When Belief Trumps Scholarship

The most significant argument against Creationism/Intelligent Design is that the proponents of these beliefs tends to try to find faults in existing concept of evolution, but without providing evidence of their own in support of their beliefs. The most often line of attack by these people is what we often normally refer to using the concept of "god of the gaps", where one tries to find some evidence or observations that defies current scientific explanation.

The problem with this, of course, is that these "gaps" often continue to shrink over time, and as our understanding of the world around us expand and improve. The ancient civilization used to think that the moving clouds, the eclipses, the ebb and flow of ocean tides, etc., were all due to some act of gods, because they didn't have any knowledge of what caused them. Now, we know better and these events are no longer mysterious or mystical.

And that's where we come back to the ID crowd. More often than not, they lack the necessary scientific evidence to strengthen their arguments. And when they try, the only people they could convince are people who really are not well-equipped to actually decipher the science. This appears to be the case of the latest book titled "Darwin's Doubt" written by Stephen Meyer, who runs the Discovery Institute. He's a non-biologist, who is trying to argue that the rapid explosion of animal phylia in the Cambrian period cannot be explained via the slow and tedious process of evolution, and thus, via invoking the god-of-the-gaps, points to evidence of an intelligent designer.

Whenever someone brings up a scientific point, it must be countered with equivalent scientific point. And this is exactly what has been done in this case. A review of this book written by UC Berkeley's Charles Marshall in this week's issue of Science (Science, v.341, p.1344 (2013)) did just that. In this review, Marshall pointed out several flaws in the biological/scientific points presented in Meyer's book.

However, my hope soon dissipated into disappointment. His case against current scientific explanations of the relatively rapid appearance of the animal phyla rests on the claim that the origin of new animal body plans requires vast amounts of novel genetic information coupled with the unsubstantiated assertion that this new genetic information must include many new protein folds. In fact, our present understanding of morphogenesis indicates that new phyla were not made by new genes but largely emerged through the rewiring of the gene regulatory networks (GRNs) of already existing genes (1). Now Meyer does touch on this: He notes that manipulation of such networks is typically lethal, thus dismissing their role in explaining the Cambrian explosion. But today's GRNs have been overlain with half a billion years of evolutionary innovation (which accounts for their resistance to modification), whereas GRNs at the time of the emergence of the phyla were not so encumbered. The reason for Meyer's idiosyncratic fixation with new protein folds is that one of his Discovery Institute colleagues has claimed that those are mathematically impossibly hard to evolve on the timescale of the Cambrian explosion.

In other words, this scientific argument doesn't hold water.

Unfortunately, and I can see this happening often, the counter argument to this book will not reach those who should be aware of it. The same with the perpetual argument that evolution violates the 2nd law of Thermodynamics, those who belief in ID will use this as the scientific argument against the evolution of life on Earth, without being aware of the holes in Meyer's book.

But at least now, you know that there is a scientific counter argument to what Meyer has brought up, and you can point to this Science review article.

Zz.

Self-Assembling Nanoparticles

This is a video showing nanoparticles self-assembling into a larger structure.



This brings me to a related topic on evolution. One of the arguments that I often hear from those who oppose the concept of evolution is the idea that the probability of life occurring out of this random mess is extremely small that it should have never happened. Thus, the idea out of evolution that we call came about due to this random formation of life in the beginning, and then slowly evolve over time, can't be correct.

The few so-called estimates on the probability calculation that I have seen never ever mentioned, or take into account, something that many of us in condensed matter are aware of, which is this very fact that there are phenomenon of self-assembly of atoms and molecules. We know this happens. Each time we have ice crystals, or see naturally-formed quartz, etc., those are naturally-occurring self-assembly. What are the odds of those things being formed simply via random arrangements or capture of atoms? The fact that they do form, and form pretty frequently, means that the phase-space for that happening isn't that small, and actually is quite high.

So I can't help wondering if that such self-assembly, especially when there is a change that causes a form of phase transition, might play a role in the formation of life or single-celled form of life. And because of that, the chances of it happening isn't as small as it is made up to be.

Zz.

You Want Us To "Consider" The Creator Hypothesis?

