Tag: Darwinism

The Investigation of the Natural World is not the Same Thing as the Natural World Itself

            The ingenious methodologies of research by humans going in the positive direction from ignorance to a more truthful understanding of the phenomena in the natural world, cannot break through the impregnable barrier of the empiricism of matter and energy to unravel the greater ingenuity in the creative, abstract thinking coming from another direction, that resides within the intelligent agency that invented the thing being researched.

            We do not formally recognize that the data we obtain by studying falling objects though space using the modern scientific method, that reaches the laudable point of sophistication to be able to send men to the moon and back, that this factual database falls short of the imaginative creativity that brought into being a reality as amazing as the force of gravity that we investigate.

This issue of the glass ceiling of the empiricism of the scientific method is central to the God and science debate.

Let’s analyze this issue in more detail.

In the making of Italian spaghetti sauce, a favorite topic in this book, there are at least three main realities.

The first is the cookbook recipe of sequential steps.

The second is the taste-test reaction from the spaghetti eaters.

The third is the breaking-down of the various ingredients into their individual chemical components using the scientific method in a laboratory by trained scientists. 

Similarly, artistic oil painting, water-color painting, and ink drawing can be divided into at minimum three main realities.

The first is the sequential steps of mechanically producing a work of art.

The second is the opinionated viewing by the public of this artwork in a museum.

The third, again, is the breaking-down of the painting ingredients into their chemical components via the scientific method in the controlled environment of a laboratory by scientific researchers.

Another easily understood example might be the construction of a new house, which again can be divided into at least three main realities.

The first is the sequential steps of the assembly of the house from the ground up, following a well-established pattern common to all new housing construction.

The second might be the “curb-appeal” of the front elevation of the house as viewed from the street, or the utility of the floor plan for optimal living.

But the third reality once again can go into the highly technical aspects of what is called materials science, which studies the structural strengths of materials, resistance to fire, waterproofing qualities, insulating between heat and cold, and sound insulation.

In these examples, it would be the height of arrogant hubris to insist that the scientifically empirical perspective was the only one that mattered.

In each of the realities given in the three examples above, it was the Scientific Revolution that added the new, third approach of discovering empirical, fact-based evidence at this level of detail.

But the scientific method is the new kid on the block.

Long before Newton’s equations described gravity, people could throw a small rock four feet above themselves and observe the repetitive laws of physics that the rock always comes down to the ground, without being able to describe this reality mathematically.

Long before the scientific field of modern chemistry, a mother would explain the sequential steps of dressing and seasoning the meat from an elk killed by the hunter/gatherer husband, to her daughter in preparation for cooking, before these steps were ever recorded in a cookbook or analyzed chemically in a laboratory for its nutritional value in terms of sodium, sugar, calories, and fat content, or the features of heat in cooking.

The sequential steps for doing all manner of things, and the theorizing and conceptualization of the good or bad, right or wrong, and best practices compared to poor practices, were a part of the human experience long before the scientific method of research was invented in the 1500’s.

Scientific materialists cannot dogmatically insist that mankind has been wrong all this time by placing faith, confidence, and value in the first two realities in each of the three simple examples given above, and in countless other examples commonly observed and perceived in ordinary life.

Most people can detect the intelligence of design in good Italian spaghetti, world-class paintings in a museum, and pleasing architecture in buildings.

Most people can detect the presence of design in the natural world.  The question then becomes the plausibility of competing explanations for its source.

The recognition of intelligence that infers design occurs in the middle, second reality of the three examples given above.

It is not up to scientific materialists to tell us that methodological materialism defines the entirely of reality.

It is not the job of scientists to tell us about the limits of reality.

We are capable of making that determination ourselves.

It seems to me that the arguments made by scientific materialists that only natural causations and explanations are allowed in science, makes reasonable sense only until we reach the near end-point of the investigation of a particular area of research…when most or enough of the data is in.

Once we confidently reach the nearly complete, end-points of research projects that generate sufficient data to begin drawing final conclusions, then broader interpretations and the consequences of the evidence must be allowed that fall outside of the domain of materialistic explanations.

This is what happened in the example of the discovery by Edwin Hubble of an expanding universe that led to the theory of the Big Bang, which has definite theistic implications.

This is what we see in the fine-tuned constants of physics in the universe, that are too precise to be the product of blind chance.

This is what we see in the information content in DNA and in the nanotechnology at work in living cells that defies a materialistic explanation through a blind and undirected process.

            When and if the brilliant scientific method of research in the future discovers a complete matter-and-energy explanation of precisely how the creation of the universe occurred in terms of purely naturalistic causations…then the complexity, specificity, and coherently integrated systems of this information would be so magnificent in its scope and breadth as to be fantastically beyond any atheistic explanation.

            This is the dilemma for modern science today, in that the atheism of scientific materialism is incapable of recognizing the fundamental dichotomy of perception in the scientific method that when most of the factual data is in, this leads to valid inferences to the best explanations that go beyond the limited domain of materialism.

The more we learn about the information required to produce function and fit within living and non-living systems, the more difficult it is to make a plausible argument that the empirical, fact-based evidence derived through the scientific method can exclude agency from the theorizing and conceptualization drawn from this evidence.

This is based upon the reasonable, modern recognition that human scientific research is going in the positive direction towards the discovery of truth regarding the workings in the natural world, using our human thinking skills, while the realities we study deserve the same recognition and appreciation of the cognitive, analytical thinking skills that come from another direction in producing these phenomena, in the first place. 

This is an excerpt from my book Pondering Our World: Christian Essays on Science and Faith.

Mount Improbable

            There are enumerable examples in the natural living world of genetic mutations chosen by natural selection to introduce innovatively beneficial traits to improve survival and reproductive advantage, and to modify fit in reaction to changing environments.

            But matter and energy do not possess the capacity to think-ahead and plan-out strategies.

            Matter and energy are indifferent to self-assembly in targeted trajectories spanning a series of small steps to reach some future ensemble of parts having coordinated function.

            A single mutation/selection process part-way up the gradually sloping side of Mount Improbable using one small step at a time as illustrated in Rickard Dawkins’ book Climbing Mount Improbable[1], cannot logically enlist the overall program of starting at the bottom of the hill then rising upward in a straight line to the top of the mountain to achieve function, in his analogous example.

            It takes a different class of information for this secondary operation to climb up the slope, having a targeted final outcome “in mind” over a number of connected steps, rather than isolated genetic mutations as single, unrelated events.

            Setting-up a series of coordinated steps leading towards well-defined, mature function involves informational thought that matter, energy, or natural selection do not have.

            A fundamental issue that Richard Dawkins misses here is that it takes an additional source of managerial information to climb the gradual slope of Mount Improbable in the upward direction to reach the top in terms of biological development.

            This is similar to the fallacy of the example of 100 monkeys over a period of years producing a Shakespeare play while randomly hitting the keys of typewriters.

            This example of typing monkeys invalidly starts with a narrowly targeted and specified means to communicate information in the English language as a baked-in, upfront given.

            The Mount Improbable explanation in biology for the concept of starting with the simple then progressing to the complex, subtly ignores the starting-point of a mountain having a steeply vertical face on one side, and a gradually inclined slope on the other side.

            This then stealthily imports the premeditated program of progressive development from the bottom of the slope to the top of the mountain, which has no correlation to the entirely different reality of single, isolated genetic mutations producing a beneficial new trait chosen through natural selection in isolated small steps.

            Having a mountain with steps going up a gradually sloping side is anything but starting-off with the simple.

            Neglecting the complementary puzzle-piece that connects all of the small mutation/selection events going up the mountain towards a final, well-defined outcome, is a theory killing oversight.

            Genetic mutations chosen by natural selection do not provide the informational protocol or instructions to climb up the gradually sloped side of the mountain.

            We can’t just assume that mutation/selection will automatically have the beneficial trajectories to eventually combine and coordinate into a positive vector that takes a developing organism to the top of the mountain.

            This might be the case of researcher/investigator bias unconsciously rigging the system upfront toward some anticipated outcome.

            But I recognize that the argument being made here by Dawkins is that when enough genetic mutations coalesce into a positive trait or an entire new organism to reach the top of the mountain to achieve function, it does not matter how many wrong turns or how much time it took.

            If, in our experience a laboratory chemist follows the sequential steps to reach an end-point outcome of a particular desired chemical compound or solution, it is clear that in this scenario the directional trajectory of the protocol is governed by intelligent agency to guide the process to generate the outcome.

            The assertion that is made in Climbing Mount Improbable is that natural selection is capable of integrating and coordinating the series of small steps to achieve function, in essence replacing the intelligent agency of the laboratory chemist with the process of natural selection instead.

            But this Mount Improbable example is not the same thing as starting from scratch with absolutely nothing…with no mountain, no small steps going upward, and no encompassing instructions connecting-the-dots of isolated mutation/selection events to proceed upward in the right direction.

            Finally, the difficulty of creating a new planet Earth-2 from scratch due to the practical limitations of physically material human beings being unable today of transcending the vastness of outer space and time, strangely limits us going in the other direction from being able to create life due to the microscopic size of the nanotechnology in living cells.

            The DNA molecule having 3.5-billion bits of information in the form of a four-letter chemical alphabet, when stretched-out is only 6 feet long.

            When we add 20 amino acid types, thousands of different proteins, and the molecular machinery in the typical living cell being about the size of the head of a pin, we are limited by this small size containing unimaginable complexity to the same extent that the planetary largeness of space in our solar system inhibits human beings from creating a nearby new planet Earth-2.

