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The truth about the academic world is that it hides itself behind the cloak of free thought, free exchange of ideas and a public discourse of concepts. That’s what everyone in academic utopia always brags about. That’s because it sounds better than the truth. The academic world is about being right, at any cost. Kick, gouge, scratch, but be validated by any means necessary. Above all, don’t let them see you take a stand for the opposing party, or be prepared to wear the scarlet letter. After this forum, I had at least a half dozen audience members come up and say they followed my argument, agreed with everything I said, but they weren’t touching this discussion with a ten foot pole, at the risk of wearing the “black mark of ignorance.”
Here’s the real deal. People know where I stand. In some respects, it’s the equivalent of committing academic suicide. The facts are ignored. The arguments are skewed to say what the opposition wants them to say. The jury is rigged. Their ears are closed. So why bother? The reason I do this with great joy is that 2000 years ago, Someone went against into a much bigger fight with the same odds, the same stacked deck, and He went willingly to the cross knowing exactly what He was doing, knowing that He was the message of salvation that I desire and am privileged to share with others. My prayer is that one student, one faculty member, one passerby heard the message and began to ponder the reality of who God is, and to understand that Jesus Christ died to bring eternal life to all who believe and receive. For that reason, “I rejoice that I participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that I might be overjoyed when His glory is revealed.” (1 Peter 4:13) |
Comments
Mike--
You are one of the most courageous, thoughtful, articulate, inspiring, winsome, and truly God-honoring people I have ever encountered. God bless you for entering the fray of this incredibly important and ongoing debate. May our gracious God give you protection, wisdom, and encouragement as you honor the Creator of the universe, the giver and sustainer of life.
I pray Psalm 121 for you:
I lift up my eyes to the hills--
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord,
the Maker of heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot slip--
he who watches over you will not slumber;
indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord watches over you--
the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.
The Lord will keep you from all harm--
he will watch over your life;
the Lord will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.
Mike,
I just wanted to encourage you and tell you I am praying for you along with many others who know your story. You are blessed to be a blessing brother. Stay strong and keep running the race.
Mike, your post inspired me. A lot.
Whether we are scientists, legislators, educators and so forth, the message is the same: faith is comfortable in the presence of the majority, but so few of us are ready to see our reputations suffer for the cause of Christ. I really respect your no-apologies approach to your convictions. May we all share your bravery!
Mike
This was a good read. Its interesting how you put it about the minds of science and the fact that they hide behind there cloak. I went through college with the same tunnel vision too. Only believed in what the text books said and really blasted any other thought that went against that....wow how stupid was I. Now I've found a new light and its called Jesus Christ. I look up to MEN like yourself. I will pray for you to keep doing what you do.
Thanks,
Jason Austin
Hi Mike,
Keep up the good work; I think it's fantastic.
I have a question about this, though:
>>It didn’t matter that I showed the prediction that a protein forming from a random soup is 1 in 10^154. It didn’t matter that I predicted that the probability of the human genome DNA sequence being encoded from random chance has a probability of 1 in 10^600.>>
What does this show? Surely your opponents don't think that a protein did form from a random soup. And surely they don't think the human genome was encoded by random chance. They probably think something like this: there was this weird RNA world, first filled by extremely simple self-replicating molecules, which then became more complex, encapsulated by lipids, etc.
Isn't that the standard story? If so, I'm wondering why your opponent would be moved by these facts you present.
>>It doesn’t matter that 154 different parameters need to align perfectly to give rise to human life on planet earth, and that the probability of this occurring is 1 in 1098.>>
What are these parameters, and are they all independent? Also, might some other form of life arisen had these parameters been different? Also, can't your opponent just agree with you that yes, the development of human life was monumentally improbable? I think I recall Stephen J Gould saying something like this: if we were to rewind the tape of life backwards and play it again, it would be hugely improbable that humans would result a second time.
But what does that show? I'm dealt a 5 card hand in poker. The probability that I have just this hand is very very small. And yet there it is. Were we to re-deal, chances are I would get a different hand. What does this prove? Nothing very interesting, it seems to me. Certainly not intelligent design...
Thanks for your post. Actually, the argument presented for evolutionary theory was not the RNA precursor, but the argument was actually that with enough time, things like proteins would be built into their complexity through natural selection. The proposed argument was that the world is billions of years old, so things like this could occur with enough time. Borel's Law of Chance actually states that in a mathematical or logical argument, anything greater than 1 in 10^50 is rendered not just improbable, but fundamentally impossible. But, since the time factors in, with billions of years to work with, another common argument is made regarding the cosmic law of chance. It suggests the following: There are 10^80 molecules that have existed since the world began, 10^18 seconds of time with which to work, so even if every molecule were to collide 1 billion times per second to give rise to a chemical reaction (a ridiculously unrealistic fact, since most collisions between molecules actually do not need to react), then the "Cosmic Law of Impossibility" is somewhere at around 1 in 10^105. Anything greater than that would be fundamentally impossible by an expansion of Borel's Argument. In addition, the argument goes further, since in biochemical synthesis, a "random soup" would likely lead to a massive amount of impurity within synthesized products. When synthesizing proteins experimentally, there is a massive amount of purification that needs to occur before stringing together each additional amino acid on the protein chain. No purification, no further step can occur. There is that additional fact to consider that would have to occur in abiotic synthesis of the early earth. As for the 154 parameters, they are all independent. Hugh Ross, a physicist, has compiled this expanded list. I don't have the link to offer you at this minute, but it includes such things as widely varied as the earth's position within the meteor belt, to the eccentricity of the orbit, to the brightness/intensity of the sun as a yellow dwarf star, the size of the moon, proximity of the moon, etc. If you'd like the link, let me know and I'll try to dig it up.
