It seems that Dr. Dawkins has again accepted an invitation to debate a theist. This time, it further appears that he tried to rig the debate, and deny his opponent a real opportunity to refute his theory. Picking a columnist with this hope proves to be foolish. Mr. Dinesh D’Souza shows how Dr. Dawkins stumbled in thinking that Mr. D’Souza would not have a chance to refute his (Dr. Dawkins’) poor logic.¹ Dr. Dawkins excuse is probably that as this happened on Al-Jazeera, and not a more reputable news source, his slip will be missed.

PS: Judging from the datestamp in the URL, I would say that Dr. Dawkins was correcting in assuming his slip would be missed by most people.

Let me be clear. I am not saying the origin of life was simply an extremely improbable accident. I am saying the origin of life was deliberately, purposely arranged, just as the fundamental laws and constants and many other anthropic features of nature were deliberately, purposely arranged. But in what I’ll call the “extended-fine-tuning” view, the origin of life is merely an additional planned feature culminating in intelligent life. The origin of life is simply closer to the very same goal that other, more distant anthropic features (laws, chemical properties, and so forth) were also put in place to bring about. Nonetheless, just as it was possible to discover a set of proximate conditions that would lead to the origin of the moon, it may also be possible to arrange a local set of conditions that would lead to life, and that would be a scientifically interesting project. If it succeeded, some would claim that it revealed that life needed no miracle. But in fact it would show the beginning of life needed a directing intelligence.¹[emphasis added]

This is an important thought. A key quote. It contains many ideas all of which are central to Intelligent Design. It contains one thought, at the end, that many people cannot grasp. If I do something, if I will an end and achieve it, then I have not proved that it could happen without someone to will it. I have not proved that it is possible for it to happen randomly. It is possible, it may even be likely, that it is only with intervention that it can possibly happen. Take weighted dice. Not just slightly weighted dice that increase your odds, but do not guarantee a particular outcome, but massively weighted dice. Dice that if you drop them, will always land with a given face up. You would have to place such dice for them to land with the weighted face up, the reverse of what physics tells you should happen. So too, it is possible that my experiment only shows that intelligence can cause something.

For evolution to be true, and not just possible, something more is needed. The bar is higher. The scientists must prove that something can happen as a result of undirected, unwilled chance. Not only that, but for it to form a realistic explanation, they must show that it is likely to have happened.

It is possible, so I am told by physicists, that the universe could just wink out of existence in a singular quantum event. It is possible, according to that physics, that we winked into existence in precisely the same manner one second before you read this. Neither are particularly likely. Neither make particularly believable or useful explanations.

Evolution might be possible. I do not think so, from what I have read, but it might be. I sincerely doubt anyone could argue that it is likely enough to make a believable explanation.

All the rest is very true. There is a very long list of things that have to be just so for us to be here. It defies probability. It stretches probability that we exist anywhere. Some authors say it even defies probability that we are here anywhere.

If you ask me to believe that there are a multitude of universes, one for each throw of each coin, and that is the best you can do to make sense of the universe, you can take your materialist theories and smoke them. They are not worth the paper it would take to print them; you have come up with something no more scientific than either of the creation stories found in the Bible. Any of the three resulting stories (one from the materialists, two from the Bible) might in a literal, historical, sense be true. None of them qualify as a scientific theory.

This listing of examples is short, and is by no means definitive proof. Still, it does lend at least some credence.

In other words, if their theory is true, we cannot know it or prove it, because there is no true intelligence to be doing the thinking. It is all just the random interactions of random atoms. In order for rational thought to proceed, we must assume that, whatever is true, materialist philosophy is false.

