for any further explanation, then the theist is admitting that <b>Unusual and Significant Things Can Exist Unexplained</b>. But if that is admitted, then we donʼt need to postulate a Designer for the universe after all.”<br>
<a href="http://infidels.org/kiosk/article/an-atheist-defends-the-design-argument-297.html" target="_blank">An Atheist Defends the Design Argument</a><br>
by Toby Wardman</p></li>
</ol>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1773058939668732399.post-31641638804843339412012-03-18T12:52:00.002-07:002019-09-03T02:32:40.819-07:00Intelligent Design, Chromosomes and Genes<blockquote id=quote>TS: Offer your scientific theory of Intelligent Design before the scientific community (not before school children) and weʼll give it a hearing. Or, admit that you and your whole project and your silly syllogisms are deeply dishonest.</blockquote>
<img style="border-width: 0px; padding: 3px; float: right;" src="https://edwardtbabinski.us/facebook/intelligent-design/chromosomes.jpg" alt="Intelligent Design, Chromosomes and Genes" width="350" height="318" />
<p><b>Edward</b>: I appreciate the attempts at sarcasm and humor. My own view however is that there is plenty of evidence of things in nature that one might not expect a designer to design. I am not speaking of the argument from icky things, though there are enough of those to be sure, including the Designer not creating every newborn with equal genetic health, but sometimes with the nastiest of diseases, or even allowing something like 50-80% of all fertilized eggs in humans to simply die.</p>
<p>I am speaking firstly, about extinctions. Extinctions of species of early monkeys, early primates, early apes, even species of early humans. Even massive extinctions, of which there appears to have been six or seven, when the Designer simply cleared the earth of huge swaths of his creations that he supposedly took such care designing, just wiping them off the face of the earth en masse.</p>
<p>Secondly, the extinct critters often were less suited than modern day ones to their niches, or were halfway critters. Early flying reptiles were not well suited for flight in many ways that can be distinctly pointed out. The designer, if there was one, often took baby steps designing things, and left behind the many less suited species that became extinct.</p>
<p>On the genetic front, the designer also left behind evidence of genetic changes, like the human chromosome #2, that features a remnant second centromere and reversed telomeric region (inside the chromosome instead of at itʼs end where teleomeric regions are normally found), that together provide loud and clear evidence that a fusion of two primate chromosomes took place in the past. For instance, the chimp and human chromosomes all have distinctive bands that line up, chromosome for chromosome, but the chimp has one extra chromosome, while human chromosome #2 contains visible evidence of being the result of two chromosomes (from a common ancestor of chimp and human) that fused at some time in the past, because the elongated human chromosome has the remnants of such a fusion inside it, but also features the same banding pattern as found on the two chimp chromosomes that it resembles, when the two chimp chromosomes are placed alongside the longer human chromosome #2).</p>
<p>Thirdly, thereʼs the evidence of genetic differences (not just recombination, but different genes) between individual human beings. Most I.D.ists wouldnʼt consider such minor differences between individual human genomes as being due to design, but would probably be open to explaining them as a by-product of mutations, because everyone knows DNA never copies itself exactly from generation to generation. Differences accumulate.</p>
<p>Then thereʼs the larger genetic differences between chimps and humans, our closest living relatives. Again, mutations are likely to leave behind tell tale signs, like when chromosomes fuse and leave behind sloppy visible remnants inside them that they used to be two chromosomes where there is now a single chromosome. Mutations go hand in hand with that kind of evidence.</p>
<p>Then thereʼs the many species on earth that are similar, sometimes closely similar, like different species of zebra fish, but it was recently discovered that one such species of zebra fish has about twice as large a genome as another. The one with twice as large a genome also has many duplicate genes and near duplicates. It appears that the whole genome mutated and doubled in size. And then some of the duplicated genes got lost, while others mutated into near duplicates, some of them being genes that function. Hence new functional genes arose. But does one species that seems so close to the other, really need twice as much genetic material and some new genes? If itʼs a mutation, itʼs a humdinger, whole genome duplication, and it didnʼt kill the species, but added information. But if itʼs a designer that did the whole genome duplication, then why choose to duplicate an entire genome in two such closely related species? The species with the single genome is still getting along fine with just that. The zebra fish remain quite similar to each other. (It happens in plants too, whole genome duplication, and the species still go on, and even look like each other, though the duplicated genomes can lead to new genes that affect hardiness or size).</p>
<p>Apparently there is quite a lot that can happen to a genome and yet the species continues onward. Some species of insects that are closely related have undergone some substantial genetic changes and differences that are often only seen in a single closely related member. Yet there is no apparent reason why a designer would institute such changes since there are plenty of closely related species without such genetic changes that are doing quite well. I mean why is only a single species of bedbug able to stab its penis traumatically into the abdomen of another male of the species that has its own penis stabbed traumatically into the abdomen of a female, so that the male who is stab raping the other male, gets his seminal fluid into the female via the middle male? Itʼs all due apparently to nature finding ways around the vaginal plug of insects. But only one species of bedbug has males that stab rape other males.</p>
<p>Does I.D. make any predictions as to when genetic changes are mutations saved via natural selection and when they are not?</p>
<p>Thereʼs also the weird species that evolve only on islands in the ocean. The first animals of whatever species that reached those islands first, as soon after the islands formed far offshore, is predicted by evolution to diversify and fill unexpected niches, because there were no species there already ensconced and filling each niche. Thus such islands feature unusual species. Evolution via mutation? Hawaii is a good case in point, since the islands there are young, the oldest being only about five million years old. But thereʼs some unusual species of fruit flies, animals, and plants there with unusual behaviors.</p>
<p>The evidence of arms races in nature is also well attested. Changes of one species influence the other, especially in cases of predator and prey species. Even humans, being massive killers of species from bacterial germs to mosquitoes, has affected their evolution. The bacteria evolved resistance to antibiotics, while the insects evolved resistance to pesticides. Interestingly, thereʼs a wide variety of ways that a bacterium or insect can evolve resistance to such things. Sometimes a gene is omitted, and that protects them, sometimes a gene is duplicated, and that protects them. Closely related species may evolve completely different ways of combating the antibiotic or pesticide.</p>
<p>Nature appears flexible, intrinsically so. So much so, that it appears to me evolution is no more impossible than say, the ability of stars to produce every element in the periodic table from simply hydrogen atoms that continue fusing together into heavier and heavier atoms inside each star.</p>
<p>Also, there are quite a few <a href="https://etb-darwin.blogspot.com/2012/03/christian-evolutionist-resources.html">Christian evolutionists</a> out there who are not jumping aboard the I.D. bandwagon for the reasons given above.</p>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1773058939668732399.post-80308333276705179642012-03-17T20:52:00.004-07:002019-09-03T02:33:17.334-07:00Random Mutations and the Intelligent Design Hypothesis<img style="border-width: 0px; padding: 3px; float: right;" src="https://edwardtbabinski.us/facebook/intelligent-design/random-mutations.jpg" alt="Dr. William Dembski" width="350" height="392" />
<h3>Introduction</h3>
<p>I sent a leading advocate of the Intelligent Design hypothesis, Dr. William Dembski, portions of a lecture by Dr. Gilbert, a leading advocate of the evolutionary developmental sciences (“evo-devo”). Dr. Dembski responded by emailing me a section of a new I.D. textbook that attempts to debunk “evo-devo.” I then sent Dr. Dembski my further response and he sent me his, and I sent him one further response.</p>
<p>Below appears my article on “Random Mutations And The Intelligent Design Hypothesisʼ” followed by Dr. Gilbertʼs lecture on Evo-Devo, and Dembskiʼs “textbook response,” followed by the exchanges between myself and Dr. Dembski.</p>
<hr style="height:10px; border:0; box-shadow: 0 10px 10px -10px #5c5098 inset"/>
<h3>Random Mutations and the Intelligent Design Hypothesis</h3>
<p>“There is no proof that all mutations are random.”<br />
— An I.D.ist</p>
<p>The I.D.istʼs statement above is true, but neither is there any proof that all mutations of DNA are the result of “providential design” — depending of course on how you define “randomness,” “providence,” and “design,” for there are theists who even include “chaos theory” as part of the grand “design.” However, aside from such idle questions, may we not look deeper at what is known of mutations themselves? There is a lot to learn, and the depth of oneʼs knowledge of mutations may indeed affect the relative degree of certainty with which one endorses or denies the I.D. hypothesis. The evidence below leads me to hold it lightly indeed and not very far from the Darwinistic hypothesis which may be its superior:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Mutations take place and can alter the genomes of all organisms in an inheritable fashion. Mutations accumulate most numerously in the less-essential or unused portions of the genome, for instance in the regions that do not code for proteins. In fact less than five percent of the entire human genome codes for proteins, and thatʼs close to the same percentage of the genome that consists of what is called “retroviral DNA” (foreign genetic material from external viral invaders that has sewn itself into our human DNA chains over the eons). [For those lacking a degree in biology, some additional information concerning retroviruses may be helpful. “Retroviruses” like all viruses, have a core that consists of RNA and they also have proteins that force the cells that they invade to convert that viral RNA into DNA, some of which even incorporates itself into the normal DNA of the cell that they have invaded. Itʼs not just retroviruses that have added foreign DNA to the cells of species that they have invaded, because other types of viruses, and (I think) even bacteria, have added their share. — D.M.]</p>
<p>Mutations can also be observed directly every so often right after meiotic divisions of the sex cells. So, mutations are known to occur on a regular basis, and at the <b>frequency</b> that evolution requires in order to turn, say, a common ancestor of chimps and humans into both chimps and humans. In fact, the known calculated frequency of mutations in the human genome is more than what is required if evolution via mutations over time were true:</p>
<p>“The observed rates of mutation can easily account for the genetic differences observed between species as different as mice, chimpanzees, and humans. Potential Falsification: It is entirely plausible that measured genetic mutation rates from observations of modern organisms could be orders of magnitude less than that required by rates inferred from the fossil record and sequence divergence. “ — Douglas Theobald, Ph.D., “<a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section5.html" target=_blank>29 Evidences for Macroevolution</a>,” “Prediction 5.8: Genetic Rates of Change”</p></li>
<li><p>There is evidence that man and chimp are nearer each other genetically than either of them are to the other apes. One early estimate of the genetic distance between man and chimp was done in the 1970ʼs using the technique of pairing up the two halves of DNA strings from different species to see what percentage of the DNA stands would join together and what percentage did not. Humans and great apes were found to be no more dissimilar than sibling species of fruit flies. Not much genetic distance there:</p>
<p>“We have obtained estimates of genetic differentiation between humans and the great apes no greater than, say, those observed between morphologically indistinguishable (sibling) species of Drosophila flies (fruit flies).”<br />
— Elizabeth J. Bruce and Francisco J. Ayala (Dept. of Genetics, Univ. of Calif.), “Humans and Apes Are Genetically Very Similar,” Nature, Nov. 16, 1978, Vol 276, p. 265.</p>
<p>Furthermore: “New genetic evidence demonstrates that lineages of chimps (currently Pan troglodytes) and humans (Homo sapiens) diverged so recently that chimps should be [reclassified] as Homo troglodytes. The move would make chimps full members of our genus Homo, along with Neandertals, and all other human-like fossil species. ‘We humans appear as only slightly remodeled chimpanzee-like apes,’ says the study… Within important sequence stretches of these functionally significant genes, humans and chimps share 99.4 percent identity. (Some previous DNA work remains controversial. It concentrated on genetic sequences that are not parts of genes and are less functionally important, said Goodman.)…”<br />
— “Chimps Belong on Human Branch of Family Tree, Study Says” John Pickrell in England for <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/05/0520_030520_chimpanzees.html" target="_blank">National Geographic News</a> May 20, 2003</p>
<p>Lastly, if you were to compare the genetic distance not between man and chimp, but between man and their common ancestor, the genetic distance must be halved once again. So the genetic distance is not [unbridgeable] by any means. Even one of the founders of I.D., Michael Denton, has recognized the [bridgeable] nature of the genetic distance between species and has [abandoned] his former “anti-common-descent” views as a result:</p>
<p>“One of the most surprising discoveries which has arisen from DNA sequencing has been the remarkable finding that the genomes of all organisms are clustered very close together in a tiny region of DNA sequence space forming a tree of related sequences that can all be interconverted via a series of tiny incremental natural steps. So the sharp discontinuities, referred to above, between different organs and adaptations and different types of organisms, which have been the bedrock of antievolutionary arguments for the past century, have now greatly diminished at the DNA level. Organisms which seem very different at a morphological level can be very close together at the DNA level.”<br />
— Michael Denton, <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20060207115302/http://home.wxs.nl/~gkorthof/kortho29.htm" target="_blank">Natureʼs Destiny</a> (chapter 12, p. 276)</p>
<p>Some creationists try to counter the evidence of incredibly small differences between the human and chimp genomes with arguments such as this one:</p>
<p>“Humans have 3 billion ‘letters’ (base pairs) of DNA information in each cell, so a two percent difference [between human and chimp genomes] is actually 60 million ‘spelling errors!’ Of course, this is not ‘error’ but twenty 500-page books worth of new information that needs to be explained by mutation and selection.”<br />
— Jonathan Sarfati [creationist], Refuting Evolution 2, p. 186</p>
<p>Response: “Sarfati is trying to classify every difference in the genomes of humans and chimps as ‘new information’ that would have to be introduced either into the human or the chimp genome since the last common ancestor of humans and chimps. What he neglects is the fact that the vast majority of those differences are single nucleotide differences in genes (or, more often, in stretches of noncoding DNA) that merely change one amino acid in a protein (with no change in function), or make no change to the protein at all, or occur in DNA sequences that make no protein. Others are stretches of DNA of which one species has more than one copy compared with the other speciesʼ single copy of that same stretch of DNA, such duplications being a common form of mutation in the genome. Still others are cases where the DNA has simply moved from place to place among the noncoding DNA due to another common form of mutation. So the facts are not as Sarfati presents them, but out of the vast majority of differences between human and chimp DNA that have already been identified, <b>They have all been shown to be the most common sorts of changes that mutations have already been observed to produce</b>.</p>
<p>“Maybe there are some variant genes of a type that mutations have not been known to produce, but Sarfati does not make any such distinction, nor provide evidence of such a discovery. What we do see in the vast majority of cases are simple duplications, deletions, translocations, and point alterations of stretches in the other genome, <b>All of which have been observed to occur naturally</b>.”<br />
— Steven J.</p></li>
<li><p>Current paleontological knowledge provides evidence that at least 100 species of Old World apes lived during the Miocene in Europe and Africa. And those species of primitive apes all differed from modern great ape species in that the primitive apes were all relatively nearer to modern day human skeletal anatomy than todayʼs great apes are. For instance, the primitive apes all had small hands, and had legs and arms the same length; while <b>modern</b> great apes all have large hands with long fingers, and their arms are longer than their legs. The primitive apes also had no simian shelf in their jaws, again like modern humans; while the <b>modern</b> great apes all have a simian shelf in their jaws, unlike modern humans. [See David R. Begun, “Planet of the Apes,” Scientific American, August 2003]</p></li>
