Re: Creation vs Evolution
Originally posted by ~Flamboyant~
Sorry if this has been done, but which do you beleive in and why?I personally beleive in the Evolution theory, because it has basically been scientifically proven. Especially by the Hard-Weinberg Principle.
I believe both.
Creation does not preclude evolution, and vice versa. Evolution has been shown to be capable of manipulation by man. Given this, a creator could have used evolution as the tool of creation. The scientific support for evolution should lead an individual that believes in creation to assume that it played some role in creation.
Originally posted by Templares
Sure, sure lets punch holes (2 big ones) on that pdf link of yours from reclaimamerica.org:1. It CHERRY PICKS quotes from reputable scientist to make it appear that the theory of evolution is losing its support in the scientific community and certain facts relevant to the debate.
-It failed to include this quote from Fred Hoyle:
"[B]The creationist is a sham religious person
who, curiously, has no true sense of religion. In the language of religion, it is the facts we observe in the world around us that must be seen to constitute the words of God. Documents, whether the Bible, Qur'an or those writings that held such force for Velikovsky, are only the words of men. To prefer the words of men to those of God is what one can mean by blasphemy. This, we think, is the instinctive point of view of most scientists who, curiously again, have a deeper understanding of the real nature of religion than have the many who delude themselves into a frenzied belief in the words, often the meaningless words, of men. Indeed, the lesser the meaning, the greater the frenzy, in something like inverse proportion."
--Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, Our Place in the Cosmos (1993), p.14-Or this one from Stephen J. Gould
"Evolutionary theory is now enjoying this uncommon vigor. Yet amidst all this turmoil no biologist has been led to doubt the fact that evolution occurred; we are debating how it happened. We are all trying to explain the same thing: the tree of evolutionary descent linking all organisms by ties of genealogy. Creationists pervert and caricature this debate by conveniently neglecting the common conviction that underlies it, and by falsely suggesting that evolutionists now doubt the very phenomenon we are struggling to understand. " - Stephen J. Gould
-Or take into account the general stance of CURRENT scientists like when The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity Nobel Laureates Initiative declared (in 2005) that Intelligent design (Creationism updated for the new millenium) cannot be tested as a scientific theory "because its central conclusion is based on belief in the intervention of a supernatural agent." In fact why do creationists love to quote old and/or dead scientists who lived in an INFERIOR scientific era?
-Or take into account that ID/creationist "scientists" like Michael Behe and Will Dembski and their "arguments" have already been HOSED down by the scientific community in several books, journals and public statements all over the world, in particular the court ruling in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial just last December 2005 (Behe made a fool of himself here).
2. It OVEREXAGGERATES the flaws and/or gaps in the evolutionary theory.
-Hoaxes debunked (Piltdown man), old assumptions discarded (Haeckel embryo's) or modified (Neanderthal man) or corrected (Darwin's racist assumption about human evolution was proven wrong by geneticists); all of these things are NORMAL occurences in the course of scientific development.Science and evolution is not static. What we know today is NOT THE SUM TOTAL OF EVERYTHING there is to know about the natural world. There would be plenty more of scientific breakthroughs in the future. Gaps in the fossil record? That would be FILLED IN in the future (Poppycock! Do these creationists know how insanely difficult it is to find fossils?) and besides these currently missing fossils do NOT INVALIDATE evolution because other branches of science like genetics, anatomy, bacteriology furnish concrete evidence that supports it.
-Have i mentioned "God of the Gaps"? Yeah baby. [/B]
New Definition of Science?
Issue Date: November/December 2005
By Thomas Heinze
"Evolution is science, so the schools must teach it. Creationism and Intelligent Design (ID) are religion, so they must not be taught!" We have been hearing this kind of rubbish a lot more since President Bush said he thinks intelligent design should be taught in public schools in addition to evolution so the students can understand what the debate is all about.
Mark Bergin in World Magazine lists some of the criticisms: "The Philadelphia Daily News said widespread acceptance of ID could undermine the scientific method. The Washington Post suggested that the president was 'indulging quackery' for political gain. The Los Angeles Times called the comments 'one more example of the extreme right's attempt to create a Taliban-like society." (Mark Bergin, Mad scientists, World Magazine, 8/05,) Evolutionists, who say that Bush wants religion and what they want is science, use a special definition of science that eliminates creation: "Science is the search for natural solutions." Creation by an intelligent Designer is a supernatural rather than a natural solution. By this contrived definition, to be "scientific," you have to be an atheist.
Consider this: The heads of some of America's most famous presidents have been carved from solid rock at Mount Rushmore. If a visiting evolutionist science professor applied the "search for natural solutions definition to these heads, he would have to conclude that they were formed by something natural like weathering and erosion rather than by intelligent design. If he suggested this, he would be laughed out of the classroom.
But he does not hesitate to teach his students that the heads of the real presidents who inspired the statues evolved by accident through the blind forces of nature. Is he right when he claims that the real heads of real presidents had no designer? No! Stone cold, dead wrong!
The Rushmore heads only show design on the carved surface. The real heads show incredible design all the way down to the atoms. Human heads are made of billions of cells. Inside each cell, wonderful little machines do much of the work of the cell. Every machine known to mankind had an intelligent designer, but these cell machines are so precise and efficient that manmade machines are crude by comparison. Scientists are studying them, hoping to copy them. For example, a miniature motor that spins at 100,000 RPM with almost perfect efficiency is found in some single celled animals that evolutionists consider "primitive." This is just one of the many kinds of molecular motors and other molecular machines found even in "simple" cells. Moreover, the cell's machines are made of some of the most complex and difficult to produce chemicals in the world, such as protein and RNA. These materials never occur in nature except when made by living cells. Yet, evolutionists claim that lucky accidents brought the parts together and assembled them.
Why would they even consider such a dumb idea? Because their definition of science makes intelligent design "unscientific".
Hiding the evidence for intelligent design from our students is a horrible, despicable crime against them. How many students would believe in evolution today if the evidence that God was the Designer and Creator had not been hidden from them?
