Did you know that both Atheism and Christianity have a concept of predestination?
Isn’t that funny? Actually Atheism and Christianity are two extremes of the same religious continuum. That’s another post however. Back to atheist predestination.
Richard Dawkins says that life arising on earth was / is a sure thing. He even says that if the constants and qualities that govern the type of universe we inhabit had been different, then a different type of life would have arisen. So sure of this is Dawkins that he says, without any supporting evidence whatsoever, that life is even now evolving on a billion planets in our universe.
Because life arising by chance is not just improbable but impossible, all but the dullest of atheists have moved on to “necessity” as being the reason that we live in the world we observe. Atheists of course tried to do the same with the universe itself. Accepting that the odds of this life supporting universe arising by chance to be so small as to be impossible, some of the slower thinkers have said that this kind of universe HAD to exist. They say the universe is necessary. They say that this universe can’t not exist. Again, no evidence. Just another atheist origin of the universe mythology.
Note to self - Get back on track!
“A string of improbable events - drawing the same lottery number twice, or the same bridge hand twice in a row does not happen naturally. All of which lead me to conclude that life is an obligatory manifestation of matter.”
Christian De Duve, “The Beginning of Life on Earth” 437.
Richard Dawkins says that the inanimate and inorganic gases that “evolved” into a life creating process possess a life force, a vitalism if you will, that makes evolution, even before the origin of life, a sure thing.
Ah, such is the role of faith in atheist world.
As with chance playing a role in the rise of life, atheists are wrong on this count as well. Here’s why. Gorth is going to love this. As I write this, think DNA. Think information.
The reduction of uncertainty takes place with the transmission of information. The more improbable the event the more information that is conveyed.
Atheists who have placed their faith in the necessity or predestination of DNA claim that the sequence of bases in DNA were bio chemically predestined. However, this cannot be the case. That is because, “If forces of potential energy determined the arrangement of the bases, the code-like character of the molecule would be effaced by an overwhelming redundancy.”
Polanyi, “Life’s Irreducible Structure” 1309.
If every nucleotide base interacted with, and was attracted by “chemical necessity” we would find anything BUT specified complexity.
If every nucleotide base interacted with, and was attracted by “chemical necessity” what we would find along the axis of DNA is nothing but redundant and repetitive sequences - ACGT over and over and over again.
If every nucleotide base interacted with, and was attracted by “chemical necessity” rather than being a carrier of vast amounts of information DNA would be essentially meaningless. In fact, it would be unable to communicate a single bit of information. The effects of chemical necessity would do nothing but REDUCE the ability to transmit information or express novelty.
But that is not what we find when we observe DNA. In fact we observe exactly the opposite. It can be no other way.
“No information is generated by the occurrence of events for which there are no possible alternatives.”
Dretske, “Knowledge and the Flow of Information” 12
Are you getting this? Atheists who have placed their faith in the chemical predestination of life are in fact saying that they believe in the VERY THING that would make the evolution of life impossible.
Even if you’re an atheist, you’ve got to smile at the irony.
To the degree that chemical predestination exists, to that degree is the information carrying ability of the system reduced by redundancy. In fact it is for no other reason that DNA is NOT chemically predestined. It is only because it is NOT chemically predestined that the DNA molecule is able to store and transmit huge, huge unimaginably huge amounts of information.
“It is this physical indeterminacy of the sequence that produces the improbability of occurrence of any particular sequence and thereby enable it to have a meaning - a meaning that has a mathematically determinate information content equal to the numerical improbability of the arrangement.”
Yockey, “Self-Organization Origin of Life Scenarios.”
The fact is, the base sequences in DNA posses not only an information carrying ability, they also store functionally specified information. They aren’t just specified. They are also complex. It should be obvious, even to an atheist that a sequence can’t be both complex and specified if it isn’t at the very least - complex.
It is simply a fact that chemical forces, vitalism, predestined or otherwise do not create complex sequences. Because of that they CANNOT explain the origin of information that provides for the possibility of life. It can’t be done. Only intelligence produces intelligent complex information. Our experience is absolutely uniform on this count.
Desperate as they are to find a natural means for the creation of life, a means that excludes an Intelligent Designer, atheists will be tempted to say, “Well, that’s just a theory.”
Actually - No. It’s far, far more than just a theory.
Google yourself an image of a DNA molecule and you’ll find something interesting. Look carefully and you will see two very important points.
1. There are NO chemical bonds linking the nucleotide bases along the message bearing axis of the molecule.
U oh! That’s not good for the atheist faith. AND
2. The same kind of chemical bonds are responsible for linking the different nucleotide bases to the backbone of the molecule.
Those two points mean that any nucleotide base can hook up to the backbone at any one site just as easily as it can hook up to any other site. This shows that the properties of the chemical bases of DNA - DO NOT - determine the sequences of its base. Life is NOT chemically predetermined.