It seems that there's a delicious fight going on between Rabbi Lurie on Huffington Post, and U. of Chicago biologist Jerry Coyne. I will let you read it for yourself.

What I will address is the tired plea from many of these people, and also a common tactic done by crackpots. They want us to spend time and effort to "consider" their position. "Why don't you consider such-and-such?" "Why don't you try to understand my theory?" Yet, all this while, THEY refused to do the same to OUR position. If this Rabbi wants us to ".. at least consider that there could be a Designer... ", then I'd say that it is fair to ask this Rabbi to ".. at least consider that there could be NO Designer"! How about them apples, huh? Has he done it? Has he read AND UNDERSTOOD Hawking's argument? Has he read and understood Lawrence Krauss's argument?

It seems that it is always the scientists that have been asked to "disprove" of something, rather than these people showing ample validity for things they believe in. And do you want to know why? Because the physical characteristics of this "designer" can't be defined and agreed upon by all those who believe in it! There's no science that can consider testing for something that is so shifty and vague! So far, the most common argument for the "apparent" existence of one is in the form of the "god of the gaps". And we all know what happens to such a concept - the "gaps" get smaller as we know more and more about things. The anthropic principle, for example, has a lot of detractors and many arguments against such a thing. Using it as one of your supporting argument (all without knowing the intimate physics of what it is) is a risky practice and could fall right into your face.

So for this Rabbi to insist that we should "consider" such possibility is laughable, because the concept of a "designer" is unfalsifiable and "not even wrong"! If he wants us to consider the possibility, then it is only fair that he consider the opposite possibility. That is, of course, assuming that he has the ability to understand the physics with his "post-graduate level" physics courses, whatever those are.

Zz.

Physics And Creationism

When I read the title of the article "What Physics Teaches Us About Creationism", I will freely admit that I was all set to dislike it based on what I thought it was going to lead to, which is a justification of creationism based on the bastardization of physics. Instead, what I read was an opinion that mirrors what I had already written.

This writer made several pointed argument against creationism, and supporters of creationism, who want to teach it as an "alternative" to evolution. In this case, he was using the example of the OPERA result to falsify this often-made claim against science.

Creationists regularly assert that science is a closed operation, that those offering opinions differing from the norm cannot get a fair hearing within the scientific community. They argue that it is impossible to publish papers in the technical literature that call the dominant paradigm into question. It is this narrow-mindedness, they continue, that keeps their "important" ideas from being shared broadly. I can't begin to count the number of notes I've received from creationists who rail against the biologists who refuse to consider what they have to say. The charge is always the same: scientists are biased and unwilling to consider any ideas that contradict their opinions.

The work arising from CERN demonstrates just how absurd this argument is. The scientists responsible for the work calling special relativity into question had absolutely no trouble getting their results in front of their peers. No one closed ranks and black-listed those who challenged the prevailing paradigm. Quite the opposite occurred. The physics community is abuzz with the results, and healthy discussion, meaningful skepticism, and plans for replication abound.

I had made practically the same argument before, especially in addressing what many crackpots have always made when their "theory" got debunked.  There have been many instances in physics where the strongly-held ideas at that time had to be revamped to make way for new and better/more accurate description of our world. So people who continue to make such arguments are utterly ignorant, and hope that those who hear their arguments are also utterly ignorant of such facts.

The other argument made is the fact that creationism/intelligent design offers zero experimental data and physical evidence in its support.

Creationists, on the other hand, simply make assertions. They offer no data and perform no experiments. As was pointed out by creationists themselves under oath in the Dover, PA intelligent design trial in 2005, no one is performing any scientific investigations of intelligent design. No one is publishing any empirical data on the subject. No one is doing anything at all other than saying, "wow, it seems really unlikely and counter-intuitive for evolution to work." What the creationists want is for an alternative theory of evolution to be accepted - and taught to our children - simply because they don't like the one that currently is supported by the data and by virtually every scientist in the field.

I think this is very important, and it also separates science from many other subjects, especially the standard, typically political banter where data seldom get cited, but personal preferences are used as valid justification for something. Don't believe me? Pay close and critical attention to any political speeches and debates. See how many times the superficial claims and assertions are given the support of actual data.

