old coot who now lives in Mexico and a lot of what he says is definately un-PC, but he's no idiot and while you won't always agree with what he says, it is always thought-provoking. I thought this essay had some good points; he's not a Christian or a creationist btw. Hope you find it as interesting as I did. You can join his mailing list at www.fredoneverything.net.
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Fredwin On Evolution
Very Long, Will Bore Hell Out Of Most People, But I Felt Like Doing It
March 7, 2005
I was about fifteen when I began to think about evolution. I was then just
discovering the sciences systematically, and took them as what they offered
themselves to be, a realm of reason and dispassionate regard for truth.
There was a hard-edged clarity to them that I liked. You got real answers.
Since evolution depended on such sciences as chemistry, I regarded it as
also being a science.
The question of the origin of life interested me. The evolutionary
explanations that I encountered in textbooks of biology ran to, �In primeval
seas, evaporation concentrated dissolved compounds in a pore in a rock, a
skim formed a membrane, and life began its immense journey.� I saw no reason
to doubt this. If it hadn�t been true, scientists would not have said that
it was.
Remember, I was fifteen.
In those days I read Scientific American and New Scientist, the latter then
still being thoughtfully written in good English. I noticed that not
infrequently they offered differing speculation as to the origin of life.
The belief in the instrumentality of chemical accident was constant, but the
nature of the primeval soup changed to fit varying attempts at explanation.
For a while, life was thought to have come about on clay in shallow water in
seas of a particular composition, later in tidal pools with another chemical
solution, then in the open ocean in another solution. This continues.
Recently, geothermal vents have been offered as the home of the first life.
Today (Feb 24, 2005) on the BBC website, I learn that life evolved below the
oceanic floor. (�There is evidence that life evolved in the deep sediments,"
co-author John Parkes, of Cardiff University, UK, told the BBC News
website.� Link at bottom.)
The frequent shifting of ground bothered me. If we knew how life began, why
did we have so many prospective mechanisms, none of which really worked?
Evolution began to look like a theory in search of a soup. Forty-five years
later, it still does.
Questions Arise
I was probably in college when I found myself asking what seemed to me
straightforward questions about the chemical origin of life. In particular:
(1) Life was said to have begun by chemical inadvertence in the early seas.
Did we, I wondered, really know of what those early seas consisted? Know,
not suspect, hope, theorize, divine, speculate, or really, really wish.
The answer was, and is, �no.� We have no dried residue, no remaining pools,
and the science of planetogenesis isn�t nearly good enough to provide a
quantitative analysis.
(2) Had the creation of a living cell been replicated in the laboratory? No,
it hadn�t, and hasn�t. (Note 1)
(3) Did we know what conditions were necessary for a cell to come about? No,
we didn�t, and don�t.
(4) Could it be shown to be mathematically probable that a cell would form,
given any soup whatever? No, it couldn�t, and can�t. (At least not without
cooking the assumptions.) (Note 2)
Well, I thought, sophomore chemistry major that I then was: If we don�t know
what conditions existed, or what conditions are necessary, and can�t
reproduce the event in the laboratory, and can�t show it to be statistically
probable�why are we so very sure that it happened? Would you hang a man on
such evidence?
My point was not that evolutionists were necessarily wrong. I simply didn�t
see the evidence. While they couldn�t demonstrate that life had begun by
chemical accident, I couldn�t show that it hadn�t. An inability to prove
that something is statistically possible is not the same as proving that it
is not possible. Not being able to reproduce an event in the laboratory does
not establish that it didn�t happen in nature. Etc.
I just didn�t know how life came about. I still don�t. Neither do
evolutionists.
What Distinguishes Evolution from Other Science
Early on, I noticed three things about evolution that differentiated it from
other sciences (or, I could almost say, from science). First, plausibility
was accepted as being equivalent to evidence. (And of course the less you
know, the greater the number of things that are plausible, because there are
fewer facts to get in the way.) Again and again evolutionists assumed that
suggesting how something might have happened was equivalent to establishing
how it had happened. Asking them for evidence usually aroused annoyance and
sometimes, if persisted in, hostility.
