Image via WikipediaContinuing our look at Alex Rosenberg’s The Atheist’s Guide to Reality, we come to Rosenberg’s treatment of the question “Where did the big bang come from?”...."[T]he dispute between atheism and theism is at bottom a philosophical dispute, not a scientific one." -- Edward Feser, in the combox of the above post, here.
Image via WikipediaWe can now address a simple question that is central to our understanding of the origin of life: Can non-living systems evolve? Can genetic information really appear out of nowhere, by chance? If the answer is no, then we're in trouble because those of us who work on the origin of life claim that is exactly what happened four billion years ago, when the first forms of life emerged from a sterile mixture of minerals, atmospheric gases, and dilute solutions of organic carbon compounds.The answer has to be yes, because otherwise we are looking at intelligence. Article in Evolutionary News and Views that brings this to our attention, here.
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Image via WikipediaScientists have created more than 150 human-animal hybrid embryos in British laboratories.
The hybrids have been produced secretively over the past three years by researchers looking into possible cures for a wide range of diseases.
Figures seen by the Daily Mail show that 155 ‘admixed’ embryos, containing both human and animal genetic material, have been created since the introduction of the 2008 Human Fertilisation Embryology Act.
This legalised the creation of a variety of hybrids, including an animal egg fertilised by a human sperm; ‘cybrids’, in which a human nucleus is implanted into an animal cell; and ‘chimeras’, in which human cells are mixed with animal embryos.Human-animal hybrids? It's crunch-time, folks. Are we crossing a line? Are we exceptional, or are we not? Are human beings merely, as darwinists and atheists like David Suzuki insist, mere animals, no better, no worse, and nothing more? And if all creation is by accident and not by design, with no externally-imposed, objective right-and-wrong, good-and-bad underlying human existence, why not?
Image by MJ/TR (´･ω･) via FlickrLast December we reported on a controversial paper published in Science which claimed to have discovered bacteria that feed on arsenic instead of phosphorous. According to NASA, this research promised to provide "an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life." At that time the media reported things like:
But soon after the original Science paper was published, credible scientists began critiquing the paper's claims....
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"I find that people who don’t believe the Bible are more impressed with the Bible when I start by arguing with the scientific evidence." -- Wintery Knight.
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Image via WikipediaThe universe is 880,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 metres across, and in all of it, there is one tiny spot, a region less than 4,000m thick on the surface of a tiny sphere, where you could survive (most of that surface covered by water that would drown you in minutes, so cold you would freeze to death in an hour, or so dry you would desiccate in days). The rest of the universe is dominated by extremely dissociated hydrogen gas, and bombarded by cosmic rays. (There may be other, similar small areas where you could survive, but none within a reachable distance, of course). But that only accounts for less than 5% of the universe mass, as most is less ordered than the hydrogen atom. The universe is at least 13,750,000,000 years old, our sun less than 5,000,000,000 years, the planet only slightly younger, and an atmosphere with sufficient oxygen that you do not asphyxiate instantly less than 2,500,000,000 years. Your oldest relatives that could even loosely be termed “hominid” developed less than 2,000,000 years ago. Your religion was invented less than 2,000 years ago, and you, I suspect, are less than 100 years old.
So less than a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of the universe is habitable by you, and your life span is a billionth of the life span of the universe. But somehow it is all about you. How self-deluded and self-important do you have to be?
Getty Images via @daylifeIt is precisely the reputable biologists who are under attack. For the first time, they are being asked to defend the thesis that biological design is more apparent rather than real. The effort has left them breathless. They are, of course, not about to surrender their ideological allegiances. Their rhetoric fills the op-ed columns of every liberal newspaper and is conveyed additionally by academic allies whose welfare is contingent on theirs -- analytic philosophers, pop psychologists, and even newspaper columnists eager beyond measure to do anything but attentively study the evidence.
But what is at issue, of course, is not what reputable biologists believe, but whether it is true.
David Berlinksi, Academic Extinction.
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Image via WikipediaMartin Rees[6] formulates the fine-tuning of the universe in terms of the following six dimensionless constants:
N = ratio of the strength of electromagnetism to that of gravity;
Epsilon (ε) = strength of the force binding nucleons into nuclei;
Omega (ω) = relative importance of gravity and expansion energy in the universe;
Lambda (λ) = cosmological constant;
Q = ratio of the gravitational energy required to pull a large galaxy apart to the energy equivalent of its mass;
D = number of spatial dimensions in spacetime.
Image via WikipediThere is, Haught suggests, a direction and a purpose to creation, but we will not see the intent and direction at the level of chemistry and physics any more than we see the intent in To Kill a Mockingbird at the level of grammar and spelling. Even less will we see the meaning at the level of the chemistry of paper and dyes, the engineering of the printing press, or the materials chemistry behind the electronic ink or electronic paper of a Kindle or Nook or other e-reader....
I am not a theist because I find gaps in the grammar and spelling that require direct action of God - I am a theist because I believe in a plot, purpose, and direction that transcends the nuts and bolts of the grammar and spelling. There is more to life than the laws of chemistry and physics.How about you -- do you believe in a plot, purpose, and direction to life?
Cover of McCartneyNo, life reeks of apparent design, which is only apparent because we as humans use our brains (a pattern deciphering brain) to attempt to fit the apparently designed into a nice neat package. It only looks designed because he thinks it does, and that goes with all intelligent design supporters.
The apparent design is only in OUR HEADS, not in nature, nor else where.I asked, "What is your proof for this?"
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