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The following are quotes added to my Unclassified Quotes database in December 2006. The date format is dd/mm/yy. See copyright conditions at end.
[Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov]
1/12/2006
"Of course no mutationist would deny that a new type must be able to survive and perpetuate itself if it is to
take part in evolution; but this might be said to be only a commonplace. A mutationist might well insist that
the essential part of Darwin's theory of natural selection is not survival, but Darwin's postulate that the
individual variations, everywhere present, furnish the raw materials for evolution. This the mutationist
would deny. In what sense, then, have the catchwords `competition' and `the survival of the fittest' come to
be generally regarded as the essential features of natural selection? Do these terms mean, for instance, that
natural selection is an active agent in evolution, which in itself brings about progressive changes; or do
they mean only that it acts as a sieve for the materials that present themselves as variations? If we think of
evolution as an active process, is natural selection an agency capable of bringing about progressive
changes, or does it not rather direct attention away from the real phenomenon, and offer at most only an
explanation of the presence of certain types and the absence of others at any one period of geological
history? The origin of these types-the real creative steps-not the preservation of certain of them after they
have appeared, might rather be regarded as the essential phenomenon of evolution. If so, `the struggle for
existence' and `the survival of the fittest' may express only a sort of truism or metaphor, and have nothing to
do with the origination of new types out of antecedent ones. These contrasts may be brought out more
clearly by a statement of the converse situations. Suppose evolution had come about as a series of direct
adaptive responses to the environment. In such a case natural selection would become practically
meaningless, although the statement that this would lead to the survival of the fittest would still hold."
(Morgan, T.H., "The Scientific Basis of Evolution," [1932], W.W. Norton: New York NY, Second Edition,
1935, pp.109-110)
1/12/2006
"There is a suspicion that morphologists, who have been the most ardent students of adaptation, have often
appealed to imaginary rather than known agencies in accounting for the evolution of adaptations. For
example, the geological record tells us that the horse started as a small five-toed animal little larger than a
dog. As time went on, it changed by degrees into a larger animal with fewer and fewer toes, until today the
horse is left standing on one toe on each foot. So far so good: but the transformation is sometimes
described as due to an adaptation to harder ground through survival of individuals with fewer toes. The
single-toed condition is assumed to be an improvement, enabling the horse to run faster on open ground.
Now, as a statement of an historical series of events, this descriptive evolution of the horse may be
approximately correct, but the implication that the changes occurred because they were better adapted to
hard ground is purely imaginary. As fiction the account may be allowed to stand, but if this fiction is to take
the place of a scientific explanation of the origin of the horse, then exception might well be taken to it.
(Morgan, T.H., "The Scientific Basis of Evolution," [1932], W.W. Norton: New York NY, Second Edition,
1935, pp.112-113. Emphasis original)
1/12/2006
"Another attempt to solve the problems of diversification was Darwin's theory of natural selection. If natural
selection is interpreted to mean that the innumerable individual differences found in all races, varieties,
and species of animals and plants are inherited; and if through competition only those better adapted to the
old or to a new environment survive; and if the survivors produce offspring that vary further in the direction
of selection, a creative process appears to have been discovered capable of explaining the evolution of life
in all of its ramifications. When, however, we attempt to go behind the assumptions in the last statement, we
see that one of the basic ideas, namely, that this process of variation would go on indefinitely under the
guidance of selection, is open to question. The implication in the theory of natural selection, that by
selecting the more extreme individuals of the population, the next generation will be moved further in the
same direction, is now known to be wrong. Neither the genetic factors responsible for a part of the initial
variability, nor the environmental factors, can bring about such an advance. Without this postulate, natural
selection is impotent to bring about evolution. On the other hand, if variations arise, owing to genetic
factors (mutants) that transcend the original limits, they will supply natural selection with materials for actual
progressive changes. There is here no implication that natural selection itself is responsible for the
appearance of new types, some of which may have a survival value, except that owing to the destruction of
the less well adapted types room is left for the better adapted. If all the new mutant types that have ever
appeared had survived and left offspring like themselves, we should find living today all the kinds of
animals and plants now present, and countless others. This consideration shows that even without natural
selection evolution might have taken place. What the theory does account for is the absence of many kinds
of living things that could not survive, partly because they could not meet the conditions of the inorganic
world, partly because they found no new environment suitable to their needs, partly because they were
destroyed by other animals or plants, and partly because they could not compete with the original type.
Natural selection may then be invoked to explain the absence of a vast array of forms that have appeared,
but this is saying no more than that most of them have not had a survival value. The argument shows that
natural selection does not play the role of a creative principle in evolution." (Morgan, T.H., "The Scientific
Basis of Evolution," [1932], W.W. Norton: New York NY, Second Edition, 1935, pp.130-131. Emphasis
original)
1/12/2006
"As has been explained, the kind of variability on which Darwin based his theory of natural selection can no
longer be used in support of that theory, because, in the first place, in so far as fluctuating variations are
due to environmental effect, these differences are now known not to be inherited, and because, in the
second place, selection of the differences between individuals, due to the then existing genetic variants,
while changing the number of individuals of a given kind, will not introduce anything new. ... Under the
circumstances, it is a debatable question whether still to make use of the term `natural selection' as a part of
the mutation theory, or to drop it because it does not have today the same meaning that Darwin's followers
attached to his theory. ... we can no longer say that the individual variants, everywhere present, suffice to
supply the materials for natural selection; but if it is true, as the mutation theory claims, that small and large
variants do appear that are inherited, they would seem to furnish evolution with materials that fulfill its
requirements." (Morgan, T.H., "The Scientific Basis of Evolution," [1932], W.W. Norton: New York NY,
Second Edition, 1935, pp.149-150. Emphasis original)
1/12/2006
"The mutationists face the same situation today when they attempt to account for the origin of new
variations. They have made efforts to produce specific heritable variations with an adaptive relation to the
external agents that called them forth; but so far without success. This raises the question whether the
mutational changes are due to molecular events that are strictly causal, so far as the germ-cell change is
concerned, and if so, what relation such changes have to the order of nature. If we assume that the kind of
alterations taking place in the materials concerned with heredity (i.e., the genes) are chemical in nature, the
mutational changes would be not chaotic events in the ordinary sense, but specific events that are at each
step determined by the chemical constitution of the hereditary materials in the germ-cells. If we reject the
assumption that some unknown agent, such as a directive principle, regulates all chemical changes, we are
forced to assume that it is the rare combinations of events that bring into existence such new molecular
configurations." (Morgan, T.H., "The Scientific Basis of Evolution," [1932], W.W. Norton: New York NY,
Second Edition, 1935, pp.227-228)
1/12/2006
"The cause of my banker friend's confusion was a pamphlet published in 1982 by the Creation Science
Movement. ["Decrease in the Speed of Light," Pamphlet No. 230, Creation Science Movement, Worthing
UK, 1982] It contained a summary of a lengthy paper by an Australian creationist, Barry Setterfield.
[Setterfield, B., "The Velocity of Light and the Age of the Universe," Ex Nihilo, Creation Science
Publishing, Brisbane, Preprint, 1981] The pamphlet reviews Setterfield's paper quite uncritically, and
concludes, without any justification, `There is, therefore, clear scientific evidence for accepting that the
speed of light has decreased.' What is this so-called `clear evidence'? Setterfield gathered together some (by
no means all) of the determinations of the velocity of light made by various scientists, and plotted them
against the dates they were made. Because the velocity of light is extremely high (about 300,000 kilometres
per second) it is difficult to measure without modern instrumentation. So it is not surprising that it is only
during the past quarter of a century that the measured values have agreed closely with each other. Before
that the figures become more and more inaccurate, the further back they go in time." (Hayward, A.,
"Creation and Evolution: Rethinking the Evidence from Science and the Bible," [1985], Bethany House:
Minneapolis MN, Reprinted, 1995, pp.139-140)
1/12/2006
"Setterfield, however, concluded that the velocity kept changing until 1960, and then stopped! He fitted a
curve to the somewhat erratic data before that date, and then extrapolated it back all the way to infinity - a
procedure so unscientific as to be ludicrous. The curve reaches a value of infinite velocity at a value quoted
as `4,040 BC ±20 years', which the pamphlet calls `the time of Creation/ Fall'. The full Setterfield paper is
dressed with a great deal of theoretical analysis. Lest any reader should be overly impressed by this
analysis perhaps I should mention that I asked two professors of modern physics to look at it. One said it
was unsound, self-contradictory, and based on an antiquated and incorrect concept of the atom. The other
used even stronger language. The incredible nature of Setterfield's extrapolation can be seen from ... his
graph and shown how much (or rather, how little) of it is based upon data of any sort. And only about one-
tenth of even that tiny portion is based upon modern, accurate data." (Hayward, A.*, "Creation and
Evolution: Rethinking the Evidence from Science and the Bible," [1985], Bethany House: Minneapolis MN,
Reprinted, 1995, p.140)
1/12/2006
"Although Setterfield's data span three centuries, the first two centuries (1675-1870) are represented by only
two measurements, made by Roemer in 1675 and by Bradley in 1728. Setterfield's conclusions largely depend
upon the high values he attributes to these early workers (Roemer 301,300; Bradley 301,000 kilometres per
second), as all results obtained after 1871 are below 300,000. But the figures in his table are incorrect. The
true values are given in numerous scientific books and papers, and in the article, `Light, Velocity of' in the
1973 edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica. They are: Roemer, 214,300 [192,500 mps = 309,925 km/s];
Bradley 295,000 [185,000 mps = 297,850 km/s]. If Setterfield had used these correct values he might have
written an equally plausible paper arguing that the velocity of light has been increasing with time!"
(Hayward, A.*, "Creation and Evolution: Rethinking the Evidence from Science and the Bible," [1985],
Bethany House: Minneapolis MN, Reprinted, 1995, p.140. Emphasis original)
1/12/2006
"Finally, it must be said that Setterfield's graph is not correct, even in the very small area where there are
some reliable figures. The authoritative paper on how the `generally accepted' value of the velocity of light
has changed between 1927 and 1975 was produced by the Particle Data Group of the American Physical
Society. [Trippe, T.G., et al., "Review of particle properties," Reviews of Modern Physics, Vol. 48, No. 2,
Part II, April 1976, pp. S1-S20] (The `generally accepted' value at a given date is the value that experts at the
time regarded as the best available, taking into account all the data produced up to that time. It is
therefore much more reliable than the result of a measurement by any one experimenter.) This committee of
thirteen leading experts showed that the value did not decrease steadily between 1927 and 1960, as
Setterfield had mistakenly thought. Instead ... it decreased from 1927 to 1935, remained roughly constant
from 1935 to 1950, then rose between 1950 and 1955 to almost the original value of 1927. And the reason for
these small changes, which amounted to less than one part in ten thousand between the largest and the
smallest values? Simple. It is just a matter of `a general progression toward better understanding' of the
facts, explains this distinguished group of experts." (Hayward, A.*, "Creation and Evolution: Rethinking the
Evidence from Science and the Bible," [1985], Bethany House: Minneapolis MN, Reprinted, 1995, p.141.