As an example, it seems plausible to evolutionists that life arose by
chemical misadventure. By this they mean (I think) that they cannot imagine
how else it might have come about. (Neither can I. Does one accept a poor
explanation because unable to think of a good one?) This accidental-life
theory, being somewhat plausible, is therefore accepted without the usual
standards of science, such as reproducibility or rigorous demonstration of
mathematical feasibility. Putting it otherwise, evolutionists are too
attached to their ideas to be able to question them.
Consequently, discussion often turns to vague and murky assertion. Starlings
are said to have evolved to be the color of dirt so that hawks can�t see
them to eat them. This is plausible. But guacamayos and cockatoos are gaudy
enough to be seen from low-earth orbit. Is there a contradiction here? No,
say evolutionists. Guacamayos are gaudy so they can find each other to mate.
Always there is the pat explanation. But starlings seem to mate with great
success, though invisible. If you have heard a guacamayo shriek, you can
hardly doubt that another one could easily find it. Enthusiasts of evolution
then told me that guacamayos were at the top of their food chain, and didn�t
have predators. Or else that the predators were colorblind. On and on it
goes. But�is any of this established?
Second, evolution seemed more a metaphysics or ideology than a science. The
sciences, as I knew them, gave clear answers. Evolution involved intense
faith in fuzzy principles. You demonstrated chemistry, but believed
evolution. If you have ever debated a Marxist, or a serious liberal or
conservative, or a feminist or Christian, you will have noticed that,
although they can be exceedingly bright and well informed, they display a
maddening imprecision. You never get a straight answer if it is one they do
not want to give. Nothing is ever firmly established. Crucial assertions do
not tie to observable reality. Invariably the Marxist (or evolutionist)
assumes that a detailed knowledge of economic conditions under the reign of
Nicholas II or whatever substitutes for being able to answer simple
questions, such as why Marxism has never worked: the Fallacy of Irrelevant
Knowledge. And of course almost anything can be made believable by
considering only favorable evidence and interpreting hard.
Third, evolutionists are obsessed by Christianity and Creationism, with
which they imagine themselves to be in mortal combat. This is peculiar to
them. Note that other sciences, such as astronomy and geology, even
archaeology, are equally threatened by the notion that the world was created
in 4004 BC. Astronomers pay not the slightest attention to creationist
ideas. Nobody does�except evolutionists. We are dealing with competing
religions�overarching explanations of origin and destiny. Thus the fury of
their response to skepticism.
I found it pointless to tell them that I wasn�t a Creationist. They refused
to believe it. If they had, they would have had to answer questions that
they would rather avoid. Like any zealots, they cannot recognize their own
zealotry. Thus their constant classification of skeptics as enemies (a word
they often use)�of truth, of science, of Darwin, of progress.
This tactical demonization is not unique to evolution. �Creationist� is to
evolution what �racist� is to politics: A way of preventing discussion of
what you do not want to discuss. Evolution is the political correctness of
science.
The Lair of the Beast
I have been on several lists on the internet that deal with matters such as
evolution, have written on the subject, and have discussed evolution with
various of its adherents. These men (almost all of them are) have frequently
been very bright indeed, often Ivy League professors, some of them with
names you would recognize. They are not amateurs of evolution or high-school
principals in Kansas eager to prove their modernity. I asked them the
questions in the foregoing (about whether we really know what the primeval
seas consisted of, etc.) I knew the answers; I wanted to see how serious
proponents of evolutionary biology would respond to awkward questions.
It was like giving a bobcat a prostate exam. I got everything but answers.
They told me I was a crank, implied over and over that I was a Creationist,
said that I was an enemy of science (someone who asks for evidence is an
enemy of science). They said that I was trying to pull down modern biology
(if you ask questions about an aspect of biology, you want to pull down
biology). They told me I didn�t know anything (that�s why I was asking
questions), and that I was a mere journalist (the validity of a question
depends on its source rather than its content).
But they didn�t answer the questions. They ducked and dodged and evaded.
After thirty years in journalism, I know ducking and dodging when I see it.
It was like cross-examining hostile witnesses. I tried to force the issue,
pointing out that the available answers were �Yes,� �No,� �I don�t know,� or
�The question is not legitimate,� followed by any desired discussion. Still
no straight answer. They would neither tell me of what the early oceans
consisted, nor admit that they didn�t know.
This is the behavior not of scientists, but of advocates, of True Believers.
I used to think that science was about asking questions, not about defending
things you didn�t really know. Religion, I thought, was the other way
around. I guess I was wrong.
