Nobody Really Knows How Life Came to Be-And Don't Let Them Tell You Otherwise

Ann Coulter argues against a straw man today, and...surprise!...wins the debate. Her latest column can be seen at her website entitled Liberals View of Darwin Unable to Evolve. The truth is that Darwinian evolution has largely been discredited years ago. There are many evolution theories out there now, one of which, intelligent design, is compelling. Of course, to believe in intelligent design requires a belief in a designer. But Coulter is right to point out that a lot of these theories seem to start of with the notion that there is no God, hence, how else to explain life on earth?  While nobody wants to say it, the real question everybody has floating in the backs of their minds, is what is our purpose in being here?

I know this will sound like I have been taken over by the post modern pod people, or perhaps turned into a stepford husband, but the truth is that all knowledge, everything we "know" and think we "know" in this life is provisional.  When we express something as a scientific certainty, it is merely that we have not yet had an instance where the "certainty" has been falsified.  For example, I am unaware of any occurrence where the "law" of gravity has failed in the realm of Newtonian physics, but that doesn't mean that tomorrow when I drop an apple, that it will not go up.  But it is viewed in Newtonian physics as a "law" because everywhere we know of it acts the same way, and has never failed to act that way.  Now take the several theories explaining how life came to be on earth, and more particularly, how we came to be.  You can run an experiment right now to test the law of gravity.  But you can not run an experiment to test the supposed theories of evolution.  You can collect evidence, and attempt to interpret that evidence.  But such interpretation of evidence is not science.  Indeed, it partakes more of a court of law than of science.  We can never "know" with certainty that all the evidence has been collected.  We also can not know for a certainty that the evidence may not  be plausibly interpreted in more than one way.  Nobody was there at the instant, so we have no witnesses.  In a court, such a possibility would be called reasonable doubt.  I would also point out that even if a thousand PhDs from accredited universities believed in the secular view of evolution, and only one believed in the religious view-what is called a "consensus"-if that one turns out to be correct, does the "consensus" really matter?  Of course, in a court, where evidence is weighed, it does.  But if evolutionists wish to claim their study as a science, then no, it does not.  The only test in science is can the theory explain the phenomenon under consideration, and can the theory be falsified.  All it takes is that one lone dissenter.

Interestingly, what I have read of intelligent design seems compelling to me.  Of course there is the paucity of intermediate steps in the fossil record, but that is explained by the fact that the chances of preserving a creature as a fossil are very small.  More interesting is the mathematics.  She mentions that the number of mutations that are preserved because either they are beneficial, or at least not harmful is again, astronomically small.  But then you find that in some cases a number of mutations have to occur at the same time, all being beneficial to the organism, to have the species as it now exists.  Think of the number of adaptations that have to occur simultaneously to have an eye for example that actually confers some special advantage over the other organisms.  Any one of the random mutations by itself confers no benefit, so might well have died out.  The chances of that happening randomly are vanishingly small.  You can say, "well, the odds are small, but it had to happen that way," but did it?  Or take our own brains.  To be the top predators on this planet, we hardly needed all the power our brains have.  Perhaps numbering ability might be useful, but abstract mathematics?  As I type this, I am using a devise that attempts to simulate my brain, a computer.  Did we really need that much brain power?  Or, enough brain power to contemplate the existence of our Creator?  Given broadly two different theories, both of which seem plausible, I as a honest juror would have to admit to reasonable doubts about the secular view of evolution.  

When a person comes to believe that theories are in fact Truth, they no longer are scientists, hunting for the truth, but have become religionists proselytizing to everyone they meet.  They are the very opposite of the open minded inquiring mind.  So stop acting so sophisticated, you Leftists.  You turn out to be more closed minded than Perry or Bachman.

Update, 4 September 2011: Michael Bargo, Jr has an article today touching on the topic of my post entitled What Darwin Said about God. It is a good read, and I highly recommend it. In fact, I had read the Origin of Species perhaps 40 years ago, but do not remember a lot of it. At the time, as I recall, I was taking high school biology, and had only the dimmest sense of the scientific method. The system of natural selection seemed reasonable to me then, and still does today. Interestingly, intelligent design does not negate the theory of "natural" selection, if one understands that all of nature is God's. Indeed, natural selection is an integral part. Intelligent design merely proposes that God has acted in nature to bring about His desires.  If you believe in a God, the rest is not so implausible.  If you don't, you should at least admit the possibility.  Knowing what we don't know is the beginning of understanding.

May the God of Creation bless and keep you all this holiday weekend.