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דומעישכ .טירפתו ונלש רתאה לש טסקטה ןלהל !םולש האיסידוא" ידהואמ דחא התאש ירה ונלשמ התא םא .האיסידואה לש הדוס (1 האיסידואה לש הדוס תודלותב תובושח רתויה תפומה תוריצימ תחא שופיחב םוקיה תא הצוחה ללח תניפס תועצמאב .ינוידיבה עדמה רנא'גב ףסונ טרס הז ןיא ,אל (Dave) בייד :ופוסב ןופצ טרסב ןירותסמה רקיע לע קזחתמ אוה וייח לש םינורחאה םיעגרב ."ללחב האיסידוא"ה לש התדיח תא חצפל הסננו הבה הלילעה ריצקת "ללחב האיסידוא" .ישונאה ןימה לש וימי רחש :ןמזה .ץראה רודכ :םוקמה רובל ךומס תנכושה (םדא יפוק) םיטמירפ תקהל תשרוגמה הקהלה דחא םוי תררועתמ םתולג םוקמב םיברקתמ ,תינושארה הלהבהמ םיששואתמ םיפוקה לע ערוכ הלוגה הקהלה לש הגיהנמ .תרחמל קרוז ,ןוחצינה תחמש ךותמ ,הקהלה גיהנמ ברקה הנושאר תיגולונכט תומדקתה התוא זאמ םייחל הנושארה תודעה יהוז" ,ךכל הנושארה תודעה יהוז ,תורחא םילימב רחאמ דוסב תרמשנ אלפומה חולה לש ותילגת ,הבוגתכ.חולב הכמ שמשה רוא ,ולולסמב ענ חריה הווקתב רקחמ עסמל ללחל תרגושמ תשיואמ תיללח תיברמב טלושה לע-בשחמ אוה טרסה ירוביגמ דחא דכלנ אוה עסמה לש ופוסב .ודבל ךישממ בייד יביטינגוק סננוסיד ןורקע ןיבהל שי הדיחה תא חנעפל ידכ גולוכיספה ידי לע תראותמ ךכל תינוציק אמגוד םדאב רצוי הדירטמ תועמשמ לעב עדימ רשאכ תסיפתל הריתסב םידמוע ןויער וא הדבוע םא רשא םיוסמ ןויער ןומט "ללחב האיסידוא"ב םורגל לוכי "ללחב האיסידוא"ב והשמ !?הזה והשמה והמ רשוכ לעב יטנגילטניא רוצי אוה שונאה ןב תמצוע לע דמלמ תירלופופה תורפסב ןויע ול בשוי הנה .הניצסה תא ונמצעל ןיימדל הסננ סננוסידה ןונגנמ לש ותעפשהל ןותנ םדאשכ תינויגה הבישחמ עבונש "עדוי אל ינא" (א לכשמ ןיטולחל קתונמ ,ישגר "עדוי אל ינא" (ב ינא" ותוא תא שיחממ "ללחב האיסידוא" טרסה אל ינא" בישמ םדאשכ ,העירכמ הכ הלאשב רתויב בוטה ןועיטה :הלאשה תא דקמנ הבה חסונמ הזכש ןועיט עמוש ןימאמ אל םדאשכ "ןונכת" חיכומה ףס ןוכנה אוה םינפואה ינשמ הזיא תולגל תנמ לע אלל בצמ רוציל ונילע ,ףסה והמ תולגל תנמ לע ןונכתה תמר תא ףשחש יתוכיא יוסינ ,ונלזמל "האיסידוא"בש קלחה חולה :ףסה הנושארה תודעה" היה קלחה חולה יוליג ,רוכזכ תושיי היוצמש ןויערה ,תורחא םילימב ויה אל .תיעבט הבוגת התואל םיפתוש ויה םלוכ חכוויהל ידכ שרדנ תובכרומ תמר הזיאל ,ןכ םא רבועה לש תימסוקה הינוריאה ידי לע תגצומה ןונכתה תמר תא הוושנ םא טרסב וזחש םיפוצה ינוילימ עודמ ,ןכ םא "האיסידוא"בש הכישמה חכ דוס ךסמה תא אלימ רבועהשכ ,טרסה לש ומויס םע תא אלממ רבועה רשאכ טרסה לש ומויסב ,תמא בתכ "ללחב האיסידוא" לש םשורה תחת וליאכ הדבועהו ,הלוכ תואיצמה תא הפיקמה תומלשה המרב םיזחנה תובכרומהו המכחה דיל" תוננובתהמ קר יכ רמול ןוגה הז היהי ,הרצקב ,(Professor John Wheeler) רלה דלב'צרא ןו'ג האושמ אל לכה דוסיב תויהל תבייח ,יתעדל" .םימיכסמ ונחנא םוקיה לש "קדה ןונווכה" הדבועה ,םינעדמ לש ךלוהו לדג רפסמ לש םתעדל "קיפורטנאה ןורקיעה" תידועית תיעדמ תינכותב (Dr. Dennis Scania) הינקס סינד ר"ד הפצמ שאר ןוכמהמ ,(David Deutsch) שטיוד דיויד ר"ד (Paul Davies) םסרופמ רפוס ,סיויד לואפ ר"ד רמוחהש ,איה םינעדמה ןיב םויכ תחוורה העדה :תואבה םילימב ויאצממ תא םכסמ ליוה לע-תושיי :דמלמ תודבועה לש ילנויצר חותינ וניאש ,ריהצמ והשימ םא" :ףיסומ שטיוד דיויד ר"ד עדמה ישנא לש המכסה תרכזנה ,סומסוקה לש ןידע ןונוויכ לש העפותה ןיב ,ב"הראב רתויב יתרקויה יעדמה ןואטבה ןפיטס אוה םלועב םימסרופמה םיגולומסוקה
דחא תא שדחמ םיחסנמה םינושארה ונניא רמולכ לע ילמשחה ןעטמה םא" ,גניקוה בתוכ ,"לשמל"
הקיסיפב לבונ סרפ ןתח ,גרבנייו ןביטס רוספורפ גרבנייו רוספורפ לש הדיחיה האילפה הנניא וז ךא
,וזה ןמואת אלה קוידה תגרד תא שיחמהל ידכ 100000000000000000000000000000000000 :רפסמב אלא 100000000000000000000000000000000000 ,תאז !םוקיה לכב םהשלכ םייח םירצונ ויה אל יזא םסרופמ יאקיזיפורטסא ,רנרט לקיימ קיזחמה םסרופמ יאקיתמתמ ,סורנפ ר'גור
םוקיה תא םיקהל תנמ לע תשרדנה קוידה תמר
ףצר םאה ,םהיניב םיחכוותמ םיגולומסוקה לש םיעלוקה וירבד םע הז קרפ םילשהל יוארה ןמ האושמ אל לכה דוסיב תויהל תבייח ,יתעדל" תיתונמוא הריציכ ("2001") "ללחב האיסידוא" ןכרע (1 :תויסיסב תונוכת יתש תולודג תוריציל םיאנתה ינש תא אלממ "ללחב האיסידוא" ץרממ Yahoo לש ןיזגמב :ןמזה םע גפ וניא וכרע וסחויש תויועמשמה עפש לע גשומ לבקל ידכ (2 רותרא לש ורפס תא תוושהל ןינעמ הז רשקהב
תורודה ינואג ילודגמ המכ ראתמ רלטסק רותרא יכ םא ,תיעדמה הבשחמה תא ומדק םהיתוילגתש תמצועל םיעדומ יתלב הבר הדימב ויה םמצע םה קפסמ קירבוק לש "2001" הז ןבומב .םתילגת תיפוסוליפ הלאש לש הנורתפל המצוע לעב יעצמא .הל עדומ היה אל ומצע אוהש ןכתי יכ םא ,הנשי הימי ירבד רוזחיש אוה "2001"-ש ךכב ונחתפ ?םייחה תועמשמ והמ ?םירבדה רשפ והמ ידכ עיפומ האיסידוא לש "רבוע"ה עגר ותואב ןימה 2001 תנשב" :רמוא רבועה תורחא םילימב שגדומ ןפואב תרמאנ וז הרהצהש ,ףיסונ םירפסב אלמ זגרא עבטב ונאצמש חיננו הבה
רתויב הלודגה היצנגילטניאה ."וניניע ךותל רשיה הטיבמ ףוס
ססובמ אוה וילעש רפסה תא שוכרל ("The Obvious Proof") הילאמ תנבומה החכוהה" -ל ינורטקלא ראודו ,תולאש ,תורעה חלש
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MENU TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. EXAMPLES OF COGNITIVE DISSONANCE IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE 2. EXAMPLES OF DESIGN IN NATURE 3. DO WE NEED PRIOR EXPERIENCE OF HAVING SEEN LIVE OBJECTS BEING MANUFACTURED TO CONCLUDE THEY WERE DESIGNED? 4. HUME'S CRITIQUE OF THE "ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN" 5. SCIENTIFIC BACKGROUND TO HOYLE'S STATEMENT THAT THE LAWS OF NUCLEAR PHYSICS HAVE BEEN DELIBERATELY DESIGNED 6. THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION 7. THE "PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE" AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF 8. ADDITIONAL READING AND VIEWING 9. SOME OF OUR FAVORITE WEBSITES
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1. EXAMPLES OF COGNITIVE DISSONANCE IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE
We present here two examples:
Example #1: "A decade before Hubble found the cosmos to be expanding, Einstein's equations showed that it should be either expanding or contracting. Unable to believe his own results, Einstein rewrote them to let it stay static" (Beyond the Milky Way, Time-Life, Inc. New York, p. 178). In a letter, Einstein wrote, "The circumstance of an expanding universe is irritating" ("New York Times" Magazine, June 25, 1978). In another letter he wrote, "To admit such possibilities seems senseless to me" (ibid.).