Part 2
Originally posted by Templares
Sure, sure lets punch holes (2 big ones) on that pdf link of yours from reclaimamerica.org:1. It CHERRY PICKS quotes from reputable scientist to make it appear that the theory of evolution is losing its support in the scientific community and certain facts relevant to the debate.
-It failed to include this quote from Fred Hoyle:
"[B]The creationist is a sham religious person
who, curiously, has no true sense of religion. In the language of religion, it is the facts we observe in the world around us that must be seen to constitute the words of God. Documents, whether the Bible, Qur'an or those writings that held such force for Velikovsky, are only the words of men. To prefer the words of men to those of God is what one can mean by blasphemy. This, we think, is the instinctive point of view of most scientists who, curiously again, have a deeper understanding of the real nature of religion than have the many who delude themselves into a frenzied belief in the words, often the meaningless words, of men. Indeed, the lesser the meaning, the greater the frenzy, in something like inverse proportion."
--Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, Our Place in the Cosmos (1993), p.14-Or this one from Stephen J. Gould
"Evolutionary theory is now enjoying this uncommon vigor. Yet amidst all this turmoil no biologist has been led to doubt the fact that evolution occurred; we are debating how it happened. We are all trying to explain the same thing: the tree of evolutionary descent linking all organisms by ties of genealogy. Creationists pervert and caricature this debate by conveniently neglecting the common conviction that underlies it, and by falsely suggesting that evolutionists now doubt the very phenomenon we are struggling to understand. " - Stephen J. Gould
-Or take into account the general stance of CURRENT scientists like when The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity Nobel Laureates Initiative declared (in 2005) that Intelligent design (Creationism updated for the new millenium) cannot be tested as a scientific theory "because its central conclusion is based on belief in the intervention of a supernatural agent." In fact why do creationists love to quote old and/or dead scientists who lived in an INFERIOR scientific era?
-Or take into account that ID/creationist "scientists" like Michael Behe and Will Dembski and their "arguments" have already been HOSED down by the scientific community in several books, journals and public statements all over the world, in particular the court ruling in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial just last December 2005 (Behe made a fool of himself here).
2. It OVEREXAGGERATES the flaws and/or gaps in the evolutionary theory.
-Hoaxes debunked (Piltdown man), old assumptions discarded (Haeckel embryo's) or modified (Neanderthal man) or corrected (Darwin's racist assumption about human evolution was proven wrong by geneticists); all of these things are NORMAL occurences in the course of scientific development.Science and evolution is not static. What we know today is NOT THE SUM TOTAL OF EVERYTHING there is to know about the natural world. There would be plenty more of scientific breakthroughs in the future. Gaps in the fossil record? That would be FILLED IN in the future (Poppycock! Do these creationists know how insanely difficult it is to find fossils?) and besides these currently missing fossils do NOT INVALIDATE evolution because other branches of science like genetics, anatomy, bacteriology furnish concrete evidence that supports it.
-Have i mentioned "God of the Gaps"? Yeah baby. [/B]
In the Beginning...Soup?
©2003 by Thomas F. Heinze
Reproduced by permission
Chapter 1
Did God Create Life? Ask a Protein
In 1953 Stanley Miller performed an experiment which rocked the world! He showed that passing a spark through a chosen mixture of gasses will form some amino acids, the building blocks of proteins which are the main ingredients of living cells. With no more basis than this, biology textbooks taught us that amino acids became concentrated in a primordial "ORGANIC SOUP" then linked together to form proteins, the principle ingredients of living cells. The proteins, it was claimed, got together with DNA to form cells. God was given no part in the creation of life.
Amino acids, however, will not "link together" to form proteins! Living cells are the only places in nature where proteins are made because they contain the information to put amino acids in the right order for each individual protein, and have tiny machines that link them together. No proteins ever form in nature outside of already living cells. Never!
As you read each piece of evidence, ask yourself, "Which view does this evidence support? Did life begin by itself in organic soup, or did God create life? To remind you, I will often put the word "evidence" in bold. I will include many quotes from authorities who do not believe in the Creator, but reveal important evidence against the popular atheistic viewpoint because they favor a different atheistic viewpoint.
The evidence that life never comes from non-living materials is so abundant that it is a basic principle of science, called the Principle of Biogenesis. (Living things come only from living things.) In spite of this, atheists and many agnostics have faith that, at least once, life started spontaneously from chemicals. They call this "abiogenesis" which comes from roots meaning "not Biogenesis." They prefer not to use the older name, "spontaneous generation."
Amino acids come in two kinds: Half are called left-handed and half right-handed. Only left-handed amino acids will work in living things. Proteins which contain any right-handed amino acids have the wrong shape and will not connect properly to the proteins around them. It is like taking a piece out of a puzzle, turning it upside down and trying to put it back in. It is the same size and shape, but it won't fit. Amino acids formed in nature or in experiments like Miller's will not work to make the proteins of living things because they are half left, and half right-handed. This evidence, added to the fact that proteins never form outside of cells, makes it even more clear that life could not have come from organic soup.
In spite of the difficulty, already living cells can make proteins because:
If you think of DNA as the cell's library, and RNA as a book that can be checked out of the library, one kind of RNA checks out information from the DNA to line up left handed amino acids in the precise order for a particular protein.
The amino acids are then linked together by a "molecular machine" made of another kind of RNA and several proteins. Each cell has many kinds of molecular machines.
Because no machine exists that did not have an intelligent inventor, each of the cell's machines is more evidence for an intelligent Creator.
After having taught for 40 or 50 years that life began when amino acids linked together in organic soup in the ocean and formed proteins, atheists are abandoning this claim because amino acids:
Do not concentrate in the ocean. They disperse and break down.
Outside of cells, amino acids will not link together in nature to form proteins, not even when scientists help them by buying all left-handed amino acids from a chemical supply house to make the perfect organic soup.
