Nope.

It is worth noting a few points on naturalism, design and ID, noting on UD along the way.(While I try to get used to the annoyances of Vista. As for Explorer 7, forget it . . . ise be lookin Linux now, and hopin Mac prices come down . . . )

1] Patrick:

Saw your comment on the spam filter loving me. Any ideas on why? (Did someone submit a malicious complaint, with intent to get me classed as a Tr^oll?)

2] metaphysical and methodological naturalism

Above, RP tries to make/assumes a distinction, but — we should note — this is in fact a distinction without a material difference.

The reason is that the latter in praxis reduces to the former, as soon as one works out a few implications. For, in effect, it tries to confine the domain of “knowledge” and “research” to entities that arise on the evolutionary materialist account of the cosmos from hydrogen to humans — however excused. So, methodological naturalism boils down to implicit evolutionary materialism, and thus begs the metaphysical naturalism question. It is metaphysically naturalistic, if one is consistent.

A better approach on the design issue, is to ask, what is the reliably known source of complex, specified information in our experience.

The answer [cf my always linked] is obvious — even evo mat thinkers accept design once they can see a designer within the circle of the cosmos as they accept it. Properly, this sharply shifts the burden of proof back to the evo mat advocates, to show that chance and necessity without agency can credibly account for the cosmos from hydrogen to humans.

This burden has never yet been met, but given the institutional power and cultural influence of evo mat worldviews, it is easy to beg the question.

3] Design all the way down:

We have a cosmos that, at many levels, exhibits functionally specified, complex information well beyond the Dembski type bound on what chance can search out. This is obvious in the world of technology; and its origin is equally obvious in all directly known cases.

The astonishingly parallel world of the information-driven nanomachines of life is a telling further case in point. (Do you think that the mere fact that we werte not there to see the origin and macro-level diversification of life suddenly means that suddenly chance and necessity alone can search out config spaces to find islands of functionality that are on the relevant math unreacheable within the ambit of the observed cosmos? Cf my nanobots example in my always linked.)

Then, when we push back to the finely tuned, co-adapted system of physics that is a requisite of the existence of such life, we see that this too screams out for a designer.

4] The real issue:

But, if one is committed to a fixed naturalistic worldview, one will reject the conclusion as a start-point for rejecting the premises that lead up to it. So, “design” is ruled out ahead of time through implicit or explicit question-begging.

The multiverses view of course — apart from being simple metaphysics not science — simply moves the design question up one level, as the issue is, how do we get a cosmos as a whole that diligently searches out the space of possible worlds to get those that are life-habitable. (And, an infinite set of sub-cosmi that exhaustively searches out the set of possibilities is a very special metaphysical claim indeed, aside from raising the thorny question of an actual infinite; cf Hilbert’s hotel for the resulting paradoxes.)

Okay

GEM of TKI

I am happy to give further details on my score. I already mentioned (1). I gave myself full points for #2, since as a Baptists I think that the separation of church and state is one of the reasons the church in the U.S. is vibrant when its European equivalents tend not to be. I also do not want my kid or anyone else’s having someone in a school dictating to them how they should pray. I don’t have particularly strong feelings for or against Kant and more than most philosophers. I don’t see why someone would want to suggest that violence is relatively unimportant. I am persuaded that there is value in other religions, but I say that from the perspective of someone who has had the experience of being born again in the Christian tradition, and thus am evaluating other traditions from my own biased viewpoint. So not equal value (10 points), since I could never hope to know that without abandoning the faith tradition that has nurtured me, but certainly value (5 points). I am not thrilled with everything the present pope has done (I preferred his predecessor, to be honest), but I’d choose him over Stalin in a heartbeat.

I think that’s long enough. BTW, I particularly like what happened to your #8 when a parenthesis is added – if nothing else, you taught me how to make another smiley!

thanks for taking my little test. I would have thought you would score at about 60. It would be interesting to know which questions you split the difference on, but it was gracious of you to humor me.

What are your motives for posting here? I’m not asking out of maliciousness — in fact, th exact opposite.

If you’d like, feel free to respond privately at carl.sachs [at] gmail.com or csachs [at] unt.edu.

