The Watchtower Society's commentary on 'Abel'

ABEL:

(Aʹbel).

1. [possibly, Exhalation; Vanity]. The second son of Adam and his wife Eve, and the younger brother of their firstborn son, Cain.—Ge 4:2.

It is probable that, while yet alive, Abel had sisters; the record mentions the birth of daughters to his parents, but their names are not recorded. (Ge 5:1-4) As a man, he became a herder of sheep; his brother, a farmer.—Ge 4:2.

After an indefinite period of time, Abel made an offering to Jehovah God. Cain did likewise. Each brought of what he had: Abel, of the firstlings of his flocks; Cain, of his produce. (Ge 4:3, 4) They both had belief in God. They undoubtedly learned of Him from their parents and must have known why they all were outside the garden of Eden and denied entry to it. Their offerings indicated a recognition of their alienated state and of their desire for God’s favor. God expressed favor toward Abel’s offering but not Cain’s. How the approval and the rejection were manifested the record does not show, but it was undoubtedly evident to both men. The reason for God’s approval of only Abel’s offering is made clear by later writings. The apostle Paul lists Abel as the first man of faith, at Hebrews 11:4, and shows that this resulted in his sacrifice being of “greater worth” than Cain’s offering. By contrast, 1 John 3:11, 12 shows Cain’s heart attitude to have been bad; and his later rejection of God’s counsel and warning, as well as his premeditated murder of his brother Abel, demonstrated this.

While it cannot be said that Abel had any foreknowledge of the eventual outworking of the divine promise at Genesis 3:15 concerning the promised “seed,” he likely had given much thought to that promise and believed that blood would have to be shed, someone would have to be ‘bruised in the heel,’ so that mankind might be uplifted again to the state of perfection that Adam and Eve had enjoyed before their rebellion. (Heb 11:4) In the light of this, Abel’s offering of the firstlings of his flock certainly was appropriate and undoubtedly was a factor in God’s expression of approval. To the Giver of life, Abel gave as his gift life, even though it was only from among the flock.—Compare Joh 1:36.

Jesus shows Abel to have been the first martyr and object of religious persecution waged by his intolerant brother Cain. In doing so, Jesus speaks of Abel as living at “the founding of the world.” (Lu 11:48-51) The Greek word for “world” is koʹsmos and in this text refers to the world of mankind. The term “founding” is a rendering of the Greek ka·ta·bo·leʹ and literally means “throwing down [of seed].” (Heb 11:11, Int) By the expression “the founding of the world,” Jesus manifestly referred to the birth of children to Adam and Eve, thereby producing a world of mankind. Paul includes Abel among the “cloud of witnesses” of pre-Christian times.—Heb 11:4; 12:1.

How does the blood of Jesus ‘speak in a better way than that of Abel’?

Because of his faith and divine approval, the record of which continues to bear witness, it could be said that Abel, “although he died, yet speaks.” (Heb 11:4) At Hebrews 12:24 the apostle refers to “Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and the blood of sprinkling, which speaks in a better way than Abel’s blood.” Though shed in martyrdom, Abel’s blood did not ransom or redeem anyone, any more than did the blood of his sacrificed sheep. His blood in effect cried to God for vengeance upon assassin Cain. The blood of Jesus, here presented as validating the new covenant, speaks in a better way than Abel’s in that it calls to God for mercy upon all persons of faith like Abel, and is the means by which their ransoming is possible.

Since Seth was evidently born shortly after Abel’s death and when Adam was 130 years of age, it is possible that Abel may have been as much as 100 years old at the time of his martyrdom.—Ge 4:25; 5:3.

2. [Watercourse]. A town also called Abel-beth-maacah or Abel of Beth-maacah. Elsewhere used as a prefix to the names of various places.—2Sa 20:18; see ABEL-BETH-MAACAH.


3. At 1 Samuel 6:18 the King James Version refers to “the great stone of Abel,” while the marginal reading says, “Or, great Abel, that is, mourning.” However, modern translations generally read here simply “the great stone.” (Compare AT, NC [Spanish], NW, JB, and others.) While the Masoretic Hebrew text uses the word ʼA·velʹ in this verse, the Greek Septuagint and the Aramaic Targums translate it as if it were ʼeʹven, that is, “stone.” This agrees with verse 14 of the same chapter. It could not refer to Abel of Beth-maacah, since the incident recorded at 1 Samuel 6:18 took place near Beth-shemesh in Judah.

Losing more than their religion.

Big Brain Theory: Have Cosmologists Lost Theirs?:


By DENNIS OVERBYE
Published: January 15, 2008

It could be the weirdest and most embarrassing prediction in the history of cosmology, if not science.

If true, it would mean that you yourself reading this article are more likely to be some momentary fluctuation in a field of matter and energy out in space than a person with a real past born through billions of years of evolution in an orderly star-spangled cosmos. Your memories and the world you think you see around you are illusions.

This bizarre picture is the outcome of a recent series of calculations that take some of the bedrock theories and discoveries of modern cosmology to the limit. Nobody in the field believes that this is the way things really work, however. And so in the last couple of years there has been a growing stream of debate and dueling papers, replete with references to such esoteric subjects as reincarnation, multiple universes and even the death of spacetime, as cosmologists try to square the predictions of their cherished theories with their convictions that we and the universe are real. The basic problem is that across the eons of time, the standard theories suggest, the universe can recur over and over again in an endless cycle of big bangs, but it’s hard for nature to make a whole universe. It’s much easier to make fragments of one, like planets, yourself maybe in a spacesuit or even — in the most absurd and troubling example — a naked brain floating in space. Nature tends to do what is easiest, from the standpoint of energy and probability. And so these fragments — in particular the brains — would appear far more frequently than real full-fledged universes, or than us. Or they might be us.

