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Probabilities Nature Probability's Nature and Nature's Probability ( A Call to Scientific Integrity) By Donald E Johnson ©2009 Cover photographs © iStockphoto.com/Skip O'Donnell, Henrik Jonsson, David Marchal, and Jarek Szymanski. Earth image and galaxy spiral image courtesy NASA and reproduced with permission from AURA/STScl. Digital renditions of images produced by AURA/STScl are obtainable royalty-free. Cover design by Jessie Nilo Design + Illustration. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted without permission or as allowed by law. ISBN: 1-4392-2862-0 Booksurge Publishing Charleston, SC and Lexington, KY Acknowledgments The author wishes to thank his wife Kris and his daughter Jessie for their encouragement to write this book and their many suggestions during the creation of the book. Jessie's help with the cover design is also greatly appreciated. The author thanks the peer professionals who reviewed this book and offered invaluable suggestions for improvements and corrections of errors. Those professionals include: Physics Professor Earl Blodgett, University of Wisconsin- River Falls Biology Professor Jurgen Ziesmann, Azusa Pacific University Computer Science Professor Lyle Reibling, Azusa Pacific University Electrical Engineering Manager Patrick Gustafson, Prairie Technologies Research Biologist Dr Richard C. Vogt, INP A- Brazil Mathematics Professor Granville Sewell, University Texas- El Paso Physician Gregory Viehman, MD Comments or suggestions for error corrections or improvements sent to [email protected] will be greatly appreciated. Tax deductible donations to make copies of this book available free to students may be made at http://www.ideacenter.org/membership/donation.php specifying "PN&NP books." Table of Contents Introduction 4 1 Introduction To Probability and Expressing Large or Small Numbers 7 2 Chance: Possible, Probable, and Feasible 11 3 Mass and Energy: Source and Fine-Tuning 15 4 Life 25 5 The Origin of Life 32 6 The Information Contained in Life 43 7 Increasing Complexity of Life 62 8 Going Where Data Lead 86 9 Why Intelligent Design? 103 References 112 Introduction In recent years there has been much controversy concerningID (Intelligent Design). Many in the scientific community have dismissed the concept as Creationism warmed-over. Many in the Biblical Creationist community have dismissed the concept as irrelevant since the God of the Bible is not portrayed as the Designer. This book will deal with the scientificaspects ofiD, not addressing the philosophical and theological aspects of origins, life and the resulting implications. If it is argued that ID is compatible with (though not requiring) a deity, and therefore should be excluded from science, then by the same reasoning, no atheist should be able to publish anything in support of undirected naturalism (which includes Darwinism) since that is a primary belief of those holding the atheistic view. This book will show that undirected naturalism lacks known scientific facts in several critical areas, and that some intelligent agent better accounts for many observations. To help the reader understand why this book was written, it is important to know the author's background. From childhood, the author was extremely interested in science, devouring books on anything scientific. His love of science led to a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Michigan State University. During his education, views of the American Chemical Society's "From Molecules To Man" program were totally accepted. At that time, he believed anyone not accepting the "proven" evolutionary scenario was of the same mentality as someone believing in a flat earth. The author worked for ten years as a Senior Research Scientist in the medical and scientific instrument field. The complexity of life came to the forefront during continued research, especially when his research group was involved with recombinant DNA during the late 1970's. After several years as an independent consultant in laboratory automation and other computer fields, he began a 20-year career in university teaching, interrupted briefly to earn a second Ph.D. in Computer and Information Science from the University of Minnesota. Over time, the author began to doubt the natural explanations that had been so ingrained. It was science, and not his religion, that caused his disbelief in the 4 explanatory powers of undirected nature in a number of key areas including the origin and fine-tuning of mass and energy, the origin of life with its complex information content, and the increase in complexity in living organisms. This realization was not reached easily, as he had to admit that he had been duped into believing concepts that were scientifically unfounded. The fantastic leaps of faith required to accept the undirected natural causes in these areas demand a scientificresponse to the scientific-soundingconcepts that in fact have no known scientific basis. Scientific integrity needs to be restored so that ideas that have no methods to