Fred Reed on the Origin of Life and the Implausibility of Evolution

Fred Reed, of "Fred on Everything," is a thinker and writer, someone who dares to think independently of prevailing fashions and theories, and challenge them.  A lot of his columns are just fun, like ones on "Bar Girls."  Others inspire deeper thought.  His ruminations on the origin of life and the plausibility of evolution are among his best.

Fred is not chained to any religious doctrine on the great questions of "Where did we come from?  Why are we here?  Where are we going?"  However, he has decided that the theory of evolution is intuitively implausible, that the highly complex life forms on this planet could not be some kind of weird accident, and that something is going on that we can't explain.  "I don't know what," says Fred.  (Mark Twain didn't know either, and opined that the universe was some kind of experiment.)

Fred says that there are two kinds of minds in the debate:

This agglomeration of everything under one theoretical roof appeals powerfully to minds that need an overarching explanation of everything. The great intellectual divide perhaps is not between those who believe one thing and those who believe another, but between those who need to believe something—I am tempted to say believe almost anything—and those who are comfortable with uncertainty and even the unknowable.

Fred includes the ardent evolutionist, along with the ardently religious, among the former (i.e. those that need an explanation of everything.)

After years of studying and believing in the theory of evolution, I began to see holes in it, and eventually had to reject it as implausible.  So what did create this multitude of life forms?  Like Fred, I believe that something is going on, but I don't know what.

What I do know, or at least am pretty sure about, is that human beings don't have the gray matter to figure it out.  Some things are beyond human understanding, and will remain that way.

Here are some of Fred's columns on the matter, that will make you think:

438 - Darwin

484 - Darwin, Sort Of

580 - Darwin's Fly  (Best one, IMHO)

582 - No More Evolution

World Renowned Neurosurgeon Doesn't Believe In Evolution

Dr. Ben Carson

Dr. Ben Carson has a sterling reputation as a surgeon and an inspiring personal story to boot.  He is to give a commencement address at Emory University in Atlanta.

However, academicians are in a lather when it was revealed that Dr. Carson doesn't believe in evolution.  A very devout man, Dr. Carson's views are apparently based on his religious beliefs.   The biology professors at Emory are quite upset.  Whatever happened to Group Think?  So what do you do with a black man who isn't solidly rooted in the liberal plantation?

I don't care what the good doctor believes about evolution (I have serious doubts about it myself).  However, it is amazing to me how the Biology professors at Emory are all in a lather because someone holds a different belief than they do.

Read more about it here.

Poking Holes in the Theories of Militant Atheism

This past week I read David Berlinski's book, The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions. Berlinski is a secular Jew with a PhD from Princeton in Philosophy and completed postdoctoral fellowships in mathematics and molecular biology at Columbia University. He has taught philosophy, mathematics and English at various universities.

Berlinksi came to my attention after spanking John Derbyshire at National Review Online over Derbyshire's erroneous and unfounded attack on Ben Stein's movie, "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed." The article referenced "The Devil's Delusion," so I bought it.

In the book, Berlinski discusses major scientific theories like Newtonian mechanics, the theory of the electromagnetic field, special and general relativity and quantum mechanics. All of these theories are valuable and useful, but all contain gaps in our knowledge as well, which Berinski calls "the God of the gaps." Much of scientific theory employs supposition, inference, and what molecular geneticist Emile Zuckerlandl calls "unobservable entities": universal forces, grand symmetries, twice-differential functions as in mechanics, Calabi-Yau manifolds, ionic bonds, and quantum fields." Berlinski notes "Why physicists should enjoy inferential advantages denied theologians, Zuckerlandl does not say."

In other words, much of scientific theory is based on faith, not verifiable hard data. Berlinski notes: "If religious belief places the human heart in the service of an unseen world, the serious sciences have since the great [scientific] revolution of the seventeeth century done precisely the same thing." Science often answers questions as to the how and why of natural phenomena, and almost always creates even more questions in the process.

