Science and Culture Today | Page 1206 | Discovering Design in Nature

Recently I asked Larry Moran of Sandwalk: what do you, as a New Atheist, really believe? To focus the discussion I asked eight fundamental philosophical questions. The insistent New Atheist claim has been that belief in the supernatural in any form- traditional Christian belief seems to rile them the most- is nonsense and has been shown to be such by modern science. New Atheists claim the mantle of logic and reason, as against irrationality and superstition of theists.

Dr. Moran replied to my questions, courteously, and as I have promised I will answer the questions in the same spirit. For clarity, I will give the original question, then Dr. Moran’s answer, and then mine.

A little background on my perspective: I am a Roman Catholic. I converted from agnosticism to Catholicism about 6 years ago. My answers to the eight questions will draw on traditional Catholic teaching. Much about existence and God can be understood by reason, by philosophical reflection and by contemplation of nature, although some truths can only be discovered by revelation through Scripture. The fullest understanding is a harmony of both. Although my answers are from a Catholic perspective, I believe that many of them are in substantial agreement with those of my Protestant, Jewish, and Islamic friends. It’s worth noting that the original forms of many of these answers were proposed by Aristotle, who was a pagan.

The philosophical views that I summarize have been held by most educated men for a couple of millennia. After Aristotle, this philosophical tradition was further developed in the High Middle Ages by Aquinas, Averroes, Maimonides and many others. Today it is the kernel of the New Essentialism school of philosophy of nature. This philosophy represents the foundation of Western thought.

Over the past couple of centuries these explanations have largely been forgotten by atheists and by scientists with a dogmatic materialistic view of nature, as classical philosophy did not prove congenial to a mechanistic atheist view of the world. It’s an impoverished view; most New Atheists don’t even understand the questions that the classical explanations have addressed. Unsurprisingly, the classical explanations have never been successfully refuted.

I am very much a theological and philosophical amateur. In my brief summary of my beliefs, I will do little justice to these remarkable insights.

1) Why is there anything?

Biochemist and CSC Fellow Michael Behe engaged in a lively radio debate with Keith Fox a British biochemist and theistic evolutionist. Premiere Radio describes it this way: Michael Behe is professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University, Pennsylvania and the founder of the modern Intelligent Design movement. His book “Darwin’s Black Box” ignited the controversy 14 years ago when it claimed that certain molecular machines and biological processes are “irreducibly complex” and cannot be explained by Darwinian evolution. His new book “The Edge of Evolution” takes his conclusions further, arguing that the Darwinian processes of random mutation and natural selection are incapable of producing the variation and complexity we see in most of life. So can we conclude that life was Read More ›

FoxNews recently published two articles (see here and here) about extrasolar planets and extraterrestrial life. Although skepticism is supposed to be a hallmark of science, one evolutionary scientist quoted, Steven Vogt, boasts that he has “no doubt” that there is life on this newly discovered extrasolar planet: “Personally, given the ubiquity and propensity of life to flourish wherever it can, I would say, my own personal feeling is that the chances of life on this planet are 100 percent,” said Steven Vogt, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, during a press briefing today. “I have almost no doubt about it.” Let me make sure I understand this right. Dr. Vogt has “almost no Read More ›

Yesterday morning ENV reported about a forum at the upcoming Vibrant Dance of Faith and Science Conference that would feature an exchange of views from leading scientists from Discovery Institute and the BioLogos Foundation. Unfortunately, yesterday afternoon we were informed by a conference organizer that the session in question was being canceled. The good news is that attendees will still be able to hear the same speakers at other sessions, and the rest of the conference is going forward. For my part, I earnestly hope that another forum for a public exchange of views can be found in the future.

The most popular of the Origin of Life (OOL) models is the RNA-first world. RNA can have catalytic properties similar to proteins (enzymes) and are thus called ribozymes. RNA or some form of pre-RNA is an attractive early earth molecule and possible progenitor to early life because, unlike the chicken-and-egg problem with proteins and DNA, theoretically, RNA replication can be completely self-contained. In fact, in January 2009 Nature reported on the synthesis of a self-replicating RNA molecule capable of catalyzing its own replication. See Casey Luskin’s report here.

There are several problems with the RNA-first model (See here for a short discussion on some problems with RNA, and see Chapter 14 in Signature in the Cell) not the least of which is how difficult RNA is to synthesize. However, two of the major problems that OOL researchers face are the inherent instability of RNA (a much less stable molecule than DNA) and the dilute reaction conditions that were likely on the early earth. A recent Nature Communications proposes a hypothesis that addresses these problems. The authors propose that perhaps these early earth RNA reactions occurred in ice.

A while ago Larry Moran at Sandwalk asked:

Let’s stop the whining about how “know-nothing” atheists are ignoring the very best arguments for the existence of God. Come on, all you theists and accommodationists, put your money where your mouth is. Give us something of substance instead of hiding behind The Courtier’s Reply. Let’s see the angels…I’m betting that [theists] haven’t the foggiest notion of any new and sophisticated arguments for the existence of God that the New Atheists haven’t already addressed. I’m betting they’re just blowing smoke in order to provide cover for their theist friends in the hope of saving them from intellectual embarrassment.

Moran got 551 comments. Not one argument for theism satisfied him:

UPDATE 10/22/10: Unfortunately, yesterday afternoon we were informed by a conference organizer that the session featuring an exchange of views between Discovery Institute and BioLogos scientists was being canceled. The good news is that attendees will still be able to hear the same speakers at other sessions, and the rest of the conference is going forward. We hope that another forum for a public exchange of views can be found in the future. The conversation about God and Darwin is heating up. After several months of back-and-forth, the theistic evolutionists at BioLogos (notably attacking Stephen Meyer’s Signature in the Cell, in some cases without reading it) will meet and finally face intelligent design proponents, who are coming fresh off their Read More ›

I shouldn’t drink my morning coffee while reading P.Z. Myers. I almost choked. Myers, avant garde of the cult of atheism, commented on Delaware Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell’s observation that the First Amendment contains no phrase “separation of church and state.”
Myers:

Proponents of intelligent design (ID) have long predicted that many of the features of living systems which are said to exhibit “sub-optimal” design will, in time, turn out to have a rationally engineered purpose. This is one of several areas where ID actively encourages a fruitful research agenda, in a manner in which neo-Darwinian evolution does not. One such area, and a field for which I have long held an inquisitive fascination for, is the subject of so-called “junk DNA,” and the non-coding stetches of RNA which are transcribed from them.

Skepticism of the “junk DNA” paradigm is not a phenomenon which is limited to proponents of ID. This popular view of the genome — while still resonating as the conventional view among neo-Darwinian thinkers — has also been challenged by John Mattick of the University of Queensland and Jim Shapiro of the University of Chicago.

Earlier this month, an article appeared in the journal Cell by a Spanish team. The article announced the discovery of the ability of long non-coding RNA, which are often encoded in DNA near genes known to be important to both stem cells and cancer, to serve as enhancer elements (which promote gene expression).

According to the paper’s Abstract: