We have a word question here. What should we call the multiple movements which tried to apply the principles of Darwin's evolution to politics. One poor suggestion is Darwinism -- the big problem being that there is zero evidence that Darwin himself believed in such conceits.

I fall back on "eugenics." Its an obscure word, but it does not slander a man who does not deserve it. You can follow eugenics from Jim Crow and the Klan to sterilizations and Woodrow Wilson to Heinrich Himmler, who said "National Socialism is just applied biology." It was an incredible evil, which only the Catholic Church (and I am not Catholic) opposed in each and every country where it was propounded.

Marx, oddly enough, because he was correct about very little, had the correct idea about Evolution. It explained the distant past, but human history since Genesis 2 is best understood by looking at the interplay of ideas, which are far more powerful and swifter than mere mutation.

My two cents.

His entire argument seems to be an "appeal to consequences". But that's a fallacious argument: the fact that a result is unpleasant or pernicious doesn't mean it's wrong. In this case, his negative consequences are also a non-sequiter, but even if the theory of evolution were legitimately implicated in all these awful things, it still wouldn't demonstrate that the theory was false.

Bra - FRICKIN' - vo!

Nicely done.

Gawdallmighty I'm sick of the way a certain type of knee-jerk conservative reflexively rejects the theory of evolution by means of natural selection because, after all has been said and done, he feels threatened by it in much the same way he claims (with self-conscious insincereity) that h the scientific community feels threatened by intelligent design.

I would have thought that Ben Stein was not such a conservative, but he has proven me wrong.

Nice site, by the way. I'll have to visit more often.

This movie appears to be like a Michael Moore movie without the jokes. Only instead of pushing insane leftist lies and conspiracy theories, it's pushing insane religious-right lies and conspiracy theories.

I'm sure the converted will enjoy being preached to, just like with Michael Moore's movies. But it will only detract from their (already limited) understanding of the issue.

Also, can we declare Ben Stein to be Godwinned?

Can I just say something else?

Thank you.

Every single scientist lives in a socio-culturo-historic context, including Newton, Einstein, Hawking, Galileo, etc...

Is Stein as skeptical of their theories as he is of Darwin's?

For a really intelligent assessment of how Darwin was influenced by his culture, written by a guy who doesn't have an anti-Evolution axe to grind, try, "The Moral Animal," by Robert Wright.

Also, imperialism's history is not short. It lasted for about, oh 30,000 years or so, until the culture that gave us Darwin also gave us the principles that undermined imperialism and slavery, and eventually killed them dead.

Evolution-denial is proof that as stupid as liberals can be, conservatism is not the alternative, just a fire to the frying pan.

Dafydd, this is the first time you and I disagree. No, I don't believe you are a Nazi because you believe in evolution, and I will get the book you suggest. But, I do believe the Theory of Evolution as currently explained does proclude a belief in the God of the bible. I don't see how you can believe the bible, literally, and Darwin's theory at the same time. I intend to see Expelled and I already understand that it will be a bit like Michael Moore, but I think you're being naive if you think that "Theory" can't be missused by scientists or that it doesn't produce a Worldview. Why the resistance to "Intellegent Design"? Why the need to mock and ridicule those who propose it? If we're all after the truth, why not keep looking especially since many questions have been raised about Darrin's theory. Have you read Icons of Evolution? If not, check it out.

Dafydd, this is the first time you and I disagree. No, I don't believe you are a Nazi because you believe in evolution, and I will get the book you suggest. But, I do believe the Theory of Evolution as currently explained does proclude a belief in the God of the bible. I don't see how you can believe the bible, literally, and Darwin's theory at the same time. I intend to see Expelled and I already understand that it will be a bit like Michael Moore, but I think you're being naive if you think that "Theory" can't be missused by scientists or that it doesn't produce a Worldview. Why the resistance to "Intellegent Design"? Why the need to mock and ridicule those who propose it? If we're all after the truth, why not keep looking especially since many questions have been raised about Darrin's theory. Have you read Icons of Evolution? If not, check it out.

I was never particularly impressed with Mr. Steins intellect, but this certainly does nothing to raise my opinion of him. What is depressing is that so many people buy into such a crackpot idea.

By the way, I did like Pohl's response. I think it sums up my feeling towards a lot of arguments quite succinctly, and likely accounts for the reason that I find many of the arguments advanced by those on the extreme left or right to be illogical.

Belief is the default position of the human intellect. Someone suggested that it's evolutionary (heh) -- our ancestors survived because they acted on insufficient information. It's a hard thing to fight and it will do its best to make you think it's knowledge.

Dafydd,

I still think your knee-jerk reaction against proponents of ID is just as much guilt-by-association is people like Stein's sweeping generalization of eugenicists Darwinists.

As a Christian (and, incidentally, a published scientist) I don't necessarily rule out the idea of microevolution; indeed, the adaptability of bacteria constantly show that one can be come another. But, to me, macroevolution or evolution as the big start to all life is a bit of a stretch that I find implausible.

I know we disagree on this, and I'm willing to agree to disagree -- but don't throw me out with the baby's bath water. I don't think youre a Nazi. ;)

I found it rather interesting Dafydd that you appear to do the same sorts of things that you argue against in your own post.

I've yet to encounter an IDer who actually understands the (fairly low-level) science behind the basic concepts of modern evolutionary theory and statistical mathematics... and without that background, it's no wonder "Darwinism" sounds weird and implausible.

Nice way to paint us backwoods IDers, Dafydd. Thanks.

If you go to The Discovery Institute http://www.discovery.org/ you will find many folks who know what Darwinism is and understand basic concepts and statistical mathmatics.

True, i'm one of the folks you've met who might not understand those things (If you consider meeting through a blog via comments to be meeting someone) but i'm also not a complete moron. I actually own a copy of Darwins Origin of Species and got through about 30% of it before I was utterly bored to tears.

he never calls evolution by its actual name

I think there's a very good reason for this, which is the same reason for the movie.