Alan Guth, a cosmologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who agrees this overabundance is absurd, pointed out that some calculations result in an infinite number of free-floating brains for every normal brain, making it “infinitely unlikely for us to be normal brains.” Welcome to what physicists call the Boltzmann brain problem, named after the 19th-century Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann, who suggested the mechanism by which such fluctuations could happen in a gas or in the universe. Cosmologists also refer to them as “freaky observers,” in contrast to regular or “ordered” observers of the cosmos like ourselves. Cosmologists are desperate to eliminate these freaks from their theories, but so far they can’t even agree on how or even on whether they are making any progress.

If you are inclined to skepticism this debate might seem like further evidence that cosmologists, who gave us dark matter, dark energy and speak with apparent aplomb about gazillions of parallel universes, have finally lost their minds. But the cosmologists say the brain problem serves as a valuable reality check as they contemplate the far, far future and zillions of bubble universes popping off from one another in an ever-increasing rush through eternity. What, for example is a “typical” observer in such a setup? If some atoms in another universe stick together briefly to look, talk and think exactly like you, is it really you?

“It is part of a much bigger set of questions about how to think about probabilities in an infinite universe in which everything that can occur, does occur, infinitely many times,” said Leonard Susskind of Stanford, a co-author of a paper in 2002 that helped set off the debate. Or as Andrei Linde, another Stanford theorist given to colorful language, loosely characterized the possibility of a replica of your own brain forming out in space sometime, “How do you compute the probability to be reincarnated to the probability of being born?”

The Boltzmann brain problem arises from a string of logical conclusions that all spring from another deep and old question, namely why time seems to go in only one direction. Why can’t you unscramble an egg? The fundamental laws governing the atoms bouncing off one another in the egg look the same whether time goes forward or backward. In this universe, at least, the future and the past are different and you can’t remember who is going to win the Super Bowl next week.

“When you break an egg and scramble it you are doing cosmology,” said Sean Carroll, a cosmologist at the California Institute of Technology.

Boltzmann ascribed this so-called arrow of time to the tendency of any collection of particles to spread out into the most random and useless configuration, in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics (sometimes paraphrased as “things get worse”), which says that entropy, which is a measure of disorder or wasted energy, can never decrease in a closed system like the universe.

If the universe was running down and entropy was increasing now, that was because the universe must have been highly ordered in the past.


In Boltzmann’s time the universe was presumed to have been around forever, in which case it would long ago have stabilized at a lukewarm temperature and died a “heat death.” It would already have maximum entropy, and so with no way to become more disorderly there would be no arrow of time. No life would be possible but that would be all right because life would be excruciatingly boring. Boltzmann said that entropy was all about odds, however, and if we waited long enough the random bumping of atoms would occasionally produce the cosmic equivalent of an egg unscrambling. A rare fluctuation would decrease the entropy in some place and start the arrow of time pointing and history flowing again. That is not what happened. Astronomers now know the universe has not lasted forever. It was born in the Big Bang, which somehow set the arrow of time, 14 billion years ago. The linchpin of the Big Bang is thought to be an explosive moment known as inflation, during which space became suffused with energy that had an antigravitational effect and ballooned violently outward, ironing the kinks and irregularities out of what is now the observable universe and endowing primordial chaos with order.
Inflation is a veritable cosmological fertility principle. Fluctuations in the field driving inflation also would have seeded the universe with the lumps that eventually grew to be galaxies, stars and people. According to the more extended version, called eternal inflation, an endless array of bubble or “pocket” universes are branching off from one another at a dizzying and exponentially increasing rate. They could have different properties and perhaps even different laws of physics, so the story goes.

Multimedia
 Boltzmann’s Brain
Graphic
Boltzmann’s Brain
A different, but perhaps related, form of antigravity, glibly dubbed dark energy, seems to be running the universe now, and that is the culprit responsible for the Boltzmann brains.

The expansion of the universe seems to be accelerating, making galaxies fly away from one another faster and faster. If the leading dark-energy suspect, a universal repulsion Einstein called the cosmological constant, is true, this runaway process will last forever, and distant galaxies will eventually be moving apart so quickly that they cannot communicate with one another. Being in such a space would be like being surrounded by a black hole.

Rather than simply going to black like “The Sopranos” conclusion, however, the cosmic horizon would glow, emitting a feeble spray of elementary particles and radiation, with a temperature of a fraction of a billionth of a degree, courtesy of quantum uncertainty. That radiation bath will be subject to random fluctuations just like Boltzmann’s eternal universe, however, and every once in a very long, long time, one of those fluctuations would be big enough to recreate the Big Bang. In the fullness of time this process could lead to the endless series of recurring universes. Our present universe could be part of that chain.

In such a recurrent setup, however, Dr. Susskind of Stanford, Lisa Dyson, now of the University of California, Berkeley, and Matthew Kleban, now at New York University, pointed out in 2002 that Boltzmann’s idea might work too well, filling the megaverse with more Boltzmann brains than universes or real people.

In the same way the odds of a real word showing up when you shake a box of Scrabble letters are greater than a whole sentence or paragraph forming, these “regular” universes would be vastly outnumbered by weird ones, including flawed variations on our own all the way down to naked brains, a result foreshadowed by Martin Rees, a cosmologist at the University of Cambridge, in his 1997 book, “Before the Beginning.”

The conclusions of Dr. Dyson and her colleagues were quickly challenged by Andreas Albrecht and Lorenzo Sorbo of the University of California, Davis, who used an alternate approach. They found that the Big Bang was actually more likely than Boltzmann’s brain.

“In the end, inflation saves us from Boltzmann’s brain,” Dr. Albrecht said, while admitting that the calculations were contentious. Indeed, the “invasion of Boltzmann brains,” as Dr. Linde once referred to it, was just beginning.

In an interview Dr. Linde described these brains as a form of reincarnation. Over the course of eternity, he said, anything is possible. After some Big Bang in the far future, he said, “it’s possible that you yourself will re-emerge. Eventually you will appear with your table and your computer.”

But it’s more likely, he went on, that you will be reincarnated as an isolated brain, without the baggage of stars and galaxies. In terms of probability, he said, “It’s cheaper.”

