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Hoehn, Jack
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What Evolution Cannot Explain and the Church Must Not Forget
Submitted: Feb 28, 2013
By Jack Hoehn
“ORIGINS” Sabbath School Lesson 9 tries to cover a lot of ground with pronouncements on extramarital sex, homosexuality, and advice on gender roles in human marriage. Perhaps we can refocus our attention on the amazing fact of sexual reproduction at all, and what that tells us about the Creator’s intentions with male and female.EVOLUTION FAILS: TO ACCOUNT FOR SEXUALITY
In her 2005 book, evolutionary biologist Elisabeth Anne Lloyd, has exposed the inadequacy of the attempts by male Darwinists to explain an evolutionary justification for sexuality, especially the reason that evolution would create female pleasure in sex. She identifies 21 attempts to do so, but she debunks them all! Lloyd writes, “It may seem to be obvious that the female orgasm has an evolutionary function, but the obviousness of this conclusion must be reevaluated after looking at the relevant evidence. It turns out that no one has ever adequately shown a function for the female orgasm in increasing either fertility or reproductive success.” (1.)
While sexual reproduction of plants, animals, and humans obviously is a very clever, very useful, and very intelligent way to provide variety, vigor, and success to our offspring, it is mind-boggling to explain how this highly specified complexity could spontaneously arise without a Master plan requiring it.
Carl Zimmer wrote honestly: “Sex is not only unnecessary, but it ought to be a recipe for evolutionary disaster. For one thing, it is an inefficient way to reproduce.... And sex carries other costs as well.... By all rights, any group of animals that evolves sexual reproduction should be promptly outcompeted by nonsexual ones. And yet sex reigns.... Why is sex a success, despite all its disadvantages?” (2.)
The Intelligent Design view of created sexuality, is happily free of the necessity to have sexual pleasure a servant of reproductive success. ID and other creationists are quite able to accept this created and designed function as pure pleasure, just for fun, just for happiness, just because God loves women and wants them to have a good time.
The apostate Christian church turns creation on its head when it proclaims that the only function of sexuality is reproduction. Christianity is guilty of demonized steps freeing the pleasure of sex from reproduction. Being fruitful, multiplying, and replenishing the earth is a wonderful task given by the Creator to animals and man. But being one flesh, naked and unashamed cleaving is good and holy, even when having babies is either not desired, necessary, or possible.
CREATION TEACHES: THE CROWN OF CREATION – WOMAN
The Adventist doctrine of creation should remind believers that the creation narrative in Genesis does not suggest that man is the crowning work of God’s creation.
If you believe that God took seven days or that God took 13.8 billion years to prepare a place for us, it is a clear that His creative activities, days, stages, eras, steps were cumulative and progressive, he was getting ready for something with light, atmosphere, earth, plants, astronomy, water creatures, air creatures, land creatures, then Adam the naked human.
Each step was a preparation for advanced carbon based life, each chambered nautilus, tree fern, creeping thing, banana plant, herd animal, canine, chimpanzee and gorilla, was another step towards the crowning work of creation.
And one of the vital steps was the creation of sexual reproduction. This most unlikely method of reproduction, this complicated and reciprocal snag in the theory of undirected evolution, this completely unexplained complexity on Darwinian principles, was part of the preparation for what was to come. The naked man was a great step, made unlike the other preceding creatures in the image of God. But like the animals, very much in the need of his sexual partner.
After God made male and female apes, God made a man. But creation still had not reached its peak, its crown, its intended goal, until God made…. woman. (If you believe that man is the crown of creation because God made Adam first, then I suggest you might just as logically believe that the chimpanzee is the crown of creation, because God made the chimp before he made Adam!)
The Genesis creation story, if it says anything about gender relationships, should be clearly understood as saying that Woman was God’s crowning work. Women after the fall have been deemed inferior and subservient to men, but in Christianity women will be Re-deemed; Re-valued; Re-placed back in their original place, as the peak, the ruler, the Crown of Creation. First among equals? At very least equal for sure.
CREATION TEACHES: GOD ALONE WAS NOT ENOUGH
In a world without human rebellion and sin, God alone was not enough for the human. (3.) Adam had his Creator. He was uniquely created by YAHWEH Elohim. He conversed with Him and was given the pleasure of a task to do in identifying all the animals.
Adam was in the image of God, just as the apes were created in the image of man. And lemurs and bush babies were created in the image of apes. But even though Adam had the animals and Adam had God, it was not enough.
God knew that of course, but wanted Adam to know it too, wanted Adam to value what was coming next, wanted Adam to realize that he needed more than God. This naked man needed his naked and unashamed woman . And as the animals had been created first to serve him, Adam was created first to meet the needs and serve Eve.
How satanic that the Christian church began to forbid marriage. How unbiblical that she ever taught that, “It is very good and very spiritual for men to live without women, and women to live without men.” Bah! Humbug! Begone celibacy, monkery, nunnery.
How satanic that the Christian church men taught that, “It is God’s plan that women were created to serve the needs of men.” Bah! Humbug! B gone male chauvinism and male rulership; God’s original plan was female Queenship.
How satanic that it has taken the church 1,844 years since the Holy Ghost proclaimed through the lips of Paul, that in Christ there is no male or female before Adventism welcomed a female spiritual leader in Ellen White. How sad that not till 2,012 has our church begun to demand gender equality in ministry. Bah! Humbug! Begone “ordinationtruth.com”.
When our General Conference President is a skilled and capable woman administrator, perhaps this prophecy can then be fulfilled: “When the character of Christ shall be perfectly reproduced in His people, then He will come to claim them as His own.” (2.)
Adventism should know all the truths that creation teaches—plants are the best food, the 7th day is the Sabbath, women were not created subordinate to men, and sexuality is not something that could evolve without an Intelligent Designer having a plan.
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ENDNOTES:
1.)Elisabeth A. Lloyd, ”The Case of the Female Orgasm: Bias in the Science of Evolution,” Harvard University Press, 2005, p. 1.
2.)Carl Zimmer, “Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea”, 2001, p. 230, 231.
3.)Ellen G. White, “Christ’s Object Lessons” p. 69.
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Duck!!
There clearly are "patterns" of sexuality, as there are other "patterns" in nature. These regularities (though highly variable within limits and constraints) certainly indicate "design" of a sort. The fact that structure and function occur within some regularities implies that processes have operated that sustained and refined those regularities. There is a sense in which those processes can be thought of as designers. That is not really the same thing as the concept that "a Mind" engaged in a "top down" design process. I don't mind at all if you believe in top down design, but the claim that because some evolutionary biologists cannot agree on a consensus explanation of the adaptive value of sexual reproduction and behavior and pleasure, that prooves a top down ID, really is not very fulfilling.
In any case. I wish you well.
May I restate what you are suggesting to see if I understand your argument? Are you telling me that the existence of a fact of nature (sexuality) is itself its own argument that it evolved ? This seems blatantly circular and only makes sense to me if I start with the unchallenged supposition that nothing was designed and evolution explains everything. If I agreed with that metanarrative only then does the fact that Sexuality exists means obviously evolution did it we just don’t have any rational explanation how.
Well I don’t, and it doesn’t make sense at all. What am I missing from your argument?
As previously blogged, I understand that things evolve, change, adapt, mutate. But that unguided or even Theistic hands-off evolution can explain the origin of life; the major changes in life forms appearing suddenly then remaining unchanged for long periods of time; the multiple evidences of convergence where the same things happen in unrelated life forms with different mechanisms; and the complexity of so many things that even atheist evolutionists admit “appear to be designed;” all lead to a much different emotion in me than your statement that ID leaves you feeling not very fulfilled.
Set aside our feelings, and tell me how the fact that a complex and design rich, inefficient, uneconomic energy requiring, non-intuitive, but very fun and pleasurable form of reproduction exists, proved it evolved without a design or designer?
Joe, why not give ID credit for suggesting an answer that fits the evidence, even if not leaving you feeling fulfilled? I find it quite calming and reassuring myself.
Maybe each was the invention of the Intelligent Master Designer. Of course you are free to believe that. Those who do, seem often to claim that a Designer is the only way a "design" or something organized in a way that functions can occur. I sometime wonder if such people have ever designed anything that did not work exactly as they intended the very first time they tried it out.
Those of us who have designed a lot of things have experienced things that worked as intended, things that did not work as intended, things that worked in ways we did not really expect them to (even better than hoped for), or were able to be refined through trial-and-error. Functionality can drive changes in design, at least with regard to inanimate inventions. Selective breeding demonstrates that pretty dramatic changes can occur in anmals, at least within "kinds," what ID folks sometimes call "micro-evolution." It is essentially, descent with modification. The modifications can be functional, although, artificial selection sometimes results in unwanted outcomes in addition to intended consequences.
Wallace pointed out to Darwin that what happens on purpose with animal breeding seems to also happen in nature (descent with modification). Darwin claimed to have already thought of that, but invited Wallace to coauthor the initial presentation of the concept. Essentially the idea is that environments impose some limits on what works (= functions). Sometimes there are permissive environments that allow emergent functions to flourish. This results in adaptation. Well, we could agree that it is "micro-adaptation," right? In descent with modification, populations of organisms change, at least somewhat. Revolutionary changes seem not to happen so very often. The principle of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" may be pretty old. And if environments rapidly change to the point of requiring major changes in organisms, the organisms may not have enough flexibility to survive.
