Lesson 5 of the Truth Project is on "Science: What is True." It is a two-part lesson, the first of which I attended last week, and finished up the second part today.
The first part of lesson 5 opens with an examination of God's truth revealed in His creation.
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. - Romans 1:18-20
In other words, the very universe around us (it's majesty, it's complexity, it's obvious design) testifies to the reality and truth of God, so that even if humans claim no one told them about God, they are nevertheless without excuse, because creation itself has testified to them.
For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. - Romans 1:21-23, 25
Do we see this today? Some have exchanged the worship of God as the ultimate source, the ultimate truth, for the worship of the cosmos (remember Carl Sagan?) and man's reason as the ultimate beginning and end.
Speaking of Carl Sagan, the Truth Project showed a clip of Sagan in an earlier lesson from Sagan's PBS series "Cosmos" stating that "The cosmos is all there is, all there ever was, and all there ever will be." Dr. Del Tackett, the host of the Truth Project, asks the question, "If the universe has 'always been,' then shouldn't entropy have rendered it dead by now?"
This lesson also asks the questions, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" and "Why is anything in motion rather than everything still?" and "Why is there order rather than chaos?" and "Why is there life rather than deadness?" and "Why is there music?"
The lesson also reveals how evolutionists and materialists can come up with their fantastic theories to explain a universe without cause, when otherwise we would look at their claims and instantly recognize them for the foolishness they are: time. Quoting George Wald from "The origin of life" in Scientific American:
...Time is the hero of the plot...what we regard as impossible on the basis of human experience is meaningless here. Give so much time, the impossible becomes possible.
In other words, most of the claims of materialists don't make sense, but if we throw in the key ingredient (billions of years of TIME), then in our minds the impossible somehow becomes possible. After all, millions or billions of years is beyond our human comprehension.
Also examined are some basic assumptions articulated by Sagan in Cosmos:
I believe our future depends powerfully on how well we understand this cosmos
We wish to pursue the truth no matter where it leads. But to find the truth, we need imagination and skepticism both.
We will not be afraid to speculate, but we will be careful to distinguish speculation from fact.
We will see in the course of lesson 5 that assumption 2a is a lie (materialists will not pursue the truth if it leads to God), and assumption 3 is a lie (the vast majority of evolution and materialism is speculation that is being marketed as fact).
Also examined is how the line between science and philosophy has become blurred in the past century. Science attempts to understand the "particulars" of the universe (how it works, etc.) while philosophy is concerned with the "universals" or the big "why" of things. Science has gone beyond the investigation of how things work, to attempting to answer the philosophical "why" of the universe. And in doing so, it has lost it's way, and a great deal of it's credibility.
Evolutionists love to claim that Christians are opposed to "science" (they are NOT, they are simply opposed to science that tries to answer the big "why" based on speculation). Yet scientist Johannes Kepler, a creationist, said
The chief aim of all investigations of the external world should be to discover the rational order and harmony which has been imposed on it by God.
Some say evolution is no longer a theory but is established FACT. This means it has become recognized as a scientific LAW. Yet while science normally requires repeatable testing, observation and verification, evolution has somehow been given a free pass from these requirements. We have never observed evolution occurring, we have no recorded evidence that it occurred, and we have no tests that can make it occur. Yet we call it "fact."
Lesson 5 also points out that evolutionists have not only moved science from the particulars to the universals, they have moved from the objective to the religious in their attitudes. Do you see anything "religious," dogmatic, or judgmental in this statement from Richard Dawkins:
It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that).
I wonder if Dawkins realized that in making the value judgment implicit in the term "wicked" that he was dangerously close to showing his hand, and revealing that evolution is a religion to him?
