Day: September 24, 2018

 

What follows was a famous but flawed example of evolution at work through the process of directionless natural selection.

Any functioning device like a typewriter is made for a purpose. Primarily so an author can put thoughts into writing. The typewriter was made by and for humans. Every man made item on the planet was first an idea before it was anything else. And remember that a thought is a product of intelligence. Animals clearly think but not like us. They are enabled to do things we cannot do. Birds and fish can migrate across continents to specific breeding grounds. That ability, which can only have been caused by intelligence has been hard wired into their minds. The incredible navigation was not worked out as you and I would have to do. The need to migrate and knowledge of the route to be taken is just there for them. How? There is no other way than by design?

This is where the typewriter come into play. Produced by Richard Dawkins to prove that evolution can solve the problems of apparent design. There had to be another way and Dawkins came up with a solution. He used the old idea that thousands of monkeys pummelling away at typewriter keys over a period of millions of years would eventually randomly produce something intelligible or useful. Chance will have its day one day if given enough time. He chose a line from the works of Shakespeare. And he achieved his aim, at least to his satisfaction. He wrote a computer programme which quickly and apparently randomly produced the Shakespearean phrase: methinks it is like a weasel. There you are he proclaimed, random processes without direction can easily achieve the finished article with nothing more than a Darwinian type of selection. No design or designer required. Voila!

After a brief glow in the limelight his proof of evolution via a contrived process of random selection faded into a deserved black hole. He had cheated in every way. Nothing about the experiment was genuinely random, nothing about it replicated what would have had to happen in nature. It was a fix which was enlightening. It helped prove that evolution via natural selection was pushing the outer limits of credulity. In fact way beyond its extremity and into the realms of posturing, even pseudoscience. Dawkins often makes play with the absurdities of the design argument, as if design being attributed to organisms that give the appearance of design is by definition certifiable. So let’s for a moment compare a believer in God as Creator with the reasoned and rational Richard Dawkins. The believer is Isaac Newton and here is his quote.

Atheism is so senseless. When I look at the solar system, I see the earth at the right distance from the sun to receive the proper amounts of heat and light. This did not happen by chance.

Note that Newton, a scientist orders of magnitude more significant to science than Richard Dawkins does not argue from theology or scripture, but on the basis of rationality. Reason based on evidence leads to his conclusion. This did not happen by chance, states Newton; but according to Dawkins it did. Does the writer of the God Delusion not realise that his belief, which is that something out of nothing was put into order by forces and processes unknown, is gambler’s dream: conferring a chance upon chance throw of the dice ad infinitum. A sequence which must constitute the greatest act of faith and the biggest leap in the dark ever given credence by a highly evolved, big brained primate.

Media productions relating to evolution and nature often refer to what the Darwinian theory would predict and how these predictions have been fulfilled. The proof is as bogus as the Dawkins experiment and it goes like this: a humming bird is unique due to its ability to hover. Because it is assumed to have gained this advantage through its evolution from a very distant common ancestor it is therefore a product of and a proof of the evolutionary process. Once you have assumed the certainty of Darwin’s theory, and its viability is always assumed, every creature known to us is by definition another proof of evolution through selective adaptation over millions of years. Evolution caused nature’s diversity, nature’s diversity proves evolution. This is a circular argument, devoid of evidence and therefore worthless. However, credit where credit is due, it has proved extremely persuasive. Conjuring tricks fool most of us.

If you made the same argument for a typewriter self forming and replicating without an intelligent designer and maker then imagine the uproar and laughter. You really think that this machine evolved via a selective process? Without an idea being formed and worked upon, perhaps over generations until it came to fruition and fit for purpose. Dawkins will tell you time was the magic ingredient. Billions of years of time. He makes this argument in his book The Greatest Show on Earth. He does so while being fully aware that time, unless intelligently used to bring an idea through the design and engineering stages is useless. The effect of time is proved when the typewriter is left alone to the care and attention of time. It will rot and rust and decay until nothing is left. I look at my 74 year old body and despite efforts to keep it functioning, by eating sleeping, mild exercise etc, see it do everything stated above, apart from rust. My body is falling into ruin and will conclude as a small pile of dust. The miracle worker time is certainly long-lasting, but only intelligent design and constant repairs and renewal will keep it useful. To use time, which has no interest in anything in the context of producing exquisite examples of what appears to have been designed for a purpose is plain crazy, as you will see. The nectar to which the hovering humming bird is attracted and the flower that produces it would, according to evolutionary theory have coincided with the evolution of the humming bird. Another lucky coincidence or a designed feature?  One replicated millions of time over in nature over a vast variety of circumstances and many different environments.

All of nature exists in a universe hostile to life. It occurs, as far as we know only on this planet. However, thankfully and blessedly this universe is wonderfully aligned to the interests of life and bizarrely explicable in terms of beautiful mathematical equations. It is so fine tuned that it permits the creation of incredibly sophisticated molecular nano motors, seen only by electron microscopes, which powers and energises every function in every living unit: from humans to bacteria. We are all put together in a manner that requires billions of units like these to align themselves correctly all the time, every time, if we are to remain healthy. We are as the Bible so accurately predicts and states: fearfully and wonderfully made. Your body is proof of a biblical prediction.

One final point; if you are male  and attracted to a female you might apply the same reasoning. Take note that each of you is beautifully adapted to the cause of having sexual intercourse and as a by product contributing to the propagation of the species. A cause which rules out any other possibility beyond male and female, unless you seek out a solution via a donor, a surrogate and probably a laboratory or a medical practitioner. A fact which underlines the truth that nature has provided only one simple and direct route to the continuance of higher life forms; male and female. A thought which in the post modern world is extremely unwelcome.

The following video is a full length Christian defence of the Faith. It is entertaining, provocative, annoying sometimes because to a British audience American productions often seem over slick; but nevertheless questions are  asked of the most basic type, first base questions and they leave people who have clearly never really thought about their atheism with a puzzle to solve.