Ever since the film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed graced us with a perfect example of how not to make a documentary, rumors have flown all over the internet that Richard Dawkins believes we were spawned by aliens.
In fact, when Flimsy was engaging in an e-mail correspondence with a Christian the other day about his beliefs (Said Christian is a fan of Ray Comfort, and his language in explaining himself makes this obvious) the Christian said:
Richard Dawkins himself claims that we were intelligently designed by space aliens. Clearly, his problem is not with design or with the abstract concept of “god” or “gods” but with the specific God of the Bible.
I am going to clear up this nonsense once again. Here is what Prof. Dawkins had to say about this whole episode:
Toward the end of his interview with me, Stein asked whether I could think of any circumstances whatsoever under which intelligent design might have occurred. It’s the kind of challenge I relish, and I set myself the task of imagining the most plausible scenario I could. I wanted to give ID its best shot, however poor that best shot might be. I must have been feeling magnanimous that day, because I was aware that the leading advocates of Intelligent Design are very fond of protesting that they are not talking about God as the designer, but about some unnamed and unspecified intelligence, which might even be an alien from another planet. Indeed, this is the only way they differentiate themselves from fundamentalist creationists, and they do it only when they need to, in order to weasel their way around church/state separation laws. So, bending over backwards to accommodate the IDiots (“oh NOOOOO, of course we aren’t talking about God, this is SCIENCE”) and bending over backwards to make the best case I could for intelligent design, I constructed a science fiction scenario. … I patiently explained to him that life could conceivably have been seeded on Earth by an alien intelligence from another planet (Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel suggested something similar — semi tongue-in-cheek). The conclusion I was heading towards was that, even in the highly unlikely event that some such ‘Directed Panspermia’ was responsible for designing life on this planet, the alien beings would THEMSELVES have to have evolved, if not by Darwinian selection, by some equivalent ‘crane’ (to quote Dan Dennett). My point here was that design can never be an ULTIMATE explanation for organized complexity. Even if life on Earth was seeded by intelligent designers on another planet, and even if the alien life form was itself seeded four billion years earlier, the regress must ultimately be terminated (and we have only some 13 billion years to play with because of the finite age of the universe). Organized complexity cannot just spontaneously happen. That, for goodness sake, is the creationists’ whole point, when they bang on about eyes and bacterial flagella! Evolution by natural selection is the only known process whereby organized complexity can ultimately come into being. Organized complexity — and that includes everything capable of designing anything intelligently — comes LATE into the universe. It cannot exist at the beginning, as I have explained again and again in my writings.This ‘Ultimate 747′ argument, as I called it in The God Delusion, may or may not persuade you. That is not my concern here. My concern here is that my science fiction thought experiment — however implausible — was designed to illustrate intelligent design’s closest approach to being plausible. I was most emphatically NOT saying that I believed the thought experiment. Quite the contrary. I do not believe it (and I don’t think Francis Crick believed it either). I was bending over backwards to make the best case I could for a form of intelligent design. And my clear implication was that the best case I could make was a very implausible case indeed. In other words, I was using the thought experiment as a way of demonstrating strong opposition to all theories of intelligent design.
Well, you will have guessed how Mathis/Stein handled this. I won’t get the exact words right (we were forbidden to bring in recording devices on pain of a $250,000 fine, chillingly announced by some unnamed Gauleiter before the film began), but Stein said something like this. “What? Richard Dawkins BELIEVES IN INTELLIGENT DESIGN.” “Richard Dawkins BELIEVES IN ALIENS FROM OUTER SPACE.” I can’t remember whether this was the moment in the film where we were regaled with another Lord Privy Seal cut to an old science fiction movie with some kind of android figure — that may have been used in the service of trying to ridicule Francis Crick (again, dutiful titters from the partisan audience).
Richard Dawkins DOES NOT BELIEVE that aliens seeded the planet. He was asked to think of any circumstances whatsoever in which intelligent design might have occurred, and he came up with the most plausible fictional circumstance and used said circumstance to point out that even if such a circumstance were to occur, the seeders would they themselves have to have evolved.
If I approached a Christian and asked him if he thought there was any possible way that humans could have ended up on earth due to a force other than the Christian god, and they thought about it for a second, smiled, and replied that we could have maybe ended up on earth due to being seeded by an alien intelligence from another planet, but that that alien intelligence would have to have been created by god, and so he was the same god, would it be honest of me to say…
“WHAT? You believe we WEREN’T created directly by god? You believe we were seeded by ALIENS FROM OUTER SPACE?”
