True Horizon

On August 1, Francis Collins stepped down as the head of the Human Genome Project, a position in which he has served since 1993. Collins is a proud Christian who, even though he supports the Darwinian idea of common descent, has been a strong voice in the debate about the relationship between faith and science. We owe him a debt of gratitude, not just for his incredible leadership in the quest to decipher DNA, but for his defense of the Christian worldview as being intellectually viable in a culture that has been led to believe that science has rendered it impotent.

The end of Collins’ tenure reminded me of a recent article in Touchstone magazine that I read recently. The piece referred to an interview with Collins and Richard Dawkins that was published in Time magazine in November, 2006. That interview contained an exchange between the two that I think is worthy of comment. While considering the beginning of the universe and the possibility that a supernatural creator could have been responsible for it, we get the following:

DAWKINS: … We are profoundly ignorant of these matters. We need to work on them. But to suddenly say the answer is God–it’s that that seems to me to close off the discussion.

TIME: Could the answer be God?

DAWKINS: There could be something incredibly grand and incomprehensible and beyond our present understanding.

COLLINS: That’s God.

DAWKINS: Yes. But it could be any of a billion Gods. It could be God of the Martians or of the inhabitants of Alpha Centauri. The chance of its being a particular God, Yahweh, the God of Jesus, is vanishingly small–at the least, the onus is on you to demonstrate why you think that’s the case … we were talking about the origins of the universe and the physical constants, I provided what I thought were cogent arguments against a supernatural intelligent designer. But it does seem to me to be a worthy idea. Refutable–but nevertheless grand and big enough to be worthy of respect. I don’t see the Olympian gods or Jesus coming down and dying on the Cross as worthy of that grandeur. They strike me as parochial. If there is a God, it’s going to be a whole lot bigger and a whole lot more incomprehensible than anything that any theologian of any religion has ever proposed.

today I want to address one simple point. My next post will cover Dawkins’ assertion in general. The simple point is this …

Dawkins goes on, from the above quote, to dismiss the idea that the improbability of 6 physical constants (gravity being one, not sure of the other five he admits to) of the universe being “tweeked” exactly right for life to be possible is not very convincing to him. Apparently both Dawkins — and Collins, who never corrected him on it — are unaware that in 1961 there were two of these constants in play. By the 1970s, scientists had identified the six to which Dawkins appears to refer. The chart (provided by Reasons To Believe’s, Hugh Ross) below shows how the number of design features in the universe has grown over the years …

That’s right, as of two years ago astronomer Hugh Ross has identified 676! While improbability does not constitute an airtight argument, at some point such astronomical improbabilities would seem to approach an impossibility. In this case, Ross has calculated the probability at one chance in 10 to the 556th power — that’s a one, with 556 zeros after it — that the constants that define our universe would be just the way they are or life would not exist anywhere.

By way of comparison, there are estimated to be 10 the the 80th power atoms in the entire known universe. Mathematicians consider one chance in 10 to the 50th power to constitute an impossibility.

Dawkins would undoubtedly reply that no matter how improbable something is, that improbability does not mean it couldn’t happen. Fair enough. You be the judge of whose view is more reasonable.

More on Dawkins’ comment next time …

Christopher Hitchens is at it again. Weighing in at Slate Magazine (here) about his own “eureka moment” (his description) regarding evolution that has further ensconced his inability to “grasp the gross stupidity of those who repose their faith in divine providence and godly design”

It is amazing to me that a man of his intellectual aptitude and interest in this specific topic would describe his brand new revelation as a eureka moment and scurry off to inform us all about it.

For starters, the blind salamander (Eurycea (Typhlomolge) rathbuni) was placed on the endangered species list in 1967. That’s right, Christopher Hitchens’ “eureka moment” stems from a discovery that is at least 41 year-old news. I understand the definition of a “eureka moment,” but if Hitchens is as smart and motivated as he claims be about proving the gross stupidity of those of us who believe the design argument, it seems that he would have considered this old news long before now. Of course, that observation has nothing to do with his claim — I just find it interesting.

Second, Hitchens acts as if the stupid creationists deny evolution takes place, and that they would also defend the idea that an all-powerful God would create a blind salamander. But that is not what any creationist is saying!