Emphasis original)
1/12/2006
"Light Traveled Faster in the Past Than it Does Today Perhaps the best exposition of this idea has been
done by Trevor Norman and Barry Setterfield. [Norman, T. & Setterfield, B., "The Atomic Constants, Light,
and Time," Stanford Research Institute International: Menlo Park CA, 1987] Their explanation not only
attempts to explain how distant stars can be seen, it also attempts to explain a few other supposedly related
phenomena such as radioactive dating. ... In its outward appearance, this theory is supported by actual
measurements which have been made of the speed of light over the past few hundred years. A curve has
been fit reasonably well through these measurements-one which, when greatly extrapolated, indicates that
the speed of light was extremely fast about 6,000 years ago-fast enough to allow for the most distant stars to
be visible in a young universe. ... As can be seen from the graphical representation of this data... if light
changed speed at all over the last 200 years, it certainly didn't change speed very much. The points make an
almost perfectly level straight line. In order to see the small amount of difference between the various
measurements, the same data has been plotted with a greatly exaggerated vertical scale. On the bottom
graph on page 66, the full scale represents less than 1 percent variation, and the zero point would be about
25 feet below the bottom of the page." (Stoner, D.W.*, "A New Look at an Old Earth," [1985], Harvest House
Publishers: Eugene OR, Reprinted, 1997, pp.63,67. Emphasis original)
1/12/2006
"Norman and Setterfield selected a complicated mathematical curve which not only fit the historic data
reasonably well but which also indicated that light from the most distant stars took something on the order
of 6,000 years to reach us. A parabola (the very simplest mathematical curved line) would have fit their data
as well or better, but it would not have borne out their expectation that the speed of light was many millions
of times greater 6,000 years ago. ... A parabola only triples light's speed for 6,000 years ago. The selected
curve gives a factor which is millions of times greater." (Stoner, D.W.*, "A New Look at an Old Earth,"
[1985], Harvest House Publishers: Eugene OR, Reprinted, 1997, pp.68-69, 221)
1/12/2006
"Norman and Setterfield also claim that the rate of radioactive decay must change as the speed of light
changes. [Norman, T. & Setterfield, B., "The Atomic Constants, Light, and Time," Stanford Research
Institute International: Menlo Park CA, 1987, p.83] They predict radiocarbon dates for 4,000-year-old wood
will appear much older-by about 34 million years. As will be shown in the next chapter, carbon-14 dates for
4,000-year-old wood turn out to be about 500 years too young. This observed fact refutes the Norman-
Setterfield theory of light speed decay." (Stoner, D.W., "A New Look at an Old Earth," [1985], Harvest
House Publishers: Eugene OR, Reprinted, 1997, pp.70-71. Emphasis original)
1/12/2006
"Challenge 3: Light may have traveled faster a few thousand years ago. Reply: The work of two
Australian creationists has been widely publicized among proponents of a young universe. Barry Setterfield
and Trevor Norman teamed up to propose that the reason the universe appears old is that light used to
travel much faster than it does today. [Norman, T. & Setterfield, B., "The Atomic Constants, Light, and
Time," Stanford Research Institute International, Technical Report, August 1987] Given decay in light's
velocity, the present value of the velocity of light would yield an inaccurate measure of the size and age for
the universe. The basis for this claim is a misinterpretation of data from speed-of-light measurements made
over many years. What the data actually show is the increasing refinement of measurements, not a change
in velocity. (Ross, H.N.*, "Creation and Time: A Biblical and Scientific Perspective on the Creation-Date
Controversy," NavPress: Colorado Springs CO, 1994, pp.97-98. Emphasis original)
1/12/2006
"The first calculation of the speed of light was attempted in 1675 by Olaus Romer, a Danish astronomer. His
figure was about 3 percent higher than the modern measurements show. But the uncertainty in his
measurement exceeded 3 percent. Recently, three American physicists reworked Romer's calculations. They
found that if Romer had had more precise data for one part of his calculation, his speed of-light figure would
have agreed with the modern measurements to within 0.5 percent. [Goldstein, S. J.; Trasco, J. D.; and Ogburn
III, T. J., "On the Velocity of Light Three Centuries Ago," Astronomical Journal, Vol. 78, 1973, pp.122-125]
... Actually, more than fifty measurements of the velocity of light have been made since Romer's, and when
the uncertainties for each of the measurements are taken into account, the velocity shows itself constant
through the more than 300 years since ground-based measurements began. Using other types of
measurements, the speed of light proves constant over many more years. Studies on a particular spectral
line of hydrogen from nearby galaxies shows its constancy over the last 18 million years. New measurements
on that spectral line in very distant galaxies extend that confirmation to 14 billion years." (Ross, H.N.*,
"Creation and Time: A Biblical and Scientific Perspective on the Creation-Date Controversy," NavPress:
Colorado Springs CO, 1994, p.98)
1/12/2006
"Let me add a practical consideration. The existence of life in the universe requires the constancy of the
speed of light. A significant change in the velocity of light would so radically disturb such things as the
luminosities of the stars and the relative abundances of the elements as to ruin the possibility for life
anywhere, anytime in the universe. Since the c in Einstein's equation, E = mc2, stands for the speed of
light, a change in that figure would necessarily mean changes in the m (matter) or E (energy) or both,
an alteration contradicted by abundant observations. If Setterfield and Norman were right, either Adam and
Eve would have been incinerated by the sun's heat or the elements essential for building their bodies would
not exist." (Ross, H.N.*, "Creation and Time: A Biblical and Scientific Perspective on the Creation-Date
Controversy," NavPress: Colorado Springs CO, 1994, p.98. Emphasis original)
1/12/2006
"Calling Einstein's equation into question will not help Setterfield and Norman's case either. A recent
experiment has confirmed the accuracy of Einstein's equation to at least twenty-one places of the decimal
(within 0.0000000000000000001 percent!). [Lamoreaux, S.K., et al., "New Limits on Spatial Anisotropy from
Optically Pumped 201Hg and 199Hg," Physical Review Letters, Vol. 57, 1986, pp.3125-3128]" (Ross, H.N.*,
"Creation and Time: A Biblical and Scientific Perspective on the Creation-Date Controversy," NavPress:
Colorado Springs CO, 1994, pp.98-99)
2/12/2006
Evaluation can lead to rejection of knowledge. Rejection can occur for two reasons, either because the new
statement runs counter to present beliefs, or because there are emotional reasons, such as feeling
threatened by it, for not wanting to accept it. Both elements were involved in the nineteenth-century
reaction to Darwin's Origin of the Species. The statement that man evolved from other animals could not
be reconciled with biblical knowledge, and it was repugnant to many people to contemplate their descent
from monkeys. Others, however, accepted it immediately because they saw it explained so much other
knowledge. `Of course!' said Huxley `How very stupid not to have thought of that.' Both sets of reaction
persist to this day. Bell (1984) found that some children did not want to accept scientists' classification of
people as animals because of opinions about the behaviour of animals. `People aren't animals; you can't call
people animals.' As well as emotional rejection, there were logical reasons given, stemming from a different
definition of animal: `People don't go round on four legs'." (White, R.T., "Learning Science," Basil Blackwell:
Oxford UK, 1988, p.144)
3/12/2006
"Post-Wion Prophecy Assessment Clearly the skeptics are right. There is a dramatic change in the focus
of the last 36 mottoes forecast for beyond the publication date of 1595 ... A ghost writer under Malachy's
name is almost certain. But is the term con artist or forger fair? If we review the last 36 mottoes in the list, I
believe that there is enough evidence for the open-minded that this mystery author of the Papal Prophecy of
St. Malachy made some remarkably accurate predictions that go beyond chance." (Hogue, J., "The Last
Pope: The Decline and Fall of the Church of Rome: The Prophecies of St. Malachy for the New Millennium,"
Element Books: Shaftesbury UK, 1998, p.373. Emphasis original)
4/12/2006
"THE PROPHECY OF ST. MALACHY Few private prophecies have captured the popular imagination like
that prophecy on the popes ascribed to St. Malachy O'Morgair, Archbishop of Armagh, Ireland, who died in
1148. Tradition has it that when Malachy visited Pope Innocent II in Rome in 1139, he was granted a vision
of all the Holy Fathers of the future. He wrote down a description of each in two to four Latin words and
gave the list to Innocent, who was deeply troubled at the time and who is said to have derived great comfort
from the prophecy. Nothing more is heard of the list until 1590 when a Benedictine monk, Arnold de Wyon,
discovered it in the Vatican archives. It was published, promoting a controversy that has continued to our
day. Since Malachy was a good friend of St. Bernard of Clairvaux (in whose arms he died), it is asked why
the latter did not mention the prophecy in his famous Life of St. Malachy. Why was the list lost for so
many years? Of the 112 popes, described in the prophecy, 74 had already reigned when the list was
discovered, and opponents of the prophecy claim that the descriptions of these are far more exact than
those 74 subsequent pontiffs. Was not the list the work of a forger who simply used hindsight to describe
the popes of the preceding 450 years, and clever ambiguity for the popes of the future? Proponents of the
prophecy, however, stand on the fact that the prophetic utterances did fit all the popes after 1590 with
uncanny aptness." (Connor, E., "Prophecy for Today," [1956], Tan Books & Publishers: Rockford IL,
Fourth Edition, 1984, pp.7-8. Emphasis original)
4/12/2006
"Only two more popes remain on Malachy's list: De Gloria Olivae ("From the Glory of the Olive") and
Petrus Romanus ("Peter the Roman.") The prophecy concludes: "In the final persecution of the Holy
Roman Church there shall reign Peter the Roman who will feed his flock amid many tribulations, after which
the seven-hilled city will be destroyed and the terrible judge will judge the people." (Connor, E., "Prophecy
for Today," [1956], Tan Books & Publishers: Rockford IL, Fourth Edition, 1984, p.9)
4/12/2006
"110 DE LABORE SOLIS (From the Sun's Labor) John Paul II: 1978- ...
THE FUTURE
110 DE LABORE SOLIS (From the Sun's Eclipse) John Paul II and His Future ...
111 DE GLORIA OLIVAE (From the Glory of the Olive) c.2000-2020?...
THE LAST POPE: PETRUS ROMANUS c.2020?"
(Hogue, J., "The Last Pope: The Decline and Fall of the Church of Rome: The Prophecies of St. Malachy for
the New Millennium," Element Books: Shaftesbury UK, 1998, p.xiii)
4/12/2006
"The Last Pope climaxes with a foretaste of the tribulation and apocalypse expected for the remaining two
popes on St. Malachy's list, called Glory of the Olive and Peter of Rome. The final words to the prophecy of
St. Malachy are hopelessly doom-laden ... Are We Two Popes Away from Judgment Day?"
(Hogue, J., "The Last Pope: The Decline and Fall of the Church of Rome: The Prophecies of St. Malachy for
the New Millennium," Element Books: Shaftesbury UK, 1998, pp.xx, 1. Emphasis original)
4/12/2006
"The papal prophecy of St. Malachy ends with this Latin 25-word flourish containing some of the most
frightening doomsday warnings written by any Catholic seer, be he a medieval saint or a prescient
Renaissance forger. One thing is certain about the last pope in this prophecy: he will never be called by the
name Petrus Romanus (Peter of Rome). There is an ancient unwritten rule in the College of Cardinals that no
successor to the first pope will dare use his name. Malachy prophecy watchers will have to seek other clues.
Perhaps his Christian name will be Peter or his family or ecclesiastical armorial bearings will betray some
evidence the Apostle whom Christ called `Rocky.' Maybe the last pope's escutcheon will display a stone (a
`peter'), or the apostle's fisherman boat or net will be seen. Maybe he will have some important posting at
one of a thousand towns or cathedrals named after St. Peter, or he will take on a key post in St. Peter's
Basilica itself. The odds are better that his important deeds or the theme of his pontificate are the prophetic
concern in this last of the post-Wion mottoes. Perhaps the name `Peter of Rome' signifies that the last
pope's life will be similar to that of the first. He is the bishop of Rome at the birth of something new. He is
also destined to die a martyr. One could expect the last man to sit upon St. Peter's chair to be a non-Italian
just like the first perhaps even born a Jew. One could expect that he would be an apostolic wanderer like his
namesake. As Peter, the first bishop of Rome, saw the city destroyed by fire and himself persecuted and
martyred, so too could the last bishop of Rome meet his ultimate martyrdom during the final destruction of
Rome foreseen by so many Catholic seers - expected around or after the closing second Christian
millennium." (Hogue, J., "The Last Pope: The Decline and Fall of the Church of Rome: The Prophecies of St.
Malachy for the New Millennium," Element Books: Shaftesbury UK, 1998, pp.350-351)
4/12/2006
"What is crucial to any such interpretation of human behaviour based on artefacts is the assumption that
the person who crafted the object would not have gone to such lengths to make these things if they didn't
strongly believe that they worked. People have long valued nonfunctional decoration for its own sake, but if
people have devoted the bulk of their lives to making doodads (are they weapons? calculating devices?
culinary tools?) or a single great thingumabob (a fort? a temple? a storehouse?), they presumably thought,
rightly or wrongly, that there was a pressing requirement to make such a thing. So if one cannot show that
the artefacts did perform some valuable function, one is left having to explain how their makers could have
been so convinced of a falsehood. At this point I detect serious confusion on the part of at least some of
the contributors to this volume. They have a tendency to reserve `cognition' for such elevated or `cultural'
topics as religion, ritual and style of government, as opposed to such mundane practicalities as agriculture
and self-defence-as if one could farm or hunt or build a shelter without cognition, but needed cognition to
engage in ritual when bury. Allied with this is the surely anachronistic tendency to contrast religious
practices with `functional' practices. To our eyes, the systematic placement of carefully conserved seeds
into the ground in the spring is not a ritual, while the systematic placement of ancestors bones into the
ground on some other occasion is. But this is only because we know the former `works' and the latter,
presumably, does not. The people who engaged in both practices made no such distinction. For them a
sacrificial altar and a dry storehouse were equally functional, equally essential protections against the
vicissitudes of nature. Presumably these people really believed in the efficacy of what they were doing; they
were not, like many of today's masters of ceremony, just `keeping a tradition alive'." (Dennett D.C., "Sifting
the evidence for belief in the past." Review of "The Ancient Mind: Elements of Cognitive Archaeology," by
Colin Renfrew & Ezra B.W. Zubrow, eds, Cambridge University Press. New Scientist, 6 August 1994,
pp.41-43)
5/12/2006
"Can science corroborate the Apostle Paul? This might sound a little far-fetched. However, at the latest
encounter between some of the world's most powerful minds of science and religion, reports of a remarkable
discovery seemed to support this idea. Saint Paul wrote in his Epistle to the Romans, `Ever since the
creation of the world his (Gold's) invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly
perceived in the things that have been made' (Romans1:20). During the second one-week conference on
Science and the Spiritual Quest (SSQ II) that ended Tuesday in New York, Oxford University psychologist
Olivera Petrovich revealed preliminary research data suggesting that the knowledge of a creator might be
intrinsic to human existence. Prof. Petrovich tested the ability of British and Japanese children to distinguish
between physical and metaphysical explanations for certain images. For example, she would show the four-
to 14-year old children a picture of a book on a table and ask, `Who put this book there?' The kids replied,
`Mom.' Then she put a picture of the sun in front of them and asked, `Who placed the sun in the sky?' The
young Britons answered, `God,' and to Petrovich's surprise their Japanese contemporaries said `Kamisama
(God)! He did it!' As Petrovich pointed out, `Japanese culture discourages speculation into the metaphysical
because that's something we never know. But the Japanese children did speculate, quite willingly, and in the
same way as British children.' In an interview with the journal, Science & Spirit, the British scientist gave
another example. The European and the Asian children were to look at the photograph of a dog and then
asked, `How did the first dog every come into being.' Again, both groups replied, `God did it.' `This was
probably the most significant finding,' Petrovich reported. `But where did these Japanese kids get the idea
that creation is in God's hands? This is absolutely extraordinary when you think that Shintoism (Japan's
predominant religion) does not include creation as an aspect of God's activity at all. `My Japanese research
assistants kept telling me that thinking about God as creator is just not part of Japanese philosophy."
