TRIANGLE ASSOCIATION for the SCIENCE of CREATION P.O. Box 12051 • Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-2051 • [email protected] web site: www.tasc-creationscience.org

TASC TASC’s mission is to rebuild and strengthen the foundation of the Christian faith by increasing awareness of the scientific evidence supporting the literal Joe Spears, Chairman Biblical account of creation and refuting .

March 2016 Materialism and By Joe Spears he TASC newsletter article Fossils examined nonsense is that the carvings would have eroded over the fossil record as evidence in support of the the- time and, therefore, would not be readable. ory of evolution.1 The conclusion of that article, as T A citizen, Bill, interested in the space program denies the well as that of several evolutionists themselves, was that discovery: Bill says, “We have heard some amazing re- the fossil record did not provide evidence to support the ports, which strain our credulity, of the text of one of theory of evolution. We might think, “Well, that doesn’t Shakespeare’s plays found carved on rock on Pluto. I matter since evolution is so strongly supported by the deny this; my reason is founded in very strong, irrefuta- genetic evidence.” However, is it really? Let’s look and ble, logic. The carvings must be old, and, therefore, over see. We will look primarily at the genetic evidence for time they would have eroded to the point that the text the origin of life in this article. would be totally unreadable.” (We will leave aside the Is abiogenesis irrelevant? question as to how Bill knows the age of the carvings or if the age would be old enough for sufficient erosion to The idea of life arising from non-life is known as abio- occur since this is merely a fictional tale.) genesis. It might be argued that abiogenesis is not evolution and thus is irrelevant in a discussion of evolu- A scientist, Alfred Meinstone, responds to Bill: “The tion. The line of reasoning is that evolution deals with question of the validity of the findings on Pluto, or in- how life evolves from pre-existing life via natural selec- deed the question of the reality of the reported carvings tion or how more complex life arises from simpler life, of the text of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, can be put to which does not involve the origin of life. This is still life rest. The erosion that supposedly would have removed giving rise to more complex life, not life arising from the text over time, did not occur! Therefore, the carvings non-life. Therefore, the argument goes, the question of are real! You may ask, why did the erosion not occur? To how life arose from non-life is not part of evolution and erode, we must have an eroding agent: water, sand, etc.; is therefore excluded from any discussion of evolution and, what is more, that agent must be in contact with the as not being relevant. material to be eroded. I spare you the technical details. To get to the crux of the matter, the inescapable conclu- So, is the question of how life arose relevant to discus- sion is that on Pluto, there was no such eroding agent sions of evolution? This is a matter of semantics, though that would have been in contact with the carvings for a one may wonder if it is a matter of substance. long enough period of time to have removed the text. A fictional illustration Therefore, we have answered the objection to the reality of these carvings and have shown proof for the reality of To help us put this question in proper perspective, let us the carvings by refuting and eliminating the erosion ar- consider by analogy, an unexplained hypothetical dis- gument.” covery recently made on Pluto—this is fiction, of course, to illustrate a point. The story becomes big news. Reports on TV tell every- one that “Scientists prove carvings on Pluto are real!” In Suppose that on a manned mission to Pluto, one astro- the light of these developments, we find Bill discussing naut went down alone to Pluto’s surface and later this turn of events with his friend, Sam. Bill sighs and reported seeing a carved rock on Pluto with text carved sadly admits defeat. However, Sam says, “Wait a mi- on it that he actually read, consisting of the exact text of nute! There is no one on Pluto to have made the the drama Julius Caesar, as written by William Shake- carvings.” speare! Some people, let us suppose, argue that this report is nonsense, and the reason they give for its being Bill thinks, “Wow! Sam has really come up with the clinching argument.” Bill tells Sam, “I knew there was something not quite right with those carvings on Pluto! Something just didn’t make sense, and I do believe that 1 Spears J (2016 Feb) Fossils. Accessed 2016 Within a matter of days Sam’s thoughts on the matter Feb 23 1 find their way into the news media. “Pluto - Shake- “Yes,” the Professor agreed. “So we must accept evolu- speare Debate Continues!” read the headlines. tion. Likewise, we must accept the reality of those carvings, and not question them!” After a few days of media frenzy about the ongoing de- bate, reporter Suzy Anderson asks Professor Meinstone So, the scientist replies back to Sam’s point, that the sci- for an interview on her TV show, on Media-Front, a na- entific refutation of Bill’s argument against the reality of tion-wide TV