We open one door to find many more. There is a vast amount of what we do not know, and perhaps cannot know. Scientific atheism has its own kind of faith, that everything in the universe will eventually be explained by mathematics or other sciences. That, however, assumes the human mind is adequate to perceive all questions and comprehend all possible solutions. This ignores the probability that we can no more fully comprehend the cosmos than a boll weevil can understand quantum mechanics.

Underlying the dispute of science versus religion is a determination by scientific atheists to never admit the possibility of a Creator. As geneticist Richard Lewontin remarked, "We cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door."

Berlinski notes many facts that make atheist physicists uncomfortable. Some of these are as follows:

1. The Big Bang theory. Scientists once believed that the universe must have existed from "everlasting to everlasting," that it had no beginning and no end. Now there is substantial evidence that the universe appeared suddenly about 14 billion years ago, i.e. it had a definite beginning. What created it? Scientists do not know and cannot explain it. Perhaps it is unexplainable in human terms.

2. The existence of life. Science has described no mechanics by which life emerged from inert matter. What created it? We don't have a clue.

3. The universe appears to be "a put-up job," that is, appears to have been created intelligently and fine-tuned to support life. Various scientists have admitted this, including physicist Paul Davies, who observed "Scientists are slowly waking up to an inconvenient truth - that the universe looks suspiciously like a fix. The issue concerns the very laws of nature themselves. For 40 years, physicists and cosmologists have been quietly collecting examples of all too convenient 'coincidences' and special features in the underlying laws of the universe that seem to be necessary in order for life, and hence conscious beings, to exist. Change any one of them and the consequences would be lethal." Physicist Leonard Susskind observed: "Without any explanation of nature's fine-tunings we will be hard pressed to answer the Intelligent Design critics."

4. The human mind. Berlinski notes "We do not have a serious scientific theory explaining the powers and properties of the human mind. The claim that the human mind is the product of evolution is not unassailable fact. It is barely coherent."

5. Weaknesses in the theory of evolution. Berlinksi devotes a lot of space to evolution. One of his most persuasive arguments against it is that the fossil record does not support the theory of gradual emergence of new species from old. He quotes scientists themselves to support his argument. Robert Carroll, a committed evolutionist, noted that "most of the fossil record does not support a strictly gradualistic account" of evolution. Scientist Eugene Koonin published a peer-reviewed paper in 2007 titled "The Biological Big Bang Model for the Major Transitions in Evolution." He concluded: "Major transitions in biological evolution show the same pattern of sudden emergence of diverse forms at a new level of complexity." So much for the theory of "natural selection."

Berlinski believes, as I do, that scientific atheism is based on arrogance and immaturity. He describes the feelings of many when he writes "Indeed, they [scientific atheists] are widely considered self-righteous, vain, politically immature and arrogant." One example he gives of this is militant atheist Richard Dawkin's remark: "It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution that person is ignorant, stupid or insane."

Militant atheism, however, is its own kind of faith, and as Berlinski notes "And like any militant church, this one places a familiar demand before all others: Thou shalt have no other gods before me."

My conclusions are simple: People of faith have nothing to fear from science or militant atheism. Considering how little scientists actually know, the religious views of creation are as good as any to explain the origins of the universe and life on earth. Or, to quote an older book, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

Little Green Footballs: Group-Think at Work

Charles Johnson just can't leave the evolutionist-heretics alone. At Little Green Footballs today he has a very poor poem by one of his readers (Winslow) called "Once Upon the Internet." In it the "poet" writes verses such as these:

And then, with logic so perverse it hurts to render it in verse, The charge was made that atheism is religious faith.

And even Orwell would be awed by language so profoundly flawed, For logically, religious faith is therefore non-belief.

To try to cast theology as natural philosophy Is clearly what Intelligent Designers have in mind.

Their documented strategy to wedge their way to victory Speaks volumes on the nature of Intelligent Design.

Charles is obviously offended by those who do not believe the theory of evolution is a proven fact, hence his daily arrows against them. A couple of days ago he linked to another dismissive post, this one on Zamblog by Zombie (whom I've praised several times in posts). Zombie was also highly critical of the evolutionist nay-sayers and gave a link to John Derbyshire's essay knocking Ben Stein's movie ("Expelled") on the subject. Derbyshire attacked the film as a piece of creationist "porn" and "a blood libel on our civilization." Zombie said he agreed with Derbyshire.

