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The following are quotes added to my Unclassified Quotes database in January 2007. The date format is dd/mm/yy. See copyright conditions at end.
[Feb (1), (2); Mar; Apr; May; Jun; Jul; Aug; Sep; Oct; Nov; Dec]
1/01/2007
"The practical measure of the random element which can increase in the universe but can never decrease is
called entropy. Measuring by entropy is the same as measuring by the chance explained in the last
paragraph, only the unmanageably large numbers are transformed (by a simple formula) into a more
convenient scale of reckoning. Entropy continually increases. We can, by isolating parts of the world and
postulating rather idealised conditions in our problems, arrest the increase, but we cannot turn it into a
decrease. That would involve something much worse than a violation of an ordinary law of Nature, namely,
an improbable coincidence. The law that entropy always increases-the second law of thermodynamics-
holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet
theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations-then so much the worse for Maxwell's
equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation-well, these experimentalists do bungle things
sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no
hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation." (Eddington, A.S., "The Nature of the
Physical World," [1928], The Gifford Lectures 1927, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge UK, 1933,
reprint, pp.74-75. Emphasis original)
1/01/2007
"Primary and Secondary Law. I have called the laws controlling the behaviour of single individuals
`primary laws', implying that the second law of thermodynamics, although a recognised law of Nature, is in
some sense a secondary law. This distinction can now be placed on a regular footing. Some things never
happen in the physical world because they are impossible; others because they are too improbable.
The laws which forbid the first are the primary laws; the laws which forbid the second are the secondary
laws. It has been the conviction of nearly all physicists that at the root of everything there is a complete
scheme of primary law governing the career of every particle or constituent of the world with an iron
determinism. This primary scheme is all-sufficing, for, since it fixes the history of every constituent of the
world, it fixes the whole world-history. But for all its completeness primary law does not answer every
question about Nature which we might reasonably wish to put. Can a universe evolve backwards, i.e.
develop in the opposite way to our own system? Primary law, being indifferent to a time-direction, replies,
"Yes, it is not impossible". Secondary law replies, "No, it is too improbable"." (Eddington, A.S., "The Nature
of the Physical World," [1928], The Gifford Lectures 1927, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge UK, 1933,
reprint, pp.75-76. Emphasis original)
1/01/2007
"But the nightmare of infinity still arises in regard to time. The world is closed in its space dimensions like a
sphere, but it is open at both ends in the time dimension. There is a bending round by which East ultimately
becomes West, but no bending by which Before ultimately becomes After. I am not sure that I am logical but
I cannot feel the difficulty of an infinite future time very seriously. The difficulty about A.D. ¥ will not
happen until we reach A.D. ¥ , and presumably in order to reach A.D. ¥ the difficulty must first have been
surmounted. It should also be noted that according to the second law of thermodynamics the whole
universe will reach thermodynamical equilibrium at a not infinitely remote date in the future. Time's arrow will
then be lost altogether and the whole conception of progress towards a future fades away. But the difficulty
of an infinite past is appalling. It is inconceivable that we are the heirs of an infinite time of preparation; it is
not less inconceivable that there was once a moment with no moment preceding it." (Eddington, A.S., "The
Nature of the Physical World," [1928], The Gifford Lectures 1927, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge
UK, 1933, reprint, p.83)
1/01/2007
"This dilemma of the beginning of time would worry us more were it not shut out by another overwhelming
difficulty lying between us and the infinite past. We have been studying the running-down of the universe;
if our views are right, somewhere between the beginning of time and the present day we must place the
winding up of the universe. Travelling backwards into the past we find a world with more and more
organisation. If there is no barrier to stop us earlier we must reach a moment when the energy of the world
was wholly organised with none of the random element in it. It is impossible to go back any further under
the present system of natural law. I do not think the phrase "wholly organised" begs the question. The
organisation we are concerned with is exactly definable, and there is a limit at which it becomes perfect.
There is not an infinite series of states of higher and still higher organisation; nor, I think, is the limit one
which is ultimately approached more and more slowly. Complete organisation does not tend to be more
immune from loss than incomplete organisation. There is no doubt that the scheme of physics as it has
stood for the last three-quarters of a century postulates a date at which either the entities of the universe
were created in a state of high organisation, or preexisting entities were endowed with that organisation
which they have been squandering ever since. Moreover, this organisation is admittedly the antithesis of
chance. It is something which could not occur fortuitously. This has long been used as an argument against
a too aggressive materialism. It has been quoted as scientific proof of the intervention of the Creator at a
time not infinitely remote from to-day. But I am not advocating that we draw any hasty conclusions from it.
Scientists and theologians alike must regard as somewhat crude the naive theological doctrine which
(suitably, disguised) is at present to be found in every textbook of thermodynamics, namely that some
billions of years ago God wound up the material universe and has left it to chance ever since. This should be
regarded as the working-hypothesis of thermodynamics rather than its declaration of faith. It is one of those
conclusions from which we can see no logical escape-only it suffers from the drawback that it is incredible.
As a scientist I simply do not believe that the present order of things started off with a bang;
unscientifically I feel equally unwilling to accept the implied discontinuity in the divine nature. But I can
make no suggestion to evade the deadlock." (Eddington, A.S., "The Nature of the Physical World," [1928],
The Gifford Lectures 1927, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge UK, 1933, reprint, pp.84-85)
1/01/2007
"Turning again to the other end of time, there is one school of thought which finds very repugnant the idea
of a wearing out of the world. This school is attracted by various theories of rejuvenescence. Its mascot is
the Phoenix. Stars grow cold and die out. May not two dead stars collide, and be turned by the energy of the
shock into fiery vapour from which a new sun-with planets and with life-is born.? This theory very prevalent
in the last century is no longer contemplated seriously by astronomers. There is evidence that the present
stars at any rate are products of one evolutionary process which swept across primordial matter and caused
it to aggregate; they were not formed individually by haphazard collisions having no particular time
connection with one another. But the Phoenix complex is still active. Matter, we believe, is gradually
destroyed and its energy set free in radiation. Is there no counter-process by which radiation collects in
space, evolves into electrons and protons, and begins star-building all over again? This is pure speculation
and there is not much to be said on one side or the other as to its truth. But I would mildly criticise the
mental outlook which wishes it to be true. However much we eliminate the minor extravagances of Nature,
we do not by these theories stop the inexorable running-down of the world by loss of organisation and
increase of the random element. Whoever wishes for a universe which can continue indefinitely in activity
must lead a crusade against the second law of thermodynamics; the possibility of re-formation of matter
from radiation is not crucial and we can await conclusions with some indifference. At present we can see no
way in which an attack on the second law of thermodynamics could possibly succeed, and I confess that
personally I have no great desire that it should succeed in averting the final running-down of the universe. I
am no Phoenix worshipper. This is a topic on which science is silent, and all that one can say is prejudice.
But since prejudice in favour of a never-ending cycle of rebirth of matter and worlds is often vocal, I may
perhaps give voice to the opposite prejudice. I would feel more content that the universe should accomplish
some great scheme of evolution and, having achieved whatever may be achieved, lapse back into chaotic
changelessness, than that its purpose should be banalised by continual repetition. I am an Evolutionist, not
a Multiplicationist. It seems rather stupid to keep doing the same thing over and over again." (Eddington,
A.S., "The Nature of the Physical World," [1928], The Gifford Lectures 1927, Cambridge University Press:
Cambridge UK, 1933, reprint, pp.85-86)
1/01/2007
"On the other hand, the circumstances just noted afford the strongest indirect evidence of the truth of this
narrative. For, if it were the outcome of Jewish imagination, where is the basis for it in contemporary
expectation? Would Jewish legend have ever presented its Messiah as born in a stable, to which chance
circumstances had consigned His Mother? The whole current of Jewish opinion would run in the contrary
direction. The opponents of the authenticity of this narrative are bound to face this. Further, it may safely be
asserted, that no Apocryphal or legendary narrative of such d (legendary) event would have been
characterised by such scantiness, or rather absence, of details. For, the two essential features, alike of
legend and of tradition, are, that they ever seek to surround their heroes with a halo of glory, and that they
attempt to supply details. which are otherwise wanting. And in both these respects a more sharply-marked
contrast could scarcely be presented, than in the Gospel-narrative." (Edersheim, A.*, "The Life and Times of
Jesus the Messiah," [1883], Hendrickson Publishers: Peabody MA, Third Edition, 1886, p.i:186)
1/01/2007
"A passage in the Mishnah [Shek. vii. 4] leads to the conclusion, that the flocks, which pastured there, were
destined for Temple-sacrifices, and, accordingly, that the shepherds, who watched over them, were not
ordinary shepherds. The latter were under the ban of Rabbinism, on account of their necessary isolation
from religious ordinances, and their manner of life, which rendered strict legal observance unlikely, if not
absolutely impossible." (Edersheim, A.*, "The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah," [1883], Hendrickson
Publishers: Peabody MA, Third Edition, 1886, pp.i:186-187)
2/01/2007
"Natural selection has been extremely effective in policing allelic mutations which arise in already existing
gene loci. Because of natural selection, organisms have been able to adapt to changing environments, and
by adaptive radiation many new species were created from a common ancestral form. Yet, being an effective
policeman, natural selection is extremely conservative by nature. Had evolution been entirely dependent
upon natural selection, from a bacterium only numerous forms of bacteria would have emerged. The creation
of metazoans, vertebrates and finally mammals from unicellular organisms would have been quite impossible,
for such big leaps in evolution required the creation of new gene loci with previously nonexistent functions.
Only the cistron which became redundant was able to escape from the relentless pressure of natural
selection, and by escaping, it accumulated formerly forbidden mutations to emerge as a new gene locus."
(Ohno, S., "Evolution by Gene Duplication," Springer-Verlag: New York NY, 1970, p.xvii. Emphasis original)
3/01/2007
"How can the calculus of probabilities permit the prediction of certain fortuitous eventualities? The
mechanism of prediction is always the same and invariably brings in the single law of chance, of which we
shall speak in greater detail, and which consists essentially of this: Phenomena with very small probabilities
do not occur. It is then a matter of combining simple phenomena into complex phenomena whose
probabilities calculated in terms of those of the simple phenomena are small enough for the application of
the single law of chance." (Borel, É., "Probabilities and Life," [1943], Baudin, M., transl., Dover: New York
NY, 1962, p.1. Emphasis original)
3/01/2007
"This law [the single law of chance] is extremely simple and intuitively evident, though rationally
undemonstrable: Events with a sufficiently small probability never occur; or at least, we must act, in all
circumstances, as if they were impossible. A classical example of such impossible events is that of the
miracle of the typing monkeys, which may be given the following form: A typist who knows no other
language than French has been kept in solitary confinement with her machine and white paper; she amuses
herself by typing haphazardly and, at the end of six months, she is found to have written, without a single
error, the complete works of Shakespeare in their English text and the complete works of Goethe in their
German text. Such is the sort of event which, though its impossibility may not be rationally demonstrable, is,
however, so unlikely that no sensible person will hesitate to declare it actually impossible. If someone
affirmed having observed such an event we would be sure that he is deceiving us or has himself been the
victim of a fraud." (Borel, É., "Probabilities and Life," [1943], Baudin, M., transl., Dover: New York NY, 1962,
pp.2-3. Emphasis original)
3/01/2007
"But in concluding from its extremely small probability that the typist's miraculous feat is impossible, by
virtue of the single law of chance, we leave the domain of mathematical science, and it must be recognized
that the assertion, which seems to us quite evident and incontestable, is not, strictly speaking, a
mathematical truth. A strictly abstract mathematician could even claim that the experiment need only be
repeated a sufficient number of times, namely, a number of times represented by a number of 20 million
figures, to be sure, on the contrary, that the miracle will be produced several times in the course of these
innumerable trials. But it is not humanly possible to imagine that the experiment can be so often repeated. If
the dimensions of the universe are assumed to be equal to a billion billion light years, the number of atoms
which it could contain, if it were full of matter, is expressed by a number of less than two hundred figures,
and in the course of a billion billion years there are fewer seconds than a number of fifty figures would
express. If, therefore, in that lapse of time, every atom of the universe were transformed into a typist and
repeated the experiment every thousandth of a second, the total number of experiments would be much less
than a number of three hundred figures. It is then clearly absurd to imagine experiments whose number
would extend to more than a million figures; that is a purely abstract conception, a piece of mathematical
juggling of no consequence, and we must trust our intuition and our common sense which permit us to
assert the absolute impossibility of the typist's miracle which we have described." (Borel, É.,
"Probabilities and Life," [1943], Baudin, M., transl., Dover: New York NY, 1962, p.5. Emphasis original)
3/01/2007
Probabilities which are Negligible on the Cosmic Scale. If we turn our attention, not to the terrestrial
globe, but to the portion of the universe accessible to our astronomical and physical instruments, we are led
to define the negligible probabilities on the cosmic scale. Some astronomical laws, such as Newton's law of
universal gravitation and certain physical laws relative to the propagation of light waves, are verified by
innumerable observations of all the visible celestial bodies. The probability that a new observation would
contradict all these concordant observations is extremely small. We may be led to set at 10-50 the value of
negligible probabilities on the cosmic scale. When the probability of an event is below this limit, the
opposite event may be expected to occur with certainty, whatever the number of occasions presenting
themselves in the entire universe. The number of observable stars is of the order of magnitude of a billion, or
109, and the number of observations which the inhabitants of the earth could make of these stars, even if
all were observing, is certainly less than 1020. A phenomenon with a probability of 10-50 will therefore
never occur, or at least never be observed." (Borel, É., "Probabilities and Life," [1943], Baudin, M., transl.,
Dover: New York NY, 1962, p.28. Emphasis original)
4/01/2007
"During the last year, a number of popular books on religion by scientists or philosophers of science have
appeared. ... Among these books, Dawkins's The God Delusion stands out for two reasons. First, it's by
far the most ambitious. ... Dawkins is on a mission to convert. He is an enemy of religion, wants to explain
why, and hopes thereby to drive the beast to extinction. ... Dawkins not only thinks religion is unalloyed
nonsense but that it is an overwhelmingly pernicious, even `very evil,' force in the world. His target is not so
much organized religion as all religion. And within organized religion, he attacks not only extremist sects but
moderate ones. Indeed, he argues that rearing children in a religious tradition amounts to child abuse." (Orr,
H.A., "A Mission to Convert." Review of "The God Delusion," by Richard Dawkins, Houghton Mifflin,
2006. The New York Review of Books, Vol. 54, No. 1, January 11, 2007)
4/01/2007
"Dawkins's book begins with a description of what he calls the God Hypothesis. This is the idea that `the
universe and everything in it' were designed by `a superhuman, supernatural intelligence.' This intelligence
might be personal (as in Christianity) or impersonal (as in deism). Dawkins is not concerned with the alleged
detailed characteristics of God but with whether any form of the God Hypothesis is defensible. His answer
is: almost certainly not. Although his target is broad, Dawkins discusses mostly Christianity ..." (Orr, H.A.,
"A Mission to Convert." Review of "The God Delusion," by Richard Dawkins, Houghton Mifflin, 2006.
