Is civil discourse possible? This was the burning question on this Big Ten campus. It was only last week that a federal judge tried to hold a lecture at the law college and was shouted down by a mob of unruly law (?) students. He left the lecture hall under escort. The compliant administration of both the law school and university did nothing to the disrupters and were taking the heat from the public, especially from alumni and particularly from well-healed donors.
A week later a group of Christian students proposed a series of dialogues between them and the beloved and renowned biologist who had made some remarkable discoveries over the years in molecular biology. The event materialized two months later. Here’s how it went down.
The largest auditorium on campus was packed, with students standing in the back and sides and sitting in some of the aisles. The professor sat in a comfortable chair on stage and the three students sat across from him. The moderator stood at the side of the stage. He introduced the players. The professor raised his hand and the moderator recognized him.
“Yes, sir.”
“Why is it that this little discussion is three against one?” he asked tongue-in-cheek.
The flummoxed moderator stood speechless and the audience snickered. He finally gained his composure and remembered the professor had a reputation of teasing and of dry wit.
“Doctor, you are as famous for your humor as for your research.”
The professor smiled and waved at the moderator.
The moderator continued: “For the convenience of the panelists and the audience, you have full access to the projector and screen on the wall behind you if you want to use it. I would encourage it.
“Because the professor made us all laugh, he can open the dialogue.”
Professor – As it should be. I welcome your invitation to question your defense of Sir Francis Bacon’s proposition. I will do my best to respectfully evaluate your arguments.
Students – We can ask for no more. We’ll let you begin.
Professor – Fair enough. Your Judeo-Christian God is invisible; therefore your Christian religion suffers from lack of evidence.
Students – Foolish indeed are those Christians who think they can prove the existence of their Creator empirically. He (our default pronoun) is invisible; therefore Christians (and we include ourselves) can only theorize that he exists. We cannot produce empirical evidence – information derived from literal observation or through experimentation, viz. tangible experience – that we can point to as proof that our Creator exists, so we must produce an accumulation of circumstantial evidence – a series of unrelated facts brought together into a whole in order to prove the fact in question; in our case, the existence of a deity. The preponderance of circumstantial evidence should lead to the inference that the he does, in fact, exist. Some would dismiss any and all evidence that “proves” the existence of a divine creator, but we can do nothing about that. We can only bring forth what we think will satisfy an open and seeking mind, and let the evidence, though circumstantial, speak for itself.
Professor – Most evangelical Christians I know don’t stray into science to support the Bible. They have the attitude that “the Bible says it; we believe it.” Is that a mistake?
Students – We think it is. We have no fear of science, and we mean “true” science based on empirical evidence that can be tested. We certainly don’t fear quasi-science based on conjecture and imagination that will suddenly discover something to disprove the Bible. On the contrary, scientific discoveries up to this point in history verify the Bible.
Circumstantial evidence is necessary to science as well. Take, for example, the problem of the origin of life – the foundation of all scientific hypotheses. Without a solid hypothesis explaining this vital topic, any theory emanating from it will never reach the level of fact. Because no one was there at the beginning when all of what we see of our universe and planet emerged, all evidence related to beginnings is circumstantial and all interpretations of that evidence are hypothetical. The overarching question is, which interpretation of the circumstantial evidence is capable of withstanding the intense scrutiny of its detractors? What theory can produce an unshakeable confidence in its veracity? To build a case for any particular hypothesis, the more accumulation of circumstantial evidence brought to bear adds strength and depth and power to the argument.
Professor – I take from what you have just stated that you believe in the scientific method. True?
Students – Yes. It is basic to understanding our universe. Sir Francis Bacon was the father of the widely accepted and widely used scientific method – “a method of procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses.” He said this:
“There are two books laid before us to study, to prevent our falling into error; first, the volume of the Scriptures, which reveal the will of God; then the volume of the Creatures, which express His power.”
Some Christians allow the study of Scriptures to inform their lives, their thoughts, and their concept of their God. This is as it should be, because living in the physical world and yet espousing belief in an invisible Creator requires a thorough knowledge of the Bible in order to form the proper conceptions that define the Christian faith. Without the Bible there is no possibility of knowing and appreciating the Scripture’s God, the plan for humanity, or the execution of that plan. Taking the Bible seriously in this way invites the examination of skeptics, some of whom will never be mollified in their opposition regardless what is presented to them. Nevertheless, Christians should pass through substantial external scrutiny in defense of their theory that the Bible is the word of Yahweh so that they can develop confidence in two indispensible twins – evidence and experience.