…and then to go on to proclaim that the Christian believed we didn’t come from his god and that we were seeded by aliens? Obviously not. This is akin to Lisa Simpson in a Simpsons episode being asked if she was going to marry a carrot (because she became a vegetarian) and then when she sarcastically replies, “Yes… I’m going to marry a carrot”, the children prance off, proclaiming that Lisa told them she was going to marry a carrot.
To be a little snarkier – GROW UP. I’m not writing this to defend Dawkins, as he is more than capable of doing so himself. I am writing this to point out that if you want to make a case for intelligent design, creation, god or whatever, it would serve you well to be honest and not act like a child in the process. I’m not really saying that the individuals parroting the whole “Dawkin’s believes space aliens seeded the planet” is childish, but those who originally made that claim and then proceeded to spread it all over the internet certainly are. The parroters just need to do a little more research and be a little more incredulous about claims people make and seek the original source rather than accept a third-hand account of what someone believes as gospel.
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Please explain if you believe that it takes just as much, more, or less faith to be an Atheist than a Christian and why.”
By definition atheist is lack of faith.
Atheism is not by definition the lack of faith. Faith is not a dirty word. It is simply a concept. Faith is the belief in evident realities though not beheld (Hebrews 11:1). You cannot observe a molecule evolve into a human being over 3.5 billion years+ can you? No? Yet you insist this is an “evident reality”, though you cannot behold it happening. Then you have faith that it did. Like it or not.
“The account of the origin of life that I shall give is necessarily speculative; by definition, nobody was around to see what happened.” The Selfish Gene (1989) p.14
Has any man ever observed the Big Bang? No? They have faith it happened then, because of what they perceive to be evidence of it. The Big Bang for that matter would long ago have been falsified, except they have created bandaids to keep it alive – dark matter, dark energy, infaltionary theory, etc. None of which have been observed. These things too are believed with faith.
Abiogenesis? Evidence? No. Observed? No. Believed though by faith. The ancient Greeks believed life arouse spontaneously form rocks, by Gaia’s power. So Abiogenesis started as a religious belief, over 2000 years ago. And since that time, it has never been observed!
What does Genetics say? That our DNA has mechanisms to avoid mutation and copying errors – this is counter-intuitive to evolution, which claims point mutation is the major engine of change, followed by natural selection. At least 2/3 of all point mutations are deleterious and harmful – no point mutation has ever been observed that added information – it simply transposes info, substitutes it, or subtracts it. Yet, evolutionary theory says new information can be added. Again, faith is needed to accept anything that has not been observed but it believed to be an evident reality.
Bacterial resistance to vaccines proof of evolution? Evolution in action? No. The bacteria already existed, and their resistant alleles kept them from dieing, while the other non-resistant bacteria died off. This is not actual evolution from one species to another – this is simply adaptation of a species. Proof of adaptation is not proof of molecules to man evolution. One thing does not follow the other. Non sequitur.
Fruit flies? Accelerated mutation experiments done since 1910 – result? No new genetic information added, only subtracted, moved (transposed), or substituted information (legs missing, legs on the head, eyes become legs); many dead flies; no new species of flies; none could procreate. This is a good falsifiability test for evolution, but somehow it is used as proof???
Of the writing of many books, there is no end. (Ecclesiastes 12:12) But just because there are many volumes of books written to prove something, doesn’t make it so.
…continued from previous comment…
“Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.” -The Blind Watchmaker
Well – if it has the appearance of design, then why is it so hard to believe it was?
“It is almost as if the human brain were specifically designed to misunderstand Darwinism, and to find it hard to believe.” The Blind Watchmaker (1996) p.316
I’ll drink to that.
Finally – the scientific method requires: observability and testability.
We cannot observe molecules to man evolution in action. That is an impossibility. And no test we have ever attempted has been successful in bolstering the claim that molecules became men. No life from lifelessness tests have ever worked. No fish was ever turned into a reptile. No snake was ever turned into a bird. And no ape was ever turned into a man in any lab.
The best we have done is show that birds can have longer beaks, dogs can vary by color, size, and shape via selective breeding, fruit flies can die from harmful mutations which put legs on their heads, the color of moths can vary, some bacteria are resistant to vaccines while others are not, and a few old bone fragments seem to some to be enough to disprove God exists.
Some evolutionists say we have plenty of fossil proof. Others say fossils are rare and that’s why there is not adequate fossil proof. I forget. Which ones is it?
