Dismembering Evolution 3: Origins

“There are only two possibilities as to how life arose. One is spontaneous generation arising to evolution; the other is a supernatural creative act of God. There is no third possibility. Spontaneous generation, that life arose from non-living matter was scientifically disproved 120 years ago by Louis Pasteur and others. That leaves us with the only possible conclusion that life arose as a supernatural creative act of God. I will not accept that philosophically because I do not want to believe in God. Therefore, I choose to believe in that which I know is scientifically impossible; spontaneous generation arising to evolution"

George Wald, 1954. The Origin of Life. Scientific American August: 44-53.

“When you eliminate the impossible whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

Sherlock Holmes

One of the nasty sticking points for evolution has been how life has come about from non-life. To date, despite millions of dollars spent on research into the origins of life, no answer has yet been found.

It is an acknowledged fact that in order for evolution to even have a chance to start life must already be around. It is also an acknowledged fact that “the spark of life” remains an utter mystery to the scientific community. It is also somewhat acknowledged, at least among scientists who are being intellectually honest with themselves, that to remove the divine from the process of life, you must make the conscious decision to believe in a theory that has been disproved again and again, a theory that actually has its roots in religion, from a time before science was very well developed, the theory of spontaneous generation.

Yes, there are experiments that have shown the under certain conditions the simplest amino acids can be formed by random chance. However, there has been no evidence found, in the lab or in nature, that these simple amino acids manage to randomly find each other, and then bond to each other in the appropriately complex molecules that consist the most basic blocks of life, ad then after all of this has been done, spontaneously start working in such a way as to be “living”. There are also some serious flaws in the experiments that I know of that have shown that amino acids can form randomly in nature.

I am talking, of course, about the famous Miller-Urey experiment. This experiment, and the repetitions of it have demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that given a strongly reducing environment of hydrogen, methane, ammonia, and water vapor, combined with electricity can randomly produce some simple amino acids. This experiment relies on an oxygen poor environment in order for it to be anything like proof of the possibility of random chance producing just the right random assortment of amino acids to create the protein building blocks of life. While the dominant theory of the Earth’s primitive atmosphere was one that consisted almost entirely of the aforementioned components this experiment could have been considered said proof.

One problem; that was not the Earth’s primitive atmosphere.

Geological studies of sedimentary rock going back before the accepted origin of life demonstrates an atmosphere less like the one used in the Miller-Urey experiment, and more like the one we have today.

Wait a minute. Let me get this straight. Recent geological evidence is showing a popular theory that produced a Nobel Prize winning experiment to be, shall we say, less than accurate? It would seem so.

Let us assume for a moment that the amino acids that were produced in the experiment predate not just life, but also the oxygen rich atmosphere. That would mean that the amino acids would have to be stable enough to remain intact in large enough numbers to find each other, combine, and make life millions of years after they were first formed. For many molecules this is a reasonable model, but not for the amino acids produced in the experiment. The amino acids produced in the Miller-Urey experiment break down very rapidly in an oxidizing environment, which geology has shown existed long before any life we have yet discovered ever appeared on this world.

This is a very brief synopsis of a subject that has filled far more space than I can reasonably take here. Hopefully, I have presented enough to give a clear picture of a simple scientific truth. That truth is that this thing that we have been taught as proof of evolution, as proof of an evolutionary source of life, is simply not true.

Given the importance of this information you might think that school textbooks would be updated with it in order to ensure the most accurate education possible. However, as of 2003 the college textbook I used on my oceanography class was still using the disproved model of the Earth’s primitive atmosphere, and teaching it as fact before going into the Miller-Urey experiment, as well an experiment by Linus Pauling that was along similar lines. I consider this to be a disgusting bit of miseducation. How can a responsible, respected scientist write a textbook that was deceitful about such an important piece of geologic history? There are only two ways. The first, and most common, is ignorance. There is so much to keep up with in any scientific field that it can be difficult, even for insiders, to keep up with it all. The second, and much more disturbing, is willful deception.

Still, all of this is not enough. It is not enough because the whole discussion becomes moot in the absence of matter and energy. The bigger question becomes; where did the matter come form anyway?

The most popular scientific theory is the Big Bang. In my last post I have allowed for the Big Bang to be true. Therefore, let’s assume the Big Bang is true. Let’s assume that all of the matter in the universe was once contained in an infinitely dense quantum anomaly that exploded, spewing forth matter and energy that ultimately formed the universe we know today.

Some call this science. I call it a description of a Creation event.

Why?

Ask yourself this. Where did the quantum anomaly come from in the first place?

The fact is that science has shown all matter and energy, including the quanta that comprise it, cannot be created or destroyed. It must exist in this universe in an eternal state. It will never go away, and no new matter will ever be made. Okay . . . then where did the Big Bang come from?

Here is where I am going to really annoy some people and use what they will call a “God in the gaps” argument. However, since we have already established that the creation of matter violates the laws of nature the only logical answer remains that something more powerful than the universe, something that is eternal, self sustaining, and incredibly powerful must have created said matter in order for the Big bang to have occurred. Going one step further, for the law of entropy to be violated to create the complexity of life out of the simplicity of non-life, there must also be something that does not need to obey entropy. I will avoid talking in depth about the spark of life, not because I think science will ever find the answer, but because it will prove to be too much God for some people to handle.

