The God Delusion Session 2: Son of Kong or son of God ADULT FAITH EDUCATION SERIES 7:30 pm on Feb 12

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The God DelusionSession 2 Son of Kong or son
of GodADULT FAITH EDUCATION SERIES 730 pm on
Feb 12th, 2009.St. Augustines Parish, 1060
Baseline RoadOttawa, Ontario

• Timothy Lau,
• MD, FRCPC, MSc
• Assistant Professor, Faculty of Medicine,
  Department of Psychiatry, Geriatrics, ROMHC

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The New Atheists and their Faith

• There is no transcendent reality beyond the
  natural world that is to say there is no
  immaterial soul and no life after death.
  (Session 12)
• The natural universe is self-originating, not the
  creation of a divine being. (Session 1)
• Humans, like the universe have no ultimate
  purpose or meaning beyond that which they create
  themselves (Session 2).
• Science does a better job of explaining nature,
  including human nature, than religion. Belief in
  God is the source of much of the worlds violence
  and disorder, and mankind would be better off
  dispensing with religion (Session 2 and 3).

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Session 1 Summary points

• Following causality logic can demonstrate that
  there is an all powerful, eternal, and
  all-knowing God
• Science is the study of how the physical world
  works.
• The foundation of science is based on the
  assumption of order, rationality, predictability
  and causality.
• Faith in materialism is the foundation of the
  modern atheists philosophy or reductionism
• Our humanity is based on a transcendental
  reality.

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3 Sessions

• Session 1
• A RATIONAL GOD
• Reasonable arguments for Gods existence
• Session 2
• DESCENT OF MAN
• Atheism as irrational and dehumanizing
• Session 3
• ELEVATION OF MAN
• Faith and God, a family affair. A God different
  than any other.

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Absolute unquestioning faith

• It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet
  someone who claims not to believe in evolution,
  that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or
  wicked, but I dare not say that)
• Richard Dawkins
• What happened to the spirit of intellectual
  inquiry? Modifiable, testable, empirically
  verifiable hypothesis? Are you wicked if you
  question it?

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Questions with regards to evolution

• What did Darwins Origin of Species
  demonstrate?
• Does the evolution of species exclude God? How?
• What is the Neo-Darwinian synthesis?
• How does the philosophy of materialistic
  Darwinism dehumanize man?

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The limits of Neo-Darwinism

• Far from being able to replace traditional
  metaphysics and religion, Neo-Darwinian
  philosophy cannot begin to tell us what brought
  the world into existence, nor why the world
  exists, nor what our ultimate destiny is, nor how
  we should act in order to be the kind of persons
  we ought to be.

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Only God Creates from Nothing

• One day a group of scientists said to God that
  they decided they no longer needed Him. The
  scientist said God we are at the point that
  people can do many miraculous and creative
  things. We can clone sheep, humans and design
  humans from stem cells.
• God listened patiently and said Very well, how
  about this, lets say we have a man-making
  contest? to which the scientists answer great.
• But God added we are going to do it just like I
  did it in the days of Adam. One scientist said,
  Sure no problem and bent down to get some dirt.
• God just looked at him and said No, you make
  your own dirt

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• We are not some casual and meaningless product
  of evolution. Each of us is the result of a
  thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us
  is loved, each of us is necessary.
• Pope Benedict XVI,
• In his inauguration Mass as Pope on April 24,
  2005

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Two things to ponder

• All things happen for a reason
• Nothing happens truly randomly
• randomness is an illusion that arises from our
  limitations of being able to know all the causes
  and effects of everything in the universe we
  just dont know all the reasons
• An eternal all-powerful and all-knowing creator
  is not limited in the way He creates or brings
  things into being
• The unevolved soul
• What evolution describes is how the material
  world evolves.
• When it comes to man, which has a soul and body,
  the soul, which is immaterial, is not the product
  of evolution. It is directly created by God.

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Session 2. Outline

• Design and Causality
• Is the Universe fine tuned?
• Finely Tuned Earth
• Origin of Life
• Evolution
• The Anthropic Principle Misconstrued
• Climbing Mount Improbable
• The problem of morality

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5th Way. Finality or design.

• The teleological argument
• The argument states simply that design implies a
  designer.
• Things in the world move toward goals, just as
  the arrow does not move toward its goal except by
  the archer's directing it. Thus, there must be an
  intelligent designer who directs all things to
  their goals, and this is God.

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Paleys Watch

• By analogy with a watch, the argument states that
  design implies a designer.
• In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot
  against a stone, and were asked how the stone
  came to be there I might possibly answer, that,
  for anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain
  there forever But suppose I had found a watch
  upon the ground, and it should be inquired how
  the watch happened to be in that place I should
  hardly think of the answer I had before given,
  that for anything I knew, the watch might have
  always been there.
• William Paley, Natural Theology (1802)

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Paleys Watch

• By analogy with a watch, the argument states that
  design implies a designer.
• There must have existed, at some time, and at
  some place or other, an artificer or artificers,
  who formed the watch for the purpose which we
  find it actually to answer who comprehended its
  construction, and designed its use. (...) Every
  indication of contrivance, every manifestation of
  design, which existed in the watch, exists in the
  works of nature with the difference, on the side
  of nature, of being greater or more, and that in
  a degree which exceeds all computation.
• William Paley, Natural Theology (1802)

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Charles Darwin autobiography

• Although I did not think much about the
  existence of a personal God until a considerably
  later period of my life, I will here give the
  vague conclusions to which I have been driven.
• The old argument of design in nature, as given by
  Paley, which formerly seemed to me so conclusive,
  fails, now that the law of natural selection has
  been discovered.
• We can no longer argue that, for instance, the
  beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been
  made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a
  door by man. There seems to be no more design in
  the variability of organic beings and in the
  action of natural selection, than in the course
  which the wind blows. Everything in nature is the
  result of fixed laws.

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Charles Darwin in the Origin of Species

• I see no good reason why the views given in this
  volume should shock the religious feelings of any
  one. It is satisfactory, as showing how transient
  such impressions are, to remember that the
  greatest discovery ever made by man, namely, the
  law of the attraction of gravity, was also
  attacked by Leibnitz
• A celebrated author and divine has written to me
  that "he has gradually learnt to see that it is
  just as noble a conception of the Deity to
  believe that He created a few original forms
  capable of self-development into other and
  needful forms, as to believe that He required a
  fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused
  by the action of His laws.
• The theory of natural selection is consistent
  with God who may use this as a mechanism to bring
  about the human body

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From Aristotle 4 CAUSES

• The four causes provide answers to four
  questions one might ask about something, for
  example, a man
• What is it made from ? Flesh and so on
• MATERIAL CAUSE
• What produced it? The father and mother
• EFFICIENT CAUSE
• What is its form or essence? A two legged
  rational creature.
• FORMAL CAUSE
• For what purpose? The big question.To live a
  life according to reason
• FINAL CAUSE

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Aristotle to Darwin and Back Again

• Different types of causes
• Etienne Gilson argued in his 1971 book From
  Aristotle to Darwin and Back Again that Francis
  Bacon and others perpetrated a philosophical
  error when they eliminated two of Aristotles
  four causes from the purview of science.
• They sought to explain everything in mechanistic
  terms, referring only to material and efficient
  causes and discarding formal and final causality.

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Aristotle to Darwin and Back Again

• Formal vs. material cause
• Without the form, or the formal cause, it would
  be impossible to account for the unity and
  specific identity of any substance. In the human
  composite the form is the spiritual soul, which
  makes the organism a single entity and gives it
  its human character.
• Once the form is lost, the material elements
  decompose, and the body ceases to be human. It
  would be futile, therefore, to try to define
  human beings in terms of their bodily components
  alone.

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Does a material or efficient causes exclude a
First Cause?

• Consider a Ford motor car
• If you discovered all the information and
  processes necessary to make a car including how
  it works does that mean you can prove either that
  Mr. Ford, the designer of the car, doesnt have a
  reason for making the car or even that he exists?
• Can one derive a why out of a how?
• How does part of an explanation (mechanisms)
  remove the need for the rest of the explanation
• Do the knowledge of secondary causes or a chain
  of subsequent causes disprove a primary cause
  Final CAUSE?

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Dawkins Faithextrapolation to material causation

• The universe is nothing but a collection of
  atoms in motion, human beings simply machines for
  propagating DNA, and the propagation of DNA is a
  self-sustaining process. It is every living
  objects sole reason for living
• Nothing but, sole or simply. HOW DOES HE KNOW
  THIS? It is an ideological assumption.

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Nothing objectionable. A true statement of
science.

• The universe is a collection of atoms in motion,
  human beings machines for propagating DNA, and
  the propagation of DNA is a self-sustaining
  process. It is every living objects reason for
  living
• Now by removing nothing but, sole or simply
• The problem with ontological reduction is that it
  is a philosophical assumption rather than
  anything based in reason

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Design and causality

• 3 things that suggest a designer
• The fine tuned universe
• The Origin of life
• The Origin of Human life (including
  consciousness)
• Randomness is not a good explanation for 1-3
• What the natural sciences demonstrate with
  regards to the above, is that our current
  theories are missing information
• Is the missing information a stacked deck (ie.
  Initial conditions)

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Design and causality

• 3 things that suggest a designer
• The fine tuned universe
• The Origin of life
• The Origin of Human life (including
  consciousness)
• The missing information
• There may be many other physical or material
  causes that are unknown.
• Aside from his comments on Multiple Universes,
  Dawkins himself said, these constants maybe
  connected in some way so that they are determined
  to be the way they are. This suggests that there
  is even more of a unified design.
• What is missing of these 3 points is our
  knowledge of the final cause.
• Our understanding of the material and efficient
  causes is deficient (at least at the current time
  for 1 and 2. Number 3 can never be explained
  soley in terms of matter without dehumanizing
  man)

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A Brief History of Time
Beginning T-13.7 billion

• Origin
• of Life
• T- 4 billion

Human Life T - ?
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Scientific American, special edition Vol 12 No 2
2002
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The Fine Tuning of the Universe

• The universes fundamental forces are amazingly,
  intricately, and delicately balanced or
  fine-tuned in order for the universe to be able
  to sustain life.
• Recent research has shown that many of the
  fundamental constants of nature, from the energy
  levels of the carbon atom to the rate at which
  the universe is expanding, have just the right
  values for life to exist. Change any of them
  just a little, and the universe would become
  hostile to life and incapable of supporting it.

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Universal Fine Tuning

• Physicists such as Stephen Hawking have pointed
  out that the earliest seconds of the universe
  after the Big Bang reveal some strange constants
  
• the exact rate of the universe's expansion (the
  Hubble constant)
• the precise numerical values of the various force
  fields -- nuclear, electromagnetic, gravity --
  that hold the universe together
• and the equally precise ratio of particles and
  anti-particles.