network. “Professor Meinstone,” she says, the carvings does not deal with their origin—merely with “we all have been watching the debate over the recent their preservation, and that therefore, Sam’s point about Pluto findings. Bill made a claim that the carvings could the impossible origin of the carvings is irrelevant and, not be real, which admittedly sounded valid to many therefore, invalid. people. However, it was you who so soundly refuted The proposition of Meinstone that the reality of those that claim with a very scientific response. Now, howev- carvings on Pluto was proven by arguments related to er, someone else—Sam by name—is arguing again in their preservation, while ignoring questions of their support of Bill’s position that the carvings simply cannot origin, seems to not really have proven the reality of the be real, although Sam is using different arguments. carvings for their origin is still left a mystery, unex- Could you respond to Sam’s point for our viewers?” plained and unresolved. “Ach! The line of argument put forward by Sam may We can see that the reasoning that the origin of the carv- seem indeed to clinch the case, so to speak, for those ings is irrelevant does not prove the reality of the who are not keen observers of the details of the logic carvings. Likewise, we can see that the reasoning that involved in Sam’s argument. But to a keen mind—such origin of life is irrelevant does not prove the reality of as that of yours truly, myself!—it becomes obvious that the evolutionary view. the line of argument proposed by Sam has no logical validity.” What is the evolutionary view? Namely that the current diversity of life is explainable totally by means of natural Suzy looks puzzled and asks, “Well, Professor, don’t mechanisms, explicitly excluding supernatural and spir- keep us guessing! Tell us where the flaw lies.” itual effects, permitting solely those mechanisms already Alfred Meinstone leans back, looking immeasurably understood in the current framework of science. This pleased with himself. He tilts his head a bit to position would seem by definition to limit the progress of science himself more favorably for the camera. “The argument I to go no further than what is already known, an all too gave, that there could be no erosion, is still true. Howev- common attitude found down through the history of er, it is not the truth-value of the argument that is science, in the opposition to the heliocentric view, the relevant in this situation.” Suzy looked even more puz- opposition to Einstein's relativity, the reluctance by sci- zled. entists to accept heavier-than-air flight, and so forth. “The point is, that my argument dealt with the preserva- We also see that the focus on the preservation of the tion of the carving, not the creation of the carving. So, in carvings to the exclusion of the origin of the carvings fact, did the line of reasoning put forward by Bill. He reminds us of the evolutionary focus on the preservation argued that the carving could not have survived, per- of species, as Darwin put it in the title of his book, On the sisted, or have been preserved, so long as it has, and my Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, Or, response dealt with that.” The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.2 Suzy seemed to be beginning to understand. “Oh,” said Just as an analysis of the preservation of the carvings, Suzy, “so the question of the origin of the carvings is not disregarding their origin, is an incomplete analysis re- implicit in the question of their preservation?” garding the reality of those carvings, so likewise an analysis of the preservation of species of life, disregard- “Yes! You have it,” said the professor. “This is not a ing their origin, is an incomplete analysis regarding the question of origins, but a question of preservation. To reality of the diversity of life. The origin of life is a foun- help you understand—well, since you already seem to dational requirement for the reality of that life, which get this, to help the viewers understand, I will say this must exist in order to “be preserved” as Darwin implied, much: this is like the evolution debate. Evolution is not or to evolve, just as the carvings must exist in order to be the origin of life.” preserved. Suzy agreed. “Yes,” she said. “And the arguments that the origin of life from non-life could not have happened 2 Darwin C. (1859) On the Origin of Species by Means of are therefore irrelevant—I certainly get that, I under- Natural Selection; Or, The Preservation of Favoured Races in stood that long ago. Therefore the creationists’ the Struggle for Life. London. John Murray, Albemarle St. arguments for creation—about how impossible it is that Printed by W. Clowes and Sons also found at non-life produced life—are really irrelevant.” 