EDIT: Removed the @ symbol so you’re less likely to get be picked up by automatic spammers.

A little more (LOL) on the complexity of bacterial life…

It is commonly presumed in many grade school textbooks that life slowly arose in a primordial ocean of pre-biotic soup. Yet, there is absolutely no hard evidence, such as chemical signatures in the geologic record, indicating that a ocean of this pre-biotic soup ever existed. The hard physical evidence scientists have discovered in the geologic record is stunning in its support of the anthropic hypothesis. The oldest sedimentary rocks on earth, known to science, originated underwater (and thus in relatively cool environs) 3.86 billion years ago. Those sediments, which are exposed at Isua in southwestern Greenland, also contain the earliest chemical evidence (fingerprint) of “photosynthetic” life [Nov. 7, 1996, Nature]. This evidence has been fought by naturalists, since it is totally contrary to their evolutionary theory. Yet, Danish scientists were able to bring forth another line of geological evidence to substantiate the primary line of geological evidence for photo-synthetic life in the earth’s earliest known sedimentary rocks (Indications of Oxygenic Photosynthesis,” Earth and Planetary Science Letters 6907 (2003). Thus we have two lines of hard conclusive evidence for photo-synthetic life in the oldest known sedimentary rocks ever found by scientists on earth! The simplest photosynthetic bacterial life on earth is exceedingly complex, too complex to happen by even if the primeval oceans had been full of pre-biotic soup. Thus, naturalists try to suggest pan-spermia (the theory that pre-biotic amino acids, or life itself, came to earth from outer-space on comets) to account for this sudden appearance of life on earth. This theory has several problems. One problem is that astronomers, using spectral analysis, have not found any vast reservoirs of biological molecules anywhere they have looked in the universe. Another problem is, even if comets were nothing but pre-biotic amino acid snowballs, how are the amino acids going to molecularly survive the furnace-like temperatures generated when the comet crashes into the earth? If the pre-biotic molecules were already a life-form on the comet, how could this imagined life-form survive the extremely harsh environment of space for many millions of years, not to mention the fiery crash into the earth? Did this imagined super-cell wear a cape like superman?

The first actual fossilized cells scientists have been able to recover in the fossil record are 3.5 billion year old photosynthetic cyano(blue-green)bacteria, from western Australia, which look amazingly similar to a particular type of cyano-bacteria that are still alive today. The smallest cyano-bacterium known to science has hundreds of millions of individual atomic molecules (not counting water molecules), divided into nearly a thousand different species of atomic molecules; and a genome (DNA sequence) of 1.8 million bits, with over a million individual complex protein molecules which are divided into hundreds of different kinds of proteins. The simplest of all bacteria known in science, which is able to live independent of a more complex host organism, is the candidatus pelagibacter ubique and has a DNA sequence of 1,308,759 bits. It also has over a million individual complex protein molecules which are divided into several hundred separate and distinct protein types. The complexity found in the simplest bacterium known to science makes the complexity of any man-made machine look like child’s play. As stated by Geneticist Michael Denton PhD, “Although the tiniest living things known to science, bacterial cells, are incredibly small (10-12 grams), each is a veritable micro-miniaturized factory containing thousands of elegantly designed pieces of intricate molecular machinery, made up altogether of one hundred thousand million atoms, far more complicated than any machine built by man and absolutely without parallel in the non-living world”. So, as you can see, there simply is no simple life on earth as naturalism had presumed – even the well known single celled amoeba has the complexity of the city of London and reproduces that complexity in only 20 minutes. Here are a couple of quotes for the complexity found in any biological system, including simple bacteria, by two experts in biology:

“Most biological reactions are chain reactions. To interact in a chain, these precisely built molecules must fit together most precisely, as the cog wheels of a Swiss watch do. But if this is so, then how can such a system develop at all? For if any one of the specific cog wheels in these chains is changed, then the whole system must simply become inoperative. Saying it can be improved by random mutation of one link, is like saying you could improve a Swiss watch by dropping it and thus bending one of its wheels or axis. To get a better watch, all the wheels must be changed simultaneously to make a good fit again.” Albert Szent-Györgyi von Nagyrapolt (Nobel prize for Medicine in 1937). “Drive in Living Matter to Perfect Itself,” Synthesis I, Vol. 1, No. 1, p. 18 (1977)

