Dawkins on "'the greatest idea ever to occur to a human mind"! #2

Notes from a small island: Charles Darwin's voyage to the Galapagos, The Independent, 20 October 2006 ... Continued from part #1

[Graphic: Empedocles (c. 490-430 BC), Wikipedia.]

So this claimed "greatest idea ever to occur to a human mind" is just that, an idea that was first proposed by the ancient Greek philosopher Empedocles in c. 400 BC, as a purely philosophical speculation, without any actual scientific evidence:

"However, similar ideas go back to ancient times; the Ionian physician Empedocles said that many races `must have been unable to beget and continue their kind. For in the case of every species that exists, either craft or courage or speed has from the beginning of its existence protected and preserved it'" ("Natural Selection: History of the Principle," Wikipedia).

That is, the scientific evidence came much later (by thousands of years) and was then retrofitted to this claimed "greatest idea ever to occur to a human mind"!

If we measure the power of a scientific theory as some sort of ratio of how much it explains divided by how much it needs to assume, the theory of natural selection surely stands alone. Agreed! According to Dawkins "the theory of natural selection": 1) "assumes" that the natural selection of random micromutations, the same process that explains minor changes like insect resistance to DDT, the size of finch beaks on the Galapagos islands and the relative frequency of light and dark peppered moths; 2) "explains' everything, i.e. "the whole of life, the diversity of life, the complexity of life, the apparent design of life" (my emphasis):

"Natural selection is a bewilderingly simple idea. And yet what it explains is the whole of life, the diversity of life, the complexity of life, the apparent design of life. It all flows from this one remarkably simple idea." (Dawkins, R., "Mechanisms of Evolution," in Campbell, N.A., Reece, J.B. & Mitchell, L.G., "Biology," [1987], Benjamin/Cummings: Menlo Park CA, Fifth Edition, 1999, p.413).

Dawkins is probably right that "the theory of natural selection surely stands alone" by the "ratio of how much it explains divided by how much it needs to assume"! But Dawkins confuses purports to explain with actually explains. There is no hard scientific evidence that "the theory of" the "natural selection" of random micromutations did (or even could) actually explain major changes, including complex organs like the eye, let alone "the whole of life, the diversity of life, the complexity of life, the apparent design of life" (my emphasis)!

This is why it is so important to have his complete works available online, and free of charge. When you think about it, what other branch of science is still fixated on its 19th century founder's writings? As PBS interviewer Ben Wattenberg picked up, Dawkins "tonality" about Darwin says, "I found my God"!:

"MR. WATTENBERG: Well, now, you wrote in 'The Selfish Gene' this. 'Living organisms had existed on earth without ever knowing why for 3,000 million years before the truth finally dawned on one of them. His name was Charles Darwin.' [Dawkins, R., "The Selfish Gene," Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1989, p.1] That sounds to me like a religious statement. That is a - that is near messianic language. And you are making the case that these other people have this virus of the mind. That tonality says, I found my God. MR. DAWKINS: You can call it that if you like. It's not religious in any sense in which I would recognize the term. Certainly I look up to Charles Darwin." (Wattenberg, B., "Talking about Evolution with Richard Dawkins," Think Tank: PBS, November 7, 1996. Emphasis original)

Think of what it explains: your existence and mine; the existence, form, diversity and apparently designed complexity of all living things, not only on this planet but probably wherever in the universe organised complexity may be found. See above on the difference between purports to explain and actually explains! Again, quite clearly Dawkins is not relying on hard scientific evidence to support his claim that "the theory of" the "natural selection" of random micromutations can actually "explain" "the existence, form, diversity and apparently designed complexity of all living things, not only on this planet but probably wherever in the universe organised complexity may be found"! That is, in such grandiose claims, Dawkins is inadvertently showing that this claimed "greatest idea ever to occur to a human mind" is merely pre-scientific materialist philosophy!

I actually feel sorry for Dawkins. Imagine being reduced to exulting over "apparently designed complexity." It sounds like a thirsty man in a desert exulting over seeing a mirage of a lake!

The explanatory work that the theory does, then, is immense. Agreed. The key words are "that the theory does"! Dawkins forgets T.H. Huxley's rueful observation that it is "the great tragedy of Science--the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact--which is so constantly being enacted under the eyes of [natural] philosophers" (i.e. scientists):

"In his Presidential Address, `Biogenesis and Abiogenesis' ('Collected Essays' 8 page 229), he discussed the rival theories of spontaneous generation and the universal derivation of life from precedent life, and professed his belief, as an act of philosophic faith, that at some remote period, life had arisen out of inanimate matter, though there was no evidence that anything of the sort had occurred recently, the germ theory explaining many supposed cases of spontaneous generation. The history of the subject, indeed, showed] `the great tragedy of Science--the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact--which is so constantly being enacted under the eyes of philosophers,' and recalled the warning `that it is one thing to refute a proposition, and another to prove the truth of a doctrine which, implicitly or explicitly, contradicts that proposition." (Huxley, T.H., in Huxley, L., ed., "The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley," Macmillan & Co: London, 1903, Vol. 2, p.16).

And if there ever was an example of "a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact" (or rather lack of facts) the prime candidate would surely be this claimed "greatest idea ever to occur to a human mind," "the theory of" the "natural selection" of random micromutations.

Indeed, no better statement of the largely fact-free, Empedoclean/Epicurean materialist atomist philosophy-driven, nature of this theory was given by Dawkins himself, when he simply assumes that because "it is always possible to conceive of a series of infinitesimally graded intermediates between" any "large-scale change," which otherwise would be a "prodig[y] of apparent miracle," therefore such "a series of infinitesimally graded intermediates" must actually have existed in the real world of nature:

"To 'tame' chance means to break down the very improbable into less improbable small components arranged in series. No matter how improbable it is that an X could have arisen from a Y in a single step, it is always possible to conceive of a series of infinitesimally graded intermediates between them. However improbable a large-scale change may be, smaller changes are less improbable. And provided we postulate a sufficiently large series of sufficiently finely graded intermediates, we shall be able to derive anything from anything else, without invoking astronomical improbabilities. We are allowed to do this only if there has been sufficient time to fit all the intermediates in. And also only if there is a mechanism for guiding each step in some particular direction, otherwise the sequence of steps will career off in an endless random walk. It is the contention of the Darwinian world-view that both these provisos are met, and that slow, gradual, cumulative natural selection is the ultimate explanation for our existence. If there are versions of the evolution theory that deny slow gradualism, and deny the central role of natural selection, they may be true in particular cases. But they cannot be the whole truth, for they deny the very heart of the evolution theory, which gives it the power to dissolve astronomical improbabilities and explain prodigies of apparent miracle." (Dawkins R., "The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design," W.W. Norton & Co: New York NY, 1986, pp.317-318).

This is the very large numerator of the ratio. But the theory itself - the denominator - could hardly be smaller or more simple; you can write it out in a phrase: "Nonrandom survival of randomly varying hereditary elements."

This is Dawkins' "theory of everything," his "formula so elegant and simple that it will fit easily on the front of a t-shirt" (Lederman, L. ,"The God Particle," 1993, p.21). However, as with physics' quest for a theory of everything, even if one was found (and as yet it hasn't been) the more they explain in general, the less they explain in particular.

In the case of Dawkins' claimed "greatest idea ever to occur to a human mind," "the theory of natural selection," i.e. the theory of "Nonrandom survival of randomly varying hereditary elements," all it actually predicts is that there will be some "Nonrandom survival of randomly varying hereditary elements" not that everything, i.e. "your existence and mine; the existence, form, diversity and apparently designed complexity of all living things, not only on this planet but probably wherever in the universe organised complexity may be found" is the result of "Nonrandom survival of randomly varying hereditary elements."