Most of us who accept the theory of Intelligent Design over the theory of Darwinism believe just like you do, Dafydd. As an example, we believe that:

But in science, a theory is a hypothesis that has been thoroughly vetted, for which a tremendous amount of favorable evidence has been produced, and against which there is no significant contradictory evidence... a hypothesis or model doesn't become a theory until there is a consensus of well-respected scientists in relevant fields -- including previous dissenters -- who now support it.

The one exception to this perhaps is the last tidbit about well-respected scientists in the field etc.

But we call it Darwinism instead of evolution because it's confusing not to do so. To be more clear, there are two theories on evolution, one new and one more well established. The first is Darwins, which has now become neo-darwinism and the second is Intelligent Design. Both are theories of evolution.

The reason this is so is because everyone, whether they have thought it through or not, believes in evolution. They know that if you live in a warm climate you will eventually get offspring with darker and darker skin, just as if you live in a colder climate, you will get lighter skin. The species evolves and adapts to the environment.

We take the same facts and reach different conclusions.

For example, you write:

But the price paid is that science is strictly limited to explaining how the natural world works; it cannot, even in theory (there's that pesky word again), be used to prove or disprove the existence of a being outside the natural world, such as God -- Richard Dawkins notwithstanding.

And herein lies the rub.

It is only the critics of Intelligent Design who proclaim that the purpose of the theory is to prove the existence of God. Just as it is the critics of Darwnism who claim that the purpose is to disprove the existence of God.

I'll let the Darwinists defend themselves but i'm a supporter of design and i'm here to say that the science (There is also philosophy that stems from the research but that is apart from science, just like the philosophies that come from Darwins theories) is meant to demonstrate, scientifically, that a thing was designed.

Nothing at all about who the designer was.

Let's take some other science as an example. As i'm a law officer, my favorite is forensic science. By means of forensic science and mathmatical probabilities we can determine whether or not a death was caused, or accidental.

And that is not a philosophical endeavor, it is indeed a scientific endeavor.

So too is Intelligent Design.

If you believe that there is no way that nature was designed, then of course you will dismiss it out of hand.

But if you agree that science can detect a caused event over an accidental event, then I see no reason why you cannot accept Intelligent Design as a scientifc theory (Although not yet well established).

One final thought:

If we continue to call it Darwanism instead of Evolution and get the rest of society to accept that, we won't have silly questions anymore at Presidential election time asking folks to raise their hand if they don't believe in evolution.

If you want evidence of the disparity between what people think of Darwnism and what people think of evolution, ask around the folks you know, "Do you believe in Darwinism?" and "Do you believe in evolution?"

I bet if they took a poll of two seperate groups you'd get wildly different answers. Evolution is obvious to everyone, Darwanism is not.

k2aggie07,

I am not a scientist. I am a lawyer trained to sift fact from fiction. Could you, as a published scientist, tell me at which point of Creationism, or if you prefer Intelligent Design, we need to disclaim knowledge, admit to ignorance and profess belief?

They know that if you live in a warm climate you will eventually get offspring with darker and darker skin, just as if you live in a colder climate, you will get lighter skin. The species evolves and adapts to the environment.

Nonsense.

If you have light skin and live in a warm climate and live long enough to reproduce you will get offspring with light skin. And all your posterity will have your light skin as long as they can live long enough to reproduce. Likewise, if you have dark skin and live in a cold climate and live long enough to reproduce you will get offspring with dark skin. And all your posterity will have your dark skin as long as they can live long enough to reproduce.

There may be an "adaptation" but it will be in the way you learn to adapt your environment to survive and pass on that knowledge to your survivors.

Not every phenotype is a survival trait.

The best evidence so far that there is an Intelligent Designer who cared enough to design us and equip us to survive is that He is our Creation, out of our vanity, ignorance and fantasy.

And also of incomparable beauty which can exist only in human imagination, and great wisdom from lessons painfully learned by humanity over many millenia.

Pam, there's no contradiction between being a Christian and believing in evolution. There are millions who accept both.

The problem is Biblical literalism. But many Christians have no trouble discarding Biblical literalism without discarding Christianity. If you treat the Bible as a book of moral teachings, instead of as a scientific treatise, and accept that the Book of Genesis is an epic poem, and not literal truth, then you're fine.

You don't have to be an atheist to accept evolutionary theory. It's just the way God chose to create humanity.

Dafydd,

First of all, descent with modification cannot explain the origin of life. If you claim that all life descends from a common ancestor, you must take the origin question by faith. In fact, all science is grounded in faith, that is, that the given and/or assumed premises that underly the hypothesis and the inductions/deductions so derived are true but cannot be shown so within the system studied.

That this is so can be shown by which societal organization preserved or revived ancient ideas that underpin science and then extended it to the point at which it exists today.

The Biblical/Torah creation story related in Genesis does not speak of 7 literal days; nor does the Bible/Torah contain specific timelines that allow one to say one way or another what the age of the Earth is, for instance. Genesis speaks of 7 pivotal events in a before and after style with a bit of the conception (the why) that lead to them.

Speaking as one familiar with physics, chemistry, biology and information theory; I find it highly improbable, bordering on impossible, that life arose spontaneously ex nihilo without all of the necessary parts being in existence and in the right place by chance. Occam's Razor, to me, on the question of origins suggests that the explanation for the origin of life having a designer is the simpler explanation.

To those who have heard "survival of the fittest" as the rule of the biological world, sorry that's not the way it works. The biological world works by survival of the fit enough. Also, there is evidence that populations of living things get replaced wholesale by populations of new living things in the blink of an eye, so to speak.

In conclusion, evolution in the form of descent with modification fails as a theory of origins (and this question probably cannot be answered scientifically). Evolution in the form of descent with modifications and/or replacement explaining the current diversity of life is essentially a tautology applied as just so stories, IMO.

CDQuarles:

First of all, descent with modification cannot explain the origin of life. If you claim that all life descends from a common ancestor, you must take the origin question by faith.

Not true. I am perfectly happy saying "I don't know how life originated." If it turns out (proven by whatever means) that God created the initial Big Bang, that is fine by me. I'm not an atheist, I'm an agnostic... one of the very few existing in the world. (Most putative agnostics are actually cowardly atheists; but I actually accept that it's possible, even plausible, that God exists and created everything.)