I honestly do not know a single creationist who denies that adaptation (which would be defined as micro-evolution) takes place within species. But, once again blurring the definition of “evolution” to make his case, Hitchens wants us to accept that obvious fact as proof that salamanders can, and do, change via such adaptations into something other than salamanders.

How?

Where is the evidence for that claim?

Third, the more substantial problem that Hitchens is blind to (pun intended) is the inability for a purely materialistic explanation to account for the incredibly high information content that exists in the DNA of even the simplest living things. We have no other example anywhere in the world where blind, undirected processes create new information. And that is the real point that Hitchens seems to miss.

It is not just the existence of information — it is the claim that evolution is capable of adding information to the DNA of living systems that is in question. For a seeing salamander to evolve into a sightless salamander entails a loss of information in the salamander’s DNA. No one disputes that such a thing could happen. In fact, the second law of thermodynamics demands that this be the case.

What Hitchens must explain is the evolution of sightless salamanders (or anything else) into seeing salamanders (or anything else) — a process that entails the addition of information to the DNA of the system and therefore defies the second law of thermodynamics. That is the question that Christopher Hitchens needs to recognize as being worthy of constituting a “eureka moment.”

One thing you can say about Hitchens is that he is most definitely not stupid. That being the case, there must be some explanation for his missing such elementary concepts as these. If we know that he is intellectually capable of grasping the importance of these questions, the only explanation is that he refuses to consider the answers to them before he goes about asking.

Or, to put it another way, none are so blind as those who will not see.

Just a quick blurb to point out a couple of recent articles that should cause the naturalistic science folks to have “some ’splainin’ to do.” These kinds of things pop up every once in a while and it is interesting to consider the explanations they offer for discoveries like these.

For instance, yesterday The Proceedings of the National Academy of Science announced the recent discovery of:

a primitive single-celled microbe that answers to the name of Monosiga brevicollis [that] has a leg up on animals composed of billions of cells. It commands a signaling network more elaborate and diverse than found in any multicellular organism …

This treasure trove of diverse and novel tyrosine kinases took the study’s lead author … by surprise since it was long thought that tyrosine kinases are restricted to multicellular animals where they handle communication between cells.

When the only paradigm by which the scientists are allowed to consider finds like this is the naturalistic paradigm, those who study them are constantly surprised — and they should be. Pure mechanistic processes cannot account for information rich systems like this one. While they cavalierly mention the ability of cells to “communicate with each other,” it is easy to forget the blatantly obvious mystery that goes with having purely physical systems which have obtained such an ability.

The naturalistic paradigm demands that first life was a simple, single-celled organism that later evolved to complex, multi-cellular organisms. But here we have a highly complex, single-celled organism that seems to be capable of assembling a sensor structure meant to handle complex, widespread communication issues. How so? A candid scientist weighs in on that question:

With all this new information, one obvious question remains unanswered: what is a single-celled organism doing with all this communications gear? “We don’t have a clue!”

At least they admit it. But what some cosmologists won’t admit is the incredible fine-tuning that had to go into the universe just to allow us to exist at all. This article, which just posted on Space.com, addresses why cosmologists keep being blown away by how unique the Earth actually is in its uncanny and unmatched ability to support and sustain complex life.

I don’t have the room of the time now to start listing all the factors that have to be “just right” to allow us to be here. But I would suggest two books that address these issues in eye-opening depth. The first is Rare Earth, by paleontologist Peter Ward and astronomer Donald Brownlee. The authors make the case that it is entirely possible that we are on the only complex life sustaining planet in the universe. And though they (rightly) offer no theological inferences in their book, one doesn’t have to use their imagination too much to see them.

Less trapped by their worldview, authors Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards, in their bestseller, Privileged Planet are not only comfortable with making such a claim to divine design of our home planet, they take it a step further. They make a strong case that the factors which allow us to be here also do double duty as factors that allow us the ability and viewpoint from which we can discover how unique we really are in the universe. The correlation will shock you — especially when you consider that there is no reason for it to be that way.

I would recommend either (preferably both) books for some enjoyable summer beach reading. The stars and galaxies you look up at on vacation this summer may awe you even more after having done so.