<li><p>There is also <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/" target="_blank">paleontological evidence</a> of forms having succeeded one another beginning with upright apes, then early pre-hominids, hominids, and ending with the genus homo. <br />
For those who doubt that such fossil evidence exists, see the following admissions recently made by two young-earth creationists, below: “I was surprised to find that instead of enough fossils barely to fit into a coffin, as one evolutionist once stated [in 1982], there were over 4,000 hominid fossils as of 1976. Over 200 specimens have been classified as Neanderthal and about one hundred as Homo erectus. More of these fossils have been found since 1976.”<br />
— Michael J. Oard [creationist], in his review of the book, Bones of Contention: A Creationist Assessment of Human Fossils, in the Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 30, March 1994, p. 222 “The current figures [circa 1994] are even more impressive: over 220 Homo erectus fossil individuals discovered to date, possibly as many as 80 archaic Homo sapiens fossil individuals discovered to date, and well over 300 Neanderthal fossil individuals discovered to date.”<br />
— Marvin L. Lubenow [creationist], author of Bones of Contention: A Creationist Assessment of Human Fossils, in a letter to the editor of the Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 31, Sept. 1994, p. 70 [Those still in doubt concerning the above admissions made by young-earth creationists should visit a website titled, “<a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/" target="_blank">Fossil Hominids: The Evidence for Human Evolution</a>”</p>
<p><b>The evidence outlined in points 1-4, above (along with further evidence below) raises questions concerning the degree of “supernatural” tinkering required by a “designer” to change the common ancestor of chimps and man, into both chimps and man. Apparently a lot less tinkering is required, hardly enough for i.D.Ists to brag about, and not so much tinkering as would make Darwinism an “impossible” explanation. In fact the evidence seems to suggest that the idea of a “divine tinkerer” is not so very far from,the idea of “Darwinism” after all. The further points below should make this clear</b></p></li>
<li><p>As pointed out above, mutations are observable and occur at a rate that is not incompatible with the modern scientific theory of evolution. Also, there are unused portions of the genome, huge portions, collecting mutations. In fact enough retroviral DNA has crept into the hominid genome over the past millions of years to rival the amount of functional protein-coding DNA that is used to construct a human being. Add to that the evidence within <a href="https://etb-darwin.blogspot.com/2012/03/evidence-that-human-chromosome-2.html">Human Chromosome #2</a> itself, which contains remnants of a second centromere that would be expected if our chromosome was once two separate chromosomes, each with their own centromere, as it is today in all the great ape species. In other words, Human Chromosome 2 appears to have resulted from the fusion of two ancestral chromosomes still found in all the living species of apes.</p>
<p>See the article “<a href="http://www.evolutionpages.com/chromosome_2.htm" target="_blank">Human Chromosome 2 is a fusion of two ancestral chromosomes</a>” by Alec MacAndrew as well as the article, “<a href="http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoEvidence.html" target="_blank">Comparison of the Human and Great Ape Chromosomes as Evidence for Common Ancestry</a>”<br />
For further Human and Chimpanzee chromosome comparisons see <a href="http://www.indiana.edu/~ensiweb/lessons/chromcom.html" target="_blank">Beth Kramerʼs site</a>.<br />
Also click to <a href="http://www.indiana.edu/~ensiweb/lessons/chr.bk1.html" target="_blank">sub-page</a> which provides a detailed matching of human and chimp chromosomes 1-4. Note how the chromosomal banding patterns on the second chromosome in humans lines up with those in two shorter chimp chromosomes, while all the other chromosomal numbers and banding patterns of chimp and human match up quite closely. For matchings on <a href="http://www.indiana.edu/~ensiweb/lessons/chr.jpeg.html" target="_blank">other chromosomes</a>, Note: humans have 22 chromosomes (called autosomes), plus the X and Y. Go to <a href="http://www.indiana.edu/~ensiweb/lessons/chro.all.html" target="_blank">sub-page</a> for a beautiful image matching all the chromosomes of four hominids — human, chimpanzee, gorilla, and orangutan. Finally see the <a href="http://www.indiana.edu/~ensiweb/lessons/chr.clad.html" target="_blank">Hominoid Phylogeny</a> (ancestral tree) based on these chromosome comparisons.</p>
<p>A Designer could have “deleted” some of the old viral DNA shared by both modern day apes and human beings (found in the same homologous regions of our genomes), since the Designer was already there inside the genome “adding” the [occasional] new mutation. Likewise, a Designer could have removed some of the [remnants] of the extra centromere found in human chromosome #2. In other words, there <b>could conceivably be more signs of design</b> instead of the evidence of continued accumulation of unused portions of viral DNA, and instead of the unessential remnants of a past fusion of two [chromosomes] into one.</p></li>
<li><p>The genetic distance between chimp and human is quite small, and the distance is even smaller between either of them and their common ancestor. In fact one study produced evidence that suggested the chimp and man genomes were nearer to each other than either of them are to the gorilla genome. The genetic distance between chimpanzees and human beings is comparable to sibling species of fruit flies, and there is not much doubt concerning the evolution of fruit fly species from one another (especially on the islands of Hawaii, isolated from the mainland, and which are known to be the home to over 500 species of fruit flies found nowhere else on earth, probably descended from just a few common fruit fly ancestors that reached those islands about five million years ago when they first began to form). Does it really require a “miracle” to explain how such a small “gap” might be bridged?</p></li>
<li><p>There were <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/" target="_blank">pre-monkeys</a> (lemurs) before there were monkeys, and there were many species of monkey before the first primitive apes showed up, and many species of primitive apes before the first hominids showed up, and different species of homo, before homo sapiens showed up.</p>
<p>In fact, there were ages upon ages of monkeys and then ages upon ages of apes. Were all of them required “by Design” before arriving at hominids? And of those hominids, only a single branch of them today exists as modern man, Homo Sapiens Sapiens. (In fact the genetic diversity among human beings all over the planet today is smaller than the genetic diversity that has been found in a single troop of chimpanzees.) Mankind may be the result of “design” of a sort overall, but there were bushes upon bushes of a multitude of species of lemurs, monkeys, primitive apes, pre-hominids, hominids, etc. that all preceded the arrival of mankind, and only a few species from each bush survived as the ages swept along.</p></li>
</ol>
<h3>The Latest Evidence For Evolution: Evo-Devo</h3>
<p><b>Edward</b>: Dear Dr. Gilbert (author of “Teaching Evolution Through Development”), thank you for having provided examples of organisms that share the same basic developmental genes and how those genes have often been reused and changed only slightly in each case from species to species. Hence, in many cases, not a lot of “mutations” are required to account for turning feathers into scales, as you point out below. And eyes need NOT have evolved over 40 times separately, since the same hox gene that induces eye formation has been discovered in the genomes of such a wide variety of species having eyes. Ultimately such studies might also unveil how small were the genetic alterations necessary to change early primates into man. Or, as you state in the conclusion of your lecture: “Many critics pointed out that population genetics cannot directly explain macroevolution. But when you add developmental genetics to the theory, you have a wonderfully robust mix that can explain evolution both within species and in higher taxa. It turns out that we humans are closer to other animals than we thought, and that the mechanisms by which the living world is generated are highly conserved.”</p>
<p><b>Dr. Scott Gilbert</b>: Dear Ed, Thanks for your kind note. My lecture can be found <a href="http://10e.devbio.com/article.php?id=265" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
[Scott Gilbertʼs lecture at the Society for Developmental Biology meeting, Madison, 2002, titled, “Teaching Evolution Through Development.” First posted: Nov 07, 2003]<br />
I enjoyed your website, Ed, and your tongue-in-cheek article, “Why We Believe in a Designer.” Years ago, when I told my wife about Intelligent Design, she laughed. She is an obstetrician/gynecologist. They donʼt particularly believe in the “perfection” of design.</p>
<p>Best wishes!<br />
Scott</p>
<h3>Selections from Dr. Gilbertʼs lecture in which he discusses evidence for evolution based on the new field of developmental genetics or “evo-devo,” as it is now called</h3>
<p>[passages selected by Ed Babinski]<br />
“Changes in genes due to selection pressures from pesticides: The mosquitoes that are resistant to DDT have evolved multiple copies of the esterase genes that enable them to detoxify it; the cotton budworm has altered the target of the poison, and houseflies have altered the proteins that transport the poison. [So there are a wide variety of _possible_ mutations that can reduce the killing effects of a pesticide on an organism, and only one of those very different types of mutations has to occur in order for the organism to develop resistance. This increases the odds that such resistance could occur via the same random mutations that naturally occur in every organism during meiotic divisions of its germ cells. — E.T.B.]<br />
The insecticides select for those resistant phenotypes, and the genes that confer this resistance are transmitted to the next generation…<br />
“Having established that evolution [genetic changes in species over time] happens, we can then show how evolution can be explained genetically through mutation, recombination, meiotic drive, and drift. This genetic explanation of evolution is called the Modern Synthesis. However, this model not tell us all about evolution. First, it assumes, but does not explain, the types of variation; and second, it can be tested only within the species. Macroevolution has to be extrapolated from it. If genetics is “Darwinʼs missing evidence,” then only part of this evidence is being used. Until recently, the only areas of genetics that were brought to evolutionary biology were population genetics and molecular genetics. What was missing—and what can now be added—is developmental genetics (see Gilbert et al, 1996)…</p>
<p>“It wasnʼt until 1977—Maxam and Gilbert—that we could access the historical records of the genes. It has turned out to be a treasure trove beyond measure. It works by finding rare and shared molecular similarities, which would not be expected to have arisen independently, but rather via common descent.</p>
<p><b>Slide 19</b>. DNA transposons showing linkage of whale and hippo and the linkage of that clade to cow and sheep. Transposon insertions 4, 5, 6, and 7 are found only in whale and hippo DNA and not in any other group. Transposon insertions 10 and 12 are found in this group plus the artiodactyls (cow and deer).</p>
<p>“This slide shows an analysis of DNA transposons — collections of DNA that have no known function and which can rarely leave their place of origin and insert into a different region of the genome. If they migrate into an existing gene, they can knock out the geneʼs function. But most of the time, if they migrate at all, they migrate to regions of DNA that arenʼt being used. Most of the sequences are held in common by all mammals. However, some are informative. That the pig and peccary are related has never been disputed, but the molecular order of the transposons does put them together in a common group. Similarly, anatomical evidence has long been used to link cattle and deers into a common clade, and this was also confirmed by the molecular data. However, the molecular data showed that the whale and hippopotamus are related and that both arose from an ancestor in common with the cow and deer. This supported one of several possible ideas. So we now have an independent measure of common ancestry.</p>
<p>“The first discoveries in evolutionary developmental genetics showed the remarkable homology of genetic instructions. Indeed, the developmental instructions for forming several analogous organs were shown to be homologous. For instance, the fly eye and mouse eye have very little in common as to their origin or structure. However, Walter Gehringʼs group demonstrated that the instructions to form both eyes are based on a set of homologous genes such as Pax6.</p>
<p><b>Slide 28</b>. Pax6 expression in the Drosophila eye/antenna imaginal disc, and its absence in eyeless mutants.</p>
<p>“Mouse Pax6 expression in the embryonic eye, and its absence in loss of function Aniridia mutants. The instructions are so similar that fly imaginal discs will form an eye (a Drosophila eye) when given the rodent Pax6 gene.</p>
<p><b>Slide 29</b>. Ectopic fly eyes made by activating murine Pax6 in insect jaw imaginal disc. (Halder et al., 1995).</p>
<p>“Thus, whereas it was previously thought that eyes formed independently over 40 different times, we now find that each type of eye is but a variation on a [very similar hox gene] theme.</p>
<p>“By the early 1980s, the Hox genes of insects and vertebrates were shown to be homologous.</p>
<p>“First—(just like in the vertebrae) there was serial homology between the genes within a species. They could be seen as variants of ancestral Hox genes.</p>
<p>“Second, special homology between a particular Hox gene in one phylum and that similar Hox gene in another phylum.</p>
<p>“Third, the entire Hox complex appears to be similar in nearly every organism studied. Even their expression patterns are similar. These could not be accounted for by convergent evolution.</p>
<p>Footnote 5: Wells, Behe and the argument against genes [<b>See Dr. Gilbertʼs website for this footnote</b>.]</p>
<p><b>Slide 30</b>. Derivation of the homologous Hox genes of insects and vertebrates. (Holland and Garcia-Fernandez, 1996).</p>
<p>“Nature uses the same sets of genes in different ways. [Evidence of ‘jury-rigging?’ Using whatʼs there? Tinkering? — E.T.B.] We specify our anterior-posterior axis in the same way as fruit flies. But we obviously use the genes differently. We donʼt make wings or antennae.</p>
<p><b>Slide 31</b>. Expression patterns of head and trunk genes in flies and mammals. Same “head genes” used. (Hirth and Reichert, 1999).</p>
<p>“So there must be important differences as well as important similarities. If we are talking about descent with <b>modification</b>, we expect both underlying similarities and secondary differences. Can these differences in developmental genetics explain morphological differences?</p>
<p>“Weʼre just beginning — and itʼs fascinating.</p>
<p>“Hereʼs one example — from Sean Carrollʼs lab here in Madison. Why do insects have only six legs while other arthropods have many more? The answer appears to involve one of those Hox genes.</p>
<p><b>Slide 32</b>. Ubx changes distinguish insect clade. (Galant and Carroll, 2002.)</p>
<p>“In the insect clade — and only in this group — has there been a mutation in the Ultrabithorax gene. This mutation allows Ultrabithorax to repress Distal-less gene expression. Distal-less is critical in the formation of limbs. Ubx is thus able to repress limb formation in the abdominal segments of the fly. Thus, the insects have six thoracic legs; not eight legs like spiders, not ten legs like crabs, and not dozens of legs like centipedes. Mutations in regulatory genes can give them new properties.</p>
<p>“(Note that the six-leggedness is not used as a homologous entity here. The cladogram that this trait is superimposed upon is the cladogram derived from molecular genetics and other morphological traits. The circularity is avoided by the independent assessment of gene sequences.)</p>
<p>“But one doesnʼt need a mutation in the actual protein. A change in where the protein is expressed can also be critically important. Hereʼs one of my favorite examples. How does the duck get its webbed feet? Itʼs a matter of gremlin gene expression.</p>
<p><b>Slide 33</b>. Gene expression patterns in duck and chick hindlimbs. BMP4 activates apoptosis; but gremlin can inhibit BMP4. If present, it should prevent apoptosis and allow webbing to be retained. (Merion et al., 1999.)</p>
<p>“Can you get webbed feet if you add gremlin to the interdigital space? YES.</p>
<p><b>Slide 34</b>. Addition of Gremlin-containing bead to the interdigital space inhibits BMOP signaling and allows webbing to be retained. (Merino et al., 1999.)</p>
<p>So Jacobʼs model yielded some interesting results. Change the expression pattern of a gene and you can get new structures. This is something my students can understand. Emphasizing changes in gene expression in an embryo is a better way of explaining evolution than looking at changes in gene frequencies within populations.</p>
<p>“Changing the pattern of regulatory gene expression has also been shown to correlate with the type of vertebra formed by the somites, and the type of appendage formed by crustaceans.</p><p>“Hereʼs another example from Madison, Wisconsin — how to get feathers to form scales.</p>
