Beyond Intelligent Design - the Scientific Case for a Creator

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Dr. Gerald Schroeder sets forth a powerful argument for a Creator of the cosmos that goes beyond Intelligent Design theory to the radical rationality in nature. Dr. Gerald Schroeder holds a dual doctorate in Nuclear Physics and Oceanography from MIT along with high-level research in chemistry and planetary sciences. Dr. Schroeder's argument was so powerful it played a part in influencing the worlds leading atheist, Antony Flew to accept the existence of an infinitely intelligent Creator. This video is a part of the documentary entitled "Has Science Discovered God?" that made world headline news because it shows how Antony Flew changed his mind about atheism on the basis of the message of modern science, a message that testifies to the inherently intelligent infrastructure that underlies the universe.

ScienceFindsGod.com - www.ScienceFindsGod.com

reply to post by Bigwhammy


amazing video.

i particularly like it because he doesnt limit his lecture to any particular facet of reasoning. when discussing questions like god or existence, we cant limit ourselves to one aspect of the big picture like evolution or religion.

reply to post by miriam0566


Yes it's really good. And he is very qualified to be doing the presenting. I was very impressed with him. Hopefully more people will check it out.

reply to post by Bigwhammy


I'm going to provide my own thoughts as I watch this.

1. Creation is proof of a designer.
This can reasonably be argued philosophically - but (and we'll see if the video pans out) science would have no say on the matter. I, myself, believe in a creator god - though I have to conceded that no matter how probable it may seem to my rationality - it is still just a belief as there is no real proof either for or against it.

2. The Universe is tuned for life.
The vast majority of the universe is dead empty space. The vast majority of our solar system is apparently lifeless. Our own earth only supports life that we know of on it's outer crust. To me, this is not a very good indication of "fine tuning". It's analogous to finding a single flake of iron in the whole of planet Earth - and then saying that conditions were "fine tuned" for iron deposits at the formation of the Earth. His earlier argument applies back to him. We see life in OUR universe as being fine tuned for life - but without outside verification of other universes, we don't know if our universe is really optimal, poor, or simply has a very very different way of producing life.

Why would any form of life think that it had to reproduce?

It didn't. Not consciously anyhow. It just evolved that way. This is really quite simple (I think) of a concept - because for billions of years we only had single celled life that reproduced through division. This isn't optimal for multi-cellular organisms, but even further, reproduction increases genetic variability drastically. This means that live changes at a much faster pace, and those changes can be selected against at a much faster pace - improving the adaptations of successive generations and promoting survival.

Life starts immediately on the Earth

A billion years isn't what I'd call immediately. Not even on geological scales.

Cellular life just appears in the fossil record

Does he expect to find fossilized molecules?

Photosynthesis happened in a snap and oxygenated the atmosphere

Photosynthesis did happen rather fast in relation to the rest of evolution - however it was a very base form of photosynthesis that doesn't even rely on the same chemical process as plants use today (anoxygenic). Further, the atmosphere wasn't oxygenated until about 2.4 billion years when oxygenic photosynthesis developed leading to the Oxygen Catastrophy

Yes, it was an environmental disaster and caused mass extinction.

Why does god allow evil

Pure conjecture. You'd get more out of reading Milton's Paradise Lost than listening to him. (and you should, it's an excellent work)

Scientific American article

I'd like to read the full thing. However, which theory are they discussing? MWI? Bubble Universes? There's no solid evidence for any of them. They're only hypothetical. The closest we have to evidence that I'm aware of is the billion light-year wide void in the Eridanus constellation - and even then, it's not proof because we know of other such voids (albiet, not nearly as large).

He'd be right on this point, though, as using our "good" universe as a means of speculating that there are lots of "bad" universes out there is preposterous.

Big Bang produced "alive" light beams, and that light produced matter

I've never heard this from any physicist. What he seems to be talking about is very inconsistent with other materials I've read. For instance, even the Wikipedia entry describes a very different scenario from what he proposes.

Timeline of the Big Bang

I don't have the space to really comment much more - but I'll continue to watch the video. He is making a lot of errors it seems though.

