Saturday, January 31, 2009

Animal Instincts

There are many behaviors in humans that are similar to behaviors in other animals. Looking at mating rituals and posturing, I can see similarities between humans and many other species. There are also many behaviors that are similar in aggression (although humans seem to be alone in war). This would seem to support the evolutionary theory. I ruminated about this in my blog about similarities in anatomy between species. A being that is creative enough to make the incredible variety of the universe would be creative enough to make different behavioral patterns in different species. I'm starting to think that the creation of life on earth follows a similar path to manufacturing. A product is made. The R and D people look at it, adjust it, improve on it, try it out, create a prototype, and release it to the public if it is successful. The new model often has many of the same systems and features of the old. It is rare to have a completely new product introduced. If this is the creative process of life, it would be contrary to the one, all powerful God doctrine. It would seem to point more to an experimenting being. A group of powerful and creative beings would even fit this model. I know this is a bit radical and a step back toward ancient religions but I'm just trying to keep an open mind and consider all possibilities without being swayed by popular opinion. A multi-creator model could explain the different levels of creativity and power between events like the creation of the universe and the adjustments in the organization of a particular species. What are the arguments against a multi-creator universe?

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Cambrian Explosion

More holes in the road. For about 4 billion years there were only very simple organisms on the earth according to the fossil record. Then about 542 million years ago there was a phase called the Cambrian explosion. During this period of between five and ten million years complex plants and animals appeared in the fossil evidence. This does not coincide with the theory of evolution which calls for an incremental advance of organization through beneficial mutations. I don't understand how evolution could account for this sudden (in the geological time line) appearance of complexity. My money is still on some form of evolution being guided by some form of a creator. I'm still vague about the details though.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

You Are What You Eat

While doing this "dig" into the great debate, I have noticed some interesting and somewhat disquieting things about myself. I find myself being swayed toward the side I read the most. If I read a lot of articles from the evolution side, I find myself tending toward that side and if I read a lot of articles from the ID side, I start to head that way. The tendency is not overwhelming but it is definitely a pull. What I conclude from this is that a) you tend to believe what you read as opposed to seeing on TV or someone telling you about and b) the more you immerse yourself in one opinion, the more likely you'll end up believing that side. This is disquieting because I was hoping to come to an objective, unbiased opinion (as much as that is humanly possible). What I have been trying to do now is to make a conscious effort to take small "bites" of each side. I try to switch back and forth in my reading and try only to read a little bit at a time. Also, I try to think about things in between readings. This seems to have helped.
The other thing that I have noticed is that I am resistant to anything that is not my current belief. Any time I come across something that contradicts what I think is true, my immediate reaction is to think of excuses or try to rationalize it away. This is not something that is not a good thing when you are trying to keep an open mind. I would conclude that changing your opinion is a difficult thing to do. I'm hoping that being aware of these tendencies will allow me to take them into consideration and be more rational in my conclusions. I read a quotation somewhere that said that we create our own reality. It's a wonder that any two people can come to the same conclusion since we all have our individual baggage that colours our perspective.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

First Animal

In the journal "Nature" there is an interesting study done by a team at Brown University in Rhode Island. The team was shocked to find by studying genetic data that the comb jelly was the first animal in the evolutionary tree, not the simpler sponge. The comb jelly has connective tissue and a nervous system which are absent in the sponge. If evolution is actually the way that things happened, this would mean that the complexity of living things took a large leap to get to the complex comb jelly first and that the comb jelly then devolved to create the simpler sponges and then went back to evolving into more complex again. This seems unlikely to me.
I am thinking that pure evolution is extremely unlikely. If there is evolution, it seems probable that it had some creator tweaking it every now and then to keep it on the right track. It has too holes in it otherwise.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Life after Life

Raymond Moody M.D. published a book called "Life After Life." In it he studies individuals who have had near death experiences. In the introduction he says that he is not religious (although he hinted that the research has changed him) and that he is not trying to prove that there is life after death but simply to study the cases. In his study he found that, while there are no two cases that are identical, there are many common elements in the different cases and no element that happened to only one person. The things that people experience when they have "died" and then been resuscitated are: an uncomfortable noise close to the moment of death, travelling through a dark tunnel, being able to see and hear what is happening in the room from somewhere out of their body, meeting other beings, meeting a being of light, having your life reviewed before you, coming to a border or limit when they somehow know that if they cross it, they would not be able to return, coming back to their own bodies, often after communication with the being of light.
While this is a case study and not a scientific experiment, it is food for thought. If the reporting is accurate (Moody says that his findings were nearly duplicated independently and without his knowledge in a similar study by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross M.D.), how is it possible for over a hundred individuals in scattered parts of the country who had no contact with each other to have such similar experiences? It would suggest that there is more to the universe than just the physical.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