The New York Review of Books, Vol. 54, No. 1, January 11, 2007)
4/01/2007
"The first few chapters of The God Delusion are given over to philosophical matters. Dawkins summarizes
the traditional philosophical arguments for God's existence, from Aquinas through pre-Darwinian arguments
from biological design, along with the traditional arguments against them. In a later chapter entitled `Why
There Almost Certainly Is No God,' Dawkins himself plays philosopher, presenting the chief argument of his
book. The God Hypothesis, he tells us, is close to `ruled out by the laws of probability.' Dawkins's
demonstration involves what he calls the Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit. This is his variation on a standard
creationist argument. By tweaking that argument in a clever way, Dawkins claims it now leads to a
conclusion that's the opposite of the traditional creationist one. The creationist argument works like this.
Living things are enormously complex. Even the simplest of present-day organisms, like bacteria, are far
more complicated than anything found in the nonliving world. All organisms carry genes, built from a
replicating molecule like DNA (which is itself very complex). But DNA alone doesn't make an organism.
Organisms also possess many different proteins (each, in turn, made of amino acids), as well as other
molecules that help make structures like cell membranes. Moreover, all these parts must be arranged in just
the right way: membranes on the outside of the cell and DNA on the inside, and so on. Creationists argue
that the idea that such organized complexity could arise by natural means-without the intercession of a
designer mind- is absurd. In particular, they argue that the probability that life could assemble itself
spontaneously is extremely close to zero. To dramatize this, they suggest that thinking life could arise by
natural means is like thinking a tornado could tear through a junkyard and assemble a Boeing 747. Such an
event is not, strictly speaking, impossible but it's so extraordinarily unlikely that it is, according to
creationists, unworthy of serious consideration. Dawkins's variation on this argument involves a judo-like
move in which he turns its logic against itself. In particular, Dawkins claims that rejecting natural means to
explain life and instead invoking a designer God leaves us with a hypothesis that's even more improbable
than the naturalistic one: 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. In short, only complicated objects can design simpler ones; information cannot flow in the
other direction, with simple objects designing complicated ones. But that means any designer God would
have to be more complex -and thus even more improbable- than the universe he was supposed to explain.
This argument, Dawkins concludes, `comes close to proving that God does not exist': the God Hypothesis
has a vanishingly small probability of being right." (Orr, H.A., "A Mission to Convert." Review of "The God
Delusion," by Richard Dawkins, Houghton Mifflin, 2006. The New York Review of Books, Vol. 54, No. 1,
January 11, 2007)
4/01/2007
"The latter half of The God Delusion is partly devoted to Dawkins's discussion of religion as practiced.
Not surprisingly, he finds little good to say about it: religion for him is the root of much evil and its
disappearance from the world would be an unmitigated good. Religion, he tells us, is certainly not the source
of our morality (indeed the God of the Old Testament is, he claims, nothing short of monstrous) and
believers are no better morally than nonbelievers; in fact they may be worse. Dawkins regales us with tales
of Christian cops who threaten to beat up an atheist; presents statistics on the higher rates of crime in
regions that are religious; and argues that, when considering religiously inspired violence and terrorism, `we
should blame religion itself, not religious extremism-as though that were some kind of terrible perversion of
real, decent religion.' ... As you may have noticed, Dawkins when discussing religion is, in effect, a blunt
instrument, one that has a hard time distinguishing Unitarians from abortion clinic bombers. What may be
less obvious is that, on questions of God, Dawkins cannot abide much dissent, especially from fellow
scientists (and especially from fellow evolutionary biologists). Indeed Dawkins is fond of imputing ulterior
motives to those `Neville Chamberlain School' scientists not willing to go as far as he in his war on religion:
he suggests that they're guilty of disingenuousness, playing politics, and lusting after the large prizes
awarded by the Templeton Foundation to scientists sympathetic to religion. The only motive Dawkins
doesn't seem to take seriously is that some scientists genuinely disagree with him." (Orr, H.A., "A Mission
to Convert." Review of "The God Delusion," by Richard Dawkins, Houghton Mifflin, 2006. The New York
Review of Books, Vol. 54, No. 1, January 11, 2007)
4/01/2007
"Despite my admiration for much of Dawkins's work, I'm afraid that I'm among those scientists who must part
company with him here. Indeed, The God Delusion seems to me badly flawed. Though I once labeled
Dawkins a professional atheist, I'm forced, after reading his new book, to conclude he's actually more an
amateur. ... The most disappointing feature of The God Delusion is Dawkins's failure to engage religious
thought in any serious way. This is, obviously, an odd thing to say about a book-length investigation into
God. But the problem reflects Dawkins's cavalier attitude about the quality of religious thinking. Dawkins
tends to dismiss simple expressions of belief as base superstition. Having no patience with the faith of
fundamentalists, he also tends to dismiss more sophisticated expressions of belief as sophistry (he cannot,
for instance, tolerate the meticulous reasoning of theologians). But if simple religion is barbaric (and thus
unworthy of serious thought) and sophisticated religion is logic-chopping (and thus equally unworthy of
serious thought), the ineluctable conclusion is that all religion is unworthy of serious thought. The result is
The God Delusion, a book that never squarely faces its opponents. You will find no serious examination
of Christian or Jewish theology in Dawkins's book (does he know Augustine rejected biblical literalism in the
early fifth century?), no attempt to follow philosophical debates about the nature of religious propositions
(are they like ordinary claims about everyday matters?), no effort to appreciate the complex history of
interaction between the Church and science (does he know the Church had an important part in the rise of
non-Aristotelian science?), and no attempt to understand even the simplest of religious attitudes (does
Dawkins really believe, as he says, that Christians should be thrilled to learn they're terminally ill?)." (Orr,
H.A., "A Mission to Convert." Review of "The God Delusion," by Richard Dawkins, Houghton Mifflin,
2006. The New York Review of Books, Vol. 54, No. 1, January 11, 2007)
4/01/2007
"Instead, Dawkins has written a book that's distinctly, even defiantly, middlebrow. Dawkins's intellectual
universe appears populated by the likes of Douglas Adams, the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the
Galaxy, and Carl Sagan, the science popularizer, both of whom he cites repeatedly. This is a different group
from thinkers like William James and Ludwig Wittgenstein-both of whom lived after Darwin, both of whom
struggled with the question of belief, and both of whom had more to say about religion than Adams and
Sagan. Dawkins spends much time on what can only be described as intellectual banalities: `Did Jesus have
a human father, or was his mother a virgin at the time of his birth? Whether or not there is enough surviving
evidence to decide it, this is still a strictly scientific question.' The vacuum created by Dawkins's failure to
engage religious thought must be filled by something, and in The God Delusion, it gets filled by
extraneous quotation, letters from correspondents, and, most of all, anecdote after anecdote. ... One reason
for the lack of extended argument in The God Delusion is clear: Dawkins doesn't seem very good at it.
Indeed he suffers from several problems when attempting to reason philosophically. The most obvious is
that he has a preordained set of conclusions at which he's determined to arrive. Consequently, Dawkins
uses any argument, however feeble, that seems to get him there and the merit of various arguments appears
judged largely by where they lead. The most important example involves Dawkins's discussion of
philosophical arguments for the existence of God as opposed to his own argument against God, which he
presents as the intellectual heart of his book. Considering arguments for God, Dawkins is careful to recite
the many standard objections to them and writes that the traditional proofs are `vacuous,' `dubious,'
`infantile,' and `perniciously misleading.' But turning to his own Ultimate Boeing 747 argument against God,
Dawkins is suddenly uninterested in criticism and writes that his argument is `unanswerable.' So why, you
might wonder, is a clever philosophical argument for God subject to withering criticism while one against
God gets a free pass and is deemed devastating? The reason seems clear. The first argument leads to a
conclusion Dawkins despises, while the second leads to one he loves. Dawkins, so far as I can tell, is
unconcerned that the central argument of his book bears more than a passing resemblance to those clever
philosophical proofs for the existence of God that he dismisses. This is unfortunate. He could have used a
healthy dose of his usual skepticism when deciding how much to invest in his own Ultimate Boeing 747
argument. Indeed, one needn't be a creationist to note that Dawkins's argument suffers at least two potential
problems. First, as others have pointed out, if he is right, the design hypothesis essentially must be wrong
and the alternative naturalistic hypothesis essentially must be right. But since when is a scientific
hypothesis confirmed by philosophical gymnastics, not data? Second, the fact that we as scientists find a
hypothesis question-begging-as when Dawkins asks `who designed the designer?'- cannot, in itself, settle
its truth value. It could, after all, be a brute fact of the universe that it derives from some transcendent mind,
however question-begging this may seem. What explanations we find satisfying might say more about us
than about the explanations. Why, for example, is Dawkins so untroubled by his own (large) assumption
that both matter and the laws of nature can be viewed as given? Why isn't that question-begging?" (Orr,
H.A., "A Mission to Convert." Review of "The God Delusion," by Richard Dawkins, Houghton Mifflin,
2006. The New York Review of Books, Vol. 54, No. 1, January 11, 2007)
4/01/2007
"Exercises in double standards also plague Dawkins's discussion of the idea that religion encourages good
behavior. Dawkins cites a litany of statistics revealing that red states (with many conservative Christians)
suffer higher rates of crime, including murder, burglary, and theft, than do blue states. But now consider his
response to the suggestion that the atheist Stalin and his comrades committed crimes of breathtaking
magnitude: `We are not in the business,' he says, `of counting evils heads, compiling two rival roll calls of
iniquity.' We're not? We were forty-five pages ago." (Orr, H.A., "A Mission to Convert." Review of "The
God Delusion," by Richard Dawkins, Houghton Mifflin, 2006. The New York Review of Books, Vol. 54,
No. 1, January 11, 2007)
4/01/2007
"Dawkins's problems with philosophy might be related to a failure of metaphysical imagination. When
thinking of those vast matters that make up religion-matters of ultimate meaning that stand at the edge of
intelligibility and that are among the most difficult to articulate-he sees only black and white. Despite some
attempts at subtlety, Dawkins almost reflexively identifies religion with right-wing fundamentalism and
biblical literalism. Other, more nuanced possibilities- varieties of deism, mysticism, or nondenominational
spirituality-have a harder time holding his attention. It may be that Dawkins can't imagine these possibilities
vividly enough to worry over them in a serious way. ... In any case, part of what it means to suffer a failure
of imagination may be that one can't conceive that one's imagination is impoverished. It's hard to resist the
conclusion that people like James and Wittgenstein struggled personally with religion, while Dawkins
shrugs his shoulders, at least in part because they conceived possibilities-mistaken ones perhaps, but
certainly more interesting ones- that escape Dawkins." (Orr, H.A., "A Mission to Convert." Review of "The
God Delusion," by Richard Dawkins, Houghton Mifflin, 2006. The New York Review of Books, Vol. 54,
No. 1, January 11, 2007)
4/01/2007
"Putting aside these philosophical matters, Dawkins's key empirical claim-that religion is a pernicious force
in the world-might still be right. Is it? Throughout The God Delusion, Dawkins reminds us of the horrors
committed in the name of God, from outright war, through the persecution of minority sects, acts of
terrorism, the closing of children's minds, and the oppression of those having unorthodox sexual lives. No
decent person can fail to be repulsed by the sins committed in the name of religion. So we all agree: religion
can be bad. But the critical question is: compared to what? And here Dawkins is less convincing because he
fails to examine the question in a systematic way. Tests of religion's consequences might involve a number
of different comparisons: between religion's good and bad effects, or between the behavior of believers and
nonbelievers, and so on. While Dawkins touches on each, his modus operandi generally involves
comparing religion as practiced -religion, that is, as it plays out in the rough-and-tumble world of
compromise, corruption, and incompetence- with atheism as theory. But fairness requires that we compare
both religion and atheism as practiced or both as theory. The latter is an amorphous and perhaps impossible
task, and I can see why Dawkins sidesteps it. But comparing both as practiced is more straightforward. And,
at least when considering religious and atheist institutions, the facts of history do not, I believe,
demonstrate beyond doubt that atheism comes out on the side of the angels. Dawkins has a difficult time
facing up to the dual facts that (1) the twentieth century was an experiment in secularism; and (2) the result
was secular evil, an evil that, if anything, was more spectacularly virulent than that which came before. ...
