@Ron: DNA never self-assembles in or outside of a Nebula …

Comment on Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull by Sean Pitman.

@Ron:

DNA never self-assembles in or outside of a Nebula – even when all the basic building blocks are available. Take all the deoxy-ribose sugars you want, put them in the same place and what happens? DNA self-assembly? Nope. No DNA molecules are formed, much less those with any meaning to the sequences of nucleotides.

The issue is, that in every scientific discipline, there appears to be a natural progression from simple to complex and random variation with natural selection seems to describe attributes of the process.

Not significantly beyond the originally programming of the system in question – the originally meaningful/functional informational complexity.

For example: In high energy particle physics we see that out of energy, emerges a myriad of complex sub nuclear particles.

Or starting with a high energy massless photon and turning it into an electron and a positron. Note, however, that because momentum has to be conserved, a photon can’t turn into an electron and a positron out in empty space. The photon must collide with an atomic nucleus in order to produce the electron and positron.

In short, raw energy does not turn into particles with mass outside of interaction with pre-existing particles with mass.

Out of sub nuclear particles emerge the larger atomic nuclear particles.

Not true. Newly generated particles have never been shown to self-assemble into larger atomic nuclear particles. Such an event is probably very close to impossible outside of very intelligent manipulation. The reason for this lack of self-assembly on this level is partly because there are various ‘conservation laws’ of electric charges, the number of leptons (electron-like particles) etc., which means that one can only create matter / anti-matter pairs out of energy. Anti-matter, however, has the unfortunate tendency to combine with matter and turn itself back into energy.

Out of nuclear particles emerges the periodic table of elements. (All those above iron require the explosion of a star).

Certain types of atoms can self-assemble under the appropriate conditions, but the laws and informational complexity needed for this assembly process were already pre-existent in this universe. These “universal constants” that govern the nature and action of energy in this universe, and the ability for a certain degree of self-assembly, do not have to be like they are. Yet, without them being exactly like they are, to within a degree of precision of 1 part in 1e500, complex molecules could not self-assemble.

Out of the table of elements emerges chemistry, inorganic, then organic.

Not without the fundamental constants of the universe being precisely defined…

Out of organic chemistry emerges a whole host of complex molecules.

Again, there is no “organic chemistry” without the pre-existing structure and functional informational complexity of DNA, RNA, proteins, and overall cellular structure. Without this structural and coded information existing preformed, DNA, proteins, and life itself does not self-assemble. The statistical odds are too far against such a self-assembly process.

Out of the molecules emerges cellular systems and life forms.

Nope, not without pre-existing life forms that already have the very high levels of functional complexity pre-established from an outside source of this information. There is no such thing as cellular systems or any kind of life form “emerging” or self-assembling themselves from non-living molecules of any kind in any environment.

Out of life forms emerges intelligence.

Nope. Living things that are not already intelligent or don’t already have the pre-programmed genetic information to grow an intelligent brain, do not spontaneously gain or evolve this information. The origin of access to intelligence is always based on pre-existing intelligence passing on the required genetic information.

Out of higher levels of intelligence emerges social structure and spirituality.
And most of human history is a description of the development of more complex social structures and more complex spirituality.

Complex social structures and spirituality are dependent upon the level of underlying intelligence within the community. In other words, they are creations of intelligent design. Intelligence, by definition, can create novel things.

At each emergent stage there is a vast increase in informational complexity. Each stage emerges out of and is dependent on the previous stage. As each stage develops, there is a huge increase in variety which is subsequently decreased as the emergence of the next level uses up resources from the previous level and exerts a selection bias.

Yes, but what gets you to the next level? – not spontaneous self-assembly outside of deliberate intelligent design…

You just don’t understand that emergence does not equate to automatic self assembly outside of pre-existing informational complexity at the same or greater levels to the next higher level of emergence.

It makes no sense to use the beauty and complexity of the basic physical laws to show evidence of God, and then, when you are talking in biology to refer to those same physical laws as “natural”. The laws can’t be evidence of intelligent design in physics, and the somehow be a natural cause in biology. Which is it?

It’s both. God designed natural laws – such as the universal constants of nature without which complex molecules and living things could not exist. These laws were designed to function without the evident need of constant conscious intervention. In other words, they appear to function like a mechanical device, like a watch for example, where the watch is able to function independently after the watch maker has put all the parts into their proper place. It is only “natural” for the watch to work by itself as it was designed to work.