To be entirely fair, I think you are correct in suggesting that there is some circularity in evolutionary explanations. That is, in part, because if something exists, it has survived. That indicates that it functions adequately. Attempts to explain why it survived may be accurate or not, and we cannot automatically distinguish among an array of after-the-fact explanations. Just because someone can provide a plausible explanation does not mean that the explanation is correct--whether the explanation is a natural or supernatural process (or even a combination of the two).
It seems to me that it might well be quite comforting to be confident of an Intelligent Design special creation. It might also be very uncomfortable to think that some random and purposeless process created us. But whether we are comfortable or not probably has nothing to do wiith what actually happened. Whether I "feel fulfilled" by an explanation probably has nothing to do with its validity. So, a better way of putting it would be that I do not see that ID suggests an answer that fits the evidence better than descent with modification, selection, adaptation, multiple sources of genetic/genomic variation, etc.
“So, a better way of putting it would be that I do not see that ID suggests an answer that fits the evidence better than descent with modification, selection, adaptation, multiple sources of genetic/genomic variation, etc.”
How does the lack of intelligence or design suggest an answer that explains things or fits evidence better?
So you do not deny innate intelligence or design. How did it come about?
Joe, regarding the "pseudoscientific style" of Intelligent Design writers, may I ask if you have read for yourself, or only book review of others of: Stephen Myers THE SIGNATURE IN THE CELL, or Michael Behe's DARWIN'S BLACK BOX or his THE EDGE OF EVOLUTION?
I do not consider those three books by ID scientists "pseudoscientific", and would be surprised if you would if you read them instead of reviews about them.
And neither do I consider the hundreds of ecolutionary "possible scenarios" attempting to explain how evolution might have happened, as "scientific". These "just so stories" have been effectively exposed by many evolutionary scientists of course, but they remain a powerful underpining of evolutionary dogma.
Sabbat shalom.
Love and Peace to all.
"Both humans and chimpanzees have a broken copy of a gene that in other mammals helps make vitamin C. It's hard to imagine how there could be stronger evidence for common ancestry of chimps and humans. There's no reason to doubt that Darwin hard this point right, that all creatures on earth are biological relatives."
Hre, of course, he is writing about what are called "conserved" and "derived" characteristics. He focuses some on the issue of "random" mutations as the source of variation on which selection acts. As I have said elsewhere, this was also a problem I focused on 40+ years ago.
"...As for my views on the 'teaching of ID', they can be summed up thus: I can't myself see how 'ID' could be taught as such. It is the opposite of Darwinism, in that it is a sceptical current, not an overarching and unified theory of nature..." http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2010/02/why-do-they-need-to-be-so-rude.html
He goes on to mention another point in relation to that, and then refers to Behe, but it seems to make a critical point: ID only gets its "life" in the debate by being an antagonist, not offering real answers in a unified theory.
The "unified theory" component is, I suspect, what Creationists attempt to add by selectively using ID arguments and placing them in the Biblical, Theistic model. Joe, I think these "selective" uses of Behe and the like that you suggest are driven by this Creationist agenda to capitalize on ID material. I would call a lot of it pseudo science, but even what is not, if there is any, is often used for purposes it was never intended for. Just like Behe's arguments against the origins of RNA etc are used against evolutionary processes after life began.
Chris, ID theorists do not wish ID to "be taught" in schools. We wish that ALL of science should be taught. The confirming evidence and disconfirming evidence. Students should know about of the huge gaps in the fossil record. The Cambrian explosion, the Angiosperm explosion, ect ect. Punctuated Equalibrium theory and WHY Gould devised it. ect ect. And we desire science should discontinue mixing theology with the teaching of evolutionary science. If you are interested in examples of this I will share them.
DAVID M. RAUP, Chicago Field Museum, Prof. of Geology, Univ. of Chicago, “A large number of well-trained scientists outside of evolutionary biology and paleontology have unfortunately gotten the idea that the fossil record is far more Darwinian than it is. This probably comes from the oversimplification inevitable in secondary sources: low-level textbooks, semipopular articles, and so on. Also, there is probably some wishful thinking involved. In the years after Darwin, his advocates hoped to find predictable progressions. In general, these have not been found. Yet the optimism has died hard, and some pure fantasy has crept into textbooks.” New Scientist, Vol. 90, p.832, 1981
"Evolution . . is not only under attack by fundamentalist Christians, but is also being questioned by reputable scientists. Among paleontologists, scientists who study the fossil record, there is growing dissent from the prevailing view of Darwinism." James Gorman, "The Tortoise or the Hare?" Discover, October 1980, p. 88.
National Academy of Sciences USA—that Darwin’s greatest accomplishement was to show how life’s complexity, “can be explained as the result of a natural process—natural selection---without any need to resort to a creator or other external agent.” Darwin’s Greatest Discovery: Design without a designer,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, Vol. 104:8573 (may 15, 2007)
If you mean examples of "mixing theology with the teaching of evolutionary science", sure, IF is it not too far off topic, I'd be interested, but please, your summaries, or brief, pertinent quotes - not endless, barely relevant stuff!
If you are offering examples of "disconfirming" evidence. If you can avoid using "absence" of evidence (eg gaps in fossil record) as your "diconfirming evidence", that may be interesting, on the same basis as above, and not too far off Jack's theme!
On a similar note. The Cambrian exp. etc, I am sure you would not suggest that uncertainty over scientfic explanations for its causes, triggers, constitute disconfirming evidence. So, again, if you are offering scientific evidence against scientific evidence, that may be interesting.
I have to confess, I have not seen much ID science, its usually just focussing on minutia that ignores the larger context of explanation and the big picture, and is usually of little "proof" or "evidence" value. The flagelum is a great example of this.
Darrel, that last one, how on earth is that mixing theology with science? It saying there is no need to do exactly what you say it is doing!!
You are basically trying to say the equal of a fundamentalist saying: "Mixing science with theology is bad", and that therefore theology is doing science!
If science rejects theology, because it is NOT scientific in nature, practice and aproach, that is NOT doing theology - it is avoiding theology. How is that not obvious?
By definition it cannot be applied to "God". However, by default it does end up making a statement about God because it very adequately shows the natural world for what it is. Natural, operating on very fixed laws, with no apparent "intervention" from outside the system. If there were/are interventions from outside, science cannot study such anyway. Not unless you can find some that are meaurable, quantifiable, testable etc. Have fun looking, I have and so far failed.
The only way science can be used as you want it to is as a pointer: Yep ID! but you have no choice Darrel, but to admit that even given a generous helping of science, it can never point more than a quivering step in the direction of the God you believe in. Oh how I wish you ID'ers would just accept that and stop using it to take you where it cannot.
I just cannot understand the intellectual integrity of people who stand on their dig and insist that ID is evidence for God. It is absolutely not, and if it points to a being or intelligence its character and nature is very suspect. I would almost prefer nature be its own cause than a "being" like it may suggest. It could be a "bloody" horrible one. Billions of years of death, blood, tooth and claw. We've been here before!
I actually see design in nature and the universe. I have sympathy with ID, but from my lay perspective I absolutely refuse to take that beyond what it says. It says nothing about a Biblical proportions God. Nothing.
That is pretty much what science is. But that is a whole lot different to what Darrel is suggesting.
Chris then says even Peter Hitchins a Darwinian critic, doesn't want ID to be taught in school. As Darrell correctly says, ID proponents do NOT want or suggest that creationism in any form or pseudo-science from creationists or evolutionists be taught in public schools, but they do want the full science including Darwinian scientific criticisms and major problems with naturalistic evolution to be taught in school, instead of the secular pseudo-religious belief that Darwinian explanations for life are adequate, proven, and beyond question, and have ruled out the possibility of an Intelligent Designer.
The issue of this week's blog is that the scientific fact of sexual reproduction is a criticism of Darwinian mechanisms explaining life. The pseudo-scientific proposals made using Darwinian theory to explan the origin and survival of sexuality in animals, plants, or humans are pathetic and inadqeuate even according to other evolutionists.
Clearly I am promoting an Adventist theology of creation, this is not a science blog. But I will not be able to accept the a-priori dismissal of solid ID science and thoughtful Darwinian skepticism as pseudo-science. That is pseudo-religion, not science.
Reproduction. I am still waiting for you to explain the female hyena. If you are going to use the complexity etc of one form of reproduction, you also need to take into account the bizzare and rather dysfunctional. Yes, hyena's survive, but it clearly suggests to me that nature is the designer, not some thought out, planned result! You're a doctor, I'm sure you could even improve out system. Us blokes sure find the prostate could be better designed!
Deep sea Angler fish. Designed in the garden? Or undergone some pretty severe micro evolution?
http://mudfooted.com/deep-sea-angler-fish-bizarre-reproduction/
Bees exploding penis. Yes, he dies. I wonder if Adam was nervous for his first go after watching a bee? oh, that's right, no death in the garden. http://www.neatorama.com/2007/04/30/30-strangest-animal-mating-habits/
Male squids cutting the female. http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/2133978-squids-and-their-bizarre-reproduction-techniques-in-deep-oceans
Flat worms: Who can spear who? http://topyaps.com/top-10-bizarre-mating-rituals-found-in-nature/
And, Jack, if you are still reading. I have to share this one with you. It is one of the most horrible, creepy things, and I cannot imagine the intelligence that could have designed it!
http://twistedsifter.com/2009/09/tongue-eating-parasite/
As for Hyenas? Healthy, wholesome, holy, fit Tree of Life eating unfallen humans moving out from their safe base in Eden as God's vice-regents would have been able long ago to weed out and destroy all the hyena like mutations and deformities in a Satan cursed and manipulated creation. Humans were meant to have dominion over nature and God's plan was for obedient, healthy, constantly refreshed humans in His image to make the rest of the world with hyenas, monsters, killers, cruel parasites, and other perversions of God's designs, to dissapear and for all nature to progressively become like Eden.