            Today, if we give chemists all of the materials needed and the ideal laboratory conditions to attempt to produce life, we cannot do it.

            These are not pie-in-the-sky, theoretical, crazy-headed concepts I am presenting here.

            They eliminate as possible candidates any version of physically material beings having the practical capacity to produce planets, solar systems, galaxies, universes, or such things as time, light, energy, gravity, conscious thought, and the architectural body-plans and lifestyle habits of the ten-million living species on earth.

            If matter and energy alone are not up to the job, then the only remaining choice is a non-material, Spirit Mind/Being having incredible architectural and engineering acumen coupled with a sublimely artistic imagination.

            This is why the question: “Is there empirical evidence for the existence of God?” is outdated now by about two to three decades.

            The empirical evidence for the existence of God is found in every physically material entity in the known universe, consisting of the complex, specified, and coherently integrated systems of non-material information needed to produce these physically material entities.

            The findings of contemporary science now tell a sophisticated modern culture through the process of elimination, that any solely materialistic causation is incapable of spanning across the great divide from point A to point Z, in producing the coordinated and sequential steps to create a functioning universe, life on earth, and the reality of a perfect summer day in sunny Southern California.

This is an excerpt from my book Pondering Our World: Christian Essays on Science and Faith.

[1] Richard Dawkins, Climbing Mount Improbable (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1996).

Neither God Nor Man Can Write Laws that Guarantee Good Moral Choices

            After his road to Damascus experience, Saul/Paul could have said to Jesus that yes, he had been entirely wrong and mistaken about persecuting the early Christian church, but that he was too offended that God had allowed him to go this far in error, to then step into this new mission-calling to preach Jesus as the risen Christ.

            After his exceptional education in Jerusalem under the acclaimed teacher Gamaliel, Saul/Paul could have complained to Jesus that God should have told him earlier about looking both ways before crossing the street, before being allowed to proceed in ignorance to create so much havoc in attacking the Christian church in Jerusalem.

            Saul/Paul could have reasonably responded to the new calling of Jesus to go out into the larger sphere of the Greco-Roman world to preach the gospel truth of a risen Christ, that he was both too mad at God and at the same time totally unable to forgive himself for being ignorant about the preeminence of faith in the biblical narrative stories, and in the proper role of the Law of Moses in Judaism.

            Saul/Paul could have justifiably complained that God should have given him the needed discernment upfront to be able to recognize Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ, without the extreme measure after-the-fact of a revelation by way of a blinding light on the road to Damascus, to learn this truth the hard-way.

            But this reveals possibly the whole point God is making in the creation of this physical universe, that in the Garden of Eden we were unable to parse the malicious half-truth that eating a piece of fruit from a specific tree would render us into gods having the knowledge of good and evil.

            God did not rescue us at that critical juncture because non-divine, free-thinking beings lacking timeless foresight are susceptible to the persuasively clever arguments delivered by a charismatic, outwardly beautiful liar…and this particular truth has to be demonstrated over time through human history in a variety of laboratory-type, empirically investigated lessons-learned.

            Whether it is Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, Jim Jones of Jonestown, Guyana, or Satan in the holographic guise of a beautiful talking serpent, in the vast eternity of reality some of the moral concepts in the knowledge of good and evil are difficult to nail-down without the benefit of first-hand field research. 

            The divine brilliance revealed in the method of the calling of Saul/Paul through the road to Damascus experience, was that God was able to flip Saul into Paul the apostle in a moment of time, creating in an instant an exceptionally qualified rabbinical Pharisee yet having the super-humility to engage with the Gentiles without looking derisively down his nose at their ignorance about God.

            Without Saul/Paul’s colossal blunder in persecuting the early Christian church in Jerusalem, within the environment of a world having evil and suffering, there is no Paul the apostle to the Gentiles, and no Paul a new creature in Christ beloved widely in the early Christian churches he was instrumental in founding, as revealed in Romans 16.

            This conversion story of Paul the apostle displays at the very heart of the matter our deep need for Jesus Christ to be “the way, the truth, and the life” in our lives, to approach the deepest meanings in the broad array of moral concepts at their end-points of understanding.

            These arguments are not subservient to the factual empiricism of science, but are humanly understandable to be at the higher level of ultimate and eternal reality.

            The reason why Jesus the Son of God and the Second Person of the Trinity, the humble God/man from the obscure town of Nazareth, was on the cross that fateful Friday as the Passover Lamb of God sacrifice for sin, was missed by everyone including His disciples.

            The fact that we all missed this as a group is one of the main points God is trying to make through the cross and resurrection of Jesus.

            We need God to tell us to look both ways before crossing the street, and to show us how to use the brakes on our bicycles.

            We need this broken world with all of its evil and suffering, for exceptional goodness and brilliant virtue to immerge.

This is epitomized in the cross and resurrection of Jesus that inaugurates at the highest imaginable level God sacrificing Himself so that we can embark on a guided research program into the knowledge of good and evil, through the lens of a fallen yet redeemed, imperfect moral character.   

Even Peter has difficulty with discernment as he tries to figure-out his right course of action at the night trial of Jesus (Mt. 26:34-35, 69-75).

Before Damascus, Saul/Paul could not conceivably have imagined a way that God could extend to the undeserving, totally misguided, polytheistic and idol-worshipping Gentiles, salvation by grace through faith.

This brilliant creativity of imaginative insight in crafting this life-script for the apostle Paul to enable him through super-humility to become the missionary evangelist to the larger Greco-Roman world at this time-period of the start of the Great Commission (Mt. 28:19-20), to my thinking is uncannily similar to the brilliance of the Big Bang creation of the universe, the origin of life, the nanotechnology inside living cells, and human thought that we examine through science.

            Saul/Paul made the right moral choice independent of the Law of Moses he knew so well, because the law that he revered so much had little to say about the right choice to follow Jesus Christ into an adventure of faith that was so profoundly at the outer edge of the knowledge of good and evil, beyond anything Saul/Paul could have previously imagined.

            Laws, rules, and precepts can only take Paul so far in contrast to the discernment of subtly shaded right and wrong in thinking he was in God’s will when he persecuted the early Christian church.

            Again, we need the Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth including parsing the subtleties in the broad array of moral concepts contained within the knowledge of good and evil.

            The revelation on the road to Damascus that Jesus was the Christ was a priceless gift to Paul that was beyond the human perception of one of Jerusalem’s young rising stars within its tight rabbinical group.

            This need for God’s light in this critical area of discernment was not lost upon Saul/Paul as he took the gospel message out to the Greco-Roman world in the first-century, that Jesus as the truth active in our lives will set us free beyond our wildest imagination.

            People have to want to do the right things from the heart.

            Create humans with free-will choice, and the bent of the heart then becomes key.

            Paul the apostle is the epitome of the Christian salvation by grace through faith message to the world, because he more than anybody recognized that he should have known better, but missed it.

            This revelation on the road to Damascus eliminates forever for Paul the program of self-salvation through the effort of performing good-works, because with all of his education and knowledge about the Law of Moses, he lacked the needed discernment to see that Jesus of Nazareth was and is the Christ (Mt. 5:17).

The fundamental question having eternally cosmic implications is why isn’t reaching the truth much easier than it is?

This is why Jesus says to Nicodemus: “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (Jn. 3:3).

This is why modern science is a search for truth regarding phenomena in the natural world.

This is why God-composed, adventure of faith life-scripts displace our ways with God’s higher ways and thoughts (Is. 55:8-9), a concept that is anathema to the philosophical worldview of humanism.

This is why, to be able to adjudicate the question of the competence of either Satan or God to be the King and ruler for an eternity of time to come, God has given to the believer the indwelling of His Spirit as a personally accessible PhD theology and life-coach professor, guiding believers through our research program into the knowledge of good and evil (Rev. 3:20; Heb. 11:6).

This is why there must be a fallen, broken world that contains evil and suffering, that with tragically unavoidable consequences is nonetheless necessary to separate-out the outcomes between self-sovereignty versus God-sovereignty, being the fundamental, primary issue within the broad array of moral concepts, first introduced at the temptation in the Garden of Eden.

The materialistic worldview has no explanation for the existence of good and evil in the human experience, and no explanation for the universal existence of imperfect moral character in every human person who has ever lived (with the exception of Jesus Christ), which the Bible calls sin, which is defined as missing the mark.

Redemptive salvation by grace through faith in Christ, that provides the impunity of being able to enter into a research program into the knowledge of good and evil, utilizing the lens of an imperfect yet redeemed earthen vessel to comprehend the subtle nuances contained within the broad array of moral concepts…to my thinking is the epitome of the concept of being an inference to the best explanation, based upon the evidence currently on the earth today.

            The cross and the resurrection of Jesus Christ enables believers to surgically investigate the knowledge of good and evil without ruining ourselves or the world.

            The bottom-line in the Bible is that we need God to craft life-scripts for us to lead and guide us into all truth (Jn. 16:13), assisted by spiritually born-again, new hearts and minds that have eyes to see and ears to hear (Jn. 3:3; Mt. 11:15).

            From the Christian viewpoint, this is one of the reasons why God created the universe. 

This is one of the seemingly inexplicable mysteries within human intellectual and moral reasoning for why some people succumb to the deceptive appeal of personality cult leaders (2 Sam. 15:6; Rev. 12:9). 

This is an excerpt from my book Pondering Our World: Christian Essays on Science and Faith.

How Does the Creator God of the Universe End-Up on a Cross of Roman Crucifixion?

