The ID Report

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

As the Darwin bicentennial looms and the flapdoodle flaps, we are treated to ridiculous hagiography and soothing, reassuring spin on how Darwinism can live harmoniously with the non-materialist beliefs of the peoples of Earth.

Meanwhile, a friend draws my attention to Taner Edis.

He advises me that Edis is

a physicist at Truman State University and a researcher at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. He's also associate editor for physics and astronomy for the NCSE's monthly journal. In 2004, he co-edited Why Intelligent Design Fails, a volume with many scientific contributors opposing ID and supporting evolution; including various contributors associated with the NCSE.

And he offers some brief passages from Edis's 2005 book, Science and Nonbelief , as a commentary on the harmony we can expect:

"[E]volution does, in fact, undermine a common traditional conception of the nature of morality. In a Darwinian world, nature is no longer infused with morality. Living things do not have created functions that are right and proper, and variation is not a deviation from an essence with overtones of corruption."
(Taner Edis, Science and Nonbelief 90 (Greenwood Press, 2006).)

"[I]n the United States, there is a recent movement to celebrate February 12, Darwin's birthday, as "Darwin Day." This event is supported largely by humanist, freethought, and atheist-oriented groups, using slogans of science and humanity." Naturally, the scientific community responds positively, treading it as a public outreach .. Occasionally, university science departments cosponsor larger public events put on for Darwin Day, alongside atheist and humanist organizations." (Taner Edis, Science and Nonbelief 91 (Greenwood Press, 2006).)

"An alliance with religious liberals need not bother the nonreligious. After all, nonbelievers most often react against politically intrusive, conservative religions. Their political goals and ethical inclinations are usually close to those affirmed by modernist spiritualities. And even those nonbelievers who equate all religion with superstition very often think religious liberals are already halfway to rejecting the gods. If so, promoting public acceptance of Darwin would also nudge people toward dropping their supernatural beliefs, even if they hang on for a while to vague liberal conceptions of divinity." (Taner Edis, Science and Nonbelief 91-92 (Greenwood Press, 2006).)

Oh, well that's all perfectly all right then. If you attend a church, synagogue, mosque or whatever, Darwin Day sounds like a great way to find out which clergy should take early retirement. Just catch them promoting it.

Also at the Post-Darwinist and the Mindful Hack:

Earth to Jason Rosenhouse: People who doze gravel at a steep angle to pay your salary do not despise ID.

O'Leary visits a Toronto bookstore and finds that Edge of Evolution is a rare example of actual science in the science section.

The contented ignorance of the modern atheist - not like his predecessors

A reader defends the pygmy chimpanee way (all sex, no brains, no war) as exemplary for humans

Instant sanity moment

More from Alister McGrath on the twilight of atheism.

Swatting silly revisionism: O'Leary deals with a claim that the term post-atheism is almost never used.

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

A friend draws my attention to a recent squawk in TRENDS in Biochemical Sciences Vol.32 No.7 (July 2007) by Barbara Forrest and Paul Gross, who - so far as I can tell - make a career out of opposing the intelligent design theorists.

Squawks about the alleged threat posed by the ID theorists are nothing new - this one ("Biochemistry by design") is aimed mainly against Mike Behe - but my friend called my attention to the fact that it mentions me (and my colleague Mustafa Akyol) - and in a most curious context too.

At a blog called "biologists helping bookstores," a Pasadena-based woman whose handle is Shandon explains how she deliberately misshelved Mike Behe’s Edge of Evolution, and a number of other books - distributing them around the store according to her private tastes.

Now, you might think that Shandon (hereafter Misshelver) is restricting the right of others to read. But whoever she is and whatever her connection to biology, she does not see it that way at all. Anyway, see how she describes her modus operandi.

I've just read a most interesting book by Oxford historian Alister McGrath, arguing that we are currently looking at the twilight of atheism.

That's certainly my impression, judging from the remarkably ill-advised antics of the recent anti-God campaign. One thing the campaign made quite clear is that atheistic materialism is not some neutral middle ground on which we can happily do science experiments together. On the contrary, these people are militant, and that could be trouble for you if you are a theist or non-materialist of some kind. For the rest go here.

Note this update on the most interesting combox discussion that developed.

In a beautifully written article in the New Yorker, Ian Parker describes how he shared the hot, damp work of studying the elusive bonobo (lesser chimpanzee) - long lauded as sexy and peaceful - with one of the only people in the world who actually knows much about them in the wilds.

Well, people who actually studied the "hippie ape", came away with a different view.

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

When I asked a gifted Canadian physicist what he thought of Frank Tipler's The Physics of Christianity, he said, "in one word: wacky". But readers will expect more than one word from me, and I think there is more than that to be said for Tipler's book.

Frank Tipler is in an unusual position. He is a Christian physicist who is an exponent of "many worlds" theory. This theory, according to which new universes are constantly generated by each choice that we make, is typically shunned by Christian physicists (including my friend, mentioned above). Apart from its dizzying implications, many worlds theory seems to make life's choices meaningless. (Tipler does not appear to see it that way.)

Now, one good thing about Tipler, he is no pussyfoot. He is NOT afraid to take on the implications of whatever he espouses. For example, he writes,

Contrary to what many physicists have claimed in the popular press, we have had a Theory of Everything for about thirty years. Most physicists dislike this Theory of Everything because it requires the universe to begin in a singularity. That is, they dislike it because the theory is consistent only if God exists, and most contemporary scientists are atheists. They don't want God to exist, and if keeping God out of science requires rejecting physical laws, well, so be it. (p. 2)

Traditional theists will be quite happy with this. But they will not be happy with what follows: Tipler also believes that quantum physics shows that there is an infinite number of universes, in which everything that could happen happens.

Now, most thinkers use ideas like this to eliminate the traditional Western idea of God. (If everything that can happen happens, who or what needs to be God?) So it is somewhat of a surprise to see Tipler using this idea not only to argue for God, but for the Christian doctrine of the Trinity and for miracles.

And not only the Virgin Birth of Jesus and his Resurrection , but for a miracle primarily of interest to Catholics, the Immaculate Conception of Mary.

(Note: The "Virgin Birth" refers to Mary conceiving and giving birth to Jesus, as described in Luke 1:26-38 and Luke 2:6-7, without a human father. Immaculate Conception refers to the Catholic teaching that Mary herself was conceived without original sin, with the result that Jesus can be described as "sinless" in Biblical literature even though all humans are held, in orthodox Christian scriptures, to have inherited a sinful nature through Adam and Eve.)