Practical Questions
A few things that worry those who are not doctrinaire evolutionists.
(Incidentally, it is worth noting that by no means all involved in the life
sciences are doctrinaire. A friend of mine, a (Jewish, atheist) biochemist,
says �It doesn�t make sense.� He may be wrong, but a Creationist he isn�t.)
To work, a theory presumably must (a) be internally consistent and (b) map
onto reality. You have to have both. Classical mechanics for example is (so
far as I know) internally consistent, but is not at all points congruent
with reality. Evolution has a great deal of elaborate, Protean, and often
fuzzy theory. How closely does it correspond to what we actually see? Do the
sweeping principles fit the grubby details?
For example, how did a giraffe get a long neck? One reads as a matter of
vague philosophical principle that a proto-giraffe by chance happened to be
taller than its herdmates, could eat more altitudinous leaves than its
confreres, was therefore better fed, consequently rutted with abandon, and
produced more child giraffes of height. This felicitous adaptation therefore
spread and we ended up�well, up�with taller giraffes. It sounds reasonable.
In evolution that is enough.
But what are the practical details? Do we have an unambiguous record of
giraffes with longer and longer necks? (Maybe we do. I�m just asking.)
Presumably modern giraffes have more vertebrae then did proto-giraffes. (The
alternative is the same number of vertebrae, but longer ones. I have known
giraffes. They were flexible rather than hinged.) This, note, requires a
structural change as distinct from an increase in size.
Evolution is said to proceed by the accretion of successful point mutations.
Does a random point mutation cause the appearance of an extra vertebra? If
so, which mutation? (It would have to be a pretty vigorous point mutation.)
How can you tell, given that we have no DNA from proto-giraffes? If not one,
then how many random point mutations? Which ones? What virtue did these have
that they were conserved until all were present? Did this happen once per
additional vertebra�the multiply repeated chance appearance of identical
mutations? Or did they appear all at once? If so, the heart must have
changed simultaneously to get blood way up there.
[After I posted this a reader wrote to say that giraffes do have longer
instead of more vertebra. Substitute "a snake" for " giraffe," snakes
sometimes having hundrds of vertebrae, and the same questions questions
hold.]
There may be perfectly good, clear, demonstrable answers to a few of these
questions. I�m not a paleontological giraffologist. But if evolutionists
want people to accept evolution, they need to provide answers�clear,
concrete, non-metaphysical answers without gaping logical lacunae. They do
not. When passionate believers do not provide answers that would
substantiate their assertions, a reasonable presumption is that they do not
have them.
The matter of the giraffe is a simple example of a question that inevitably
occurs to the independently thoughtful: How do you get evolutionarily from A
to B? Can you get from A to B by the mechanisms assumed? Without practical
details, evolution looks like an assertion that the better survives the
worse; throw in ionizing radiation and such to provide things to do the
surviving, and we�re off to the races. But�can we get there from here? Do we
actually know the intermediate steps and the associated genetic mechanics?
If we don�t know what the steps were, can we at least show unambiguously a
series of steps that would work?
Lots of evolutionary changes just don�t look manageable by random mutation.
Some orchestrated jump seems necessary. How does an animal evolve color
vision, given that doing so would require elaborate changes in eye
chemistry, useless without simultaneous elaborate changes in the brain to
interpret the incoming impulses, which changes would themselves be useless
without the retinal changes?
Or consider caterpillars. A caterpillar has no obvious resemblance to a
butterfly. The disparity in engineering is huge. The caterpillar has no
legs, properly speaking, certainly no wings, no proboscis. How did a species
that did not undergo metamorphosis evolve into one that did? Pupating looks
like something you do well or not at all: If you don�t turn into something
practical at the end, you don�t get another chance.
Think about this. The ancestor of a modern caterpillar necessarily was
something that could reproduce already. To get to be a butterfly-producing
sort of organism, it would have to evolve silk-extruding organs, since they
are what you make a cocoon with. OK, maybe it did this to tie leaves
together, or maybe the beast resembled a tent-caterpillar. (Again,
plausibility over evidence.) Then some mutation caused it to wrap itself
experimentally in silk. (What mutation? Are we serious?) It then died,
wrapped, because it had no machinery to cause it to undergo the
fantastically complex transformation into a butterfly. Death is usually a
discouragement to reproduction.