Don't blame God for the results of rebellion, disobedience, and tinkering with his designs. The smoker who gets lung cancer can't blame God for cigarettes. The non-smoker who gets lung cancer can't blame God for lack of the Tree of Life. Thankfully both of them may find healing in honest human efforts such as surgery, radiation, or medicine. Or if those are inadequate without a Life Tree, then in the post resurrection reaccess to the Tree whose leaves are for the healing of the nations.
I used to hold a pretty much similar view once. Once I stopped allowing the Bible to dictate the way I saw and explained the world, and looked for actual evidence for these guys, I was shocked. Without the assumption that they exist, the evidence does not really suggest looking for them.
That does not mean there may not be some subjective reasons to believe there may be more than we can ascertain atm, but it does not justify making claims beyond that. In a moment I'll share a couple of experiences with you...
Some readers here may recall my experience with seeing what color the traffic lights would be ahead of time. This happened twice.
Two weeks ago we we took our boat out to the lake. As I got ready to leave, an image of a broken hydraulic hose, and oil going everywhere flashed into my mind. I thought nothing of it beyond my good imagination. As we launched from shore, there was a buzz in the pump and oil went all through the front cabin area:(
Just over a week ago, again, getting ready to leave, an image of a breaking part flashed in, again, dismissed as imagination. Mid lake, on a sharp turn, a bracket popped of with a bang. 3 Days to repair!
Last Sunday, before we began to get organized, an image of something square, some sort of vehicle, I thought boat, popped in, with the distinct impression someone was badly hurt. We didn't go.
Friday, my son was desperate to go, I was still worried and put it off. Another church family did go. Their son had a massive fall on his wakeboard, burst his eardrum, passed out in the water. Luckily his brother was in the water as well and saved him from drowing. Airlifted to Sydney and now doing well. Our ambulances here are a square looking van/bus. Food for thought.
We went out today. The only mishap was running out of fuel because we were having so much fun we forgot about how long we'd been going!
Coincidences? Perhaps. Some kind of connectedness? I suspect so. Do I see God or a Devil in it? Not really, because it is not evidence beyond the fact I cannot yet explain it. It would only be my pre held biases that would make me jump to conclusions that it was God. Why could it/should it, not be something else that we cannot yet explain scientifcally? Could also be coincidence.
This blog is not written to help anyone understand life without letting the Bible dictate information, not otherwise accessible to you. Please reconsider that plan, it has never come out well.
The good news is you still can be shocked and disturbed by what you see in nature.
I hope you will accept this testimony of your soul that this is not the way it should have been. Begin there and go back to why you feel that. There is no evolutionary reason for you to object to anything that is, that is a distinctly image of God response.
You are free to ignore that you are in His image, but you are not able to function free of it. The best of us show it imperfectly, the worst of us still show it. Kindly moral atheists there surely are. Agnostics too. But give credit to those emotions, and the fact that they are in animals does not explain why animals have morality, or why we recognize it when they do......Sorry it is very late here, so this is a sign off for tonight.
The six reasons come from someone who indicates that she was formerly an atheist who was anxious to disprove the existence of God. Clearly there are those who have such an orientation and passion. That is unfortunate. When anyone is a little too sure they are right and everyone else is wrong, that raises red flags for me.
So, I come at the whole issue from exactly the opposite perspective of the person who wrote about her six reasons. I was a deeply committed adventist and Christian who worked to spread the good news about the message of Jesus to others. I passionately sought the guidance of the Holy Sprit. My doubts began as specific concerns about SDAs seemingly claiming to have a truer vision of Christianity and the world at large than anyone else. Some of the specifics seemed unnecessary and divisive and even un-Christian. And it all seemed to be much too complex for a message that really had to be accessible to anyone.
While anyone could accept the six reasons, surely none of them is critical knowledge.
I understand about your relationship with Adventism. I have had to unlearn many things I was taught growing up Adventist. In fact, some people who know me well ask why I remain an Adventist. My reply: "Why should I leave one imperfect religion to join another imperfect religion?" There are no perfect people, no perfect beliefs, no perfect religion, no perfect non religion. Life is all about living with imperfection and whether one beliefes in a God or not. No one can make anyone believe anything. Unless we are truly mentally deranged we all have the power of choice. Choice to accept and choice to reject whatever evidence comes our way. And all evidence has to be interpreted.
And I could add and why should I think that I should form my own independent church or religion and think it will be less imperfect?
Again, we agree. (I am getting a little nervous with all this agreeing)
Yes, get really nervous (smile) you are really going to like my editorial in the next issue of Adventist Today. It's title: To Think Is To Question.
Timo
I agree. I do not believe that God ever intended us to have 28 formalized doctrines or even 5. You look in vain in the Bible for any systematized theology. Now we are getting off the subject of this blog so I will cease. However, a good blog would be: Do We Need Doctrine or Not?
I read the link too, and to agree with Joe's assessment.
There is just one other thing I would like to pick up on in what you said. It is this:
"All have the same evidence. "
I would really like to put an extra word in there: "All have access to the same evidence"
Last year in Sabbath School class a visitor was having quite a bit to say about creation issues, and some of the things he was saying began to sound familiar, and pennies began to drop, so I asked his name. When he told me, I said, "ah, didn't you write a book?". He fessed up! After church we had a good discussion, during which he said he was doing research on a geological aspect in USA for another book. At this I asked him what he knew about the evidence for the geologic column, particularly in the area he was researching. ie near North Dakota. He knew didn't know about that area at all. I then quizzed him on salt domes, the Gulf of Mexico, the Rift Valley, Dead Sea etc. His knowledge was scratchy on most of these.
My point is that yes, we all have access to the same evidence, but due to the limitations of interest, time, location, bias, etc we do not all use the same evidence. We don't know what we don't know!
So, as with your link above, philosphically, some of the arguments she uses may, being generous, have merit, but I would suggest only to people who have failed to avail themselves of a broad spectrum of evidence.
Little is said about her qualifications undergirding the assertions she has come up with to even give credibility to the possibility that she has a sound base of evidence up which to build her assertions. For that is what they really are.
You may be interested in a rather blunt refutation of her reasons here: http://www.ex-christian.net/blog/9/entry-27-marilyn-adamsonex-atheist-retard/
and here:
http://atheism.about.com/b/2004/11/15/six-reasons-to-believe-in-god.htm
Parity is conserved or it is not conserved. One can frame the disproving of the Law of Conservation of Parity in the falsification paradigm. When the results of the experiments are out the physics community in general accepted the verdict of the experiments. May be that is why some call physics an exact science.
One reason why climate ‘science’ and evolution ‘science’ do not have universal acceptance, I think, is that evidences of any experiment or lack of experiment are subjected to interpretation. Proponents of a particular view point tend to spend their energy as evangelists rather than evaluating of the adequacy and interpretive nature of their evidences which are often accepted with faith and conviction sometimes against all odds when the laws of probability are ignored.
To stay in a denomination for lack of an alternate perfect entity certainly is energy saving. The positive contributions and accomplishments of the denomination despite some doctrinal imperfections should be a more positive reason to stay.
You make a good point about having access to the same evidence. But my main point still stands. For that lady the six reasons she cited were enough to turn her from non belief to belief in God. It will be different for each person. Malcolm Muggeridge and CS Lewis and I could cite many more found enough evidence to bring them to faith in God.
And my other point still stands. If a person does not want to believe there is no evidence, access or otherwise, that can make them believe. A great example are the Jewish leaders. A few of them, like Nicodemus, came to believe in Jesus, and many of the priests did but the key Jewish leaders would rather bribe Roman soldiers to tell a lie than tell the truth. Because the truth did not suit their interests. Even hardened Roman soldiers reportling their experience of the resurrection of Jesus did not convince the Jewish leaders to put their trust in God.
And another point I have made before still stands. We all live by faith. The only question which is a more reasonable faith. Again we have the choice to believe that a God who always existed crerated the universe or a nothing that has always existed created the universe or whatever variant you would like to use. Either option takes faith and only each person can make that choice.
Of course, of course. I agree.
"For that lady the six reasons she cited were enough to turn her from non belief to belief in God. "
Totally agree. From her perspective they are enough. However, we know nothing about the scope of her research or study in accepting those reasons as enough. There may well be a raft of data she neither considered nor knew about. They are effectively her personal testimony, and that is fine, as long as others realize that.
Now, re the person who does not want to believe. The key word is "want" to believe. You are correct. If a person does not want to believe, they will not. Regardless of evidence. This is true of anyone who holds a position out of stubborness.
I do think it is important to keep in mind that many of us do want to believe. In fact some of us have searched desperately for the evidence that would defend our faith/belief position. It is not a matter of not wanting to. We are forced by reason to believe what we did not want to believe.
Now, your last point on faith. Once again, you have gone back to the wrong basis: "God always existed", or "The Universe always existed", and use this to make the claim "we all live by faith".
If you are using faith in this sense: Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence, then I do not live by faith. If you mean having faith the sun will get up tomorrow, then, yes I live by faith.
*I don't know if or how God just IS, came to be, or does not exist, and hold no fixed view.
*I don't know how the universe came to be, and hold no fixed view.
*I don't know how the laws of nature came to be, and hold no fixed view.
*I don't know how life came exist on earth, and hold no fixed view.
To hold a firm belief about these issues would amount to a faith statement, although some theories may hold a lot more merit than others!!