These are bold moves. All the bolder is Tipler's attempt to explain the miracles in a way that accepts their existence and maintains what most Christians would see as mere materialism. For example, he insists that Jesus was an XX male and that this claim is consistent with the findings from the DNA of the Shroud of Turin, believed by many to be Jesus' burial shroud.

Underlying this and many other aesthetically awkward attempts to fit religious teachings into the framework of physics models is an assumption that God works only within the framework of the known universe (s). Tipler writes as if this framework is entirely known. For example, Jesus' resurrection is explained by quantum tunnelling. The resurrection of the dead will occur in virtual reality inside computers (made necessary by nuclear warfare). The end of the universe is to be understood according to the latest physics theories.

After a while, it begins to sound much as if Canadian science fiction writer Rob Sawyer (one of my faves) had written one of the Gospels of the New Testament (The Gospel According to Rob?). (Note: Rob knows that he is one of my faves, but he would be the first to admit that he is not a gospeller.)

Well, almost. Some Biblical miracles Tipler simply rejects. The miracle of the loaves and fishes, he decides, was simply people sharing food (p. 200), because no current theory of physics is obviously handy to explain it.

For some time, while reading the book, I sensed a problem. By now, I am beginning to see the outlines of the problem more clearly.

Tipler is in no sense a conventional theological liberal. What sharply differentiates him from other materialists is that, instead of using physics to deny or explain away Biblical miracles, he mostly uses it to accept them. That is the most likely reason for his difficulties with the current American academic establishment. Goodness knows, if all he wanted to do was accommodate the Scriptures to an atheistic worldview, he would be a hero.

Rather, he is trying to interpret a theistic worldview (an explicitly Christian and - at some points - a Catholic worldview) in the light of physics that he believes are a complete and accurate interpretation of reality. To the extent that Tipler believes that physics has answered all key questions, the mysterious events described in the Bible can simply be subsumed under physics and therewith conveniently despatched.

But here is the difficulty: Tipler never clearly explains why, given the way he arrives at his conclusions, the Bible should particularly be regarded as a source of truth. If physics sits in judgement over the Bible, even in matters that involve the nature of the triune God, it's unclear how the Bible ever attained the status Tipler readily ascribes to it.

That said, I recommend Tipler as an antidote to the many anti-Christian, anti-religious, or anti-theistic works that build on the same sorts of ideas as he does.

Lo and behold (so to speak), it turns out that both sides can play that game.

Here are some other resources on The Physics of Christianity., including other reviews and a link to the first chapter. Tipler earlier wrote The Physics of Immortality, which I have not yet read.

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

The recent North American polls I've seen recently show several key trends:

1. Both evolution and creation are widely accepted, and the distribution of numbers is roughly stable over the years. No dramatic proof or disproof of Darwin's theory that would change many minds has occurred. That said, it is quite likely that many people believe contradictory things.

2. Americans are (or think they are) well aware of the arguments on either side, and generally do not want the issues politicized.

3. Canadian responses differ markedly from American ones in several ways, principally because the issues have not been politicized in Canada. The reasons why they have not are worth noting.

Newsweek Poll, March 31, 2007

In Newsweek's breathless prose:

Nearly half (48 percent) of the public rejects the scientific theory of evolution; one-third (34 percent) of college graduates say they accept the Biblical account of creation as fact. Seventy-three percent of Evangelical Protestants say they believe that God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years; 39 percent of non-Evangelical Protestants and 41 percent of Catholics agree with that view.

Now, as I noted in By Design or by Chance?, and elsewhere, most human history about which we have any significant information is compressed into the last 10,000 years or so. Support for the view that "God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years"should not necessarily be equated with support for young earth creationism (the universe/the earth is only 10,000 years old) - though it usually is. While comparing the responses to this question year by year is convenient for pollsters, it artificially inflates the apparent numbers of young earth creationists. Here are the numbers.

One person who agrees with me is David A DeWitt, director of the Center for Creation Studies at Liberty University and author of Unraveling the Origins Controversy. He writes to say,

Actually, one of the problems with surveys of this type is that people are extremely confused on the subject of origins. Many of them actually believe mutually exclusive things. We have been doing creation worldview assessments at LU for several years and have published several studies on it. One of the surprising findings is the fact that there are a number of students who would agree with all of the following statements:

Adam and Eve were real people
God made Adam directly from the "dust of the earth"

All living things share the same common ancestors

God made all living things in six 24 hour days

The dinosaurs died millions of years before man existed

Noah's Flood was global in extent and effect

The geologic column shows evidence of millions of years of history

The universe began with the "big bang" about 14 billion years ago

and so on.

People often don't realize that some of their beliefs are contradictory. A common belief is that evolution of all living things happened but God made Adam and Eve separately. This is because of the way worldview development occurs. It is not in the linear manner that worldview definitions and list would lead us to believe. It is through a hodge-podge interactive hypertext manner with a smorgasbord of different beliefs. Sometimes I ask people who say they believe that God made everything in 6 24-hr days if dinosaurs and people lived at the same time. They have to think about it because they reflexively say no, dinosaurs died millions of years before man, but this contradicts what they just said.

Steve Deckard and I developed an instrument to measure a young earth creationist view. It asks a number of questions and quantifies the strength and consistency of the young earth view. We give this as a pretest and post-test in our creation course at Liberty University.

If there really were 45% of Americans that believed God specially created man roughly 10,000 years ago and all that this implies, evolution would not be so dominant in our society. The problem is that they believe both.

That sounds familiar to me. Most people live in hypertext. Mind you, it's not clear which side the confusion helps more.

While we're here, asking questions about creation-evolution at the same time as asking a whack of questions on political topics encourages "culture wars" stereotypes. But for budget reasons, it probably can't be helped.

Gallup Poll USA, 2007 06 07

In the responses to
this recent poll of 1007 Americans, 44% said evolution is false and 31% said creationism is false. Eighty-two percent claimed to be familiar with evolution (and 17% not familiar), and 86% claimed to be familiar with creationism (and 13% not familiar). Over half of registered voters said that a presidential candidate's views would make no difference, and 70% did not consider the issue relevant.

These figures are quite interesting because they indicate, on the one hand, a high level of public interest (based on the small numbers who claim to be unfamiliar with the terms) and a broad consensus that it is not a political issue.

(Note: I would be interested to know Gallup's rationale for "evolution" vs. "creationism", as opposed to "evolution" vs. "creation". The two terms are obviously not balanced. If the intention is to advantage evolution and disadvantage creation, I wonder how that affected the poll results?)