CDQ, you really must understand this: All that evolutionary theory explains is how we got from the beginnings of life unto today's eclectic and multitudinous spread of species. It does not -- cannot -- explain how the first life came into being.

But other disciplines (organic chemistry, for example) do give us a lot of possible origins. It's not unfathomable that life could have evolved from non-life, given the peculiar laws of this universe and the chemical stew that existed here a couple of gigayears ago.

Where I might find God is when I ask, how did those particular physical laws come into being? If there is a God, and if He created all life, then He did so (I am utterly convinced) not by individual, specific, clumsy creations all over the place, but by that most elegant of solutions... creating a set of physical laws and an initial state of matter and energy pre-Big Bang such that all that exists, life and non-life, unfolded in obedience to those laws.

That is why evolution can coexist with the Deity: If the physical laws that (presumably) He created were His method of creation, from fiat lux to homo sapiens sapiens (and beyond? homo superiorus?)

Pam:

What is a "day" to God? How long? Why assume that morning and evening means twenty-four literal hours? If human beings are capable of understanding metaphor, why cannot God understand it?

According to conservation of angular momentum and tidal drag, the "days" were much shorter a few billion years ago: As the moon orbits the Earth, its tidal pull produces drag. That slows the moon's orbit, forcing it into an orbit with a larger radius with every passing revolution.

Which means the moon takes more time to orbit the Earth today that it did in ages past: Today it's about 28 days; but while the Earth was cooling, it was much faster.

Similarly, the Earth's rotation about its axis has slowed (for the same reason); earlier, a "day" (one revolution) might have been just 10-12 hours.

Why would God, who is supposedly timeless, use such a timebound measurement as "day = 24 hours?" I think it much more reasonable that by "day," He meant "period of time that demarcates stages of evolution."

And how do you know that He did not intend us to exercise all our mental faculties to understand the Bible, including our appreciation of metaphor, simile, parable? Did God speak personally to you and tell you that He only dealt in abolute, literal meanings? If not, then where do you get off, limiting Him to only those literary devices that you, personally, appreciate?

Dafydd

While I find evolution to have incredible explanatory power of all the abundance and differentiation of life on Earth, I see four holes which need to be gnawed at.
1. no explanation for the origin of life
2. no explanation for the origin of chirality (biological compounds have handedness -- which you cannot create in a test tube)
3. Why were all of the animal phylae created in a geological twinkling and none since then?
4. Why hasn't somebody created a new species in the lab? -- it seems to me to be a very straightforward procedure. If somebody would do that, most opposition to evolution would collapse.

Note that the first three questions are a little unfair to Mr. Darwin -- they ask questions he did not pretend to answer. The third one bothers me the most. It suggests an inelegance to evolutionary theory.

Where there are raggedy edges to be gnawed, scientists should not engage in shoutdown but rather try to gnaw off the raggedy part and welcome ideas from anywhere.

>>> scientists should not engage in shoutdown but rather try to gnaw off the raggedy part and welcome ideas from anywhere.

There is no better way to shut down scientific inquiry than by saying, "God did (whatever cannot be scientifically explained at this time)."

This is probably the biggest objection to Intelligent Design/Creationism.

Of course, the Intelligent Designer does not have to be an inquiry-nullifying perfect Being beyond time and space Godlike entity, but that is the vision driving this "challenge" to science - the desire to keep God relevant by giving Him the imprimatur of science that scientists don't want to give Him.

Of course, if we are the biology experiment of a mortal and flawed alien, and the scientific community discovered that (and they are the ones who would if it were true), I don't think that would be exactly what the Intelligent Design-pushers had in mind.

Snippet -- I have seen the suggestion that Earth is just a giant Monte Carlo simulation.

But then we all know that the answer is 42.

Heh,

The scientific community is freaked out about the Monte Carlo theory, but they have NEVER ONCE PROVED IT FALSE!!!!!!!

Just goes to show, scientists rely on faith just like the rest of us.

I just with they'd admit it.

I am not a scientist. I am a lawyer trained to sift fact from fiction. Could you, as a published scientist, tell me at which point of Creationism, or if you prefer Intelligent Design, we need to disclaim knowledge, admit to ignorance and profess belief?

Oh, around about the time when we decide we know exactly how a massively complicated system works.

There's a big difference between real science and "aimed" science. Real science searches for knowledge, and attempts to refine. "Aimed" science seeks to prove or disprove specific things, resulting in bias.

In my mind, there is no difference in the religion of global warming and the religion of evolution. I'm not saying that we know, scientifically, that macroevolution is not possible, or that anthropogenic global warming is not real -- but there is enough evidence to doubt the claims that the "science is settled". Scientists should tell only what they observe and infer in journal papers. Anything more is just as much social commentary as an editorial in the NYT or a blog post.

As I've said before, I don't limit Him to doing things any way he pleases -- seven days, seven billion years; evolution or spontaneous generation, it's all the same. But I also don't think He did it the way "Darwinists" are describing.

Stein should pay heed to the retort from Bohr when he tired of a repetition of opinion -

Einstein famously and frequently insisted, "God does not play dice." Retorted his friend Niels Bohr: "Albert, stop telling God what to do."

Dear Messieurs et Madames,

The origin of DNA is the linchpin of the debate. Certainly there is a debate about speciation, but it is a total copout to say that "we don't address that". The simplest DNA comprises approximately 750,000 amino acids. I shall not bore you with the math (I will if you insist) but the chance of a DNA molecule occurring by chance in the age of the universe (consensus about 15 billion years) is about one in 10 to the one millionth - one followed by one million zeros. This assumes that all the particles in the universe, about ten to the 88th as posited by Alfred Lord Whitehead, reacted with each other each Plank time, about ten to the minus forty third seconds.

Regards,
Roy

K2Aggie07:

I still think your knee-jerk reaction against proponents of ID is just as much guilt-by-association is people like Stein's sweeping generalization of eugenicists Darwinists.

Actually, it's not guilt by association; it's guilt by evaluating their arguments. I have yet to read or hear an advocate of ID answer the very real problems raised against the system by scientists.