Proteins could not get together with DNA in a primordial soup because DNA does not form outside of cells either. Scientists can't even make DNA in the laboratory.
The argument that convinced two generations that life began without a Creator was false in each step. The overwhelming evidence against it, however, is only one of the reasons this argument is being abandoned. It is also because atheists now favor another theory: that life was formed by RNA rather than proteins. Notice the reasons this schoolbook offers:
"Scientists have not been able to cause amino acids dissolved in water to join together to form proteins. The energy-requiring chemical reactions that join amino acids are reversible and do not occur spontaneously in water. However, most scientists no longer argue that the first proteins assembled spontaneously. Instead, they now tell us that the initial macromolecules were composed of RNA, and that RNA later catalyzed the formation of proteins."1
I rejoice that some schoolbooks now tell the truth about proteins: Amino acids do not link together in "organic soup" to form proteins. The teaching that convinced so many people that life had no Creator was false.
The idea that RNA, rather than proteins, formed in primordial soup, is also false. RNA and DNA are made of nucleotides, a bit like proteins are made of amino acids. Fry states:
"…water greatly interferes with the linking of amino acids and nucleotides into chains, a crucial step in the origin of life."2
In fact, even when the nucleotides are dry, RNA cannot be made except by already living cells:
"…no one has yet succeeded in creating RNA."3
Many atheists today are abandoning the false argument that life began when proteins formed in primordial soup to believe the even more false claim that RNA did. Not only can RNA not be formed anywhere except in living cells, it contains sugars which must all be right-handed. If left-handed sugars were present, and were included, RNA would never work even if it could form. Hiding these facts, some schoolbooks now make the formation of RNA sound as easy as they made protein formation sound to previous generations of students. Here is an example:
Part 3
Originally posted by Templares
Sure, sure lets punch holes (2 big ones) on that pdf link of yours from reclaimamerica.org:1. It CHERRY PICKS quotes from reputable scientist to make it appear that the theory of evolution is losing its support in the scientific community and certain facts relevant to the debate.
-It failed to include this quote from Fred Hoyle:
"[B]The creationist is a sham religious person
who, curiously, has no true sense of religion. In the language of religion, it is the facts we observe in the world around us that must be seen to constitute the words of God. Documents, whether the Bible, Qur'an or those writings that held such force for Velikovsky, are only the words of men. To prefer the words of men to those of God is what one can mean by blasphemy. This, we think, is the instinctive point of view of most scientists who, curiously again, have a deeper understanding of the real nature of religion than have the many who delude themselves into a frenzied belief in the words, often the meaningless words, of men. Indeed, the lesser the meaning, the greater the frenzy, in something like inverse proportion."
--Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, Our Place in the Cosmos (1993), p.14-Or this one from Stephen J. Gould
"Evolutionary theory is now enjoying this uncommon vigor. Yet amidst all this turmoil no biologist has been led to doubt the fact that evolution occurred; we are debating how it happened. We are all trying to explain the same thing: the tree of evolutionary descent linking all organisms by ties of genealogy. Creationists pervert and caricature this debate by conveniently neglecting the common conviction that underlies it, and by falsely suggesting that evolutionists now doubt the very phenomenon we are struggling to understand. " - Stephen J. Gould
-Or take into account the general stance of CURRENT scientists like when The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity Nobel Laureates Initiative declared (in 2005) that Intelligent design (Creationism updated for the new millenium) cannot be tested as a scientific theory "because its central conclusion is based on belief in the intervention of a supernatural agent." In fact why do creationists love to quote old and/or dead scientists who lived in an INFERIOR scientific era?
-Or take into account that ID/creationist "scientists" like Michael Behe and Will Dembski and their "arguments" have already been HOSED down by the scientific community in several books, journals and public statements all over the world, in particular the court ruling in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial just last December 2005 (Behe made a fool of himself here).
2. It OVEREXAGGERATES the flaws and/or gaps in the evolutionary theory.
-Hoaxes debunked (Piltdown man), old assumptions discarded (Haeckel embryo's) or modified (Neanderthal man) or corrected (Darwin's racist assumption about human evolution was proven wrong by geneticists); all of these things are NORMAL occurences in the course of scientific development.Science and evolution is not static. What we know today is NOT THE SUM TOTAL OF EVERYTHING there is to know about the natural world. There would be plenty more of scientific breakthroughs in the future. Gaps in the fossil record? That would be FILLED IN in the future (Poppycock! Do these creationists know how insanely difficult it is to find fossils?) and besides these currently missing fossils do NOT INVALIDATE evolution because other branches of science like genetics, anatomy, bacteriology furnish concrete evidence that supports it.
-Have i mentioned "God of the Gaps"? Yeah baby. [/B]
Part 3
"First, RNA nucleotides formed from simple gas molecules in much the same way as in experiments similar to those done by Miller and Urey. Nucleotides then assembled spontaneously into small chains…. These small chains were able to make copies of themselves. Once replicating molecules like these appear, natural selection and evolution are possible."4
This is science fiction. Perhaps the authors have confused nucleotides, which will not form, with bases, the main ingredients of nucleotides. Scientists have repeated the experiment of Stanley Miller and his teacher, Urey, many times in many variations. Neither RNA nor nucleotides, their building blocks, will form, nor could nucleotides sort for all right-handed sugars if they did form. This is real evidence, and has been put to the test.
Here is a quote from another schoolbook which leads students to believe that life evolved from chemicals:
"Perhaps RNA was the first self-replicating information-storage molecule. After it had formed, it could also have catalyzed the assembly of the first proteins…."5
Before you get too enthused over the marvelous powers of "perhaps RNA," remember that years of research have not been able to make RNA form, nor does RNA catalyze the assembly of proteins.