Canadians pretty evenly split on human origins in 2007

Decima polled Canadians, reporting July 3, 2007:

Here are the Canadian responses to the 2007 question by percentage, along with the US figures to a similar series of questions in brackets:

- Less than one in three Canadians (29%) believe that God had no part in the
creation or development of human beings. (US: 13%)
- Fewer still (26%) believe “that God created human beings pretty much in their
present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so”. (US: 46%)
- A plurality, but still only 34%, say that “human beings have developed over millions
of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process”. (US: 36%)

Not only are Canadians pretty evenly split, but the ones most likely to credit God are middle-of-the-road voters. This is not good news for anyone who wishes to politicize the controversy in Canada.

One factor that differentiates Canada from the United States, as I have pointed out elsewhere, is this: While Canada is a more secular country, it also allows tax-supported religious schools under certain conditions. As a result, the number of people who feel compelled to be in a fight over what students are taught is, inevitably, lower.

All this information will be added to the file of polls relevant to the intelligent design controversy.

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

With the neo-Darwinian synthesis, Darwinism became a simple, elegant theory in science that might or might not do what is claimed for it.

Is Darwinism the explanation of finch beak changes in the Galapagos? Maybe. (There are opinions pro and con about that.)

Is it the explanation for certain beneficial mutations in the malaria parasite? Apparently, yes.

Does it explain why the giraffe has a long neck? Apparently no.

Does it explain why men cheat on their wives? Huh? Who let YOU in here, creepazoid? I SAID we needed someone to keep a watch on the door!

I think that after Behe's Edge of Evolution, the legitimate questions revolve around what Darwinism can be shown to actually do, in the restricted sphere where we can be quite sure it is doing anything at all.

One reason I came to realize that Darwinism’s power had been blown out of all proportion was the relative unwillingness of evolutionary biologists to detach themselves from the florid arguments of evolutionary psychology. Normally, people in their position will be anxious to cut loose from cranks.

With some sensible exceptions such as Larry Moran and Jerry Coyne, they didn’t cut loose, and there was one obvious reason why they didn’t. They don't want the books balanced. They don’t want any accounting of what Darwinism can actually do.

Now that I have read Edge of Evolution I think I pretty much know why.

It's too bad if we have to admit that we really don't have a good theory of how evolution happens, but apparently we really don't.

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Recently, I've been directing people to the online evolution games at Mutation Works, with the proviso that I don't get games myself.

Fortunately, a physicist friend writes me to say:

I've been having a great time reading Mike Behe's Edge of Evolution to my 2- and 4-year-old kids each night. They don't really get it, but they like having me in their bedroom for an extra long story time.

Mike has done a great job of explaining the huge probability difference between getting one lucky mutation and getting two lucky mutations. But just to really drive home this point, Malcolm Chisholm has created two online game that illustrate Mike's thesis about how Darwinism can easily account for one favorable mutation but can't easily account for when two
or three mutations have to occur simultaneously for a benefit to be gained. (This was not Malcolm's original goal, but nonetheless the games are a great asset to Mike's book).

The first game, which some of you have already played, is at: Mutation Works

In this game, you play a single mother-to-daughter lineage that is trying to mutate two codons to two others before Dawkins [major Darwinist] can "randomly" generate his famous "Methinks it is like a weasel" phrase. Typically, this game ends via a stop codon in your gene, or with Dawkins winning
after several hundred million years (for an organism with 1 generation per year).

The second game, which was released today, is at:
Mutation Works Human

In this game, you play 100,000,000 mother-to-daughter lineages that are trying to go from CAT to ATG before Dawkins can get a sequence of amino acids, which spell a familiar phrase (though you'll have to remember your one-letter amino acid codes). Having 10^6 lineages speeds up
evolution, but since there are three required point mutations the time to success decreases only by a factor of 100, which is still not fast enough to beat Dawkins!

I like this second game a lot because it shows the distribution of mutations over the 10^6 lineages. As you play the game you can see how the original codon loses constituents to other codons, but that the codons that can gain constituents are only those that are 1 or 2 point
mutations away. It would take a really long time before the ones that are 3 point mutations away (like ATG) start accumulating constituents.
I hope you enjoy these games and play them often. Each time you do, the data is stored and Malcolm and I hope to analyze and publish the results (yes, Malcolm could automatically generate the data, but it's more interesting when other people are involved!)

All the best,
xxxxxx
P.S. Tell your friends about this. Malcolm assures me that the server can handle lots of people playing the game.

So let the games begin!

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

Here are the new additions to the Evolution and Intelligent Design Encyclopedia, from British physicist David Tyler.

Read, for example, about adaptationist fantasies (how natural selection explains everything it doesn't explain), why bipedalism (walking on two legs) is good for you (not like what you've been told), and what the fact that very old life forms had complex genomes means.

Shhhh!! It means that Darwinism is, like, dead.

Walk softly, for you tread on the Darwinbots' dreams.

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

At Mindful Hack I have put up some information from a neurosurgeon on what the mind obviously isn't - merely the brain. Amazing stuff, and certainly NOT what you would hear from materialist cognitive scientist Steven Pinker.

He posed a whole bunch of "dangerous questions" in the Chicago Sun-Times. What strikes me as remarkable is how UNdangerous his questions are, and I have decided to answer them.

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Who will it be? The Dawkins delusion or you?

Malcolm Chisholm, our Master of the Games, tells me, "We are up to 2170 simulations run so far. I have had no feedback, except about spelling, That is now corrected. And HERE is the link.

He also says, "I will have another game ready in a day or so. I am going to post that on "a private list" first to see if anyone can spot bugs in it."

Play this one and tell us what you think.

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

Michael Ruse - Victim of Self Deception
by Kevin Wirth

As an observer of the debate on origins, one of the most disconcerting things I see are statements that are poorly made by those who are educated and informed, and who should know better. In this report, I'd like to take Michael Ruse to task for being overly effusive to the point of overkill on matters he should know better about. Not everything Michael says is overdone, but in this case, one of his arguments simply ignores the obvious.

In his book, 'Taking Darwin Seriously' (1998), here is what Michael says at one point:

"To the working scientist, and not just the biologist, it is simply ludicrous to think that there is any question about the natural origin of organisms from forms very different than those they now bear - ultimately from inorganic materials. This is as much a fact of nature as that the earth goes around the sun or that water is composed of oxygen or hydrogen. But it is certainly not a fact to many non-scientists, especially not to those influenced by North American evangelical Christianity."

Ruse, Michael in "Darwin's New Critics on Trial" in Taking Darwin Seriously. Prometheus Books, Amherst, NY (1998), p.280.