*That life on this earth as we know it has come through an incredibly long time of an evolutionary process is a belief built on rafts of logical proofs and material evidence. It is not a faith statement.
David, please, stop using the unknown starting point as the decider of the end point. Just because a "faith statement" may be required for either starting point (God/Universe) does not mean that the outcomes of each position continue to require the same degree of "faith".
Let me illustrate:
Belief in God seems to require faith statements from end to end, or start to finish. What is there about God's existence, presence, plans etc that does not require faith? All are assertions based on no logical proof or material evidence.
Belief in evolution is built on massive amounts of data. Fossil record, inter species commonality, retroviruses, genes, and the list goes on and on. There are unanswered questions, yes, but the data is there. So, the end point, the outcome, life as we observe it is a powerful argument for an evolutionary process. No faith needed. Read backwards from today:
Which starting point looks most likely? Therefore, which one is the most attractive "faith statement" of beginnings?
Well, Christians who have made up their minds that their view is correct and don't want to believe anything else will not believe anyway! We should not "want" to believe anything in particular. We should want to follow the evidence: All of it.
In a sense your assertion that there is Intelligent Design in nature is looking at the "end point", or outcome and reading back from there. That has merit as long as you don't stray from your chosen path by invoking something outside of nature to read into nature. The Bible!
Seems to me that David likes to begin with the "faith statements" at the beginning, then tries to pull the wool over our eyes that either outcome requires equall amounts of faith, and having done that proceeds to the assumption that because faith was needed all the way, having faith in the Bible is validated.
You guys begin at the outcome, read design in nature and then superimpose the Biblical God on nature, and use this to suggest that faith in him is justified because nature shows a design/er. I simply say; stick with the science you pretended to begin with. Nobody needs to live by faith in our world. If we don't have an answer...let's find it, not make it up unfalsifiable theories like a devil and a god having an argument.
Yes, I think that is what is sometimes called, "tolerance for ambiguity." Many of us who were raised as adventists were raised with little tolerance for ambiguity. There was always an ultimate authority and explanation, and, ostensibly, we were right and everyone else was wrong. I imagine that most of us who were honest in our quest for greater understanding found ways of becoming more tolerant of diverse evidence and opinion, whether we stayed in the church or left.
I agree with David and some others that there are people, plenty of them, who substitute one rigid religion for another, regardless of which direction that happens. There are people who are "true believers" in evolution and/or atheism, just as there are "true believers" in a religion and a God. This sort of "rote" and "reflexive" unquestioning perspective is apparently quite satisfying to some, and I suppose that should be respected. It is, of course, easier to respect this unquestioning faith in those whose positions most agree with our own.
At the same time, I find some of the "evangelical" atheists as hard to take as anyone, in part, because they resort to some of the same lapses in reason and tolerance as those who they rail against--including use of ridicule. I'm pretty much committed to examining evidence and seeing where it leads, without incorporating it into tightly held belief unless that is warranted--that's what I keep repeating about holding knowledge gently and tentatively.
You and I face a great challenge. I don't believe we have ever agreed on anything. It is as if we are travelling on two parallel highways waving to each other but unable to hear what the other is saying. That is why I have gone back to the very beginning and even there you are evasive. You write,
*I don't know if or how God just IS, came to be, or does not exist, and hold no fixed view.
*I don't know how the universe came to be, and hold no fixed view.
*I don't know how the laws of nature came to be, and hold no fixed view.
*I don't know how life came exist on earth, and hold no fixed view.
Yes, you do hold a fixed view. You are clear that you don't know. That is a faith statement. And that brings us to the nub of the whole issue. You are defining knowledge in a very limited way. You have left out half of what knowledge really is. David Marshall is a professional philosopher. He writes, "Scientific evidence is always based on at least three kinds of reasonable but fallible faith: trust in the mind, in the senses, and in other people. None of these can be proven--to use the mind to prove mind is to argue in a circle. And the senses might be wrong." To take an extreme example. We might be living in a virtual reality like in the film the Matrix. We have no way of knowing that what we see is real or is being manipulated by some other power. But we believe, trust, have faith, that our senses our our own. But they might not be.
He goes on to write, "The idea that science is the only valid way of finding out things is called positivism. Among those paid to think carefully, this view has fallen out of favor, partly because it disproves itself. Why believe that only truths grounded in scientific evidence are worth believing?That idea itself can't be proven scientifically!"
Now I am not a philosopher but I have become very interested in this subject because it shows that there are two ways of knowing and the scientific method is only one way. And I am trying to understand what philosophers say about the other way of knowing.
Lastly, I totally disagree that there is no evidence for God. There are millions of us who believe in God because we have seen the evidence. Evidence you do not recognize because you only wear one set of glasses. And just saying there is no evidence by your definition does not make it so.
Marilyn Adamson gave some great evidence for her faith. You just do not like her interpretation of that evidence. She saw it and I see it as scientific, after all science provided that information. So Chris, again we seem to reach an impasse. I wish that was not the case but with no common ground our discussions are fruitless.
Of course, philosophers have arrived at all sorts of different answers, and debates among them continue. Careful and critical thinking are certainly important. I get a little frustrated, however, with the notion that questions can be definitively answered just by thinking about them. I am inclined to favor a strong injection of reliable and valid empirical evidence. My biggest frustration with philosophy is how commonly weak or false premises are invoked that lead to conclusions that had been reached in advance.
David, I'm looking forward to meeting you in person. Warm wishes.
As you see, Chris & Joe, its impossible for me to deny my Lord. i wish to learn all i can of the life of man, but the dimension of supernatural existence is a reality in my life.
Well, Dr. Taylor, I would think the foundation must be the beginning--where things start. The American Chemical Society recently had a whole issue on this --Accounts of Chemical Research --about the puzzle of life's chemical origins.
It dealt with the latest theories and research in the field, and several of the articles address fundamental problems in certain models of origin-of-life research. For example, a paper by Benner et al. points out that the RNA-world model is unattractive because the chemical bonds involved are unstable and the reaction requirements are too specific and unlikely for an early Earth environment.
Another article addresses a possible solution to nature's preference for left-handed amino acids and right-handed sugars, this is known as homochirality. This is a HUGE problem for a naturalistic approach.
A couple of papers try to explain why DNA is composed of the particular bases A, T, C, and G. Several others discuss self-replicating systems. Another paper discusses how proto-cells may have been formed from lipid micelles. And still others assume an "RNA-first" world, while a few prefer a "metabolism-first" world.
The editors define chemical evolution as including "the capture, mutation, and propagation of molecular information and can be manifested as coordinated chemical networks that adapt to environmental change." In this type of system, one in which information-carrying molecules must be made and propagated, the editors concede that building life from the bottom up requires some aspect of "molecular intelligence:" Interesting words:
The term "molecular intelligence" is not typically used in origin-of-life research, despite the authors' statement that it is not a new concept: in their view, Darwin's own theory of life beginning in a chemically rich "warm pond" is an example of molecular intelligence. While there are several ways to describe molecular behavior, from statistical mechanics to Brownian motion to self-assembly, making molecules the intelligent actor in the origin of life ascribes a property to molecules that we have yet to prove. They are information-carrying. They are self-replicating. But to say they have intelligence implies that molecules are capable assembling themselves into meaningful structures, something that usually requires knowledge of the end product. This is akin to saying a Lego model of the Millennium Falcon was built by the Legos themselves which (who?) are endowed with an intrinsic "construction intelligence" (a term from one of the papers). More accurate that is if the Legos can conduct self-repairs and can self-replicate.
"While our objective is to decipher the evolutionary rules that directed the transition from inanimate matter to life, we recognize that the march of molecular history likely had many pathways. One of the fundamental research problems in chemical evolution is the transition from non-life to life."In order for this bottom-up--parts-to-whole approach to work, there is some threshold that must be crossed that sets in motion the operations of a cell (or a proto-cell) such that it has the characteristics of a self-sustaining, living "issue of the journal will focus on deducing the rules for constructing an organism from the bottom-up. The authors will do this by using what alreidy know about DNA and RNA to construct system using known chemicals and enlisting the help of chemists to guide the reactions where they see fit to do so. But this calls into question just what is meant by "self"-assembly. In materials science, self-assembly is usually regarded as repeated, ordered patterns of specific molecules under the right environmental conditions. The setup for making even a simple self-assembled system (e.g. a self-assembled monolayer) requires quite a bit of forethought and planning on the part of the chemist. In addition, the diversity in approaches to understanding and employing chemical evolution is as important as the diversity in chemical composition required to promulgate evolution itself and suggests that collaboration among these diverse approaches to gaining insights into chemical evolution and working toward the interfaces among them will be extraordinarily rich with opportunities.
The RNA-first world is the place most begin,metabolism-first world, not wso much. The RNA-first camp believe the first biomolecules were nucleotides (adenine, uracil, cytosine, and guanine), while the metabolism-first camp believes the first biomolecules were amino acids (e.g., glycine, alanine, thiamine). Life (God) chooses only left handed amino acids. 50/50 in the environment with no nature way to separate them.
The RNA-first camp assumes that ribozymes were key players in the formation of the first genetic code. The metabolism-first camp relies on the self-assembly of biomolecules to form the first protein. All this research has been hopeless because chemicals Can Not make the digital codes of basic information that even the simplest life needs to get started.
For example, also basic--Eukaryotics through mutation developing a new organ(s) making them male and female, so that evolution can continue as it must have. This switch to sexual reproduction must have happened many times in natural history we are told. Getting the creation of all the organs involve must go correct the first time or "no children for selection to select."
