The host is astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson who believes “God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance.” Executive producers include comedian Seth MacFarlane, who expresses his desire to be “vocal about the advancement of knowledge over faith,” and Star Trek writer Brannon Braga, who says “religion sucks” and admits he “longs for” the day when “religion is vanquished.”
With Tyson himself admitting we must view “‘Cosmos’ not as a documentary about science,” the series barely hides its ambitions to bring Sagan’s materialistic views to a new generation.
[…]But have its creators pushed the agenda too far? “Cosmos” faced sharp criticism—from leading evolutionists—for inventing stories about religious persecution of scientists while whitewashing religion’s positive historical influence on science.
The first episode portrayed the 16th century scientist Giordano Bruno being burned at the stake by Catholic priests for teaching that the Earth orbits the Sun. The problem? Bruno wasn’t a scientist and he wasn’t persecuted for his heliocentric views. Of course Bruno’s persecution was tragic, but the church killed him for promoting the occult worship of Egyptian deities and other quirky theological beliefs.
Throughout the series, Tyson repeats this theme that religion opposes scientific advancement, whitewashing the chorus of historians who believe that religion had a positive influence on science.
As prominent historian Ronald Numbers argues, “[t]he greatest myth in the history of science and religion holds that they have been in a state of constant conflict.” One scholar at the staunchly pro-evolution National Center for Science Education even blasted “Cosmos” for its “slipshod history of science” and “antireligious bias.”
Numbers is not a theist – he is secular, so that’s an interesting quote.
The story also notes that Barack Obama endorses the series,and that’s not surprising to me. As I’ve argued before, the man is an atheist. This series is defending his religion.
I highly recommend watching the lecture, and looking at the slides. The quality of the video and the content is first class. There is some Q&A (9 minutes) at the end of the lecture.
Topics:
intelligent design is concerned with measuring the information-creating capabilities of natural forces like mutation and selection
Darwinists think that random mutations and natural selection can explain the origin and diversification of living systems
Darwinian mechanisms are capable of explaining small-scale adaptive changes within types of organisms
but there is skepticism, even among naturalists, that Darwinian mechanisms can explain the origin of animal designs
even if you concede that Darwinism can account for all of the basic animal body plans, there is still the problem of life’s origin
can Darwinian mechanisms explain the origin of the first life? Is there a good naturalistic hypothesis to explain it?
there are at least two places in the history of life where new information is needed: origin of life, and Cambrian explosion
overview of the structure of DNA and protein synthesis (he has helpful pictures and he uses the snap lock blocks, too)
the DNA molecule is composed of a sequence of proteins, and the sequence is carefully selected to have biological function
meaningful sequences of things like computer code, English sentences, etc. require an adequate cause
it is very hard to arrive at a meaningful sequence of a non-trivial length by randomly picking symbols/letters
although any random sequence of letters is improbable, the vast majority of sequences are gibberish/non-compiling code
similarly, most random sequences of amino acids are lab-proven (Doug Axe’s work) to be non-functional gibberish
the research showing this was conducted at Cambridge University and published in the Journal of Molecular Biology
so, random mutation cannot explain the origin of the first living cell
however, even natural selection coupled with random mutation cannot explain the first living cell
there must already be replication in order for mutation and selection to work, so they can’t explain the first replicator
but the origin of life is the origin of the first replicator – there is no replication prior to the first replicator
the information in the first replicator cannot be explained by law, such as by chemical bonding affinities
the amino acids are attached like magnetic letters on a refrigerator
the magnetic force sticks the letters ON the fridge, but they don’t determine the specific sequence of the letters
if laws did determine the sequence of letters, then the sequences would be repetitive
the three materialist explanations – chance alone, chance and law, law alone – are not adequate to explain the effect
the best explanation is that an intelligent cause is responsible for the biological explanation in the first replicator
we know that intelligent causes can produce functional sequences of information, e.g. – English, Java code
the structure and design of DNA matches up nicely with the design patterns used by software engineers (like WK!)
There are some very good tips in this lecture so that you will be able to explain intelligent design to others in simple ways, using everyday household items and children’s toys to symbolize the amino acids, proteins, sugar phosphate backbones, etc.
Proteins are constructed from a sequence of amino acids:
A sequence of amino acids forming a protein
Proteins sticking onto the double helix structure of DNA:
Some proteins sticking onto the sugar phosphate backbone
I highly, highly recommend this lecture. You will be delighted and you will learn something.
Here is an article that gives a general overview of how intelligent design challenges. If you want to read something more detailed about the material that he is covering in the lecture above related to the origin of life, there is a pretty good article here.
UPDATE: There is a good breakdown of some of the slides with helpful flow charts here on Uncommon Descent.
Here’s the 66-minute video featuring Dr. Stephen C. Meyer, who holds the Ph.D in philosophy of science from Cambridge University, and other degrees in the hard sciences.
The lecture starts really, really slowly. You can just fast-forward to the 12 minute mark, or you might die of boredom.
Topics:
Up until the the last 100 years or so, everyone agreed that the universe was eternal
This is at odds with the traditional Christian view that God created the universe
Materialism, the view that matter is all there is, requires eternally existing matter
Discovery #1: Hubble discovers that the universe is expanding (redshift observation)
The expanding universe was resisted by proponents of the eternal universe, like Einstein
Some naturalists even proposed speculative static models like the steady-state model
However, not of the speculative models fit with observations and experimental results
Discovery #2: Penzias and Wilson discover the cosmic microwave background radiation
Measurements of this background radiation confirmed a prediction of the Big Bang theory
The steady-state theory was falsified of by the discovery of this background radiation
The oscillating model was proposed to prevent the need for an absolute beginning
But the oscillating model is not eternal, it loses energy on each “bounce”
The beginning of the universe is more at home in a theistic worldview than an atheistic one
The beginning of the universe fits in well with the Bible, e.g. – Genesis 1, Titus 1, etc.
In case you are wondering about what the evidence is for the Big Bang, here are 3 of the evidences that are most commonly offered:
Three main observational results over the past century led astronomers to become certain that the universe began with the big bang. First, they found out that the universe is expanding—meaning that the separations between galaxies are becoming larger and larger. This led them to deduce that everything used to be extremely close together before some kind of explosion. Second, the big bang perfectly explains the abundance of helium and other nuclei like deuterium (an isotope of hydrogen) in the universe. A hot, dense, and expanding environment at the beginning could produce these nuclei in the abundance we observe today. Third, astronomers could actually observe the cosmic background radiation—the afterglow of the explosion—from every direction in the universe. This last evidence so conclusively confirmed the theory of the universe’s beginning that Stephen Hawking said, “It is the discovery of the century, if not of all time.”
This is a good article to send to atheists who are not comfortable with what the progress of science has revealed about the beginning of the universe, and of time itself. If you look in agnostic astronomer Robert Jastrow’s book “God and the Astronomers” (2nd edition), you’ll find 6 evidences.
By the way, Dr. Meyer also does a great job of explaining the problem of proteins, DNA and the origin of life in this lecture. And you can hear him defend his views in this debate podcast with Keith Fox and in this debate podcast with Peter Atkins. He does a great job in these debates.
WINTERY KNIGHT 