The Ultimate Proof of Creation - Chapter 1 - Section 1

This is a book by Dr. Jason Lisle of Answers In Genesis (AiG). Here is a short background on him posted on Amazon's page for this book.

"Dr Jason Lisle is a research scientist and speaker with Answers in Genesis Ministries. He holds a bachelor's degree in physics and astronomy from Ohio Wesleyan University and a master's degree and PhD in astrophysics from the University of Colorado in Boulder. Dr Lisle is currently planetarium director at the Creation Museum near Cincinnati, and written a number of books and journal articles, as well as the programs currently being used in the planetarium."

I was able to see his talk on this same subject while visiting the Creation Museum in Kentucky run by AiG. I know PZ has covered the first chapter but I wanted to take a shot at, especially after hearing Lisle's speech. Chapter 1 of his book is available online here. I will be using part of this book in accordance with the Fair Use Copyright Laws within the United States of America.

Now into the Chapter.

It starts off claiming that creationists and evolutionists use the same evidence but come to different conclusions based on their presuppositions or worldview. This is the standard canard for AiG. They forget to mention all the facts that creationists ignore when looking at the evidence. I will get to that later when he is actually talking about the evidence. This is also a straw man argument by Lisle. Creationists do insist that the Bible trumps the facts and that you should make the facts fit what the Bible says, but this is not how science works. If it was then we would all still believe in special creation, geocentric universe, a young earth, humors, leeching to get rid of "bad blood", etc. Instead science, all science, looks at the facts and follow them to the conclusions wherever they may lead. This is basic stuff, and Lisle, having a PhD from Colorado, knows this. Which leads me to believe that he is a liar for Jesus.

"One of the most compelling, commonly used scientific arguments for creation involves the field of information science. In this technological age, we are inundated with all sorts of information every day, but few people stop to consider what information really is, and where it comes from."

Well, I have a degree in Management Information Science so this should be good. Except for the first sentence, I am in total agreement.

"Scientifically, we can define information as a coded message containing an expected action and intended purpose."

Anyone can guess where he is going with this. I want to point out that he is already affirming the consequent in his definition. By calling it coded, he can say it needs a coder, much like Ray Comfort's 'creation requires a creator' bullshit.

Wikipedia has a good article on Information. Here is just a bit of it but will become important as we go here.

"Information is a term with many meanings depending on context, but is as a rule closely related to such concepts as meaning, knowledge, instruction, communication, representation, and mental stimulus. Simply stated, information is a message received and understood. In terms of data, it can be defined as a collection of facts from which conclusions may be drawn. There are many other aspects of information since it is the knowledge acquired through study or experience or instruction. But overall, information is the result of processing, manipulating and organizing data in a way that adds to the knowledge of the person receiving it.

Information is the state of a system of interest. Message is the information materialized.

Information is a quality of a message from a sender to one or more receivers. Information is always about something (size of a parameter, occurrence of an event, value, ethics, etc)."

This is what Lisle will use, information as a message. Here is Lisle on DNA.

"DNA also contains information. DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) is a long molecule found within living cells and resembles a twisted ladder. The rungs of the ladder form a pattern of base pair triplets that represent amino acid sequences — the building blocks of proteins. DNA contains the “instructions” to build the organism. So different organisms have different DNA patterns. DNA qualifies under the definition of information: it contains an encoded message (the base pair triplets represent amino acids) and has an expected action (the formation of proteins)and an intended purpose (life)."

At first glance this seems right, but he has changed the definition of information. In this sense information is "a type of pattern that that influences the formation or transformation of another pattern" (from Wikipedia). For this definition there is no need for a sender or receiver, in essence it is a chemical reaction or like the cogs of clock. When one moves the other has to because of the interlocking relationship. This is similar to how chemical reactions work, in which DNA is a chemical (two polymers with sugar and phosphate bonds to be specific). There is a lot of work going on in understanding DNA and I don't want to get bogged down in technicalities here, so I differ to Wikipedia (DNA) again.

"Whenever we find any sort of information, certain rules or “theorems”
apply. Here are two such theorems:

1. There is no known law of nature, no known process, and no
known sequence of events that can cause information to originate
by itself in matter.

