May 29, 2008 by Dr. Mc.

Today we turn in our modem and won’t have computer access until after our house closes in our new state. I will therefore not be able to post to this blog until at least the middle of next week. Do NOT think there is nothing to blog about. See you then.

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May 26, 2008 by Dr. Mc.

Evolutionists commonly suggest that Darwin’s theory of
evolution is neutral concerning God, but then contend that all objections to it
are by definition religious. I find this position fishy, and would suggest that
if one side of the argument must be religious, the other side by definition must
be, also. Evolutionists rarely acknowledge a difference between creationism
(belief in a creator and particular creation process to be accepted and defended
based upon religious texts) and intelligent design (the hypothesis of a designer
to be tested based on observable, and thus scientific evidence). May I suggest
that just as some people will not consider the possibility of Darwinian
evolution for religious reasons, so there are evolutionists who hold fast to
Darwinian evolution for religious reasons?

Recently I referred to a site that used the phrase "universal acid" to refer to Darwinian evolution’s power to erode away any need for
God. I would like to revisit that site to make clear the motives of those who
placed the information on the web. If you click on the website’s core name, http://www.mukto-mona.com/,
you will quickly be redirected to another page, http://www.mukto-mona.com/new_site/mukto-mona/index.htm.
The words that you cannot read, because they appear and disappear to quickly,
are “Humanism & Secularism,” and “Secular site for freethinking, rational, humanists of
Bangladesh and other South Asian countries.” The purpose of the site is to
promote humanism (belief that humans are the ultimate beings) and secularism
(belief that there is no god), which the site posits are inseparable. That part, I agree with. The "universal acid" page is part of a series of pages ending with
Darwinism makes God unnecessary. This is indeed their purpose.

I will revisit this site again soon to walk through their
"logic" for the irrelevance of God, but for now let it suffice that defense of
evolution is not always with purely non-religious motive. Sometimes, the person
arguing for evolution may not even realize that they have bought into a
religious view that "science" must not only be objective about God, but also
devoid of conclusions about God. The truth is that any approach that begins with
qualifications on the conclusions about God and His roll in the process is not scientific. It’s religious.

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May 17, 2008 by Dr. Mc.

If global warming is so critical an issue today, why is not
more effort put into explaining it to people? I find little disagreement that
there is a warming trend world-wide or that it relates to the amount of CO₂
in the atmosphere. The debate seems to be over (#1) the cause, and (#2) should
we do something about it. Some would say, “Of course we should do something
about it! The ice caps are melting! The sea is rising! The
ocean conveyor belts might turn off!” Yes, the oceans have risen by about
0.6 inches recently, but we also know that the oceans were once much, much
lower, because we find
stalactites in underwater caverns, and stalactites only form in air, as
water evaporates from the ends of the columns. We also know that as CO₂
increases in the atmosphere, plant growth is stimulated. One of the “alarming”
signs of global warming is that
crops are growing in Greenland where they never grew before. Is that a
problem? Plants consumes CO₂ in the production of food for itself and
oxygen for us.

Maybe we should do something, but I’m still at Square 1:
What is causing it? One position is that we are. I see data online that our
fossil fuel consumption contributes to the total, but I would like to see a
comparison of our contribution with the total CO₂ that is out there.
What percentage of the whole do we contribute?

There is also a case that CO₂ content
follows warming, not the other way around. If that is the case, we can’t say
that CO₂ content causes the warming. If you watch that trailer it is
obvious that the producers have a political agenda behind presenting the data,
but don’t all presenters? Doesn’t the
CDIAC benefit with funding, if a “problem” must be monitored? (Financial
benefit to selective data is a subject I will probably write about later.)

Regardless of #1 or #2, CO₂ content in the air has
increased substantially in recent centuries. Has anybody put that fact
together with the concept of carbon-14 dating? Carbon-14 is a heavy form of
carbon (two extra neutrons in the nucleus), resulting from a reaction to cosmic
radiation in the upper atmosphere. Animals and plants take it in as air is
circulated down from the upper atmosphere, and the amount remains pretty much
stable until the organism dies. The molecule is unstable, and tends to
degenerate back to normal carbon(-12), so once the organism dies, the level
deteriorates at a predictable rate, suggesting that we can calculate how long
the organism has been dead. This would be valuable for computing dates for
bones, artifacts, etc. that defy written history, except that the ratio of
carbon-14 taken in depends on the amount of carbon dioxide in the air, and the
amount used to be substantially less than when the dating
rubrics were computed. That means all calculations based on carbon-14 are
suspect.

Global warming may or may not be our fault, and we may or
may not be able to do anything about it, but I am confident that we know less
about dating antiquity without the written word than most people think we know.

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May 4, 2008 by Dr. Mc.

This week as I prepared to move from my home of 12 years, I
came across a "novel" I started in high school. It was in a Nifty spiral
notebook (if anyone can remember those), and it was sort of an
absent-minded-professor story. I was probably inspired by the black-and-white
Disney movie, but in my story the hero was trying to discover a way to create
life. As I read some of the lousy text I wrote back then, I was struck by the
fact that at that time in my life I bought whole-heartedly into the theory of
evolution. As with most other people, evolution was a given, and I was sure my
Christian upbringing was compatible with it all; it was just a matter of
discovering the details. As a junior scientist, I clearly understood that
neither the Urey-Miller experiment nor those of anyone else had achieved life, but I
assumed that in time someone else would. Why not my hero? Also, as a junior
scientist, and officer in my school’s science club, I knew that all life requires cell structure. As for what a cell contained, I was only slightly ahead of Darwin, knowing that
a cell had a nucleus, some jelly-like stuff (protoplasm), and a cell wall. All my hero had to do was get
the required chemicals into the right three-part arrangement, add a spark, and
life would happen! I had no concept of the sophisticated parts and incredibly
complex processes required for even the simplest cell.

By that time in high school my personal fossil finds were
overflowing boxes in my basement, and science fair awards lined my shelves.
Never once had I heard a scientific criticism of the Darwinian evolutionary model–only
religious ones. Then I was invited to a meeting on my college campus, and one
45-minute audio tape blew it all out of the water. One meeting, one audio tape.
Where had this information been all my life!

I abandoned my belief in God during my PhD program, but
that did not make Darwinian theory any more plausible. Then when I discovered
that my dissertation could not continue until I pretended confidence in
Darwinian theory, my doubts about God took a huge hit. If that group of scientists
would work that hard to prevent me from even doubting this theory, then there must
be something powerful and even real to be feared from this consideration. Slowly I concluded it must be the Truth.

Today I never hear any talk of scientist hoping to create
life from non-life, and information prevents my faith that life could ever occur
without intelligence behind it. But should some scientist (or scientists) ever
achieve life in a test tube, there would remain only one step to prove–that they
were not intelligent.

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