Posted on 06/18/2005 7:04:07 PM PDT by CHARLITE
Few e-mails have ever stopped me as cold as the one I am about to describe. In it, the author, a former university professor who wishes to remain anonymous, claims to know the actual mechanism behind intelligent design. That is the mechanism by which God created the universe, our world and all biological life within it.
This is especially intriguing as Darwin's theory of evolution is now hotly contested by arguments of intelligent design. One weakness of ID is its failure to offer a mechanism to counter evolution's bogus explanation of diversity through macro-mutation. As a result, ID has failed in broad view to distinguish itself as a true scientific theory on the origin of life.
Now, I admit the original e-mail has all the makings of a possible hoax. On the other hand, it could possibly produce one of the most fantastic breakthroughs in scientific theory since Darwin. So which is? I'll let you decide.
For the sake of brevity, what follows is an excerpted and edited summary of the author's theory. Additionally, I have expanded a few key concepts for clarity. A link to the full text in its original format can be found at the close of my commentary.
The mechanism behind intelligent design
This theory comes from a critical analysis of the Big Bang theory, Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity and quantum physics. The concepts behind this scientific knowledge can be understood by any person with a modern education and should be known to all.
In the Bible, we are told that God created the universe out of nothing by using light. This is confirmed by modern cosmologists. They acknowledge physical existence had a beginning from complete nothingness (no time, no space and no matter). Then from a single focal point of light the physical world came into existence initially in the form of sub-atomic particles, i.e., the Big Bang theory. Of primary importance were the protons, neutrons and electrons, the basic building blocks of all matter that now exists in the physical universe.
After this explosive event, these sub-atomic particles were sometime later transformed into atomic nuclei and the various elements. When asked why the sub-atomic particles joined together into the more complex arrangements of nuclei and elements, science answers that it is due to the "electromagnetic force." This EMF is carried out through an exchange of photons, which are light energy. For example, a photon is emitted by an atom during a transition from one energy state to another.
Both the Big Bang event and subsequent arrangement of sub-atomic particles, therefore, provide our first opportunity to see light as the interface between the non-physical (spiritual) world and physical existence. Think about it. From light came matter. Then that matter was organized into various elements by EMF.
This is supported by Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity concerning the characteristics of light. Specifically, photons of light can behave dually like a stream of high-speed, submicroscopic particles, but also like a wave phenomenon. A wave is defined as a disturbance that propagates and carries energy. As a wave, light does not show the physical property of mass. This non-material characteristic, once again, reveals light as an interface between the non-physical (spiritual) world and the physical universe.
Science can confirm at the sub-atomic, atomic and molecular levels that changes are often due to information passed by an exchange of light energy. Unfortunately, as we reach the next level of complexity, which is the progression from the molecular stage to biological life, the processes exceed our current ability to appropriately dissect. But through logic, extrapolation and preliminary scientific findings, we may fairly hypothesize that the same method of applying EMF/light is used as in the earlier stages of progressive development.
For example, the changes from one life form to another may require only slight alterations and/or additions to the overall structure of the DNA molecule. These small structural changes would not occur by mutation as the theory of evolution suggests, but rather by EMF causing and creating ever-increasing complex relationships between the nucleotides along the DNA strand. The combined effects of these small structural changes to the DNA molecule would be sufficient to create progressively complex physical life. This explains how a human has only double the number of genes as a fruit fly. The amount of DNA didn't need to proportionately increase with human complexity; rather complexity of the relationships among existing nucleotides needed to increase.
This hypothesis on the origin of life provides a scientifically testable alternative to the mechanism of macro-mutation offered by evolution. My reason for sharing this theory is that I find it intriguing, but I do not have the expertise in physics to test it adequately. I do know as a molecular biologist that Darwin's theory is unworkable. So my hope is this presentation will intrigue others who are qualified to determine whether this theory has sufficient merit to develop it further, dismiss it entirely or rework into something more plausible.
In closing, it is of interest to recall that according to the Bible, God created the world and all that is in it through Christ Jesus who identifies himself as the Light of the World. The full text of the e-mail can be read at http://www.ScienceMinistries.org.
Kelly Hollowell, J.D., Ph.D., is a scientist, patent attorney and adjunct law professor of bioethics. She is a senior strategist for the Center for Reclaiming America, a conference speaker and founder of Science Ministries Inc.
Recent cosmogony is basically and effort to avoid the theological implications of the big bang theory. Is string theory any more valid than Ptolomy's epicycles. except that the latter fit the data better?
That is quite a revelation. Might epicycles affect interplanetary trajectories?
Sounds like an undergrad explanation of evolution.
Where are the space aliens? ID'ers claim the Designer is not God.
And no photons?
That's right. Photons as such exist only below the electroweak breaking scale; they are really a low-energy mixture of two fundamental electroweak bosons. From Introduction to High Energy Physics by Donald H. Perkins, 3rd Edition, p. 322:
The fundamental vector bosons are a massless isovector triplet Wmu = Wmu(1), Wmu(2), Wmu(3) (for SU(2)) and a massless isosinglet Bmu (for U(1)). As a result of spontaneous symmetry breaking, three bosons (denoted Wmu+, Wmu-, and Zmu0) acquire mass, and one (Amu, the photon) remains massless. These four bosons are combinations of Wmu and Bmu...
(The "mu" is supposed to be a lowercase Greek letter mu.)
Above the electroweak breaking scale, you have W1, W2, W3 and B, which are the fundamental bosons; below that scale, you have W+, W-, Z0, and the photon, which are mixtures.
Ahh, then there are no fundamental particles, everything is a mixture of massless things and the Higgs boson which is also rather elusive?
Perhaps. We don't know, yet.
everything is a mixture of massless things
Masslessness is more elegant, more mathematically pure, so I would expect truly fundamental particles to be massless, yes. But that's OK; after all, photons are massless.
and the Higgs boson which is also rather elusive?
The Higgs boson is also a by-product of electroweak symmetry breaking.
Well, then that just puts the icing on the cake. Something that no longer exists came from nothing that did not exist giving us something we haven't found.
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