Video: David Berlinski Critiques Darwinian Theory

http://www.tangle.com/view_video?viewkey=1ca11f31ea13123dd125

Scientists Calculate Maximum Number of Imaginary Universes Possible

Two scientists “have calculated the number of all possible universes” according to this article in physorg.com. An impressive equation enhances the article. The answer is: 10 to the 10 to the 16 universes are out there, even though we’ve never seen them and cannot see them. “If that number sounds large, the scientists explain that it would have been even more humongous, except that we observers are limited in our ability to distinguish more universes” otherwise it could be a whopping 10^10^10^7. This completely refutes the idea that it could be to the 10^10^10^8th. This is extremely important for the task of counting imaginary universes — certainly a great benefit to humanity.

Scientists Calculate Maximum Number of Imaginary Universes Possible

Cortical Inheritance: Darwinism was Refuted over 50 years ago

Mysterious dark force is shuffling dark stuff around that may not exist.

PhysOrg reported on a scientist’s idea that “an unknown force is acting on dark matter,” which, by definition, is also unknown. A team at U of St. Andrews “believes that the interactions between dark and ordinary matter could be more important and more complex than previously thought, and even speculate that dark matter might not exist and that the anomalous motions of stars in galaxies are due to a modification of gravity on extragalactic scales.”

Anti-Darwinian Snippets

‘Origin of Speeches’ says Edenic language is programmed in our brains

Edenics is a linguistics project undertaken to study the original human mother tongue called Edenic, the language given to Adam in the garden of Eden. Mozeson is the leader of a group of scholars working on Edenics.

Mozeson’s book provides many interesting examples of global cognates and shows their potential relationship to Biblical Hebrew, which he believes is the surviving language closest to the original Edenic.

However, on a more substantive level, one of Mozeson’s key premises flies in the face of conventional linguistic theory, which maintains that words are for the most part arbitrary. Most linguists recognize that humans are innately programmed for language, but they maintain that the words themselves are essentially arbitrary sounds that have arisen and developed over time.

Mozeson, however, asserts that the Edenic program in the human brain naturally inclines humans to assign certain meanings to certain sounds.

One of the things devotees of the Darwin Mythos frequently hyperventilate about …

So who is this year’s winner? Which advocate of science and reason has done the most lately to “advocate increased scientific knowledge”. Why, Bill Maher, of course! You know, Bill Maher who tells us that germ theory is bunk, who says vaccination is a fraud, who knows more than the whole medical community about the illusion we call “AIDS”, who is a vocal and dangerous advocate of all manner of scientific quackery. That’s the guy the Apostle of Reason and Science Richard Dawkins selected to receive his prize. Why? Because he’s a noisy atheist and that’s all that matters.

Naturally, of course, PZ Myers makes excuses, cuz he’s all about science and reason. But some aren’t drinking the Kool-Aid and have a number of pertinent questions for the Great Apostle of Science and Reason.

What cracks me up about all this is that, quite simply, nobody will ever die from thinking God created the universe or having some doubts about the proposition that hydrogen is a substance which, if you leave it alone for 13.5 billion years, will turn into Angelina Jolie. Myself, I can’t help getting the impression that Paul is just speaking common sense when he says of the Creator, “Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.” I think you have to work extra hard not to see hand of God in creation and that guys like Dawkins are living testaments to the fact that the trouble about making yourself stupider than you really are is that you can often succeed.

And the proof of this is that Dawkins has chosen to lionize a guy whose scientific ignorance and quackery really could lead to actual physical harm and even death for people who take him seriously. But no cost is too great when your real project is not “promotion of science and reason” but “attacking Jesus Christ, no matter how stupid and irrational your ally is.”

David Berlinski’s Speaking Tour

David Berlinski is a rare treasure, a true Homme de la Renaissance (French for a man of the rebirth – how interesting) in an age when very few such people exist. He speaks multiple languages; knows classical music, history, theology, mathematics; and can think and analyze on many levels. This combination of talents is extremely rare, and his willingness defy the powers that be is even more rare.

David knows which questions to ask (questions never asked or even considered by Darwinists), such as, “What would it take to re-engineer a car into a submarine?” This concerns the evolution of a land mammal into a sea-dwelling mammal. A few purported transitional fossils provide no insight into the efficacy of the Darwinian mechanism to account for the relevant engineering requirements.

Last, but not least, David is as eloquent, incisive, clever, iconoclastic, and humorous in person as he is in print.