I have not yet found a science textbook for school kids which admits that RNA is never spontaneously generated, but here is a quote from a philosopher of science which states that not even the nucleotides from which RNA is made will form that way:
"Though a few organic substances-for instance, certain simple amino acids-can form relatively easily under prebiotic conditions, other biochemical building blocks, such as nucleotides and lipids, require for their synthesis a 'real factory.' … The synthesis of these substances involves a series of reactions, each reaction following the previous one in utmost accuracy."6
The "real factory" that can make nucleotides is any living cell. Some other atheistic scientists also tell it like it is:
"Some of the steps leading to the synthesis of DNA and RNA can be duplicated in the laboratory, others cannot."7
The fact that RNA does not form in nature outside of living cells and scientists cannot even make it from scratch in the lab is scientific evidence, and can be tested. In the case of both proteins and RNA, atheists have opposed my evidence by pointing out smaller and simpler molecules which do form in nature. This is true, but so what? Proteins do the work of the cell with the direction and help of RNA, and DNA. All three are often called macromolecules because they are so large and complex. None of them form in nature outside of living cells.
Teaching kids that life started without a Creator produces atheists. Doubts grow and faith in God is undermined. Many then adopt moral standards based on atheism. If you personally turned to atheism because you were taught that proteins formed spontaneously, what will you do now that even atheists admit that was false? Will you be faithful to the religion of atheism that was wrong about proteins, and blindly switch your faith to the false argument that RNA formed spontaneously? Or will you accept the evidence?
Want more evidence? I adapted this booklet from my book, Answers to my Evolutionist Friends, How Life Began (Chick Publications, 2002, 160 pages) which backs up the booklet with much more evidence, in greater depth, and with more references to atheistic sources.
Whatever you believe about where proteins came from, they are the principle ingredients of living cells and deserve your serious consideration. As we dive in, I warn you, they provide powerful scientific evidence that living things have an intelligent Creator! Read on if you dare:
Proteins must fold perfectly
When a cell has made a new protein, while it is still moving into place, it folds into the exact shape which will allow it to connect with the proteins next to it. Some scientists use the illustration of a hand in a glove to describe how a protein must fit. Others liken it to the way a key fits in a lock. How does a new protein know how to fold? IBM is building the world's most powerful super computer named Blue Gene, hoping to figure this out. The Oregonian describes the new super computer:
"The machine, dubbed Blue Gene, will be turned loose on a single problem. The computer will try to model the way a human protein folds into a particular shape that gives it its unique biological properties."8
IBM writes:
"To make proteins, agents known as ribosomes connect amino acids into long strings. These strings loop and fold around each other in a variety of ways. However, only one of these many ways will allow the protein to function properly."9
"… proteins fold into a highly complex, three-dimensional shape that determines their function. Any change in shape dramatically alters the function of a protein, and even the slightest change in the folding process can turn a desirable protein into a disease."10
Because Blue Gene will unleash tremendous computing power, by running it day and night it should only take, "about one year to simulate the complete folding of a typical protein."11 Living cells, however, fold such proteins in less than a second. This evidence shows that the One who invented the way proteins fold in cells is much more intelligent than the new super computer.
In the lab, intelligent scientists have learned how to link amino acids together to form some of the smaller proteins. However, unless the amino acids are all left-handed and the proteins fold properly, they are no better than miniature spaghetti as far as biological activity is concerned.
Part 4
Originally posted by Templares
Sure, sure lets punch holes (2 big ones) on that pdf link of yours from reclaimamerica.org:1. It CHERRY PICKS quotes from reputable scientist to make it appear that the theory of evolution is losing its support in the scientific community and certain facts relevant to the debate.
-It failed to include this quote from Fred Hoyle:
"[B]The creationist is a sham religious person
who, curiously, has no true sense of religion. In the language of religion, it is the facts we observe in the world around us that must be seen to constitute the words of God. Documents, whether the Bible, Qur'an or those writings that held such force for Velikovsky, are only the words of men. To prefer the words of men to those of God is what one can mean by blasphemy. This, we think, is the instinctive point of view of most scientists who, curiously again, have a deeper understanding of the real nature of religion than have the many who delude themselves into a frenzied belief in the words, often the meaningless words, of men. Indeed, the lesser the meaning, the greater the frenzy, in something like inverse proportion."
--Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, Our Place in the Cosmos (1993), p.14-Or this one from Stephen J. Gould
"Evolutionary theory is now enjoying this uncommon vigor. Yet amidst all this turmoil no biologist has been led to doubt the fact that evolution occurred; we are debating how it happened. We are all trying to explain the same thing: the tree of evolutionary descent linking all organisms by ties of genealogy. Creationists pervert and caricature this debate by conveniently neglecting the common conviction that underlies it, and by falsely suggesting that evolutionists now doubt the very phenomenon we are struggling to understand. " - Stephen J. Gould
-Or take into account the general stance of CURRENT scientists like when The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity Nobel Laureates Initiative declared (in 2005) that Intelligent design (Creationism updated for the new millenium) cannot be tested as a scientific theory "because its central conclusion is based on belief in the intervention of a supernatural agent." In fact why do creationists love to quote old and/or dead scientists who lived in an INFERIOR scientific era?
-Or take into account that ID/creationist "scientists" like Michael Behe and Will Dembski and their "arguments" have already been HOSED down by the scientific community in several books, journals and public statements all over the world, in particular the court ruling in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial just last December 2005 (Behe made a fool of himself here).
2. It OVEREXAGGERATES the flaws and/or gaps in the evolutionary theory.
-Hoaxes debunked (Piltdown man), old assumptions discarded (Haeckel embryo's) or modified (Neanderthal man) or corrected (Darwin's racist assumption about human evolution was proven wrong by geneticists); all of these things are NORMAL occurences in the course of scientific development.Science and evolution is not static. What we know today is NOT THE SUM TOTAL OF EVERYTHING there is to know about the natural world. There would be plenty more of scientific breakthroughs in the future. Gaps in the fossil record? That would be FILLED IN in the future (Poppycock! Do these creationists know how insanely difficult it is to find fossils?) and besides these currently missing fossils do NOT INVALIDATE evolution because other branches of science like genetics, anatomy, bacteriology furnish concrete evidence that supports it.
