Another Headache for Darwin

In 2008 scientist Vladimir ShCherbak published information his book “The Codes of Life” with a chapter entitled “The Arithmetical Origin of the Genetic Code”.  (Biosemiotics Volume 1, 2008, pp 153-185 – http://www.springerlink.com/content/t85w0h771510j187)

The discoveries covered in this are yet another wonderful refutation of Darwinism.
Of course, we know beforehand that the Darwinians will deny these clear implications, as they always do when any discovery challenges their secular humanism (a religion) based theory.  That’s because Darwinism is materialism’s origins myth.
For example shCherbak writes,

“There seems to be but one conclusion: the genetic code is itself a unique structure of arithmetical syntax. The arithmetical syntax is separated from natural events by the unbridgeable gap between the fundamental laws of nature and the abstract codes of the human mind (Barbieri, 2005). Chemical evolution, no matter how long it took, could not possibly have stumbled on the arithmetical language and initialized the decimalization of the genetic code. Physics and chemistry can neither make such abstractions nor fit the genetic code out with them.”
“The zero is the supreme abstraction of arithmetic. Its use by any alphabet, including the genetic code, can be an indicator of artificiality.”

“First, a general and the most forcible argument: it has been found that the genetic code is governed directly by the arithmetical symbol of zero. This striking fact is verified simultaneously by several independent orderlinesses – logical, arithmetical, and semantical… Incidentally, such an acting zero alone might be sufficient to assume an artificial nature of the genetic code.”

Zero is indeed and abstraction, as is the decimal point.  Only minds can entertain abstractions. Nature, being mindless, cannot therefore create or use abstract data like this. Abstractions don’t exist in nature’s matter and energy.
Indeed, the very definition of the word abstract is as follows:

1. thought of apart from concrete realities, specific objects, or actual instances: an abstract idea.
2. expressing a quality or characteristic apart from any specific object or instance, as justice, poverty,  and speed.
3. theoretical; not applied or practical: abstract science.
4. difficult to understand; abstruse: abstract speculations.
…
8. an idea or term considered apart from some material basis or object.
9. an abstract work of art.

Note: removed unrelated definitions (related to arts)

Abstractions are only and always conceptual, requiring a mind.  Thus Nature, DNA and life as a whole, cannot know or understand abstract concepts like zero and the decimal point.  Matter and energy alone cannot abstract.

The very obvious conclusion of the existence of abstraction being used in the genetic code is a proof – not a mere evidence – that the genetic code was created by a mind, and intelligence.
ShCherbak states this very clearly in his statement- that I repeat for emphasis, “Incidentally, such an acting zero alone might be sufficient to assume an artificial nature of the genetic code.“
An “artificial origin” is the same as “intelligently designed”.
There is no other source for abstraction but mind and only mind can understand it.

Is this thus the end of Darwinism?

Well the truth is that Darwinism died many years ago with the discovery of the genetic code itself.  How so? Code is a symbol system.  Codes do not write themselves. Codes are conventions of symbols contrived to represent something other than themselves.  Algorithms cannot create themselves. No random process can create algorithmic symbol systems. Algorithms, being instructions and how to do something – like make a blueberry pie or build car -  require a mind.
As Dr. David Abel explains,

“Not even Descriptive semantic information is achievable by inanimate physicodynamics (Pattee, 1972, 1995, 2001). Measuring initial conditions in any experiment and plugging those measurements appropriately into equations (e.g., physical “laws”) is formal, not physical. Cybernetic programming choices and mathematical manipulations are also formal.
The specific term PI originated out of a need to qualify the kind of information being addressed in peer-reviewed scientific literature. Shannon measured only probabilistic combinatorial uncertainty. Uncertainty is not information. It is widely recognized that even reduced uncertainty (“R,” poorly termed “mutual entropy”) fails to adequately describe and measure intuitive information. Intuitive information entails syntax, semantics and pragmatics. Syntax deals with symbol sequence, various symbol associations, and related arbitrary rules of grouping. Semantics deals with the meanings represented within any symbol system. Pragmatics addresses the formal function of messages conveyed using that symbol system.” – http://www.scitopics.com/Prescriptive_Information_PI.html