[edit on 28-6-2008 by Lasheic]

reply to post by Lasheic


Just curious what your qualifications are as his are listed? I'm just a BS in CSC. He holds multiple disciplinary science degrees in addition to a Phd.

Originally posted by Lasheic

Why would any form of life think that it had to reproduce?

It didn't. Not consciously anyhow. It just evolved that way. This is really quite simple

ummm... how?

if splitting is a form of reproduction, how can it "evolve" reproduction. the lifeform has to have the full and complete function of reproduction from generation 1, or else it dies and disappears.

I posted this earlier on another thread but I thought it was particularly apt within the context of this discussion.

God of the Gaps syndrome.

God of the Gaps is the method of claiming God (or gods) exists by pointing to gaps in our present knowledge of how things work. For example, ancient Scandinavians who did not know what caused thunder and lightning chose to see them as evidence for their own chief deity, Thor, driving his chariot through the sky and hammering with Miolnir. Present-day creationists and IDists employ the same method by claiming that our gaps in the knowledge of abiogenesis and evolution mean that an intelligent designer must have been involved.
The weakness of "God of the Gaps" methodology is that the existence of God is, of course, endangered every time scientists filled the gaps with knowledge. Howard J Van Till, a theistic evolutionist, warns against this risk, and proposes instead to see the whole of the evolutionary saga as a pointer to a creative and generous God, no gaps needed. Also, when science fills a gap in knowledge with observed facts, science is satisfied. Creationists, on the other hand, generally declare that, rather than filling a gap, a new piece of information simply generates two gaps, one on either side of the newly-established fact -- meaning that additional information is understood to diminish the observational base from which the theory of evolution derives, rather than to reinforce it, as more insightful commentators argue.
The God of the Gaps argument indicates enormous conceit because, by implication, a believer indicates that he (or she) has understanding of all there is, except those things God did, and therefore declares that a miracle is necessary to make him (or her) fail to understand. It needs hardly to be said that this belief system has little do to with observation, and much to do with blind belief in the unknown.
Some creationists (for example Werner Gitt, in Schuf Gott durch Evolution?) try to refute this refutation of their arguments by saying that for them, God is not just a gap filler. But that is beside the point. For anyone switching to creationism because of the God of the Gaps argument, God would be. This is why the argument does not work.
Wikipedia

Oh, and I just had to comment on this. Mercury is not tidally locked with the sun, and neither is Venus. Venus has a very slow orbit of around 234 days. Mercury has a Spin-Orbital resonance. Big difference between them and our Moon.

Also.. the Earth isn't "exactly" just the right distance from the Sun. Firstly, the Earth's orbit is elliptical - so it's distance varies. Secondly, Earth would be a dead planet without it's atmosphere to regulate temperature. It's because we have the mass to maintain an atmosphere and a magnetosphere which prevents the solar winds from blowing it away. Mars, for instance, is a prime choice for terraformation. With the proper atmosphere, it too could be a temperate planet rife with living organisms. The problem is, it can't keep the atmosphere. However, it can hold onto one for far longer than humanity would ever be around.

Even Venus on the other extreme is being considered for terraforming. However, the challenges posed in cooling it would be tremendous. It's heat isn't necessarily due to the sun - but because of a runaway greenhouse effect.

Just curious what your qualifications are as his are listed? I'm just a BS in CSC. He holds multiple disciplinary science degrees in addition to a Phd. ~ Bigwhammy

I can read? Argument from authority much? It doesn't matter what his qualifications are - if he's wrong he's wrong. Look into what he's saying instead of just buying it because he has a degree, and then find independant verification. Read sources. Not to imply that he's lying, but he's making some very basic mistakes which someone with his "degrees" should NOT be making.

That argument is specious. If I were to get a video of Robert Lindzen refuting him, who would you believe? They're both from MIT! Neither one of them major in the fields this video discusses.

So let's put it this way. You go to a doctor because your kidney hurts - but you end up going to a proctologist. He tells you it's an infection in your lungs. Would you want to get a second opinion? Why, he IS a doctor right?

if splitting is a form of reproduction, how can it "evolve" reproduction. ~ miriam0566

We don't know exactly how sexual reproduction evolved. Likely it was probably a transition from asexual reproduction to a form of both a-sexual and bi-sexual reproduction, to finally bi-sexual reproduction exclusively. Some species still contain the ability to switch between Asexual reproduction and Sexual reproduction (this is called heterogamy). It certainly didn't happen at the single cellular stage, and it didn't happen in one generation.

