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?
I was also informed that them seeking money means they're in substantially the same circumstances as someone standing alongside the road with a sign that says "Will work for food".
But then again, you mentioned the money aspect in relation to the immediate question. I mentioned support.
Then leave money out of it, assume "similar" in lieu of "equal", and proceed directly to answering the question.
Then there’s the “If you haven’t seen the film, you can’t have an opinion” routine.
And I gave you a link(also some names in another post) to get that question answered. You refuse to do so. My "obligation"(if it really existed) to you is complete.
I never said that. I asked if you had seen the film since I felt that your post gave the wrong impression of the aim of the film indicating you either misunderstood it, or had not seen it. I have an opinion of the film and I have seen it. You have an opinion about the film and have not seen it.
I know the routine. You send me off somewhere else to wade through their prostheletizing, and where I don't have any particularly good means of questioning the author about any of it.
Other poeple have seen it, and most of the one's I've talked to so far haven't disagreed with my assement. I have an opinion about The Vagina Monologues, too and I haven't seen that. I suspect my opinion of that may be quite different than a lot of people who did go to see it.
You are claiming that science isn't science unless it admits supernatural intervention into consideration, and that Dawkins can't be a scientist unless he admits ID is a valid scientific theory.
Needless to say, this is the point at issue.
Cf. Whether ID is science in the Dover Decision
It is notable that defense experts' own mission, which mirrors that of the IDM itself, is to change the ground rules of science to allow supernatural causation of the natural world, which the Supreme Court in Edwards and the court in McLean correctly recognized as an inherently religious concept.
No doubt, since you asked the question. You just didn't want an answer. The routine is, question those involved in the endeavor you seek. I repeat for the umpteenth time, this is argumentation. For an answer involving ID research, ask those that are involved in that endeavor.
ID seems to be unique in this regard. Normally when you run across enthusiastic proponents of some particular theory or line of research they are more than happy to explain it to you.
Okay, so now you have another in the "not most" group who does disagree with your "assessment".
My opinion of "The Vagina Monologues" is "I could care less". I really try to avoid making "assessments" on things I have not experienced. It would seem such a waste of time commenting on the things I don't know(experienced), since that set's cardinality is practically infinite. There's plenty to do with the things I do know.
Okay, your the second person that’s disagreed with it. I’m running at about 6-2.
Well, good for you, but I suspect that if you get a representative sample of the movie-viewers, you won't fare so well.
They most likely will be happy to explain it to you. But you have to ask them first. I mentioned Behe and Minnich and the Discovery Institute.
I’ve asked all over the place how they’re going to go about testing this, which seems problematic. I usually get silence, and occasioinally a link to a base url with the admonishion to “Go find it yourself!”. Usually that specific a question gets a direct answer, or a link to a specific document that talks about it.
Well, apparently I'm headed off to LV or Atlantic City to place bets. I'm not sure where you go to register a suspicion.
Of course it seems problematic, since the actual tests go with the hypothesis being tested. You have to ask a researcher for the hypothesis they are testing. Ask.
Here is a comment by a researcher who is probably not an ID proponent, yet the comment addresses a fundamental failing of the Darwinian paradigm.
One of the primary goals of our work on gene duplication is to explain the shortcomings of the classical model, which postulates that the usual fates of duplicated genes are either conversion to a nonfunctional pseudogene or acquisition of a new function. We believe that duplicate genes are frequently preserved through a partitioning of functions of ancestral genes, rather than by the evolution of new functions. We have developed methods to estimate the rate of origin and loss of duplicate genes, and we are currently studying the features of newly arisen duplicates that have not yet gone to fixation. In addition, we have recently shown that the modular regulatory-region architecture common in eukaryotes can spontaneously emerge in populations of sufficiently small size. These results challenge the popular idea[AC -- Now what would that be?] that modularity arises as a direct consequence of selection for morphological complexity, and by extension raise questions about the common assumption that natural selection was responsible for the emergence of multicellularity
That strikes at the core of Darwinism.
The same place where you to to register an opinion.
Why is it you have, and are willing to share that information, when you are obviously not the person doing the research, but seem to have a completely different set of rules for sharing information about ID research?
Maybe. Then again maybe not. It raises questions. Nearly all research does. Whether it “strikes at the core” of anything depends on what the answers are.
Because that is argumentation using public information. You can challenge that by providing your own public information. If you are a researcher you can even use yourself. ID research belongs to ID researchers. I am not an ID researcher. I can argue from public information provided by ID researchers and you can too by asking them.
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