Professor – Explain more about the two books.
Students – We plan to. We’ll proceed methodically.
Professor – And slowly, if you don’t mind.
Students – Of course.
First let’s examine the circumstantial evidence of Bacon’s first book – the book of nature – and see what explains it.
Science has established that the universe began with an explosion of time and space in a burst of energy and light and matter known as the Big Bang. Do you agree?
Professor – Yes. All evidence points to it.
Students – We agree. Therefore, from all appearances, the universe we are familiar with had a beginning. This is Exhibit A of our circumstantial evidence package as you can see on the screen. Scientific evidence indicates an expanding universe, so by extrapolating backwards, scientists have concluded that the universe began at a concentrated single point some 13.5 billion years ago. Logic demands a “first cause,” because something does not come from nothing. No matter what a person believes, or theorizes, or holds as an ideology, the fact is something does not come from nothing. It never has and never will. For something to happen – anything – something or someone had to make it happen.
Professor – So you’re throwing spontaneity under the bus?
Students – Logic puts it there. We both know that something, anything, does not just happen.
Roger Penrose, Oxford University mathematician, tackled the question of a random beginning of our universe and said this:
“Try to imagine phase space… of the entire universe. Each point in this phase space represents a different possible way that the universe might have started off. We are to picture the Creator, armed with a ‘pin’ — which is to be placed at some point in phase space… Each different positioning of the pin provides a different universe. Now the accuracy that is needed for the Creator’s aim depends on the entropy of the universe that is thereby created. It would be relatively ‘easy’ to produce a high entropy universe, since then there would be a large volume of the phase space available for the pin to hit. But in order to start off the universe in a state of low entropy — so that there will indeed be a second law of thermodynamics — the Creator must aim for a much tinier volume of the phase space. How tiny would this region be, in order that a universe closely resembling the one in which we actually live would be the result?”
John Lennox, another Oxford mathematician, cites Penrose’s answer:
“His calculations lead him to the remarkable conclusion that the ‘Creator’s aim’ must have been accurate to 1 part in 10 to the power of 10 to the power or 123, that is 1 followed by 10 to the 123rd power zeros.”
As Penrose puts it, that is a
“number which it would be impossible to write out in the usual decimal way, because even if you were able to put a zero on every particle in the universe, there would not even be enough particles to do the job.”
A chance, or random, beginning (Big Bang) of our universe is impossible. A conscious “first cause” as creator had to have deliberately created it.
Professor – Fair enough, given the odds of spontaneity.
Students – Cambridge mathematician, Fred Hoyle, confirms:
“A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.”
Owen Gingrich, Harvard astrophysicist, adds this to Hoyle:
“Fred Hoyle and I differ on lots of questions, but on this we agree: a common sense and satisfying interpretation of our world suggests the designing hand of a superintelligence.”
Professor – So what about the origin of life itself? Even if time and space and matter could not have come about spontaneously, what about life?
Students – We’ll defer to the experts. Here is a quote by Olufemi Dokun-Babalola:
“During the last several decades a number of prestigious scientists have attempted to calculate the mathematical probability of the random-chance origin of life. The results of their calculations reveal the enormity of the dilemma faced by evolutionists.
“Dr. Blum estimated the probability of just a single protein arising spontaneously from a primordial soup. Equilibrium and the reversibility of biochemical reactions eventually led Blum to state: ‘The spontaneous formation of a polypeptide of the size of the smallest known proteins seems beyond all probability. This calculation alone presents serious objection to the idea that all living matter and systems are descended from a single protein molecule which was formed as a ‘chance’ act.’”
Professor – I have to admit that you’ve presented strong evidence.
Students – But there’s more. We give you another, rather lengthy, quote:
“In the 1970’s Sir Frederick Hoyle set out to calculate the mathematical probability of the spontaneous origin of life from a primordial soup environment. Applying the laws of chemistry, mathematical probability and thermodynamics, he calculated the odds of the spontaneous generation of the simplest known free-living life form on earth – a bacterium.
