Intelligent Design, Modern Science

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Intelligent Design, Modern Science Your
Grandchildrens Future

• Will the Bible be relevant in 2050?
• Will Darwinism be relevant in 2050?

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TNPC ID Blog is Up Running

• Lessons now posted there can be downloaded
• Go to www.tnpc.org/idblog
• Or navigate there from MinistriesAdult SSID
  Classidblog
• Use this site to ask questions, make comments
• Send submissions to me at john.dishman_at_comcast.net
  
• PLEASE PASS THE CLIPBOARD, MARK YOUR ATTENDANCE

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And the winner is..

• The 4 PCA-approved interpretations of Genesis 1
  2 21
• Major problems with Darwinism with emphasis on
  difficulties with the so-called icons of
  evolution 15
• Answers to some of the major objections to ID 13
• The history of science and its roots in
  Christianity 11
• Compromises between Christianity Darwinian
  evolution real or imaginary 10
• Big Bang cosmology the fine-tuning of the
  universe 9
• The relation between general special
  revelation 8
• ID as a scientific research program 8

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Proposed Schedule
Week 7 History of science part 2 including biology physics paradigm shifts
Week 8 Difficulties with Darwinism Icons of Evolution video (51 minutes-start at 909!!)
Week 9 Answers to objections to ID
Week 10 Compromises between Christianity Darwinism
Week 11 Interpretations of Genesis Literal 6 Day Day-Age views
Week 12 Interpretations of Genesis Framework Analogical views
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Historical Trends Aristotle, Plato the
Mechanists
Aristotle

• Pearcey Thaxton propose looking at the history
  of science through three lenses
• Aristotelian
• Neo-Platonic
• Mechanistic
• The Soul of Science Christian Faith Natural
  Philosophy

Plato
Newton
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Answer You are.
A Mechanist
An Aristotelian
A neo-Platonian
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The Mechanists

• In contrast to Aristotelian neo-Platonic
  threads, mechanistic philosophy saw the universe
  as a machine designed by God
• Based on revival of Archimedes works an
  engineering approach
• Examples Galileo, Descartes Newton (though
  Newton has strong neo-Platonic bent including
  indulging in alchemy)

Galileo 1564-1642
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Decartes I think therefore I am

• Remembered for view of universe as vast machine
  but forgotten that it was to rebuke religious
  skeptics of his day (1596-1650)
• Famous quote was religious demonstrating the
  existence of the human spirit and generalizing to
  the existence of the Eternal Spirit (God)

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Isaac Newton - Discoveries

• Refraction of light
• Newtons laws of motion
• An object in motion tends to stay in motion
• F ma (classical mechanics)
• For every action there is an equal and opposite
  reaction.
• Universal law of gravity
• The calculus (dispute with Leibniz)

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Newton mechanist neo-Platonist

• Mechanist Explained motions of planets, comets,
  the moon, the tides based on mechanical
  principles in a law-bound system using elegant
  mathematics still used today

1642-1703

• Neo-Platonist Like the Cambridge Platonists of
  his day, he insisted that ordering forces in the
  world are active principles not susceptible to
  mechanistic explanations. Practiced alchemy in
  secret throughout his life.

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• "The more Newton's theological and alchemical,
  chronological and mythological work is examined
  as a whole corpus, set by the side of his
  science, the more apparent it becomes that in his
  moments of grandeur he saw himself as the last of
  the interpreters of God's will in actions, living
  on the fulfillment of times. The Religion of
  Isaac Newton (Oxford 1974), F.E. Manuel

• Though he wrote over a million words on the
  subject of alchemy, after his death in 1727, the
  Royal Society deemed that they were "not fit to
  be printed."

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How Newton fit God in to his view of the
universe (Pearcey Thaxton)

1. The force of gravity as an active principle
   whereby God imposes order on passive matter.
2. Conceived of absolute time space based on Gods
   own character as an eternal and infinite Being.
3. Saw evidence of intelligent design. This most
   beautiful system of sun, planets, and comets
   could only proceed from the counsel dominion of
   an intelligent and powerful Being. General
   Scholium
4. Saw God intervening from time to time to
   stabilize the universe later overturned by
   Laplace, who told Napoleon he had no need for
   this hypothesis in his mechanics

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The Newtonian Paradox

• Newtonian physics came to be viewed in the
  popular mind as materialistic deterministic
• Yet Newton himself was neither of these things,
  and was a theist, with feet in both the
  mechanistic neo-Platonic camps
• This most beautiful system of sun, planets and
  comets could only proceed from the counsel
  dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being
• Obviously, Newton believed in an Intelligent
  Designer