The "randomly varying" (in the sense of undirected) is merely an assumption of Dawkins' materialist/naturalist philosophy. If matter/nature is all there is, then there can be nothing "that could guide mutation in directions that are non-random :

"There is a fifth respect in which mutation might have been nonrandom. We can imagine (just) a form of mutation that was systematically biased in the direction of improving the animal's adaptedness to its life. But although we can imagine it, nobody has ever come close to suggesting any means by which this bias could come about. It is only in this fifth respect, the 'mutationist' respect, that the true, real-life Darwinian insists that mutation is random. Mutation is not systematically biased in the direction of adaptive improvement, and no mechanism is known (to put the point mildly) that could guide mutation in directions that are non-random in this fifth sense. Mutation is random with respect to adaptive advantage, although it is non-random in all sorts of other respects. It is selection, and only selection, that directs evolution in directions that are nonrandom with respect to advantage." (Dawkins, Ibid., p.312. Emphasis original).

But that is only If materialism/naturalism (matter/nature is all there is) is true. As Phil Johnson observed, "An essential step in the reasoning that establishes that Darwinian selection created the wonders of biology ... is that nothing else was available" but "Theism is by definition the doctrine that something else was available" (my emphasis):

"Theists who accommodate with scientific naturalism therefore may never affirm that their God is real in the same sense that evolution is real. This rule is essential to the entire mindset that produced Darwinism in the first place. If God exists He could certainly work through mutation and selection if that is what He wanted to do, but He could also create by some means totally outside the ken of our science. Once we put God into the picture, however, there is no good reason to attribute the creation of biological complexity to random mutation and natural selection. Direct evidence that these mechanisms have substantial creative power is not to be found in nature, the laboratory, or the fossil record. An essential step in the reasoning that establishes that Darwinian selection created the wonders of biology, therefore, is that nothing else was available. Theism is by definition the doctrine that something else was available." (Johnson, P.E., "What is Darwinism?" Lecture at a symposium at Hillsdale College, November 1992. My emphasis)

Stephen E. Jones, BSc (Biol).
Genesis 7:1-5. ¹The LORD then said to Noah, "Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation. ²Take with you seven of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and two of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, ³and also seven of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth. ⁴Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made."⁵And Noah did all that the LORD commanded him.

Dawkins on "'the greatest idea ever to occur to a human mind"! #1

Notes from a small island: Charles Darwin's voyage to the Galapagos, The Independent, 20 October 2006 ...

[Graphic: Charles Darwin on English £10 note, BBC]

The image of the old man on the £10 note is misleading. When Charles Darwin boarded 'HMS Beagle' in 1836 and made his now celebrated journey to the Galapagos, he was just 22 years old Actually Darwin first boarded HMS Beagle in 1831 and his voyage on it ended in 1836.

... and poised to produce a diary as gripping as his scientific discoveries. As Darwin's complete works are put online ... I am pleased that Darwin's complete works are going to be online, especially his otherwise difficult to obtain "2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th editions of the Origin of Species."

Richard Dawkins explains why he matters more than ever. And, overleaf, we publish extracts from the journals that transformed the way the world thinks about its origins Darwinists are always saying this sort of thing, but it is just propaganda. The fact is that most of "the world" does not "think... about its origins" the same materialistic/naturalistic (matter is all there is/nature is all there is) way that Darwin and Darwinists like Dawkins think about it. What Darwin and Darwinists "think... about ... origins" is that all life, including man "evolved without guidance from God," but in the USA, for example, as a recent Gallup poll confirmed yet again, "Since 1982, when the poll first began" only "between 9 and 13 percent" of all Americans have ever "believed man evolved without guidance from God":

"In a May 8-11 survey of American beliefs on evolution, 46 percent of respondents agreed with the statement: God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so. In comparison, only 13 percent chose the answer: `Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process.' According to the poll results, which were released Monday, the biggest factor in determining the answer was religion. Almost two-thirds of Americans who attend church at least once a week believe that humans were created in their present form, compared to 29 percent of those who say they never attend church. Analysts also found a strong correlation between the level of education and the response. About three-quarters of those with a post-graduate degree said humans developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, compared to just 22 percent choosing the `created in present form' option. According to Gallup, the poll shows that Americans? view on the origin of life has remained constant for decades. Since 1982, when the poll first began, between 44 and 47 percent of Americans have consistently agreed with the option that God created humans in their present form, and between 9 and 13 percent believed man evolved without guidance from God. This was the seventh time the poll was conducted. Meanwhile, 36 percent of Americans agreed with a third option, that man evolved with the guidance of God through millions of years. Results are based on telephone interviews with 2,002 national adults from Nov. 7-10, 2004, and May 8-11, 2006. The margin of sampling error is 2 percentage points with 95 percent confidence." (Spencer, E., "Nearly Half of Americans Believe in Creationism," The Christian Post, August 31, 2006).

Charles Darwin is surely one of the most admirable men that ever lived. This is simply false. Darwin was demonstrably dishonest when it came to seeking for himself "the bauble fame." As the late Arnold C. Brackman (amongst others) have pointed out, "Darwin furtively stole from" Edward Blyth, in that Darwin "made unacknowledged use of Blyth's work" (and others), including "a wealth of examples from nature" which "afterwards appear repeated, or indeed copied, by Darwin in his preliminary essays of 1842 and 1844" and then appear disguised in Darwin's Origin of Species (and that is just for starters):

"Despite his religious beliefs, Blyth was a man of ideas, and Darwin furtively stole from him. Two eminent scholars provide the evidence. Loren Eiseley, the late anthropologist, in a lengthy paper for the American Philosophical Society, cited what he described as `startling' evidence for this theft: `namely, that Darwin made unacknowledged use of Blyth's work ... that Blyth is more than a Darwinian precursor, that he is instead a direct intellectual forebear, in a phylogenetic line of descent.' [Eiseley, L.C., "Charles Darwin, Edward Blyth, and the Theory of Natural Selection," in "Darwin and the Mysterious Mr. X," E.P. Dutton: New York NY, 1979, p.59] Eiseley was gentle. Oxford scholar C.D. Darlington was direct and brutal. Darlington noted that, in his early papers, Blyth quoted a wealth of examples from nature to make a point and that `these afterwards appear repeated, or indeed copied, by Darwin in his preliminary essays of 1842 and 1844.'" [Darlington, C.D., "Darwin's Place in History," Basil Blackwell: Oxford UK, 1959, pp.34-35]" (Brackman, A.C., "A Delicate Arrangement: The Strange Case of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace," Times Books: New York NY, 1980, pp.37-38).

The idea that he launched upon the world in 1859 is a prime candidate for the title of the greatest idea ever to occur to a human mind. Even if that were true, the point is that Darwin's was not the first "human mind" to which occurred the "idea" of the natural selection of chance variations. Apart from Blyth, who Darwin more immediately stole that "idea" from without acknowledgment, the fact is, as paleontologist H.F. Osborn documented, that "idea" had first occurred to the ancient Greek philosopher Empedocles (c. 490-430 BC) who wrote of "trials of Nature ... improving as time went on" through those "which were unfit to live, and hence eliminated, until, after ceaseless trials, Nature produced the fit and perpetual tribes":

"Empedocles imagined that after these unnatural products became extinct, other forms arose which were able to support themselves and multiply; but even these were not formed at once. First came shapeless masses built of earth and water, or earth slime, without limbs, organs of reproduction, or speech, thrown from fires beneath the earth. Later came the separation of the two sexes and the existing mode of reproduction. These trials of Nature were not a succession of organisms, improving as time went on, but a series of direct births from Nature, which were unfit to live, and hence eliminated, until, after ceaseless trials, Nature produced the fit and perpetual tribes. Thus, in the ancient teachings of Empedocles, we find the germ of the theory of the Survival of the Fittest, or of Natural Selection. And the absolute proof that Empedocles' crude hypothesis embodied this world famous thought, is found in passages in Aristotle's Physics, in which he refers to Empedocles as having first shown the possibility of the origin of the fittest forms of life through chance rather than through Design." (Osborn, H.F., "From the Greeks to Darwin: An Outline of the Development of the Evolution Idea," [1894], Charles Scribner's Sons: New York NY, 1924, reprint, pp.39-40).