Now a reason for going from A-Sexual reproduction to Bi-Sexual reproduction might have been that it increases one organisms chance to spread it's genetic information by dominating and then impregnating the other - as well as producing it's own brood. Sexual warfare in this manner is seen throughout the animal kingdom - with a well known example being dogs who knot with their partners to prevent other dogs from... well, I'll leave the nastiness out, but to ensure impregnation before the decoupling so that her uterus seals and cannot accept sperm from other dogs.

So no, we don't know exactly how and when it formed, but the simple part (which I was referring to) being the benefits to sexual reproduction in diversification that help ensure survival.

the lifeform has to have the full and complete function of reproduction from generation 1, or else it dies and disappears.

This isn't true. What you're describing is irreducible complexity. For example, take the bacterial flagellum. It's a highly complex structure which relies on multiple functions or else the bacterium cannot move. However what we found after breeding a strain of E.Coli without some of those necessary parts - was that the structure for the flagellum actually served another purpose. The Type-III Secretory System. So the Flagellum was built, or rather, a modification of an already existing system.

So the beginnings of sexual reproduction may not have even been sexual in purpose at all, or served a completely different purpose than what we are accustomed to.

[edit on 28-6-2008 by Lasheic]

Originally posted by schrodingers dog
I posted this earlier on another thread but I thought it was particularly apt within the context of this discussion.

God of the Gaps syndrome.

i was watching futurama last night, and at the beginning of the show, there is always this funny phrase. im always obsessed with seeing which phrase it is.

last night's was "you can't prove it won't happen." ment as a joke, but kind of profound because we cant infact prove it wont happen exactly like the show says it will.

however any idiot would be able to reason that it won't. why? because of probability, laws of science, observations, etc etc etc.

my point is this, there may be gaps in our understanding of how things came about. but there are certains anomalies in the evidence that cant be explained by randomness. you might not be able to definitively prove that randomness was not the cause of a particular happening, but you can estimate through probably and with what laws of nature we know that something is next to impossible.

for example (just looking at one for now) look at the eye. we know that the eye is a complex form with multiple working parts that are dependent on each other. if any of those components are missing, then the whole thing doesnt work. this makes it incredibly unlikely that an animal with no eyes can have offspring that has a fully functional eye.

most evolutionist look to nature (as they should) for evidence of the evolution of the eye. they look at smaller simpler animals and see this progression from light sensitive skin to hollow eye to a close aperture to an eyeball. then they say "see, the evolution of the eye"

problem - anomalocarids had compound eyes, birgeria was a bony fish with eyes like a fish today, the ostracoderm was also the same. all these are cambrian animals.

so now we see from the fossil record a variety of eyes just suddenly appear. not from simple to complex like you would expect, but all at once.

so how did the eye come into existance? because we know its next to impossible for an eye to pop into existance at random fully formed and functional. the amount of mutations and transitional forms would be staggering. it would be logical to assume that the eye would be something that would develop much later. but it isnt, it was there from the beginning of the cambrian

this is a great example of a knowledge "gap"

now this is the funny part. if someone says that this is evidence of creation or design, suddenly they are illogical, they are holding on to a fantasy, desperate to prove their fairytale.

yet, evolutionists, instead of acknowledging the evidence staring them in the face would prefer to say "well, we dont know yet, but we'll figure it out"

look, a puzzle only has one solution, just because the picture isnt turning out the way you expect it to doesnt mean there are missing pieces.

Originally posted by Lasheic

We don't know exactly how sexual reproduction evolved.

he didnt say sexual reproduction, he said reproduction. that includes a-sexual.

the first living thing HAD to immediately know that it would die and HAD to have aways of passing its information on from gen1.

reproduction in a single cell is a complex process involving a great deal of order and precision. the cell had to master this process the first time, it couldnt possibly evolve it from a gradual process.

reply to post by miriam0566


the first living thing HAD to immediately know that it would die and HAD to have aways of passing its information on from gen1.