(Siemon-Netto, U., "Interface between science and faith," Science and the Spiritual Quest, 2 December 2000)
5/12/2006
"Young children see the world with fresh minds that embrace both scientific causality and metaphysical
speculation, says Oxford psychologist Olivera Petrovich. And their conceptions show striking similarities
across widely differing cultures, she tells Rebecca Bryant in this exclusive interview with Science & Spirit.
Science & Spirit: What is your current role in the field? Olivera Petrovich: I am currently with the
Experimental Psychology Department at Oxford University, where I research and tutor in developmental
psychologist. I also lecture in psychology of religion at Oxford - my course is open to theology, philosophy,
and psychology students. S&S: Your research interests lie in the psychology of religion, focusing
especially on the development of spirituality in children. How do you go about it? Petrovich: My approach
to this is very strictly empirical. It begins with children's accounts of the physical world - notably their
causal explanations and the way they categorize objects and events around them. I'm interested in children's
spirituality as it develops in their encounter with the physical world, not through the teaching they may
receive in bible classes and so on. I'm not at all looking at the cultural transmission of spirituality. S&S: You
recently conducted cross-cultural studies involving British and Japanese children. What were the aims - and
the findings - of this research? Petrovich: I was really interested in children's ability to offer both scientific
causal explanations and metaphysical explanations, which go beyond the scientific. Japanese culture is very
different from Western culture with a very different history of science and religious tradition. So I thought I
should be able to get some interesting comparisons between Japanese and Western children. I tested both
the Japanese and British children on the same tasks, showing them very accurate, detailed photographs of
selected natural and man-made objects and then asking them questions about the causal origins of the
various natural objects at both the scientific level (e.g. how did this particular dog become a dog?) and at
the metaphysical level (e.g. how did the first ever dog come into being?). With the Japanese children, it was
important to establish whether they even distinguished the two levels of explanation because, as a culture,
Japan discourages speculation into the metaphysical, simply because it's something we can never know, so
we shouldn't attempt it. But the Japanese children did speculate, quite willingly, and in the same way as
British children. On forced choice questions, consisting of three possible explanations of primary origin,
they would predominantly go for the word `God,' instead of either an agnostic response (e.g., `nobody
knows') or an incorrect response (e.g., `by people'). This is absolutely extraordinary when you think that
Japanese religion - Shinto - doesn't include creation as an aspect of God's activity at all. So where do these
children get the idea that creation is in God's hands? It's an example of a natural inference that they form on
the basis of their own experience. My Japanese research assistants kept telling me, `We Japanese don't
think about God as creator - it's just not part of Japanese philosophy.' So it was wonderful when these
children said, `Kamisama! God! God made it!' That was probably the most significant finding." (Bryant, R.,
"In the Beginning: An Interview with Olivera Petrovich," Science & Spirit Magazine, Vol. 10, 1999)
5/12/2006
"The Problem of the Neolithic Elements in Genesis 4 If we accept the view that it is language which
distinguishes man from other creatures and hence the first man appeared about 30,000 years ago, an
additional problem, to which we have already alluded, still remains: the problem of the Neolithic elements in
Genesis 4. If Adam was created 30,000 years ago, if Cain and Abel were his immediate descendants, if we
find genuinely Neolithic practices (e.g., agriculture) in Genesis 4, and if the Neolithic period began about
10,000 to 8,000 years ago, then we have the problem of a gap of at least 20,000 years between generations,
the ultimate in generation gaps. Several suggested solutions have been offered: 1. The pre-Adamite theory
says that Adam was the first human in the full biblical sense, but was not the first human in the
anthropological sense. There were genuine representatives of Homo sapiens before him. [Seeley, P.H. ,
"Adam and Anthropology: A Proposed solution," Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation, 22, no. 3
September 1970, p.89] 2. Cain and Abel were not immediate descendants of Adam. They may have been
several generations removed from him. It is ever conceivable that the narrative condenses the stories of
several individuals into one-Cain the son of Adam, Cain the murderer, and Cain the city builder.[Farr, F.K.
"Cain," in Orr, J., ed., "International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia," Howard-Severance: Chicago, 1937, Vol.
1, pp 538-539] 3. In the creation account (e.g., Gen. 1:26; 2:7) the Hebrew word ... 'adam ..., which is often
used symbolically of the entire human race, refers to the first man, who is anonymous. In other passages
(e.g., Gen. 4:1; 5:3) it is a proper noun pointing to a specific individual who came later. [Pearce, E.K.V., "Who
Was Adam?," Paternoster: Exeter, 1970] 4. "Perhaps Cain and Abel were not really domesticators of
plants and animals but rather in the language of Moses, and particularly of our translations, would only
appear to be such. Their [Cain's and Abel's] respective concerns with vegetable and animal provisions
might have been vastly more primitive." [Buswell, J.O., III, "Adam and Neolithic Man," Eternity, Vol. 18,
No. 2, February 1967, p.39]. 5. The domestication of plants and animals may be much more remote in time
than the Neolithic period. Thus, Adam and his descendants could have practiced agriculture 30,000 years
ago. [Mitchell, T.C., "Archaeology and Genesis I-XI," Faith and Thought, Vol. 91, Summer 1959, p.42]"
(Erickson, M.J.*, "Christian Theology," [1983], Baker: Grand Rapids MI, 1988, Fifth Printing, pp.486-487.
Error corrected of transposition of Seeley and Pearce references)
6/12/2006
"But for now let's consider the familiar example of photosynthesis. This is just one of the many truly
remarkable life-supporting innovations that lie at the heart of the living world. The immensely sophisticated
living machinery that is used to carry out photosynthesis in the plant world is the biological equivalent of
`Russian nesting dolls.' This machinery is literally made up of systems within systems, starting at the level
of the plant leaf ... and extending right down to the subatomic world of the electron. So let me try to explain it
in a little more detail. Photosynthesis takes place in seemingly insignificant microscopic bodies called
chloroplasts ... that are present in the cells within the interior of the leaf and that account for its green color.
Within these chloroplasts there are special membranes stacked in parallel layers known as grana and visible
only at very high magnification under the electron microscope .... Embedded within these membranes is the
very heart of the photosynthetic machinery - complex clusters of pigmented molecules that are able to
collect sunlight. These light-harvesting units consist of a special chlorophyll molecule termed the `reaction
center,' surrounded by several hundred `antenna' pigment molecules that include both chlorophyll and
carotenoid molecules. Collectively this combination of specialized light-reacting molecules is known as a
`photosystem' .... The chlorophylls absorb the light of red and blue wavelengths while reflecting the green
portion of the spectrum, whereas the carotenoid molecules absorb the blue and green wavelengths and
reflect the yellow, orange and red. Sunlight is absorbed by the layer of antenna pigment This oxygen is
released into the atmosphere while the hydrogen ions or protons pass into the fluid space enclosed by the
tiny membrane surfaces ... Let us now follow the journey of an electron that has left the reaction center of
photosystem II .... After its reception by an acceptor molecule, it is passed down a voltage `staircase,' or
gradient of precisely arranged molecules called the electron transport system, ending up in the positively
charged reaction center of photosystem I where it makes up for the electron deficit also created by the
excitation process. The original electron that was excited from photosystem I is received by its own acceptor
molecule and then passes down another electron transport system. The energy given up by the electron in
its passage down this `staircase' is used to form an energy-transacting molecule biologists abbreviate as
NADPH, which drives important energystoring reactions elsewhere in the cell. The action of both
photosystems produces a buildup of protons with a higher concentration on one side of the special
membranes in the grana than on the other. It is this proton gradient that is used to power the production of
another important energy-transacting molecule called ATP .... Both molecules, NADPH and ATP, although
they cannot be stored in the cell's energy bank, are used by the cell to produce energy-rich sugars that can
be transported as required to different parts of the cellular factory, or stored as starch. ... This vastly
incomplete description of just some of the principal mechanisms known to be involved in photosynthesis
serves to illustrate just how successful modern science has been in providing a detailed understanding, at a
molecular level, of the physical and chemical processes that are utilized in the living world. ... Continuing
with our example of the plant's photosynthetic machinery, we find that modern mechanistic science is
strangely silent on how this sophisticated biological system might have originated. Textbooks typically
describe the chloroplast as having evolved from some simpler organism employing a metabolic system that
might have been able to produce the first oxygen from an oxygenless early earth atmosphere. Apart from
rather vague comments like these, there is little serious discussion of the chloroplast's origin.
Photosynthesis is in fact the ultimate energy source of almost all living things known to us today, and its
origin is just part of the much more fundamental question of how life began in the first place. ... I would
suggest that any attempt to provide an explanation for the existence of a biological system such as the
chloroplast based on the impersonal material laws of nature is doomed to failure." (Broom, N.D.*, "How Blind is
the Watchmaker?: Nature's Design & the Limits of Naturalistic Science," [1998], InterVarsity Press: Downers
Grove IL, Second Edition, 2001, pp.35-39)
7/12/2006
"The human endogenous retrovirus type II (HERVII) family of HERV genomes has been found by Southern
blot analysis to be characteristic of humans, apes, and Old World monkeys. New World monkeys and
prosimians lack HERVII proviral genomes. Cellular DNAs of humans, common chimpanzees, gorillas, and
orangutans, but not lesser ape lar gibbons, appear to contain the HERVII-related HLM-2 proviral genome
integrated at the same site (HLM-2 maps to human chromosome 1). This suggests that the ancestral HERVII
retrovirus(es) entered the genomes of Old World anthropoids by infection after the divergence of New
World monkeys (platyrrhines) but before the evolutionary radiation of large hominoids." (Mariani-
Costantini, R., Horn, T.M. & Callahan, R., " Ancestry of a human endogenous retrovirus family," Journal of
Virolology, Vol. 63, No. 11, November, 1989, pp.4982-4985).