There are theories about matter being rifted in from other dimensions, and that is how we got the matter for the Big Bang. It does not solve the origins of the matter in the other dimension. There was even a big deal when one physicist suggested that maybe we CAN getter matter from absolute nothingness. This made a splash for a short time before being dismissed as ridiculous.

The simple fact is that for all of this to have started the known laws of nature must be violated.

Even if I were to grant some measure of truth to evolution, the spark of life is a creation event that is outside the realm of possibility in nature. The electrochemical reaction that make even the simplest of cells work cannot start on their own. If they did then we should have observed, at some point, a dead bacterium jump starting itself in the presence of the nutrients it needs to conduct life processes. An experiment where bacteria were starved to death, then bathed in food should have produced at least one bacterium restored to life. It should be easy if it were possible, even a small culture contains millions of bacteria. A few years of attempts should produce at least one bacteria restored to life.

It has never happened because it is not possible. It has never been funded because the scientific knows the experiment is both futile and ludicrous.

Such an experiment will fail in the presence of electricity to jump start the cells too. It is an impossible endeavor.

Anyone care to try it?

WTF?

From the news:

China is now using body parts from executed prisoners to make cosmetics!

Lets take a moment to ignore the obvious potential health issues involved with applying redered human body fluids to your face and look at a bigger issue.

THIS IS A COMMIE MONSTROSITY!

The very idea of killing people for cosmetics (yes, I know they were executed as criminals, but don't think for a second that this wont increase the number of executions) is probably the worst human rights atrocity in the world today. There isn't even an ideology driving this crap! It's all about money! This is worse than slavery. At least slaves are valued for their lives, this degrades humanity to a whole new level.

I have already filled in my family on this issue and we are all boycotting Chinese, and non-Chinese owned but made in China cosmetics for life. Well, the women are, men in my family aren't fancy enough to wear makeup. I encourage you all to do the same. The unfortunate thing is that so much of everything is made in China that it may not be possible to boycott everything Chinese, but I intend to try damnit!

An Abortion Quickie

One of the most common arguments hear from supporters of abortion is that there is no such medical procedure as "partial birth abortion".

Well, then you won't mind if we ban them, will you?

Dismembering Evolution 2: Billions of Years of History

One of the things at the core of the debate between evolution and religious creationism is the very obvious geologic history of the world, nay, the universe that makes the idea of a six day creation look absolutely ludicrous.

Let’s examine this a bit, shall we?

On the one hand, we have a universe that displays all the signs of being something along the lines 15-20 billion years old, and an Earth that is about 4 billion years old. This is all detectable through various means of radiology and thermography as well as other forms of detection and mathematical extrapolation. For the sake of this series I will consider math to be a most reliable source of data. Score one for evolution. If the universe and the Earth are so incredibly old then the Biblical idea of a six day creation culminating in the creation of man must be ludicrous. The argument ends there.

That is, of course, unless there are alternatives.

The typical creationist argument is that all was created at a point of age. There is no mention of Adam being born, but rather made as a mature adult. If this is the case then an all-powerful God could most certainly create a universe that appears to be about 16 billion ears old, and a world that appears to be about 4 billion years old, and could have even placed the fossils in the rocks just for us to discover and wonder at. While this is possible, as a Christian I find it to be somewhat perverse, but only because I find it hard to believe that God would willfully create a world, a universe that is deceptive enough to fool people into disbelief in Him. That would be such a cruel joke. Score two for evolution.

Enter Einstein.

We are all familiar with Einstein’s general theory of relativity, and many of are also familiar with his special theory of relativity. At this point it is important to note that these theories have been so well proven that they are now considered to be scientific laws, now referred to as the laws of relativity, just as Newton’s laws of physics are natural laws. Relativity is considered proven beyond reasonable dispute. You gotta love physics, it is the one branch of science that works so intimately with math that it produces laws rather than and endless parade of theories with no laws in sight.

Part of the law of relativity states that time is itself, a relative thing, shaped by mass and speed. Every grade school science class that teaches astronomy uses this fact to give a demonstration of how increased speed slows the passage of time for the object in motion. The law of relativity shows that if one can achieve light speed that time will effectively stand still for the object in motion at said speed.

So how does any of this matter to the age of the age of the universe?

The Big Bang, the most accepted theory for the origin of the universe states that all of the matter and energy in the universe was contained in an infinitely dense quantum anomaly that basically exploded, spewing forth all of the matter and energy in the universe. The origin of this anomaly notwithstanding, I can accept this as a legitimate theory as demonstrated by the data we have available. Score three for evolution.

But does evolution really have a 3-0 score versus creation right now?

I’ll be the first to say that creationists such as myself are prone to producing easy theological answers to every question regardless of the scientific evidence. After all, with an all powerful God, nothing is beyond the realm of possibility. But I, for one, have always held firm to the belief that God created all things within the constructs of the natural laws He created. I have said since the age of fourteen that God created the universe, created this world within a construct of natural laws that we could understand, and with that understanding marvel at His creation.

So how does all of this mesh?

The law of relativity shows us that the billions of years between the big bang, AKA the creation of the universe, and the rise of man, and the six day creation are actually one and the same.