You say you're a scientist; perhaps you can answer this. For a system to be scientific, it must have several characteristics:

1. It must be tentative: That is, if it is based on the evidence, then as the evidence changes, the system must also change. If the system is eternal -- if contradictory evidence "proves" (to proponents) that the evidence must be mistaken -- then it is not scientific.
2. It must be falsifiable: Proponents must be able to enunciate some possible experiment that has at least one possible outcome that would totally discredit the system.
3. It must be based upon previous scientific inquiry, not be something out of left field; it must arise out of the literature and be compatible with all previous measurements, allowing for occasional experimental error.
4. It must invoke only causes that still exist in the world today and can be measured by other means.

(I believe there is one more important characteristic, but I can't bring it to mind right now.)

A scientific hypothesis must pass all four tests; it cannot fail a single one, or it is not science. But from everything I have seen, Creationism, including the newest version (Intelligent Design), fails all four. It doesn't pass a single test!

It is not tentative; in fact, IDers regularly attack evolutionary theory for being "inconstant" (changing as the evidence changes.

It is definitely not falsifiable: Can you, K2, think of a single experiment that could be done that has a possible outcome that would totally discredit Intelligent Design? Of course not... because anything you find can be explained by saying "that's what the Intelligent Designer designed, He alone knows why!"

It is based upon no previous scientific theory; it doesn't arise from the scientific literature; it doesn't explain any other element of any other scientific or mathematical discipline (and contradicts some, such as statistical mechanics). ID arises solely and exclusively out of a desperate need to find some other explanation for the mountain of evidence that points at evolution by variation and natural selection.

Finally, ID invokes causes that not only cannot be measured today, they actually exist outside the physical universe itself!

So as a scientist, please tell me why ID actually passes these tests. Or if you agree that it fails them, please convince me that it can still be a scientific theory... under what definition of science?

If you can answer this convincingly, you will have succeeded where every other proponent of ID has failed, and I will hail you as the hero of Intelligent Design.

(By contrast, evolutionary theory is certainly tentative; as noted, it has changed many times over the decades as new evidence has, for example, given the boot to steady-state evolution and ushered in punctuated equilibrium.

(It is certainly falsifiable; for a simple example, if you could show that various forms of life had completely different DNA -- with a different amino-acid code, for example -- that would sure blow out of the water the idea that all were descended from a common ancestor. Or if various methods of dating the Earth had radically different outcomes. Or if fossil finds were mixed between very simplistic critters and highly complex ones that could not have existed at the same time -- trilobites and trout, for example.

(It surely arose from the scientific literature: What we would now call paleontologists had been finding fossils for decades before Darwin wrote Origin, and they had noted the inverse correlation between depth and complexity (and had wondered why).

(Finally, it invokes only causes that still operate today: The variation of species from generation to generation and the fact that the environment filters out some mutations or variations and privileges others. Evolution still occurs today: There is a species of bacteria that only eats jet and rocket fuel, for example; clearly it evolved since World War II.)

So that's your mission, K2Aggie07: Show me an equally persuasive argument that Intelligent Design passes all four tests.

Dafydd

Baggi:

If you want evidence of the disparity between what people think of Darwnism and what people think of evolution, ask around the folks you know, "Do you believe in Darwinism?" and "Do you believe in evolution?"

Baggi, if you asked me, I would even say I don't believe in "Darwinism"... because if it means anything, it means what Darwin published in 1859 -- which is 149 years out of date!

My objection is that the term Darwinism is an attempt to make people falsely believe that evolutionary theory is just a cult founded by Charles Darwin, and a "Darwinist" is like a "Marxist" or a "Lutheran."

The term plays on people's ignorance of science and how the scientific method works, and upon their misunderstanding of the role Charles Darwin plays in modern evolutionary theory: Darwin is revered as the guy who first put the major pieces together... but that doesn't stop scientists from proposing models that Darwin himself did not enunciate and would probably have rejected as absurd -- living as he did in the 19th century.

Calling evolutionary theory "Darwinism" is a brilliant bit of propaganda, but that's all it is.

Roy Lofquist:

The simplest DNA comprises approximately 750,000 amino acids. I shall not bore you with the math (I will if you insist) but the chance of a DNA molecule occurring by chance in the age of the universe (consensus about 15 billion years) is about one in 10 to the one millionth - one followed by one million zeros. This assumes that all the particles in the universe, about ten to the 88th as posited by Alfred Lord Whitehead, reacted with each other each Plank time, about ten to the minus forty third seconds.

You don't need to "bore me with the math," because you have already proven to me that you haven't a clue what you're talking about.

Nobody has ever claimed that DNA fell together randomly; it arose from self-organizing constituent molecular structures that still exist today.

Here is a simple illustration of the principle. Suppose I took 2,000 cubes and tumbled them simultaneously off a 100-foot cliff. I photograph them at the moment of first impact. What are the odds that all 2,000 cubes would first touch ground with one face flat against it? Infinitesmial.

Now, suppose I put 2,000 cubes into a big box and began gently agitating it. Continue for a couple of years. Now what are the odds that all 2,000 of those cubes would be oriented with one face parallel to the ground? Nearly 100%.

The reason is that the shape itself is self-organizing: When a cube randomly orients so that a face presses flat against the face of a cube below it or to one side, it "sticks." It takes more energy to jerk it out of that orientation than for it to stay that way... so it stays.

Same with molecules. They have a geometry; and when the geometry happens to favor a lattice-like structure, it's actually easy to accidentally create it. (We have been creating amino acids, which are quite complex structures themselves, in the lab by simply applying energy to the primordial soup for decades now.)

Because of the self-organizing structure of amino acids, they actually tend to link together, like dragging tiny grappling hooks past each other. Thus, it's not a random function: The shapes that very complex molecules can take are constrained by the physical and chemical properties of their constituent molecular parts, which vastly increases the odds that proto-DNA will form from a sea of amino acids.

You could as well argue that a crystal lattice could never form "by chance" in the age of the universe; but of course, there are crystal lattices. How do they come about? Same reason: The geometry of the molecule itself is self-organizing, producing the familiar crystaline structure. This occurs over and over in different arenas of chemistry.