7/12/2006
"He [Dawkins] argues that contemporary science gives us decisive reason to reject the argument from
design, and to regard the existence of God as overwhelmingly improbable. ... Dawkins's reply to the
argument has two parts, one positive and one negative. ... The negative part of the argument asserts that the
hypothesis of design by God is useless as an alternative to the hypothesis of chance, because it just
pushes the problem back one step. In other words: who made God? `A designer God cannot be used to
explain organized complexity because any God capable of designing anything would have to be complex
enough to demand the same kind of explanation in his own right.' [p.109] Let me first say something about
this negative argument. It depends, I believe, on a misunderstanding of the conclusion of the argument from
design, in its traditional sense as an argument for the existence of God. If the argument is supposed to show
that a supremely adept and intelligent natural being, with a super-body and a super-brain, is responsible for
the design and the creation of life on earth, then of course this `explanation' is no advance on the
phenomenon to be explained: if the existence of plants, animals, and people requires explanation, then the
existence of such a super-being would require explanation for exactly the same reason. ... But God, whatever
he may be, is not a complex physical inhabitant of the natural world. The explanation of his existence as a
chance concatenation of atoms is not a possibility for which we must find an alternative, because that is not
what anybody means by God. If the God hypothesis makes sense at all, it offers a different kind of
explanation from those of physical science: purpose or intention of a mind without a body, capable
nevertheless of creating and forming the entire physical world. The point of the hypothesis is to claim that
not all explanation is physical, and that there is a mental, purposive, or intentional explanation more
fundamental than the basic laws of physics, because it explains even them. All explanations come to an end
somewhere. The real opposition between Dawkins's physicalist naturalism and the God hypothesis is a
disagreement over whether this end point is physical, extensional, and purposeless, or mental, intentional,
and purposive. On either view, the ultimate explanation is not itself explained. The God hypothesis does not
explain the existence of God, and naturalistic physicalism does not explain the laws of physics." (Nagel, T.,
"The Fear of Religion." Review of The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins, Houghton Mifflin, 2006. The
New Republic, October 13, 2006)
8/12/2006
"There is a much more powerful argument, which does not depend upon subjective judgement, and it is the
argument from improbability. It really does transport us dramatically away from 50 per cent agnosticism, far
towards the extreme of theism in the view of many theists, far towards the extreme of atheism in my view. I
have alluded to it several times already. The whole argument turns on the familiar question `Who made
God?', which most thinking people discover for themselves. A designer God cannot be used to explain
organized complexity because any God capable of designing anything would have to be complex enough to
demand the same kind of explanation in his own right. God presents an infinite regress from which he cannot
help us to escape. This argument, as I shall show in the next chapter, demonstrates that God, though not
technically disprovable, is very very improbable indeed." (Dawkins, R., "The God Delusion," Bantam Press:
London, 2006, p.109)
8/12/2006
"The argument from improbability is the big one. In the traditional guise of the argument from design, it is
easily today's most popular argument offered in favour of the existence of God and it is seen, by an
amazingly large number of theists, as completely and utterly convincing. It is indeed a very strong and, I
suspect, unanswerable argument - but in precisely the opposite direction from the theist's intention. The
argument from improbability, properly deployed, comes close to proving that God does not exist. My
name for the statistical demonstration that God almost certainly does not exist is the Ultimate Boeing 747
gambit. The name comes from Fred Hoyle's amusing image of the Boeing 747 and the scrapyard. ... Hoyle
said that the probability of life originating on Earth is no greater than the chance that a hurricane, sweeping
through a scrapyard, would have the luck to assemble a Boeing 747. ... The creationist misappropriation of
the argument from improbability always takes the same general form ... Some observed phenomenon - often
a living creature or one of its more complex organs, but it could be anything from a molecule up to the
universe itself - is correctly extolled as statistically improbable. .... It turns out to be the God Hypothesis that
tries to get something for nothing. God tries to have his free lunch and be it too. However statistically
improbable the entity you seek to explain by invoking a designer, the designer himself has got to be at least
as improbable. God is the Ultimate Boeing 747." (Dawkins, R., "The God Delusion," Bantam Press: London,
2006, pp.113-114. Emphasis original)
9/12/2006
"In short, man is not only a unique animal, but the end product of a completely unique evolutionary
pathway, the elements of which are traceable at least to the beginnings of the Cenozoic. We find, then, that
the evolution of cognition is the product of a variety of influences and preadaptive capacities, the absence
of any one of which would have completely negated the process, and most of which are unique attributes of
primates and/or hominids. Specific dietary shifts, bipedal locomotion, manual dexterity, control of
differentiated muscles of facial expression, vocalization, intense social and parenting behavior (of specific
kinds), keen stereoscopic vision, and even specialized forms of sexual behavior, all qualify as irreplaceable
elements. It is evident that the evolution of cognition is neither the result of an evolutionary trend nor an
event of even the lowest calculable probability, but rather the consequence of a series of highly specific
evolutionary events whose ultimate cause is traceable to selection for unrelated characters such as
locomotion and diet. ... Thus I conclude that man is a highly specific, unique, and unduplicated species. ...
From what we know of the human evolutionary pathway and of the critical elements that have directed it, the
odds against its reexpression are indeed remote, if not astronomical. No other mammal even remotely shares
the unique attribute complex that defines either man or his evolutionary pathway." (Lovejoy, C.O.,
"Evolution of Man and Its Implications for General Principles of the Evolution of Intelligent Life," in
Billingham, J., ed., "Life in the Universe: Proceedings of the Conference on Life in the Universe, held at
NASA Ames Research Center, Mountain View, California, June 19-20, 1979," [1981], MIT Press: Cambridge
MA, Second Printing, 1982, pp.326-327)
9/12/2006
"Thus I conclude that man is a highly specific, unique, and unduplicated species. If we wish to make
probability estimates of the likelihood that cognitive (not intelligent) life has evolved on other suitable
planets, the simplest and most direct question we may pose is: What is the probability that cognitive life
would evolve on this planet, were not man already a constituent of its biosphere? From what we know of
the human evolutionary pathway and of the critical elements that have directed it, the odds against its
reexpression are indeed remote, if not astronomical. No other mammal even remotely shares the unique
attribute complex that defines either man or his evolutionary pathway. Since Homo sapiens is a unique
species, we may ask this same question in a slightly different way that allows greater objectivity: What is
the probability that any named species, be it mammal, reptile, or mollusk, would evolve again on this planet?
That is, what is the probability that the Bornean long-tailed porcupine, for example, would appear again were
the evolutionary process to be reinstated on some imaginary planet identical to ours in every way save the
last half billion years? I think it quite reasonable to suppose that despite the immensity of the known
Universe, the specificity in the physiostructure of any organism is so great and its immensely complex
pathway of progression so ancient that such probabilities are simply infinitesimal." (Lovejoy, C.O.,
"Evolution of Man and Its Implications for General Principles of the Evolution of Intelligent Life," in
Billingham, J., ed., "Life in the Universe: Proceedings of the Conference on Life in the Universe, held at
NASA Ames Research Center, Mountain View, California, June 19-20, 1979," [1981], MIT Press: Cambridge
MA, Second Printing, 1982, p.327. Emphasis original)
9/12/2006
"No single discovery in molecular anthropology has been invested with greater significance than the recognition
that humans and chimpanzees are about 98 percent genetically identical. This remarkable proximity may have led
many to imagine that the technologies of molecular genetics have delivered a deep understanding of humanity's
place in nature. If so, then they have committed what Jonathan Marks, in What It Means to Be 98% Chimpanzee,
terms `the central fallacy of molecular anthropology.' This error, according to Marks, turns on the belief that the
dramatic expansion of genetic knowledge over the past 25 years has contributed greatly to our knowing what
makes us differ in the most important ways from apes. Marks argues that the differences and congruencies
identifiable at the genetic level have scarcely anything to do with observable patterns in morphology and
behavior. As it happens, genetic data reveal little more than phylogenetic relationships, and no amount of DNA
sequencing can tell us what makes us human and apes not. click for full image and caption The relative
proportions ... This book, then, is a trenchant assault on genetic reductionism and a spirited call for a more critical
science, one better informed by the perspectives of anthropology and the humanities. The author, himself an
accomplished anthropological geneticist, seeks to frame the limits of what we can expect to learn about ourselves
from molecular genetics, and the limits we ought to deploy in our search." (Korey, K., "Should Ideology Color
Science?" Review of "What It Means To Be 98% Chimpanzee: Apes, People, and Their Genes," by Jonathan
Marks, University of California Press, 2002. American Scientist, July-August 2002)
10/12/2006
"The demonstration of the transition of discrete systems into living things has to include the answers to
some very intricate problems. Coacervates and microspheres, in spite of various refinements which have
already been introduced in each case, are still a long way from the living state. They are both static
structures. Left alone, such systems come to an equilibrium in which the status quo is maintained with no
exchange of energy or materials with the environment. Neither Oparin for his coacervates nor Fox for his
microspheres maintains that the simulated cell structures represent the living state. Both look to further
refinements toward the eventual attainment of living things by experimental techniques. The hurdles in this
transition are formidable. Blum has stressed this point in his writings. [Blum, H.F., "On the origin and
evolution of living machines," American Scientist, Vol. 49, 1961, pp.474-501; Blum, H.F., "Time's Arrow
and Evolution," Harper & Row: New York, Second Edition, 1962] Even conceptually it is difficult to see how
a system satisfying the minimum criteria for a living thing can arise by chance and, simultaneously, include a
mechanism containing the suitable information for its own replication." (Keosian, J., "The Origin of Life,"
[1964], Reinhold: New York NY, Second Printing, 1965, pp.69-70. Emphasis original)
10/12/2006
"Replication and mutation present even greater difficulties. The over-all process of replication is endergonic.
[Blum, H.F., `On the origin and evolution of living machines,' American Scientist, Vol. 49, 1961, pp.474-
501] While replication proceeds, some other mechanism, coordinated in time and space with it, is needed to
make available the requisite energy. If all these conditions are to be met at the time of the first origin of life,
we must imagine that a DNA structure was built up by chance, containing a specific sequence of
nucleotides and possessing a capacity to determine the composition of a supporting environment and the
machinery for self-replication. This amounts to postulating the `all at once' origin of a cell with `cytoplasm'
and `nucleus.'" (Keosian, J., "The Origin of Life," [1964], Reinhold: New York NY, Second Printing, 1965,
pp.69-70)
10/12/2006
"The proteinoid microspheres present an encouraging prospect, but at present they are structurally closer
to killed and fixed cells than to their living counterparts. Membranes of many different kinds, as well as the
membranes of microspheres, show simple osmotic and permeability phenomena which are only superficially
like those of living cells." (Keosian, J., "The Origin of Life," [1964], Reinhold: New York NY, Second Printing,
1965, pp.69-70)
11/12/2006
"Ultra-scepticism and the Improbability of Life The latter of these is the more difficult to refute. By
applying the strict canons of scientific method to this subject, it is possible to demonstrate effectively at
several places in the story, how life could not have arisen; the improbabilities are too great, the chances of
the emergence of life too small. Regrettably from this point of view, life is here on Earth in all its multiplicity
of forms and activities and the arguments have to be bent round to support its existence." (Bernal, J.D.,
"The Origin of Life," [1967], Weidenfeld & Nicolson: London, Third Impression, 1973, p.120. Emphasis
original)
11/12/2006
"The origin of the cell factory, the origin of the cell's computer tapes and code; the origin of the copy-
typists; the origin of the thousands of machine operatives and their 200 trades; the origin of the shop floor
machinery and assembly line-the origin of the Ministry of Fuel and power; and the origin of the mechanism
to reproduce further factories and firms. It is easier to take the first two points together - the factory and the
code. Dr. Graham Chedd reporting said that the knowledge we have of life's mechanisms `begs one key
question. How did the mechanism which allowed subsequent evolution itself evolve?" [Chedd, G., "Crick on
the Origin of the Code," New Scientist, January 23, 1969] (Pearce, E.K.V., "Who Was Adam?,"
Paternoster: Exeter UK, 1969, pp.105-106)
11/12/2006
"Finally, in some cases the gaps may be getting worse rather than better with the advance of science. This
seems to be the case in research about the origin of life. The more we learn about the complexity of the
organic materials necessary for life and their complex interdependence, and the more we learn about
conditions on the early earth, the more implausible a strictly naturalistic account becomes. Scientists one
hundred years ago were not aware of the immensity of the problems in the spontaneous generation of life
from some primordial soup. But today some scientists feel these problems are overwhelming. In this regard,
the following statement ... makes the point well: `One characteristic feature of the ...critique needs to be
emphasized. We have not simply picked out a number of details within chemical evolution theory that are
weak, or without adequate explanation for the moment. For the most part this critique is based on crucial
weaknesses intrinsic to the theory itself. Often it is contended that criticism focuses on present ignorance.
"Give us more time to solve the problems," is the plea. After all, the pursuit of abiogenesis [the origin of life
from nonlife] is young as a scientific enterprise. It will be claimed that many of these problems are mere
state-of-the-art gaps. And, surely, some of them are. Notice, however, that the sharp edge of this critique is
not what we do not know, but what we do know. Many facts have come to light in the past three decades of
experimental inquiry into life's beginning. With each passing year the criticism has gotten stronger. The
advance of science itself is what is challenging the notion that life arose on earth by spontaneous (in a
thermodynamic sense) chemical reactions. [Thaxton, C.B., Bradley, W.L. & Olsen, R. L., "The Mystery of
Life's Origin: Reassessing Current Theories," Philosophical Library: New York, 1984, p.125]" (Moreland, J. P.,
"Scaling the Secular City: A Defense of Christianity," [1987], Baker: Grand Rapids MI, Ninth Printing, 1994,
p.207)
11/12/2006
Objection 1. The theistic science model utilizes an epistemically inappropriate `God-of-the-gaps' strategy
in which God only acts when there are gaps in nature; one appeals to God merely to fill gaps in our scientific
knowledge of naturalistic mechanisms. These gaps are used in apologetic, natural-theology arguments to
support Christian theism. Scientific progress is making these gaps increasingly rare, and thus this strategy is
not a good one.