            The God of the Bible pays us the deepest compliment on our value and worth by engaging with us on a personal level, because God-composed journey of faith life-scripts are not easy, by necessity and design.

            This is comparable to the universal experience of young children going to school, with all of its challenges but also with all of its eventual upside benefits.

            The timeless foresight of God knows upfront that we are big enough to handle the challenges to be confronted within God- composed adventures of faith, long before our callings enlist us into the mission-plan destinies of our lives.

            Not a single positive person of faith in the Bible quits or gives-up early before fulfilling the overall purpose of their calling.

            God knows before we do that we are “man” or “woman” enough to persevere when the going gets tough, that believers encountering evil and suffering in their lives can press forward to be overcomers with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to help us, like Jesus was an overcomer in His uniquely targeted life-script.

            But God also knows from eternity past that some aspects of the knowledge of good and evil are too difficult to divide and parse at their deepest subtleties, without some experiential examples actualized through life-events to provide illumination and understanding.

            Simply stated, we need experiential data through actual life-events to provide the discerning judgment to close the gap between the limits of normal, everyday human wisdom and the farthest end-points of each of the broad array of moral concepts as divinely understood by God…at the top of the vertical spectrum-line of brilliant pure light and absolute goodness.

            This is why in the biblical narrative stories of faith God displaces our ways with His higher ways (Isa. 55:8-9) through life-scripts we could not imagine or orchestrate.

            And the God of the Bible is too virtuous and honorable to ask us to do something difficult through basic field research into unraveling the mysteries of good and evil, that He is not also willing to do Himself by first leading the way.

            Solve this question of why the Creator God of the universe Jesus Christ is on a cross of crucifixion on Calvary Hill in first-century Jerusalem, and we will have partially come a long way towards figuring-out why there is evil and suffering in this world.

            One standard answer satisfying biblical orthodoxy for why Jesus is on the cross is that He is the singularly unique, morally perfect Passover Lamb of God atoning sacrifice for our sins.

            But digging deeper, the research into the material workings of the natural world through scientific investigation is similar to the basic field research into the knowledge of good and evil through God-composed journeys of faith life-scripts as patterned for us in the Bible, because both research protocols are difficult to chart a navigational course that reaches absolute truth.

            Some of the broad array of moral concepts extended-out to their end-points are too subtle for us to perfectly discern and parse, in the same way that the mysteries of life, death, gravity, energy, the independent decision-making of human thought, and time are currently too profound for us to perfectly unravel through the reach of normal scientific inquiry.

            The realization that some realities require digging deeper than mere surface appearances, in both the physically material natural world and in the abstract, non-physical world of ideas and moral concepts, may be part of what is meant when Jesus is quoted as saying: “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (Jn. 8:32).

            The remarkable thing about this statement by Jesus that the truth shall make us free, is that in another place in the gospels Jesus tells us that He is “the way, the truth, and the life.” (Jn. 14:6).

            We shall know the truth that shall make us free when we have Jesus in our lives, because He is the source of truth in every field of knowledge progressing forward in past centuries leading-up to today.

            If there is a genuine God-of-the-gaps, it exists between the limits of human reasoning capacity as non-divine sentient beings, and the divine reasoning capacity of God.

            This is evidenced through modern science today that reveals the easily discernable differences in the organized complexity in the workings of the natural world compared to the brilliant yet far simpler manufactured creations by human ingenuity.   

            The bottom-line lesson from modern science, philosophy, and biblical theology at the fundamental level of ultimate reality, may be that at every level of human existence we need to not impulsively jump at the first thing that sounds good on the surface, but to apply some amount of critical thinking and questioning, dig deeper, and research the facts whenever and as far as we can.

            Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden did not have to impulsively go with the option being presented by Satan in the beguiling, spiritually holographic apparition of a talking serpent.

            They could have answered simply by saying that what was being proposed sounded appealing, but that they next wanted to dig deeper by asking God in person why He told them not to eat this fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

            The entire program behind the creation of this universe may be simply to provide an empirically experiential environment for human beings to discover that we need the divine expertise, wisdom, and knowledge of God as an active participant in our lives (Heb. 11:6)…and that pushing Him away in rebellious self-sovereignty leads to chaos and mayhem.

            Jesus Christ is on the cross at Calvary because that is the one and only way for Him to extend justified immunity from condemnation for us, taking our place of punishment in divine non-rebellion for our obstinate rebellion, to be able to embark on a genuine research program into the knowledge of good and evil while inhabiting the earthen vessel (2 Cor. 4:7) of a fallen yet redeemed, imperfect moral nature.

            Some skeptical atheists have referred to the cross and the resurrection as being petty.

            This response to evil and suffering through the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ is anything but petty.

            There is more to reality than physically material things we study through science.

            I would again submit here that the mere existence of this discussion over the origin and causation of evil and suffering being debated by intellectual and moral reasoning human beings, must argue for the existence of God outside of and transcendent above the matter and energy universe.

            I would suggest that the question of why does God allow evil and suffering in this world, should be turned around to the question of how is it that there is exceptional goodness and brilliant virtue exhibited in human nature and in human history?

            Can exceptional goodness and brilliant virtue immerge out of an environment that does not have evil and suffering?

            How much evil and suffering would we choose to moderate if this also carried a corresponding reduction in the potential for exceptional goodness and brilliant virtue to actualize in response to evil and suffering?

            It is part of Christian theological orthodoxy that the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, displays absolute goodness at the highest imaginable level of intellectual and moral reality.

            What quality of madness would eliminate through Roman crucifixion a person capable of multiplying a few small fish and loaves of bread to feed a multitude of people sitting on a hillside, or is capable of instantly calming a dangerous storm at sea?

            What quality of poor judgment would eliminate through Roman crucifixion a person who is healing a large number of sick people in and around Jerusalem from serious illnesses, diseases, and physical injuries?

What degree of insanity would eliminate through orchestrating the crucifixion of a person who might otherwise be interviewed as to possible measures to improve international trade, or to even broker a deal with Rome that would lead to Jewish autonomy without going to war?

There is no stronger argument that evil and suffering are needed as factors in the equation of reality in this world, that the demonstration of the subtlety of parsing truth from error within the broad array of moral concepts requires discernment at an advanced level…than the crucifixion of Jesus Christ in the capital city of Jerusalem in the first-century.

Jesus Christ on the cross not only provides for forgiveness of sins and the impunity to embark on a God sanctioned research program into the knowledge of good and evil, but equally important Jesus on the cross demonstrates in actualized empiricism what went wrong for human beings in the temptation in the Garden of Eden.

What is so dangerous about Satan in the holographic, spiritual form of a beautiful talking serpent, is that what he is asserting in this temptation in the Garden of Eden is partially true.

God does know that if we eat this fruit we shall become as junior gods knowing good and evil.

But this is a half-truth, placed somewhere between absolute light at the top of the vertical spectrum-line of moral goodness and absolute darkness at the bottom.

Satan as a fallen angel is not absolutely evil.  There probably isn’t anything or anyone that is absolutely evil.  Evil is a corruption of goodness, a degrading of brilliant pure light into lower shades of gray still having some measure of light.

At the outer limits of the broad array of moral concepts within the knowledge of good and evil, our discernment needs a booster shot of divine wisdom to be able to accurately parse and divide right from wrong, and truth from error.

This is the strongest rebuke to the false notion that we are capable of going it on our own according to the worldview of humanism, without the divine wisdom and council of God (Isa. 53:5-6), because we can be deceived by the false narratives of half-truths.

That the way, the truth, and the life…that the eternal Word of God is crucified at Calvary…tells us that the discernment of good versus evil is a component that needs addressing within the context of this world, if eternal life is to proceed through voluntary self-government by the personal choice of virtue rather than rebellion and chaos.

God does not want a kingdom for eternity wherein He has to impose virtue from without to keep everyone in check.

Virtue, like love, cannot be imposed by force.  To have any meaning love has to be freely extended and reciprocated from one person to another.

Virtue stems from the highest form of self-imposed government wherein people voluntarily choose to do the right things, because they believe in virtue as the best possible way to live.

Nothing illuminates the need for people of good-will to know the truth that will set us free than the utter human failure of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ the Son of God.

This is an excerpt from my book Pondering Our World: Christian Essays on Science and Faith.

Architectural Body-Plans and Lifestyle Habits Do Not Arise Out of DNA…Revised

            One of the key points in a current, scientific understanding of the vast diversity of life in the natural world is that what defines the unique essence of what each living organism is, does not wholly reside within its DNA.

            The finalizing chapters of the architectural body-plans and lifestyle information exists somewhere else inside the cell.

            DNA contains the sequentially coded information that produces genes, that actualizes into amino acid folds to become proteins that are then built into individual cells.

            DNA is like the raw materials to make the concrete, 2×4 wood studs, structural steel, electrical wiring, plumbing pipes, drywall, stucco, and roofing to build a house.

            This area of building design and construction is called materials science, and is different from the field of architectural design.

            The size, shape, and distinctive design of a house comes from an entirely different but complementary database of information.

            The information database that tells the builder and tradespersons where in the house construction these various materials go is commonly called the blueprints.

            The information that builds living cells and tells them where to go to their assigned function in the developing embryo, to eventually become an elephant but not a giraffe, does not entirely come from the DNA information needed to manufacture the raw materials to make each unique cell-type…analogous to the concrete, studs, wiring, and plumbing pipes to build a house. 

            The architectural body-plan and lifestyle-habit, blueprint- information resides inside each cell, just not completely in the DNA.

