Science and Culture Today | Page 1238 | Discovering Design in Nature

P.Z. Myers has responded to my post about his views on abortion and personhood. In reply, Myers posted pictures of a zygote, an embryo, and a group of young women. He asserted that differences in appearance between these human beings was an ethical basis for denial of the right to life to humans in utero.

I take it for granted that Myers, being a competent biologist, agrees with me on this point: a living human embryo/fetus is a member of the species Homo sapiens (it is no other species). That is, a distinct human life begins at conception and ends at natural death. That is not to to say that Myers and I agree on rights, personhood, etc., but merely to say that a human life is a continuum that begins at conception. That is a fact of biology.

Myers makes the bizarre assertion that devaluing some human beings adds value to the life of others:

Huh. I don’t know about you, but to me, that [recognizing that humans in utero have a right to life] doesn’t exalt human life at all — it seems to do the opposite, and devalue the life of women.[my ellipsis]

Every stage of human life is…human life. Each young woman in Myer’s picture looked like a “blob of cells” when she was an embryo. An embryo is what a human being looks like 20 days after conception. A young adult is what a human being looks like 20 years after conception. An elderly adult is what a human being looks like 80 years after conception. All are human beings of different ages. Of course, abilities, appearance, etc. differ radically, but a human being is a human being. And all human beings have a right to life. To respect and value one human being despite his/her immaturity is not to denigrate a mature human being. Respect for life protects and respects all human beings.

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NASA’s discovery of an arsenic-ingesting microbe in California’s forbidding Mono Lake looks, on the surface, like bad news for Darwinists hopeful to show what a no-big-deal it is for a planet to bring forth life unguided. The bacterium evidently uses arsenic for purposes that all other known organisms would use phosphorus, including incorporating it in DNA. A reporter for Nature News cites UC Santa Barbara geomicrobiologist David Valentine as observing that the discovery may mean “you can potentially cross phosphorus off the list of elements required for life.”

That’s interesting. Under Darwinian assumptions, the observation that such an alternative life chemistry is possible means that some planets previously assumed to be inhospitable to life, due to being poor in phosphorus, would now turn out after all to be potential theaters for life’s presumed spontaneous arising. That would seem to bump up the number of possible dice rolls available out there to jump-start an unguided chemical and biological evolutionary process on some other planet. Yet we still have no indication from SETI or anything else that intelligent or complex life exists anywhere but here. Which makes the existence of life on earth look just a bit more special than it did before, right?

Well, maybe yes or maybe no. Astrophysicist Guillermo Gonzalez, a senior fellow with Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, urges caution before drawing conclusions from the find:

Everyone seems to remember that Alfred Russel Wallace co-discovered the engine of modern evolutionary theory, natural selection, with his famous Ternate letter sent to Charles Darwin in early March of 1858. The receipt of that letter prompted an astonished Darwin into action to finally unveil his own theory and the rest is history. Or is it? Forgotten in the glare of Darwin’s preeminence is that Wallace went on to craft his own theory, a theory imbued with intelligent design. First announced in April of 1869, Wallace would go on to develop a theory of directed, detectably designed, and purposeful common descent best described as intelligent evolution.

In my previous post, we saw that Eugenie Koonin argued that a formal test of universal common ancestry (UCA) “is unlikely to be feasible” but yet he claimed that the evidence in support of UCA “by comparative genomics is overwhelming.” Such thinking is common among evolutionists, who seek to to demonstrate UCA by finding a consilience of multiple lines of evidence in favor of it. In his Nature paper, Douglas Theobald similarly seeks to support UCA through a consilience of multiple lines of evidence: UCA is now supported by a wealth of evidence from many independent sources, including: (1) the agreement between phylogeny and biogeography; (2) the correspondence between phylogeny and the palaeontological record; (3) the existence of numerous predicted Read More ›

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It’s the time of year to take stock… and figure out what books and DVDs are missing from your library so you can ask for them for Christmas! This year our list is handily organized by category: Science, Faith & Worldview and History, Culture and Philosophy.

Science

• In the Beginning: And Other Essays on Intelligent Design by Granville Sewell. This collection of essays explains why evolution is a fundamentally different and much more difficult problem than others solved by science and why increasing numbers of scientists are now recognizing what has long been obvious to the layman: there is no explanation possible without design. Highly recommended for those who want mathematical proof that Darwin’s theory doesn’t add up. (You can get it for $11.21 here.)
• Programming of Life by Donald E. Johnson. This book is Dr. Johnson’s second, and as we noted earlier, “full of helpful introductions to topics like statistics and information theory, chock-full with citations to the mainstream scientific literature. In particular, he cites to a growing body of technical literature of scientists who are skeptical of materialism.” It “focuses on elucidating the computer-like workings of the cell and their implications for materialism-based theories about life’s origins.” This is a great book for those following the debate and curious about the leading edge of the research. (You can get it for $12.45 here).
• Intelligent Design Uncensored: An Easy-to-Understand Guide to the Controversy by William Dembski and Jonathan Witt. This book is a must for anyone wanting to understand the science of intelligent design explained to the layperson. It summarizes the case for design while also contributing to ID thinking with verve and style that isn’t just accessible, but pleasurable for the reader. (You can get it for $10.20 here.)
• Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design by Stephen C. Meyer. The book that continues to stir up controversy far and wide is available in paperback. It’s a tour de force that made the Times Literary Supplement‘s “Books of the Year” last year and absolutely required reading for anyone interested in intelligent design. Unless, of course, you’re Francisco Ayala. (You can get it for $12.43 here.)
• The Deniable Darwin and Other Essays by David Berlinski. This collection is a treasure trove of classic Berlisnki wit and perception, featuring more than 30 essays written over the last 15 years. The consummate skeptic, Dr. Berlinski dispels the modern superstition of scientism and clears the way for real science to be conducted. Recommended for skeptics, doubters, and anyone who

In my prior post, I explained why Doug Theobald used the wrong null hypothesis for testing common ancestry. The odds of two lengthy genes arriving at a highly similar DNA sequence by chance, or even evolutionary convergence, is extremely small. Unless there’s an underlying political motive, it shouldn’t take a paper in Nature to show that obvious point. Common descent is a much better explanation for these genetic similarities….

Unless, that is, you admit the possibility of common design. If you ignore common design, then the explanation for similarities between gene sequences must be common descent. Doug Theobald’s recent paper in Nature gets to his conclusion only by ignoring the possibility of common design and then equating common design (wrongly lumped with “creationism”) with unguided evolutionary development — a straw man comparison that is completely false.

P.Z. Myers on a faux online abortion poll:

“I’m about as pro-choice as you can get…”

Unsurprisingly, Myers is “pro-choice”. But Myers’ advocacy of “choice” goes further:

“…I’m even willing to say that I’m pro-abortion…”

“Pro-abortion”? Even committed pro-abortion zealots don’t generally endorse abortion explicitly, except to assert the right to ‘choice,’ as if one were choosing a salad dressing rather than deciding to take a human life.
Myers:

“[I] would like to encourage more people to abort…”