test or falsify are not considered part of science. This applies to Biblical Creationism as well as to naturalistic "causes" in the areas mentioned above. For example, one should not be able to get away with stating "it is possible that life arose from non-life by ..." without first demonstrating that it is indeed possible (defined in the nature of probability) using known science. One could, of course, state "it may be speculated that ... ," but such a statement wouldn't have the believability that its author intends to convey by the pseudo­ scientific pronouncement. This book will review the many prevalent scenarios that are widely accepted, but need closer examination of their scientific validity. It will also examine the scientific validity ofiD as a model that can be empirically detected and examined. The usefulness of the ID model for furthering scientific inquiry will also be analyzed. It is important to realize that empirical science does not address issues such as "why" or "how," but merely "that." For example, the law of gravity has proven to be extremely accurate for determining intersections of moving objects in 3-dimensional space, such as landing on Mars. Science does not yet know "how" gravity works (gravitons have been proposed, especially as part of string theory), and may never know "why" it works, but science has determined "that" it works. Principles and laws that have been demonstrated to be valid will be employed, discounting speculation that has no proven scientific basis. We will be considering "science as we know it," not "science as we don't know it." We will see that ID fits into the guidelines of the scientific method for investigating phenomena, correcting and integrating previous knowledge, or acquiring new knowledge. ID is based on gathering observable, empirical and 5 measurable evidence, subjecting it to specific principles of reasoning. This book is written for science-minded people, both professionals and the curious. Some of the details necessary for conveying scientificvalidity may not be understood and appreciated by every reader. When a chapter is about to enter details that would produce a glazed-eye result in a casual reader, a summary of what follows will be stated so those not interested in the details can skip the section without losing the fundamentals of the content. This book is not meant to be a comprehensive coverage of all topics (such a book could never be published as new findings occur daily), but does provide representative references for the topics of interest, especially findings supporting ID. Most of the quotations are from scientists who believe in undirected natural causes as the only "valid" science, so don't take their statements as implying their explicit support of ID, even if those statements may demonstrate ID is reasonable. Quotations, even from ID proponents, are not meant to reflect agreement by this author, but rather to reflect the breadth of ideas being considered to explain the evidence of design that is empirically detectable. 6 1 Introduction To Probability and Expressing Large or Small Numbers This short chapter may be skipped or skimmed by those already familiar with the topics, but to understand what the numbers mean in the rest of this book, it is vital to understand the concepts presented in this chapter. If the concepts are unfamiliar, this chapter may require proceeding very slowly, until each item is understood. This chapter will clarifY the scientific meaning of terms like "possible,""impossible," and"probable." For example, if a weather forecaster states"it will probably rain tomorrow," and it doesn't rain, that doesn't make the prediction wrong (unless the probability of rain were actually less than 50%). Scientificor exponential notation is convenient when expressing very large or very small numbers. Examples include: 4 4 X 109 4000000000 = billion = (count digits to the right of the first digit) 0.000001= 1 millionth= 11106= 10-6 (count left including first non-zero digit to".") 602,214,179,000,000,000,000,000= 6.02 X 1023 (Avagadro's number) Avagadro's number is the number of hydrogen atoms in one gram or the number of carbon atoms in 12 grams. A 1 carat diamond contains approximately 1022 carbon atoms. A diamond containing 10 trillion (1013) atoms would be a billionth (1o-9) carat diamond. At 4800 characters per page, 6.02 X 1023 characters would require a stack of pages 77,000 times the distance to the sun. Notice that each unit change in exponent is a factor of ten more or less 10 X 108 1010110 = 1000 X 106 = 1110-9 1011 o-8 109 = = = (all have same value). The Richter scale for expressing earthquake magnitude is based exponen­ tially, so that a magnitude 5 earthquake is 100 times as strong as a magnitude 3 and 100 times weaker than a magnitude 7 quake. Since 6 is 20% higher than 5, if one is thinking linearly, rather than exponentially, one may visualize a magnitude 6 quake as only 20% stronger than a magnitude 5 quake, instead of the 900% stronger ( 10 times) that it really is.
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