Reply. First, the model does not limit God's causal activity to gaps. God is constantly active in sustaining
and governing the universe. Nature is not autonomous. Moreover, theistic science need not have any
apologetical aim at all. A Christian theist may simply believe that he or she should consult all we know or
have reason to believe is true-including theological beliefs-in forming, evaluating and testing scientific
hypotheses and in solving scientific problems. And even if someone uses theistic science with apologetical
intentions, that person would not need to limit his or her apologetical case to gaps. Among other things, the
model merely recognizes a distinction between primary and secondary causes (however much this needs
further refinement) and goes on to assert that (at least) the former could have scientifically testable
implications, irrespective of the apologetic intentions of such a recognition. Second, the model does not
appeal to or attempt to explain in light of God and his activities to cover our ignorance, but only when good
theological or philosophical reasons are present, such as when certain theological or philosophical reasons
would cause us to expect a discontinuity in nature where God acted via primary causation (e.g., the origin of
the universe, first life, basic `kinds' of life). Third, even if the gaps in naturalistic scientific explanations are
getting smaller, this does not prove that there are no gaps at all. It begs the question to argue that just
because most alleged gaps turn out to be explainable in naturalistic terms without gaps at that level of
explanation, all alleged gaps will turn out this way. After all, it is to be expected that gaps will be few. Gaps
due to primary divine agency are miracles, and they are in the minority for two reasons: (1) God's usual way
of operating (though I acknowledge the need for further clarity regarding this notion) is through secondary
causes. Primary causal gaps are God's extraordinary, unusual way of operating; by definition, these will be
few and far between. (2) The evidential or sign value of a miraculous gap arises most naturally against a
backdrop where the gaps are rare, unexpected and have a religious context (there are positive theological
reasons to expect their presence)." (Moreland, J.P., "Theistic Science & Methodological Naturalism," in
Moreland, J.P., ed., "The Creation Hypothesis: Scientific Evidence for an Intelligent Designer," InterVarsity
Press: Downers Grove IL., 1994, pp.59-60. My emphasis)
11/12/2006
"This brings the argument back to its first stage: the origin of organic compounds. Until a century and a
quarter ago the only known source of these substances was the stuff of living organisms. Students of
chemistry are usually told that when, in 1828, Friedrich Wohler synthesized the first organic compound,
urea, he proved that organic compounds do not require living organisms to make them. Of course it showed
nothing of the kind. Organic chemists are alive; Wohler merely showed that they can make organic
compounds externally as well as internally." (Wald, G., "The Origin of Life," Scientific American, Vol. 191,
No. 2, August 1954, pp.44-53, p.48)
11/12/2006
"It is still true that with almost negligible exceptions all the organic matter we know is the product of living
organisms. The almost negligible exceptions, however, are very important for our argument. It is now
recognized that a constant, slow production of organic molecules occurs without the agency of living
things. Certain geological phenomena yield simple organic compounds. So, for example, volcanic eruptions
bring metal carbides to the surface of the earth, where they react with water vapor to yield simple
compounds of carbon and hydrogen. The familiar type of such a reaction is the process used in old-style
bicycle lamps in which acetylene is made by .mixing iron carbide with water. Recently Harold Urey, Nobel
laureate in chemistry, has become interested in the degree to which electrical discharges in the upper
atmosphere may promote the formation of organic compounds. One of his students, S. L. Miller, performed
the simple experiment of circulating a mixture of water vapor, methane (CH4), ammonia (CH3) and hydrogen-
all gases believed to have been present in the early atmosphere of the earth-continuously-for a week over an
electric spark. The circulation was maintained by boiling the water in one limb of the apparatus and
condensing it in the other. At the end of the week the water was analysed by the delicate method of paper
chromatography. It was found to have acquired a mixture of amino acids! Glycine and alanine, the simplest
amino acids and the most prevalent in proteins, were definitely identified in the solution, and there were
indications it contained aspartic acid and two others. The yield was surprisingly high. This amazing result
changes at a stroke our ideas of the probability of the spontaneous formation of amino acids." (Wald, G.,
"The Origin of Life," Scientific American, Vol. 191, No. 2, August 1954, pp.44-53, p.48)
11/12/2006
"A final consideration, however, seems to me more important than all the special processes to which one
might appeal for organic syntheses in inanimate nature. It has already been said that to have organic
molecules one ordinarily needs organisms. The synthesis of organic substances, like almost everything else
that happens in organisms, is governed by the special class of proteins called enzymes-the organic catalysts
which greatly accelerate chemical reactions in the body. Since an enzyme is not used up but is returned at
the end of the process, a small amount of enzyme can promote an enormous transformation of material.
Enzymes play such a dominant role in the chemistry of life that it is exceedingly difficult to imagine the
synthesis of living material without their help. This poses a dilemma, for enzymes themselves are proteins,
and hence among the most complex organic components of the cell. One is asking, in effect, for an apparatus
which is the unique property of cells in order to form the first cell. This is not, however, an insuperable
difficulty. An enzyme, after all, is only a catalyst; it can do no more than change the rate of a chemical
reaction. It cannot make anything happen that would not have happened, though more slowly' in its
absence. Every process that is catalyzed by an enzyme, and every product of such. a process, would occur
without the enzyme. The only difference is one of rate. Once again the essence of the argument is time.
What takes only a few' moments in the presence of an enzyme or other catalyst may take days, months or
years in its absence; but given time, the end result is the same." (Wald, G., "The Origin of Life," Scientific
American, Vol. 191, No. 2, August 1954, pp.44-53, p.48. Emphasis original)
12/12/2006
"Dr. Schramm's introduction gives me an opening for making a few remarks on my own. Natural selection is
sometimes described as a mechanism capable of realizing the highest degree of improbability, as Dr.
Schramm has quite correctly pointed out. I would like, however, to express the belief that the words `natural
selection' must be used carefully. Dr. Schramm has so used them. In reading some other literature on the
origin of life, I am afraid that not all authors have used the term carefully. Natural selection is differential
reproduction, organism perpetuation. In order to have natural selection, you have to have self-reproduction
or self-replication and at least two distinct self-replicating units or entities. Now, I realize that when you
speak of origin of life, you wish to discuss the probable embryonic stages, so to speak, of natural selection.
What these embryonic stages will be is for you to decide. I would like to plead with you, simply, please
realize you cannot use the words `natural selection' loosely. Prebiological natural selection is a contradiction
of terms." (Dobzhansky, T.G., Discussion of "Synthesis of Nucleosides and Polynucleotides with
Metaphoric Esters," by George Schramm, in Fox, S.W., ed., "The Origins of Prebiological Systems and of
Their Molecular Matrices," Proceedings of a Conference Conducted at Wakulla Springs, Florida, Oct. 27-30,
1963, Academic Press: New York NY, 1965, pp.309-310)
12/12/2006
"Since both New World and Old World monkeys are deficient in GLO, whereas prosimians possess this
enzyme, the loss of GLO in primates is thought to have occurred before the divergence of New World
monkeys and Old World monkeys (35-45 million years ago) and after the divergence time of the prosimian
and simian lineages (50-65 million years ago)." (Nishikimi, M., et al., "Cloning and chromosomal mapping of
the human nonfunctional gene for L-gulono-gamma-lactone oxidase, the enzyme for L-ascorbic acid
biosynthesis missing in man," J. Biol. Chem., Vol. 269, 1994, pp.13685-13688)
13/12/2006
Forces of Dissolution In the early history of our planet, when there were no organisms or any free
oxygen, organic compounds should have been stable over very long periods. This is the crucial difference
between the period before life existed and our own. If one were to specify a single reason why the
spontaneous generation of living organisms was possible once and is so no longer, this is the reason. We
must still reckon, however, with another destructive force which is disposed of less easily. This can be
called spontaneous dissolution-the counterpart of spontaneous generation. We have noted that any
process catalyzed by an enzyme can occur in time without the enzyme. The trouble is that the processes
which synthesize an organic substance are reversible: any chemical reaction which an enzyme may catalyze
will go backward as well as forward. We have spoken as though one has only to wait to achieve syntheses
of all kinds; it is truer to say that what one achieves by waiting is equilibria of all kinds-equilibria in which
the synthesis and dissolution of substances come into balance. In the vast majority of the processes in
which we are interested the point of equilibrium lies far over toward the side of dissolution. That is to say,
spontaneous dissolution is much more probable, and hence proceeds much more rapidly, than spontaneous
synthesis. For example, the spontaneous union, step by step, of amino acid units to form a protein has a
certain small probability, and hence might occur over a long stretch of time. But the dissolution of the
protein or of an intermediate product into its component amino acids is much more probable, and hence will
go ever so much more rapidly. The situation we must face is that of patient Penelope waiting for Odysseus,
yet much worse: each night she undid the weaving of the preceding day, but here a night could readily undo
the work of a year or a century. How do present-day organisms manage to synthesize organic compounds
against the forces of dissolution? They do so by a continuous expenditure of energy. Indeed, living
organisms commonly do better than oppose the forces of dissolution; they grow in spite of them. They do
so, however, only at enormous expense to their surroundings. They need a constant supply of material and
energy merely to maintain themselves, and much more of both to grow and reproduce. A living organism is
an intricate machine for performing exactly this function. When, for want of fuel or through some internal
failure in its mechanism, an organism stops actively synthesizing itself in opposition to the processes which
continuously decompose it, it dies and rapidly disintegrates. What we ask here is to synthesize organic
molecules without such a machine. I believe this to be the most stubborn problem that confronts us-the
weakest link at present in our argument. I do not think it by any means disastrous, but it calls for phenomena
and forces some of which are as yet only partly understood and some probably still to be discovered."
(Wald, G., "The Origin of Life," Scientific American, Vol. 191, No. 2, August 1954, pp.44-53, p.49.
Emphasis original)
14/12/2006
Spontaneous Generation The more rational elements of society, however, tended to take a more
naturalistic view of the matter. One had only to accept the evidence of one's senses to know that life arises
regularly from the nonliving: worms from mud, maggots from decaying meat, mice from refuse of various
kinds. This is the view that came to be called spontaneous generation. Few scientists doubted it. Aristotle,
Newton, William Harvey, Descartes, van Helmont, all accepted spontaneous generation without serious
question. Indeed, even the theologians- witness the English Jesuit John Turberville Needham-could
subscribe to this view, for Genesis tells us, not that God created plants and most animals directly, but that
He bade the earth and waters to bring them forth; since this directive was never rescinded, there is nothing
heretical in believing that the process has continued. But step by step, in a great controversy that spread
over two centuries, this belief was whittled away until nothing remained of it. " (Wald, G., "The Origin of
Life," Scientific American, Vol. 191, No. 2, August 1954, pp.44-53, p.45. Emphasis original)
14/12/2006
Pascal's wager The ancient and popular (or vulgar) view that belief in God is the `best bet', given its
classic formulation in the Pensees of Pascal. Suppose that metaphysical argument leaves us knowing
nothing about divine matters. Nevertheless, we can ask if it is better for us to believe in God. If God exists
then it is clearly better: infinitely better, given the prospect of eternal bliss for believers, and eternal
damnation for non-believers. If God does not exist, then we lose nothing, and may even gain in this life by
losing `poisonous pleasures'. So belief is the dominant strategy. It can win, and cannot lose. The wager is
`infmi-rien': infinity to nothing. Pascal knew that you could not just choose to believe because of this kind of
consideration, but thought, perceptively, that beliefs are contagious, and you could deliberately deaden
your intelligence by choosing to associate with people who would pass their belief to you. You would thus
end up believing, and the argument has shown that this is the most desirable strategy. Critics of the
argument point out that Pascal has not considered enough possibilities. It may be that the kind of Christian
God he was interested in does not exist, but that another does who reserves bliss for those strong enough
not to believe in a Christian kind of God, and damnation for those superstitious enough to do so." (Blackburn,
S., "Pascal's wager," in "The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy," [1994], Oxford University Press: Oxford
UK, 1996, reprint, pp.278-279. Emphasis original)
15/12/2006
"One of the most popular stories from Greek mythology is the myth of Sisyphus. Sisyphus was condemned
by the gods for having betrayed the celestial ranks by revealing divine secrets to mortals. They sentenced
him to roll a massive stone to the top of a hill, watch it roll down again, and repeat the exercise endlessly. His
hell was in having to execute a pointless act from which nothing ever came, except a vain repetition
compounding the emptiness. Not by one step, nor by a thousand, nor by ten thousand, was he able to
expiate the sin against the gods that brought on this cursed fate. He, could do nothing to rescue himself
from futility. ... Poor Sisyphus couldn't even reverse it for a temporary relief. All kinds of intriguing
suggestions have been made, ranging from changing his internal outlook ('If only Sisyphus could have
changed on the inside so that he enjoyed rolling stones') to altering his external viewpoint ('If he rolled up a
different stone each time, a beautiful building could be built'). Most of humanity understands Sisyphus's
plight and has felt his struggle." (Zacharias, R.K.*, "Sisyphus on a Roll," in "A Shattered Visage: The Real
Face of Atheism," [1990], Baker: Grand Rapids MI, Third Printing, 1994, pp.74-75)
15/12/2006
"Every physicist knows that there is a very small probability, which is easily computed, that the table upon
which I am writing will suddenly and spontaneously rise into the air. The event requires no more than that
the molecules of which the table is composed, ordinarily in random motion in all directions, should happen
by chance to move in the same direction. Every physicist concedes this possibility; but try telling one that
you have seen it happen. Recently I asked a friend, a Nobel laureate in physics, what he would say if I told
him that. He laughed and said that he would regard it as more probable that I was mistaken than that the
event had actually occurred." (Wald, G., "The Origin of Life," Scientific American, Vol. 191, No. 2, August
1954, pp.44-53, p.47)
15/12/2006
"IN the current enthusiasm to put forward theories that provide a milieu rich in organic compounds for the
spontaneous generation of life, little attention has been given to the quantitative aspect of the problem. One
might estimate the rates of reactions producing such compounds, on one hand, from pertinent kinetic data; or
one might use thermodynamics as a guide to the quantities of compounds expected, particularly in view of the
long times available for approach to equilibrium. In a recent paper [Miller, S.L. & Urey, H.C., Science, Vol. 130,
1959, p.245], however, Miller and Urey apply thermodynamic formulae only to the equilibrium concentrations of
inorganic raw materials in the primitive atmosphere; but they do not apply thermodynamics to the synthesis of
organic compounds. ... Now, of course, it is possible that, in an energy-rich medium, steady-rate concentrations
can be maintained far from equilibrium. In such case the expected concentrations depend on the available
mechanisms for synthesis and decomposition. Ultraviolet light is the most important source of energy to
consider, being hundreds to thousands of times more abundant than electrical discharges or ionizing radiation.