Huh?

As I mentioned earlier, time is distorted by mass and speed. At the very moment of the big bang all of the matter (mass) in the universe was still very close together, and moving very fast, starting at near the speed of light, and eventually slowing down, not to mention spreading out, to the speed and dimensions of the universe today. Basically proving, according to proven natural law, that the flow of time has NOT been constant throughout all of history. Indeed, time as we perceive it now progressed at a MUCH slower rate early on in the age of the universe than it does now.

Using the data we have regarding the current state of the universe and the widely accepted change in density, speed, and temperature of the universe over the around 16 billion years it has been around the law of relativity shows us something that is most fascinating.

One the first day God said “let there be light”. This first day can be shown to be the big bang event itself. Te law of relativity shows us that this first day took approximately 8 billion years in the current flow of time as we perceive it today. Note that day one equals 8 billion years in the literal sense. The one day and about 8 billion years are BOTH true.

On day 2 God separated the “firmament” from the “waters”. It is during this approximately 4 billion year period that the galaxies began to form, stars condensed, burned, exploded, recondensed, and at some point the Sun formed. It is quite probable that some stars formed prior to the aggregation of galaxies, and the resulting supernovae were critical in shaping the universe as we know it today. Mathematics and physics show us, through the law of relativity, that this 4 billion years took 1 day in the current flow of time as we perceive it today.

On the third day God separated the waters from land (continents and oceans) and life appeared first in the oceans, then on dry land. This one day encompasses some 2 billion years, during which time life did indeed first appear in the oceans as is proven by the fossil record, the later appeared, initially in plant form on the land. Once again, proven by the fossil record. Notice that time is slowing down exponentially and this approximately 2 billion years took one day in the modern flow of time.

At this point things seem to get a little confusing because the development of everything seems to take a colossal step backwards when God “places the sun and the moon and the stars in the heavens”. However, geology has shown us that Earth’s primitive atmosphere was once far more dense than it is today. Indeed, it was dense enough that the source of light may have been indistinguishable, leaving only the greater, and the lesser lights without visible form or substance in the sky above the Earth. It is during this day, this billion or so years where the atmosphere thinned out enough to become transparent, finally allowing the life the Earth contained to see the individual sun, moon, and stars for what they truly are. No longer was the sky simply “the greater and the lesser lights”. So, day four and around a billion or so years, once again, as proven by relativity, are one and the same.

Day five of the Bible saw the appearance of an explosion of aquatic animal life. Interestingly enough, this is also shown by the fossil record as more complex aquatic creatures appeared close to a billion years ago where before there had been primarily algae and bacteria. Also on this day winged animals and reptiles first appeared. Now when people think about winged animals the generally think birds, but according to the geological record the first winged animals were actually insects. This one day lasted about half a billion years in the current flow of time.

We finally arrive at day six, which saw all of the rest of the animal kingdom explode into its massive variety (specification), and finish up with the development of man. This 250 million year period of time encompasses the entire reign of the dinosaurs, their eventual extinction, the rise of mammals, and, finally the rise of man. All of this is recorded as day six in the Bible, and, oddly enough, the two varying times have been shown by the law of relativity to be one and the same.

This is only a very brief overview of a more complex set of equations that have been proven to be mathematically sound. For a more in depth study I recommend reading Genesis and the Big Bang, and also The Science of God, both by Gerald Schroeder.

The most interesting thing about this situation is not that it is mathematically correct according to the accepted laws of physics, but rather the reaction of people who are opposed to the idea of creation. It didn’t take long after this information was published for people to start modifying the age of the universe. By simply saying that the universe is actually closer to the high end of the estimated age rather then the age range this theory encompasses people have been able to say that none of what I have just put forth is valid because it presupposes a universe that probably isn’t really young enough to fit this model. Note that the data itself has not changed in any significant way, only the way that certain people choose to interpret it. By reinterpreting existing info to mean something other than what is has been accepted to mean a person can alter any situation just enough to favor one theory over another. For the purposes of this argument I am going to stick by the classically, and still generally, though not universally accepted view the universe is somewhere in the range of 15-20 billion years old. This range, while huge, is a reasonable range due to the fact that despite our best detection efforts we can still only extrapolate the approximate age of the universe without actually pining it down. It also factors in the uncertainty inherent in measuring such vast expanses of time.

What I have just put forth here is an Intelligent Design argument. While I am no supporter of ID over Creation, it is the scientific and intellectual efforts of ID advocates who actually providing most of the science that shows how God created everything within the laws of nature as we have been able to determine them. It is fascinating and compelling information. Bear in mind though, that not all ID advocates are religious at all, while not all Evolution advocates are Atheists. ID has managed to get caught n the middle of two ideological sides of a debate, the stridently Creationist, and the stridently Darwinist. Two groups of people who are willing to back their own pet theories on the origins of life, the universe, and everything no matter what scientific evidence may be brought up to show that the truth may be slightly different than the understanding these people have.

