Wow, this is pretty! (H/T Uncommon Descent via ECM)
If you need to understand how to explain this video in the context of intelligent design, see my previous posts on the building blocks of life and the origin of biological information. I find it useful to draw up the probability calculations for your friends. It’s all explained in the latter article. Fun!
THIS IS A MUST-SEE VIDEO!!!
The Heritage Foundation is by far my favorite think tank. If any of my readers have a blog, and you would like to get into policy a little bit, I highly recommend them. My Christian readers may be worried that think tanks are too focussed on fiscal conservatism and that they neglect foreign policy and social conservatism, including faith issues. You will not have that problem with the Heritage Foundation.
This time, they hosted one of my top 5 Christian scholars, Dr. Stephen C. Meyer, so that he could give a lecture to the public about the evidence for an intelligent designer of DNA.
The video and audio of the lecture is posted here, at The Foundry. (H/T The Discovery Institute)
I have seen Meyer give this lecture live. He steals his children’s toys to explain DNA to people! I am begging you: do not be afraid of learning about scientific evidence. Watch the lecture!!! And then watch it again!!!
Information about Dr. Meyer from that page:
Stephen C. Meyer is Director and Senior Fellow of the Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute in Seattle. Dr. Meyer earned his Ph.D. in the History and Philosophy of Science from Cambridge University for a dissertation on the history of origin of life biology and the methodology of the historical sciences.
And you can listen to a wonderful podcast with Stephen Meyer, too!
This episode of ID the Future tells the story of how philosopher of science Stephen C. Meyer first began his quest for the origin of life. How did one of the architects of the intelligent design movement move from the oilfields of Texas to the study halls of Cambridge to pursue the mystery of where biological information originated? Listen in and find out. The new book, Signature in the Cell, tells the rest of the story, the culmination of over 20 years of study and research on the origins of life.
I wrote about the evidence for intelligent design in the cell here, using a paper published by Stephen Meyer. Watch the lecture, and read the paper.
Don’t forget to bookmark the Heritage Foundation’s blog!
Further study
One of my favorite resources on the origin of life is this interview from the University of California with former atheist and origin of life researcher Dean Kenyon. Kenyon, a professor of Biology at San Francisco State University, wrote the textbook on “chemical evolution”, which is the view that chemicals can arrange themselves in order to create the first living cell, without intervention.
This interview from the University of California with another origin of life researcher, Charles Thaxton, is also one of my favorites.
You’ll need Quicktime to see the videos, or buy the videos from ARN. (Kenyon, Thaxton) I have both of them – they rock!
I made you all suffer this week by reading two long posts on the origin of life:
So now I’m going to be nice and let you learn about the Cambrian explosion through videos! Yeah! Because it’s Friday.
What is the Cambrian explosion?
Same story as always. Primitive tribes of atheists living during pre-scientific times naively attributed the diversity of life to the Flying Spaghetti Monster’s noodly appendage, working over billions of years. But then science progressed, discoveries were made, and all rational people accepted that virtually all the basic body plans emerged, fully-formed, in a 3-5 million year period, about 540 million years ago. And no new body plans have emerged since.
The best explanation of the sudden origin of nearly all animal body plans in the blink of an eye is that an intelligent designer provided the required software code for all of these brand new body plans. New instructions, like new Java code or new English sentences, require an intelligent cause. Period.
Part 1: (7:50)
Part 2: (3:25)
Yes, the people in the videos have Ph.Ds from Cambridge, Yale, Berkeley, etc. They are much smarter than any atheists, and they win any debates with atheists that dare to debate them. (Which is why atheists prefer censorship instead of debate, and blind faith instead of evidence)
Don’t worry, if you are an atheist, I’m sure that the noodly appendage of the hopeful Flying Spaghetti Monster will eventually overturn decades of scientific progress very soon, and then you can be comfortable avoiding moral obligations, being self-centered, thinking you are better than other people, and pursuing happy feelings at the expense of the liberties and rights of other people.
Further study
Advanced students can read more about the Cambrian explosion a published peer-reviewed book chapter (Michigan State University Press, 2003) or in a peer-reviewed research paper (Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, 2007).
If you are totally lost on the question of origins, you can watch two DVDs that are now online at Youtube. Both videos are by Illustra Media. This is the place for complete beginners to get started.
Here are the 2 playlists:
WINTERY KNIGHT 