Our tranquility was once again shattered by blaring sirens and lights flashing on the wall display of our Retard-o-tron™. The blinking letters on the wall said WorldNetDaily.
WorldNetDaily (WND) is the flamingly creationist, absolutely execrable, moronic, and incurably crazed journalistic organ that believes in and enthusiastically promotes every conspiracy theory that ever existed. WND was an early winner of the Curmudgeon’s Buffoon Award, thus that jolly logo displayed above this post.
We were directed to an essay by yet another author we haven’t run across before — Chris W. Bell. He’s described at the end of the article as “a freelance writer,” and it appears that he’s found a market for his work at WND. The title of his article — which we used for our own title — is The symphony of creation. Think about that word, “symphony,” the next time you have back trouble or have to go to the dentist.
We won’t give you too many excerpts, because this thing is bad — even by WND’s standards. But we’ll give you enough so that you’ll know how we suffer in your service. Here we go, with bold font added by us:
Some say that life came to be by accident – the right chemicals in the right place at the right time.
Only creationists say things like that. We call it their Theory of Spontaneous Assembly of Very Complex Molecules from Start to Finish from Utterly Isolated Atoms (TSAVCMSFUIA). Most of us understand that the emergence of life was a slow, gradual process. Given a planet with oceans full of the right chemicals, and a billion years for zillions of interactions, self-replicating molecules appeared — and reproduced wildly — after which life was virtually a sure thing. We explained that almost four years ago in a three-part post. See: The Inevitability of Evolution (Part I).
But Mr. Bell’s bewilderment is unshakable. He says:
The creation of life is the result of a symphony of innumerous coordinated intricate processes. It’s difficult to imagine that such a complex task was not orchestrated.
If Mr. Bell can’t imagine it, although many books have been written on the subject, then — that proves creationism. Doesn’t it? Then he gives a couple of examples which he thinks are persuasive. First, you’re given all the parts for a house and its furnishings (he later makes it worse by giving you just the raw materials), with no instruction manual. Then:
Also imagine that you have never seen a house before, so you don’t even know what you’re supposed to wind up with. And once you start you must continue or it will be ruined.
See there? It’s all or nothing, and you’re only allowed one attempt. Does he really think evolution works like that? Let’s read on:
But this is child’s play compared to what happens in our world every day.
When a baby begins to form in the womb, thousands of processes are set in motion, each doing its part and then ceasing, each knowing when its turn is up, each taking the building blocks of life and assembling them into flesh and bone.
Wowie — it’s a miracle! After skipping a lot of womb wonders, we come to this:
Imagine how complex the instructions for creating life must be. But some believe that, in essence, this instruction manual occurred naturally – that there is no intelligence in the design.
We don’t need no instruction manual. It’s organic chemistry. Here’s how he wraps it up:
We’ll probably never know the truth of how we came to be, but objectivity dictates that intelligent design is as valid a theory as any other.
We have to give him credit for intellectual modesty. Unlike most creationists, he says we’ll never know how it all happened. But ignorance doesn’t make Oogity Boogity! a valid theory.
Copyright © 2011. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.
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The Sensuous Curmudgeon 
The problem is, no matter how deep one looks, it’s all chemistry. Molecules form ordinary chemical bonds with other molecules, if they are compatible, when they bump into each other. No one has ever found molecules in the cell acting in a way that cannot be explained by a series of these ordinary chemical interactions. The “instruction manual” is simply a long molecule, reacting with other molecules in its vicinity, which in turn react with other molecules as they encounter them, etc. The effect of those reactions, at the macroscopic level, is to form a blastula and on to eventually form a baby, but every single microscopic step in route is an ordinary chemical reaction.
There are inorganic chemical processes which no one would describe as life. There are in-between organisms such as viruses which are not quite alive, in that they do not eat, nor do they reproduce, but if they make their way into a cell they can stimulate the cell to reproduce more copies of themselves. There are creatures like mitochondria which can reproduce independently within a cell, but are not themselves independent cells, and there is, of course, cellular life. The idea that one would need to build an entire house (as in the writer’s analogy of a modern cell) all at once, on the first try, is hogwash. A cave would have been a much more apt analogy.
I like to see how a creationist argument against evolution applies with at least as much force as an argument against reproduction. It’s amazing how often that works. And then, once in a while, someone comes along to spare us the effort and spells it out.
Bell asserts:
I can’t follow Bell’s logic. If you have no instruction manual, a pile of lumber, and no idea what a finished house looks like, then neither do you have any idea what a finished house does NOT look like.
So a person could work on the project for a while and honestly call whatever results a ‘house’, and simply stop right there even if there are plenty of planks and shingles lying around unused at the moment.