<p><b>Slide 35</b>. BMP2 and SHH expression in the scale and feather rudiments. (Harris et al., 2002)</p>
<p>“What about the creation of a new morphological structure—a novelty. Avian feathers have long been proposed as an evolutionary novelty. But the mechanism to produce feathers has remained elusive. However, a paper recently published from John Fallonʼs laboratory provides a developmental mechanism by which feathers can be generated from scales. They provide evidence that the differences in the expression of sonic hedgehog and BMP proteins separate the feather from the scale. Both the scale and the feather start off the same way, with the separation of BMP2 and SHH-secreting domains. However, in the feather, both domains shift to the distal region of the appendage. Moreover, this pattern becomes repeated serially around the proximal distal axis. The interaction between BMP2 and Shh then causes each of these regions to form its own axis—the barb of the feather.</p>
<p>“Matt Harris and others in the Fallon laboratory have shown that when you alter the expression of Shh or BMP2, you change the feather pattern. The results correspond exceptionally well to a proposed mechanism of feather production from archosaurian scales.</p>
<p>Footnote 6: feathers: “Another question in evolutionary biology concerns how mammals formed different types of teeth. Indeed, tooth morphology is critical to mammalian classification.</p>
<p>“Jukka Jernvall and colleagues in Irma Thesleffʼs laboratory at the University of Helsinki have pioneered a computer-based approach to phenotype production using Geographic Information Systems—the technology that ecologists use to map the location of vegetation of hillsides. They have used this technology to map gene expression patterns of incipient tooth buds—literally turning a mountain into a molar. They have shown that gene expression patterns forecast the exact location of tooth cusps and that the differences in teeth between mouse and vole are predicated upon differences in gene expression patterns.</p>
<p><b>Slide 36</b>.Tooth morphogenesis and gene expression (Jernvall et al., 2000)</p>
<p>“1. The left side of the slide shows the fossil record of rodent teeth, demonstrating that the vole retains the diagonal patterning of cusps, while the mouse has evolved an orthogonal cusp pattern.</p>
<p>“2. The right side shows the developmental topology of tooth cusp formation. The mouse develops its orthogonal cusps on embryonic day 16; the day the vole develops its diagonal cusps.</p>
<p><b>Slide 37</b>. Gene expression patterns predict by about a day where the cusps will be. They differ between species. (Jernvall et al., 2000.) On embryonic day 15, the mouse has but one cusp, but gene expression patterns of the enamel knot genes (Fgfs and Shh) show that a second cusp will form orthogonally. Similarly, on embryonic day 15, the vole molar has but one cusp, but the gene expression pattern shows that a second cusp will form diagonally.</p>
<p>“In a recent paper, Jernvall and his colleague Salazar-Cuidad propose a mathematical model for these differences, wherein small changes in a gene network, again working through the interactions of BMPs and SHH—can account for the different tooth morphologies. They can generate different tooth morphologies by just changing the reaction kinetics of diffusion.</p>
<p><b>Slide 38</b>. Mathematical modeling of gene expression patterns.(Salazar-Ciudad and Jernvall, 2002.)</p>
<p>“They find that a small increase in the bias of lingual growth and a stronger binding constant of inhibitor is sufficient to change the vole pattern of tooth growth into that of the mouse. Moreover, large morphological changes can result from very small changes in initial conditions. Another conclusion is that all the cells can start off with the same sets of instructions. The specific instructions emerge as the cells interact. The model also predicts that some types of teeth are much more likely to evolve in certain ways and not in others. These predictions have been born out.</p>
<p>Footnote 7. Personal opinions.</p>
<p><b>Slide 39</b>. Evolution of the vertebrate jaw (Kuratani, et al., 2001)</p>
<p>“The last example involves the formation of another evolutionary novelty, the vertebrate jaw. This was one of those problems of evolutionary embryology that couldnʼt be decided in the early 1900s. Shiguro Kuratani has shown that the oral apparatus of the jawed vertebrates is not derived from the oral apparatus of the lamprey, as had long been thought. In the lamprey, the naso-hypophyseal plate is retained and prevents the migration of neural crest cells rostrally. In jawed vertebrates, this plate separates very early in development into the nasal and hypophyseal neural tissues, thereby making a path for the rostral migration of neural crest cells. This permits the formation of a new structure, the jaw.</p>
<p>“As Dr. Kuratani ends a recent paper: ‘The clue to solve this problem, therefore, will not be obtained by comparative anatomy of the adult structures, but rather by discrimination of conserved and newly acquired patterns of gene expression.</p>
<p>“Molecular developmental biology has taken the initial steps into this old question of comparative zoology, but it has already suggested new directions in which a solution may lie.” The developmental genetic approach to evolution complements the traditional population genetic approach. They are both needed.</p>
<p><b>Slide 40</b>. New evolutionary synthesis.<br />
<p>“This slide summarizes differences between the population genetic and developmental genetic approaches. Both are critical and necessary for evolution. Many critics pointed out that population genetics cannot directly explain macroevolution. But when you add developmental genetics to the theory, you have a wonderful robust mix that can explain both evolution both within species and in higher taxa. It turns out that we humans are closer to other animals than we thought, and that the mechanisms by which the l,iving world is generated are highly conserved.</p>
<p><b>Slide 41</b>. Biodiversity and Biohomology (picture from the Biohistory Research Hall).<br />
“Our remarkable phenotypic biodiversity is underlain by an equally remarkable biohomology.</p>
<p>“I think that students (and their parents) will be able to readily understand evolution when presented as changes in gene expression more readily than when presented as changes in gene frequency. One can visualize these changes and thereby acquire an excellent way to recall this information. Moreover, for most non-scientists, evolution is about macroevolution, and the changes by which reptiles become mammals or fish become land-dwelling tetrapods is more to the point than how moths or beetles become a different colored moth or beetle. We can now merge developmental genetics and population genetics to explain the biodiversity of life on earth, and, as Darwin said, ‘there is grandeur in this view of life.’”</p>
<p><b>End of Dr. Gilbertʼs lecture, visit his site to read his footnotes, especially those related to I.D./Creationism.</b></p>
<h3>Dr. Dembskiʼs response to Dr. Gilbertʼs presentation on evo-devo</h3>
<p><b>Dr. Dembski</b>: Dear Ed. Thanks for emailing me Dr. Gilbertʼs lecture. Below is a section from a forthcoming biology textbook framed around intelligent design (titled The Design of Life). It explains why we are less than impressed with evo-devo. WmAD [William A. Dembski]</p>
<p>[The section from the textbook that Dr. Dembski mentions is copyrighted, so I will only cite a few sentence fragments and a summary, with some of my own comments added. The sentence fragment is this, “… evo-devo is now in a state of crisis.” The I.D. textbook authors admit the universality of hox genes but emphasize that hox genes are like “mere” ignition switches. However, the chapter ignores that because of the discovery of these universal ignition switches, the overall developmental patterns across widely diverse species are now traceable in a common material sense and another way to compare evolutionary changes and divergencies. The I.D. authors also mention “non-genetic factors” that help mold the development of the eggs of all species into a representative of that species, such as the eggʼs “microtubules” and its “membrane pattern.” The I.D. authors also mention a technique called “saturation mutagenesis,” that induces mutations in developmental genes, and adds that mutations induced in such a manner “often lead to death or deformity, but they never produce changes that benefit the organism.” — E.T.B ]</p>
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<h3>E.T.B.ʼs Response to Dr. Dembski</h3>
<p>E.T.B.: Dear Dr. Dembski, Thank you very much for your generous and rapid response. A few comments… I am unaware of any “state of crisis” as my I.D.ist friends repeatedly claim exists. If there is any “state of crisis” isnʼt it on the side of those who claim that an invisible entity is managing nature while billions of years of large-scale suffering, deaths, and extinctions are taking place? (Doesnʼt sound like a highly impressive “manager,” I mean, “perfecting” so many species only for the vast majority of them to become extinct, then a few flourish into a branching bush of species that is whittled down by more extinctions, over and over again. Talk about Sisyphus and that damned rock.)</p>
<p>Thank you also for mailing me the Evo-Devo section from the I.D. textbook. I have written elsewhere about the small genetic distance between man and chimp [see my essay, “Random Mutations and the Intelligent Design Hypothesis”], but let me add here, in case it wasnʼt clear, that the “anti-EVO-DEVO” arguments from the textbook above appear to be vacuous for two reasons:<br />
<ol>
<li>The essential genetic differences, including “non-genetic developmental factors,” between man and chimp are so small that it appears more incredible for a scientist today to <b>not</b> believe they shared a common ancestor.</li>
<li>“Saturation mutagenesis” is like wounding the genome with shotgun blasts. Saturation mutagenesis is about knocking things out from the genes to learn how they function, it is not a model for evolution and natural selection in the wild.</li>
</ol>
Furthermore, even if a “Designer” made genomic alterations over millions of years to “design” humans out of one particular band of ancient hominids, the Designer did not have to do “much” altering, not very much at all — falling within the known mutation rates, especially when you consider that the slight DNA divergencies between man and chimp are on the order of sibling species of indistinguishable fruit flies, and the numbers of such divergencies must be halved yet again in the case of a common ancestor. And if it is a case not of a Designer “managing” nature but of things “freely” (your word) happening in nature why would the use of such a word as “freely” not also suit Darwinistic theistic evolution?<br />
In fact there are Christian theistic evolutionists like Dr. Howard Van Till at Calvin College, Dr. Kenneth Miller, Dr. Lamoureaux, and Dr. John Haught who repudiate the “scientific/mathematical/philosophical proofs” endorsed by I.D.ists, and who express none of the I.D. disdain toward Darwinism. I.D.ists also tend to forget that they are neither the first nor last word in “anti-Darwinism,” because there are types of “anti-Darwinists” other than the I.D. variety, like<br />
<ol>
<li>Rupert Sheldrake who proposes that “morphogenic fields” peculiar to each individual (and to each species) may help direct various inheritable changes in both DNA structures and behaviors.</li>
<li>Another group of anti-Darwinists has suggested that viral DNA and bacterial DNA that invades the inheritable portions of the human genome may later be utilized by mutations and thus produce, enhance or catalyze some types of evolutionary changes.</li>
<li>Other anti-Darwinians suggest that there are internal cellular mechanisms that continue altering things more or less blindly but not beyond certain natural parameters that are currently unknown to science since it cannot see how the whole operates and how everything jostles everything else inside the cell. So there may be a sort of trial and error system going on inside cells that blindly tries out various mutations based on parameters that we are not currently aware of. Some mutations we know are more common than others, or sometimes a duplicated stretch of DNA will naturally jump into or out of a certain portion of the genome more readily and more often in one area of the genome than others. These “hot” spots seem based on broad principles of genomics and mutations that geneticist are currently unaware of, but they are beginning to discover which duplications of DNA are the most common, percentage wise, and which entry sites in the genome are “hot” and “not hot,” and to what degrees.</li>
<li>Some really wild anti-Darwinists suggest that beings from civilizations (other planets, other times, other dimensions) far more advanced than ours, having access to knowledge that seems to us like “magic,” were involved at critical evolutionary junctures. I.D. is apparently trying to publicize itself as “The” alternative, but some “anti-Darwinists” are atheists/agnostics/pantheists/panentheists(?) (Robert Wright, Rupert Sheldrake, Michael Denton). While some Evangelical Christians do not renounce Darwinistic principles or possibilities (Howard Van Till, Kenneth Miller, Dennis Lamoreaux, John Haught, [Stephen] Meyers)</li>
</ol>
<p>Contra I.D., it appears to most scientists that we can prove next to nothing, scientifically speaking, about the “Designer” and their “plans.” Not till a scientist gets to heaven may they get to ask the “Designer”: “Why this rather than that mutation, why this rather than that molecule, species, disease, historical circumstance, why that particular order, etc.?” “And “why” the platypus, penguin and giraffe?”</p>
<p>Meanwhile, evolutionists (of all religious and non-religious varieties) continue to busy themselves charting the parade of creatures through time, extinctions, geographical isolations. For instance, marsupials reached Australia before it separated from the mainland and before mammals evolved, so Australia was subsequently filled with nothing but marsupial organisms that filled every available niche, and that was before the evolution of human beings. Genetic studies also reveal that Australiaʼs marsupials are related, and that the fossils on Australia in the past include no mammals, since mammals arose on the mainland. By and large the science done today is by evolutionists and driven by a desire to discover all the possible “links” in the natural world via naturalistic based and naturalistically understood hypotheses.</p>
<p>That reminds me of how one evolutionary paleontologist traveled to an especially frigid region of the globe because he had learned that that region featured prominent outcroppings from the geological era during which evolutionists had determined reptiles evolved into mammals. He died of exposure after digging up the first fossils of “mammal-like reptiles.”</p>
<p>Meanwhile, creationists have sat back and formed societies for “quotation” research, or they misinterpret the middle-toes of dinosaur tracks as “human footprints,” or they build sculptures of what a “giant human femur” might have looked like. I.D.ists are a step above that, but many I.D.ists do not wish to demarcate themselves from their young-cosmos creationist brethren, so some I.D.ists avoid the question of the age of the earth or the cosmos, pleading ignorance (as do Philip Johnson or Paul Nelson), or they make sly concessions to young-cosmos believers, telling them that their arguments are still worth looking at, and the scientific possibility of a cosmos whose age can be measured in thousands of years remains interesting and/or important, though they havenʼt yet personally seen a convincing argument (as Dembski likes to put it). What nice kind words I.D.ists reserve for their “lesser brethren” so as not to offend them. But it sounds to me that if I.D.ists can make <b>that</b> kind of <b>concession</b>, they should also be capable of admitting that the biological gap between chimps and humans is so small (“sibling species” small) to admit of only requiring “relatively minor I.D. influence,” or even “Darwinism.” Surely I.D.ists should remain more open to Darwinism as do other Christian Ph.D.s mentioned previously.</p>
<p>Furthermore, if (or when) I.D. gets accepted into the public school arena, then young-cosmos creationists, emboldened by the success of I.D. will begin storming the political arena with a vengeance to get young-cosmos arguments also taught in schools. And if the pro-I.D.ist judges and politicians who promoted I.D. teaching in the public schools do not ALSO come to the aid of young-cosmos creationists, then some vicious battles will no doubt errupt. Why? Because people who believe “God” is the answer to everything, that “Satan” must be resisted at all costs (and that “hell for unbelievers” is not optional), have not been known in the past to discuss their rival views with quite as much calmness and candor as pro and anti-Darwinian <b>Secularistic</b> scientists discuss their differences.</p>
<p>I also think I.D.ists need to recognize that most evolutionists are not atheists, and the “battle” is not one between “atheism” and “theism.” At least half of all evolutionary scientists are theists of different sorts, especially in America, but they understand the nature of attempts to understand the world in a scientific fashion, and they understand why any scientific hypothesis that invokes a miracle is merely invoking one mystery to explain another mystery. These same theistic evolutionists also recognize when their atheistic brethren are speaking “ex cathedra,” i.e., making statements in the realm of atheistic philosophy rather than scientific statements. (Apparently everything I just wrote is nonsense to many I.D.ists who continue to insist that “atheism” has “taken over science,” and it is their sworn duty as “I.D.ists” to “put a Designer God back in.”)</p>