There's a lot to be learn from science, not the least of which is the methodology on how we arrive at a conclusion or knowledge. I can only wish other areas and most people make the same critical evaluation of what they accept as being valid.

Zz.

Evolution and Earth's Entropy

A nice short paper on evolution and the earth's entropy. Here, the author estimated the difference in entropy of the earth between day and night.

Abstract: Entropy decreases on the Earth due to day/night temperature differences. This decrease exceeds the decrease in entropy on the Earth related to evolution by many orders of magnitude. Claims by creationists that science is somehow inconsistent with regard to evolution are thus show to be baseless.

It also strengthen the earlier arguments on this topic that I highlighted already. The moral of the story is that, if one understands physics (in this case, the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics) only SUPERFICIALLY, one can make many silly mistakes with it! This is why I dislike what Deepak Chopra is doing.

Zz.

The Shock and Awe of Creation

This is actually quite an educational and thought-provoking piece on the reconciliation between evolutionary biology and "God", or at least, the philosophy of god. The most important aspect of the argument can be summarized here:

There are, of course, many people, among them prominent scientists, who have claimed and continue to claim that the scientific notions of evolution do indeed necessarily imply such a materialistic philosophy. Richard Dawkins is among the most vocal proponents of such a philosophy, arguing that "Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist". This strident atheism does not, however, help their scientific work in any way, and on the contrary, is the source of so much of the controversy that rages over it.

It is a fundamental mistake, however, to accept their bundling of the three scientific evolutionary ideas with what I have termed evolutionism. Rather, a more sophisticated response would be to show that the three scientific notions in any form are compatible with theistic philosophy.

In many cases, however, the reaction of religious believers to the materialistic claims of evolutionism is not to simply reject the assertion that evolutionism necessarily follows from scientific ideas. Rather, they tacitly or unconsciously accept the bundling of evolutionism with the science, and then see no option but to attack a part or all of the scientific ideas of evolution as a way of cutting the support for the philosophical claims of evolutionism.

In doing so, however, they find themselves in the awkward situation of attacking a solidly established science, ultimately motivated not by objections to the science per se, but by the illicit bundling of evolutionism with the science.

The author tries to distinguish between evolutionary biology, which is an accepted fact, versus "evolutionism", which often are bundled together with evolutionary theory by people like Richard Dawkins and, strangely enough, rabid creationists and ID proponents. So both of the extreme camps in this debate are actually doing the identical thing, and therefore, are the ones lobbing the loudest attacks and counterattacks at each other, with the rest of us caught in the middle.

It is a good article for one to read since it tries to clearly address various major issues in not only evolution, but also the various seemingly-contradictory aspect of evolution and theistic philosophy.

Zz.

Creationist Refutes Darwin’s Evolutionary Theory - A Rebuttal

I mentioned about this talk about a week ago of a creationist attempting to falsify Darwin's theory of evolution. This morning, I found this response written by a physics major junior that easily threw a lot of doubt in the garbage that was spewed at that talk.

Carter used a wonderful scientific vocabulary and showed some facts that were true.

However, blinded by science jargon, he put up facts and figures with little truth to them, no way to verify them (or if he did, they were not accurate and considered fraudulent in the scientific community), nor accuracy to the science actually used.

This man performed a wonderful show, and is an outstanding example of how the public will believe almost anything that has numbers and graphs in it with no scientific proof.

The writer listed several examples where Carter simply can't produce valid sources for his numbers.

I'm left to wonder how many people in the audience who bought into what they were told. We often talk about the public needed to be scientifically literate. What we mean by that is NOT that the public knows all these "facts", but rather, having the skill to analyze how one goes from A to B to C to D. How, for example, do you draw up the conclusion that, say, "gay marriage" leads to "undermining traditional marriage". People throw out those two phrases all the time, but no one seems to explain the mechanism that show how "gay marriage" CAUSES "undermining of traditional marriage". Not only that, if such mechanism exists, one needs to publish such a thing and be scrutinized for it by others who are experts in the field of study to ensure that such a mechanism is valid, and that leads to the unique conclusion.