The builder would be justified in calling the finished product a “house” with not a hint of guile, prevarication, blarney, dissimulation, sophism, trumpery, flimflam, or fraud that would be detectable by any polygraph test.
That is the principle difference between an honest craftsman, and a creationist visiting the job site carrying a bible in his hand.
Oops. There’s an obvious logical fallacy up there, since a person could reasonably know that a mouse is not a house.
Anybody that wants to fix up the logic feel free to go ahead.
It’s been pointed out most creationists who insist that something as complex as an organism could not possibly have originated without an organizing intelligence have no problems with the thought that something as a complex as an economy can come into existence without a centralized intelligent planner. It’s quite ironic that they have problems with Darwin, but not with Adam Smith.
Hello Curmudgeons, I’m Chris, the author of the article on WND. First, it’s fun to be mad fun of. I enjoyed reading this article.
I’m not arguing against evolution, I recognize the proof of it that exists. You all posit that life is simply a complicated chemical reaction that occurred by accident, meaning that it was not destined to be, but rather the circumstances required randomly occurred. My motivation for the article is that evolution may not be the end of the creation story.
Since life is just a chemical reaction that follows the laws of science, then anyone with the right “chemistry set” can create it. You must believe that if you are a strict evolutionist.
Therefore someone could have created us. Of course there is no evidence of that, but I think, based on the chemistry involved, it is a possibility.
If you saw a deserted island with logs washed up on the shore spelling out HELLO, there’s no evidence that someone placed them there since they could have just washed up that way. But is you were making a report back to the home base, objectivity dictates that you would say either they just washed up that way, or possibly, someone placed them there.
If you believe in evolution, then you must believe that one day, as our knowledge grows, we may well create life ourselves. And therefore maybe- just maybe, we were created.
chris bell says:
Hello, Chris. Good of you to drop in.
Yes. It’ll happen. Just because it hasn’t been done yet doesn’t mean it can’t be done.
Chris Bell: If you saw a deserted island with logs washed up on the shore spelling out HELLO…
Collections of driftwood on a beach do not reproduce. Their non-existent children do not show variation. And there is no selection acting on these non-existent non-varying driftwood collection children.
You guys really need to stop using horribly inappropriate analogies. They do not make your case stronger, they make it weaker by demonstrating that you do not understand what the important, salient features of evolution the analogy needs to contain to be relevant.
I’ll spell it out for you. In order for the “would you think X was natural if you found it?” analogy to work, X must reproduce, with variation, and its varied children must undergo selection. Log patterns, watches, airplanes in junkyards, etc… none of these examples have any of the salient features which would make the analogy relevant.
@eric: I’d add, “Why use analogies at all? Why not some salient evidence to back it up?” The evidence, by the way, has to be actual evidence, not “the evidence of credulity”.
Curmudgeons,
I’m not arguing against evolution, I’m using your argument to make the point that if you are correct that there is nothing divine about creation, then we ourselves may well have been created.
You say that we will one day we will be able to create life; doesn’t that prove my point?
You guys seem to think that since we evolved, that we must not have been created, but I say, if you knew how to construct DNA and were creating life on a changing planet, wouldn’t you design-in evolution so that life could adapt?
Eric- to restate my analogy, if beings from outer space came to earth and monitored us for a few million years, and saw our evolution, why would they say “nothing to see here, just run of the mill evolution” why wouldn’t they marvel at an impressive piece of engineering, since they would, as do you, know that life can be engineered? Just as a I.T. guy might marvel at a marvelous software program.
From your own statements, if a being far more technologically advanced than us scooped you up and took you to an uninhabited planet, you could watch him recreate life just as it happened here. He might even be able to make an exact copy. And you would not be surprised when you saw a copy of yourself posting on the Curmudgeon because you would know that it is simply the mastery of chemistry.
You all seem to think that if you allow for the possibilty of design, that you may as well join the priesthood; I say what we know is that we evolved, what we don’t know is whether or not there was a catalyst.
If you are to be consistent, you must agree.
Maybe we did just evolve from accidental forces, but maybe not.
Chris said:
And if you’re to be taken seriously, you have to provide some evidence to back up your “possibility”. Onus is on you. Again, analogies don’t count, nor do philosophical arguments, nor does “the argument of credulity”. Right now, we know everything could have happened without a designer, and we have not seen one shred, not one iota, of evidence to say there is a designer.
chris bell said: “I’m not arguing against evolution …”
Then what are you doing?
Yes, and we may have been expelled from the anus of a giant space duck. But unless you have something other than your imagination for making such a suggestion, there’s not much to talk about.