Tackett points out another important truth about the creation/evolution debate. Contrary to the claims of evolutionists, creationists do not deny the evidence, they do not deny the fossil record or anything that science has showed us. Yet they reach a different conclusion. Tackett uses the analogy of a football game where one set of fans clearly sees a touchdown, where another set of fans clearly sees an "incomplete." Only one is true, yet both are convinced of a different reality. Is bias and presupposition a factor? Evolutionists will never admit to bias or presupposition, but it is every bit as present as it is for the creationist.
Tackett also highlights the tremendous discipline it takes for the evolutionist to keep on believing in random progression, especially in the face of all the evidence to the contrary. Consider this quote from Francis Crick: "Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved." In other words, no matter how much this looks like it was designed, keep telling yourself it evolved randomly.
Even Darwin had these unpleasant intrusions from reality: "I remember well the time when the thought of the eye made me cold all over, but I have got over this stage of the complaint, and now small trifling particulars of structure often make me very uncomfortable. The sight of a feather in a peacock's tail, whenever I gaze at it, makes me sick!" Remember what Romans 1 said above?
Part 2 of the lesson today examined a biological function a simple as blood clotting, and how it is evidence of design. What did organisms do until the function of blood clotting "evolved?" One tiny injury to the organism and it would bleed to death. What a wonder that any organisms survived long enough to "evolve" blood clotting. The odds are so high, it'd almost be considered a miracle...but that would assume a supernatural agent, which we must not even consider!
In fact, Crick essentially said so himself:
An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going.
What a refreshing, if incomplete, admission of honesty!
Darwin also laid out the test of veracity for his own theory:
If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.
In fact, many scientists have become convinced that the gradual, successive changes posited by Darwin are in fact impossible. So they have come up with the theory of "directed panspermia" which finds that living cells are so complex that even the billions of theoretical years the earth has existed would not be enough time to evolve that kind of function and complexity, so the first living cell on earth must have been transported to earth from some other planet outside our solar system. (Haven't I said before that evolution is "science fiction?")
Scientists who are hopelessly devoted (enslaved?) to their religion of evolution face some tough choices when they are smacked in the face with the reality that the universe is far too complex to have come into existence without design. They are so desperate that they will come up with more and more outlandish theories in order to escape facing the one conclusion that is utterly unacceptable: that there is a Creator to which they are accountable.
Consider this statement from George Wald in Scientific American:
Most modern biologists, having reviewed with satisfaction the downfall of the spontaneous generation hypothesis, yet unwilling to accept the alternate belief in special creation, are left with nothing. I think a scientist has no choice but to approach the origin of life through a hypothesis of spontaneous generation.
The lesson examines irreducible complexity. This is where one part of an organism has no purpose or function without other parts, so there is no "evolutionary need" for the development of one part until others involved in the process develop, but they too have no need to exist without the others--so many parts would have had to spontaneously evolve at the same time and coincidentally work together to perform some useful function. Quite a stretch?
For an example, consider the simple mousetrap. Do any of it's parts (the piece of wood, the spring, the trigger, the locking arm, the locking ring) serve any useful function without all the others? The simple mousetrap would perform no useful function without all the parts in the exact correct configuration.
Michael Behe in Darwin's Black Box examines this unworkable problem for evolutionists and compares it to Darwin's own test of veracity for his theory of evolution:
To Darwin, the cell was a "black box"--its inner workings were utterly mysterious to him. Now, the black box has been opened up and we know how it works. Applying Darwin's test to the ultra-complex world of molecular machinery and cellular systems that have been discovered over the past 40 years, we can say that Darwin's theory as "absolutely broken down."
Another of Darwin's veracity tests is examined:
...[T]he number of intermediate varieties which have formerly existed on earth, [must] be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graded organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory.
That was 150 years ago. We have seen much more of the geologic column that had been discovered in Darwin's time. So have we found those myriad transitional forms which prove evolution? Uh, no.
Even Stephen Jay Gould admits that, "The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of the fossils."
