R.I.P. GOD

John C. Walton

B.Sc. Ph.D. D.Sc.Chartered ChemistFellow of the Royal Society of ChemistryFellow of the Royal Society of EdinburghResearch Professor of Chemistry University of St. Andrews

Royal Society of Chemistry

“I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy”. Richard Feynman (Nobel Laureate in Physics)

Those who reject the molecules to man evolutionary scenario are: “ignorant, stupid, insane (or wicked, but I’d rather not consider that )” Richard Dawkins

The whole universe viewed as a machine.

• All parts engage perfectly• All events predictable by laws of physics• A miracle would be like a spanner thrown into a printing press.• No room for the supernatural• No room for God.

The Newtonian World Machine of the 19The Newtonian World Machine of the 19thth Century Century

Friedrich Nietzsche

““God is dead, God is dead, God remains dead.God remains dead. And we have killed him.”And we have killed him.”

From:From: “The Gay Science” “The Gay Science” 18821882

Giving voice to a growing world view of a Universe without GodGiving voice to a growing world view of a Universe without God

Grand Universal World Views Drawing Strength from AtheismGrand Universal World Views Drawing Strength from Atheism

Sigmund FreudSigmund FreudTotem and Taboo 1913Totem and Taboo 1913The Ego and the Id 1923The Ego and the Id 1923The Future of an Illusion 1927The Future of an Illusion 1927

Karl MarxKarl MarxThe Communist Manifesto 1848 Das Kapital 1867 etc.

1. In Biology: Darwinian evolution – expanded its influence exponentially following the publication of Darwin’s book “On the Origin of Species” in 1859.

2. In science of the mind: Freudian psychology gave scientific trappings to the idea of God as wish fulfilment.

3. In politics: - spreading from Europe to the rest of the world following the publication of Karl Marx’s “Das Kapital” and the Russian communist revolution of 1917.

Charles DarwinCharles Darwin

Sir Julian Huxley

Religion is subject to the laws of evolution,is fast becoming obsolete and will soon evolve out of existence.

Post-Christian SocietyPost-Christian Society

Secular Naturalism’s Transparent Clothes ?Secular Naturalism’s Transparent Clothes ?

1960s: Critical evaluation of secular humanistic theories starts to take hold .

Horrific Repression by Communist RegimesHorrific Repression by Communist Regimes

The Gulags

Your’reIgnorantStupidWicked

Berlin Wall 1961 to 1989Berlin Wall 1961 to 1989

The wall in its heyday

Holes in the wall

Rejoicing at its fall 1989

Discovery of Cosmological Fine TuningDiscovery of Cosmological Fine Tuning

Examples

• Ratio of the nuclear strong force to the electromagnetic force must be accurate to 1 part in 1016 (or no stars!)

• Ratio of the electromagnetic force constant to the gravitational force constant must be accurate to 1 part in 1040

• Expansion and contraction forces of the universe must be balanced to 1 part in 1055.

Dozens of other examples mentioned by Paul Davies and John Lennox.

This fine tuning seems to show a “deliberate” prearrangement of our set of laws and universal constants, fine tuned to support life with incredible precision

• Where did the laws of physics come from in the first place ? Where did the laws of physics come from in the first place ?

• Why they are just this particular set of laws and not something else ? Why they are just this particular set of laws and not something else ?

• Why they are so fine-tuned as to sustain life and intelligence ?Why they are so fine-tuned as to sustain life and intelligence ?

Many front-rank scholars and scientists began coming to the conclusion Many front-rank scholars and scientists began coming to the conclusion that there must be a designer. that there must be a designer.

• “ “It seems as though someone has fine tuned nature’s numbers toIt seems as though someone has fine tuned nature’s numbers to make the universe… The impression of design is overwhelming.”make the universe… The impression of design is overwhelming.” Paul Davies Paul Davies

Consequences of Cosmological Fine TuningConsequences of Cosmological Fine Tuning

Parallel Universes ? The Multiverse ?Parallel Universes ? The Multiverse ?