-Have i mentioned "God of the Gaps"? Yeah baby. [/B]
Part 4
Addressing proteins
Even though there are huge numbers of wrong places for proteins to go, there is only one correct place in which each newly made protein can fit and function. Proteins are worthless except in the one spot they fold to fit. How do proteins find their way?
"… newly minted proteins contain an amino acid string that determines their eventual home."12
The amino acid string which forms the address is usually added as a tail on the end of the longer string of amino acids which make up the protein. This tail has been compared to the address on an envelope.
Before you claim this evidence does not matter, put a bunch of your letters in the mail box without addressing them. If the right addresses form spontaneously, let me know! Science News says,
"Misplacing a protein is more serious than losing a letter, however. There are diseases where proteins are mistargeted in cells."13
In 1999, "The Nobel Prize for Medicine went to Dr. Guenter Blobel of The Rockefeller University in New York"14 for discovering the amino acid address tags that direct each protein to its proper place in the cell. All available evidence indicates that creating the correct information for each address, and expressing it in code requires intelligence. Cells can't live unless each of their many proteins not only folds correctly, but receives the correct address tag. Things which will not work at all unless several things were in place and working together from the very first are called "irreducibly complex."
Turning proteins on and off
The cell also needs the right amount of each protein. If there was even one protein that the cell did not stop making after it had made enough, the cell would soon be jammed so full of that protein that it would pop. The production of every individual protein is, and must be, turned on and off at just the right moments.15
If a first cell did not contain the information to correctly turn on and off the production of each protein, that cell would have died. This is evidence that the divine programmer who coded in the necessary information knew when to turn protein production on and off.
So what?
The proteins that make up cells do not form anywhere in nature except in already living cells. One reason cells can make them is because the instructions for constructing them and then turning their production on and off are already present in the cell's library of information. Once made, proteins could not function unless they were properly folded and addressed. Neither making proteins, folding, addressing, nor regulating their production could invent itself, yet no cell could live unless all were in place and coordinated. These are scientific facts; evidence for a very intelligent Creator who plans ahead.
Textbook authors who replace scientific evidence with atheistic theory contribute to the "dumbing down" of students. Students are not taught the important scientific facts we have just seen because they contradict atheistic theory. Instead, class time is taken up learning propaganda that is contrary to real science.
In the Beginning...Soup?
©2003 by Thomas F. Heinze
Reproduced by permission
Chapter 2
A Cell Needs a Membrane
Each cell is contained inside a two layer membrane made of lipids (fats).1 Lipids are only formed by living cells. Here is a quote that we read earlier, when we were considering nucleotides, the building blocks of RNA and DNA. It is important here as well:
"Though a few organic substances-for instance, certain simple amino acids-can form relatively easily under prebiotic conditions, other biochemical building blocks, such as nucleotides and lipids, require for their synthesis a 'real factory.' … The synthesis of these substances involves a series of reactions, each reaction following the previous one in utmost accuracy."2
Cells can't live without lipids, and lipids are only produced by already living cells. This is important evidence for our wonderful Creator.
What does the cell's membrane do?
Alberts writes:
"A living cell is a self-reproducing system of molecules held inside a container. The container is the plasma membrane - a fatty film so thin and transparent that it cannot be seen directly in the light microscope. It is simple in construction, being based on a sheet of lipid molecules…. Although it serves as a barrier to prevent the contents of the cell from escaping and mixing with the surrounding medium…the plasma membrane does much more than that. Nutrients have to pass inward across it if the cell is to survive and grow, and waste products have to pass outward. Thus the membrane is penetrated by highly selective channels and pumps, formed from protein molecules, that allow specific substances to be imported while others are exported."3
A lipid membrane without its protein pumps and channels would let water enter the cell, but would keep nutrients out, starving the cell,4 so proteins had to work together with the lipids from the first. This is evidence of carefully planned irreducible complexity.
If cells had really formed by themselves, we would expect their important parts to be made of substances that are easily formed under natural conditions. Amazing! Not one of the four: lipids, proteins, RNA, or DNA, can be formed in nature except by a living cell, yet for a cell to live, all four must be up and running, each one doing its job.
If God had wanted to shout to us that He is here, and show us proof that He created, can you think of a better way for Him to do it? Run, don't walk, to the nearest Bible and get to know your awesome Creator personally through His Son, Jesus Christ! Start with the book of John.
Part 5
Originally posted by Templares
[]...
In the Beginning...Soup?
©2003 by Thomas F. Heinze
Reproduced by permission
Chapter 3
Where Did the Information in Cells Come from?
The DNA of a bacterium contains as much information as a 1000 page book!1 What is information? The principle dictionary definition is, "knowledge communicated or received…."2
Speaking of the information in DNA, Philip Johnson explains,
"By information, I mean a message that conveys meaning, such as a book of instructions.… Information is not matter, though it is imprinted on matter.… Instructions in the fertilized egg control embryonic development from the beginning, and direct it to a specific outcome."3
Professor Werner Gitt, who works in the field of information science writes:
"There is no known natural law through which matter can give rise to information, neither is there any physical process or material phenomenon known that can do this."4
This statement, if true, destroys the whole basis of the idea that no intelligent mind was involved in the formation of the first life. Is his statement true? All known languages, alphabets and codes, as well as the information spoken or written in them, originated in minds. The faith of the atheist that the first life was an exception is contrary to all known evidence.
Some have argued that monkeys beating at random on a typewriter or computer keyboard might eventually produce a few recognizable words, which would be information. How many words would the monkeys type if no one had designed any alphabet or keyboard or computer, and they had to beat on the dirt?
It's hard to be an atheist. One must have faith that, contrary to all evidence, not just a few words but huge amounts of usable information, and the language and code with which the information was written, popped up by themselves.