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Universal Fine Tuning

• The laws of nature seem to be calibrated in order
  that galaxies, stars, planets and life itself can
  appear, says science writer David Toolan in
  summarizing this picture of constancy.
• If gravity was just a bit stronger, the universe
  would have collapsed before stars -- the
  factories for the chemicals of life -- could
  appear. If gravity had been any weaker, the
  universe would have ballooned too fast for stars
  to form.
• If there had been a slight variation in the
  strong nuclear force, the universe would be a
  vast, starless desert.
• If every proton created in the early universe had
  been matched by an anti-proton, they would have
  eliminated each other. That would have ended the
  story of life right there.

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Universal Fine Tuning

• If the ratio of the strong nuclear force to the
  electromagnetic force had been different by 1
  part in 1016, no stars could have formed.
• The ratio of the electromagnetic force-constant
  to the gravitational force constant must be
  equally delicately balanced. Increase it by only
  1part in 1040 and only small stars can exist
  decrease it by the same amount and there will
  only be large stars.
• You must have both large and small stars in the
  universe the large ones produce elements in
  their thermonuclear furnaces and it is only the
  small ones that burn long enough to sustain a
  planet with life.

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Fred Hoyle

• Would you not say to yourself, "Some
  super-calculating intellect must have designed
  the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the
  chance of my finding such an atom through the
  blind forces of nature would be utterly
  minuscule." Of course you would . . . A common
  sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a
  superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well
  as with chemistry and biology, and that there are
  no blind forces worth speaking about in nature.
• The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to
  me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion
  almost beyond question.

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Universal Fine Tuning

• An alteration in the ratio of expansion and
  contraction forces by as little as 1 part in 1055
  at the Planck time (10-43 seconds after the
  origin of the universe) would have led either to
  too rapid expansion of the universe with no
  galaxies forming or too slow an expansion with
  consequent rapid collapse.
• It seems as though someone has fine tuned
  natures numbers to make the universethe
  impression of design is overwhelming.

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Universal Fine Tuning

• Paul Davies suggests that it would be akin to the
  kind of accuracy a marksman would need to hit a
  coin at the far side of the observable universe,
  twenty billion light years away.
• Alternatively Hugh Ross said if you cover America
  with coins in columns reaching the moon, paint
  one coin red and pick it out of the stacks.

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Stephen Hawking

• "If the rate of expansion one second after the
  Big Bang had been smaller by even one part in a
  hundred thousand million million, the universe
  would have recollapsed before it even reached its
  present size."
• So the odds against us being here are, well,
  astronomical. And yet we are here. Who is
  responsible for this?

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A Just Right Universe
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A Just Right Galaxy
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Fine tuned Earth

• Distance from the sun.
• Too near and water would evaporate, too far and
  the earth would be too cold for life. A change
  of only 2 or so and all life would cease.
• Surface gravity and temperature
• are also critical to within a few percent for the
  earth to have a life-sustaining
  atmosphere-retaining the right mix of gases
  necessary for life.
• The planet must rotate at the right speed
• too slow and temperature differences between
  night and day would be too extreme, too fast and
  wind speeds would be disastrous.
• Astrophysicist Hugh Ross
• makes a conservative estimate that the chance of
  one such planet existing in the universe is about
  1 in 1030

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A privileged planetGonzalez and Richards

• Earths remarkable suitability to do science
• Habitable but also placed to make a stunning
  diversity of measurements, from cosmology and
  galactic astronomy to stellar astrophysics and
  geophysics.
• We might have been a part of the universe where
  we could not see deep into space because of
  starlight
• Our atmosphere might have been opaque or simply
  translucent rather than transparent
• Witness the fact that the sizes of the moon and
  sun and their distances from the earth are just
  right that a perfect eclipse is possible (which
  allows the chromosphere of the sun to be
  investigated scientifically)

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Origin of Life

• The first living things on Earth were single cell
  prokaryotes and they first appeared on Earth
  about four billion years ago, just a few hundred
  million years after the formation of the Earth
  itself (shortly after the Earth cooled). Against
  all odds, the simplest cell formed almost
  immediately.
• By 2.4 billion years ago the ratio of stable
  isotopes of carbon, iron and sulfur shows the
  action of living things on inorganic minerals and
  sediments and molecular biomarkers indicate
  photosynthesis, demonstrating that life on earth
  was widespread by this time

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Origin of Life

• It has become inordinately difficult to even
  begin to think about constructing a naturalistic
  theory of evolution of that first reproducing
  organism. Anthony Flew
• The difference between the living and non living
  world represents the most dramatic and
  fundamental of all the discontinuities of nature.
  

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Origin of Life

• Molecular biology has shown us that the basic
  design of the cell system is essentially the same
  in all living systems on earth from bacteria to
  mammals.
• In all organisms the roles of DNA, mRNA and
  protein are identical. The meaning of the
  genetic code is also virtually identical in all
  cells. The size, structure, and component design
  of the protein synthetic machinery is practically
  the same in all cells.
• Michael Denton

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Origin of Life

• We have no idea what the structure of a
  primitive cell might have been. The simplest
  living system known to us, the bacterial cell.in
  its overall chemical plan is the same as other
  living beings. The simplest cells available to
  us have nothing primitive about themno vestiges
  of truly primitive structures are discernible.
• Jacques Monod Nobel Prize Winner

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Haldane and Oparin The Primordial Soup Theory

• Much enthusiasm subsided
• Consensus opinion among geochemists think that
  the earth did not contain significant amounts of
  ammonia, methane or hydrogen that were needed to
  produce a strong reducing atmosphere as required
  by the Oparin hypothesis.
• Much more likely to have nitrogen, CO2 and water
  vapour. There was also significant O2 which
  would inhibit the production of crucial
  biomolecules. Environment hostile to amino acids.