2 To say that carvings must exist because they would not Likewise, it would be safe to say, based on: have eroded, ignores the question of their origin. We • consideration of the reality of the fact that life might find it humorous to think that people would ac- obviously does exist, cept the existence of the carvings on the basis of Professor Meinstone’s reasoning, while ignoring the • the fact that science supposedly exists for the question of their origin. The obvious reply to the profes- purpose of finding out the answers to such ques- sor is below: tions as how life came to be, “Professor, the issue is not whether an argument resides • that, to scientific mindsets, life seems to be vir- within the scope of the boundaries of one particular dis- tually crying out for explanation, exploration, cussion about the carvings on Pluto; rather the issue is and investigation, and finally the reality of the carvings on Pluto. To be real, carvings • that science has a characteristic, or at least a rep- need to have been carved; this is logical and ineluctably utation, of not being restricted by artificially leads to the question of the origin of the carvings. This imposed bounds on investigation, question of origins is therefore relevant to the issue of the reality of the carvings, and the question of whether it this topic of the origin of life and the question of abio- lies within the scope of one particular discussion about the genesis seems likely to be of extreme interest to many carvings is not relevant to the reality of the carvings, scientists. regardless of its relevance to that particular discussion. Arguably, this just may not be, but indeed most likely is, We must distinguish between the issue itself and a dia- of interest to all scientists, in the sense of the meaning of log about that issue.” “scientist” as one seeking to search and to explore the Likewise, the argument that evolution is not about the unknown in order to discover the truth of reality, while origin of life can be seen as a side issue, if the main issue seeking to not be unduly restricted nor hampered by is another one, namely, whether the species, genera, and artificially imposed bounds that are based in dogma, all types of living things we see in the world today could such as is exemplified by the attitude expressed in the possibly have arisen by natural means, without God. following statement, “We will not look through Galileo’s The question of abiogenesis is relevant to that issue, telescope because we already have our opinion.” whether or not abiogenesis is part of some discussion Some might say that abiogenesis is not evolution, that about some aspect of this hypothetical scenario of how the origin of life is a different theory or topic. I think of existing species and genera, etc. arose. Think about it, if the quote from Shakespeare: “What’s in a name? A rose we explain the origin of species by tracking them back to called by any other name would smell as sweet.” a predecessor species and stop there, have we explained Whether the question of whether the “origin of life” is the origin of species? This is admittedly a matter of se- evolution or not is mere semantics or a weightier issue, mantics with respect to the meaning of the word this fact remains: the origin of life from non-life is the “origins,” but to those who really want to know—to required foundational building-block assumption that is those of a scientific mindset—it would seem that there required in order for evolution to work, unless God is ought to be more of an answer than that for the question allowed into the picture. of whether natural mechanisms apart from God can ex- plain the life forms we see today as well as those we see For genes to be selected, there must first be genes. Ac- in the fossil record. cording to Dr. Paul Giem, assistant professor of emergency medicine at Loma Linda Universi- For an example, if we are tracing the origin of an ancient ty, materialism requires this explanation of how life 500 year old manuscript, and we find that someone arose from non-life.3,4 But what is materialism? Accord- bought the manuscript from someone else 5 years ago, ing to the Catholic Encyclopedia, have we explained its origins? Would we want to ex- plore further and try to go to the source? As the word itself signifies, Materialism is a philo- sophical system which regards matter as the only We can see that, whether or not the definition of the reality in the world, which undertakes to explain eve- scope of the argument or discussion limits that discus- ry event in the universe as resulting from the sion to the preservation of the carvings only, the actual reality (as opposed to an artificially imposed restriction on a discussion) is that there is another potential discus- sion, another topic of quite some interest, and another 3 Who’s Who in Creation/Evolution. will indeed be relevant. Accessed 2016 Feb 23 4 Giem P (2015 Mar 07) Eugene Koonin and the Origin of We can also see that, to most people, the issue of interest Life 3-7-2015 by Paul Giem, Second Look Seminars / would be the origin of those carvings of Shakespeare’s Faith and Science Sabbath School Class. Accessed 2016 Feb 23 3 conditions and activity of matter, and which thus de- Hoyle nies the existence of God and the soul.5 Sir Fred Hoyle is known for giving the Big Bang its So, must we accept the evolution of life as scientifically name, though he disagreed with it, and is also known as proven and ignore investigating the question of abio- the evolutionist that wrote the book titled The Mathe- genesis? Let us remember that abiogenesis, the ultimate matics of Evolution.9 origin of life from non-life, is a topic of interest to many, Let’s look at a quote from Hoyle: regardless of whether it is, or has