When I was baptized almost seven decades ago, I had no doubt that I was joining the least imperfect church in the world. This conviction remained rather strong until the Adventist church shifted its position from pro-life to a pro-choice one.
For three months I worshipped with the Seventh Day Baptist church, until I discovered that they were not pro-life either; which forced me back to the Adventist community. I wish there was a church who is still faithful to all Ten of the Rules the Lord gave to humanity. Unfortunately, such a church does exist any longer.
All who hold science dear, be sure you hold Jesus dear, and He is holding you dear, is my prayer for myself and for each of you tonight, as we all teeter on the edge of the end of this brief existence. Don't trade the something of life for the nothing of a meaningless science restricted life. Your mind and emotions know there is another demension beyond science, or there should be. Give in to that please. Don't give up your scientific knowledge, but don't give up on where science can't take you.
Elder Venden's own funeral sermon is available, and I'd suggest any who can to take a moment in remembrance of this giant preacher of righteousness by Jesus to view it again. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYj-llqPmVo
This would apply to Adam too [Luke 3:38] because evolution would imply that he would have not being created at this stage due to his millions of years of transitional stages before he was pronounced 'very good' by God [Gen 1:27-28]. The bible only refers to one man being created first and not a single other compatible soul (woman) around for sexual reproduction to take place [Gen 2:18]. If Adam was the only one of his kind, even without a suitable match for him for sexual reproduction to occur, then it is clear that no evolutionary processes were involved here. How then can sexual reproduction (which is a rather nifty system designed by God) have any part of both Adam and Eve’s existence? They weren’t test tube babies after all!
I think that’s why God is so particular about sexual immorality and perversion of what he has created and instituted. Prior to Eve’s creation God said that it was ‘not good’ for man to be alone. Then upon her arrival that was no longer the case – Praise God! – It was good!
It should be noted that in order for successful sexual reproduction to occur, God didn’t create Adam and Steve or Madam and Eve. Same sex unions or marriage isn't evident in God's plan concerning sexual reproduction. Perhaps this is another conflict that creationism has with evolutionism.
22OCT, Reproduction, including sexuality, is widespread across life forms. There is little basis for claiming that the range of patterns in humans is dissimilar to the patterns in other animals. Is this evidence of common design and/or common descent? In any case, yes, I agree that it is quite wonderful....
You said something about wanting to believe. I would like to take that to its logical conclusion (to me). What if you found that it worked in your daily life? If we don't know the truth about life, why not choose our desire--what will bring the most peace, love, kindness, and contenment in our lives. What may help us live longer in this current world; what will make us more tolerant and accepting of others--choose the best. My life has certainly been better as a believer in God and a follower of Jesus. I wasn't born with perfect genetics. And working on our weaknesses is a struggle.
One can start with accepting the "incredible" Bible stories as metaphors and asking what they mean in our daily lives. Whether one changes that idea or not, it helps our spirit as does experimenting with a reasonable prayer.
What will knowing the "truth" of evolution mean to us in the long run? Nothing, that I can see. One may think it helps by explaining life's randomness, but this comes at a toll. Such a belief will never matter at the end anyway if it is true, but it could influence your life now in a negative way. I am jsut speculating how I would feel, and maybe you will not agree. God bless.
Thank you for your thoughts. I appreciate their positivity.
Wanting to believe:) I guess the problem here is that I think we do "...know the truth about life..." The truth being that we are here as a result of an evolutionary process and share common ancestry with every living organism on the planet.
Now, as strange as it may sound, apart from the concept of a "next" life, I now find life more peaceful, loving, and contented than ever before. I have an immense respect for nature, that I could not have even begun to understand before, and a wonderful sense of freedom to be fully human.
The only "toll", I find is that my evolutionary views are a thorn in relationships with those who hold conservative views. Otherwise, I am free from guilt, struggle, doubt etc, and I think I respect others more, and am more tollerant. Some may not think so from how I write here at times I know:(
Just an hour or so ago I watched a short interview with Sir Richard Branson. It was so refreshing. He talks about his view of God and evolution, and so much resonated with me. I'll paste the link below.
Re the "next life". Well, I have immense respect for nature, and what is; a God worthy of worship and respect will not judge us negatively for not responding to evidence that was not there. I respond according to what is there, and if there is a next life, I have no doubt I'll see you there. If she/he/it is behind the nature I stand in awe of, then my respect for nature will have not been misdirected.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=xe--92E3_fA
This means that you are setting aside what the Lord revealed to us through his prophets and through Jesus Christ while elevating the opinions of men over those who received revelations from above. I find hundreds of references to the doctrine of creation in the Bible. All these statements evidently mean nothing to you. Are you sure you have made the right choice regarding the value of Scripture?
Thank you for your kind reply. I resonate with your view of nature. The Canadian Rockies seem like the most holy place on earth. I long to see mountains again and experience their peace and quietness. I relate to God in those places and also in animals; they are more intelligent than we imagine. I don't think I would appreciate nature in such a spiritual way if I thought mountains and the trees and flowers around them weren't made to be beautiful.
Your attraction to nature certainly shows you are a spiritual person. Enjoy it. All the information in the world about science and theories, isn't that valuable to the human spirit. Taking apart a bird to see how it flies isn't as awesome as seeing it in flight. Taking apart a flower destroys its beauty.
In the end we won't be sorry we didn't work harder, read more about origins, geology, etc. Relationships will be the most important part of living. Faith is about relationships.
Life is full of paradoxes--faith can be a beautiful thing, bringing hope and peace; religions can also be toxic and destroy beauty and peace. I think there is a choice in that somewhere.
I like this quote by Jim Wallis, a social worker/philanthropist/writer:
"From the perspective of the Bible, hope is not simiply a feeling or a mood or a rhetorical flourish. Hope is the very dynamic of history. Hope is the engine of change. Hope is the energy to transformation. Hope is the door from one reality to another... Hope is believing in ispite of the evidence and watching the evidence change."
This is for you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhdUp4JOHwg
I can't believe you think that sordonic 'reasoning' is valid. Right?
The logical nonsense that "because designed things like clocks and cars are different means there is no such thing as design", would fit most of those colorful denigrating adjectives I have previously noted in your blogs! Please apply the best of them to this nonsense. Every single example, including the nicely formed and intelligently designed rolling log, is showing things that are obviously designed, selected, and applied by intelligence as opposed to randomness, by agents capable of thinking about the past and the future, and adjusting intelligently to them. There is no randomness, no raw survival benefit, no undirected chance at all in any of the steps. Treacle, tripe, pfuffle, you are offering us "a raw prawn," if you expect us to think this adds anything to the strength and seriousness of the fact of intelligent design in nature. And in cars, clocks, and nicely designed tree trunks.....
True. Randomness will never create a car. But we are NOT talking about inanimate objects! We are talking about living things in an environment that applies pressure, or cause for change upon those things. Natural selection is the "intelligence" you are ignoring. The changes within organisms by mutation, change etc may be "random", but the opportunistic application of them within the environment is no less real.
A human saw a log roll, had a need, applied the log - an invention was born. A mutation occurred, an environment/need/niche existed - a variation survived. No intelligence needed in its formation, just a coincidence of variation and opportunity. This is not to say intelligence was not a factor in survival.
You say: "...designed, selected, and applied by intelligence as opposed to randomness, by agents capable of thinking about the past and the future, and adjusting intelligently to them."
No.
* A mutation or change happens, (random or not is beside the point);
* it is "selected" by its environment (survives or does not)
* it is applied by a life form (adjusting intelligently. according to its scope to try to survive)
* within a suitable environment, it goes on to make more "rolling logs". (reproduce).
That is how natural selection occurs in design, selection and application! Animate, living "objects" intelligently responding to the random opportunities of mutation and change within the opportunistic environment this world offers.
Most are not contesting random mutations of kind in kind. Those believing in ID, are contesting the origin of the very first smallest particle of living forms. This blog has now reached the ridiculous. No minds changed. Agree or disagree, no malice. Next.
"True. Randomness will never create a car. But we are NOT talking about inanimate objects! We are talking about living things in an environment that applies pressure, or cause for change upon those things. Natural selection is the "intelligence" you are ignoring."
But here is your HUGE leap of faith. You are assuming that the same processes applied to the inamimate objects from which you believe life came. But how can you say natural selection applies to pre-life. Since there is no intelligence yet how can it select what will work? You make far more faith statements than those of us who differ with you.
aspect of evolution, ie: Are the initial life forms, happenstance, or of intelligent design. That is the crux of
the matter, the most important answer sought by man. Is it not? And the status quo is "no one knows for
certain", the answer, that will satisfy all living souls.
Sure, I know what Jack's topic was, I was simply responding to Earl when he identified ID focus as origins. Jack, as I understand it believes in ID, and his blog was not about origins. That is all I was saying.
Yes, I was OT in that I put an ID topic up, but it was not as far off topic discussing ID as compared to evolutionary processes, because Jacks blog was about that theme. ie explaining reproduction. And I did not start the ID topic here, not that I recall anyway.
"Since there is no intelligence yet how can it select what will work?"
The log rolls down the hill doesn't it?
Seriously. If you put 100 loose nuts and 100 bolts in a tumbler and tumble it for 1 hour, you WILL have several pairs of nuts threaded onto bolts. Do the same with paper clips and you will have several paper clip chains. Why? Random events within the tumbler taking advantage of the shape, motion and proximity to one another to produce order by selection.
We do not know how life formed, but given an environment where suitable ingredients are in the tumbler (earth environment) with shape, environment and proximity we cannot say that the first simple cell/living organism could not have formed.