• Catholic News Agency. “Roman Catholic, Orthodox Churches pledge to seek unity” www.catholicnewsagency.com 2006-09-19. http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=7648
• Ms. Sue Ellin Browder. “Dirty Little Secret: Why Condoms Will Never Stop AIDS in Africa” Holy Spirit Interactive. 2006-09-20. http://www.holyspiritinteractive.net/columns/guests/suebrowder/dirtysecret.asp
• Reuters. “Scientist: Dolphins are stupid” Aljazeera.net 2006-08-17 http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/7FF1A9D2-FEEB-4340-A0DA-DE92AF6C49EC.htm

1. Loren G. Martin.  Answering “What is the function of the human appendix? Did it once have a purpose that has since been lost?” in the “Ask the Experts” section of Scientific American.  Answer posted 1999-10-21.  http://www.sciam.com/askexpert_question.cfm?articleID=000CAE56-7201-1C71-9EB7809EC588F2D7
2. Ms. Julie Pomerantz.  Answering “Does the appendix serve a purpose in any animal?” in the “Ask the Experts” section of Scientific American.  Answer posted 2002-12-02.
3. Fisher, RE. 2000. “The primate appendix: a reassessment.” The Anatomical Record (New Anatomist) 261:228-236.
4. Dasso JF. Obiakor H. Bach H. Anderson AO. Mage RG. 2000. “A morphological and immunohistological study of the human and rabbit appendix for comparison with the avian bursa.” Developmental & Comparative Immunology. 24(8):797-814.
5. NIAID.  “The Immune System”  NIAID NetNews.  2003-09-25.  http://www.niaid.nih.gov/final/immun/immun.htm
6. Professor Gordon C. Mills, Professor Malcolm Lancaster, Professor Walter L. Bradley.  “Origin of Life & Evolution in Biology Textbooks – A Critique.”  Reposted at Access Research Network.  2001-10-03.  http://www.arn.org/docs/mills/gm_originoflifeandevolution.htm
7. Mr. Christopher Wanjek.  “The Appendix: Slimy But Not Worthless.”  Health SciTech 2006-05-30.  http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/060530_bad_appendix.html

The problem here is that such nearly circular logic can only be held as a viable theory if you accept the sole break in the circle as true. In this case, if you accept that a solely material cause must be responsible, then you are good to go. If however, you allow for any non-evolutionary causes, then you are faced with the question “why should I accept that this is in fact caused by evolution?” The answer that it must have been caused by evolution because we see it no longer satisfies.

1. Mr. Nicholas Wade. “Still Evolving, Human Genes Tell New Story” The New York Times 2006-03-07. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/07/science/07evolve.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5088&en=03aecd6036986b0e&ex=1299387600&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

1. Ms. Rebecca Morelle. “Time changes modern human’s face” BBC News (online). 2006-01-25 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4643312.stm

1. Mr. Dennis Wagner. Review of One Small Speck to Man: the evolution myth. The ID Update. 2006-01-21 http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/literature/2006/01/21/one_small_speck_to_man_the_evolution_myth

1. Mr. John West. “Dover in Review: An Analysis of Judge Jones’ Flawed Ruling in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District” Evolution News & Views. 2006-01-06 http://www.evolutionnews.org/2006/01/dover_in_review_an_analysis_of_1.html

1. CafePress.com. “Intelligently Designed Apparel and Merchandise” contains a T-Shirt saying “Freud is dead, Marx is dead, and Darwin is not feeling very well.” viewed 2006-01-05 http://www.cafepress.com/accessresearch/964771
2. ARN Staff. “Freud is dead, Marx is dead, and Darwin isn’t feeling very well.” In the News ID and Current Events. 2005-12-09 http://www.cafepress.com/accessresearch/964771

See also:

• The Church and Darwin
• Appealing to Rome on evolution
• The Church and evolution

1. Mr. Tom Heneghan. “Vienna cardinal draws lines in Intelligent Design row” Reuters 2005-11-20. http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=uri:2005-11-20T111756Z_01_KWA040635_RTRUKOC_0_US-RELIGION-EVOLUTION-CARDINAL.xml&pageNumber=0&summit=

The point he is trying to make, badly, is that when you attack people instead of their positions, or when you attack ideas that people really do not profess, others will question you even where you appear to be, and perhaps are, credible. If you want to convince me that you are right, and I am wrong, then you had best either know what I think and refute that, or stick to your own position and not claim to address mine at all. When you attack a straw man, those with the wit to realize what you are doing will doubt your position. If it was all that accurate, why would not not attack my position directly?

