I enjoy Ted Talks, and I love history and science, so a Ted Talk entitled, “The History of Our World in 18 Minutes,” caught my attention. Yet this particular talk held my attention, because David Christian begins with an excellent example for why what he is about to propose is “hard to believe,” and then gives absolutely no reason to believe what he then asks his audience to believe. I had to watch the first 3 minutes several times, thinking I was missing something. I would call it slight-of-hand, or even deceptive; except I honestly don’t think Christian even knows what he did.
He first shows a reversed video of an egg being unscrambled (0-1:37 minutes), all the while admitting how order from disorder completely goes against our understanding of the universe. He then sweeps the eggs and the second law of thermodynamics under the rug by simply saying, “but here we are!” In essence his argument is, “Don’t let it bother you that all logic and testable science work to the contrary, randomness-to-complexity must be true.”
His “history” then begins (at 4:23) with nothing exploding into something, “.and we have crossed our first threshold.” Threshold of what? Credibility. And he never looks back. He refers to pockets in the universe where “Goldilocks” conditions must have existed, but never giving a reason for the gravity, or heat, or diversity, or anything else necessary to germinate the desired change for the better. If you don’t just accept it, you are left behind in his story; and after all: Who wants to appear that they don’t understand? Only a fool, or one who really seeks the truth.
Archive for the ‘History’ Category
A Fool for the Truth
Saturday, March 16th, 2013New You Tube videos
Friday, June 22nd, 2012I just uploaded four videos to You Tube. They are actually one presentation that I have made in person to audiences all over the world–in public and private schools, from high school students to graduate students and adults in many settings. It points out how many of our views we have taken on unknowingly, and how sometimes we hold contradictory ideas, because we have never really thought about what we have bought into.
The series is entitled “How Do You Know What You Know, and Who Told You So?: The cultural basis of religion and knowledge.”
Part 1: Culture defined
Part 2: The layers of culture
Part 3: World views
Part 4: World view implications
Please check them out. I would appreciate your comments, either here or on You Tube.
Legalistic life
Tuesday, March 6th, 2012
This is illustrative of what Alexander Solzhenitsyn, in his 1978 address at Harvard”, referred to as “legalistic life.” He saw in America at that time that “the limits of human rights and righteousness are determined by a system of laws.” If it’s not against the law, then it must be my right.
It reminds me of young children who check to see if their parents are looking before they cross the street. They are not mature enough to know that they should check the streets for what is safe, not the parents for what is allowed. The person who passed me only demonstrated concern for the law, not the kids for whom the law was written.
Solzhenitsyn observed that of us over 30 years ago. God help us if we have become as a nation so immature that our only conscience is the law.
Steno’s Applied Science
Wednesday, January 11th, 2012Today Google commemorates the 374th birthday of Nicolas Steno, rightfully labeling him as the founder of modern geology. Wikipedia’s article correctly credits Steno with developing the first three principles of geological strata.
I once sat in a geology class where the teacher taught that Steno developed five principles, including that the layers of earth represent millions of years of earth history. The millions of years was actually added by Charles Lyell, devout atheist and mentor of Charles Darwin. Steno’s principles instead emphasize the role of water in depositing layers, because he saw the layers as the result of a world-wide flood as described in the Bible. Steno’s principles lead to prediction of coal deposits and the advancement of industry. Lyell’s addition of age to the equation adds to theory, but not necessarily to advancement in any practical way.
The Tree of Life
Sunday, October 11th, 2009Recently I cited the “tree of life” diagrams of Talking Squid in discussing assumptions of evolution. There they have done a good job of explaining past and current tree metaphors from an evolutionist point of view. I’d like to add a few comments to round out the value of the concept.
To begin, Talking Squid does not say, but one could take from the wording, that Darwin invented the tree concept for representing a common origin of all life. In fact we have a tree drawn by Porphyry (234-305 AD) in his introduction to Aristotle’s Categories. It was his graphic representation of what he had developed from Aristotle’s words, and it has been reworked by many over the centuries, including evolutionists seeking a pattern for life’s diversity. More likely Darwin’s drawing was his attempt to flesh out the concept he had been given with organisms he knew. What was new, as Talking Squid points out, is that Darwin included dead ends, a fundamental part of his natural selection concept.