The problem is that these latter days have witnessed blood-curdling experiments in institutional atheism.
Dawkins tends to wave away the resulting crimes. It is, he insists, unclear if they were actually inspired by
atheism. He emphasizes, for example, that Stalin's brutality may not have been motivated by his atheism.
While this is surely partly true, it's a tricky issue, especially as one would need to allow for the same kind of
distinction when considering religious institutions. (Does anyone really believe that the Church's dreadful
dealings with the Nazis were motivated by its theism?) In any case, it's hard to believe that Stalin's wholesale
torture and murder of priests and nuns (including crucifixions) and Mao's persecution of Catholics and
extermination of nearly every remnant of Buddhism were unconnected to their atheism. Neither the
institutions of Christianity nor those of communism are, of course, innocent. But Dawkins's inability to see
the difference in the severity of their sins- one of orders of magnitude-suggests an ideological commitment
of the sort that usually reflects devotion to a creed." (Orr, H.A., "A Mission to Convert." Review of "The
God Delusion," by Richard Dawkins, Houghton Mifflin, 2006. The New York Review of Books, Vol. 54,
No. 1, January 11, 2007)
4/01/2007
"What of the possibility that present-day churchgoers are worse morally than those who stay away? They
might be. Indeed C.S. Lewis, in perhaps the most widely read work of popular theology ever written, Mere
Christianity, conceded the possibility. Emphasizing that the Gospel was preached to the weak and poor,
Lewis argued that troubled souls might well be drawn disproportionately to the Church. As he also
emphasized, the appropriate contrast should not, therefore, be between the behavior of churchgoers and
nongoers but between the behavior of people before and after they find religion. Under Dawkins's
alternative logic, the fact that those sitting in a doctor's office are on average sicker than those not sitting
there must stand as an indictment of medicine. (There's no evidence in The God Delusion that Dawkins is
familiar with Lewis's argument.) ... Even when comparing believers and nonbelievers, Dawkins is curiously
silent on one of the best-known differences. Believers give far more to charities-even nonreligious charities-
than do secularists. See, for instance, the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey
(www.cfsv.org/communitysurvey/results.html)." (Orr, H.A., "A Mission to Convert." Review of "The God
Delusion," by Richard Dawkins, Houghton Mifflin, 2006. The New York Review of Books, Vol. 54, No. 1,
January 11, 2007)
4/01/2007
"In any case, there are some grounds for questioning whether Dawkins's project is even meaningful. As T.S.
Eliot famously observed, to ask whether we would have been better off without religion is to ask a question
whose answer is unknowable. Our entire history has been so thoroughly shaped by Judeo-Christian
tradition that we cannot imagine the present state of society in its absence. But there's a deeper point and
one that Dawkins also fails to see. Even what we mean by the world being better off is conditioned by our
religious inheritance. What most of us in the West mean-and what Dawkins, as revealed by his own Ten
Commandments, means-is a world in which individuals are free to express their thoughts and passions and
to develop their talents so long as these do not infringe on the ability of others to do so. But this is
assuredly not what a better world would look like to, say, a traditional Confucian culture. There, a new and
improved world might be one that allows the readier suppression of individual differences and aspirations.
The point is that all judgments, including ethical ones, begin somewhere and ours, often enough, begin in
Judaism and Christianity. Dawkins should, of course, be applauded for his attempt to picture a better world.
But intellectual honesty demands acknowledging that his moral vision derives, to a considerable extent,
from the tradition he so despises." (Orr, H.A., "A Mission to Convert." Review of "The God Delusion," by
Richard Dawkins, Houghton Mifflin, 2006. The New York Review of Books, Vol. 54, No. 1, January 11,
2007)
4/01/2007
"One of the most interesting questions about Dawkins's book is why it was written. Why does Dawkins feel
he has anything significant to say about religion and what gives him the sense of authority presumably
needed to say it at book length? The God Delusion certainly establishes that Dawkins has little new to
offer. Its arguments are those of any bright student who has thumbed through Bertrand Russell's more
popular books and who has, horrified, watched videos of holy rollers. ... The reason, of course, is that The
God Delusion is not itself a work of either evolutionary biology in particular or science in general. None of
Dawkins's loud pronouncements on God follows from any experiment or piece of data. It's just Dawkins
talking." (Orr, H.A., "A Mission to Convert." Review of "The God Delusion," by Richard Dawkins,
Houghton Mifflin, 2006. The New York Review of Books, Vol. 54, No. 1, January 11, 2007)
4/01/2007
"We should not, though, conclude that there's no debate whatever to be had between science and religion.
The view championed by Stephen Jay Gould and others that the two endeavors are utterly distinct and thus
incapable of interfering with each other is overly simplistic. There have been, and likely will continue to be,
real disagreements between legitimate science and authentic religion. Some of the issues involved are
epistemological (Do scientific and religious claims simply begin with different premises, the first materialist
and the second not?), and others ethical (Where do we draw the line between what medicine can accomplish
and what it should be allowed to accomplish?). These questions are difficult and might well merit extended
discussion between scientific and religious thinkers. But if such discussions are to be worthwhile, they will
have to take place at a far higher level of sophistication than Richard Dawkins seems either willing or able to
muster." (Orr, H.A., "A Mission to Convert." Review of "The God Delusion," by Richard Dawkins,
Houghton Mifflin, 2006. The New York Review of Books, Vol. 54, No. 1, January 11, 2007)
4/01/2007
"Dawkins would likely respond that his moral vision derives from either biological or cultural evolution, i.e.,
from the spread of `memes,' his putative unit of cultural evolution. I suspect that biological evolution has
endowed us with a rough moral sense; but this can't explain the kind of differences between Judeo-Christian
and Confucian cultures noted above. As for memes, I see no difference between saying that my morals
derive from, say, Christianity and saying that my brain hosts a `Christian morality meme.' In any case, most
scientists do not accept Dawkins's theory of memes. Lewis Wolpert's reaction in his new book is typical:
`Just what a meme is, and how it is distinguishable from beliefs, I find difficult.... There is no distinction
made between memes relating to belief and knowledge. Moreover, no mechanism is proposed for the so-
called replication of memes, or what they are selected for." (Orr, H.A., "A Mission to Convert." Review of
"The God Delusion," by Richard Dawkins, Houghton Mifflin, 2006. The New York Review of Books, Vol.
54, No. 1, January 11, 2007)
5/01/2007
"Beginnings of life About 4,600 million years ago (one quarter the age of the Universe), a hostile, barren
Earth was formed from the accumulation of cosmic debris. Between then and the beginning of the Cambrian
some 600 million years ago, a number of mountainous steps had to be taken to change the inert dust and
gases into such complex living wonders as the sea snails, jellyfish, octopuses, trilobites and so on that
abruptly appear in the fossil record. The first and perhaps the easiest stage was the change from inorganic
to organic - from the gases which presumably surrounded Earth at that time (hydrogen, ammonia, methane,
etc.) to the simplest amino acids, containing about ten atoms, which are the most basic of the biochemical
universals. Experimentally, Stanley Miller in the United States showed in 1953 that by passing an electrical
discharge (in real life, perhaps a bolt of lightning) through the appropriate gases, quite surprisingly large
amounts of amino acids were formed. The experiments are acknowledged as a major breakthrough in our
understanding of how life got under way, and since then other essential chemicals have been synthesized.
Today, five of the twenty amino acids common to us all still resist attempts to create them artificially under
anything like plausible conditions, and critics have pointed to the 'oxygen-ultraviolet conundrum' that is still
not resolved .... A summary paper in Nature concluded bleakly that the chances of finding significant
concentrations of organic chemicals in any prebiotic 'soups' so far imagined were vanishingly small: '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.' [Hull, D.E.,
"Thermodynamics and Kinetics of Spontaneous Generation," Nature, Vol. 186, May 28, 1960, pp.693-694,
p.694]" (Hitching, F., "The Neck of the Giraffe: Or Where Darwin Went Wrong," Pan: London, 1982, pp.63-
64. Emphasis original)
5/01/2007
"But the really crucial stage is the one that necessarily followed: the transformation from non-life to life.
Living things are distinguished from non-living things in a number of ways. Primarily, they organize
themselves on a continuing basis. They tend to move themselves towards an increase in order and
complexity - they grow, while non-living things inevitably disintegrate. They have a unique ability to renew
themselves after injury - they are able, both at the cellular level and as complete organisms to reproduce
their form. There are other secondary characteristics, such as the ability to dispose of waste, and to respond
to stimuli, that have no exact parallel in the non-living world. This is true even of the simplest living forms:
single-celled bacteria. They represent a quantum evolutionary leap from the lifeless chemicals that came
before. Assuming that there was, around four billion years ago, a sea with perhaps a ten-percent solution of
amino acids, sugars, phosphates, and so on, two prodigious leaps have to take place, and they have to
happen in synchrony. The amino acids must link together to form proteins; and the other chemicals must
join up to make nucleic acids, including the vital DNA. The seemingly insurmountable obstacle is the way
the two reactions are inseparably linked - one can't happen without the other. Proteins depend on DNA for
their formation. But DNA cannot form without pre-existing protein. This biological treadmill greatly worries
all biologists actively concerned in research into the origin of life. The puzzle was put succinctly: 'How,
when no life existed, did substances come into being which, today, are absolutely essential to living
systems, yet which can only be formed by those systems?' [Blum, H.F., "'Perspectives in Evolution,"
American Scientist, Vol. 43, 1955, p.595] No one knows the answer. 'Which came first?' asked Professor
Sidney Fox of Miami University. 'Whichever postulate has been considered has seemed to leave an
unresolved question.' [Fox. S.W., ed., "The Origins of Prebiological Systems and their Molecular Matrices,"
Academic Press: New York, 1965, p.359]." (Hitching, F., "The Neck of the Giraffe: Or Where Darwin Went
Wrong," Pan: London, 1982, p.64. Emphasis original)
5/01/2007
"Beginnings of life The first and perhaps the easiest stage was the change from inorganic to organic -
from the gases which presumably surrounded Earth at that time (hydrogen, ammonia, methane, etc.) to the
simplest amino acids, containing about ten atoms, which are the most basic of the biochemical universals.