Well, if we're talking about the very first single-cellular life needing to divide, then the mechanisms for reproduction were already well established long before the first cell. This is actually understood and reproducable in the lab.

RNA sequences catalize RNA replication

I am sorry, but you'll have to sign up to the webpage to view the full article. It's free however, as you only have to pay if you to read papers under a year old and this study is from 2001.

Originally posted by Lasheic
reply to post by miriam0566

 

the first living thing HAD to immediately know that it would die and HAD to have aways of passing its information on from gen1.

Well, if we're talking about the very first single-cellular life needing to divide, then the mechanisms for reproduction were already well established long before the first cell. This is actually understood and reproducable in the lab.

RNA sequences catalize RNA replication

I am sorry, but you'll have to sign up to the webpage to view the full article. It's free however, as you only have to pay if you to read papers under a year old and this study is from 2001.

so reproduction was around long before the first life?

reply to post by miriam0566


i was watching futurama last night

Ach, I miss that show. I really should look into getting a TV sometime. How did the DVD movies turn out?

problem - anomalocarids had compound eyes, birgeria was a bony fish with eyes like a fish today, the ostracoderm was also the same. all these are cambrian animals.

I believe the first fossil with anything resembling a primitive eye was from about 550 million years ago. About 20 million years before the Cambrian explosion is generally accepted to have occurred. The Cambrian explosion itself lasted about 150 million years... so... that's plenty of time. Indeed, some of those early eye designs are still around today. Take the Nautilus, which is a perfect example of a pinhole eye structure.

it would be logical to assume that the eye would be something that would develop much later. this is a great example of a knowledge "gap"

I would argue that, with the amount of transitional fossils we have, as well as seeing demonstrated speciation - as well as observed evolution on the small scale would fully justify the position of saying "We don't know, so we should research it more to find the answer". I can't see saying "We know evolution produced this, this and this - but we don't how it produced this over here, so it must be evidence of an intelligent design."

To take your analogy of a puzzle, it's like having one that is about 70% complete and the picture is clearly that of a dragon. Then finding a few pieces missing or out of place... and so proceed to call it a picture of a dolphin instead.

so reproduction was around long before the first life?

Pretty much. The basic components for life were self-replicating, so when life first formed out of a rough and simple compilation of these building blocks - it too replicated.


Please note that evolution does not necessarily mean that there wasn't an intelligent designer. Only that said designer didn't poof animals into existence fully formed. There's nothing to say that an intelligent designer wasn't working THROUGH evolution... guiding it... only that science would have nothing to say on his/her/it's existence. Science works on falsification, and you cannot falsify the existence of an entity which does not manifest itself to us in our physical reality. Therefore, science can only falsify preconceived notions ABOUT god and what god did, and how god did it. In this aspect, and in that point of view, I think science actually helps people to understand god a lot better.

[edit on 28-6-2008 by Lasheic]

Originally posted by Lasheic
Ach, I miss that show. I really should look into getting a TV sometime. How did the DVD movies turn out?

i havent bought them yet, i live in spain so im not sure they have even been released yet.... *bleh*

To take your analogy of a puzzle, it's like having one that is about 70% complete and the picture is clearly that of a dragon. Then finding a few pieces missing or out of place... and so proceed to call it a picture of a dolphin instead.

puzzles dont work like that though. either the piece fits, or it doesnt. sometimes the picture fits, but the piece needs ot be forced, or sometimes the piece is snug but the picture doesnt match

if you form a dragon wig, no amount of adding pieces and rearranging will give you a dolphin

truth is like that. evidence can fit a certain way into a theory, but if all the pieces fit and you still dont have a picture, then you can conclude you put it together wrong.

evolution is like that. you have this fossil record and a bunch of animals that can be organized. but there is no defined way that one animal came to be another

you have gradualism which is the theory that with enough time a creature will little by little change into another. for this theory to work, you need an infinate amount of transitional forms. so much so that i would guess you wouldnt even be able to tell one species from another. when does a t-rex become an allosaurus? no idea because the line would be blurred so many times with transitional forms.