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The problem with proteins

• Proteins are made up of amino acids (a.a.)
• Amino acids have 2 forms (chiral centremirror)
• (a.a. both, proteins only L) chances of getting
  them all in a 100 a.a. protein in the L form
  would be (1/2)1001030
• Peptide bonds join a.a.
• In prebiotic simulations only half the bonds are
  peptide. Chances again would be (1/2)1001030
• Protein Folding
• Needs machinery to do the above correctly

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The problem with proteins

• Improbability Isaac Asimov did it for the
  particular protein haemoglobin, and called it the
  Haemoglobin Number. 10190
• Richard Dawkins
• It has been estimated that, left to its own
  devices, a concentrated solution of amino acids
  would need the volume of fluid the size of the
  known universe, to go against the thermodynamic
  tide, and create a single small polypeptide
  spontaneously.
• Physicist Paul Davies

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The problem with proteins

• The odds of randomly getting the right
  combination of a.a. for a small protein (100
  a.a.) 1 in 20100.
• Dawkins suggest the chance of the origin of life
  is 1 in 109.
• You dont have to be a scientist or statistician
  to notice the difference in the number of zeros.
• These calculations are for single proteins.
  Cells require multitudes of proteins.

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DNA

• Deoxyribose nucleic acid
• Made up of smaller molecules (nucleotides with 4
  different bases) collections of which (genes)
  code for protein structure
• The human genome contains some 30-40 000 genes.
• A chimp may share 98 of its DNA with humans but
  it is not 98 human it is not human at all.
  Does the fact that we have genes in common with a
  mouse or a banana say anything about human
  nature. The idea is absurd.

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The problem with DNA

• The chances of generating the right sequence of a
  small DNA strand, say 100 bases, by chance alone
  is 4100. This is clearly more than 109
• We see again the example of how Dawkins generates
  values in his head with the hopes of convincing
  people that there is some substance in his
  calculation or reasoning.

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Cricks sequence hypothesiscentral dogma
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Chicken or egg or both at the same time?

• The previous calculations showed the problems of
  having particular single small proteins or single
  DNA strands.
• The cell is a complicated system each of these
  three types of molecules requires other type to
  work.
• For example DNA which carries the information but
  cannot put that information to use, or even copy
  itself without the help of RNA and protein
• Irreducible complexity at the beginning

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The Origin of Life

• Probability of random events producing life has
  been estimated at
• 1 chance in 1040000

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The Voyage of the Beagle

• A survey expedition of the ship HMS Beagle, 27
  December 1831-2 October 1836.
• While the expedition was originally planned to
  last two years, it lasted almost five
• Darwin spent most of this time exploring on land
  (three years and three months on land 18 months
  at sea).
• Darwin observed and described his observations
  covering such topics as biology, geology, and
  anthropology

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The Voyage of the Beagle

• Observed
• Developed a theory

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Darwins theory

• Every species is fertile enough that if all
  offspring survived to reproduce themselves
  population growth would result.
• Yet populations remain roughly the same size,
  with small changes.
• Resources such as food are limited, and are
  relatively stable over time.
• A struggle for survival ensues.
• In sexually reproducing species, generally no two
  individuals are identical.
• Some of these variations directly affect the
  ability of an individual to survive in a given
  environment.
• Much of this variation is inheritable.
• Individuals less suited to the environment are
  less likely to survive and less likely to
  reproduce, while individuals more suited to the
  environment are more likely to survive and more
  likely to reproduce.
• The individuals that survive are most likely to
  leave their inheritable traits to future
  generations.
• This slowly effected process results in
  populations that adapt to the environment over
  time, and ultimately, after interminable
  generations, these variations accumulate to form
  new varieties, and ultimately, new species.

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Random mutation and selection
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Natural Selection

• Natural selection is the process by which genetic
  mutations that enhance reproduction become, and
  remain, more common in successive generations of
  a population.
• It has often been called a "self-evident"
  mechanism because it necessarily follows from
  three simple facts
• Heritable variation exists within populations of
  organisms.
• Organisms produce more offspring than can
  survive.
• These offspring vary in their ability to survive
  and reproduce.
• These conditions produce competition between
  organisms for survival and reproduction.
• Consequently, organisms with traits that give
  them an advantage over their competitors pass
  these advantageous traits on, while traits that
  do not confer an advantage are not passed on to
  the next generation.
• SURVIVAL AND REPRODUCTION OF THE FITTEST

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What is Evolution? One term several meanings

• Change, development, variation
• Microevolution
• Survival of the fittest
• Macroevolution
• Arrival of the fittest
• Artificial selection
• Breed the best
• Molecular evolution
• Arrival of the first
• Neo-Darwinian synthesis
• natural selection operating on variations that
  arise through mutation, genetic drift

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The modern Atheists answer to metaphysics
evolution

• We no longer have to resort to superstition when
  faced with deep problems Is there a meaning to
  life? What are we here for? What is man? After
  posing the last of these questions, the eminent
  zoologist G.G. Simpson put it thus The point I
  want to make now is that all attempts to answer
  that question before 1859 are worthless and that
  we will be better off if we ignore them
  completely.
• Dawkins The Blind Watchmaker

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Evolution to Atheism

• Since Dawkins believes that everything regarding
  life can be accounted for by evolution, there is
  no creator. For him, evolution implies atheism.
  
• But again this is proposing a mechanism (a
  material cause or secondary cause) as an
  explanation for a Final or First Cause.
• The following assertions both fail but remain the
  basis for why Dawkins believes that the design
  argument fails
• Assertion 1 Biological evolution is incompatible
  with the existence of a Creator
• Assertion 2 Biological evolution accounts for the
  existence of all of lifes complexity

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Dawkins The Blind WatchmakerDoes evolution
exclude God?