Tell me how the beast can gradually acquire, by accident, the capacity
gradually to undergo all the formidably elaborate changes from worm to
butterfly, so that each intermediate form is a practical organism that
survives. If evolutionists cannot answer such questions, the theory fails.
Here the evolutionist will say, �Fred, caterpillars are soft, squashy things
and don�t leave good fossils, so it�s unreasonable to expect us to find
proof.� I see the problem. But it is unreasonable to expect me to accept
something on the grounds that it can�t be proved. Yes, it is possible that
an explanation exists and that we just haven�t found it. But you can say
that of anything whatever. Is it good science to assume that evidence will
be forthcoming because we sure would like it to be? I�ll gladly give you
evidence Wednesday for a theory today?
Note that I am not asking evolutionists to give detailed mechanics for the
evolution of everything that lives. If they gave convincing evidence for a
few of the hard cases�proof of principle, so to speak--I would be inclined
to believe that equally good evidence existed for the others. But they
haven�t.
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Evolution, Like Gaul, Is Divided Into Three Parts
Evolution breaks down into at least three logically separable components:
First, that life arose by chemical accident; second, that it then evolved
into the life we see today; and third, that the mechanism was the accretion
of chance mutations. Evolutionists, not particularly logical, refuse to see
this separability.
The first, chance formation of life, simply hasn�t been established. It
isn�t science, but faith.
The second proposition, that life, having arisen by unknown means, then
evolved into the life of today, is more solid. In very old rocks you find
fish, then things, like coelacanth and the ichthyostega, that look like
transitional forms, and finally us. They seem to have gotten from A to B
somehow. A process of evolution, however driven, looks reasonable. It is
hard to imagine that they appeared magically from nowhere, one after the
other.
The third proposition, that the mechanism of evolutions is chance mutation,
though sacrosanct among its proponents, is shaky. If it cannot account for
the simultaneous appearance of complex, functionally interdependent
characteristics, as in the case of caterpillars, it fails. Thus far, it
hasn�t accounted for them.
It is interesting to note that evolutionists switch stories regarding the
mechanism of transformation. The standard Neo-Darwinian view is that
evolution proceeds very slowly. But when it proves impossible to find
evidence of gradual evolution, some evolutionists turn to �punctuated
equilibrium,� (2) which says that evolution happens by sudden undetectable
spurts. The idea isn�t foolish, just unestablished. Then there are the
evolutionists who, in opposition to those who maintain that point-mutations
continue to account for evolution, say that now cultural evolution has taken
over.
Finally, when things do not happen according to script�when, for example,
human intelligence appears too rapidly�then we have the theory of
�privileged genes,� which evolved at breakneck speed because of assumed but
unestablished selective pressures. That is, the existence of the pressures
is inferred from the changes, and then the changes are attributed to the
pressures. Oh.
When you have patched a tire too many times, you start thinking about
getting a new tire.
The Theory of Implausibility
As previously mentioned, evolutionists depend heavily on plausibility
unabetted by evidence. There is also the matter of implausibility. Suppose
that I showed you two tiny gear wheels, such as one might find in an old
watch, and said, �See? I turn this little wheel, and the other little wheel
turns too. Isn�t that cute?� You would not find this surprising. Suppose I
then showed you a whole mechanical watch, with thirty little gear wheels and
a little lever that said tickticktick. You would have no trouble accepting
that they all worked together.
If I then told you of a mechanism consisting of a hundred billion little
wheels that worked for seventy years, repairing itself, wouldn�t you suspect
either that I was smoking something really good�or that something beyond
simple mechanics must be involved?
Evolution writ large is the belief that a cloud of hydrogen will
spontaneously invent extreme-ultraviolet lithography, perform Swan Lake, and
write all the books in the British Museum.
If something looks implausible, it probably is.
More Questions on the Fit with Reality
Does the theory, however reasonable and plausible (or not), in fact map onto
what we actually see? A principle of evolution is that traits conferring
fitness become general within a population. Do they?
Again, consider intelligence. Presumably it increases fitness. (Or maybe it
does. An obvious question is why, if intelligence is adaptive�i.e., promotes
survival--it didn�t evolve earlier; and if it is not adaptive, why did it
evolve at all? You get various unsubstantiated answers, such as that
intelligence is of no use without an opposable thumb, or speech, or
something.)