As for your initial argument, “If you saw a deserted island with logs washed up on the shore spelling out HELLO …,” you may not be aware of it but it’s a watered-down version of William Paley’s watchmaker analogy from 1802, You probably heard your “logs” variation or something like it from a preacher, or you came across it at a creationist website, and you thought it was a brilliant evolution-killer. But Paley’s argument was demolished by Hume, as described here, well before Darwin explained how apparent design in living creatures could arise naturally.
As others have pointed out, without evidence for your speculative alternatives to evolution, there is nothing to talk about.
@SC: Bless you for the Hume reference. Creationists generally act as though the last two hundred years have simply not happened. “Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion” was published in 1779.
By this method of reasoning, you renounce all claim to infinity in any of the attributes of the Deity. For, as the cause ought only to be proportioned to the effect, and the effect, so far as it falls under our cognizance, is not infinite; what pretensions have we, upon your suppositions, to ascribe that attribute to the Divine Being? You will still insist, that, by removing him so much from all similarity to human creatures, we give in to the most arbitrary hypothesis, and at the same time weaken all proofs of his existence.
Secondly, you have no reason, on your theory, for ascribing perfection to the Deity, even in his finite capacity, or for supposing him free from every error, mistake, or incoherence, in his undertakings. There are many inexplicable difficulties in the works of Nature, which, if we allow a perfect author to be proved a priori, are easily solved, and become only seeming difficulties, from the narrow capacity of man, who cannot trace infinite relations. But according to your method of reasoning, these difficulties become all real; and perhaps will be insisted on, as new instances of likeness to human art and contrivance. At least, you must acknowledge, that it is impossible for us to tell, from our limited views, whether this system contains any great faults, or deserves any considerable praise, if compared to other possible, and even real systems. Could a peasant, if the Aeneid were read to him, pronounce that poem to be absolutely faultless, or even assign to it its proper rank among the productions of human wit, he, who had never seen any other production?
But were this world ever so perfect a production, it must still remain uncertain, whether all the excellences of the work can justly be ascribed to the workman. If we survey a ship, what an exalted idea must we form of the ingenuity of the carpenter who framed so complicated, useful, and beautiful a machine? And what surprize must we feel, when we find him a stupid mechanic, who imitated others, and copied an art, which, through a long succession of ages, after multiplied trials, mistakes, corrections, deliberations, and controversies, had been gradually improving? Many worlds might have been botched and bungled, throughout an eternity, ere this system was struck out; much labour lost, many fruitless trials made; and a slow, but continued improvement carried on during infinite ages in the art of world-making. In such subjects, who can determine, where the truth; nay, who can conjecture where the probability lies, amidst a great number of hypotheses which may be proposed, and a still greater which may be imagined?
And what shadow of an argument can you produce, from your hypothesis, to prove the unity of the Deity? A great number of men join in building a house or ship, in rearing a city, in framing a commonwealth; why may not several deities combine in contriving and framing a world? This is only so much greater similarity to human affairs. By sharing the work among several, we may so much further limit the attributes of each, and get rid of that extensive power and knowledge, which must be supposed in one deity, and which, according to you, can only serve to weaken the proof of his existence. And if such foolish, such vicious creatures as man, can yet often unite in framing and executing one plan, how much more those deities or demons, whom we may suppose several degrees more perfect!
To multiply causes without necessity, is indeed contrary to true philosophy: but this principle applies not to the present case. Were one deity antecedently proved by your theory, who were possessed of every attribute requisite to the production of the universe; it would be needless, I own, (though not absurd,) to suppose any other deity existent. But while it is still a question, Whether all these attributes are united in one subject, or dispersed among several independent beings, by what phenomena in nature can we pretend to decide the controversy? Where we see a body raised in a scale, we are sure that there is in the opposite scale, however concealed from sight, some counterpoising weight equal to it; but it is still allowed to doubt, whether that weight be an aggregate of several distinct bodies, or one uniform united mass. And if the weight requisite very much exceeds any thing which we have ever seen conjoined in any single body, the former supposition becomes still more probable and natural. An intelligent being of such vast power and capacity as is necessary to produce the universe, or, to speak in the language of ancient philosophy, so prodigious an animal exceeds all analogy, and even comprehension.
But further: men are mortal, and renew their species by generation; and this is common to all living creatures. The two great sexes of male and female, says Milton, animate the world. Why must this circumstance, so universal, so essential, be excluded from those numerous and limited deities? Behold, then, the theogony of ancient times brought back upon us.
And why not become a perfect Anthropomorphite? Why not assert the deity or deities to be corporeal, and to have eyes, a nose, mouth, ears, etc.? Epicurus maintained, that no man had ever seen reason but in a human figure; therefore the gods must have a human figure. And this argument, which is deservedly so much ridiculed by Cicero, becomes, according to you, solid and philosophical.