“Hoyle and his associates knew that the smallest conceivable free-living life form needed at least 2,000 independent functional proteins in order to accomplish cellular metabolism and reproduction. Starting with the hypothetical primordial soup he calculated the probability of the spontaneous generation of just the proteins of a single amoebae. He determined that the probability of such an event is one chance in ten to the 40 thousandth power, i.e., 1 in 1040,000. Prior to this project, Hoyle was a believer in the spontaneous generation of life.
“This project, however, changed his opinion 180 degrees. Hoyle stated: “The likelihood of the formation of life from inanimate matter is one to a number with 40 thousand naughts [zeros] after it. It is enough to bury Darwin and the whole theory of evolution. There was no primeval soup, neither on this planet nor on any other, and if the beginnings of life were not random they must therefore have been the product of purposeful intelligence.” Hoyle also concluded that the probability of the spontaneous generation of a single bacterium “is about the same as the probability that a tornado sweeping through a junk yard could assemble a 747 from the contents therein.”
Professor – I’ve read that before. It is impressive.
Students – Yet there’s more.
“Hoyle’s calculations may seem impressive, but they don’t even begin to approximate the difficulty of the task. He only calculated the probability of the spontaneous generation of the proteins in the cell. He did not calculate the chance formation of the DNA, RNA, nor the cell wall that holds the contents of the cell together.”
Professor – What is the source?
Students – “Evolution – What Dawkins Did Not Tell You.”
When we examine the results of the primal explosion, we can conclude that whatever caused it resides, if that is the best word, outside of time (therefore eternal), possesses power and intelligence we cannot fathom (therefore omniscient), and is composed of something outside the material realm because it brought forth matter (therefore spirit).
Professor – That’s quite a claim.
Students – Well, think about it. A personality had to have been there in the beginning.
Professor – What do you mean?
Students – A mind had to be involved to conceive of the universe. An emotion had to desire it to happen. And a will had to decide to execute. This describes a person, not a soulless force out of the blue, or should I say black.
Professor – Interesting.
Students – This first cause must have a mind able of conceiving a universe consisting of matter, time, and space; an emotion to want to make such a universe happen; and a will to decide to execute the creation of it. Assuming that this first cause did indeed create what we see around us, we can detect design (Exhibit B), and the design is finely calibrated at every level in order to make possible carbon based life forms. Small deviations in any part of the design would render the whole non-functional. Even a cursory glance at the universe, from galaxies to quanta, reveals design, intricate design possessing the signature of its designer. For example, the distance between the sun and Earth must be precise in order for life to exist. Any further away, even fractionally, we freeze. Any closer, we burn up. The Earth rotates daily and orbits around the sun at 67,000 mph. The Earth is of perfect size and has a precise gravitational pull that holds in place a thin, 50-mile layer of mainly nitrogen and oxygen gases – the only planet we know of whose atmosphere can sustain life. Our moon is of perfect size to exert its gravitational pull upon our ocean tides to keep the ocean from stagnating. These physical facts regarding our planet add circumstantial evidence of a super intelligent first cause.
Professor – I have worked in the academy all my adult life. I find this argument disconcerting.
Students – As you should. Academia, by and large, refuses to consider the evidence. For example, the Fibonacci Sequence underscores design in the universe. Leonardo Fibonacci, an Italian mathematician, proposed a solution to this problem:
If a pair of rabbits is placed in an enclosed area, how many rabbits will be born there if we assume that every month a pair of rabbits produces another pair, and that rabbits begin to bear young two months after their birth?
Dan Reich, mathematician at Temple University writes:
“This apparently innocent little question has as an answer a certain sequence of numbers, known now as the Fibonacci sequence, which has turned out to be one of the most interesting ever written down. It has been rediscovered in an astonishing variety of forms, in branches of mathematics way beyond simple arithmetic. Its method of development has led to far-reaching applications in mathematics and computer science.”
Professor – I fail to see the significance.
Students – Let us explain with Reich’s quote:
“Even more fascinating is the surprising appearance of Fibonacci numbers, and their relative ratios, in arenas far removed from the logical structure of mathematics: in Nature and in Art, in classical theories of beauty and proportion.”
Here is how it happened. Fibonacci arrived at the solution of the rabbit riddle with this calculation:
- At the end of the first month, they mate, but there is still only 1 pair.