I rather like this part of the intelligent design argument because it presents the full merger of what we can measure through science, and the full measure of Biblical teaching, and it shows how the two are one and the same. Here, at least, we have a glimpse of a truth that does not require science and religion to be antagonists the way they have been since evolution was first proposed by Darwin, indeed, on many other topics for far longer prior to evolution. It shows what I have been saying for years, that God created all that is within a construct that we can understand through science is true. Why have I been saying this for years, even before I ever found such scientific evidence to back this claim? It’s simple. I love science almost as much as I love God. Both provide the answers to parts of life, and I have simply never been able to tell myself that one could possibly invalidate the other. This, as you may have guessed, is what first motivated to look into the subject of evolution. I have heard so many ideological arguments from people stating that evolution removes the need for a Creator God, and so religion is a pointless fairytale because we have a natural answer for life that it caused me to question whether evolution was truly science, or theology.

More on every aspect to come in later installments.

Impeachment

The hypocrisy of the American left is once again raising itself up for all to see, and of course, there is a disturbing amount of support for it.

I am talking, of course, about the ever more frequently voiced desire of the Democrats to impeach President Bush for listening in on phone calls that foreign terrorists have made to persons within the US, all done without warrants. While this might be considered a crime if the actual targets were Americans and not foreign enemies of the US who are bent on killing us all this view might have a leg to stand on, but considering what the program actually it is nothing more than the mad rantings of power hungry people who are bitter over the loss of the control they once had over the Union.

But why do I call it hypocrisy?

When Bill Clinton obstructed justice and committed perjury it was many of these same people who were making excuses for him and were calling the Republican effort to impeach him nothing but a bunch of grandstanding designed to make the President look bad. Well, Clinton sure didn’t need the Republicans to do that for him, he did it quite well himself. His was the most scandal-ridden presidency in a long time, if not of all time. Put simply, the Democrats readily supported a man who was a known criminal, as well as a man who allegedly committed fraud and rape. A man who was a known philanderer. A man who used the IRS to intimidate his opponents. A man who did so more, so much worse than authorizing a wiretapping program that targets foreign terrorists in an effort to keep them from killing us here at home.

The truly stupid thing is that if President Bush had never authorized this wiretapping program, and the terrorists successfully attacked us and killed a bunch of people again the way they did on 9/11, these same Democrats would be screaming that the President is incompetent because he did not go far enough to protect the American people, and he needs to be impeached for it. Don’t bother denying this point. Anyone with even the most passing knowledge of politics knows this is true.

So I see a horde of liberals frothing at the mouth looking for any excuse to try to destroy a remarkably successful, though overly secretive President. It seems like the ones in the know are terrified that President Bush will get credit for the good things he has done rather than a Democrat who follows after him. What’s worse (for them) is the possibility that if they don’t do everything in their power to make America tired of Republican leadership then the republicans will get credit for all the good things that have been done instead of the Democrats. They are, of course, only too happy to credit Republicans with anything bad they can think of. If the President and the Republican party in general are allowed to stay be in power when we pull out of Iraq, when people realize that the economy is incredibly good, when people realize that education really is improving, when people notice that women and minorities are succeeding in steadily greater numbers, then the Democrats stand to lose power for the next 50 years. This is the one thing that terrifies them more than anything else because they want to control the country. This is partisanship at it purest, it is why I was a registered independent with absolutely NO party affiliation until 2001 when I became a Republican so I could effectively oppose the Democrats and actually stand a chance of making a difference politically. This is what happens when a political party becomes more concerned with power than with taking care of the nation.

This hypocritical, power-mad behavior will doom the Democrats if it continues. Their lack of rational responses to some very legitimate mistakes made by the Bush administration and by the Republican controlled Congress will cost them in the 2006 elections. This behavior will cause them to fail where they should have been able to succeed easily.

Personally, I’m just disgusted by it all.

A Fresh Start

Today I begin training for my new job. After a long and arduous serch I have found employment, and I have done it before the Army stopped paying me.

In my search I took the advice of one of my brothers. I prayed the prayer "Lord, open the doors you want opened, and close the doors you want closed." I did so often. I was seriously disappointed for quite some time as interviews that went very well failed to produce employment. Finally, I had an interview where the manager hired me on the spot.

It is a sales job, and while some sales jobs, like telemarketing, are easy to get, this manager had been interviewing people for 5 weeks without hiring anyone. Naturally, I took the job, and no, it's NOT telemarketing. Could me and this job be a match made in Heaven? I hope so.

Still, I begin my new carreer in sales with some trepidation. I also begin it knowing that I need to keep looking because the sales project will only be in the area for another 4 months or so. I told the manager up front that I won't become a traveling salesman because I will not live away from my wife. I told her the Army had already taken me away from my wife enough and I didn't want to keep doing that. She hired me anyway.

I also begin my new job with a sense of calm, the kind that can be called a calm in a storm. I have peace about taking this job, and have a sense that it will provide for my family despite being straight commission.

On the political side of the fence, there are a LOT of forms that need to be filled out to run for public office. There are also a staggering number of conditional forms. Like almos every government entity, this is an overly complex process. I'm sure it's just that way to discourage newcomers from challenging incumbents. After all, if you make something difficult enough you WILL drive some people away. I want this too bad to be frightened off by mere paperwork.

My family has concerns, naturally. Political candidates tend to get smeared and slandered by the opposition, and they want to protect me from that. I am tougher than that though. I can thank my former stepmother for her abuse in this situation. After what I lived through as a child I doubt there is anything some politician can say that will hurt me. My skin is quite thick in this area.