<p>Lastly, here are a few questions that come to mind, based on the fact that usually only a single known species out of a closely related group of them, exhibits “specially designed” endowments, while the remainder of the species appear to exhibit relatively more mundane endowments. I am not asking why the “Designer” has continually chosen only one particular species (out of many closely related ones) to endow in some “specially designed” fashion. I am asking what big difference can you suggest between the I.D. explanation (“Will O’ God?”), and various “Darwinistic” explanations that also predict that heightened specializations would not be the norm, but are indeed rarer than the norm. So, I am asking you, why not consider “Tinkering” and “Darwinism” as being more similar than I.D.ists are wont to currently admit? Here are examples from nature:</p>
<ol>
<li>The <b>Bedbug</b> — The male bedbug has a penis that penetrates the females abdomen in a traumatic act of insemination, but hereʼs the point I want to raise, only a single known species of bedbug is known to have evolved the added specialization of having males penetrate the abdomens of <b>other males</b> while the first male is inseminating a female.</li>
<li>The <b>Bombardier Beetle</b> — Only a single known species of beetle has a moving turret to direct a hot chemical spray at its “enemies,” the rest of the beetles of that genus can only spray in one direction, usually covering their own backs, and other species of beetles closely related to those, have similar overall anatomies but without spraying anything.</li>
<li><b>Homo Sapiens Sapiens</b> — There is only one surviving species of human being on earth but loads of extinct hominid species and primitive apes species. If you are explaining such things via I.D. then the Designer has apparently given the above unique specializations to only one species out of many that are very closely related species. Doesnʼt that equal one of the predictions of evolution via Darwinism? One may also wonder why a Designer should require two to three billion years to move from the earliest known single-celled creature to the first multi-cellular creatures? Why a Designer should require six million years to produce human beings and also have to leave behind so many extinct primate species and then extinct hominid species in the process?</li>
</ol>
<p>Also what do you believe is left of the truth of Genesis according to your I.D. view? You have admitted in print that you do not take the creation chapters of Genesis literally, but you have not yet told anyone how you DO take Genesis. What is the I.D. commentary on Genesis? Are Godʼs words less sure of interpretation than the so-called “proofs” of I.D. science? Do you believe in I.D. with greater certitude and precision than you believe in Godʼs inspired and infallible teachings in the Holy Bible? Tell us what the Bible is saying in Genesis, chapters one and two, and ALSO concerning the resultant necessity of Jesusʼ sacrifice for “Adamʼs sin.” Who might “Adam” have been according to your I.D. viewpoint (an Australopithicine perhaps?), and what exactly was Adamʼs “sin” (what might the phrase, “eating forbidden fruit” really mean?) And how was that “sin” spread to all mankind (does genetics have anything to do with it), and why is the death of Jesus the “cure,” what does it “cure,” and “how?”<br />
If I.D.ists know “the truth” about science, why canʼt they agree on an interpretation of the early chapters of Genesis even though “Scripture is given of God and not of private interpretation,” and, “the Holy Spirit will lead you into all truth?” If it is just some general truth that canʼt even be used to distinguish between heliocentrism or geocentrism (there are geocentrist creationist Bible believers who can point to verses that certainly appear to assume a geocentric cosmos). Or if God can not speak so plain as to tell us if creation is “thousands” or “billions” of years old. Or if God canʼt speak so plainly as to tell us whether various species popped into existence instantaneously, or whether they came from each otherʼs wombs after individual micro-mutations, then Iʼd say there is nothing much that the early chapters of Genesis can honestly tell us, and therefore, Biblical interpretation is in a far greater “state of crisis” than science. Wouldnʼt you agree?<br />
Best, Ed</p>
<p>P.S., I am a former young-earth creationist born again Christian, and my book is now in paperback, Leaving the Fold: Testimonies of Former Fundamentalists, and my articles on evolution are also on the web.<br />
<a href="http://www.edwardtbabinski.us">http://www.edwardtbabinski.us</a></p>
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<h3>Dr. Dembskiʼs Response</h3>
<p>On 11/17/2003 <b>Dembski</b> wrote: Dear Ed, You sent me something about evo-devo, claiming that it closes the macroevolutionary gap. It doesnʼt. Whatʼs more, just because you and Scott donʼt recognize the crisis doesnʼt mean there isnʼt one. I expect that those who knew the Titanic was unsinkable were convinced there was no crisis until they actually saw the ship going down. Of course, the actual crisis ensued once the Titanic hit the iceberg.</p>
<p>As for God micromanaging nature, thatʼs a convenient caricature. Precisely because God allows a world to unfold in freedom, no micromanaging is required and a history of death, suffering, and extinction becomes compatible with a world that exhibits design (which is not to say that every aspect is designed). You seem wedded to a naive theology and stuck on the theodicy problem. The theodicy questions you raised are separate from the design question, and you donʼt resolve the design question by saying that any putative designer wouldnʼt have done it that way. Now if you want to talk theodicy, Iʼm happy to do so, but again, thatʼs not why you wrote me and thatʼs not what the chapter draft I sent you was about.</p>
<p>You seem bitter about your YEC experience. I suppose thatʼs understandable. And perhaps your skeptic friends are providing you with the intellectual enrichment that you didnʼt find as a YEcreationist. But given your undue preoccupation with your YEC past, it seems you havenʼt fully resolved this aspect of your life (perhaps Leaving the Fold is helping in this regard).</p>
<p>Iʼm planning a book on Genesis, Creation, and Theodicy in which I have some new angles on how suffering that results from an evolutionary history could in turn be the result of a space-time fall of humanity (the key is appealing to Newcombʼs paradox). You might find it interesting. For details, stay posted to <a href="http://www.designinference.com" target="_blank">my website</a><br />
WmAD</p>
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<h3>E.T.B.ʼs Reply to Dembskiʼs Reply</h3>
<p><b>Edward</b>: Dear Dr. Dembski, my comments are interspersed between yours below.</p>
<blockquote id=quote>
<em><b>Dembski</b>: One thing at a time. You sent me something about evo-devo, claiming that it closes the macroevolutionary gap. It doesnʼt.</em>
</blockquote>
<p><b>Edward</b>: Pardon, but it does close various evolutionary gaps. Instead of the genes that induce eyes having to evolve entirely separately 40 different times we have the same gene that induces eye development (conserved in all of those species, which evolutionists assume are descended from a common ancestor), and able to induce eye development in all of those species. So instead of many genes, a few hox-like genes are found to be major directors that facilitate some relatively broad changes like fins to feet, scales to feathers, and, they even decide whether there is no invagination of the skin and forming of an eye cup — or — the skin invaginates and forms an eye cup in the head region. In fact, that is <b>exactly</b> the sort of evidence that evolutionary geneticists have been seeking right along, ways to consolidate various major changes in broad ranges of diverse species via fewer shared genes and fewer genetic mutations. Conversely, is it better to posit the absolute absence of gaps since a “Designer” and “miracles” effortlessly fill up any and every conceivable “gap?” Positing miracles — from the tiniest micromutations to the instantaneous creation of whole new organisms and their habitats — explain anything and everything and add not a whit to human knowledge since the answer in any and all cases never varies, without even a chance of testability, nor any need for waiting till, say, further research has increased our knowledge in comparative genomics and evo-devo studies and others fields of knowledge. No waiting, no siree, I.D. has the answer right here and now. Speaking of “gaps” being closed, creationists used to have a field day focusing on the “impossibility of cetacean evolution.” But look at what has come to light concerning that topic in just the last few decades. I have an article on the web concerning “cetacean evolution” (just google those terms and my last name), and it features a letter from one of the worldʼs leading cetacean evolution researchers along with photos of a few rare specimens of modern day whales discovered with hind leg rudiments protruding from their bodies. I would say the “gaps” are closing. The question is merely how closely the “gaps” will eventually be closed. Time and patience will tell.</p>
<blockquote id=quote>
<em><b>Dembski</b>: Whatʼs more, just because you and Scott donʼt recognize the crisis doesnʼt mean there isnʼt one. I expect that those who knew the Titanic was unsinkable were convinced there was no crisis until they actually saw the ship going down. Of course, the actual crisis ensued once the Titanic hit the iceberg.</em>
</blockquote>
<p><b>Edward</b>: Whose ship is taking on water is a moot point between us, so why waste your breath on a wry “Titanic” analogy more suitable for the pulpit than a scientific discussion? By the way, <a href="https://morton-yec-archive.blogspot.com/2016/04/nineteenth-century-opponents-of-geology.html" title="http://home.entouch.net/dmd/nineteenth.htm">Glenn Morton has been collecting quotations</a> from folks who rejoiced a bit prematurely at the demise of “modern geology” and “evolution.”</p>
<p>One quotation that I ran across on my own is this one:</p>
<p>“[Richard] Owen [the famed anatomist] says my book will be forgotten in ten years, perhaps so; but, with such a [short but prestigious] list [of scientific supporters], I feel convinced that the subject will not.”<br />
— Charles Darwin in a letter to J. D. Hooker, 3/3/1860</p>
<p>Speaking of my own view, I think the “fine-tuning hypothesis” raises more challenging questions than the “I.D. hypothesis.” See for instance: The “Fine Tuners” Challenge the “Intelligent Design” Movement Fine Tuners acknowledge that accident may not be the best way to explain the whole cosmos. They also find that the <a href="https://etb-intelligent-design.blogspot.com/2012/03/fine-tuning-hypothesis-alternative-to.html">Intelligent Design movement</a> embraces faulty simplistic arguments and proofs.</p>
<blockquote id=quote>
<em><b>Dembski</b>: As for God micromanaging nature, thatʼs a convenient caricature. Precisely because Godi allows a world to unfold in freedom,</em>
</blockquote>
<p><b>Edward</b>: “Unfold in freedom” is an intriguing phrase. Please explain what kind of changes organisms are “free” to engage in, and on what biological levels if you can say. There are Christian biologists and philosophers who are also theistic evolutionists and accept many principles of Darwinism and THEY use exactly the same phrase you do to express their belief that evolutionary natural selection allows nature to “unfold in freedom.” No micro-managing is required. So what does an I.D.ist such as yourself mean exactly by the phrase “unfolding in freedom?” Do you mean that the Designer does not “micro-manage” nor “tinker” at all, but merely “Designed” the first cell on earth, then that cell had every necessary biological pathway and engine “built into it” so it could “unfold in freedom” into all the life on earth? Even Behe admitted such a view was problematical to say the least, just look at the different types of cells and the different things they do. Perhaps you havenʼt. If you have, then please suggest how ALL of the possible information necessary for every species of all the major divisions of the living world, prokaryotes, eukaryotes, etc., could have been stuffed inside the first cell without it bursting at the seams. Gathering mutations and weeding them via natural selection as organisms spread out into different environment sounds more sane.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if a simple bacterium can “unfold in freedom” into super sized Eukarotes and billions of diverse species each with their own unique habitats and behaviors, that would certainly imply evolution in my book. So if you are trying to reduce the I.D. question down to the question of “abiogenesis” or “where the first reproducing organism came from,” you certainly appear to be a theistic evolutionist of sorts, moreso than a creationist. Especially since such a view as you suggest would make even Darwin an “I.D.ist” by your definition! Just read the last paragraph of Darwinʼs Origin of Species about how the Creator may have made the first cell and it evolved into all the rest of the forms afterwards.</p>
<blockquote id=quote>
<em><b>Dembski</b>: …and a history of death, suffering, and extinction becomes compatible with a world that exhibits design (which is not to say that every aspect is designed). You seem wedded to a naive theology and stuck on the theodicy problem. See last point. The theodicy question is separate from the design question, and you donʼt resolve the design question by saying that any putative designer wouldnʼt have done it that way. Now if you want to talk theodicy, Iʼm happy to do so, but again, thatʼs not why you wrote me and thatʼs not what the chapter draft I sent you was about.</em>
</blockquote>
<p><b>Edward</b>: It was not a question of “theodicy,” it was a question of how near the “Supernatural Tinkering” idea was to “Darwinism.” Evolution predicts that specialization is a process over time, and that not all organisms achieve it, in fact it predicts that <b>few</b> achieve it, just as in the case of bacteria that develop resistance to antibiotics or insects that develop resistance to pesticides, only a few mutate to the point that allows them to adapt while the majority of organisms do not.</p>
<p>As I said, only a single known species of bed bug stab-rapes not only females but also stab-rapes rival males. And only a single known species of the suborder of beetles known as Adephaga, has a MOVEABLE turret allowing it to point the chemicals that shoot out of it, while the others spray their own backs. And only a single known species of hominid evolved into homo sapiens. That is what evolution predicts, it certainly fits evolution.</p>
<p>But if you are going to posit a “Designer” then the possible scenarios for “designing” the living world seem <b>Unfalsifiably Endless</b>. There need not have necessarily been a whittling down process that the geological record actually reveals. Consider the following examples from nature:</p>
<p><b>The Evolution of Birds</b> — They are preceded by feathered two-legged dinosaurs. And then by feathered air-gliding dinosaurs with long boney tails that create drag, still with heavy reptilian skeletons, heavy reptilian triangular-shaped skulls, teeth and non-hollow bones that added weight, small keel bones instead of the massive keel bones found in modern birds that attach their far larger flight muscles, and unfused metacarpals (wrist bones), that would not stay steady and be able to support them during long flighting times, just for short glides. In short, the earliest gliding feathered reptiles are clearly not as well designed for flight, nor as highly specialized for it as modern species are. In fact only a single known species of modern day bird can fly backwards, the hummingbird, a late arrival on the scene. Again, such a progression is one that evolution predicts, it fits evolution.</p>
<p><b>The Evolution of Cetaceans</b> (whales, dolphins, porpoises) — The earliest Cetaceans were clearly not as highly specialized as modern day species. Early whales displayed earbones only partially-specialized for under water hearing. Early whales had nares at the tips of their snouts or later in the middle of their snouts, the nares didnʼt reach the top of their heads until later (one species of modern day whale still has two separate nares in its head instead of the single fused nares found in all the rest of the modern day species). All early cetaceans (porpoises, dolphins and whales) also apparently shared the same ancestors, because the fossil record shows relatively smaller cetaceans early on, and only later did some species advance in size until we see the modern day Blue Whale, which is the largest known organism ever to live on the planet (with the possible exception of some dinosaur named gigantosaurus?). Neither did the early cetaceans have the sonar apparatus found in most modern day species. Their skulls simply werenʼt fitted for it and show no evidence of it.</p>
<p>Such a progression of increasing slow specialization over millions of years is one that evolution predicts, and which has been borne out by the findings of paleontology.</p>
<ol>
<li>From non-specialized to highly specialized.</li>
<li>From the <b>many</b> unspecialized to the <b>few</b> highly specialized, with many subsequent extinctions along the way.</li>
<li>The slow progress in specialization, taking millions of years as seen in the paleontological record.</li>
</ol>
<blockquote id=quote>
<em><b>Dembski</b>: You seem bitter about your YEC experience.</em>
</blockquote>
<p><b>Edward</b>: The man who explained that “evolution” was “in crisis” and “sinking like the Titanic” is telling me that Iʼm “bitter?” Can you say, “projection?” Iʼm simply as insistent as you are concerning the question of what can be concluded based on what we know.</p>
<blockquote id=quote>
<em><b>Dembski</b>: And perhaps your skeptic friends are providing you with the intellectual enrichment that you didnʼt find as a YEcreationist. But given your undue preoccupation with your YEC past…</em>
</blockquote>