            This means that the distinctive lifestyle habits that accompany architectural body-plans fall partially outside of the DNA genetic mutation and natural selection mechanism.

            This mechanism we now understand produces the microevolutionary adaptation of the varied beak sizes of the finch birds on the Galapagos Islands, and the varied ensemble of physical traits genetically mutated from a grizzly bear to a polar bear.

            The architectural designs of New England Cape Cod, Southern Colonial, or Contemporary style houses are different. The body-plans and lifestyle habits of an elephant, giraffe, and human being are different.  But the housing construction materials on the jobsite, and the DNA in living cells, are the same in each case.

            Elephants, giraffes, and humans all have roughly the same DNA for making the raw materials of their cell-types of bones, muscles, tendons, blood, hair, and skin.

            But the essence of what they are in terms of unique architectural body-plans and lifestyle habits comes from their blueprint plans, and not exclusively from the DNA that creates the raw materials.

            Mutating DNA alone therefore cannot be the main causal agent to explain the vast diversity of life, because the design of an elephant, giraffe, or human comes from the blueprint plans inside living cells that is not a part of the DNA.

            There is a reason why there is zero empirical evidence of incremental progressive development in an arms-race between the Asian honeybees and the giant Asian hornet in the wild, in the past or today.

This would involve the exceedingly complex combination of anatomical improvements with their accompanying lifestyle habits, all of which has to coordinate increasingly complex plateaus of informational inputs coming from two or more places within the cell.

The difficulty for scientific materialists to explain these increasingly complex plateaus of informational inputs, is like trying to bridge the physics and chemistry of how ink bonds to paper, with the conceptually opinionated headlines of the New York Times daily newspaper tracking a particular news story over some period of days or weeks.

There is no bridge connecting the empirical, materialistic mechanism of ink bonding to paper, with the entirely abstract and non-material information conveyed in the English language in a newspaper headlines.

            There is a reason why there is zero empirical evidence of transitional intermediates completely filling-in the huge gaps between the informational programs we see in the architectural body-plans and lifestyle habits of mammals, amphibians, fish, birds, reptiles, and insects in the fossil record.

            The reason is that the ever-increasing complexity of life from single-cell bacteria 3.8-billion years ago to human beings today, did not come about by the process of the incrementally progressive development of connected small steps, one new and different cell-type added at a time.

            If incremental progressive development in enumerable small steps was the true paradigm in the natural living world, this fact would have been overwhelmingly apparent long before the first moments of archaeological and paleontological excavations on or around the time of Darwin’s book On the Origin of Species in 1859.

            The branching tree-of-life simply did not happen the way Darwin theorized extrapolating microevolution into macroevolution.

            If incremental progressive development in enumerable small steps was the true cause behind the vast diversity of life on earth, it would not be that difficult to fill-in the tens of millions of transitional intermediates that should easily link birds, fish, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals together in unmistakable common descent.

            But progressive development, by adding change through blocks of new cell-types grouped together to enable instant function and fit, maintains the evidence of common descent in the geological record but replaces random and undirected materialistic processes through continuous gradualism, instead with intelligent designing agency allowing discontinuities.

            The skeletal explanatory framework regarding the discontinuities at the dividing nodes of the branches of the tree-of-life, resides within the analytical reasoning capacity of human beings, which can philosophically go in a number of theoretical directions.

            Skeletal explanatory frameworks are based upon the facts of empirical data, but are not themselves the empirical data.

            The observable continuity of similar features in the natural living world needs small-step gradualism only if we are committed to a materialistic worldview.

            This is where the scientific field of biology took a wrong turn in 1859.

            Since 1859, the cart has been driving the horse. 

Since 1859, the philosophical worldview of naturalistic materialism has been driving the field of biology based upon the hunch that variant traits are produced by random and undirected processes, one small step at a time through then unknown internal causes.

            Today, we still do not know why particular genes have critical DNA units broken or damaged that beneficially produce a polar bear from a grizzly bear.[1]

            To assign this to chance mutations at the genetic level is pure speculation based upon the worldview of materialism.

            Charles Darwin at the time could just as easily have interpreted the variant traits being put-out by living organisms as a number of internally generated informational inputs coordinated as a group, rather than as what would later be identified as single-point mutations.

            Continuity in biology can be maintained just as easily by allowing an ever-increasing, upward incline of the complexity of architectural body-plans and their accompanying lifestyle habits, through the process of genetic information being released in blocks of grouped clusters to produce mature function as each living organism comes into existence in their biodiverse and balanced ecological environments.

            We see this confirmed in the design and fabrication of a new model of automobile.

            The front-left side body panel is introduced with its entire informational package complete, in terms of aesthetic shape, thickness of metal, strength-to-weight ratio, and paint color, to produce optimum function when actualized into physical reality.

            Every new automobile model offered to the car buying public has each and every part of the automobile road-tested, containing blocks of clustered groups of informational inputs exhausting all applicable areas of automotive design to achieve optimum function.

            But this input of new cell-types in groups requires the broad-minded introduction of non-random and personally directed intelligent agency at the theorizing and conceptualization level of skeletal explanatory frameworks, which is philosophically opposed to the atheism of naturalistic materialism.

            This requires the acknowledgment of an architect/engineer behind the origin of species.

            There is no factual evidence to compellingly support behavioral adaptation for how the Asian honeybees and the giant Asian hornet reached the dialectical, back-and-forth equilibrium of their advanced lifestyle-habits, because this is a hypothetical, provisional explanation based upon the philosophical worldview of naturalistic materialism.

            Again, the fundamental question for modern biology is where does the genetic information in living cells come from that produces the incredibly varied, instinctual predator/prey relationships that actualize through architectural body-plans of mind-boggling specificity and function, that produce a mature fit within biodiversity and ecosystems, in the first-place?

            Once the “nature makes no sudden leaps” of Darwinism, one new and different cell-type at a time, is replaced with the concept of blocks of new cell-types coming into existence as a unit to produce new architectural body-plans and lifestyle habits at the level of immediate function and ecological fit, then the difficulty of the program of attempting to fill-in the “missing-links” between fish, birds, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and insects in small steps…disappears entirely.

            Once the database of information in the cell that crafts the defining essence of each living organism is differentiated from the database of information coming from DNA that forms the building-block materials of the different cell-types, then genetic mutations acted upon by natural selection can more correctly be defined as the smaller but still important role of being microevolutionary adaptation that changes a grizzly bear into a polar bear.

            The answer to the riddle that scientists have been searching for over the last 160-plus years since 1859 to explain biological development, may simply be that the innovation of ever-increasing complexity in the natural living world is produced through the introduction of new and different cell-types as groups rather than one new cell-type at a time. 

            Science is legitimately allowed to use “just-so” stories like Rudyard Kipling’s fanciful story of how the tiger acquired its stripes, to theoretically connect-the-dots between data-points in their initial working hypotheses, until further investigation fills-in more facts.

            This is simply a part of the scientific method that encompasses the human psyche, the methodology of constructing a skeletal explanatory framework upon which to hang the varied pieces of data.

            These “just-so” stories theorized by professional scientists are sometimes given an uncritical pass in their simple-to-complex explanations characteristic of scientific materialism.

            Just because Dr. Jerry Coyne explains the defense tactic of the native Asian honeybee colonies against the attack of the giant Asian hornet as the product of behavioral adaptation, as Christians or non-Christians we do not have to buy into this viewpoint based on the authority of a scientist’s word alone.

            We have the intellectual license to think this through and to arrive at a different conclusion regarding the skeletal explanatory framework that is being used.

[1] Michael J. Behe, Darwin Devolves (New York: Harper Collins, 2019), 9,17.

This is an excerpt from my book Pondering Our World: Christian Essays on Science and Faith.

Constrained Optimization…Revised

            Our modern Age of Information tells us that the only thing capable of the engineering concept of the constrained optimization of a sequential series of decisional yes/no choices aimed specifically at reaching targeted end-point outcomes in the future, using foresight…is intelligent agency.

            As argued here, this is not fact-based evidence that supports the loosely termed “behavioral adaptation” used by Jerry B. Coyne to enlist the defense strategy of the native Asian honeybee into the doctrinal camp of Darwinian macroevolution.

            The concept of Asian honeybees immobilizing and taking-out the lone scout wasp mirrors the capture of an enemy spy in human warfare over the long course of human history.

            How would and could this intelligence-based military defense tactic of catching and taking-out a spy on reconnaissance for the enemy army, be functionally operative within the instinctual program of an insect like the Asian honeybee?

             The more plausible analysis of this remarkable reality in nature is that the balanced predator/prey relationship between the giant Asian hornet and their native honeybee counterpart cannot be explained through an incrementally escalating arms-race of competing features over time, using small-step improvements. 

            The trial-and-error approach of materialism produces an oscillating, back-and-forth battleground of colossal failure for one side or the other until they both reach the equally balanced, competing features we observe today between these two native, Asian insect combatants.

            To posit the purely materialistic explanation of gradual development for this mature predator/prey relationship in the insect world, requires the genetic make-up of these two insects to have a nearly self-conscious, lessons-learnable quality of ever-improving informational plateaus, subtly importing the intelligent decision-making choices of thoughtful agency into the otherwise mindless mutation/selection methodology of Darwinian evolution.

            The forward looking, intelligent foresight inherent in yes/no choice-making locking-in function in evermore complex plateaus to reach an optimum end-point of equilibrium between the giant Asian hornet and Asian honeybees, is not allowed in a mindless, purely materialistic universe of accidental trial-and-error.