Scientists have also come up with a new theory to explain evolution since Darwin's theory obviously doesn't cut the mustard: punctuated equilibrium. This theory basically posits that there was sudden, immediate change in organisms, that organisms remained stable for many years, and would suddenly evolve into new species, remain stable for many more generations, then suddenly evolve again.
I wonder what theoretically triggers such sudden changes. And I wonder how it happens that out of the alleged millions of years there has been life on earth, how it happened that two biologically compatible organisms, capable of complimentary reproduction, happened to exist at the same time to be able to reproduce and carry forward such spontaneous changes? But when you're dealing with sci-fi, I guess anything is possible in the movies...and in evolution.
Why are evolution scientists so willing to come up with wild theories that just don't hold up under the very laws of nature they claim to worship? I believe that it is because evolution is a form of worship. A worship of the universe, or a worship of man's reason. And the motivation to hold onto that belief is not generated by scientific integrity, but by a religious and philosophical faith.
I believe the following revealing statement from Richard G. Bozarth in American Atheist demonstrates that evolution is a religiously dogmatic position:
Evolution destroys utterly and finally the very reason Jesus’ earthly life was supposedly made necessary. Destroy Adam and Eve and the original sin, and in the rubble you will find the sorry remains of the son of God. Take away the meaning of his death. If Jesus was not the redeemer who died for our sins, and this is what evolution means, then Christianity is nothing."
The theory of evolution is a religious, worldview-attack on Christianity.
Evolution is not science, but a philosophy, a religion--a religion that holds the universe or man's reason as deity.
The Truth Project also quotes S. Lovtrup:
I believe that one day the Darwinian myth will be ranked the greatest deceit in the history of science. When this happens, many people will pose the question: How did this ever happen?
I couldn't agree more.
13 comments:
More evidence that all organizations with "Truth" in their name are lying to you..
This is an excellent summation of the situation that exists between the two camps, evolutionists vs. creationists. Thanks for posting, Bob.
I agree that Darwinian evolution is on its last leg, but I am certain that a "new and improved" theory will replace it, and that it will still deny God's hand in creation, regardless the evidence.
"Punctuated equilibrium" [sic] is a case in point. Without any evidence (other than the fossil record, which reveals stasis rather than gradation) Gould and Eldridge posited a theory that denied gradualism, much to the chagrin of Dawkins and Dennet. They conspicuously omitted any speculation about how such rapid and sudden changes might occur, because there are no known natural laws to account for such salutatory changes.
Yes, the glory and power of God is clearly seen in His creation and it is only by denial and rejection of God that one can hold to such ridiculous theories as Darwinism, punctuated equilibria, panspermia, and whatever is next. But hold on they will, for such is the nature of man in his fallen state.
Hmm. The problem here is that the data presented is very carefully selected and doesn't include anything that disagrees with the premises - and there's a lot of that.
For example, there's a reference to Francis Crick, but doesn't mention that he later acknowledged that he'd been "overly pessimistic" about the origin of life. http://www.fasebj.org/cgi/reprint/7/1/238.pdf
As to transitional fossils - yes, there are plenty. Here's an example you can partially test on your own body:
Lay your fingers on the side of your jaw. Now, trace along the edge up to the very top of the jawbone. Notice how close your fingers are to your ear canal. Inside the inner ear are three bones, the ossicles: malleus, incus, and stapes. They are carefully arranged to transfer sound energy from the eardrum to the cochlea as efficiently as possible. How could such an amazing mechanism arise? (One that's been cited, even, as 'irreducibly complex' - just Google around a bit.)
It turns out that a classification of dinosaur called the therapsids had two jaw joints. The therapsids are known (by several independent lines of evidence) to be ancestral to modern mammals... and we have a basically complete fossil record of the gradual transition of one of those jaw joints into the modern bones of the inner ear. Fossils representing over 11 separate stages have been found. Note that intermediate steps were all advantageous, though not as efficient or optimized. Some transitional forms did help amplify sound energy but didn't work while the animal was chewing. We still have problems with that under some circumstances (try to listen to someone while eating celery) but the separation is far more developed now.