More information and several articles one should read to grasp the concepts discussed can be found here.
Again Abel notes,

“No one has ever observed PI flow in reverse direction from inanimate physicodynamics to the formal side of the ravine—the land of bona fide formal pragmatic “control.” The GS Principle states that selection for potential function must occur at the molecular-genetic level of nucleotide selection and sequencing, prior to organismic existence (Abel, 2009b, d).
Differential survival/reproduction of already-programmed living organisms (natural selection) is not sufficient to explain molecular evolution or life-origin (Abel, 2009b). Life must be organized into existence and managed by prescriptive information found in both genetic and epigenetic regulatory mechanisms. The environment possesses no ability to program linear, digital folding instructions into the primary structure of biosequences and biomessages.
The environment also provides no ability to generate Hamming block codes (e.g. triplet codons that preclude noise pollution through a 3-to-1 symbol representation of each amino acid) (Abel and Trevors, 2006a, 2007). The environment cannot decode or translate from one arbitrary language into another. The codon table is arbitrary and physicodynamically indeterminate. No physicochemical connection exists between resortable nucleotides, groups of nucleotides, and the amino acid that each triplet codon represents. Although instantiated into a material symbol system, the prescriptive information of genetic and epigenetic control is fundamentally formal, not physical.”

What he is saying, for those not used to the terms of reference and concepts of the laws and nature of information, is that Darwinism cannot be true because matter + energy, random mutations + “selection” (a mere filter) cannot create abstractions like codes and symbol systems.  It just doesn’t happen. No more than your rose bush can do arithmetic.  Math is abstract in itself, nature knows nothing out it.

Therefore this arithmetical nature of the genetic code, with its zero and decimal, its algorithmic information, cannot be natural. This is a defeater for Darwinian evolution – period.

The current generation of elder Darwinian fanatics will never accept these obvious facts, it counters their whole world view and makes them nervous and insecure.  That’s why the Darwinistas are so enraged, utterly out to lunch, LOUD and adamantly resistant.  They are the new inquisition. It’s about religion for them, not science, whether they confess this “sin” or not.

This was revealed by one of their own, who at least was honest enough to admit it. Richard Lewontin,

“We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.  It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated.  Moreover the materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”
‘Scientists, like others, sometimes tell deliberate lies, because they believe that small lies can serve big truths.’ – Lewontin, R.C., The Inferiority Complex, New York Review of Books, 22 October 1981, p. 13.

Well we can take his word for it, right? Well um … if you can trust a scientist that tells you that he lies!   This is nevertheless a very strange statement. He says the materialism is absolute, and we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. But atheism has no absolutes!

The Darwinists only logical response to this is to claim panspermia, an extra-terrestrial origin for DNA.  But that only pushes the problem back one step, for then we need to ask, “How did they get here?” Now, supposing that the ETs themselves are DNA based will only leave us with the same question of the origin of life.

It will of course take a long time before these perfectly logical conclusions are accepted – perhaps the next generation of students of biology and other related domains will accept the truth. We’ll have to wait till this generation dies off.

On the Problem of Evil & Suffering

Atheists often argue against the existence of God, and specifically an almighty and good God on the basis of the existence of evil and suffering in the universe.   The argument goes something like this:
God is all-powerful, loving, and perfect.

A perfect, good God would create a universe that was perfect (e.g., no evil and suffering).
The universe is not perfect but contains evil and suffering.
Therefore, God does not exist.

So in short, either God is not good, or not all-powerful or he does not exist, because if he did exist then surely he could stop all the suffering. The atheist then concludes that both the idea of a bad God and idea of a limited God makes no sense, therefore God must not exist. Variations on this ages old theme exist but that is the gist of it.

So how does one answer this type of objection?

Most apologists go into lengthy arguments concerning why a good and almighty God could and does allow evil & suffering in the world.  They will usually get into the biblical fall of Lucifer and of man to explain how such evils and sufferings came to be.