Then the Roman poet Lucretius (c. 94-49 BC) who "had himself learnt from the fourth-century Greek Epicurus, who was here in his turn drawing on such fifth-century sources as Empedocles" who had "introduce[d] into a biological context the ideas either of natural selection or of a struggle for existence"wrote of "many species of animals must have perished at that time, unable by procreation to forge out the chain of posterity; for whatever you see" now alive "either cunning or courage or at least quickness must have kept ... from its earliest existence":

"Nor was Darwin the first to introduce into a biological context the ideas either of natural selection or of a struggle for existence. Both can be found in the Roman poet Lucretius in the first century B.C., in an account of how in the beginning our mother earth produced both all the kinds of living things which we now know, and many other sorts of ill-starred monstrosity. But with these latter: `... it was all in vain they could not attain the desired flower of age nor find food nor join by the ways of Venus ... And many species of animals must have perished at that time, unable by procreation to forge out the chain of posterity; for whatever you see feeding on the breath of life, either cunning or courage or at least quickness must have kept ... from its earliest existence." ([Lucretius, "de Rerum Natura," Heineman: London,] V. pp. 845-8 & 855-9) Lucretius, too, was a disciple, clothing in Latin verse ideas which he had himself learnt from the fourth-century Greek Epicurus, who was here in his turn drawing on such fifth-century sources as Empedocles of Acragas (Kirk and Raven, ["The Pre-Socratic Philosophers," CUP: Cambridge, 1957], pp. 336-40). " (Flew, A.G.N., "Darwinian Evolution," Paladin: London, 1984, pp.12-13).

Leading Neo-Darwinist geneticist J.B.S. Haldane called this statement of "the principle of natural selection" "a magnificent intellectual discovery when Lucretius made it two thousand years ago" (my emphasis):

"Lucretius stated the principle of natural selection in its crudest form when he wrote: `And many lines of organisms must have perished then, and been unable to propagate their kind. For whatever you see feeding on the vital air, either craft, strength, or finally mobility has been protecting and preserving that race from its earliest times.'] This was a magnificent intellectual discovery when Lucretius made it two thousand years ago. But it is only a small part of the whole story." (Haldane, J.B.S., "The Causes of Evolution," [1990], Princeton University Press: Princeton NJ, 1993, Second Printing, pp.60-61)

Continued in part #2.

Stephen E. Jones, BSc (Biol).
Genesis 6:14-22. ¹⁴So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. ¹⁵This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high. ¹⁶Make a roof for it and finish the ark to within 18 inches of the top. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. ¹⁷I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. ¹⁸But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark-you and your sons and your wife and your sons' wives with you. ¹⁹You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. ²⁰Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. ²¹You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them." ²²Noah did everything just as God commanded him.

Oh, for the Simple Days of the Big Bang

Oh, for the Simple Days of the Big Bang, The New York Times, George Johnson, October 8, 2006 ...

[Graphic: 1992 COBE map of cosmic microwave background radiation, New York Times]

FOURTEEN years ago, when a Berkeley astronomer named George F. Smoot declared that he and his satellite, the Cosmic Background Explorer, or COBE, had detected the astrophysical equivalent of the fingerprints of God, his euphoria was easy to understand. Smoot actually said that "the fluctuations in the background radiation" were "the fingerprints from the Maker" (my emphasis)!:

"Heeren: When the COBE satellite first measured the fluctuations in the background radiation, you made the much publicized statement: "If you're religious, it's like looking at God." [Maugh, T.H., "Relics of 'Big Bang' Seen for First Time," Los Angeles Times, 24 April 1992, pp.A1, A30] Could you explain something about the basic implications of the big bang theory and what you meant by that statement?

Smoot: Well, I meant there were two aspects to it. These were the oldest and largest structures ever seen. Not only did we find what are the seeds of the modern day structure-and that is the galaxies and clusters of galaxies and clusters of clusters of galaxies- but we also found evidence of the birth of the universe, I believe, because I think that if you look at these fluctuations and ask, "How could they have gotten in there?," some of them are so large-that is, they stretch across billions of light-years back at a very early time -that means they hadn't changed-if you move matter and energy around at the speed of light, you can only cross a teeny fraction of them. And so these are primordial-they're in from the moment of creation. And so it's really like looking back at creation and seeing the creation of space and time and the universe and everything in it, but also the imperfections of the creation, sort of the fingerprints from the Maker, if you understand what I mean, or the machining marks from the machine that tooled the universe, and those things very neatly turn out to be the things that caused the universe to be very interesting to us: namely, creating galaxies and stars and so on. So, to me, the implications were really quite profound, the idea that not only do we understand where things came from, but those things were actually like the machining marks, the manufacturing marks, from the creation of the universe.

Heeren: And these had to be very precise-they had to be within very tight boundaries in order to produce anything that made any-to make the right kind of preparations for life.

Smoot: Right. In order to make a universe as big and wonderful as it is, lasting as long as it is-we're talking fifteen billion years and we're talking huge distances here-in order for it to be that big, you have to make it very perfectly. Otherwise, imperfections would mount up and the universe would either collapse on itself or fly apart, and so it's actually quite a precise job. And I don't know if you've had discussions with people about how critical it is that the density of the universe come out so close to the density that decides whether it's going to keep expanding forever or collapse back, but we know it's within one percent."

(Heeren, F., "Interview with George Smoot, May 6, 1994," in "Show Me God: What the Message from Space is Telling Us About God," [1995], Day Star Publications: Wheeling IL, Revised edition, 2000, pp.167-168. Emphasis original)

For a few happy years, one of the last big pieces of the cosmological puzzle seemed to be in place - an explanation why the universe has blossomed into such an interesting place to live. Had it not been for the whorls and dimples Dr. Smoot and his NASA collaborator, John C. Mather, found in the background radiation - the afterimage of the Big Bang - there would be no cosmic scenery. No galaxies or other vast conglomerations of matter, just a smooth expanse of visual nothing. Kansas instead of Colorado. These very "imperfections of the creation" are themselves another fine-tuned parameter of the Universe, without which we would not be here!

Subsequent discoveries have muddled the picture, so much so that last week's announcement that the two men will share a Nobel Prize in physics was almost bittersweet - an occasion to celebrate a pivotal moment in science but also to look back with nostalgia on more innocent times. The creation story supported by the data from the COBE satellite had seemed almost tantalizingly complete. Dr. Smoot's smudges themselves weren't sticky enough to gather particles into globs the size of the Milky Way or the Virgo supercluster. But if you spiked the Big Bang with an invisible additive called dark matter - a clumping factor - and hot-rodded the theory with a brief, early burst of rapid expansion called cosmological inflation, you could get the tiny irregularities in the background radiation to sprawl into something like today's sky. So "dark matter" and "cosmological inflation" are two more fine-tuned parameters of the Universe.

If only it had been that simple. Six years after COBE, another Berkeley scientist, Saul Perlmutter - as well a separate team led by Brian Schmidt of the Mount Stromlo and Siding Spring Observatories in Australia - found something that almost no one had expected. By now, it was assumed, the universe should have settled down, expanding at a steady pace or even slowing, braked by its own gravity. Instead it appeared to be in overdrive, not ballooning as violently as it had in the inflationary era but expanding at a faster and faster rate. Something seemed to be pushing on the accelerator - what has come to be called dark energy, a mysterious kind of anti-gravity. Shoehorning the new ingredient into the prevailing framework has created new Nobel-sized problems. Basic physics predicts that if it exists at all, this repulsive force should be extremely large. Instead, the dark energy is infinitesimal and no one has been able to say why.Therefore this "dark energy" at its "infinitesimal" level is yet another fine-tuned parameter of the Universe!