“Each cell with genetic information, from bacteria to man, consists of artificial languages and their decoding systems, memory banks for information storage and retrieval, elegant control systems regulating the automated assembly of parts and components, error fail-safe and proof-reading devices utilized for quality control, assembly processes involving the principle of prefabrication and modular construction and a capacity not equaled in any of our most advanced machines, for it would be capable of replicating its entire structure within a matter of a few hours” Geneticist Michael Denton PhD.

To give an idea how impossible “simple” life is for naturalistic blind chance, Sir Fred Hoyle calculated the chance of obtaining the required set of enzymes for just one of any of the numerous types of “simple” bacterial life found on the early earth to be one in 1040,000 (that is a one with 40 thousand zeros to the right). He compared the random emergence of the simplest bacterium on earth to the likelihood “a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747 therein”. Sir Fred Hoyle also compared the chance of obtaining just one single functioning protein (out of the over one million protein molecules needed for that simplest cell), by chance combinations of amino acids, to a solar system packed full of blind men solving Rubik’s Cube simultaneously.

The simplest bacteria ever found on earth is constructed with over a million protein molecules. Protein molecules are made from one dimensional sequences of the 20 different L-amino acids that can be used as building blocks for proteins. These one dimensional sequences of amino acids fold into complex three-dimensional structures. The proteins vary in length of sequences of amino acids. The average sequence of a typical protein is about 300 to 400 amino acids long. Yet many crucial proteins are thousands of amino acids long. Proteins do their work on the atomic scale. Therefore, proteins must be able to identify and precisely manipulate and interrelate with the many differently, and specifically, shaped atoms, atomic molecules and protein molecules at the same time to accomplish the construction, metabolism, structure and maintenance of the cell. Proteins are required to have the precisely correct shape to accomplish their specific function or functions in the cell. More than a slight variation in the precisely correct shape of the protein molecule type will be for the life of the cell. It turns out there is some tolerance for error in the sequence of L-amino acids that make up some the less crucial protein molecule types. These errors can occur without adversely affecting the precisely required shape of the protein molecule type. This would seem to give some wiggle room to the naturalists, but as the following quote indicates this wiggle room is an illusion.

“A common rebuttal is that not all amino acids in organic molecules must be strictly sequenced. One can destroy or randomly replace about 1 amino acid out of 100 without doing damage to the function or shape of the molecule. This is vital since life necessarily exists in a “sequence—disrupting” radiation environment. However, this is equivalent to writing a computer program that will tolerate the destruction of 1 statement of code out of 1001. In other words, this error-handling ability of organic molecules constitutes a far more unlikely occurrence than strictly sequenced molecules.” Dr. Hugh Ross PhD.

It is easily demonstrated mathematically that the entire universe does not even begin to come close to being old enough, nor large enough, to ally generate just one small but precisely sequenced 100 amino acid protein (out of the over one million interdependent protein molecules of longer sequences that would be required to match the sequences of their particular protein types) in that very first living bacteria. If any combinations of the 20 L-amino acids that are used in constructing proteins are equally possible, then there are (20100) =1.3 x 10130 possible amino acid sequences in proteins being composed of 100 amino acids. This impossibility, of finding even one “required” specifically sequenced protein, would still be true even if amino acids had a tendency to chemically bond with each other, which they don’t despite over fifty years of experimentation trying to get amino acids to bond naturally (The odds of a single 100 amino acid protein overcoming the impossibilities of chemical bonding and forming spontaneously have been calculated at less than 1 in 10125 (Meyer, Evidence for Design, pg. 75)). The staggering impossibility found for the universe ever generating a “required” specifically sequenced 100 amino acid protein by would still be true even if we allowed that the entire universe, all 1080 sub-atomic particles of it, were nothing but groups of 100 freely bonding amino acids, and we then tried a trillion unique combinations per second for all those 100 amino acid groups for 100 billion years! Even after 100 billion years of trying a trillion unique combinations per second, we still would have made only one billion, trillionth of the entire total combinations possible for a 100 amino acid protein during that 100 billion years of trying! Even a child knows you cannot put any piece of a puzzle anywhere in a puzzle. You must have the required piece in the required place! The simplest forms of life ever found on earth are exceedingly far more complicated jigsaw puzzles than any of the puzzles man has ever made. Yet to believe a naturalistic theory we would have to believe that this tremendously complex puzzle of millions of precisely shaped, and placed, protein molecules “just happened” to overcome the impossible hurdles of chemical bonding and probability and put itself together into the sheer wonder of immense complexity that we find in the cell.