Forget all that for now. There is a much simpler way to demonstrate why this argument is utterly flawed.
First you must see that in a universe with no God, there cannot be any absolute moral values. Most atheists admit this. For example:

"Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3)no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent." -William B. Provine, atheist professor of biology at Cornell University

"In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, and other people are going to get lucky; and you won’t find any rhyme or reason to it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is at the bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good. Nothing but blind pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is, and we dance to its music."Richard Dawkins, --Out of Eden, page 133

"If there is no God, everything is permitted." - Jean Paul Sartre on Ivan Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevski's character

"Morality is no more … than an adaptation, and as such has the same status as such things as teeth and eyes and noses. . . . [M]orality is a creation of the genes". - Michael Ruse

"Nature has no concern for good or bad, right or wrong. . . . We cannot get behind ethics." - Naturalist Simon Blackburn

Evolutionary biologist E. O. Wilson said that morality is just a survival mechanism. Ethics, he claims,

"is an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes to get us to cooperate," and "the way our biology enforces its ends is by making us think that there is an objective higher code to which we are all subject."

Now how does one refute the atheist argument against God based on evil & suffering?

Easy, since without God, there is no good or evil. The atheist high priests, quoted above say so.

The atheist thus shoots himself in the head again with such arguing against God based on "there is so much evil".  For such an argument becomes too obviously wrong given that "no God = no evil", (as most atheist philosophers themselves state).

Suffering becomes a mere amoral, purposeless event in a cold uncaring cosmos. Or as Dawkins put it, a blind, pitiless, indifferent universe. Suffering but without God suffering is neither evil nor good nor "bad". Thus we see how the atheist in using the existence of evil and suffering to refute the existence of God is unwittingly assuming the existence of God in the very argument itself!

Therefore, how can one claim God doesn't exist while admitting the existence of evil? If there is no God how does one define evil?  Indeed, how does one claim that suffering is "wrong" in a universe without God?
One might even state,

"Evil exists.  Therefore God exists."

The fact that all men everywhere and at all times have recognized the existence of evil, demonstrates the existence of a transcendent moral law, else, evil does not exist. Things simply are what they are - neither right nor wrong; neither evil or good.

Without an absolute law giver, there can be no such thing as evil or good and since atheists, as shown above, really do admit that without God there is no real good or evil, how can they then contradict themselves by claiming God doesn't exist based on it?!

Thus the atheists show a rather amazing lack of perception, as always.  But in this case it is a lack of perception of their own arguments logical implications and flaws! To argue against God based on the existence of evil is to argue for God based on the existence of moral right and wrong! So when atheists use the old "problem of pain and evil" argument they are unwittingly admitting of a transcendent Law that defines evil by the existence of absolute good - which is the ONLY way evil can be defined!
C.S. Lewis wrote,

"Truth and falsehood are opposed; but truth is the norm not of truth only but of falsehood also."
–The Allegory of Love

Indeed, without God (ultimate truth) there is no reason to call anything at all "evil".

Thus the whole "evil and suffering" based argument falls apart under its own underlying assumptions! Thus, this argument actually does more to uphold the existence of God than it can ever do to refute it!
Sadly, atheists do not and will not see this, such is the hardness of their hearts (and heads).

No Evidence for God?

I often encounter atheists who claim that there is no evidence for God.

Question: Is this true?

A: The most obvious answer is a quite resounding no.

No one can claim there is no evidence in the universe for the existence of a supreme being.  Yet, arm chair atheist pseudo-experts and wannabe philosophers say dumb things like that all the time because they never think anything through deeply enough to see how foolish such statement is.

Proof? Ask them to prove there is no evidence for God.  Gee - End of discussion right there - if they were honest, but they are not.

What has been said of lawyers easily applies to atheists - its only 99% of atheists that give a bad reputation to the rest.

It is simply not - by any means - a logical or justifiable claim.   Why?  Well obviously no atheist can possibly offer any evidence for his own claim!  He can't offer any justification for such a stupendous claim, therefore he must bare alone the burden of proof that there is no evidence for God.  Can he? No, of course not.