Dr. Giuseppe Sermonti – Dimenticare Darwin (Forget Darwin) Why is a Fly Not a Horse?

With charming prose Sermonti describes biology which contradicts Darwinian expectations: leaf insects… before leaves, insects before plants. — Dr. Michael Behe, Author, Darwin’s Black Box

This book’s Italian title, Dimenticare Darwin, means “Forget Darwin,” and its prologue bears the title “Evolution is dead!” The author, Dr. Giuseppe Sermonti, is a respected Italian biologist who boldly shatters the myth that all critics of Darwinian evolution are American religious fundamentalists. This delightful little book is loaded with scientific facts that aren’t taught in standard biology classes, but it is also full of history and poetry. Why is a Fly Not a Horse? does not have all the answers, but it asks many of the right questions—in a style that is both entertaining and inspiring.

Such topics include:
A. The fact that organisms with varying complexity do not have proportional genome sizes. If neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory (NDET from now on) were true, shouldn’t mammals have more DNA than amphibians, mollusks, or flowering plants? You would think so if NDET were true and an increase in DNA meant an increase in complexity, but you’d be wrong. They vary widely.

B. The sudden appearance and stasis of species in the fossil record. Though this is frequently discussed in other books in the origins debate, it is always good to throw it in.

C. How some animals seem not to be fitted for their environment, but rather, they seem to be works of art. As Sermonti put it: “In fish the colors can be bright and resplendent, even among species that never see the light of upper regions, but their patterning bears no relationship to internal structure; the colors just seem to be put there like paints on an artist’s palette” (p.58). There are other things mentioned such as the beautiful mathematical shape of the mollusk’s shell and the innate knowledge of some birds to know their bird-song without being taught it.

D. The fact that the same genes (such as hox genes) can create different structures in different animals. For instance, a cat’s “eye” genes that are transferred to a blind fly’s egg will create the multi-faceted eyes in a fly.

E. The ever-changing family tree of hominids.

F. The ever-increasing anomalies in molecular phylogenies. In fact, according to the molecular data, the mysterious “common ancestor” of chimps and humans should actually be much more closely related to man!

G. How the cell somehow innately knows how to make a certain enzyme even though most of the DNA molecule that codes for it is incomplete.

H. One of the more important ones in his book: the fact that the some of the biggest differences in body structure and function are not due to genes.

I. Homologies in unrelated species such as the mammalian eye and the eye of the octopus. Do Darwinists really expect us to believe that these very similar structures converged through evolution by chance?!?

J. The fact that protein folding occurs without instruction. This is very important since “the spatial information necessary for specifying the three-dimensional structure of a protein is vastly greater than the information contained in the sequence” (p.130).

K. Probably the most interesting one is the fact that some mimicking insects appear in the fossil record many of millions of years before the plants upon which they are supposed to mimic appear! Also, there are some insects whose mouths are made to eat a certain plant that also appears many millions of years before the plant they are supposed to eat appears. Any attempt to account for this in neo-Darwinian terms is absurd!

Scientists conclude, Higgs boson is attacking them from the future, sabbotaging plans

This is perhaps the most brilliant article on a scientific discovery I have ever read.  I don’t know if I could ever find a greater one — many thanks to the New York Times (as hard as it is to believe this was found there).

There is a mysterious quality here — the purity of truth.  Notice the comments from Drs. Holger Bech Nielsen and Masao Ninomiya — there’s almost a child-like innocence at work.  It makes one remember that even the most spiritually-blind, soul-dead materialists can receive a ray of light — some divine insight.  They just spout out their absurdities and in the middle of all of that, we discover a profound truth — a spiritual insight that should echo across the world.   Let those with eyes so see, see …

Scientists conclude, Higgs boson is attacking them from the future, sabbotaging plans

Then it will be time to test one of the most bizarre and revolutionary theories in science. I’m not talking about extra dimensions of space-time, dark matter or even black holes that eat the Earth. No, I’m talking about the notion that the troubled collider is being sabotaged by its own future. A pair of otherwise distinguished physicists have suggested that the hypothesized Higgs boson, which physicists hope to produce with the collider, might be so abhorrent to nature that its creation would ripple backward through time and stop the collider before it could make one, like a time traveler who goes back in time to kill his grandfather.

“It must be our prediction that all Higgs producing machines shall have bad luck,” Dr. Nielsen said in an e-mail message. In an unpublished essay, Dr. Nielson said of the theory, “Well, one could even almost say that we have a model for God.” It is their guess, he went on, “that He rather hates Higgs particles, and attempts to avoid them.”