- At the end of the second month the female produces a new pair, so now there are 2 pairs of rabbits in the field.
- At the end of the third month, the original female produces a second pair, making 3 pairs in all in the field.
- At the end of the fourth month, the original female has produced yet another new pair, the female born two months ago produces her first pair also, making 5 pairs.
The sequence is, therefore, 1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55,89,144, etc. But what become very intriguing about this sequence are the ratios between the numbers. For example, if we take 21 and 34 and divide the lower (21) by the higher (34) we arrive at .618. If we divide 34 by 21 we have 1.619. The further along the sequence we do this calculation, the closer the ratio approaches phi – .618034. This ratio is called the Golden Ratio or the Golden Mean.
This chart shows the ratio between the first thirteen Fibonacci numbers. The further out we extend the numbers, the closer the ratio approaches true phi (1.618034). Like pi – whose ratio of a circle’s diameter to its circumference, equal to 3.14159265358979323846… (the digits go on forever without repeating) – so phi also goes on forever without repeating.
Professor – This almost makes me regret that I didn’t take up mathematics instead of molecular biology.
Students – You should have no regrets. The sequence is everywhere in nature if you look for it.
Writing for the 1975 Smithsonian Magazine, William Hoffer said this:
‘’….the proportion of .618034 to 1 is the mathematical basis for the shape of playing cards and the Parthenon, sunflowers and snail shells, Greek vases and the spiral galaxies of outer space. The Greeks based much of their art and architecture upon this proportion. They called it ‘the golden mean.’
Fibonacci’s abracadabric rabbits pop up in the most unexpected places. The numbers are unquestionably part of a mystical natural harmony that feels good, looks good and even sounds good. Music, for example, is based on the 8-not octave. On the piano this is represented by 8 white keys, 5 black ones – 13 in all. It is no accident that the musical harmony that seems to give the ear its greatest satisfaction is the major sixth. The note E vibrates at a ratio of .62500 to the note C. A mere .006966 away from the exact golden mean, the proportions of the major sixth set off good vibrations in the cochlea of the inner ear – an organ that just happens to be shaped in a logarithmic spiral.
The continual occurrence of Fibonacci numbers and the golden spiral in nature explains precisely why the proportion of .618034 to 1 is so pleasing in art. Man can see the image of life in art that is based on the golden mean.”
The proportion – .618034 – can apply to any length and become a Golden Section (Figure B).
The proportion of the smaller part and the larger part is the same as the ratio between the larger part and the whole.
Professor – Tell me about the sequence in biology.
Students – Of course. An adult human being is divided at the waist into a Golden Section – 1 from waist to ground; .618 from waist to crown. Fibonacci numbers appear in the human structure. We have 8 fingers, 5 digits on each hand, 3 bones in each finger, 2 bones in one thumb, and one thumb on each hand – the first five numbers of the sequence The ratio of the length of our hand to the length of our forearm is golden. Even the length of the sections of one of our fingers is in Fibonacci numbers, so are in the Golden Ratio.
Here is one example you will appreciate.
The length of a full cycle of the DNA double helix is 34 angstroms, and its width is 21 angstroms, both of which are numbers in Fibonacci’s Sequence and very close to phi, the Golden Ratio. The waves of the double helix fall within the Golden Section.
Professor – What about the animal world?
Students – A dolphin’s body demonstrates the Golden Section. From its eye to its dorsal fin to its tail are in Golden Ratio to its length. The thickness of its body to the tip of the fin is golden. The width and length of the dorsal fin itself is in the Golden Section. The angelfish is loaded with Golden Proportions. The parts of a penguin all fall at Golden Sections to its height. The facial features of a tiger’s face fall at Golden Sections to its width and height. The body sections of an ant are in golden proportion to its length.
Now back to mathematics.
From the one dimensional Golden Section, we move to the two-dimensional Golden Rectangle in which the sides are in the proportion of 1.618 to 1. To construct a Golden Rectangle, we can take a square of two units per side and draw a line from the midpoint of a side to one of the corners of the opposite side (Figure C). Triangle EDB is a right triangle from which Pythagoras taught us this: the square of the hypotenuse EB is equal to the sum of the squares of each side BD and ED. The formula is X2 = 22 + 12, or X2 = 5.