been, part of some dis- cussion about other aspects related to the question of The trouble is that there are about two thousand en- how to explain the current diversity of life on this planet. zymes, and the chance of obtaining them all in a Abiogenesis is seemingly relevant to the following ques- random trial is only one part in (1020)2000 = 1040,000, tion, which takes cognizance of the aspect of materialism an outrageously small probability that could not be which is implicit in so many expressed opinions con- faced even if the whole universe consisted of organ- cerning evolution: ic soup. If one is not prejudiced either by social beliefs or by a scientific training into the conviction Can the diversity of life we see all around us be ex- that life originated on the Earth, this simple calcula- plained by natural mechanisms without supernatural tion wipes the idea entirely out of court.”10 intervention? What do these numbers mean? The estimated number of In the true spirit of exploring to find the truth, casting atoms in the universe is about 1080, and even 10130 is tril- aside blind adherence to dogma and arguments founded lions of trillions beyond that. 1040,000 is almost in semantics, we will now proceed to examine the possi- unimaginably vast beyond even this. bility of the origin of life from non-life. Rather than deal here with such an artificially imposed restriction on the Meyer scope of the discussion, let us look at the issue of inter- Stephen Meyer, former geophysicist and college profes- est. So how does evolution account for the origin of life? sor, is the author of Darwin’s Doubt and Signature in the Due to space considerations, we shall only briefly sum- Cell and director of the Discovery Institute’s Center for marize some evidence concerning abiogenesis. Science and Culture in Seattle. He wrote What do the experts say? …the probability of constructing a rather short functional protein at random becomes so small Darwin (no more than 1 chance in 10125) as to appear ab- Charles Darwin suggested that life evolved from a few surd on the chance hypothesis.11 created forms, or perhaps a single created form, of life: and There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several ... to have a reasonable chance of finding a short powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator functional protein in a random search of combinato- into a few forms or into one; ...6 rial space would require vastly more time than However, most evolutionists today seem to want to de- either cosmology or geology allows. ny a “divine foot in the door.”7 Yet more realistic calculations (taking into account Some have suggested that Darwin, even though he was the probable presence of nonproteineous amino ac- bold enough to propose a mechanism for transformation ids, the need for vastly longer functional proteins to from one form of life to another, realized that the origin perform specific functions such as polymerization, of life itself was even more unlikely to have unfolded via and the need for multiple proteins functioning in co- natural mechanisms.8 ordination) only compound these improbabilities— indeed, almost beyond computability. For example, recent theoretical and experimental work on the so-

5 called ”minimal complexity” required to sustain the Materialism, The Catholic Encyclopedia Accessed bound of some 250-400 genes and their correspond- 2016 Feb 15 6 ing proteins [62, 63, 64]. The nucleotide sequence Darwin C (1859) 490 7 Richard Lewontin . 9 Hoyle F. (1999) Mathematics of evolution. Subsequent Accessed 2016 Feb 23 edition. Acorn Enterprises Llc. 8 Tour JM. Layman’s reflections on evolution and crea- 10 Hoyle F, Wickramasinghe C. (1981) Evolution from tion. An insider’s view of the academy, discovery.org/articleFiles/PDFs/DNAPerspectives. Accessed 2016 Feb 27 pdf> Accessed 2016 Feb 23 4 space corresponding to such a system of proteins lyzed by ribozymes and which serves as the cradle exceeds 4300000.12 for the translation system. However, the RNA world faces its own hard problems as ribozyme-catalyzed Some have stated that the process for creating first life RNA replication remains a hypothesis and the selec- would not be totally random, which Meyer addresses. tive pressures behind the origin of translation remain He points out that efforts to describe mechanisms to re- mysterious. Eternal inflation offers a viable alterna- move the random chance element have problems, such tive that is untenable in a finite universe, i.e., that a as assuming the complex information that they are try- coupled system of translation and replication ing to explain and by reduction of information by emerged by chance, and became the breakthrough postulating deterministic mechanisms.13 stage from which biological evolution, centered Koonin around Darwinian selection, took off. 15 For the sake of space, let us conclude this section by Note that ”a coupled system of translation and replica- looking at a recent article from an acknowledged expert tion emerged by chance” is “untenable in a finite in the field of evolutionary and , universe.” Eugene Koonin. Koonin has studied bacterial genetics It is admitted that the probability of the appearance of and viral biochemistry at the Institutes of Poliomyelitis the required mechanisms for “virtually impossible” abi- and Microbiology at the USSR Academy of Medical Sci- ogenesis are “vanishingly small”: ences, has been a member of the editorial board of Trends in Genetics and also of , and has Thus, spontaneous emergence of complex systems researched the mathematical modeling of genome evolu- that would have to be considered virtually impossible tion.14 in a finite universe becomes not only possible but inevitable under MWO, even though the prior proba- Let us examine some comments made in his article: bilities of the vast majority of histories to occur in a ...for biological evolution that is governed, primarily, given O-region are vanishingly small. 