UUFR Adult Religious Education Archives: March 2006

March 19 and 26 2006 - “Wal-Mart, the High Cost of Low Price.”

We will watch approximately half of the (95-minute) video each of the two weeks, followed by discussion.
View additional information on this video at

http://www.walmartmovie.com/about.php

Presented by Bo Chagnon.

March 12 -- "Evolution and Intelligent Design"

"Evolution and Intelligent Design," presented by Wally Meyers, Fred Breidt, Tom Atkinson, and Dave Laymon. Are these two theories reconcilable? Can a scientific theory explain our mental experiences? Can Intelligent Design explain our DNA ancestry? What are the underlying assumptions of these theories and to what paradigm shifts do they lead?

In the final week of this series, we begin by completing Dave Laymon's presentation on "Why I Believe In Evolution". Wally Meyers will then look at some current thinking on alternative concepts of biological evolution out of the scientific mainstream.

March 5 - "Evolution and Intelligent Design"

"Evolution and Intelligent Design," presented by Wally Meyers, Fred Breidt, Tom Atkinson, and Dave Laymon. Are these two theories reconcilable? Can a scientific theory explain our mental experiences? Can Intelligent Design explain our DNA ancestry? What are the underlying assumptions of these theories and to what paradigm shifts do they lead?

Our speaker for March 5th is Joe Spears who is a member of the Triangle Association for the Science of Creation. Joe will speak on the the intellegent design theory.

Here are some background Web sites with information on our speaker, Joe Spears:

http://www.tasc-creationscience.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=119&Itemid=44

Here are the answers to the questions which joe did not have time to cover after the presentation:
1) What is intelligent design? What is creationism? Are they the same?
No, not the same. One (creationism) starts with the Bible, the other (intelligent design or ID) starts with scientific evidence. See answer to #5. below for more on ID.

2) Does intelligent design mean that there has to be a designer? If so who or what designed things? Is this God?
The meaning of design, in particular intelligent design, as I take it, implies a designer. ID says nothing about who (or what) the designer is. Whether we can or can not identify the designer is not reason to deny evidence of design.
For example, failure to identify the perpetrator of a crime does not mean the crime never occurred – if the picked lock, the missing bank notes, the footprints and note saying “hah – you'll never catch me” fail to lead to identification or capture of thief, then do we say the crime never occurred?
Likewise, failure to identify a designer does not do away with evidence that there was an intelligent designer.
Some have invoked space aliens. Creationists say it was God.
Nobel prize winner Crick (of the Watson-Crick team which discovered the double helix structure of DNA) saw such a problem with life arising spontaneously on earth that he has invoked the hypothesis of directed panspermia, or the idea that some extraterrestrial intelligence intentionally seeded life on earth. (Crick, F. H. C., and Orgel, L. E.
"Directed Panspermia," Icarus, 19, 341 (1973).)
Crick believed that evolution could not adequately explain how life could have arisen on earth.

3) Can you have an intelligent design without a designer?
I would think that depends on how we define our terms, but I think, as used by the intelligent design movement and researchers, intelligent design implies an external “force” or agent of some kind, not included in the natural processes under study. This would make sense as required to bring about the 3rd criterion of intelligent design, specificity, or the existence of meaningful “patterns”.

4) Do you believe in the theory of evolution (relating to biological evolution of man), and if not, what part(s) do you not accept?
Accept: mutation leading to changes, as in bacteria, within a species selection of genes, as in breeding of animals, leading to changes in a species
Not accept: creation of new species because there is no documented evidence of this (as evolutionist Niles Eldridge admitted in quote by Margulis)* because the probability of this happening is smaller than the probability of picking a specific atom at random from the entire universe I believe in the truth – based on evidence. I would gladly change views if evidence existed to convince me of such a change of view.
In fact, several scientists who were evolutionists quit believing in evolution after advanced study. Examples include
Dr. Gary Parker, author of biology textbooks which taught evolution, who after teaching evolution for years, decided the evidence did not support it. B.A. in Biology/Chemistry, M.S. in Biology/Physiology, Ed.D. in Biology/Geology from Ball State Phi Beta Kappa (the national scholastic honorary society) American Society of Zoologists (for his research on tadpoles) fifteen-month fellowship award from the National Science Foundation
Walt Brown, Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from MIT where he was a National Science Foundation Fellow. He has taught college courses in physics, mathematics, and computer science. Brown is a retired full colonel (Air Force), West Point graduate... Assignments during his 21 years in the military included:
tenured associate professor at the U.S. Air Force Academy; and Chief of Science and Technology Studies at the Air War College.
Director of Benet Research, Development, and Engineering Laboratories in Albany, New York;
For much of his life, Walt Brown was an evolutionist, but after many years of study, he became convinced of the scientific validity of creation and a global flood.
See info on probability of evolution.
* Quoting Lynn Margulis:

It was interesting to find, while perusing a book on evolution, the rather candid admission of an evolutionist that there is no documented evidence of even a single species which arose from another species! Here is the quote:
"...I once asked the eloquent and personable Niles Eldridge whether he knew of any case in which the formation of a new species had been documented. I told him I'd be satisfied if his example were drawn from the laboratory, from the field, or from observations from the fossil record.
He could muster only one good example: Theodosius Dobzhansky's experiments with Drosophila, the fruit fly. In this fascinating experiment, populations of fruit flies, bred at progressively hotter temperatures, became genetically separated. After two years or so the hot-bred ones could no longer produce fertile offspring with their cold-breeding brethren. "But," Eldridge quickly added, "That turned out to have something to do with a parasite!" Indeed, it was later discovered that the hot-breeding flies lacked an intracellular symbiotic bacterium found in the cold breeders. Eldridge dismissed this case as an observation of speciation because it entailed a microbial symbiosis! He had been taught, as we all have, that microbes are germs, and when you have germs, you have a disease, not a new species. And he had been taught that evolution through natural selection occurs by the gradual accumulation, over eons, of single gene mutations."
[Source: Lynn Margulis, Symbiotic Planet (NY, NY: Basic Books, 1998) pp. 7-8.]