The next step in constructing a Golden Rectangle is to extend the line CD by laying down the length of the hypotenuse EB along CD. That makes EG equal to the square root of 5, or 2.236 units in length (Figure D).
This construction makes the rectangle a Golden Rectangle ACGF in which the sides of the two rectangles ACGF and BDGF are in the Golden Ratio, or Divine Proportion (phi), and, therefore, they are two Golden Rectangles.
Professor – When was this discovered?
Students – You mean this ratio?
Professor – Yes.
Students – The Golden Ratio was first called The Divine Proportion in a book of the same name published in 1509 by Luca Pacioli, with illustrations by Leonardo DaVinci. DaVinci may have been the first to call the ratio the Golden Section.
Professor – Where does it manifest itself?
Students – The builders of the Parthenon incorporated phi in the Golden Rectangle by laying the larger part (1.618) horizontally and the smaller part vertically (1). The Great Pyramid builders relied heavily on the Golden Ratio.
The Renaissance opened the door for extensive usage of the Golden Mean, or Divine Proportion, as a source of beauty in paintings and sculptures such as The Last Supper and the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo. Kepler the astronomer of this period said this of the Divine Proportion:
“Geometry has two great treasures: one is the theorem of Phythagoras; the other, the division of a line into extreme and mean ratio. The first we may compare to a measure of gold; the second we may name a precious jewel.”
The Greek letter phi was first attached to the ratio in the early 1900s. It is the equivalent of the letter “F”, the first letter in Fibonacci, a number in his sequence, and the 21st letter of the Greek alphabet. To describe this ratio as golden and divine is warranted by its ubiquity in human history and in the natural world. From the design of galaxies to the Great Pyramid to the double helix of the DNA molecule, the ratio is intricately present in how our universe is constructed, in how human beings are designed, and in what human beings do.
As remarkable as are the Golden Section and the Golden Rectangle, the Golden Spiral is equally amazing. Based on a series of golden rectangles divided into a square and a smaller Golden Rectangle, the Golden Spiral appears when we draw a diagonal through the Golden Rectangle (ABCD) and the Golden Rectangle (EFDC) to find the center point. The length of lines BPD and CPF are in phi, the Golden Ratio, as are lines FP and DP. In Figure E, when we strike an arc, or quarter circle connecting opposite corners of each square of the Golden Rectangles, we have a Golden Spiral, a figure found throughout nature. We find it in the seed arrangement of a sunflower, in the arrangement of a pineapple skin, in the seeds of a pine cone, in the petals of a rose, in the shell of the chambered Nautilus, in the curl of a seahorse’s tail, in the curl of a chameleon’s tail, in the human fingerprint, in the uncurling of a fern leaf, in the cochlea of the inner ear, in the swirling arms of a hurricane, in a whirlpool, in the horn of a mountain sheep, in ocean waves, in spiraling galaxies, etc.
Professor – It’s almost as if this is your first cause’s signature.
Students – Very good.
Professor – So is this your hypothesis? That there is a person creator?
Students – It is. We think this proportion is a kind of creative signature of Yahweh, as you suggest.
Peter Tompkins says:
“Plato, in his Timaeus, went so far as to consider phi, and the resulting Golden Section proportion, the most binding of all mathematical relations, and considers it the key to the physics of the cosmos.”
Even those scientists exploring consciousness, have narrowed down the search to the oscillations of the microtubule molecules (protein polymers found in every cell) inside the 70 billion neurons in our brains. The microtubules are constructed of two molecules – alphatubulin and beta tubulin – that attach to one another to form a “dimer.” These dimers are arranged in tubes that can receive more dimers according to their function in the cell, or they can shed dimers as well. The dimers of microtubules in the neuron vibrate rapidly, suggesting the base of consciousness. To the point on Fibonacci, the arrangement of dimers on the tubes has “multiple winding patterns which intersect on protofilaments at specific intervals matching the Fibonacci series found widely in nature and possessing a helical symmetry enabling topological quantum computing.” Here, once again, in the micro world, of which you are doubtless aware, we see the signature of first cause.
Professor – My knowledge of this sequence is, I regret to say, limited.