[Editor’s Note: This would also serve a dual, and not insignificant role, in diverting you from the temptation to pick a book from the Oprah’s Book Club List. Nothing intentional … I’m just sayin’]

Assertion: (3-4) “… atheists and agnostics are not organized and therefore exert almost zero influence. Indeed, organizing atheists has been compared to herding cats, because they tend to think independently and will not conform to authority.

Response: First, this is a self-serving assertion. Dawkins implies that those who reject atheism do so only because they are a mindless crowd that bows to the altar of religious authority in blind adherence to a faith they have not taken under serious intellectual consideration. Though this may be true of some, it does not hold for those who are happy to debate Dawkins on these issues. Dawkins refuses to engage those kinds of theists on the grounds that doing so would offer undeserved legitimacy to their nonsensical arguments. But if their arguments are so nonsensical, it would seem that Dawkins would be eager to embarrass them in debate. Surely this would serve to galvanize his atheist brethren into the organized group he seeks to form. His refusal to do so seems a bit hypocritical, especially while he touts his own ability to “think independently” over against the mindless, groupthink tendencies of those silly religious opponents.

Second, this is an almost comical assertion in the places where it counts — like the halls of academia or the scientific establishment. Yes, there are pockets of theistic sympathizers but if the atheistic (either in theory or in practice) core of academia shows us anything it is that it will not allow independent (i.e. non-naturalistic) thought a place at the table. Just ask those proponents of Intelligent Design who cannot be published, have been denied tenure, or have actually lost their jobs for bucking that system. In that milieu the only way to survive is to bow at the altar of either methodological or philosophical naturalism because that is where all authority is concentrated. No independent thinking allowed there.

Faith Is Not Thoughtless
Assertion: Dawkins offers into evidence (The God Delusion, pp.16-17) further proof of his assertion that the faithful are unthinking by quoting a letter written to Albert Einstein by the president of a historical society in New Jersey that “so damningly exposes the weakness of the religious mind, it is worth reading twice:”

Response: I fully agree with Dawkins’ critique of the letter in question! When the writer claims that “everyone knows religion is based on Faith, not knowledge,” then goes on to describe how he never admits his religious doubts for fear of “…disturb[ing] and damag[ing] the life and hopes of some fellow human being…,” I am on Dawkins’ side when he says that the letter “drips with intellectual and moral cowardice”(17). It does. The letter writer admits that he is not pursuing the truth. He is pursuing a self-serving piousness that I also believe is intellectually and morally bankrupt. Although the letter writer may represent a large portion of the faith community, he does not represent those who vehemently deny that religion is based on blind faith and not on knowledge.

He does not represent me.

Though the letter writer rolls over and plays dead regarding the reality of the epistemological basis for faith, I do not. He does not represent those who believe that faith is a trust that can comes from knowledge based on evidence. Once again, Mr. Dawkins is cherry-picking his opponents. Doing so relegates him to the same intellectually and morally vacuous position as those he so condescendingly condemns.

To piggyback off this post, I have decided to start a series of short responses to the claims of the so-called “New Atheists.” Interestingly, the story I cited (here) about the impact of the September 11th attacks on the faith of some is directly related to a phenomenon that literally sprung to life on 9/12/2001 — the aggressive attack by these new atheists on the concept of God and the legitimacy of religion. Case in point:

… 9/11 seems to belie the notion of an all-loving, all-powerful God. Sam Harris began writing The End of Faith, his best-selling attack on religion, the day after the attacks.

Jonathan Miller, who wrote and narrated a 2004 BBC series on atheism, says that given the hijackers’ militant Islamist theology, 9/11 would have been “inconceivable without religion.”

Harris later wrote a Letter To A Christian Nation — a stinging diatribe about the danger that religion of any kind, but Christianity in particular, poses toward civil society. During the years that have followed we have been treated to several books that take up the banner of atheism with a renewed vigor and a take-no-prisoners attitude.