Multiple universes are continually being born, according to some Cosmologists. Each universe is shown here as an expanding bubblebranching off from its parent universe. The changes in colour represent shifts in the laws of physics from one universe to another.

The laws of physics take different forms in parallel universes and are fine tuned indifferent ways. Thus all possible outcomes are permitted.

• This vast multiplication universes violates science’s principle of seeking the simplest solution.

• Parallel universes are undetectable.

• The idea moves far into the realm of speculation.

Oxymorons Oxymorons

Jumbo shrimp

Fairies Evolve in a Parallel UniverseFairies Evolve in a Parallel Universe

A plausible evolutionary scenario in a parallel A plausible evolutionary scenario in a parallel universe?universe?

• Human-like beings much smaller than us develop.Human-like beings much smaller than us develop.

• They evolve flight.They evolve flight.

There must be fairies at the bottom of the There must be fairies at the bottom of the multiversemultiverse garden!garden!

Structure of RNA and DNA Structure of RNA and DNA

N

NNH

N

NH2

N

NN

N

NH2

O

OHOH

OP-O

O-

O

Adenine

Nucleotide

NH

NNH

N

O

NH2

Guanine

N

NH

NH2

O

Cytosine

NH

NH

O

O

Uracil

Phosphate P

Sugar S

Base B

PS

PS

PS

PS

PS

PS

A G C U A C

P

Short Double Strand RNA Sequence

PS

PS

PS

PS

PS

PS

U C G A U G

P

nucleotide

Random Coupling of Nucleotides to Form RNA and DNA Random Coupling of Nucleotides to Form RNA and DNA

G

G

randomcoupling

AG

C AC

G GA

C

GA

CGC

A AG

C

6 different chains

randomcoupling

24 different chains

G

randomcoupling

120 different DNA chains

A C

A C T

A C T A

nucleotides

Random Coupling of the Four Types of Nucleotides Random Coupling of the Four Types of Nucleotides

to Form DNA or RNA to Form DNA or RNA

No. of Nucleotides in RNA Chain

TypeNo. of possible RNA sequences

3 Trimer 6

4 Tetramer 24

5 Short Oligonucleotide 120

77 Transfer-RNA 1046

3000 Ribosomal-RNA 101806

30000 Sub-Bacterial DNA 1018100

120000 Carsonella Ruddii ~ 1066000

Hubert P. Yockey,. A calculation of the probability of spontaneous biogenesis by information theory. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 1977, 67, 377-398.

Hubert P. Yockey, Self-organization origin of life scenarios and information theory. Journal of Theoretical Biology,1981, 91, 13-31.

NB: Total number of atoms in known universe ~ 1080

► Carsonella ruddii was reported to be the smallest living cell. However, Carsonella lives inside a leaf-munching insect, called a psyllid. There are certain genes necessary for life that the bacteria's genome lacks, but these are compensated for by its insect host. Carsonella has "only" about 160,000 base pairs of DNA in its genome.

► Mycoplasma genitalium is a small parasitic bacterium which lives on the ciliated epithelial cells of the primate genital and respiratory tracts. M. genitalium is the smallest known free-living bacterium, and the second-smallest bacterium after Carsonella ruddii. M genitalium has a genome consisting of approximately 580,000 base pairs

Smallest Living OrganismsSmallest Living Organisms

Carsonella ruddii

Psyllid on leaf

M. GenitaliumGenome of M. Genitalium

Magnitude of the Odds Against Random Formation of Magnitude of the Odds Against Random Formation of

A Biologically Useful DNA (or RNA) sequence A Biologically Useful DNA (or RNA) sequence

No. Moderate Length DNA Sequences

That could pack into a 1 m thick layer covering surface of the earth 1041

That could be in a 1 mMolar soup in all the oceans 1042

That could pack into the total volume of the known universe 10120

That would be produced by 1 cm thick layer of cells covering whole earth’s surface in 10 billion years 1052

• It necessarily follows that the chance of a ‘meaningful’ DNA sequence being obtained spontaneously is almost infinitesimally small. • The only reasonable conclusion is that there isn’t enough space, there isn’t enough matter (particularly carbon), and there isn’t enough time, for spontaneous formation of a self-replicating system.