Based on the natural laws we see operating in this world in how things operate this is not such a leap of faith. ie it is congruent with how we see the world operate. However, if you want a real leap of faith, just imagine that a God, with all the "omni.." qualities, just happens to be. We think in cause and effect, and you cannot imagine life being preceeded by less and less complex organisms, yet you CAN imagine it all being predeeded by the most complex, unlikely, and unimaginable self existent cause.
Look, you and I have been back to this question over and over. If you want to start there, you are welcome, but please don't suggest that the way this world looks under carefull study today is congruent with such an event or being. It IS congruent with the process described by evolution.
All it shows is that intelligently designed humans and perhaps some creatures are created in the image of the Designer, and in fact have creativity and intelligence, which is hardly a refutation and more a confirmation of the ID theory.
It appears to me that Darwinian supporters have been forced to now attribute intelligence to chemistry (See the recent issue of American Chemical Society ACCOUNTS OF CHEMICAL RESEARCH on Chemical Evolution) by coining a phrase "Chemical Intelligence" to explain how undirected, undesigned chemicals organized themselves into the precursors of life, which then self-organized themselves into the information of life, and self-organized the mechanisms to reproduce that information, and then the genius to make chemicals create cells with their multiple functioning organelles and systems, and living membranes, which created complex organisms, which created sexual reproduction, which created all kinds of wonderful things. All without a Designer of course, because Carbon and Nitrogen and Oxygen and Hydrogen all have the amazing, previously unnoticed or uncellebrated innate "Chemical Intelligence."
How neat this is, life is actually as claimed Intelligently Designed, but not by a Great Designer, but by Sodium, Potassium, Hydrogen, and Carbon. So we do have an intelligently designed system, just no Designer to worship. For coal and salt and amonia clearly don't deserve any special respect, obedience, or response.
And by the way Chris, if they do have intelligence, then pardon me, but where did that come from? Turtles all the way down? Intelligence all the way down? just keep going till you tire of asking? When, in Heaven's name, do you come to the Designer?
This is worse than dentistry on an elephant! It is very very difficult to extract an admission that ID makes a lot of sense from those dedication to naturalism. Anything like awareness of reality from those dedicated to the proposition that everything just happened, because......just because... just because.....no reason....OK lots of design but really that's just Chemical Intelligence.....
I'm sorry I'm getting more and more sarcastic. This claim of refuting ID by demonstrating ID really takes the cake in arrogance. I just hope it will shock some evolutionists who see through the farce into rethinking the whole subject.
Behe seems to think that biological change through variation and selection did occur, once the designed living, self-replicating cells emerged.
I have no problem with seeing design throughout nature, and appreciating it. I do not personally see a need for the design to have been injected on purpose by a designer, but it doesn't bother me for others to hold that belief. I guess the problem I see is when people say it HAD TO BE the way they believe it happened. I do not think it HAD TO BE the way I think it probably happened.
While I don't think it's "turtles all the way down," I do think it is chemicals all the way down, and I do not see a need to believe that there was ever a point when nothing at all existed, and I feel that I am as entitled to that belief as much as the next person is entitled to whatever s/he believes, regardless of what various authorities (such as physicists) might suggest. And, of course, I am quite confident that I could be wrong....
Jack, you really are out on a limb. You accept an evolutionary process because the science is compelling about an old earth and such, but you absolutely insist on superimposing your pre held God upon that system. The only way you can do that with "integrity" is to go for ID because aspects of nature can show "design", and you can support a nebulous, quasi god by doing so. You then insist on a devil to explain all the anomalies to "good" design that you see. You then use this imaginary being to take the blame for bad things in nature, while trying to justify the God you want.
The attribution of aspects of nature to either party is totally arbitrary. You are your own designer of creation! You are your own decider of who did what! And, at the end of the day, you cannot defend your position with a plain reading of Scripture. You resort to all kinds of linguistic gymnastics. I know, I have been where you are. I have read and translated parts of Genesis. I cannot avoid the conclusion you are reading in what you want to see to try to justify your attempt to quell cognitive dissonance.
As for reproduction being what evolution cannot know. Well, all my examples of the bizzare the other day are just dismissed as results of evil!! Please, you use science to demonstrate "ID", then resort to explaining the "bad" bits by a completely unscientific assumption?
The "bad" bits argue against the entire thesis of your blog.
"And by the way Chris, if they do have intelligence, then pardon me, but where did that come from? Turtles all the way down? Intelligence all the way down? just keep going till you tire of asking? When, in Heaven's name, do you come to the Designer?"
Yep, turtles all the way down! Oh, no, actually its designer all the way down, just keep going till you tire of asking, and in heavens name believe me, you will eventually come to a designer...I mean the real designer who designed the designer that designed the designer. Ah, what I really mean is that a design requires a designer, right? Yep, got it, so who designed your designer at the bottom of the stack again?....
But back to the chemical neccessity of life thing, back in 2005, Harvard University <http://www.harvard.edu/> announced that they were launching of the Origin of Life Initiative <http://origins.harvard.edu/> with $1 million per year seed funding from the university.
The purpose of the initiative was to integrate a range of scientific disciplines from biology, astronomy, ect, “to understand how life emerged from the chemical soup of early Earth, and how this might have happened on distant planets”.
David R. Liu <http://origins.harvard.edu/AssocFaculty.html> , a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard explained: ”my expectation is that we will be able to reduce this to a very simple series of logical events that could have taken place with no divine intervention.” So the secular sciences know HOW to falisfy Intelligent Design (showing that it is a testable scientific theory).
I am not waiting around for naturalism to 'fill-the-gaps;' we should rather act intelligently on what we DO know, not on what we do not know and are waiting for.
Darrel, pardon me, but have you not just spent rheams of type on trying to "fill the origin gap"?
I applaud acting intelligently on what we DO know, but recognizing when one is trying to fill a gap is important, and then having valid ways of ascertaining what we DO in fact know, and HOW we know it, becomes foundational. ie We cannot know anything by "revelation" because it is purely subjective and any authority it has is granted to it by the choice of the reader to "believe". (Yes, I know David N's view on ways of knowing.)
If you can show me the peer reviewed experiment where this took place I will believe you. If you cannot then you just made a faith statement.
Some evolutionists attempt to show randomness can increase information, when all they are showing is the copying and pasteing and or rearanging of original code.
If Chris wanted to prove evolution to us then the least he could suggest was if we put 100 chunks of raw iron ore in a tumbler, how long would we have to tumble before we had even one nut and a perfectly matching bolt that screwed themselves together.
The answer is infinite time. But Chris only has at most 4.6 Billion years, not nearly enough for the impossible to happen.
This is exactly the case of sexuality. There is a bolt that exactly fits the nut, in many different unrelated animals and plants. This NEVER can happen without ID.
These attempts to make unguided, undirected evolution reasonable to the common mind, by using intelligently designed, engineered pieces to do it, is driving me crazy. You may know him better than I do, what's the problem? He seems like an intelligent man, but he keeps doing this. The video he was excited over was pathetic.
He is right ID has to have an explanation how our God was the designer, and why there is bad or cruel design. We are trying to do that. But I am getting burnt at the stake by my conservative brethren, and beaten over the head with cream puffs by "arguments" of designed bolts, their designed nuts, and paperclips. They are telling me Behe must agree with them. He agrees it appears we are all related, but of course he does NOT agree that we could have gotten this way with Darwinian mechanisms.
His books all point out that evolution may be true, but naturalistic, undirected evolution is not possible. That is his whole point. There must have been an intervening designer at many critical points, for everything to work as it does.
Take a chill pill Doc. Conservatives aren't burning you at the stake; but we're also just beating you over the head with some cream puffs like you do from time to time. Your Theistic Evolution view won't go down well with those from both sides of the divide as you can see. cb25 has indicated previously that he too has been down the same road like you and eventually ended up an atheist (or somewhere close). Not saying you will too though - but don't expect everyone to just pat you on the back for fighting 'a good cause' for the faith with the claims you make even if you use alternative bible interpretations in an effort to combine evolution and creation as intrinsically compatible. Please accept the fact that there is some major disagreement here. If you believe you are right then I respect that too.
The key I think in what he posits is that he accredits God for evolution instead of Natural Selection which excludes God. This to me is one variety of Theistic Evolution.
Here are a few lines of his which indicate this:
- Therefore I think we are in danger of blasphemy when we say flat out that “evolution is evil”. I think things evolve because they were created capable of evolution. Things adapt, change, evolve, become different and more interesting or able to survive new challenges because the Creator made that possible. God, as I see it, is the originator of evolution.
- Darwin discovered evolution, but he didn’t create it. God created the mechanisms for the possibility of evolution, as part of His intelligent design. I want credit for evolution back where it belongs.
I got these quotes from here: http://www.atoday.org/article/1436/blogs/hoehn-jack/2012/why-do-things-evolve:) let me see, how can I disagree? mmm.
Actually, I didn't quote a peer reviewed article, I said "you put...and you will get.." I have not done it myself, but it has been done, and the result was as I suggested. Go do it and falsify my statement. No problem. I'll go with your results.
Now, Jack has a problem with bolts being already there, correct threads etc, and then tells me to put iron ore in a tumbler. Well I have done that. I have also put gemstones in a tumbler. We will not get bolts. Jack, you are ignoring the entire concept of evolution. Increasing complexity through natural selection. The bolts were only to illustrate that given two suitable parts in a tumbler, order could arise. You have subscribed to the "jumbo from a junkyard" falacy.