The atheist positing such thus puts himself in the exact same position that he claims theists are in! Claiming that which cannot be proved.  This is hardly surprising since atheists also vehemently and religiously claim there is no God all while admitting they can't prove a negative!

His position implies that he has indeed searched out and deeply examined all proposed evidences of God and found them all lacking.   Of course there are no atheists who can even be aware of all the evidences that may exist for God, nor even of all proposed evidences since this would require a knowledge of every argument for God that has ever existed as well as all possible other evidences. Yet another knowledge claim that atheists cannot uphold.

To truly know there is zero evidence for God's existence implies that the atheist claiming this knows all possible evidences for God's existence.   No single human being ever has, nor ever will, be able to do this, thus all such flippant dismissals of all evidence for God are mere arrogant pretensions to unavailable knowledge.

That in itself destroys all claims by any atheists that there is no evidence for God.  It also demonstrates what every theist knows - that atheists are almost invariably arrogant blowhards making foolish claims they cannot back up.

Dismissal of all evidence is not an argument against God.  It is mere denial of reality that there are indeed infinite evidences for the existence of a first cause.  Claiming there's no evidence for God is tantamount to claiming to have proved that all proposed evidences, ever,  are wrong.  This has never been done by anyone, ever.

Moreover, claiming that any proposed evidence is wrong or insufficient does not prove that it is in fact wrong or insufficient.   Worse, even if one were able to truly refute all proposed evidence, that still does not imply that there is no God.  There may be other evidences that one is unaware of, the wrong analysis tools and methods may have been used for devising evidence, etc.

Atheist Kai Nielsen stated,

“To show that an argument is invalid or unsound is not to show that the conclusion of the argument is false….All the proofs of God’s existence may fail, but it still may be the case that God exists.” - Reason and Practice (New York: Harper & Row, 1971), 143-44.

The atheist, though he will always deny it, because of personal wishes that there be no God, is always left with nothing to found his own beliefs on.  What do we see instead?  Nothing but denial and lame attempts at shirking his share of the burden of proof.  Atheists always shirk this by mere caviling and, as always,  denial that they even have any such burden. But they do have such a burden anyway - shirked or not, admitted or not.

Atheists tend to assume that if one has no evidence for God’s existence, then one ought to believe that God does not exist.  False.  What the atheist fails to see is that atheism is just as much a knowledge claim "There is no God" as theism's "There is a God".  Thus, as Ravi Zacharias states,

"the atheist’s denial of God’s existence needs just as much substantiation as does the theist’s claim; the atheist must give plausible reasons for rejecting God’s existence".

The atheist cannot say, "Well I don't claim there is no God, only that I don't believe there is".  But such would lead to agnosticism, not real atheism.  If one does not know there is no God, one has no grounds to believe there is no God, no ultimate first cause. Back to burden of proof!  Is there evidence that no God exists? No.  None whatsoever.

Is there evidence of a first ultimate cause? Yes, everything that exists is evidence of a first and ultimate cause, by implication of the laws of cause and effect! (Quantum theories notwithstanding).  To say a singularity started it all, or a quantum fluctuation started it all is to say "we have no idea what started it all"!  Fluctuation of what? etc.

Consider the following evidence, for example:

Information is evidence of God.  Information itself is metaphysical.  Logic is metaphysical.  Now, if metaphysical things exist then that itself is yet another evidence for the possibility and probability of the existence of God, who, by very definition, is metaphysical!  But atheists claim there is no such thing as a "metaphysical" something.  All is matter and energy.

Thus atheism is little different than insanity, for claiming that nothing metaphysical exists is as bad as claiming that information doesn't exist! So where does the atheist get this tasty bit of information?!

We know information is metaphysical because it is always other or different from the medium in which it is stored. The ink on the paper in a book, by itself is not information.  It's just a dye.  Ink on paper, by the way it's used and structured to form symbols that, in turn, represent specific concepts and meanings, is merely the container, the medium through which information is conveyed. All symbol systems imply metaphysics and intelligence.  The collective symbols, by the way they are organized on the paper can contain meaningful information, to a mind that knows the symbolic convention, or code, used.