DNA exchange

It seems that I keep running into evolution problems. Maybe I already knew the majority of the problems with the creationist theory and so haven't come across any new ones. This new problem is with DNA. According to Darwin's theory, living things started with a common ancestor and then branched out as they evolved into different paths. A problem with this is that there is identical DNA sections found in different "branches" that did not exist in the precursor. This occurs in bacteria, plants, and animals. One of the theories on how this happened is called horizontal gene transfer. The idea is that genes were transferred from one species to another species using a variety of mechanisms. I'm not an expert in this field but, while I have heard of gene transfer in single cell organisms, I have not heard of it happening naturally in plants and animals. This may be a bit off the main track but aliens as creators seems to be the most logical solution in my mind right now. It solves the issues with evolution and God. I wonder why this theory is not more prevalent?

Friday, January 23, 2009

The Belief Apple Doesn't Fall Far From the Tree

There are a multitude of different religions across the world. Why is it that each religion is focused in a certain region? Generally, Christians are children of Christians, Muslims are children of Muslims, Hindus are children of Hindus, etc. There may be some movement when a particular religion goes into an area and evangelizes but staying with the belief of your parents is a very strong trend. Does it not make sense that if the people in an area are really searching for the truth they would end up with a variety of answers? Shouldn't there be a wide variety of beliefs in every area? Even looking at the denomination situation in North America, the denomination that you go to tends to be the denomination that you grew up in. There are some exceptions but this is the case with the majority of church goers. My conclusion from this is that human beings are not as open to new ideas as we'd like to think we are. We are very reluctant to change our core beliefs. I guess that would explain the heated debate on the origin of the universe. There must be something deep inside of us that resists changing ideas. I have noticed it in my own thoughts. Every time I come across an idea that is contrary to what I currently belief, my initial reaction is to resist it and to try and think of something that would explain it away. Even when I try to look at it logically and impassionately, I usually feel that I am biased to my old way of thinking. I think that it may have a lot to do with fear. Creationists may fear hell, the condemnation of their friends, and looking like hypocrites. Evolutionists may fear the idea of dealing with a creator, the condemnation of their friends, and ridicule. I guess this is getting kind of philosophical but maybe we don't even really realize what we believe. It seems unlikely that someone who is really searching would end up with the same beliefs that they have been indoctrinated with. I'm guessing that people who can openly and honestly look for answers are few and far between.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Left is left. Chapter two

I looked into the reason for the predominance of left-handed amino acids on earth some more. There are some theories on how it happened but none of them seem to hold water. One is that meteors seeded left handed amino acids on earth. Some types of polarized light destroys one or the other of the amino acids and it is possible that, on passing neutron stars, the meteor was left with mostly left handed amino acids which then plunged to earth. Another possibility is that amino acids formed on earth and then the earth was bombarded with polarized light from a neutron star to select out one of the orientations. There is another thought that beta decay could result in more left handed amino acids. It may have been a polymer that acted as a template or a transfer RNA that bound only left handed amino acids. There are a few other ideas but none of the theories have had enough substantial evidence to become more than just ideas. The problem remains.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Free Will

The universe was set up with rules. Each material has its own characteristics. Each chemical, atom, and element has its own characteristics. If you combine sodium with chloride in the proper conditions, one atom of each will join together to make sodium chloride. There is no choice. If you did the same thing 1000 times under the same conditions, you would get exactly the same result. If evolution is true then humans have no free will, no choice in what they do. If evolution is true, then we are a very complex set of chemical reactions. If you were to duplicate the same level of chemicals, hormones, etc. in the same conditions, we would make the same decisions and act the same way every time. If evolution is true, then there should be no remorse or guilt when we do something unethical because we had no choice in the matter.