This 'fact of nature' that Ruse alludes to refers to the concept that life arose from inorganic materials. Oh – and note that many ‘non-scientists’, especially those ‘influenced by North American evangelical Christianity’ are especially beguiled and deceived.

Well, since ‘Taking Darwin Seriously’ was first published almost 10 years ago now, I hope I’m not too late to use Mr. Ruse’s commentary as a talking point, especially since those who share his viewpoint continue to harp on about how ill-informed most Darwin skeptics are concerning the ‘fact’ about the ‘natural origin of organisms’ from ‘inorganic materials’.

Maybe it would help Mr. Ruse and his cohorts if they took a closer look at how many in the scientific community and elsewhere have gone on record on this topic with cautionary remarks. To assist Ruse and others, I have provided a number of quotes that they can take issue with, should they choose to.

"The origin of life by chance in a primeval soup is impossible in probability in the same way that a perpetual machine is in probability. The extremely small probabilities calculated in this chapter are not discouraging to true believers ... [however] A practical person must conclude that life didn't happen by chance."

Yockey, Hubert P. in Information Theory and Molecular Biology. Cambridge University Press, (1992), p.257.

"The 'warm little pond' scenario was invented ad hoc to serve as a materialistic reductionist explanation of the origin of life. It is unsupported by any other evidence and it will remain ad hoc until such evidence is found... One must conclude that, contrary to the established and current wisdom a scenario describing the genesis of life on earth by chance and natural causes which can be accepted on the basis of fact and not faith has not yet been written."

Yockey, Hubert P.. A Calculation of the Probability of Spontaneous Biogenesis by Information Theory in Journal of Theoretical Biology, 1977, 377-398, p. 396.

"A natural and fundamental question to ask on learning of these incredibly interlocking pieces of software and hardware is: 'How did they ever get started in the first place?' It is truly a baffling thing. One has to imagine some sort of a bootstrap process occurring, somewhat like that which is used in the devleopment of new computer languages - but a bootstrap from simple molecules to entire cells is almost beyond one's power to imagine. There are various theories on the origin of life. They all run aground on this most central of all central questions: 'How did the Genetic Code, along with all the mechanisms for its translation (ribosomes and RNA molecules), originate?' For the moment, we will have to content ourselves with a sense of wonder and awe, rather than with an answer."

Hofstadter, Douglas R. in Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Goldern Braid. Vintage, New York, NY (1980), p.548.

"it appears unlikely that a self-replicating ribozyme [an RNA molecule having some enzyme activity] could arise, but without some form of self-replication there is no way to conduct an evolutionary search for the first, primitive self-replicating ribozyme"

Joyce, G.F. in Prospects for Understanding the Origin of the RNA World, Gesteland and Atkins, ed. Cold Spring Harbor Press, New York, NY (1993), p.19.

"The origin of the [genetic] code is perhaps the most perplexing problem in evolutionary biology. The existing translational machinery is at the same time so complex, so universal) and so essential that it is hard to see how it could have come into existences or how life could have existed without it. The discovery of ribozymes has made it easier to imagine an answer to the second of these questions, but the transformation of an 'RNA world' into one in which catalysis is performed by proteins, and nucleic acids specialize in the transmission of information, remains a formidable problem"

Smith, John Maynard and Szathmary, Eors in The Major Transitions in Evolution. W.H. Freeman and Co., Oxford, (1995), p.81.

"The precise events giving rise to the RNA world remain unclear. As we have seen, investigators have proposed many hypotheses, but evidence in favor of each of them is fragmentary at best. The full details of how the RNA world, and life, emerged may not be revealed in the near future"

Orgel, Leslie. 1994. The Origin of Life on the Earth in Scientific American, 271(0):, 77-83, October.

"But the most sweeping evolutionary questions at the level of biochemical genetics are still unanswered. How the genetic code first appeared and then evolved and, earlier even than that, how life itself originated on earth remain for the future to resolve.... Did the code and the means of translating it appear simultaneously in evolution? It seems almost incredible that any such coincidence could have occurred, given the extraordinary complexities of both sides and the requirement that they be coordinated accurately for survival. By a pre Darwinian (or a skeptic of evolution after Darwin) this puzzle would surely have been interpreted as the most powerful sort of evidence for special creation"

Haskins, Caryl P.. 1971. Advances and Challenges in Science in 1970 in American Scientist, 59(0):, May.

"When speaking here of Darwinism, I shall speak always of today's theory that is Darwin's own theory of natural selection supported by the Mendelian theory of heredity, by the theory of the mutation and recombination of genes in a gene pool, and by the decoded genetic code. This is an immensely impressive and powerful theory. The claim that it completely explains evolution is of course a bold claim, and very far from being established."

Popper, Karl. 1978. Natural Selection and the Emergence of Mind in Dialectica, 32(3):, 339-355, .

"In fact, the probability of the formation of a protein and a nucleic acid (DNA-RNA) is a probability way beyond estimate. Furthermore, the chance of the emergence of a certain protein chain is so slight as to be called astronomic"

Demirsoy, Ali and Kalitim ve Evrim in Inheritance and Evolution. Meteksan Publishing Co., (1984), p.39.

"What gambler would be crazy enough to play roulette with random evolution? The probability of dust carried by the wind reproducing Durer's 'Melancholia' is less infinitesimal than the probability of copy errors in the DNA molecule leading to the formation of the eye; besides, these errors had no relationship whatsoever with the function that the eye would have to perform or was starting to perform. There is no law against daydreaming, but science must not indulge in it."

Grasse, Pierre in "Chapter IV: Evolution and Chance" in Evolution of Living Organisms: Evidence for a New Theory of Transformation. Academic Press, New York, NY (1977), 2nd edition, p.104.

"Any living being possesses an enormous amount of "intelligence," very much more than is necessary to build the most magnificent of cathedrals. Today, this "intelligence" is called "information," but it is still the same thing. It is not programmed as in a computer, but rather it is condensed on a molecular scale in the chromosomal DNA or in that of any other organelle in each cell. This "intelligence" is the sine qua non of life. If absent, no living being is imaginable. Where does it come from? This is a problem which concerns both biologists and philosophers, and, at present, science seems incapable of solving it."

Grasse, Pierre in "An Introduction to the Study of Evolution" in Evolution of Living Organisms: Evidence for a New Theory of Transformation. Academic Press, New York, NY (1977), 2nd edition, p.2.

