2013 Westminster Conference on Science and Faith - Breakout Session 3

Westminster Conference on Science and Faith: 4/6/2013 - Breakout Session 3

Speaker: Paul Nelson – What’s Wrong with Darwinism?

Isaac Newton  ---------------------Chas. Darwin ----------------------------- Bertrand Russell

(c. 1700)                                   (c. 1850)                                       (c.1900’s)

Creation shows evidence of design---What happened to the evidence for design? --Not enough evidence

Russell had a high regard for the design argument vs. the ontological and other arguments.

How did the basic architectural differences of the different species come into being?

If, within a species or population, the individuals:

      a)      Vary in color or other trait (variation)

      b)      Leave different members of offspring in consistent relation to thee presence or absence of a certain trait. (selection)
c)      Transmit the trait faithfully to next generation (heredity)

If you cannot transmit, that means an evolutionary dead-end.

Biological journals have never shown detailed explanation (step-by-step) for the origin of complex systems (e.g. vertebrate digestion system) from natural selection.

This is currently an unsolved problem.

Theodosius Dobzhanski reluctantly treated micro and macro evolution similarly, because too much time was required to study macro evolution. Therefore, he extrapolated characteristics of micro to macro, making the assumption that micro changes are the method of both micro and macro evolution.

Darwinian Paradox

3 overlapping circles: development, common descent, natural selection)      Most cells begin as a single cell and are then fertilized.

     1)      If natural selection happens, mutation must start early.

     2)      Those are the least likely to allow the organism to survive.

     3)      The variations required for macro-evolution are destructive. You cannot vary genes that lie at the basis of many major adaptations or the organism will die.

2013 Westminster Conference on Science and Faith - Breakout Session 2

Westminster Conference on Science and Faith – 4/6/2013 - Breakout Session 2

Speaker: Peter Lillback – The Mystery of Man: Who are We?

-        Are we accidents? Can order come from chaos? Creation or evolution? People or primates?

Theism: Human identity is deeply theological

Does man really have a soul?

The rise of atheism in the West.

-        The commanding heights of culture are now controlled by atheists.

-        Christians are exiles

Rene Descartes made man the center with his famous, “I am” statement.

Immanuel Kant said God is unknowable which led to scientific study strictly from a humanistic stdpt.

Bertrand Russell said mankind has no future destiny.

John Dewey said that in the future there will be no religious notions.

Sigmund Freud said that God, sin and guilt are obsolete.

Nietzsche, Camus and Sartre all thought life was meaningless.

B.F. Skinner characterized life as reacting to stimuli (behaviorism).

Jacques Derrida said religion is subjective truth, mere opinion. Postmodern relativism began here.

Allen Bloom said that the modern university student believes there is no absolute truth and that the supreme insight is not to think you are right at all.

G.K. Chesterton said, “If there were no God, there’d be no atheists.”

There’s a limitation to what we can see. Revelation is necessary for a complete understanding. Empiricism alone cannot uncover the past. Divine revelation makes possible the truth and meaning of history. Without God, we lose the divine significance of everything.

The speaker showed a picture of the Great Wall with mountains in the background. He remarked that the order of nature becomes explicit in human design. Gravity, density, balance are all at work both in the mountains and the Great Wall, showing the contradiction of design in an allegedly un-designed world.

The speaker spoke of the significance of creation for dignity and freedom.

Ideas have consequences à radiates, motivates, impacts.

Example was that Marx felt influenced/justified by Darwin.

Ben Franklin, after completing the constitution with the other early founders in Philadelphia, was asked by a woman what kind of government he had formed. He replied, “A republic, ma’am, if you can keep it.”

A republic requires a constitution. A constitution requires a moral people. A moral people requires an engine that trains people in religion and morality. These are indispensable supports for our system.

Darwin had a principle that all life exists by natural selection, evolutionary processes (dog-eat-dog).

On a cathedral in Milan, are the words, “non-licit-esse-Christiano” (“not legal to be Christian”) as a permanent reminder that there was a time when this was true.

The zeitgeist (dominant thought of the culture) is moving toward  anti-Christian position.

Speaker envisions a day within his lifetime when Christians will be arrested for preaching against homosexual practice, which will be treated as a “hate crime”.

Creation matters for human significance.

