Science

In the first edition of his famous book On the Origin of Species Darwin closed the last paragraph with this sentence.

“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”

He could not have been more horribly wrong. His proposed simple beginnings of forms most beautiful and wonderful do not exist. Humming birds, whales, bees, ants, elephants Etc, are the result of the inner workings of microscopic nanotechnology. Technology of a type which leaves the best efforts of mankind at the starting block. If you are a sceptic about design I ask you to watch these two videos. Because each one in a different way demonstrates the absurdity and ignorance at the root of evolutionary theory. There is no simplicity in nature, scientists having understood so much about living things, plants and animals still cannot fathom the mysteries of life at the molecular level. The reason being the levels of complexity continue in these systems seemingly without end. If modern science were open to any other explanation other than Darwinist, they might make more progress and emulate those scientists who studied nature with the mindset of Johannes Kepler to whom this saying is attributed: “Thinking God’s thoughts after him.” A man who was following the Master who preceded them all. Kepler is among the greatest of all scientists, a rational man who believed in God. If you were to argue he believed this because he lived in an age of faith then realise you have made a rod for your own back. For the same could be said for those who dismiss God as Creator. They live in an age of atheism and scepticism. Kepler said:

“Geometry is unique and eternal, a reflection of the mind of God. That men are able to participate in it is one of the reasons why man is an image of God.”

Look at the videos below and allow yourself to wonder at Creation.

Understanding nature at its most basic level is a puzzle. DNA is at the root of all living things and perhaps the most surprising. How did coded specified information leading to functional, apparently engineered biological units and systems arise from the chaos of the early earth before life began? And once life was established it produced billions of diverse features such as lungs, wings, blood vessels, molecular motors etc, etc, etc, ad infinitum. The first puzzle is of a constantly occurring type throughout nature. We know a birds wing, brilliant though it is remains useless without its connection first to the body and then the necessary neural links to a brain. Second puzzle; we know all these big units have at root innumerable lesser, but arguably even more exquisite systems at the molecular level, each one of many millions combine to ensure all living things can survive the challenges of life. Beyond that there is the necessary Eco-system, which includes a fine tuned for life universe subject to universal laws. We are the recipients of a planet capable of photosynthesis and a supply of breathable air. These along with countless other component parts enable creatures like the birds and bees to live and flowers be pollinated. An encyclopedia of other marvels could follow, but we will stop here and consider the view which lords over every explanation concerning nature and creation. The most counter intuitive hypothesis ever conceived. And it took some of the brightest of those at the pinnacle of creation: scientists and philosophers to make the case. It is of course the one we all bow towards as if it were the Mecca of science: evolution!

This is another puzzle, because the common answer to how it all came about belongs to a category we all know from both science and common experience is impossible: things do not appear out of nothing from nowhere by chance. Artificial intelligence took intelligent design, no argument there. But the intelligence which conceived, designed and engineered AI, was not designed. It evolved from lifeless matter.

Extraordinary!

If I say birds cannot happen by chance evolutionists will cry Natural Selection you idiot! It is not just by chance, there is a selection process. My answer to that is simple. Anyone who has found themselves involved in a process of selection knows that selection is a function of intelligence, and intelligence is ruled out of the Darwinian script. The following is an example of the problems faced by a directionless, random process of selection. Try it, do some science. Throw Lego bricks in countless billions, or pieces of different puzzles into piles and wait for a random selective process to put them into any kind of order. Even if you examined the results on a minute by minute basis over billions of years no rational person would expect to find anything greater than what a one year child might create over a playtime of one hour. Two or three pieces or bricks set together only to be rearranged later into the chaos from which they arose. To select a piece of a puzzle and keep it hoping another that links to it will just turn up is to argue from intelligence. We all know without a shadow of doubt that order does not come out of chaos without the input of intelligence and a plan. So how in such a scheme did cellular life begin? The origins of complex interrelated plans for future development set into a context of all the building bricks necessary for the fulfilment of those plans being in place. We are faced with coded information stored in DNA capable of producing proteins, (building bricks) which construct the three dimensional living units that comprise everything seen in the natural world? No life without proteins is possible, but proteins follow the instructions laid down by DNA, which just to complicate the issue is made by proteins. This is simple classroom stuff, but it seems the questions I have asked are rarely stated and even less often answered. And the answers that are presented have nothing to do with science. There is not one single example of unguided chaotic forces operating on chemicals that have ever produced a functioning and self replicating living anything. That briefly is the unsolved puzzle. Unless of course you find the answer this way. Assume both the means and the result: the finished product being proof of the process. The bird wing proves evolution works.