In the PBS science special, "The Creation of the Universe," produced by Timothy Ferris, the same point is made as follows: "The expansion of the universe was predicted by Einstein's general theory of relativity, published in 1915. But the idea seemed so outlandish that Einstein himself rejected it. He introduced an extraneous term into the field equations to try to make his theoretical universe stand still. Later Einstein would call this modification of the theory, 'the worst blunder of my career.' Then, in 1929, the American astronomer Edwin Hubble, without knowing of the relativity prediction, discovered that the universe is indeed expanding."
Example #2: Today, it is common knowledge that the Milky Way Galaxy, which contains our sun and solar system as well as some 50 billion stars, is just one of billions of other galaxies, each containing billions of stars of its own. Not long ago, scientists were not even considering that other galaxies existed. An excerpt from a Time-Life series shows quite clearly that for several years, scientists stubbornly refused to accept unequivocal evidence that their one-galaxy view of the universe was terribly narrow:
"Curtis undertook to announce to the world what seemed to him unequivocal evidence that nebulae containing faint novae are separate galaxies. But the world -- at least of astronomy -- was not ready to accept the huge universe that Curtis had to offer. An historic wrangle ensued, continuing at one astronomer's conference after another from 1917 to 1924... Then, abruptly, at a conference session of January 1, 1925, the great debate ended with the reading of a communication from the California astronomer Edwin Hubble...
"The momentous news he had to report was that the new telescope had resolved images of stars in three so-called nebulae: M 31 in Andromeda, NGC 6822 and M33... In the course of this stupendous intellectual voyage -- a rolling back of human horizons unparalleled in previous history and not likely to be equaled ever again -- Hubble calculated that there were almost as many galaxies outside the Milky Way as there are stars in it" (Beyond the Milky Way, Time-Life, Inc. New York, p. 148).
In sum, "unequivocal" evidence about the size of the universe was available for all to see in 1917. Nevertheless, the implications of this new evidence were so startling, so unsettling, it was as if no new evidence existed at all.
2. EXAMPLES OF DESIGN IN NATURE
Example #1: One of the oldest and most prestigeous scientific associations is Great Britain's Royal Society. At the end of the 1970's, OMNI Magazine asked members of the Society to list the five most "sensational" scientific advances of the decade:
"The most frequently mentioned paper in the biological sciences was that by Fred Sanger and his colleagues at Cambridge, England, wherein they described the entire sequence of nucleotides, or 'words,' in the DNA of a virus, PhiX-174 ('Nature', Vol. 265, 1977, p. 687). This achievement marked the first time ever that the complete chemical 'blueprint' of a living organism had been unraveled and followed shortly after Dr. Sanger's group and a second team working under Dr. Walter Gilbert had improved methods for reading DNA sequences. An extremely simple life form, PhiX-174 proved to contain 5,375 words. Grouped into sentences -- genes -- they specify the composition of a virus particle when it replicates, and indeed they control all its functions... A perplexing revelation from this work was that the genes overlap. Like a telegram with no spacing, the coded message read entirely differently, depending upon whether one began with the first, second or third letter. The fact the three messages were contained within one seemed to some researchers artificial or contrived" (OMNI Magazine, in an article entitled, "Future Curves: OMNI Surveys the Royal Society").
Due to this level of "contrived" design, their conclusion was that it did not seem possible that such complexity could have come about through the mechanism of evoluton. (For the explanation they proposed, see further Menu #3)
Example #2: Those who have even casual knowledge of biology or another of the natural sciences are well aware that the level of complexity in nature is far above that which is exhibited by right angles and smooth surfaces. Let us appreciate that. An embryology textbook, From Conception to Birth, published by Harper & Row, asks honest questions about the human brain and its nervous system. How do the billions of cells which comprise this system come into being in the first place, the textbook asks, and how do they attach themselves together to form a network connecting the brain to every muscle, organ and gland in the entire body? How is it possible that, without a designer, there came into being microscopic chromosomes -- each containing all the coded information necessary to produce and "wire" an entire human being?:
"It would be relatively easy to understand if the neurons were connected to the brain like spokes of a wheel, but they are not. Most of these neurons are connected to a great many other neurons; one estimate is that, on the average, each neuron is cross-connected with 1000 others. This means a total of 10 trillion connections. A complete wiring diagram of this network would stagger the imagination. All of the telephone cables of the world would comprise no more than a small fraction of it.
