Quotes and comments;
1. ‘The bedrock premise of this book is that life is a material phenomenon, grounded in chemistry and physics … The findings of biologists … compel us to admit that we humans, like all other organisms, are transient constellations of jostling molecules, brought forth by a mindless game of chance devoid of plan or intent’. [1.]
- The data in no way compel people to think anything; they can't... they're impersonal and mute.
The fact chemistry and physics are involved in biological organisms in no way necessitates that this is All that is involved.
I'm sure professor Harold knows a lot, and a lot more than I do, but I fail to see how he can know that life is a 'mindless game of chance' without having access to a more than earthly (sized) library. Has he managed to communicate with Micromegas I wonder :=}
The trouble for the materialist is that if the universe is a mindless game of chance we couldn't possibly know it. This claim has nothing to do with empirical science, and we ask the professor to admit it. He claims that there is no plan or intent to anything in the universe, but isn't he a bit afraid he's only expressing his ignorance? All he can properly say is that he doesn't see any... or admit that he doesn't want to see any. If he's what he says he is (or is he only talking about us non-tenured folk) then how can he expect mere matter in motion, a product of a mindless game of chance to know the deepest reality (realities) of the universe?
What's so ironic about his proclamation is that he knows full well that we see more than chemistry and physics in the cell. (Matter and physics give you chemistry, they don't give you a living cell, they don't give you information, they don't give you code, they don't give you machines.) Professor Harold is asking far more from these humble servants than they can possibly deliver.
2. 'Consistent with the theme of ‘biological organization’ (p. xi), the avowed purpose of the book ‘is to assess how far we have come toward a scientific understanding of the phenomenon
of life’ (p. ix).
- The scientific understanding? as opposed to the understanding? I'm intrigued by why he adds the adjective. Understanding is understanding is it not? I suspect that by scientific understanding he means materialist understanding. i.e. an understanding of 'life' in terms solely of materialism. We need to ask then if that would constitute understanding. If creation is true then it does not, as at best the materialist could only have a partial understanding. If the goal of research is a complete understanding why would a scientist insist on a purely materialist model. Is he interested in understanding or in materialism?
3. ‘...living things differ from nonliving nonliving ones most pointedly in their capacity to maintain, reproduce and multiply states of matter characterized by an extreme degree of organization’ (p. xi).
- Is this the biggest differentiation between living and non-living things? Is the difference between inert matter and living organism one solely of the degree of organization? I suppose that's one way you could look at it, but it's not one I find intellectually fulfilling. There is far more than organization going on here. You could organize a bunch of sand grains in an incredibly complex way and never get them to fly away or reproduce. As a physicalist he's too focused on the material to see what an inadequate explanation this is.
4. 'Natural selection emerges as the preeminent creative force to which we owe all the marvels of biology’ (p. 192).
- If natural selection were the creative force behind the biosphere we wouldn't owe it a thing as it's not a person. (It's not even a mechanism for that matter.) Calling natural selection a creative force is like calling the wind or the rain a creative force; we might as well worship the sun and the moon.
Calling natural selection a creative force is like calling a pencil sharpener the creative force behind a poem or essay. Harold apparently conflates an effective force and a creative force; but this is a difference as large as that between a chisel and a sculptor, a fire and a blacksmith.
If everything is merely matter in motion and the unintended product of a mindless game of chance why do we (humans) look at the world and experience awe? If all is chemistry and physics where is this awe coming from, and why do we experience living forms as marvels? How is it matter is in awe of matter?
Harold might have been better off studying the word marvel than reading the lastest diatribe by Dawkins, and would have learned more.
Marvel;
1. Strong surprise; astonishment.
- Why should matter be surprised and astonished at matter?
2. One that evokes surprise, admiration, or wonder
3. To wonder at; be struck with surprise at; be perplexed with curiosity about:
- If we could tune in on them would we here grains of sand singing hymns of praise to rocks :=} Is it right for Harold to marvel, but the problem is that he doesn't let his wonder instruct him; he acknowledges it briefly and then moves on, when he should sit and ponder the lesson to be learned. i.e. ''how is it a bag of chemicals is filled with wonder?'' or ''what are the implications of this astonishment and awe?" Rather than listen to this still small voice he escapes into theory, saving himself from discomfiting thoughts.
Marvel;
- c.1300, "miracle," also "wonderful story or legend," from O.Fr. merveille "a wonder," from V.L. *miribilia, alt. from L. mirabilia "wonderful things," from neut. pl. of mirabilis "strange or wonderful," from mirari "to wonder at," from mirus "wonderful" (see smile).