But even if natural selection were entirely wrong, we can indeed be sure that common descent happened. Books used to be copied by scribes, and (despite a lot of care) sometimes typos would be introduced. Later scribes, making copies of copies, would introduce other typos. It's possible to look at the existing copies and put them into a 'family tree'. "These copies have this typo, but not that one; this other group has yet another typo, though three of them have a newer typo as well, not seen elsewhere..." This is not controversial at all when dealing with books, including the Bible.
Now, this process of copy-with-modification naturally produces 'family trees', nested groups. When we look at life, we find such nested groups. No lizards with fur or nipples, no mammals with feathers, etc. Living things (at least, multicellular ones, see below) fit into a grouped hierarchy. This has been solidly recognized for over a thousand years, and systematized for centuries. It was one of the clues that led Darwin to propose evolution.
Today, more than a century later, we find another tree, one Darwin never suspected - that of DNA. This really is a 'text' being copied with rare typos. And, as expected, it also forms a family tree, a nested hierarchy. And, with very very few surprises, it's the same tree that was derived from looking at physical traits.
It didn't have to be that way. Even very critical genes for life - like that of cytochrome C - have a few neutral variations, minor mutations that don't affect its function. Wheat engineered to use the mouse form of cytochrome C grows just fine. But we find a tree of mutations that fits evolution precisely, instead of some other tree. (Imagine if a tree derived from bookbinding technology - "this guy used this kind of glue, but this other bookbinder used a different glue..." - conflicted with a tree that was derived from typos in the text of the books. We'd know at least one tree and maybe both were wrong.)
The details of these trees are very specific and very, very numerous. There are billions of quadrillions of possible trees... and yet the two that we see (DNA and morphology) happen to very precisely match. This is either a staggering coincidence, or a Creator deliberately arranged it in a misleading manner, or... common ancestry is actually true.
(Single-celled organisms are much more 'promiscuous' in their reproduction and spread genes willy-nilly without respect for straightforward inheritance. With single-celled creatures, it looks more like a 'web' of life than a 'tree'. But even if the tree of life has tangled roots, it's still very definitely a tree when it comes to multicellular life.)
Sorcerer, your comments amount to obfuscation for those who do not have detailed knowledge paleontology or cell biology, besides which most of the points are untrue. There is no clear fossil sequence that that you claim: “The therapsids are known (by several independent lines of evidence) to be ancestral to modern mammals... and we have a basically complete fossil record of the gradual transition of one of those jaw joints into the modern bones of the inner ear.”
Additionally, I found that your remarks are word for word from several evolution websites and I don’t believe you understand most of what you plagiarized.
Here is the proof:
http://www.crossrhythms.co.uk/articles/life/Sir_David_Attenborough__Why_I_Dont_Mention_God/30478/p1/
If you do understand what you are talking about then you will understand this abstract that refutes what you said about therapsids and mammalian auditory ossicles.
“Evolutionary trends and the origin of the mammalian lower jaw.”
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4067/is_200310/ai_n9343278
“But even if natural selection were entirely wrong, we can indeed be sure that common descent happened. Books used to be copied by scribes…” Sorcerer, may I assume that you agree that the scribes were intelligent agents? And that the books came about by something other than random distribution of letters.
Then you discuss cytochrome C, again plagiarizing from another site, http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/18/1527258. Do you have any idea how complex terminal respiration and the cytochrome oxidase cycle are? Of course you don’t.
“Single-celled organisms are much more 'promiscuous' in their reproduction and spread genes willy-nilly without respect for straightforward inheritance.” (Also copied from
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/18/1527258&from=rss)
I don’t know how a single cell that reproduces by mitotic division can be considered “promiscuous,” or how it could spread genes “willy-nilly.”