"The neuron, like any other cell, contains a nucleus in which lie chromosomes that are identical to those in the original fertilized egg. Thus the nucleus of each neuron contains a catalog of potentiality inherited from both mother and father. How can a collection of genes possibly account for the multifarious connections between neurons and the human nervous system? Or for the relationship between neurons and the muscles and organs of the body? There are only some 40,000 genes in all the chromosomes, seemingly not enough to encode instructions for performing 10 trillion connections.
"But if every last interconnection is not spelled out in the chromosomes; then how do the neurons get connected? Do they just reach out for one another haphazardly? Obviously not, since all neurons fulfill definite, specialized functions, not random ones. Connections between the nerves associated with hearing and those controlling, say, the bicep muscles, wouldn't be logical or effective, and above all the nervous system effectively coordinates whatever the person does or thinks...
"The eyes, for example, are formed on the sides of the head and are ready for connection to the optic nerves growing independently from the brain. The forces that ensure this integration have thus far not been discovered, but they must be formidable indeed, since more than one million optic nerve fibers mesh with each eye [emphasis ours]. Think for a moment about what is considered to be a feat of human engineering: the drilling of tunnels from both sides of the Alps that must somehow meet precisely and merge into one continuous highway. Yet any one of the thousands of things the fetus must do as part of the routine of development is far more wondrous...
"The nervous system eventually comprises the most efficient cable system in the world for the transmission of messages. Ultimately, each nerve fiber will be covered by a sheath of protective cells (sometimes 5,000 per fiber), and each will be able to carry messages at a speed of 150 yards per second, or 300 miles per hour. From these primitive cells, first distinguishable at 18 days after conception, the embryo will form more than 10,000 taste buds in its mouth... Some 12 million nerve endings will form in the baby's nose to help it detect fragrances or odors in the air. More than 100,000 nerve cells will be devoted to reacting to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony or the ticking of a Swiss watch. The piano has only 240 strings, but the baby's ears will have more than 240,000 hearing units to detect the smallest variations in sound. The baby's eyes, which begin to form at 19 days, will have more than 12 million screen points per square centimeter; the retina, or light-sensitive portion of its eye, will have more than 50 billion such points. The composite picture the eyes record is homogeneous because these light-sensitive points blend into a whole. Take a hand lens and examine any picture in any daily newspaper. You will find it made up of hundreds of points, each light or dark, which together make up the picture as you look at it from a greater distance. This is exactly what the eye does, only in much finer detail. Where do these billions of cells in the nervous system come from? From the original fertilized ovum, which is still dividing after one month to form the tissues and organs that the child requires. It has been estimated that all two billion of the specific nerve cells which make any individual educable are located in the outer covering of his brain, its cortex, and that these 2 billion cells could be stored in a thimble..." (From Conception to Birth, Harper & Row Publishers, 1970, New York, pp. 34, 57-58, 76).
Example #3: "Ingenuity in biological design is particularly striking when it is manifest in solutions to problems analogous to those met in our own technology... Although the anatomical components of the eye were well known by scientists in the fifteenth century, the ingenuity of its design was not appreciated until the seventeeth century when the basic optics of image formation were first clearly expressed by Kepler and later by Descartes. However, it was only in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as the construction of optical instruments became more complicated, utilizing a movable iris, a focusing device, and corrections for spherical and chromatic aberration, all features which have their analogue in the eye, that the ingenuity of the optical system could at last be appreciated fully by Darwin and his contemporaries. [This is why, while Darwin was attempting to convince the world of the validity of evolution by natural selection, he was admitting privately to friends to moments of doubt over its capacity to generate very complicated adaptations or "organs of extreme perfection," as he described them. In a letter to Asa Gray, the American biologist, in 1861, two years after the publication of The Origin of the Species, Darwin acknowledges these doubts and admits, "The eye to this day gives me a cold shudder"; Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Vol. 2, John Murray, London, p. 273; see Denton, Evolultion - A Theory in Crisis, Burnett Books, London, 1985, p. 326.]
"We now know the eye to be a far more sophisticated instrument than it appeared a hundred years ago. Electro-physiological studies have recently revealed very intricate connections among the nerve cells of the retina, which enable to eye to carry out many types of preliminary data processing of visual information before transmitting it in binary form to the brain. The cleverness of these mechanisms has again been underlined by their close analogy to the sorts of image intensification and clarification processes carried out today by computers, such as those used by NASA, on images transmitted from space" (Denton, ibid. p. 332-333).
3. DO WE NEED PRIOR EXPERIENCE OF HAVING SEEN LIVE OBJECTS BEING MANUFACTURED TO CONCLUDE THEY WERE DESIGNED?
A possible objection to the "Argument from Design" might go as follows: When people look at wristwatches, tables or monoliths, they are able to conclude, "This was designed" only because, in the past, they've actually seen such things being made. On the other hand, when people look at babies or potted plants, all that they can recall from experience is that these things seem to take on design by themselves, spontaneously. A person may have a vague feeling that design in babies and plants is, in truth, the work of a designer. However, because he lacks the experience of having seen these things actually being made, he is not sure. Therefore, according to this, a person's not recognizing a designer behind babies and plants does not necessarily stem from personal or social blocks which cause a malfunctioning in his normal perceptive powers. Rather, non-recognition stems from a lack of experience.
This distinction is philosophical. We find, however, that in the real world, scientists are unperturbed by this distinction. When a phenomenon justifies a conclusion, they will draw that conclusion even without having any prior knowledge or experience of the proposed "cause." Here are two examples:
Example #1: Sir Fred Hoyle's statement in BBC's "The Anthropic Principle": "A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintendent has monkeyed with the physics, as well as chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. I do not believe that any physicist who examined the evidence could fail to draw the inference that the laws of nuclear physics have been deliberately designed with regard to the consequences they produce within stars."
In Hoyle's mind, the level of design justifies the conclusion without having had prior knowledge of the existence of a designer. Rather, the existence of a designer is inferred by the method of "induction," as Denton has stated, "The inference to design is a purely a posteriori induction based on a ruthlessly consistent application of the logic of analogy" (Michael Denton, Evolution - A Theory in Crisis, Burnett Books, London ,1985, p. 342).