Once again, thanks for reading, and for your willingness to look at the arguments and really process them. Regardless of which side you favor, my firm belief is that we look at the scientific data with objectivity.
Hi Mike,
Thanks for the reply. You said:
>>Actually, the argument presented for evolutionary theory was not the RNA precursor, but the argument was actually that with enough time, things like proteins would be built into their complexity through natural selection. The proposed argument was that the world is billions of years old, so things like this could occur with enough time.>>
Your opponent does not think a high degree of complexity came about randomly, right? Your opponent thinks there was some sort of selection process going on with something like simple self-replicating RNA molecules. What came about 'randomly' from the primordial ooze was a very simple RNA self-replicator. This guy begat offspring, so to speak, with some rate of mutation. These mutants would sometimes be more complex, better replicators, etc.
Encase them in lipids, get some symbiosis going with the precursors of mitochondria, and we're off to the races. No need to get a great deal of complexity randomly.
I thought that was the standard story. Maybe I'm wrong. But if something like this happened, I can't see how discussing the probability of a single protein (let alone the human genome) showing up randomly in the soup is even relevant.
That is one story, but a lot of the evolutionary world doesn't like to go there, strictly because it also poses problems that point right back to design. What I mean by that is that if you start with a small RNA precursor, eventually it has to turn into the code which corresponds to one of the 100 proteins, and additional enzymes and factors, that are needed to make even the simplest replicating cell. The reason I stress the probability argument is that at any stage, or under any theory, they have to be manufactured in all their complexity. Whether it be through random chance (which as I pointed out is statistically impossible) or as a result of guidance from RNA, DNA or any other precursor, they have to evolve into functional complex structures somehow, and that points to some form of them being pre-designed. In other words, if RNA is the template, that template would have to be complex enough to provide the coding to give rise to the 100 proteins within the simplest cell. An organism would have no way to manufacture these molecules without that template, and so the zero probability applies here as well.
Great talking with you! I appreciate your insights.
>>if you start with a small RNA precursor, eventually it has to turn into the code which corresponds to one of the 100 proteins, and additional enzymes and factors, that are needed to make even the simplest replicating cell.>>
That's interesting, I didn't know that. How do we know that the simplest replicating cell would require all that machinery?
>>The reason I stress the probability argument is that at any stage, or under any theory, they have to be manufactured in all their complexity. Whether it be through random chance (which as I pointed out is statistically impossible) or as a result of guidance from RNA, DNA or any other precursor, they have to evolve into functional complex structures somehow, and that points to some form of them being pre-designed.>>
What does the "they" refer to up there? Proteins? Or cells? Whichever, if they are the result of "guidance from RNA, DNA, or any other precursor," aren't these numbers you cite of the improbability of random generation irrelevant? Nobody's positing random generation, i.e. spontaneous generation from some primordial ooze.
And if your opponent can tell some halfway plausible story about how these simple RNA self-replicators became simple DNA self-replicators, which then started coding proteins, I don't see how that points to "some form of them being pre-designed."
>>In other words, if RNA is the template, that template would have to be complex enough to provide the coding to give rise to the 100 proteins within the simplest cell.>>
Right, so here again I'm wondering how we know the simplest cell needs 100 proteins. Perhaps the simplest cell we know of uses 100 proteins. But how do we know the number of proteins that the simplest possible cell requires?
The estimation of about 100 proteins comes from the argument (and not necessarily a pro-ID argument) that the cells essential functions (replication, reproduction, respiration, purification) can only be carried out through complex pathways that require the use of a series of protein chains that function interchangeably to control these mechanisms. The basic assumption is that even the simplest cells known have more complexity than that, but if you stripped away all the "luxury" within the cell, these proteins are still necessary to sustain life. You could argue that a cell might have existed at some point with less than this, but the general argument is that some things (i.e. replication of genetic material (DNA or RNA), metabolism and purification) would be necessary to sustain life at any level.
As a layman, without even undergraduate credentials, I may simply betray my understandings as simplistic in this venue-but I have questions; can self replicating molecules be reasonably described as 'extremely simple', and is the desciption of "random" completely mitigated by a selection/rejection survival mechanism when the mutations themselves remain random? Are there non-random mutations, or are they all from copying errors and radiation? For example, in the April, '05 Scientific American an author found it remarkable that sea snails developed unique toxins in "only" 50,000,000 years, and of course, he was writing from a Darwinist perspective. Were mutations channeled only to the toxins somehow? Were Turkey's and Peacock's tails targeted by many mutations, providing gene passing through a mechanism of male splendor, while Crows, Ravens, and Buzzards
were bypassed?