2013 Westminster Conference on Science and Faith - Breakout Session 1

2013 Westminster Conference on Science and Faith

Breakout Session 1 (Friday, 4/5/2013)

Speaker: Doug Axe – Exposing the Myth of Molecules to Men

At the heart of the story is a molecular mechanism

Natural selection is a kind of cyclic feedback.

Controversial issue: That this cycle would invent a million species, including us.

Molecular view: Gene = A C G T - ACGT stands for the four nucleic acid bases that make up DNA. These four nucleic acids make up a creature's genetic code, or DNA.

If the sequence is just right, they form a 3D protein fold, known as a molecular machine.

All molecular activity happens through proteins.

Darwin pre-dated the science of molecular biology by about 100 years.

Evolutionary biologists avoid molecular biology.

Story: Natural selection is essentially akin to innovation by manufacturing defect.

Myth: Similarity (of species) plus the evolutionary story => Scientific “Explanation”.

The speaker gave an example from molecular biology of trying to turn a “blue” protein fold into a “purple” protein fold, and how they were unable to do so, even though the two were extremely similar.

The speaker published several papers, the first of which was published in a well-known scientific journal. Subsequent papers were not published by that journal, because scientists found out about his Christian world view, and questioning of neo-Darwinism.

The problem with evolutionary development in biology is that mutations are always lethal.  There has to be insight and no mere mechanics are going to bring that insight.

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2013 Westminster Conference on Science and Faith - Session 3

Westminster Conference on Science and Faith - Saturday (4/6/2013) Morning General Session 1

 Speaker: John Lennox – “The Origin of Life”

This is not a question of biology, but of mathematics, physics and cosmology.

Biological arguments are more aligned with naturalistic philosophy.

Is the world view (i.e. neo-Darwinism) driving the science?

Lucretius (“On the Nature of the Physical World) was the first Darwinian. His philosophy formed the heart of the Renaissance.

There’s a clash between empirical evidence and the naturalistic paradigm.

The ingrained idea of scientism is that science and rationalism overlap.

On the other hand, Thomas Nagle said science can produce evidence that there can be intervention.

Naturalistic presuppositions influence science. Dawkins and others make the statement that there is strong scientific evidence for atheism, but do not allow the opposite.

Suppose Craig Venters (who is actually working on this now) created a species that could reproduce itself, and then it was fossilized. It would wrongly be concluded by naturalistic philosopher/scientists, that this species had evolved.

We must strongly distinguish between origin of life and evolution of life.

The main design arguments for the origin of life, in physics and cosmology, are based on sound science and mesh with the Biblical account.

The big bang is a discontinuity in physics and cosmology. Physicists are comfortable with that. But biologists are not comfortable with discontinuity.

Theoretical computer science is pointing away from naturalistic processes.

The Turing machine cannot generate any information that is not part of its input or that input’s code.

No machine can produce any information by itself, but only transforms valuable information.

Sir Peter Medowar wondered if there is a law of conservation of energy. ..Speaker said that people are wasting their time looking for a perpetual motion machine.  (i.e. runs on its own energy)

Bricks don’t determine the shape of a building. Causation is not “bottom-up” but “top-down”.

Naturalism has tried to crowd out the immaterial but informational input can move atoms. E.g. If the speaker shouted, “Fire!”, a lot of atoms would move.

We have failed to recognize this when we do science.

Alvin Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism, argues that since human cognitive faculties are tuned to survival rather than truth in the naturalism-evolution model, there is reason to doubt the veracity of the products of those same faculties, including naturalism and evolution themselves. On the other hand, if God created man "in his image" by way of an evolutionary process (or any other means), then Plantinga argues our faculties would probably be reliable.

Speaker went on to say…You cannot extrapolate from things going on today, about the totality of things that happened in the past.  In Genesis chapter 1, after six days, God stopped. (i.e. discontinuity). What is the a priori difficulty with accepting that there might be a few more discontinuity intelligent inputs.

The existence of God is evidenced by conscience. You can’t get from “is” to “ought” without God. Knowledge of God depends not only on the intellect, but on the will.

Be prepared to act on what you learn.

God is a person, not a theory.

How do I know human beings are unique? Because God became one.

2013 Westminster Conference on Science and Faith - Session 2

Friday (4/5/2013) Evening General Session

 Speaker: John Lennox – “The Origin of the Universe”

     1.)      Redefining faith

-        What the New Testament teaches about faith (Jn 20:31 – evidence-based faith)

-        Elementary logic is important

-        In any discussion, where faith comes up, always clarify: Faith in what?