Back to molecular building bricks, those without which life is impossible. DNA according to Bill Gates the founder of Microsoft DNA is far more advanced than any software created by man. And yet it must have existed and functioned as it does today from the genesis of life. Why? Because living things exist as they do because of DNA. It holds the plans which define type: whether that be grass or elephant, shape, size or pigmentation. The amazing information storage capacity of DNA will feature again in the context of Bill Gates and Microsoft. Why? Because DNA is at the cutting edge of new technology. Darwin’s simple beginnings, into which he invested so much hope fade into absurdity when set against the astonishing digital storage capacity of DNA. Then there is the puzzle of the first life forms.

Here is a description of a basic working unit which enables all life to exist: no life can exist without energy and this is supplied by molecular motors. Had Darwin known of their existence and seen its outline as a blurred image through the eyepiece of an ancient microscope, he may have exclaimed: “At last, the simple beginning of life I prophesied would one day be found!” The problem is he could never have seen it under a normal microscope. We are talking nanotechnology and electron microscopes. Had he been able to access such a device he would have seen as near a physical miracle as you could imagine. The simple beginning is anything but simple. How about this one: the MO-1 bacterial flagellum.  This is a rotary motor which provides bacteria with their source of movement through liquid environments. This tiny powerhouse of a bacteria beats them all and may be one of the most ancient ever discovered. It is powered by seven motors, arranged in a hexagonal array. All the gears interact with 24 smaller gears set between them. The seven flagella rotate one way, and the smaller gears rotate in the opposite direction thereby maximising torque while minimising friction. The gears are synchronised and the researchers who studied it stated, unsurprisingly given the facts, that it is highly organised. It’s performance is phenomenal, creating a speed in water unsurpassed by any other bacteria. The MO-1 motors can drive the bacteria at speeds of 100 body lengths per second. Nothing man-made could get close to competing, and certainly not man himself. Usain Bolt? Six body lengths per second.

If you believe in evolution via mutations and natural selection then please explain how these highly organised examples of engineered inventions have appeared on earth. Tell us how without design the previously referred to MO-1  motility system came into existence. It has exquisite design stamped on every part, of which it has a large number. And of course on top of this it has the ability to replicate itself. I do not believe it possible to deny that the evidence describing perhaps the most primitive organism on the planet, proves, beyond reasonable doubt the existence of a designer. There was a time, long, long ago, when modern science was birthed, that to argue as evolutionary scientists do would have been considered delusional. Your chances of finding a seat alongside the greats, and fathers of modern science would have have been remote. Float the evolutionary schooner in that largely Christian intellectual pond and watch it sink without trace. Newton, Maxwell Clark, Harvey, Boyle, Faraday etc would have asked Darwin to show the science; demonstrate the empirical scientific method you have applied; the repeated tests and the resulting evidence. They may well of said: this cannot work, because you Mr Darwin, have over the course of decades diligently observed breeders of plants and animals demonstrating that you can only push a type of dog or rose or pigeon so far and no further. There are limits to variability. Limits imposed by genetics, not by Christian philosophers or Creationists.

DATA STORAGE PROBLEMS

We really do have no excuse. If the above is not sufficient incentive to start thinking there is something in the design / designer argument, then consider the following. Data storage is a big and growing global problem, but its solution, via biotech is neat beyond adequate description. Here is how Microsoft took on the problem of data storage and retrieval. Powerful corporations around the world are alarmed at the mounting costs estimated for data storage. Not only governments but the most famous names in business, from Facebook to Microsoft are compelled to invest in huge data storage facilities: massive sprawling industrial buildings. This happens all over the globe. The answer is perhaps unsurprising given what you have read earlier. A solution has been found by harnessing the genius systems found in biology. Studies in biotech have produced amazing results.

Microsoft took the initiative to examine the potential wrapped up in nature. They converted the digital systems found in DNA.

Data storage density is DNA’s speciality subject. To cut to the chase how much information can DNA fit into a small unit? The answer? It can take the amount of data contained in around a hundred industrial sized buildings and reduce it to what do you think? Five industrial units? One such unit? No it is less, much less. See what the Creator of the world can do with a problem this size. It is of course a bit of a cheat since DNA surpasses all man-made efforts, it can store information three-dimensionally.

It is capable of storing these industrial shed loads of data in something the size of a….SHOE BOX!!!!

This is the story of life as presented to us. Life began with the appearance of single celled bacteria 3,800 million years ago. All bacteria are equipped with DNA. As a logical consequence it seems to me as if expert opinion endorses an origins of life theory placing a 3,800 million years old data storage kit as the first and most primitive example of life. A highly unlikely saviour and solution to what would otherwise be an insuperable problem to modern man. Who to applaud most highly: Microsoft or the ridiculously ancient molecule whose long name is Deoxyribonucleic acid? Microsoft had an inventor with a name: Bill Gates.  Deoxyribonucleic acid has no inventor, and goes under the title, unknown and anonymous. Where is God when you want him? Perhaps waiting for you to appear before him and interested in your explanation.