            For a system of gradual development in the natural living world to be materialistic it must be mindless and undirected.

            For the Asian honeybees to reach defensive parity against the attacking giant Asian hornets, this involves a series of physically structural changes leading to improved function, over and over in reaction to structural changes and improved function in the giant Asian hornet.

            It is implausible to have two independent genetic tracks putting-out seemingly coordinated structural changes in the form of beneficial escalating traits, each acted upon in synchronized natural selection in the wild.

Yet without this feature of thoughtfully discerning choice-making stealthily smuggled-in, natural selection could not coordinate the forward-moving trajectories of newly added genetic information that displaces previously less advantageous iterations, that could reach the functionally balanced strategies of this predator/prey relationship for the giant Asian hornet and the Asian honeybee.    

            We do not have to uncritically swallow the idea that the European honeybees imported into the foreign environment of Japan will over time (thousands of years?) through the accidental method of trial-and-error likewise discover this singular, successful defensive strategy on their own in isolation, all the while suffering heavy losses in route to finding the very specific information that 115-117º F combined with CO² will defeat this otherwise unstoppable predator.

            This complex, highly specified, and coherently integrated information is intelligently designed upfront into the DNA and the gene regulatory networks of the native Asian honeybees, but is clearly absent in the European honeybees, evidenced when they are imported across the continent to Japan.

            This highlights an original intent found in the molecular biochemical information that must reside within the living cells of the Asian honeybee, being unnaturally overridden through the independent intervention of the agency of unknowing human beekeepers in Japan and Europe importing foreign, European honeybees into Asia.

            In this case of importing European honeybees into Asia, the playing-field of environment is not a factor.  The challenge for the European honeybees is not adaptation to a changed external environment, but adaptation to a lethally superior predator.

            The key question then in biology is how and when does the critical survival strategy get introduced at the genetic level, to produce in the living honeybees this distinctive lifestyle habit supported by their architectural body-plans, that can actualize into viable function a military defense strategy from abstract information to a winning outcome in the real world?

            Will the mutation/selection mechanism of Darwinian evolution in small-step, incremental gradualism be up to the job, or is it self-evident that upfront, instantaneous function and fit is the more plausible explanation?

            I would argue from the evidence that the input of this genetic information to produce function and fit occurs at the inception of the Asian honeybee.

I would argue that the materialistic program of an unbroken continuity of a small-step, incrementally progressive series of back-and-forth improvements in the arsenals of the Asian honeybees and the giant Asian hornet…is plausibly unworkable.

The Giant Asian Hornet…Revised

            The 2009 book Why Evolution Is True by Dr. Jerry A. Coyne…an emeritus professor of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago, is a well-written, interesting, and up-to-date expose in support of Darwinian macroevolution.

            But one of the head-scratching, colossal ironies of our modern times is that when I read this book, by around page 80 and thereafter, his descriptions of the wonders of nature have put forth so much brilliant detail that I begin to sense that he is unwittingly making a cumulative case argument[1]in favor of intelligent agency. 

            Yet as a career-long Darwinian evolutionist, intelligent design through agency acting in the natural world is the very thing he is trying to marshal the facts to disprove.[2]

            So coordinated and integrated are the architectural body-plans and lifestyle habits of living organisms, so well “thought-out” are their instinctual programs for fitness that as our modern understanding of them increases, then the more implausible becomes the purely naturalistic explanations for their conceptual origin and design.

            In other words, the more we learn factually about the natural world through science, the less plausible becomes the secular story of small-step, trial-and-error, developmental gradualism for the creation of the universe and all of its natural phenomena.

            In this new Age of Information, increasing knowledge is narrowing the worldview choices down to intelligent agency as the only plausible explanation for the origin of the complex, highly specified, and coherently integrated[3] systems of information we now recognize and study, operating everywhere in the natural living and non-living world.

            One example of the paradoxical dilemma for scientific materialists[4] in having to harmonize the marvels of the living world with purely naturalistic causations, absent designing agency, is found in Dr. Coyne’s book of the description of the havoc that is created when the giant Asian hornet (wasp) on its home turf attacks a colony of European honeybees imported by humans into Japan.[5]  

            The giant Asian hornet is the world’s largest wasp…about two inches long, having a three-inch wing-span that can fly 25 miles per hour and travel up to 60 miles a day, and is a predatory wasp especially common in Japan.

            When a lone hornet scout finds a honeybee colony, it marks the beehive with a drop of liquid pheromone scent which then guides a group of 20 to 30 attacking hornets which can decimate in a couple of hours honeybees numbering up to 30,000.

            The giant Asian hornet has large jaws that can bite the heads off the smaller honeybees at the rate of 40 per minute.

            But the native honeybees in Japan have an incredible defense tactic that defies naturalistic explanation.

            These native honeybees send-out an internal alarm within the beehive when they first detect the hornet intruder.  They then quickly form a group of around 100 honeybees at the entrance into the beehive, and when the lone scout first enters through the beehive opening to begin its investigation, these 100 honeybees form a tight cluster around the now immobilized giant Asian hornet. 

            In coordinated unison the honeybees in this cluster all flap their wings, before the giant Asian hornet can mark the beehive with the scented pheromone. 

            This raises the temperature to around 115º F within this cluster, but also produces carbon dioxide (CO²) that further raises the temperature up to as high as 122º F[6]…which is not lethal to the honeybees but kills the giant Asian hornet scout. 

            If the Asian honeybees can immobilize and kill the intruder scout before the beehive is marked with this pheromone, then the chance that the marauding group of attack wasps will stumble by accident upon the beehive is greatly reduced.

            The question can reasonably be asked if the Asian honeybees in and around the beehive out-number the attacking group of wasps 30,000 to 30, why do not small groups of 100 bees break-off and cluster around each wasp for 20 minutes to kill the entire attack-group of wasps using this successful strategy?

            The answer is that we do not know.

            The defense tactic of the Asian honeybees is limited to successfully neutralizing this scout early, before it can mark the beehive, but does not go further to expand this brilliant military defense tactic into a larger theater of warfare. 

            But the recently imported European honeybee colonies lack even this initial defense strategy to kill the roving scout, and are quickly and completely overwhelmed by the marauding band of attacking giant Asian hornets, guided by the pheromone placed at the opening of the beehive by the hornet scout as the result of a successful reconnaissance.

            Leaving aside a limited or an expanded application of this defense strategy, the basic underlying question arises of how the native Asian honeybees could acquire this novel, instinctual defense tactic of a brilliantly functional, coordinated approach of just the right high-temperature of 117-122º F and the accumulation of CO² gas that would kill this insect enemy, but not harm themselves in the process…in the first-place? 

            Using the materialistic mechanism of blind, mindless, accidental, and undirected trial-and-error, this would produce catastrophic honeybee failures along the small-step transitional route of gradual, successive rises in temperature.

            For argument’s sake, if we start with an ambient temperature inside the honeybee’s nest at 100º F, and go upward at 2º F increments over the 16-20 minutes needed to kill the giant Asian hornet scout, this results in 8 failed trials…catastrophic defeats…if the effort at some point of time stops short of the successful goal of 115-117º F (100º, 102º, 104º, 106º, 108º, 110º, 112º, 114º, 115º F).

            This defense mechanism of the Asian honeybee is an all or nothing affair.  Intermediate stages in transition will not work.  Partial function is dysfunction in terms of survival.

            The Asian honeybees do not immediately produce the required lethal temperature to cook the lone scout to death, but time is needed to build-up the temperature within this ball of honeybees flapping their wings to 115-117º F.

            At the trial-and-error test phases thousands or millions of years ago, the Asian honeybees upon reaching the pre-lethal, mid-point of 108º F in their group clustering, would somehow have to “know” through foresight to keep going until they reached the deadly temperature of 115º F. 

            The Asian honeybees would have to know at the very start that this particular defense tactic had a successful end-point outcome to aim for, otherwise they would be going down a fruitless path, amongst a multitude of other possible fruitless paths, to oblivion and extinction.

            Modern information theory tells us that if there are more chances that something can go in the wrong direction than in the right direction, then a positive end-point outcome is more difficult to arrive at.[7]

            My hypothetical example above is divided up into increments of 2º F, but using the measurement of time instead of temperature, 20 minutes x 60 seconds each minute = 1,200 seconds of total time to kill the giant Asian hornet.

            This equates to 1,200 possible wrong choices for the honeybees to quit, to give-up short of killing the lone scout intruder, compared to only one right choice to arrive at the positive outcome of the successful defense of the beehive colony…to persist for the full 20 minutes from start to finish to reach 115-117º F.

            The Asian honeybees could easily have quit after attempting this narrowly specified, defense tactic their first try after 20 seconds, seeing no immediate positive result, the successful outcome being at the end-point of a full 20 minutes of flapping their wings.

            How would honeybees acquire this sensible, life-saving foreknowledge of a positive outcome to aim for?

            Not by accident, and not by random and undirected trial-and-error.

            In this life and death struggle the Asian honeybees only get one opportunity at pursuing a particular strategy all the way to success.  Quitting early or choosing another strategy through trial-and-error ends in extinction. 

[1] Drawing upon facts from several areas to make a convincing argument.

[2] Jerry A. Coyne, Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible (New York: Penguin Books, 2015).

[3] A phrase coined by William A. Dembski in Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science & Theology (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1999).

[4] The philosophical worldview that physical matter and energy in the universe are the only realities.

[5] Jerry A. Coyne, Why Evolution Is True (New York: Penguin Books, 2009), 111-113.