Is the "primordial soup" still widely assumed? "The significance of the isotopic enhancement of 12c in the very old kerogen in the Isua rocks in Greenland is that there never was a pimordial soup and that, nevertheless, living matter must have existed abundantly on Earth before 3.8 billion years ago." Hubert P. Yockey, "Comments on 'Let There Be Life: Thermodynamic Reflections on Biogenesis and Evolution' by Avshalom C. Elitzer." Journal of Theoretical Biology 176 (1995), p.351. I also understand that the "panspermia" hypotheses of Crick and Hoyle are severely undermined by the untenable volumes of aminos required for a "soup."
"I'm dealt a 5 card hand in poker. The probability that I have just this hand is very very small. And yet there it is. Were we to re-deal, chances are I would get a different hand. What does this prove?"
This seems to me a variation of the "I shouldn't be suprised that my legs reach the ground since I am standing on them" argument. Professor Dawkins makes similar arguments in dismissing the "Anthropic Principle." Are we not assuming here that there is possibly more than one deal? What evidence is there for that? When random possibilities are 1 in -(hundreds of exponents) in many dozens of known parameters, in a model of one, how rational is it to appeal to mere unsupported multiverse or multi-beginnings hypotheses to escape the most intuitive response?
Theoretical physicist John Polkinghorne; "Let us recognize these speculations for what they are. They are not physics, but, in the strictest sense, metaphysics. There is no purely scientific reason to believe in an ensemble of universes... A possible explanation of equal intellectual respectability-and to my mind, greater elegance- would be that this one world is the way it is because it is the creation of the will of a Creator who purposes that it should be so." "One World" (London SPCK, 1986), pages 79-80
It strikes me as a philosophical error to ignore these 'fine tunings' in a model of one.
>>can self replicating molecules be reasonably described as 'extremely simple'>>
Sure, why not? Here's an article from Wikipedia on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_world_hypothesis
"Relatively short RNA molecules that can duplicate others have been artificially produced in the lab. The shortest was 165-base long, though it has been estimated that only part of the bases were crucial for this function. One version, 189-base long, had fidelity of 98.9%, which would mean it would make an exact copy of an RNA molecule as long as itself in one of every eight copies."
I said this:
>>"I'm dealt a 5 card hand in poker. The probability that I have just this hand is very very small. And yet there it is. Were we to re-deal, chances are I would get a different hand. What does this prove?">>
To which you replied:
>>This seems to me a variation of the "I shouldn't be suprised that my legs reach the ground since I am standing on them" argument. Professor Dawkins makes similar arguments in dismissing the "Anthropic Principle.">>
I was just wondering why Mike's opponent should be moved by the improbability of human life evolving on Earth. Surely they could just admit that yes, it was extremely improbable, and then just be grateful that it happened? Given the laws of nature and the initial conditions, yes, it was really improbable that humans come about (on naturalism). So what?
I take it the really pressing question for naturalists is why the laws of nature are as they are, and why the initial conditions were as they were. Then we get these weird, brute, contingent facts that seem to cry out for explanation. I think that's where the theist should press -- not at the improbability of human life given the laws of nature and initial conditions. That's not worrying for a naturalist at all.
>>Are we not assuming here that there is possibly more than one deal?>>
No, I don't think so.
"As a layman, without even undergraduate credentials, I may simply betray my understandings as simplistic in this venue-but I have questions; can self replicating molecules be reasonably described as 'extremely simple', and is the desciption of "random" completely mitigated by a selection/rejection survival mechanism when the mutations themselves remain random?"
Thanks for your comments! I would dispute that any self replicating molecule could be described as chemically or biochemically simple. Fundamentally, replication is a complex process that could not be simplified past a certain point, regardless of the argument. In addition, it suggests that things randomly assembled in this way, which would be highly unlikely, even in the time scale of the universe.
The primordial soup is still assumed in some sense, as are some suggestions on alternate or multiple universes. The primordial soup has big problems from a chemical standpoint, as far as I'm concerned, because in addition to probability arguments that are against it, any chemist who has ever tried to synthesize even the shortest amino acid sequence would tell you of major problems with purification, making undesired products and needing to be meticulous in designing experiments of this type. It is not just a "dump it in and make it" type of experiment by any means. Imagine the challenge to stringing together several hundred amino acids at a time. The multiple universes argument attempts to overcome the probability hurdle in suggesting that only 10^18 seconds are available in this universe, but if we had 10 or 20 of them, then the probability becomes reasonable. There is no evidence for this, and it's not a scientifically sound argument.
Mike,
The statistics you provided about the exponentially minute chance of a protein or DNA strain forming randomly are very enlightening and even staggering. This makes me ask then, what evidence are pro-randomness theorists using to support their claims if the scales are tipped so statistically against them?
Thanks,
Ridley