My family also asks me two questions. First is "What if you lose horribly?". To this I say "That's okay. The odds are against me and I know it." Second is "Okay, but what if you win? Can you do the job?" To this I say, "Yes. It won't be easy, but I can do it."

Finally, my wife in California for our third round of fertility treatment. If this time fails we cannot afford to try again. The last time we did this she had a positive prgnancy test, only to have the pregnancy fail 2 weeks later. It was heartbreaking. This time, Lord willing, we will finally produce a child. however, if the Lord does not choose to bless us in this endeavor we plan on adopting. We plan on adopting no matter what actually, we just really want a child of our own first.

Goodness. There is a lot going on in my life right now. This is why my posting has been reduced, why I have not been visiting other blogs very much, and why this will continue for some time to come. The oly days I can guarantee new posts are Wednesday and Friday. There will continue to be no weekend posts. Monday, Tueday, and Thursday will be patchy.

I apologize to all of my readers for the reduction in content. I apologize to all of my allies in the blog world for not visiting thier sites more often. It is my hope that this flurry of activity will be temporary and I will soon be able to post at least once a day and visit other blogs with more regularity. However, the campaign will put a serious damper on that for as long as it lasts. Even this pre-campaign phase I am in is rather involved. It will either end with the September primaries, or the November general election. Then, Lord willing, I will be dealing with all the joys and trials of a newborn in the house shortly thereafter. Of course, there is always the chance of flameout early in the campaign, which would free a lot of time much sooner. I really hope this doesn't happen.

Dismembering Evolution: Part 1 Darwin, Scientist or Philosopher?

I want to begin this series by talking about one of the most brilliant men, one the greatest thinkers in all of human history. I want to begin by talking about Aristotle.

For those who do not already know, Aristotle was the result of two generations of great minds being taught by other great minds. Socrates’ greatest student was Plato. Plato’s greatest student was Aristotle. As a side note, Aristotle’s greatest student was Alexander the Great himself. All of these men have shaped the world; have influenced mankind to this day. Aristotle though, he held sway over the thoughts and beliefs of humanity in a way rarely matched, and even more rarely exceeded in all of human history.

Allow me to explain.

Aristotle was both a moral, and a natural philosopher. His moral philosophy, however, while his greatest feat of his day, pales in comparison to his natural philosophy for influence throughout history. His moral philosophy was adopted in full by Alexander the Great, and ceased to be the ruling philosophy of civilized Europe with the eventual rise of Christianity, but his natural philosophy shaped the sciences for about 1,500 years.

Aristotle proposed that the most perfect of all shapes was the sphere. His reasons have filled entire treatises and I will not go into them here. As such, he reasoned that the entire universe must be comprised of ever widening spheres reaching out into infinity with Earth, this most perfect of worlds, at its very center.

This idea was not only adopted in Aristotle’s day, but remained the only accepted view of the universe until Galileo eventually proved him wrong at great personal risk and persecution.

So how did he come to this conclusion?

Aristotle, like most philosophers, looked to the natural world for answers to the deep mysteries of the universe, much the way scientists do to this day, only without the benefit of structured experimentation. Observation, he believed, would provide the clues that, once reasoned out, would provide the answers being sought. So what did he observe?

Aristotle observed the movement of the heavens from a geocentric point of view. He saw the sun, the moon, and the stars all rise in the east and set in the west every day without fail. He observed the perfection of the sphere, and the remarkable perfect beauty of the natural world. Form these observations he drew an important conclusion.

The Earth is the center of the universe, and the sun and the moon and the stars all rotate around it in perfect circles along their designated astral spheres.

Ridiculous? To our scientifically enlightened minds, of course! However, without the benefit of the information we have today it was the only logical conclusion that most people could possibly conceive of, and it was latched onto and not let go by any willing means.

This was natural philosophy at its finest. Raw observation of nature, combined with reasoning to draw conclusions about the world and the universe. Unfortunately, the observations were never truly tested for over a millennia.

So what happened in the intervening 1,500 or so years?

This philosophy was initially accepted as the only reasonable norm. then the scientific method was developed and mathematics advanced, and the answer of the Earth being the center of a geocentric universe arranged in perfect spheres needed to be proven through science and math, and for several hundred years both science and math “proved” this to be true.

Huh?

As is human nature, the majority of men who tested this theory were out to prove what they already believed to be true. Those who did otherwise, well . . . they were generally killed, and their efforts were summarily tossed out as discredited, disproved, and even heretical. In hindsight, we now know that these divergent thinkers were more right tan wrong, but at the time what they said was so outrageous it could not possibly be true.

Ptolemy was a great mathematician and astronomer who is most known for being the one who was supposed to have settled the issue of how the geocentric universe works once and for all. He began with some comparatively simple math derived from his observations that predicted the movement of astral bodies more perfectly than ever before. It took years, but the predictions based on his math came to grow more and more unreliable, so he reworked the math into a massively complex beast that ultimately solved most of the problems his initial calculations had. His model was so effective that it was considered the final scientific and mathematic proof that was needed to place the Earth squarely at the center of all creation.

Unfortunately, even these calculations eventually became less accurate predictors, and new answers were again sought.