Christopher Hitchens weighed in with his God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. For a fascinating review of that book go (here) and read what Hitchens’ brother Peter has to say about some of the claims he makes and the source of the scathing attitude Christopher brings to the debate. Hitchens is a hard core atheist who “hates God.” This is not my assessment of his view. It is something he is comfortable proclaiming for himself. It is his belief that religion is the source of most of the problems we have in this world.

Finally, there is Richard Dawkins, a zoologist and evolutionary biologist who turned from a deep religious belief in his youth to become Darwinism’s (and atheism’s) most vocal proponent. His book, The God Delusion, spent many weeks on the NY Times bestseller list and was instrumental in his being sought out as an interviewee in the Intelligent Design movement’s new documentary film, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Some of his answers in that film are shocking to hear — especially when you consider them in contrast to his arguments against intelligent design.

These are not the only atheists who have jumped on the anti-God bandwagon but they are the most popular. Each of them is intelligent, clever, and unapologetic in their disgust for religious ideas. Both Hitchens and Dawkins are arrogantly antagonistic in the way they approach the subject. Hitchens in particular is nasty in debates and frequently resorts to profanity and/or sarcasm to belittle his opponents. Dawkins won’t debate anyone from the ID or Creationist camps (which, in his mind, constitute one-in-the-same thing) because he believes that doing so would lend them credibility they in no way deserve.

Last summer I made it my mission to read each of their books. What struck me as I did so was the utter vacuousness of some of the arguments these guys use. It amazed me how people who are so highly educated and intelligent can be so lacking in their assessments of, and arguments against, spiritual issues. I think this fact shows that their opposition to religious ideas is not as rooted in intellectualism as they would like to believe. Instead it betrays their real problems with religion and God as being volitional and emotional.

With that as a backdrop I intend to begin a regular series of short rebuttals to some of the arguments they pose in their books. I plan to keep these short (as best I can) and to the point. Hopefully these will help offer quick rebuttals to those who may be using the same arguments against you.

[Note: For a lively, in-depth discussion of the so-called “New Atheists” that you can listen to as you drive to work, I suggest Greg Koukl’s, “The New Atheists: Old Arguments, New Attitude.” You can order it from him here.]

It is a common criticism of creationist and intelligent design advocates that they have bought into an unprovable myth and are therefore guilty of “wish thinking.” This is the mantra from the “new atheist” crowd or anyone else who believes Evolution is a Fact and that we all just need to deal with it. In light of that, I am offering links here to a series of 5 articles by some very qualified guys who argue that evolution is also a myth. To summarize the first post, their argument begins by establishing a few facts and characteristics concerning mythology:

• All cultures utilize myth as an important part of their sociology in that it “validates the thinking, practices, and ideals of a culture.”
• Mythology ” … is hard to prove (or disprove) with the technology of the culture; a myth requires faith.”
• All cultures have some kind of creation myth that explains the cultural foundation and most “… involve a powerful, supernatural “god” who creates the world and causes life-forms to be brought forth.”

Evolution is no different. It involves an explanation for our existence that assumes our naturalistic origins, contains an agent capable of creating all life forms (natural selection), a prophet who informs us of the myth (Darwin), and it gives rise to fundamentalist defenders of the myth who will not tolerate any departure from its tenets (the Darwinist scientific establishment).

Please go here: Evolution As Mythology (Part 1 of 5): The Theory of Evolution is a Myth and check out installment one. I am biased of course (these guys are fellow members of my local Reasons To Believe affiliate) but they are obviously qualified to discuss the subject.

• Dr. Hugh Henry received his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Virginia in 1971, retired after 26 years at Varian Medical Systems, and currently serves as Lecturer in Physics at Northern Kentucky University in Highland Heights, KY.
• Mr. Daniel J. Dyke received his Master of Theology from Princeton Theological Seminary 1981 and currently serves as Professor of Old Testament at Cincinnati Christian University in Cincinnati, OH.
• Dr. Charles Cruze received his Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from University of Tennessee Center for Health Sciences in 1977, and currently works in research at Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals.

Their work is a fascinating read. More to follow in the coming days, I hope you enjoy …

I saw Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed this past week and, since several friends have asked what I thought of the movie, I decided I would weigh in briefly.