However, the natural laws that govern the function of the watch are limited. They cannot explain the existence of some emergent system of function for which the watch might form a part – like a time bomb. Such a system requires additional assembly instructions outside of those accessible to the watch itself. Therefore, the existence of the bomb would necessitate additional information from an intelligent source.

In contrast, a broken watch does not require an appeal to an intelligent source to explain since such decay is already “natural” to the system in question.

I take the term “creation” to define an activity of God. Where specifically within the process of emergence is God’s creative act? When the Large Hadron Collider creates a new, never before seen particle, was that a creative act of God, or was that a “natural event”?

The underlying universal constants that allowed for the operation and success of such an experiment were created by God. However, the particular observation was not outside of the “natural” programming of the universe acting on its own. In other words, there is no evident need for an additional deliberate act of God or any other form of intelligent design here.

At each stage of emergence there is higher, more complex informational coding. You argue that information complexity beyond 1000aa (I am not sure what that means) requires intelligent design. The trouble is that, while I am not sure how you measure informational complexity, I suspect that if you could add up all the informational complexity required to get from pure energy to even the beginning of genetic encoding, that it would require more than the 1000aa worth of information which you use to define the boundary between “natural” and “intelligent” design.

As already noted, different “emergent” stages require the additional input of intelligent design to achieve the next level of functional complexity. When you want to go from low level biological systems to higher level biological systems, beyond those that require a minimum of 1000 specifically arranged amino acid residues, you won’t be able to do it outside of the input of additional information from a pre-existing source of intelligence.

So when you say that biology can evolve “naturally” with informational encoding of less that 1000aa but that God has to intelligently intervene at anything above 1000aa, what does that mean?

It means that additional direct intelligent involvement is not required for lower-level evolution – which is entirely within the realm of the system that was already created at that level. However, when you’re talking about moving up a level, the needed information simply does not exist in the system that God created – outside of additional help from a pre-existing intelligent source of information (which may only require human-level intelligence – which itself was created by God).

How do you account for all the intelligence required even to get to your starting point? Why is it that you have this narrow window from 0-1000aa that doesn’t require God and can happen naturally, but everything before and after does?

Not everything else before does, but everything after certainly requires additional intelligent input. That’s simply how the universe in which we live was designed to operate – limitations were built into our universe. These limitations cannot be traversed without intelligent input. Otherwise, there would be nothing special about intelligence – if non-intelligent things could do the same stuff we can do…

And then again, there seems to be another God gap when it comes to human intelligence. How is it that the product of human intelligence is suddenly outside the pervue of God’s creation?

Like the watch set up to run by itself, human intelligence was designed, by God, to function independent of God’s direct interaction and manipulation. That is why we can actually have freedom of will and action – why we are actually responsible, morally responsible, for what we do with our intelligence. If we were non-intelligent robots, God would be directly responsible for our actions.

I am sure that the accumulation of all human intelligence developed since the fall requires an informational complexity greater that that of 1000aa. So biochemical information density greater than 1000aa requires a creative act of God, but all of the human intellectual development that has occurred since the fall of Adam somehow doesn’t require God? That doesn’t make sense.

Intelligence is creative by its very nature. Non-intelligent mechanisms, like random mutations combined with natural selection, are not intelligent and are therefore far more limited in what they can create at higher levels of functional complexity.

In other words, human-level intelligence is in fact perfectly capable of creating at levels of functional complexity that go far beyond the level of 1000 specifically arranged amino acid residues.

When a human creates something that never previously existed in nature. Was the activity of God somehow excluded from that creation event?

That’s correct. No additional act of God was required. God created the human with intelligence enough to produce novel creations of his/her own at will – without the need for the direct involvement of God in the creative act of the human.

If something happens “naturally”, how do you know God didn’t do it?

If something happens “supernaturally”, i.e. a miracle, how do you know it is a miracle, and not just a natural event that we don’t understand?

This requires scientific investigation, which never produces absolute certainty for answers like this… only “predictive value” for the design hypothesis.

If the phenomenon in question 1) goes significantly beyond anything that mindless nature is known to be able to produce and 2) is well within the range of what at least human-level intelligence can produce, most likely the phenomenon in question required at least human level intelligence to produce.