[6] Wikipedia.org, Asian giant hornet, updated May 20, 2021.

[7] Canceled Science: Scientific Discoveries Some Atheists Don’t Want You to See, with Eric Hedin, published by Discovery Science on You Tube, April 26, 2022.

The Broad Array of Moral Concepts, revised Part 1

“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth.”                                               (Jn. 1:14)

            If the Bible and Christians contend that Jesus Christ is the blemish-free, Passover Lamb of God sacrifice for mankind’s sins, that He was perfect and without sin during His life and ministry on earth, by what or by whose standard do we judge the existence of this alleged perfect moral character in any person?

            How would we determine that the life of Jesus was at the outer edge of moral perfection, at the peak and the pinnacle of absolute goodness and virtue?

            How would we know that no additional room or space remained at the highest top-most point of the vertical, graduated spectrum-line of virtue and morality for further improvement?

            What would explain the existence of the diverse categories of moral criteria defining virtue, of the numerous moral concepts broken down into individual words as abstract thoughts accessible to human contemplation, that would enable and support a valid determination of the moral credentials of Jesus Christ?

            And finally, where would our highly-advanced capacity to comprehend, to divide, separate-out, and parse these varied conceptual virtues and vices, consisting of finely differentiated realities that are true-to-life, come from? 

            Where would this uniquely human capacity originate from, seeing that it does not exist anywhere else in the animal world and therefore cannot plausibly be attributed to the common descent, materialistic explanation for its origin extending seamlessly from animal instinct to human intellect?

            In short, this current planet earth is the perfect environment to conduct individual research explorations into the knowledge of good and evil, using the lens of a fallen moral nature that is redeemed by Jesus Christ on the cross at Calvary.

            The broad array of moral concepts functionally operative within human relationships is the intellectually thought-filled counterpart to the biodiversity and ecological balance we find in the natural world that enables animal instinct to operate.

            The brilliant invention of redemptive salvation by grace through faith in Christ is the means by which believers can with impunity and without risk to our eternal salvation, enter into journeys of faith by picking-up our own cross to follow Jesus Christ into adventures of challenge beyond our imagination…designed to illuminate the subtleties of the knowledge of good and evil for our eternal benefit.

            The entirely counterintuitive insight coming from modern science that adds a new and unexpected understanding of the biblical interpretation of salvation by grace through faith in Christ, is that the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross was not just a way to provide forgiveness for sin and to restore our relationship with God, but also to open-up a living way into exploring the knowledge of good and evil through the research vehicle of an imperfect yet redeemed, fallen moral nature (Rom. 7:15-8:4; 2 Cor. 4:7).

            If we look at the detailed, biblical narrative stories of faith from Abraham through Paul, we see not only personal relationships created between people and God, and mission-plans often having enormous benefits to other people, but we also see life-scripts that are research programs into the knowledge of good and evil that are purpose-filled at the pinnacle of rational thought and reasoning.

            There is infinitely more to God’s plan of salvation than just reconciliation and addressing the guilt of our mistakes, as important as that is.

            Redemptive salvation by grace through faith points directly to Genesis 3:4-5.

4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

            This is a classic example of a half-truth.

            The only way that I can acquire a genuine knowledge of good and evil is through a guided research program while inhabiting the four-wheel drive vehicle of my fallen yet redeemed earthen vessel (2 Cor. 4:7), my imperfect moral nature being the perfect lens through which to understand the subtleties of the broad array of moral concepts.

            It took a perfect person Jesus Christ to take my deserved place on the cross to satisfy perfect justice, yet one profound outcome of this event provided divine impunity for me to enter into a research program into the knowledge of good and evil in which it is a certainty that I will make mistakes that become lessons-learned rather than condemning sins (Mt. 5:6).

            This is one reason why God did not show-up in the Garden of Eden to dispute the character assassination put forward by the spiritual apparition of Satan in the holographic form of a beautiful talking serpent, because it is difficult to debate with a liar.

            The galactic irony here is that it is modern science that illuminates this component of a research program into the knowledge of good and evil contained within redemptive salvation by grace through faith in Christ.

            The other profound take-away here is that science will disappear as we now know it, the universe being temporal (Mk. 13:31; 2 Pet. 3:10).

            But a genuine knowledge of good and evil acquired through the first-hand experience of living within a God-composed journey of faith life-script lasts an eternity.

            I think it takes a grasp of what is involved in a modern science research program to see the comparative quality of God-composed journeys of faith life-scripts in which God displaces our ways and thoughts with His higher ways and thoughts (Isa. 55:8-9), like a PhD professor guiding a graduate student through their thesis research program (Jn. 16:13).

            The God of the Bible is writing research programs and offering research grants in the form of redemptive salvation by grace through faith in Christ, so that believers can obtain a genuine knowledge of good and evil through the first-hand field research of personal experience, our mistakes and shortcomings factored-in as part of the lessons-learned protocol.

            The brilliance of this is that it partly validates from an unexpected direction the claim by Jesus that He is the way, the truth, and the life to the exclusion of all other gods, religions, and philosophies. 

            Jesus said “no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” (Jn. 14:6).

            Only one God can be God.

            Only our Creator God can compose journeys of faith that match our unique talents and abilities, replacing our ways with His higher ways, to craft four-wheel drive research vehicles having the lens of a fallen yet redeemed moral character through which to comprehend the subtle nuances of the knowledge of good and evil.

            Only the one real God is capable of crafting a program that identifies one of the fundamental purposes underlying the creation of the universe, inventing the concept of redemptive salvation by grace through faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, which allows me to venture-out into a risk-filled journey of faith, with the understanding that I am certain to make many honest and unintentional mistakes (Mt.5:6).

God-composed Journey of Faith Life-scripts are Too Deep for a Naturalistic Explanation for their Origin

            The recent modern recognition in philosophy is that the human mind when reduced down to only a materialistic “brain” alone, made up of circuits and neurons, devolves into nonsensical relativism.

            The radical reduction into materialism undermines confidence in the reliability of all human thought, and thereby destroys rationality, scientific investigation, and even worldview philosophies such as atheism itself.

            Yet by simply asking the question and examining the evidence, this in and of itself declares at the outset that Jesus Christ the person we are investigating is in fact within the zone of moral perfection and sinless virtue by reason of the question being seriously entertained at all. 

            We would not even open such an investigation into the life of any other exceptional person past or present, because we already correctly acknowledge that only one person in all of history has made a credible, serious claim to have lived a perfect life, and that one person is Jesus Christ.   

            No sane person in all of recorded history has made a viable and well-substantiated claim to embody and demonstrate the moral attributes of brilliant pure light, absolute goodness, and perfect virtue, of being, speaking, and acting like a Deity.

            Jesus Christ as Messiah is proactively anticipated for centuries in the biblical Old Testament messianic prophecies fulfilled in the life, teaching, and ministry of Jesus Christ recorded in the New Testament gospels.

            This raises the probing apologetics question into the divine origin of the composition of the Bible, Old Testament Judaism, and New Testament Christianity, of how in the first-place we would “come by” the capacity to accurately judge whether the life and ministry of Jesus Christ exhausts the extent of the possible outer-limits of moral perfection.

            How would we determine that our current tool-kit of known virtuous characteristics, of well-defined moral attributes, is absolutely exhaustive, adequate, and complete enough for the in-depth moral reasoning needed to evaluate the life of Jesus Christ? 

            How would we know whether there are not some additional, outstanding moral characteristics that we are unaware of, in this current earthly context, above and beyond those demonstrated and exemplified in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ that would raise the bar higher?

            How would we know there are not some missing moral attributes in our reality that might call into question the impeccable qualifications of Jesus to be the blemish-free and sinless atoning sacrifice for our sins?

            The point here is not whether God has some additional, divine characteristics applicable in heaven that would not concern us presently, that are not relevant here on earth, but whether or not Jesus the Son of God in a human body (Isa. 7:14, 9:6-7) exhausts the limits of moral perfection as the God/man in order to qualify as the Passover Lamb of God, one-time atoning sacrifice for sin.

            The question is how this full and varied palette of moral concepts had an origin and came into existence within the reality of human life, to be able to make this assessment.

            The important point in this discussion is the fantastic notion that we would have the moral reasoning tools in terms of human mental capacity, but also in the complementary existence of the broad array of abstract moral concepts defined through the language of discrete and distinctive words, to be able to make a valid decision for or against salvation faith in Jesus Christ at this highly advanced level.

From Pondering Our Creation: Christian Essays on Science and Faith.

The Giant Asian Hornet, revised Part 4

Scientists Speaking Outside of Their Specialty are Laymen

            Some scientists have been telling us for decades that God is dead, and that the only reliable route to obtain truth is by the empirical evidences acquired through hard, bench-top science.

            Some scientists have been saying for decades that the clear evidence of design that we see in the natural world is not real, but is an illusion.

            The term-of-art popularly used by scientific materialists here is to say that the appearance of design in nature is an artifact…an artificially produced appearance created through human imagination.

            I can look through an electron microscope and see the nanotechnology of the molecular machinery at work inside a living cell, and conclude that the organized complexity I see occurring in action before my eyes is design-produced.

            I am not sure our modern culture has recognized clearly how potentially dangerous viewpoint bias is if carried to an extreme.

            The anti-god, materialistic worldview of Darwinism is on the brink of destroying the credibility of all human analytical ability because Darwinism exposes our susceptibility to the intimidating force of imposed group-think consensus that can even exist in science.         

