My last blog remarked on the fact that Richard Dawkins, one of the world's leading atheists, now believes in the possibility of "intelligent design." Dawkins is quite willing to grant that life may have originated on earth not by evolution nor by some chance combination of chemicals. He knows how infinitesimal are the odds of random chemicals simply mixing together to produce, say, the first cell. Even the simplest cell is more complicated than the most elaborate human inventions, such as the jet airplane or the most advanced computer. Consequently Dawkins told Ben Stein that maybe smart aliens deposited life on earth. I call this the ET explanation. Intelligent design is okay with Dawkins as long as that intelligent design does not involve a supernatural creator.
Some atheists on this blog are not happy with Dawkins' ET explanation. They want to go back to the early twentieth-century view that somehow the chemicals must have assembled together to produce the first cells. And the favorite piece of evidence is the 1953 experiment conducted by Harold Urey and Stanley Miller. Urey and Miller were operating on Darwin's hopeful assumption that perhaps life originated accidentally in some "warm little pond." They mixed together various chemical compounds, including hydrogen, ammonia, methane and water. To their delight they were able to generate organic compounds, including a small tincture of amino acids.
For a decade or so this generated enormous excitement in the scientific community. But then two things happened to take the wind out of the Urey-Miller balloon. First, scientists found that the early conditions on earth were nothing like the ones that Urey and Miller envisioned. For one, there was virtually no oxygen on the earth in its early stages. So even if chemicals somehow came together to produce organic compounds and amino acids, they could not have done so in anything like the way that Urey and Miller showed.
Second, biologists seeking to try and create life in the laboratory discovered that the really difficult thing is not producing amino acids. It is converting those amino acids into proteins. Here is where things get really complicated, and here is where chance really collapses as a reasonable explanation. For the details I direct you to Franklin Harold's scholarly yet accessible The Way of the Cell. Harold notes that as a consequence of the two developments listed above, the Urey-Miller experiments are now largely dismissed as a viable hypothesis of life's origin. And of course knowledgeable atheists like Dawkins and Francis Crick know this, which is why they have fled to the ET explanation--an explanation that would seem to require at least as much faith as believing in divine creation.
If you enjoy seeing atheist arguments exploded in this way--or even if you're an atheist with masochistic tendencies--you may want to attend one of my "God v. Atheism" debates this week. On Monday, April 21 I'll be debating philosopher Walter Sinnott-Armstrong at Dartmouth College. The debate is at 8 pm in Alumni Hall on the Dartmouth campus. On Tuesday, April 22 I'll be debating Dan Barker, head of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, at Harvard. The debate is at Memorial Church, 1 Harvard Yard, at 8 pm. Finally on Friday April 25 I debate the controversial philosopher Peter Singer at Biola University. The debate is at Chase Gymnasium on the Biola campus near Los Angeles. You can get tickets at the door or at apologeticsevents.com.
Reader Comments ( Page 5 of 61)
61. Tim,
Because the sheep use the abattoir as a market instead of a place of worship. Wait until the savior cow gets wind of this, he will overturn the milking markets tables and call the sheep blasphemous creatures! I think this was prophesied in leather. LOL
goddess1prevail at 12:05PM on Apr 21st 2008
62. Mike - in point of fact, the Big Bang theory doesn't say the universe had a beginning. It's just the furthest back we've been able to push back our understanding based on the available evidence. I've already talked about the problem with assuming that, because we don't know something now, we won't ever know...
Secondly, I've not actually been able to find that quote of Einstein's; could you point out a link? It doesn't jibe with what I understand of Relativity, which posits two different things - masse/energy and space/time.
In any case, the interesting thing about mass/energy is that we have never seen it be created or destroyed. It fulfils all the experimental properties we'd expect of something 'eternal', no?
Ray Ingles at 12:06PM on Apr 21st 2008
63. Tim,
And after the BBQ they are sentenced to the eternal cycle of ingestion, rumination, and egestion.
Mokele Mbembe at 12:08PM on Apr 21st 2008
64. ATHEIST
Another embarrassing blog by a lying Catholic with little real scientific knowledge.
In a different experiment, a polio virus was constructed out of components bought over the Internet.
Given the size of the earth, and five hundred million years, proteins appeared ONCE.
Not a problem. Our organic based form of life did NOT require a Creator.
William Hays at 12:11PM on Apr 21st 2008
65. "and i am no shart--had you guys even heard that word or have i had to educate you?" - brian
brian,
I'm pretty sure everyone here has heard of a "shit-fart" before. You accuse atheists of bringing nothing to the table and you think you're clever for using "shart" in conversation?
And actually, shart is a very good adjective for you. You hide your intolerance, hate, bigotry, and sexism behind the guise of Christianity... so you are a shart - expecting one thing (a follower of Christ) and getting another (a hateful nimrod with a mind on par with an 8th grader).