"The origin of life on the surface of the Earth is a unique historical event whose character cannot be established by experiments in contemporary laboratories ... Many scientists have taken this position on the origin of life. Jacques Monod, the distinguished French molecular biologist, said as much in 1970 in his elegant book Chance and Necessity. There is no way, he argued, that an event as improbable as the emergence of life on Earth could be analyzed by science, which is able to deal only `with events that form a class. ... A decade later, Francis H.C. Crick, co-originator of the structure of DNA, put the argument more specifically: the chances that the long polymer molecules that vitally sustain all living things, both proteins and DNA, could have been assembled by random processes from the chemical units of which they are made are so small as to be negligible, prompting the question whether the surface of the Earth was fertilized from elsewhere, perhaps from interstellar space. `Panspermia' is the name for that"

Maddox, J. in What Remains to be Discovered: Mapping the Secrets of the Universe, the Origins of Life, and the Future of the Human Race. Touchstone, New York, NY (1999), Reprint, p.131.

"The late biologist Gerald Soffen, who oversaw the life-seeking experiments carried out by NASA's Viking probes to Mars, once outlined the early milestones in the evolution of living processes: development of organic compounds, self-replication of those compounds, appearance of cells isolating the compounds from their environment, photosynthesis enabling cells to use the sun's energy, and the assembly of DNA. ‘It's hard to imagine how these things could have happened," Soffen told me before his death in 2000. "Once you reach the point of a single-cell organism with genes, evolution takes command. But the early leaps — they're very mysterious.’ "

Easterbrook, Greg. The New Convergence in Wired Magazine, December 2002.

"But the most sweeping evolutionary questions at the level of biochemical genetics are still unanswered. How the genetic code first appeared and then evolved and, earlier even than that, how life itself originated on earth remain for the future to resolve... The fact that in all organisms living today the processes both of replication of the DNA and of the effective translation of its code require highly precise enzymes and that, at the same time the molecular structures of those same enzymes are precisely specified by the DNA itself, poses a remarkable evolutionary mystery... Did the code and the means of translating it appear simultaneously in evolution? It seems almost incredible that any such coincidence could have occurred, given the extraordinary complexities of both sides and the requirement that they be coordinated accurately for survival. By a pre-Darwinian (or a skeptic of evolution after Darwin) this puzzle would surely have been interpreted as the most powerful sort of evidence for special creation."

Haskins, Caryl P.. Advances and Challenges in Science in 1970 in American Scientist, May 1971, 298-307, p. 305.

"The origin of life appears to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to be satisfied to get it going"

Horgan, John. In the Beginning in Scientific American, February 1991, -, p. 125.

"It was already clear that the genetic code is not merely an abstraction but the embodiment of life's mechanisms; the consecutive triplets of nucleotides in DNA (called codons) are inherited, but they also guide the construction of proteins... so it is disappointing that the origin of the genetic code is still as obscure as the origin of life itself."

"It is extremely improbable that proteins and nucleic acids, both of which are structurally complex, arose spontaneously in the same place at the same time. Yet it also seems impossible to have one without the other. And so, at first glance, one might have to conclude that life could never, in fact, have originated by chemical means."

Orgel, Leslie E.. The Origin of Life on the Earth in Scientific American, October 1994, 77-83

"Now we know that the cell itself is far more complex than we had imagined. It includes thousands of functioning enzymes, each one of them a complex machine itself. Furthermore, each enzyme comes into being in response to a gene, a strand of DNA. The information content of the gene (its complexity) must be as great as that of the enzymes it controls."

Salisbury, Frank B.. Doubts About the Modern Synthetic Theory of Evolution in American Biology Teacher, September 1971

"Take some matter, heat while stirring and wait. That is the modern version of Genesis. The 'fundamental' forces of gravity, electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces are presumed to have done the rest... But how much of this neat tale is firmly established, and how much remains hopeful speculaion? In truth, the mechanism of almost every major step, from chemical precursors up to the first recognizable cells, is the subject of either controversy or complete bewilderment."

Scott, A.. Update on Genesis in New Scientist, 1985, 30-33, p. 30.

"And then what of the ' primitive soup' required for Chemical Evolution? If such an environment ever existed on Planet Earth for any appreciable time, it would require relatively large quantities of nitrogen-containing organic compounds (amino-acids, nucleic acid bases and so on). It is likely that such nitrogen-rich soups would have given significant quantities of ' nitrogenous cokes', trapped in various PreCambrian sediments. (The formation of such 'cokes' is the normal result obtained by heating organic matter rich in nitrogenous substances.) No such nitrogen-rich materials have yet been found in early PreCambrian rocks on this planet. In fact the opposite seems to be true: the nitrogen content of early PreCambrian organic matter is relatively low (less than 0.15%). From this we can be reasonably certain that: * there never was any substantial amount of 'primitive soup' on Earthwhen ancient PreCambrian sediments were formed; * if such a 'soup' ever existed it was only for a brief period of time. Subtract from the basic concept of the Chemical Evolution Theory the ideas of substantial amounts of 'primitive soup' and a long period of time, and there is very little left"

Brooks, J. in Origins of life. Hertfordshire, (1985), p.118.

"It is true that some of the simpler amino acids have been found in complex mixtures generated under conditions simulating those that might have been present on the primitive Earth. Even nucleotide letters have been found in mixtures that are said to be plausible simulations of probiotic products. But all such 'molecules of life' are always minority products and usually no more than trace products. Their detection often owes more to the skill of the experimenter than to any powerful tendency for the 'molecules of life' to form"

Cairns-Smith, A.G. in Seven Clues to the Origin of Life: A Scientific Detective Story. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, (1993), Reprint, p.44.

"Sugars are particularly trying. While it is true that they form from formaldehyde solutions, these solutions have to be far more concentrated than would have been likely in primordial oceans. And the reaction is quite spoilt in practice by just about every possible sugar being made at the same time - and much else besides. Furthermore the conditions that form sugars also go on to destroy them. Sugars quickly make their own special kind of tar - caramel - and they make still more complicated mixtures if amino acids are around."

Cairns-Smith, A.G. in Seven Clues to the Origin of Life: A Scientific Detective Story. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, (1993), Reprint, p.44.

"Many investigators feel uneasy about stating in public that the origin of life is a mystery, even though behind closed doors they freely admit that they are baffled. There are two reasons for their unease. First they feel it opens the door to religious fundamentalism...Second, they worry that a frank admission of ignorance will undermine funding"

Davies, Paul C.W. in The Fifth Miracle: The Search for the Origin and Meaning of Life. (0), p..