Beyond this point that Mr. Adams attempts to make though is a larger one. Evolution might be, I think is, the best materialistic theory for life as we know it. But science, in practice, claims more than that. It claims that evolution is not just the best explanation that science can offer, but an explanation that we must accept as objectively true. The realm of objective truth cannot be restricted to materialist explanations without proof that only such explanations are in fact objectively true. Such a proof is outside the realm of science, and so a counter argument would be equally outside the realm of science.

If you restrict your focus to what can be studied by a materialist approach, all the available evidence will support a materialist theory. That does not make the theory an accurate description of history. I care more about learning what is historically true than what is the best science can offer.

1. Mr. Scott Adams. “Intelligent Design, Part 1″ Dilbertblog 2005-11-12. http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2005/11/intelligent_des.html
2. Mr. Scott Adams. “Intelligent Design, Part 2″ Dilbertblog 2005-11-15. http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2005/11/intelligent_des_1.html

Contrast this with the neo-Darwinist position that posits randomness and yet at the same time says that the material is all, that we are our genes. That suspects to find the cause and whole of thought in the mechanics of the mind. An argument that, combined with physics, would reduce all of nature, all of man and all of his intellect to the mathematics of atoms bouncing. The Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle does not save us from this clockwork existence, for while perhaps no one can know the speed and position both at once, yet each atom has both. It would be a mistake, I believe (though I cannot prove), to say that the statistical understanding of the subatomic world is real. Each atom has a position and has a speed at any given instance. Not many speeds, but one. It is simply impossible for man, at least for now, to know it without changing the system. But that speed and position, unknown, still determines in (unknowable) mathematical precision exactly what is and what will be. Or it would, were the materialist correct, if the material were all that is. The only randomness available to the neo-Darwinist then is the randomness of the initial state, the composition of the pre-bang mass. Its nature, at best unknown and more likely unknowable, and the cause and nature of its explosion together provide the initial state after which all is determined by the geometry and physics of sub atomic collisions and wave equations.

Saint Augustine replaces this finite source of randomness. He replaces this unknowable disorder with a precision-crafted mass, and a carefully triggered explosion. A mass and explosion created, designed, to produce what we see. How much cleaner a picture this paints. It explains why each physical constant is exactly within the oh-so-narrow range it needs to be in. Why nothing is even the slightest out of place to yield life. It explains that great leap of improbability: the origin of life, an event so improbable as to cause some scientists to speculate that there must be many universes, or at least that the one universe must have collapsed and exploded time and time again, so that sufficient tries exist to allow the infinitely improbable to occur. All this messiness, this unprovable supposition is swept away with one simple and yet natural theory: that we are because some One willed it.

And yet, this too is not doctrine. It is merely, some 1449 years before Darwin published, the Catholic theory of evolution. It is the answer to the ancient Greek thought envisioning a world of atoms, whose random interactions negate the need of a Deity, and thus opens the way to the intellectually fulfilled atheist.

The Church, as Mr. Rees-Mogg states, might well want to distance itself from protestants who seek to find science in Genesis. But not necessarily because the Church thinks they must be wrong. Merely because they could be wrong. Again we face the temptation that Galileo succumbed to. We are tempted to say that we know that something is for no better reason than that the theory appeals to us. But the theory could be “beautiful,” it could be incredibly useful, and yet be wrong. Just as Newton’s laws proved wrong, and now perhaps even Quantum Mechanics will pass away,^[2] so too could Saint Augustine be wrong here, and all of evolution with him. There is no proof, there is only facts that fail to contradict at this point. That failure to contradict can lend strength, but, in the end, it cannot prove Truth, only find to be False. The temptation is to pride, to think we can know as God knows, to think that we cannot be wrong. To assert that all, even God, must give way before the power of our minds. And it was for this crime, and no other, that Galileo was found guilty.