5) Do you consider Intelligent Design to be science, and if you do, explain how it fits into the scientific method upon which science is based.
Yes, the explanatory filter of ID requires 3 criteria to be met for the existence of intelligent design:
contingency – this means the event under study did not have to occur complexity – this means a low probability of the occurrence
specificity – this means that the event has meaning For example, any random arrangement of grains of sand has a low probability of occurring when we throw some sand on the ground. However, the arrangement of sand probably has little to no meaning (unless it accidentally spells out the complete works of Shakespeare). Specificity means there has to be this meaning in addition to the low probability of occurrence (complexity).
When all 3 criteria are met, we have intelligent design.
See Dembski's comments below:
“Intelligent design and evolutionary theory are either both testable or both untestable. Parity of reasoning requires that the testability of one entails the testability of the other...”
“Evolutionary theory claims that certain material mechanisms are able to propel the evolutionary process, gradually transforming organisms with one set of characteristics into another (for instance, transforming bacteria without a flagellum into bacteria with one). Intelligent design, by contrast, claims that intelligence needs to supplement material mechanisms if they are to bring about organisms with certain complex features.”
Archeology and criminal investigation look for evidence of intelligent action.
Concerning whether ID uses negative evaluation: Consider an archaeologist digging in the ruins of ancient Troy. He discovers a tablet, encased in an urn, untouched for thousands of years, with text written in several different languages (somewhat like the Rosetta Stone).
Is it a negative assumption for this archaeologist to assume this is a product of intelligence, and not a result of natural processes? Or is such a positive result of archeology?

6) Is Intelligent Design built-in to the evolutionary process, or does the Intelligent Designer make design decisions and guide the process at different points in time?
Some ID-ers say yes, some no.

7) If we use God to explain things we don’t understand, does that diminish God as we learn more, or bring us close to God?
As I see it, diminishing God as we learn more is something that happens in one's mind.
For some, learning more may increase the sense of awe and wonder – for others it may lessen respect for God.
Examples: after learning something...
“Wow! This amazing and wonderful fact, shows the greatness of the creator!”
“We don't need God, since we now have another explanation”.
So, it could go either way.

Concerning getting closer to God, this (assuming that there is a God to get close to) would seem to depend on the individual's choice. It is different than the diminishing above, in not being solely attitudinal but also involves choice.

But should we use God to explain things we don't understand?
ID claims not to do that.
It seems more in line with reason (even with the Bible) to not jump to conclusions (“judge not according to the appearance” KJV).
"It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment."-Sherlock Holmes in a Study in Scarlet

8) Can God and science exist together?
I take this to mean, Can the concept of God, or belief in God, co-exist with science?
If the question means can God himself exist along with science, then, assuming that there is a God, he could exist independent of human activities (such as science).
But, can the concept of God co-exist in a person along with the practice of science?
Again, it depends ... this time on the meaning of “science”.
If by science we mean what Nobelist Linus Pauling said science was, a search for truth, then I would think so – that the concept of God and science are compatible.
However, if we mean the body of published work of scientists, then of course, this will vary over time, and may or may not be in agreement with later refinements of science itself, much less with God.
Here is a quote from Phil Johnson: “... belief in God and science are compatible, the only things that may not be compatible is the conclusions drawn from science based on imperfect knowledge.”

9) Is the 'design' in intelligent design different from biological evolution as understood by science? Can it be the same?
Yes, the 'design' is not the same as the current theory of evolution;
though some ID'ers say that evolution may have occurred, they claim evolution is (as currently understood) not enough by itself.

10) What are the flaws you see in the scientific theory of biological evolution?
Lack of transitional forms, low probability of occurrence, missing mechanism for creation of new information, irreducible complexity, Cambrian explosion, no explanation as to how first life evolved. Details below...
Lack of transitional forms – the “missing links”. In the fossil record, we find many examples of one species or another, but what we fail to find are equivalent numbers of fossils of intermediate forms that would be expected if species gradually changed into other species.
Low probability – in the presentation, various calculations show evolution is less likely than picking a specific atom at random from the entire universe.
Missing mechanism for creation of new information – mutations are insufficient, according to the following:
Mutations- Concerning looking at the evidence, William Fix notes, in quoting Robert Broom (The Bone Peddlers—Selling Evolution, Macmillan, New York, 1984. p. 240):
“Now it seems to me difficult to avoid the conclusion that behind the various devices for cross-fertilization in flowers, and the various arrangements for seed dispersal, there is intelligence somewhere. Fortuitous mutation or variation seems too far-fetched.”
Incidentally, Broom discovered Australopithecus robustus and collaborated with Raymond Dart, who discovered Australopithecus
africanus. This is an observation of an evolutionist worth paying attention to.
But according to Nicholas Comninellis, president of the Institute for International Medicine, "...almost all mutations are harmful to animals."2 And from Maxim D. Frank-Kamenetski, Professor of the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Biomedical Engineering at Brown University, "Mutations are rare phenomena, and a simultaneous change of even two amino acid residues in one protein is totally unlikely. ...One could think, for instance, that by constantly changing amino acids one by one, it will eventually be possible to change the entire sequence substantially.... These minor changes, however, are bound to eventually result in a situation in which the enzyme has ceased to perform its previous function but has not yet begun its ‘new duties'. It is at this point it will be destroyed, along with the organism carrying it."3

Check the "Feature Articles" for essays by Mr. Spears.