Computers cannot be constructed by random particles flying about for billions of years. The complete works of Shakespeare, nicely printed and produced in a handsome volume, did not result from a gigantic explosion in a cosmic print shop eons ago. Winds and rains and dust blowing over and upon a large piece of marble did not bring the Pietà into being. No normal person has the least doubt about these three statements. People know that chance can explain neither beauty nor intricate complexity.
Plain as all this is we can enhance the worth of our evaluation of chance "explanations" by getting a feel for the impossibly enormous numbers involved in assertions about randomness. Adding zeros to a digit increases numbers at a rapidly accelerating rate 10 , 100, 1000, 10,000, and so on. As the numbers grow with zeroes soon the rate of increase begins to boggle the mind. Thus with 26 zero We have the number of drops of water in all the oceans of the world. The visible universe , billions of light years in extent, measures about 1028 inches. In our visible universe of 50 billion galaxies, with several billion huge stars on average in each Galaxy, there are 1070 atoms. The numbers have outstripped our capacity to deal with them. Living plants and animals are so fantastically complicated that astronomer Fred Hoyle and astrophysicist Chandra Wickramasinghe have calculated that odds against life happening by chance one in 104000 -- and unspeakable impossibility.
Two help us get a feel of these unimaginable possibilities, Michael Denton uses the example of an "infinite space of all possible combinations of letters" of our alphabet. What would be the likelihood of finding English words by cool chance for three letter words chance would be one in 30 combinations but as the words get longer so do the odds against their occurring increase dramatically. 12 letter words such as "construction" or "unreasonable" are so rare that they occur only once in streams of letters 1014 units long; as there are about 1014 minutes in 1000 million years one can imagine how long a monkey at a typewriter would take to type out by chance one English word 12 letters long. When we go on to sentences, proper ones are even rarer and long sentences even rare almost beyond imagination. For a sentence 100 letters long the chance of finding one English sentence is less than one in about 10130 sequences. This figure is beyond comprehension--some idea of the immensity it represents can be grasped by recalling that there are only 1070 atoms in the entire visible universe. The overwhelming impossibility is apparent to anyone who is moderately aware of contemporary astronomy. The relevance of these observations to a living cell is likewise clear one will recall that recent studies of DNA coded patterns are identical with those of a written language.
Tyros in matters musical understandably have difficulty in appreciating the breathtaking complexity involved in the beauty of a masterly symphonic production. I should like to suggest one avenue of approach to acquire a feel for them. Someone has calculated that, using computer technology to reproduce every nuance of the first four notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony and to express those notes in digital form, requires more than 12,000 digits in precisely correct sequence . No misplaced digit is permitted.
At this point in our discussion one may well ask, "Well, how about those who speak of life by chance respond to this overwhelming evidence against their position?" From the reading I have been able to do, I must conclude that for the most part there is no response, at least none to the details of the evidence. Vague general affirmation and unfounded the attributions of motivation are not a response. The closest thing to an answer that they have found gives away the store .
I have noticed over the years that those who still cling desperately to their idea of random chance slyly slip into their explanations words or phrases that are the opposite of chance but are not noticed by the unwary reader or listener. Perhaps they themselves are unaware of what they are doing. Examples of these grossly fallacious procedures at the following gems: "Given the appropriate conditions [thus and so could have happened]. . . . Chance guided by natural laws. . . . Driven by our mysterious force. . . . Supposing certain imperatives. . . ."
A moment's serious thought ought to make it clear that each of these expressions is the opposite of random chance. They necessitate planning, intending, will, design, intellect. Their authors should be embarrassed.
One of the most naïve and gauche of these logical blunders occurred a few years ago. Martin Gardner, writing in the science magazine Discover and discussing Hoyle and Wickremasinghe's compelling evidence against blind chance, which we have above noticed, admitted that molecules do not combine by blind chance. Rather, he said, organic molecules "could form the required building blocks of life by the workings of "unblind chance". It would be guided by natural laws." I responded to these colossal bungles in a letter to the editor which appeared two months later. "Gardner and Asimov both admit that life cannot be explained by blind chance, and so they bring in 'unblind chance", that is " chance guided by natural laws." Both expressions, of course, are self-contradictions. If unblind chance means anything, "it means seeing, directing. If there are laws (and there would have to be uncounted myriads of them) that demand that particles form an eye or a enzyme system, there would have to be a supreme intender." I would love to read some details as to what these laws would be like. If I were a member of Gardner's school of thought, I would blush at his defense of it.
But there is still more to blush about. Stephen J. Gould, Harvard biologist, had an op-ed piece in a recent issue of the New York Times in which we find a perfect example of dogmatic materialism: untenable assertions with no proof. Gardner was wrong, but at least he tried. Gould tells us that' we have good reason to think that life in its least complex form represents a fully predictable extension of ordinary chemistry and physics, given planets with appropriate conditions." anyone familiar with recent advances in biochemistry and microbiology knows fully well, first, that the 'least complex' form of life is immensely complex and is in no way an extension of ordinary chemistry and physics; Gould's statement is nonsense. Second, we notice how he slips in "given planets with appropriate conditions', as though they were easy to come by and not the result of astonishing design; I wonder if Gould has honestly looked into the immense evidences for the anthropic principle, appropriate conditions (which must be such in finest details) do not happen by chance, as he supposes they do. Further on in his piece Gould glibly writes of 'utterly unpredictable historical happenstance' as binging about self-conscious life. This is more dogmatic materialism for ' historical happenstance' may be a neat phrase, but it is an academically irresponsible and vacuous assertion with no evidence offered. Furthermore, it is contradicted by mountainous evidences, some of which we have summarized in these pages. His final sentence tops them all: "Humans remain as gloriously accidental as ever." cheerful vacuity.
The sad thing is that uninformed people probably believe him.'
Happily, few materialists reach Gould's level, but all of them that I have seen seem to forget that 'imperatives, mysterious forces, natural laws of chemistry and physics, inbuilt tendencies of matter and energy' are the opposite of chance and happenstance. They suppose necessity, plan, design, and intellect. It must have been this sort of blundering that Einstein had in mind when he remarked that 'scientists make poor philosophers'. I should like to think that it is some m not all.
A final word. If everything were due to chance, if one denies purpose in the universe, all things would be contingent, that is, they could well not be at all, or be different from what they are: no plan, no purpose, no design, everything random. Nothing would have an inner integrity, so that we could do whatever we wish wit it/him/her. There would be no integrity to violate, no difference between cruel barbarism and a self-sacrificing, tender care of another person. The "chance universe" is not only an intellectual cop-out that explains nothing but also a horrible nightmare: you decide by power, not by purpose. Hence, there is no right, no wrong, for there is no oughtness, no plan anywhere. The chance view of reality is not science at all. It is a philosophy a nightmarish philosophy. Either there is a creating design in the universe, or we live in a dreadful monstrosity.
(From "The Evidential Power of Beauty" by S.M.Dubay)
No comments:
Post a Comment