Monday, January 19, 2009

All That's Left is left

I came across yet another evolution problem. There are two orientations of amino acids; left and right. They are mirror images of each other. It would be very difficult for life to exist if there was a mixture of these because the two types would be incorporated randomly into a protein resulting in a protein with different properties that would not be able to do its job. With a few exceptions, all the amino acids on earth are left-handed. The question is why? Each has an equal probability of occurring. What got rid of virtually all of the right-handed amino acids so that life could occur? A very real possibility is the existence of a creator. Are there other explanations that I don't know about?

Sunday, January 18, 2009

E.T. hasn't called

The existence of beings other than those on earth are possible for both sides of the universe debate. Evolutionists say that if life happened by chance here, it could have happened by chance elsewhere. I've seen one site that actually estimated the probability of life occurring elsewhere in our galaxy and concluded that among the approximately 200 billion solar systems in our galaxy, the odds are that there are 15 planets that have produced life. Creationists say that if God created beings on earth, He could just as easily have created them elsewhere. Many years ago I talked with someone who said that the Bible made reference to life forms from other worlds. If there are other beings out there, why haven't they contacted us?
I am astounded by the advances we have made in the last 100 years. One hundred years ago, there were a few rudimentary cars and planes, about 300 km of paved road in all of North America, few phones, very little indoor plumbing and the life expectancy was 47. Now we have computers, the International Space Station, nuclear bombs, heart and lung transplants, iphones, 800 metre high buildings and Mars rovers. It stands to reason that technology will continue to advance and some day we will be able to travel to other stars. If there are extra terrestrials, some of them should be thousands, millions or billions of years older than us. If there are, they should have developed the technology for space travel and should have detected our planet. So, why haven't we seen them? There are a few options. 1)We could be alone in the universe. 2)Aliens could have actually visited us and the tabloids are not as far off as we believe. 3)There could be some kind of galactic organization that puts our world off limits for some reason. 4)The alien life could be so different than ours that it has been here and we don't recognize it.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Timeline

The more or less accepted timeline of living things on earth goes as follows: Single cell organisms appeared on earth about three and a half billion years ago. About 500 million years ago, simple plants and animals appeared followed by more complex plants and animals. While there is some argument about the order and when things appeared, it seems that the fossil record supports the idea that different species appeared at different times and the progression went from simple to more complex. If the universe was created, why would the creator do this? Why not just create the complete ecosystem as it stands today? What would be the point in waiting all those years? It also seems curious that a creator would create from simple to complex. There are those that believe that there is a creator that used evolution to advance life on earth. This would answer a number of the problems in both theories but still, why would the creator go from simple to more complex life at different times? It almost seems like the creator needed the practice but why would a being powerful and creative enough to make the universe need practice? As usual, I have more questions than answers.

Friday, January 16, 2009

Welcome to Thunder Bay

We learn the laws of the universe by experience and observation. The laws become so ingrained in us that we may not even realize we are reacting to them. It's like the disease of leprosy. Leprosy can cause damage to the peripheral nerves resulting in the person who has the disease to have a decreased ability to register pain. Because of this, lepers can cause permanent damage to their fingers and toes because they damage them in an accident without realizing it and then do not protect them. When a healthy person hurts him/herself, (s)he favours and protects the injury so that it has a chance to heal. We do this often without even realizing it. We have the laws of the universe ingrained into us in much the same way.
If I was driving along the road and came upon a hill that had white rocks that spelled out "Welcome to Thunder Bay," what would I think about the rocks' existence. My first thought would not be, "Oh, isn't that interesting that a number of white rocks rolled down that hill and stopped in the exact place to spell out those words. What a weird coincidence." No, my first thought would be, "Someone came out here and put those rocks into place to spell out those words." Wherever we see organization and structure, we invariably assume that a being of intelligence was responsible for it. We wonder about crop circles and Stonehenge for the same reason. They are still being talked about and studied because we don't accept that it happened by chance. It seems to me that the creation of the universe should be no different. There is organization and structure. It is not logical to begin with the assumption that it happened by chance.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Human Embryo Questions

After conception the human being begins as an embryo. It starts as a fertilized egg and then the cell divides and divides and divides again. Eventually the cells in the embryo begin to differentiate. They become liver cells and skin cells, etc. until a fetus that looks vaguely human takes shape. At one point in its development, gills slits are evident. Between four and six weeks, a tail is evident. It eventually shortens until it is hardly evident. I have some major problems with the evolutionary theory but the development of the embryo is a strong point in its favour. Why would the human embryo show gill slits and a tail? The most probable reason for them being there is that they were left over from an earlier evolutionary step. I have heard the argument that God put them there to test the believers' faith. That doesn't make sense to me either. There are enough other things to test the faith of believers that another one doesn't seem necessary to me. Others have argued that it is just a fluke in God's creating process. This would fly in the face of an all-powerful, all-knowing God. There are difficulties with all theories. Is there another that I don't know about?