Except, that is, for followers of a controversial doctrine called the anthropic principle. As leading science writer John Horgan observed, "The anthropic principle is cosmology's version of creationism" (my emphasis)!:

"Why does the universe look this way rather than some other way? Why does it adhere to these laws of nature rather than to some other laws? Altering any of the universe's fundamental parameters would have radically altered reality. For example, if the cosmos had been slightly more dense at its inception, it would have quickly collapsed into a black hole. A smidgen less dense, and it would have flown apart so fast that there would have been no chance for stars, galaxies, and planets to form. Cosmologists sometimes call this the fine-tuning problem, or, more colorfully, the Goldilocks dilemma: How did the density of the universe turn out not too high, not too low, but just right? The odds that matter would have precisely its observed density, the physicist Lawrence Krauss has calculated, are as great as the odds of guessing precisely how many atoms there are in the sun. Some physicists are so troubled by the arbitrariness of the cosmos that they espouse a quasi-theological concept known as the anthropic principle. According to this notion, the universe must have the structure we observe, because otherwise we wouldn't be here to observe it. The anthropic principle is cosmology's version of creationism." (Horgan, J., "Between Science and Spirituality," The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 29, 2002)

There is no fundamental reason, they say, why the dark energy is so weak. It is just that if it were much stronger, space would have expanded too rapidly to harbor stars and, ultimately, life. The implication is that there is a multitude of possible universes, each with its own physics. Naturally, we are in one where it is possible for us to exist. There is in fact for this degree of "fine-tuning" only "two possible explanations", "Either the Universe was designed specifically for us by a creator or there is a multitude of universes - a `multiverse'":

"But the main reason for believing in an ensemble of universes is that it could explain why the laws governing our Universe appear to be so finely tuned for our existence. In the 1950s, for instance, Fred Hoyle discovered that the step-by-step build-up of heavy elements inside stars depends on a series of spectacular coincidences. Only if the nuclei of beryllium-8, carbon-12 and oxygen-16 exist in particular energy states can hydrogen be built up into the elements of life such as calcium, magnesium and iron. This fine-tuning has two possible explanations. Either the Universe was designed specifically for us by a creator or there is a multitude of universes - a `multiverse'." (Chown, M., "Anything Goes," New Scientist, 6 June 1998, Vol. pp.26-30, p.28).

Note that "the Universe was designed specifically for us by a creator" is here regarded as a scientific explanation.

And as the quote says, "the main reason for believing in an ensemble of universes" is to avoid accepting that "the Universe was designed specifically for us by a creator" (my emphasis)! According to Professor of Mathematical Physics at Cambridge-turned Anglican priest John Polkinghorne, "There is no purely scientific reason to believe in an ensemble of universes" since "these other worlds are" not just unknown but "unknowable by us":

"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. By construction these other worlds are unknowable by us. A possible explanation of equal intellectual respectability - and to my mind greater economy and 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." (Polkinghorne, J.C., "One World: The Interaction of Science and Theology," [1986], SPCK: London, 1987, Fourth Impression, p.80).

and an "explanation of equal intellectual respectability" and "greater economy and elegance" is "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" (my emphasis)!

Stephen E. Jones, BSc (Biol).
Genesis 6:11-13. ¹¹Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence. ¹²God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. ¹³So God said to Noah, "I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.

Smallest genome clocks in at 182 genes ("I predict that, if a form of life is ever discovered in another part of the universe ...")

Smallest genome clocks in at 182 genes, How much can you remove from a bacterium before it stops working?, News@Nature, 12 October 2006, Philip Ball

[Graphic: Carsonella ruddii, New Scientist]

Also at: Biology News, Livescience, NPR, Science, New Scientist and Scientific American. How small can a genome get and still run a living organism? Researchers now say that a symbiotic bacterium called Carsonella ruddii, which lives off sap-feeding insects, has taken the record for smallest genome with just 159,662 'letters' (or base pairs) of DNA and 182 protein-coding genes. At one-third the size of previously found 'minimal' organisms, it is smaller than researchers thought they would find. At the same time, a second group reports another bacterium, Buchnera aphidicola, also with a surprisingly small genome - at just over 400,000 base pairs of DNA it's little more than twice the size of C. ruddii's, but again smaller than anything seen previously. ... The discoveries, reported today in Science, suggest that only a remarkably small collection of molecular parts is needed to make up a viable life form. This is misleading in that "viable life form" usually means independently free-living (otherwise a man being kept alive by a heart-lung machine would be "a viable life form"!), and that is contradicted further down in the same article where it is conceded that these smallest-genome bacteria are parasites - they are each dependent on their host to supply them with gene products and therefore that part of their host's genome which they depend on to survive should be added to their minimum gene count.

And "159,662 'letters' (or base pairs) of DNA" consisting of "182 protein-coding genes" is not "small." As the late astrophysicist Fred Hoyle pointed out, the probability of the spontaneous assembly of even one of the shortest protein-coding genes, the 200 base-pair gene which codes for the protein histone-4, is "equal to 10^-120" and "Even if one were given a random choice for every atom in every galaxy in the whole visible universe" (i.e. ~10⁸⁰) "the probability of discovering histone-4 would still only be a minuscule ~10^-40":

"Essentially, the same amino acid chain being found also in other animals and even in plants, we have a case in histone-4 where more than 200 base pairs are conserved across the whole of biology. The problem for the neo Darwinian theory is to explain how the one particular arrangement of base pairs came to be discovered in the first place. Evidently not by random processes, for with a chance 1/4 of choosing each of the correct base pairs at random, the probability of discovering a segment of 200 specific base pairs is 4^-200, which is equal to 10^-120. Even if one were given a random choice for every atom in every galaxy in the whole visible universe the probability of discovering histone-4 would still only be a minuscule ~10^-40." (Hoyle, F., "Mathematics of Evolution," [1987], Acorn Enterprises: Memphis TN, 1999, pp.102-103).

It's rather as if a computer can be put together from just a handful of transistors. This is not a good example for a Darwinist to use. The problem with "a computer" is that, in its basic form, i.e. one that "can be put together from just a handful of transistors", it would be irreducibly complex in that it would not work half as well with the first half of the transistors-it would not work at all (as a computer-it would work as a door stop!) until all the transistors were assembled in the right order!

... But researchers warn that the natural streamlined bacteria are both symbionts, dependent on their host organisms for certain functions or nutrients that they can't provide themselves. "They can't be grown on their own," says Latorre. As I commented above, this contradicts the earlier claim that, "only a remarkably small collection of molecular parts is needed to make up a viable life form" (in the usual sense of independently living).

... Geneticist Craig Venter ... is hoping that small-genome organisms will point the way to a minimal genome: the smallest possible set of genetic parts needed to generate life, from which an organism might then be designed and built. One of Venter's goals is a synthetic bacterium that makes fuels such as hydrogen from renewable raw materials. When Venter announced plans to synthesize a working genome from scratch in 2002, his team estimated that one well-studied bacterium needed at least 300 or so of its genes to survive (see 'Venter aims for maximum impact with minimal genome'). But estimates have been getting smaller. In the New Scientist report on this it quotes Venter as dismissing C. ruddii as "irrelevant" and not saying "anything about the genes required for independent cell growth" (my emphasis):

"But Venter, who aims to build an artificial bacterium with as few genes as possible, says the use of the new findings is limited because C. ruddii is so dependent on its host. This makes it somewhat irrelevant to his team’s efforts to make self-sufficient bacteria. "I don’t think it says anything about the genes required for independent cell growth," says Venter."

A review published in Nature Molecular Systems Biology this year posited a hypothetical minimal genome of 113,000 base pairs and 151 genes - rather close to the new find. This NMSB paper is very interesting because it is about a Minimal Cell Project (MCP) and gives details of the enormous amount of intelligent design required to build "a minimal cell" and even then they are mostly using parts of existing E. coli cells-not building the first living cell from non-living chemicals as the `blind watchmaker' would have to do at the origin of life. Here are some quotes from that paper, with my emphasis:

"Life, like a machine, cannot be understood simply by studying it and its parts; it must also be put together from its parts":

"Synthesizing a minimal cell will advance knowledge of biological replication. ... The meaning of 'synthetic' (from Greek sunthesis, to put together) discussed here bypasses the current reliance of synthetic biology on cells or macromolecular cell products: the aim is to put together an organism from small molecules alone. ... Life, like a machine, cannot be understood simply by studying it and its parts; it must also be put together from its parts. Along the way to synthesizing a cell, we might discover new biochemical functions essential for replication, unsuspected macromolecular modifications or previously unrecognized patterns of coordinated expression." (Forster, A.C. & Church, G.M., "Towards synthesis of a minimal cell," Molecular Systems Biology, Vol. 2, 22 August 2006)

So what unintelligent:

"blind, unconscious, automatic process which ... has no purpose in mind. ... has no mind and no mind's eye. ... does not plan for the future. ... has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all. ... is the blind watchmaker" (Dawkins, R., "The Blind Watchmaker," 1986, p.5).

could, or would: 1) first produce all the "parts" of "a machine"; and then 2) "also ... put together from its parts" that "machine"?