Therefore, your calculation is completely wrong, because you selected an invalid mechanism to model (DNA molecules falling together purely randomly).

That's what happens when you crib an argument from someone else, without actually understanding it yourself.

Dafydd

I have not seen the movie but Ed Morrissey has. His review and comments are worth reading:

http://hotair.com/archives/2008/04/18/movie-review-expelled/

can someone correct the link?

The problem to me is not if evolution is true. I believe it is.
The problem is that people use the theory of evolution is proof that there is no God.
And Darwin himself did draw that conclusion, if I recall.
I find the 'we-just-need-time-to see-it' argument about the origination of DNA to be irrelevant to the issue. Evolution does not speak to that. It speaks to changes in existing life.
There are efforts to see if assumptions about primordial soups can lead to life. None of them have been successful.
Getting bits and pieces of organics is not meaningful. There are clouds of organic bits and pieces in the universe that outweigh the planets of our solar system. The why of a self-creating, self-booting, and self-optimizing system to even exist at all is the question. Nothing else in the Universe does that. Only life. Biologists and chemists are not even close to an answer for that.

Dear Dafydd,

Well, I guess I will have to bore you with the math. Yes, we have produced amino acids in the lab and yes they do tend to link together. There is, however, a wrinkle. Amino acids have a property called chirality. They are either left-handed or right-handed. All of our experiments have produced amino acids which have approximately the same number of right and left handed molecules. ALL biological structures in nature comprise left handed molecules exclusively. Thus, the chance that a molecule of 750,000 amino acids has no right handed amino acids is one in 2^750,000, or approximately 4*10^220,000.

Given 5.26*10^5 seconds per year, an age of the universe of 20 billion years gives approximately 10^16 seconds in the life of the universe. This equals approximately 10^60 Planck times (10^-43 seconds). If all particles in the universe (estimated at 10^88) were formed into amino acids, possibly 10^86, and were to interact each 10^-43 second then there would be 10^129 possible combinations. Thus there is one chance in 4*10^219,871 that a fully left-handed DNA molecule would form. This ignores the possibility that it would be a functional molecule. Those chance are are about one in 10^500,000.

Yes, crystals do form. Their information content is very low. The concept of entropy, disorganization in classical physics, has a direct correspondence in information theory. There are no known physical processes in nature that increase information content (decrease entropy) other than biological processes - that requires DNA.

Dawkins' attempt to get around this, as layed out in "Climbing Mount Impossible", posited mysterious and so far unobserved "patterns" that exist in nature. These happen on the other, invisible, side of the mountain as we spiral to the summit. The necessary complexity of these patterns, given the discussion above, would constitute a system that is indistinguishable from an intelliget agent.

"intelligent Design" is in no way a "Creationist" theory. It is presented as a refutation of the mechanisms of evolution theory. "You can't get here from there". This is fully compatible with the scientific method as a disproof of evolution.

Sorry to bore you with the math.

Regards,
Roy

Roy Lofquist:

All of our experiments have produced amino acids which have approximately the same number of right and left handed molecules. ALL biological structures in nature comprise left handed molecules exclusively. Thus, the chance that a molecule of 750,000 amino acids has no right handed amino acids is one in 2^750,000, or approximately 4*10^220,000.

Roy, you're just digging yourself in deeper. Can you construct a DNA-like molecule that contains both right- and left-handed amino acids? If not, then the very structure of that supermolecule would mean it would have to be "handed" like an amino acid. And if all life sprang from the same DNA source, it would all be same-handed -- left-handed in this case.

There goes your "one in 2^750,000"... you're still neglecting the theory that DNA grew out of self-organizational characteristics. Your supposed refuation still depends critically upon your assumption that DNA must have formed by all the amino acids tumbling into place completely randomly.

No biochemist believes such a thing; they all believe that DNA grew out of proto-DNA, which formed because of basic physical and chemical laws and the self-patterning tendency of certain types of biochemical structures.

The concept of entropy, disorganization in classical physics, has a direct correspondence in information theory. There are no known physical processes in nature that increase information content (decrease entropy) other than biological processes - that requires DNA.

Roy, the second law of thermodynamics applies only in the context of an isolated (closed) system; the Earth is not a closed system... it is flooded with energy from an outside source.

Dawkins' attempt to get around this, as layed out in "Climbing Mount Impossible", posited mysterious and so far unobserved "patterns" that exist in nature.

First, the book is Climbing Mount Improbable, not Mount Impossible. That's either an editorial comment by you or a Freudian slip!

Second, Dawkins, to the extent he was a working scientist, more or less shifted to being a science popularizer in 1970. I have but haven't read that book of his (and his book The God Delusion), so I cannot comment on his thesis. But it's irrelevant to the question of whether contemporary evolutionary theory fully explains life.

"intelligent Design" is in no way a "Creationist" theory. It is presented as a refutation of the mechanisms of evolution theory. "You can't get here from there". This is fully compatible with the scientific method as a disproof of evolution.

Read my previous comment; it's not compatible at all, and it doesn't "refute" anything. Can you answer the question I posed to K2Aggie07?

Dafydd

Dear Dafydd,

We are apparently talking past each other. I am neither unsophisticated nor scientifically illiterate. I, at one time, waded through the mathematics of General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. My son has a masters degree in micobiology and I have had extensive discussions with him about this very subject. I am intimately familiar with information theory having been a computer systems designer for 45 years. I hope that you can look past your deeply held feelings on this subject and analyze my arguments.

To wit:

""Roy, you're just digging yourself in deeper. Can you construct a DNA-like molecule that contains both right- and left-handed amino acids? If not, then the very structure of that supermolecule would mean it would have to be "handed" like an amino acid. And if all life sprang from the same DNA source, it would all be same-handed -- left-handed in this case.""

I do not quite understand what you mean by this, It is a fact that we have never found a biological molecule that has a right-handed amino acid.

""There goes your "one in 2^750,000"... you're still neglecting the theory that DNA grew out of self-organizational characteristics. Your supposed refuation still depends critically upon your assumption that DNA must have formed by all the amino acids tumbling into place completely randomly.