Instead of us just looking at the probability of a single protein molecule occurring (a solar system full of blind men solving the Rubik’s Cube simultaneously), let’s also look at the complexity that goes into crafting the shape of just one protein molecule. Complexity will give us a better indication if a protein molecule is, indeed, the handi-work of an infinitely powerful Creator.
In the year 2000 IBM announced the development of a new super-computer, called Blue Gene, that is 500 times faster than any supercomputer built up until that time. It took 4-5 years to build. Blue Gene stands about six feet high, and occupies a floor space of 40 feet by 40 feet. It cost $100 million to build. It was built specifically to better enable computer simulations of molecular biology. The computer performs one quadrillion (one million billion) computations per second. Despite its speed, it is estimated it will take one entire year for it to analyze the mechanism by which JUST ONE “simple” protein will fold onto itself from its one-dimensional starting point to its final three-dimensional shape. In real life, the protein folds into its final shape in a fraction of a second! The computer would have to operate at least 33 million times faster to accomplish what the protein does in a fraction of a second. That is the complexity found for JUST ONE “simple” protein. It is estimated, on the total number of known life forms on earth, that there are some 50 billion different types of unique proteins today. It is very possible the domain of the protein world may hold many trillions more completely distinct and different types of proteins. The simplest bacterium known to man has millions of protein molecules divided into, at bare minimum, several hundred distinct proteins types. These millions of precisely shaped protein molecules are interwoven into the final structure of the bacterium. Numerous times specific proteins in a distinct protein type will have very specific modifications to a few of the amino acids, in their sequence, in order for them to more precisely accomplish their specific function or functions in the overall parent structure of their protein type. To think naturalists can account for such complexity by saying it “happened by chance” should be the very definition of “absurd” we find in dictionaries. Naturalists have absolutely no answers for how this complexity arose in the first living cell unless, of course, you can take their imagination as hard evidence. Yet the “real” evidence scientists have found overwhelmingly supports the anthropic hypothesis once again. It should be remembered that naturalism postulated a very simple “first cell”. Yet the simplest cell scientists have been able to find, or to even realistically theorize about, is vastly more complex than any machine man has ever made through concerted effort !! What makes matters much worse for naturalists is that naturalists try to assert that proteins of one function can easily mutate into other proteins of completely different functions by pure chance. Yet once again the empirical evidence we now have betrays the naturalists. Individual proteins have been experimentally proven to quickly lose their function in the cell with random point mutations. What are the odds of any functional protein in a cell mutating into any other functional folded protein, of very questionable value, by pure chance?

“From actual experimental results it can easily be calculated that the odds of finding a folded protein (by random point mutations to an existing protein) are about 1 in 10 to the 65 power (Sauer, MIT). To put this fantastic number in perspective imagine that someone hid a grain of sand, marked with a tiny ‘X’, somewhere in the Sahara Desert. After wandering blindfolded for several years in the desert you reach down, pick up a grain of sand, take off your blindfold, and find it has a tiny ‘X’. Suspicious, you give the grain of sand to someone to hide again, again you wander blindfolded into the desert, bend down, and the grain you pick up again has an ‘X’. A third time you repeat this action and a third time you find the marked grain. The odds of finding that marked grain of sand in the Sahara Desert three times in a row are about the same as finding one new functional protein structure (from chance transmutation of an existing functional protein structure). Rather than accept the result as a lucky coincidence, most people would be certain that the game had been fixed.” Michael J. Behe, The Weekly Standard, June 7, 1999, Experimental Support for Regarding Functional Classes of Proteins to be Highly Isolated from Each Other
“Mutations are rare phenomena, and a simultaneous change of even two amino acid residues in one protein is totally unlikely. One could think, for instance, that by constantly changing amino acids one by one, it will eventually be possible to change the entire sequence substantially… These minor changes, however, are bound to eventually result in a situation in which the enzyme has ceased to perform its previous function but has not yet begun its ‘new duties’. It is at this point it will be destroyed – along with the organism carrying it.” Maxim D. Frank-Kamenetski, Unraveling DNA, 1997, p. 72. (Professor at Brown U. Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Biomedical Engineering)