- To call something a marvel is to call it a miracle. The theologian C. Van Til was adamant that all men know God, and when we hear an atheist like Harold call the living organism a marvel it's my view that he's admitting his awareness of the creator. (At some level he knows there is a creator. This sounds confusing but we're all aware that people can know something but be unwilling to admit it. e.g. the pro athlete who won't admit he's not good enough, the would-be writer, the man who needs help but won't admit it, and so on.)
I'm sure he wouldn't agree, but his language gives him away. (Maybe we can say that his language center knows there's a Creator :=} I don't think the use of words is entirely arbitrary; in fact I think it's close to the opposite. (We might say that prof. Harold is looking at the marvels of the world and smiling, but that he doesn't know why.) I'll believe in materialism when I see a rock smile and wink its eye.
5. ‘...no cosmic plan, only molecules whose writhings and couplings underlie and explain all that the cell does’ (p. 65).
- To say that molecules explain all that the cell does (and I think this even incorrect on a banal level) is akin to saying the wheels and springs inside a watch explain all there is about it. It's akin to calling the ocean a nice reflective surface that does a good job of reproducing clouds.
I suppose I'm jealous of his expertise and learning, but how is it he knows there is no cosmic plan? I wonder if I could get him to share with me his methodology. This is akin to enjoying a tasty bowl of soup and looking for the cook inside the empty soup tin.
6. 'In Chapter 8 Harold tries to unravel the early history of life and regrets ‘that more than three quarters of that history does not lend itself to public display, for it is wholly the record of microbial life’ (p. 159).
- Life isn't a matter of numbers or statistics. Like the angry Earthman in Voltaire's Micromega, I refuse to accept the quantitative analysis of life on earth as authoritative, as telling us anything about meaning or importance.
Why the regret Prof. Harold? Ask yourself how it is that a bit of matter, a transient constellation of molecules, feels regret. (We know why Jesus wept, but why do you?) If all is matter in motion then nothing can be other than what it is, nothing could have been other than what it was. There is no reason for regret in materialism. Chemicals know nothing of regret, they don't long for things that don't exist, they feel no loss or sorrow. (Am I missing something? Perhaps I've not looked into a microscope long enough.
Prof. H. regrets that he can't share what he knows with his audience, but chemicals have no desire to share anything; so how is it he has this feeling? Aren't the bigger marvels his feelings of awe, wonder and regret?
Can there really be a history of microbial life? Can we have history without persons? No one ever witnessed the events you write about, and therefore can't give us a history of it. You can't separate history from intelligent, personal agents.
7. 'After expressing his concerns about tree problems he still has the ‘courage’ to say,
‘The great tree is likely to be seen as one of the triumphs of biology in the twentieth century’ (p. 162).
- How is it a product of mindless chance, chemistry plus time can know what the verdict of future generations will be upon a Darwinian construct? If all is matter in motion how can anything be a triumph? Does matter triumph over matter?
How is it courage exists in a mindless universe of matter in motion? Don't these stirrings of courage tell us the materialist vision is false? Does one rock admire another rock's willingness to fall? (Has anyone heard such a story? If the rocks could speak is this what they would say?) When I see rocks marching as soldiers in line behind some great bolder, or when I see them cheering such a parade, is when I'll believe in Materialism.
To rejoice, to know what it is to feel this elation in triumph is to experience the fallacy of materialism in one's own bosom. To see the fallacy of m. all one has to do is meditate upon one's feeling of joy. (no bit of matter has ever experienced it.) The simplest hymn the homeliest congregation has ever sung refutes materialism.
I hate to be pedantic, but the phrase twentieth century can't have any meaning in terms of a consistent materialism. It's akin to dating the genealogy of mice or ducks by the first opening of Disneyland. (I hate to be called pedantic at any rate.)
8. 'In spite of the fact that the ‘tree’ is badly tangled at the present time, and we understand less than we thought we knew in the past few decades, Harold and others maintain their ‘faith’ in a
phylogenetic tree.
- The phylogenetic tree is so tangled it looks like a ball of fishing twine on the bottom of the skiff after a rough day out in the bay. With each passing year, and each passing rock of the boat it gets more and more tangled. Trying to make sense of it is akin to reading the future from animal entrails.
9. ‘The postulate of a single universal ancestor, its biblical overtones notwithstanding, rests on a solid foundation of fact’ (p. 169).
- We can only surmise from this that prof. Harold has a very liberal definition of fact. (Was he the one who defined evolution as change?) To claim a factual foundation for chemical evolution is akin to saying there's a factual foundation for Vulcans.