The atmosphere postulated is transparent to ultra-violet .... A glycine molecule formed in such an atmosphere is
immediately vulnerable to radiation ... Decarboxylation of activated glycine would presumably occur with a
quantum efficiency of the order of unity. Thus, any glycine formed would be rapidly decomposed. Its absorption
coefficient ...and the intensity of ultra-violet ... give it a half-life of about 30 days. This is much shorter than the
half-time of transport from the stratosphere to the surface, now estimated from fall-out data as three years. Thus,
97 per cent of the glycine would be decomposed before it could reach the surface." (Hull, D.E., "Thermodynamics
and Kinetics of Spontaneous Generation," Nature, Vol. 186, May 28, 1960, pp.693-694, pp.693-694)
15/12/2006
"Miller and Urey hope to save the synthesized products by removing them from the reaction zone in the
atmosphere to the ocean. But even after the glycine reaches the ocean, the victory is not won. ... the important
effect, however, is not thermal, but decomposition by ultra-violet radiation. The ultra-violet reaching the surface
would penetrate to a considerable depth. .. about 100 metres deep, glycine would have a half-life to ultra-violet
destruction of about twenty years. Even assuming it to be mixed to the bottom of the ocean, with an average
depth of 4 km., the half-life is only 1,000 years. These short lives for decomposition in the atmosphere or ocean
clearly preclude the possibility of accumulating useful concentrations of organic compounds over eons of time."
(Hull, D.E., "Thermodynamics and Kinetics of Spontaneous Generation," Nature, Vol. 186, May 28, 1960,
pp.693-694, p.694).
15/12/2006
"The limiting concentrations to be hoped for can be estimated from the steady state between production and
decomposition. The rate of formation of glycine by ultra-violet irradiation... from a mixture of methane, ammonia
and water vapour may be estimated ... even the highest admissible value seems hopelessly low as starting
material for the spontaneous generation of life. Consideration of other sources of energy, although they are very
much weaker than the ultra-violet radiation, leads to similar conclusions. Thus, ionizing radiation may form
complex products from simple reactants, but the more complex and highly organized compounds are more
vulnerable to the same agent than their simple precursors." (Hull, D.E., "Thermodynamics and Kinetics of
Spontaneous Generation," Nature, Vol. 186, May 28, 1960, pp.693-694, p.694).
15/12/2006
"The conclusion from these arguments presents the most serious obstacle, if indeed it is not fatal, to the theory
of spontaneous generation. First, thermodynamic calculations predict vanishingly small concentrations of even
the simplest organic compounds. Secondly, the reactions that are invoked to synthesize such compounds are
seen to be much more effective in decomposing them. Further, it must be remembered that both lines of argument
become quantitatively of an overwhelmingly greater magnitude when organic compounds other than the very
simplest are considered. .... The values for the simplest proteins must be unimaginably small. Also, in agreement
with the thermodynamic prediction, the kinetic steady-state concentration falls rapidly with increasing complexity
of organic compounds, because (1) the quantum yield for their formation decreases ; (2) at the same time their
stability against thermal decomposition decreases ; and (3) their opacity to ultra-violet radiation and
decomposition by this means increases. The physical chemist, guided by the proved principles of chemical
thermodynamics and kinetics, cannot offer any encouragement to the biochemist, who needs an ocean full of
organic compounds to form even lifeless coacervates. These estimates are not in conflict with the experimental
results of Miller and others who have synthesized organic compounds with electrical discharges or ultra-violet
light in the laboratory. They have merely used the well-known principle of increasing the yield of a reaction by
selectively removing the product from the reacting mixture. But the fact that a chemist can carry out an organic
synthesis in the laboratory does not prove that the same synthesis will occur in the atmosphere or open sea
without the chemist. The second law of thermodynamics applies not only to inorganic gases in the atmosphere,
but also to organic compounds in the ocean. Living cells may reverse the process, but in the absence of life, `die
Entropie der Welt strebt einem Maximum zu' [the entropy of the world tends to a maximum-Clausius]." (Hull, D.E.,
"Thermodynamics and Kinetics of Spontaneous Generation," Nature, Vol. 186, May 28, 1960, pp.693-694, p.694)
17/12/2006
"Even if we accept that small organic molecules; a fortiori larger organic molecules, are likely to exist in an
atmosphere and open ocean only in very small equilibrium concentrations, it does not necessarily follow
that the way of photosynthesis for the origin of even more complex compounds, or of life itself, is effectively
barred. The fact that Miller and others have produced such compounds by radiation is, as Dr. Hull quite
rightly points out, because these products are selectively removed from their zone of formation. It would
seem to follow that if complex organic molecules were ever produced on a lifeless Earth, something similar
must have occurred there. There must have been a process which. removed a certain proportion of these
molecules from their zone of reaction. Further, the same or another process must have concentrated them to
the extent where they could enter into still more complex reactions. Such reactions did not necessarily
require further energy sources to promote them. In other words, the original concept of the primitive soup
must be rejected only in so far as it applies to oceans or large volumes of water, and interest must be
transferred to reactions in more limited zones." (Bernal, J. D., "Thermodynamics and Kinetics of
Spontaneous Generation," Nature, Vol. 186, May 28, 1960, pp.694-695, p.694)
17/12/2006
"By such a two-stage process, a relatively very small bulk concentration of synthetic molecules can be
turned into a large concentration in specified areas. Further, once involved in clay, which absorbs such
molecules readily, they will be completely shielded from ultra-violet radiation. A further mechanism of
concentration of the smaller groups, particularly those containing nitrogen, will be provided by the presence
of transition metal ions, notably those of iron, which may also play a part in primitive photosynthesis, as N.
W. Pirie has pointed out 5. One way of verifying or negating these hypotheses would be by extensive
experimentation using large volumes of very dilute organic solutions and absorbing them on clay under
controlled conditions. Until this is done, it is premature to accept any arguments, quantitative or qualitative,
against the spontaneous formation of organisms, indirectly if not directly, from the primitive ocean." (Bernal,
J. D., "Thermodynamics and Kinetics of Spontaneous Generation," Nature, Vol. 186, May 28, 1960,
pp.694-695, p.695)
17/12/2006
"Natural selection argues against cooperation. If all organisms, including humans, are pitted in a ceaseless
struggle for survival and sex, those who help others would quickly find themselves swamped in a rising tide
of selfishness, especially if those they helped bore no relation to them. Yet, most humans reflexively help
another person in need even if there are no family ties or a direct benefit to be gained. This conundrum has
puzzled evolutionary biologists since the time of Darwin, but a new study shows how internecine warfare
among early humans might have allowed for the spread of a dominant group of altruistic tribes. Economist
Samuel Bowles of the Santa Fe Institute examines the evolutionary forces at work on early human
populations. He posits two distinct groups: the altruistic and the selfish, divided into many different tribes,
which Bowles refers to as demes. Altruists are disposed to take an action helping others, but such actions
have a specific cost. For example, an altruist might jump into the river to save a drowning child at the cost of
her own life but to the overall benefit of the tribe. Reducing these sets of conditions to a mathematical
equation reveals that altruists can only prosper if their altruism enables their group to acquire more territory.
One of the primary ways that humans--indeed all primates--acquire territory is through `contests,' or war. By
sharing the costs of war, as well as its benefits, a group of altruists typically outnumbers and therefore
defeats a less cohesive band of individuals. Thus, whereas individual natural selection would argue for the
rise of the selfish, larger group dynamics showcase the triumph of the altruists. This latter type of selection
also relies on that group sharing a large proportion of similar genes, because, in that case, altruists' genetic
material persists in some form if they sacrifice themselves for others in war. This is the solution offered by
Darwin in The Descent of Man and Bowles in a paper published in the December 8 Science [Bowles, S.,
"Group Competition, Reproductive Leveling, and the Evolution of Human Altruism," Science,Vol. 314, 8
December 2006, pp. 1569-1572]. Bowles examines the genetic interrelatedness of hunter-gatherer groups that
persist to this day, assuming that they are at least somewhat indicative of the behaviors of our remote
ancestors. Many of them show high degrees of interrelatedness--a bit less than cousins. In addition, Bowles
points out that abrupt climate change happened several times during recent geologic history, subjecting our
ancestors to even more rigorous competition--and potential population extinctions for those who couldn't
band together to survive. Indeed evidence of warfare in archaeological remains increases in times of
environmental stress. Plus, the proclivity to wipe out subjected populations continued to reinforce our
newly developing altruistic ways. None of this evidence, of course, proves that altruism evolved in this
manner, but it does provide an intriguing argument and some nice mathematical equations for describing
human behavior. Plus, Bowles demonstrates how the effect of leveling mechanisms such as shared access
to scarce resources, enables altruism to become a very persistent way of life when coupled with territorial
expansion. History isn't just written by the winners, the people reading that history are probably their
descendants. `Language or culture may have led to the evolution of leveling mechanisms, which then
potentiated the spread of prosocial genes because those mechanisms reduced the costs of cooperation,'
writes anthropologist Robert Boyd of the University of California, Los Angeles, in a commentary on the
research. [Boyd, R., "The Puzzle of Human Sociality," Science:
Vol. 314, 8 December 2006, pp.1555-1556] `It is certainly fair to invoke reproductive leveling to explain the
stability of extended altruism among humans, but whether it is sufficient to explain its origin is not yet clear."
(Biello, D., "Love Thy Neighbor Evolved Out of Vicious Competition," Scientific American, December 07,
2006)
18/12/2006
"Just 40 years after a famous TIME magazine cover asked `Is God Dead?' the answer appears to be a
resounding `No!' According to a survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life in a recent issue of
Foreign Policy magazine, `God is Winning'. Religions are increasingly a geopolitical force to be reckoned
with. Fundamentalist movements - some violent in the extreme - are growing. Science and religion are at
odds in the classrooms and courtrooms. And a return to religious values is widely touted as an antidote to
the alleged decline in public morality. After two centuries, could this be twilight for the Enlightenment
project and the beginning of a new age of unreason? Will faith and dogma trump rational inquiry, or will it be
possible to reconcile religious and scientific worldviews? Can evolutionary biology, anthropology and
neuroscience help us to better understand how we construct beliefs, and experience empathy, fear and awe?
Can science help us create a new rational narrative as poetic and powerful as those that have traditionally
sustained societies? Can we treat religion as a natural phenomenon? Can we be good without God? And if
not God, then what? This is a critical moment in the human situation, and The Science Network in
association with the Crick-Jacobs Center brought together an extraordinary group of scientists and
philosophers to explore answers to these questions. The conversation took place at the Salk Institute, La
Jolla, CA from November 5-7, 2006." (Sejnowski,T. & Bingham, R., "Beyond Belief: Science, Religion,
Reason, and Survival," The Science Network).