Um, I didn't plagiarize that - I wrote it originally. Go ahead and Google up Ray Ingles or follow the link to the homepage of Slashdot's "Dr. Manhattan" - they're both me. I'll be happy to confirm it if you email my address. I've repeated it several times because it really is solid evidence and I get tired of retyping it.
Now, even if I had been guilty of plagiarism, it's worth pointing out that you didn't really address the actual points made except with flat denial.
And even your cite doesn't mean what you claim it means. Here, let me quote from it: "The evolutionary fate of the mammalian postdentary bones has been well established; Reichert (1837) used embryological evidence to homologize the incus and malleus of the mammalian middle ear with the quadrate and articular, respectively, of nonmammalian vertebrates. The transformation of several postdentary jaw bones into sound-conducting middle ear bones within synapsids is one of the best-documented examples of a major evolutionary transformation in the vertebrate fossil record..."
The author is not disputing the transition at all, just clarifiying that the dentary and postdentary bones didn't change in a simple, reciprocal manner - the change in dentary size was only loosely correlated with the changes in the postdentary bones.
As to single-celled organisms being 'promiscuous' - look up, for example, plasmids. Exchanges of those little snips of DNA are one type of 'horizontal gene transfer' - another term you might want to look up.
Oh, BTW - yeah, I know that scribes were 'intelligent agents'. That was, actually, my point - descent with modification can be clearly inferred "even if natural selection were entirely wrong". Books weren't subject to natural selection, and yet they show common descent very clearly. Life also shows common descent very clearly.
Now, natural selection's done pretty well explaining how life descended and modified. But even if a better theory comes along, it'll still include the fact that life on Earth formed by descent with modification.
"If the universe has 'always been,' then shouldn't entropy have rendered it dead by now?"
Well since it obviously isn't [dead] yet, that statement beggars belief and rather misses the point of what Sagan was saying.
And you call us lot closed-minded. Pot, kettle, black?
I'll take your word for who you say you are and take back my charge of plagiarism.
The point about the evolutionary progression of therapsids remains in some doubt according to material that I have read. I do not claim expertise in paleontology, but have been around long enough to have heard many amazing claims by paleontologists, only to learn later that the speculation was "premature."
I know quite a bit about plasmids, but I never heard anyone suggest that this gene transfer was sexual (as in promiscuous) or even a method of reproduction. They represent shared genetic information and can even transfer between species of bacteria.
Tell me about the cytochrome oxidase cycle and explain please how it evolved. This is the part of respiration or oxygen utilization that occurs in the mitochondria and produces adenosine triphosphate, or ATP to supply the cell with the energy it needs for homeostasis and growth and differentiation. This cycle is a system of electron transfers that takes at least nine separate steps and involves dozens of enzymes. Like the mammalian clotting system, the simplest eye, the complement cascade, the urea cycle, the Kreb's Cycle, cyclic AMP and innumerable other molecular and biochemical reactions, the cytochrome oxidase cycle is an enigma to evolutionists.
Defenders of Darwin play in the dirt and rattle their bones and predetermine the age and species by the strata, even when other index fossils are present or the stata are completely out of place. Whatever it takes to shoehorn a fragment into where they need it to fit.
Meanwhile real scientists are opening and looking inside at the amazing structures and processes of life. And what they find are breath-taking and eloquent nanomachines that defy explanation. They go beyond even what Behe called irreducible complexity. They are so magnificent that the odds of randomly coming up with the most primitive first step comes infinitesimally close to zero. In each of the thousands of systems (that we know about) that might be called irreducibly complex, there are dozens of steps, reactions, enzymes, co-factors, all of which has to be in place and function flawlessly for the system to work. Might it say something that we don't find simple systems in primitive cells and complex systems in advanced life forms. In fact, some of the most complex and unfathomable systems are found in the most "primitive” organisms. The flagellum of E. coli is a good example.