10. ‘The most compelling argument [for common ancestry] comes from the discovery that all extant organisms employ the same genetic code’ (p. 169).
- I don't know how an ecosystem could work any other way, but then again I know so little when compared to prof. Harold. Could we imagine a global ecosystem that didn't have a single code?
If you were designing a planet professor Harold, would you or would you not base it on a single genetic code? [3.]
11. '‘No satisfying scheme of this kind is presently on the books, and I have none to offer … The origin of life appears to me as incomprehensible as ever, a matter for wonder but not for explication’ (p. 251).
- On p.169 he told us chemical evolution has a solid basis in fact, but now he seems to have changed his mind :=} It's a fact, but it's incomprehensible? Apparently.
He's not satisfied by his inability to explain chemical e. to be able to show us how it could be true; but why if he's merely a bag of chemicals why is he dissatisfied? In his feelings of frustration, and dissatisfaction he has all the evidence he needs for realizing m. isn't (and can't) be true. A desire for rational comprehension can't be explained by chemicals plus physics. If the professor would pay more attention to his own experience and less to textbooks he might find his way out of the tangled maze of theory he's stuck in.
Do rocks care about being intellectually satisfied? Man's longing for understanding is all the evidence he needs that Materialism is false.
12. 'Harold recognizes that these types of study constitute ‘historical’ science where the tools are ‘soft’; ‘hard science is stymied … the trail is too cold, the traces too faint’ (p. 252).
- Well; let's stop pretending Evolution is a fact in that case. The only fact in this scenario is that there are no facts.
13. ‘We should reject, as a matter of principle, the substitution of intelligent design for the dialogue of chance and necessity’ (p. 205).
- The dialogue of chance and necessity? Is that anything like the dialogue of nose and finger?
As a matter of principle? what principle? what principle does matter adhere to? what principle do chemicals hold near and dear? If all were matter in motion the idea of principles would be a delusion.
14. Harold also concedes that, ‘a chance origin [of life] commands much less respect than it did a decade or two ago, for two reasons.’ The first is the enormous improbability (not enough time and atoms for all the necessary trials). The second reason is that ‘science cannot really deal with unique events, which are effectively miraculous’ (p. 239).
- As Cornelius Van Til said; all men know God.
If all were simply chemicals plus physics it' hard for me to understand how there could be unique events; but I suppose this is only my naivete at work, fooling me into believing there's a need for a creator. I'm sure prof. Harold knows better. As far as I know, there are no unique events in chemistry, and there are no unique events in terms of physics. Whence then comes the unique event?
15. 'The general scientific consensus that there was a naturalistic origin of life about four
billion years ago is accepted because, first, there is no ‘palatable alternative...’
- If people don't find creation a 'palatable' alternative I would think it's because their taste buds are out of whack.
All he's saying is, 'creation can't be true, because I don't like it.' Why the 'thoughts' of a bag of chemicals should be determinative as to the constitution of the universe is something the atheist doesn't tell us. - Life is full of things we don't like, and I suspect the ultimate nature of reality is just one more.
16. ‘...absent the presumption of a terrestrial and natural genesis there would be no basis for scientific inquiry into the origin of life’ (p. 237).
- Is there such a thing as a 'scientific' inquiry into the origin of life. Harold tells us elsewhere that he doesn't think there is! Did he forget that he also told us, ‘science cannot really deal with unique events, which are effectively miraculous’ [239.]
- M. Johnson
Notes;
1. The Way of the Cell: Molecules, Organisms and the Order of Life by Franklin M. Harold; 2001 review by Wayne Frair (pp. 254–255)
- my comments are based on a review of the book. (I missed the book when it came out.)
2. We might call Darwinism 'The way of the Sell'
3. You should be thankful there's only one genetic code professor; since you can't explain where the one we have came from imagine how embarassing it would be not to be able to explain several.
4. '...Harold’s summary of how he conceives that, strictly by chance (naturalistic) processes, life could have begun: presence of diverse localized and abundant organic molecules; compartmentation; stream of energy; mounting levels of complexity; energy flux to organization; transmissible, executable, alterable and repeatedly-tested genetic code (pp. 250–251)
- Didn't he tell us everything was a matter of chemistry and physics? I see a whole lot here that isn't chemicals or physics!
Let's not forget that it all has to work together, and all has to come together at the right time.
What does complexity have to do with chemicals? Is there a chemical called complexity? Is there a chemical called compartmentation?
5. ‘… but we must concede that there are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations’ (p. 205).
- Does he know himself better than we suspect, or was he merely having an off day?
Detailed accounts? there are no accounts period.