2. When its progress along the chain of transmission events is
traced backward, every piece of information leads to a mental
source, the mind of the sender."

Lisle's wonderful source for these theorems (which I never heard either of these in college) is Werner Gitt (I wish I was making that name up). They are both from Gitt's book In the Beginning Was Information. It is a creationist book. Gitt is a yec and amazingly works for AiG, just like Lisle.

Both of these theorems are garbage. Scientists have observed the duplication or doubling of strands of DNA, followed by mutation affecting a single one of those strands changing it into something entirely different than what was there originally. This would be the adding of "information." As for actually originating "information" this would be covered under abiogenesis. In which some remarkable studies are going on. Recently a new article was published on a very likely way in which RNA (a precursor for DNA) could have formed on a very young Earth. This would be a complete natural origin for "information".

Theorem number two is just weird. Every source of information? Well I guess it again depends on what you mean by information. Where is the source of the "information" that tells an oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms to bond together to form water? This is yet another straw man.

"In one sense, these theorems are hardly profound; we take for granted that when we read a book it has an author. No one reading this book would conclude that it was generated by a sequence of typos that gradually accumulated over time. Now certainly this book might be a copy of a copy of a copy, but you take it for granted that a mind is ultimately responsible for the information therein (regardless of whether you agree with the information!). The theorems of information science confirm this."

Argument from personal incredulity or argument from common sense, yet another logical fallacy. First it is a false analogy. Books do not reproduce on their own. Humans guide the process of recreating books, often at great extent. Yet they still get transmission errors. I guess in Lisle's world God is actually guiding every chemical reaction that is involved in reproduction, no wonder he has no time to answer prayers.

Lisle has also set up Gitt's theorems like they are the widely accepted in the field of Information Science, this is far from the truth. From Wikipedia on Gitt and Tom Schneider's works:

"Tom Schneider of the Molecular Information Theory Group at the National Institutes of Health, an expert on the application of evolution to biology similarly criticizes his use of unproved 'theorems', use of circular reasoning, self-contradiction, 'Gitt has gotten Shannon backwards' and that Gitt falls into a 'standard misunderstanding that information is not entropy, information is not uncertainty'"

To trot out Gitt's work like it is highly respected and contains actual theorems (theorem - a statement that can be demonstrated to be true by accepted mathematical operations and arguments) is deluded at best and dishonest at worst. Thus going back to my original opinion that Lisle is intentionally lying for Jesus.

"Likewise, these theorems tell us that life cannot have come about as the evolutionists claim. The information in DNA cannot have come about by mutations and natural selection because the laws of information science tell us that all information comes from a mind. But the information in DNA makes sense in light of biblical creation. It was by the mind of God that the initial information was placed in the DNA of the original organisms on earth. That information has been copied many times, and some of it has been lost. But the information in our DNA ultimately comes from God, not by a random chance process. The laws of information science confirm creation."

This is only true if these "theorems" are true, which Gitt nor Lisle have done anything to prove them. Thus this argument relies on a faulty premise and fails before it even starts.

Also by the definition of information as a message (information is a message received and understood), the second part of that definition requires the receiver to be able to understand the message. In other words the receiver has to have a mind also. Otherwise it would be akin to a person writing detailed messages and then throwing them into a furnace to be destroyed without anyone ever reading them. So by Lisle's definitions each cell of our or any living body must have a mind.

"Sometimes evolutionists will object to this and will point out that mutations occasionally have survival value; they “improve” the organism under certain circumstances. This is true, but it is not relevant to the argument. Mutations have
never been observed to add brand-new information, and thus they cannot be the driving mechanism of evolution. Sometimes mutations will cause a section of DNA to get duplicated, but does this really increase the information? Not at all. By analogy, a copying error in a book may cause a paragraph to get duplicated. But surely it adds no new information. After all, could you learn anything from the duplicated paragraph that you couldn’t learn from the original? Creative information cannot spontaneously increase by chance. It is always the result of intelligence. The theorems of information science tell us this, and our experiences confirm it."

Now Lisle, you are just being obtuse. Ever thought about combining these two processes?