You might wonder what’s wrong with a few brains — or even a preponderance of them — floating around in space. For one thing, as observers these brains would see a freaky chaotic universe, unlike our own, which seems to persist in its promise and disappointment.

Another is that one of the central orthodoxies of cosmology is that humans don’t occupy a special place in the cosmos, that we and our experiences are typical of cosmic beings. If the odds of us being real instead of Boltzmann brains are one in a million, say, waking up every day would be like walking out on the street and finding everyone in the city standing on their heads. You would expect there to be some reason why you were the only one left right side up.Some cosmologists, James Hartle and Mark Srednicki, of the University of California, Santa Barbara, have questioned that assumption. “For example,” Dr. Hartle wrote in an e-mail message, “on Earth humans are not typical animals; insects are far more numerous. No one is surprised by this.”In an e-mail response to Dr. Hartle’s view, Don Page of the University of Alberta, who has been a prominent voice in the Boltzmann debate, argued that what counted cosmologically was not sheer numbers, but consciousness, which we have in abundance over the insects. “I would say that we have no strong evidence against the working hypothesis that we are typical and that our observations are typical,” he explained, “which is very fruitful in science for helping us believe that our observations are not just flukes but do tell us something about the universe.”

Dr. Dyson and her colleagues suggested that the solution to the Boltzmann paradox was in denying the presumption that the universe would accelerate eternally. In other words, they said, that the cosmological constant was perhaps not really constant. If the cosmological constant eventually faded away, the universe would revert to normal expansion and what was left would eventually fade to black. With no more acceleration there would be no horizon with its snap, crackle and pop, and thus no material for fluctuations and Boltzmann brains.

String theory calculations have suggested that dark energy is indeed metastable and will decay, Dr. Susskind pointed out. “The success of ordinary cosmology,” Dr. Susskind said, “speaks against the idea that the universe was created in a random fluctuation.”

But nobody knows whether dark energy — if it dies — will die soon enough to save the universe from a surplus of Boltzmann brains. In 2006, Dr. Page calculated that the dark energy would have to decay in about 20 billion years in order to prevent it from being overrun by Boltzmann brains.

The decay, if and when it comes, would rejigger the laws of physics and so would be fatal and total, spreading at almost the speed of light and destroying all matter without warning. There would be no time for pain, Dr. Page wrote: “And no grieving survivors will be left behind. So in this way it would be the most humanely possible execution.” But the object of his work, he said, was not to predict the end of the universe but to draw attention to the fact that the Boltzmann brain problem remains.

People have their own favorite measures of probability in the multiverse, said Raphael Bousso of the University of California, Berkeley. “So Boltzmann brains are just one example of how measures can predict nonsense; anytime your measure predicts that something we see has extremely small probability, you can throw it out,” he wrote in an e-mail message.

Another contentious issue is whether the cosmologists in their calculations could consider only the observable universe, which is all we can ever see or be influenced by, or whether they should take into account the vast and ever-growing assemblage of other bubbles forever out of our view predicted by eternal inflation. In the latter case, as Alex Vilenkin of Tufts University pointed out, “The numbers of regular and freak observers are both infinite.” Which kind predominate depends on how you do the counting, he said..

In eternal inflation, the number of new bubbles being hatched at any given moment is always growing, Dr. Linde said, explaining one such counting scheme he likes. So the evolution of people in new bubbles far outstrips the creation of Boltzmann brains in old ones. The main way life emerges, he said, is not by reincarnation but by the creation of new parts of the universe. “So maybe we don’t need to care too much” about the Boltzmann brains,” he said.

“If you are reincarnated, why do you care about where you are reincarnated?” he asked. “It sounds crazy because here we are touching issues we are not supposed to be touching in ordinary science. Can we be reincarnated?”

“People are not prepared for this discussion,” Dr. Linde said.

The Mech and Tech of the designer II

Brian Douglas Commits Berra’s Blunder
November 17, 2015 Posted by Barry Arrington under Intelligent Design

UDEditors:  “Berra’s Blunder”is a well known and documented error that Darwinist can’t seem to stop themselves from making.  See our glossary for a definition.  In the thread to a previous post Brian Douglas gave us an example of such a blunder and Eric Anderson provided a corrective.  All that follows (except, obviously, the text provided by Brian) is Eric’s:

brian douglas @36:

Joe/Jack/virgil/Frankie/whoever, evolution just proposes the mechanism, not a step by step account of how it occurred. Much in the same way that I can propose the mechanisms involved in the production of a car without knowing the step by step process that is actually used.

You are partially right, so let me see if we can bridge the gap.

You are absolutely correct that you can propose general mechanisms involved in car production without knowing every detail of the process. And, you can know with reasonable certainty that a car (or similar object) was designed, without knowing the precise manufacturing process involved. We do this all the time.

After all, there are many ways an intelligent designer can build a functional machine. And while we can perhaps catch some glimpses of the process by reverse engineering a machine, we cannot necessarily tell with complete certainty the entire process used to bring the machine about.

The reason for this is intimately related to and is precisely because an intelligent designer has the ability to choose between contingent possibilities. Thus, an intelligent designer can choose not only what to build, but can also, within fairly broad parameters, choose when and how to build it. Indeed, there is an entire section of patent law devoted to the improvement of methods and processes, and companies collectively spend billions on efforts to improve manufacturing processes. From solely examining a machine we may not know whether it was created through process A, or B or C.

And this is precisely because it is a designed machine produced by an agent that has the ability to chooseamong several contingent possible modes of construction.

Let’s now contrast this with the mechanistic approach. The blind forces of chemistry and physics have no ability to choose between different manufacturing processes. They have no ability to decide when or how they operate. They will blindly follow whatever interactions come their way and will (either inevitably or at least stochastically) produce whatever those laws dictate.

We know that a designed system can come about through various means, depending on the decision of the designer. In contrast, it makes no sense to say that a purely mechanistic process — one that blindly follows the deterministic and stochastic processes of chemistry and physics — it makes no sense to say we know a mechanistic process brought a machine about, but that we don’t know what the process was.