Example #2: One of the oldest and most prestigeous scientific associations is Great Britain's Royal Society. At the end of the 1970's, OMNI Magazine asked members of the Society to list the five most "sensational" scientific advances of the decade:
"The most frequently mentioned paper in the biological sciences was that by Fred Sanger and his colleagues at Cambridge, England, wherein they described the entire sequence of nucleotides, or 'words,' in the DNA of a virus, PhiX-174 ('Nature', Vol. 265, 1977, p. 687). This achievement marked the first time ever that the complete chemical 'blueprint' of a living organism had been unraveled and followed shortly after Dr. Sanger's group and a second team working under Dr. Walter Gilbert had improved methods for reading DNA sequences. An extremely simple life form, PhiX-174 proved to contain 5,375 words. Grouped into sentences -- genes -- they specify the composition of a virus particle when it replicates, and indeed they control all its functions... A perplexing revelation from this work was that the genes overlap. Like a telegram with no spacing, the coded message read entirely differently, depending upon whether one began with the first, second or third letter. The fact the three messages were contained within one seemed to some researchers artificial or contrived, prompting Drs. Hiromitsu Yokoo and Iairo Oshima to revise the theory, first suggested by Dr. Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel ('Icarus', Vol. 19, 1973, p. 341) that life on Earth began from organisms sent here billions of years ago by extra-terrestrial civilizations that decided to 'seed' other planets. The Japanese scientists suggested that the gene sequence PhiX-174 might contain messages, or signals, as yet uncoded. In their reasoning, such overlapping messages would be a highly economical way to send information through vast tracts of space" (OMNI Magazine, in an article entitled, "Future Curves: OMNI Surveys the Royal Society").
In other words, the most sensational biological discovery of the 70's was that DNA, the "chemical blueprint" of a live form, was so "contrived," i.e. it exhibited such a high level of design and complexity, scientists were forced to conclude that the DNA had to have been produced by intelligence. The design compelled an intuitive appreciation which led them to hypothesize the existence of a mysterious extraterrestrial civililzation. Here, again, we witness the same process of induction at work. The researchers had no prior knowledge that such an extraterrestrial civilization existed. The existence of this civilization is hypothesized by induction.
There is an important lesson here from Yokoo and Oshima. Neither researcher, nor any human being for that matter, could claim to have seen PhiX-174 actually being made. All anyone ever has seen is the final product -- the DNA itself. Clearly, however, not having seen the manufacturing process did not stand in the way of human perception that the live object under study was, in fact, "contrived" purposefully by intelligence. Not having experienced the manufacturing process did not stand as an obstacle to the "gut" intuitive reaction that the DNA was a design of a designer. Lack of experience did not matter. What is more, that the subject under study was alive did not matter either.
"SEEDING"
Since we have had occasion to mention the concept of "Seeding," we should like to discuss two major objections to this being possible. But first, let us reveal Crick and Orgel's true motives as confided to NYU Professor of Chemistry, Robert Shapiro (author of Origins - A Skeptic's Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth, Bantam, 1987).
Shapiro writes that Crick and Orgel themselves brought up the entire idea of seeding only to "increase public awareness" and "awaken" people to the demise of the chemical soup idea. Crick himself confided this to Shapiro in a private interview, saying: "We thought of this theory, but we're not completely sold on it... The object is to give the intelligent person an idea of what the problem really is, and this is just a tag to hang it on... Everybody, as they say in the state of California, can relate to certain ideas, and things like coming on an unmanned rocket -- or even bacteria, they think they can relate to" (Origins, pp. 227-228).
The explanation of the origin of life by means of the chemical soup idea had become so entrenched that scientists who knew it was inadequate felt compelled to propose the alternative theory of seeding as a means of increasing public awareness. When Crick and Orgel put forth the seeding proposal to the scientific community, they did not believe in it themselves, and for good reason.
Objection #1: Seeding theory was initially proposed before "fine-tuning" -- the discovery that the laws and constants of physics, the "nuts and bolts" of the universe, all have to be "set" pretty much to the values that we find for them in order for atoms, stars, and life, to have come into existence. Since it is assumed that the Seeders represent a form of intelligent life, to give too much credit to them becomes a classic example of circular reasoning. This is one of two reasons that caused Hoyle to write that as his ideas developed "a monstrous spectre kept beckoning," meaning, the "seeder" could not have created the laws of physics. Rather, according to Hoyle, the ultimate source of life and of the fine-tuning in the universe has powers and intelligence which cannot be grasped even by the alleged seeder (see Evolution From Space, p. 148). Whatever or Whoever created "fine-tuning" has, by definition, to be outside the spacetime continuum.
Objection #2: The mathematical odds against chance and chemistry being responsible for life, Hoyle wrote, "are essentially just as unfaceable for a universal soup as for a terrestrial one" (Evolution From Space, p. 31). In other words, if Earth's chemical soup could not have generated life without the intervention of intelligence, neither could the chemical soup of the entire universe. Hoyle added: "No matter how large the environment one considers [the entire cosmos], life cannot have had a random beginning. Troops of monkeys thundering away at random on typewriters could not produce the works of Shakespeare, for the practical reason that the whole observable universe is not large enough to contain the necessary monkey hordes, the necessary typewriters, and certainly the waste paper baskets required for the deposition of all the wrong attempts. The very same is true for living material" (ibid. p. 148).
Nobel Prize winning Chemist, Dr. Harold C. Urey, likewise admitted: "All of us who study the origin of life find that the more we look into it, the more we feel that it is too complex to have evolved anywhere"[meaning anywhere else in the universe; i.e. "seeding theory"] (interview in "Christian Science Monitor," January 4, 1962).
Hoyle's statement that the mathematical odds against chance and chemistry being responsible for life "are essentially just as unfaceable for a universal soup as for a terrestrial one" is not just a matter of opinion. In order to fully appreciate this, one has to see the mathematical calculations involved. Contemporary astronomy since Hubble tells us that the Milky Way has one hundred billion (10 to the 11th power) stars and the same number of other galaxies with the same number of stars. This calculation gives us a grand total of 10 to the 22nd power stars. Let us be super generous and assume that each one of these stars could have a planet suitable for life. (In actual fact, an estimate of one in a million stars having such a planet would also be very generous.) This increases the chance of life arising "somewhere in the universe" by a factor of 10 to the 22nd. In addition, the age of the universe could be up to three times that of the earth. So we have triple the time as well.
In Origins (Chapter 5, "The Odds") Shapiro summarizes all the various opinions regarding the chances of one bacterium coming into existence on Earth, assuming we already have all the necessary amino acids, and all that remains in to assemble them. On the low end, we have Hoyle's estimate of 1 in 10 to the 40,000th power. (Assuming this to be correct, adding 10 to the 22nd theoretical planets increases the odds to 1 in 10 to the 39,978th power, which is still not very encouraging.) On the other hand, Harold Morowitz, a Yale University physicist, estimates the chances of the above scenario taking place on earth as 1 in 10 to the 100th billionth power. This is the second reason Hoyle found even the "seeders" to be an unacceptable explanation.
Shapiro goes further in his Chapter 7, "The Random Replicator." The absolutely lowest level of life would be a "simple" molecule capable of replicating itself. Shapiro shows that even if we vastly simplify the case from that of a bacterium to that of such a "simple" molecule, the "machinery" required is still too complex to entertain the possibility that it could come into existence randomly. See below Menu #6, "The Theory of Evolution," for details on the above two topics.