Experimentally, Stanley Miller in the United States showed in 1953 that by passing an electrical discharge (in
real life, perhaps a bolt of lightning) through the appropriate gases, quite surprisingly large amounts of
amino acids were formed. ... Today, five of the twenty amino acids common to us all still resist attempts to
create them artificially under anything like plausible conditions, and critics have pointed to the 'oxygen-
ultraviolet conundrum' that is still not resolved ... It was a Russian biochemist, A.I. Oparin, who in 1936 first
suggested how inert chemicals might link together into an organic chain. Although it was impossible to
create life from non-life in our present oxygen-heavy environment, he said (oxygen literally eats up any
primitive organic chemical such as an amino acid), this might not have been the case in conditions billions of
years ago. He suggested that there was a 'reducing' atmosphere - free of oxygen, and consisting of such
gases as methane, ammonia, water and hydrogen. All experiments, including Stanley Miller's, have been
based on this hypothesis. Without oxygen, there is no ozone canopy to protect Earth from the sun's
ultraviolet rays. Nowadays, as established by NASA's early space probes, this canopy blankets us between
fifteen and thirty miles above Earth's surface, effectively shielding us from certain death. So with oxygen in
the air, the first amino acid would never have got started; without oxygen, it would have been wiped out by
cosmic rays. Imaginative and elaborate solutions have been written to this conundrum. Perhaps the amino
acid was formed at the edge of a volcano, and then sank into a lake where it dropped the few metres below
the surface necessary to protect it from radiation; perhaps the Earth's waters were covered by a layer of tar-
like chemicals which stopped ultraviolet light; perhaps the amino acid was protectively dehydrated or
'frozen' in some way on dry rock or clay, waiting for an improvement in the atmosphere. For every
suggestion, there is a seemingly insuperable objection: beneath the surface of the water there would not be
enough energy to activate further chemical reactions; water in any case inhibits the growth of more complex
molecules; unlike conditions in laboratory experiments, the amino acids and their constituents could not be
kept pure and isolated. In other words, the theoretical chances of getting through even this first and
relatively easy stage in the evolution of life are forbidding." (Hitching, F., "The Neck of the Giraffe: Or
Where Darwin Went Wrong," Pan: London, 1982, pp.63-65 )
5/01/2007
"However improbable we regard this event [the start of all life], or any of the steps which it involves, given
enough time it will almost certainly happen at least once. And for life as we know it ... once may be enough.
Time is in fact the hero of the plot. The time with which we have to deal is of the order of two billion years.
What we regard as impossible on the basis of human experience is meaningless here. Given so much time
the `impossible' becomes the possible, the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain. One has
only to wait: time itself performs the miracles. [Wald, G., "The Origin of Life," Scientific American, August
1954] These words were written by Nobel laureate and Harvard University biology professor George Wald
and published in the widely read journal Scientific American. For decades leading biologists had
promulgated the position, stated so well by Wald, that time and chance were the forces behind the miracle of
life. It was logically correct. After all, what else could be operating? Wald's definitive statement, made on
behalf of the scientific community, rested firmly on research completed the previous year. In 1953, Stanley
Miller, then a graduate student at the University of Chicago, had produced amino acids by a series of totally
random reactions. His experiment was simple but brilliant. Miller evacuated a glass flask and then filled it
with the gases thought to have been present in Earth's atmosphere 3.8 billion years ago: ammonia, methane,
hydrogen, and water vapor. Free oxygen was not present. It appeared only billions of years later, the
product of life itself photosynthesis. Using electrodes placed through the walls of the flask, Miller
discharged electric sparks, simulating lightning, into the gases. Their energy induced random chemical
reactions among the gases. After a few days, a reddish slime appeared on the inner walls of the apparatus.
Upon analysis, the slime was found to contain amino acids. The importance of Miller's experiment was at
once apparent. Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins and proteins are the building blocks of life.
As Wald pointed out, two billion years had passed between the appearance of water on Earth and the
appearance of life. If random reactions in a small flask can produce amino acids in just two days, given two
billion years of reactions throughout the Earth's vast atmosphere and oceans, the first forms of life, bacteria
and algae, must have been the product of similar random reactions during those eons. The impossible had
become the probable and the probable certain. We and all other members of the biosphere are living proof of
the theory's accuracy. The news media worldwide reported the significance of Miller's seminal experiment.
The public had been told the truth: life had started by chance. Or had it? Wald's article was such an
important statement that twenty-five years later, in 1979, Scientific American reprinted it in a special
publication titled Life: Origin and Evolution. The only difference was that this time it appeared with a
retraction. I have seen no other retraction by a journal of a Nobel laureate's writings. The retraction was
unequivocal: Although stimulating, this article probably represents one of the very few times in his
professional life when Wald has been wrong. Examine his main thesis and see. Can we really form a
biological cell by waiting for chance combinations of organic compounds? Harold Morowitz, in his book
`Energy Flow and Biology,' [Morowitz, H.J., "Energy Flow in Biology," Academic Press: New York NY, 1969,
p.67] computed that merely to create a bacterium would require more time than the Universe might ever see if
chance combinations of its molecules were the only driving force. [Folsome, C., "Life: Origin and
Evolution," Scientific American Special Publication, 1979] In short, life could not have started by chance."
(Schroeder, G.L., "The Science of God: The Convergence of Scientific and Biblical Wisdom," Broadway
Books: New York NY, 1998, pp.83-85. Emphasis original)
5/01/2007
"All plants and animals are bound together by sharing the same earth, air and water. They are also linked by
a competition for solar energy, on which their lives depend. Once believed to be a ruthless and unbridled
battle, more recent study of this struggle for existence suggests that co-operation and interdependence may
be more important for the survival of a species than a no-quarter war." (Farb, P., "Ecology," [1963], Time-Life
International: Netherlands, Reprinted, 1968, p.105)
6/01/2007
"The Chicken or the Egg Imagine that you are the captain of a small sailboat that is sinking slowly in a
storm. You must lighten it if it is to stay afloat. Unfortunately, everything that obviously can be spared has
already been thrown overboard. What should you sacrifice now: the sail, the food supplies, the radio, the
signaling equipment, or perhaps one of the passengers? It is a difficult choice. A similar dilemma faces the
biochemist who considers the origin of life. As we have seen, the simplest known organisms are far too
complex to form spontaneously. The hypothetical common ancestor, an organism containing the features
shared by living cells today, would also be complex. The first organism was a much simpler one. What, then,
should be sacrificed to strip down the common ancestor into the original organism: the membrane, the
energy-generating system, the genetic system, or the vital catalysts? Understandably, controversy exists
over this question. It is agreed that one thing must be kept, however. Just as the captain must preserve the
hull of his ship, the biochemist must preserve some mechanism in his organism that will permit it to evolve
and generate more complex life. Most biochemists are willing to part with the energy-generating system and
to rely upon the benevolence of the prebiotic soup. This soup is called upon to perform the functions of a
modern mammalian mother. It must not only assemble a living organism within its body, but it must also
continue to nourish it after birth. The chemicals in the soup will furnish the meals for the first organisms,
supplying both energy and the substances needed for further growth. Most biochemists are also willing to
forgo the lipid membrane, or to make its acquisition a minor feature in the development of life. If we ignore
the protein gateways, then the membrane simply becomes a partition to separate the living cell from its
environment. Partitions can be formed in many ways, and need not have complex structures. ... When lipids
and carbohydrates are thrown overboard, we are then left with proteins and nucleic acids as candidates for
the ingredients of the first organism. Some more cautious thinkers would like to retain both of them, but then
the boat would surely sink. Both are complex types of molecules, which need to be of considerable size to
function properly. We shall see that it is difficult to account for the appearance of either of these molecules
by spontaneous generation on the early earth. If both are needed, then we go down in a sea of
improbability. Most workers in the field are willing to face the painful choice. As stated in A.L. Lehninger's
biochemistry text, it is: `Which had primacy in the origin of life, proteins or nucleic acids?' [Lehninger, A.L.,
"Biochemistry," Worth Publishers: New York NY, Second Edition, 1975, p.1045]" (Shapiro, R., "Origins:
A Skeptic's Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth," Summit Books: New York NY, 1986, pp.132-133.
Emphasis original)
6/01/2007
"The Origin of `Life' vs. the Origin of Cells We have seen how primitive polypeptides, polysaccharides,
polynucleotides, catalysts, and replication templates could have arisen in the course of prebiotic chemical
evolution. We now come to that critical moment in chemical evolution when the first semblance of `life'
appeared, through the chance association of a number of abiotically formed macromolecular components to
yield a unique system of enhanced survival value, capable of evolving toward a more complex structure, one
better able to survive. However, the first structure possessing `life' was not necessarily a modern cell,
complete with a membrane, a chromosome, ribosomes, enzymes, a metabolism, and the property of self-
replication. The minimum requirement is that it could potentially evolve into a complete cell. It is at this point
that a cluster of organic molecules, possibly a group of oligomers or polymers, associated with each other
into a stabilized structure. ... Such a structure may have included fatty acids or lipids, which spontaneously
form membranes and micelles, or other molecules with hydrophobic zones, such as polypeptides rich in
amino acids with hydrophobic R groups." (Lehninger, A.L., "Biochemistry: The Molecular Basis of Cell
Structure and Function," [1970], Worth Publishers: New York NY, Second Edition, 1975, Sixth Printing, 1981,
p.1045. Emphasis original)
6/01/2007
"We cannot define `life' accurately enough to determine at what point it arose in the chain of events leading
from preformed macromolecular components to a complete cell. However, it is generally agreed that a
minimum requirement for life is one or more informational macromolecules capable of directing their own
replication. One must then ask: Which had primacy in the origin of life, proteins or nucleic acids? One view
suggests that the first protocells arose when primitive catalysts (presumably polypeptides) first became
surrounded by a membrane or became incorporated in a gel-like matrix and that the resulting structure
`learned' to maintain itself with a primitive metabolism. In this view the first cells functioned in the absence
of nucleic acids and a genetic system, which they acquired later. Another view is that nucleic acids arose
first and that they provided the information for the evolution of proteins. A third view is that both nucleic
acids and proteins had to come together to form the first real precursor of a living cell." (Lehninger, A.L.,
"Biochemistry: The Molecular Basis of Cell Structure and Function," [1970], Worth Publishers: New York
NY, Second Edition, 1975, Sixth Printing, 1981, pp.1045-1046)
6/01/2007
"Any hint that DNA and RNA can do some work is received eagerly by those who favor the primacy of
nucleic acids. Late in 1982, for example, Colorado State University chemist Thomas R. Cech and co-workers
reported that certain RNA molecules could reorganize themselves. They could rearrange their connections
so that certain sections were expelled and others were rejoined. Enzymes could speed up these processes
manyfold, but they took place more slowly anyway, even when no enzymes were present. Science
magazine reported the news under the headline "RNA Can Be a Catalyst," [Lewin, R., "RNA can be a
catalyst," Science, Vol. 218, 26 November 1982, pp.872-874] and suggested that it had significance for the
origin of life. This announcement was premature, as the word `catalyst' has a different meaning. It describes
a substance that changes other molecules, while it remains unchanged. Subsequently, other workers
showed that one RNA molecule can also aid in the rearrangement, or splicing, of another, in true catalytic
fashion. The effects shown thus far testify to the versatility of RNA as a genetic material, but do not
demonstrate the control of other kinds of molecules that would have been valuable in the early days of life.
They may have come into play later in evolution, when the partnership of DNA and RNA was first
established. As we have seen, the DNA of higher organisms has extra messages ('commercial breaks') that
are passed on to RNA, but must be removed before the information is used to construct proteins. The ability
of RNA molecules to splice one another without outside help shows how fit they are for this particular role,
but tell us little about whether nucleic acids or proteins had primacy in the origin of life." (Shapiro, R.,
"Origins: A Skeptic's Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth," Summit Books: New York NY, 1986, pp.133-134)
6/01/2007
"The nucleic acids are, of course, the hereditary material. They contain the blueprint for the organism which
is passed from parent to daughter cells. DNA duplicates during replication, to provide a blueprint copy for
each daughter. The design of DNA, with its two complementary chains, makes this event possible. DNA
cannot replicate alone, however. It requires the aid of proteins in this process. Further, neither DNA nor the
other nucleic acid, RNA, has much catalytic ability. Unlike proteins, they cannot make things happen. ...
Proteins can make things happen effectively in the cell. Alas, they lack another capacity. We know of no
mechanism by which they can replicate themselves. Like mules, they can work, but are sterile. If a cell were
deprived of its DNA, it would function for a time. Cilia would wave, ribosomes would make proteins, and
sugars would be converted to simpler substances, releasing energy. After a time, however, everything
would grind to a halt. The cell would die, leaving no offspring. Genes and enzymes are linked together in a
living cell two interlocked systems, each supporting the other. It is difficult to see how either could manage
alone. Yet if we are to avoid invoking either a Creator or a very large improbability, we must accept that one
occurred before the other in the origin of life. But which one was it? We are left with the ancient riddle:
Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" (Shapiro, R., "Origins: A Skeptic's Guide to the Creation of Life
on Earth," Summit Books: New York NY, 1986, p.135)
6/01/2007
We will enter this arena by considering an article published in 1966 by Nobel laureate H. J. Muller (18901967)
in the American Naturalist, which summarized his views on the origin of life. Muller was an American
scientist who had discovered that X rays can produce mutations. He was among the first to warn the public
of the adverse health effects of radiation, and was also an advocate of human improvement through
voluntary eugenics. He was one of the founders of modern genetics. Not surprisingly, Muller was the
foremost exponent of the primacy of the genetic material in the origin of life. He had suggested this idea in
the late 1920s, adapting it from an earlier theory of L.T. Troland. The Troland theory held that enzymes and
genes were the same substance (this was long before Watson and Crick) and that this substance, catalyzing
its own reproduction, was the master chemical of life. Muller recognized that the functions might be
separate, and attached more importance to the gene. We will quote from his 1966 article directly: `It is the
specific sequences in the DNA which determine those in the proteins and changes in the former result in
corresponding changes in the latter, whereas the reverse relation does not hold, any more than, in general,
other acquired characteristics are inherited. This circumstance clearly gives the gene material primacy....