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Big Bang Beginning

The most accepted theory about the origin of the universe is that it began with a big bang. There was a huge explosion from which all the matter in the universe came into existence. There are some weird things about the big bang. One of them is the inflation period. Immediately after the big bang, the universe expanded extremely quickly, faster actually than the speed of light. Then the expansion slowed down to more or less the rate it is expanding today. How is this possible? Matter that does not obey the rules of the universe suggests that someone or some thing manipulated the early moments.
Then there is the precise rate of expansion. The universe expanded at EXACTLY the right speed for it to create the conditions of life. According to Stephen Hawking in his book, A Brief History of Time, "If the rate of expansion one second after the big bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million, the universe would have recollapsed before it ever reached its present size." If the expansion had been a tiny bit faster, matter would have separated and the galaxies and stars would not have formed. Without the formation of stars and the elements they create, there could be no life as we know it. It seems highly improbable that this exact rate could have happened by chance. The big bang beginning seems to support the idea of some kind of creator.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Natural Selection Naturally

In my mind there is little doubt that species change. If you take a look at birds, there are birds that are highly similar but have different beaks or claws. It is probable that these birds came from the same common ancestor. Darwin proposed that the cause of this is natural selection. Within a single species is a incredible variation in physical attributes. Just look at human beings. If the environment that a species is living in gives an advantage to a particular attribute, the beings that have that attribute would have a higher chance of survival and therefore should increase in numbers compared to the beings that do not. Take for example the industrial revolution in the United Kingdom. Many factories spewed a great deal of soot into the air which coated neighbouring trees and made them darker. Moths that were darker in colour had an advantage over moths that were lighter in colour because they were less visible to their prey on the darkened trees. Therefore, there was an increase in the number of dark moths compared to their lighter cousins. Competition for food can also result in natural selection. If weather patterns create a more aquatic environment where fish are deeper in the water, those birds with longer beaks will have an advantage over those with shorter beaks and, over the long term, should become more numerous all other factors being equal. This makes sense to me. What I do not understand is what it has to do with evolution. In my mind they are two different subjects. Natural selection is nature picking out certain traits. It is like nature's dog breeding program. It is like taking 100 000 dice that are in 50 different colours and rolling them, then having five seconds to pick out all the ones you see that are pewter grey. If you do this a few times, you will have less of the pewter grey. This is not an increase in complexity. In my mind, this does nothing to create a more complex organism. I don't understand why natural selection and evolution are often tied together. To me they seem like two separate ideas.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Evolution by Mutation

One of the tenets in the theory of evolution is that organisms evolved by mutation. The theory is that something caused a mutation in the genetic material of an organism. This change in the genetic material resulted in a change in the physical characteristics of the organism. If the change was a positive one, then the new organism would be more complex than the original and would have a survival advantage and therefore would be more likely to thrive and propogate. This would result in new family of more highly evolved organism that would continue to multiply until one of them would have another positive mutation and repeat the process. Thus, over a long period of time, life would move towards more highly evolved organisms.
I have seen a lot of evidence for mutations. They can be either harmful, neutral or beneficial. The majority of them are harmful, some are neutral, and a few are beneficial. Mutations can be caused by chemicals, radiation, or sometimes there is a mistake in the replication of the DNA molecule. The problem that I have with the concept of mutations resulting in a more complex organism is that I have never come across such a case. There have been mutations that have changed the characteristics of an organism so that it is better equipped to survive in its environment (beneficial mutations) but this is not evolution, it is adaptation. In an adaptively beneficial mutation, part of the genetic code has been deleted or suppressed or changed to create new characteristics that by chance give the new organism an advantage over the old. There would be a tendency for the new organism to survive longer and thus have a higher probability of propagating its genetic code but again, it is not more highly evolved. It is simply a remixing of the original genetic code. I have never heard of a mutation that resulted in a more complex genetic code. An organism that becomes resistant to an antibiotic, more camouflaged in its surroundings, or has developed a stronger beak for breaking food has not evolved. It has adapted. A different characteristic has become more prominent. There is no increase in complexity. This does not seem like a reasonable way for evolution to occur.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Taking the Offensive