K at 12:13PM on Apr 21st 2008
66. "He knows how infinitesimal are the odds of random chemicals simply mixing together to produce, say, the first cell."
Yes it's very small, but when you multiply it by all the planets in the universe and a billion years (an UNIMAGINABLE amount of time from a human scale) for random chemical "noise" to mish and mash together, interesting things can happen. Although the Miller-Urey experiment may not have adequately represented pre-life conditions that doesn't at all rule out abiogenesis. If MU could yield organic product from one set of conditions, why not another? They should simulate hydrothermal vents (which may also exist within certain Jovian moons). If they could only make a probe to explore the seas of Europa... The thought is so exciting, it's hard to keep my clothes on.
Mokele Mbembe at 12:23PM on Apr 21st 2008
67. RICHARD DAWKINS(as he calls himself here, says, "...and they in vain try to keep God, whom they don't believe exists, away from the young person."
How is it that teachers of Evolution are keeping young people away from God.(or vice versa).?
D'Souza is being disingenuous as usual. Evolution is not abiogenesis.
Given that Christians already assume that everything was created by God, i.e. God made all the matter, space even time itself, and of course God made these basic things with their properties, the laws concerning how they can interact, it seems devious of Christians to demand that science explain to them whether or not God necessarily interceded to form the first organic life(or proto-life) on this planet.
Evolution explains how populations of living things change over time, NOT how life began, or how cells first came to be.
We can only assume that D'Souza knows this and is being deliberately ignorant for the sake of garnering agreement from genuinely ignorant people.
Evolution does NOT deny God.
I.D.(as it stands) does deny Evolution.
I.D. appeals to the 'Keep It Simple Stupid' crowd who just want to sell their insurance, flip their burgers or whatever and, when they die, live happily ever after.
But they are doing this anyway, so I.D. must have a political agenda. This is where D'Souza comes in.
not-pboyfloyd at 12:26PM on Apr 21st 2008
68. k,
a shart explains atheism.expecting one thing and getting another. what better explanation for an atheist? i mean really whatis wrong with that? you get so angry and mean when it does not agree with you. this is puzzling to me,why atheist get so aggravated with the truth. you better hope there is no god, but if there is no god and there is no justice and there is no hope and there is no hereafter and hitler and stalin and all those atheist dictators who murdered their millions do not get what they deserve then it really is a travesty isn't it. but that does not explain your hostile bent towards religion,specifically christianity. why such hostility. if your right who cares. you can be anyway you want and so can i ,and you hate that???
brian at 12:29PM on Apr 21st 2008
69. mo,
does it not make better sense to believe the truth? and live with it and by it than some ever-changing explanation that gets more and more bizarre. science cannot even decide if milk is good for you. one day it is the next its not. science cannot decide on anything and you expect rational people to believe they know how it all began. the bible states in the beginning God created!!!! thats all you will ever get and its all you will ever know. science cannot tell you anymore no matter how hard they try. respectfully and tenderly submitted
brian at 12:34PM on Apr 21st 2008
70. shit-fer-brains brian says, "you are not looking for god you are looking for a reason to have no moral restraint."
Suckholing to your God does NOT make you moral, brian. The 9/11 attackers were suckholing to their God. The pyramid builders were suckholing to their Gods. Business people suckhole to their God.
Gold is D'Souza's and your God brian, admit it.
not-pboyfloyd at 12:38PM on Apr 21st 2008
71.
My God tastes better with A1 steak sauce.
Tim at 12:44PM on Apr 21st 2008
72. More about the cow thing:
I once went to the Virginia State Fair and there was a cow giving birth. You could tell that the cow was in pain. It mooed and strained to get the baby cow out. Thing is,
In the bible it says that Eve's punishment for eating the apple was to give painful childbirth.
So the question I have is: if cows and other animals have painful childbirths, what great sin are they guilty of? Or is the writer of the Bible
ignorant of barnyard basics? Curious minds want to know. :>)
The Goddess Athena at 12:47PM on Apr 21st 2008
73. shit-fer-brains brian says, "science cannot tell you anymore no matter how hard they try"
Give up your technological lifestyle brian, and buy a piece of land. Build yourself a log cabin and all that you need. The Holy Spirit will guide you.
Technology is the Devil's work, man trying to be 'as gods'.
You must be able to see that.
not-pboyfloyd at 12:53PM on Apr 21st 2008
74. Mokele; All these worlds are yours, except Europa. Attempt no landing there. Use them together. Use them in peace.
Ryan Anderson at 12:54PM on Apr 21st 2008
75. brian: "it offers no answers, to nothing. if it did offer answers tell me what is suffering for? from an atheistic view.respectfully"
When there is a drought and the wildebeest die in the dust, does believing in god offer them any succor?
Suffering just is. It doesn't require explanation.
Ryan Anderson at 12:57PM on Apr 21st 2008