When science writers can’t cope with honesty among scientists …
| January 13, 2012 | Posted by O'Leary under Media, Science |
credit Laszlo Bencze
In “Faye Flam: Atheist Writer Who is Long on Graciousness, Long on Civility….Short on Reason, Short on Scientific Realities” (Algemeiner Daily, January 12, 2012), Moshe Averick, author of The Confused, Illusory World of the Atheist, comments on the need for science writers to defend atheist materialism well beyond what its pioneer exponents even try to do:
In my communication with Ms. Flam, I made it clear that (a) I was not trying to portray Szostak as a supporter of Intelligent Design theory, that (b) if it appeared that way it was unintentional and (c) I apologized for any confusion. The disputed citation from Dr. Szostak’s Scientific American article – “It is virtually impossible to imagine how a cell’s machines…could have formed spontaneously from non-living matter”- was brought as an illustration of the enormous challenges Origin of Life researchers face in trying to find a naturalistic process which would explain how life emerged from non-life, not to demonstrate Jack Szostak’s belief in God. I urge the reader to look at my email that appeared in Planet of the Apes and the full disclaimer I printed in my Algemeiner.com column of 12/22/11. I don’t see how I could have been any clearer.
But it doesn’t really matter how clear Moshe Averick is. The awful clarity that spooks Flam is this: When the By Chance Alone lobby are being honest among themselves, they no more implicitly believe their spiel than anyone else does. To stay real, they must admit that to anyone listening.
That leaves Flam grasping at claims that they were misquoted.
That should have been the end of it, but for some strange reason Faye seemed unable to let it go: “I appreciate your apology but the Szostak quote you included in your story can’t be reasonably interpreted in any way except as an attempt to connect him to the belief that life can’t possibly have come from non-life through a natural process…the sentiment expressed by this quote is the absolute antithesis of what Dr. Szostak has said many times…” In other words, Ms. Flam felt there was something inherently disingenuous about the fact that I used Szostak’s description of the awesome level of functional complexity of the simplest bacterium to support my position that it is the product of Intelligent Design, while being fully aware that Szostak himself completely denies the possibility of Intelligent Design. Faye, I appreciate your giving me the space in your column to explain my side of the controversy but it seems you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what the real problem is here. Please allow me to elaborate.
The real problem is that what – for Szostak – is a dream, an ambition, and imperishable hope, must be for Flam an easily demonstrable wooden reality. He’s the investigator; she’s the script writer.
So the story conflict is this: Szostak can’t cope with Flam’s demands for certainty because they interfere with rational thinking. Flam can’t cope with the reality Szostak sees.
So, of course, Reb Moshe is to blame for drawing attention to the problem.
The late Dr. Harold P. Klein, of NASA, once wrote something that was remarkably similar to Szostak’s statement: “The simplest bacterium is so damn complicated from the point of view of a chemist that it is almost impossible to imagine how it happened.” I quoted Dr. Klein in my book (by the way Faye, are you going to review it?), and in at least one other article. Do you think I was trying to imply that Dr. Klein supported Intelligent Design theory or was a believer in God the Creator? I certainly was not, and he most certainly did not and was not. One of the greatest chemists alive today, Dr. George Whitesides of Harvard University, also said something remarkably similar to Szostak’s statement.
Yes, that’s an additional complicating factor: The amazement and doubt are all par for the course in origin of life studies. If Flam has a lot of trouble with that, she might consider, say, evolutionary psychology, where conundrums or wrong answers are very rare indeed because contact with meaningful evidence is almost non-existent.
See also: Urgently needed: A random Darwin generator
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16 Responses to When science writers can’t cope with honesty among scientists …
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Some similar consternation was seen when Jerry Fodor and his co-author (“What Darwin Got Wrong”) made it clear that there is no certainty about how evolution’s proposed mechanisms work. It’s a simple question: Is it driven by adaptation, genetics, or some combination? Their disagreements are very real.
I like the entire context of the Szostak quote:
Methinks Szostak needs to buy a vowel!
Or eliminate the word ‘virtually’ from his quote. They admit that they cannot imagine how it happened, but they believe that it happened.
This is akin to saying that you cannot imagine that the Loch Ness monster exists but that you believe that it does exist. It is an article of blind faith, not a scientific fact.
However,
I agree with Craig — cosmologists like Vilenkin cannot draw any proper scientific conclusions about the coming-to-be of the unverse – such as its having a beginning.
Therefore, Craig’s premise that the universe had a cause needs to be established on some other grounds besides cosmology.
Cheers
Oops – wrong thread. Apologies all.
Cheers
“The amazement and doubt are all par for the course in origin of life studies.”
Exactly. Perhaps this is why the late atheist philosopher Anthony Flew changed his view toward the end of his life. He couldn’t ignore the evidence. Szostak and Flew see the same, or at least similar evidence. They just came to different conclusions. It shows that even in science, evidence has to be interpreted. And, it shows that sometimes to remain intellectually honest, a person may actually have to change his worldview to accomodate the evidence.
Even atheists are amazed by the cell. Although the origin of life remains a huge mystery, they choose to place their faith in chance.
We choose to place our faith in an intelligent Cause which seems a much more intelligent choice than believing in random chance.