This malign influence from the future, they argue, could explain why the United States Superconducting Supercollider, also designed to find the Higgs, was canceled in 1993 after billions of dollars had already been spent, an event so unlikely that Dr. Nielsen calls it an “anti-miracle.”

There it is — as pure and clear as can be.  God is punishing scientists for working on this project which is “abhorrent to nature”.  Dr. Neilson sees this intervention as an “anti-miracle” — but for believers, it’s just a miracle.  The evil work of amoral scientists is being thwarted.  And these two physicists actually have a scientific theory which they think explains it — that the Higgs Boson is attacking them from the future.

There’s more wisdom here than in any thousands of useless scientific speculations one can find.  The crazier this sounds, also, the better it is for everyone because it reveals how these scientists are thinking and that God can break through their darkness.

Scientists discover that Chimpanzees evolved from humans

I initially thought this story was a satire, but it’s actually a new evolutionary-claim which contradicts prior evolutionary claims (and this is supposedly not a problem at all for the theory).

Did apes descend from us?

Some classic quotes from Owen Lovejoy, biological anthropologist at Ohio’s Kent State University and one of the primary authors on the journal package:

“In a way we’re saying that the old idea that we evolved from a chimpanzee is totally incorrect,” he says. “It’s more proper to say that chimpanzees evolved from us.”

Along with busting the supposed ape-to-man lineage, Lovejoy says, Ardi has obliterated existing theories about how, where and why our ancestors began the signature practice of upright walking.

First off, he says, none of our ancestors were like the “knuckle walkers” shown at the start of those famous human decent lineups.

“So the whole savannah theory (of walking) is now gone as well.”

Immense Complexity already Present in the earliest known cell

The claim is that life evolved from simpler to more complex forms. This report published yesterday in New Scientist confirms that at the base of the (postulated) tree of life is an extremely complex life form, much like a modern cell.

“There is no doubt that the progenitor of all life on Earth, the common ancestor, possessed DNA, RNA and proteins, a universal genetic code, ribosomes (the protein-building factories), ATP and a proton-powered enzyme for making ATP. The detailed mechanisms for reading off DNA and converting genes into proteins were also in place. In short, then, the last common ancestor of all life looks pretty much like a modern cell.”

Thus, the earliest known ancestor possesses the immensely sophisticated features found in modern cells (”protein building factories” as the article calls them) and DNA replication.

The article sites another item from biologist Eugene V. Koonin which claims that DNA replication “the bacterial replication machinery ” evolved twice, independently. The classic rejoinder to anyone who raises eyebrows at such a claim is — Why not? True enough. Presently, it is unknown how the first DNA replication supposedly evolved, and now it is proposed that it evolved separatetly two times (once for bacteria and once for the archaea).

Even more baffling, says Martin, neither the cell membranes nor the cell walls have any details in common. “At face value, the defining boundaries of cells evolved independently in bacteria and archaea,” he says…
The picture painted by Russell and Martin is striking indeed. The last common ancestor of all life was not a free-living cell at all, but a porous rock riddled with bubbly iron-sulphur membranes that catalysed primordial biochemical reactions. Powered by hydrogen and proton gradients, this natural flow reactor filled up with organic chemicals, giving rise to proto-life that eventually broke out as the first living cells – not once but twice, giving rise to the bacteria and the archaea.

That the complexity of the modern cell is found present in the earliest forms is remarkable enough. The fact that this complex functionality is attributed to a chance assembly is even moreso. Many others (like myself) will see this as evidence that there must have been an organizing, coordinating, designing and creating intelligent power at work in the origin of the first cellular life — and through the creation of all all life. The claim is that life evolved from simpler to more complex forms. This report published yesterday in New Scientist confirms that at the base of the (postulated) tree of life is an extremely complex life form, much like a modern cell.

“There is no doubt that the progenitor of all life on Earth, the common ancestor, possessed DNA, RNA and proteins, a universal genetic code, ribosomes (the protein-building factories), ATP and a proton-powered enzyme for making ATP. The detailed mechanisms for reading off DNA and converting genes into proteins were also in place. In short, then, the last common ancestor of all life looks pretty much like a modern cell.”

Thus, the earliest known ancestor possesses the immensely sophisticated features found in modern cells (”protein building factories” as the article calls them) and DNA replication.