Mountains of evidence? That depends upon your definition of evidence I suppose. And how much you are willing to massage the data to support your claim.
-MD
We cannot observe grassland to nation “evolution”, at least for nations that are older than we are. That’s an impossibility. Does it therefore then mean that it is impossible for a nation to form from a grassy plain? Because that’s basically the same argument as your “molecules to man” one.
P.S. “a few old bone fragments seem to some to be enough to disprove God exists.” is a strawman. No one claims this.
Not the same argument at all. Why? Because national history has been written by historians who lived then. We take their eye-witness accounts as proof that it happened. They are our observers. And we also have the buildings, the potsherds, the relics, etc. No one questions these obviously man-made objects as evidence of a nation’s existence, though such objects are not truly eye-witnesses of their development – only that they existed.
But who wrote the eye-witness account of molecules to man evolution sir? Who was there to see it?
The scientific method is what it is. I didn’t make it up. Either you work within it, or you don’t. If you don’t, you can’t expect your methods or claims to be considered truly scientific.
I don’t make strawman arguments. For some evolutionists I have talked to, the fossil record (“a few bone fragments”) has convinced them that it is true and that there is no God. In fact, the fossil record was the key proof of evolution in elementary schools far and wide for many years, which are essentially teaching an atheist curriculum, where prayer and intelligent design are barred by the courts. I know. I was an elementary school student once. :) (waits for funny insult)
-MD
I am not a “Sir.” It’s very interesting that commenters assume I am a man. Is it the way I write?
You said that we cannot observe “molecules-to-man” and my response was that we cannot observe grasslands-to-nations. We have historical accounts, but nations existed before historical accounts and written history. We have fragments of pottery but that only shows that people made pottery, not that nations existed. The relics only prove that there are relics, not that grasslands evolved into nations. I might say that people are crazy for believing that a few potshards proves grasslands-to-nations.
No one on this blog believes that “a few old bone fragments seem to some to be enough to disprove God exists.” If you heard someone make this claim, then fine. It still sounds as if you are strawmanning their position, but I was not there. Perhaps you would be willing to elaborate on what the evolutionist said specifically?
It may not be a strawman, but it is a red herring, because no one here is making that argument.
Prayer is not barred in schools. Mandatory prayer is barred in schools, and for good reason. Would you want your kids being forced to pray to mecca every day by their Muslim teacher? Would you want people coming into your kid’s classroom and handing out “Why Catholicism is true” pamphlets? Outlawing mandatory prayer is good for everyone. Intelligent design is not a scientific theory and that is why it is not taught in science classrooms. Modern evolutionary theory is a scientific theory, which is why it is taught in classrooms. It is not “atheist” as many people both believe in evolution and god. Catholics, for example, have no problem with evolution, and teach it in private Catholic schools. It is no more atheist than physics is atheist.
We could also use the “eye-witness” account to disprove the Bible. Was there an “eye-witness” to god creating the universe? (hint – you can’t say “yes, it was my god!” because that’s begging the question) Was there an “eye-witness” account of the formation of Venus? Was there an “eye-witness” account of the formation of the Mississippi river?
Science, believe it or not, does not rely on “eye-witnessing”. This is an oversimplified, misunderstanding of how science works.
Science is a process involving:
1. Making observations (gathering data);
2. Constructing a model (forming a hypothesis);
3. Making predictions based on the model;
4. Verifying the predictions, and throwing out the model if it’s wrong.
We’ve written about this before, so please see:
http://www.ziztur.com/2009/06/how-science-made-sense.html
and
http://www.ziztur.com/2009/06/petters-guide-on-how-to-think.html
The “no new information” canard is so old and so tedious that I could barely make myself reply at all. I suggest you consult the Talk.Origins Index to Creationist Claims for excellent rebuttals of this and many other canards (including several others in your comments). In case you do not, I will briefly recapitulate.
Lots of mutations add information—one of the most common mutations is gene duplication, where one copy of a duplicated gene may subsequently undergo point mutations, introducing novel information while retaining the original gene. See here.
One of the best examples of evolution in action is nylon-eating bacteria: Bacteria that feed on substances that simply did not exist on our planet until humans created them. Note that this is very different from your scenario of bacteria already possessing resistance surviving: The enzymes involved here are novel and unique to the Flavobacterium strains in question.
Another excellent example is, of course, Lenski’s famous experiment.
(Of course the best examples here will be bacterial: Even heavy PE endorsers in evolution will readily admit that evolutionary change happens on a timescale of thousands or tens of thousands of years. Examples of dramatic change are best observed in organisms with very short generation times.)