In a word, a man who follows your hypothesis is able perhaps to assert, or conjecture, that the universe, sometime, arose from something like design: but beyond that position he cannot ascertain one single circumstance; and is left afterwards to fix every point of his theology by the utmost license of fancy and hypothesis. This world, for aught he knows, is very faulty and imperfect, compared to a superior standard; and was only the first rude essay of some infant deity, who afterwards abandoned it, ashamed of his lame performance: it is the work only of some dependent, inferior deity; and is the object of derision to his superiors: it is the production of old age and dotage in some superannuated deity; and ever since his death, has run on at adventures, from the first impulse and active force which it received from him. You justly give signs of horror, Demea, at these strange suppositions; but these, and a thousand more of the same kind, are Cleanthes’s suppositions, not mine. From the moment the attributes of the Deity are supposed finite, all these have place. And I cannot, for my part, think that so wild and unsettled a system of theology is, in any respect, preferable to none at all.
It’s amazing how far ahead of his time Hume was in some ways.
Gabriel Hanna says: “It’s amazing how far ahead of his time Hume was in some ways.”
And therefore it’s even more amazing how backward the creationists still are. The difficult thing about reading Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion is that it’s written like a Platonic dialogue. His demolition of the design argument is scattered throughout Part I, and you can find it by successively searching on the word “design.” After you’ve done that, you’ll understand that it’s much easier to rely on the Wikipedia discussion.
Chris Bell:
I allow for the possibility of design. But until you show some evidence for it, I won’t believe it is what actually happened.
Its almost certain that there was a chemical catalyst, since basic replicators (such as crystals) utilize auto-catalytic reactions. However, there is no evidence that some intelligent agent participated, nor does our current understanding require one.
Like many creationists, you seem to confuse possibility for proof. Do you understand that “its possible” is not the same as “there is good evidence it happened?” Its possible the universe is 1-day old and merely invented to appear older. Its possible we are all stuck in the Matrix. Intelligent design has as much evidence supporting it as these two other possibilities, and I give it exactly the same weight of credibility.
My question to you is, why do you give ID more credibility than all of the other possibilities?
Curmudgeons,
You are making many assumptions based on my statement. you are are telling me I said what I did not say, then tearing down beliefs you have attributed to me.
I never questioned evolution.
I never said I was a creationist.
I never said there was evidence of creation or I.D.
I never mentioned divine intervention.
I have never disputed your arguments regarding anything after the big bang.
I have not given I.D. more weight than evolution, quite the contrary, I have agreed that we did evolve.
But it is you who call me a confused retard because I use your own premise to say that if I had the proper knowledge, I could create someone just like you, When in actuality, if a space being came to earth and took credit for creating life, how could you argue against him if he demonstrated a mastery of chemistry?
Kudos to Eric for allowing for the possibility of design, that’s all I am asking for. My point is that we can’t prove a negative, that is. we can’t prove that there is no design, and also we can’t prove design (unless the designer stepped forward with proof), even if a scientist created a human being in his lab, that would not prove that we were created. But, from a scientific perspective, if a scientist were to create a human, which you all agree will happen one day, that would prove that I.D. is possible, but not necessarily the origin of our species. I also acknowledge that the simplest explanation is more likely to be true.
I just find this topic hearty food for thought.
I guess it’s true that religion and politics make poor conversation topics.
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chris bell said: “I also acknowledge that the simplest explanation is more likely to be true.”
OK, so for the sake of argument I will take your suggestion that “a being far more technologically advanced than us” is in fact the simplest explanation for life on Earth.
Then, all else being equal, given the record of eons over which uncountable variations of animal life have evolved only to perish under conditions of horrific pain and anguish, would I not be justified to conclude that the simplest explanation is a creator of the most evil and perverse intent imaginable to our intelligence?
As you yourself say: “If you are to be consistent, you must agree.”
Sorry, Chris Bell, but your article and opinion are pure BS.
Basically, you don’t know BS from BShinola. Your opinion don’t match years of study and science and I smack you down as a nincompoop.
Oh, call a whaaaaambulance, I don’t care.
The simplest explanation is more likely to be true, as you write, which is to say that chemistry and physics totally account for the origin of life (as we call it) on this planet. That’s your conclusion, right? Natural causes enabled the origin of self-sustaining cyclic chemical reactions which natural selection used to create the diversity of life on the planet today.
If you disagree with that you are both wrong and an uneducated moron. Sorry to be so harsh, but you should have spent more time studying as a youth.
@Chris Bell:
I just read and re-read through all of the comments before you made that remark. I find no such thing. I suggest you go seek out other pastures with which to feed your persecution complex.