"Some scientists say, just throw energy at it and it will happen spontaneously. That is a little bit like saying: put a stick of dynamite under the pile of bricks, and bang, you've got a house! Of course you won't have a house, you'll just have a mess. The difficulty in trying to explain the origin of life is in accounting for how the elaborate organisational structure of these complex molecules came into existence spontaneously from a random input of energy. How did these very specific complex molecules assemble themselves"

Davies, Paul C.W. and Adams, Philip in More Big Questions. ABC Books, Sydney, (1998), p.53-54, 47-48.

"The great diversity of these opinions reflects their largely subjective nature. Individual viewpoints often reveal idealogical, philosophical, or religious biases more than they express objective appraisals, for the simple reason that not enough elements are available for objective analysis"

De Duve, Christian. in Blueprint for a Cell: The Nature and Origin of Life. Neil Patterson Publishers, (1991), p.212.

"In fact, the probability of the formation of a protein and a nucleic acid (DNA-RNA) is a probability way beyond estimate. Furthermore, the chance of the emergence of a certain protein chain is so slight as to be called astronomic"

Demirsoy, Ali and Kalitim ve Evrim in Inheritance and Evolution. Meteksan Publishing Co., (1984), p.39.

"To insist, even with Olympian assurance, that life appeared quite by chance and evolved in this fashion, is an unfounded supposition which I believe to be wrong and not in accordance with the facts"

Grasse, Pierre in Evolution of Living Organisms Evidence for a New Theory of Transformation. Academic Press, New York, NY (1977), 2nd edition.

"If I were a creationist, I would cease attacking the theory of evolution-which is so well supported by the fossil record-and focus instead on the origin of life. This is by far the weakest strut of the chassis of modern biology. The origin of life is a science writer's dream. It abounds with exotic scientists and exotic theories, which are never entirely abandoned or accepted, but merely go in and out of fashion"

Horgan, John in The End of Science: Facing the Limits of Knowledge in the Twilight of the Scien. Little Brown & Co, London, (1997), p.138.

"Essentially, the same amino acid chain being found also in other animals and even in plants, we have a case in histone-4 where more than 200 base pairs are conserved across the whole of biology. The problem for the neo-Darwinian theory is to explain how the one particular arrangement of base pairs came to be discovered in the first place. Evidently not by random processes, for with a chance 1/4 of choosing each of the correct base pairs at random, the probability of discovering a segment of 200 specific base pairs is 4-200, which is equal to 10-120. Even if one were given a random choice for every atom in every galaxy in the whole visible universe the probability of discovering histone-4 would still only be a minuscule ~10-40"

Hoyle, Fred in Mathematics of Evolution. Acorn Enterprises, Memphis, TN (1999), p.102-103.

"Life cannot have had a random beginning ... The trouble is that there are about two thousand enzymes, and the chance of obtaining them all in a random trial is only one part in 10 to the power of 40,000, an outrageously small probability that could not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup. If one is not prejudiced either by social beliefs or by a scientific training into the conviction that life originated on the Earth, this simple calculation wipes the idea entirely out of court"

Hoyle, Fred and Chandra Wickramasinghe in Evolution from Space. A Theory Of Cosmic Creationism. Simon & Schuster, New York, NY (1984), 2nd edition

"Once we see, however, that the probability of life originating at random is so utterly minuscule as to make the random concept absurd, it becomes sensible to think that the favorable properties of physics on which life depends are in every respect deliberate. ... It is therefore almost inevitable that our own measure of intelligence must reflect in a valid way the higher intelligences to our left, even to the extreme idealized limit of God."

Hoyle, Fred and Chandra Wickramasinghe in "Chapter Nine: Convergence to God" in Evolution from Space: A Theory Of Cosmic Creationism. Simon & Schuster, New York, NY (1984), 2nd edition, p.141, 144.

"Geological and geophysical evidence is insufficient to allow us to state with any precision what conditions were like on the surface of the primitive earth. Arguments concerning the composition of the primitive atmosphere are particularly controversial. It is important, therefore, to state our own prejudice clearly. We believe that there must have been a period when the earth's atmosphere was reducing, because the synthesis of compounds of biological interest takes place only under reducing conditions"

Miller, Stanley L. in The Origins of Life on the Earth. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ (1974), p.33.

"However, it is now held to be highly unlikely that the conditions used in these experiments [i.e., the modeling of strongly reducing atmospheres] could represent those in the Archean atmosphere. Even so, scientific articles still occasionally appear that report experiments modeled on these conditions and explicitly or tacitly claim the presence of resulting products in reactive concentrations "on the primordial Earth" or in a "prebiotic soup". The idea of such a "soup" containing all desired organic molecules in concentrated form in the ocean has been a misleading concept against which objections were raised early (see, e.g., Sillen 1965). Nonetheless, it still appears in popular presentations perhaps partly because of its gustatory associations"

Mojzsis, Krishnamurthy, Arrhenius in "Chapter 1 of the RNA World" in Before RNA and After: Geophysical and Geochemical Constraints on Molecular Evolution. Laboratory Press, Cold Spring Harbor, (1999), 2nd edition, p.6.

"Oparin believed that the organic molecules from which life originated collected as a “soup” in surface waters...However, a basic problem is that a high concentration of complex organic molecules would be required. This violates the second law of thermodynamics, which basically tells us (in this context) that it would be more energetically favorable for such a mixture of organic compounds to disintegrate into simple parts than to collect into a multitude of complex, organized molecules"

Murck, B.W. and Skinner B.J. in Geology Today: Understanding our Planet. John Wiley and Sons, New York, NY (1999), p.442.

"The origin of the [genetic] code is perhaps the most perplexing problem in evolutionary biology. The existing translational machinery is at the same time so complex, so universal) and so essential that it is hard to see how it could have come into existences or how life could have existed without it. The discovery of ribozymes has made it easier to imagine an answer to the second of these questions, but the transformation of an 'RNA world' into one in which catalysis is performed by proteins, and nucleic acids specialize in the transmission of information, remains a formidable problem"

Smith, John Maynard and Szathmary, Eors in The Major Transitions in Evolution. W.H. Freeman and Co., Oxford, (1995), p.81.

"The evolution of the genetic machinery is the step for which there are no laboratory models; hence one can speculate endlessly, unfettered by inconvenient facts. The complex genetic apparatus in present-day organisms is so universal that one has few clues as to what the apparatus may have looked like in its most primitive form."

Dickerson, Richard E.. Chemical Evolution and the Origin of Life in Scientific American, September 1978, p. 77.