That is why I said in a previous post, arguing bones and fabricated sequences with evolutionists has become boring. They define the terms of the discussion, but then change them anytime it suits whatever hair-brained theory they are cogitating for the moment. Yet, they have been unable to refute the challenges of the biochemists and physiologists. (Yes, I’ve read Miller’s refutation of Behe and it is silly; nothing but fairy tales to try to persuade the uninformed.)
Ah, I see - you're interpreting the term literally. That's why I put 'promiscuous' in scare quotes - I was using it figuratively. As you note, genes can transfer between species of bacteria, and fairly easily. As I noted, the inheritance pattern of bacteria looks more like a 'web' than a 'tree'. As I further noted, such events of 'horizontal gene transfer' are much, much rarer in multicellular organisms.
I pointed out cytochrome C because, despite its complexity, it displays the inheritance pattern I was talking about. (Some species show over 60% difference in their sequences there.) Your other examples of 'enigmas' are, well, not so much. For example, here's a good lay presentation of the clotting cascade:
http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/DI/clot/Clotting.html
It's worth noting, again, that people who want to deny evolution have a really hard time arguing against common descent - the evidence is just overwhelming. Nobody's tried to explain the 'twin nested hierarchies' I pointed out here, and as Mr. Bombastus pointed out with much bombast, I've pointed it out elsewhere, too. Nobody's tried to address it there, either.
If I may, I'd like to diffidently suggest David Sloan Wilson's book, "Evolution For Everyone". It may change your mind on some of these topics; it did mine.
Thanks for keeping us up to date on the Truth Project, Bob.
But to jump into the fray without all the science speak.
Does is really matter whether or not Darwin is on its last leg? It would take all the people that believe in that lie to die for the lie to die with it.
Let's pretend our existence is based on Darwin. What do we say to pro-abortion advocates about killing off their future. I guess by default the fit do survive, meaning children of pro-birth advocates.
I just want to know on thing. Is there any living organism that doesn't die, including virus and bacteria?
Other than joining in on the folly, since after we are visitors to a fallen world, our job is to point toward Christ.
Bruce -
What about all those atomic particles running amok? If it takes a million years for a cell to establish action potential between itself and another cell that just happened by looking for something to do, what is a cell to do all that time while at the same time dodging atomic particles? How does any cell beat the odds of inevitability, death, while sitting in wait for the next big advance? What are the odds that over the billion upon billions of years that mankind developed from a single cell while defeating death? How many more years will it take for mankind to transport between dimensions based on a thought? What do I tell myself now in order that my offspring in a trillion or two years can accomplish the command of dimensional transportation?
Bruce -
It will never be possible to prove god or no god.
The universe is complex enough to lead us astray forever.
We don't know what's beyond the darkness, we can only guess and that's all we'll be able to do, even scientist.
Science cannot yet explain consciousness, dark matter, and cannot disprove god.
The need for Empirical evidence is science's limitation because it's slow and may not be possible in some cases.
Science is very useful but we have to understand it's limitations.
On the flip side, we also have to avoid superstitions and knowing for ourselves what God's true message in our hearts and not just take the word of others.
Evolution is well documented. Even if true, it doesn't mean GOD doesn't have control over genetic changes.
"The flagellum of E. coli is a good example."
Not any more it isn't. Although we don't know HOW it came about yet, all the components to make the flagellum are present in the bacteria's body as I recall.
There's also nothing in Darwin's theory that says something simple cannot evolve from something more complex: even if the complex thing was useful.
If you bothered to keep up with biological science rather than going back to Behe's treatises like a parrot you might see things differently.
It's not that science doesn't see your (Abrahmic) god, science is blind to all gods - because we cannot prove them. The Abrahmic texts reveal just one versio of the truth - we only have the word of believers to say that it's true. It's just one interpretation of the observable facts and breaks down under even terse scrutiny.
Science on the other hand does not claim to have all the answers and that, to me is a strength called honesty.
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