In the mechanistic context — in sharp contrast to the designed context — the mechanistic process is the issue at hand, it is where the rubber must meet the road. And the absence of a well-understood materialistic process for producing the machine, means that we don’t have a materialistic explanation.

Thus, you have made a category mistake with your example.

Your example of not being able to provide a complete description of the process for manufacture of a car is a good example, but you have it exactly backwards. Your example holds, for a designed system, not for a naturally-occurring one. If you want to provide a mechanistic example, you would essentially be saying that “undesigned machine X came about through a purely material process, but I don’t know what that process is.” Such an approach is nonsense. Thus, you are left to steal examples from the other side of the aisle — designed systems where we know the process can be contingent.

If we are going to claim a mechanistic process, then we at least need to have enough of a detailed understanding of the process to see if such a mechanistic process actually has any chance of producing the machine in the real world. A mechanistic theory is only as good as the mechanism proposed.Otherwise, we are just making up stories.

Thus, regarding the origin of life, we cannot say life came about through purely mechanistic processes, but that we don’t know what those processes are. If materialists are being minimally intellectually honest, the most they can say is that they don’t know whether life could arise through purely natural processes. And if they want to be truly intellectually honest, they will need to admit to and grapple with the many problems of naturalistic abiogenesis, just some of which I listed in the OP. And they would also acknowledge that, in sharp contrast to purely material processes, intelligent beings are known to have the capacity to create, and are regularly observed creating, complex functional machines in three-dimensional space.

Knocking itself out?

Unspeciation?

Single jaw find shows three “species” to be one
November 19, 2015 Posted by News under Intelligent Design, speciation

As noted earlier, the concept of “species” or “speciation,” as noted in Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, the most influential academic book ever written, is a mess.

Of course no one admits that. And no one needs to be a scientist to see it either.

Here, for example, from ScienceDaily:

The discovery of a tiny, 170-million-year-old fossil on the Isle of Skye, off the north-west coast of the UK, has led researchers to conclude that three previously recognized species are in fact just one.

Differences in tooth shape that had been thought to distinguish three different species were in fact all present in the single lower jaw found on the Isle of Skye. ‘In effect, we’ve “undiscovered” two species,’ explains Dr Close. ‘The new find shows that we should be cautious about naming new types of animals on the basis of individual teeth.’ In a paper published in Palaeontology, the team identifies their find as Palaeoxonodon ooliticus — the name given to the first of the three species to be described back in the late 1970s.

Too bad for anyone who suspected the evidence for separate classification was flimsy to begin with, but was forced to keep quiet for decades.

Also note:

‘Towards the front, three sharp cusps allow the animal to slice up the food, while at the back a flatter, grinding surface crushes it,’ explains Dr Close. ‘It’s an evolutionary innovation that allowed much more versatile ways of feeding to evolve, and it may well have contributed to the long-term success of this group of mammals.’ More.

So do we know that:

– there were no “much more versatile ways of feeding” before?

– similar life forms that did not have this dentition died out, whereas this one survived?

– that few or no similar life forms survived without this dentition?

Maybe we do know all that. But no one bothers to explain because Darwin wuz right, no matter what the fact base, so we drag his sacred name and beliefs into it as is expected.

It wouldn’t be a bit surprising if we don’t know all that, and/or if subsequent research casts doubt. Few would draw attention to the fact. So things go on. And speciation is whatever classifiers say it is. Or isn’t.

This is happening all the time. It’s brought down major Darwin shrines, like Darwin’s finches (hybridization). I remember when Peter Grant was predicting a new “species” every 200 years.

Yet no re-evaluation is attempted because, when a mess becomes catastrophic, none can be dared.

Note: I remember the sneery explanation offered me a decade and a half ago by a Christian apologist for Darwin (a “theistic naturalist,” as Phil Johnson put it). that, ahem, ahem, some classifiers are “lumpers” and some are “splitters,” s, heh, heh,o whatever the rest of you are told, just shut up and believe (and holler louder fer Jesus and Darwin).

Sorry, Bible Study, but that train doesn’t stop here any more. You people are entitled to whatever cockup of a system you please; you are not morally entitled to call it “science” just because it reeks of Darwin—and expect support, funding, and indoctrination from those who know better.

Here’s the abstract:


The Middle Jurassic was a key interval of mammalian evolutionary history that witnessed the diversification of the therian stem group. Great Britain has yielded a significant record of mammalian fossils from this interval, represented by numerous isolated jaws and teeth from the Bathonian of Oxfordshire and the Isle of Skye. This record captures a key period in early cladotherian evolution, with amphitheriids, peramurans and ‘stem zatherians’ displaying intermediate talonid morphologies that document the evolutionary assembly of tribosphenic molars. We present a mandible with near-complete dentition from the late Bathonian (c. 167.4–166.5 Ma) Kilmaluag Formation, near Elgol, Skye, representing the amphitheriid Palaeoxonodon ooliticus, previously known only from isolated teeth. The specimen sheds new light on the taxonomic diversity of British Middle Jurassic stem therians, as the morphological variation within the preserved tooth row encompasses that previously ascribed to three distinct species within two genera: Palaeoxonodon ooliticus, P. freemani and Kennetheridium leesi. Thus, both P. freemani and K. leesi are subjective junior synonyms of P. ooliticus. The dental formula of P. ooliticus (i4:c1:p5:m5) is intermediate between the primitively larger postcanine count (p5:m6–7) of Amphitherium and the reduced number in peramurans and tribosphenidans (p5:m3). Phylogenetic analyses of P. ooliticus generally confirm a close affinity with Amphitherium, but highlight the lack of strong empirical support for hypothesized patterns of divergences among early cladotherians. (paywall) – Roger A. Close, Brian M. Davis, Stig Walsh, Andrzej S. Wolniewicz, Matt Friedman, Roger B. J. Benson. A lower jaw ofPalaeoxonodonfrom the Middle Jurassic of the Isle of Skye, Scotland, sheds new light on the diversity of British stem therians. Palaeontology, 2015; DOI: 10.1111/pala.12218

Ecclesiastes 3-7NASB

3)1There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven—
      2A time to give birth and a time to die;
            A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted.