Students – We’ve just recently become acquainted with the science of consciousness, and, as we suspected, the signature of first cause is there. For example, in assessing the nature of first cause, two leading scientists,
“Penrose and Hameroff (2011), estimate approximately 108 tubulins in each neuron which switch and oscillate in the range of 107 per second. This gives an information capacity as the single-cell value at the microtubule level of 1015 operations per second per neuron. The total brain capacity (1011 neurons, 103 synapses per neuron, 102 transmissions per synapse per second) would thus potentially translate at the microtubule level as 1026 operations per second in comparison to the earlier estimates of AI community for the information processing capacity of the entire brain of 1016 operations per second at the level of neurons, synapses and their transmission-rate per second. If each tubulin dimer functions as a quantum bit and not a classical bit processor, the computational power becomes almost unimaginably vast. It has been claimed that as few as 300 quantum bits (qubits), have the same computational power as a hypothetical classical computer comprised of as many processing units as there are particles in the universe” (Steane and Rieffel, 2000).
Professor – What other evidence do you have?
Students – In order for all this design to perform its functions, there must be uniform laws of nature (Exhibit C). These laws, which are mathematical, keep our universe orderly and predictable. The rotation of the Earth, the orbiting of the Solar System, the Milky Way, and galaxies in general, the heat of the sun, the pull of gravity, etc. – all these are governed by natural laws conceived in the mind of Yahweh, and by his power kept from deviation. Nobel Prize winner, Richard Feynman, said,
“Why nature is mathematical is a mystery. . . The fact that there are rules at all is a kind of miracle.”
Paul Davies, a renowned physicist, said this:
“I belong to the group of scientists who do not subscribe to a conventional religion but nevertheless deny that the universe is a purposeless accident. Through my scientific work I have come to believe more and more strongly that the physical universe is put together with an ingenuity so astonishing that I cannot accept it merely as brute fact. There must, it seems to me, be a deeper level of explanation. Whether one wishes to call that deeper level ‘God’ is a matter of taste and definition.”
Professor – Those are some heavy hitters. That’s impressive.
Students – They are open-minded thinkers. Not all are. Let us say this about laws. Natural laws guide all physical interactions, whether these interactions include planetary orbits, or the movements of galaxies, or the vibrations of subatomic particles of matter. Every chemical reaction is determined by a natural law. The very fact that natural laws exist is circumstantial evidence that an intelligent first cause exercised some kind of volition to maintain its creation. And the fact that natural laws exist argues for a law-giving first cause.
Our universe obeys the mathematical rules laid down by natural laws. Certainly things change, but not randomly and unpredictably. Jupiter will not suddenly become unhinged and fly toward us. The universe is reliably the same year after year, even though there is no logical reason for it to be so.
Water has no taste, no odor, no color, and nothing alive can exist without it. Living things consist mostly of water. The human body is two-thirds water, and it keeps our temperature at 98.6 degrees so we can live in an environment of fluctuating temperatures. It possesses chemical neutrality, enabling it to carry substances like food nutrients, minerals, and medicines to all parts of our bodies. It has a surface tension that allows it to flow upward against gravity and bring nourishment to the tops of the tallest trees. It freezes from the top down so fish can breathe under ice. Oceans contain 97% of Earth’s water. Evaporation carries this water up, leaving the salt behind, and forms clouds driven by the wind in order to distribute fresh water over the land, watering vegetables for the sustenance of people and animals. This cycle purifies and recycles the precious commodity and allows life in all forms to flourish. None of this is random or weirdly self-generating. A designing mind made it happen, and instituted the physical laws to make it continue.
Professor – With all this being said, I’m wondering how biological evolution fits in.
Students – Not very well. It does bring us to an important piece of evidence for the existence of a personal first cause.
Professor – What do you mean “personal”?
Students – Simply this. First cause is a person with an intellect, with emotions, and with volition. We see no other possibility for our design-laden universe. Our next exhibit emphasizes this. Life (Exhibit D) is important circumstantial evidence of Yahweh. We should immediately disabuse ourselves of the concept of spontaneous generation. That life could arise by itself without a creating influence is akin to the medieval concept that rats and maggots arose from garbage because they miraculously and mysteriously appeared whenever garbage was left out. The idea that life spontaneously generated from chemical reactions in a hot soup on ancient Earth through lightning, volcanic eruptions, ocean vents, and sunlight has become scientific dogma.
Professor – I’ve believed this for years.