18/12/2006
"This overview of the literature shows that individuals who suffer abuse, neglect, or serious family
dysfunction as children are more likely to be depressed, to experience other types of psychiatric illness,
to have more physical symptoms (both medically explained and unexplained), and to engage in more
health-risk behaviors than their nonabused counterparts. The more severe the abuse, the stronger the
association with poor outcomes in adulthood. Childhood sexual abuse in particular has been repeatedly
associated, in adulthood, with physical complaints such as chronic pain that are likewise associated
with depression. Individuals with a history of childhood abuse, particularly sexual abuse, are more
likely than individuals with no history of abuse to become high utilizers of medical care and emergency
services. Childhood maltreatment is highly prevalent among both men and women, especially in
specialty settings such as emergency psychiatric care." (Arnow, B.A., "Childhood maltreatment
strongly predicts poor psychiatric and physical health outcomes in adulthood," J. Clin. Psychiatry,
Vol. 65, No. 12, 2004, pp. 10-15)
18/12/2006
"This study assessed the impact of religiosity on the socioemotional and behavioral outcomes of 91
adolescent mothers and their offspring over 10 years. Religiosity was defined as involvement in church and
contact with and dependence on church officials and members. Mothers classified as high in religious
involvement had significantly higher self-esteem and lower depression scores, exhibited less child abuse
potential, and had higher occupational and educational attainment than mothers classified as low in
religious involvement; differences remained when multiple factors, such as stress and grandmother support,
were held constant. Children with more religious mothers had fewer internalizing and externalizing problems
at 10 years of age, with maternal adjustment mediating this relationship. Religiosity, through increased social
support, served as a protective factor for teenaged mothers and their children. " (Carothers, S.S., et al.,
"Religiosity and the socioemotional adjustment of adolescent mothers and their children," J. Fam.
Psychol.; Vol. 19, No. 2, June 2005, pp.263-275)
18/12/2006
"Large discrepancies have been found in dates of evolutionary events obtained using the molecular clock.
Twofold differences have been reported between the dates estimated from molecular data and those from
the fossil record; furthermore, different molecular methods can give dates that differ 20-fold. New software
attempts to incorporate appropriate allowances for this uncertainty into the calculation of the accuracy of
date estimates. Here, we propose that these innovations represent welcome progress towards obtaining
reliable dates from the molecular clock, but warn that they are currently unproven, given that the causes and
pattern of the discrepancies are the subject of ongoing research. This research implies that many previous
studies, even some of those using recently developed methods, might have placed too much confidence in
their date estimates, and their conclusions might need to be revised." (Pulquério, M.J.F. & Nichols, R.A.,
"Dates from the molecular clock: how wrong can we be?," Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 8 December 2006)
19/12/2006
"The second event to recall was the 1960 Stanley Kramer movie of `Inherit the Wind,' starring Spencer Tracy
as the agnostic lawyer patterned after Clarence Darrow. It was one of the great propaganda masterpieces of
all time. In the context of presenting a very distorted account of the notorious Scopes trial, the film
portrayed the moral side of the Darwinian triumph over Christianity. `Inherit the Wind' is a simple morality
play in which the Christian ministers are evil manipulators and their followers are bumpkins who sing
mindlessly in praise of `that old time religion.' In the movie, it appears that the theological content of
Christianity amounts to threatening people with damnation if they dare to think for themselves. The
overthrow of this caricature provides a liberation myth, which goes with the triumphalism of the Chicago
celebration. The movie teaches that the truth shall make us free, and the truth, according to science and
Hollywood, is that Biblical religion is an oppressor to be overthrown. The film embodied a stereotype that
has dominated public debate over evolution ever since the Scopes trial. As far as the media are concerned,
all critics of Darwinism fit into what I call the `Inherit the Wind stereotype.' No matter how well qualified the
critics are, and no matter how well grounded their criticisms, the reporters assume that they are Bible-
thumping fanatics challenging scientific fact in order to impose political oppression. The review in Nature of
Michael Behe's Darwin's Black Box [Free Press, 1996] fits squarely in that tradition. Behe made solid
scientific arguments demonstrating the existence of irreducible complexity in biochemical systems,
arguments that the reviewer did not dispute on scientific grounds. Instead, the review began and ended with
irrelevant attacks on fundamentalists who want to substitute the book of Genesis for science. Like Marxism,
Darwinism is a liberation myth that has become a new justification for ordering people not to think for
themselves." (Johnson, P.E., "How to Sink a Battleship: A call to separate materialist philosophy from
empirical science," Final address at the 1996 Mere Creation conference, Leadership U., 14 December 2002)
19/12/2006
"We do not know what chemical raw materials were abundant on earth before the coming of life, but among
the plausible possibilities are water, carbon dioxide, methane, and ammonia: all simple compounds known to
be present on at least some of the other planets in our solar system. Chemists have tried to imitate the
chemical conditions of the young earth. They have put these simple substances in a flask and supplied a
source of energy such as ultraviolet light or electric sparks-artificial simulation of primordial lightning. After
a few weeks of this, something interesting is usually found inside the flask: a weak brown soup containing a
large number of molecules more complex than the ones originally put in. In particular, amino acids have been
found-the building blocks of proteins, one of the two great classes of biological molecules. ... More recently,
laboratory simulations of the chemical conditions of earth before the coming of life have yielded organic
substances called purines and pyrimidines. These are building blocks of the genetic molecule, DNA itself.
Processes analogous to these must have given rise to the 'primeval soup' which biologists and chemists
believe constituted the seas some three to four thousand million years ago. The organic substances became
locally concentrated, perhaps in drying scum round the shores, or in tiny suspended droplets. Under the
further influence of energy such as ultraviolet light from the sun, they combined into larger molecules. ... At
some point a particularly remarkable molecule was formed by accident. We will call it the Replicator. It may
not necessarily have been the biggest or the most complex molecule around, but it had the extraordinary
property of being able to create copies of itself. This may seem a very unlikely sort of accident to happen.
So it was. It was exceedingly improbable. ... Actually a molecule that makes copies of itself is not as difficult
to imagine as it seems at first, and it only had to arise once. " (Dawkins, R., "The Selfish Gene," [1976],
Oxford University Press: Oxford UK, New Edition, 1989, pp.14-15. Emphasis original)
19/12/2006
"The DNA of an organism is not self-replicating; it is not an independent 'replicator'. The only way in which
the DNA can be accurately and completely replicated is within the context of a dividing cell; that is to say, it
is the cell that reproduces. In a classic experiment, Spiegelman in 1967 [Spiegelman, S. "An in vitro
analysis of a replicating molecule," American Scientist, Vol. 55, 1967, pp.221-64] showed what happens to
a molecular replicating system in a test-tube, without any cellular organization around it. The replicating
molecules (the nucleic acid templates) require an energy source, building-blocks (i.e. nucleotide bases), and
an enzyme to help the polymerization process that is involved in self-copying of the templates. Then away it
goes, making more copies of the specific nucleotide sequences that define the initial templates. But the
interesting result was that these initial templates did not stay the same; they were not accurately copied.
They got shorter and shorter until they reached the minimal size compatible with the sequence retaining self-
copying properties. And as they got shorter, the copying process went faster. So what happened was
natural selection in a test-tube: the shorter templates that copied themselves faster become more numerous
than the slower, while the larger ones were gradually eliminated. This looks like Darwinian evolution in a
test-tube. But the interesting result was that this evolution went one way: towards greater simplicity. Actual
evolution tends to go towards greater complexity, species becoming more elaborate in their structure and
behaviour, though the process can also go in reverse, towards simplicity. But DNA on its own can go
nowhere but towards greater simplicity. In order for evolution of complexity to occur DNA has to be within a
cellular context; the whole system evolves as a reproducing unit. So the notion of an autonomous replicator
is another spot on the leopard that turns out to be an incorrect abstraction and it fades out." (Goodwin, B.,
"How The Leopard Changed Its Spots: The Evolution of Complexity," [1994], Phoenix: London, Reprint,
1995, pp.34-35)
19/12/2006
"We think we learn from teachers, and we sometimes do. But the teachers are not always to be found in
school or in great laboratories. ... For example, I once received an unexpected lesson from a spider. It
happened far away on a rainy morning in the West. I had come up a long gulch looking for fossils, and
there, just at eye level, lurked a huge yellow-and-black orb spider, whose web was moored to the tall spears
of buffalo grass at the edge of the arroyo. It was her universe, and her senses did not extend beyond the
lines and spokes of the great wheel she inhabited. Her extended claws could feel every vibration throughout
that delicate structure. She knew the tug of wind, the fall of a raindrop, the flutter of a trapped moth's wing.
Down one spoke of the web ran a stout ribbon of gossamer on which she could hurry out to investigate her
prey. Curious, I took a pencil from my pocket and touched a strand of the web. Immediately there was a
response. The web, plucked by its menacing occupant, began to vibrate until it was a blur. Anything that
had brushed claw or wing against that amazing snare would be thoroughly entrapped. As the vibrations
slowed, I could see the owner fingering her guidelines for signs of struggle. A pencil point was an intrusion
into this universe for which no precedent existed. Spider was circumscribed by spider ideas; its universe
was spider universe. All outside was irrational, extraneous, at best raw material for spider. As I proceeded on
my way along the gully, like a vast impossible shadow, I realized that in the world of spider I did not exist. ...
I began to see that, among the many universes in which the work of living creatures existed, some were
large, some small, but that all including man's, were in some way limited or finite. We were creatures of many
different dimensions passing through each other's live; like ghosts through doors. In the years since, my
mind has many times returned to that far moment of my encounter with the orb spider. A message has arisen
only now from the misty shreds of that webbed universe. What was it that had so troubled me about the
incident? Was it that spidery indifference to the human triumph? ...Was it this that troubled me and brought
my mind back to a tiny universe among the grass blades, a spider's universe concerned with spider thought?
Perhaps. ... I saw, at last, the reason for my recollection of that great spider on the arroyo's rim, fingering its
universe against the sky. The spider was a symbol of man in miniature. The wheel of the web brought the
analogy home clearly. Man, too, lies at the heart of a web, a web extending through the starry reaches of
sidereal space, as well as backward into the dark realm of prehistory. His great eye upon Mount Palomar
looks into a distance of millions of light-years, his radio ear hears the whisper of even more remote galaxies,
he peers through the electron microscope upon the minute particles of his own being. It is a web no creature
of earth has ever spun before. Like the orb spider, man lies at the heart of it, listening. Knowledge has given
him the memory of earth's history beyond the time of his emergence. Like the spider's claw, a part of him
touches a world he will never enter in the flesh. Even now, one can see him reaching forward into time with
new machines, computing, analyzing, until elements of the shadowy future will also compose part of the
invisible web he fingers. Yet still my spider lingers in memory against the sunset sky. Spider thoughts in a
spider universe-sensitive to raindrop and moth flutter, nothing beyond, nothing allowed for the unexpected,
the inserted pencil from the world outside. Is man at heart any different from the spider, I wonder: man
thoughts, as limited as spider thoughts, contemplating now the nearest star ... Let man spin his web, I
thought further; it is his nature. ... What is it we are a part of that we do not see, as the spider was not gifted
to discern my face, or my little probe into her world? ... It is not sufficient any longer to listen at the end of a
wire to the rustlings of galaxies; it is not enough even to examine the great coil of DNA in which is coded
the very alphabet of life. These are our extended perceptions. But beyond lies the great darkness of the
ultimate Dreamer, who dreamed the light and the galaxies." (Eiseley, L.C., "The Hidden Teacher," in "The
Star Thrower," [1978], Harcourt Brace Jovanovich: New York NY, Reprinted, 1979, pp.116-120)
20/12/2006
"Maybe the pivotal moment came when Steven Weinberg, a Nobel laureate in physics, warned that `the
world needs to wake up from its long nightmare of religious belief,' or when a Nobelist in chemistry, Sir
Harold Kroto, called for the John Templeton Foundation to give its next $1.5 million prize for `progress in
spiritual discoveries' to an atheist - Richard Dawkins, the Oxford evolutionary biologist whose book `The
God Delusion' is a national best-seller. ... Sponsored instead by the Science Network, an educational
organization based in California, and underwritten by a San Diego investor, Robert Zeps (who
acknowledged his role as a kind of `anti-Templeton'), the La Jolla meeting, `Beyond Belief: Science, Religion,
Reason and Survival,' rapidly escalated into an invigorating intellectual free-for-all. (Unedited video of the
proceedings will be posted on the Web at tsntv.org.) A presentation by Joan Roughgarden, a Stanford
University biologist, on using biblical metaphor to ease her fellow Christians into accepting evolution (a
mutation is `a mustard seed of DNA') was dismissed by Dr. Dawkins as `bad poetry,' while his own take-no-
prisoners approach (religious education is `brainwashing' and `child abuse') was condemned by the
anthropologist Melvin J. Konner, who said he had `not a flicker' of religious faith, as simplistic and
uninformed. After enduring two days of talks in which the Templeton Foundation came under the gun as
smudging the line between science and faith, Charles L. Harper Jr., its senior vice president, lashed back,
denouncing what he called `pop conflict books' like Dr. Dawkins's `God Delusion,' as `commercialized
ideological scientism' - promoting for profit the philosophy that science has a monopoly on truth. ... With
atheists and agnostics outnumbering the faithful ... one speaker after another called on their colleagues to
be less timid in challenging teachings about nature based only on scripture and belief. `The core of science
is not a mathematical model; it is intellectual honesty,' said Sam Harris, a doctoral student in neuroscience
and the author of `The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason' and `Letter to a Christian
Nation.' `Every religion is making claims about the way the world is,' he said. `These are claims about the
divine origin of certain books, about the virgin birth of certain people, about the survival of the human
personality after death. These claims purport to be about reality.' By shying away from questioning people's
deeply felt beliefs, even the skeptics, Mr. Harris said, are providing safe harbor for ideas that are at best
mistaken and at worst dangerous. .... Dr. Weinberg, who famously wrote toward the end of his 1977 book on
cosmology, `The First Three Minutes,' that `the more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also
seems pointless,' went a step further: `Anything that we scientists can do to weaken the hold of religion
should be done and may in the end be our greatest contribution to civilization.' " (Johnson, G., "A Free-for-
All on Science and Religion," The New York Times, November 21, 2006)
20/12/2006
"With a rough consensus that the grand stories of evolution by natural selection and the blossoming of the
universe from the Big Bang are losing out in the intellectual marketplace, most of the discussion came down
to strategy. How can science fight back without appearing to be just one more ideology? `There are six
billion people in the world,' said Francisco J. Ayala, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California,
Irvine, and a former Roman Catholic priest. `If we think that we are going to persuade them to live a rational
life based on scientific knowledge, we are not only dreaming - it is like believing in the fairy godmother.'