1. We take a sentence:
The dog hates cats.

2. We duplicate it:
The dog hates cats. The dog hates cats.

3. We add a beneficial mutation to the addition:
The dog hates cats. The dog hates cars.

UH-OH! We now have new information about the dog, through the two processes you just said couldn't create new information. You might want to rethink things.

That is it for Information Science section of Chapter 1, next section the thoroughly debunked idea of Irreducible Complexity.

I also want to add, I love the pictures. Notice he pulls a Jack Chick, not as prominent as Chick does though, in that he makes the evolutionist look uglier than the Christian.

Discovery Institute and History

The Discovery Institute is a self described think tank. Yet it seems in a current article on their website, not a lot of thought was put into it. The article, "Jefferson's Support for Intelligent Design" is about what Thomas Jefferson would think about Intelligent Design and Evolution. It is also one big Appeal to Authority in attempt to get Intelligent Design (ID) taught in Public Schools.

I am citing Fair Use in the copying of the article.

This article is by Stephen C. Meyer and was first printed in the Boston Globe.

IN THE battle over how to teach evolution in public schools, Thomas Jefferson’s demand for a “separation between church and state’’ has been cited countless times.

This sentence is just factually incorrect. When the phrase "separation between church and state" is used, it has nothing to do with evolution. This is because evolution is not a religious idea. So there is no church.

Many argue that the controversial alternative to Darwinian evolution, intelligent design, is an exclusively religious idea and therefore cannot be discussed under the Constitution.

Not just "many", the courts ruled that intelligent design was a religious idea and not science. The judge further wrote that "ID is nothing less than the progeny of creationism." Kitzmiller v. Dover.

By invoking Jefferson’s principle of separation, many critics of intelligent design assume that this visionary Founding Father would agree with them.

Yes and no. They are saying he would agree that religion has no place in government and that includes public schools. His thoughts on creationism or ID are irrelevant to that point.

But would he? For too long, an aspect of Jefferson’s visionary thought has been ignored, hidden away as too uncomfortable for public discussion - his support for intelligent design.

So what? He could have believed anything he wanted. In fact, he was a deist and believed in a creator god. This god was nothing like the Christian God. Jefferson was a critic of all religions.

In 1823, when materialist evolutionary ideas had long been circulating,

I am stopping in mid sentence here. This is partially true. The idea of animals evolving had been around. The main idea at the time was Lamarckian Evolution. Lamarckism was the idea that an organism could pass on traits, it picked up during its life, to its offspring. The idea was that an animal could change itself and pass those changes to its offspring. This is markedly different than the current Theory of Evolution. The Theory of Evolution by means of Natural Selection was not introduced until 1859, 36 years after this letter was written and 33 years after Jefferson's death. Lamarck's work never had the support that Darwin's did and still does to this day. To say that evolution had been around is confusing the meaning of evolution and the Theory of Evolution. To do so with that purpose in mind is lying.

Jefferson wrote to John Adams and insisted that the scientific evidence of design in nature was clear: “I hold (without appeal to revelation) that when we take a view of the Universe, in its parts general or particular, it is impossible for the human mind not to perceive and feel a conviction of design, consummate skill, and indefinite power in every atom of its composition.’’ It was on empirical grounds, not religious ones, that he took this view.

Of course, it was empirical grounds. The evidence for Lamarckism was scant and it didn't satisfy the science community. It wasn't until Darwin's idea of Natural Selection in 1895, 36 years later, did Evolution have good evidence. It still took several years and many tests before Darwin's idea was accepted.

This is still an appeal to authority. So Jefferson did not agree with Lamarckism. So what? How does this help the argument for ID? Was Jefferson a scientist with knowledge of the current Theory of Evolution? Well, no, he couldn't be, as the current theory is nothing like the hypothesis of his time. So what does that mean? Absolutely nothing. Can anyone say what Jefferson would believe now, with a completely different view of evolution and the scientific support for it? No. All we can do is interpret the law as it is. Which was done in Kitzmiller v. Dover and ID was deemed a religious idea. Thus it can't be taught in school.