Those who deal in human evolution usually hold The Bell Curve in high
regard. (So do I. It�s almost as good as Shotgun News or, more appropriate
in this context, the Journal of Irreproducible Results.) A point the book
makes is that in the United States the highly intelligent tend to go into
fields requiring intelligence, as for example the sciences, computing, and
law. They live together, work together, and marry each other, thus tending
to concentrate intelligence instead of making it general in the population.
They also produce children at below the level of replacement. Perhaps
fitness leads to extinction.
Black sub-Saharan Africans (say many evolutionists) have a mean IQ somewhere
near 70, live in wretched poverty, and breed enthusiastically. White
Europeans, reasonably bright at IQ 100 and quite prosperous, are losing
population. Jews, very bright indeed at a mean IQ of 115 and very
prosperous, are positively scarce, always have been, and seem to be losing
ground. From this I conclude either that (a) intelligence does not increase
fitness or (b) reproduction is inversely proportional to fitness.
I�m being a bit of a smart-ass here, but�the facts really don�t seem to
match the theory.
In human populations, do the fit really reproduce with each other? It is a
matter of daily observation that men prefer cute, sexy women. It then
becomes crucial for evolutionists to show that cute and sexy are more fit
than strong, smart, and ugly. Thus large breasts are said to produce more
milk (Evidence? Chimpanzees have no breasts yet produce ample milk.) and
that broad hips imply a large birth canal. (But men are not attracted to
broad hips, but to broad hips in conjunction with a narrow waist.)
Curvaceous legs are curvaceous because of underlying muscle, important for
fitness.
Of course Chinese women do not have muscular legs or buttocks, wide hips, or
large breasts, and seem to reproduce satisfactorily. (White and Asian women
are more physically delicate than African women, as witness the lower rates
of training injuries among black women in the American army. Thus European
women, said to have emigrated from Africa and evolved to be Caucasians, lost
sturdiness. Why?)
Then it is said that ugly woman are hypertestosteronal, and therefore have
more spontaneous abortions. A sophomore logic student with a hangover could
point out the problems and unsaid things in this argument.
There is an air of desperation about all of it. Transparently they begin
with their conclusion and craft their reasoning to reach it.
Fast and Faster
To the evolutionarily unbaptised, it seems that evolution might occur
slowly, by the gradual accretion of random point-mutations over millions of
years, but certainly could occur rapidly by the spread of genes already
available in the population. For example, genes presumably exist among us
for the eyes of Ted Williams, the endurance of marathon runners, the general
physical plant of Mohammed Ali, the intelligence of Gauss, and so on. (This
of course assumes genetic determinism, which not all geneticists buy.) Are,
or were, these becoming general? Perhaps. Show me. If not, one must conclude
either that these qualities do not confer fitness, or that fitness does not
become general. It seems odd to believe that massive structural changes can
occur slowly through the accumulation of accidental changes, but much more
rapid increases in fitness do not occur through existent genes. Can we get
answers, please? Concrete, non-metaphysical, demonstrable answers?
Consciousness
With evolution the sciences run into the problem of consciousness, which
they are poorly equipped to handle. This is important. You don�t need to
consider consciousness in, say, physical chemistry, which gives the correct
answers without it. But evolution is a study of living things, of which
consciousness is at least sometimes a quality. Evolutionists know this, and
so write unwittingly fatuous articles on the evolution of consciousness.
They believe that they are being scientific. But�are they?
Obvious questions: What is consciousness? Does it have a derived definition,
like f = ma? Or is it an undefined primitive, like �line� or �point�? With
what instrument do you detect it? Is something either conscious or not, or
do you have shades and degrees? Is a tree conscious, or a rock? How do you
know? Evolution means a continuous change over time. How do you document
such changes? Do we have fossilized consciousness, consciousness preserved
in amber? Does consciousness have physical existence? If it does, is it
electromagnetic, gravitational, or what? If it doesn�t have physical
existence, what kind of existence does it have?
If you cannot define it, detect it, or measure it, how do you study its
evolution, if any? Indeed, how do the sciences, based on physics, handle the
physically undetectable?
Speculation disguised as science never ends. For example, some say that
consciousness is just a side-effect of complexity. How do they know?