But the tree concept is quite natural (no pun intended) when one begins categorizing anything. Take for example the rocks in my back yard. I can categorize them by type of material of which they are made, resulting in purer constancies being arranged around the edge (farther apart) and less distinct ones being toward the middle (and closer together). If I categorize them by shape, the same will happen, with round in the middle and all manner of shapes branching off at the edges. Whenever there are a variety of features to be considered (whether they be among organisms, sports equipment, or casseroles), distinct features become branches and commonalities become trunks. If you add the assumption that whatever-they-are evolved from each other, then a tree of origins can be easily had, at least at a tersery glance. Here is another difference between Darwin and many other uses of the Tree of Porphyry. Darwin was not seeking a metaphor. He was seeking real origins. Here I part with Talking Squid: the Tree of Life is not a metaphor to an evolutionist, if they in fact are seeking and believing in real, common origins.
If the categories of whatever didn’t actually evolve from each other, then the devil will be in the details. A closer look at the featureless (impure) rocks in my backyard will reveal that the ones with least distinct features actually have more variety in internal elements.
Interestingly enough, the same thing happens when one attempts to categorize life, except that the devil is not only complexity, but also differentiation. This is easily seen in at least three ways:
First, we have learned that small does not always mean less complex, as Aristotle had supposed when he first posited spontaneous generation. Single-celled organisms are still cells, complete with DNA, cell walls, etc., except they are often capable of more functions than cells of “higher” life forms, such as across-species transfer of DNA components.
Second, features can be found in common when common ancestry is impossible. One well-known example is the octopus, which is a mollusk with an eye quite similar to that of a human’s, except it works better than ours in filtered light. This is why Doolittle’s “tree of life” looks more like a banyan tree, which by the way, has multiple trunks only because it drops them DOWN from branches, not the other way around.
Third, on the most fundamental levels organisms are not more similar. They are more different. Archeans (archi-bacteria) are not just simple bacteria, they have an entirely different DNA language for reproduction than do bacteria. Biologically speaking, archeans are more different from bacteria than are you, the reader, from yeast.
The implications are pretty clear that where life is concerned common origin is an imposed concept on a natural phenomenon. The difficulty in accepting this would seem to stem from the requirement that there be no designer. It is too suggestive that it could be not just a designer but the Designer, even though ID never goes there.
Agenda-Driven science
Thursday, May 7th, 2009Recently you have probably heard the swine flu described in terms of deaths in Mexico, followed closely by words like “pandemic” and “quarantine.” Last time I heard, those deaths were in two digits. Any deaths are of course tragic, but for years the average lives lost to flu in the United States alone exceed 36,000. The world’s experience with swine flu hardly qualifies as a “pandemic.” As a matter of fact, people do not normally get swine flu. What people do normally get, however, is hype from the media. They got to keep you watching!
The part that amazes me is that it works. We do not get our medical information from science; we get it from popular media. Unfortunately we don’t even get most of what we call science from science. We believe and make our judgments based on a kind of “politically correct” science. By “politically correct,” I mean facts filtered and presented to the masses based on some group’s agenda. It is emotionally charged for some predetermined conclusion or action. I’m not even sure there is such thing as unbiased science, but I am sure we can do better. Does it matter? How about spending billions on finding a cure for a disease that is behaviorally correctable, while the number one killer, heart disease, receives about one eighth the funding?
Is there an agenda behind most of what we hear on global warming? I’ve seen the markers in Alaska where the glaciers once reached. No one doubts that the world is warmer than it was 200 years ago, but that was during what is now known as the “little ice age.” The earth’s temperature has fluctuated warmer and cooler as far as we can tell for all of recorded history–long before industrial pollution was invented. The cause of climate change is, to say the least, controversial. The leap that man is responsible is vanity. That we are thus able to fix it is arrogance. “You really can’t settle the issue by more heated debate…You need experimental data.”
But it sells newspapers, and it justifies research grants. It doesn’t boost either to point out that 95% of greenhouse gas is water vapor, or that CO2 is harmless to animals and essential for plants.
All my ranting so far is really about one thing: Our lives are so filled with other things, and we are so dependent on the digestion of ideas by other people, that we are suckers for someone else’s agenda. Could it be true of other “science”? Are the masses buying evolution because the evidence is so irrefutable, or could it be that the fit with secularism and research grants is not coincidental? After all, we must discover our self-made roots and whether other life has evolved out there. It’s too coincidental not to be questioned.
EPICENTER
Wednesday, August 20th, 2008Israel is the epicenter of history. As Joel Rosenberg and many others before him have pointed out, it is not only Israel, but Jerusalem and even the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. This is not a religious conclusion; it is what the evidence says.