"The only cellular alternative is a perturbed natural cell, an incredibly complex system even for the simplest of cells" (so how did a `blind watchmaker' build the first "incredibly complex system ... for the simplest of cells"?):

"How good a model would an artificial, protein-based, minimal cell be for natural cells? The only cellular alternative is a perturbed natural cell, an incredibly complex system even for the simplest of cells. A much simpler purified system based on a real cell would thus be easier to model and understand. It could certainly answer questions that cannot be answered in vivo or in crude extracts, such as which macromolecules and macromolecular modifications are sufficient for subsystem function. However, even the simplest minimal cell would still be highly complex; so its construction and study would be facilitated by substituting some of the necessary subsystems with simpler analogs. Should the simpler in vitro model turn out to be a poor model for the more complex in vivo system, one could always construct a more complex in vitro system that may better reflect in vivo." (Forster & Church, Ibid., 2006).

"Like any engineering project, this requires detailed blueprints, raw synthetic capabilities and an overall diagnostic and debugging strategy" (again, how would a `blind watchmaker' comprised of non-living chemicals - by definition for the origin of the first living cell-come up with the equivalent of an "engineering project" which "requires detailed blueprints" and "an overall diagnostic and debugging strategy"?):

"The ideal approach for synthesizing a cell would allow all of the machine parts to be understood and tested. Like any engineering project, this requires detailed blueprints, raw synthetic capabilities and an overall diagnostic and debugging strategy. ... What is needed is some way of defining a near-minimal genome and then a strategy that will lead inexorably to an understanding of all of its parts." (Forster & Church, Ibid., 2006)

"Theoretical and experimental studies have attempted to establish a minimal set of genes needed for a self-replicating system in a cushy constant environment of unlimited, small molecule nutrients" (so how did a `blind watchmaker' do it on the early Earth where there was no artificial, air-conditioned lab, with a "cushy constant environment of unlimited, small molecule nutrients"?):

"Theoretical and experimental studies have attempted to establish a minimal set of genes needed for a self-replicating system in a cushy constant environment of unlimited, small molecule nutrients. Three basic approaches present themselves. ... Comparative genomics ... searches for genes that have homologs in the genomes of groups of organisms. The approach estimates from 50 to 380 genes in a minimal genome .... Genetics ... searches for essential genes by mutating one gene at a time. This approach estimates 430 genes in a minimal genome (out of Mycoplasma genitalium's total of 528 ... Biochemistry ... identifies from cell fractions those gene products essential for the reconstitution of biochemical reactions. It does not suffer from the above problems ... However, the cellular subsystems must be integrated and thoroughly tested for accuracy on long templates before they can be considered physiological. ... Mindful of the remaining self-replication functions that need to be discovered ... it seems likely that a largely biochemical approach, now further empowered by mass spectrometry analyses and genetic and comparative genomic information, will be the most practical route to define a near-minimal, well-understood genome." (Forster & Church, Ibid., 2006)

I predict that if scientists ever do manage to build this minimal, self-replicating, living cell (which I doubt -but do not rule out-that they ever will), they will find that it needs a lot more than 151 genes, and nearer (if not more than) 1,500 genes because: 1) "all microbial genomes that fall below 1,500 belong to parasites":

"One way to explore the minimum complexity of independent life is to survey the microbial database for the smallest genome. ... to exist independently, life requires a minimum genome size of about 1,500 to 1,900 gene products. (A gene product refers to proteins and functional RNAs, such as ribosomal and transfer RNA.) The late evolutionary biologist Colin Patterson acknowledges the 1,700 genes of Methanococcus are `perhaps close to the minimum necessary for independent life.' [Patterson, C., "Evolution," Comstock: Ithaca NY, Second edition, 1999, p.23] ... So far, as scientists have continued their sequencing efforts, all microbial genomes that fall below 1,500 belong to parasites. Organisms capable of permanent independent existence require more gene products. ... Some 1,500 different gene products would seem the bare minimum to sustain this level of metabolic activity. .... The discovery of parasitic microbes with reduced genome sizes, like Mycoplasma genitalium ... with 470 ... gene products, respectively ... indicates that life exists, though not independently, with genome sizes made up of smaller than 1,500 genes. These microbes are not good model organisms for Earth's first life forms because they cannot exist independently. .... Scientists... have used the M. genitalium and H. influenzae genomes to estimate the minimum gene set needed for independent life. .... This approach indicated that a set of 256 genes represents the lower limit on genome size needed for life to operate. Using a similar approach, an international team produced a slightly lower minimum estimate of 246. .... In addition to theoretical estimates, researchers have also attempted to make experimental measurements of the minimum number of genes necessary for life. .... One experiment performed on the bacterium Bacillus subtilise estimated the minimal gene set numbers between 254 and 450. A similar study with M. genitalium determined the minimum number of genes to fall between 265 and 350. Random mutations of the H. influenzae genome indicate that 478 genes are required for life in its bare minimal form. The genome of the extreme parasite Buchnera ... varies, with the smallest estimated to contain 396 gene products. Theoretical and experimental studies designed to discover the bare , minimum number of gene products necessary for life all show significant agreement. Life seems to require between 250 and 350 different proteins to carry out its most basic operations. That this bare form of life cannot survive long without a source of sugars, nucleotides, amino acids, and fatty acids is worth noting." (Rana, F.R. & Ross, H.N., "Origins of Life: Biblical And Evolutionary Models Face Off," Navpress: Colorado Springs CO, 2004 pp.161-163).

yet 2) there would be constant selection pressure for some independently living bacteria to occupy their minimal genome ecological niche for (since a larger genome carries a higher energy cost than a smaller genome).

So this is strong (if not conclusive) evidence that "Organisms capable of permanent independent existence require" about "1,500 different gene products" which "would seem the bare minimum to sustain this level of metabolic activity." And again remember Hoyle's point above that unintelligent `blind watchmaker' processes cannot plausibly assemble even one of the shortest genes!

It is generally thought that a minimal genome will need to include genes for replication and for protein synthesis, and probably also for making the enzymes needed to construct basic building blocks, such as amino acids, from chemicals available in the immediate environment. ... Note this is for a "minimal genome" and therefore for the first genome. That is, the origin of life had to make a single-step jump from non-living chemicals to a living self-replicating cell with "a minimal genome" which needed "to include genes for replication and for protein synthesis ... for making the enzymes needed to construct basic building blocks, such as amino acids, from chemicals available in the immediate environment"!

Therefore, to paraphrase Richard Dawkins ("The Blind Watchmaker," 1986, p.288):

"`I predict that, if a form of life is ever discovered in another part of the universe ... it will be found to resemble life on Earth in one key respect: it will have' been created by an Intelligent Designer!

Stephen E. Jones, BSc (Biol).
Genesis 6:8-10. ⁸But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD. ⁹This is the account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God. ¹⁰Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.

the Cambrian Explosion theory for the origin of complex animal life would still stand

Tiny fossils reveal inner secrets, BBC, 13 October 2006, Jonathan Fildes ...

[Graphic: four-celled embryo ~550 million years old, Scientific American]

The exact moment when a 550 million year old cell began to divide has been captured in an exquisite 3-D image. The picture is one of a series taken by researchers examining ancient fossil embryos from Guizhou Province, China. The specimens, described in the journal Science, are the oldest known examples of fossil embryos, and shed light on the early evolution of complex life. Also at: ABC, EurekAlert!, Independent Online, MSNBC, PhysOrg.com, Scientific American, Sydney Morning Herald & The Guardian.

Scientists used an advanced X-ray technique to peer inside the balls of cells to reveal the structures inside ... These fossilised Precambrian embryos themselves are not new (having been first reported in 1998 in both Nature and Science), just the use of more advanced imaging to reveal embryos' individual cells dividing.