      3A time to kill and a time to heal;
            A time to tear down and a time to build up.

      4A time to weep and a time to laugh;
            A time to mourn and a time to dance.

      5A time to throw stones and a time to gather stones;
            A time to embrace and a time to shun embracing.

      6A time to search and a time to give up as lost;
            A time to keep and a time to throw away.

      7A time to tear apart and a time to sew together;
            A time to be silent and a time to speak.

      8A time to love and a time to hate;
            A time for war and a time for peace.

      9What profit is there to the worker from that in which he toils? 10I have seen the task which God has given the sons of men with which to occupy themselves.
God Set Eternity in the Heart of Man

      11He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end.

      12I know that there is nothing better for them than to rejoice and to do good in one’s lifetime; 13moreover, that every man who eats and drinks sees good in all his labor—it is the gift of God. 14I know that everything God does will remain forever; there is nothing to add to it and there is nothing to take from it, for God has so worked that men should fear Him. 15That which is has been already and that which will be has already been, for God seeks what has passed by.

      16Furthermore, I have seen under the sun that in the place of justice there is wickedness and in the place of righteousness there is wickedness. 17I said to myself, “God will judge both the righteous man and the wicked man,” for a time for every matter and for every deed is there. 18I said to myself concerning the sons of men, “God has surely tested them in order for them to see that they are but beasts.” 19For the fate of the sons of men and the fate of beasts is the same. As one dies so dies the other; indeed, they all have the same breath and there is no advantage for man over beast, for all is vanity. 20All go to the same place. All came from the dust and all return to the dust. 21Who knows that the breath of man ascends upward and the breath of the beast descends downward to the earth? 22I have seen that nothing is better than that man should be happy in his activities, for that is his lot. For who will bring him to see what will occur after him?
4)The Evils of Oppression

      1Then I looked again at all the acts of oppression which were being done under the sun. And behold I saw the tears of the oppressed and that they had no one to comfort them; and on the side of their oppressors was power, but they had no one to comfort them. 2So I congratulated the dead who are already dead more than the living who are still living. 3But better off than both of them is the one who has never existed, who has never seen the evil activity that is done under the sun.
      4I have seen that every labor and every skill which is done is the result of rivalry between a man and his neighbor. This too is vanity and striving after wind. 5The fool folds his hands and consumes his own flesh. 6One hand full of rest is better than two fists full of labor and striving after wind.

      7Then I looked again at vanity under the sun. 8There was a certain man without a dependent, having neither a son nor a brother, yet there was no end to all his labor. Indeed, his eyes were not satisfied with riches and he never asked, “And for whom am I laboring and depriving myself of pleasure?” This too is vanity and it is a grievous task.

      9Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. 10For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up. 11Furthermore, if two lie down together they keep warm, but how can one be warm alone? 12And if one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist him. A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart.

      13A poor yet wise lad is better than an old and foolish king who no longer knows how to receive instruction. 14For he has come out of prison to become king, even though he was born poor in his kingdom. 15I have seen all the living under the sun throng to the side of the second lad who replaces him. 16There is no end to all the people, to all who were before them, and even the ones who will come later will not be happy with him, for this too is vanity and striving after wind.
5)Your Attitude Toward God

      1Guard your steps as you go to the house of God and draw near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools; for they do not know they are doing evil. 2Do not be hasty in word or impulsive in thought to bring up a matter in the presence of God. For God is in heaven and you are on the earth; therefore let your words be few. 3For the dream comes through much effort and the voice of a fool through many words.
      4When you make a vow to God, do not be late in paying it; for He takes no delight in fools. Pay what you vow! 5It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. 6Do not let your speech cause you to sin and do not say in the presence of the messenger of God that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry on account of your voice and destroy the work of your hands? 7For in many dreams and in many words there is emptiness. Rather, fear God.

      8If you see oppression of the poor and denial of justice and righteousness in the province, do not be shocked at the sight; for one official watches over another official, and there are higher officials over them. 9After all, a king who cultivates the field is an advantage to the land.



The Folly of Riches

      10He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves abundance with its income. This too is vanity. 11When good things increase, those who consume them increase. So what is the advantage to their owners except to look on? 12The sleep of the working man is pleasant, whether he eats little or much; but the full stomach of the rich man does not allow him to sleep.

      13There is a grievous evil which I have seen under the sun: riches being hoarded by their owner to his hurt. 14When those riches were lost through a bad investment and he had fathered a son, then there was nothing to support him. 15As he had come naked from his mother’s womb, so will he return as he came. He will take nothing from the fruit of his labor that he can carry in his hand. 16This also is a grievous evil—exactly as a man is born, thus will he die. So what is the advantage to him who toils for the wind? 17Throughout his life he also eats in darkness with great vexation, sickness and anger.

      18Here is what I have seen to be good and fitting: to eat, to drink and enjoy oneself in all one’s labor in which he toils under the sun during the few years of his life which God has given him; for this is his reward. 19Furthermore, as for every man to whom God has given riches and wealth, He has also empowered him to eat from them and to receive his reward and rejoice in his labor; this is the gift of God. 20For he will not often consider the years of his life, because God keeps him occupied with the gladness of his heart.
6)The Futility of Life

      1There is an evil which I have seen under the sun and it is prevalent among men— 2a man to whom God has given riches and wealth and honor so that his soul lacks nothing of all that he desires; yet God has not empowered him to eat from them, for a foreigner enjoys them. This is vanity and a severe affliction. 3If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years, however many they be, but his soul is not satisfied with good things and he does not even have a proper burial, then I say, “Better the miscarriage than he, 4for it comes in futility and goes into obscurity; and its name is covered in obscurity. 5“It never sees the sun and it never knows anything; it is better off than he. 6“Even if the other man lives a thousand years twice and does not enjoy good things—do not all go to one place?”
      7All a man’s labor is for his mouth and yet the appetite is not satisfied. 8For what advantage does the wise man have over the fool? What advantage does the poor man have, knowing how to walk before the living? 9What the eyes see is better than what the soul desires. This too is futility and a striving after wind.