"Considerable disagreements between scientists have arisen about detailed evolutionary steps. The problem is that the principal evolutionary processes from prebiotic molecules to progenotes have not been proven by experimentation and that the environmental conditions under which these processes occurred are not known. Moreover, we do not actually know where the genetic information of all living cells originates, how the first replicable polynucleotides (nucleic acids) evolved, or how the extremely complex structure-function relationships in modern cells came into existence"

Dose, Klaus. The Origin of Life: More Questions Than Answers in Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 1988, p. 348.

"But the most sweeping evolutionary questions at the level of biochemical genetics are still unanswered. How the genetic code first appeared and then evolved and, earlier even than that, how life itself originated on earth remain for the future to resolve... The fact that in all organisms living today the processes both of replication of the DNA and of the effective translation of its code require highly precise enzymes and that, at the same time the molecular structures of those same enzymes are precisely specified by the DNA itself, poses a remarkable evolutionary mystery... Did the code and the means of translating it appear simultaneously in evolution? It seems almost incredible that any such coincidence could have occurred, given the extraordinary complexities of both sides and the requirement that they be coordinated accurately for survival. By a pre-Darwinian (or a skeptic of evolution after Darwin) this puzzle would surely have been interpreted as the most powerful sort of evidence for special creation."

Haskins, Caryl P.. Advances and Challenges in Science in 1970 in American Scientist, May 1971, 298-307, p. 305.

"A spaceship approaches the Earth, but not close enough for its imaginary inhabitants to distinguish individual terrestrial animals. They see growing crops, roads, bridges, and a debate ensues. Are these chance formations or are they the products of an intelligence?' It is not at all difficult to formulate examples of events with exceedingly low probabilities. A roulette wheel operates in a casino. A bystander notes the sequence of numbers thrown by the wheel over the course of a whole year. What is the chance that this particular sequence should have turned up ? Well, not as small as 1 in 10^40000, but extremely small nonetheless. So there is nothing especially remarkable in a tiny probability. Yet it surely would be exceedingly remarkable if the sequence thrown by the roulette wheel in the course of a year should have an explicit mathematical significance, as for instance if the numbers turned out to form the digits of pi to an enormous number of decimal places. This is just the situation with a living cell which is not any old random jumble of chemicals"

Hoyle, Fred. The Universe: Past and Present Reflections in Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 1982, 1-35, p. 15.

"If living matter is not, then, caused by the interplay of atoms, natural forces and radiation, how has it come into being? ... I think, however, that we must go further than this and admit that the only acceptable explanation is creation. I know that this is anathema to physicists, as indeed it is to me, but we must not reject a theory that we do not like if the experimental evidence supports it"

Lipson, H.. A Physicist Looks at Evolution" in Physics Bulletin, 1980, -, p. 138.

"Unfortunately, catalytic reactions of the required type in aqueous solution are virtually unknown; there is no reason to believe, for example, that any intermediate of the citric acid cycle would specifically catalyze any reaction of the citric acid cycle. The explanation of this is simple: noncovalent interactions between small molecules in aqueous solution are generally too weak to permit large and regiospecific catalytic accelerations [of the type required by living systems]. To postulate one fortuitously catalyzed reaction, perhaps catalyzed by a metal ion, might be reasonable, but to postulate a suite of them is to appeal to magic."

Orgel, Leslie E.. Self-organizing biochemical cycles in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 2000, 12503-12507

Finally, I would throw in this reminder.

"Expectancy leads to self-deception, and self-deception leads to the propensity to be deceived by others...Indeed, professional magicians claim that scientists, because of their confidence in their own objectivity, are easier to deceive than other people."

Broad, William and Nicholas Wade in Betrayers of the Truth: Fraud and Deceit in the Halls of Science. Touchstone, New York, NY (1982), p.108 ff.

And so… this brings me to an issue that Ruse himself and others are well aware of: the point about self-deception.

First, the reader will note that many of the quotes I've presented are spread across recent decades, and many are not current within the past few years. I rest confidently in the knowledge that nothing has changed in the realm of scientific discovery in the area of origin of life scenarios that would significantly modify the comments presented here. And if anyone would care to challenge this, I welcome it. The point is, there are a plethora of obstacles that must be overcome before Ruse or anyone else can honestly make the claim that we understand how life arose, or that it is an established fact that inorganic materials spontaneously gave rise to organic ones when we currently have no clue how that would be possible.

Second, many critics of IDers and Darwin skeptics lament what they describe as the laborious and often inaccurate use of quotations to support their contentions regarding the errors of Darwinism or Origin of Life arguments. I hope that the sheer weight of quotations offered here from qualified skeptics (which is just scratching the surface) will put any such allegations to rest. The point is, Ruse is wrong when he arrogantly claims that ….

“the natural origin of organisms from forms very different than those they now bear - ultimately from inorganic materials… is as much a fact of nature as that the earth goes around the sun…”

In fact, the idea of the natural origin of organisms remains one of the mostly hotly debated topics within science today. The notion that life spontaneously arose from inorganic beginnings by chance is not only an unproven speculation, but runs contrary to everything science tells us. And, Ruse’s baseless allegations to the contrary are at best merely a posturing of insistence that one would expect of a true-blue Darwinian.

What all the foregoing comments inexorably lead us to is the conclusion that we are still totally in the dark with respect to even imagining how life could have begun (without an Intelligent Designer). I hope Ruse takes his own advice, noted here, to heart:

Descartes hypothesized a demon who deceives us, even about that which we think self-obvious. Could not our theistic belief in a Creator fall prey here? What right have we to think that our belief in a good god who would not let us be deceived about his existence is not caused by an evil spirit who is misleading us?...

Recognizing that our senses can mislead or deceive us about the world, we must distinguish between the real world as we can in some sense discover (common sense reality) and the world in some absolute sense (metaphysical reality)…

Consider this. It is certainly the case that organisms are sometimes deceived about the world of appearances and that this includes humans being deceived. Sometimes we are systematically deceived, as instructors in elementary psychology classes delight in demonstrating. Moreover, evolution can often give good reasons why we are deceived.

Ruse, Michael in "Darwin's New Critics on Trial" in Taking Darwin Seriously. Prometheus Books, Amherst, NY (1998), p.295-296.

Indeed - IDers and Darwin skeptics are not the only ones capable of being deceived. The first step, for anyone with an unfounded addiction to an idea, is to admit the possibility that they might have it all wrong.

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

A propos Bill Dembski having to defend himself against a silly attack in top science mag Nature, a lawyer friend suggests taking a look at Nature's mission statement:

First, to serve scientists through prompt publication of significant advances in any branch of science, and to provide a forum for the reporting and discussion of news and issues concerning science. Second, to ensure that the results of science are rapidly disseminated to the public throughout the world, in a fashion that conveys their significance for knowledge, culture and daily life.