Sometimes I wonder whether there will be those who take offense to some of the things that are in this blog. Logically though, there shouldn't be.
For those who approach this subject from a science background, investigating new ideas should be met with enthusiasm. Where would we be if scientists took the approach that current scientific theory was set and new ideas should not be considered? There would be a lot more leaches around in doctors' offices. It bloggles (my attempt at a pun) my mind to read the insults and derogatory comments that come, mostly from the evolutionary bench, in the comment section on different blogs and discussion sites. I have to conclude that there are yahoos in every persuasion and hope that these are a vocal minority.
Creationists should welcome the search for truth also. If God is the creator of the universe, then someone who is trying to figure out what really is real should end up with that conclusion. There should be no fear in questioning because sincere questioning should eventually lead to truth. Many major religions, in theory anyway, condone seeking and searching. In my experience though, there are creationists who fear questioning and become defensive when presented with opposing ideas. Again, I hope that these are in the minority.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Comparative anatomy

Mainstream creationist theory is that there is a supreme being who created the universe and all it contains. There are at least three different beliefs on how this happened. The first is that God created every living thing in the universe. The second is that God set up the rules in the universe, created the first living cell on earth and then left life to evolve on its own. Another theory is that God created the different species so that there was no evolution between species but natural selection created a lot of adaptions resulting in the wide variety of organisms we have today.
There are a lot of similarities between species. Mammals, for example, include bats, dogs, and humans. The bones in the arms, hands, and fingers of humans are similar in structure to the bones in the wings of bats and the front legs of dogs. If God created all living things, why would He create so much similarity between species? If He is creative enough to create the incredible variety of substances, molecules, living things, planets, etc. in the universe, why would He make the anatomy of so many living things similar? It doesn't seem logical to me. The first theory seems the least likely to me. The second theory seems more probable but I see so many holes in the idea of evolution from one species to another, that it doesn't sit right with me either. The third, again, seems more probable but we come back to the question of why an incredibly creative God used similar structures in many different organisms and put them together in a way that is inefficient in many instances. This leaves me with no theories that satisfy me and a whole bunch of questions.

Friday, January 9, 2009

Looking for all the Links

This is an idea I haven't seen explored on any of the sites I've been to, not the evolutionists, not the creationists, not the intelligent design. I can conclude from this that either I am a creative free-thinker who is thinking outside the box, I haven't been thorough enough in my research, or the answer to this is obvious and I just didn't see it. If the latter is true, you have my permission to be condescending and smug in your comments.
Where are all the links? According to mainstream evolutionary theory different species evolved through mutation. An organism underwent a mutation, possibly caused by the sun's radiation, and became slightly more advanced that the origin. Because it was better adapted, more complex, and more highly evolved, it had a survival advantage over the original. This mutant, after a long period of time underwent another mutation. The second mutation was again more complex and had a greater chance of propagating and surviving since it was more highly evolved. This continued over many, many steps and over a very long period of time until the original had changed into a much different species. So, where are all the links?
For example, it is theorized that human beings evolved from chimpanzees. If a chimpanzee mutated and formed a slightly more advanced organism, why did the more evolved organism die out and the chimpanzee remain. Two steps more advanced from the chimpanzee should have had an even better chance of surviving but there are no signs of it, not to mention the third more advanced step and the fourth, fifth, sixth, hundredth, thousandth, etc. If evolution is the way that we came into being, shouldn't all the steps leading up to us be living in the world today. Why would they all die out when organisms that were thousands of steps behind in evolutionary complexity and organization did not?