De Duve, a Nobel Prize winning scientist writes:
"In all modern organisms, DNA contains in encrypted form the instructions for the manufacture of proteins. More specifically, encoded within DNA is the exact order in which amino acids, selected at each step from 20 distinct varieties should be strung together to form all of the organism's proteins."5
Informationnever develops apart from intelligence, yet cells contain huge amounts of information. I believe this is the most important single evidence that life came from the mind of an intelligent Creator rather than from dumb chemicals.
Information does not come from the material that carries it
A message is not determined by the material it is written on. The same sheet of paper can be used to draw a comic strip or write out a chemical formula. The same stretch of DNA that carries the commands for brown hair can just as easily hold commands that will make blond hair-or teeth for that matter! Information comes from minds. The message is independent of the material it is written on.
The information in DNA is real information. It has been copied onto computers in the Human Genome Project, and printed out on paper. It is the same information no matter what it is written on. Many atheists understand, but purposely side-step the really difficult question, "Where does the information come from?" They substitute made up stories about where the material that carries the information might have come from. It is like thinking of a way paper could form in nature and claiming to have explained an encyclopedia.
All available evidence indicates that it takes intelligence to devise letters or code, and arrange them into instructions. Many evolutionists ignore the evidence and claim that life arose from an "organic soup," but how could the imagined soup know the precise order of each of the amino acids of even one protein, let alone the hundreds of proteins necessary for the survival of a "primitive" cell?
Others claim that RNA came first, perhaps formed by contact with a clay template, then went on to produce the first cell. This implies that the clay passed on the basic information which natural selection later perfected. Neither soup nor clay has this or any other information, but if clay had information, what are the chances that it had the right information to form the first RNA? Why not something simpler, like the directions for repairing an airplane engine or making more clay?
If clay or organic soup had passed on the directions for making RNA, how did the RNA know to make proteins? And out of millions of possible proteins, why would it have made exactly the proteins a cell would need? Could it have folded, addressed, and regulated all those proteins and enclosed them in a membrane?
Because all known information comes from a mind, the presence of large quantities of organized information in cells is evidence that a mind was involved. Faith in the fantasy that the cell with all its information came from clay or organic broth is contrary to the evidence. It is anti-science and should not be used to promote the religion of atheism in our tax supported public schools. Nor should the evidence that information always comes from a mind be suppressed. Some Christians pay for private schools to teach that God created. Atheists have freedom to have their schools, and should not be allowed to use tax dollars to hide scientific evidence and promote in public school books their faith that there is no Creator.
Clay that could produce a simple RNA, capable of making copies of itself, would have been more intelligent than all of today's origin of life scientists put together. They can't produce any RNA at all,6 let alone one with these special abilities.
Some claim that the amount of information depends only on the number of "letters," and that if you add random letters instead of creating typographical errors, you increase the information. But not in the book they wrote! Neither would sprinkling ink here and there in their book produce more information. The more ink is sprinkled, the more information is covered up. Those who claim chance occurrences add information confuse static with message in a desperate attempt to save their atheistic faith.
Scientists use information as a proof of intelligence
Scientists with the SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) institute are using huge radio telescopes to search for messages from "intelligent beings in space." The first step is to separate between static and message. So far all they have is static, but if they find a message from space, they say they will have shown that there are intelligent beings out there because intelligent messages are created only by intelligent beings. If exceptions existed, and intelligent messages could be sent out without any intelligence involved, their whole search would be useless.
Dr. Charles Thaxton hits the nail on the head when he tells us that if it is wrong to infer that the information found in DNA comes from an intelligent source, it is equally wrong to think that intelligent messages from space would come from an intelligent source. He continues,
"More important, our knowledge of past civilizations provided by archeologists would be in jeopardy. The supposed "artifacts" might be, after all, the result of unknown natural causes. Cave paintings, for example…may not be the result of early humans… Indeed, excavated ancient libraries could not be trusted to contain the works of intelligent men and women."7
Scientists use information as proof of intelligence because the evidence overwhelmingly supports this position. The information in ancient libraries came from the real minds of real people. The far more complex information in cells came from the far more intelligent mind of God.
Modern people put symbols in their spacecraft to send into space the message that intelligent beings exist on earth. Perhaps God was sending you a message that an intelligent Creator exists when He built cells out of materials so hard to make that in all of nature those materials never form except when made by already living cells. Into these cells He placed information which can only have come from a mind. In doing so, He sent a message which can help pry open stubborn hearts to make space for Him who said, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32). For a better understanding, see How Life Began.
Miniaturization
The evidence that an intelligent Creator made the information in DNA is reinforced by the fact that the information in both human DNA and in "primitive" cells takes up the least space possible.8
After a number of intelligent scientists had worked for many years developing ever better microfilm they fit the entire Bible on one 32 X 33 mm film. Amazing! However, that same space covered with DNA would hold information equivalent to 7.7 million Bibles!9 If DNA was formed with no intelligent input as biology books often imply, why did it take generations of intelligent scientists thousands of man hours to develop the millions of times less efficient microfilm?
No matter how strong the atheist's faith may be, his belief that the information in cells formed with no mind involved is not in line with the facts. The evidence indicates that the information in DNA was put there by a Creator who is so intelligent that we should listen to everything He has to say.
Part 6
Originally posted by Templares
...
In the Beginning...Soup?
©2003 by Thomas F. Heinze
Reproduced by permission
Chapter 4
Redefining Science to Eliminate the Creator
You are walking down the road with a friend and come to a wreck. You point to one of the fragments and ask your friend who knows cars, "Is that thing a piece of the car?" He explains: "It's one of the computer chips that control the motor. If it detects something in the exhaust it uses that information to adjust the fuel mixture or the timing to make the motor run more efficiently." What made the chip? You have two choices:
It was put together by the blind forces of nature.
It was developed by an intelligent designer.
If you see four bricks stacked one on top of another you know someone stacked them that way; how much more the complex design of a chip? However, in cases where the designer would have to have been God, we are told not to reason like we do for everything else, but to believe that cells had no designer at all.