4. HUME'S CRITIQUE OF THE "ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN"
In light of advances in the biological sciences over the last decades, and the more accurate and detailed models of biological structures these advances have occasioned, microbiologist Michael Denton provides a powerful reformulation of the original "Argument from Design":
"The eerie artefact-like character of life and the analogy with our own advanced machines has an important philosophical consequence, for it provides the means for a powerful reformulation of the old analogical argument to design which has been one of the basic creationalist arguments used throughout western history -- going back to Aristotle and presented in its classic form by William Paley in his famous watch-to-watchmaker discourse.
"According to Paley, we would never infer in the case of a machine, such as a watch, that its design was due to natural processes such as the wind and rain; rather, we would be obliged to postulate a watchmaker. Living things are similar to machines, exhibiting the same sort of adaptive complexity and we must, therefore, infer by analogy that their design is also the result of intelligent activity.
"One of the principle weaknesses of this argument was raised by David Hume, who pointed out that organisms may be only superficially like machines but natural in essence. Only if an object is strikingly analogous to a machine in a very profound sense would the inference to design be valid. Hume's criticism is generally considered to have fatally weakened the basic analogical assumption upon which the inference to design is based, and it is certainly true that neither in the eighteenth century nor at any time during the past two centuries has there been sufficient evidence for believing that living organisms were like machines in any profound sense.
"It has only been over the past twenty years with the molecular biological revolution and with the advances in cybernetic and computer technology that Hume's criticism has been finally invalidated and the analogy between organisms and machines has at last become convincing. In opening up this extraordinary new world of living technology biochemists have become fellow travellers with science fiction writers, explorers in a world of ultimate technology, wondering incredulously as new miracles of atomic engineering are continually brought to light in the course of their strange adventure into the microcosm of life. In every direction the biochemist gazes, as he journeys through this wierd molecular labyrinth, he sees devices and appliances reminiscent of our twentieth-century world of advanced technology. In the atomic fabric of life we have found a reflection of our own technology. We have seen a world as artificial as our own and as familiar as if we have held up a mirror to our own machines.
"The almost irresistible force of the analogy has completely undermined the complacent assumption, prevalent in biological circles over most of the past century, that the design hypothesis can be excluded on the grounds that the notion is fundamentally a metaphysical a priori concept and therefore scientifically unsound. On the contrary, the inference to design is a purely a posteriori induction based on a ruthlessly consistent application of the logic of analogy. The conclusion may have religious implications, but it does not depend on religious presuppositions..." (Michael Denton, Evolution - A Theory in Crisis, Burnett Books, London, 1985, pp. 339-342).
5. SCIENTIFIC BACKGROUND TO HOYLE'S STATEMENT THAT THE LAWS OF NUCLEAR PHYSICS HAVE BEEN DELIBERATELY DESIGNED
Sir Fred Hoyle is honorary member of the U.S. Academy of Science, Plumian professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy at Cambridge University, professor of Astronomy at Great Britain's Royal Institute, fellow of Great Britain's Royal Society, staff member at The Mount Wilson-Palomar Observatory, visiting professor of Astrophysics at California Institute of Technology, knighted for his accomplishments in science.
In the BBC documentary, "The Anthropic Principle," Sir Fred Hoyle, discusses two very fortunate "coincidences," one which allowed carbon to come into being, and another which allowed carbon to continue to be. The composition of stars is mainly hydrogen and heluim, the simplest atoms of all. For the stars to produce all the universe's carbon, which is an atom essential for life, three nucleides of hydrogen must collide, which is a very unlikely occurrence, so much so that it is very surprising that all the carbon necessary for life exists. How did the stars manage this feat? It "just so happens" that when two helium nucleides combine, if a third one draws close, then the two that had combined "enlarge" themselves, making themselves a larger "target" so that it is far easier for the third helium to hit them and produce the carbon! NO OTHER ELEMENTS BEHAVE THIS WAY.
Stranger still is the story of oxygen, which is produced if another helium hits the carbon. This helium should convert all of the carbon to oxygen, so why is there enough carbon left for us? "Fortuitously," the fourth helium converts only half the carbon to oxygen, so that carbon remains for the purposes of life.
6. THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION
One can object to our thesis and counter: A distinction can be drawn between the "2001" slab and things that are alive. In fact, in the 19th century, Charles Darwin proposed the theory of "evolution" and hypothesized that intelligence, which is the logical source of design in nature, is not the source. Rather, highly designed objects in nature came to possess their design through various chance occurrences together with "natural selection."
Before we attempt to address this objection, we want to make the following three points:
A. Our intention here is not to pronounce a judgment on whether the theory of evolution is correct or not. Our purpose here is to make you, our readers, aware that the theory has certain major problems.
B. Even if one assumes that evolution is a plausible theory, the "2001" embryo still expresses the aforementioned "cosmic irony." Since the 1980's scientists have continually confirmed that the level of design is so high even in the inorganic realm of nature (which the theory of evolution does not even address), i.e. there is so much "fine-tuning" of the natural laws and "constants" of physics -- it is not possible that our universe is a chance happening.
C. We will just touch on one of the major problems. (If you want to read books that deal comprehensively with this topic, see Menu #8, "Additional Reading and Viewing.")
Let us begin by quoting two Nobel Prize winning scientists who are themselves advocates of this theory:
Francis Crick (awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the Double-Helix structure of DNA): "An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have to have been satisfied to get it going" (Francis Crick, Life Itself, Simon & Schuster, N.Y. 1981, p. 88).
Dr. Harold C. Urey (Nobel Prize winning Chemist): "All of us who study the origin of life find that the more we look into it, the more we feel that it is too complex to have evolved anywhere. But, we believe as an article of faith that life evolved from dead matter on this planet. It is just that its complexity is so great, it is hard for us to imagine that it did" (interview in "Christian Science Monitor," January 4, 1962).
These two advocates of the theory of evolution refer to the origin of life as a "miracle" and "too complex to have evolved anywhere," yet remain proponents of evolution as "an article of faith." This allows us to be sympathetic to those scientists who prefer to draw what they consider the logical conclusion that evolution is scientifically unfounded and is a "cultural construct" which survives only because it is "socially desireable and even essential to the peace of mind of the body politic" (Sir Fred Hoyle, Evolution From Space, p. 148).
In a "Life Magazine" article, entitled "Was Darwin Wrong?" Nobel Prize winning scientist Dr. Ernest Chain is quoted: "To postulate that development and survival of the fittest is entirely a consequence of chance mutations seems to me a hypothesis based on no evidence and irreconcilable with the facts. These classical evolutionary theories are a gross oversimplification of an immensely complex and intricate mass of facts, and it amazes me that they are swallowed so uncritically and readily, and for such a long time, by so many scientists without a murmur of protest."