That’s a great example (the nylon-eating bacteria) and I’m grateful that you brought it to my attention. I will research if further. Though, I find it no big surprise that bacteria would be able to do this – after all, bacteria have long been used to eat unwanted substances in chemical cleaning products, and other such uses. It seems that such adaptation is built into their genetic code. But as I said, I will look into it further. But in the end, I’ll have to take someone else’s word for it, because I can’t run off and perform tests myself.
Beyond that, it is still a non sequitur issue. A bacteria developing the ability to eat a particular substance does not prove a molecule can become a human being. When that happens, please call me and I’ll be the first to admit I’m wrong.
With that, I will politely bow out.
-MD
Um.. a molecule CAN’T become a human being… A molecule is a molecule is a molecule. Hence – strawman. Evolutionary theory does not say that “a molecule can become a human being”.
“Though, I find it no big surprise that bacteria would be able to do this – after all, bacteria have long been used to eat unwanted substances in chemical cleaning products, and other such uses. It seems that such adaptation is built into their genetic code.”
They have been used to eat unwanted substances either (1) because they already had the ability to eat them (which is irrelevant to the point of a novel ability here), or (2) because bacteria easily evolve the ability to digest novel substances, in which case you have only provided more examples of evolution in action.
As for “adaptation…built into their genetic code”, that’s nonsense. The adaptation is genetic. There is no evidence whatsoever that any creature has ever displayed a mutational bias in favour of adaptation. (There are genes in various creatures that bias meiotic drive, but these are parasitic genes, such as sex-biasing genes on sex chromosomes; one such gene frequently drives mouse populations extinct.)
As for the rest:
We do not have direct evidence that single molecules ‘developed’ into living cells. What we do have is plausibility.
We know that evolution happens, because we can see it in action.
We know that evolution between major groups happens, because the fossil record (however woefully inadequate it may be in showing the details) provides us with beautiful transitional series as with the evolution of whales, horses, or early hominins to humans; and because multiple phylogenetic trees converge on a single structure consistent with common descent and with no other hypothesis ever proposed—a structure, I should add, largely consistent with the tree already drafted based on phenotypic observations. What are the odds of this happening by chance?
We know that organic molecules are common throughout the cosmos. We know that chemical reactions happen, and that entities vastly simpler than cells or even DNA are capable of replication (viz., RNA molecules).
It is therefore held to be quite plausible that simple chemical reactions (powered by sunlight, etc.) may very well have combined pre-existing organic molecules into more complex, self-replicating molecules such as RNA (or perhaps even simpler precursor outcompeted by RNA). Not certain, not demonstrated, but plausible. And it is the only general hypothesis for the origin of life that is plausible on the basis of observed facts of nature.
“The ancient Greeks believed life arouse spontaneously form rocks, by Gaia’s power. So Abiogenesis started as a religious belief, over 2000 years ago.”
This is hilarious. Abiogenesis is NOT the claim that complex life sprung out of completely inorganic matter, instantly. If that were true, then the Genesis story of God creating Adam out of dirt would be Abiogenesis, too. Since you insist that Abiogenesis is false, the Bible must be false.
That’s the most hilarious thing about your fixation on the phrase “molecules to man evolution.” Evolution says that this progression happened incredibly gradually, over literally billions of years. Obviously we wouldn’t observe it.
On the other hand, the Bible does claim that dirt became a fully grown man in an instant. You are condescendingly mocking us for believing something as absurd as inorganic matter happening to form a self-replicating molecule, which, after billions of years of evolution, becomes relatively complex organisms. You believe that complex organisms came from dirt, instantly. You really don’t see the absurdity in your position?
If I listed everything you said that is literally wrong, we’d be here all day. Here are just a few examples. We will continue if you show yourself to be at all willing to look at new evidence.
“That our DNA has mechanisms to avoid mutation and copying errors – this is counter-intuitive to evolution . . .”
False dichotomy fallacy. DNA replicates itself *pretty* accurately, but not perfectly. If there were no such thing as variation in DNA copying itself, then you would be genetically identical to your parents, and to their parents, etc. There is obviously some variation.
“Bacterial resistance to vaccines proof of evolution? Evolution in action? No. The bacteria already existed, and their resistant alleles kept them from dieing, while the other non-resistant bacteria died off.”