Perhaps the science behind Intelligent Design is bad. Or perhaps it is only the Creationists whose science is bad, those asserting seven day creation. Or perhaps Genesis, beyond all expectation, does contain historical truth, and they will be found to have been right. We cannot know, do not know, with the data in hand.

1. Mr. William Rees-Mogg. “A pope for our times: why Darwin is back on the agenda at the Vatican” The Times Online 2005-11-07. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1052-1860310,00.html
2. Alok Jha. “Fuel’s paradise? Power source that turns physics on its head” www.guardian.co.uk 2005-11-04. http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,3605,1627424,00.html Much thanks to Vincas for passing this on.

the National Academy of Sciences and the National Science Teachers Association have denied the Kansas Board of Education permission to use their copyrighted materials as part of the state’s proposed new science standards because of the standards’ critical approach to evolution.^[1]

1. Mr. Tom Magnuson. “Kansas Fight on Evolution Escalates” The ID Update 2005-10-31. http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/3/2005/10/29/kansas_fight_on_evolution_escalates

The limits of scientific inquiry and of a scientific theory are indeed a crucial element to the co-existence of science and theology, the good Cardinal and I agree on that. Science has as its goal the “saving of the facts,”^[2] and can in only very few circumstances legitimately claim to know what is True, if at all.

1. Catholic News Agency. “Series of conferences by Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn titled ‘Creation and Evolution’” Catholic News Agency (online) 2005-10-05. http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=5061
2. Mr. Wade Rowland. Galileo’s Mistake : A New Look At the Epic Confrontation Between Galileo and the Church Arcade Publishing 2003-07-16. ISBN: 1559706848

1. Various Authors. “Is the Backwards Human Retina Evidence of Poor Design?” Institute for Creation Research 2005-10-05. http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=2476

1. Mr. Benjamin Wiker. “Faith, Science and the Persecution of Richard Sternberg” National Catholic Register (online) 2005-10-02. http://www.ncregister.com/articulo2.php?artkod=OTA=

[1] BBC News. “New ‘Hobbit’ disease link claim” BBC News World Edition (online) 2005-09-22. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4268122.stm

It might simply be my paranoia kicking in at an unusually high level today, but it strikes me that one good reason to include this would be if you, as a reporter, or as an editor, wished to sway public perception of sexuality. If you viewed humans as merely animals,^{[2] you might include this sort of story outlining animal sexuality in an attempt to sway human morality. After all, if animals are doing it, it must be “natural” and, so the logic goes, right.}

This is inherently flawed reasoning. Cats routinely “play” with their food before consuming it, you can observe a cat releasing and re-catching a mouse, or throwing it through the air. Humans though, unlike cats, have both free will and a rational mind. We hold it to be immoral to kill the animals we consume in cruel ways. In fact, humans alone even define “cruelty.” I am told that a jackal, unlike most animals, will kill more than it can eat. In a human this would be called and judged waste. In some species, babies must be protected from their fathers, this would be called child abuse or murder (depending on the outcome) among men. These and other examples abound. Man is called to a higher moral standard, man is, in fact, alone called to any moral standard. This covers not just what we eat and how we obtain our food. It looks not only at how we raise our children, but how we come by them.

[1] BBC News. “Female bats keep it in the family” BBC News World Edition 2005-09-14. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4245852.stm
[2] Mr. Luke Schierer. “Humans, just another primate?” Random Unfinished Thoughts 2005-09-12. https://www.schierer.org/~luke/log/20050912-0930/humans-just-another-primate