Posted on 04/21/2008 7:23:01 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
In Ben Stein's new film "Expelled," there is a great scene where Richard Dawkins is going on about how evolution explains everything. This is part of Dawkins' grand claim, which echoes through several of his books, that evolution by itself has refuted the argument from design. The argument from design hold that the design of the universe and of life are most likely the product of an intelligent designer. Dawkins thinks that Darwin has disproven this argument.
So Stein puts to Dawkins a simple question, "How did life begin?" One would think that this is a question that could be easily answered. Dawkins, however, frankly admits that he has no idea. One might expect Dawkins to invoke evolution as the all-purpose explanation. Evolution, however, only explains transitions from one life form to another. Evolution has no explanation for how life got started in the first place. Darwin was very clear about this.
In order for evolution to take place, there had to be a living cell. The difficulty for atheists is that even this original cell is a work of labyrinthine complexity. Franklin Harold writes in The Way of the Cell that even the simplest cells are more ingeniously complicated than man's most elaborate inventions: the factory system or the computer. Moreover, Harold writes that the various components of the cell do not function like random widgets; rather, they work purposefully together, as if cooperating in a planned organized venture. Dawkins himself has described the cell as the kind of supercomputer, noting that it functions through an information system that resembles the software code.
Is it possible that living cells somehow assembled themselves from nonliving things by chance? The probabilities here are so infinitesimal that they approach zero. Moreover, the earth has been around for some 4.5 billion years and the first traces of life have already been found at some 3.5 billion years ago. This is just what we have discovered: it's quite possible that life existed on earth even earlier. What this means is that, within the scope of evolutionary time, life appeared on earth very quickly after the earth itself was formed. Is it reasonable to posit that a chance combination of atoms and molecules, under those conditions, somehow generated a living thing? Could the random collision of molecules somehow produce a computer?
It is ridiculously implausible to think so. And the absurdity was recognized more than a decade ago by Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the DNA double helix. Yet Crick is a committed atheist. Unwilling to consider the possibility of divine or supernatural creation, Crick suggested that maybe aliens brought life to earth from another planet. And this is precisely the suggestion that Richard Dawkins makes in his response to Ben Stein. Perhaps, he notes, life was delivered to our planet by highly-evolved aliens. Let's call this the "ET" explanation.
Stein brilliantly responds that he had no idea Richard Dawkins believes in intelligent design! And indeed Dawkins does seem to be saying that alien intelligence is responsible for life arriving on earth. What are we to make of this? Basically Dawkins is surrendering on the claim that evolution can account for the origins of life. It can't. The issue now is simply whether a natural intelligence (ET) or a supernatural intelligence (God) created life. Dawkins can't bear the supernatural explanation and so he opts for ET. But doesn't it take as much, or more, faith to believe in extraterrestrial biology majors depositing life on earth than it does to believe in a transcendent creator?
You develop a hypothesis, and from that develop a theory and then you do research to test whether the theory is valid. You can have a hypothesis or theory without ever having observed what you're hypothesizing/theorizing about. You may have to modify the theory, or discard it altogether depending on what the research shows. Just having a theory isn't the end of the process by a long shot.
Here is a good introduction into the scientific method.
Introduction to the Scientific Method
Note step 4 in the following excerpt.
I. The scientific method has four steps
1. Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena.
2. Formulation of an hypothesis to explain the phenomena. In physics, the hypothesis often takes the form of a causal mechanism or a mathematical relation.
3. Use of the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena, or to predict quantitatively the results of new observations.
4. Performance of experimental tests of the predictions by several independent experimenters and properly performed experiments.
Again, I mention that the hypothesis step or even the description of a phenomenon step is taboo according to the "dogma".
How is the "dogma" preventing it. The fact that we're having this conversation about it means it's already happened.
Go see the movie, "Expelled".
This conversation is not science, it is argumentation, a philosophical pursuit.
So is ID if it can't get past Step 2 of the presented Scientific Method. I have yet to see any explaination of how to go abount doing that.
Somewhere along the way it seems as if someone got, and managed to propagate the idea that a hypothesis is not really a hypothesis until a university is paying someone for it.
Again, this is not science. This is argumentation. ID states that it is science, but it is not allowed into the arena so it is not that it can't get past step two. It is not allowed to get past step two. See the movie, that is the thrust of the movie.
ID can make predictions which Neo-Darwinism fails. "Junk" DNA is an example of Neo-Darwinism failure to explain, especially highly conserved "junk" DNA. ID would predict uses for apparent "junk". Something like reusable code, scratchpad memory, double indirect addressing, and codons with multiple meanings(context) for example.
Since when does a university "pay" for anything? Last time I looked, universities seek money. And the people who were victimized for mentioning ID, did not ask for payment for hypotheses.
God created everything.
If ET exists, then He created them too.
We don’t know everything; in fact, we don’t know anything.
Only God does.
Just my humble opinion. Feel free to differ. 8^)
I’ve never seen a university professor standing by the road with a sign that says “Will teach quantum mechanics for food.”
ID stating that it is science doesn't make it so. No one can stop a person who believes in the theory from pursuing it by their own means, and no one is preventing them from explaining how to proceed past step two. You can do it right here, and right now if you want and nobody is going to stop you.
True, but excluding even the most remote mention of it from the centers of learning is what "Expelled" is about. And this exclusion is what prevents it from proceeding on in a fair manner. This exclusion is so complete that the mere mention of the incomplete nature of Neo-Darwinism on a label in high school text books is challenged in court and not in the lab.
That's the lawyers doing that. Don't take it out on the lab.
Well I have seen plenty of requests from universities for money, essentially the same concept.
Lawyers get paid by someone.
And you’r still welcome to lay out how to proceed with steps 3 and 4 right now if you wish.
I'll bet it's not the lab.
So what does the university have that they need before they can proceed?
I may be welcome to do so, but until a fair access to resources is allowed any such "lay out" is fruitless, and not a point of this thread as it was not a point of the film.
Again, I reiterate, what we are doing here is argumentation, not science.
I suggest you go to Las Vegas or Atlantic City.
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