does the fossil record support this? certainly not. t rex is a t rex, allosaurus is and allosaurus

then you have mutations which happen all the time (for now we'll ignore that dna has systems that repair itself from mutations, which would be impossible if dna was just random jibberish). even with mutations most if not all have been detrimental to the species. even when a beneficial change happens, it cant be proven it was from a mutation. any changes a mutation causes, only give variation to a species (like albino fruit flys, they are still fruit flys). so if species mutated of this long period of time with an infinite amount of mutations, you would thing that beneficial mutations would be normal,but instead we find they are rare.

then there is mega mutations which is evolution at the height of absurdity. basically you get a lizard that has an egg, and out pops a bird. it supports the fossil record, but the probability is astronomicall impossible

so you have a bunch of pieces that fit (if you force them) but no picture

so reproduction was around long before the first life?

Pretty much. The basic components for life were self-replicating, so when life first formed out of a rough and simple compilation of these building blocks - it too replicated.

so a bunch of self replicating components got together and formed the first life, i find that abit hard to swallow. ive never read anything that would back that up as anything more than a thoery

Please note that evolution does not necessarily mean that there wasn't an intelligent designer. Only that said designer didn't poof animals into existence fully formed. There's nothing to say that an intelligent designer wasn't working THROUGH evolution... guiding it... only that science would have nothing to say on his/her/it's existence.

that used to be the sum of my beliefs, but the more i look at the fossil record, the more i see it as unlikely

I think science actually helps people to understand god a lot better.

i 100% agree. but even if you take god out of the discussion, alot of evolution is based on conjecture. relationships between animals are made simply because they look alike. im sorry, but thats not proof. nor is it science.

[edited because half my post was deleted somehow]

[edit on 28-6-2008 by miriam0566]

[edit on 28-6-2008 by miriam0566]

reply to post by Lasheic

So let's put it this way. You go to a doctor because your kidney hurts - but you end up going to a proctologist. He tells you it's an infection in your lungs. Would you want to get a second opinion? Why, he IS a doctor right?


This analogy is valid but humans in general have a tendency to jump on what ever feat they present state of mind. In my view what this guy is saying is compelling to his world so to suppress the fear of no existence of God, the same as materialistic scientists validate they atheistic convictions to suppress they fear of God existence.
If one likes to distance himself to the debate then one can really benefit to the avalanche of new information and decide if this knowledge is valuable to restrain his own fear from the oblivion of no existence.
Kacou

reply to post by miriam0566


i havent bought them yet, i live in spain so im not sure they have even been released yet.... *bleh*

Ech, I hope you guys don't have to go through all the BS wait times for videos and other media as you do for video games.

if you form a dragon wig, no amount of adding pieces and rearranging will give you a dolphin

But that's what I'm saying. Evolution may have it's gaps and it's contentions, but for the most part it all fits. It's referred to the unifying theory of Biology simply BECAUSE it fits so well across so many different fields of research. It bridges the gaps between, say, Phylogeny and Pathology to help identify and treat new diseases.

There's literally millions of research papers written on all aspects of Evolution as applies to Biology. I simply don't see this from the Intelligent Design movement. If they had the facts on their side, then it would be easy to demonstrate and offer a much more plausible explanation. But this isn't the case. When you visit a creationist website, nearly everything you get is simply attempts to poke holes in the theory of evolution. There is no other alternative proposed with the research to back it up.

you have this fossil record and a bunch of animals that can be organized. but there is no defined way that one animal came to be another

I don't understand. Expound on this a bit, because it seems to me you're discussing Taxonomy and Phylogeny.

you have gradualism which is the theory that with enough time a creature will little by little change into another.

Gradualism doesn't strictly apply to biology, but to any system in which small changes over time can produce large changes.

for this theory to work, you need an infinate amount of transitional forms. so much so that i would guess you wouldnt even be able to tell one species from another.

I wouldn't say infinite - but each successive generation is a different transitional form, yet. We are all transitional forms.

when does a t-rex become an allosaurus? no idea because the line would be blurred so many times with transitional forms. does the fossil record support this? certainly not. t rex is a t rex, allosaurus is and allosaurus

Are you saying that we should have every single fossil of every single generation of every single creature which ever walked/flew/swam across the surface of the Earth? What you're asking for simply isn't possible because of how difficult a process fossilization is. Further, we've barely scratched the surface of the Earth in regards to paleontology - and to make matters worse, continents have upheaved and subsided, They have changed location several times in Earth history. Over 75% of the Earth is covered in water, and we're finding fossils in some very inhospitable places - like Antarctica which used to be tropical at one time. Kind of hard to get under the glaciers now though.