In brief, there was a series of discoveries that ultimately led to Galileo proving once and for all that the Earth is NOT the center of the universe, and our knowledge has only grown from there.

So, how does this relate to evolution?

Like Aristotle, Darwin possessed a great analytical mind. He was truly a mental giant, and no sensible person would say otherwise. Also, like Aristotle, Darwin was a student of the natural world, observing the world and reasoning based on his observations. And, like Aristotle, Darwin never put his greatest concepts through the rigors of the scientific method.

Upon reading The Origin of the Species, one cannot help but be impressed by the genius, the sheer eloquence of it. Darwin managed to take his observations of the world ranging from geology to biology and put them together in a highly reasoned out fashion to create one of the greatest theories of all time: Evolution.

His logic, based on his observations is unimpeachable, but was also completely untested. Exactly like Aristotle’s theory of a geocentric universe. Also, like Aristotle’s theory of a geocentric universe, evolution has had its rabid supporters who have set out to “prove” it by all possible means. I shall discuss this “proof” in future installments of this series. Also, like Aristotle’s theory of a geocentric universe, the opponents of evolution suffer ridicule and persecution, albeit, evolution’s opponents suffer by having their funding removed while those who opposed Aristotle’s theory suffered by having their heads removed.

The problem both theories share is that at the time of their publication they were utterly untested, but were still presented as scientific fact. Just as Aristotle knew very little about the true workings of the cosmos, Darwin knew nothing at all about genetics, very little about the scientific method, and even acknowledged holes geology/paleontology left in his theory.

Unlike Aristotle, who claimed to have all the proof that was needed to support his theory, Darwin promoted his theory as truth while openly stating that his proof was inconclusive due to a lack of knowledge, be it his own, or that of all of humanity at the time. Darwin justified this move by stating that he was certain that future scientific discoveries would fill in the gaps in such a way as to prove him right.

In all fairness, this did seem to be the case for a long time.

Unfortunately for Darwin, just like what happened to Aristotle, the initial scientific “proof” appears to be unraveling in the face of an expanded scientific base of knowledge and understanding. The answers Darwin drew using the same methods of natural philosophers like Aristotle, while brilliant, were, and remained flawed. Evolution, as it was put forth by Darwin, was not science at all, but natural philosophy, just like the theory of the geocentric universe Aristotle promoted. There is no trace of the scientific method, no experimentation, no mathematics, nothing contained within The Origin of the Species that even hints at evolution being put the tiniest rigors of actual science. Had evolution been presented today in its original form no scientific journal, no publisher of the sciences would have accepted it for publication.

Darwin was no scientist. He was natural philosopher, possibly of comparable brilliance to Aristotle. His greatest theory was a philosophical work that science has tried to wrap itself around, just like Aristotle’s theory of the geocentric universe.

The Tax Curse

Every schoolchild knows the old phrase “No taxation without representation!” It is the mantra shouted by our forefathers as they set our great nation on the path to independence. It is the war cry our first brave soldiers fought by, and the cause those courageous men died for. Is it any wonder then, that taxes remain a pivotal point in the America of today?

Tax issues surround nearly every election. Politicians promise all manner of tax reform and relief to a hopeful nation waiting for that wonderful day when every man and woman can keep a greater portion of his or her hard-earned money. But rather than relief, Americans stand helplessly by as taxes grow and eat up a greater portion of our paychecks.

This brings us to a vital issue. Not any lack of representation as we have more and bigger taxes levied against us year after year. The issue is how our representatives are actually representing our best interests and managing our many tax dollars.

Most Americans have no idea how the three months pay we give the government every year is actually used. We share vague ideas of unknown billions going to national defense, law enforcement, wildlife preservation, and government bureaus that supposedly provide us with essential services. While this is absolutely true, hundreds of millions, and possibly billions of tax dollars are wasted every year on projects and services that do not serve our national interests, but only serve a select few with the money and power to influence our elected representatives.

Take the milk-buying program for example. The federal government placed what is known as a price floor on milk. This price floor is actually higher than the price/demand ratio and so people buy less milk because it costs too much. This would hurt America’s dairy farmers very much because they wouldn’t be able to sell all of their milk, but good old Uncle Sam has stepped in with a milk buying program where the government buys up all of the milk that the dairy farmers can’t sell. Naturally, the dairy take advantage of this by raising as many cattle as possible and producing as much milk as possible because they know the government will purchase all the excess milk. Naturally, dairy farmers have become quite wealthy as a result, but the rest of America suffers as we pay high prices for milk, and our hard earned tax dollars are spent on the extra milk that we refuse to buy. What does the government do with all this milk you ask? Well, now you know where government cheese comes from.

Two more famous wasteful programs are the tea-tasting program and the sugar program. The tea tasting is just one nice, old man who samples all the shipments of tea that come into America . . . and the bureau of dozens of supervisors, managers, and quality control experts that oversee this one man. Fortunately, after years of waste, this program has finally been ended. The sugar program is a government agency that keeps all foreign sugar out of the United States in an effort to keep the price of sugar artificially high. The result of this is that not only must we pay more for our sugar than the rest of the world, but we also pay the government to do this to us.