• 5 claims to prove the blind evolutionary
  watchmaker
• The forces of physics are the only watchmaker in
  nature
• The forces of physics are blind
• Natural selection is a blind, automatic, process
  with no purpose in mind
• Natural selection is the explanation for the
  existence of all life
• Natural selection is the explanation for the form
  of all life

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Microevolution

• Observed by Darwin in connection with the
  Galapagos finch species
• Includes such processes as natural selection,
  mutation, genetic drift. This is constantly
  being recorded. One classic example is bacterial
  antibiotic resistance
• One of the most common examples of evolution
  industrial melanism in the peppered moths. At
  most this is a description of microevolution.
  Both types of moths existed before. For the
  complete story of the peppered moth, see of men
  and moths by Michael Majerus, the Cambridge
  expert on moths.

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Speciation
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Macroevolution

• When ideas are based on observations, as
  Darwinian theory certainly was, it is usual for
  them to be valid at least within the range of the
  observations. It is when extrapolations are made
  outside the range of observations that troubles
  arise.
• Fred Hoyle Astrophysicist and mathematician

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Macroevolution

• Refers to large scale innovation, the coming into
  existence of organs, structures, body plans, of
  qualitatively new genetic materials.
• For example the evolution from single celled
  structure to multicellular, or the evolution from
  prokaryotes to eukaryotes, or even the generation
  of a new genus or family or any level broader
• Many consider the distinction between micro and
  macro artificial especially the evolutionary
  gradualists
• Regardless the question remains as to whether the
  process of successive macroevolution by purely
  random processes would have occurred. An appeal
  to the Anthropic principle is illogical

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The Fossil Record

• Relative absence of Transitional forms
• The impression that microevolution is limited in
  its scope is suggested by the comments of Wesson
  to the effect that the fossil record gives no
  good examples of evolution.
• R. Wesson, Beyond Natural Selection, MIT Press,
  Cambridge, MA, 1991
• From the outset, some of Darwins strongest
  objectors were palaeontologists.
• He himself gives us the reason for this it
  concerns the absence of the transitional forms in
  the fossil record, which his theory led him to
  expect.

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The Fossil Record

• Darwin wrote in The origin of species
• the number of intermediate varieties, which have
  formerly existed on earth, should be truly
  enormous. Why then is not every geological
  formation and every stratum full of such
  intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not
  reveal any such graduated organic chain, and
  this, perhaps is the most obvious and gravest
  objection which can be urged against my theory.

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The Fossil Record

• Zoologist Mark Ridley comments on the situation
• The fossil record of evolutionary change within
  single evolutionary lineages is very poor. If
  evolution is true species originate through
  changes in ancestral species one might expect to
  be able to see it in the fossil record.
• Palaeontologist David Raup of the Field Musuem of
  Natural History
• The fossil record has greatly been expanded. We
  now have a quarter million species, but the
  situation hasnt changed much. The record is
  surprisingly jerky and, and ironically we have
  fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we
  had in Darwins time.

70
Intermediate vs. Transitional Forms
Land mammals to aquatic mammals
Fish to amphibians
Reptiles to mammals
Quadrupedal primates to bipedal primates
Reptiles to birds
71
Punctuated Equilibrium

• The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the
  fossil record persists as the trade secret of
  palaeontology. Steven Jay Gould
• When we do see the introduction of evolutionary
  novelty, it usually shows up with a bang, and
  often with no firm evidence that the fossils did
  not evolve elsewhere. Evolution cannot always be
  going on somewhere else. Yet thats how the
  fossil record has struck many a forlorn
  palaeontologist looking to learn something about
  evolution. Niles Eldredge

72
Irreducible Complexity

• Darwin himself pointed out the potential problem.
  
• The most formidable difficulties are Darwin's
  'organs of extreme perfection and complication
  Maybe there is something out there in nature
  that really does preclude, by its genuinely
  irreducible complexity, the smooth gradient of
  Mount Improbable.
• Richard Dawkins God Delusion
• 'If it could be demonstrated that any complex
  organ existed which could not possibly have been
  formed by numerous, successive, slight
  modifications, my theory would absolutely break
  down. Darwin the Origin of Species

73
Irreducible Complexity

• Michele Behe
• Critically reviewed book Darwins black box.
• Modified in response to critics
• An irreducibly complex evolutionary pathway is
  one that contains one or more unselected steps
  (that is, one or more necessary-but-unselected
  mutations). The degree of irreducible complexity
  is the number of unselected steps in the
  pathway.
• The difficulty of having steps that lead to
  complex structures that are selected for but
  provide no selective advantage.

74
Irreducible Complexity

• Michele Behe
• Evolution simply cannot produce complex
  structures in a single generation as would be
  required for the formation of irreducibly complex
  systems.
• To imagine that a chance set of mutations would
  produce all 200 proteins required for cilia
  function in a single generation stretches the
  imagination beyond the breaking point.
• And yet, producing one or a few of these proteins
  at a time, in standard Darwinian fashion, would
  convey no survival advantage because those few
  proteins would have no function-indeed, they
  would constitute a waste of energy for the cell
  to even produce.