The information that brings life into being was not put there by natural means.
To Review:
There are NO chemical bonds between the nucleotide bases along the axis in the centre of the helix. Why is that a problem for those who place their faith in the theory of chemically predestined life? Because it is exactly along THAT axis of the DNA molecule that genetic information is stored :-(
There aren’t ANY differential chemical bonding attractions. In fact there are NO bonds at all between critical information bearing bases in DNA.
Polanyi, “Life’s Irreducible Structure”
Bio chemical predestination, like Chance, is a bust when it comes to answering the question,
What is the origin of the information of life?
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14 comments:
drawing the same lottery number twice... does not happen naturally.
It happens. Most recent:
BBC, 10 September 2009:
The Bulgarian authorities have ordered an investigation after the same six numbers were drawn in two consecutive rounds of the national lottery.
Law of truly large numbers. Weird stuff happens all the time.
Richard Dawkins may be the Atheist pope (which I guess makes Christopher Hitchens the Bishop of Canterbury?), but I don't follow him. I promise never to criticize your views for anything a Pope has said, so why present Dawkins as a strawman?
You're discussing a concept that philosophy calls "determinism." Frankly, I don't know nearly enough about it to comment. Some very intelligent people are on both sides, and its uncertainty is one of the central mysteries obstructing our accurate understanding of quantum physics.
I don't know nearly enough about it to comment."
But you will anyway :-)
Because life arising by chance is not just improbable but impossible,
Wrong.
Accepting that the odds of this life supporting universe arising by chance to be so small as to be impossible
Wrong.
A string of improbable events - drawing the same lottery number twice, or the same bridge hand twice in a row does not happen naturally.
Wrong. It can and does happen. As Chris has pointed out. It's happened SEVERAL time this year.
New York State Lottery draws same numbers twice in same day
New York State Lottery (in March). Same numbers in two draws in a row.
Bulgarian Lottery (in September).
Same numbers in two draws in a row.
Nebraska Lottery.
Same numbers in two draws in a row.
Happens often. So much for impossible!
I've just read an interesting thread called "Disproving the big bang is not enough" in which a certain person comments.
I didn't say whether I am determinist or not. I really have no thoughts on that particular matter. I can see each side as being plausible, and I have read very convincing arguments that say both.
Sorry, everytime I read this post, I get to the end and forget what I was thinking at the beginning, which was the whole point of my other posts:
Many Christian theologians are unsure of determinism, as are many secular philosophers. I think you're making a huge assumption with the very premise of your post by saying both agree. Perhaps they both agree that they're on the fence, but Christianity and "Atheism" (which I am just going to assume is lingua ignoramus for "secular") do not in fact as a whole agree on one or the other.
A string of improbable events - drawing the same lottery number twice, or the same bridge hand twice in a row does not happen naturally"
Personally, I wouldn't have made a comment like that. It was a quote from some atheist trying to justify the ridiculous claim of life coming from non life.
Of course other atheists will read your comments and say, "See! One chance in a trillion, trillion of one amino acid being formed means that life by chance is a sure thing."
Chris: I clicked on your link and was blown away by the discussion.
I have just this | | much memory of that happening. Is that your blog or how did you ever find it?
I haven't read it in context, but I imagine what Dawkins is saying is that [all assumed to be Dawkins' logic, not mine]:
1. Life arose "by chance," as you say, or through biochemistry, as others say.
2. Even if life is a gamble, given the number of drawings, we would have at least hit the jackpot at some point by now (perhaps it could have been earlier, perhaps later).
3. Life was inevitable.
To me, true determinism works like this:
At some point, beginning or otherwise, the universe became a complex chemical reaction. Chemistry is a study of the laws of physics at incredible complexity (which is to say, basic chemistry terms are, at their core, explained through complex physical laws). The whole universe, then is a very complex series of inevitable events, because all actions that take place occur because of simple laws which are followed by all particles from the singularity point in the past (regardless of how distant).
Do I believe that? I don't, but I don't believe it can't be true. I suppose it could have been "determined" or "fated" or "destined" from the beginning of time. I have no way of testing it.
However, quantum physics has presented uncertainty. The movement of very small particles may be "random," which means everything could not be pre-determined. In case you're wondering how theology handles this, they imagine God able to view the possible outcomes of all available variables. I assume you need no explanation of how theologists handle the first example (God just writes the laws).
And scientists (or as you call them, "atheists")? Waiting with their pants around their ankles for the LHC data to be processed.
All this rubbish doesn;t matter. It's the kind of thing jews think about.
Get yourself straight and read the BIBLE. You;ll find the REAL JESUS. Not the imaginary Jesus that you think you know.
Mak, I'm resisting a huge urge to compare you to the epic douchebag who posted above this, because I know you're better.
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