      10Whatever exists has already been named, and it is known what man is; for he cannot dispute with him who is stronger than he is. 11For there are many words which increase futility. What then is the advantage to a man? 12For who knows what is good for a man during his lifetime, during the few years of his futile life? He will spend them like a shadow. For who can tell a man what will be after him under the sun?
7)Wisdom and Folly Contrasted

1A good name is better than a good ointment,
            And the day of one’s death is better than the day of one’s birth.
      2It is better to go to a house of mourning
            Than to go to a house of feasting,
            Because that is the end of every man,
            And the living takes it to heart.

      3Sorrow is better than laughter,
            For when a face is sad a heart may be happy.

      4The mind of the wise is in the house of mourning,
            While the mind of fools is in the house of pleasure.

      5It is better to listen to the rebuke of a wise man
            Than for one to listen to the song of fools.

      6For as the crackling of thorn bushes under a pot,
            So is the laughter of the fool;
            And this too is futility.

      7For oppression makes a wise man mad,
            And a bribe corrupts the heart.

      8The end of a matter is better than its beginning;
            Patience of spirit is better than haughtiness of spirit.

      9Do not be eager in your heart to be angry,
            For anger resides in the bosom of fools.

      10Do not say, “Why is it that the former days were better than these?”
            For it is not from wisdom that you ask about this.

      11Wisdom along with an inheritance is good
            And an advantage to those who see the sun.

      12For wisdom is protection just as money is protection,
            But the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the lives of its possessors.

      13Consider the work of God,
            For who is able to straighten what He has bent?

      14In the day of prosperity be happy,
            But in the day of adversity consider—
            God has made the one as well as the other
            So that man will not discover anything that will be after him.

      15I have seen everything during my lifetime of futility; there is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his wickedness. 16Do not be excessively righteous and do not be overly wise. Why should you ruin yourself? 17Do not be excessively wicked and do not be a fool. Why should you die before your time? 18It is good that you grasp one thing and also not let go of the other; for the one who fears God comes forth with both of them.

      19Wisdom strengthens a wise man more than ten rulers who are in a city. 20Indeed, there is not a righteous man on earth who continually does good and who never sins. 21Also, do not take seriously all words which are spoken, so that you will not hear your servant cursing you. 22For you also have realized that you likewise have many times cursed others.

      23I tested all this with wisdom, and I said, “I will be wise,” but it was far from me. 24What has been is remote and exceedingly mysterious. Who can discover it? 25I directed my mind to know, to investigate and to seek wisdom and an explanation, and to know the evil of folly and the foolishness of madness. 26And I discovered more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets, whose hands are chains. One who is pleasing to God will escape from her, but the sinner will be captured by her.

      27“Behold, I have discovered this,” says the Preacher, “adding one thing to another to find an explanation, 28which I am still seeking but have not found. I have found one man among a thousand, but I have not found a woman among all these. 29“Behold, I have found only this, that God made men upright, but they have sought out many devices.”

A line in the sand XXIV

Donald Trump: 'Strongly consider' shutting mosques

By Gregory Krieg, CNN

(CNN)Donald Trump on Monday suggested he would "strongly consider" shutting down mosques in the U.S. as part of the response to the terror attacks in Paris.

"Well, I would hate to do it but it's something you're going to have to strongly consider," Trump said during an interview on MSNBC. "Some of the absolute hatred is coming from these areas...The hatred is incredible. It's embedded. The hatred is beyond belief. The hatred is greater than anybody understands."

RELATED: Trump warns that Syrian refugees could be a 'Trojan horse'

Trump's comments come a day after France's interior minister said he would pursue the "dissolution of mosques where hate is preached."

On Monday, Trump also took a shot at New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio for his decision last year to halt a covert NYPD program used for surveillance on Muslim communities.


"You're going to have to watch and study the mosques," Trump said, "because a lot of talk is going on at the mosques...Under the old regime we had tremendous surveillance going around and in the mosques in New York City."

After this you'll never feel alone again.

An unmistakable signature.

Denying the Signature: A Response to Bishop and O'Connor
Stephen C. Meyer November 17, 2015 3:40 PM

Editor's note: Most readers of Evolution News likely know the central thesis of Stephen Meyer's bestseller, Darwin's Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design. Meyer argues that the functional biological information necessary to build the Cambrian animals is best explained by the activity of a designing intelligence, rather than an undirected, materialistic evolutionary process. Most reviews of Darwin's Doubt curiously omitted to address or even to accurately report this central claim. However, a review by philosophers Robert Bishop and Robert O'Connor in Books & Culture was a welcome exception. In this series, adapted from Debating Darwin's Doubt, edited by ENV's David Klinghoffer, Dr. Meyer responds to their critiques. This is Part 1 of the series.

Writing in Books & Culture, a supplement published by Christianity Today, philosophers Robert Bishop and Robert O'Connor offer a cleverly titled joint review of Darwin's Doubt and Signature in the Cell ("Doubting the Signature"). They seek to refute the central information-based argument for intelligent design of my books. Nevertheless, they do not provide a scientific refutation to the main thesis of either book. In particular, they do not offer a better (or even an alternative) causal explanation for the vast amounts of novel genetic (and epigenetic) information that arises in the Cambrian period -- i.e., the subject of Darwin's Doubt. Nor do they provide an alternative explanation for the origin of the information necessary to produce the first living cell -- the subject of Signature in the Cell. Instead, they lodge various philosophical objections to my argument for design. They either dispute (a) the validity of the argument for intelligent design as an explanation for the origin of biological information, or they dispute (b) my characterization of what needs to be explained.