Again, the pixels on your screen are not the information they contain.  They are mere colored light spots. However, the pixels encode information that requires a mind - a mind that has been taught the symbol convention used (say the alphabet or icons) - to interpret it. That information is not random - it isn't a meaningless blotch - but is structured and semantic.  It has syntax, semantics (meaning) and purpose.  No symbolic convention (code) is without purpose. But the very concept of purpose implies intention which implies mind and volition.

Encoded algorithmic information is a symbol system, whether that symbol system be such as the English or Hebrew alphabets or the ATCG chemicals of DNA.  Such symbol systems cannot exist without intelligence (they intrinsically imply intelligent origin) thereby demonstrating that metaphysical intelligence must exist in order to explain the humongous levels of algorithmic information contained in the DNA molecule.

That intelligence - given its complexity, depth and intricacy - is best and most simply (Occam's Razor) explained by what men have always called "God".  The Intelligent originator.

Encoded information

Encoded information

 

Of Invisible Pink Unicorns

How many times have I encountered the atheist standard argument about not believing in invisible pink unicorns and thus not believing in God either?  Variations on the theme are leprechauns, ice cream factories on some other planet and the truly inane flying spaghetti monster (FSM) and  such.  Have you met up with one of these arguments against theism or deism?  I see it all the time.
These are nothing more than popular variations of B. Russell’s famous “Tea Pot” argument. This argument is only famous because Russell was famous.  For, it has no real validity.  Russell argued that he could assert that there was a tea pot floating in space somewhere,  so small that no telescope could detect it.  And given this assertion, no one would be required to believe in the tea pot, because there is no real evidence, just assertion.  The tea pot cannot be proved not to exist.

Typical of the logical positivists.  Logical positivism – a misnomer because there was anything either logical or positive about it – a philosophical system now bankrupt, now defunct and lying in ruins because it was void of reason but full of bare assertions and hot air.

The argument is devised to show that if a thing can’t be proved or disproved to exist, then the burden of proof belongs to asserting its existence.  Therefore since – according to atheists – God can neither be proved nor disproved to exist, the theists, who assert his existence, must prove it.  Since the atheist assumes the existence of God cannot be proved he believes himself to be thinking logically and the theist to be unreasonable or even irrational.  We see this type of position posited everywhere across cyberspace as though it were some fatal blow to theism.  It isn’t.  Not even close.

The tea pot in space argument is flawed.  Curiously, atheists never figure this out and still flaunt it over and over again, ad nauseum.  I’ve was once challenged to produce a refutation, and the challenge was stated in terms indicating that the challenger believed the argument irrefutable – even though its been refuted many times.

What they’re really doing is trying – as always – to squirm their way out of having any burden of proof of their own in asserting the non existence of God.  Whenever atheists do this, it’s mere escapism and denial.  For, to pretend they have no burden of proof is tantamount to saying they have no position, that – once again – atheism were a mere involuntary state of “lack of belief”.   This has been refuted here, here and here as well as many other places across the web.

Now for the IPU argument itself.
As Dinesh D’Souza has aptly pointed out, there are no books called “Unicorns Are Not Great”, or “The Unicorn Delusion”. Nor are there any books around called “The Flying Spaghetti Monster Delusion”, the FSM being yet another example of just how dumb atheists have become in their never ceasing efforts to show themselves inapt in reason and logic. They never see it though.
So how does one dismiss the invisible pink unicorn argument, specifically?  I respond with Rich Deem’s simple refutation:

Unicorns would be pink if they reflected pink electromagnetic radiation (i.e., light). However, in order to be invisible, the unicorns would reflect no electromagnetic radiation. Therefore, the term “invisible pink unicorn” is self contradictory. Therefore, we know absolutely that they could not exist. I don’t know who invented the term “invisible pink unicorns,” but they were obviously deficient in their physics education.