The `stripped down' definition of a living thing offered here may be paraphrased: that which possesses
the potentiality of evolving by natural selection.... The gene material also, of natural materials, possesses
these faculties and it is therefore legitimate to call it living material, the present-day representative of the first
life...Primitive conditions afforded it enough means of exercising them to allow it to evolve protoplasm that
served it...Thus the gene material itself has the properties of life.' [Muller, H.J., "The Gene Material as the
Initiator and the Organizing Basis of Life," American Naturalist, Vol. 100, 1966, pp.493-517]" (Shapiro, R.,
"Origins: A Skeptic's Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth," Summit Books: New York NY, 1986, p.135. Emphasis
and ellipses original)
6/01/2007
"Muller's views do not lack advocates today, among them the astronomer Carl Sagan. Sagan was an
undergraduate at the University of Chicago in the early 1950s and spent one summer in Muller's laboratory
in Indiana. Subsequently, as a graduate student, Sagan published an article expressing views similar to
Muller's: `The design of the organism is merely to provide for gene multiplication and survival.... Now this
picture we have been drawing of the proto-DNA molecule, associated with protein, is certainly strongly
suggestive of a primitive free-living naked gene situated in a dilute medium of organic matter.... There was
no protoplasm per se for the naked gene to act upon. ... In time the naked gene found it of greater adaptive
value to control the environment by becoming no longer naked. [Sagan, C., "Radiation and the Origin of the
Gene," Evolution, Vol. 11, 1957, pp.40-55] Sagan has continued to advocate this position during his
outstanding career in astronomy and science writing. In his book and television series Cosmos, the origin
of life was equated with the formation of the first self-copying molecule: "the earliest ancestor of
deoxyribonucleic acid, DNA, the master molecule of life on Earth.' [Sagan, C.E., "Cosmos," [1980],
Macdonald: London, Reprinted, 1981, p.31]" (Shapiro, R., "Origins: A Skeptic's Guide to the Creation of Life
on Earth," Summit Books: New York NY, 1986, pp.136-137. Emphasis and ellipses original)
6/01/2007
"The secrets of evolution are death and time-the deaths of enormous numbers of lifeforms that were
imperfectly adapted to the environment; and time for a long succession of small mutations that were by
accident adaptive, time for the slow accumulation of patterns of favorable mutations. Part of the resistance
to Darwin and Wallace derives from our difficulty in imagining the passage of the millennia, much less the
aeons. What does seventy million years mean to beings who live only one-millionth as long? We are like
butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever." (Sagan, C.E., "Cosmos," [1980], Macdonald: London,
Reprinted, 1981, pp.30-31. Emphasis original)
6/01/2007
"What happened here on Earth may be more or less typical of the evolution of life on many worlds; but in
such details as the chemistry of proteins or the neurology of brains, the story of life on Earth may be unique
in all the Milky Way Galaxy. The Earth condensed out of interstellar gas and dust some 4.6 billion years ago.
We know from the fossil record that the origin of life happened soon after, perhaps around 4.0 billion years
ago, in the ponds and oceans of the primitive Earth. The first living things were not anything so complex as
a one-celled organism, already a highly sophisticated form of life. The first stirrings were much more humble.
In those early days, lightning and ultraviolet light from the Sun were breaking apart the simple hydrogen-
rich molecules of the primitive atmosphere, the fragments spontaneously recombining into more and more
complex molecules. The products of this early chemistry were dissolved in the oceans, forming a kind of
organic soup of gradually increasing complexity, until one day, quite by accident, a molecule arose that was
able to make crude copies of itself, using as building blocks other molecules in the soup. ... This was the
earliest ancestor of deoxyribonucleic acid, DNA, the master molecule of life on Earth. It is shaped like a
ladder twisted into a helix, the rungs available in four different molecular parts, which constitute the four
letters of the genetic code. These rungs, called nucleotides, spell out the hereditary instructions for making
a given organism. Every lifeform on Earth has a different set of instructions, written out in essentially the
same language. The reason organisms are different is the differences in their nucleic acid instructions. A
mutation is a change in a nucleotide, copied in the next generation, which breeds true. Since mutations are
random nucleotide changes, most of them are harmful or lethal, coding into existence nonfunctional
enzymes. It is a long wait before a mutation makes an organism work better. And yet it is that improbable
event, a small beneficial mutation in a nucleotide a ten-millionth of a centimeter across, that makes evolution
go. Four billion years ago, the Earth was a molecular Garden of Eden. There were as yet no predators. Some
molecules reproduced themselves inefficiently, competed for building blocks and left crude copies of
themselves. With reproduction, mutation and the selective elimination of the least efficient varieties,
evolution was well under way, even at the molecular level. As time went on, they got better at reproducing.
Molecules with specialized functions eventually joined together, making a kind of molecular collective-the
first cell." (Sagan, C.E., "Cosmos," [1980], Macdonald: London, Reprinted, 1981, pp.30-31. Emphasis original)
7/01/2007
"Finally, in 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick proposed a three-dimensional model for DNA that
provided insights into the way DNA could store information and be copied. A single molecule lay at the
heart of heredity. Many scientists found it irresistible after this discovery to place the gene at the center of
the life process, perhaps capable of life on its own. For example, Hermann J. Muller, the Nobel Prize-winning
geneticist who discovered the effect of radiation in causing mutations, wrote in 1966, `The "stripped down"
definition of a living thing offered here may be para phrased: that which possesses the potentiality of
evolving by natural selection. ... The gene material also, of natural materials, possesses these faculties and
it is therefore legitimate to call it living material, the present day representative of the first life.' [Muller, H.J.,
"The Gene Material as the Initiator and the Organizing Basis of Life," American Naturalist, Vol. 100, 1966,
pp.493-517] Astronomer Carl Sagan, as a graduate student, had earlier speculated on the possibility of `a
primitive freeliving naked gene situated in a dilute medium of organic matter.' [Sagan, C.E., "Radiation and
the Origin of the Gene," Evolution, Vol. 11, 1957, pp.40-55] Evolution then represented the extension of
the gene's ability to provide for its future. As Richard Dawkins argued in The Selfish Gene, the bodies of
animals are `survival machines' for the genes within them. [Dawkins, R., "The Selfish Gene," Oxford
University Press: New York, 1976]" (Shapiro, R., "Planetary Dreams: The Quest to Discover Life beyond
Earth," John Wiley & Sons: New York NY, 1999, pp.98-99. Emphasis original)
7/01/2007
"Looking for spiritual meaning within science is not a new idea. It was quite a popular intellectual activity in
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the period from Newton to Darwin. One of the best examples was
the previously mentioned Bridgewater Treatises of the 1830s. These works on natural theology were written
by eminent scientists with the purpose of showing evidence of the creator from a study of his creation. This
genre of literature had, at its core, a concept called the argument from design, which implies that we need
only examine the world around us to see that it must be the result of a creative intelligence rather than blind
chance. However, the early adherents of this viewpoint always carried their argument at least one step
further than its original logic and formed a chain of reasoning that went as follows: The observed world-
implies: a creative intelligence-implies: a creator-implies: the Judeo-Christian God-implies: the established
Church. Those scientists who rejected the second and third or fourth implications in the sequence threw out
the entire chain of reasoning, thus abandoning the first step, the argument from design, without giving it the
consideration it deserves." (Morowitz, H.J., "Cosmic Joy and Local Pain: Musings of a Mystic Scientist,"
Charles Scribner's Sons: New York NY, 1987, pp.99-100)
7/01/2007
"In 1913, however, fitness and design were reexamined from a new scientific perspective. Distinguished
Harvard professor of philosophy Lawrence J. Henderson wrote the profound and controversial book now
sitting in front of me. Some sixty-four years had passed since Charles Darwin's Origin of Species had
introduced the idea of `fitness' as the criterion of success in the struggle for survival. When new variations
arose in the plant or animal world, they multiplied or perished depending on whether they were more or less
adapted than the competition. Fitness was not an absolute concept but measured the relative survivals of
different biological variants in a given habitat, under given conditions. Generations of evolutionists had
already pointed out the somewhat circular nature of `survival of the fittest' as an argument for evolution, as
we often lack criteria other than survival to measure fitness. Nevertheless, Darwin's ideas provided a
unifying framework for biological thought, and by 1913 biology was thoroughly dominated by the theory of
evolution. Simultaneously with the rise and triumph of Darwinian evolution, physiology developed as a
sophisticated science, using the understanding of physics and chemistry to explain the mechanisms of
biological activity at every level. Henderson is a leader in that tradition. Indeed, some of his work on
biophysical chemistry is still referred to today. He took a fresh view of fitness in terms of the new knowledge
of physical chemistry and the ascendance of the atomic theory. He examined the argument from design, not
from a theological perspective but from deep within science, using the constructs of matter, energy, space,
and time. He wrote: `But although Darwin's fitness involves that which fits and that which is fitted, or more
correctly a reciprocal relationship, it has been the habit of biologists since Darwin to consider only the
adaptations of the living organism to the environment. For them in fact, the environment, in its past, present,
and future, has not been an independent variable, and it has not entered into any of the modern
speculations to consider if by chance the material universe also may be subjected to laws which are in the
largest sense important in organic evolution. Yet fitness there must be in environment as well as organism.'
[Henderson, L.J., "The Fitness of the Environment," [1913], Beacon Press: Boston MA, Reprinted, 1958,
pp.5-6]" (Morowitz, H.J., "Cosmic Joy and Local Pain: Musings of a Mystic Scientist," Charles Scribner's
Sons: New York NY, 1987, pp.100-101)
7/01/2007
"With a suddenness which to many seemed catastrophic Darwin's hypothesis of natural selection changed
the whole aspect of the problem. Law appeared as the basis of purpose just as it had appeared as the
basis of order, and adaptations became, in the judgment of most men, the necessary results of an
automatic process. To-day, after a half century, there is no longer room for doubt that the fitness of organic
beings for their life in the world has been won in whole or in part by an almost infinite series of adaptations
of life to its environment, whereby, through a corresponding series of transformations, present complexity
has grown out of former simplicity. The great and fruitful ideas which Darwin brought to the attention of the
whole world have long since been incorporated into human thought. Not the least important among them is
the new scientific concept of fitness, as it emerges from the discussion of natural selection. Before Darwin,
this concept possessed all the vagueness of an idea which, though in part founded on observation, was not
to be explained with the help of existing scientific theories. But although Darwin's fitness involves that
which fits and that which is fitted, or more correctly a reciprocal relationship, it has been the habit of
biologists since Darwin to consider only the adaptations of the living organism to the environment. For
them, in fact, the environment, in its past, present, and future, has been an independent variable, and it has
not entered into any of the modern speculations to consider if by chance the material universe also may be
subjected to laws which are in the largest sense important in organic evolution. Yet fitness there must be, in
environment as well as in the organism. How, for example, could man adapt his civilization to water power if
no water power existed within his reach?" (Henderson, L.J., "The Fitness of the Environment: An Inquiry
into the Biological Significance of the Properties of Matter," [1913], Beacon Press: Boston MA, Reprinted,
1958, pp.4-5. Emphasis original)
7/01/2007
"With new knowledge emerging in biology, physicotheology expanded into natural theology. In 1802,
William Paley, Archdeacon of Carlisle, authored a book on that subject. My reading was in the 1829
American edition of that book. Its title page bears the full message: NATURAL THEOLOGY or Evidence of
the Existence and Attributes of the DEITY Collected from the Appearances of Nature. Paley begins with the
thought "Suppose I found a watch on the ground." He argues that the watch, because it is so admirably
designed for a purpose, must have had a maker. In his words: `The inference, we think, is inevitable; that the
watch must have had a maker; that there must have existed, at some time and at some place or other, an
artificer or artificers, who formed it for the purpose which we find it actually to answer; who comprehended
its construction, and designed its use. There cannot be design without a designer.' This line of reasoning
has become known, using Paley's words, as the argument from design. After presenting the argument in
exhausting detail Paley goes on to document the design of mechanical parts of organisms, the human frame,
muscles, blood vessels, special structures, the relation of organisms to environment, insects, plants, the
physical world, and the solar system. The argument from design goes back to Aristotle's unmoved mover
but required the scientific advances of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to come to its full fruition."