Disputing the Validity of the Argument for Design

Bishop and O'Connor acknowledge that Darwin's Doubt and Signature in the Cell "deftly dispatch" the "misconception that [ID] engages in crude god-of-the-gaps reasoning" -- a misconception that scholars associated with the BioLogos Foundationsuch as Bishop and Alistair McGrath have frequently promulgated.

Oddly, though Bishop and O'Connor concede that Darwin's Doubt and Signature in the Cell do not make arguments from ignorance (or commit the "god-of-the-gaps" fallacy), they critique the books as if they did! True, they use slightly different terminology in developing their objection. Instead of saying my case for intelligent design is based on ignorance or gaps in knowledge, they claim the books are guilty of "begging the question" about what we may learn in the future. But the substance of the objection is the same. I argue that intelligent design provides the best explanation for the origin of the biological information necessary to produce the anatomical novelty and complexity that arises in the history of life. They respond that my argument begs the question, because some as-yet-unknown cause -- one of which we are presently ignorant -- may eventually be discovered that will explain the origin of biological information.

Of course, in the books I readily concede this as a possibility. Clearly, we do not know anything about causes that we have yet to discover or observe. Nevertheless, Bishop and O'Connor claim that Darwin's Doubt and Signature in the Cell argue that "we have positive knowledge that no other causes" (emphasis mine) could in principle explain the origin of life's information-rich systems. Yet neither of my books anywhere claims exhaustive knowledge of the causal powers of all possible material processes, including unknown or not-as-yet-postulated causes. The books only claim to demonstrate the inadequacy of known (or postulated) materialistic processes and the adequacy of intelligent agency based upon uniform and repeated human experience to this point. That is why I repeatedly insert the word "known" before "cause" in my arguments. I also claim to infer intelligent design as the best explanation based upon our present knowledge, rather than trying to prove the theory of intelligent design with apodictic certainty.

As I note in the books, critics if they like may choose to characterize this as an argument from ignorance (or "begging the question" about what we may discover in the future, as Bishop and O'Connor do), but all scientific arguments, especially competing evolutionary arguments about the causes of past events in the history of life, have a similar logical structure and are subject to similar limitations. Indeed, it is an unavoidable aspect of the human condition that we can make no claims about the adequacy of causal processes that we have neither observed nor imagined. Scientists can only make inferences based upon our past and current knowledge of the causal powers of various entities and processes. Alas, we have no other kind of scientific knowledge.

Moreover, my arguments do not have the logical structure of a fallacious argument from ignorance. Arguments from ignorance have the form:

Premise One:Cause X cannot produce or explain evidence E.

Conclusion:Therefore, cause Y produced or explains E.

Critics of intelligent design commonly claim that the argument for intelligent design takes this form as well. Michael Shermer, for example, insists that "intelligent design... argues that life is too specifically complex... to have evolved by natural forces. Therefore, life must have been created by... an intelligent designer." In short, critics claim that ID proponents argue as follows:

Premise One:Material causes cannot produce or explain functional (or specified) information.

Conclusion:Therefore, an intelligent cause produced functional (or specified) biological information.

If proponents of intelligent design were arguing in the preceding manner, we would be guilty of arguing from ignorance. But the arguments for intelligent design in Signature in the Cell and Darwin's Doubt do not have this form. Instead, they assume the following form:

Premise One:Despite a thorough search, no material causes have been discovered with the demonstrated capacity to produce the functional (or specified) information present in living systems.

Premise Two:Intelligent causes have demonstrated the power to produce large amounts of functional (or specified) information.

Conclusion:Intelligent design constitutes the best, most causally adequate, explanation for the functional (or specified) information in the cell.

As one can see, in addition to a premise about how material causes lack demonstrated causal adequacy, my arguments for intelligent design as a best explanation also affirm (and demonstrate) the causal adequacy of an alternative cause, namely, intelligent agency. As I explained in Signature in the Cell:

We also know from broad and repeated experience that intelligent agents can and do produce information-rich systems: we have positive experience-based knowledge of a cause that is sufficient to generate new specified information, namely, intelligence. We are not ignorant of how information arises. We know from experience that conscious intelligent agents can create informational sequences and systems. To quote [Henry] Quastler again, "The creation of new information is habitually associated with conscious activity." Experience teaches that whenever large amounts of specified complexity or [functional] information are present in an artifact or entity whose causal story is known, invariably creative intelligence -- intelligent design -- played a role in the origin of that entity. Thus, when we encounter such information in the large biological molecules needed for life, we may infer -- based on our knowledge of established cause-and-effect relationships -- that an intelligent cause operated in the past to produce the specified information necessary to the origin of life.1

Thus, my argument does not just demonstrate the inability of one type of cause to produce biological information and then fallaciously infer, on that basis alone, that another cause did so. In other words, my arguments do not fail to provide a premise offering positive evidence or reasons for preferring an alternative cause or proposition as critics say. Instead, my arguments specifically include and justify such a premise.

Bishop and O'Connor claim otherwise, stating that "Meyer offers very little substantive support for mind having unique causal properties." In fact, both of my books cite numerous examples from (a) ordinary experience, (b) computer "simulations" of evolutionary processes, and (c) origin-of-life simulation experiments showing that conscious and rational agents have the causal power to generate functional or specified information.

My argument for intelligent design not only includes a premise affirming the positive causal powers of an alternative cause (i.e., intelligent agency); it also justifies that premise with multiple examples of those causal powers at work. Therefore, it does not commit the informal logical fallacy of arguing from ignorance. Neither does it beg the question about what we may discover about causal processes in the future; instead, it makes no claims about such as yet unknown processes. It claims only that intelligent design provides the best explanation based upon what we know now.