<p><b>Edward</b>: The man who is a member of the Discovery Institute, an Institute that apparently wishes to ignore the major scientific channels of discourse and seeks to simply self-publish books and publicize its way into public school curriculums and has a five-year plan to do so. A man who cannot handle the fact that “I.D.” is not “The” only alternative (I list the four major alternatives to Darwinism above), and who has made it his livelihood to tirelessly continue a crusade to get I.D. taught (as if there were anything I.D. could “teach” except to introduce a new word, “Designer,” into science classrooms — a word that explains nothing and adds no new knowledge), is telling me that I am “preoccupied” with my YEC past. Actually, as of late, Iʼve become increasingly preoccupied not with my YEC past but with I.D.ʼs future failure. My “friends” by the way include not simply “skeptics” but also theistic evolutionist Christians.</p>
<blockquote id=quote>
<em><b>Dembski</b>: It seems you havenʼt fully resolved this aspect of your life (perhaps Leaving the Fold is helping in this regard).</em>
</blockquote>
<p><b>Edward</b>: Leaving the Fold was written because of the need. Former fundamentalists have since written me after reading it, telling me how alone they felt in daring to doubt, how the churches had formerly absorbed their hearts, minds, time, energy and money, and that of their relatives, to such a degree, that leaving the fold was one of the most difficult processes that they had gone through in their lives. They rejoiced at encountering the stories of folks who experienced passages in their lives similar to their own. I too, having left the fold was intrigued when I first began running into the first-hand descriptions of others. Perhaps such testimonies are commonplace nowadays — for instance just look at the stories listed in the links at Steve Locksʼ website, “Leaving Christianity” (easily googled by name). But when I first got the idea for such a work and began collecting such testimonies in the mid 1980s, the internet consisted of Prodigy with not many “personal websites” to speak of. As for the various aspects of my life being “fully resolved,” they are as “fully resolved” today as yours are, I am sure. *smile*</p>
<blockquote id=quote>
<em><b>Dembski</b>: Iʼm planning a book on Genesis, Creation, and Theodicy in which I have some new angles on how suffering that results from an evolutionary history could in turn be the result of a space-time fall of humanity (the key is appealing to Newcombʼs paradox).</em>
</blockquote>
<p><b>Edward</b>: A bit “preoccupied” arenʼt you, with things that no one has <b>any</b> evidence of?</p>
<p>When I write, I try to make clear that many theists appear to me to be obsessed with matters no one can know about for sure, matters in the spiritual realm, in heaven, in the next world, or taught in doctrines with not much basis other than the apparent will to believe they are true. Exactly how <b>does</b> one man getting stabbed and dying in the distant past make you feel like God has finally forgiven you for, say, using a curse word when you had clumsily stubbed your toe? How do you make all the necessary “connections?” How do you deal with the myriad “difficulties” of “proving” your Holy Book and religious doctrines are all “true,” indeed, <b>must</b> be true, in some “sense,” and you <b>must</b> find that “sense,” even if it means applying “Newcombʼs paradox” to the alleged “space-time fall of humanity?” I guess you are “preoccupied” with applying every possible trick in the philosopherʼs handbook to try and make the story of a talking snake and magical fruit and shedding blood to forgive sins all make “sense” in the end.</p>
<p>Have you considered that perhaps it is you who are more involved than I, more “preoccupied,” especially with providing definitive <b>answers</b> to the worldʼs greatest mysteries? I at least am willing to admit there are mysteries, being neither atheist nor theist.</p>
<p>And speaking of my “preoccupation with my YEC past” (more like “nostalgic cerebral entertainments” these days, based on all thought I once “knew” for “sure”), how exactly is your ad hoc hypothesis concerning the centrality of some alleged, “space-time fall of humanity,” truly going to differ from Humphries latest YEC ad hoc hypothesis that maybe the earth was at the center of a white hole at the instant of creation, and that the cosmos as well as time and space itself got stretched out in “days,” thus leading to the mere “appearance” of an “old” cosmos stretched out in <b>billions</b> of “light-years?” Humphries “white-hole-earth” hypothesis is typically worthless, inherently non-provable, non-experimentable, even moreso than the famed creationist and I.D. rebuffs of “natural selection” being a “pure tautology.” What could be more purely tautological than arguments like Humphries or like the one you are currently conjuring up? (And Humphries “white-hole-earth” hypothesis just reflects the Bibleʼs own geocentrism, no?)</p>
<p>On the other hand, I suppose thatʼs how theology “works.” I mean if the act of one man suffering the pain of nails being driven through his palms two thousand years ago can make another man living today a “saint” in Godʼs eyes (after death), <b>then</b>, the story of “Adam and Eve” taking a single bite out of “forbidden fruit” can be cited as the reason why millions of species suffered for millions of years before Adam and Eve ever popped out of an Australopithecusʼs womb.</p>
<p>(Speaking of Adam and Eve, I saw a book recently here in the college library that stated scientists <b>may</b> have discovered a genetic basis for “Adam,” a genetic-bottleneck back in time, a single individual or very small group of related individuals, from whom all of the genes of our species is descend, as well as having already discovered a genetic basis for something close to “Eve” though not a single individual. One little problem, as mentioned in the book, is that thereʼs way too many generations of descendants lying between the genetic “Adam” bottleneck, and the genetic “Eve” bottleneck. Seems they never “met.”)</p>
<p>Christian theological explanations appear to be growing increasingly more weird as scientific knowledge continues to grow and theologians seek to accommodate the notion of some “truth” in Genesis with modern science. But so far none of the theological compromises or accommodations that I have read appear as strange to me as the simple fact that there isnʼt a verse in the Bible that isnʼt compatible with the flat-stationary-earth view that was prominent in the ancient Near East when both of the Bibleʼs testaments were written (the view also appears in intertestamental works, like Enoch). All attempts to make the Bible appear “scientific” regarding modern cosmology are ad hoc, and based on ignoring the fact that historically speaking there is no necessity to even attempt to make the Bible sound scientific.<br />
Best, Ed</p>
<div class="separator" style="text-align:center"><iframe frameborder=0 data-src="https://edwardtbabinski.us/related-content/related-content-40.html" style="margin-bottom:0em; margin-left:0em; margin-right:0em; height:400px; width:600px; border:0px"></iframe></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1773058939668732399.post-80753044165652642872012-03-15T11:12:00.002-07:002019-09-03T02:33:54.353-07:00Intelligent Design (I.D.) and Isaac Newton<img style="border-width: 0px; padding: 3px; float: right;" src="https://edwardtbabinski.us/facebook/intelligent-design/newton-design.jpg" alt="Isaac Newton and Intelligent Design" width="345" height="393" />
<p>Isaac Newton wrote that he believed God occasionally intervened miraculously to set the planets right in their orbits, i.e., to correct cases of minor perturbations.</p>
<p>Apparently Newton was aware that sometimes two or more planets might be circling the sun and pass relatively near each other, influencing each other gravitationally, pulling each otherʼs 3-D orbits out of whack slightly, and that could add up over time. So Newton pictured God as intervening from time to time to keep his perfect celestial clock running smoothly, correcting such minor perturbations.</p>
<p>Today, astronomers no longer invoke “God” to restore orbital perturbations. Neither do they invoke “God” to explain how all the elements continue to rise out of fusing simple hydrogen atoms (a reaction that occurs inside stars via fusion, with the heaviest elements being created during novas).</p>
<p>In fact, todayʼs astronomers speak in terms of a messy astronomical past filled with orbital perturbations, and also speak in terms of a treacherous future filled with bleak possibilities for our planet and/or solar system:</p>
<p>Articles from New Scientist</p>
<p>“Birth of the planets: The Earth and its fellow planets may be survivors from a time when planets ricocheted around the Sun like ball bearings on a pinball table” 24 August 1991 issue 1783</p>
<p>“Jupiter drifted towards sun in its youth” The giant planet drifted tens of millions of kilometers towards the sun in its youth, a new study suggests, perhaps even helping to form the Earth. 26 September 2004</p>
<p>“Wandering Jupiter took trek towards the sun” 25 September 2004</p>
<p>“Planet formation is violent, slow and messy” A new view of planet formation is revealed by observations of nearby stars - it suggests Earth-like planets might be common. 19 October 2004</p>
<p>“<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20060622225414/http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/dinosaurs/dn931" target="_blank">Did a planetary wobble kill the dinosaurs?</a>”… A wobble in Mercuryʼs orbit could have wiped out the dinosaurs…to see when the next potentially catastrophic planetary wobble will be…</p>
<p>“New moons suggest brutal beginnings” Five new moons circling Neptune, and two tiny moons newly discovered around Saturn hint at violent pasts 18 August 2004</p>
<p>Or a nearby star could go nova, or simply pass near our sun. Also, thereʼs the fact that hundreds of asteroids cross the earthʼs orbital path each year.</p>
<p>So we live with far more uncertainty than Newton did. Even our genes apparently have undergone loads of perturbations due to mutation-facilitating ALU sequences, according to this weekʼs news. (“Scientists track ‘stealth’ DNA elements in primate evolution” 02 May 2005)</p>
<p>Not to mention living with the knowledge of other kinds of perturbations, like several major (and many minor) periods of extinction in the past.</p>
<p>Not to mention the fact that a third to a half of all fertilized human eggs simply donʼt survive. Even of those humans who get to emerge living from the womb, half of them used to die by age seven (according to Buffon, writing 200+ years ago).</p>
<p>In nature some species lay several thousand eggs, that vast majority of which donʼt survive. Plant seeds face a similar rate of death. Some bacteria divide so fast that they could fill the oceans and land in a few days, but their death rate is likewise enormous.</p>
<p>My observation is simply that given all we know, above, natural selection is an obvious hypothesis. Each organism is tested by nature beginning with pre- fertilization “sperm wars,” then during the zygote and early embryogenesis stages when a third to a half of them all donʼt survive, and thereʼs the missing twin syndrome later on in pregnancy, a quite common failing, such that perhaps 30% of all single births were once twins in the womb, and then after birth during childhood more testing from mother nature takes place with a large childhood mortality rate (which if you survive that test, your odds of surviving to old age are greatly enhanced), all the way up to adolescence when human beings begin another breeding cycle, and then social and sexual selection plays a further testing role. Such a rigorous testing plan occurs throughout nature for every individual of every species. <b>Thatʼs how natureʼs perturbations are dealt with—not by “god” stepping in miraculously to “correct” things.</b> If that is not “selection” of some sort then what is it?</p>
<p>And if this process selects out the deleterious mutations, then doesnʼt that also mean that it also “selects-in” the beneficial mutations that make a healthy life and sexual reproduction more likely next time? (Just think of it this way—When a Christian sport-person crosses themselves and prays silently that their side “scores a touchdown,” or “makes a basket,” or “gets a hit” and “wins,” then arenʼt they also praying that the other side loses? Such things work both ways.)</p>
<p>Just a thought.</p>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1773058939668732399.post-66088923524974775682012-03-15T10:45:00.005-07:002019-09-03T02:38:08.775-07:00What is Intelligent Design?<blockquote id=quote>January 28, 2005, Sharon wrote: I really donʼt understand what Intelligent Design is all about — or the arguments against it. Itʼs a mish mosh of techno babblings that goes in one ear out the other and right over my head.<br/>
I guess you need a firm grasp on biology and astronomy to *get it* because I donʼt.<br/>
You ought to write an article “What is Intelligent Design?” and covering the basics for amateurs like me. Baby stuff — you crawl, then walk, then run. Try “<a href="http://etb-pseudoscience.blogspot.com/2012/03/id-intelligent-design-for-idummies.html">I.D. for Dummies</a>”.<br/>
From my understanding it boils down to: “I.D. is based on the belief life is too complex to have simply formed on its own, therefore God did it.” (And of course the Christian God is credited.)</p>
<p>I have a real problem with that. Go back 3.8 billion years ago, approximate date of the oldest known fossil material — and go back earlier in time when life began evolving. Who says that life came about *poof* overnight when complex organisms like Humans themselves are a product of less-complex life, one-celled organisms — spanning <b>four billion</b> years of evolution? [<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/cavemen/chronology/contentpage1.shtml" target="_blank">Human Evolution, Mother Of Man - 3.2 Million Years</a>] The origins of life itself could have evolved over time. DNA could have evolved from something less complex. Humans didnʼt pop into existence, [our first ancestors only came on the scene around <u>four million years</u> ago]. If humans didnʼt, why should DNA? Just because it seems complicated today after <u>four billion years</u> of evolution does not mean it was so <u>four billion years</u> ago.</blockquote>
<img style="border-width: 0px; padding: 3px; float: right;" src="https://edwardtbabinski.us/facebook/intelligent-design/id.jpg" alt="What is Intelligent Design?" width="350" height="261" />
<p><b>Edward Babinski</b> It only takes 9 months for a human to arise from a single cell, yet creationists are absolutely certain that given a couple billion years, and even the directing hand of God (as in theistic evolution), a single-cell could <b>never</b> become a human being, and upright large-brained apes could <b>never</b> become human beings.</p>
<p>Thatʼs because they would <b>never</b> dare doubt the words of a pre-scientific scribe, as they literally understand them.</p>
<blockquote id=quote>
<p id="return1">I really donʼt understand how “Well, itʼs too complicated to understand therefore God did it.” And to me, physics is complex, astronomy and genetic engineering — those subjects are way beyond my grasp — but if I were to study them, Iʼm sure I would learn quite a number of things. How long ago was DNA discovered? In the 1940s or 1950s? [<a href="#DNA"> see footnote #1</a> ]<br>
Creationists have barely given science the time to even crack the human gene and jumping the gun saying “Itʼs too complex.” Given another 75 years or so, itʼll probably become common knowledge how DNA works — and perhaps something more on its origins and perhaps even the big question: Abiogenesis, the origins of life itself.</p>
<p>I think Intelligent Design is summed up as: “Impatience on behalf of Creationists”.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><b>Edward Babinski</b> Youʼre right on target, sounds like “impatience” to me too.</p>
<p>But then, many creationists are impatient for everything to over, the whole shebang, rapture, Armageddon, etc. *sigh*</p>
<blockquote id=quote>Perhaps you have a better definition than mine?<br/>
I mean isnʼt “Itʼs too complex to understand, therefore a supernatural being did it”… the basis for all superstition? and superstition does not belong in the classrooms of the public school system.<br/>
Speaking from personal experience, what I see happening with such a hypothesis built on superstitious belief “itʼs too complex to understand, therefore a spirit did it”, is telling children, itʼs a waste of time to study deeper into the origins of life… pack up your books, you wonʼt need them — forget that chemistry or biology degree — itʼs a closed case. Thus, a student that would have potentially became another Francis Crick or James Watson to advance the understanding of DNA and origins of life — well, they decide to become an engineer in an unrelated field that avails opportunities to exercise their critical thinking skills.<br/>
Itʼs the same old song from the Dark Ages. “Itʼs too complex, therefore why waste time studying it? The Bible has laid it all for mankind in black and white… the greatest mystery of all! Read! Learn.”</p>
<p>How many centuries will that book hamper scientific progress and enlightened thought?<br/>
Whatʼs ironic about the whole thing is that they say “Itʼs too complex to understand therefore it cannot be explained.” Theyʼre really ones to talk, when it comes down to their Bible. How many denominations have sprouted from one Christianity due to differences on interpreting one little book?<br/>
Thatʼs chaos… Thatʼs confusion that will never be understood. One little book. Yet, all of them believe they hold the monopoly on the one and only truth, and everyone else is wrong. Since the Bible cannot be explained, perhaps we should just throw in the towel and hang it up — abandon the Bible —and never waste our time reading the Bible again. After all, itʼs “supernatural” in origins, and therefore impossible to understand or decipher. Theyʼve been trying for two thousand years, and havenʼt gotten any closer to a coherent interpretation than the early fathers of the Church. Give up and not even try to investigate and superstition rule the day. Thatʼs what Creationists would like science to do in its pursuit of exploring the origins of life.