Give it time. What we have found in quite amazing though. Take Tiktaalik for instance. This is a great example of evolutionary theory predicting a result and being confirmed correct. When paleontologists went looking for a transitional fossil between panderichthys and acanthostega - they used Evolution to come up with an idea of where to dig, in what rock layer, and what they would find. And wouldn't you know it... they did. Tiktaalik turned out to be exactly what they were looking for.

Tiktallik

Brief list of other known transitional fossils

even with mutations most if not all have been detrimental to the species.

A bit of a misconception. The vast majority of mutations are completely benign. Of those that aren't, most of them are detrimental and get weeded out. Some, however, are beneficial and help the organism to survive.

reply to post by miriam0566


Continued on Mutation - check out this video which explains this a bit as well as providing several instances of beneficial mutation in humans.



then there is mega mutations which is evolution at the height of absurdity. basically you get a lizard that has an egg, and out pops a bird.

You never get that. Evolution neither supports nor would permit such a occurrence. Indeed, it would fly in the face of Evolution.

so you have a bunch of pieces that fit (if you force them) but no picture

You can also insert a piece wrong by applying sufficient pressure at the right angles. Even if the piece fits, may not appear to fit because of how it was inserted.

so a bunch of self replicating components got together and formed the first life, i find that abit hard to swallow. ive never read anything that would back that up as anything more than a thoery

It was in the paper I linked. Which part of the paper did you have doubts or contentions with?

alot of evolution is based on conjecture.

I wouldn't say it's conjecture. Nobody is just "guessing" and making things up. Nobody credible anyhow. The basic tenants of Evolution have basically been proven, and Evolutionary theory is even used outside of biology and even into fields like engineering by using the same processes via Evolutionary Algorithms simulated on a computer. Automobile and Aircraft manufacturers have been using EA's for decades now with great success. They've produced products such as USB flash drives which have greatly expanded lifespans and WiFi routers that operate on par with or better than more well known brands such as Linksys without actually infringing on copyrights.

Indeed, Evolution is such a great designer that it's fueling yet another debate. This time between human engineers and evolution.

Evolutionary Algorithms

relationships between animals are made simply because they look alike. im sorry, but thats not proof. nor is it science.

Taxonomy and Phylogeny are used to classify animals based on shared characteristics. It's a classification system, and doesn't just apply to biological creatures either. It's not so much a science in itself, but it's a tool used by science to assist in classification.

"Kinds" are another form of classification. Is a sparrow the same "kind" as a bull? Why not? What defines them as being different? "Kinds" and Taxonomic groups or phylogenies are essentially the exact same thing - except that taxonomy and phylogeny have a far far greater resolution and structure.

And I've never really understood what a "kind" is, anyhow. I've never gotten a real, specific, and widely accepted definition on what it is or how it works from anyone. Though I have often seen it used as a blanket term which can be used to either describe all the different species of finches within the "finch" kind - used to broadly as to describe all plant life together as one single "kind" - including fungus which shares very little in common.



One other thing I'd like to touch upon which I forgot in the above post. In speaking of transitional fossils, that is. Consider corn for a moment. Corn is a species of Teosinte. Check out the picture. It doesn't look much like corn at all does it? Teosinte's are a form of wheat grass which humans have cultivated throughout thousands of years. Even though WE cultivated it into the corn we eat, we do not have really have any transitional fossils to show that progress. Yet there it is. And there was never a point in it's cultivation when Corn was not a Teosinte, even though it is a much different plant (indeed a new species) now.

Originally posted by schrodingers dog

God is not just a gap filler.

you're so right man . . . "billions and billions of years" is a much more valid gap filler. ~

And instead of a conscious "entity" creating the universe, it makes more sense that a "dense ball of energy/matter" exploded and then randomly made everything we see today by chance.~

Your logic is undeniable.~

[edit on 6/28/2008 by JPhish]

The real reason ID is being suppressed.