You can read the whole argument here.
So as you see, the IPU “argument” is so deeply stupid it doesn’t even qualify as an real argument.  Now, given just how easily the IPU argument is shown to be just plain dumb, unscientific and unthinking, you would think atheists would get smart and try to find something that could at least qualify as reasonable.  Do they? Well no, not really.

Russell’s tea pot argument is just as easily refuted.  Several refutations can be proposed and William L. Craig has given a few.

But just for fun consider:  tea pots are uniquely human artifacts.  Therefore, the only possible way there could be a tea pot floating around the moon, sun etc. would be that some humanly fabricated tea pot escaped from some also humanly fabricated space ship, or, that some crazy person on earth sent one into space on a launch platform capable of sending its payload right out of earth’s magnetic field.

Is that possible? Of course something like that could be done.  So, there may very well be a tea pot orbiting Earth for all we know.  But do we have any historical records from NASA, the Russians or whoever, of a tea pot having escaped from some space mission? Well gee, I don’t think so.  But this isn’t really the point.
The point being that such arguments generally commit two logical fallacies, i.e. a fallacy of equivocation and a category error.

Again, the same reasoning applies to FSM’s or anything else the ill-thinking atheist may dream up to escape the wholly logical God inference.

Now,  back to the more important reasons to dismiss all such “tea pot” arguments.  They are category errors. They are fallacies of equivocation when used as comparisons to the inference of the existence of a supreme being logic.  Comparing the belief  in a tea pot orbiting a planet, to the logical inference based belief in the existence of a first and sufficient cause for the existence of the universe, is utterly hilarious.  If only it weren’t so seriously posited by unthinking atheists – obviously trying to escape their own burden of proof.

Moreover, if they have no burden of proof it could only be if atheism were not a metaphysical position at all, but a mere involuntary state of mind.  But the fact that they are everywhere stating their position and fervently arguing for it shows that they do indeed hold the “no god” stance as a metaphysical position, a chosen belief – not a bare lack thereof!

Atheists prove their religious devotion to their world view, their metaphysics, by writing so many books, debating everywhere and by infesting web forums ever trying to refute the existence of God – and never ever succeeding! Religious fervor is the only appropriate label to put on such behavior. Yet,  all while they’ll still vehemently deny it.  Denial of reality is atheism’s most glaring trait.

Atheists admit they cannot prove that there is no God.  So what does that imply? Just this, that atheism is a position that can only be held by blind faith.  Since no proof of their position exists, blind faith in that position is the only thing left.

Curiously the atheist always accuses the theist of this very thing! The theist however knows that all things can used as a starting point towards the First Cause inference and yet nothing at all can be used to the contrary!
A supreme being’s existence is logically inferred by the very existence of the universe itself.  How so?  Well, we know the universe is not eternal – it has an age.  This is not hard.  We also know it doesn’t oscillate eternally – Fred Hoyle’s hopeful hypothesis – that he was forced to abandon due to the evidence against it.

This of course implies that something made it, and that whatever made it necessarily exists apart from it.
We know too that it cannot have created itself.  Something creating itself from from nothing?  The very idea is preposterous – except to blind atheism’s terrible reasoning.  You see – “nothing” doesn’t exist.  Nothing, as non-existence, cannot be said to have properties, energy, matter, law.  So the more recent nonsense arguments of “quantum fluctuations” in some speculative void, are still “fluctuations of nothing” – i.e.  more logical absurdity.

So where do all these glaring anomaly’s leave the poor atheist? In a logic void.  Atheism, as C.S Lewis so aptly states, “turns out to be too simple.  If the universe has no meaning we should never have discovered it has no meaning”.  Thus the arguments (tea pots, IPUs, FSMs etc.) that the new atheist is so proud of verbalizing turn out to be lame-brained nonsense as soon as the light of reason and logic is applied to them properly.

The atheist is thus left in a philosophical no mans land because taking his arguments to their logical conclusions always leads to absurdity, or else a kind of metaphysical free-for-all, in which nothing can be proved.  But if nothing can be proved, then we have no reason to believe in ourselves.