In the piece, however, Derbyshire admitted that he hadn't even seen the movie. His criticisms of it were merely what he imagined its content to be. Wow, what scholarship! This is similar to all those liberals at Amazon.com writing vicious reviews of conservative books that they've never read.

A better scholar, David Berlinski, also writing at National Review Online, takes Derbyshire to task and rips him a new one at this link.

The truth is, Charles Johson is no conservative, and neither are some of his slavish ass-kissers. They are dismissive of Christians and other religious folk, and assume, smugly and arrogantly, that their atheistic beliefs are "truth."

Group-Think is an ugly thing and it has always turned me off. It's even worse in an atmosphere of implied threat, i.e. that the host will ban you from his forum if you dare to disagree. LGF is one of these, where the Great Leader pontificates and his minions bow and scrape to support his prejudices and beliefs, lest they be summarily ostracized from the community. It's similar to what you might see at any college or university today -- the mindset is liberal and leftist, and the social ostracism, intimidation and poor grades reserved for the brave few who speak out against it. That's not for me. I think my days as a Lizard are over.

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As for Winslow's lame verse above, atheism is, in fact, a form of faith, just as theism is. Atheism is simply a kind of negative faith. One person looks at the cosmos and decides there must be a higher power and a higher purpose. He has a positive, optimistic kind of faith. Another looks at the cosmos and decides it must be a meaningless accident with no purpose whatsoever. He has a negative, pessimistic kind of faith.

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Whereas both observers have faith (i.e. belief that is not based on provable facts), the latter believes his faith is factual knowledge (or "science") and that he is very deep thinker and brainy sort. As a corollary, since he is so brainy and brilliant, the optimist observer must necessarily be superstitious and ignorant, and laughably so.

The truth is, the latter observer (the pessimist/atheist) is rather shallow. Sort of like Winslow and a plethora of other CJ butt-kissers at Little Green Footballs.

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A Lot of Silliness Over Ben Stein's "Expelled" Movie

I haven't seen Ben Stein's film, "Expelled - No Intelligence Allowed" but I figure it must really have tweaked the big red noses of certain scientists and academics. Think of the sound an old-fashioned car horn makes: "Bee-Beep! Bee-Beep!"

Yes, getting your big red honker tweaked can be embarrassing, especially in front of all the students you are trying to indoctrinate, the ones who are supposed to think you are an infallible genius. Scientists aren't sitting still for these nose-tweakings and have launched a counterattack at a website set up by the National Center for Science Education. The website is called "Expelled Exposed," wherein the aggrieved scientists with the swollen snoots point out all the fallacies and mistakes of Ben Stein and other neanderthalls who believe (1) that evolution is far from a proven fact, (2) that it does not explain the origins of life on Earth and, in fact, science hasn't a clue as to those origins; and (3) evolutionary scientists have themselves evolved into a quasi-religion who view skeptics as heretics, fit only for derision and ostracism.

Well the NCSE recommended another website of British scientists who explain why evolution is, in fact, fact. The website is NewScientist. NewScientist says of evolution:

If you think you understand it, you don't know nearly enough about it

It will soon be 200 years since the birth of Charles Darwin and 150 years since the publication of On the Origin of Species, arguably the most important book ever written. In it, Darwin outlined an idea that many still find shocking – that all life on Earth, including human life, evolved through natural selection.

Darwin presented compelling evidence for evolution in On the Origin and, since his time, the case has become overwhelming. Countless fossil discoveries allow us to trace the evolution of today's organisms from earlier forms. DNA sequencing has confirmed beyond any doubt that all living creatures share a common origin. Innumerable examples of evolution in action can be seen all around us, from the pollution-matching pepper moth to fast-changing viruses such as HIV and H5N1 bird flu. Evolution is as firmly established a scientific fact as the roundness of the Earth.