(Morowitz, H.J., "Cosmic Joy and Local Pain: Musings of a Mystic Scientist," Charles Scribner's Sons: New
York NY, 1987, pp.293-294. Emphasis original)
7/01/2007
"Clearly no one can doubt that upon the properties of matter as determined by the periodic system, and
upon the relative amounts of the different elements, the actual process of cosmic evolution from nebula to
solar system is dependent. Hence, in accordance with the general method of science, we must assume that
the origin of environmental fitness lies at least as far back as the phenomena of the periodic system, at least
as far back as the evolution of the elements, if they were ever evolved." (Henderson, L.J., "The Fitness of
the Environment: An Inquiry into the Biological Significance of the Properties of Matter," [1913], Beacon
Press: Boston MA, Reprinted, 1958, pp.303-304)
7/01/2007
"If, then, cosmic evolution be pure mechanism and yet issue in fitness, why not organic evolution as well?
Mechanism is enough in physical science, which no less than biological science appears to manifest
teleology; it must therefore suffice in biology. ... What then becomes of fitness ? Clearly there are two
logical possibilities. Either there exists an unknown mechanistic explanation of that common issue of the
organic and cosmic evolutionary processes, or there does not. If such an explanation be possible, at least it
must be admitted that it is very hard to conceive. ... On the other hand, it is conceivable that a tendency
could work parallel with mechanism without interfering with it ... Although I have no intention of here
seeking a choice between these two hypotheses ... I do feel concerned to remove from the latter view, if I
may, some of the objections which are commonly raised against it in scientific circles ... It is evident that a
perfect mechanistic description of the building of a house may be conceived. Within the world of physical
science the whole process is logically complete without consideration of the architect's design and purpose.
Yet such design and purpose, whether or not in themselves of mechanistic origin, are at one and the same
time determining factors in the result, and nowise components of the physical process. Now it seems clear
that a similar effect of a tendency working steadily through the whole process of evolution is also at least
conceiveable ..." (Henderson, L.J., "The Fitness of the Environment: An Inquiry into the Biological
Significance of the Properties of Matter," [1913], Beacon Press: Boston MA, Reprinted, 1958, pp.305-307)
7/01/2007
"Whatever else it may achieve, mechanism can never explain, cannot even face the problem of the existence
of matter and energy. Within the world of science these are conserved; only outside that world can they
have originated or not originated. As for the existence of life, in spite of our utter ignorance, it must be
admitted that a half century has greatly diminished the number of substantial biologists who really look
forward to its scientific explanation, and the greatest chemists have ever shared such a view. Liebig is
reported by Lord Kelvin to have replied to the question whether he believed that a leaf or a flower could be
formed or could grow by chemical forces, `I would more readily believe that a book on chemistry or on
botany could grow out of dead matter.' [Kelvin, Lord., "On the Dissipation of Energy," Popular Lectures, Vol.
III, p. 464] Darwin, too, once said, "It is mere rubbish thinking at present of the origin of life; one might as
well think of the origin of matter." [Darwin, F., ed., "The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin," [1898], Basic
Books: New York NY, Vol. II., Reprinted, 1959, p.203] Since Liebig's day the chemical organization of the
cell has become in scientific knowledge vastly more complex than it was before, and I know of no biological
chemist to whom the spontaneous, that is to say, the mechanistic, origin of a cell is scientifically imaginable,
1 though all believe that once formed, cells exist as mechanisms in a mechanistic universe. Thus the chemist
puts his mind at rest regarding the existence of life, just as the physicist calms his regarding the existence of
matter, simply by turning his back on the problem." (Henderson, L.J., "The Fitness of the Environment: An
Inquiry into the Biological Significance of the Properties of Matter," [1913], Beacon Press: Boston MA,
Reprinted, 1958, pp.308-309)
7/01/2007
"I cannot hope to have provided more than a very imperfect illumination of certain aspects of teleology in
this venture upon the foreign field of metaphysics, and I should wish to be understood as very doubtful of
my success in stating what seem to me some of the philosophical conclusions to be drawn from the fitness
of the environment. There is, however, one scientific conclusion which I wish to put forward as a positive
and, I trust, fruitful outcome of the present investigation. The properties of matter and the course of cosmic
evolution are now seen to be intimately related to the structure of the living being and to its activities; they
become, therefore, far more important in biology than has been previously suspected. For the whole
evolutionary process, both cosmic and organic, is one, and the biologist may now rightly regard the
universe in its very essence as biocentric. (Henderson, L.J., "The Fitness of the Environment: An Inquiry
into the Biological Significance of the Properties of Matter," [1913], Beacon Press: Boston MA, Reprinted,
1958, pp.312)
7/01/2007
"In the early 1900s, Lawrence J. Henderson revived the argument from design within his perceptive work
The Fitness of the Environment. He did not actually talk about design; rather, he noted: `There is,
however, one scientific conclusion which I wish to put forward as a positive and, I trust, fruitful outcome of
the present investigation. The properties of matter and the course of cosmic evolution are now seen to be
intimately related to the structure of the living being and to its activities; they become, therefore, far more
important in biology than has been previously suspected. For the whole evolutionary process, both cosmic
and organic, is one, and the biologist may now rightly regard the universe in its very essence as biocentric.'
[Henderson, L.J., "The Fitness of the Environment: An Inquiry into the Biological Significance of the
Properties of Matter," [1913], Beacon Press: Boston MA, Reprinted, 1958, p.312] ... In any case, design was
back in the arena and periodically appeared in the writings of aging scientists, who, freed from the idylls of
the marketplace, could state their philosophical views without fear of peer pressure." (Morowitz, H.J.,
"Cosmic Joy and Local Pain: Musings of a Mystic Scientist," Charles Scribner's Sons: New York NY, 1987,
p.295)
7/01/2007
"In 1979 Freeman Dyson attacked head-on a reexamination of design in light of the science of our time. His
brief essay on theology occurs within a book appropriately titled Disturbing the Universe. Dyson is a
prominent physicist and astrophysicist, and I think it came as a surprise to the scientific community when
his book contained a chapter entitled `The Argument from Design.' He points out that many of the pre-
Darwinian discussions of design focused on the biological world and the functional perfection of living
structures. ... This path eventually led to the already discussed philosophical excesses of Jacques Monod's
Chance and Necessity. Dyson takes on Monod ... `Jacques Monod has a word for people who think as I
do and for whom he reserves his deepest scorn. He calls us `animists,' believers in spirits. `Animism,' he
says, `established a covenant between nature and man, a profound alliance outside of which seems to
stretch only terrifying solitude. Must we break this tie because the postulate of objectivity requires it?'
[Monod, J., "Chance and Necessity," [1971], Penguin: London, Reprinted, 1997, p.31] Monod answers yes:
'This ancient covenant is in pieces; man knows at last that he is alone in the universe's unfeeling immensity,
out of which he emerged only by chance.' [Monod, Ibid, p.31] I answer no. I believe in the covenant. It is
true that we emerged in the universe by chance, but the idea of chance is itself only a cover for our
ignorance. I do not feel like an alien in this universe. The more I examine the universe and study the details
of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known that we were
coming.' [Dyson, F.J., "Disturbing the Universe," Harper & Row: New York NY, 1979, pp.249-250]"
(Morowitz, H.J., "Cosmic Joy and Local Pain: Musings of a Mystic Scientist," Charles Scribner's Sons: New
York NY, 1987, pp.296-297)
7/01/2007
"Dyson points to the role of mind in the domain of physics. He notes that there is just the right balance
between the attractiveness of nuclear forces and the repulsion of the like charges of nucleons. If the
repulsive forces were larger, nuclei could not exist. If the attractive forces were greater, all the protons of the
universe would have been tied up in diprotons and all the hydrogen reactions that fuel the nuclear
chemistry of the universe could not have taken place. The actual fusion reactions of hydrogen in the sun
depend on what physicists call the weak interaction. It controls the rate of fusion: much stronger and the
stars would burn up too fast, much slower and they would be too cold. [Dyson, F.J., "Disturbing the
Universe," Harper & Row: New York NY, 1979, p.250] Dyson goes on to point out that organic chemistry
(and by extension biochemistry) depends on a delicate balance between electrical and quantum mechanical
forces that come about because of the exclusion principle. [Dyson, Ibid., p.251] The thrust of Dyson's
approach is very much in the mode of Henderson's, except that he adds mind, the immanent mind quality of
the universe, as a further feature of design." [Dyson, Ibid., pp.251-252] (Morowitz, H.J., "Cosmic Joy and
Local Pain: Musings of a Mystic Scientist," Charles Scribner's Sons: New York NY, 1987, pp.296-297.
Emphasis original)
7/01/2007
"In the preceding chapters we, too, have looked at the workings of the biological and geological universes
and have been impressed with how well the microscopic and macroscopic aspects come together. Like
Dyson and Henderson and Teilhard, I find it hard not to see design in a universe that works so well. Each
new scientific discovery seems to reinforce that vision of design. As I like to say to my friends, the universe
works much better than we have any right to expect. (Morowitz, H.J., "Cosmic Joy and Local Pain: Musings
of a Mystic Scientist," Charles Scribner's Sons: New York NY, 1987, pp.297-298
8/01/2007
"Beginnings of life ... The first and perhaps the easiest stage was the change from inorganic to organic -
from the gases which presumably surrounded Earth at that time (hydrogen, ammonia, methane, etc.) to the
simplest amino acids, containing about ten atoms, which are the most basic of the biochemical universals.
Experimentally, Stanley Miller in the United States showed in 1953 that by passing an electrical discharge
(in real life, perhaps a bolt of lightning) through the appropriate gases, quite surprisingly large amounts of
amino acids were formed. The experiments are acknowledged as a major breakthrough in our understanding
of how life got under way, and since then other essential chemicals have been synthesized. Today, five of
the twenty amino acids common to us all still resist attempts to create them artificially under anything like
plausible conditions, and critics have pointed to the 'oxygen-ultraviolet conundrum' that is still not resolved
... A summary paper in Nature concluded bleakly that the chances of finding significant concentrations of
organic chemicals in any prebiotic 'soups' so far imagined were vanishingly small: '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.' [Hull, D.E., "Thermodynamics and
Kinetics of Spontaneous Generation," Nature, Vol. 186, May 28, 1960, pp.693-694, p.694]" (Hitching,
F., "The Neck of the Giraffe: Or Where Darwin Went Wrong," Pan: London, 1982, pp.63-64. Emphasis
original).