No biochemist believes such a thing; they all believe that DNA grew out of proto-DNA, which formed because of basic physical and chemical laws and the self-patterning tendency of certain types of biochemical structures.""

Daffyd, probabilities are multiplicative. If you have one sequence with a 10^100 probability combining with another of the same probability then the result has a probability of 10^200. These "basic physical and chemical laws and the self-patterning tendency of certain types of biochemical structures" have never been observed. These are those hidden patterns that Dawkins asserted. If there is a body of these self-patterning principles then their complexity approaches that of an intelligent designer.

""Roy, the second law of thermodynamics applies only in the context of an isolated (closed) system; the Earth is not a closed system... it is flooded with energy from an outside source.""

Dafydd, I think you have this precisely bassackwards. Entropy is a universl principle which allows for local reversal. The principle has largely been refined by information theory which defines entropy as information content.

""First, the book is Climbing Mount Improbable, not Mount Impossible. That's either an editorial comment by you or a Freudian slip!""

Neither. It is a simple mistake. I have plodded through all of Dawkins' works plus most all of the other prominent evolutionsts. Whenever I make a judgement about the world I make a point of reading all of the contrary arguments.

""Read my previous comment; it's not compatible at all, and it doesn't "refute" anything. Can you answer the question I posed to K2Aggie07?""

"2. # It must be falsifiable: Proponents must be able to enunciate some possible experiment that has at least one possible outcome that would totally discredit the system."

The ID folks rely upon a "gedanken experiment", popularized by Albert Einstein. They analyze the changes in genetic material necessary to constitute speciation. They find that the probabilities of these changes occurring on a random basis fall well below the generally accepted limit of impossibilty - one in 10^50. Again, there is NO evidence that there are "unseen patterns" which would account for other possibilities.

In conclusion, evolutionists place their faith in hidden, undiscovered mechanisms that produce what we see. Please explain why this is in any way at odds with religious beliefs.

Regards,
Roy

Roy Lofquist:

These "basic physical and chemical laws and the self-patterning tendency of certain types of biochemical structures" have never been observed.

Roy, self-organizing non-living things (self-replication is one subset of that) is observed constantly. Crystals are a perfect example: The geometrical structure of the crystal plus the properties of the atoms cause the crystal to add atoms in the same matrix pattern as previously exists... which to macroscopic observation means the crystal, which is not living, looks like it's "growing."

(Supersaturate boiling water with sugar, let it cool, then lower a piece of string into it; not only will you observe self-patterning and even self-replication, but you can eat the rock candy afterwards!)

All crystaline structures are examples of what I mean. But here is another thought experiment...

Suppose you have a bunch of different, oddly shaped blocks (like a 3-D version of Tetris). And suppose that a particular block (call it Fred) has a bottom end that will only fit into the top of another Fred block. You start with one Fred and drop an endless succession of various blocks onto it -- Freds, Georges, Lisas, Amandas, a few hundred others. (Let's call this the SlowDrop model.)

Fairly often, another Fred block will drop onto the first one; but unless it is oriented correctly, it won't "stick;" it must be aligned fairly close to the alignment of the first Fred.

But eventually, another Fred block will drop onto the first in a close enough alignment that they do stick... and now you have a stable pair. Wash, rinse, repeat, and eventually you will -- assuredly -- have a gigantic tower of Fred, maybe 500 of them. This is a certainty because it's a self-organizing system, due to the physical geometry of the blocks themselves. You don't need an intelligent designer to fit each Fred into the previous Fred; it does it all by itself, according to the rules of its universe.

Yet if you dropped ten billion blocks onto the ground at the same time (the InstantaneousDrop model), the odds are near zero that 500 Freds would spontaneously form themselves into a chain. InstantaneousDrop is the probability model you've been using to get your "2^750,000" probability... when all along you should have been using the SlowDrop model.

InstantaneousDrop gives you a near-zero chance of forming a 500-block Tower of Fred; SlowDrop gives you a near-one chance. That is where you make your mathematical error... not in doing the calculations but in setting up your equation in the first place: You picked the wrong model.

In your own field, look at the game of Life. There are many examples of cell-patterns that are stable, even when they are "bombarded" by random clumps of game-cells. Also patterns that cycle through a discrete series of forms ("oscillators"), finally returning to the original one. (That last is an example of self-patterning that is not self-replicating, because there are intermediate forms.) There are "gliders" that migrate across the board, "shooters" that send off "colonies," and even something called "spacefiller" that just grows like Topsy (on the Life link above, scroll down to the spacefiller and click the button that reads "Run Max).

In none of these forms does the programmer decide which cells live and which die; instead, that is completely determined by the rules of Life... all the patterns are the result of evolution according to the physical rules provided.

DNA is a self-organizing macromolecule; in fact, it's self-replicating. There are four amino acids that make up the DNA code, but they cannot combine randomly; they form base pairs, Adenine always with Thymine, and Cytosene always with Guanine.

This means that if you split DNA down the middle, each half of each base pair will combine with its appropriate mate to create a duplicate of the parent DNA... which means you now have two of them. The DNA has replicated itself.

You could make the same mistaken calculation, picking InstantaneousDrop instead of SlowDrop as your mathematical model: How could those hundreds of thousands of base-pairs have "spontaneously" formed themselves into a pair of DNA strands? Did some Intelligent Designer wander by and sort them into two new DNA strands? No... the physical properties of DNA forced the broken halves each to form a new strand "identical" to the first.

Wait -- why the quotation marks around "identical?" Because DNA replication always induces minor coding errors; but since DNA contains lots of redundancy, and most of the strand is unused anyway, these errors rarely cause a problem.

That is, however, the source of mutation; in those instances where (a) the error has a macro effect (rare), and (b) that effect enhances the organism's survival, rather than diminishing it (even rarer!), natural selection will generally -- and very gradually -- ensure that the mutated organism reproduces more than the original. This is how a generational tree of organisms evolves.

Again, the point to remember is the model of a huge number of discrete amino acids spontaneously falling into place -- the InstantaneousDrop -- is the wrong model, and your calculation will be completely wrong; the stepwise successor model, operating according to rules (the SlowDrop), will typically give a much more reasonable number... say, that it would take a few hundred million years for the most basic proto-version of a cell to form.