-        God or science, (as if we have to choose)

     2.)      Assigning creatorial powers to physical laws equates to idolatry.

-        Stephen Hawking and others believe that we believe in a God of the gaps.

The Origin of the Universe

“The Grand Design” by Stephen Hawking, actually refutes design, claims philosophy is dead, and that scientists have taken up the responsibility as the bearers of the torch of truth.

Advice to a Young Scientist (P.D. Medawar) says that the worst thing is to claim to know all the answers, yet that is what Hawking is doing.

Science can talk about the ethical foundations of science, but not about the scientific foundations of ethics.

Is the universe created or not?

Is man made in the image of God?

Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion, assumes that X is created, but what if God wasn’t created.

Stephen Hawking said, “Because there is a law of gravity, the universe can and will create itself out of nothing.”

The speaker rejected this statement as nonsensical.

The speaker said it was important to clarify what is meant by “nothing”.

What was meant in Hawking’s statement by “nothing” is a cosmic vacuum, not what we normally thing of when we say “nothing”.

Without God, there is a very big problem, because the law of gravity presupposes a principle existed.

The speaker said that this is the kind of thing that happens to brilliant minds that reject God.

Take a jet engine….where did it come from?

       a.)      The laws of propulsion and engineering or
 b.)      Frank Whittle

The answer is both.

The same is true about the universe. God used laws such as gravity, to create the universe.

God is not an alternative explanation to science.

The laws of nature create no event.

The laws of pure naturalism do not bring anything into existence.

Does the supernatural violate the laws of nature?

God is not a prisoner of the regularities of the laws of nature that He created.

Hawking said that religion was a fairy story for those afraid of the dark. John Lennox (the speaker) said that atheism is a fairy story for those afraid of the light.

2013 Westminster Conference on Science and Faith - Session 1

2013 Westminster Conference on Science and Faith

General Theme – Origins  of The Universe and Life

Friday (4/5/2013) Afternoon General Session

 Speaker: Vern Poythress – “Why the Beginning is Important and Why People Fight About It”

Summary: The speaker spoke about the beginnings of the universe, life, humanity, morality, law, science, religion. Each subject was broken down into a left side for “how“ it began, and right side for “why”. The conclusion was that the Christian world view is more logical than the neo-Darwinian view. There are significant social consequences for the Darwinian world view.

Highlights: Analyzing Origin: Kinds of Origin

Left Side                                                           Right Side

“How” (Material Cause)                                “Why” (Purpose)

Christian view is that God is sovereign over the “how” and “why”.

The opposing “human autonomy” view is that the right side is irrelevant, subjective and meaningless.

Human Autonomy (Left Side only is relevant) features reductionism (Scientism), which tries to reduce

 the right side to the left side. Some think human autonomy view is objective and God’s sovereignty

view is subjective. Human autonomy doesn’t think there is an answer to the “why”; therefore, each

human being is a law unto himself. Material world is all there is.

When people think this way, they make a mistake, a non-sequitur (non sequitur is a statement in which the final part is totally unrelated to the first part). Example: A-Science is good, B-material world is good, therefore C-material world is all there is. However, human reason is an illusion if it is just mechanics of neurons, and therefore, there is no answer to why human beings have good reasoning power.

Materialism view has a problem. Why is there any law at all, if the universe is just matter in motion? That does not allow for laws of the universe.

Questions about Humanity

How?                                                                                Why?

Scientism                                                                         God created man

Man: complex organization of atoms

Believing in the “How” but not the “Why” leads to the danger of totalitarianism.

Questions about Morality

Left Side:                                                                                        Right Side:

Man is an organization of hormones.                                      Absolute moral standards from God.

The speaker gave examples of how we naturally follow moral standards in our behavior, whether or not we acknowledge God’s existence.

Even Thomas Nagle, a famous non-Christian modern philosopher, who wrote “Mind and Cosmos”, argues against a reductionist view, and specifically the neo-Darwinian view, of the emergence of consciousness.

Romans 1:18 - …who suppress the truth….

Modern idolatry: Nowadays we make idea images as substitutes for God, rather than physical idols.

There are long-range social consequences of a God-less world view.