Although complex animals had started evolving before 542 million years ago their development accelerated at this point. Although the bed is packed full of the tiny fossils, the team has been unable to find any adult specimens. ... Although the cells show some modern traits they crucially lack others. "Even in these late-stage embryos there is no evidence of the formation of a tissue layer," said Dr Donoghue. "You would expect to see that in modern embryos, even those of sponges." The team believes the cells probably came from extremely simple creatures. "They would have developed into sponge-like creatures, but more primitive," ... If right, this means that the Cambrian Explosion theory for the origin of complex animal life would still stand ... More evidence for the reality of the Cambrian explosion, i.e. all the complex multicellular animal phyla really did arise "in a geological moment":

"The Cambrian Explosion occurred in a geological moment, and we have reason to think that all major anatomical designs may have made their evolutionary appearance at that time." "... not only the phylum Chordata itself, but also all its major divisions, arose within the Cambrian Explosion." "Contrary to Darwin's expectation that new data would reveal gradualistic continuity with slow and steady expansion, all major discoveries of the past century have only heightened the massiveness and geological abruptness of this formative event for the kingdom Animalia." (Gould, S.J., "Of it, not above it," Nature, Vol. 377, 26 Oct 1995, pp.681-682. Emphasis original).

And another nail in the coffin of the Darwinian artifact theory," i.e. "Precambrian [complex invertebrate] ancestors" to the Cambrian animal phyla "did exist, but the fossil record hasn't preserved them"; and more evidence for "the fast-transition theory", i.e. "they really didn't exist, at least as complex invertebrates easily linked to their descendants, and the evolution of modern anatomical plans occurred with a rapidity that threatens our usual ideas about the stately" (i.e. Darwinian) "pace of evolutionary change":

"Two different kinds of explanations for the absence of Precambrian ancestors have been debated for more than a century: the artifact theory (they did exist, but the fossil record hasn't preserved them), and the fast-transition theory (they really didn't exist, at least as complex invertebrates easily linked to their descendants, and the evolution of modern anatomical plans occurred with a rapidity that threatens our usual ideas about the stately pace of evolutionary change). ... We can now understand why Walcott was virtually compelled to propose the Burgess shoehorn. He interpreted his new fauna in the light of thirty previous years spent (largely in frustration) trying to prove the artifact theory, as an ultimate tribute to Darwin from a Cambrian geologist. He could not grant Burgess organisms the uniqueness that seems so evident to us today because a raft of new phyla would have threatened his most cherished belief. If evolution could produce ten new Cambrian phyla and then wipe them out just as quickly, then what about the surviving Cambrian groups? Why should they have had a long and honorable Precambrian pedigree? Why should they not have originated just before the Cambrian, as the fossil record, read literally, seems to indicate, and as the fast- transition theory proposes? This argument, of course, is a death knell for the artifact theory." (Gould, S.J., "Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History," [1989], Penguin: London, 1991, reprint, pp.270-273).

But as Phillip E. Johnson comments on the above quote by Gould, "A mysterious process that produces dozens of complex animal groups directly from single-celled predecessors, with only some words like `fast- transition' in between, may be called `evolution'-but ... Each of those Cambrian animals contained a variety of immensely complicated organ systems. How can such innovations appear except by the gradual accumulation of micromutations, unless there was some supernatural intervention? ... If he really rejects the artifact theory of the Precambrian fossil record, Gould also rejects the Darwinian theory of evolution." (my emphasis):

"Darwinism's rules of reasoning not only protect the cultural authority of Darwinists. They also permit Darwinist writers to take the mutation/selection paradigm for granted even when they are describing evidence that directly contradicts it. This feat of intellectual contortionism is strikingly illustrated by Stephen Jay Gould's book, Wonderful Life. Gould's best seller adds a great deal to our knowledge of the `Cambrian explosion,' meaning the sudden appearance of the invertebrate animal phyla, without visible ancestors, in the 600 million-year-old rocks of the Cambrian era. Unicellular life had existed for a long time, and some multicellular groups appear in the immediately Precamhrian rocks, hut nothing can be established as ancestral to the Cambrian animals. As Richard Dawkins described the situation, `It is as though the Cambrian phyla] were just planted there, without any evolutionary history.' [Dawkins, R., "The Blind Watchmaker," Longman, 1986, p.229] In recent years the mystery has deepened, because it appears that the Cambrian animal groups were far more varied than had been imagined. The more distinct groups that there were in the Cambrian, the more chains of ancestors there ought to have been in the Precambrian Some remarkable Cambrian fossils found in a Canadian formation known as the Burgess Shale were originally classified in familiar groups. Gould explains that the discoverer of the Burgess Shale fossils, Charles Walcott, tried to `shoehorn' the odd creatures into familiar taxonomic categories because of his predisposition to avoid multiplying the difficulties of what is called the `artifact theory' of the Precambrian fossil record. As Gould explains the problem: ... A mysterious process that produces dozens of complex animal groups directly from single-celled predecessors, with only some words like `fast- transition' in between, may be called `evolution'-but the term is being used more in the sense of Grassé's heresy than of Dobzhansky's Darwinian orthodoxy. Each of those Cambrian animals contained a variety of immensely complicated organ systems. How can such innovations appear except by the gradual accumulation of micromutations, unless there was some supernatural intervention? It is not only that the Darwinian theory requires a very gradual line of descent from each Cambrian animal group back to its hypothetical single-celled ancestor. Because Darwinian evolution is a purposeless, chance-driven process, which would not proceed directly from a starting point to a destination, there should also be thick bushes of side branches in each line. As Darwin himself put it, if Darwinism is true the Precambrian world must have `swarmed with living creatures' [Darwin, C.R., "The Origin of Species," 1872, Sixth Edition, Senate: London, 1994, p.286] many of which were ancestral to the Cambrian animals. If he really rejects the artifact theory of the Precambrian fossil record, Gould also rejects the Darwinian theory of evolution." (Johnson, P.E., "Darwinism's Rules of Reasoning," in Buell, J. & Hearn, V., eds., "Darwinism: Science or Philosophy?," Foundation for Thought and Ethics: Richardson TX, 1994, pp.12-14).

Stephen E. Jones, BSc (Biol).
Genesis 6:5-7. ⁵The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. ⁶The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. ⁷So the LORD said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth-men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air-for I am grieved that I have made them."

Goldilocks and the riddle of the perfect universe

Goldilocks and the riddle of the perfect universe, The Sunday Times, October 08, 2006, Stuart Wavell ...

[Graphic: "The Goldilocks Enigma: Why Is the Universe Just Right for Life?" (my emphasis)]

Why is the universe, like the porridge in the tale of Goldilocks and the three bears, "just right" for life? HT again to Kevin Miller at DesignWatch. Even cosmologists have said it looks like a fix or a put-up job. Is it a fluke or providence that it appears set up expressly for the purpose of spawning sentient beings? This shows that science is perfectly capable of making a design inference about the origin of the Universe, i.e. inferring from the evidence of nature that it is the result of either "a fluke" (unintelligent cause) or "providence" (intelligent cause).

Until recently the Goldilocks question was almost completely ignored by scientists. But dramatic developments in our understanding are propelling the issue to the forefront of the agenda, according to the acclaimed British physicist and bestselling author Paul Davies. ... This is a good example how ID is not an argument from ignorance because it is the advance of science which is driving it, i.e. the more science learns about the Universe, the more it appears to be "a fix or a put-up job", i.e. the result of Intelligent Design!

Anyone expecting Davies to recant his non-religious views and join the intelligent design lobby will be disappointed.Note the pejorative "lobby" as though ID is merely, or primarily, a political movement (it is not ID which depends on the full power of the State to enforce its "judicially sanctioned monopoly in the classroom"). Whether Davies ever joins the ID movement, makes no difference to the fact that he is, by writing about the evidence for design in nature (even if only to dismiss it) is doing good scientific research for the cause of ID!

"We can't dump all this in the lap of an arbitrary god and say we can't inquire any further," he says. "The universe looks ingenious, it looks like a fix, and words like meaning and purpose come to mind. But it doesn't mean that we're going to have a miracle-working cosmic magician meddling with events." This is a Fallacy of False Alternative that the only available choice is between Materialism/Naturalism (matter/nature is all there is) and "an arbitrary god" a "miracle-working cosmic magician meddling with events"! As Davies surely must know, at some point all human thinking must end with one of three ultimate explanations for the origin of the Universe: 1) It has always existed in some form; 2) it popped into existence from absolutely nothing; or 3) it was created from out of nothing by a Creator who has always existed. And being ultimate explanations, by definition "we can't inquire any further." What really is "arbitrary" is to rule out in advance the last of the three possible explanations, just because Davies (and his ilk) does not like the idea of there being a God to whom he might be personally accountable (Rom. 1:18-20).