8/01/2007
"One slow afternoon in the late 1970s I was hanging out in my lab at the National Institutes of Health near
Washington, D.C., where I worked as a postdoctoral researcher investigating aspects of DNA structure. A
fellow postdoc, Joanne Nickol, and I were chewing the fat about the big questions: God, life, the
universethat sort of thing. She and I were both Roman Catholics (Joanne's brother was a priest) and so had
the same general attitude toward many topics. That included an easy acceptance of the idea of evolution,
that life unfolded over a long time under the governance of secondary causes, natural laws. Unlike some
Protestant friends of mine who seemed obsessed by it, we Catholics were always cool about evolution,
because we knew that God could make life any way he wanted to, including indirectly. Who were we to tell
him differently? The critical point was that God was the Creator of life, no matter how he went about it. The
course of Joanne's and my conversation in the lab hit a little snag. Because we were taught biology well in
parochial school, we both knew that the evidence for Darwinian evolution by natural selection was ultra
strong. But when the topic turned to the origin of life she asked, `Well, what would you need to get the first
cell?' `You'd need a membrane for sure,' said I. `And metabolism.' `Can't do without a genetic code,' said she,
`and proteins.' At that point we stopped, looked at each other and, in unison, hollered `Naaaahh!' Then we
laughed and went back to work. From a distance of years I notice three things about my conversation with
Joanne (who died about a decade ago). The first is that the notion, widely accepted among scientists, that
undirected physical laws started life, struck both of us-both well-trained young scientists who would be
happy to accept it-as preposterous because of the many complicated preconditions necessary just to get
things underway. Second, we apparently hadn't given it much thought before then. And third, we both just
shrugged it off and went back to work. I suppose we were thinking that even if we didn't know how life
started by natural processes, surely somebody must know. Or that somebody would figure it out before
long. Or eventually. Or that it wasn't important. Or something." (Behe, M.J.*, "From Muttering to Mayhem:
How Phillip Johnson Got Me Moving," in Dembski, W.A., ed., "Darwin's Nemesis: Phillip Johnson and the
Intelligent Design Movement," InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove IL, 2000, pp.40-41)
9/01/2007
"If Hodge's and Patton's endorsement of evolution was ultimately tentative, B.B. Warfield was decidedly
more partisan. By his own admission a `Darwinian of the purest water' [Warfield, B.B., "Personal Reflections
of Princeton Undergraduate Life," The Princeton Alumni Weekly, 6 April 1916, pp. 650-53] .... It goes
without saying that Warfield's endorsement of Darwin was not unqualified, however. He held that any
scientific theory that in principle subverted providence or occasional supernatural interference must
ultimately prove unacceptable. But within those limits, Warfield, in pointed contrast to both of the Hodges,
said he would `raise no question as to the compatibility of the Darwinian form of the hypothesis of
evolution with Christianity.' [Warfield, B.B., `Charles Darwin's Religious Life: A Sketch in Spiritual
Biography,' in Studies in Theology Oxford University Press: New York, 1932, p.548] The context of this
particular ratification of Darwin's theory is itself important, for it shows Warfield's capacity to distinguish
central issues from peripheral issues. He made the statement in an article entitled `Charles Darwin's Religious
Life,' in which he reviewed the three-volume Life and Letters of Charles Darwin. As the subtitle `A Sketch
in Spiritual Biography' suggests, Warfield focused on what has come to be known as Darwin's `affective
decline'-that is, his increasing distaste for art, music, literature, and religion. Warfield certainly lamented the
spiritually disruptive effects of the theory of evolution on its chief advocate, and he expressed his
annoyance at Darwin's absolutist claims for his natural selection mechanism. But this must not be allowed to
conceal the fact that Warfield remained enthusiastic about the theory as a natural law operating under the
control of Providence an interpretation supported in various ways, he noted, by such scientists as
Carpenter, Dallinger, and Gray. Warfield held that Darwin's aesthetic atrophy and spiritual disaffection could
be traced on the one hand to an inability to conceive of God as immanent in the universe (which resulted in
a misapprehension of the doctrine of Providence) and on the other hand to an unsophisticated
understanding of teleology. It was Warfield's concern, therefore, to articulate a theological defense of divine
design and providential government of the world in evolutionary terms." (Livingstone, D.N.*, "Darwin's
Forgotten Defenders: The Encounter between Evangelical Theology and Evolutionary Thought," Eerdmans:
Grand Rapids MI, 1987, pp.115-117)
9/01/2007
"In the book of Genesis (43:33) we read of a lord of Egypt who entertained eleven men who were brothers.
The men, so the story goes, `marvelled one with another' when they found themselves seated at table in the
exact order of their ages. Let us seek to face the question: why was it that they marvelled? For answer we
can only say that such an event seemed to contradict one of the basic ideas entailed in `common sense.' The
men had never heard of the laws of probability, of entropy, or of the second law of thermodynamics, but
they rightly suspected that the long arm of coincidence would hardly have arranged them in just that way.
Somehow, they guessed that intelligence was at work, though to all appearances this could hardly have
been the case. In the end, so it would seem, they decided to trust to appearances instead of intuition.
Nevertheless, they soon learned that their intuition had not deceived them. The idea, in short, is simply this.
Order does not arise of its own accord; it does not come out of nothing, and we must not explain it away by
chance. On the other hand order is easily lost spontaneously." (Clark, R.E.D.*, "Darwin: Before & After: An
Examination and Assessment," [1948], Paternoster: London, Reprint, 1966, pp.148-149)
10/01/2007
"False Negatives and False Positives ... All criteria, and not just medical tests, face the problem of false
positives and false negatives. ... When the medical test classifies an individual who doesn't have the disease
with those who do, it commits a false positive. When the medical test classifies an individual who does have
the disease with those who do not, it commits a false negative. Let us now apply these observations to the
complexity-specification criterion. This criterion purports to detect design. Is it a reliable criterion? The
target group for this criterion comprises all things intelligently caused. How accurate is this criterion at
correctly assigning things to this target group and correctly omitting things from it? The things we are
trying to explain have causal stories. In some of those causal stories intelligent causation is indispensable,
whereas in others it is dispensable. An inkblot can be explained without appealing to intelligent causation;
ink arranged to form meaningful text cannot. When the complexity-specification criterion assigns something
to the target group, can we be confident that it actually is intelligently caused? If not, we have a problem
with false positives. On the other hand, when this criterion fails to assign something to the target group, can
we be confident that no intelligent cause underlies it? If not, we have a problem with false negatives.
Consider first the problem of false negatives. When the complexityspecification criterion fails to detect
design in a thing, can we be sure no intelligent cause underlies it? The answer is no. For determining that
something is not designed, this criterion is not reliable. False negatives are a problem for it. This problem of
false negatives, however, is endemic to detecting intelligent causes. One difficulty is that intelligent causes
can mimic necessity and chance, thereby rendering their actions indistinguishable from such unintelligent
causes. A bottle of ink may fall off a cupboard and spill onto a sheet of paper. Alternatively a human agent
may deliberately take a bottle of ink and pour it over a sheet of paper. The resulting inkblot may look
identical in both instances, but the one case results by chance, the other by design. Another difficulty is
that detecting intelligent causes requires background knowledge on our part. It takes an intelligent cause to
know an intelligent cause. But if we don't know enough, we'll miss it. ... The problem of false negatives
therefore arises either when an intelligent agent has acted (whether consciously or unconsciously) to
conceal one's actions or when an intelligent agent in trying to detect design has insufficient background
knowledge to determine whether design actually is present. ... Intelligent causes can do things that
unintelligent causes cannot and can make their actions evident. When for whatever reason an intelligent
cause fails to make its actions evident, we may miss it. But when an intelligent cause succeeds in making its
actions evident, we take notice. This is why false negatives do not invalidate the complexity-specification
criterion. This criterion is fully capable of detecting intelligent causes intent on making their presence
evident. Masters of stealth intent on concealing their actions may successfully evade the criterion. But
masters of self-promotion intent on making sure their intellectual property gets properly attributed find in
the complexity-specification criterion a ready friend. This brings us to the problem of false positives. Even
though specified complexity is not a reliable criterion for eliminating design, it is, I shall argue, a reliable
criterion for detecting design. The complexity-specification criterion is a net. Things that are designed will
occasionally slip past the net. We would prefer that the net catch more than it does, omitting nothing due to
design. But given the ability of design to mimic unintelligent causes and the possibility of our own
ignorance passing over things that are designed, this problem cannot be fixed. Nevertheless we want to be
very sure that whatever the net does catch includes only what we intend it to catch-things that are
designed. Only things that are designed had better end up in the net. If this is the case, we can have
confidence that whatever the complexity-specification criterion attributes to design is indeed designed. On
the other hand, if things end up in the net that are not designed, the criterion will be worthless." (Dembski
W.A., "Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology," InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove
IL, 1999, pp.139-141. Emphasis original)
10/01/2007
"The Explanatory Filter is a criterion for deciding when something is intelligently caused and when it isn't.
Does it decide this question reliably? As with any criterion, we need to make sure that whatever judgments
the criterion renders correspond to reality. ... Any medical test is a criterion. A perfectly reliable medical test
would detect the presence of a disease whenever it is indeed present, and fail to detect the disease
whenever it is absent. Unfortunately, no medical test is perfectly reliable, and so the best we can do is keep
the proportion of false positives and false negatives as low as possible. All criteria, and not just medical
tests, face the problem of false positives and false negatives. ... A medical test checks whether an individual
has a certain disease. The target group comprises all those individuals who actually have the disease. When
the medical test classifies an individual who doesn't have the disease with those who do, it commits a false
positive. When the medical test classifies an individual who does have the disease with those who do not, it
commits a false negative. When the Explanatory Filter fails to detect design in a thing, can we be sure no
intelligent cause underlies it? The answer to this question is No. For determining that something is not
designed, the Explanatory Filter is not a reliable criterion. False negatives are a problem for the Explanatory
Filter. This problem of false negatives, however, is endemic to detecting intelligent causes. One difficulty is
that intelligent causes can mimic law and chance, thereby rendering their actions indistinguishable from
these unintelligent causes. It takes an intelligent cause to know an intelligent cause, but if we don't know
enough, we'll miss it. Intelligent causes can do things that unintelligent causes cannot, and can make their
actions evident. When for whatever reason an intelligent cause fails to make its actions evident, we may
miss it. But when an intelligent cause succeeds in making its actions evident, we take notice. This is why
false negatives do not invalidate the Explanatory Filter. The Explanatory Filter is fully capable of detecting
intelligent causes intent on making their presence evident. And this brings us to the problem of false
positives. Even though the Explanatory Filter is not a reliable criterion for eliminating design, it is, I argue, a
reliable criterion for detecting design. The Explanatory Filter is a net. Things that are designed will
occasionally slip past the net. We would prefer that the net catch more than it does, omitting nothing due to
design. But given the ability of design to mimic unintelligent causes and the possibility of our own
ignorance passing over things that are designed, this problem cannot be fixed. Nevertheless, we want to be
very sure that whatever the net does catch includes only what we intend it to catch, to wit, things that are
designed. I argue that the explanatory filter is a reliable criterion for detecting design. Alternatively, I argue
that the Explanatory Filter successfully avoids false positives. Thus whenever the Explanatory Filter
attributes design, it does so correctly." (Dembski W.A., "The Explanatory Filter: A three-part filter for
understanding how to separate and identify cause from intelligent design," An excerpt from a paper
presented at the 1996 Mere Creation conference, [Biola University, Los Angeles, November 14-17, 1996]
originally titled "Redesigning Science.")
10/01/2007
How likely was it, given a soup of one sort or another that a system arose spontaneously which could
evolve by natural selection? Here we face formidable problems. What ever happened during those early
times, we can be sure that the primitive system had eventually to evolve fairly smoothly into the present
one, based on nucleic acid for replication an protein synthesis for action. We cannot be sure that the earliest
evolving system was not embodied in something quite different, which set the stage for the present one.
Even if this was not the case, and the first replicating system contained some elements of the one we have
today, we have no evidence whether nucleic acid came first, or protein came first, or whether both evolved
together. My own prejudice is that nucleic acid (probably RNA) came first, closely followed by a simple form
of protein synthesis. This seems to me the easiest route to follow, but even this appears fraught with
difficulties. Phosphate was probably common and the sugar ribose (which contains no nitrogen) could have
easily been made under certain special conditions, because formaldehyde (HCHO) is known to be one of the
most common prebiotic chemicals. However, a rather different set of conditions would have been required
for the synthesis of the bases, such as adenine, which do contain nitrogen. Then there is the problem of
linking the sugar to both the phosphate and the base in the correct way (and several incorrect ways are
possible) and then activating this compound (called a nucleotide), possibly by joining on a further
phosphate or two to provide the energy needed to link two nucleotides together. This operation, if repeated,
would lead to the chain molecule we call RNA. It is not easy to see how this could happen in a mixture of
other, rather similar compounds without the frequent incorporation of incorrect molecules in the chain
unless there were some rather specific catalyst present. This conceivably could be a mineral or even some
peptide produced by the random aggregation of amino acids, but if so this has not been demonstrated in a
convincing way. Even if such a process did occur, if only in one particular pool at one particular time, it
would only yield RNA with a rather random base-sequence." (Crick, F.H.C., "Life Itself: Its Origin and
Nature," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, 1981, pp.80-81)
10/01/2007
"Protein Production as an Improbability Problem The problem of assembling the amino acid building
blocks into functional protein can also be illustrated using probability and statistics. To simplify the
problem, one may assume the probability of getting an L-amino acid (versus a D-amino acid) to be 50
percent and the probability of joining two such amino acids with a peptide bond to also be 50 percent. The
probability of getting the right amino acid in a particular position may be assumed to be 5 percent, assuming
equal concentration of all twenty amino acids in the prebiotic soup The first two assumptions are realistic,
while the third would be too low for some amino acids and too high for others. Neglecting the problem of
reactions with non-amino acid chemical species, the probability of getting everything right in placing one
amino acid would be 0.5 x 0.5 x .05 = .0125. The probability of properly assembling N such amino acids
would be .0125 x .0125 x ... continued for N terms of .0125. If a functional protein had one hundred active
sites, the probability of getting a proper assembly would be .0125 multiplied times itself one hundred times,
or 4.9 x 10-191. Such improbabilities have led essentially all scientists who work in the field to reject
random, accidental assembly or fortuitous good luck as an explanation for how life began. If we assume that
all carbon on earth exists in the form of amino acids and that the amino acids are allowed to chemically react
at the maximum possible rate of 1012/s for one billion years (the greatest possible time between the cooling
of the earth and the appearance of life), we must still conclude that it is incredibly improbable (~10-65) that
even one functional protein would be made, as H. P. Yockey has pointed out.46 [Yockey, "A Calculation of
the Probability of Spontaneous Biogenesis by Information Theory," Journal of Theoretical Biology, Vol.