Well there you have it folks, evolution is a proven scientific fact and no further discussion is needed or necessary. Sort of like the facts about Global Warming.

Anyone who would say something as transparently false as NewScientist's last sentence above has already utterly destroyed all of their own credibility. Objective they are not.

NewScientist then provides a list of misconceptions about evolution as well as a list of "creationist myths," followed by their rebuttals of these misconceptions and myths. They are hardly convincing as to the evolutionist point of view. See the following example.

One "myth" NS considers is the "creationist" assertion Evolution is just so unlikely to produce complex life forms. (It is intellectually dishonest to imply that only "creationists" believe that evolution is mathematically improbable, but that's another discussion.)

Here's their argument against mathematical improbability:

To understand evolution, you need to appreciate three things. Firstly, that
quadrillion-to-one chances actually happen all the time. Secondly that, while mutation is random, which mutations survive often is not. And thirdly, given enough time, the accumulation of one beneficial mutation after another can produce amazingly complex systems. Natural selection can be seen as a kind of improbability drive that – given enough time – makes the apparently impossible extremely likely.

If you pick even the simplest creatures alive today and calculate the odds of getting their genome by randomly shuffling DNA sequences, you'll find they are pretty astronomical. Even matching the sequence of the simplest virus is stupendously unlikely.

So there you have it, folks. Quadrillion to one chances actually happen all the time. This is their answer to the "unlikely" argument?? Sounds to me like they just refuted themselves.

Well, if they are correct, any day now we can expect a roomfull of chimpanzees with keyboards to retype the complete works of Shakespeare. Or a cyclone to blow through a junkyard and create a fully assembled Boeing 787. Given enough time, it could happen.

I do believe that some form of evolution might be possible and I don't completely discount the possibility. But the whole recent arguments and mobilization of scientists to refute and demean Ben Stein and other nay-sayers only proves the point of his film: scientists are close-minded in their own way and in support of their own prejudices, and sometimes downright intolerant of other opinions.

All of which raises the question: what the heck are you evolutionary scientists so afraid of anyway?

The Theory of Evolution: A Crock or Scientific Fact?

Ben Stein has released a documentary called "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed." The film is about the intolerance of big Science and academia to those who question the theory of evolution. Various professors are interviewed and tell of academic persecution for their lack of faith in Darwinism. One is told to shut up, another is denied tenure, others are socially ostracized. The trailer to this film follows this text. Do watch it.

The liberal/left faction of academia simply cannot allow competing ideologies on the origins of life on earth. The reason is simple: if life didn't evolve from the muck by blind chance, then God might actually exist. If there is anything the liberal left hates, it is a belief in God. Such beliefs must be repressed at all costs.

I once was a biology major in college and took quite a few courses in biology, zoology, anthropology, chemistry, botany and genetics. I believed in the theory of evolution as fact because it was taught as fact in the college classroom.

Today I am not a member of any organized religion, but I have an open mind about God, creation and everything else. This means that I do not have a vested interest in either evolution or creationism. However, I know that Stein is right about the rigid and closed-mindedness of academia. They are a snooty lot, given to great disdain for the "ignorant"masses who do not subscribe to their theories.

As Stein points out in the film, the smallest unit of life, the cell, is astoundingly complex. One living cell is more complicated and intricate than, say, New York City. Yet we are supposed to believe that a cell first evolved from a mud puddle that was struck by lightening, or some other such random, improbable event.

My mind was not always open on this subject. I believed in evolution. I would not consider the possibility that it was wrong. Ann Coulter opened my mind by devoting a chapter to the subject in one of her books. Once my mind was opened, I was able to see the inconsistencies and improbabilities in the theory as well as the rigid dogmatism of its proponents.

So does that mean God created life on earth? Hell yes. I always believed that, even though I thought he chose a rather slow and cumbersome way to do it (in evolution). Now I am open to the possibilities that he chose better ways to do it. How? I have no idea, and that doesn't bother me in the least. There's a lot to be said for retaining our childlike awe at the vast, wonderful, imponderable universe - while continuing our search for answers.



See also this article at No Sheeples Here - it's excellent.