Bornagain, OT. I thought you’d be interested in this article.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new.....-robe.html
OT Collin, Thanks buddy I saw that. I even pieced together a few notes I had in response to it:
Though a bit dated (a few weeks ago) Here is a press release video of recent Turin Shroud ‘laser test’; (with references following)
Article mentioned in preceding video:
further notes:
cont. Collin;
Also of note as to providing a viable ‘mechanism’ for the apparent ‘burst of light’ emanating from the body of Christ:
further notes refuting carbon dating:
Many solid lines of evidence pointed to the Shroud’s authenticity back in the 1980’s, yet one line of evidence, the carbon dating of 1989, indicated a medieval age. In spite of many other, more reliable, lines of evidence establishing the Shroud as authentic, many people unquestionably, before the present ‘laser test’, accepted the one questionable line of evidence, the carbon dating, as valid and presumed the Shroud to be a medieval fake. Here are some of the other more reliable lines of evidence;
Here is a interesting video interview with Bruno Barberis, director of the International Center of Sindonology in Turin, Italy, who states that the Shroud is the ‘actual burial cloth of Jesus’;
cont. Collin:
Moreover, in a fairly recent breakthrough, prior to this ‘laser test’ the carbon dating question has been thoroughly addressed and refuted by Joseph G. Marino and M. Sue Benford in 2000. Their research, with textile experts, showing the carbon testing was done with a piece of the Shroud which was subject to expert medieval reweaving in the 1500’s had much historical, and photographic, evidence behind it. Their historical, and photographic, evidence was then scientifically confirmed by chemical analysis in 2005 by Raymond Rogers. Thus, the fact that a false age was shown by the 1989 carbon testing has been accepted across the board as far as the scientific evidence itself is concerned.
The following is the main peer reviewed paper which has refuted the 1989 Carbon Dating:
Rogers passed away shortly after publishing this paper, but his work was ultimately verified by the Los Alamos National Laboratory:
This following is the Los Alamos National Laboratory report and video which completely confirms the Rogers’ paper:
Further notes on the enigmatic, photographic negative/3-D hologram, image of the Man on the shroud:
Kevin Moran, a scientist working on the mysterious ’3D’ nature of the Shroud image, states the ‘supernatural’ explanation this way:
If scientists want to find the source for the supernatural light which made the “3D – photographic negative” image I suggest they look to the thousands of documented Near-Death Experiences (NDE’s) in Judeo-Christian cultures. It is in their testimonies that you will find mention of an indescribably bright ‘Light’ or ‘Being of Light’ who is always described as being of a much brighter intensity of light than the people had ever seen before. All people who have been in the presence of ‘The Being of Light’ while having a deep NDE have no doubt whatsoever that the ‘The Being of Light’ they were in the presence of is none other than ‘The Lord God Almighty’ of heaven and earth.
From Szostak’s own web site:
They have envisioned a target, and just as all intelligent designers do, they are dividing the larger problem into smaller, more solvable ones which can then be combined to achieve the greater goal.
Who cares what Szostak says he thinks about the possible role of intelligent design? He’s attempting to achieve his goal by means of intelligent design, not without it.
If he achieves his stated goal he will be no closer to demonstrating the possibility of abiogenesis than he is now. Having determined the steps that must occur and how to achieve them he will be much farther from it. Relating his results to abiogenesis would involve finding a way for his life’s work to repeat without him.
How could anyone even imagine that Szostak is researching undirected abiogenesis?
True, collinb. The disagreements are real, and ten to get slimed over by the science writer’s “Once upon a time, there was this creative little ooze … “
Scott’s points are well made. If undirected abiogenesis is the true goal of the lab, then place all the components of a cell in one general area and then shut the lab door and wait and see how long it takes for them to combine into a fully functional cell. That is what they believe happened billions of years ago.
Off-topic: This CAPTCHA thing is really annoying.
Bornagain77, it seems that physical light forms a continuum with spiritual light and its self-existent source, the creator God. Somewhere in the breviary, presumably in one of the Readings, God is actually referred to as ‘the source of light and creator of light,’ which seems to me suggestive of just such a continuum.
One thing that the absolute speed of light establishes beyond all peradventure is that even the physical-light pole of the continuum is exogenous to space-time, manifestly including the imperfect vacuum which apparently is still, seemingly, considered without dispute as its reference-frame. It’s as if God were say, ‘Oh no you don’t. You don’t get out of it that way.’
Now that it has been established that there is no perfect vacuum, particles keep appearing and evanescing, one would have thought that, at least, the philosophers of science would have pointed out that the reference-frame of light had now, once again, receded from our understanding into mystery, a mystery akin to the Singularity at the Big bang. – the one certainty being that it is not proper to space-time.
There seems to be more than a possibility that the physicists working with the Hadron Collider are try to access the self-same Singularity, enclosing the universe as a matrix.
An uncreated, spiritual light-created, physical light continuum seems evocative of the Incarnation, and more specifically the Cosmic Christ posited by the Jesuit palaeontologist, Pierre Teilhard De Chardin, and before him I believe, the Apostle Paul, if not in so many words.
ScottAndrews:
I disagree to this extent: If he can show that his designed protocell could possibly have arisen within the probabilistic resources available and the conditions that likely existed on the early earth, then he will have at least made a case. These, however, are huge hurdles. But of course even then, he is still faced with the problem of demonstrating that his protocell is capable of “evolving” into a cell as is currently understood, again within the probabilistic resources available.
Personally, I don’t think he has a prayer.