This is a controversial film, no doubt. It’s aim is to expose the blatant bias that exists within the academic and scientific communities against the very idea that someone would suggest there is evidence of design in the universe in general, or in the realm of biological life in particular. Those who have even expressed openness to these ideas have paid a heavy price by being ostracized, denied tenure, and even fired from their jobs for doing so.

Obviously I agree with the claims of ID and have tried to defend them many times here. It is also undeniable that the scientific community has, in some specific cases, mistreated those who subscribe to this notion. There is not a single assertion in the movie that I think is false or even exaggerated. But for me there are two issues at play here: (Read on …)

… To continue the discussion from yesterday, it is not just the creationists in Florida who need to improve the way they handle controversies of this kind.

The Naturalistic Scientific Establishment (NSE — I just made that up) is also to blame. On their side of the debate, they have created a straw man in the way they use the word “scientific.” Insisting that evolution is scientific, as compared to its “unscientific” counterpart, “intelligent design” (ID), the NSE aims to defend rational thought against the idiocy of the religious nutcases who lurk within our science labs, heaven-bent on destroying the enlightened progress of the educated.

Think I’m exaggerating?

Check out the website (here) of those who seek to defend “strong science education in Florida” through their mission to:

… convince the citizens of Florida that they need good science education standards. In order to have good standards, we all need to get involved in the science education standards process. We want to encourage everyone to read the standards so that they know what is being taught to their children in public school science class. We want scientists and science teachers to review and suggest improvements in the standards. We want newspapers, radio stations and television reporters to talk about the science standards and why they are important to Florida. We want to do this so that the quality of Florida’s science education standards will be top notch.

Now who could argue with a mission like that? Only a creationist moron apparently because, deeper in the website, we find this little gem:

Pseudoscience permeates Florida society today. This includes UFOs, crystals, ghosts, alternative medicine and a host of other unscientific belief systems. These belief systems are unscientific and reflect the unproved belief that there is something magical about our universe that goes beyond the physical laws that govern the natural world.

Eager to indict the motives and intellectual capabilities of the crazy creationists, these folks label “UFOs, crystals, ghosts and alternative medicine” as “belief systems.” Regardless of your view on these topics, is it even logical to call a UFO a “belief system”? This is just silly. Each of these may stem from some belief system but none of them constitutes a belief system. This is nothing but a textbook case of an ad hominem attack meant to demean the opponent, or the motives of the opponent, with which one disagrees. Besides, this is not a scientific argument, it is a philosophical argument — one with which (ahem!) scientists are not equipped to deal. In any case, it is a lame way to argue and does nothing to address the actual issues involved. But it gets worse … (Read on …)

I heard about this story on the national news last night so I followed up on it today, only to find that, once again, the whole point of the controversy has been missed. In Florida, the State Board of Education has been wrestling with the issue of whether or not to allow the word “evolution” to be included in the state’s science standards. Today they approved the inclusion of the phrase “scientific theory of evolution,” as if wordsmithing a compromise would satisfy those on both sides of the issue. The problem with battles like this is that, while defending their narrow interests, everyone seems to miss what is really important.

On the creationist/religious side of the debate, the problem lies with two issues: one a misunderstanding and one a needless fear that could easily be turned to an advantage.

First, the misunderstanding. Many creationists believe they have scored points against the Darwinian opposition by making them admit that Evolution is “just a theory.” As you can see, this is part of the compromise phrase that was agreed to in Florida. The misunderstanding is that labeling something a theory is far from an indictment of the view. In scientific usage …

… a theory does not mean an unsubstantiated guess or hunch, as it can in everyday speech. A theory is a logically self-consistent model or framework for describing the behavior of a related set of natural or social phenomena. It originates from or is supported by experimental evidence. In this sense, a theory is a systematic and formalized expression of all previous observations, and is predictive, logical, and testable.

In other words, theories are well-substantiated and, in many cases (the Big Bang for instance) not far removed from the realm of scientific laws. So let’s not get too enamored with dismissing evolution as “just a theory.” That tactic isn’t getting us anywhere. Instead, we should be deliberate and specific in pointing out the fatal flaws and assumptions that undermine the theory in question.

And that brings us to the needless fear we can turn to our advantage. (Read on …)