The same thing is occurring here. One simply can't throw out all of these numbers and conclusions (something that is commonly done in politics and economics) without any basis to show that they are valid. But the public that isn't familiar with the scientific process are ignorant of that. This is why I'm very proud of this young writer who already has the skill (hopefully something he gained from his education) to analyze and question how such conclusions are made. So well done, Jim Eakins!

Making the public be scientifically literate should mean making them able to make a rational analysis of how one draws up a conclusion. It is why when I proposed a revamping of the undergraduate intro physics labs, I try to steer away from making "textbook tests" of physics principles. Rather, I focused on how one can draw up the conclusion on how A depends on B, and what is the exact relationship between those two. Our world has always been focused on how we can relate things, how are they interconnected, etc. These types of lab exercises precisely present such tests.

Zz.

Creationist Refutes Darwin’s Evolutionary Theory

I received a lot of flak when I made my blog entry on "An Astronomer At The Vatican", simply because I would have asked more pointed questions rather than the fluff that was given. What I wanted to established is specific and CLEAR stand of Catholicism in particular of various issues where religion and science have come to a loggerhead.

It is with that in mind that we have this example of someone who is using Christianity and are still arguing for creationism AND falsely claiming that evolution is wrong.

According to a presentation held Tuesday at West Virginia University, evolutionist Charles Darwin did not know geology, biology, or Jesus.

Dr. Robert Carter, has a doctorate in marine biology and is currently the head speaker and scientist for Creation Ministries International (USA) in Atlanta, Ga., gave a presentation listing in detail what Darwin did not know at that time. Carter argued evolution theory, therefore, cannot be held as the true explanation of the history of the natural world.

So you get all of these people who complained that my view of the Catholic belief is outdated, and yet you have on the other hand, various parts of the same Christian belief that clearly show that that "outdated" belief is alive and well. My question has always been, how come someone within the church (and I'm talking about ALL of Christianity, and not just a particular denomination) talk to this guy and set him straight, if that's possible? Obviously, he would not listen to other scientists since he has ignored not only the overwhelming evidence, but also the overwhelming consensus among scientists. But maybe he'll listen to someone with the same strong background in theology within his religion! If Catholics believe that evolution does not conflict with Catholicism, and if the Pope truly has declared that evolution is true, then someone's clearly wrong here! You guys are all reading from the SAME book, aren't you?

Zz.

Unintelligent Design

I wrote a while back of a letter I read in Science about a different line of attack against the so-called intelligent design idea. It is to exposed the fact that if the human body was indeed the product of an intelligent design, the design itself isn't very intelligent. Based on simply, basic problem of the human anatomy, one could term ID as Incompetent Design, which makes any deity that is responsible for such a design to be highly dumb.

Well now, Art Hobson has also published something similar. In this case, he calls it Unintelligent Design. Here, he looks at one very common argument that ID proponents often use, the eye. Their typical argument is that the eye is way too complex for it to come out of evolution and random formation. Art Hobson used the same type of argument that I mentioned earlier to point the flaw in the human eye.

But the eye betrays its evolutionary origin with a tell-tale flaw: The retina is inside out. The nerve fibers that carry signals from the retina’s light-sensing cells lie on top of those cells and have to plunge through a large hole in the retina to get to the brain, creating the eye’s blind spot. Any intelligent designer would be offended by such a clumsy arrangement. The human eye was not designed; it was inherited as the result of long-term evolutionary development. The eyes of all vertebrate animals are linked with our invertebrate relatives that have only simple eyes that detect light but can’t form an image. In fact, molecular studies have recently found a direct link between the genetic structures that control primitive invertebrate light sensors and those that control sophisticated mammalian lens structures.

As with the tired argument about Thermo's second law and evolution, I'm guessing that this argument would not reach to those who should be educated. Not that they would care, or that this would change their minds anyway.

Zz.

Evolution Resources

The National Academy of Sciences has a terrific webpage of evolution resources that addresses many issues surrounding evolution, ranging from basic understanding of what it is, all the way to addressing the current controversy between evolution and creationism.