`People need to find meaning and purpose in life,' he said. `I don't think we want to take that away from
them.' Lawrence M. Krauss, a physicist at Case Western Reserve University known for his staunch
opposition to teaching creationism, found himself in the unfamiliar role of playing the moderate. `I think we
need to respect people's philosophical notions unless those notions are wrong,' he said. `The Earth isn't
6,000 years old,' he said. `The Kennewick man was not a Umatilla Indian.' But whether there really is some
kind of supernatural being - Dr. Krauss said he was a nonbeliever - is a question unanswerable by theology,
philosophy or even science. `Science does not make it impossible to believe in God,' Dr. Krauss insisted.
`We should recognize that fact and live with it and stop being so pompous about it.' That was just the kind
of accommodating attitude that drove Dr. Dawkins up the wall. `I am utterly fed up with the respect that we -
all of us, including the secular among us - are brainwashed into bestowing on religion,' he said. `Children are
systematically taught that there is a higher kind of knowledge which comes from faith, which comes from
revelation, which comes from scripture, which comes from tradition, and that it is the equal if not the
superior of knowledge that comes from real evidence.' " (Johnson, G., "A Free-for-All on Science and
Religion," The New York Times, November 21, 2006)
20/12/2006
"By the third day, the arguments had become so heated that Dr. Konner was reminded of `a den of vipers.'
`With a few notable exceptions,' he said, `the viewpoints have run the gamut from A to B. Should we bash
religion with a crowbar or only with a baseball bat?' His response to Mr. Harris and Dr. Dawkins was
scathing. `I think that you and Richard are remarkably apt mirror images of the extremists on the other side,'
he said, `and that you generate more fear and hatred of science.' Dr. Tyson put it more gently. `Persuasion
isn't always `Here are the facts - you're an idiot or you are not,' ` he said. `I worry that your methods' - he
turned toward Dr. Dawkins - `how articulately barbed you can be, end up simply being ineffective, when you
have much more power of influence.' Chastened for a millisecond, Dr. Dawkins replied, `I gratefully accept
the rebuke.'... Before he left to fly back home to Austin, Dr. Weinberg seemed to soften for a moment,
describing religion a bit fondly as a crazy old aunt. `She tells lies, and she stirs up all sorts of mischief and
she's getting on, and she may not have that much life left in her, but she was beautiful once,' he lamented.
`When she's gone, we may miss her.' Dr. Dawkins wasn't buying it. `I won't miss her at all,' he said. `Not a
scrap. Not a smidgen.'" (Johnson, G., "A Free-for-All on Science and Religion," The New York Times,
November 21, 2006)
20/12/2006
"If God did not in six days, six thousand years ago, create the different species we see about us, how did
this wonderful variety come about? If all plants and animals, including man, are part of a single system, how
did they arise one from another-difference out of sameness? Roses beget roses; termites beget termites; men
beget men. Common sense sees this continuity, yet denies the relationship. It requires great imagination, as
well as logic and evidence, to see that roses, termites, and men are cousins. It requires a change in habits of
thought from seeing things as fixed and static to seeing things as always changing. Europe in the mid-
nineteenth century was doubtless ready for a revolution in human thought. Darwin's book provided at once
the call to arms and a full arsenal to bring it off-an arsenal of concepts and of facts impossible to explain
away. This week at the University of Chicago we are not examining the notion of evolution itself, which all
of us now take for granted as much as we do the fact that the earth is a sphere revolving around the sun.
We are looking at the particulars. After one hundred years of Darwinian theory, where do we stand?" (Tax,
S., "Introduction to the Panel Discussions," in Tax, S. & Callender, C., eds., "Evolution After Darwin: Issues
in Evolution," University of Chicago Press: Chicago IL, Vol. III, 1960, p.67)
20/12/2006
"SHAPLEY: The Stanley Miller experiments in Harold Urey's laboratory in 1953 and 1954 were
remarkable. They radiated in this laboratory the gases Gaffron mentioned as constituting the main part of
the atmosphere of the earth a few thousand million years ago. Harold Urey was in Boston at a meeting on
the climatic conditions necessary for the origin of life on this and other planets. We had quite a conference;
and I remember George Wald asked me as an astronomer how much time separated the forming of the
earth's crust and the beginning of life here. I asked him when life began; he gave it a billion and a half years
(I think it would be a bit more than that now). Being generous, I said, "I will give you two billion years,"
and he got off a nice phrase: "Two billion years. That is just wonderful for the problem of the origin of life.
In two billion years the impossible becomes inevitable."" (Shapley, H., "Panel One: The Origin Of Life ," in
Tax, S. & Callender, C., eds., "Evolution After Darwin: Issues in Evolution," University of Chicago Press:
Chicago IL, Vol. III, 1960, p.77)
20/12/2006
"Hawking ... told the BBC: `We are such insignificant creatures on a minor planet of a very average star in
the outer suburbs of one of a hundred thousand million galaxies. So it is difficult to believe in a God that
would care about us or even notice our existence.' ["Master of the Universe," BBC TV, 1989]" (Strobel, L.P.,
"The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence that Points Toward God." Zondervan:
Grand Rapids MI, 2004, p.118)
20/12/2006
"Ann Druyan suggests an experiment: Look back again at the pale blue dot of the preceding chapter. Take a
good long look at it. Stare at the dot for any length of time and then try to convince yourself that God
created the whole Universe for one of the 10 million or so species of life that inhabit that speck of dust. Now
take it a step further: Imagine that everything was made just for a single shade of that species, or gender, or
ethnic or religious subdivision. If this doesn't strike you as unlikely, pick another dot. Imagine it to be
inhabited by a different form of intelligent life. They, too, cherish the notion of a God who has created
everything for their benefit. How seriously do you take their claim?" (Sagan, C.E., "Pale Blue Dot: A
Vision of the Human Future in Space," Random House: New York NY, 1994, p.11. Emphasis original)
20/12/2006
"You might imagine an uncharitable extraterrestrial observer looking down on our species over all that time-
with us excitedly chattering, "The Universe created for us! We're at the center! Everything pays homage to
us!"-and concluding that our pretensions are amusing, our aspirations pathetic, that this must be the planet
of the idiots." (Sagan, C.E., "Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space," Random House: New
York NY, 1994, p.17)
20/12/2006
"In muted counterpoint, a few dissenting voices, counseling humility and perspective, could be heard down
through the centuries. At the dawn of science, the atomist philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome-those
who first suggested that matter is made of atoms-Democritus, Epicurus, and their followers (and Lucretius,
the first popularizer of science) scandalously proposed many worlds and many alien life forms, all made of
the same kinds of atoms as we. They offered for our consideration infinities in space and time. But in the
prevailing canons of the West, secular and sacerdotal, pagan and Christian, atomist ideas were reviled."
(Sagan, C.E., "Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space," Random House: New York NY, 1994,
p.18)
21/12/2006
"I was shocked to have to admit to myself that not only had I accepted a complex theory somewhat
uncritically, but that I had also actually noticed quite a bit of what was wrong, in the theory as well as in the
practice of communism. But I had repressed this-partly out of loyalty to my friends, partly out of loyalty to
"the cause", and partly because there is a mechanism of getting oneself more and more deeply involved:
once one has sacrificed one's intellectual conscience over a minor point one does not wish to give in too
easily; one wishes to justify the self-sacrifice by convincing oneself of the fundamental goodness of the
cause, which is seen to outweigh any little moral or intellectual compromise that may be required. With
every such moral or intellectual sacrifice one gets more deeply involved. One becomes ready to back one's
moral or intellectual investments in the cause with further investments. It is like being eager to throw good
money after bad." (Popper K.R., "Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography," [1974], Open Court: La
Salle IL, Revised Edition, 1982, p.34)
21/12/2006
"Should intelligent design be taught alongside Darwinian evolution in schools as religious legislators have
decided in Pennsylvania and Kansas? I think it's very unfortunate that this kind of discussion has come
up. People are misusing the term intelligent design to think that everything is frozen by that one act of
creation and that there's no evolution, no changes. It's totally illogical in my view. Intelligent design, as one
sees it from a scientific point of view, seems to be quite real. This is a very special universe: it's remarkable
that it came out just this way. If the laws of physics weren't just the way they are, we couldn't be here at all.
The sun couldn't be there, the laws of gravity and nuclear laws and magnetic theory, quantum mechanics,
and so on have to be just the way they are for us to be here. Some scientists argue that `well, there's an
enormous number of universes and each one is a little different. This one just happened to turn out right.'
Well, that's a postulate, and it's a pretty fantastic postulate - it assumes there really are an enormous number
of universes and that the laws could be different for each of them. The other possibility is that ours was
planned, and that's why it has come out so specially. Now, that design could include evolution perfectly
well. It's very clear that there is evolution, and it's important. Evolution is here, and intelligent design is here,
and they're both consistent.' (Powell, B.A., "'Explore as much as we can': Nobel Prize winner Charles Townes
on evolution, intelligent design, and the meaning of life," UC Berkeley News, 17 June 2005. Emphasis original)
21/12/2006
"Evolution has just been dealt its death blow. After reading Origins of Life with my background in chemistry
and physics, it is clear that [biological] evolution could not have occurred." - Richard Smalley, Ph.D., Nobel
Laureate-Chemistry, 1996." (Ross, H.N.*, "What Others Are Saying," Staying Connected, May 2005)
22/12/2006
"Gene families are groups of homologous genes that are likely to have highly similar functions. Differences
in family size due to lineage-specific gene duplication and gene loss may provide clues to the evolutionary
forces that have shaped mammalian genomes. Here we analyze the gene families contained within the whole
genomes of human, chimpanzee, mouse, rat, and dog. In total we find that more than half of the 9,990 families
present in the mammalian common ancestor have either expanded or contracted along at least one lineage.
Additionally, we find that a large number of families are completely lost from one or more mammalian
genomes, and a similar number of gene families have arisen subsequent to the mammalian common ancestor.
Along the lineage leading to modern humans we infer the gain of 689 genes and the loss of 86 genes since
the split from chimpanzees, including changes likely driven by adaptive natural selection. Our results imply
that humans and chimpanzees differ by at least 6% (1,418 of 22,000 genes) in their complement of genes,
which stands in stark contrast to the oft-cited 1.5% difference between orthologous nucleotide sequences.
This genomic `revolving door' of gene gain and loss represents a large number of genetic differences
separating humans from our closest relatives." (Demuth, J.P., Bie, T.D., Stajich, J.E., Cristianini, N., Hahn,
M.W., The Evolution of Mammalian Gene Families," PLoS ONE, Vol. 1, No. 1, December 20, 2006)
22/12/2006
"The following series of papers deal with proposals that Mills initially referred to as `Theistic Evolution'
(PSCF 47 (1995)112-122, Christian Scholars Review XXIV (1995) 444-458). At present, these views are
no longer in accord with what others are calling `Theistic Evolution', and appear to be more appropriately
described as a `Design Theory of Progressive Creation'. In these papers, Mills considers the necessity of
proposing an intelligent cause as the source of the genetic information that is found in living organisms. In
other words, the need for an Intelligent Designer who acts within time; time in this case including not only
the initial creative acts of the Deity, but also the last six or seven hundred million years when multicellular
life on this planet has appeared and developed. This is a creation theory, since in the words of biblical
scholar John Stek, `In biblical language, bara (create) affirms of some existent reality only that God
conceived, willed and effected it'. This view is fully consistent with the scientific evidence. After outlining
the main components of the theory in the initial two papers, Mills has considered how this design theory
might have utilized prote