What concerns him in his new book The Goldilocks Enigma is science and the universe's stringent conditions for existence, so finely tuned that even the slightest twiddle of the dials would wreck any hope of life emerging in the universe. This would only be a "concern" to those who hold "A Darwinian View of Life" that "at bottom" there is "no design, no purpose ... nothing but blind, pitiless indifference":

"The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference." (Dawkins, R., "River out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life," Phoenix: London, 1996, p.155)

"No scientific explanation of the universe can be deemed complete unless it accounts for this appearance of judicious design," he says. So why then is the attempt to "account... for this appearance of judicious design" (my emphasis) not a "scientific explanation" if it proposes that this appearance of judicious design" actually is the result of judicious design"? If the answer is that science is inherently materialistic/naturalistic, then that makes science merely a branch of applied materialist/naturalist philosophy:

"The realization that life is about information completely turns older arguments about evolution on their head. Why? Because information is independent of the material medium used to store and transmit it. In a book, the words are printed with ink on paper, but they could also be written with crayon or paint or chalk, or even scratched into sand with a stick. The message remains the same, no matter what you use to write it. And the obvious implication is that the message was not created by the matter used to write it. The words in a book were not created by chemical forces within the ink and paper. ... What does this mean for the origin of life? It means the message in DNA was not created by the chemical forces within the molecule itself. This explains why all the experiments to create life have failed - because they all try to build a living form from the bottom up, by assembling the right materials. But the material medium does not write the message. As astrophysicist Paul Davies says, `Trying to make life by mixing chemicals in a test tube is like soldering switches and wires in an attempt to produce Windows 98. It won't work because it addresses the problem at the wrong conceptual level.' [Davies, P.C.W., "How we could create life," The Guardian, December 11, 2002] This is a devastating critique. To suggest that matter could give rise to life is not just mistaken; it addresses the question `at the wrong conceptual level.' It is beginning to look like the best key to interpreting the organic world is not natural selection but John 1:1, `In the beginning was the Word,' the Logos -- language, information. ... Why don't these arguments get a hearing in the typical science textbook? The answer is that science has been redefined as applied naturalism or materialism. Consider this quotation from Richard Dawkins: `Even if there were no actual evidence in favor of the Darwinian theory ... we should still be justified in preferring it over all rival theories.' [Dawkins R., "The Blind Watchmaker," Norton: New York, 1986, p.287] Why? Because it is naturalistic. In a letter published in Nature, another scientist says the same thing from the opposite direction: `Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic.' [Todd, S. C., "A view from Kansas on that evolution debate," Nature, Vol. 401, 30 September 1999, p.423] Let that sink in for a moment. Even if there is no evidence for Darwinism, and if all the data point to a designer, still that theory would not be permissible in science. Obviously, it is not ultimately a matter of evidence at all. What this tells us is that science itself has been redefined as applied naturalistic philosophy, so that only naturalistic theories are even considered. That's why we have to deal with the issue on two levels - not only the scientific evidence, but also the philosophy." (Pearcey, N.R., "Creation vs. Evolution: What Our Children Need to Know," The Pearcey Report, January, 2006).

and represents a corruption of science's original search for the truth about how things really are, by "follow[ing] the empirical evidence wherever it leads" (my emphasis):

"At the heart of the problem of scientific authority is the fact that there are two distinct definitions of science in our culture. On the one hand, science is devoted to unbiased empirical investigation. According to this definition, scientists should follow the empirical evidence wherever it leads--even if it leads to recognition of the presence of intelligent causes in biology. According to the other definition, science is devoted to providing explanations for all phenomena that employ only natural or material causes. According to the second definition, scientists must ignore evidence pointing to the presence of intelligent causes in biology, and must affirm the sufficiency of natural (unintelligent) causes regardless of the evidence." ("What is `The Wedge of Truth'?" Publisher's review of "The Wedge of Truth: Splitting the Foundations of Naturalism," by Phillip E. Johnson.)

Beyond the obvious prerequisites such as water, the sun's energy and the various chemical elements (oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, etc) needed to make biomass, there's the tricky stuff. Those "obvious prerequisites"of life alone, i.e. the "Fitness of the Environment," is an argument from design that Darwinian evolution itself depends on. If protons were a tiny bit heavier they would decay into neutrons, and atoms would disintegrate. No carbon would have been formed by nuclear reactions inside stars if the nuclear force varied by more than a scintilla. ... Indeed! To paraphrase the story of the little old lady and the turtles, it looks like it is design all the way down!

So how did compatible life and mind come into being? Davies's explanation, involving quantum mechanics and something called backwards causation, is impossible to compress without sounding "ludicrous", he confesses. Sounds like yet another "patent absurdity" that a scientific materialist must believe in, so as to not "allow a Divine Foot in the door":

"Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door." (Lewontin, R.C., "Billions and Billions of Demons." Review of "The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark," by Carl Sagan. The New York Times Review of Books, January 9, 1997, pp.28-32, p.31. Emphasis original)

He's right: it's impenetrable. But this scenario requires an act of faith as great as that of any religious believer. Actually a greater "act of faith"! Billions people have no problem believing in "God" as "a superbeing who intervenes in events" (see below), especially when there is conclusive evidence of it, but only a small minority who have allowed their minds to be taken captive by a "hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world" (Col. 2:8), namely Materialism-Naturalism, can believe in such "ludicrous" things as "something called backwards causation" ("Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools" - Rom. 1:22)!

So hasn't he sidestepped the God question? Science can meet religion on middle ground, he says, but a superbeing who intervenes in events is anathema to most scientists. That is, as long as it is a naturalistic "religion," its OK! But again, Davies deludes himself into thinking that "scientists" have somehow gained the power to determine what reality is, rather than merely discover and study it!

"You have to understand that science deals with hypotheses that can be tested, and religion proceeds from acts of faith that can't be tested." This is the usual "science" = objective fact versus "religion" = subjective belief false dichotomy, to which scientific materialists like Davies have become victims of their own propaganda. Whatever may be true of "religion" generally, the Christian "religion" is grounded on "faith that" can "be tested" namely the empirical facts of Jesus' resurrection from death. The New Testament goes to great lengths to show that Jesus really had been raised from the dead (e.g. Lk. 24:36-43; Jn. 20:26-29; 1 Cor. 15:3-7) and St Paul wrote that "if Christ has not been raised" then the Christian "faith is futile" (1 Cor. 15:12-20).

So Davies is another example of what Phil Johnson noted in the case of the late physicist Heinz Pagels, "Naturalistic philosophy controls his mind so completely that" he "can stare straight at evidence of intelligent design, describe it as such, and still not see it"!:

"I am not implying that scientific naturalists do any of this with an intent to deceive. On the contrary, they are as a rule so steeped in naturalistic assumptions that they are blind to the arbitrary elements in their thinking. For example, examine carefully the following passage from The Dreams of Reason, a book about scientific reasoning, by Heinz Pagels:

... What they [scientists] find is that the architecture of the universe is indeed built according to invisible universal rules, what I call the cosmic code-the building code of the Demiurge. .... Scientists in discovering this code are deciphering the Demiurge's hidden message, the tricks he used in creating the universe. No human mind could have arranged for any message so flawlessly coherent, so strangely imaginative, and sometimes downright bizarre. It must be the work of an Alien Intelligence!
... Whether God is the message, wrote the message, or whether it wrote itself is unimportant in our lives. We can safely drop the traditional idea of the Demiurge, for there is no scientific evidence for a Creator of the natural world, no evidence for a will or purpose that goes beyond the known laws of nature. Even the evidence of life on earth, which promoted the compelling `argument from design' for a Creator, can be accounted for by evolution. ... So we have a message without a sender.