There is no reason to carry on with this article, but Stephen wrote a lot more.

Contemplating everything from the heavenly bodies down to the creaturely bodies of men and animals, he argued: “It is impossible, I say, for the human mind not to believe that there is, in all this, design, cause and effect, up to an ultimate cause, a fabricator of all things from matter and motion.’’

Again so what? Jefferson did not know of the current Theory of Evolution. Jefferson was not a scientist or naturalist (as they were called at the time). Jefferson was a politician, lawyer and a yeoman farmer (yes, he did some paleontology and archeology but that was not even close to the bulk of his life work).

The “ultimate cause’’ and “fabricator of all things’’ that Jefferson invoked was also responsible for the “design’’ of life’s endlessly diverse forms as well as the manifestly special endowments of human beings. Moreover, because the evidence of “Nature’s God’’ was publicly accessible to all and did not depend upon a special appeal to religious authority, Jefferson believed that it provided a basis in reason for the protection of individual liberty. Thus, the Declaration of Independence asserted that humans are “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.’’

This is the same as his last comment. It is meaningless today. What does it matter what Jefferson thought of Lamarckism. Lamarckism has nothing to do with the current Theory of Evolution and Jefferson is not a scientist. What if my Senator, Jim Inhofe, came out and said something like, 'global warming is not real'. Oh wait, he did say something like that. Does that make it true? No, it is ignoring a mountain of evidence, which is just shameful. For Jefferson the evidence was not there, at least.

Of course, many people assume that Jefferson’s views, having been written before Darwin’s “Origin of Species,’’ are now scientifically obsolete.

Assume? How could they be up to date, when he didn't have the same information we do? That is like saying, we assume someone from the 1800's idea of 'we would never travel to the moon' as being obsolete. It isn't assumed, it is true.

But Jefferson has been vindicated by modern scientific discoveries that Darwin could not have anticipated. For example, in 1953 when Watson and Crick elucidated the structure of the DNA molecule, they made a startling discovery.

Actually, if you read On the Origin of Species, you would see that Darwin suggests that there is something in all living things that accounts for evolution. Darwin was so close to the idea of DNA. DNA just further solidified the Theory of Evolution.

The structure of DNA allows it to store information in the form of a four-character digital code. Strings of precisely sequenced chemicals called nucleotide bases store and transmit the assembly instructions - the information - for building the crucial protein molecules and machines the cell needs to survive. Francis Crick later developed this idea with his famous “sequence hypothesis,’’ according to which the chemical constituents in DNA function like letters in a written language or symbols in a computer code. As Bill Gates has noted, “DNA is like a computer program, but far, far more advanced than any software we’ve ever created.’’

Look, another appeal to authority. Bill Gates does not have a degree in molecular biology or any biology. His ideas on DNA are just from what he has picked up as a lay person and are meaningless. In fact that is not exactly what Gates said. This is called a quote mine. Here is Bill Gates quote in its entirety:

We have all had teachers who made a difference. I had a great chemistry teacher in high school who made his subject immensely interesting. Chemistry seemed enthralling compared to biology. In biology, we were dissecting frogs - just hacking them to pieces, actually - and our teacher didn't explain why. My chemistry teacher sensationalized his subject a bit and promised that it would help us understand the world. When I was in my twenties, I read James D. Watson's "Molecular Biology of the Gene" and decided my high school experience had misled me. The understanding of life is a great subject. Biological information is the most important information we can discover, because over the next several decades it will revolutionize medicine. Human DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software ever created. It seems amazing to me now that one great teacher made chemistry endlessly fascinating while I found biology totally boring. (Gates, The Road Ahead, Penguin: London, Revised, 1996 p. 228)

Again this is Bill Gates' idea of DNA from his recollection of it from High School and his 20s. The story is more about the importance of good teachers. To quote John Pieret from Talk Origins, "Gates may well know a lot about software, but he is in no position to assess how much DNA is, if at all, like a computer program. In point of fact, anyone who read the above passage would doubt that Gates had even a high school level understanding of biology and anyone interested in honesty would make that clear if they still wanted to use the quote."

