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?
And I haven't forgotten that I told you to "have at it" if you desired that information. It is not my duty to fulfill your interests or argue your points.
EVERYONE....GO SEE IT!!!!!
LOL, ask Michael Lynch.
You brought it up. Answer the question.
And I don't respond well to demands from people I respect, no less from people I don't hold in high regard.
Ask nicely and intelligibly and I'll answer to the best of my ability.
For someone who feels no obligation to answer my point, you certainly have been posting to me a lot. Did you think you could divert attention from my suggestion by changing the subject?
But if you aren’t inclined to answer, I will address my query to lurkers.
Ben Stein, in his Newsweek interview, said that people had been fired for supporting ID, and that many people refused to be interviewed for fear of having their careers ruined.
And yet hundreds of PhD level people have signed the Discovery Institute statement which questions the adequacy of mainstream evolution. Wouldn’t it be reasonable to look at this rather large sample of ID supporters, and see if they have been fired in unusual numbers? Or had scientific papers rejected simply because of their beliefs?
[Going for popcorn ...]
I wouldn't say something like that(well I truly would avoid saying something like that since I do make mistakes and cannot make the universal statement), because it is open to red herring attacks such as yours. I would rather say, the Darwinian paradigm does not adequately explain what it purports to explain. A just-so story is not an adequate explanation. A perfect example of such a just-so story in full glory was an answer given to Ben which asserted that life could have arisen on the backs of crystals(montmorillite?). Ben asked for the dividing line witin this process that separated life from non-life and was essentially patronized by the scientist who with eyes rolling stated "I've just told you how". The words may not be exact, but the interchange is a perfect example of how the scientist expects complete acceptance of a ludicrous just-so story. The fact that organic compounds align to crystal structures is not a sufficient action to explain life. Which is exactly what the scientist asserted he had done.
P.S. In order to forstall another red herring attack, I will state that the just-so story was a little more complicated that just crystal structures. Faults(mutations) in the crystal structures was noted by the scientist I presume to add credence to the just-so story.
Put butter and salt on it Marvin, life on Gaia is short. :-}
I stated I had no obligation to argue your point. I am somewhat obligated to answer a question posed to me. Which I have done. If your complaint is my posting to you a lot, then stop asking me questions. That is a fairly simple thing to do.
Did you think you could divert attention from my suggestion by changing the subject?
No, since telling you to answer your own question is not changing the subject.
And I would hope the audience to which you are playing would give you what I consider the right answer, "Find out yourself".
The atheists in this movie are a very sad, unimpressive lot.
They have a bitterness which comes out.
As a graduate of Iowa State University, I got mad all over again see what was done to Dr. Gonzales by my university.
Yes, he is criticizing "both" sides. Since the other side asserts that ID is not science, I only mention the one side. I find that when my point has been made, their answer is to bring in the other side in order to have something to attack. Or, IOW, "If Darwin cannot adequately explain it then provide the evidence that does". I am not required to replace someone else's tire when I point out that theirs is flat.
Well, then there’s lucifer, the fallen angel...and 1/3 of the angels that fell with him.
I’m a Christian, and I think this is a fallen, imperfect world. God is perfect, but there seems to be alot of “brokenness” in this world...like innocent children being put into microwave ovens.
Your comment prompted me to look up Dr. Avalos who represented the university in the film and was apparently instrumental in the blocking of tenure for Gonzalez. I assumed he was a scientist. I am surprised now.
http://www.las.iastate.edu/newnews/avalos1201.shtml
Hector Avalos came to Iowa State as a Biblical scholar.
Now Avalos can add College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS) master teacher to his resume.
Only Avalos' master teacher award didn’t come as a Biblical scholar, but rather as a multicultural instructor - something he wouldn't have dreamed of when he first came to campus in the 1990s.
"I'm a scholar of the ancient Near East," the associate professor of philosophy and religious studies said. "I never intended to work with U.S. Latino/a Studies before I came here, but soon after I arrived I was asked to develop such a program.
"I have never even take a Latino/a Studies course," he continued. "It was completely by accident that I became involved in multicultural teaching."
Did I mention that I really don't care for him?
Amazing.
As if a supernatural being that created all we know simply isn’t capable of a virgin birth!
I often envision some of these people just doggedly determined to spend eternity dismissing God to the point that if they could meet Jesus in person, be saved for whatever reason outside the nrmal reasons, say for God’s own scinetific experiment; and they spent etermity in heaven, and after a ga-jillion years they’d STILL try to convince people around them that it’s all just a trick of the mind or a dream or ANYTHING in order to deny God.
There simply IS no convincing them there is a God...and the fact that God made these people is something MUCH MUCH harder for me to grasp, personally.
Free will I guess.
How about ‘God made the system which eventually popped these people into existence’ as a more meaningful assertion than trying to blame God for the failed products of free will?
So his actions against Gonzalez indicate.
Just for grins...when I came to believe there was a God, I was not “stressed” in the very least.
In fact, one time while randomly exploring the truth of it all, I was high as a kite with a fat bag of weed and as unstressed as one could be, but we determined there was simply NO WAY things could be sooooooo random as that people, when traced backwards to their beginnings simply could not be explained logically or resonably by crawling from pri-mordial soup over billions or ga-jillions of years and all we know was some random unpurposeful big bang.
Not of course saying one must be high to come to such a conclusion. :) (We’ve all seen the things people experience on acid too! Might be convinced they ARE God!)
The stresses of life may have alot to do with some believers believing, but certainly not all!
This belief about the religious reminds me of Ted Turner saying religion is for the weak...and Obama’s comments about religion and guns recently.
That being said, I think there are some that understand that people lived to be hundreds of years old in ancient times, so it may be a measurement or calendar thing, which may explain the 6000 year old earth issue.
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