The first paragraph of that passage tells us that the presence of intelligent design in the cosmos is so obvious that even an atheist like Pagels cannot help noticing it, and rhapsodizing about it, dubbing the Creator `the Demiurge.' The second paragraph offhandedly remarks that there is no scientific evidence for a Creator. What makes the passage a good illustration of the scientific naturalist mentality is that Pagels assumes all the critical points. What seemed to be evidence of a Creator turned out to be no evidence at all, because scientific evidence for something that goes beyond the laws of nature would be a contradiction in terms. On the other hand, evidence of `evolution' (which may mean no more than microevolution plus the existence of natural relationships) automatically excludes the possibility of design. Naturalistic philosophy controls his mind so completely that Pagels can stare straight at evidence of intelligent design, describe it as such, and still not see it." (Johnson, P.E., "Darwin on Trial," [1991], InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove IL, Second Edition, 1993, pp.118-119, 202n).

Stephen E. Jones, BSc (Biol).
Genesis 6:1-4. ¹When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, ²the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. ³Then the LORD said, "My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years." ⁴The Nephilim were on the earth in those days-and also afterward-when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.

Swiss drag knuckles accepting evolution, etc

Swiss drag knuckles accepting evolution, SwissInfo, October 9, 2006 ...

[Graphic: Pyrrhus of Epirus (see below), University of Texas]

One in three Swiss thinks it is "definitely false" that humans developed from earlier species of animals, according to an international survey on evolution. How seriously should we take the news that only Austria is less enlightened among "old" European countries? Is it simply a reflection of Switzerland's religious history and dislike of change -or a serious failure of the education system? ... This reminds me of Bill Dembski's point about Darwinists' "presumption ... that the failure of Darwinism to be accepted is a failure of education" because "It seems ridiculous to convinced Darwinists that the fault might lie with their theory and that the public might be picking up on faults inherent in" it!:

"Gallup polls consistently indicate that only about ten percent of the U.S. population accepts the sort of evolution advocated by Dawkins, Ruse, and Shermer, that is, evolution in which the driving force is the Darwinian selection mechanism. The rest of the population is committed to some form of intelligent design. .... Why has the biological community failed to convince the public that natural selection is the driving force behind evolution and that evolution so conceived (i.e., Darwinian evolution) can successfully account for the full diversity of life? This question is worth pondering since in most other areas of science the public readily signs off on the considered judgments of the scientific community. Why not here? ... I submit that the real reason the public continues to resist Darwinian evolution is because the Darwinian mechanism of chance variation and natural selection seems inadequate to account for the full diversity of life. One frequently gets the sense from reading publications by the National Academy of Science, the National Center for Science Education, and the National Association of Biology Teachers that the failure of the public to accept Darwinian evolution is a failure in education. If only people could be made to understand Darwin's theory properly, so we are told, they would readily sign off on it. This presumption -- that the failure of Darwinism to be accepted is a failure of education .... For what else could be preventing Darwinism's immediate and cheerful acceptance except religious prejudice? It seems ridiculous to convinced Darwinists that the fault might lie with their theory and that the public might be picking up on faults inherent in their theory. And yet that is exactly what is happening." (Dembski, W.A., "Disbelieving Darwin and Feeling No Shame," Metanexus Institute, March 16, 2000).

State education board drops evolution debate, The Columbus Dispatch, October 11, 2006 ... Eight months after scrapping curriculum guidelines that critics feared would open the schoolhouse door to creationism, the [Ohio] State Board of Education yesterday pulled the plug on its seemingly incessant debate over Darwin's theory of evolution. The board voted 14-3 to "discharge" a subcommittee that had been keeping the issue alive. Martha Wise, a board member from Avon, said she pushed to end the discussion because the issue had become a lightning rod for debate and had long overshadowed the work of the board. ... Michael Cochran, co-chairman of the subcommittee and Franklin County's representative on the board, vowed to keep the issue alive. ... Joining Cochran to vote against Wise's motion were board President Sue Westendorf, of Bowling Green, and Emerson Ross, of Toledo. Board member Deborah Owens Fink, of Richfield, who like Cochran has long argued that critics are wrong to assume that "critical analysis" of evolution was a thinly veiled effort to inject religion into the classroom, left the board meeting before yesterday's vote. In February, the board voted 11-4 to eliminate portions of curriculum guidelines for 10 th-grade biology and an accompanying lesson plan that called for critical analysis of evolution. The move came after a federal judge ruled that a similar curriculum used in a Pennsylvania school district was unconstitutional. ... One would think that if "Darwin's theory of evolution" had nothing to fear from "critcal analysis," that its proponents would welcome the opportunity to demonstrate the superiority of their theory over its competitors.

Darwinists may think they have won another victory, but it is another Pyrrhic victory , i.e. "a victory which comes at devastating cost to the victor" after "King Pyrrhus of Epirus [see above], who during the Pyrrhic War defeated the Romans ... in 279 BC, but suffered severe and irreplaceable casualties in the process."

That is, the public and students (who are the next generation of the public, including its scientists) will draw the conclusion that evolution is a hot-house plant

[Graphic: Hothouse plants, Wikipedia]

which needs to be artificially protected from its surrounding environment to survive!

Schools must teach evolution, Detroit Free Press, Lori Higgins, October 11, 2006 ... LANSING -- New high school science curriculum guidelines approved Tuesday by the [Michigan] State Board of Education make clear which concept won the debate between evolution and intelligent design. Teachers should teach evolution in science class, the board said unanimously. It did not endorse intelligent design, though teachers can still discuss it in class. ... The board also removed ambiguous language that could lead some to question the validity of evolution. The eight-member board sets expectations for what teachers should teach, but it's up to local schools and educators to implement the recommendations, and it's conceivable a teacher could decide to teach intelligent design anyway, as long as the course expectations are met. ... Another State and another `win the battle but lose the war' victory for the Darwinist establishment. It is not hard to win "the debate between evolution and intelligent design" when the full power of the State, enforced by legal sanctions, is protecting "evolution", and "intelligent design" is not allowed freely to present its case: 1) positively evidence and arguments for design in nature; and 2) negatively present evidence and arguments against those theories (e.g. Darwinism) and philosophies (e.g. Atheism, Materialism, Naturalism) which deny the reality of design in nature.

However, having said the above, I should again point out that the ID movement's position (which I agree with) put by ID theorist Steve Meyer to the Ohio State Board of Education (coincidentally), is against requiring "students to know the scientific evidence and arguments for the theory of intelligent design," but instead "Teachers should teach students about the main scientific arguments for and against Darwinian theory" and "permit, but not require, teachers to tell students about the arguments of scientists, like Lehigh University biochemist Michael Behe, who advocate the competing theory of intelligent design" (my emphasis):

"When two groups of experts disagree about a controversial subject that intersects the public school curriculum students should learn about both perspectives. ... teachers should describe competing views to students and explain the arguments for and against these views as made by their chief proponents. Educators call this `teaching the controversy.' Recently, while speaking to the Ohio State Board of Education, I suggested this approach as a way forward for Ohio in its increasingly contentious dispute about how to teach theories of biological origin, and about whether or not to introduce the theory of intelligent design alongside Darwinism in the Ohio biology curriculum. I also proposed a compromise involving three main provisions: (1) First, I suggested--speaking as an advocate of the theory of intelligent design--that Ohio not require students to know the scientific evidence and arguments for the theory of intelligent design, at least not yet. (2) Instead, I proposed that Ohio teachers teach the scientific controversy about Darwinian evolution. Teachers should teach students about the main scientific arguments for and against Darwinian theory. And Ohio should test students for their understanding of those arguments, not for their assent to a point of view. (3) Finally, I argued that the state board should permit, but not require, teachers to tell students about the arguments of scientists, like Lehigh University biochemist Michael Behe, who advocate the competing theory of intelligent design." (Meyer, S.C., "Teach the Controversy," Cincinnati Enquirer, March 30, 2002. Discovery Institute-Center for Science and Culture: Seattle WA).

Stephen E. Jones, BSc (Biol).
Genesis 5:28-32. ²⁸When Lamech had lived 182 years, he had a son. ²⁹ He named him Noah and said, "He will comfort us in the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the LORD has cursed." ³⁰After Noah was born, Lamech lived 595 years and had other sons and daughters. ³¹Altogether, Lamech lived 777 years, and then he died. ³²After Noah was 500 years old, he became the father of Shem, Ham and Japheth.