Potential Solutions to the Random Coupling Problem Potential Solutions to the Random Coupling Problem

1. Given enough time anything can happen?

“The improbability involved in generating even one bacterium is so large that it reduces all considerations of time and space to nothingness. Given such odds, the time until the black holes evaporate, and the space to the ends of the universe, would make no difference at all. We would be waiting for a miracle” Robert Shapiro.

Conclusion: there isn’t enough space, there isn’t enough matter (particularly carbon) and there isn’t enough time for spontaneous formation of a self-replicating system.

2. Perhaps some “selection mechanism” was at work? (a) Note that Darwinian evolution in which natural selection operates on variants generated by random mutations CANNOT occur before self-replicating entities were available.

(b) Computational models of selection. Dawkins’ “Weasel” program. Algorithm reaches desired phrase in 43 generations. But: i) The algorithm must “know” the target phrase (protein sequence) – impossible before life originated – assumes what it sets out to discover!! ii) The algorithm compares random sequences with the target the selects and stores closest matches. No chemical “systems” available to select and compartmentalise before life originated.

The bacterial Flagellum

Biological MachinesBiological Machines

Blood ClottingBlood Clotting

Simplified Intrinsic Blood Clotting Enzyme Cascade in HumansSimplified Intrinsic Blood Clotting Enzyme Cascade in Humans

Woundsurface

XII

XIa

IXa

Xa

Factor X1

Factor IX

Factor X

Prothrombin Thrombin

Fibrinsoft

Fibrinhard clot

Fibrinogen

Kallikrein Prekallikrein

Factor XII

V Va

Factor XIII XIIIa

Factor VIII VIIIa

Woundsurface

XII

XIa

IXa

Xa

Factor X1

Factor IX

Factor X

Prothrombin Thrombin

Fibrinsoft

Fibrinhard clot

Fibrinogen

Kallikrein Prekallikrein

Factor XII

V Va

Factor XIII XIIIa

Factor VIII VIIIa

Kallikrein

Hirudin complex with Thrombin

Structures of Two Enzymes in the Blood Clotting CascadeStructures of Two Enzymes in the Blood Clotting Cascade

The neo-Darwinian mechanism holds that mutation coupled with natural selection produces small changes that accumulate over vast periods of time resulting inlarge cumulative changes.

Irreducibly complex structures like the Flagellum and other biological machines require a set of parts (mostly proteins) to all be present before they can function.

Natural selection can only select functional things.

Individual components of biological machines lack function outside their specific machine so they cannot be selected prior to the existence of themachine.

Irreducibly complex structures cannot accumulate in many small steps over any amount of time via mutation and selection.

They are powerful evidence of design.

Irreducible Complexity of Biological MachinesIrreducible Complexity of Biological Machines

The Intelligent Design MovementThe Intelligent Design Movement

• Mechanical and electronic machines, analogous to biological machines, are known to be the products of intelligent minds taking advantage of natural laws.

• Consequently, the existence of biological machines is powerful evidence of intelligent design in biology

• Detecting design is already a well established scientific activity in fields such as forensic science, archaeology and cryptology.

• A number of scientists and scholars were impressed with this evidence and founded the Intelligent Design movement with the objective of detecting design and establishing it as an explanatory tool in science.

Phillip JohnsonProfessor of Law at Berkeley

Michael BeheProfessor of Biochemistry

Professor William DembskiMathematician & philosopher

Richard Dawkins“The God Delusion”

Christopher Hitchens“God is not Great; How

Religion Poisons Everything”

The New Atheists: Backlash Against Intelligent DesignThe New Atheists: Backlash Against Intelligent Design

Sam Harris

“Letter to a Christian Nation”

Daniel Dennett

“Breaking the Spell “

Recent Rebuttals of Fundamentalist AtheismRecent Rebuttals of Fundamentalist Atheism

Alister McGrath“The Dawkins Delusion”

John Cornwell’s“Darwin’s Angel – An AngelicRiposte to The God Delusion"

John C. Lennox“God’s Undertaker;Has Science Buried God”?