From 3.8 to .6 billion years ago photosynthetic bacteria, and to a lesser degree sulfate-reducing bacteria, ted the geologic and fossil record (that’s over 80% of the entire time life has existed on earth). The geologic and fossil record also reveals that during this time a large portion of these very first bacterial life-forms lived in complex symbiotic (mutually beneficial) colonies called Stromatolites. Stromatolites are rock like structures that the photo-synthetic bacteria built up over many years (much like coral reefs are slowly built up over many years by the tiny creatures called corals). Although Stromatolites are not nearly as widespread as they once were, they are still around today in a few sparse places like Shark’s Bay Australia. Contrary to what naturalistic thought would expect, these very first photosynthetic bacteria scientists find in the geologic and fossil record are shown to have been preparing the earth for more advanced life to appear from the very start of their existence by reducing the greenhouse gases of earth’s early atmosphere and producing the necessary oxygen for higher life-forms to exist. Photosynthetic bacteria slowly built the oxygen up in the earth’s atmosphere by removing the carbon-dioxide (and other greenhouse gases) from the atmosphere; separated the carbon from the oxygen; then released the oxygen back into the atmosphere (and into the earth’s ocean & crust) while they retained the carbon. Interestingly, the gradual removal of greenhouse gases corresponds exactly to the gradual 15% increase of light and heat coming from the sun during that time (Ross; PhD. Astrophysics; Creation as Science 2006). This “lucky” correspondence of the slow increase of heat from the sun with the same perfectly timed slow removal of greenhouse gases from the earth’s atmosphere was absolutely necessary for the bacteria to continue to live to do their work of preparing the earth for more advanced life to appear. Bacteria obviously depended on the temperature of the earth to remain relatively stable during the billions of years they prepared the earth for higher life forms to appear. More interesting still, the byproducts of greenhouse gas removal by these early bacteria are limestone, marble, gypsum, phosphates, sand, and to a lesser extent, coal, oil and natural gas (note; though some coal, oil and natural gas are from this early era of bacterial life, most coal, oil and natural gas deposits originated on earth after the Cambrian explosion of higher life forms some 540 million years ago). These natural resources produced by these early photosynthetic bacteria are very useful to modern civilizations. Interestingly, while the photo-synthetic bacteria were reducing greenhouse gases and producing natural resources that would be of benefit to modern man, the sulfate-reducing bacteria were also producing their own natural resources that would be very useful to modern man. Sulfate-reducing bacteria helped prepare the earth for advanced life by “detoxifying” the primeval earth and oceans of “poisonous” levels of heavy metals while depositing them as relatively inert metal ore deposits (iron, zinc, magnesium, lead etc.. etc..). To this day, sulfate-reducing bacteria maintain an essential minimal level of these metals in the ecosystem that are high enough so as to be available to the biological systems of the higher life forms that need them, yet low enough so as not to be poisonous to those very same higher life forms. Needless to say, the metal ores deposited by these sulfate-reducing bacteria in the early history of the earth’s geologic record are indispensable to man’s rise above the stone age to modern civilization. Yet even more evidence has been found tying other early types of bacterial life to the anthropic hypothesis. Many different types of bacteria in earths early history lived in complex symbiotic (mutually beneficial) relationships in what are called cryptogamic colonies on the earths primeval continents. These colonies “dramatically” transformed the “primeval land” into “nutrient filled soils” that were receptive for future advanced vegetation to appear. Naturalism has no answers for why all these different bacterial types and colonies found in the geologic and fossil record would start working in precise concert with each other preparing the earth for future life to appear. -// Since oxygen readily reacts and bonds with almost all of the solid elements making up the earth itself, it took photosynthetic bacteria over 3 billion years before the earth’s crust and mantle was saturated with enough oxygen to allow an excess of oxygen to be built up in the atmosphere. Once this was accomplished, higher life forms could finally be introduced on earth. Moreover, scientists find the rise in oxygen percentages in the geologic record to correspond exactly to the sudden appearance of large animals in the fossil record that depended on those particular percentages of oxygen. The geologic record shows a 10% oxygen level at the time of the Cambrian explosion of higher life-forms in the fossil record some 540 million years ago. The geologic record also shows a strange and very quick rise from the 17% oxygen level, of 50 million years ago, to a 23% oxygen level 40 million years ago (Falkowski 2005)). This strange rise in oxygen levels corresponds exactly to the appearance of large mammals in the fossil record who depend on high oxygen levels. Interestingly, for the last 10 million years the oxygen percentage has been holding steady around 21%. 