Complexity defined how? If a man is conscious because he�s complex, then a
whole room full of people must be even more conscious, because the total
complexity would have to be more than any one fellow�s complexity. The
universe has got to be more complex than anything in it, so it must be
motingator conscious.
Ah, but the crucial questions, though: (Again, the possible answers are,
�Yes,� �No,� �I don�t know,� or �The question doesn�t make sense.�)
First, does consciousness interact with matter? It seems to. When I drop a
cinder block on my foot, it sure interacts with my consciousness. And if I
consciously tell my hand to move, it does.
Second, if consciousness interacts with matter, then don�t you have to take
it into account in describing physical systems?
Vague Plausibility Revisited
Humans are said to have a poor sense of smell because they evolved to stand
upright in the savanna where you can see forever and don�t need to smell
things. This makes no sense: Anyone can see that the better your senses of
smell and hearing, especially at night but even in daytime if you have lions
that look like dirt and know how to sneak up on things, you are better off.
I note that horses have good vision and eyes at about the same altitude as
ours, but they have great noses.
Then the evolutionist says, well, people�s noses retracted into their faces,
and there wasn�t room for good olfaction. How much olfactory tissue does a
house cat have? They can sure smell things better than we can. Oh, then says
the Evolutionist, a large olfactory center in the brain would impose too
much metabolic strain and require that people eat more, and so they would
die of starvation in bad times. Evidence? Demonstration?
My favorite example, which does not reach the level of plausibility, is such
artifacts as the tail of a peacock which obviously make the bird easier to
see and eat. So help me, I have several times seen the assertion that
females figure that any male who can survive such a horrendous disadvantage
must really be tough, and therefore good mating material. The tail increases
fitness by decreasing fitness. A Boy Named Sue.
Traits That Ought To Be Dead, But Don�t Seem To Be
Supposedly traits that kill off an animal die out of the population, and
things that help the beast survive spread till they all have them. That
makes sense. But does it happen?
That it does is certainly an article of faith. I once asked a doctor why Rh
negative people stayed in the population. Fifteen percent of white women are
negative, so they are usually going to mate with positive men, with the
consequent possibility that children will suffer from hemolytic disease.
Well, said the doctor, being Rh negative obviously must have some survival
value, or it wouldn�t exist. (Then why hasn�t it become general? Or is it
doing so?) She simply believed.
She then rolled out sickle-cell anemia, the poster child of evolution, which
is caused by a point mutation on the beta chain of hemoglobin and, when
heterozygous, helps people survive malaria.
Maybe Rh negativity does have some survival value, which can be shown to be
greater than its non-survival value. Maybe asthma does too, and fatal
allergies to bee stings, and migraines, schizophrenia, panic, cluster
headaches, anaphylactic shock in general, homosexuality in males, allergies,
a thousand genetic diseases, suicide, and so on. (I suppose you could argue
that being a suicide bomber ensures wide dispersal of one�s genetic
material.)
For that matter, why are there so many traits that have no obvious value?
For example, kidneys have well developed nerves. Kidney stones are
agonizing. Yet there is absolutely nothing an animal can do about a kidney
stone. How do those nerves increase fitness?
Evolutionists don�t ask. Always the question is How does this fit in with
evolution, instead of, Does this fit in with evolution?
Intelligent Design
An interesting thought that drives evolutionists mad is called Intelligent
Design, or ID. It is the view that things that appear to have been done
deliberately might have been. Some look at, say, the human eye and think,
�This looks like really good engineering. Elaborate retina of twelve layers,
marvelously transparent cornea, pump system to keep the whole thing
inflated, suspensory ligaments, really slick lens, the underlying cell
biology. Very clever.�
I gather that a lot of ID folk are in fact Christian apologists trying to
drape Genesis in scientific respectability. That is, things looked to have
been designed, therefore there must be a designer, now will Yahweh step
forward. Yet an idea is not intellectually disreputable because some of the
people who hold it are. The genuine defects of ID are the lack of a
detectible designer, and that evolution appears to have occurred. This leads
some to the thought that consciousness is involved and evolution may be
shaping itself. I can think of no way to test the idea.