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Water everywhere

Lately I've been reading about water. How did all our water get to earth. There is a lot of it here. It makes up 0.4% of the earth by volume, about 326 000 000 000 000 000 000 gallons. That's a lot of water. For most evolutionary theories to work, water had to be present in large quantities early on in the earth's development. The problem is that the early earth was hot and dry, molten lava cooling slowly. Also, the early earth had no atmosphere and the solar winds were strong so any formation of water vapour would have been whisked away into space. Hydrogen and oxygen should have been present so the capability to make water was there. The problem that I see is that water needed to have formed fairly quickly in the geological clock, in around 150 million years according to most theories. If it took significantly longer, there would not have been time for the long, slow evolutionary process to occur. To get 326 000 000 000 000 000 000 gallons of water the earth would have had to receive 16 500 tons of water every minute for 150 million years. And that is not considering the water we lose to space by the disassociation of oxygen and hydrogen that is taking place on a tiny but constant basis. There are two main theories on how our water got here. It may have been formed from volitiles in the earth's crust being expelled by volcanoes outgassing or the water may have been imported here by falling comets. Neither of these seem reasonable to me. I can understand the physics of this happening but I can't imagine how either of these could have supplied anywhere close to the amount of water that we are talking about. The articles I have read don't supply any reassurance. There doesn't seem to be a logical physical explanation for it.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

6000 year old earth

One of the theories in Christian circles is that the earth is approximately 6000 years old. This was determined by Archbishop James Ussher and others by using the genealogies in the Bible. In places in the Bible there are lists of sons and fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers, etc. By searching through the Bible to find out how long each person on the genealogy list lived, it is possible to count backward to set the date of the first person at about 4000 B.C.
Evolutionists, of course, disagree with this count. They say that, using dating methods, scientists have determined the age of the earth to be about four and a half billion years old. Many of these methods use decay rates. For example, Carbon-14 is a substance found in living things. It begins to dissipate when an organism dies. By measuring how much Carbon-14 a dead organism has left, scientists can estimate how many years it has been releasing the substance, i.e. how many years it has been dead. There are a number of other dating methods. There are those who have argued that these methods are unreliable and that they are based on assumptions that may not be true such as the assumption that all these substances are released at a steady rate and that the amount absorbed while living was constant.
I would side with the evolutionists on this one. Most of the dating methods seem to correlate well. It seems unlikely that several different methods would falsely come up with the same ballpark age for the same thing. I have not seen any solid evidence that shows that oil, fossils, and sedimentary rock formations can take place quickly. Many of those who measure the age of things are doing so as part of their research. It does not make sense that they would all conspire together to misrepresent the age of the earth. Why would they? It seems probable that their information is reasonably accurate. The earth is most probably at least hundreds of thousands of years old.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

The Minimum Requirements for Life

One assignment I received during a graduate course in microbiology was to find a candidate for the first living cell. The first cell would have needed to metabolize and replicate. We (the other graduate students and I) began by looking for the simplest possible living cell. We narrowed it down to the archaeon and viruses. Simple viruses only need about 10 000 base pairs but we disqualified them because they absolutely must have another cell to be able to reproduce. Some archaeon need only 30 000 base pairs in their DNA molecule and so the archaeon became our candidate for the simplest life form and possibly a relative of the first living cell on earth. The largest human DNA molecule by contrast has 220 million base pairs. Then we gathered a list of everything the cell needed to be able to be considered a living thing. Now, I'm going from memory here so forgive me if I omit something or get numbers wrong. Here is what the simplest living things needs to be a living thing;

- a minimum of 30 000 base pairs in the correct order with phosphate and sugars to provide the backbone

- a minimum of 12 proteins with the amino acids in the correct order

- a number of molecules of ATP

- a number of molecules of NADPH

- a semi-permeable cell wall that completely engulfs these substances

There were other things on the list but I forget them. If any one of these components was missing or a tiny percentage of the nucleotides or amino acids are out of order, the cell would not be able to function and there would be no life. It was astounding to me how complex the simplest living cell was. I cannot imagine this set of circumstances happening by chance. First of all, where did all these components come from? The experiment of Miller and Urey in 1953 has been more or less discarded as a viable example of the early earth's environment. Even if there were amino acids, what is the probability of them lining up in the correct order for not one but 12 different proteins. It's been a while since I've taken statistics but the probability of the amino acids of just one protein lining up in the correct order is so infinitesimally small, it is hardly worth considering, let alone a DNA molecule of 30 000 base pairs. It is not logical for the first cell to have happened by chance. There must be another explanation. I have read of a theory that postulates that the components for the first cell were "seeded" on earth by meteorites. I find this unlikely also. What is the probability of all these components being in close enough proximity to each other and then engulfed by a semi-permeable cell wall? What kind of environment could have formed these components somewhere out in space? How could these components have remained viable in the harsh environment of space and the traumatic trip to earth? I have yet to see a reasonable model for the first living cell. This aspect of the origin of life debate pulls me toward the intelligent design side.