According to the above views we can restate our original argument as follows. True, we do not react to living objects as "proof of a designing intelligence." The reason for this, however, is that we have been conditioned to view these objects as the result of evolution. The above stated scientific view lends credence to the possibility that the theory of evolution might itself be a product of cognitive dissonance, revalidating our thesis in the "Cosmic Irony."
"THE ODDS"
In the following discussion we shall limit ourselves to the problem referred to as "The Odds" by Robert Shapiro, Professor of Chemistry at NYU and an expert on DNA research, in his book Origins - A Skeptic's Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth, Bantam, 1987. As Shapiro's subtitle would indicate, he is a ruthlessly honest "Skeptic," the opposite of a "Creationist." His purpose is to demonstrate that much of what has been accepted as "the explanation" of how life first began simply does not hold up to any level of scrutiny. His position is that, rather than foist what he calls "this mythology" on the academic world and the general public, responsible scientists should make the honest declaration that we don't have any idea how life could possibly have come into existence from the inorganic world. On a personal level, he can sympathize with those who see the only solution in a "cosmic intelligence" -- God. However, on a professional level, as a scientist whose job it is to try to find solutions within science, he feels we have no choice but to continue searching for an answer. He admits that this may turn out to be an impossibility, but again, professionally, he feels scientists should try anyway. In the meantime, they should "go public," fearlessly and honestly, and admit that at this point the origin of life remains an incredible mystery.
The following is from Origins, Chapter 5, "The Odds": "We cannot compute the odds [of spontaneous generation] precisely, but approximations will serve our purposes quite well. Many scientists have attempted such calculations; we need only cite two of them to make the point. The first was provided by Sir Fred Hoyle... He and his colleague, N.C. Wickramasinghe, first endorsed spontaneous generation, then abruptly reversed their position. Why did they do this? Quite obviously, they calculated the odds.
"Rather than estimate the chances for an entire bacterium, they considered only the set of functioning enzymes present in one. Their starting point was not a complex mixture, but rather the set of twenty L-form amino acids that are used to construct biological enzymes. If amino acids were selected at random from this set one at a time and arranged in order, what would be the chances that this process would produce an actual bacterial product? For a typical enzyme of 200 amino acids, the odds would be obtained by multiplying the probability for each amino acid, 1 in 20, together 200 times. The result, 1 in 10 to the 120th power...
"To duplicate a bacterium, one would have to assemble 2,000 different functioning enzymes. The odds against this event would be 1 in 10 to the 20th power multiplied together 2,000 times, or 1 in 10 to the 40,000 power... We can understand why Hoyle changed his mind. His estimate of the likelihood of the event was that it was comparable to the chance that 'a tornado sweeping through a junk-yad might assemple a Boeing 747 from the materials therein.'
"In fact, things are worse. A tidy set of twenty amino acids, all in the L-form, was not likely to be available on the early earth. This situation has not even been approached by the very best Miller-Urey experiments. Nor does a set of enzymes constitute a living bacterium. A more realistic estimate [for spontaneous generation of life] has been made by Harold Morowitz, a Yale University physicist. He has calculated the odds for the following case:
"Suppose we were to heat up a large batch of bacteria in a sealed container to several thousand degrees, so that every chemical bond within them was broken. We then cooled this mixture down slowly, in order to allow the atoms to form new bonds, until everything came to equilibrium... Morowitz asks, what fraction of the final product will consist of living bacteria? Or in other words, if a single bacterium was used to start the experiment... what would be the chances that a living bacterium would result at the end?
The answer computed by Morowitz reduces the odds of Hoyle to utter insignificance: 1 chance in 10 to the 100,000,000,000th power... This number is so large that to write it in conventional fom we would require several hundred thousand blank books. We would enter '1' on the first page of the first book, and then fill it, and the remainder of the books, with zeros..." (Origins, pp. 126-128).
Shapiro calculates these odds for a situation where a maximum chance is given for life to evolve, both in time and in available trials. On page 126, he states, "As a maximum estimate, we can assume that the entire earth was covered by an ocean 10 kilometers deep, which was available for experiments. Further, we will allow that space to be divided into small compartments (1 micrometer on each side) of bacterial size. We would then have 5 times 10 to the 36th power separate reaction flasks. If a separate try was made in each flask every minute for 1 billion years, we would have 2.5 times 10 to the 51st tries available."
As a result, says Hoyle, "If one is not prejudiced either by social beliefs or by scientific training," the chemical soup theory "is wiped out of court. [It is time someone] blew the whistle" (Hoyle and Wickramasinghe, Evolution From Space, J.M. Dent and Sons Co. London, 1981, p. 24; Time Magazine, November 21, 1983, p. 49).
THE "RANDOM REPLICATOR"
In Chapter 7 of Origins, Shapiro goes much further to show that the astronomical odds against life coming into existence by chance render it virtually impossible. The absolutely lowest level of life would be a "simple" molecule capable of replicating itself. Shapiro shows that even if we vastly simplify the case from that of a bacterium to that of such a "simple" molecule, the "machinery" required is still too complex to entertain the possibility that it could come into existence randomly.
Briefly, the argument goes as follows:
1. "The most important gap in these proceedings concerns the steps prior to the appearance of the first replicator. Natural selection does not apply, and we are left with only chance itself. Spontaneous generation crawls out of the woodwork once again, but in a more limited way. We are not asking for an entire cell, but only for a single fragment, one molecule, the replicator" (p. 166).
2. "We badly need the point of view of the Skeptic once again. Obviously, the chances for the spontaneous generation of a nucleic acid replicator are better than those for an entire bacterium. But the latter case was so hopeless that there is room for enormous improvement, and matters could still be hopeless. In the bacterial case, the equilibrium calculations of Harold Morowitz left us with a need to climb to the 100 billionth floor (10 to the 100 billionth power) of our Tower of Numbers, yet we calculated that the maximum number of trials available on the early earth would take us only as high as the fifty-first floor.
"Now, how difficult would it be to put together the replicator at random? The minimal published estimates of its size propose a single strand of RNA of perhaps 20 nucleotides. To build this structure, about 600 atoms would have to be connected in a specific way, much less than the many millions needed for a bacterium. More trials would also be available for the purpose of building it, as less time and space would be needed for each trial. The replicase of QB can put together 200 nucleotides in a minute when copying an RNA chain. We will assume that spontaneous assembly would proceed at the same rate, in the most favorable case. Thus a replicator could be built in a tenth of a minute. Furthermore, the space occupied by a 20-unit replicator might be only one-millionth of the volume of a bacterium. Considering these factors together, we can assume that a maximal number of 10 to the 59th power tries at a replicator were available. We have reached the fifty-ninth floor of the Tower of Numbers, an improvement of eight levels. But what are the odds?" (pp. 167-168).
3. Using Charlie the Chimp typing at a typewriter with an ample supply of bananas to give an analogy to our problem of the "first replicator" coming into existence, Shapiro now says: "Now let us give Charlie a normal keyboard with, say, 45 keys. The odds suddenly escalate to 1 in 45 to the 7th power, or 1 in 370 billion tries. It would take Charlie (or his descendants) 11,845 years to run that many attempts [in order to accidentally type the letters of the word 'machine'].