The article sites another item from biologist Eugene V. Koonin which claims that DNA replication “the bacterial replication machinery ” evolved twice, independently. The classic rejoinder to anyone who raises eyebrows at such a claim is — Why not? True enough. Presently, it is unknown how the first DNA replication supposedly evolved, and now it is proposed that it evolved separatetly two times (once for bacteria and once for the archaea).

Even more baffling, says Martin, neither the cell membranes nor the cell walls have any details in common. “At face value, the defining boundaries of cells evolved independently in bacteria and archaea,” he says…
The picture painted by Russell and Martin is striking indeed. The last common ancestor of all life was not a free-living cell at all, but a porous rock riddled with bubbly iron-sulphur membranes that catalysed primordial biochemical reactions. Powered by hydrogen and proton gradients, this natural flow reactor filled up with organic chemicals, giving rise to proto-life that eventually broke out as the first living cells – not once but twice, giving rise to the bacteria and the archaea.

That the complexity of the modern cell is found present in the earliest forms is remarkable enough. The fact that this complex functionality is attributed to a chance assembly is even moreso. Many others (like myself) will see this as evidence that there must have been an organizing, coordinating, designing and creating intelligent power at work in the origin of the first cellular life — and through the creation of all all life.

Evolution is not different than gravity, chemistry, geology or history

Claim: God doesn’t get any less face time with respect to biology than He does in chemistry, physics, geology, history, or mathematics.

This is a very common argument used against certain criticisms of evolutionary theory. Personally, I think the responses to this argument are very common also, but perhaps you haven’t heard them, or else they were not convincing to you.

As above, it is claimed that evolutionary theory does not have more of a theological implication than mathematics, geology, chemistry or history does.

But what evolutionary theory seeks to prove is this point:

Atheistic-materialism is a sufficient philosophical foundation for understanding:
1. The development and diversity of all life
2. The origin and development of human beings

That is the challenge. Is it true?
Well, if it is not true — the follow-up question is necessary: “What aspect of the development of biological nature and/or the origin of human beings is it not possible for evolutionary theory to explain?”

I think most theistic evolutionists would answer “none” — in other words, they will concede that atheistic-evolution can explain the entire diversity of nature and the origin of human beings. There is nothing in biological nature that evolution cannot possibly explain, if it hasn’t explained it already.

In order to explain the origin of human beings, however, one would have to explain the human soul — which Catholics believe is an integral part of human life, non-reducible, non-evolved and which has a profound shaping effect on the development of human life. From that Catholic view, it would not be possible for evolution to fully explain the origin of human beings.

For atheistic scientists, of course, the question of the soul is easy for them — they simply deny that an immortal, spiritual soul exists. Human beings are composed entirely of material elements — so, evolution can possibly (most believe “will eventually”) explain the origin and development of human beings as products of evolutionary forces acting on matter.

With this said — it should be fairly easy to see the theological implications of evolutionary theory. Those implications are embedded into the theory and were a major part of Darwin’s thinking when he created the theory. His goal was to refute the idea that God was involved in the creation of nature. Darwin also rejected “guided” or “theistic” evolution because the idea that God selected mutations would contradict the notion of natural selection (or as Darwin said “make natural selection superfluous”).

Beyond that, evolutionary theory is widely used as a primary apologetical tool for atheism. It provides support for the idea that God does not exist. Richard Dawkins made that very clear:

Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist (Richard Dawkins, 1986. The Blind Watchmaker).

So, let’s notice this. Dawkins says that evolution supports atheism. The theory of gravity existed before Darwin. So did chemistry, history, mathematics and geology. But Dawkins states that it was Darwin who advanced atheistic belief.

There are many atheists like Dawkins who say the same thing. Just about every atheistic website in the world has some support for evolutionary theory. Strange isn’t it? — all of these atheists are interested in biology. We don’t see them all getting excited about the theory of gravity in this way.

Now perhaps someone could read everything I just posted here and claim that it’s just a coincidence that atheists are attracted to evolutionary theory — and evolution is no different than geology. The claims of evolution about the origin of human beings conflict with Catholic teaching. The same is not true of mathematics or chemistry or geology.

The arguments I posted are not new or original. I’ve seen others post the same kind of thing several times. I have not seen a coherent response to any of those arguments.

Instead, what I do see is the same question about evolution returning again and again. “Why do you consider evolution to be any different than sciences like chemistry or the theory of gravity”?

I don’t expect to convince you or anyone else — but at least it will be good for you to know that your question comes up a lot and there are many ways to refute the notion that evolutionary theory carries the same theological implications that geology does.