David Robertson

“The Dawkins Letters”

Thomas Crean“A Catholic Replies To Professor Dawkins”

The Flavour of New Atheist ThinkingThe Flavour of New Atheist Thinking

“I do not believe there is an atheist in the world who would bulldoze Mecca, or Chartres, York Minster or Notre Dame.” Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, p. 249.

Blandly ignores the officially sanctioned demolition and burning of thousands of churches and mosques by atheist regimes in the former Soviet Union and China.

Dawkins: “there is not the smallest evidence” that atheism influences people to do bad things.

The facts: in their efforts to enforce atheist ideology the Soviet authorities systematically destroyed churches, executed priests and sent religious dissenters to mental institutions for “treatment.”

New atheist assertion: All faith is blind faith and Christians consider it a virtue to believe irrational impossibilities.

Ignores the centuries of careful theological study sorting the religiously rational and believable from the dross.

Dawkins: Jesus was a loyal Jew and was hostile to all non-Jews. It was Paul who invented the idea of taking the Jewish God to the Gentiles. He quotes approvingly John Hartung’s statement: “Jesus would have turned over in his grave if he had known that Paul would be taking his plan to the pigs.”

Absurd misrepresentation! Not only did Jesus endorse “Love your neighbour” but he extended this to “Love your enemy.” The familiar story of the Good Samaritan makes Christ’s positive attitude towards Gentiles crystal clear.

Anthony Flew

• Flew’s guiding principle is: “following the evidence wherever it leads”

• He now believes: “this universe’s intricate laws manifest what scientists have called the Mind of God”.

• He cites his realisation that natural selection does not positively produce anything; that it fails to explain where the immense amount of information contained in genomic DNA came from.

• Flew is persuaded that “the laws of nature, life with its teleological organisation, and the existence of the universe – can only be explained in the light of an Intelligence that explains both its own existence and that of the world.”

One of the World’s Most Influential Atheists Changes His MindOne of the World’s Most Influential Atheists Changes His Mind

Quarks and Gluons

The Quantum WorldThe Quantum World

• Wave-particle duality: Quantum objects can behave as waves or particles • Laws of physics are statistical in nature and only give probability outcomes• Heisenberg uncertainty principle: It is not possible to know both the energy and position of a quantum particle. • There are fundamental limits to what can be known.• Entanglement is the idea that in the quantum world, objects are not independent if they have interacted with each other or come into being through the same process. They become linked, or entangled, such that changing one invariably affects the other, no

matter how far apart they are - something Einstein called "spooky action at a distance".

Electrons and Protons

Quantum mechanic wave function

The Quantum WorldThe Quantum World

MOYRA

“I think we can safely say no one understands quantum mechanics” Richard Feynman (Nobel Laureate in Theoretical Physics)

• There can be no certainties in the Quantum world.• The physical universe can never be described completely.• The universe is much stranger and more mysterious than formerly supposed.• The future is open.• Miracles and the supernatural are not forbidden.

Rehabilitation of InspirationRehabilitation of Inspiration

Removal of the secular naturalist presupposition that miracles are impossiblehas led to a radical reassessment of the reliability and authenticity of the Old and New Testaments

For example:

Kenneth A. Kitchen: “On the Reliability of the Old Testament”

James H. Charlesworth: “Jesus and Archaeology”

Richard Bauckham: “Jesus and the Eyewitnesses”

Paul R. Eddy and Gregory Boyd: “The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical

Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition.”

N. Thomas Wright: “The Resurrection of the Son of God”

ConclusionsConclusions

The amazing cosmological “fine tuning” suggests the work of a designer

The presence in biological systems of complex, information-loaded, molecules like DNA indicates they owe their origin to an intelligent mind

Irreducibly complex biological machines are powerful evidence of design in the living world

These conclusions do not prove God exists, but they show belief in God is rational and intellectually sound.

All who are willing to follow the evidence from nature and from inspiration wherever it leads will find that God is alive and well and full of Grace.

TTHEHE E ENDND

An mp3 file of this talk and a copy of the PowerPoint will be available

tomorrow from

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