"Things get rapidly worse when we use longer messages. We will let Charlie try for a bit of Hamlet. The phrase 'to be or not to be' has 18 characters, if we count the spaces as characters. The chances that our chimp will type this out are 1 in 45 to the 18th power, or 1 in 6 x 10 to the 29th. At one try per second, it will take poor Charlie more than 10 to the 22nd years to do that number of tries. Should the open model for the universe be correct, Charlie will still be typing away long after the stars have ceased to shine and all the planets have been dispersed into space through stellar near-collisions.
"But now we have developed a real thirst for Shakespeare. We want our monkey to type out 'to be or not to be: that is the question,' which has 40 characters. The chances then become 45 to the 40th power, or about 10 to the 66th power, to 1. This is a number 10 million times greater than the number of trials maximally available for the random generation of a replicator on the early earth.
"THERE WE HAVE IT. IF THE CHANCES OF GETTING THE REPLICATOR AT RANDOM FROM A PREBIOTIC SOUP ARE LESS THAN THAT OF STRIKING 'TO BE OR NOT TO BE: THAT IS THE QUESTION' BY CHANCE ON A TYPEWRITER, WE HAD BEST FORGET IT. THE REPLICATOR WOULD HAVE ABOUT 600 ATOMS. THE CHANCES OF CHARLIE TYPING A 600-LETTER MESSAGE (TWICE THE SIZE OF THIS PARAGRAPH) CORRECTLY ARE 1 IN 10 TO THE 922nd POWER" (p. 169).
4. "We could also use a very different approach to reach a similar conclusion. In an earlier chapter we considered the method of Harold Morowitz. He did not compute total possibilities in his approach, weighting all of them equally. Rather, he calculated what a group of atoms would prefer to do if they came to equilibrium. We cited his odds against getting a bacterium. For a small virus, we would need only to go to the 2 millionth floor of our tower. For a small enzyme, a trip to floor 8,000 would be necessary. He did not list data for a replicator in his table, but it would, by extrapolation, fall many hundreds or perhaps a thousand or two floors up.
"In all of these methods, the odds against the random generation of a nucleic acid replicator still rest considerably above the chances... They are still so unfavorable that the formation of the replicator by chance would seem miraculous (for a distance of even a dozen floors in our tower reflects odds of a trillion to 1, and a win in such circumstances would appear a miracle).
"There is a further irony. Even should the miracle occur and the replicator find itself awash in the seas of the prebiotic earth, its fate would be unkind. It would perish without further issue. For in this random sea, it would encounter only hosts of unrelated chemicals, and not the subunits it needs to reproduce itself. A second miracle would be needed to surround it with exactly the ingredients it needs for further progress" (p. 170).
REMEMBER THAT ALL OF THE ABOVE IS ONLY FOR THE "FIRST REPLICATOR." WE STILL HAVE THE ASTRONOMICAL GAP TO GET TO AN ENTIRE CELL, AND FROM THERE, THE SAME GAP TO A SIMPLE MULTI-CELLED LIFE FORM, AND FROM THERE THE SAME GAP TO THE VERY COMPLEX DEVELOPMENT OF SPECIAL ORGANS (EYE, BRAIN, NERVOUS SYSTEM, ETC.) ETC.
THE REAL GAP BETWEEN ORGANIC MOLECULES AND THE "FIRST REPLICATOR"
In Chapter 4, "The Spark and the Soup," Shapiro shows that the impact of the Miller-Urey experiment is totally unjustified:
"Since that time it has been recognized that the preparation of organic compounds is a feat of no profound difficulty, nor one of any great significance to life... THE DIFFICULT STEP IN THE ORIGIN OF LIFE LIES FOREVER DOWN THE LINE, NOT HERE." [Meaning, the coming into existence of the "first replicator" from organic molecules.] (p. 107)
The Miller-Urey experiment dealt only with the creation of non-replicating organic molecules, "which is of no great significance to life."
With regard to theories or experiments which claim to go further, Shapiro the Skeptic, now speaks with Dr. Midas, the Hopeful Chemist:
The Skeptic: "These [Miller-Urey] experiments show only that a chemist could prepare a nucleic acid in the laboratory today, using a variety of conditions that he chooses to call prebiotic. Even this preparation is not carried out in a continuous manner. Formaldehyde is not collected from a Miller-Urey experiment, purified, and used to make ribose (though undoubtedly this could be done, if modern equipment was employed). Instead, formaldehyde is simply detected as an intermediate in the atmosphere, then the pure chemical is bought from a supply house and used in the next reaction. This type of practice is followed at every step down the line. Unfortunately, on the primitive earth, there was neither modern equipment nor supply houses, and certainly no chemists."
Dr. Midas: "Of course we have taken some shortcuts, to save time. We are only human, and do not live forever. We wished to demonstrate, in a few weeks, the steps that took a billion years on the early earth."
"The Skeptic now asks Dr. Midas whether the availability of a billion years is enough to justify this procedure, citing our earlier example of the monkey at the typewriter. He takes Midas over to the corner where Charlie the Chimp is still happily banging away on the machine, and asks: 'How long do you think it will take for the chimp to type "to be or not to be: that is the question"?'
"Midas picks up a line of random scipt and examines it. 'Not very long at all. Look, there's a t, and further down the page there's an o, and so on. All of the necessary steps could be done.'
"'But can the letters be typed in the right order?' asks the Skeptic.
"'No problem. I only need the proper materials.'
"Midas departs and returns with a bunch of bananas and a fresh pad of typing paper. He removes Charlie, and types for a few minutes, changing sheets frequently. He then places the monkey in the typist's chair once again. He has set the typewriter so that it moves to a new line each time a letter is typed.
"The monkey starts to type, with Midas watching over his shoulder. 'Aha!' Midas yells after a few seconds, stopping Charlie. He gives him a banana, pulls the sheet from the typewriter, and shows it to us. About two dozen letters have been typed, each at the start of a line. The last of them is a t.
"'We've shown that the monkey could type a t to start a line,' Midas claims triumphantly. 'Now we'll try for an o.'
"He pulls a sheet of paper out of his pad. He has typed a t at the start of every line. He puts this sheet into the typewriter, sets the margin that the next letter struck on each line will fall to the right of the t, and turns the monkey loose again.
"After about half a minute, he shouts and interrupts the monkey. Once more he brings the sheet to us. Each line now contains a two-letter unit starting with t. The first thirty are meaningless, tx, tl, te, tt, and so on, but the last one is to.
"'There,' says Midas. 'The monkey has typed the word "to." Now we must try for the space.'
"Thoughtfully, he has prepared in advance a sheet with the word 'to' typed at the start of each line. He returns Charlie to the typewriter.
"An hour and a half later, after a number of such operations, Midas is ready to insert the last sheet into our typewriter. This one contains the message 'to be or not to be: that is the questio' at the beginning of each line. Charlie dutifully types away, adding a different letter at random to each line, until he produces an n, upon which Dr. Midas rewards him again, and stops the process.