It probably won't change the minds of people who cannot accept science for what it is, but it certainly is a good resource for many who are trying to figure out what all the brouhaha is all about. There really is no good excuse anymore to be ignorant about this matter. This resource is giving you everything you might need to know about evolution, and all of them are at your fingertips. Anyone who still makes the annoying argument that it is "only a theory" should be smacked on the back of the head already.

Zz.

Evolution and the Second Law of Thermodynamics

I mentioned a while back of Dan Styer's paper on Evolution and Entropy. In it, he directly tackled this issue and pointed out quantitatively that the decrease in entropy is more than sufficiently balanced by the increase in entropy elsewhere in terms of the energy received by the earth externally.

Now comes another paper that refined Styer's work and draw up an even stronger conclusions by not adopting the assumption in Styer's paper.

Abstract: Skeptics of biological evolution often claim that evolution requires a decrease in entropy, giving rise to a conflict with the second law of thermodynamics. This argument is fallacious because it neglects the large increase in entropy provided by sunlight striking the Earth. A recent article provided a quantitative assessment of the entropies involved and showed explicitly that there is no conflict. That article rests on an unjustified assumption about the amount of entropy reduction involved in evolution. I present a refinement of the argument that does not rely on this assumption.

There ya go! Do you think those who continue to use such arguments against evolutions would read and, more importantly, UNDERSTAND it? I doubt it!

Zz.

Edit 9/17/09: This paper has been published. Here's the full reference: E.F. Bunn, Am. J. Phys. v.77, p.922 (2009).

Anti-evolution resolution introduced in Oklahoma

You have got to read this, because it is too stupid to make up.

Rep. Todd Thomsen, has filed two resolutions in the Oklahoma House to oppose the teaching of the theory of evolution at the department of Zoology at the University of Oklahoma and to oppose an invitation to Richard Dawkins to speak on Campus.

There are two issues here that should be considered by rational people:

1. A politician is trying to dictate what can and cannot be presented as science. Now, I thought it was only The Onion parody last time that had some state legislation that wanted to change pi to being exactly 3. This latest incident would have been hysterical had it been an Onion article, but sadly, it isn't.

2. That there are people who actually voted for this guy into office, and might even vote for him again!

Zz.

Science and Religion Able To Coexist Only Via Ignorance?

One would think that no one right now would dare to use the tired and faulty argument of using the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics (Entropy) to try to debunk evolution. But nooooooooo...... Human stupidity and ignorance can never be underestimated.

This writer is trying so very hard to justify creationism by picking apart not only evolution, but what "scientists" do. This is, of course, assuming that Mr. Anthony Nocket has actually seen and understood what and how scientists actually work. But that's not the reason why I'm picking what he wrote apart. If he wrote this garbage on his own personal webpage, I wouldn't have bothered. There's way too much crap out there to waste precious seconds of anyone's life to comment on. But this apparently is some small news organization, and unless someone actually debunk this, the same misinformation gets perpetuated.

He repeated the same, erroneous attack against evolution:

So as not to open a veritable Pandora’s box, I’ll close with a parable from Thermodynamics Laws: Verse 2. Disorder (or entropy — for those concerned with vernacular) always increases.

How then does life stay together and function, when it’s thermodynamically unfavorable even to keep water from evaporating?

From a physical standpoint, judicious invocation of “intelligent design” appears more legitimate than randomness.

This is a very clear example of "Imagination without knowledge is ignorance waiting to happen". I've already debunked this kind of argument (and so has many others if one cares to actually LEARN. In fact, there have been papers that showed HOW the 2nd Law actually works in promoting evolution! Another paper describing entropy and evolution by Dan Styer describes it even more succinctly. Do you think Mr. Anthony Nocket read them before he made this silly comment? No prize for getting the right answer.

But what is also incredulous is how he is able to fool himself. He applies some set of "law" onto others, but he then sidestep it for himself. For instance:

Here’s the scenario as I see it: God creates physics, physics dictates chemistry and chemistry dictates the rest —including evolution.

The problem is that scientists studying a particular branch of science get bogged down in the minutia, not contemplating the bigger picture. This is precisely why evolutionary biologists have taken flak before, and will, no doubt, continue to do so.

A scientist tries to understand nature empirically, but not its physical origin; this is, for now, the realm of pseudoscience.

