Richard Dawkins admits the possibility that life on Earth was Intelligently Designed?

I recently watched Ben Stein’s film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.

The basic point of the movie is to show how scientists who believe we may have been intelligently designed are expelled from the community of “real scientists”.

There were a few things I didn’t like about the film. For example, Stein portrayed himself as an unbiased investigator, and even being on the side of ID myself, I have to say this film was blatantly biased against Dawkins & Co. from the start. I wasn’t surprised to read afterwards that certain people interviewed for the film felt they’d been misled, and that quotes had been carefully edited to fit what the producers wanted them to say. Scientific American has Six Things That Ben Stein Doesn’t Want You To Know.

I also think Hitler should have been left out of a film about the scientific validity of Intelligent Design. Whether the Nazis based their principles on natural selection or not has no bearing on the accuracy of Darwin’s theory. It is also pointed out that the notion that life was intelligently designed and the acceptance of the theory of evolution are not mutually exclusive.

I can also understand that using the idea of Intelligent Design to just say “this is complicated, God must’ve done it”, is not really very useful science, so some concerns are about allowing ID-ers into the realm of serious science are understandable. However, many people seem to be under the impression that anyone who believes in God is completely incapable of doing anything useful in science. If that’s true, then I guess we should abandon everything Newton and Einstein did.

Anyway, onto the part my title is referring to. Dawkins said that, while he cannot believe in the God or gods of the world’s various religions, there is a possibility, albeit very unlikely, that life on our planet is a result of ‘directed panspermia’, i.e. that life was designed by beings of higher intelligence elsewhere in the universe, although those beings would of course have had to evolve by chance themselves. He said it’s possible there could be some design signature observable in the world around us that would point to this conclusion. (Sorry I can’t be bothered to watch the film again to get exact quotes, but I don’t think I’m bearing false witness to what he said.)

Now, if there’s even the slightest chance that we could find evidence that life was designed (even if it was by aliens), why is science currently outlawing any suggestion that it was anything but the result of chance? What if that evidence is there, but you’re ruling out the possibility of ever finding it because of your obstinate faith in the creative powers of chance?

Nobel Prize-winner Fred Hoyle likened the possibility of life starting by chance to the chance of a tornado blowing through a junkyard and producing a 747 jet ready for take-off… “even if a tornado were to blow through enough junkyards to fill the whole Universe” (Source: ICR). I know the argument that, given infinite time and possibly and infinite number of universes, it was bound to happen eventually, but there’s certainly no more evidence for universes other than our own than there is for a designer.

In conclusion, I don’t think it’s unreasonable that you evolutionists should allow those with alternative theories to put forward their ideas for serious consideration. You talk about how oppressed people like Darwin and Galileo were when they came out with radical theories that challenged the understanding of established scientists, and yet the current science establishment seems no better at allowing free-thinkers to get their theories considered. If the evidence for evolution purely by chance is really that overwhelming, you’ve got nothing to be afraid of in debating with these nutters, because all sane people will be able to see who’s got the evidence to back up their theories.

All Animals Are Equal, But Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others

First, if you don’t recognise the title, you need to read Animal Farm. Not that this post is really anything to do with the book, you just should read it.

It's only available 'til 8pm Thursday, so get watching

I watched Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Born Equal? the other day.

How many times have you heard that religion is clearly evil because of all the wars it’s caused?

As if the Theory of Evolution is harmless.

Yes, people have done some seriously bad things in the name of religion, but I think you’ll find in most cases (certainly in the Christian ones) those people were twisting their religion to justify their own ambitions. Hence, a Christian will tell you to look not at Christians for an example of how to live, but to Jesus.

Meanwhile, whether Darwin would have approved or not (I’m sure he wouldn’t, but), the goals of the Nazis actually made some sense in relation to the Theory of Evolution.

I’m thinking that’s quite a controversial statement.

Of course, perceived evil doesn’t have any bearing on whether a religious belief or atheism is true or false. It’s not a valid argument either way.*

I do wonder why we should think anything “evil” though. You know, if there’s no such thing as right and wrong.

*I know, I know, evolution and religion aren’t mutually exclusive, but this is a comparison of evolutionary thinking with religious belief. I’m thinking of atheistic evolution, let’s ignore the theistic evolutionists for now, their views are too confusing.

Atheism Gets Pasteurised (+Science Outdoes Hollywood)

I just watched The Hidden Kingdom and The Chemistry of Life, parts 1 & 2 of 3 part series The Cell.

It looks like these are only available to watch til the 2nd September.

There was a lot of good stuff in them.

Louis Pasteur is a legend, he showed that life does not generate spontaneously from non-living matter, whether we’re talking making mice by mixing wheat and sweat, or simple bacteria forming in an environment that would suit them, it just doesn’t happen. The presenter made it sound properly ridiculous and mocked the scientists who held onto the medieval belief for so long.

Yet atheists today still hold onto this medieval belief to explain how the first living cells arose from non-living matter.

But funny things start to happen in part 2, the fact that injecting a mouse’s eye DNA into fruit fly embryos produces extra eyes shows that, despite the eyes themselves having very different structures, the two creatures are made up of very similar genes. He claimed this was evidence of evolution from a common ancestor, but surely that’s going too far? I would think it’s evidence of a designer using basically the same materials to make all living beings.

I will have to wait ’til Wednesday to see part 3, but it looks like he’s going to explain how the first life could have spontaneously generated. This seems odd to me after he so emphatically mocked the idea in episode 1, so I await with interest.

Some things never change…

…but some do!

http://uk.creation.com/images/pdfs/cabook/chapter4.pdf

Some bits went over my head, but there are plenty of reasons to doubt that things can reliably be dated as millions of years old.