But that allows plenty of time for life to form around the time we see the first unicellular life, some 3.5 bya. Do you understand your error?

Dafydd

I've just seen the Ben Stein movie, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. I will discuss it in depth later; but for right now, I can say I am even more disappointed and angry than I thought I would be.

The movie is disingenuous, insulting and offensive, ignorant, and boring. In short, it really is like a right-wing version of a Michael Moore flick.

More anon.

Dafydd

Dafydd,
I am in a study group consisting primarily of people who have both a technical or scientific background and are Christians.
There are serious people who are working in this area and are applying the highest ethical standards and best scientific practice to this and other issues:
http://www.asa3.org/asa/topics/Evolution/index.html
Having never bothered to see a Moore movie, I am sorry to hear your impression of this movie. The topic is not completely occupied by dogmatics or the ignorant.
If this movie does not present that reality, then it is not doing a good job.

Welcome to the ranks of the DarwiNazis!

I'm amazed at the number of people who seem willing to believe that if Darwin had not existed, Hitler would have been a nice guy.

Baggi wrote:

It is only the critics of Intelligent Design who proclaim that the purpose of the theory is to prove the existence of God. Just as it is the critics of Darwnism who claim that the purpose is to disprove the existence of God.

I happened to catch Dennis Prager's interview with Ben Stein on Prager's radio show. One of the points Ben made about Intelligent Design is (typoed on the fly):

ID says " You took away our god, and gave us the false god of darwinism. We'd like to have our god back now."

Ben Stein seems to think the purpose of Intelligent Design is to prove the existence of God. Is he a critic of Intelligent Design?

Hunter:

If this movie does not present that reality, then it is not doing a good job.

For only one example that I will be talking about (when I can bestir myself to write the review), the person who gets the most airtime, bar none, is Richard Dawkins... who is shown repeatedly arguing that belief in evolution must necessarily lead to atheism.

But Stein doesn't interview even one scientist who believes both in evolutionary theory and God, despite the fact that a majority of scientists, and even a very large chunk of evolutionary biologists, believe in God and find no conflict between religion and evolution.

You cannot watch the movie without coming away with the impression that the study of science in general and evolution in particular lead directly to atheism and (quite literally) the loss of belief in human free will... and that scientists openly gloat about that. It's a monstrous falsehood, and I find it hard to believe Ben Stein is unaware that what he said is false.

(Stein claims that a majority of evolutionary biologists are atheists; I have never seen such a poll -- has anybody here?)

Dafydd

I have enjoyed your writings each morning for a few years now, and have recommended them to others. Recently, you have revealed your support of the theory of evolution in a way that took me by surprise; you mocked those who don't believe in evolution at the end of an article that had nothing to do with evolution. In my mind I compared this to the Bush-haters who often slip in some mockery of him, but with one big difference: you were mocking me and my beliefs. Would it surprise you to know I didn't like it?

I find your writings insightful and useful, especially related to Iraq. On evolution, creation, and intelligent design, I will be glad to read your arguments, but will take mockery personally.

I stand corrected (by myself): I have found polling that shows that evolutionary scientists overwhelming (78%) do not believe in God; but nearly 20% do believe in some kind of God -- mostly (15%) a Deistic God who does not personally intervene in the material world. A smaller number (4%) were Theists.

But this still begs the question: Did studying evolution turn believers into unbelievers, or are unbelievers interested in science drawn particularly to evolutionary science? I wish Stein would show us more evidence on that point before leaping to the causal conclusion.

Ron:

Recently, you have revealed your support of the theory of evolution in a way that took me by surprise; you mocked those who don't believe in evolution at the end of an article that had nothing to do with evolution.

Specifics would be nice.

Dafydd

I'm am Atheist,personally. I'm also not particularly interested in demeaning anyone's belief system.
However, I don't consider asking the faithful to explain the premise of their faith to be insulting or a form of mockery. I merely ask for some foundation or critical thinking process that doesn't ultimately end with, "well, either you believe it or you don't."
If one takes the position that the origins of life could not spring from "nothing" and therefore had to be created by a God, then can anyone tell me where God sprang from?? It's just as rational (or irrational)to assume that either spontaneously generated. (i.e. if we accept that God appeared out of nowhere why couldn't we accept that the rest of the universe appeared that way in the first place? I don't see the need for a supernatural being by way of explanation, and it certainly doesn't make any more sense. In fact, it makes a lot less.)
The odds against the right combinations of molecules or matter ending in the "big bang" are really phenomenal---but all it would require is one tiny nanosecond in billions of years. Do people honestly think that is less likely than the world being the product of some unseen, all-knowing, all-powerful, unverifiable being? ( By the way, it is philosophically impossible to prove the NON-EXISTENCE of anything, so that point is moot.)

Ben Stein seems to think the purpose of Intelligent Design is to prove the existence of God. Is he a critic of Intelligent Design?

Ben Stein is a media personality (Actor, commentator, perhaps an economist as he's on Your World with Neil Cavuto alot) and not a scientist involved in the debate.

You will find that the scientists who support Intelligent Design don't say that, just as the scientists who support darwinism do.

The Intelligent Design folks, if they've done nothing else, have exposed the politics of science. Science is meant to be falsified. When Michael Behe set out to do just that by taking Darwin's own words and turning them against him, he became an outcast in popular science circles. Because of the need to have peer-reviewed science for anyone to take you seriously, they've decided that no Intelligent Design science has been peer-reviewed.

They've revealed themselves as charlatans looking to push an agenda, rather than seekers after truth.

The arguments against Intelligent Design come down to fallacies. Setting up straw men and knocking them down.

Scientists who support Intelligent Design agree, you cannot prove God with science. And yet, as Dafydd posted above, you cannot prove God with science. Straw man, Dafydd.

Again, see my example of Forensic Science.

