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| Also listed in: Campus Progress Blog |
Former game-show host, somewhat unenthusiastic Campus Progress conference promoter, and public intellectual Ben Stein recently came out in favor of intelligent design (or some similar cocktail of science and creationism), narrating a documentary on what he deems the "supression and entrenched discrimination" against creationist ideas in the sciences. Like other proponents of the idea, he attempts to explain its failure to persuade scientists and educators as the product of an unfairly-fought campaign by a handful of Dawkins fans, and not deficiencies in the "theory" itself.
Judging at least from Stein's first blog post, his argument is the typical one. He conveniently ignores the fact that, while the theory of evolution has centuries of empirical support, intelligent design is fundamentally un-provable. Instead, and like many pundits before him, he seeks to reframe the debate by pointing to a few instances of dubious judgment on the part of the scientific mainstream, which, he argues, is actively suppressing a modern-day "Einstein or a Newton or a Galileo" who "would probably not be allowed to receive grants to study or to publish his research":
Under a new anti-religious dogmatism, scientists and educators are not allowed to even think thoughts that involve an intelligent creator. Do you realize that some of the leading lights of “anti-intelligent design” would not allow a scientist who merely believed in the possibility of an intelligent designer/creator to work for him… EVEN IF HE NEVER MENTIONED the possibility of intelligent design in the universe?EVEN FOR HIS VERY THOUGHTS… HE WOULD BE BANNED.
If this leaves you wondering how scientists have discovered the art of mind-reading without us catching on, I guess you'll just have to see the movie when it comes out in February.
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Am I crazy, or is a stream of semi-plausible crap to sell the gullible public exactly what the creationist crowd needs? They've got to know by now that there's no chance that anyone with a remote understanding of the Scientific Method is going to buy their spiel, so they ought to start just mass producing their crap and surrender any premise of scientific legitimacy in favor of, well, the pretense of legitimacy.
In speculating about evolution, the famous Sir Fred Hoyle once made a calculation. He calculated that the probability of a single cell forming even in the time of 4.6 billion years was 10^39982 to 1. This was checked and supported by mathematician and Nobel Prize winner Francis Crick.
The fallacy is that Hoyle and creationists always assume that for life to form, complex proteins that follow a "modern" sequencing pattern are required for any life to form. Of course a creationist would leave out the possibility of simple, primative proteins that certainly existed when the earth first formed but have evolved out of existance by now. Creationists are also dreadful at math, failing to understand that in any one trial or experiment, an event is unlikely, but with billions of simultaneous trials running at once, the probability becomes an almost certainty.
In that respect, if you were to run the wristwatch in a box experiement an infinate number of times, you'd eventually make a wristwatch.
Calling something a "fallacy" is merely an assertion. Proving an argument invalid is something entirely different.
"Of course a creationist would leave out the possibility of simple, primative proteins that certainly existed when the earth first formed but have evolved out of existance by now."
Well, if they don't exist and there is no evidence that they ever existed, I guess you're still free to believe they existed, but you should be aware that this is a matter of faith on your part, not evidence.
"Creationists are also dreadful at math, failing to understand that in any one trial or experiment, an event is unlikely, but with billions of simultaneous trials running at once, the probability becomes an almost certainty"
I assume someone as apparently knowledgeble about math as yourself knows that 1/10^50 is commonly accepted as the level of absolute impossibility, the odds of a single very small protein (the non-existent ones you talk about)assembling itself is in the range of 1/10^150), let alone complex proteins or a DNA chain.
"if you were to run the wristwatch in a box experiement an infinate number of times, you'd eventually make a wristwatch."
Yeah, sure. Whatever "infinite number of times" means. And of course a forest of pulp trees would eventually form itself into books and spontaneously produce the Encyclopedia Brittanica. Your blind faith in Darwinism is commendable, but my advice to you is don't seek out any sort of career where a questioning mind is required. I'm sure it would make you very uncomfortable.
Just sayin'.
Congratulations, Terry, you just described creationism--er, "Intelligent Design." You're free to believe it all you want, but it's purely a matter of faith, and science deals in actual evidence. As such, creationism is not science. Simple.