Isaac Newton
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Newtons faith
Though he outwardly conformed to the church of
England, Newton privately was an Arian Christian.
He believed Jesus Christ was the Savior of the
world, but he did not believe He was very God.
Newton believed the Athanasian creed and the
doctrine of the Trinity diminished the sovereign
dominion of the Almighty and corrupted the purity
of the church for centuries. But Newton largely
kept these heretical beliefs to himself. quote
from Christian History Institute
http//chi.gospelcom.net/GLIMPSEF/Glimpses/glmps06
9.shtml
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The Great Extrapolation

• In the age of the Enlightenment the regularity
  suggested by Newtons laws of physics was
  extrapolated to all areas of society
• The rationality behind these laws was revered for
  its own sake forgetting the One who ordered them
  in the first place
• Reason began to replace religion (Christianity)
  and the mechanistic worldview evolved into a
  totally materialistic worldview that we see still
  in place today
• What started out as a debate among Christians
  about how God works in naturea Christianity that
  made rational science possibleeventually
  transmuted into the methodological naturalism we
  see today

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The Rise of Positivism

• Originated with Auguste Comte (1798-1857)
• Knowledge passes through 3 stages
• Religious fictitious explanations using the
  supernatural
• Metaphysical divine interaction replaced by
  abstract ideas forces
• The POSITIVE stage abstract ideas are replaced
  by natural laws
• Kuhn goal was to completely reject religion
  metaphysics in favor of reason
• Positivism shapes most peoples view of science
  history
• Textbooks present discoveries as finished
  products from triumphalist view of progress
  proceeding from humble beginnings to rational
  enlightenment with science at the epitome of
  human achievement

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Kuhn criticizes Comte

• Positivists criticize the enduring use of
  circular orbits in astronomy (even by Galileo who
  rejected Keplers ellipses) as the illogical hold
  of Platonism in the medieval mind
• Kuhn In its time with the data available
  circular orbits were elegant successful in
  their predictions. They fit well with the
  empirical data of the time.
• Holding such a theory was both reasonable AND
  scientific

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Revolutions in Biology too much to say, too
little time to say it in

• Aristotle its easier to understand the motion
  of an animal than the motion of a stone

• The Aristotelian view with its emphasis on Forms
  organism is naturally suited to the world of
  biology.
• This view served nicely in the organization
  (taxonomy) of the vast new information about new
  species brought in by worldwide exploration
  starting in the 16th century

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Romantic biologists

• 18th century romanticism was a reaction against
  the Newtonian machine first in biology and then
  in the arts (Wordsworth, Tchaikovsky, etc)
• Mechanistic explanations of living things were
  terribly simplistic unsatisfying
• Led to revival of neo-Platonism in biology the
  World Force became the universal Life Force as
  the foremost agent of change progress resulting
  in a great chain of Being
• Embryology example of an unfolding of inbuilt
  potential through a succession of archetypes
• God is not the creator of an impersonal machine
  but a spirit pervading nature.

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Darwin the mechanist leading toward reductionist
materialism
1809-1882

• Attacked neo-Platonist romantics
• Replaced the common archetypes of the romantics
  with common ancestors
• Archetypes not immaterial ideas in the world of
  thought, but historical organisms in the world of
  nature
• Attacked Aristotelians purpose thought to be in
  living things was not real, only an appearance
  produced by natural selection

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Darwins Epistemology

• Darwins goal was to promote a new theory of
  knowledge in science one that limited science to
  mechanistic explanations
• To date he has succeeded see NABT

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20th Century Paradigm Shifts in Physics
Einstein
Heisenberg Bohr
Hubble
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Very Big Very Small Things

• The technology of the 20th century led to the
  development of instruments that allowed the human
  race to view things very far away (that turned
  out to be very big)
• and things very close that turned out to very
  small

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Edwin Hubble 1889-1953

• 1929 the universe is expanding as if from an
  explosion

The furthest objects are traveling away from us
the fastest
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He ( others) also found that the universe is
immense. For example we are on the outskirts of
the Milky Way galaxy containing 100 BILLION stars
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How Many Stars in a Typical Galaxy?
100 Billion
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How Many Galaxies?
100 Billion
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The Universe is Big.
100 Billion Galaxies X 100 Billion Stars
10, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000 Stars
Really BIG!
There are a lot of heavens
to declare their Creators
glory Psalm 19
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The Big Bang

• Hubble Expansion
• Rewind the video tape

Looks like the products of an explosion
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In the 1940s George Gamow his student Alpher
proposed what is now called the Big Bang. Fred
Hoyle, who believed in the steady state model of
the universe ridiculed the idea derisively
called it the big bang.
In spite of the derision the name stuck!
(Later Gamow his student were to publish a
paper with Han Bethe, which came to be known
as Alpher, Bethe Gamow)
Hoyle 1915-2001
Gamow 1904-68
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Implication of Hubbles Findings

• How small was the infant universe?