Below is a Harvard animation of the life going on in every cell of your body. It is helpful in watching this to get an idea what is going on. Right now trillions of them are conspiring to ensure you can see, read, comprehend and use your hands to access this information.  A cell has been described as a city. Within it you have local government, information and storage facilities, transport systems, factories, highways, import and export controls, communication systems, diagnosis and repair systems, security, post offices and much more. The membrane which holds it all together is ingenious beyond imagining. A cell can replicate itself within 24 hours, programmed death of a cell ensures we are not filled with useless debris. Is this a likely product of time and chance and selection. A rough figure of the number of cells you have is around 70 trillion.

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.

There is a design intuition about the natural kingdom sensed and believed by children, but unseen and disregarded by most adults.

Here is the result of two scientific studies into how children discern between what is purposely designed and what is not. It was found that children have an innate appreciation of design and purpose and a tendency to accept creationist (a Designer or God) explanations of origins. In other words they think in terms of design when confronted with nature and natural phenomenon. This applies across the board irrespective of the influences that have formed their thinking. They naturally think in teleological terms. Teleological means exhibiting or relating to design or purpose, especially in nature.

This information came from a study called: Intuitions About Origins: Purpose and Intelligent Design in Children’s Reasoning About Nature. Deborah Kelemen & Cara Di Yanni / Boston University. From that study alone, it is logical to deduce that the design intuition is a natural response to observed data. Why then and how would children lose this inference? They lose it later in life when brainwashed; not by parents or through church attendance, but through focused programmes and authority figures in schools, colleges and universities who uniformly and constantly teach the opposite. Taught a science curriculum based on no purpose no design and believe it because we have proved it! This is then reinforced by media productions which speak of, and wonderfully illustrate the evolutionary story. ‘Millions of years of evolution’, ‘evolution and millions of years’. Repeat the mantra every day like a religious duty and get the flags ready for the next Darwin celebration. Indoctrinated adults teaching those who by nature would deny this story line. If  institutional authority did not impose this view it would not be believed by children. Apparently designed natural features formed through a process of chance and selection is not therefore a natural inference, it is an aberration.

Another report from a British source came to the same conclusions. This research is from a senior researcher at the University of Oxford’s Centre for Anthropology and Mind. Dr Justin Barrett noted that children are predisposed to believe in a God. They naturally assume that all the world and what it contains was created and done so with a purpose in mind. This has nothing to do with any teaching received from school or parents. It is just obvious to them. Research over a decade has led to the conclusion that children have an inbuilt predisposition towards intelligent design.

This is amazing since people like Richard Dawkins have always maintained the belief that this creation nonsense has to be the result of religious indoctrination. He has stated that teaching Creationism to children is “child abuse”. It is not taught in any state schools by decree from above. It has been removed root and branch. How wrong is this? Scientific research from both sides of the Atlantic show that children intuitively accept what is natural to them and consequently, if left to themselves believe the design inference. A forecast based on the creation accounts found in the bible would have expected that result. The creation of conscious creatures (humans) taught from the beginning that God made everything. A Designer who designed and a Creator who created.

A good scientific theory is supposed to make accurate predictions. Evolutionary theory would never ever have predicted that result. The report goes on to crush evolutionary expectations. Dr Barrett noted that children at the age of four years old understand the difference between Man-made objects and those from nature. He concludes that children are more likely to believe Creationist accounts than evolutionary. And that contrary to belief, children hold these beliefs even after being taught the opposite. He even goes so far as to state that evolution is unnatural to them and hard to believe. Child abuse surely is this, forcing humanist thinking into impressionable minds that naturally turn towards their Creator.

If it were true that we had evolved in some primeval pond from bacterial life upwards towards mammalian life and then through primates to human then how could this creation belief have implanted itself so powerfully in the unrehearsed minds of young children? And why would the reverse be so unconvincing and the supposedly true and natural account appear as alien to them? Maybe because we humans are hardwired to believe in a Creator God. We who believe it do so because we listened to that implanted design intuition. Dawkins and his cohorts are guilty of indoctrination and perhaps worse. Denying to children a fundamental birthright, which is to believe what their intuition leads them to believe. That anything which gives the appearance of having been designed was designed. If you are open to hearing another way of looking thing at things presented by someone qualified to speak on matters of science then I recommend this talk by a world class scientist: James Tour.