In any event, to anyone of modest rationality, the evolutionist�s hostility
to Intelligent Design is amusing. Many evolutionists argue, perhaps
correctly, that Any Day Now we will create life in the laboratory, which
would be intelligent design. Believing that life arose by chemical accident,
they will argue (reasonably, given their assumptions) that life must have
evolved countless times throughout the universe. It follows then that, if we
will soon be able to design life, someone else might have designed us.
In Conclusion
To evolutionists I say, �I am perfectly willing to believe what you can
actually establish. Reproducibly create life in a test tube, and I will
accept that it can be done. Do it under conditions that reasonably may have
existed long ago, and I will accept as likely the proposition that such
conditions existed and gave rise to life. I bear no animus against the
theory, and champion no competing creed. But don�t expect me to accept fluid
speculation, sloppy logic, and secular theology.�
I once told my daughters, �Whatever you most ardently believe, remember that
there is another side. Try, however hard it may be, to put yourself in the
shoes of those whose views you most dislike. Force yourself to make a
reasoned argument for their position. Do that, think long and hard, and
conclude as you will. You can do no better, and you may be surprised.�
Notes
(1) An example, for anyone interested, of the sort of unlogic to which I was
exposed by evolutionists: Some simple viruses are strings of nucleotides in
a particular order. In 2002 Eckhard Wimmer, at the University of New York at
Stony Brook, downloaded the sequence for polio from the internet, bought the
necessary nucleotides from a biological supply house, strung them together,
and got a functioning virus that caused polio in mice. It was a slick piece
of work.
When I ask evolutionists whether the chance creation of life has been
demonstrated in the laboratory, I get email offering Wimmer�s work as
evidence that it has been done. But (even stipulating that viruses are
alive) what Wimmer did was to put OTS nucleotides together according to a
known pattern in a well-equipped laboratory. This is intelligent design, or
at least intelligent plagiarism. It is not chance anything. At least some of
the men who offered Wimmer�s work as what it wasn�t are far too intelligent
not to see the illogic�except when they are defending the faith.
(2) Many Evolutionists respond to skepticism about life�s starting by chance
by appealing to the vastness of time. �Fred, there were billions and
billions of gallons of ocean, for billions of years, or billions of
generations of spiders or bugs or little funny things with too many legs, so
the odds are in all that time�.� Give something long enough and it has to
happen, they say. Maybe. But probabilities don�t always work they way they
look like they ought.
Someone is said to have said that a monkey banging at random on a typewriter
would eventually type all the books in the British Museum. (Some of the
books suggest that this may have happened, but never mind.) Well, yes. The
monkey would. But it could be a wait. The size of the wait is worth
pondering.
Let�s consider the chance that the chimp would type a particular book. To
make the arithmetic easy, let�s take a bestseller with 200,000 words. By a
common newspaper estimate of five letters per word on average, that�s a
million letters. What�s the chance the monkey will get the book in a given
string of a million characters?
For simplicity, assume a keyboard of 100 keys. The monkey has a 1/100 chance
of getting the first letter, times 1/100 of getting the second letter, and
so on. His chance of getting the book is therefore one in 1 in 100 exp
1,000,000, or 1 in 10 exp 2,000,000. (I don�t offhand know log 3 but, thirty
being greater than ten, a 30-character keyboard would give well in excess of
10 exp 1,000,000.)
Now, let�s be fair to the Bandar Log. Instead of one monkey, let�s use 10
exp 100 monkeys. Given that the number of subatomic particles in the
universe is supposed to be 10 exp 87 (or something), that seems to be a fair
dose of monkeys. (I picture a cowering electron surrounded by 10 exp 13
monkeys.) Let�s say they type 10 exp 10 characters per second per each, for
10 exp 100 seconds which, considering that the age of the universe (I read
somewhere) is 10 exp 18 seconds, seems more than fair.
Do the arithmetic. For practical purposes, those monkeys have no more chance
of getting the book than the single monkey had, which, for practical
purposes, was none.
Now, I don�t suggest that the foregoing calculation has any direct
application to the chance formation of life. (I will get seriously stupid
email from people who ignore the foregoing sentence.) But neither do I know
that the chance appearance of a cell does not involve paralyzing
improbabilities. Without unambiguous numbers arising from unarguable
assumptions, invoking time as a substitute for knowledge can be hazardous.
Life Evolves In Deep Sediments
Privileged Genes
Punctuated Equilibrium
Evolutionary Psychology
Craig Venter Questions Genetic Determinism
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