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 wouldn’t go as far as saying he’s lying, although that was my initial reaction. He protects himself with the qualification, “seems to be”, so this gives him a lot of latitude.
As I’ve stated in other threads, Stein pressed Dawkins to say whether ID could even be considered at all. Being pressed, Dawkins said well, it could be, but he immediately stipulated that in such a case these designers must have been themselves naturally evolved ( neglecting the case of second generation “designers” ... the point being that he’s not conceding the possibility of a supernatural origin for life. )
In the movie, they pan to Stein smirking at this answer. The idea being seized on is that ID is ID, so how can you allow for some extraterrestrial ID but disallow a supernatural ID? Of course, it’s a very different thing, since under Dawkins’ stipulation, this hypothetical ET ID would be restricted to materialistic methods, and have no recourse to arbitrary fiat.
So then Stein asked him if there would be any way to tell if this was how life originated, and Dawkins said, well, they could have left some sort of signature. This was the only mention in the entire movie of any kind of possible direct evidence for ID!
I certainly didn’t think Dawkins came off poorly at all in this exchange. He was entirely forthcoming, and seemed to be a very good sport about the whole thing. If he has complained, I imagine it would be about the editing, and I’m sure there are things he said that he wishes they would have left in, but if the interview was “chopped up” it was done with some skill, because it all came off pretty naturally, with the possible exception of Stein’s smirking. That honestly didn’t bother me, though. Let him smirk.
It seems pretty nutty to me, that those most ardently in denial of the possibility of God, will then (without any proof) latch onto the idea that “aliens” created life on earth.. Sure YOU’LL believe in Aliens, but not God, a God who has been in communion and communication withmankind since our creation!
You know... the aliens that there is absolutely zero proof of..
Dawkins is about as sharp as a bowling ball- Foghorn Leghorn..
Sorta like Topsy, they just growed?
And, who created the aliens?
__________________________
L. Ron Hubbard
This is what you are supposed to think. But Dawkins by no means latched on to it. He simply admitted the hypothetical possiblity, in a brainstorming sort of way. This sort of blue sky talk is normal among scientists.
Cool. That makes sense.
Bingo!
It would be like Alan Keyes arguing Christianity with Fred Phelps.....Keyes would rip him a new one.
I don't find it that amazing that Dawkins believes nonsense like that. After all, just a couple of weeks ago, John Derbyshire admitted to Vox Day that, while it is impossible for him to believe in God, there's nothing that would necessarily prevent him from believing in leprechauns.
LOLOL! Thanks for the ping!
I saw the movie this weekend. The “crystal theory” was hilarious.
Other aliens, silly!
susie
I like to think God kept creating stuff and having fun and then getting even more inspired and having even MORE fun... and after a whole lot of that, He made dogs and cats, laughing and having a great time.
This is why I thought Sagan’s fiction book Contact was such a rip off. Some earlier civilization set up this tremoundous worm hole network that other ETs are currently using. You just can’t kick the can down the road.
"Wow..."
(Just joking of course. The fact that these idiots can concede that some aliens from somewhere "seeded life" on earth, flew off to "seed life" elsewhere or return to their alien planet, presumably where life also exists, yet nothing that is now, was before somewhere else, yet none had an Intelligent Designer, seems to stretch into enternity.)
Your post reminded me of a conversation I had once in college.
The guy I was talking to was reading a Carlos Castaneda book, something about how men became birds and then flew around.
I said to him, “you believe that stuff?” He said, yes, then added-—”well, you believe that stuff about the Virgin Birth, don’t you?”
I replied that I did. He was like “well, there you go.” He said, “Men turning into birds and flying, that’s one thing. But the Virgin Birth? That’s too far out for me!”
“I certainly didn’t think Dawkins came off poorly at all in this exchange.”
Wow, you must be incredibly biased to think that. I saw the movie Saturday and I was embarrassed for Dawkins during that exchange. Others in the audience were stifling awkward laughter at this guy’s responses. It was amazing to me that this discussion and the questions Stein presented to this ‘genius’ were pretty much the first set of questions one would propose in the most rudimentary discussion of this issue. The fact that Dawkins choked on the answers shows how little these yo yo’s have ever been questioned on any of this, which is a primary point raised by Stein’s movie.
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