So if his "scenario" requires something to create something, then the logical question one would ask is, "Who created God?" If one replies that God doesn't need to be created, that it can simply exist, then what's to prevent us from saying the same thing about the origin of the universe, that the beginning of the Big Bang, for example, had no creator, that it simply existed?

He is correct in one aspect, though. That this is now in the realm of PSEUDOSCIENCE! I bet he didn't exactly look in a dictionary or figure out what "pseudoscience" actually meant before he used it. Wait till he found out that it is more of a derogatory description of what he is believing in! :)

Zz.

Entropy and Evolution

I mentioned quite a while back of the very common abuse of the 2nd law of Thermodynamics by anti-evolution zealots. They claim that evolution contradicts the 2nd law simply because evolution ends towards more ordered (and thus, lower entropy) creatures. This is of course false in more ways than one, and I presented it as an example of "imagination without knowledge is ignorance waiting to happen".

However, not only that, but one can actually show that evolution can be successfully described by the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. This shows that there's nothing contradictory regarding evolution and the 2nd law. Notice that these creationist zealots never once tried to apply any laws of physics to their own beliefs on how the various living creatures came into being (can we say "violation of the conservation of energy"?).

Along comes a very good article by Dan Styer, published in the latest issue of the American Journal of Physics. Titled "Entropy and Evolution"[1], he tackled very much the same issue.

Abstract: Quantitative estimates of the entropy involved in biological evolution demonstrate that there is no conflict between evolution and the second law of thermodynamics. The calculations are elementary and could be used to enliven the thermodynamics portion of a high school or introductory college physics course.

He basically calculate the change in entropy of the Earth due to evolution:

Presumably the entropy of the Earth’s biosphere is indeed decreasing by a tiny amount due to evolution, and the entropy of the cosmic microwave background is increasing by an even greater amount to compensate for that decrease. But the decrease in entropy required for evolution is so small compared to the entropy throughput that would occur even if the Earth were a dead planet, or if life on Earth were not evolving, that no measurement would ever detect it.

An excellent article to read!

Zz.

[1] D. Styer, Am. J. Phys. v.76, 1031 (2008).

New Exploratorium Web Site Reveals How Science Works

Got this from the San Francisco Exploratorium Public Information office.

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Evidence
How Do We Know What We Know?
New Exploratorium Web Site Reveals How Science Works
Current Research in Human Origins at The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Is the Focus www.exploratorium.edu/evidence Launches August 18, 2008

In the media blitz of everyday life, how often do you hear about new ideas and discoveries in science? Do you believe what you hear? What you read? What you see? On August 18, 2008, the Exploratorium introduces Evidence: How Do We Know What We Know? (www.exploratorium.edu/evidence), a thought-provoking new Web site that looks at the role of evidence in science and society.

Evidence premieres with a case study in human evolution that features the work of scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. Researchers share their knowledge and insights in dozens of streaming videos, podcasts and online interactives, and let you explore for yourself: See how DNA is extracted from a 38,000-year-old Neanderthal bone; find telltale microscopic markings on fossil teeth; analyze a peer-reviewed paper; manipulate computer models of ancient fossil skulls‹and much, much more.

Go to: http://www.exploratorium.edu/pr/documents/08-8Evidence.html

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Zz.

Evolution as Described by the Second Law of Thermodynamics

In Part 2 of my "Imagination Without Knowledge Is Ignorance Waiting To Happen", I listed one of the most common argument that some creationists had tried to use (and some, still are using) to discredit evolution. They argued that the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is "proof" that evolution is impossible.

Of course, these misguided people have no clue on basic physics, or they wouldn't be making stupid claims like that (thus, the "without knowledge" and "ignorance" connection). But now, we can go even a step further to the other side and show that, in fact, the 2nd law of thermodynamics CAN describe evolution, and that this aspect of physics is a necessary ingredient in how evolution proceeds! This is explained in a paper by Ville Kaila and Arto Annila of the University of Helsinki published in the Proceedings of The Royal Society A.