<p><b>Hypothetically speaking:</b><br />
The Bible itself states that God is not the author of confusion.<br />
(Too complex to understand?)<br />
1Cor:14:33: For God is not the author of confusion…<br/>Logically speaking, since the New Testament God is a God of orderly reason, then it should be safe to conclude the discovery of how the origins of life came about, are right around the corner. Surely the good Lord used a scientific process that can be replicated in a lab, and in time, scientists will stumble upon it. [/sarcasm]<br/>
I really donʼt understand where theyʼre coming from in their reasoning. “The origins of life is too complex to understand therefore we need the Bible to unravel it.” God is in the chaos and confusion of life origins? Then God is also in the chaos and confusion of car wrecks where people are ripped mercilessly apart by natural forces. God is in the chaos and confusion of dangerous animals and deadly microorganisms which mankind has been plagued with for millions of years and tends with daily. God was in the Anthrax that circulated around 9/11. God is in the chaotic confusion of deadly weather formations like Tornadoes, Hurricanes, Avalanches and Blizzards and God can be found in the meaningless confusion of deadly geological events like Tsunamis, Volcanoes, Floods and Earthquakes. I suppose those too are “too complex to explain”, well, primitive and superstitious savages might would think so. Actually a good meteorologist or seismologist can explain those “awe-striking events” quite well and without need to mention a god. (And, need I add that despite the passing of decades and centuries of studying, these scientists are still making efforts to refine their techniques to predict catastrophic geological and atmospheric conditions, to save human lives.) Unlike Religion, Science is never a “done deal”, and certainly never “perfect”… though far less frequently “false” in what it asserts.<br/>
The way I see it, itʼs only one more historical hurdle for science. Intelligent Design seems to me like Superstitionʼs last ditch effort to drag scientific progress backward. But if thereʼs one thing human history has proven that is that Science will go forward.</blockquote>
<p>I think you understand I.D. just fine. *smile* They try to win over the crowd with improbability calculations, but such calculations do not take into account the fact that nothing is inherently probable, since you have to do the hard work of studying what life <b>does</b>, how it moves and lives and how it develops and changes from the tiniest scale to the largest scale, even the social scale. And that takes increasingly detailed knowledge about molecules and life in their living matrix, something the I.D.ists have no time for, since they have one answer and one answer alone to all such questions:</p>
<p>“You Need Lots of Dees Here Molecules Working Togeder To Make Dings Work, Lots of ʻUm Molecules, Yup, One Dare, and Anuder One Dare, And, Anuder Over Dare, and Some Down Dare, And, Oh Heck, Just Say Da Designer Did ID. Class Dismissed!”</p>
<p id="DNA">Footnote #1<br/>
Englishman Francis Crick, American James Watson with the help of two English scientists, Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins discovered DNA through x-ray diffraction in the year 1953. In 1961, Drs. Watson, Crick and Wilkins won the Nobel Prize in Medicine. Dr. Franklin died before she received the famous award.<br />
Source: <i>My Name is Gene</i>, N.L. Eskeland, Ph.D and N.C. Bailey, Ph.D<br>
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<div class="separator" style="text-align:center"><iframe data-src="https://edwardtbabinski.us/related-content/related-content-40.html" style="margin-bottom:0em; margin-left:0em; margin-right:0em; height:400px; width:600px; border:0px"></iframe></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1773058939668732399.post-35269545017751236432012-03-13T22:59:00.003-07:002019-09-03T02:38:39.401-07:00Conversation with William Dembski on Intelligent Design<img style="border-width: 0px; padding: 3px; float: right;" src="https://edwardtbabinski.us/facebook/intelligent-design/dembski.jpg" alt="William Dembski" width="350" height="382" />
<p>On November 14, 2003 Ed Babinski wrote:<br />
Subject: EVO-DEVO, Dr. Gilbert, “Teaching Evolution Through Development”</p>
<p><b>Edward</b>: Thanks very much Dr. Gilbert. Your online lecture raises intriguing points, and it was very recently posted, so it is “news” worth sharing, especially the many examples you provide of organisms that share the same basic developmental genes and how those genes have kept getting reused and changed only slightly in each case. Hence, not a lot of “mutation” is required to produce large scale changes, even to turn feathers to scales, as you point out below. And eyes need <b>not</b> have evolved over 40 times separately, since the same hox gene that induces eye formation is found in those species. Ultimately such studies might also unveil how little had to be changed in the genes of early primates in order to produce man. Or, as you state in the conclusion of your lecture:</p>
<p>“Many critics pointed out that population genetics cannot directly explain macroevolution. But when you add developmental genetics to the theory, you have a wonderfully robust mix that can explain evolution both within species and in higher taxa. It turns out that we humans are closer to other animals than we thought, and that the mechanisms by which the living world is generated are highly conserved.”</p>
<blockquote id=quote><b>“Scott Gilbert”</b>: Dear Ed,<br />
Thanks for your kind note. My lecture can be found online at <a href="http://10e.devbio.com/article.php?id=265" target="_blank">Developmental Biology</a><br />
[Scott Gilbertʼs lecture at the Society for Developmental Biology meeting, Madison, 2002, titled, “Teaching Evolution Through Development.” First posted: Nov 07, 2003]<br/>
I enjoyed your website on why we believe in a Designer. Years ago, when I told my wife about Intelligent Design, she laughed. She is an obstetrician/gynecologist. They donʼt particularly believe in the “perfection” of design.</blockquote>
<p>[Edʼs comment: I know of one female creationist with an anthropology degree, so Iʼm sure there are female I.D.ists with advanced degrees. But the exact meaning of “perfection” in any particular instance of nature remains elusive because invoking the word, “perfection,” leaves you wondering, “perfect” compared with how many other possible designs?]</p>
<blockquote id=quote>
Best wishes!<br />
Scott</blockquote>
<p>On November 17, 2003, Edward Babinski wrote:<br />
Subject: Re: EVO-DEVO, Dr. Gilbert, “Teaching Evolution Through Development”</p>
<p>Dear Dr. Dembski,</p>
<p>Wow! Thank you very much for your generous and timely response!</p>
<p>Just a few comments. I am unaware of any “state of crisis” as my I.D.ist friends claim exists. If there is any “state of crisis” isnʼt it on the side of those who claim that invisible entities are micro-managing nature over billions of years of death and suffering and extinctions? (Doesnʼt sound like a highly impressive “micro manager,” I mean, “perfecting” so many species only for them to become extinct over and over again.)</p>
<p>Hereʼs a question I have, based on three examples from nature:</p>
<ol>
<li>The <b>Bedbug</b>—The male bedbug has a penis that penetrates the females abdomen in a traumatic act, but hereʼs the point I want to raise, only a single species of bedbug is known to have evolved to the point that males of that species penetrate the abdomens of <b>other males</b> while the first male is inseminating a female.</li>
<li>The <b>Bombardier beetle</b>—Only one species of “bombardier” beetle has a moving turret to direct its spray, the rest can only spray in one direction, usually covering their own backs, and other species of beetles have similar overall anatomies but without spraying anything.</li>
<li><b>Home Sapiens Sapiens</b>—There is only one surviving species of human being but many primitive extinct primates, and loads of extinct hominid species. Based on such examples, my question is why does specialization in the cases I have cited, always leave behind so MANY less highly “specialized” species for the very <b>few</b> highly specialized species? If a Designer is micromanaging the specialization, then why leave the majority of creatures “behind” as it were? Isnʼt that more a prediction of evolution than “design?” To put it other ways: Why should a Designer require two to three billion years to move from the earliest known <b>single</b>-celled creature to the first <b>multi</b>-cellular creatures? Why does a Designer require six million years to produce human beings and also have to leave behind so many extinct primate species and then extinct hominid species in the process?</li>
</ol>
<p>And what do you believe is left of the truth of Genesis according to your I.D. view? Is there a definitive I.D. commentary on Genesis? Why not? Are Godʼs words less sure of interpretation than science is? I mean I.D. says it knows “the” truth about science, but it canʼt agree on an interpretation of Genesis even though “Scripture is given of God and not of private interpretation,” and, “the Holy Spirit will lead you into all truth?” Well, whereʼs the “truth” in Genesis that all the theists can plainly read? If it is just some general truth that canʼt even distinguish between helio or geo-centrism (there are geocentrist creationist Bible believers who can point to verses that certainly seem to me to assume a geocentric cosmos). Or if God canʼt even speak so plain as to tell us if creation is thousands or billions of years old. Or if God canʼt speak so plainly as to tell us whether various species popped into existence instantaneously, or whether they came from each otherʼs wombs after individual micro-mutations, then Iʼd say there is nothing much that Genesis can honestly tell us, no more than any other ancient creation account found in any other religion, and therefore, Biblical interpretation is “in a state of crisis,” not science.</p>
<p>On November 17, 2003, Edward Babinski wrote:<br />
Subject: Re: EVO-DEVO, Dr. Gilbert, “Teaching Evolution Through Development”</p>
<blockquote id=quote>“William A. Dembski” writes:<br />
Comments interspersed.