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Hubble Implications (2)

• All matter, all space, and time itself was
  compressed into something smaller than the size
  of an atomic nucleus
• Incredibly hot a fireball
• Predicted by Einsteins theory of general
  relativity, which so far has been verified in
  every experimental test
• ..however, Einstein added a constant to his
  equations to predict a steady state universe,
  which he said was the biggest mistake of my
  life.

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COBE Satellite

• When a light bulb is turned off, it continues to
  glow yellow -gt red -gt IR

Likewise, the burst of light associated with the
Big Bang would likewise continue to glow
gradually cooling to longer wavelengths. After
15 billion years it should be in the microwave
spectrum.
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COsmic Background Explorer (COBE) measured
radiation from the Big Bang
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COBE (2)

• The original discovery of the cosmic background
  radiation was made by Penzias Wilson (Bell
  Labs) in 1965 (won Nobel).
• COBE has confirmed the spectral shape is that of
  a blackbody at 2.7 deg K
• In addition it has shown spatial structure which
  matches that required for galaxies to exist.
• Best confirmation so far that the Big Bang
  actually happened per Gamow et al

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Davisson - Germer ExperimentBell Labs 1927
Single Crystal Nickel (obtained by accident.)
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Principles of Quantum Mechanics

• At its core, matter is wavelike
• (and lightwaves act like particles...)
• Can't know both position and speed at the same
  time (indeterminancy)
• Deal in probabilities, not precision
• The Mind of the observer influences outcomes
• "Anyone who is not shocked by it has not
  understood it" (Niels Bohr, one of the
  inventors of quantum theory)

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The other revolution relativity

• The collapse of Newtonian physics
• Quantum mechanics
• Relativity
• Special relativity
• Only the velocity of light is constant
• General relativity
• Gravity is due to the warping of
• space-time

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WHAT DOES RADAR GUN MEASURE?
100 MPH
100 MPH
AT REST
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WHAT DOES RADAR GUN MEASURE?
100 MPH
200 MPH
MOVING AT 100 MPH
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WHAT DOES RADAR GUN MEASURE?
NOW SUPPOSE THE PITCHER THROWS A LIGHT BEAM
186,000 MILES / SEC
186,000 MILES / SEC
AT REST
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WHAT DOES RADAR GUN MEASURE?
NOW SUPPOSE THE PITCHER THROWS A LIGHT BEAM
186,000 MILES / SEC
186,000 MILES / SEC!!
MOVING AT 186,000 MILES / SEC
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TIME DILATION

• TWIN PARADOX
• A TWIN WHO RIDES IN A ROCKET SHIP CLOSE TO THE
  SPEED OF LIGHT COMPARED TO HER TWIN ON EARTH WILL
  APPEAR TO AGE SLOWER
• AFTER ONE YEAR IN THE ROCKET SHE IS A YEAR OLDER
  BY HER CLOCK, HER TWIN IS 10 YEARS OLDER BY HER
  CLOCK!
• TIME ITSELF, WHICH WE PERCEIVE TO BE CONSTANT, IS
  RELATIVE!!
• ..also, women who want to look younger should
  arrange rides on rocket ships

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20th Century Paradigm Shifts in Physics
After a century of discovery our understanding of
the cosmos is vastly changed from the past.
Only in biology has the (Darwinian) paradigm not
yet been overthrown from the 19th century. This
despite data about biochemical machines in every
cell of our body, that is as impressive (or even
more so) as is the data about the stars!
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Aristotle Makes a Comeback

• Biologists rediscovering Aristotle in the
  frontiers of biology/biochemistry
• Delback article How Aristotle Discovered DNA
• Ernst Mayer Only when the dual nature of living
  organisms (matter information) was fully
  understood in our time was it realized that the
  blueprint of development and activitythe genetic
  programrepresents the formative principle that
  Aristotle had postulated.
• Jeremy Campbell credits Aristotle for
  anticipating information theory in biology. It
  is the form of matter.

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Coming full circle

• Plan, purpose information were the active
  forces Aristotle saw in nature. (Jeremy
  Campbell)
• Creationists plan, purpose information fits
  neatly into a creationist understanding of
  organic structure.
• And the best way to explain the genesis of plan,
  purpose information is through the creative
  activity of an Intelligent Designer

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The Past Informs the Future

• In past centuries prominent scientists, such as
  Isaac Newton, viewed their work as an outgrowth
  of the Christian faith, not a contradiction to
  it.
• Is the naturalistic materialism that dominates
  Western thought a blip in history which will be
  someday be replaced by a return to an
  understanding of the created universe by Christ
  as the Intelligent Designer?
• In the meantime how should Christians address
  these issues?

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The Words

• In the beginning was the Word (John 11) special
  revelation
• In the beginning was the program, the word
  encoded in the DNA, by the Word
• general revelation