The second law of thermodynamics, which states that the energy of a system tends to even itself out with its surroundings (“a system’s entropy always increases”), can be expressed in many different forms. Kaila and Annila focus on two of these forms. When written as a differential equation of motion, the second law can describe evolution as an energy transfer process: natural selection tends to favor the random mutations that lead to faster entropy increases in an ecosystem. When written in integral form, the second law describes the principle of least action: motion, in general, takes the path of least energy.

Then, the scientists showed how natural selection and the principle of least action can be connected by expressing natural selection in terms of chemical thermodynamics. As the scientists explain, nature explores many possible paths to level differences in energy densities, with one kind of energy transfer mechanism being different species within the larger system of the Earth.

So there!

Zz.

Theistic Evolution - The New Theology?

This is a rather fascinating article from, of all places, the Chicago Tribune. It detailed the "inquisition" being faced by a physicist at Calvin College in Michigan for a book that was published years ago. In it, Howard Van Till dares to propose that his religious belief can be reconciled with the evolution.

Van Till roused a small but fervent pack of enemies at the conservative college with his book, "The Fourth Day," in which he argued that the stories of the Bible and science's account of evolution could both be true. His critics on the school's board of trustees had no interest in reconciling the religious account of creation with a naturalist explanation of how life and the universe have evolved over the ages. For years after the book's release in 1986, Van Till reported to a monthly interrogation where he struggled to reassure college officials that his scientific teachings fit within their creed.

Now that's an interesting tactic.

I suppose that many people do accept both, and I suspect that there are a lot more of them than those who are reverently anti-evolution or anti-religion. This is because many people of faith accepts that what they believe in is simply a matter of faith - devoid of physical and empirical evidence, and they're willing to accept that. They still continue to accept science as the workings of the world that they live in. I don't see anything wrong with that kind of a "compromise".

But this attempt at reconciling religion (or in this case, Christianity) with evolution is certainly interesting. It does mean that many who accept both don't have to feel any discomfort for an apparent contradiction.

A good article!

Zz.

Where Science, Religion Meet?

This news article reports on a noble effort of trying to present the middle ground between science and religion as part of what they call the Evolution weekend. I'm sure they had good intentions here in doing this, and certainly, having such dialog could possibly help. However, and maybe this is simply the skeptic in me talking, I think they're missing a lot of important aspect here, which is understandable if they only think of "religion" as being "christianity".

For example:

"Neither science nor faith can fully prove how the world came to be, so they are complimentary to each other," said Bennet Brabson, a professor of physics at Indiana University in Bloomington.

"(Religion and science) have a shared inquiry, not necessarily a shared certitude," said Mark Engle, a retired rector from a Marquette church. "The journey of truth in scriptures is never done without science."

Whenever someone says something like this, he/she is forgetting one important thing. In science, when something is accepted to be valid, there is usually ONE set of formulation or description that we all agreed on. It doesn't matter if you are an American, a European, a Russian, a Chinese, a christian, a buddhist, a muslim, an athiest, etc... It is the SAME scientific theory and description. The theory of conventional superconductivity, for example, isn't different for a Canadian than it is for a Japanese, no matter what their social and cultural differences are. Even something that is still being highly studied, such as the Big Bang Theory, has a rather large and uniform consensus, even though there are small groups of cosmologist that may disagree with it. What may differ, for instance, among those who do accept the Big Bang, is the details. They may disagree on the "exact" age of the universe, let's say, but it's a matter of it being 4 billion, 6, billion, of 12 billion years old. The difference certainly not between 10 billion and 10,000 years old. If better evidence come along, accepted science evolves to match the evidence.

The same can't be said about religion and its view of the universe. The Judeo-Christian-Islam view of the universe varies WIDELY from the Hindu/Buddhist/Taoist/etc. view of the universe. One can also say that even within the Judeo-Christian-Islam religion, there are also significant differences in the description of the universe. Don't believe me? Read Maurice Bucaille's "The Bible, The Quran, and Science". They do not agree on the fundamental formation of the universe and its age. Even among the Christians themselves, you get one that accepts the age of the universe from Cosmology as being in the billions of years, while there are these "Young Earth" followers who still think the earth is only of the order of 10,000 years old! That's a major, major discrepancy in my book.