Daffyd, where did you get your "four rules for what constitutes science" from? Seems kind of silly to me. Our goal should be to understand the world as best we can. Science has been very successful at doing that by working within strict guidelines, but your guidelines are stricter than anything that real scientists use.
"Only causes that still exist in the world today and can be measured by other means." We hope to have that, but scientists are quite comfortable discussing string theory and quarks and dark matter, and were doing so before they had any clue how to try to measure them. Their goal was to figure out the best way to explain the world.
"Not something out of left field" ID is actually the original theory of the world; no one thought it was unscientific before Darwin came along. There was no other theory to explain life. If the theory of evolution were conclusively proved impossible, presumably you and all other honest people would all go back to ID, and that it doesn't fit rules of what's scientific would be irrelevant.
I've discussed with you before that ID is indeed falsifiable; presumably you don't agree, and I won't repeat myself.

I've yet to encounter an IDer who actually understands the (fairly low-level) science behind the basic concepts of modern evolutionary theory and statistical mathematics.

Weird. I understand the theory and the math pretty well, and I'm not even a biologist. Are you seriously applying that to Dr. Behe and his cohorts? Francis Collins certainly never did; he thinks they're wrong, but not incompetent. If you do, I think it's a example of someone who thinks that anyone who disagrees with him must be an idiot, and I think better of you than that. Or do you just mean you happen never to have met them? I agree that there's a lot of foolish argument out there.

Just came back from watching the movie.

I highly recommend it. Very good movie.

dafydd,
I suggest you watch the movie first as your arguments are handled there. The bottom line is that darwinists have taken Darwins "origin of the species" as explanatory for all of creation even though Darwin himself offers no explanation for the actual "Origin" of ANY species. In other words, the jump from "a bunch of proteins" to complex mechanisms. WHen you apply modern physics and mathematics, it is pretty much impossible for life to have just occured from some primordial soup. First of all when you look at the complexity of the cell and the fact that science is showing that some sort of "code" or information underlines its genesis, it begs the question of where that information came from. The scientists that believe in Darwinism as a theory for all life have to take a huge leap of faith on how that first genesis occured and many accept any other CRAZY theory on how that occured, from alien "Seeding" to weird crystals, etc. Also when you factor in that the chance of life occuring in the manner that the darwinists believe is pretty much mathematically impossible given the age of the earth and the timeline where life evolved. Also, start reading about String theory and Quantum physics and you will see that there is so much about the universe that points to underlying information (basis of string theory) that had to come from somewhere. ALso, what was before the big bang? What made the big bang occur, no matter what, one has to accept the META PHYSICAL for that sort of explanation. The universe is expanding. Into what? What happened before our universe. Physics says that the natural state of things is disorganization, which basically means that Life is not a natural state. for life to continue to evolve and be so diverse alone goes against the very foundation of physics.
I recommend that everyone read "the hidden face of god" by SHroeder. that explains the basics of cell microbiology and physics as we understand it today. I think it would be hard for anyone to come away from that book, without understanding the flaws in Darwinism. Darwinism is an old theory, and at the time darwin had no grasp of the complexity of cells, nor physics. So how thinking people today can think that the case was settled hundreds of years ago is absurd. By that reasoning, no one should have listened to Darwin in the first place or newton or Einstein. Einstein revolutionized the thinking from Newtonian physics, which at one time was held in as high esteem as Darwinism is today.

Also, Dafydd, you completely misunderstand ID as do the rest of your fellow atheists. It has nothing to do with "Religion" which is really described as a whole set of values and morals distinguishable by the champions that faith holds in high esteem. ID is about asking the questions where Darwinism fails to pass the most elementary smell test in order to tryand explain different theories. Just like all the leftists and darwinists, you dismiss the ASKING OF QUESTIONS as "claptrap" You are way off base here Dafydd and your ignorance on this subject is painful for me to read. Seriously, educate yourself and this big Bogeyman that you have created out of ID, will finally occur to you that it is just about pursuing true scientific inquiry instead of shutting the book and saying "case closed" and then drowning out all dissent, like you just did when you slandered ID and by proxy, all those who understand what ID is about. I really, really ask you to read the Hidden Face of god from Gerard Shroeder and watch the damn movie before you open your mouth. You have diminished yourself here.

I recommend that everyone read "the hidden face of god" by SHroeder

I enjoyed Schroeder's book, but you have to read something else besides. It makes me nervous when people read something from the side that agrees with them and then say, Now I know all about it, and no one can answer these arguments! Francis Collins' book is good for a intermediate discussion, and there is no shortage of writing and websites that reject ID entirely and try to answer its claims.

JGuns:

There are so many basic errors of physics, mathematics, biochemistry, and cosmology in your posts that I cannot begin to correct them all.

I will only correct two non-scientific errors you made:

1. I am not a leftist;
2. I am not an atheist.

Oh, and I have seen "the movie," which I take you to mean Expelled. I'm in the process of writing a lengthy review of it now.

Dafydd

I'm probably going to catch it for this, but what the heck...

A rough approximation of the way evolutionary "science" holds is, "Since life exists, we may take it that the simplest way to explain it is to invoke only "natural" causes, such as chance, in it's formation. It is not only unnecessary, but unscientific, to invoke any outside intelligence."

Another way to say that is...

If life exists, then it's cause was unintelligent.

Or, rephrasing that just once more,...

If it's cause was not unintelligent, then life does not exist.

But, since that's absurd,...

Therefore, life's cause must have been intelligent.

Yonason:

Well, it's cute, but it's not really a syllogism; the first statement is not really an if-then.

What you really have is a statement followed by a rule of inference:

1. Life exists;
2. We shall find the simplest possible explanation for the existence of life that accounts for all known data.

Thus, even if it turned out that the existence of life could not be explained but by invoking an intelligent designer, that would not negate (or affect!) statement (1).

But it was kind of cute, sort of like the formulation by which I can "prove" that -1 = 1.

Dafydd

"Here, try this one:

1. Supporters of Intelligent Design eat carbohydrates;

2. Carbohydrates sound superficially similar to hydrocarbons, the principal constituents of petroleum (oil) and natural gas;

3. Oil sometimes leaks, producing oil slicks;

4. Oil slicks kill baby seals;

5. Vicious fur hunters also kill baby seals;

6. Therefore, supporters of Intelligent Design have a disturbing link to evil baby-seal clubbers."

Possibly one of the funniest things I've read in a while! Excellent article.

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