It is possible that the first simple life formed this way. We don't know, but certainly the way we see nature operate suggests there is merit in the idea. I am not going to try to plug that "gap". What is absolutely certain is that life shows clear signs it is here in its current form as a result of an evolutionary process. Even you guys are forced to admit micro evolution. There are signs some of the micro has been pretty significant, thus pointing to macro.
Jack: "His books all point out that evolution may be true, but naturalistic, undirected evolution is not possible. That is his whole point. There must have been an intervening designer at many critical points, for everything to work as it does."
Yes, and the logical fallacies and incorrect analogies he engages in to prove "There must have been an intervening designer" are the issue. ie flagellum.
It is not significant, but does point to how nature can work.
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/philosop/design.htm
1. the physical size & shape & volume in cubic inches, & material & thickness of it's walls?
2. the " " of nuts & bolts & of hex hd., castle hd, course or fine threads, et al?
3. method of tumbler motion, machine or human turning, rpm?
4. the above plus many other factors which would have to be considered?
i am a skeptic that even one nut would be threaded to a bolt. Where as the above factors would have to have an endless, designed, trial & error testing program, the feasability of random desired results would be absolute nonsense. Sorta like the rolling log proves anything. No disrespect intended, Chris.
Your comment suggests you believe a positive result is highly unlikely, and therefore a positive result would be worthy of reflection and consideration as to its meaning. But then, you dismiss it by saying any such result is nonsense anyway and of no more value than rolling a log.
You can't have it both ways.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/ICsilly.html
Maybe, if cars could give birth to other cars like biological organisms can, over a very, very long period of time. There is an evolution of cars of a sort, starting with Model Ts and looking at modern hybrids. There has also been a survival of the fittest (as opposed to the biggest) amongst cars, with the big Yank Tanks on the way out to be replaced by smaller, more efficient and more affordable Japanese models.
And that is just in about 100 years of automobiles. Imagine after about 100 years x 100 x 100 x 100 x100 years?
The molecules for the formation of proteins as well de DNA and RNA are produced enzymatically. To make it simple; to produce enzymes we need DNA and RNA and to produce DNA or RNA we need enzymes.
There is no reproducible evidence of microorganisms o macro organism evolving from one specie to another; still the E. coli is E coli.
All mutations that we know in humans are deleterious and lethal.
David, you are such a kick! Your BMW story is hilarious on many levels. Thanks for posting that!
First, maybe you should see if you can market the concept for a new reality TV show. It could be called "Stump the Evolutionist Jew." But, maybe not. You probably don't need the money, right?
It is so cool to be able to point to the BMW, rather than one's old used Subaru. There is added credibility. "This guy must know what he is talking about if he can afford to own a BMW."
But, suppose I believe that humans are the pinnacle of design. Were they designed to be able to produce BMWs? Maybe the BMW is the ultimate pinnacle and purpose of God's creation....
Or did natural processes produce amoebas and rats and people and BMWs?
So, whether God or nature designed BMWs, they are really cool, and buying one helps people
by providing them with jobs. Everybody wins in the divine plan.
He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so." If I reject this, I must reject Jesus as the one sent by God to save us from Adam's moral fall. You cannot have it both ways. If Jesus was right then those who believe that we are the result of chance and natural selection are wrong.
Similarly, do you believe Jesus thought Himself literally a door (John 10:7)? Is your saviour a literal door? If you reject His door-ness, do you reject Him?
Don't ever forget that biblical prophets, and Jesus as the Word incarnate, communicated to people in their own culture and language. Don't insert your own retrojection 2,000 years later.
I assume as God Jesus knew about science. However, he communicate to people in an ancient world who had limited ideas of such things. The Gen account doesn't tell us anything about DNA, nor would we expect it to do so, even though God obviously knew about it.
Are you desperate for the nut/bolt/paper clip experiment to not be true? It seems like it. Please note: I innitially said "you do it". I did not paste the link at first. Do it and falsify my statement. No problem!!
However, I have no doubt about its validity. All the evidence points to the fact that Donald E Simanek is a real person. He even has an email on his site. I have even emailed him with a copy of your quote above asking if he would kindly reply to indicate to a skeptic such as you that he is actually a real person. I almost feel silly doing so!
Now, pardon my lack of intelligence but this statement does not make sense to me:
"Why is it so difficult for you to admit that life could not exist without faith?"
I really don't know what you mean. Perhaps it is a different language:)
Perhaps I should point out that you seem to be interchanging the words "faith" and "believe" with abandon. Yes, I do believe the link/data about the bolts and clips is true. There is evidence by its nature and existence that this is highly likely to be so. True, it could be falsified by further research, but based on the evidence to date I believe this unlikely. This element of "weakness" in the case was the very reason I did not post the link at first. I put the propostion to you do: "do the experiment". You are still welcome to falsify my assertion!! I'm waiting.
I have no regret having posted the link, apart from your odd reaction to it. I think you would be more sensible to see it as an expression of my belief based on evidence of its existence, content, style, name at base, email for contact etc, that it is true. You are so hung up on "faith" that that is the only aspect you can see in me posting the link.
I actually have never met you either. In fact all I know about you is words on a screen. Perhaps you are a robot? In fact, on reflection, you and Darrel do react like one at times. Push the right buttons and one can predict the incoming comments...mmm. I should have thought of that.
Do you see my point? The fact is, I do believe you exist. No faith needed. I used to read your Ministry articles when I was in ministry. I've googled your home church, I've read other links by people who've met you. So, no faith needed! Sure, could be all a set up, and further research could falsify my belief, but me thinks not...
Cheers
Based on analysis of the genomes of 447 bacterial species, the projected number of different domain structures per species averages 991. Comparing this to the number of pathways by which metabolic processes are carried out, which is around 263 for E. coli, provides a rough figure of three or four new domain folds being needed, on average, for every new metabolic pathway. In order to accomplish this successfully, an evolutionary search would need to be capable of locating sequences that amount to anything from one in 10^159 to one in 10^308 possibilities, something the neo-Darwinian model falls short of by a very wide margin. (p. 11)
The total number of events (or “elementary logical operations”) that could have occurred in the observable universe since the Big Bang has been calculated as no more than 10 to the power of 120 by MIT researcher Seth Lloyd, in his 2002 article, Computational capacity of the universe (Physics Review Leters 88 (2002) 237901, DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.88.237901). So on the best available evidence is that not only the mechines made of proteins, but proteins themselves are Irreducibly Complex.
I see. Evolution is a slippery term for sure. As I see it, it is used inter-changably with three different meanings, used according to one’s need.
Evolution #1: First, evolution can mean that the life forms we see today are different from the forms that existed in the distant past. Evolution as “change over time” can also refer to minor changes in features of individual. Even skeptics like myself agree that this type of “change over time” takes place.
Evolution #2: The idea that all the organisms we see today are descended from a single common ancestor somewhere in the distant past. The claim became known as the Theory of Universal Common Descent. This theory paints a picture of the history of life on earth as a great branching tree. This might be where Brother Jack resides. However, the MECHANISM is the heart of this, and that’s this.
Evolution #3: Refers to a cause or mechanism of change, the biological process that Darwin thought was responsible for this branching pattern. Darwin argued that natural selection had the power to produce fundamentally new forms of life. “Neo-Darwinian” evolution combines DNA and genetics to claim that mutations in DNA provide the variation upon which natural selection acts. This is totally false, but all flows from here.
With number 3 here, an anti-Creator element is often added to make the point.
In the prestigious scientific journal, Proceedings for the National Academy of Sciences, leading evolutionary biologist Francisco Ayala celebrates "Darwin's greatest accomplishment," which was to show that the origin of life's complexity "can be explained as the result of a natural process -- natural selection -- without any need to resort to a Creator or other external agent." Just to make sure that his readers don't try to invoke some kind of "God-guided" evolution, Ayala writes that "[i]n evolution, there is no entity or person who is selecting adaptive combinations."
Francisco J. Ayala, "Darwin's greatest discovery: Design without designer," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, Vol. 104:8567Ð8573 (May 15, 2007).
Cornell University evolutionary biologist William Provine has similarly stated that "belief in modern evolution makes atheists of people"11 and that "One can have a religious view that is compatible with evolution only if the religious view is indistinguishable from atheism.
William B. Provine, "No Free Will," in Catching Up with the Vision, pgs. S117, S123 (Margaret W. Rossiter ed., University of Chicago Press 1999).
So, Evolution, in its ‘global sense, all Intelligent Design Creationists completely reject.
Thank you for this quotation. It shows that there is no way to marry the theory of evolution to the doctrine of creation found in the Bible. The veiled objective of evolution is to lead people away from the worship of the Creator. Those who choose said pathway will sooner or later be tempted to question the existence and the power of Almighty God.
Could you unpack that statement, Joe? It doesn't make sense to me. Doesn't "design" by definition infer a designer, just like speech presupposes a speaker?
I remember someone - it seems like it was you or Chris - on a different blog conceding that science doesn't prove the theory of evolution. It simply makes Creationism highly unlikely. I thought that was a fair statement. Can it not also be said that, even if probability and statistics, applied to scientific data, do not prove intelligent design, they do make the regnant theory of evolution highly unlikely? Is it not close-minded to refuse to deal with evidence which casts doubt on a theory simply because you are afraid that the evidence will be used for nefarious purposes? Is it not intellectually dishonest to use one standard to validate evolution, and then refuse to use the same standard to give credence to the challenges that standard, widely-accepted methods of statistics and probability pose to evolutionary dogma when applied to biochemical processes and scientific data?
