Battle of World Views
I recently attended a conference on Intelligent Design in CastleRock Colorado with presenters like Stephen Myer, Michael Behe, and David Berlinski.
Dr. Myer was outstanding and presented a high-level summary of his new book “Signature in the Cell”. The textbook-sized volume presents a comprehensive argument that the information in the DNA of the cell could not have arisen through the mechanisms of Darwinism; Darwinism cannot function without the “program code” expressed in the DNA. So far, I have ready through the first 200 pages of this book. After I have completed the next 300+ pages, I will try to post a comprehensive review. So far, it is a deep but compelling read.
Content from Dr. Behe’s book, “The Edge of Evolution”, was presented by Dr. Behe. In this book, Dr. Behe discusses what evolution can do, and what is beyond its ability (at the edge). I enjoyed Dr. Behe’s presentation, as well has audience members who challenged him from the “materialist” side of the aile. Once I have read his new book, I will present more thoughts from that volume here as well.
Dr. David Berlinski, author of “The Devil’s Delusion”, was also in attendance. To be honest, Dr. Berlinski seemed ill and was a bit hard to follow at times. In one segment, when he was being interviewed by Dr. Stephen Myer, Dr. Berlinski was making a case that the genetic information in the cell arriving by chance had a similar probability to someone walking on the surface of Pluto and finding , in one moment, a lone dime on the surface of the planet. Unfortunately, Dr. Berlinski’s message was diluted by a hard to follow reference to the size of Pluto as compared to Earth. I hope Dr. Berlinski gets some rest and returns with his normally sharpen wit for his next conference.
Overall I found the conference to be interesting, with new information (to me) coming from speakers who related the social implications of the philosophy of Darwinism. Certainly the impacts of Darwinism on our society have been overwhelming. But the bigger question, presented most strongly by Dr. Stephen Myer, is whether the overall message of materialism is true? I.e. Does scientific materialism prove that God does not exist? Clearly, the answer to this question is in the negative. The information expressed by the genetic code and the incredible cellular factory that it directs is an immense challenge to Darwinism. Darwinism could not function without these incredible machines yet cannot begin to explain their origins. As new discoveries are made in this area, it will definitely be interesting to see the “evolution” of the debate.