75
Information Theory

• 2nd law of thermodynamics
• Things do not go randomly from simple to complex
  order
• Machines transform information, they do not make
  information from nothing
• Computer programs are complex because of their
  programming
• MONKEY BUSINESS
• Monkeys, starting with 100 doubling every few
  days, typing randomly on a typewriter led to the
  current record of 24 consecutive letters of
  Shakespeares Henry IV after 1040 monkey years.
  The age of the universe is measured in 109
• Dawkins model of chance and necessity involves
  first a goal (a target sequence) and the
  injection of information from a retained
  components of a target sequence. How could blind
  evolution not only see a target but compare an
  attempt with it, in order to select it, if it is
  nearer than the previous one?

76
Mount Improbable

• Darwinism is widely regarded as a theory of
  'chance'. It is grindingly, creakingly,
  crashingly obvious that, if Darwinism were really
  a theory of chance, it couldn't work.
• You don't need to be a mathematician or physicist
  to calculate that an eye or a haemoglobin
  molecule would take from here to infinity to
  self-assemble by sheer higgledy-piggledy luck.

77
Mount Improbable

• It solves it by breaking the improbability up
  into small, manageable parts, smearing out the
  luck needed, going round the back of Mount
  Improbable and crawling up the gentle slopes,
  inch by million-year inch.
• Richard Dawkins, Climbing Mount Improbable
• Natural selection works because it is a
  cumulative one-way street to improvement. It
  needs some luck to get started, and the 'billions
  of planets' anthropic principle grants it that
  luck..
• Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

78
The Lucky Mount Improbable

• Premise 1.
• There is a huge mountain to climb
• Premise 2.
• People arrive at the top
• Premise 3.
• There are lots of places where people have
  stopped along the way
• Conclusion.
• Therefore people took the stairs

79
Dawkins and luck

• Nevertheless, it may be that the origin of life
  is not the only major gap in the evolutionary
  story that is bridged by sheer luck,
  anthropically justified.
• Mark Ridley in Mendel's Demonhas suggested that
  the origin of the eukaryotic cell (our kind of
  cell, with a nucleus and various other
  complicated features such as mitochondria, which
  are not present in bacteria) was an even more
  momentous, difficult and statistically improbable
  step than the origin of life.
• The origin of consciousness might be another
  major gap whose bridging was of the same order of
  improbability.
• The God Delusion

80
Anthropic Principle Miscontrued

• Brandon Carters synthesis
• What we can expect to observe as scientists
  must be restricted by the conditions necessary
  for our presence as observers.
• 1973 Krakow Symposium honouring Coperinuss 500th
  birthday
• In other words
• The origin of human life including the beginning
  of the universe is an extremely improbable event
  that none the less happened. We know it happened
  because we are here to observe it.
• He DID NOT suggest a cause for the improbability,
  for example, CHANCE.
• Dawkins erroneously extends this principle to
  mean that the anthropic principle means that
  because we are here to observe something proves
  we arrived here a certain way, for example
  evolution or random chance.

81
Chance, their New God
82
Statue of Limitations

• What would be the rational reaction to our
  seeing, in broad day-light, a marble statue of
  the Virgin Mary suddenly wave at us?
• Complete astonishment, and overwhelming belief
  that one had witnessed a miracle
• Complete astonishment, and nearly overwhelming
  belief that one had witnessed a miracle coupled
  with the conviction that a through investigation
  should be made into another possible cause
• Uttering, that sure was lucky and going about
  ones business

83
Anything goes

• In the case of the marble statue, molecules in
  solid marble are continuously jostling against
  one another in random directions. The jostling
  of the different molecules cancel one another
  out, so the whole hand of the statue stays still.
  
• But if, by sheer coincidence, all the molecules
  just happened to move in the same direction at
  the same moment, the hand would move. If they
  then reversed directions at the same moment the
  hand would move back. In this way it is possible
  for the marble statue to wave at us.
• It could happen
• Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker p. 159-160

84
Anything goes

• The odds against such a coincidence are
  unimaginably great but not incalculably great. A
  physicist colleague has kindly calculated them
  for me. The number is so large that the entire
  age of the universe so far is too short a time to
  write out all the noughts!
• It is theoretically possible for a cow to jump
  over the moon with something like the same
  improbability.
• The conclusion to this part of the argument is
  that we can calculate our way into regions of
  miraculous improbability far greater that we can
  imagine is plausible.
• Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker p. 159-160

85
VIDEO CLIP

• Even if a supercrane could lift itself up by its
  bootstraps, which is illogical itself, it cannot
  make itself (origin of life).
• Maybe some sky hook in the form of aliens is the
  cause

86
Morality

• The problem
• People dont want someone seeing what they are
  doing when no one is looking
• They want everyone else to act as if there was a
  someone doing this though.

87
Darwins Dangerous IdeaThe Evolution of an idea
Survival of the fittest, focusing on survival.
DARWIN
Survival of the fittest focusing on fittest. The
will to power beyond good or evil. Master vs.
slave morality
NIETZSCHE
HITLER
Selection of the Arian Race by force
RACISM. Eugenics removal of unfit individuals
and races REMOVAL OF THE UNFIT
88
The evolution of morality extension to man

• Man, like any other animal, has no doubt
  advanced to his present high condition through a
  struggle for existence consequent on his rapid
  multiplication and if he is to advance still
  higher he must remain subject to a severe
  struggle. Otherwise he would soon sink into
  indolence, and the more highly gifted men would
  not be more successful in the battle for life
  than the less gifted. Hence our rate of
  increase, though leading to many and obvious
  evils, must not be diminished by any means.
  There should be open competition for all men and
  the most able should not be prevented by law or
  customs from succeeding best and rearing large
  numbers of offspring.
• The finale of the Descent of Man, Charles
  Darwin

89
Racism

• At some future period, not very distant as
  measured by centuries, the civilized races of man
  will almost certainly exterminate and replace
  throughout the world the savage races. At the
  same time the anthropomorphous apes ie. Most
  human looking, like the gorilla or chimpazee
  will no doubt be exterminated. The break ie.
  Evolutionary gap will then be rendered wider,
  for it will intervene between man in a more
  civilized statethan the Caucasian, and some ape
  as low as a baboon, instead of as at present
  between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.
  