There are dozens, if not hundreds of other such wasteful programs that eat up our taxes and do us no good of any kind, yet our elected representatives refuse to do away with them. This is exactly the kind of robbery that our forefathers fought and died to stop, and we now sit idly by and let it continue on with little more than a grumble. I do not advocate the elimination of taxes, taxes are essential to fund an effective government and an effective law enforcement and national defense system, but I do not advocate our tax money being wasted on useless and harmful programs while our essential services are underfunded.

Our forefathers succeeded in getting taxation with representation, now it up to us to make sure that our representatives are responsible with the taxes we pay.

Introduction to the Series “Dismembering Evolution”

This is not the official start to the entirely too-long awaited series I have been preparing on evolution, it is just an introduction of what to expect, and the only place I plan on listing my sources, so pay attention because I do not intend to quibble over which book said what later.

This series will be presented in a reasonably logical order, starting with a discussion of Darwin and the origin of his theory of evolution. There will then be a jump back in time to the Big Bang, which I will not dispute in this series, and have actually come to support through my research, but in a different way and reason than most of you might expect. I will also discuss the conditions and probabilities of life.

Next will follow a point by point discussion on the proof of evolution. I will be presenting 2 views, the simple critique of what is supposed to prove the theory, and also the Intelligent Design position regarding evolution. I am not a supporter of ID as I am a Creationist, but there are some extremely compelling arguments within ID that have at least as much merit as anything Darwinian Evolution has to say, so I shall cover this topic as well.

At various points I intend to discuss probabilities as they have been shown according to physicists and mathematicians. I will discuss some physics as well as biology. There will be some philosophy. And some of what I have to say will be very familiar to people currently embroiled in the evolution debate, and I hope some of it will be new. I shall endeavor to remain logical in all aspects of my presentation and debate, but there will be the occasional “God in the gaps” argument, I just plan on presenting it with the most reasonable evidence possible.

My sources are as follows: The Science of God by Gerald Schroeder. Genesis and the Big Bang by Gerald Schroeder. Icons of evolution by Jonathan Wells. The Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin. Darwin’s Black Box by Michael Behe. My college astronomy textbook is still missing from the move, but I still have my notes and will be using them. I shall also be running off memory from years of indoctrination into evolution throughout my schooling.

I doubt that I shall be as eloquent or persuasive as the authors of these books. I am simply trying to present the disparate arguments in a single forum.

I want to go over the rules for debate in this series because I know that, given the chance, any one debate can go so far off topic as to become irrelevant to the posting at hand. All debate MUST be on the topic covered that week. If I am talking about dinosaurs I don’t want to debate about embryology. All topics will be covered at some point, and if I overlook anything, don’t worry, at the end I will have an open posting for anything that I neglected to discuss in this series. Also, all arguments based on lawyers and judges will be laughed at and mocked without mercy. This is about science. Stick with the science and the math as they are the ONLY relevant tools in a scientific debate. Where theology enters, and it WILL enter, then that opens up theology for that debate. When philosophy is used, it opens up philosophy. But it only opens up those subjects as far as they are relevant to the actual post. It is my desire to see the debate remain civil enough that profanity, personal attacks on debaters, and general rudeness do not enter. Please do try to remain civil despite the obvious controversy and strong feelings involved in such a debate.

This said, I look forward to next Wednesday and finally getting this thing started.

The Oscars

Sunday night marked this year’s Oscars, and I did not watch them live because I figured the outcome was predetermined, and the Hollywood elites would all go straight for the obvious favorite among the artsy types at every opportunity. I was wrong.

Looking over the results I was pleased to note that the truly deserving film did, in fact, win the award for Best Picture. Crash was easily the best, most deserving movie among the nominees, and the Academy surprised me by actually siding with me on this picture. To be fair, I must confess I did not watch Brokeback Mountain, and it was more than just the pro-homosexual theme, it was also the fact that the previews made it look like a sappy chick flick, only with the slightly nauseating twist of being made for homosexuals. Munich pissed me off by being sympathetic to terrorists while hinting at anti-Semitism, and the other two I never heard of.

Best Director went to Ang Lee for Brokeback mountain, and from all I have heard, including from people who hated the movie, he really did deserve it. I am happy Spielberg didn’t win for Munich. Still, Crash was so impressive I would have liked to see it win here as well.

Best Original Screenplay went to Crash, while Best Adapted Screenplay went to Brokeback Mountain. Truthfully, I have no idea what the difference is between an original and an adapted screenplay. Both are writing awards for the script, and neither of the winners was competing against the other in either category. However, since I choose class and tension over sappy any day of the week, I would have liked to see The Constant Gardener take the award for Adapted Screenplay, whatever that is.

The Best actress category had controversy because Felicity Huffman was nominated for her role in Transamerica, a movie about a transsexual that nobody outside of San Francisco apparently heard of before the Oscar nominees were announced. Fortunately, Reese Witherspoon deservedly won the award for her excellent performance in the biopic “Walk the Line”. Whether you are a Johnny Cash fan or not, I recommend you see this truly excellent movie about the life of a great American musician.

Cinematography went to Memoirs of a Geisha, as did Art Direction, and Costume design. Truthfully, this movie could have won Best Picture and Best Director as well as far I am concerned. It is a virtually flawless movie in every respect, but it was not nominated for those categories for some reason. Too bad.