He wisely observes,

To report advances and serve scientists means not to report setbacks, or the exposure of fallacies in widely-held theories that would tend to put mainstream science in a bad light.

The press and public operate under the impression that Nature and Science magazines report any significant developments in science, whether positive or negative, and that both serve the public; but both publications are very up-front that they only report advances and successes because they exist to serve scientists.

Where I come from, we call that a lobby.

No, we don't react with unilateral disbelief, but we do salt everything we hear from such sources with a healthy dose of skepticism. The little lambs of affirmation are, of course, duly shocked by our liberties, and they must be allowed to remain so.

By the way, here are some of my recent posts at the Post-Darwinist and the Mindful Hack:

On the Dover case, a science journal prefers alternative reality (it's easier to live in)

How to talk to religious people and other evil morons

What your textbook dollars pay for - free advertising for materialism

By the way, I have been updating my post on Stuart Pivar's struggles to get his non-Darwinian evolution theory heard. It gets pretty funny at times.

Yes, in The Spiritual BrainMario Beauregard and I do talk about near death experiences. And so?

Another man whose brain was mostly water found leading normal life ... is this becoming a fad or what?

Why only the cheatin' hearts of your fellow humans can really deceive you

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

My piece on design and evil is here (scroll down):

We will never understand creation if we insist on separating glory and design from suffering, loss, and waste, because, bound in finite time and space, creation is full of suffering, loss, and waste as well. All must be taken together or put aside together, in a final decision for meaning or nihilism.
The modern debate has decayed in part because that vision of the inseparability of the horror from the glory has been lost. Of course, Stephen Jay Gould was merely being tendentious when he dismissed our deep-seated fears of monsters as commercial hype. As a paleontologist, he well knew that, before humans ever walked the earth, there were terrible beasts on land and sea—far more so than today.

But his evolutionary-psychologist opponents are even more off the track. Any human who is gifted with the mere capacity to imagine fears the serpent’s sudden fang and the ghost’s spectral finger. That’s simply what imagination is; it bodies forth the shape of things unknown. Imagination, not some complex survival calculus, is our true inheritance from our ancestors.

Also, at the Post-Darwinist,
Dawinism and popular culture: Sister Eugenie explains it all for you

Human evolution: The mystery solved! Why humans walked upright ... well, maybe ...

and at the Mindful Hack,

Theodore Dalrymple takes on materialist cognitive scientist Steve Pinker on language

Richard Dawkins on the need to curb religious liberty. Plus new site yawns at Dawkins' pretensions.

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Recently, Decima polled Canadians on the origin of humans - God dunit? God neverdunit? Dunno?

I infer that the responses to the questions below give us some idea of Canadians' thoughts on intelligent design. With some key qualifications, God's involvement in human origins can be used to predict public opinion on intelligent design. That is, people who don't think that God had anything to do with human origins don't usually think that crayfish show evidence of intelligent design either.

Here are the Canadian responses to the 2007 question by percentage, along with the US figures to a similar series of questions in brackets:

 Less than one in three Canadians (29%) believe that God had no part in the
creation or development of human beings. (US: 13%)
 Fewer still (26%) believe “that God created human beings pretty much in their
present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so”. (US: 46%)
 A plurality, but still only 34%, say that “human beings have developed over millions
of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process”. (US: 36%)

None of this surprises me particularly. Canada is more secular than the United States, so far more people would say God had nothing to do with it and far fewer would be creationists in the sense of choice 2.

Choice 3, you will notice, is chosen by about the same numbers of Canadians as Americans. Notably, more Canadians than Americans seem not to have chosen any of the options (11% vs. 5%).

Indeed, all this confirms the view I took last year when Montreal-based Darwin lobbyist Brian Alters was turned down by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council for a grant to "study" the dangers that intelligent design theory represents to Canada (as a precursor, of course, to wringing further funds from the taxpayer to "combat" the menace he has discovered).

At the time, I identified key reasons why the ID controversy never flares up much in Canada. Among other reasons, we have neither a functional Christian Right nor groups that are the equivalent of American Civil Liberties Union. So, apart from Brian himself and his friends, there are not many people who can hope to get either private donations or government grants from sponsoring a big public fight on the subject. I concluded,

Look, Canada is the kind of place where gays can marry each other and Catholics can start each day with the Hail Mary in tax supported schools if they want to. That's just how things are here. Everyone here finds something to hate. Not everyone expects to be paid for it.

What did surprise me is that Decima, the polling firm, did not ask for the religious affiliation of the respondents. Here's why I think that was an oversight:

In a trend that also departs very much from the American scene, the people who intend to vote Liberal were much more likely than those who intended to vote either Conservative or NDP (leftist) to choose a "theistic" option - God either created humans or guided the process. Only 22% of Liberals thought God had nothing to do with it, but 31% of Conservatives thought that, as did 31% of leftist voters.

This is quite different from the United States, where most Republicans "doubt evolution"but most Democrats do not. I believe that data on religious affiliation would shed some light on reasons for the cultural difference that this illustrates.

The social breakdowns they do provide are interesting, however. In Quebec, 40% think God played no role, significantly higher than anywhere else. Men are about 50% more likely to think that than women, and people with higher incomes are 50% more likely to think God played no role than people with lower incomes.

I am quoted here on the poll.

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Audiophiles, go here for Jason Rennie’s excellent Darwin or Design audiobook, which you can listen to on line or buy. Rennie, of Australia’s ScPhi show has done a marvellous job of assembling a cast of dozens of key contributors to the intelligent design controversy.

He offers such point men as P.Z. Myers, Sean Carroll, and Nick Matzke in one corner and Mike Behe, Guillermo Gonzalez, and Mike Gene in the other - and tons of your other faves - including top Canadian science fiction author Rob Sawyer.

Sal Cordova explains what ID is here, and I talk about the media and ID here, predicting the past and postdicting the future with glee. (Postdicting the future is actually quite easy - it is predicting the past that causes so many problems ... if only people would realize that.)

Get the rest of the show notes here. This series is just the ticket for people who want to get up to speed on the controversy but don’t have time to read. You can listen while stapling documents or folding laundry.

Whoops! Update: John Davison asks me to point out that his new hypothesis for organic change is Chapter 22. This is a rare opportunity to hear him talk about his dissent from Darwinism.

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Malcolm Chisholm tells me that he has worked the bugs out of a new game called the Richard Dawkins Mutation Challenge.

I'm not much good with games, so I am hoping others will try it and tell me what they think. It is especially timely in light of this.

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).