Hoyle originally said (The Intelligent Universe, 1983)
"Life as we know it is, among other things, dependent on at least 2000 different enzymes. How could the blind forces of the primal sea manage to put together the correct chemical elements to build enzymes?"
He then calculated the mathematical probability of that happening, arriving at the figure of 1 chance in 10 to the 40,000 power. (This, by the way, is an enormous number, and means that if Hoyle is correct in his calculations, that the abiogenesis of life is in effect, impossible, and Darwinists are the greatest "Faith" believers among us).
You can even look up an entry for "Hoyle's Fallacy" in wikipedia, which quotes Ian Musgrave. Unfortunately, neither the person making the entry, nor Musgrave, accurately dealt with the probabilities here (hey, who said Biologists made great mathematicians?)
This is from the wikipedia entry:
As Ian Musgrave explains in Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics, and Probability of Abiogenesis Calculations:
These people, including Fred [Hoyle], have committed one or more of the following errors.
1. They calculate the probability of the formation of a "modern" protein, or even a complete bacterium with all "modern" proteins, by random events. This is not the abiogenesis theory at all.
2. They assume that there is a fixed number of proteins, with fixed sequences for each protein, that are required for life.
3. They calculate the probability of sequential trials, rather than simultaneous trials.
4. They misunderstand what is meant by a probability calculation.
5. They seriously underestimate the number of functional enzymes/ribozymes present in a group of random sequences.
The first two assertions that Musgrave makes are easily dealt with - Hoyle was calculating ALL the known enzymes, and the possiblity that the current TOTAL sum of enzymes could have assembled by chance.
Assertion #5 also doesn't apply, since Hoyle is calculating the development of ALL functional enzymes (and so cannot have "seriously underestimated the number of functional enzymes).
Assertion #3 is a bit trickier: how do we calculate simultaneous trials, not sequential trials. Hoyle probably factored that into his calculations, but let's assume he didn't and adjust the number. How?
We don't know the total numbers of trials, but it has to be less than the total number of particles in the universe, which is 10 to the 80th. So let's be generous, and assume there were 10 to the 80th trials. How many simultaneous trials would that allow? Again, assume each chemical reaction takes 1 second, although it would be much longer. Or better yet, to give all the benefits of the doubt to darwinists and make the numbers easy to calculate, let's assume 100 trials per second. What is the age of the Universe in seconds? About 4 x 10 to the 17th power. How about again giving the advantage to the darwinist and assuming a higher number, 10 to the 18th power (and ignore the obvious fact that no such chemical reactions to try to get enzymes could have taken place for the first 2/3 of the age of the universe).
That would allow for 10 to the 20th time sequences for trials at 100 trials per second, and to correct the "error" of sequential trials versus simultaneous, assume every particle in the universe was a potential chemical experiment for enzyme production. That allows 10 to the 20th (time for trials) x 10 to the 80th (maximum number of simultaneous chemical reactions), or 10 to the 100th total simultaneous trials.
That means "correcting" for "Hoyle's Fallacy" would mean multiplying his odds, 1 in 10 to the 40,000 by 10 to the 100. So his "corrected" probability would now be 1 in 10 to the 39,900th power that all the enzymes in the world (and hence, life) happened by "Chance."
If you've followed through my calculations to this point, then you will agree with me we've also effectively answered Musgrave's 4th point:
4. They misunderstand what is meant by a probability calculation.
And it is obvious that in reality it is the darwinists who don't understand what is meant by a probability calculation.
You could certainly still assert that it's possible for life to originate by chance, but I would then respond that you, like almost all biologists, don't really understand mathematics. And you have a far greater level of faith than any religious person I know.
And a final thought from Thomas Jefferson:
"We are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate error, so long as reason is left free to combat it."
"what is the probability of an "intelligent" design existing?
Whether or not "intelligent design' or 'intelligent designer"
is a political surrogate for "god", then ask, did (it)
come from something else or did (it) invent itself before
(it) invented the design or designer.
Sleep on it. A good cure for insomnia.