• Darwin, Descent of Man

90
Eugenics

• With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon
  eliminated and those that survive commonly
  exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilized
  men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check
  the process of elimination we build asylums for
  the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick we
  institute poor-laws and our medical men exert
  their utmost skill to save the life of everyone
  to the last moment.
• There is reason to believe that vaccination has
  preserved thousands, who from weak constitution
  would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus
  the weak members of civilized societies propagate
  their kind. No one who has attended to the
  breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this
  must be highly injurious to the race of man. It
  is surprising how soon a want of care, or care
  wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a
  domestic race but excepting in the case of man
  himself, hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow
  his worst animals to bread. Charles Darwin

91
The problem of moralityor how moral is this
geist?

• Moral Zeitgeist is evolving (that is, it is
  changing)
• There is no guarantee that it is moving upwards,
  for without an absolute basis for morality
  upwards is no more meaningful than sideways.
• The only change that is guaranteed is the one
  that leads to more reproduction

92
The problem of moralityThe following section
from Hahn and Wiker

• Dawkins Zeitgeist
• Super niceness as a kind of moral goal that has
  its origins in the evolution of altruism
• Evolution provides something of a common moral
  sense, and in fact, grounds a common human nature
  that allows for a common moral foundation
• We now enjoy a growing broad liberal consensus
  of ethical principles. Most of us wont cause
  needless suffering, we believe in free speech, we
  pay taxes, we dont cheat, kill or commit incest
  and we generally follow the golden rule

93
Abortion

• While Dawkins accepts the general admonition not
  to kill, he may decide whether a particular act
  can violate this prohibition
• given that a human embryo lacks a nervous
  system, shouldnt the mothers well developed
  nervous system have the choice?
• And late term abortions? Well reasons Dawkins, if
  late-term abortions suffer
• it is not because they are human that they
  suffer. Indeed, no embryo at any age would seem
  to suffer more than a cow or sheep embryo at the
  same stage of development. An in fact, claims
  Dawkins, adult cows or sheep in the slaughter
  house certainly suffer more than any embryo,
  human or not.

from Hahn and Wiker
94
Abandoning Humanity

• Our common humanity?
• After championing our common humanity as the sure
  ground of the new moral Zeitgeist, Dawkins
  asserts that secular moralists do not ask whether
  an embryo is human, but instead focus on the
  quantity of suffering Never mind whether it is
  human (what does that even mean for a little
  cluster of cells?) at what age does any
  developing embryo of any species, become capable
  of suffering?

from Hahn and Wiker
95
Abandoning Humanity

• No reason to prefer humans
• Drawing on John Stuart Mills Utilitarianism
  ethics is rooted, not in our common humanity but
  in the maximization of pleasure and the
  minimization of pain.
• The difficulty with this type of ethical theory
  is that a full grown animal might indeed suffer
  more than a child in or out of the womb. In fact
  there is no reason to prefer human beings morally
  at all. If such is the case, human beings should
  receive no moral preference over equally or more
  developed animals.

from Hahn and Wiker
96
Humans as animalsPeter Singer

• Unjust Species Discrimination
• Dawkins praises atheist and philosopher Peter
  Singer as the most eloquent advocate against the
  speciesist notion that human beings are somehow
  morally superior. For Singer, all species with
  significant brain power should be treated
  morally. It really means treating human beings
  like other animals.

97
Humans as animalsPeter Singer

• Get rid of the unfit
• In Singers advocates euthanasia and its
  extension to infanticide, not just to relieve any
  alleged suffering of the infant, but even more,
  for the sake of any hesitation of the parents
  over keeping their newborn. Just as with the
  Nazis, Singer would allow the retarded, the
  feeble-minded, the handicapped, in short, all the
  unfit, to be exterminated without twinge of
  conscience. That is how we treat animals.

98
Humans as animalsPeter Singer

• Enjoy yourself
• On the positive end of extending our relationship
  to animals, Singer is perfectly cheerful about
  bestiality, provided of course that the animal
  does not suffer.
• Sex with animals does not always involve
  cruelty
• Dawkins says in his ten commandments enjoy your
  sex life so long as it does not damage others,
  and leave others to enjoy theirs in private
  whatever their inclinations

99
Reductionism
100
Reductionism

• Suffering pain
• Joy pleasure
• Pleasure mesolimbic dopaminergic pathway
• Freedom neurochemical reactions
  therefore illusion
• Love illusion
• Human creativity illusion
• Moral law Sociology
• Religion Sociology
• Theology Sociology

101
God Delusion Session 2

• Design remains a powerful argument for a designer
• Random chance is a poor explanation for fine
  tuning of the universe, the origin of life and
  evolution itself.
• The theory of evolution by natural selection
  remains the best scientific theory to explain the
  complexity of life but there exists more
  questions than answers
• Evolution does not imply atheism. Materialism
  requires evolution as an explanation for the
  diversity of life but removes the soul from man
  and makes de-humanizes him on a continuum with
  animals.
• Morality is not a product of evolution. The
  morals derived from survival of the fittest
  include racism, murder, and eugenics

102
Atheism

• The belief that there was nothing, and nothing
  happened to nothing, and then nothing magically
  exploded for no reason, forming the universe in
  just the right way, and then a bunch of stuff
  magically rearranged itself for no reason what so
  ever into complex self-replicating machines, that
  for no reason at all magically turned into
  rational, mindful, conscientious morally
  responsible and free beings which unfortunately
  is actually all an illusion. I assume it
  magically all happened the way I imagine it to be
  because I am here to observe it.
• Wow. Makes perfect sense.