Start at the Beginning

There are a lot of aspects of the creation of the universe that I feel I can make sense of but the beginning of the universe is not one of them. To me it defies logic.
There are two possibilities; the universe always existed or the universe was created. Neither of them seems logical. There are a set of rules in place in the universe. For example, anything that has mass is attracted to anything else that has mass. Thus we have gravity. Some of the rules apply to energy. The first law of thermodynamics is that energy is never created or destroyed, it just changes in form. In a solar panel, energy from the sun is converted to electrical energy. If we lift something, our muscular energy is converted to the potential energy in the new height of the object. So, how is it possible for all the energy in the universe to be created. Think of all the energy in the trillions of stars. What kind of power would be needed to create and organize that amount of energy. Most scientists believe that the universe began in a single instant, a big bang from which all the matter and energy of the universe was created. How is this possible? Some scientists claim that the universe goes through a constant cycle, that it expands from the big bang until it runs out of inertia and then collapses back on itself to create another big bang from which another universe is created and so on. If this is the case, how did the system begin?
The idea that the universe always existed also defies logic. How can something with a set or rules containing a finite amount of energy always have been there. Creationists will say that God created it. In science, all theories are possibilities and I am not discounting any options. Neither do I want to offend sensibilities on either side. The purpose of this blog is to wonder about the big questions and hopefully get logical feedback to help me fill in the gaps. The existence of God defies logic also. I am not saying that an all powerful being is not possible, it is just not logical. Where did God come from in the first place. If God always existed, we are back to the problem of how can something have existed for ever.
I'm stumped on this one. Anyone out there have any input?

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Determining Truth

I once had the opportunity of observing a trial. The trial was between two individuals who had gotten into a fight. According to the witnesses, there had been drinking involved, threats, and fists thrown. I had a chance to talk to the judge afterwards and what he said amazed me. He said that the human mind is unreliable. In his experience, witnesses to crimes frequently do not tell the truth. He came to this conclusion because witnesses to the same incident will often contradict each other. He also said that these errors are generally not made on purpose. The witnesses truly believe what they are telling the judge is the truth but perspective, emotion, faulty memory, and human frailty cause their view on reality to be skewed. It was his job to sift through the testimony and try and determine what the actual truth was.
We human beings decide on what is truth by receiving input from our senses and using our brains to come to logical conclusions. Let's suppose that a adult was knocked on the head and lost all her/his memory so that (s)he had to start determining truth all over again. (S)He picks up a stone and lets go of it and notices that it falls down to the ground. His/Her mind creates a theory that things fall toward the ground. (S)He tries it again and the same thing happens. The theory becomes more solid in her/his mind. After numerous tries, (s)he decides that the truth of the matter is that when something is dropped, it falls toward the ground.
Science decides on truth in much the same way except that there are no facts in science. To be an absolute fact, there has to be zero chance for the theory to be broken. The only way to know for absolute certain that the stone will fall toward the ground every time would be to perform this experiment every time possible. Since we cannot perform experiments infinity times, we cannot say with absolute certainty that it is truth. We call things "facts" when there is an extremely high likelihood of it being true. The only certainty is a reasonable probability in the scientific world. Thus it all comes down to percentages. Determining truth is like a big poker game. If there are extremely high odds for a theory to be true, it is considered truth. It is our job then to calculate the probabilities, taking into account that our senses are fallible and the truth may have to be adjusted if we receive new input.

Friday, January 2, 2009

Rhetoric Overload

Parts of the web are platforms for rhetoric.

The existence of the universe is a puzzle to me and my brain is continually looking for pieces to help me to understand it. There are two major camps when it comes to promoting theories about how we got here, the creationists and the evolutionists. Both sides are evident on the Internet and both sides use much the same tactics and tone. They adamantly submit their ideas and often deride those who belong to the other camp. I get the feeling that these two camps have decided in their minds what they believe and do not easily consider other ideas.

I consider myself a scientist. I am not working in a science field, don't have a PhD., and do not perform experiments. I consider myself a scientist because my mind loves logic. I try to make sense of things and feel vaguely uncomfortable when things don't make sense. I have tried searching for sense in the Big Question on the web but often find discrepancies and illogical statements. In future blogs I will post musings that make sense to me and would greatly welcome logical input. Please, leave the rhetoric at the door when you check in.