Store up for yourselves treasures in Heaven
where moth and rust cannot destroy and thieves cannot break in and steal

Saturday, June 26, 2010

The 1.6% Solution

1.6% of the North American population, in regard to the hunt for extraterrestrial intelligence, generally follow Sagan’s dictum that if we could find just one line of information from outer space, we have discovered proof of intelligence aside from our own. Just one line of information. That’s all it would take. Well, that’s what atheists say. How they actually live is another story.

Place in front of these same people a volume of information equivalent to 1,000 sets of the encyclopaedia Britannica however, information that governs the very existence of life no less, and what do we get?

“It’s just biological material. Nothing that time plus chance can’t produce.”

Referring to this specified, formulated, complex, coded information, the following comments have been made by scientists:

"This “machine code” is critical for information processing in a living cell. Without it being exactly as is - no working cell.
Watson and Crick, “Molecular Biology of the Gene,” 1:704

“The technology of information theory and coding theory has been in place in biology for at least 3.85 billion years.”
“River out of Eden”, 17

"We must continually remind ourselves that what we are looking at was not designed."
Francis Crick

“The machine code of the genes is uncannily computer-like.
Richard Dawkins

“DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software ever created.”
Stephen Hawking

Information scientist Hubert Yockey, “The genetic code is constructed to confront and solve the problems of communication and recording by the same principles found in modern communication and computer codes.”

"The main question facing scientists today when trying to explain the origin of first life is: “How did the sequence-specific digital information necessary to building the first cell arise?”
Kuppers, “Information and the Origin of Life,” 170-172.

You can show atheists that DNA forms part of a communication channel that can be analysed using information theory.

You can show atheists that DNA molecules are highly and quantifiably complex.

You can show atheists that the arrangement of bases in DNA and amino acids in proteins carry not just complexity but SPECIFIED complexity.

You can show atheists that the information in DNA contains alternative sequences or arrangements that produce a specific effect.

You can show atheists that DNA displays a functional specificity that goes WAY beyond the mathematical formalism of information theory.

And what do they say? How do they respond? “It’s just biological gunk. Nothing that time plus chance can’t produce.”

Even though this type of information is only found in conjuction with intelligence atheists refuse to even consider such an option.

Even though these people say that without observation and verification nothing can be believed, these people must maintain this implausible position or their belief system will collapse.

It’s what they’re like. It’s how they think!

9 comments:

  1. Why don't you consider lying to be a sin, Rod?

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  2. Haha, I knew we would get to either Big Bang theory or Evolution theory really soon after discussing morality. It's such a nice circular pattern.

    So why do you feel the need to lie about these 3 things Rod? Why do you need to misrepresent Atheists regarding Morality, Big Bang Theory, and The Theory of Evolution? Why are these 3 things so important?

    Are they the basis or your faith or something like that? Why the dichotomy between your awesome personal opinion and the rest of the evil godless people?

    To be more precise, regarding that post, why does DNA prove that humans were designed, but not prove that the Genesis creation story is fictional?
    (NOT THE WHOLE FREAKING BIBLE BY THE WAY... JUST IN CASE!)

    In other words, why do you talk about Adam and Eve once in a while, and accept the concept of original sin, but at the same time understand that biology teaches us a very different story concerning our origins.

    Face it, whether the first lifeforms came about naturally or not, we KNOW we share one or very few common ancestors. There was no Adam and Eve, that's for sure, no questions asked.

    If you disagree, then you disagree with what DNA tells us about who we are, and you cannot use it as an argument for your God, or it would be a ridiculous one, using the research that biologist have done and then discarding the conclusions that they drew from it...

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  3. We probably should have learned, by now, that Rod is incapable of understanding when his opinions conflict with each other.

    It's what he's like. It's how he thinks!

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  4. You dismiss time and chance as if it were as weird as the alternative you propose. We have several respectable theories as to the origin of life. None proven yet, but no less proven than your own anthropomorphic "hunch" of a contention. Atleast we have very smart individuals pounding away at experiment and observation. Creationism has hunches and "common sense" notions about what makes sense to a mass of personalities that are so hung up on an imaginary life, that they miss the real one. You had your mind made up, despite what molecular biology suggests. This was illustrated by Hugo. He said you support the results of biology and then turn around and try to convince us that the truth exists in the direct contradiction of genesis. This is a direct indication that you have all the motive in the world to maintain your belief. What motive would atheists have to preserve their world-view?

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  5. Isn't it time, chance and natural processes?

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  6. Just read that post again, and realized how stupid that sentence was:

    Even though this type of information is only found in conjuction with intelligence atheists refuse to even consider such an option.

    Thesauros is the one who claims that it's IMPOSSIBLE for life to have arise from non-life, and now he's trying to shift that certainty claim to people, like me, who claim that it's POSSIBLE that there was a designer, and that it's POSSIBLE that it was purely natural.

    Why? Because we have not proven exactly how life could arise from non-life. So, yes, to be honest, we have to admit that there could be an intelligen agent needed to start the process.

    BUT, we KNOW that it's POSSIBLE for life to arise from non-life. We have many different hypothesis, actually I am pretty sure we can consider them sound theories now since the facts are so strong.

    So, who's the idiot here? The guy who says, with CERTAINTY, that it is IMPOSSIBLE for life to arise from non-life? or the people who claim that we don't know how exactly, but it's POSSIBLE for life to arise from non-life?

    Just to make it even more clear. My worldview, UNLIKE Thesauros, is NOT based on ideas like 'there is no god' or 'there is a god', therefore, I don't really care how life started in order to form other beliefs.

    It's fascinating to learn about it and try to find explanations, but that's it, nothing more... there is no issues at stake, no worldview to destroy, no house of cards to break...

    Thesauros, on the other hand, is the one who makes a positive claim, an assertion, that life CANNOT POSSIBLY arise from non-life. If that assertion is proven false, it seems to me that his God has very little to do with life on Earth at all... He would be pushed back to the only other big thing we cannot explain: the origin of the universe!

    I still wonder ehre Adam and Eve fit in that big picture... Thesauros does not seem to care to explain that aspect himself. Anybody else has an idea on how he might be able to rationalize DNA and the garden of Eden as being both true and understood?

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  7. He could rationalize it the same way young earth creationists rationalize the age of the earth, the age of the universe and the speed of light.

    God made it all, and made it look old. He created everything and gave it the appearance of being a naturalistic universe.

    To test our faith, of course.

    Of course, a deity like this has embedded deception in his creation; he's created laws which really don't govern the universe. This God has made lying part of the very fabric of reality that we live in.

    So much for lying being a sin.

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  8. Good point WEM; so perhaps you just answered your own question as well... Thesauros does not consider lying to be a sin since God did it!

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  9. God made DNA, and gave it the appearance of having us all appear to be related, with an ancestry that spans millions of years and leads towards a single natural progenitor.

    And he did this to test our faith.

    Pay no attention to scientific advances (even if such things allow you to type intelligent thoughts on stupid blogs). Ignore that these advances suggest things which lead to new discoveries. Pretend that you understand enough of "evolution" to be able to dismiss 200 years of research by people who spent their lives doing little else.

    None of it matters, because God lies, and therefore it's morally righteous for us to lie as well.

    Brilliant!

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