So I find it strange that whenever people say that both science and religion can meet, and that one compliments the other in our understanding of the universe, this major disagreement between various religious views are never mentioned, as if "religion" is only one version of Christianity, and as if "religion" means "Christianity" only. There is NO ONE ACCEPTED VERSION of the universe in religion. That's a fallacy.

Not only that, the other reason why I think events like this may not be that effective is because you get someone like this who can't see the fault in what they believe in:

Fred Betz, 63, of Galesburg told the panelists he took the words of the Bible at face value, and his understanding of scripture disproved evolution.

"What's wrong with my simplistic view of reading the Bible?" Betz asked.

Panelists said nothing was wrong and pointed to the central themes of Evolution Weekend: open-mindedness and discussion.

"The way we deal with each other is more important than any of our individual theories," Brabson answered.

Betz wasn't convinced.

"It's sad we're having (this discussion) in a church," he said after the event. "The Bible is the inherent word of God. It's sad I had to explain the same things to them I had to explain to my atheist friend."

How come no one points out that what this guy accepts "at face value" is nothing more than a product of SEVERAL TRANSLATIONS of human memorization over hundreds of years? Did he think that the bible was written in English outright? How secure are you at accepting "at face value" something that had been translated from several ancient languages across several different cultures? How many languages does this guy know? Has he ever done any kind of translation and see how a lot of meanings get lost when one does that? I mean, c'mon! Why are we missing something this obvious here?

When all the religions of the world get their act together and come up with a coherent picture, when maybe this "science meet religion" affair might produce something worthwhile. Till then, all this is doing is trying to merge science with something that is ill-defined. I see this as a futile effort.

Zz.

Science, Evolution, and Creationism

If you haven't found this and downloaded it yet, you might find it useful. This is the document produced by the US National Academy of Sciences addressing the Evolution vs. Creationism in terms of science. It addresses things in a straight-forward manner, and produces not only rebuttals against several popular points brought up by creationists, but also points to several strong evidence in support of evolution that many people may not realize.

Most of the documents and reports can be obtained for free.

Zz.

The Best Attack Against Intelligent Design that I've Ever Read!

This is from the July 22 2005 issue of Science, and after reading it, I simply HAD to report it and record it here. And not to mention, I FULLY agree with the whole idea on how to confront this issue. This is consistent with my earlier entry on here about the fact that you have to be superficial, glib, and perky when talking about science to politicians and the general public. It's the ONLY way to make them pay attention and to sway them. Facts and figures do NOTHING! It's all in the style!

Anyway, in this issue of Science, Donald Wise from Department of Geosciences of University of Massachusetts addressed the issue related to Donald Kennedy's article on Evolution vs. Intelligent Design. He pointed out how ineffective the scientific community has been in persuading the public of why evolution is science, while ID is not. The flaw comes in because the scientists were arguing details of scientific facts before an audience who have no way to comprehend such facts. What he proposed is that the scientists should "....attack a weakness of the opposition and repeat (again and again), with a modicum of humor...." He then explicitly proposed a paragraph that he said has worked before:

"You have a philosophic choice between evolution or belief in ID, so called intelligent design. But even a first-year engineering student would be embarrassed to have designed your lower back with the extreme bend that allows you to stand erect even though your pelvis slants forward for knuckle-dragging like all our near relatives. You probably have had braces or wisdom teeth extracted because there are too many teeth for the size of your mouth. Then there are your sinuses, with a flawed drainage system that would provoke laughter from a plumber. Yet evolution provides a ready and rational explanation for all these design failures: by progressive changes into an erect posture, by shortening of a mammalian muzzle into a face, and by expansion of our large brains to crowd the facial bones. So take your choice: Do you prefer evolution or an ID whose letters may as well stand for Incompetent Design?"

When I read it, I was howling with laughter. It's funny, but it's DEAD ON! After this was said, Wise then reported,

"After a bit of flustering, the ID adherent usually mumbles something about our inability to know the mind of God. The reply: "Indeed, ID is not science but religion and should be taught as such.""

This is such a classic!

In trying to impress upon the public of science, do not rely on facts and numbers. We have already seen many instances where this strategy did not work (see Brookhaven Lab). Style trumps over substance more often than not. This is how most people, sadly, make up their minds.

Zz.