Abiogenesis, the idea that the first life started with no intelligent designer, is contrary to real science because it contradicts:
The Laws of Probability that calculate the chance of a thing happening.
The Principle of Biogenesis (life only comes from life).
Cause and effect.
The general tendency of things to become disordered described by the entropy of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
The observation of what happens in nature.
The experimental evidence.
As new information about the complexity and information content of cells is discovered, the evidence against life forming without a Creator mounts up, strengthening the case for an intelligent Creator. Something is being done about that! The very definition of science is being changed to get rid of the obvious conclusion that God created living things.
The term "science" once meant "knowledge discovered by experimentation, observation and objective investigation." To be scientific, a thing had to be observable, testable, and repeatable. When one scientist did an experiment, others could repeat his experiment, and obtain the same results. If no one who repeated the experiment came up with the same results, those results had been "falsified" (shown not to be true). Science thrives on this definition. It helps us understand how things work, but it is a big problem for those who don't believe in the Creator. The claim that a first cell came together spontaneously from mindless chemicals is an opinion about ancient history. It cannot be observed, tested, or repeated so it is not science, and should not be taught as if it were.
To make the elimination of the Creator appear scientific, many now insist that science must explain all that we observe by solely natural causes. In Kansas the state guidelines redefined science as, "The human activity of seeking natural explanations for what we observe in the world around us."1
The meaning of the term "natural" in this context is "naturalistic; without any input by an intelligent Creator." Redefining science makes it easier to believe in a theory that is obviously not true because it makes it sound scientific. Some atheists must understand that any naturalistic explanation for the origin of life is contrary to scientific evidence. If not, why would they try to manipulate the definition of science?
If science is now the "activity of seeking natural explanations," then science now has a religious purpose. It is not to find the true explanations, fall where they may, but natural explanations, which means explanations which don't involve an intelligent designer. This is an atheistic religious goal, and it has determined the conclusion a scientist is to reach before he even starts his research!
Fry, a philosopher of science, in her book which explains the work of each of the leading origin of life researchers makes this clear:
"… origin of life research consists in looking for a naturalistic alternative to the idea of the creation of life by a designer."2
Irreducible complexity
Fry also responds to the very influential book, Darwin's Black Box, written by Michael Behe, a professor of biochemistry. Behe makes the point that even the most simple cell could not function without a certain number of essential parts. He uses the common mouse trap, with a base and a wire that snaps down, as an illustration. If even one part of the trap is eliminated it will not catch mice. Behe calls this "irreducible complexity." Whether it is a mouse trap or a cell, things that are irreducibly complex could not have gradually built up one part at a time. They must have been designed because they will not work at all until a number of parts have been constructed and assembled to work together.
Fry calls the search for a naturalistic explanation of life an attempt to "reduce the irreducibly complex." First life researchers are attempting to find some way in which a cell could have functioned without irreducible complexity which could only have come about by intelligent design. So far they have not succeeded. Why not?
In order to live, a cell must at least have parts that will let it:
Separate itself from the water around it,
Take in food, and expel wastes,
Use food to make the energy the cell needs to do its work,
Contain the information that directs all this,
Reproduce.
A first cell could not have lived to produce a second cell if it lacked the parts needed to make possible even one of these abilities! This is irreducible complexity, and it is evidence of design. Many dead cells, however, have the necessary parts. To be a living cell, it also needs life.
My question to Fry and the first life researchers, each with his doctor's degrees, standing as it were on the shoulders of the scientists who came before him is: "If, after years of accumulating knowledge and ability, one of you should succeed in creating life in a test tube, will he have shown that life just popped up without an intelligent creator?" In the meantime, as more is known about cells, more and more evidence for the irreducible complexity of living things piles up. Is there a point at which we can say, "The idea that life began spontaneously without a Creator has been falsified?" If there is no test that will show a false idea to be false, that idea lies outside the realm of science-at least as science has been defined in the past.
Put it to the test
The new definition of science: "The human activity of seeking natural explanations for what we observe in the world around us," leads one to find that whatever it is applied to had a natural explanation, not design. A cell? Yes, but also an arrowhead or a computer. Why should a definition which obviously leads to a false conclusion about arrow heads, which we know were designed, be used on cells? Since it is so obviously false where it can be tested, why would anyone trust the new definition in an area in which it cannot be checked?
Where did presidents come from?
The heads of some of America's presidents have been carved out of the solid rock on the side of Mount Rushmore. A visitor who knew nothing about them could ask, "Did the wind and the rain do that?"
No one asks that, however, because the heads of the presidents are so perfect that they are obviously the work of a sculptor. Ask a thousand science teachers. All of them will give you that kind of answer. However, many of these teachers will stand up in class the next day and teach their students that not only a first cell, but the very presidents themselves were formed by the blind forces of nature. "There is none so blind as he who will not see!"
Part 7
Originally posted by Templares
...
In the Beginning...Soup?
©2003 by Thomas F. Heinze
Reproduced by permission
Chapter 5
Did Time Perform the Miracle of Life?
The odds are overwhelmingly against life having sprung up by itself with no intelligent source. In the past, atheists used billions of years to somewhat reduce these odds. Here is how one 1979 biology textbook put it:
"The other important requirement for the origin of life is plenty of time. The events necessary for the beginnings of life were extremely unlikely."1
Back in 1955, Harvard biology professor George Wald had written a famous quote about the beginning of life dramatizing the same idea:
"The time with which we have to deal is of the order of two billion years.… Given so much time the 'impossible' becomes possible, the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain. One has only to wait: time itself performs miracles."2
He put abiogenesis in the class of the impossible, but claimed that it happened anyway because that much time could do almost anything.
Walde's statement is not science! It is more like, "Once upon a time." He was grasping at straws! Time only increases the chance of things coming about that can come about. But
None of the major parts of cells (proteins, DNA, RNA, Lipids) can do that.
As time passes, all decompose.
No part will work unless it works with other parts.
This is evidence.