If there was only one round of flu vaccines needed to immunize a population, then you might have a point, but that’s not the case. You have to get flu vaccines many times, even once a year, because the different viruses keeps changing in response to the vaccine. This is horrifyingly over-simplified, but you get the point. If we only used one single vaccine, with no alteration, it would be absolutely useless within just a couple years. That is exactly what evolution would predict, and that’s exactly what happens.
“Fruit flies? Accelerated mutation experiments done since 1910 – result? No new genetic information added, . . .”
This is outright false. You specify that “no new species” of fruit fly have been created. That is flatly untrue. Countless new species have been created in this way through these experiments.
“This is a good falsifiability test for evolution, but somehow it is used as proof???”
Yes, it is a good test of evolution’s predictions. If you weren’t completely and utterly dead wrong about the results of those tests, you would see how obviously true evolution is. Seriously, look up “fruit fly speciation” sometime. It happens all the time. It’s so ridiculously easy, HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS can cause speciation in fruit flies.
Etc., etc., etc. There are lots of things that we can’t observe directly; that doesn’t mean that science cannot say anything about them. For exactly this reason, science doesn’t test *histories* of a theory, it tests the *mechanism*.
It’s really very simple. Evolution’s mechanism can be tested on a very large scale, because all we need to do is test the predictions. Evolution’s mechanism can be directly observed on a small scale. Therefore, it’s mechanism is extremely well-supported by evidence.
And with eminent timing: More RNA World references
I absolutely do not agree.
I am sorry that you learned a long time ago that lengthy explanations are correlated with people lying. You need to unlearn that.
Sometimes people say such stupid things that it takes much longer to explain why what they said is stupid than the original comment.
In this case, I watched Expelled before I heard Dawkin’s explanation, and I can absolutely see the manipulation on the part of the producers and Stien. just because it took Dawkins a formidable length of text to explain how he was manipulated is not grounds to think it is likely he was lying.
Dawkin’s could have easily explained his position in much less text, but he explained it in such depth to idiot proof it.
All Dawkins had to say was, “I do not believe aliens seeded the earth. Stien asked me to participate in a thought experiment, and I did.” but he chose to provide a complete explanation. This is not indicative of “lying”.
So, try to come up with a better argument than, “his explanation was very long, and that is indicative that he is probably lying”. Some facts might be nice, for one. Some proof other than “his explanation was elaborate” might be good, too.
I think Mr. Dawkins realized just how foolish he looks and did A LOT of explaining to cover it up. I learned a long time ago that the more elaborate an explanation someone gives, the more likely it is they are lying. Hence, Mr. Dawkins’ rubbish.
Having read several of Dawkins bookos it is very unlikely that he all of a sudden believes in aliens.
More interviews have been cut to take quotes out of context.
Creationists hate dawkins and are putting loads of effort into proving evolutionists wrong, getting evolution out of schools etc. Its more likely one of them manipulated the interview, than Dawkins believing in aliens.
Olivia,
If that’s an attempted joke, you need to work on delivery. If it’s serious, you need to work on reading comprehension and re-read what Dawkins actually said.
He probably realizes that it is pretty foolish to believe in evolution, so he has to make it known that he doesn’t totally rule out being created. Just not by God.
~Livy
Three things here –
First, I believe Olivia – had it right, in essence per se? I think it’s interesting the church/state thing gets thrown around way too much (It’s kind of like automatic name calling). To say that you cannot be objective by including ID is very bad reasoning. ID should be heard – and evolution should be heard – then people in universities should decide for themselves – I honestly, feel that evolution takes faith too.
It’s all about what you believe in – hoping your science/faith to be right.
Second, a well balanced atheist friend of mine believes that ID should be given a chance alongside evolution in universities. Just simply present it and then be done with it. He believes a few good lecture periods is all one needs. He also believes that Dr. Dawkins has a pretty blatant and unhealthy bent towards religion (especially the Bible). Again this is a balanced friend of mine who respects me for my beliefs and does not dismiss me at all. I wish more atheists were like him.
Third, if you really think that evolution can be proved then good for you. I think it cannot – I also think it’s awfully arrogant to throw around a million years like its nothing… We honestly have no concept what a million years is. Just because we can manipulate silicon, and the combustible engine (we have now mastered the universe and all its intricacies). Dating the earth is very hard to do – I don’t mind if the scientific community says that it’s guessing, just be honest about it! And my atheist friend also believes that dating dino bones is a joke – Again he is a pretty balanced guy.
It is a pretty obvious fact that if you are a Christian – sometimes there can be a vocational danger in academics.
I hope someone reads this- and thanks for the forum.
DC 10