21% happens to be the exact percentage that is of maximum biological utility for humans to exist. If the oxygen level were only a few percentage lower, large mammals would become severely hampered in their ability to metabolize energy; if only three to four percentage higher, there would be uncontrollable outbreaks of fire across the land. Because of this basic chemical requirement of photosynthetic bacterial life establishing and helping maintain the proper oxygen levels for higher life forms on any earth-like planet, this gives us further reason to believe the earth is extremely unique in its ability to support intelligent life in this universe. All these preliminary studies of early life on earth fall right in line with the anthropic hypothesis and have no explanation from any naturalistic theory based on blind chance as to why the very first bacterial life found in the fossil record would suddenly, from the very start of their appearance on earth, start working in precise harmony with each other to prepare the earth for future life to appear. Nor can naturalism explain why, once the bacteria had helped prepare the earth for higher life forms, they continue to work in precise harmony with each other to help maintain the proper balanced conditions that are of primary benefit for the complex life that is above them. -// Though it is impossible to reconstruct the DNA of these earliest bacteria fossils, that scientists find in the fossil record, and compare them to their descendants of today, there are many ancient bacterium fossils recovered from salt crystals and amber crystals that have been compared to their living descendents of today. Some bacterium fossils, in salt crystals, dating back as far as 250 million years have had their DNA recovered, sequenced and compared to their offspring of today (Vreeland RH, 2000 Nature). Scientists accomplished this using a technique called polymerase chain reaction (PCR). To the disbelieving shock of many scientists, both ancient and modern bacteria were found to have the almost exact DNA sequence. Thus the most solid scientific evidence available for the most ancient DNA scientists are able to find does not support evolution happening on the molecular level to the DNA of bacteria. According to the prevailing naturalistic evolutionary dogma, there “HAS” to be “significant mutational drift” to the DNA of bacteria within 250 million years, even though the morphology (shape) of the bacteria could have remained the same. In spite of their preconceived naturalistic bias, scientists find there is no detectable “drift” from ancient DNA according to the best evidences we have so far. I find it interesting that the naturalistic theory of evolution “expects” and even “demands” that there be a significant amount of drift from the DNA of ancient bacteria while the morphology is expected to remain exactly the same with its descendants. Alas for the naturalists once again, the hard evidence of ancient DNA has fell in line with the anthropic hypothesis.
Many times naturalists will offer “conclusive” proof for evolution by showing bacteria that have become resistant to a certain antibiotic such as penicillin. When penicillin was first discovered, all the gram positive cocci were susceptible to it. Now 40% of the bacteria Strep pneumo are resistant. Yet, the mutation to DNA that makes Strep pneumo resistant to penicillin results in the loss of a protein function for the bacteria (called, in the usual utilitarian manner, penicillin-binding-protein). A mutation occurred in the DNA leading to a bacterial protein that no longer interacts with the antibiotic and the bacteria survive. Although they survive well in this environment, it has come at a cost. The altered protein is less efficient in performing its normal function. In an environment without antibiotics, the non-mutant bacteria are more likely to survive because the mutant bacteria cannot compete as well. So as you can see, the bacteria did adapt, but it came at a loss of function in a protein of the bacteria, loss of genetic information in the DNA of the bacteria, and it also lessened the bacteria’s overall fitness for survival. Scientifically, it is better to say that the bacteria devolved in accordance with the principle of genetic entropy, instead of evolved against this primary principle of how “poly-constrained information” will act in organisms (Sanford; Genetic Entropy 2005). As well, all other observed adaptations of bacteria to “new” environments have been proven to be the result of such degrading of preexisting molecular abilities. Sometimes a complex adaptation in bacteria is exhibited by naturalists (Hall, gene knockout experiments) that defy tremendous mathematical odds. Yet far from confirming evolution as they wish it would, the demonstration of a complex adaptation of a preexisting protein actually indicates another higher level of complexity in the genetic code of the bacteria that somehow found (calculated) how to adapt a preexisting protein with the very same ability as the protein that was knocked out to the new situation (Behe, evidence for design pg. 138). To make matters worse for the naturalists, the complex adaptation of the protein still obeys the principle of genetic entropy for the bacteria, since the adapted bacteria has less overall functionality than the original bacteria did. Thus, even naturalists supposed strongest proof for evolution in bacteria is found to be wanting for proof of evolution since it still has not violated the principle of genetic entropy. Even the most famous cases of adaptations in humans, such as lactase persistence, the sickle cell/malaria adaptation (Behe, The Edge of Evolution 2007), and immune system responses, genetic entropy is still being obeyed when looked at on the level of overall functional genetic information. For naturalists to “conclusively prove” evolution they would have to clearly demonstrate a gain in genetic information. Naturalists have not done so, nor will they ever. The overall interrelated complexity for the integrated whole of a life-form simply will not allow the generation of meaningful information to happen in its DNA by chance alone.