15 by natural selection, to take off, efficient systems for To illustrate the numbers for just how untenable this is, replication and translation are required, but even he tells us: barebones cores of these systems appear to be products of extensive selection...15 In other words, even in this toy model that assumes a deliberately inflated rate of RNA production, the Replication and translation are two mechanisms Koonin probability that a coupled translation-replication describes as required for natural selection, but natural emerges by chance in a single O-region is selection seems to be necessary to produce them, which P < 10-1018.15 is obviously circular. The probability is less than 1 chance in 10 raised to the How does Koonin suggest getting around this seeming 1,018th power. To get a sense of the size of this, recall the impasse? estimated number of atoms in the universe—not just The model of eternal inflation implies that all macro- earth, but the entire universe—is on the order of 10 scopic histories permitted by laws of physics are raised to the 80th power. Ten to the 1,018th power is tril- repeated an infinite number of times in the infinite lions of times bigger and more. The chance calculated is multiverse. In contrast to the traditional cosmological a very small chance, to put it mildly, and that small models of a single, finite universe, this worldview chance was using artificially inflated numbers to make it provides for the origin of an infinite number of com- more likely. More realistic numbers would result in an plex systems by chance, even as the probability of even smaller chance of the origin, not of life, but of just complexity emerging in any given region of the mul- these coupled translation-replication mechanisms. tiverse is extremely low.15 Also, please note: this is the probability of getting repli- Koonin also points out: cation and translation only. Once that is done, you must multiply this by the improbability of taking those two The currently favored (partial) solution is an RNA building blocks up through single cells and on to species world without proteins in which replication is cata- that evolve. This is so improbable that the multiverse concept of an infinite number of universes is utilized to 12 Ibid., 17 increase the odds for abiogenesis. 13 Ibid., 1-44 14 Eugene Koonin. Accessed 2016 Feb 23 ogenesis is a mechanism that has been proven by the 15 Koonin EV (2007) The cosmological model of eternal genetics, biochemistry, microbiology and other related inflation and the transition from chance to biological sciences? Note this statement: evolution in the history of life. Biology Direct. 2007 May 31 Accessed 2016 Feb 23 logical system to start on the path of biological 5 evolution, a system of a far greater complexity, i.e., a highly evolved one, appears to be required. How such a system could evolve, is a puzzle that defeats conventional evolutionary thinking. 15 Thus, explaining abiogenesis “defeats conventional evo- lutionary thinking,” according to Koonin. The complexity and information inherent in the mechanisms required for life seem to require an intelligent designer. The conclusion seems to be that the evidence from ge- netics and mathematical probability calculations does not clearly provide proof that evolution has occurred.

COMING EVENTS Thursday, March 10, 7:00 pm, Providence Baptist Church, 6339 Glenwood Ave., Raleigh, Room 207 Note the change of the room. We will watch the video: Grand Canyon - The Puzzle on the Plateau. The Grand Canyon is one of the most breathtaking sites in the world. First time visitors often stare, spellbound.…“How did this happen?!” Standard geological interpretations (that always involve millions of years) cannot explain many of the strange features and anomalies. On the other hand, creationists have of- ten assumed that receding flood waters formed the canyon. This view includes its own set of problems that cannot be explained. So, like a great, intriguing mystery, the canyon has been quietly guarding its secrets.

Ken Ham, Answers In Genesis Conference, March 13-14, 2016, Colonial Baptist Church, 6051 Tryon Rd, Cary

Colonial Baptist Church is pleased to welcome Ken Ham, President of Answers In Genesis, with special guest Buddy Davis for a two-day conference. This event will challenge you to think biblically, teach you how to defend your faith, and help you point people to the Ark of Salvation, Jesus Christ. The entire conference is free and open to the public. No registration is required. For more Information, go to: https://www.colonial.org/default.aspx?page=3664

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