This discovery has made acute a longstanding scientific mystery that Darwin never addressed or solved: the mystery of how the very first life on earth arose.

Well, Darwin never tried to solve how life arose. It is stated in On the Origin of Species that evolution is the process that takes place after life has arisen. Anyone who has read the book would understand that. DNA also says nothing of how life arose, so I really don't know what Mr. Meyer is trying to say here. Abiogenesis is the study of how life on Earth can arise from inanimate matter.

To date no theory of undirected chemical evolution has explained the origin of the digital information in DNA needed to build the first living cell on earth.

Maybe because no one believes that DNA contains digital information. This is just nonsense and an attempt to make the Bill Gates' quote meaningful.

Abiogenesis has had some incredible breakthroughs in the last few months. John Sutherland and other researchers were able to synthesize RNA in conditions resembling early earth. RNA is a self replicating molecule and precursor to DNA. Wired has an excellent article on it entitled "Life’s First Spark Re-Created in the Laboratory".

Yet modern scientists who argue for intelligent design do not do so merely because natural processes have failed to explain the origin of the information in cells. Instead, they argue for design because systems possessing these features invariably arise from intelligent causes.

Obviously, Mr. Meyer has not kept up with Abiogenesis and RNA world or is just being willfully ignorant. He has also not demonstrated that "systems possessing these features invariably arise from intelligent causes." He is just asserting this with no evidence to back up the claim.

DNA functions like a software program. We know that software comes from programmers. Information - whether inscribed in hieroglyphics, written in a book, or encoded in a radio signal - always arises from an intelligent source. So the discovery of digital code in DNA provides a strong scientific reason for concluding that the information in DNA also had an intelligent source.

DNA does not function like a software program. The only person that has said this is Bill Gates and he is not a molecular biologist. I have a degree in Management Information Systems and have written software programs. If I wrote a program with lots of steps that did nothing, ie Junk DNA, it would be a waste of time and energy. This would not be intelligent on my part. To say that DNA has an intelligent source, is highly questionable with inclusion of Junk DNA. This is not even mentioning negative mutations in DNA which cause suffering, very intelligent.

Heiroglyphics, books and radio signals all have a source that we can look up. Even if that source has expired. They are also not self replicating. To compare them to self replicating biological functions is naive at best and lying at worst.

Design is an inference from biological data, not a deduction from religious authority. Jefferson said just that, and based his political thinking on it.

The courts disagree with you. As well does the Discovery Institute for which you work and wrote this article. Also Mr. Meyer's acknowledged the Wedge Document, which speaks of broad social, political, and academic agenda whose ultimate goal is to "defeat [scientific] materialism" represented by evolution, "reverse the stifling materialist world view and replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions" and to "affirm the reality of God" by the Discovery Institute. So which is it, Mr. Meyer?

The evidence for what he presciently called “Nature’s God’’ is stronger than ever.

Yet, you provide no evidence.

Our nation’s existence, with its guarantee to protect each person’s “inalienable rights,’’ may be counted among the fruits of Jefferson’s belief in intelligent design.

This is a total non-sequitur. The beliefs of Jefferson in founding the nation have nothing to do with ID being taught in schools. Even if Jefferson would support ID, it does not matter when it comes to the legality of it. ID was given its day in court and it lost. Kitzmiller v. Dover is the final word. Making fallacious appeals to authority are meaningless.

Edit: I just found the rest of the quote from Jefferson that Meyer is leaving out, in other words quote mining.

The movements of the heavenly bodies, so exactly held in their course by the balance of centrifugal and cent. metal forces; the structure of our earth itself, with its distribution of lands, waters, and atmosphere; animals and vegetable bodies, examined in all their minutes” particles; insects, mere atoms of life, yet as perfectly organized as man or mammoth; the mineral substances, their generation and uses; it is impossible, I say, for the human mind not to believe, that there is in all of this, design, cause, and effect, up to an ultimate cause, a Fabricator of all things from matter and motion, their Preserver and Regulator while permitted to exist in their present forms, and their regeneration into new and other forms.

Emphasis mine. It seems Jefferson accepted some form of evolution, albeit this is still no endorsement one way or the other.