Reveals a Universe Without Design by Richard Dawkins
I ask anyone to conduct a simple experiment. Go into your kitchen, take everything out of the drawers, mix it all up, and set it out on the tables, countertops and floor. Stand back and observe this "mess". Now wait for it to re-arrange itself and clean itself up. Keep waiting. Wait some more. Give up? There is no amount of time that can pass which will result in the disorder arranging itself into order. It will only "get cleaned up" when someone decides to clean it up and then cleans it up. Thought precedes mechanics - always. This is a very "small" example analogous to the problem with the naturalistic view. Simply, things don't happen unless "someone" intends and/or causes them to happen. Realize this doesn't necessarily mean there is a God. It simply means there is more going on than most of us currently understand. Things happen because something causes them to happen, and this is true everywhere we look in our experience. There is no reason for this empirical fact to suddenly become untrue as regards the formation and development of the universe and life. Too often the purpose behind the rantings of evolution and naturalistic scientists seems to be more to discredit the nothing of God or any invisible causes (i.e. spiritual factors) than to prove their own theory. In other words, they are not trying to prove something "true" so much as they are trying to prove something else "not true" (i.e. religion, God, spirits, invisible causes, etc.) They seem to just "hate" those ideas! And in a very real sense all their subsequent logic, theories, and "proofs" serve more to justify and explain their rigid ideological slant against anything spiritual than to actually "discover truth". Read this book with this in mind. This book is an excellent example of the naturalistic explanation of reality - of their poor observational ability, intellectual bias, and ideological slant which masquerades as "science" - but is no such thing. Read the reviews below for more on the problems with Dawkin's "science". And read the book to learn how to spot this sort of pseudo-science when you encounter it. Synopsis
Customer Comments WFSAR@aol.com from Los Angeles,
California, November 9, 1999
The book is verbose, not much new ground was covered in it either. But the weakest point of the book and what I believe is the weakest point of evolution is the argument that there was plenty of time for evolution to have happened. Come on people lets do a little math. If the universe is 17 billion years old that leaves us only 10(18) (10 to the 18th power) seconds in the entire life span of the universe not just our earth. Then lets take the amount of atoms in the whole universe 1066 (10 to the 66th power) and let’s PRETEND each single atom were converted into the building blocks of life (amino acids and nucleotides). We will then try to assemble these blocks once every Nanosecond (10-9 seconds) the number of chances from the beginning of the universe to present would only be 10(1716). And remember I’ve vastly tilted the scales in favor of evolution. Each atom is now a building block of life, we begin counting at the start of the universe while it is to hot to even have these elements in it, and we are using nanoseconds and still we only have 10(1716) chance to build a simple cell! The clincher is this, years ago, molecular biologist Harold Morowitz calculated the odds of reassembling a simple cell if you were to break every chemical bond in it. Under ideal conditions his calculations were that to reassemble this one simple cell would be one chance in 10(100,000,000,000). Actually the odds are a whole lot worse. Morowitz assumed the presence of only bioactive building blocks, only twenty of the more than eighty naturally occurring amino acids, and he used only constructive chemical process in his algorithms. I hate to break it to you boys, but as you can see we simply don’t have enough time to even construct a simple cell using naturalistic evolution as our course. There are others answers though and the diligent seeker will find them out. Good luck to all! PS in physics we define a impossibility of anything that is => 10(50) (10 to the 50th power). archomai@rocketmail.com
from U.S.A., November 9, 1999
A simple question for Dr. Dawkins, who actually believes in spontaneous generation. Sir, “The Empirical Science of the CELL:” 1. All living things are composed of one or more cells. 2. The cell is the basic unit of structure and function of all living things. 3. Cells only come from other existing cells. Now Dr. Dawkins, please explain me how evolutionism can account for cell theory. Please respond to the following: You need to explain how we get the information system (DNA) and the language system of the DNA code to interpret it.. How do you get the first DNA information and how does it increase from the so-called (unproven and imaginary) 'proto-cell' to human? Please explains this using real empirical science! A reader, November 8, 1999
David Oakley (david.oakley@scotland.com)
from Inverness, Scotland, November 4, 1999
The purpose of science is not to disprove the existence of a transcendent Being. The purpose of science is to discover truth. The computer simulations which Dawkins talks about to illustrate the processes of evolution reveal a little more 'truth' than Dawkins would first hope for. His intention was to show how organisms can evolve via processes divorced from intelligence. Computer programs obviously don't fit that bill. Dawkins' programs are conveniently set to up to simulate fast and efficient processes which artificially disallow recessive mutations and failure modes. His simulations also assume a high probability of beneficial mutations. (For example, as Dawkins' "METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL" contains 27 possible characters for each letter, he is assuming that a mutation has one chance in 27 of being so beneficial that the rest of the population is completely wiped out - a probability which is a completely unsupported). In reality, Dawkins carefully designs his computer simulations to guarantee the outcome he intended in the first place. If Dawkins wishes to twist the truth or deny essential aspects of it in order to gain popular appeal, then so be it. I don't want to be a part of it. I strive to free myself from any kind of dogma, and I believe that Truth is to be found within our spirituality and within the Transcendent - the existence of which Dawkins irrationally denies. Dawkins is in no position to say that we are accidents and nothing but atoms and that our being (our conscious being) will switch off when we die, instead of moving on to meet our Maker. In fact, Dawkins' book 'The Blind Watchmaker' is more of a cult than good science. An earlier reviewer made the point that we need to "let our intellect evolve". That's EXACTLY what we need to start doing. First step - jump off the Dawkins bandwagon. Hup! Garrett Steele from California,
October 29, 1999
Actually, I can't decide if this is a satire that pokes fun at all the mindless robots who actually believe this stuff or just a straightforward, Dave Barry style humor book. In any event, I can't imagine Mr. Dawkins writing this with a straight face. If the mythical notion of evolution were true, then it would have been dreamed up long before Darwin ever did. Yes, if evolution were true, then we'd all be the size of elephants, we'd have the venomous fangs of a cobra, multiple rows of teeth like a shark, the claws of a bear, the eyes and vision of an eagle, and we would have been smart enough to keep our gills and webbed-feet so as to enjoy an occasional underwater swim. I must give this book some credit, though. Since reading it, my messy house and garage have both cleaned themselves up without my help. Now, when I drop a ball to the floor, it doesn't fall downward but it flies upward. And when I place a glass of cold water on the table, after a minute or two, it starts to boil, all by itself. It's really amazing stuff. Yes, entropy really can be reversed without a bit of energy being added to the system. So, if you'd like a good laugh, read "The Sycophantic Jester", er, I mean "The Empty-headed Buffoon", excuse me, I mean "The Blind Watchmaker." It's quite a laugh. archomai@rocketmail.com
from USA, October 26, 1999
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