It's worth noting that none of the reviews of Darwin's Doubt or Signature in the Cell have refuted (and few have even challenged) either of the two key empirical premises in my arguments for intelligent design as a best explanation -- as, indeed, Bishop and O'Connor themselves have not done. For obvious reasons, critics have not disputed my claim that intelligent agents have demonstrated the power to produce functional information and information-rich processing systems. (Bishop and O'Connor merely claim -- mistakenly -- that I did not justify that assertion.) Nor, perhaps surprisingly, have critics attempted to demonstrate that standard evolutionary mechanisms can account for the origin of biological information and information processing systems. Indeed, biologist Darrel Falk, one of O'Connor and Bishop's fellow theistic evolutionists (and with Bishop a BioLogos website contributor) has graciously conceded that Darwin's Doubt correctly claims that the neo-Darwinian mutation/selection mechanism has failed to account for the origin of major macro-evolutionary events such as the Cambrian explosion of animal life. Falk further concedes that none of the other more recently proposed models of evolutionary theory has yet succeeded in this endeavor.

Secular scientific critics of the argument in my book, for their part, have typically either (a) begged the question about the origin of genetic information by assuming the existence of other unexplained sources of information in order to account for specific informational increases in the history of life;2 or (b) simply ignored the central question posed by the books and quibbled about secondary scientific issues or philosophical matters.3

Though they do attempt a philosophical refutation of the main information-based argument of the books (as we have seen), Bishop and O'Connor conspicuously avoid offering, or even citing, an alternative scientific explanation for the origin of biological information during the history of life. Instead, in addition to their philosophical critique, they mainly attempt to deny my characterization of what needs to be explained. I will turn to this latter line of attack in the next installment.

References:

(1) Stephen C. Meyer, Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design (New York: HarperOne, 2009), 376-377.

(2) See Charles Marshall, "When Prior Belief Trumps Scholarship," Science 341, no. 6152 (September 20, 2013):1344.


(3) For example see Nick Matzke, "Meyer's Hopeless Monster Part II," Panda's Thumb, June 19, 2013; John Farrell, "How Nature Works," National Review, September 2, 2013.

The Design inference under the microscope.

In a Grain of Sand, a World of Design
Evolution News & Views November 18, 2015 3:26 AM

These familiar words by William Blake aptly conclude a TED talk by microscopist Gary Greenberg:

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower 
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour...


Greenberg photographs "the beautiful nano details of our world," particularly sand grains. Using innovative 3D techniques, he turns ordinary sand into artwoIn his talk, after showing and explaining some of the exquisite details of sand grains from different parts of the world, and demonstrating how each grain reveals something of its history, Greenberg sums up: "Things as ordinary as a grain of sand can be truly extraordinary if you look closely and if you look from a different and a new point of view."

What we're after here, however, is something more than aesthetics. Is there a way to distinguish grains by their information content? Can we infer design for some grains, as opposed to chance and natural law for others?

A summary of Greenberg's book The Secrets of Sand explains the significance of a sand grain's history:

Every grain of sand is a snapshot in time: Each grain originated somewhere and is headed somewhere else. [Emphasis added.]

In an article at Live Science, he describes the histories of some grains of sand:

Mineral sands originate from the erosion of rock into tiny grains. When granite rock erodes by the forces of wind, rain, ice and multiple freeze-thaw cycles, the angular grains of feldspar, quartz, mica and other minerals are liberated. They are transported to lakes via streams, rivers and glaciers, and on their journey, their original crystal shapes begin become more rounded by the forces of erosion. Many continental beaches have a high percentage of quartz sand grains because quartz survives the forces of erosion longer than other minerals. The pounding surf is responsible for rounding and polishing the rugged quartz grains.

These grains, as colorful and beautiful as they may be, are easily explained by natural laws acting on crystals in a random maner. But if you look closely at beach sand, you may find some grains that stand out. They are shaped like spirals, stars, or striated cones. These grains have a different history:

Biogenic sands often contain fragments of the hard tissues from marine organisms such as shells, corals, sponges, sea urchins, forams, and bryozoans. When these organisms die, the hard tissues that are left behind erode into some of the most spectacular grains of sand imaginable.

Greenberg adds:

Biological sands tell the story of the plants and animals that live along the shorelines. Fragments of coral, tube worms, barnacles and sea urchin spines get washed up onto the beach, along with the amazing, shell-like, minuscule bodies of foraminifera, tiny amoeboid protists.

He contrasts these sands with those found on the moon. The grains are made of the same minerals as on Earth, but you will not find the intricate geometric shapes there.

As human observers, we are already familiar with the reason for the two classes of sand grains, the biogenic ones and the mineral ones. Examining Greenberg's photos, we readily detect the ones that came from living organisms. But could we explain intelligent design to an intelligent alien unfamiliar with Earth life?

A robust design inference requires more than complexity. Sand grains from the moon look very complicated. A design inference also requires more than simple geometry. Some crystal grains retain their mineral packing structures in the shapes of rhomboids, spheres, and cubes. Finally, a design inference must go beyond chance. One grain in the photos looks like a crystal heart fit for a necklace, but that's coincidence. Each of these examples can easily be explained by unguided natural law.

The grains that pass the Design Filter are those that required coded instructions to make. The biogenic grains came from complex specified information encoded in DNA. That information, under the control of molecular machines, directed the manufacture of specified shapes that would never have been produced by unguided natural law. Coded instructions imply purpose -- something that has its origin in mental activity, even if the code operates in a programmatic way. This difference would allow even a child to separate the designed grains from the non-designed grains.

To be sure, there's a fuzzy line between the categories. Biogenic sand grains no longer contain any of the DNA that produced them. A broken spicule from a sponge might not be distinguishable from a rod-shaped mineral grain. Our alien interlocutor, though, upon learning what natural processes (like erosion and wind) are capable of achieving, could look upon diatoms or forams and know something is special about them. Being sentient itself, the alien would appreciate the special capabilities of purposeful intelligent activity. Alongside the child, therefore, the alien could sort its pile into designed grains and non-designed grains.

Brains are material, but minds transcend brains. Since minds are not made of particles acting under unguided natural law, they could be considered transcendent of nature; we might say "super"-natural. Blake was right; when you look closely, you can find a world in a grain of sand, eternity in an hour.rks of color, light, and shape (see examples on his Sand Grains website).