James Tour was inducted into the National Academy of Inventors in 2015. He was named among “The 50 most Influential Scientists in the World Today” by TheBestSchools.org in 2014. Tour was named “Scientist of the Year” by R&D Magazine in 2013. Tour won the ACS Nano Lectureship Award from the American Chemical Society in 2012. Tour was ranked one of the top 10 chemists in the world over the past decade by Thomson Reuters in 2009. That year, he was also made a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Other notable awards won by Tour include the 2008 Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology, the NASA Space Act Award in 2008 for his development of carbon nanotube reinforced elastomers, the Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award from the American Chemical Society (ACS) for his achievements in organic chemistry in 2007, the Small Times magazine’s Innovator of the Year Award in 2006, the Southern Chemist of the Year Award from ACS in 2005, the Honda Innovation Award for Nanocars in 2005, the NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award in 1990, and the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award in 1989. In 2005, Tour’s journal article “Directional Control in Thermally Driven Single-Molecule Nanocars” was ranked the Most Accessed Journal Article by the American Chemical Society. Tour has twice won the George R. Brown Award for Superior Teaching at Rice University in 2007 and 2012.

There can be few scientists who know more about the real life difficulties in explaining, let alone demonstrating, how the origins of cellular life arose without design. James Tour has spent his career in the specialist areas of nanotechnology. Using molecules to build functioning nano-machines on a scale so minute it beggars belief.

In this video, which he describes as painfully technical, he sets himself the task of exposing the hypocrisy underlying all attempts to explain the origins of life without design. If you believe that life arose without a designer through the process of time and chance and are open to another possibility, please watch this video. Because the supposition just referred to underpins every attempt to avoid a Creator God who designed it all. If the only way you can maintain that position is to hold to something that could never happen under any circumstances then you have placed yourself under the power of a delusion. Tour proves that the explanations you have absorbed cannot under any real life circumstances be true.

Children do not need science to prove what is obvious to them. James Tour is a Christian, a child of God, and he knows, even though he does not say it, that nothing other than God could have produced the wonders of cellular life: yours and mine.

Darwin knew as well as anyone else that Creation cannot pass unnoticed, an explanation is required. There are only three possible options. The division is between those believing there could be a Creator of some kind and those holding that a natural process caused it all. The final one includes those believing a combination of the two above. In the Western world the battle lines are usually drawn by those who care, and these divide between the two positive assertions: God did it, or a form of Darwinian evolution did it, maybe with some initial supernatural help to start it off. As things stand it is atheistic Darwinism which holds much the more powerful position, at least among the educated classes. This happens to include the great majority of those that understand or practise science. But every now and then a big juicy apple is heard falling to the ground from the tree of life.

The tree of life with its trunk, branches and twigs demonstrating the linked relationships between bacteria, fish and mammals up to mankind is still assumed by many, but evidence does not support its existence. The transitional fossils are speculative at best and non existent at worst. Many evolutionary palaeontologists, some of the greatest admit the failure of the fossil record. As for the Tree of Life, Craig Venter, a world-renowned scientist implied it was a nonevent, calling it in effect an artefact of history. Venter was on a panel of guests including two Nobel Prize winners and Richard Dawkins. The latter was visibly shocked to hear such a heresy coming from a well-respected source. This little disagreement is an indication that not every scientist is signed up to classic Darwinism. Nevertheless, the majority of those who support evolutionary theory will contend that all necessary proofs have been supplied in abundance.

I want to ask a simple question. Is the creation we see and know what Darwinism would have predicted? Darwin’s theory should produce nothing beyond what is baseline functional at the very best. A process like evolution, directed on the basis of survival, reproduction and immediate rather than future need is not likely to produce either exquisite novelties or boundless beauty. And certainly not on the scale of what is demonstrated throughout nature. If the only processes permitted to evolutionists are without direction and any thought or foresight as to how plant and animal life survive in any given or changing environment, then there is simply no chance of seeing what nature demonstrates. Not without miracle upon miracle, and miracles are precisely what Darwinism does not have. If you want miracles you need God not a process whose only mechanism for change and development is genetic mutation. The problem is that mutations do not cause Marvel Comic mutants. They mostly produce errors and some of these can be damaging, even fatal. Mutations are not good news. Every example in films of mutant improvements and super heroes are fictions. That should tell you something. Mutations cause disease, death and the breakdown of genomes. They represent a process comprising a faulty copy of a code or set of instructions via DNA. Corrupted copies, causing wonder upon wonder, all fully functioning from the get go. That is Darwinism. Is it an argument you would want to defend? A faulty possibly damaging mutation causing an advanced type of that which preceded it. Man to superman or Dr Jekyll into Mr Hyde. The latter is the more likely. If it all seems unlikely then live with it, because there is nothing else. You are quite safe since this theory, titled Neo-Darwinism, is supported without question by many of the most intelligent people on earth.

The following video shows how our bodies deal with the problem. The Bible informs us we live in a fallen world in which God is still its Sovereign Lord. You will see that the body is consumed with activity devoted to keep us well, but the invasions of damaging mutations do get through. The systems of repair are incredible, they look after us just as good parents look after their children, but damage from the world gets through to them as well. We all live in this fallen world. The wonder is that so much goes so well. Watch, listen and be amazed. You might also ask yourself how such systems evolved without thought, engineering and know how? Intelligent design perhaps!