67, 1981, p. 377] D. Kenyon and G. Steinman and Sir Fredrick Hoyle come to similar conclusions, with the
latter commenting, "The current scenario of the origin of life is about as likely as the assemblage of a 747 by
a tornado whirling through a junkyard." [Hoyle F., "The Intelligent Universe," Michael Joseph: London,
1983, p.19] (Bradley, W.L*. & Thaxton, C.B.*, "Information & the Origin of Life," in Moreland, J.P., ed., "The
Creation Hypothesis: Scientific Evidence for an Intelligent Designer," InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove IL,
1994, pp.190-191)
10/01/2007
"Two of his reasons involve the origin of life-the calculated time since the origin of the Universe of 10,000
million years or so is not enough to account for the evolution of living forms, while adiabatic expansion of
the Universe would have been inimical to the evolution of highly ordered forms. ... The essence of his
argument last week was that the information content of the higher forms of life is represented by the number
1040 000 - representing the specificity with which some 2,000 genes, each of which might be chosen from
1020 nucleotide sequences of the appropriate length, might be defined. Evolutionary processes would,
Hoyle said, require several Hubble times to yield such a result. The chance that higher life forms might have
emerged in this way is comparable with the chance that `a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might
assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein'. ... Of adherents of biological evolution, Hoyle said he was
at a loss to understand `biologists' widespread compulsion to deny what seems to me to be obvious'."
(Hoyle, F., in "Hoyle on evolution," Nature, Vol. 294, 12 November 1981, p.105).
10/01/2007
"We are now ready to handle the chances for the spontaneous generation of a bacterium. ... Many scientists
have attempted such calculations; we need cite only two of them to make the point. The first was provided
by Sir Fred Hoyle, whose ideas we shall discuss in detail later in the book. He and his colleague, N. C.
Wickramasinghe, first endorsed spontaneous generation, then abruptly reversed their position. Why did
they do this? Quite obviously, they calculated the odds. Rather than estimate the chances for an entire
bacterium, they considered only the set of functioning enzymes present in one. Their starting point was not
a complex mixture, but rather the set of twenty L-form amino acids that are used to construct biological
enzymes. If amino acids were selected at random from this set one at a time and arranged in order, what
would be the chances that this process would produce an actual bacterial product? For a typical enzyme of
200 amino acids, the odds would be obtained by multiplying the probability for each amino acid, 1 in 20,
together 200 times. The result, 1 in 10120, places us on floor 120 of the Tower of Numbers, immensely
higher than the level where we find the number of trials. Things need not be that bad, however. What
matters is the function of the enzyme, rather than the exact order of amino acids within it. A large number of
amino acid sequences might provide enzymes with the proper function. With this in mind, Hoyle and
Wickramasinghe estimated that the chances of obtaining an enzyme of the appropriate type at random were
`only' 1 in 1020. To duplicate a bacterium, however, one would have to assemble 2,000 different functioning
enzymes. The odds against this event would be 1 in 1020 multiplied together 2,000 times, or 1 in 1040,000.
This particular item would then be available on floor 40,000 of the Tower of Numbers. If we consider that the
number of trials brought us only to the fifty-first floor, we can understand why Hoyle changed his mind. His
estimate of the likelihood of the event was that it was comparable to the chance that `a tornado sweeping
through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein.' [Hoyle, F., in "Hoyle on
evolution," Nature, Vol. 294, 12 November 1981, p.105] In fact, things are much worse. A tidy set of
twenty amino acids, all in the L-form, was not likely to be available on the early earth. This situation has not
even been approached by the very best Miller-Urey experiments. Nor does a set of enzymes constitute a
living bacterium." (Shapiro, R., "Origins: A Skeptic's Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth," Summit Books:
New York NY, 1986, pp.125,127-128)
11/01/2007
"In general, the [Neo-Darwinian modern] synthesis has ignored speciation when it has confronted the
larger-scale phenomena of macroevolution, preferring to see such patterns as trends, adaptive radiations,
and the like as merely a wholesale accumulation of conventional Darwinian adaptive change (see Eldredge
and Cracraft 1980 for a more extensive discussion of such macroevolutionary theory). What we have, then,
are two ships passing in the night. The hold of one is crammed with phenomena either ignored (ecology,
developmental biology) or only vaguely addressed (species, monophyletic groups, the molecular anatomy
of the gene), while the other ship bears an explanatory theory only alleged to be relevant to such
phenomena. In the popular parlance of contemporary philosophy of science (as seen at least by some
scientists), such a situation renders much of evolutionary theory untestable. There is simply no way to
evaluate a statement about fossils that is written in the language of genetics." (Eldredge, N., "Unfinished
Synthesis: Biological Hierarchies and Modern Evolutionary Thought," Oxford University Press: New York NY,
1985, p.120. Emphasis original)
11/01/2007
"The major classes of biomolecules have identical functions in all species of cells. The nucleic acids serve
universally to store and transmit genetic information. In all cells the proteins are the direct products and
effectors of gene action. Some have specific catalytic activity and function as enzymes; others serve as
structural elements. Proteins are the most versatile class of macromolecules .... The polysaccharides have
two major functions in all cells. Some, e.g., starch, serve as storage forms of energy-yielding fuel for cell
activity, and others, e.g., cellulose, serve as extracellular structural elements. The lipids in turn also play the
same roles in all cells, either as major structural components of membranes or as a storage form of energy-
rich fuel. One other point requires comment. There is an important and fundamental difference between the
nucleic acids and proteins on the one hand and the polysaccharides and lipids on the other .... Nucleic acids
and proteins are informational macromolecules. Each nucleic acid molecule contains four or more types of
nucleotides arranged in a specific information-rich sequence. Similarly, each protein molecule contains a
specific information-rich sequence of some 20 different amino acids. On the other hand, the polysaccharides
and lipids do not have an information-carrying function. For example, the recurring building blocks of
polysaccharides either are all identical, as in starch, a polymer of glucose, or they consist of regularly
alternating building-block components." (Lehninger, A.L., "Biochemistry: The Molecular Basis of Cell
Structure and Function," [1970], Worth Publishers: New York NY, Second Edition, 1975, Sixth Printing, 1981,
p.20. Emphasis original)
11/01/2007
"Since peptide bonds are thermodynamically unstable in aqueous solutions, once a primitive proteinoid
arose, it would be highly susceptible to hydrolytic breakdown in the warm primordial sea. Thus no single
proteinoid molecule could be expected to survive for long. This fact raises a fundamental problem. It is
difficult to see how any given proteinoid could have undergone residue-by-residue evolutionary
improvement to an amino acid sequence better able to survive if each proteinoid molecule lasted but a short
period and if there were no means of recording or replicating the amino acid sequence of the `better'
proteinoids." (Lehninger, A.L., "Biochemistry: The Molecular Basis of Cell Structure and Function," [1970],
Worth Publishers: New York NY, Second Edition, 1975, Sixth Printing, 1981, p.1041)
11/01/2007
"Attractive as these ideas might at first appear, they are subject to some major questions. The most crucial
one is the origin of the genetic code. Apart from the fact that all hydrophobic amino acids are coded by
triplets whose second base is U, there is little evidence that the coding triplets (page 962) bear any steric or
chemical relationship to the amino acids for which they code. Model-building experiments have simply not
revealed a satisfactory picture of the molecular correspondence between amino acids and their codons. For
this reason it has been proposed that the genetic code is the result of a `frozen accident.' It is this step in
the molecular evolution of the genetic system for which there is yet no satisfactory model or theory. Indeed,
Crick and Orgel have pointed out that it is not beyond reasonable possibility that genes and the genetic
code may have been brought to earth by spaceship from some other body in the universe where intelligent
life had already evolved. This is a throwback to the old hypothesis of `Panspermia,' postulated at the turn
of the twentieth century by the Swedish chemist S. Arrhenius, who proposed that life began on earth from
seeds or sperm wafted from the outer reaches of the universe by celestial winds. Of course this idea is no
answer to the problem, since one must then explain how life arose elsewhere."
(Lehninger, A.L., "Biochemistry: The Molecular Basis of Cell Structure and Function," [1970], Worth
Publishers: New York NY, Second Edition, 1975, Sixth Printing, 1981, pp.1052)
11/01/2007
"But the most striking of all the interlinked events which have led to the incredibly complex biological
organisms we know today still remains at the divide where chemical evolution ends and biological
evolution begins. Why and under what conditions does an ensemble of organic compounds become a
self-organizing self-replicating system? The laws of chemistry and physics we know today do not
forbid self-organization of matter; however, they provide no easy explanation for it. Our greatest task is
to formulate in precise terms the molecular logic of self-organizing and self-replicating systems of
organic compounds." (Lehninger, A.L., "Biochemistry: The Molecular Basis of Cell Structure and
Function," [1970], Worth Publishers: New York NY, Second Edition, 1975, Sixth Printing, 1981, p.1054.
Emphasis original)
11/01/2007
"Primitive cell-like structures may have formed by the process of coacervation or by micelle formation driven
by hydrophobic interactions, the tendency of the surrounding water molecules to seek the position of
maximum entropy. A. I. Oparin has postulated the formation of coacervate droplets composed of polymers,
into which primitive catalysts may have been incorporated. More recently S. W. Fox has described
proteinoid microspheres, which exhibit many aspects of cell-like behavior. Such structures were visualized
as developing in the absence of nucleic acids, which may have been acquired later. The other general
hypothesis is that a primitive gene was required before proteins were added, an idea supported by the
structure of modern viruses, the general importance of nucleotides in modern biochemistry, and the capacity
for self-replication. In either case, some means for recording or coding and thus self-replication was
required, as well as the capacity for further evolution. Development of the genetic code may have been the
basic event in the origin of life. At the center of the problem is the process of self-organization of matter."
(Lehninger, A.L., "Biochemistry: The Molecular Basis of Cell Structure and Function," [1970], Worth
Publishers: New York NY, Second Edition, 1975, Sixth Printing, 1981, p.1055)
12/01/2007
"What if We Are Alone? The most common argument that I have seen advanced against the proposition that
we are alone in the galaxy is that it is anti-Copernican, and, therefore, goes against five centuries of Western
intellectual tradition. There are a number of retorts that can be made against this argument. First, ideas are not
Copernican or anti-Copernican; they are right or wrong. Second, after so many impeccably Copernican books
have been written showing that we must be very junior and unimportant members of the Galactic Club, it is time
for someone to marshal the rather formidable arguments that can be made for the opposite viewpoint. For, as we
have seen in this book, the evidence we have at present clearly favors the conclusion that we are alone. From the
formation of the sun as a single G star to the evolution of the earth's atmosphere to the conditions of the earth's
recent climate, everything points to the same conclusion-we are special. But we are living on an insignificant
speck of rock going around an undistinguished star in a low-rent section of the galaxy. We are not the center of
the universe. Maybe so, but we are special. But we share our biochemistry with millions of life forms, from
flatworms on up. We are one member of a large family of animals using one particular variant of carbon chemistry
known as DNA. Maybe so, but we are special. Why? Because on this particular bit of rock, circling this particular
sun, all of the millions of factors happened to work themselves out so that the first fragile molecules had enough
time to form complicated chains, and these chains were given just the right amount of protection to form simple
living systems, and these living systems changed their environment in just the right way so as to narrowly
escape twin catastrophes and put oxygen into the atmosphere. This in turn allowed life to emerge onto land, and
since the planet's orbit was just right, the weather changed, forcing the apelike creatures on the African
savannah to build tools, fashion shelters, and start to think about the world around them. Because only on this
insignificant speck of rock have beings evolved who can look at the universe and ask the question, `Why?' If I
were a religious man, I would say that everything we have learned about life in the past twenty years shows that
we are unique, and therefore special in God's sight. Instead I shall say that what we have learned shows that it
matters a great deal what happens to us. We are not the snail darters of the galaxy-one more life form whose
ultimate fate is of little moment in the grand scheme of things. If we succeed in destroying ourselves, it will be a
tragedy not only for the human race but for the entire galaxy, which will have lost the fruit of a 15-billion-year
experiment in the formation of sentient life." (Trefil, J.S., in Rood, R.T. & Trefil, J.S., "Are We Alone?: The
Possibility of Extraterrestrial Civilizations," Charles Scribner's Sons: New York NY, 1981, pp.251-252. Emphasis
original)
12/01/2007
"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)
12/01/2007
"Australia's Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI), based at the University of Western Sydney
Macarthur campus in Campbelltown, is attempting to answer one of humanity's oldest, and mos