103
2 views of moral laws

• Secular morality
• Moral laws are man made like the rules of a game
  like tennis, created by human will and changeable
  by human will.
• Traditional view
• not only Christian by all the worlds major
  religion and nearly all pre-modern philosophies.
• Principles to discover like the laws of nature in
  the created world, like anatomy.
• Based on human nature which is essentially
  unchanging
• but human nature has a spiritual dimension. Man
  is the only creature on earth that can act in
  opposition to his/her nature.

104
Moral Coherence
INTENTION
Subjectivism
OBJECT or MEANS
ACTION
Legalism
Relativism Situation ethics Utilitarianism
CIRCUMSTANCES
Coherence All three have to be good or at least
morally neutral for the act to be good. Any of
the three can make the act bad. Example for a
movie to be good not only the characters, but
also the plot and the details.
105
Errors

• Subjectivism-
• in different varieties, reduces it to the good
  intentions of the agent, judged by subjective
  criteria. For some moral judgements are
  expressions of feelings which arise from ones
  ingrained tastes in matters of behaviour. For
  others moral norms come into force for people
  only if they choose to adopt them
• Emotivism
• Moral norms are expressions of feelings that is
  wrong means I dont like that. Reduces to
  subjectivism
• Cultural relativism
• Moral norms are nothing more than attempts by
  members of each particular society to say what
  behaviour is necessary for their society to
  survive and flourish. Is-ought fallacy. Just
  because something happens in a culture doesnt
  make it right. Ex. Female genital mutilation,
  child sacrifice, concentration camps etc.
• Inspirationism
• Moral norms do not proceed from principles, but
  are isolated truths, intuitive thoughts, messages
  from God

106
Errors

• Epicureanism
• pleasure principle
• Social Utilitarianism
• most good for the most people
• Will to power.
• Thrasymachus, the ancient Greek philosopher,
  believed that right is found in might. According
  to this position, "justice is the interest of the
  stronger party." What is morally right is defined
  in terms of who has the power. Machiavelli,
  Nietze, etc. Fails to distinguish power from
  goodness
• Stoicism-
• standard of morality with right reason so that
  man must live in accord with right reason without
  any regard to personal happiness
• False conception of the fundamental option
• Consequentialism
• Proportionalism

107
Progress?

• Human rights
• Gender equality
• But who is human
• Humane treatment of the handicapped
• Unless they are suffering
• Universal condemnation against torture, cruelty,
  slavery and racism

• Loss of an objectively real, universally binding
  moral law
• Morality as subjective and relative.
• Rift between the rich and poor have never been
  greater
• 20th century has been by far the bloodiest
• 2 WORLD WARS, TOTALITARIAN REGIMES, COMMUNISM,
  INFANTICIDE ON A SCALE NEVER KNOWN

108
The Essence

• Can man be good without God?
• If God does not exist, everything is
  permissible Dostoevsky. For if it is only mans
  will and not Gods that makes moral laws, then
  they are as unchangeable and contingent as the
  rules of a game. If we make the rules we can
  change them or unmake them.
• But Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Confucius
  and Lao Tzu knew much of the content of the moral
  law and recognized its binding force without
  knowing much of God directly.
• Men, pagan as well as Christian, can know Gods
  moral law through natural reason and conscience
  as St. Paul writes of the law written on the
  hearts of men Rm 117-21.
• What Dostoevsky is saying is that God, the first
  cause and ultimate origin of the moral law, did
  not exist, then an objectively real and
  universally binding moral law would not exist
  either. Man can know the law without knowing the
  lawgiver. By way of analogy all men know
  Creation, but not necessarily the Creator of it
  all.

109
The Essence

• Can man be good without God?
• A practical consequence of Dostoevskys point is
  that man cannot really be good without God.
• Even if he does not know God, whenever anyone is
  good, that is mans cooperation with Gods grace,
  whether the person knows it or not. God is the
  source of every good endowment and every perfect
  gift James 117, especially our natural moral
  knowledge and our good moral choices. God turns
  our freedom on, not off.
• Natural Law
• Tradition that good must be chosen, evil avoided,
  in other words some things are right, others
  wrong, in between, worlds of difference.

110
Natural law tradition

• the rule of conduct which is prescribed to us by
  the Creator in the constitution of the nature
  with which He has endowed us. Our design is for
  something eternal. Our nature is contradicted
  when we choose something wrong.
• According to St. Thomas, the natural law is
  "nothing else than the rational creature's
  participation in the eternal law" (I-II, Q.
  xciv).
• The primary principle is that good is to be done,
  and evil avoided (I-II, Q, xciv, a. 2).
• St. Paul says, is written in the human heart
  (Rom., ii, 14).
• It can be more or less summarized in the
  decalogue/10 commandments

111
References

• Dismantling Dawkins
• Scott Hahn and Benjamin Wiker
• Gods Undertaker. Has Science Buried God?
• John Lennox
• Chance or Purpose.
• Cardinal Christoph Schonborn
• The Truth of Catholicism
• George Weigel
• Hooked on Philosophy
• Robert ODonnell
• How the Catholic Church Built Western
  Civilization
• Thomas Woods
• What is so great about Christianity
• Dinesh DSouza