Later evolutionists decided that the huge amounts of time had never really existed. Why? Fossils of ancient bacteria were found which, according to evolutionary dates, lived 3.55 billion years ago, only a half billion years after evolutionists believe the earth had cooled down enough to support life. These fossils, "… look identical to bacteria still on Earth today."3 Today's evolutionists say that this left very little time for a first primitive life to form and then evolve enough to look identical to modern bacteria.
De Duve, a Nobel scientist wrote of these fossils:
"Advanced forms of life existed on earth at least 3.55 billion years ago.…It is now generally agreed that if life arose spontaneously by natural processes…it must have arisen fairly quickly, more in a matter of millennia or centuries, perhaps even less, than in millions of years."4
Even those like De Duve who believe in an old earth realize there was not enough time. There was no time for chance to form proteins. No time for RNA to form. No time for natural selection to perfect RNA. No time for RNA to make proteins. No time for information to accumulate gradually had information not required a mind. No billions of years. No millions of years. No time!
The odds are so overwhelmingly against each step in the spontaneous generation of life that in the past, even atheists freely admitted that life could not have formed without huge amounts of time. Today most of them admit that the billions of years never existed. Now they simply state, "Life must have formed rapidly."
If it did, it should be easy to duplicate in the lab. The fact that no one can is evidence.
In the Beginning...Soup?
©2003 by Thomas F. Heinze
Reproduced by permission
Chapter 6
Did Life Come from Space?
If even one step in the evolution from chemicals to a first cell was scientifically impossible, life could not have formed that way. Not one of the main ingredients of cells: proteins, cell membranes, DNA, RNA, or information will form. All must have been created. I have not found any valid evidence for abiogenesis. Do you know of any? Until real evidence is found, the illusion of abiogenesis should not be used to turn students from God to atheism.
The famous astronomer and mathematician Sir Fred Hoyle once did a mathematical analysis and concluded: "The likelihood of the spontaneous formation of life from inanimate matter is one to a number with 40,000 naughts after it…. It is big enough to bury Darwin and the whole theory of evolution."1 To provide an alternative to the Creator, Hoyle suggested that life came from some place far off in space.
The evidence that life could not have begun on earth by naturalistic means is so overwhelming that even many atheists agree. Life could not have evolved from chemicals on this earth.
Their influence has been a major voice in guiding the governments of the world to spend billions of dollars in search of a far off planet from which life might have come. Those who are still convinced that life evolved here can hardly deny that many of their fellow atheists think the evidence is against it.
"Far far away," is similar to "long long ago." It puts life's start up problems out of sight and out of mind. But the problems of life forming by itself from chemicals would have been about the same on another planet off in space as on earth. Added to the start up problems would have been the difficulties of the trip:
The long time required to travel through space to earth.
The lack of anything to breathe on the way.
The destructive effects of cosmic rays.
The extreme cold of space.
The heat of friction upon entering the atmosphere, and the shock of striking earth.
Putting the spontaneous beginning of life somewhere off in space only adds difficulty to the already impossible.
What kind of planet?
A funny thing happened while atheists and agnostics were looking for a planet where chemicals could have formed life. They began to realize that it would have to have had a very rare set of characteristics: the right temperature, atmosphere, gravity - the list goes on. They analyzed the data to determine what kind of planet they should look for. What kind of a planet are they looking for? A planet just like earth!
Why do they teach that life started by itself if it isn't true?
Because the alternative is that there is a Creator, who loves you and wants you to receive His gift of eternal life. Jesus Christ said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me" (John 14:6). You can't come to God in any other way, but you can come. Your wonderful Creator is offering you everlasting life: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).
Years ago, I put my faith in Christ, and God changed my life completely. Millions of criminals and adulterers have become honest after trusting Christ to clean them up, and put them in contact with the Father. Try this experiment. Trust Christ to wash away your sins, then look for the evidence in your life that He really has put you in fellowship with the Father. "For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Romans 6:23).
Why not pray now? Confess your sins and tell God you trust that Christ paid for them. God's gift of eternal life is in Jesus Christ. When you accept Christ, you also receive eternal life. (1 John 5: 11-12).
Originally posted by Shakyamunison
I don't want Christianity to be taught in my schools.
I stopped reading here:
Issue Date: November/December 2005By Thomas Heinze
"Evolution is science, so the schools must teach it. Creationism and Intelligent Design (ID) are religion, so they must not be taught!" We have been hearing this kind of rubbish a lot more since President Bush said he thinks intelligent design should be taught in public schools in addition to evolution so the students can understand what the debate is all about.
Mark Bergin in World Magazine lists some of the criticisms: "The Philadelphia Daily News said widespread acceptance of ID could undermine the scientific method. The Washington Post suggested that the president was 'indulging quackery' for political gain. The Los Angeles Times called the comments 'one more example of the extreme right's attempt to create a Taliban-like society." (Mark Bergin, Mad scientists, World Magazine, 8/05,) Evolutionists, who say that Bush wants religion and what they want is science, use a special definition of science that eliminates creation: "Science is the search for natural solutions." Creation by an intelligent Designer is a supernatural rather than a natural solution. By this contrived definition, to be "scientific," you have to be an atheist.
This Thomas Heinze person does not know the fundamentals of the topic he is writing about. I read no more so I don't even know what side of the debate he is on.......but there is no such thing as "super-natural" in science. Everything that exists is natural. If God exists......God is natural. If flying hippos exist.......flying hippos are natural. If ghosts exist, ghosts are natural.
How the hell can someone sit down and write articles the length of what you have posted when they do not even know the very basics of the topic they are discussing?
Originally posted by Me_GuSta_ChoCha
Its not about christianity because that will just be shoving religion down there throats, its just presenting the other theory that instead of us being a meaningless accident that there was "Something" That was there before and Created us, thats it no bible attached
There is no other theory. If I say that the Earth was spit out of a black hole, that is not a theory, I would have to show some kind of proof that would stand against scientific scrutiny. ID is not a scientific theory, it is a religious view point dressed in a scientific façade.