Otherwise, you wouldn’t be able to tell a deliberately carved arrowhead from the amorphous rock on the ground next to it. You won’t be able to tell the difference between a deliberate murder and an a natural death. You wouldn’t be able to tell a work of Shakespeare from an explosion in a print factory… etc.

When you say that anything above 1000aa requires direct intelligent creation by God, how do you know that? Maybe God has previously created “natural” mechanisms that we just haven’t discovered yet.

That’s always possible, but it isn’t science. Science isn’t based on what might one day be known. Science is based on what little is known right now. That is why intelligent design hypotheses are always subject to the theoretical potential of falsification given additional discoveries.

Again, there is no absolute certainty in science.

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

Sean Pitman Also Commented

Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull
Consider the following comments from the E.G.. White Estate regarding the origin of disease, suffering and death:

Suffering, other than sickness due to neglect of physical laws, is also caused by Satan and not the deliberate intervention of God. On many occasions she reinforced the teaching of Jesus on this point…

Her teachings regarding the cause of death, as well as suffering, flowed from the big picture of the great controversy between God and Satan:

“It is true that all suffering results from the transgression of God’s law, but this truth had become perverted. Satan, the author of sin and all its results, had led men to look upon disease and death as proceeding from God—as punishment arbitrarily inflicted on account of sin… Sickness, suffering, and death are [the] work of an antagonistic power. Satan is the destroyer; God is the restorer.”

Ellen White, The Desire of Ages, p. 471. and The Ministry of Healing, p. 113

http://www.whiteestate.org/books/mol/Chapt7.html

So, again, neither the Bible nor Mrs. White see diseases, like childhood leukemia, as being the result of a deliberate act or intervention of God…

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull
@Ron:

Where talking about the ability to detect the need to invoke intelligent design to explain various phenomena that exist in nature – regardless of if the intelligent agent is God or your wife or some alien from Zorg.

The loaves of bread that Jesus made by Divine power were the obvious result of intelligent design. They looked like regular loaves of bread that your wife might make. No one could tell the difference by looking at them if they were placed side-by-side. Yet, one loaf would have been made by God and the other by your wife. The fact is that God can make what humans can make. What would be obvious, however, is that both loaves of bread required intelligence to produce. In other words, they weren’t the product of mindless process of nature or natural laws that had no access to deliberate intelligence.

In short, just because your wife’s intelligence is “natural” doesn’t mean that all natural processes have access to intelligence or that every natural phenomena requires intelligence to explain beyond the basic non-intelligent laws of nature.

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull
@Ron:

So, you think that if God is directly responsible for the death of anyone that He is therefore the direct cause of all sickness, disease, death, and destruction? Every natural disaster is God’s doing? – a miracle of Divine design and creative power?

Do you not see the difference between the miracle of something like Lazarus being raised from the dead and a tornado wiping out an entire town the other day in the Midwest?

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


Recent Comments by Sean Pitman

After the Flood
Thank you Ariel. Hope you are doing well these days. Miss seeing you down at Loma Linda. Hope you had a Great Thanksgiving!


The Flood
Thank you Colin. Just trying to save lives any way I can. Not everything that the government does or leaders do is “evil” BTW…


The Flood
Only someone who knows the future can make such decisions without being a monster…


Pacific Union College Encouraging Homosexual Marriage?
Where did I “gloss over it”?


Review of “The Naked Emperor” by Pastor Conrad Vine
I fail to see where you have convincingly supported your claim that the GC leadership contributed to the harm of anyone’s personal religious liberties? – given that the GC leadership does not and could not override personal religious liberties in this country, nor substantively change the outcome of those who lost their jobs over various vaccine mandates. That’s just not how it works here in this country. Religious liberties are personally derived. Again, they simply are not based on a corporate or church position, but rely solely upon individual convictions – regardless of what the church may or may not say or do.

Yet, you say, “Who cares if it is written into law”? You should care. Everyone should care. It’s a very important law in this country. The idea that the organized church could have changed vaccine mandates simply isn’t true – particularly given the nature of certain types of jobs dealing with the most vulnerable in society (such as health care workers for example).

Beyond this, the GC Leadership did, in fact, write in support of personal religious convictions on this topic – and there are GC lawyers who have and continue to write personal letters in support of personal religious convictions (even if these personal convictions are at odds with the position of the church on a given topic). Just because the GC leadership also supports the advances of modern medicine doesn’t mean that the GC leadership cannot support individual convictions at the same time. Both are possible. This is not an inconsistency.