“But in all the reading I’ve done in the life-sciences literature, I’ve never found a mutation that added information… All point mutations that have been studied on the molecular level turn out to reduce the genetic information and not increase it.” Lee Spetner (Ph.D. Physics – MIT)

“There is no known law of nature, no known process and no known sequence of events which can cause information to originate by itself in matter.” Werner Gitt, “In the Beginning was Information”, 1997, p. 106. (Dr. Gitt was the Director at the German Federal Institute of Physics and Technology) His challenge to scientifically falsify this statement has remained unanswered since first published.

Naturalists also claim stunning proof for evolution because bacteria can quickly adapt to detoxify new man-made materials, such as nylon and polystyrene. Yet once again, when carefully looked at on the molecular level, the bacteria still have not demonstrated a gain in genetic information, i.e. though they adapt they still degrade preexisting molecular abilities of the bacteria in order to adapt (genetic entropy). Indeed, it is not nearly as novel as they think it is, for the bacteria are still, only, complacently detoxifying the earth of toxins as they have always been doing for billions of years. Even though naturalists claim this is something brand new, that should be considered stunning proof for evolution, I’m not nearly as impressed, with their stunning proof, as they think I should be (Answers in Genesis; Nylon Eating Bacteria; 2007)! This overriding truth of never being able to violate the entropy of poly-constrained information by natural means applies to the “non-living realm” of viruses, such as bird flu, as well (Ryan Lucas Kitner, Ph.D. 2006). I would also like to point out that scientists have never changed any one type of bacteria into any another type of bacteria, despite years of exhaustive experimentation trying to change any bacteria type into any other bacteria type. In fact, it is commonly known that the further scientists deviate any particular bacteria type from its original state, the more unfit for survival the manipulated population will quickly become. As esteemed French scientist Pierre P. Grasse has stated “What is the use of their unceasing mutations, if they do not change? In sum, the mutations of bacteria and viruses are merely hereditary fluctuations around a median position; a swing to the right, a swing to the left, but no final evolutionary effect.” Needless to say, this limit to the variability of bacteria is extremely bad news for the naturalists.

If you get through all that and want more, let me know!