The Chronicles of Narnia won Best Makeup, and while I love this movie, I really think Memoirs of A Geisha should have won this one.

King Kong swept every other technical award, and it really deserved it. The movie was a fantastical feast of special effects blended with a beefed up, expanded and improved story of King Kong.

Best Original Song, predictably, went to Hustle and Flow, a movie that, in my opinion, has as its greatest distinction the rare uplifting message of rising above street life. This is rare because it is a “ghetto” type movie, most of which portray an inescapable world of drugs and violence.

Best original score went to Brokeback Mountain. Okay . . . I never saw the movie, nor have I heard the soundtrack, although the fact that any movie could have beaten BOTH Memoirs of a Geisha and Pride and Prejudice is rather shocking to me. Both movies have truly great classical soundtracks.

Best Documentary went to March of the Penguins, which is surprising only in that the award actually went to a documentary people have heard of for once. Although it didn’t win, I do want to see Darwin’s Nightmare. I have never heard of it before, and the title may be misleading, but the title does pique my interest.

Everyone, including myself, were absolutely certain the acting awards were all going to go Brokeback Mountain, not just because the actors truly did a fine job by all accounts, but also because there are three ways for an actor virtually guarantee a win in an acting category. 1 – Play someone with cancer. 2 – Play a homosexual. 3 – Be real pretty, and play a role where you must be truly ugly. Heck, Charlize Theron combined 2 and 3 and won easily. Tom Hanks won his first Oscar, and a new career in drama for his role as a homosexual AIDS victim in Philadelphia. These 3 rules are true winners. Not this year. This year Rachel Weisz won Best Supporting Actress for her role in The Constant Gardener. Best Supporting Actor went to George Clooney for Syriana. Best Actor went to Phillip Seymour Hofman for his role in Capote. And I have already discusses Best Actress earlier.

Finally, in a year of, mostly, disappointing animated films, Wallace and Grommit won an easy victory for Best Animated Film.

There are a few other awards for shorts, but since I don’t care about those awards I will not discuss them here.

In a way, I am very relieved that Brokeback Mountain did not sweep every award it was nominated for. The buzz of the nation was that it was a shoe-in for everything because it was such a pro-homosexual romance/drama, just what the Hollywood elites have been waiting for. Had it won so conclusively it would have demonstrated beyond all doubt what Hollywood stands for in the social and artistic sense. By going by actual merit rather than by favored theme the Academy has shown that it still has a way to go before it becomes a merely ideological foray into the art world. To me at least, it is a comforting thought. Also, now I feel like an idiot for missing out on seeing Jon Stewart host the awards. I really wanted to see that.

YAY!

Good news! I found my missing books yesterday. Expect the first installment of my series on evolution 2 Wednesdays from today.

Unusual, To Say the Least

Am I the only one who is struck by the way that every Bush hater also hates Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense? Can anyone think of government functionary other than John Edgar Hoover who has been the target of so much Hatred? John Ashcroft was hated by the liberals, but not nearly so much as Donald Rumsfeld.

It seems to me that Donald Rumsfeld, to be referred to simply as Rumsfeld from here on out, is the target of so much hatred simply because he has been tasked by the President with managing the military during wartime. We are fighting a war. Somebody has to run it. The President has chosen Rumsfeld. And now, he is one of the most hated people (by liberals) in America. Why? SOMEBODY has to do his job.

Truthfully, I don’t think it matters who the Secretary of Defense is, as long as that person is working for this President during this war he will be despised by the liberals. It is a blind, ideological hatred that has nothing to do with what is right or reasonable. The liberals just want to froth at the mouth for some reason.

John Edgar Hoover was hated by liberals in his day for his work protecting the US from the Communist threat. It is well known that Communists had heavily infiltrated the Democratic Party, and all levels of government under Democratic administrations at the time. Further proof can be seen in all of the Socialist ideology rampaging through the Democrats to this day.

For this vital work, liberals have lied, calling him a cross-dressing homosexual, a provably false claim, and one started as the typical liberal tactic of “discredit through name-calling”. A childish tactic to be sure, but a common liberal tactic nonetheless.

The cemetery the John Edgar Hoover is buried in has been fenced in and opened up dogs as a free-run park of sorts. People bring their dogs there every day to let them run free in a vast, beautifully manicured field. They also frequently take their dogs to John Edgar Hoover’s grave and have the dog urinate on the gravesite. The grave was fenced off some time back due to vandalism, but these liberals still have their dogs piss as close as they can to the grave itself. This, and the vandalism of John Edgar Hoover’s grave are symptomatic of the ability of liberals to hate forever without forgiveness for imagined wrongs. The man has been dead, what, 50 years? GET OVER IT! What he did for this country is far greater and more vital thing then any liberal I can think of with the exceptions of FDR who led us through WWII and the Depression, and JFK after he got behind the Civil Rights movement. Are there any conservative busy defacing their graves for doing such great and vital services to our country?

This mentality of hate from the liberals is getting tiresome, but is unlikely to go away. It is also a big reason why the liberals are unlikely to gain power in the government again at this time despite the blunders and disappointments of the current batch of Republicans. Their hatred is alienating not just conservatives, but the moderates who are the ones who actually decide elections.