</blockquote>
<p><b>Edward</b>: Mine also. *smile* Thanks again for maintaining the correspondence. I am supposing that is Paulʼs email address above? I hadnʼt spoken with him in months, though we used to speak quite regularly for weeks on end, neither were there any hard feelings between either of us. He even published something I wrote at the ARN site, a small edited portion of something I wrote. Paul and I simply lost touch at one point. You can ask him about it and what we discussed. (My further responses appear interspersed below.)</p>
<blockquote id=quote><blockquote id=quote>11/17/2003, Edward Babinski wrote:<br/>
Dear Dr. Dembski,<br/>
Wow! Thank you very much for your generous and timely response!<br/>
Just a few comments. I am unaware of any “state of crisis” as my I.D.ist friends claim exists. If there is any “state of crisis” isnʼt it on the side of those who claim that invisible entities are micro-managing nature over billions of years of death and suffering and extinctions? (Doesnʼt sound like a highly impressive “micro manager,” I mean, “perfecting” so many species only for them to become extinct over and over again.)</blockquote>
One thing at a time. You sent me something about evo-devo, claiming that it closes the macroevolutionary gap. It doesnʼt.</blockquote>
<p><b>Edward</b>: Pardon, but it does close various evolutionary gaps. Instead of the genes that induce eyes having to evolve entirely separately 40 different times we have the same gene that induces eye development (conserved in all of those species, which evolutionists assume are descended from a common ancestor), and able to induce eye development in all of those species. So instead of many genes, a few hox-like genes are found to be major directors that facilitate some relatively broad changes like fins to feet, scales to feathers, and, they even decide whether there is no invagination of the skin and forming of an eye cup—or—the skin invaginates and forms an eye cup in the head region. In fact, that is <b>exactly</b> the sort of evidence that evolutionary geneticists have been seeking right along, ways to consolidate various major changes in broad ranges of diverse species via fewer shared genes and fewer genetic mutations.</p>
<p>Conversely, keep in mind that there is no “gap” at all in I.D., since <b>miracles</b>—from the tiniest micromutations to the instantaneous creation of whole new organisms and their habitats—explain both <b>anything</b> and <b>everything</b>.<br />
*smile*</p>
<blockquote id=quote>Whatʼs more, just because you and Scott donʼt recognize the crisis doesnʼt mean there isnʼt one. I expect that those who knew the Titanic was unsinkable were convinced there was no crisis until they actually saw the ship going down. Of course, the actual crisis ensued once the Titanic hit the iceberg.</blockquote>
<p><b>Edward</b>: Whose ship is taking on water is a moot point between us, so why waste your breath on a wry “Titanic” analogy more suitable for the pulpit than a scientific discussion?<br />
One quotation that I ran across on my own is this one: “[Richard] Owen [the famed anatomist] says my book will be forgotten in ten years, perhaps so; but, with such a [short but prestigious] list [of scientific supporters], I feel convinced that the subject will not.” [Darwin in a letter to J. D. Hooker, 3/3/1860].</p>
<p>Speaking of my own view, I think the “fine-tuning hypothesis” raises more challenging questions than the “I.D. hypothesis.” See for instance:</p>
<p>The “Fine Tuners” Challenge the “Intelligent Design” Movement Fine Tuners acknowledge that accident may not be the best way to explain the whole cosmos. They also find that the Intelligent Design movement embraces faulty simplistic arguments and proofs.<br />
<a href="https://etb-intelligent-design.blogspot.com/2012/03/fine-tuning-hypothesis-alternative-to.html">The Fine-Tuning Hypothesis, an alternative to the Intelligent Design Hypothesis</a></p>
<blockquote id=quote>As for God micromanaging nature, thatʼs a convenient caricature.<br />
Precisely because God allows a world to unfold in freedom,</blockquote>
<p><b>Edward</b>: “Unfold in freedom” is an intriguing phrase. Please explain what kind of changes organisms “free” to engage in, and on what biological levels if you can say. Surely there are Christians like Miller and Denis Lameroux (sp?) who are biologists who can use the same phrase you do to express their belief that natural selection allows nature to “unfold in freedom.”</p>
<blockquote id=quote>no micromanaging is required</blockquote>
<p><b>Edward</b>: Please elucidate. Are you saying that you believe that the very first cell was pre-programmed to “unfold” on its own into all subsequent life on earth? That there was no miraculous genetic tinkering, nothing being added or subtracted (in micro-managerial fashion) at later geological periods? If that is what you are saying, please let me know, and we could discuss that particular hypothesis. I believe Behe suggested that idea off the cuff in his first book, but now has doubts concerning it. I mean, just how much genetic information would the very first cell have to have? The earliest known organisms in the fossil record were merely bacteria! Tiny things, with tiny nucleusʼ compared with the Eukaryotes that appeared later. So it canʼt be a case of a bacterium with a nucleus that is <b>many times</b> the cellʼs bacterial-size, a nucleus that is merely whittled down over the geological eons, the has to keep splitting off to form hundreds of millions of unique species that must have existed over the eons. The “whittling down of a super nucleus” hypothesis appears dead in the water. But then we are left with a hypothesis in which we both agree, namely that a simple cell, as simple as a bacterium can <b>evolve</b> into super sized Eukarotes and billions of diverse species each with their own unique habitats and behaviors. And that would certainly imply <b>evolution</b> in my book, rather than I.D. So if you are trying to reduce the I.D. question down to the question of merely “abiogenesis,” and the “first cell,” you certainly appear to be more evolutionist than anything else. Especially since that would make Darwin and I.D.ist by such a definition! Just read the last paragraph of The Origin.</p>
<blockquote id=quote>and a history of death, suffering, and extinction becomes compatible with a world that exhibits design (which is not to say that every aspect is designed). You seem wedded to a naive theology and stuck on the theodicy problem.</blockquote>
<p><b>Edward</b>: As I pointed out above, there are no “gaps” when miracles are invoked to explain things, even death, suffering, extinction, are all explainable, as are things that you say were “not designed,” though could you please give me a list of things in nature that are “not designed” so I can ascertain exactly what you mean by that phrase, and compare it with a list of things in nature that you are sure are “designed?”</p>
<blockquote id=quote><blockquote id=quote>Hereʼs a question I have, based on three examples from nature:
<ol>
<li>The <b>Bedbug</b>—The male bedbug has a penis that penetrates the females abdomen in a traumatic act, but hereʼs the point I want to raise, only a single species of bedbug is known to have evolved to the point that males of that species penetrate the abdomens of <b>other males</b> while the first male is inseminating a female.</li>
<li>The <b>Bombardier Beetle</b>—Only one species of “bombardier” beetle has a moving turret to direct its spray, the rest can only spray in one direction, usually covering their own backs, and other species of beetles have similar overall anatomies but without spraying anything.</li>
<li><b>Homo Sapiens Sapiens</b>—There is only one surviving species of human being but many primitive extinct primates, and loads of extinct hominid species. Based on such examples, my question is why does specialization in the cases I have cited, always leave behind so <b>many</b> less highly “specialized” species for the very <b>few</b> highly specialized species? If a Designer is micromanaging the specialization, then why leave the majority of creatures “behind” as it were? Isnʼt that more a prediction of evolution than “design?” To put it other ways: Why should a Designer require two to three billion years to move from the earliest known <b>single</b>-celled creature to the first <b>multi</b>-cellular creatures? Why does a Designer require six million years to produce human beings and also have to leave behind so many extinct primate species and then extinct hominid species in the process?</li>
</ol>
</blockquote>
See last point. The theodicy question is separate from the design question, and you donʼt resolve the design question by saying that any putative designer wouldnʼt have done it that way. Now if you want to talk theodicy, Iʼm happy to do so, but again, thatʼs not why you wrote me and thatʼs not what the chapter draft I sent you was about.
</blockquote>
<p><b>Edward</b>: You misunderstood my question. It was not a question of “Theodicy,” it was a question of probabilities. Evolution predicts that specialization is a process over time, and that not all organisms achieve it, in fact it predicts that <b>few</b> achieve it, just as in the case of bacteria that develop resistance to antibiotics or insects that develop resistance to pesticides, only a few mutate to the point of specialization that allows them to adapt and survive in large numbers in such an environment, while the majority of organisms do not specialize as rapidly or as completely, and die out. As I said, only a single known species of bed bug rapes other males, and, only a single known species of the suborder of beetles known as Adephaga, has a movable turret to point the chemicals that shoot out of it, and, only a single know species of primate, and then only a single known species of hominid, evolved into homo sapiens. That is what evolution predicts, it certainly fits evolution. But according to I.D. the possible scenarios for “designing” the living world seem endless instead of this whittling down process that the geological records actually reveals.</p>
<p>Take birds. They are preceded by feathered dinosaurs. And then by feathered gliding dinosaurs with long boney tails that create drag, heavier skeletons, reptilian-shaped triangular skulls, teeth and non-hollow bones that added weight, small keel bones instead of the massive keel bones found in modern birds that attach the flight muscles. In short, the early birds are clearly not as designed for flight, nor as highly specialized for it as modern species are. In fact only one species of bird can fly backwards, the hummingbird, a late arrival on the geological scene. Again, such a progression is one that evolution predicts, it fits evolution.</p>
<p>Take cetaceans, early whales were clearly not as highly specialized as modern day species. Early whales displayed earbones only partially-specialized for under water hearing. Early whales had nares at the tips of their snouts or later in the middle of their snouts, the nares didnʼt reach the top of their heads until later. Early cetaceans (whales, dolphins, porpoises) apparently shared the same ancestors, because the fossil record shows relatively smaller cetaceans early on, and only later did some species advance in size until we see the modern day Blue Whale as the largest organism ever to live on the planet (with the possible exception of some dinosaurian gigantosaurus). Neither did early cetaceans (whales, dolphins, porpoises) have the sonar apparatus found in most modern day species. Again, such a progression is one that evolution predicts, and which was borne out by the findings of paleontology.</p>
<p>As I said, yes, it is possible that I.D. or any hypothesis that invokes <b>miracles</b> could also explain such evidence—i.e., From non-specialized to highly specialized—From the <b>many</b> unspecialized to the <b>few</b> highly specialized—in order in the fossil record. But evolution is a more constrained and demanding hypothesis. So it seems that I.D. is going along with this evidence simply because it must, not because I.D. predicted it. (I.D. or some other varieties of miraculous explanations could have predicted things a zillion other ways.)</p>
<blockquote id=quote><blockquote id=quote>And what do you believe is left of the truth of Genesis according to your I.D. view? Is there a definitive I.D. commentary on Genesis? Why not? Are Godʼs words less sure of interpretation than science is? I mean I.D. says it knows “the” truth about science, but it canʼt agree on an interpretation of Genesis even though “Scripture is given of God and not of private interpretation,” and, “the Holy Spirit will lead you into all truth?” Well, whereʼs the “truth” in Genesis that all the theists can plainly read? If it is just some general truth that canʼt even distinguish between helio or geo-centrism (there are geocentrist creationist Bible believers who can point to verses that certainly seem to me to assume a geocentric cosmos). Or if God canʼt even speak so plain as to tell us if creation is thousands or billions of years old. Or if God canʼt speak so plainly as to tell us whether various species popped into existence instantaneously, or whether they came from each otherʼs wombs after individual micro-mutations, then Iʼd say there is nothing much that Genesis can honestly tell us, no more than any other ancient creation account found in any other religion, and therefore, Biblical interpretation is “in a state of crisis,” not science.</blockquote>
You seem bitter about your YEC experience.
</blockquote>
<p><b>Edward</b>: You ignore the question of Biblical interpretation that I raised, above, and you ignore questions concerning which of various hypothesis is more obviously in “a state of crisis?” (your phrase, not mine). Sidestepping such questions with a question concerning oneʼs psychology? Isnʼt that nearer to being a preacherʼs tool than a scientific or mathematical argument? I find that people who use the “bitterness” argument are arguing _ad “bitter” hominem_ if I may coin a phrase. In my eyes I have been reasonable throughout my intellectual journey, as I am willing to grant that your journey also appears so in your eyes. (But if you wish people to respond for you tit for tat, then I might have written that you seem “bitter” about evolution, describing it as the “sinking of the Titanic” and “in a state of crisis.” *smile*)</p>
<blockquote id=quote>I suppose thatʼs understandable.</blockquote>
<p><b>Edward</b>: As is your psyche to me. *smile*</p>
<blockquote id=quote>And perhaps your skeptic friends are providing you with the intellectual enrichment that you didnʼt find as a YEcreationist. But given your undue preoccupation with your YEC past, it seems you havenʼt fully resolved this aspect of your life (perhaps Leaving the Fold is helping in this regard). Iʼm planning a book on Genesis, Creation, and Theodicy in which I have some new angles on how suffering that results from an evolutionary history could in turn be the result of a space-time fall of humanity (the key is appealing to Newcombʼs paradox).</blockquote>
<p><b>Edward</b>: More ad hoc explanations simply to try and reconcile the Bible and Science? How exactly is your ad hoc hypothesis going to differ from Humphries latest YEC ad hoc hypothesis that maybe the earth was at the center of a white hole at creation and the cosmos as well as time and space itself got stretched out in “days,” thus leading to the mere “appearance” of an “old” cosmos stretched out in <b>billions</b> of “light-years?” Humphries “white hole” hypothesis is typically worthless, even moreso than the famed creationist and I.D. rebuffs of “natural selection” being a pure tautology. What could be more purely tautological than arguments like Humphries or like the one you are currently devising above?</p>
<p>On the other hand, I suppose thatʼs how theology “works.” I mean if the act of one man suffering the pain of nails being driven through his palms two thousand years ago, can make another man living today a “saint” in Godʼs eyes (after death), THEN, “Adam and Eve” eating a bit of fruit can be cited as the reason why millions of species suffered for millions of years before Adam and Eve popped out of an Australopithecusʼs womb. (Speaking of Adam and Eve, I saw a book recently here in the college library where I work which stated that geneticists have discovered a genetic basis for “Adam,” a genetic-bottleneck back in time, a single individual or very small group of related individuals, from whom all of the genes of our species is descend, as well as having already discovered a genetic basis for something close to “Eve” though not a single individual. One little problem, as mentioned in the book, is that thereʼs at least 30,000 years worth of generations of descendants between the genetic “Adam” and the genetic “Eve.”)</p>
<p>Christian theological explanations appear to be growing increasingly more weird as science progresses and theologians seek to accommodate both the notion of some “history” in Genesis and the evidence coming to light from science. (But so far the explanations Iʼve read do not appear as weird to me as the fact that there isnʼt a verse in the Bible that isnʼt compatible with the ancient flat earth view that was prominent in the ancient Near East when both Testaments were written. All attempts to make the Bible sound “scientific” regarding modern cosmology are ad hoc, and based on ignoring the fact that historically speaking there is no necessity to even attempt to make the Bible sound scientific. Come on a talking snake that was “wiser than all the creatures of the field that the Lord had made?” “Fruit of a tree of eternal life,” just one bite and you lived forever? How literally is anyone supposed to take such stories? Creatures formed directly from the dust of the earth, and to that dust they shall return?)</p>
<p>There is nothing even remotely requiring a “scientific” explanation in the Genesis account of creation. Here are some excerpts from a new work, that like you, I am in process of composing:</p>
<p>Did God “gab” the world into being? Did His glossolalia fill the void? Or might not creation by the “word” of God be merely a poetic description of how God “called” the cosmos into being? But if one can accept that the description of God “speaking,” and the record of His alleged “words” is poetry, then what does that suggest about how the rest of the creation account in Genesis should be viewed?<br />
- E.T.B.</p>
<hr style="height:10px; border:0; box-shadow: 0 10px 10px -10px #5c5098 inset"/>
<p>The Book of Exodus in the Bible states: </p>
<p>In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.<br />
- Exodus 31:17</p>
<p>According to learned editors of a Bible published in 1774, the true meaning of the Hebrew is, “on the seventh day He rested, and fetched his breath.” So, God is depicted as panting after over-exerting Himself? What a pretty piece of anthropomorphism.<br />
- E.T.B.</p>
<hr style="height:10px; border:0; box-shadow: 0 10px 10px -10px #5c5098 inset"/>
<h3>In the Beginning there was Earth, Wind, and Fire?</h3>
<p>All ancient “recipes for creation” begin with a few simple ingredients like “earth, wind, fire/light, darkness/night, and water.” According to ancient Egyptian tales of creation, nothing existed in the beginning except a waste of “waters,” also known as “the deep.” Greek tales speak of “earth, murky night, briny deep.” Babylonian tales speak of “waters.” One Sumerian tale spoke not of water, but of another basic ingredient, a mountain of “earth” that existed in the beginning. Phoenician/Canaanite tales speak of “the beginning of all things” as “a windy air and a black chaos which embraced the air and generated a watery mixture, and from this sprang all the seed of creation.” The Hebrew tale in the book of Genesis has the “spirit of God” (the literal Hebrew word for “spirit” also meant “wind or breath”) moving on the surface of “waters” in “darkness,” with “light” and “earth” to follow.</p>