            Confidence in the reliability of the reasoning capacity of the human mind/brain to arrive at genuine truth in science and in life connects directly to a non-material Mind/Being.

            From the Christian viewpoint, the God of the Bible created human beings with the capacity to enter into highly specified and detailed life-scripts as patterned for us in the biblical narrative stories of faith from Abraham through Paul, based upon a dependable and reliable confidence in our innate intellectual and moral reasoning ability.

            Atheism extended to its logical end-point reduces the human mind/brain to a mere material entity produced through random and undirected processes, having no firm basis to rely upon its reasoning capacity.  

            One contention of this book is that modern scientific investigation was always going to arrive at a point in time when it reached the inescapable recognition of the need for a Designing Intelligent Agent.

            The organized complexity of the information content now reveals scientifically an architectural and engineering Artisan/God of incomparable precision at the highest standards of craftsmanship.

            This Artisan has complete mastery of the database of information to create everything material and non-material in existence in the universe, because He Himself created all of this information.

            Because the natural world was always this complex,starting at the Big Bang creation of the universe 13.7-billion years ago and the formation of our planet earth 4.5-billion years ago, this paradigm-changing epiphany was waiting all this time for human scientific discovery to catch-up. 

            The functional coherence of specified complexity now points to intelligent design as the only remaining plausible option, in contradiction to the reasonableness of scientific materialism thrust forward by Darwinian evolution in 1859 based upon the database of knowledge understood at that time. 

            One point that is easily overlooked in the evolution versus creation debate, is that by making the natural world orderly and intelligible, and by having human beings with the capacity to do science, God is taking the risk that we might discover that He was sloppy, slip-shod, and incompetent as an architect and engineer.

            A God who was not completely confident about the quality of His workmanship credentials, would never upon-up the first sentence in the Bible by saying: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” knowing full-well that a beginning point in time for the creation of the universe would not be validated by science, until at the relatively late point in time in 1929 in the discovery of an expanding universe.   

            In my career in building construction, I learned early the hard-way in the customer service phase of new housing construction as a jobsite superintendent, that if a particular condominium unit or house was not ready to be shown to the homebuyer during the formal walkthrough prior to occupancy, that the best approach was to ask the sales staff to reschedule the walkthrough a few days later.

            This gave myself and the customer service prep-crew time to fine-tune the unit, so that the walkthrough would produce from zero to two or three minor repairs at most, creating satisfied new homebuyers and general good-will throughout the remaining warranty period.

            There was no point in prematurely conducting the walkthrough with a unit that was not ready, producing two or three pages of needed repairs identified by the disappointed and dissatisfied new homebuyer.

            There is no reason in a purely matter and energy universe that the natural world would be orderly and intelligible to human beings having the capacity to do science.

            The God of the Bible has in essence invited us to do a walkthrough through the human scientific enterprise.

            One of the key observations coming from modern science today is that everywhere we look, as science digs deeper and deeper into the causations behind the phenomena in the natural world, the specified complexity exhibited in nature wins the awe and admiration of atheist and theist alike.

Scientific Information is Easily Accessible Today

            In doing the research for this book, I sense that the general populace in countries like the United States are two or three decades behind where science today actually is.

            I sense that the general populace is still somewhere back in the 1990’s, accepting the assertion by Carl Sagan promoting the idea of the Principle of Mediocrity that the earth is an insignificant, pale blue dot lost in a vast universe, and the assertion by the Harvard paleontologist Stephen J. Gould that science and God cannot overlap, but belong in entirely different, competing categories of reality.

            A person needs to invest only about two hours to get caught-up with where science is today, in some of the key critical areas that influence our worldview philosophy for life.

            This can easily be achieved for those people who have access to the Internet (via smart phone, computer, or other electronic device), and are willing to watch in succession, with coffee or tea breaks in-between, the presentations by Edward Murphy discussing the standard theory of the origin of the elements of the Periodic Table[1], then Gunter Bechly describing the discontinuities in the fossil record[2], and Stephen C. Meyer explaining the quantum mechanics at the Big Bang[3], to see that the evidences for random and undirected processes still being put-forward by the philosophy of scientific materialism, are no longer reasonably plausible.

            But for a real jolt forward by several decades to reach the current science in the field of molecular biochemistry (what it takes to create life), watch Scientists Are Clueless on the Origin of Life, Lecture @ Andrews University (Sept. 11, 2020) featuring Dr. James Tour on YouTube.

Prior Fitness Coordinates Too Many Complex Systems of Information that are Independent from Each Other

               One of the themes of this book is that the materialistic explanations using random and undirected processes to achieve function and fit, through the method of gradual, incremental, small-step, progressive development, no longer makes sense.

            The information content underlying the natural world is too complex to support materialism.

            When we factor-in the concept of the prior fitness of the biodiversity and environmental ecosystems required to be in-place to support each new introduction of major innovations in the living and non-living world,[4] the worldview of naturalistic materialism can no longer be considered a viable candidate to explain the ultimate reality of existence.

            When I watch on the Internet the 2014 presentation by Aoife McLysaght[5] in defense of modern Darwinian evolution, I run into the same brick-wall I encountered reading Jerry A. Coyne’s book.

            About five minutes into this excellent presentation, I sense that Dr. McLysaght is unwittingly making a cumulative case argument for intelligent agency rather than historical Darwinian evolution, so brilliantly marvelous is the scope and breadth of the natural world she is describing.

            To a modern, discriminating audience using critical-thinking, merely exchanging the phrase “intelligent designing agency” with the substitute word “evolution” is a semantics slight-of-hand card-trick that is apparently undetectable to scientific materialists.

            If intelligent agency is disallowed according to the philosophical worldview of naturalistic materialism, then the only word capable of expressing the secular version of agency is evolution.

            But merely saying something, does not make it so.

            The classic statement made in 1988 by Francis Crick to scientists that they must “constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved,”[6] in just a few short years has now become obsolete.

            Information about the natural world has exponentially exploded that fast.

            Whenever phenomena in nature are described thoroughly using their full informational content discovered through science, the more and more obvious becomes the design element requiring agency, that transcends above and pushes out a purely materialistic explanation through evolution.

            How do you get multi-cellular green algae floating on top of the ancient oceans, having whatever small number of different cell-types biologists and paleontologists agree upon today, to make the leap from there to branch-off into becoming the next iteration of being a Precambrian jellyfish floating near the surface of the ancient oceans, considered by some scientists today to possess around 10 to 12 different cell-types[7] to support their architectural body-plans?  

            How do you get from there to the introduction of the new and different architectural body-plans and lifestyle habits of the creatures of the Cambrian Explosion, exhibiting the dynamic movement of predator/prey relationships within more complex biodiversity and ecosystems, that appear suddenly in the geological record around 535-million years ago?

            These new and novel creatures are estimated to have between 30-40 different cell-types in support of their new and active body-plans and lifestyle habits, without any lead-up, intermediate precursors found in the Precambrian rock/sediment strata, or in imaginative fictional contemplation.

            Imposing a skeletal explanatory framework over the fossil record, of gradually continuous biological development chopped-up into introducing one new cell-type at a time, is unsupported by the fact-based evidence we see all around us today in the natural world of well-defined living organisms having discontinuous gaps between them, that even children can recognize.

            In a learning game with young children, we point to various animals in a book as they answer that this picture is of an elephant and that picture is of a dog, cat, or horse.  They recognize the well-defined differences between each animal even before they stumble over correctly pronouncing the names hippopotamus or rhinoceros.

            As we look out at the natural living world today, we do not see a multitude of forms all blending together into continuous linkages, that would negate young children from being able at first-glance to separate them into their unique names.  

            This was the case in 1859 as it is today.

            An argument can be made that it was the atheism within naturalistic materialism that falsely interpreted the data at that time-period, and not the empirical, fact-based evidence itself.

            To suggest instead an alternative skeletal explanatory framework over the geological data and the fossil record of functional end-point outcomes in biology that are achieved by the input of blocks of information in clustered groups, this requires the existence of an Intelligent Designing Agent as the architect and builder of the natural living and non-living world.

            Again, this is unacceptable to the worldview of scientific materialism.

            In the final analysis, if possession of the facts does not lead to near-perfect conclusions clearly apparent to nearly everyone, this introduces a gray area of discretionary judgment into the equation of the search for truth in science and in human living, which is inexplicable in a purely material universe.

            If the final takeaway after five-hundred years of the Scientific Revolution is that after most of the evidence regarding the natural world is in…has been acquired…that as smart as we humans think humans are, if we still need a smarter God to lead and guide us into genuine truth in all of the realms of existence (Jn. 16:13), this would truly be a colossal discovery.   

From Pondering Our Creation: Christian Essays on Science and Faith.

[1] “The Origin of the Elements” by Jefferson Lab, Nov. 20, 2012 with Dr. Edward Murphy, University of Virginia, on You Tube.

[2] Fossil Discontinuities: Refutation of Darwinism & Confirmation of Intelligent Design—Gunter Bechly, published Oct. 11, 2018 on You Tube by FOCLOnline.

[3] Watch the Internet interview on You Tube: The Return of the God Hypothesis: Interview with Stephen Meyer.  Streamed live on May 13, 2020, Dr. Sean McDowell.

[4] See “The Fine Tuning of Nature for the Major Innovations in the History of Life” by Dr. Michael Denton, published Oct. 16, 2019 on YouTube by Zefrum fur BioKomplexitat & Natur Teleologie.

[5] Copy number variation and the secret of life—with Aoife McLysaght, produced by The Royal Institution, May 27, 2014, on You Tube.

