For those who don't receive it, here is an article on Charles Colson's
Breakpoint mailing list about Paul Davies' book "The Fifth Miracle" and
how Intelligent Design is necessary for the origin of life.
I remember there was a bit of fanfare when Davies announced he was
going to write a book explaining the origin of life naturalistically. That
he failed in the attempt, is further evidence that the origin of life was *not*
naturalistic.
Davies finishes "The Fifth Miracle" in a decidely feeble fashion, not even
mentioning Intelligent Design as a possibility:
"The search for life elsewhere in the universe is therefore the testing
ground for two diametrically opposed world views. On the one hand is
orthodox science, with its nihilistic philosophy of the pointless universe, of
impersonal laws oblivious of ends, a cosmos in which life and mind, science
and art, hope and fear, are but fluky incidental embellishments on a tapestry
of irreversible cosmic corruption. On the other hand, there is an alternative
view, undeniably romantic but perhaps true nevertheless. It is the vision of
a self-organizing and self-complexifying universe, governed by ingenious
laws that encourage matter to evolve towards life and consciousness. A
universe in which the emergence of thinking beings is a fundamental and
integral part of the overall scheme of things. A universe in which we are
not alone." (Davies P.F.C., "The Fifth Miracle," 1998, p227).
Steve
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>Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1999 17:41:54 -0600
>Subject: [breakpoint] The Puzzle of Life, 6/16/99
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BreakPoint Commentary #90616 - 6/16/99
The Puzzle of Life: True Science
by Charles Colson
Suppose someone tells you he's invented a foolproof
method for solving the "New York Times" crossword
puzzle. Count the open spaces, he says, divide the
total by the number of clues, multiply the result
by pi, and presto! The puzzle is solved.
Except, of course, it's not. No matter how hard you
try, there's no way to solve a crossword puzzle
using a mathematical formula.
The same thing applies to science. In science,
finding the right formula for solving a problem is
crucial. But ironically, many scientists today are
using the wrong method when it comes to solving the
puzzle of the origin of life.
That's the message of a new book by physicist Paul
Davies called "The Fifth Miracle." Davies took up
the problem of life's origin thinking it would be
solved quickly. Scientists had identified many of
the molecules of life, and many were proclaiming
that they would soon find a natural law to explain
the origin of life.
But after spending a year or two researching the
field, Davies writes, he realized that the problem
was not merely filling in a few "technical details."
Rather, he writes, "we are missing something very
fundamental about the whole business." That
"something," Davies argues, is an explanation for
biological information.
At its core, life depends on information.
The DNA code is "written" in chemical "letters,"
telling the cell how to build proteins - tiny
molecular machines that carry out most of the
processes needed to keep us alive. DNA contains
instructions for literally thousands of different
proteins. How do we explain the origin of such vast
quantities of information?
Well, the typical scientist today applies a method
called naturalism. That is, he assumes that
natural forces account for everything that exists.
The trouble is, natural forces produce only
identical, repeating patterns: An apple falls from a
tree exactly the same way, whether in Montana or
Mongolia. Applied to DNA, this means natural forces
would produce a rigidly repeating sequence of
chemical "letters" - the same pattern over and
over.
But you can't write a complex message by repeating
the same pattern of letters over and over - and by
the same token, you can't get specific instructions
for thousands of proteins. As Davies puts it, a
constantly repeating pattern would be as "as useless
as a stuck record." This argument is fatal to any
attempt to explain the origin of life by natural
causes.
The alternative explanation, of course, is that
life is the product of intelligent design. In all
of our experience, the only known source of
information is a mind - whether we're talking about
books or billboards or crossword puzzles. Based on
experience, then, it is reasonable to conclude that
the source of information in DNA was likewise a
great Mind.
In his latest book, Paul Davies has at least
grasped the problem: that a regular repeating
natural cause cannot account for the origin of
life. That itself is a major scientific
breakthrough. Unfortunately, Davies still hopes to
find some kind of new natural cause to explain
life's complexity. But if he presses his research
he can only come to conclude that life was
designed.
For the evidence itself is becoming clearer by the
Day: that when it comes to the origin of life,
there is no materialistic explanation. The
information needed for life can come only from
an intelligent mind.
Copyright (c) 1999 Prison Fellowship Ministries
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"...chance has no power to do anything because it simply is not anything. It
has no power because it has no being...Chance is not an entity. It is not a
thing that has power to affect other things. It is no thing. To be more
precise, it is nothing. Nothing cannot do something. Nothing is not. It has
no `isness.' Chance has no isness. I was technically incorrect even to say
that chance is nothing. Better to say that chance is not. What are the
chances that chance can do anything? Not a chance. It has no more chance
to do something than nothing has to do something." (Sproul R.C., "Not a
Chance: The Myth of Chance in Modern Science and Cosmology," Baker:
Grand Rapids MI, 1994, p6)
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