<p>Neither does it appear to be a mystery why the same simple ingredients would appear in so many ancient tales of creation. The pre-scientific authors of such tales imagined that “earth, wind, fire, and water” constituted the “elements” of creation.</p>
<h3>Abracadabra: the magic of the creatorʼs “word”</h3>
<p>Many ancient tales of creation, not just the Hebrew one, attributed supernatural power to a godʼs “word,” i.e., simply “say the magic word” and things instantly appear, disappear, or are transformed. According to the Egyptian Book of the Dead every act of creation represented a thought of Temu and its expression in “words.” A host of Egyptian creation myths agreed that the agency of creation was the godʼs “word.” The pre-Babylonian civilization of Sumeria believed that all things existed and were created by the “word” of Enki. In fact, they viewed the “word” of all their gods as a definite and real thing—a divine entity or agent. Even Sumerian personal names reflected their belief in the power of the “word,” including names like, “The word of the wise one is eternal,” “His word is true,” and, “The word which he spoke shakes the heavens.” After the Sumerians came the Babylonians and their creation tale, Enuma Elish (nicknamed by scholars, the “Babylonian Genesis”), which began, “When Heaven had not been named, Firm ground had not been called by name… when no name had been named.” The Hebrew tale arose out of that same milieu.</p>
<p>Added to the ancient belief in the “magic” of “naming” things, was also the belief that the “word” of a ruler or king must be obeyed, and the gods were believed to rule over nature much like kings were believed to rule over their fellow men, i.e., by “divine right.” Therefore, whatever a god said, was “done” in nature. A fragment from Sumeria states, “Thy word upon the sea has been projected and returns not [void].” The Babylonian Enuma Elish, states, “May I [Lord Marduk, the Babylonian creator], through the utterance of my mouth determine the destines…Whatever I create shall remain unaltered, The command of my lips shall not return [void], it shall not be changed.” Compare the Hebrew usage of the same phrase in Isaiah 55:11, “So shall my [the Lordʼs] word be which goeth up from my mouth; it shall not return unto me void, For it shall have done that which I desired.”</p>
<h3>Divide The Ingredients In Two</h3>
<p>It was a common feature of early Greek cosmological beliefs, which they shared with those of the Near East and elsewhere, that in the beginning all was fused together in an undifferentiated mass. The initial act in the making of the world, whether accomplished by the fiat of a creator or by other means, was a separation or division. As the Hebrew myth has it, “God divided the light from the darkness…and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament.”<br />
— W. K. C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, Vol. I, (Cambridge Univ. Press: 1962)</p>
<p>Ancient tales of creation often involved a division of primeval stuff into two equal halves—like cracking a cosmic egg in two and making “heaven” out of the top half and “earth” out of the bottom half. A Sumerian tale of creation has heaven and earth arise from a celestial mountain split in two. In Egyptian tales a god and goddess are pulled apart: “Shu, the uplifter, raised Nut (a water goddess) on high. She formed the firmament, which is arched over Seb, the god of the earth, who lies prostrate beneath her…In the darkness are beheld the stars which sparkle upon Nutʼs body.” The Egyptians also employed the less mythologized concept of a celestial dome (above which lies “the heavenly ocean”). In the Babylonian Enuma Elish, a water goddess is split in two by the creator to form upper and lower bodies of water, the upper half also becoming a “heavenly dome” that held back vast celestial waters. The Hebrew tale in Genesis has the creator make “a firmament in the midst [middle] of the waters, that it may divide…the water which was below the firmament from the water which was above the firmament.” Both the Babylonian and Hebrew tales continue with the “earth” being created in the lower half of the recently divided waters.</p>
<p>It is interesting to note that the Father of Protestantism, Martin Luther, was adamant that the Bible spoke of waters lying above the moon, the sun, and the stars. He countered the views of astronomers of his day with the words of Scripture:</p>
<p>Scripture simply says that the moon, the sun, and the stars were placed in the firmament of heaven, below and above which heaven are the waters…We Christians must be different from the philosophers [astronomers] in the way we think about the causes of things. And if some are beyond our comprehension like those before us concerning the waters above the heavens, we must believe them rather than wickedly deny them or presumptuously interpret them in conformity; with our understanding.<br />
- Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis, Vol. 1, Lutherʼs Works, Concordia Pub. House, 1958</p>
<p>A Hebrew psalm also acknowledged the existence of “waters above the sun, moon, and stars”:</p>
<p>Praise Him, sun and moon; Praise Him stars of light! Praise Him highest heavens, and the waters that are above the heavens!<br />
- Psalm 148:3-4</p>
<p>And when the book of Genesis described a “flood” that covered the whole world, and reduced the world to its pre-creation watery beginning, the story states that the “flood gates of the sky” were “opened.” Neither did the author of that fable suppose that all the water above the firmament fell to earth, but that the “flood gates” had to be “shut” to stop more water from falling, and the creator had to promise not to flood the earth again with such waters. So, the Bible agrees with Luther that “the waters above the firmament” remained “up there”—and this agrees completely with ancient tales of creation in which the world arose from a division of waters which encompass creation still, and which the creator keeps at bay, having prepared a place in the “midst of such waters” for the earth.</p>
<h3>Make Do With Whatʼs at Hand</h3>
<p>Ancient creation accounts never explain where the first “waters,” or “earth,” or “darkness,” came from. Nor do the various creators make everything “out of nothing.” They often have to resort to creating plants, animals and human beings out of the earth or from parts of divine beings. Sometimes this includes molding creatures like a sculptor molds images out of clay—then imparting some magic to them. The Hebrew tale of creation in Genesis is no exception. It does not say where the water and the darkness came from “in the beginning.” Neither does it say that the “earth” was created out of nothing, but simply that “the dry land appeared” after the creator “gathered together the waters into one place.” Moreover, the Hebrew creator does not create vegetation and living creatures out of nothing but has “the earth” sprout vegetation, and “the earth” bring forth living creatures. The Hebrew creator also “formed man from the dust of the earth.” Then “blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being,” kind of like blowing on a clay sculpture to magically bring it to life. Neither was the divine “breath of life” shared only with man, for the same phrase is used in regard to every living creature that the earth brought forth, “all in whose nostrils was the breath of life.” (Gen. 7:21,22)</p>
<p>In the Babylonian tale, Enuma Elish, the creator is called “the god of the good breath [of life],” and he creates man from something divine, the blood of a diety. (Sort of like the Hebrew tale where man is created in the “image” of the divine creator and brought to life by divine breath.) Alternate creation accounts from ancient Babylon have mankind springing up from the ground, or created from the flesh and blood of a god mixed with clay, or even fashioned by the chief Babylonian god with the help of a divine “potter”—not unlike the Genesis account of man being “formed [molded] from the dust of the ground.”</p>
<h3>Things Were Created as they Appeared to the Ancient Mind</h3>
<p>Another factor most ancient tales of creation share is that things are created as they appeared to the ancient mind. Plants and animals are described as having been created in the forms in which they appeared in the authorʼs own day. The earth appeared like the flat and firm foundation of creation, the sun and stars appeared to move across the sky on a daily basis, the sky appeared like a dome stretched over the earth with a blue color reminiscent of the oceanʼs waters below it, and the sky contained objects whose function appeared to be to “light the earth” below.</p>
<p>In a similar fashion, “days and nights” as measured on earth appeared central to earth-dwelling ancients like the Hebrews, who divided their tale of creation into six “days and nights” of earthly duration. While today, astronomers recognize the earth as one planet among many, each having “days and nights” of their own unique duration.</p>
<p>Moreover, every one of the “six days” of creation in the Hebrew tale is devoted to creating things for the earth alone. Even the “first day of creation” when the Hebrew creator instituted “day and night,” it was an earth-day and an earth-night which were instituted. And on the day when the Hebrew creator set lights in the firmament above the earth, they were created after the earth and “for” the earth—and a day after fruit trees! In fact the entire Hebrew tale supports the idea that naive earth-centered appearances dictated the tale from beginning to end.</p>
<h3>Is any Inspiration Required to Account for Ancient Tales of Creation?</h3>
<p>The level of inspiration required to explain the origin of naive and simplistic concepts like “earth, wind and fire,” “abracadabra,” “divide the ingredients in two,” “make do with whatʼs at hand,” and, “things created as they appeared”—is equal to the level of mental sophistication of a young child. In fact the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics conducted a study during the 1980s on the mental sophistication of children and discovered that almost one-half of children aged ten years and younger in the United States and other countries believe the earth is flat. And those who say it is round picture “round” as a giant pancake or a curved sky covering a flat ground. One in four thirteen-year olds also believes the earth is flat.<br />
- E.T.B.</p>
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<h3>“Evenings and Mornings” / “Days and Nights,” were Created Before the Sun?</h3>
<p>Genesis tells us that the creator “divided the light from the darkness” and instituted “evenings and mornings.” But He did that “three days” before the “sun” was made! So the sun was kind of an afterthought, and alternating periods of light and darkness were Godʼs primary creations. The book of Job like the book of Genesis, agrees that “light and darkness” do not rely upon the sun, but have their own separate and distinct dwelling-places:</p>
<p>Where is the way where light dwelleth? and as for darkness, where is the place thereof?<br />
- Job 38:19</p>
<p>Therefore the belief arose, especially among Christians, that the light of “day” had no relationship to the light of the sun. Indeed, in the fourth century, Saint Ambrose wrote in his work on creation:</p>
<p>We must remember that the light of day is one thing and the light of the sun, moon, and stars another—the sun by his rays appearing to add luster to the daylight. For before the sun rises the day dawns, but is not in full refulgence, for the sun adds still further to its splendor.<br />
(Hexameron, Lib. 4, Cap. III). </p>
<p>Ambroseʼs teaching remained one of the “treasures of sacred knowledge committed to the Church” right up till the Middle Ages at which time Jews could still be tortured or condemned to death for disputing it! Like all dogmas it inspired subversive humor from those forced to assent to it:</p>
<p>“Which is more important, the sun or the moon?” a citizen of Chelm asked the rabbi (“Chelm” being a village of Jews who lived in the shadow of the Inquisition).</p>
<p>“What a silly question!” snapped the rabbi. “The moon, of course! It shines at night when we really need it. But who needs the sun to shine when it is already broad daylight?”<br />
- E.T.B. (Joke drawn from Encyclopedia of Jewish Humor, Henry D. Spalding, Ed., New York: 1969)</p>
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<p>According to the first chapter of Genesis, the earth was created before the sun, moon, and “the stars also” (notice how the “stars” were regarded as mere trifles, lumped together at the end of the inventory). This order of creation is absolutely farcical. Our earth is a child of the sun. The offspring could not have existed before the parent.</p>
<p>The sun, moon, and stars were “made and set” in heaven “to give light upon the earth?” When we look beyond our solar system into the mighty universe of other suns and planets, we see that the cosmogony of Genesis is a dream of childish ignorance. When the Greek philosopher Anaxagoras dared to suggest that the sun was as large as the southern part of Greece he startled his Greek contemporaries. What must have been the notions of a grossly unscientific people like the Jews? For them it was easy to regard the sun, moon, and “the stars also,” as mere satellites of the earth, “set” up in the sky as lanterns for the human race.<br />
- George William Foote, “The Creation Story,” Bible Romances</p>
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<p>If the sun, moon, and stars were created “to light the earth,” then why create 50,000,000,000 galaxies whose light is invisible to the naked eye? (The two nearby galaxies that can be seen with the naked eye appear no brighter than two dim stars in our sky.) In other words, 50,000,000,000 galaxies produce light that can only be seen with our most powerful telescopes, and it took a telescope mounted in space to detect 49/50ths of those galaxies! Moreover, each of those galaxies is composed of about 1,000,000,000 stars, some of which are far larger than our sun. God sure did go through a lot of trouble to not “light the earth” with those 50,000,000,000 galaxies, didnʼt He?</p>
<p>Recent astronomical evidence even supports the “dark” matter hypothesis, namely that most of the matter in the cosmos sheds little or no light at all.<br />
- E.T.B.</p>
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<p>My older brother Joshua had become “enlightened” at about the age of eighteen and began to argue religious problems with my parents. I heard him say, “All religions are based on old books, but these books were written by men and men can lie, distort the truth, or have illusions. If we Jews donʼt believe in the old books of other religions, how can we know for certain that our books contain the absolute truth?” My parents could never give him a clear answer. All they could do was scold him and call him heretic, betrayer of Israel.</p>
<p>Yes, I began to study the Book of Genesis both with faith and with doubts. In my mind I had formulated many questions for the scribe of this holy book: What did God create first, the earth or the water? Or was the water already there beforehand? When did He create the wind which swept over the waters? And did He also create “the waste and the void?” I had heard that the light of day came from the sun. But according to the Book of Genesis, God created the light first and then the sun. </p><p>The more I read, the more questions and doubts assailed me. If God could have created Adam by the words of His mouth, why did He have to cast a deep sleep upon Adam to form Eve from one of his ribs? I have always heard from my parents that God is a god of mercy. But why did He accept the sacrifices of Abel and not those of his brother Cain? Didnʼt He foresee that this would cause jealousy and enmity between the two brothers? And why did He create the serpent to lure Adam and Eve to sin? [“The serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.”—Gen. 3:1]<br />
- Isaac Bashevis Singer, “Genesis,” Congregation: Contemporary Writers Read the Jewish Bible, ed., David Rosenberg</p>
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<p>To stretch the chronology of Genesis a bit, creationists are willing to admit there are mini-gaps in the genealogies of Genesis that total several thousand years. But why, if God directly inspired Moses to write those genealogies, should there be any gaps at all?<br />
- A. J. Mattill, Jr., The Seven Mighty Blows to Traditional Beliefs (enlarged edition)</p>
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<h3>Why Does the Bible Fail to Mention that Creation was Never Really Finished?</h3>
<p>According to the Bible, God made the stars on the fourth day of creation. Even more remarkable is the fact that He is creating them still, though the latter miracle is considered not worth mentioning by any of the Bibleʼs authors. (I wonder why? The creation of new stars is being chronicled continually in magazines and journals like Astronomy, Sky and Telescope and The Astrophysical Journal, just to name a few.) </p>
<p>And God is still creating new planets (that continue to form out of rings of matter circling stars—see the above mentioned magazines).</p>
<p>And God is still creating new elements out of simple hydrogen atoms inside stars where atoms continue to fuse and form elements with increasingly more protons and electrons (the heaviest known elements are created during super nova explosions of stars).</p>
<p>And God is still creating multi-cellular organisms out of single cells that keep dividing (embryogenesis).</p>
<p>And God is still transforming mere water and inorganic minerals into more and more living microorganisms that other organisms eat, thus keeping the food chain going, such that all life depends on the daily transformation of the simplest of molecules (water and inorganic minerals) into living microorganisms. So, if you include the “food chain” leading from the simplest organisms to man, God is still turning inorganic matter into human beings (and turning simple oxygen molecules into “the breath of life”).</p>
<p>Yet creationists argue that aside from the creation of new stars and new heavier elements inside those stars—aside from the turning of simple inorganic matter into an array of living organisms that keep increasing in number and branching off into new species—evolution is “prohibited by the second law of thermodynamics.” Iʼd say they are missing the forest for the trees which by the way, continue to grow from tiny seeds; trees that become forests which continue to reach out and envelop as much of the earth as they can, and whose members continue to branch off (forgive the pun) into new species as they do so.<br />
- E.T.B.</p>
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<p>Genesis 1:16 depicts the sun and moon as creationʼs “two great lamps,” made after the earth, to “light” it, “rule” its day and night, and, “for signs and seasons” on earth. But a couple thousand years after the Bible was written, astronomers discovered a curious thing. They discovered that Mars has two moons. Yet Mars has no people who need their steps “lit” at night, or who need to read the “signs and seasons.” Even more curiously, it was discovered that Neptune has four moons, Uranus has eleven, Jupiter has sixteen, and Saturn has eighteen moons (one of them, Titan, is even larger than the planet Mercury)! The earth was created with just one; and it “rules the night” so badly that for three nights out of every twenty-eight it abdicates its rule and doesnʼt light the earth at all, at which time we bump into folks in the dark.<br />
- E.T.B.</p>
<blockquote id=quote>
<p>You might find it interesting. For details, stay posted to my website <a href="http://www.designinference.com/" target="_blank">http://www.designinference.com/</a><br />
—WmAD</p>
</blockquote>
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