[6] Francis Crick, What Mad Pursuit: A Personal View of Scientific Discovery (New York: Basic Books, 1998), 138.

[7] On the Origin of Phyla—Interviews with Dr. James Valentine, by Access Research Network, published on Oct. 22, 20`4, on You Tube.

The Giant Asian Hornet, revised Part 2

Constrained Optimization

            Our modern Age of Information tells us that the only thing capable of the engineering concept of the constrained optimization of a sequential series of decisional yes/no choices aimed specifically at reaching targeted end-point outcomes in the future, using foresight…is intelligent agency.

            As argued here, this is not fact-based evidence that supports the loosely termed “behavior adaptation” used by Jerry B. Coyne to enlist the defense strategy of the native Asian honeybee into the doctrinal camp of Darwinian macroevolution.

            The concept of Asian honeybees immobilizing and taking-out the lone scout wasp mirrors the capture of an enemy spy in human warfare over the long course of human history.

            How would and could this intelligence-based military defense tactic of catching and taking-out a spy on reconnaissance for the enemy army, be functionally operative within the instinctual program of an insect like the Asian honeybee?

             The more plausible analysis of this remarkable reality in nature is that the balanced predator/prey relationship between the giant Asian hornet and their native honeybee counterpart cannot be explained through an incrementally escalating arms-race of competing features over time, using small-step improvements. 

            The trial-and-error approach of materialism produces an oscillating, back-and-forth battleground of colossal failure for one side or the other until they both reach the equally balanced, competing features we observe today between these two native, Asian insect combatants.

            To posit a purely materialistic explanation for this mature predator/prey relationship requires a conscious, lessons-learned quality of ever-improving informational plateaus, subtly importing the intelligent decision-making of thoughtful agency into the mindless mutation/selection methodology of Darwinian evolution.

            The intelligent foresight inherent in yes/no choice-making locking-in function in evermore complex plateaus, is not allowed in a purely materialistic universe of accidental trial-and-error.

Yet without this feature of thoughtfully discerning choice-making stealthily smuggled-in, natural selection could not coordinate the forward-moving trajectories of added information that could reach the functionally balanced strategies of this predator/prey relationship.     

            We do not have to uncritically swallow the idea that the European honeybees imported into the foreign environment of Japan will over time (thousands of years?) through the accidental method of trial-and-error likewise discover this singular, successful defensive strategy on their own in isolation, all the while suffering heavy losses in route to finding the very specific information that 115-117º F combined with CO² will defeat this otherwise unstoppable predator.

            This complex, highly specified, and coherently integrated information is intelligently designed upfront into the DNA and the gene regulatory networks of the native Asian honeybees, but is clearly absent in the European honeybees, evidenced when they are imported across the continent to Japan.

            This highlights an original intent found in the molecular biochemical information that must reside within the living cells of the Asian honeybee, being unnaturally overridden through the independent intervention of the agency of unknowing human beekeepers in Japan and Europe importing foreign, European honeybees into Asia.

            In this case of importing European honeybees into Asia, the playing-field of environment is not a factor.  The challenge for the European honeybees is not adaptation to a changed external environment, but adaptation to a lethally superior predator.

            The key question then in biology is how and when does the critical survival strategy get introduced at the genetic level, to produce in the living honeybees this distinctive lifestyle habit supported by their architectural body-plans, that can actualize into viable function a military defense strategy from abstract information to a winning outcome in the real world?

            Will the mutation/selection mechanism of Darwinian evolution in small-step, incremental gradualism be up to the job, or is it self-evident that upfront, instantaneous function and fit is the more plausible explanation?

            I would argue from the evidence that the input of this genetic information to produce function and fit occurs at the inception of the Asian honeybee.

I would argue that the materialistic program of an unbroken continuity of a small-step, incrementally progressive series of back-and-forth improvements in the arsenals of the Asian honeybees and the giant Asian hornet…is plausibly untenable.

Blocks of New Cell-Types in Clustered Groups

            I would argue from the evidence that the introduction of the genetic information and the new and different cell-types to create a functional Asian honeybee, to survive in an environment that contains the giant Asian hornet, must occur through the addition of a block of new cell-types in a clustered group, and not doled-out one at a time in a blind search for function through the trial-and-error processes of materialism.

            This I would also argue is factual evidence for designing agency that is not illusory.

            How exactly would a naturalistic Mother Nature provide the intentional foresight and directional determination to persist through the enumerable lethal failures of a hypothetical trial-and-error process, to reach a successful outcome for the honeybees defending themselves? 

            To do this Mother Nature would have to rise to the level of being a conscious, deliberative deity herself.

            This information-based defensive strategy by the native Asian honeybee colonies is successfully functional and universally operative today in Japan. 

            The question can be asked, do we currently see a positive move forward by the European honeybee colonies imported into Japan, exhibiting a trial-and-error start of clustering around the intruder scout wasp and in unison flapping their wings, exhibiting the first signs of a developing defense in support of the behavioral adaptation theory?

            Can we identify an experiential transition part-way in development within the imported European honeybee colonies pointing towards the future perfected use of this successful defense tactic commonly utilized by their Asian cousins?

            Has word begun to spread through the natural, molecular language of inter-breeding and genetic drift from the successfully armed Asian honeybees to the unsuccessfully unarmed, newcomer European honeybees imported into Japan (if this is even possible)? 

            This vital genetic information for survival would then be actualized through the mechanisms of molecular biochemistry within the cell.

            But behavioral adaptation, inter-breeding, and genetic drift do not take us back the necessary one-step to explain the introduction of this information-based, novel defense strategy of the Asian honeybee in the first-place.

            Long before a back-and-forth, escalating arms-race campaign can commence towards achieving these two incredible military-quality strategies of attack and counterattack, the fundamental question must be asked-and-answered as to the original source of this complex information.

            How could a purpose-free and meaningless material universe produce such a complex, fine-tuned, and coordinated relationship, exclusive to these two species of insects alone, falling-short of an all-hands-on-deck, all-out warfare but instead focuses and stops at the predetermined sweet-spot of the limited goal of taking-out the lone scout only?

            This has the constrained optimization of ecological balance written all over it, which chooses between multiple competing objectives to reach the optimum sweet-spot in the Asian insect-world, of neither the giant Asian hornet nor the Asian honeybees being able to completely wipe-out the other in all-out, major combat.  

            No other living insect species that I know of clusters around a captured lone spy and flaps their wings to raise the temperature and create CO² gas to kill this roving scout on reconnaissance, before the scout can communicate back the whereabouts of the honeybee beehive.

Skeletal Explanatory Frameworks Enable Spinning the Narrative of Facts into Differing Hypotheses

            At this point someone will logically suggest the Darwinian mindset that given millions of years for development, would not a series of trial-and-error failures and successes eventually lead to the perfected defense strategy of the Asian honeybee?

            This assumes that length of time is the beneficially determining factor.

            The skeletal explanatory framework upon which to connect the various factual data-points used in the standard methodology for all scientific research, is in scientific jargon called a theoretical hypothesis, but is always based upon the known factual evidence available at that time-period in human history.

            In defense of Charles Darwin in 1859, he was basing his theoretical hypothesis upon the idea that the physical universe was eternal, that he had unlimited time to work with to extrapolate microevolution into macroevolution.

            Darwin did not know that in 1929, an expanding universe would be discovered by Edwin Hubble peering through the massive telescope at the Mount Wilson Observatory, that looking backwards in time would pinpoint a beginning of the physical universe that now limits the length of time for progressive development down to a finite amount. 

            But the issue isn’t length of time, but instead philosophical interpretations as selected by humans to create skeletal explanatory frameworks…being theoretical hypotheses.  

            One of the themes of this book is to say that the theorizing and conceptualization that is an essential part of science, is related to, but categorically disconnected from the empiricism of the scientific method of research that follows sequential step-by-step protocols that produce fact-based evidence.

            The theorizing and conceptualization part of the scientific enterprise is philosophically analytical, and produces provisional conclusions that are not themselves scientific, fact-based, raw data.  

The theoretical hypothesis from a philosophically naturalistic viewpoint says that the only acceptable route for the Asian honeybee to achieve defensive survivability against the giant Asian hornet, over a long time-period is through the small steps of gradual, continuous development.

            But length of time as the controlling factor in the equation unjustifiably assumes that change will always go in a positive direction, leading eventually to function, which is a philosophical projection based upon the factual evidence that change does go in a positive direction over time.

            But time cannot be the explanatory causation here, because change in a random and undirected process could go forwards, backwards, or in endlessly repetitive circles.

            The obvious problem that should shout-out to us here in this example is that given millions of years to work with, the Asian honeybees in route towards a functional defense strategy this brilliantly original and well-conceived, would be annihilated in the naturalistic process of gradual, incrementally progressive steps before ever reaching successful function.

            Time plus chance does not lead to function when the systems of information for survival are as complex as the defense strategy of the Asian honeybee.

            Time plus chance cannot reach a successful outcome when there are too many complex steps to get there.

            The fundamental problem in looking at the myriad of diverse instinctual lifestyle habits prolific in the natural living world, is that from a materialist worldview it presumes on philosophical grounds that these end-point maturities must be arrived at through the gradual process of small incremental steps…as long as time plus chance equates to unbroken continuity in a positive direction to reach function.

            The skeletal explanatory framework connecting the factual data-points is what is wrong here, when the philosophical worldview of scientific materialism is utilized.

From Pondering Our Creation: Christian Essays on Science and Faith.

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