I agree with the point Chris has repeatedly made - I.D. is certainly not proof of the God of the Bible. Neither does science prove many claims that are made in its name. But that doesn't mean we should reject scientific evidence, even if it is misused. I.D. requires a high degree of cross-disciplinary sophistication and scientific understanding. The insistence that it should not be given intellectual and academic recognition, because Christians have embraced it, defies common sense and reason, particularly in light of the garbage that fills the curriculum at today's institutions of higher learning.
That is a statement worth repaeating. The double standard used by evolutionists when dealing with the scientific evidence for design is incredible!
Please sign me up as supporting intellectual honesty on all sides of all discussions.
We can start, I think, by recognizing diversity within various perspectives and making sure we avoid stereotyping and overgeneralizing. When our positions are inaccurately characterized, we all get defensive and are tempted to reply in ways that do not advance communication.
Warm wishes to you all.
Donald has replied to my email already. Here is the full text, exactly as he wrote it:
"Chris,
Thanks for your note.
Your Mr. Newman refers to a video. I did not make a video. I wonder whether he actually read my site that you linked, for at the bottom there is an endnote:
--------------------------------
1. Reading my description of the nut/bolt experiment, some have concluded that somehow I faked the data, or "made up" the whole thing. In such cases, I simply say "Repeat the experiment yourself if you doubt it." They didn't. Then, in July 2011, I received a note from physicist Alberto Rojo who did the experiment and reported the results:
I used 66 8-32 bolts and 10-32 nuts (just because I couldn't find your exact sizes in the nearest hardware store), put them in a coffee can and turned them by hand for 25 minutes, after which I found 6 formed pairs! So I am thrilled by the experiment...
And I am thrilled that someone chose to do the experiment hands-on, even improving on mine by doing the tumbling "by hand" in a coffee can. I have long been an advocate of doing physics rather than just talking about it.
----------------------------------
So I suggest that your Mr. Newman try it himself. One of my readers got clever and taped a can of nuts and bolts to the spokes of his bicycle, and then took it for a long ride. Everyone heard him coming and going, but the outcome was creation in the least expensive experiment I could imagine.
This demonstrates just one thing. The commonly heard assertion from creationists that "Order can not arise from disorder." just isn't true. I make no more profound claims than that.
Some people should get off their duffs and DO some physics rather than pontificate fantasies about it.
So far as I know I was to propose the nut/bolt experiment and do it. However, similar sorting and assembly methods are used in industry, using the principle of shaking small parts until they are oriented to exit the shaker right side up and front side forward.
Anyone who tinkers in his home shop probably has a box of miscellaneous small parts, sometimes called a "hell box". When an oddball part is needed, you rummage in the box till you find it. When you have parts like nuts and bolts left over from a project, you toss them in. After a while you find that sometimes bolts and nuts are linked, from the frequent rummaging. People who experience this are not at all surprised to see this order arising from disorder and purposeless "random" agitation of small objects. Anyone who gets paper clips in boxes has often found some linked, even though the box was factory sealed. Some people just can't "see" evidence when it is all around them, if it goes against their prior convictions.
But you are unlikely to convince such minds. I get a lot of mail from folks who are convinced that perpetual motion machines are possible, even over-unity machines (putting out more work than the energy they take in). They proudly declare that the conservation laws of physics are invalid, not realizing that if they are invalid, then so are Newton's laws, laws they claim they accept (and even incorrectly use in the describing of their inventions). They simply reject any physics that goes against their convictions. Rarely do they learn. But on the bright side, I received a proposal last week from a small business owner in Indiana who had a clever device, offering to pay me for an analysis of it. I declined the pay offer, but told him how he could test it, and I predicted the outcome. To my surprise he did test it (he had the proper equipment on hand), then sent me a video, confirming that my prediction was spot on.
There's a similar blind spot in perpetual motionists who tell me that magnets have unlimited stored energy, and cite the example of the refrigerator magnet supporting its own weight on the refrigerator wall indefinitely. I tell them that that nail supporting the picture frame on the wall must also have unlimited energy for the same reason. They fail to realize that work requires motion, and a force supporting an unmoving weight is doing NO work, and therefore consuming NO energy.
In our Freshman physics we used to have a sign that said "In this LABORATORY, let's have more of the first five letters and less of the last seven."
The late Mike Royko was right when he characterized the internet as "not an information highway, but an asylum of babbling loonies."
-- Donald"
Chris, you are as slippery as an eel in oil. And I will try this for the last time. I was not discussing ID. All I was saying was that you posted a web link, twice, that you by faith accepted as genuine. Now you are trying to prove the last one is genuine by having the author email you. But before you did that you assumed that his site was valid. You gave no scientific evidence to prove that it was valid. You by FAITH believed that it was valid. Trying to prove scientifically that is is valid now is beside the point. Every time you drive on the roads you use faith. You believe, because of evidence, that people will drive on the correct side, and mostly they do. But sometimes, despite the evidence, some do not and a crash occurs. You cannot predict when or if that will occur but you decide, by faith, to still drive, believing that you will take the risk that it will not happen to you. This is so elementary I can hardly believe that I have to write this. So again ID was not my discussion. Faith was. And it still stands that it was by faith that you first posted those links. So please will you stay with the subject of faith and not try and side track the situation with ID etc? It is impoossible to live in this world without faith.
My link about the bolts was in direct response to this question from you:
"Since there is no intelligence yet how can it select what will work?"
Somewhere in the proces you changed this to faith, and I was puzzled over this line:
Why is it so difficult for you to admit that life could not exist without faith? bold added.
Now you have changed that to:
"It is impoossible to live in this world without faith."
Call me an eel, but those are two completely different angles/uses of the word faith. Your last statement, is NOT where this started! Your goal posts are all over the place.
As for accepting the sites by "faith". NO. I accepted them based on previous experience and an intelligent assessment of their validity based on that experience. Just because I did not first up spell out all the judgements and decisions I had made as to whether I believed these sites genuine, does not mean I had not done so. I absolutely had. That is the reason I could make the assertion: You put 100....and you WILL get....". Based on the evidence I had assessed I had no doubt it would be the case.
You are essentially re phrasing my statement as "Put 100 bolts ...and I have faith (an assertion without any evidence to back it up) you WILL get..."
The reality is and my intent was: "Put 100 bolts...and (based on evidence I have seen which for good reasons I believe to be factual/true, and I have no doubt that) you WILL get..."
Please note. I am using "faith" in this sense: "Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence." THAT is the essence of faith required to beleive in God, Creation, etc etc.
I am NOT using it in the senses of: "Complete trust or confidence in someone or something"
That is the use to which you are reverting when you make the statement: "It is impossible to live in this world without faith."
I do not believe you and I have been discussing faith in that context at all.
I note your point to Irvin:
"Chris is reluctant to accept, is that posting the two links was an act of faith. That is all I was trying to say."
I agree this kind of "faith" is part of human culture and relationships, but it is worlds away from where you and I began.
My belief was based on reality. Consider this: a belief that is not dependent on reality (faith in the "no matierial evidence" form) also can't be refuted by reality. Your argument against my belief over the bolts was refuted by reality. That is not faith in the sense where we began!!
According to that defintion Donalds illusttration is not one of complexity but just randomness. Now if you take the definition above and Donald places three metal plates with holes in them with the tumbler and bolts position themselves through the plates and nuts fit onto the bolts through the holes then he might have a point.
Take the paper clips. He is right .I often find clips joined together at random. But if he places the paper clips in a box with three cards numbered 1, 2, and 3 and shakes the box and a paper clip joins thre three cards together in numerical order then we might have a case for complexity. So Donald's argument is no arglument at all.
Right! And if we multiply this by the billions of conincidences required for the DNA to function properly, the odds of this happening by mere chance and natural selection becomes so extraordinary that the probability becomes for all practical purposes zero.
Suppose we design a computer program whereby the letters of the alphabet and all the punctuation marks and spaces are chosen at random, do you think that after a million years the product will look like the Encyclopaedia Brittanica?
You're right! This is why the evidence from nature is not enouth. It must be complemented by Revelation from above. If the evidence from nature had been enough, the Lord would not have bothered giving visions and dreams to his chosen prophets, and God would not have had a need to send his own Son down to this earth!
Whatever makes you happy!
You just may find this usefull along with the link to its source below.
"Complexity can only exist if both aspects are present: neither perfect disorder (which can be described statistically through the law of large numbers), nor perfect order (which can be described by traditional deterministic methods) are complex. It thus can be said to be situated in between order and disorder, or, using a recently fashionable expression, "on the edge of chaos".
You may have missed it in my link about Behe last night, but there was an illustration there of two step irreducibly complexity. Simply place three, flat topped blocks beside each other in a row. lay a flat slap along the top of this, and then remove the block from beneath the center of the slab. ie the middle block of the three you placed in a row.
What do you have? You have an irreducibly complex bridge!
As I say, I'm over this discussion, and see little point in going on...
Here's the source to the quote:
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/COMPLEXI.html
following: 1. Note that designed objects were used in the experiements. 2. the nuts and bolts were not of same size, but larger nuts. 3. a better experiment would be if pieces of steel were put in the tumbler, and tumbled until they formed into threaded nuts and bolts of same size, and also a few screwed together.
4. Don't really see that these experiments offer any proof, or odds, that raw materials, by random actions, are possible to produce man, a living life form, that has enjoyable sex by both partners, and can reproduce living offspring. Also, the trillions of other types & kinds of living life forms from smaller than nano to elephantine, dinosaur, & leviathan sizes. It would require trillions of those random moments for each of those individual happenings, to have occurred. Without ID, i can't accept it. Cheers.