Students – So did we, until we started researching. To believe this is an act of faith. Though there could have been a hot soup, evidence for life to have spontaneously generated in it, requires a godless faith. This faith has become the fountainhead of evolutionary theory. The dilemma is that life from primitive building blocks requires oxygen, and yet oxygen destroys life. Without oxygen there is no ozone layer to protect the Earth from ultra violet radiation from the sun. Michael Denton, British biochemist, says:
“If we have oxygen we have no organic compounds, but if we don’t we have none either.”
But geologists have determined that early Earth contained plenty of oxygen. So spontaneous generation could not have occurred because it needed oxygen, and yet that oxygen would have destroyed it. Denton confirms:
“Rocks of great antiquity have been examined over the past two decades and in none of them has any trace of abiotically produced organic compounds been found…Considering the way the pre-biotic soup is referred to in so many discussions of the origin of life as an already established reality, it comes as something of a shock to realize that there is absolutely no positive evidence for its existence.”
As if this weren’t enough circumstantial evidence in favor of a creating first cause, there are the pesky statistics arguing against spontaneous generation, without which the entire Darwinian theory of evolution falls flat.
Harold Blum, biologist, stated:
“The spontaneous formation of a polypeptide of the size of the smallest known proteins seems beyond all probability. This calculation alone presents serious objection to the idea that all living matter and systems are descended from a single protein molecule which was formed as a ‘chance’ act.”
British astronomer Fred Hoyle agreed:
“The likelihood of the formation of life from inanimate matter is one to a number with 40 thousand naughts [zeros] after it. It is enough to bury Darwin and the whole theory of evolution. There was no primeval soup, neither on this planet nor on any other, and if the beginnings of life were not random they must therefore have been the product of purposeful intelligence.”
But even with this insurmountable statistical evidence,
Nobelist George Wald nevertheless maintains:
“When it comes to the origin of life there are only two possibilities: Creation or spontaneous generation. There is no third way. Spontaneous generation was disproved one hundred years ago, but that leads us to only one other conclusion, that of supernatural creation. We cannot accept that on philosophical grounds; therefore, we choose to believe the impossible: That life arose spontaneously by chance!”
Professor – That doesn’t speak well of science.
Students – You’re being kind. This is the extent pseudo-science will go to avoid a first cause. To this twisted way of thinking there is no rebuttal. The willful closure of the mind in the face of irrefutable circumstantial evidence may be best summarized in the words of Richard Lewontin, an evolutionary biologist:
“Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs. . .in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a priori commitment. . .to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated.”
Professor – That admission makes me both sad and embarrassed for my colleagues.
Students – At least Lewontin is being honest and not hiding under his desk. Here’s another Lewontin quote that crosses the point of no return:
“It is time. . .to state clearly that evolution is fact, not theory. . .Birds arose from non-birds and human from non-humans. No person who pretends to any understanding of the natural world can deny these facts any more than she or he can deny that the Earth is round, rotates on its axis and revolves around the sun.”
Professor – It’s hard to listen to this.
Students – We understand, but we need the truth.
To those devoted to a myth and its propagation, common sense be damned. All the circumstantial evidence is the universe cannot pry open a closed mind steeped in the religion of “Scientism,” like Lewontin.
We could add more arguments from other nonreligious scientists as to the statistical impossibility of spontaneous generation, but that would be redundant and unnecessary. It is obvious that Darwin’s grand scheme did not happen. Evolution from spontaneous generation did not happen because it could not have happened. Matter does not materialize from nothing; nor does life emerge from non-life spontaneously. The evidence is unassailable.
Professor – I have to reluctantly agree. This changes everything. The whole theory stands or falls on this one thing.
Students – We would go further. All science, not just Darwin’s theory, stands or falls upon this one fact: spontaneous generation of life could not have happened without an intervening first cause. Yet this impossibility is taught as dogma from junior high through graduate school.
Professor – I’m ashamed to admit that what you say is true.
Students – We think we are.
Once we realize the impossibilities, the evidence is overwhelming. For example, the cell (Exhibit E) demonstrates the complexity of life itself. They are the primary integral components of organic bodies. In order to maintain life cells are packed with proteins designed to carry out numerous functions. Proteins are molecules consisting of long chains of smaller molecules (amino acids, of which there are essentially 20). What a protein does is determined by the arrangement, or sequence, of its amino acids. The attachment of the amino acids occurs because of the negative and positive charges each possess, a study in and of itself.