"'There is the line you wanted,' he concludes. 'I've shown you that the monkey could do it. I've speeded the process up a bit, but that's because I've other errands to run today. But it is possible. The monkey, left to himself, would just need a while longer. Give him enough time, and you'll surely get the message.'
"Midas departs, bowing gracefully.
"Prebiotic chemists do the same thing. They run a lot of reactions until they get the compound they want. Once they have done this, no matter how many trials they needed or how low the yield of the desired product, they feel free to go to the next step. In doing so, they start with a fresh, pure supply of the compound they've made. They claim that they must cut a few corners to save time.
"But look at the size of the corner that Dr. Midas cut with Charlie. The chimp needed about 45 seconds to strike each letter at random. For the 40-letter message, the total monkey typing time was 45 times 40 seconds, or 30 minutes. Left alone, he would have faced odds of 45 to the 40th power to 1. As we saw a while ago, he probably would have needed 10 to the 59th years or so to get the message right (though if he were very, very lucky, he could of course get it on the first try). Not a bad trick to substitute 45 times 40 for 45 to the 40th power" (pp. 178-180).
7. THE "PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE" AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF
Timothy Ferris (author of The Red Limit - The Search for the Edge of the Universe, Bantam, 1981) wrote, produced and narrated a PBS science special: "The Creation of the Universe." Ferris makes the following two points:
1. Some basic notions in the philosophy of science actually have their roots in the religious concept of one God. 2. Likewise, the search for, and the belief in the possibility of finding, a unified field theory "testifies to the triumph of the old idea that all creation might be ruled by a single elegantly beautiful principle." Ferris states: "Religion and science are sometimes depicted as if they were opponents, but science owes a lot to religion. Modern science began with the rediscovery, in the Renaissance, of the old Greek idea that nature is rationally intelligible. But science from the beginning incorporated another idea, equally important, that the universe really is a uni-verse, a single system ruled by a single set of laws. And science got that idea from the... belief in one God...
"The founders of modern science -- Kepler and Copernicus, Isaac Newton and even Galileo, for all of his troubles with the church -- were, by and large, profoundly religious men.
"I'm not saying that you have to believe in God in order to do science. Atheists and agnostics have won Nobel Prizes, as have Christians and Jews, and Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists. But modern scientific research, especially unified theory, testifies to the triumph of the old idea that all creation might be ruled by a single and elegantly beautiful principle" (PBS science special: "The Creation of the Universe").
In the same PBS special, astronomer Allen Sandage is interviewed. Sandage was once a student of Hubble (who proved that the universe is expanding) and continued most of his career at the Mt. Palomar Observatory continuing Hubble's work. Commenting on the scientific fact of the "Big Bang," the beginning of the expansion, pointing towards a creation event, he says:
"If there was a creation event, it had to have had a cause. This was Aquinas' whole question -- one of the five ways [he tried to prove the existence of God. He said, in effect,] if you can find the first effect, you have at least come close to the first cause; and if you've found the first cause, that to him [Aquinas], was [equivalent to finding] God. What do astronomers say? As astronomers, you can't say anything except, 'Here is a miracle, what seems -- what seems almost supernatural -- an event which has come across the horizon into science, through the Big Bang.' Can you go the other way back, outside the barrier? Can you finally find the answer [to the question] 'Why is there something and not nothing?' No, you cannot, not from within science. But it still remains an incredible mystery: Why is there something instead of nothing?"
8. ADDITIONAL READING AND VIEWING
Books, tapes, videos to broaden your horizons...
The video, "The Anthropic Principle," available in Pal (or for an extra charge, in NTSC) from BBC Video For Education and Training, Horizon Library, Room 8, 2058 at BBC Enterprises Ltd., Woodlands, 80 Wood Lane, London Q12 OTT; Phone: 44-081-576-2867; Fax: 44-081-576-2415.
Origins - A Skeptic's Guide to the Creation of the Life on Earth by Robert Shapiro, Professor of Chemistry at New York University and an expert on DNA research and the genetic effect of environmental chemicals. Bantam Books, 1987.
Not By Chance! The Fall of Neo-Darwinian Theory by Lee M. Spetner, PhD in Physics, MIT. Self-published in 1996, the book is available from author. Email to <lspetner@inter.net.il>.
Evolution - A Theory in Crisis, by Michael Denton, Burnett Books, London, 1985. An excellent scientific examination of the status of evolutionary theory.
Genesis and the Big Bang, Gerald I. Schroeder, PhD Bantam, Formerly an MIT professor, Dr. Schroeder; compares contemporary theoretical physics and classical Jewish sources to reveal an almost identical description of the creation and age of the universe. Available at your bookseller or inquire to <2001@aish.edu>. Also available on cassette from <2001@aish.edu> for $7.00 plus $2.00 for shipping and handling.
If You Were God - Three Works by Aryeh Kaplan. This book begins where The Obvious Proof leaves off. It goes beyond the wall that Alan Sandage mentions in the PBS special "The Creation of the Universe" (see Menu, end #7). Available in Jewish bookstores, or through NCSY, 45 West 36th Street, N.Y. 10018.
Permission to Believe, by Laurence Keleman, Feldheim Publishers. The author presents rational proofs for God's existence using four separate intellectual approaches, dispelling the misconception that belief in God is irrational.
"Wonders of Creation," an audio tape by Shmuel Silinsky. $7.00 plus $2.00 shipping and handling to <2001@aish.edu>
9. SOME OF OUR FAVORITE WEBSITES Comments, questions, and general email to <2001@aish.edu>
If you enjoyed this you may want to explore further:
<http://www.discoveryseminar.org> Discovery Seminar The world famous eye-opening seminar includes a logical examination of the computer "Codes" in the Torah.
<http://www.aish.edu/essentials> Essentials Program Experience the most fascinating overview of Judaism available today. The all-star staff includes Dr. Gerald Schroeder, former professor of physics at MIT and author of "Genesis and the Big Bang."
<http://www.jerusalemfellowships.org> The Jerusalem Fellowships Award-winning website gives college students the opportunity to register online for the penultimate Israel program. Honorary chairmen are Senator Patrick Moynahan and Senator Arlen Spector.
<http://www.aish.edu> Aish HaTorah "Thank you , Aish HaTorah...I could have used you in my life 25 years ago!" Steven Spielberg
THE ABOVE IS A TEXT-ONLY PRINT-OUT OF OUR WEBSITE AND MENU. WHEN YOU HAVE THE TIME, WE HIGHLY RECOMMEND VIEWING THE ORIGINAL, AS WE HAVE PUT GREAT EFFORT INTO MAKING ITS ABSTRACT PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPTS TANGIBLY REAL WITH ORIGINAL ANIMATIONS AS WELL AS HIGH RESOLUTION COLOR STILLS FROM THE FILM "2001 - A SPACE ODYSSEY". |