I used to dislike history more than any other required
subject in school, because the whole thing was just memorizing ransom dates and
wars. It wasn’t until I took a(nother) required church history class under
Kenneth Scott LaTourette that it all began to make sense. History is one
continuous story. Not only that, but it also has one continuous plot. Why is the
Middle East always in the news? No, it’s not the oil. That only accounts for
interest in the last 100 years. What about the previous 5,000?
Watch the 90-second video again if needed: Israel is always in the center–a
country with no natural harbor, no vast mineral reserves, no corner on any world
market, just the most fought-over land in the world. Why?
And then there are the people themselves. There is no other
people who lost their nation, were dispersed around the world, and yet continued
to exist as an entity for more than a few hundred years. The Jews remained a
distinguishable people for 1700 years before reclaiming their homeland in
1948. This in itself should be enough to conclude they are somehow unique,
but add to that the repeated and focused attempts to wipe them out, and the probabilities say
they are " chosen."
What can one do with these facts? We must either accept the
fact that history not only has a plot, but also a purpose; or we can deny the facts. Oh, but
there is another more powerful alternative besides accept or deny: ignore the
facts.
Probability is the foundation of scientific discovery, yet
it is ignored when it comes to evidence for God.
OF THE PRINCIPAL SOURCE OF BELIEF AMONG DEMOCRATIC NATIONS
Sunday, August 3rd, 2008Noting that Alexis de Tocqueville completed Democracy in America in the early 1800′s, I am
amazed that he foresaw the American war of secession over slavery (1860′s) and
even that America and Russia would some day become world superpowers with
competing world views (1960′s). His power of prediction stem not from religious
claims, but from uncompromised logic, applied to carefully investigated of
facts, with clear understanding of human nature.
That understanding of human nature is most clear to me in Book 2, Chapter 2
of Democracy, where he addresses a subject that I wrestle with regularly
in my century–The inevitability (and value) of dogmatism.
According to de Tocqueville, not only are we all dogmatic,
we all must be dogmatic in order to think clearly and deeply. There are too many
things to think through, so we must trust someone else’s conclusions in order to
build and think completely about anything. Anyone who has traveled overseas, or
even into a variant of our own culture, has discovered how fatiguing it is to
simply go through the day: How and when does one cross the street? Which
direction does the traffic flow? What does a mail box look like? Things we
previously took for granted must now be thought about, draining our ability to
cope. So we in our daily lives accept as true many things we have not
investigated in order to think on other things. Our society is allowed to
accumulate knowledge, instead of reinventing the wheel every generation. This
serves us well more often than not. It is a good thing to trust and build on
trustworthy sources. But what happens when people trust the wrong source?
De Tocqueville draws another conclusion: The nature of
democracy leads people to depend more on majority thinking than on accumulated
experience. "At periods of equality men have no faith in one another, by
reason of their common resemblance; but this very resemblance gives them almost
unbounded confidence in the judgment of the public; for it would seem probable
that, as they are all endowed with equal means of judging, the greater truth
should go with the greater number." In other words, majority thinking becomes
more powerful than experience handed down from our forefathers. History is lost.
That is a scary thought. And I’m afraid de Tocqueville has
predicted again the state of America and the free world. Those who can think,
must.
All Creatures Great & Small
Sunday, July 20th, 2008Have you been following the science news recently about
Homo floresiensis, sometimes referred to as the Hobbit? Some science
news sources refer to this short too-maker as " another
human species" or even just " human-like,"
yet the name "Homo" means human. Some say the find
can all be explained by evolution theory, while others are more open about the
controversy.
This last reference points out that the dating clearly
places the bones within our own (Homo sapiens) time, yet comparisons are
made with fossils, human and not, dated millions of years ago. Homo
floresiensis was buried with advanced tools, no sign of other humans around,
had a cranial shape that justifies analytical thinking, and must have gotten to
the isle of Flores by navigation. The only problem is the credibility of a
person three feet tall. So what?
Why can’t they just be recognized as short people, as in this
photo? Is the difference any greater than that between a
Chihuahua and a Great Dane? The only reason all domestic dogs are considered
to be the same species is that we watched the breading take place in modern
history. It doesn’t mean that they are two different species or even that they
are in the process of becoming two different species. They are just swimming in
different corners of the same gene pool. Because evolutionists must find
differences to justify crossing from one species to another, we are led down
these rabbit trails that have never led to discovery, but have led to the
justification of one human mistreating another.
Humans is humans. Enjoy the variety.
Global Warming v. Carbon Dating
Saturday, May 17th, 2008If 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.