Professor – This is my field. I should be able to track with you.
Students – If you find us in error, correct us.
Professor – I will.
Students – To understand (or try to) the complexity of protein, consider the red blood cell – the carrier of oxygen from the lungs to all tissues in the body, and carbon dioxide back to the lungs for exhalation – and its hemoglobin molecule consisting of 574 amino acids of all 20 varieties. For this protein molecule to have come about without the design and execution of the first cause is on the order of 10 multiplied by itself 654 times, or 10654.. Match this number against other scientifically discovered numbers, such as the number of stars at 1022; the number of seconds since the Big Bang at 1018; and the number of atoms in the universe at 1080. In other words only the first cause could have arranged the protein in the red blood cell in the exact specific way for it to carry out the function of delivering oxygen and expelling carbon dioxide, both equally necessary for humans and animals to live.
Professor – I hadn’t seen the math. What can I say?
Students – Numbers don’t lie. Here’s more.
The first cause created all life using the DNA molecule (Exhibit F) found in every living organism. This molecule is an extensive repository of information, and using its chemical language of four nucleotides – cytosine, adenine, guanine, and thymine – in specific arrangements, it produces and instructs the proteins in the cell how and when they are to operate in order to carry out the functions of life at the cellular level. It contains a program consisting of three billion letters (sequences of the four nucleotides connecting its double helix), an instruction manual for the cell. We hypothesize that the first cause intentionally and specifically wrote this program, attesting to its ingenuity and intelligence and purpose. Information demands intelligence, and the DNA molecule is an information package that instructs everything that lives. The code hidden in the DNA language that instructs the cell had to come from a mind. That is what all codes do. There are no exceptions.
Though it need not be said, the appearance of DNA in nature did not happen spontaneously. It could not have. Robert Shapiro asks:
“Which came first, the chicken or the egg? DNA holds the recipe for protein construction. Yet that information cannot be retrieved or copied without the assistance of proteins. Which large molecule appeared first – proteins (the chicken) or DNA (the egg)?”
The first cause created DNA at the time it created life. The two (life and DNA) cannot exist separately. For life to exist it needs instructions on how to live, and those instructions are encoded in the grand molecule elegantly bundled in the nucleus of every living cell, conclusive circumstantial proof of a living, thinking, deciding first cause. John Maynard Smith and Eors Szathmary confess that
“the existing translational machinery is at the same time so complex, so universal, and so essential, that it is hard to see how it could have come into existence, or how life could have existed without it.”
Professor – I see no argument against this. First life could not have evolved.
Students – We agree. The complexities are too enormous. As you well know, the DNA molecule is a complex system of chemical language in which four “letters” (nucleotides) – cytosine, adenine, guanine, and thymine – combine to form three letter rungs on a helical “ladder.” This molecule is the product of language (spoken by the first cause) and it is also the language that programs the production of proteins within the cells, and the proteins consist of 20 amino acid molecules, or “letters,” to carry out the function of the cell. Back to the red blood cell. There are 10654 different ways of arranging the amino acids in the hemoglobin protein if they are not programmed specifically by a superior intellect. That means that without input from a mind, without a programmer, there is virtually zero chance of ever having this oxygen-carrying, life-giving molecule. The universe itself is estimated to have 1080 atoms, so it’s easy to see how nothing but a mind could have designed the very specific hemoglobin molecule.
Professor – During my whole career, I have merely glossed over these impossibilities.
Students – That is what happens when everyone in our circle does the same thing and accepts the same thing. It’s hard to accept another view. You have shown yourself to be a thinking man. We appreciate that.
Professor – I try to be. Closed minds are lethal to knowledge. Not only that, I’ve seen those who have questioned tradition and have been excoriated and shunned.
Students – That’s too bad. That’s not science, that’s a religion, a superstition.
Professor – It’s certainly not the scientific method. What more do you have?
Students – Something you’ll probably appreciate.
The moderator stood and ended the dialogue. He opened the remaining moments to the audience for questions and comments. Students moved briskly to the two microphones.
After about 20 minutes, the moderator dismissed the gathering. “We’ll see next week, same day, same time.