Children of God

I was at an immigration reform meeting yesterday (Oct 9,2010), and there was a short service before the speeches. We had the back and forth readings of the leader and the congregation, and the gist of the readings were that people should be treated with dignity even in foreign lands. The immigration situation is a mess, and I have sympathy on both sides of the issue. I think that the claims of immigrants that the jobs they take are not wanted by anyone else must be a bit of an exaggeration. Since I've been looking for work, I know how bad it is out there to find a job.

Yet, the people of Latin America have extremely little, and they become desperate enough to try anything for survival for themselves and their families. I've seen their living situations, so I know that end of it. In a perfect world we would all try to share fairly, but the unfortunate thing is that this is not a perfect world. There is crime in places where there could otherwise be people living peacefully. There are too many resources used by a small number of people. We are all familiar with the problems.

The point I want to make, though, is that in that small service we had, the last line was about all of us being Children of God. It was the kind of thing that you read because you are just reading along and haven't read through the thing before to see if you agree with everything that it says. But it bothers me afterward, because I didn't agree.

I have heard that expression used many times, but I don't know of anyplace it occurs in the Bible. I'm not a Bible expert, so maybe someone could point it out. But I do know where it says that is not true. Read the first Chapter of John. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. Further down, you will see that the world was made through this Word. Then further still, the Word came to the world, but the world did not recognize Him. Though the world was made through Him, it did not receive Him. But to those who did receive Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to be called children of God.

This is what I believe. The other religions have creeds that are different than Christians. They do not accept Christ as Lord. This is not something we can ignore and make all things inclusive. This is something we each need to think out for ourselves and remember that much as we'd like other things like immigration reform, first things need to be first.

And next time, I'm going to be a lot more careful what I read out loud in any service.

Slow Blogging

Maybe the number of blogs would prove me wrong, but from what I read it seems everything is happening on Facebook anymore these days. I have not set up a Facebook page and can't imagine ever doing it. I'm not fast enough, or don't have the endurance, or whatever it takes to keep track of what everyone is communicating all at once. I have even found the blogging to be a little heavy duty when it comes to trying to keep up with other blogging sites. When I make a comment I watch for answers, and that takes time, along with all the new posts at the sites. Now that I'm trying to go back to work, I don't know if I can continue.

I want to relate here, though, one of the insights I had in coming to believe only Jesus is the Lord. Many modern minds seem to spurn the belief that only one religion can be true. But in reading the Bible you will see that the Apostles were convinced that only Jesus was the true Lord and the way to salvation. I asked myself, why would it change? What would make the Truth of that time any different now? And the answer is, it wouldn't change. Jesus Christ is still Lord. He is still the only way to salvation and a life in heaven.

It seems very simple, but in this complicated day and age, the message gets mixed. Though I'm not on Facebook, I pray for all evangelists, and I hope that this message comes through.

To Keep On

I talked about love and joy and peace last post, and how these blessings are deep within a Christian. However, I want to make note that in hard times, it seems we can lose track of the blessings we have, even within us. In fact, inspiration seems to be needed on a regular basis, and therefore we may have to keep reminding ourselves or be reminded.

If this sounds like a mystery, it is. I have faith God provides spiritual gifts, but I seek His word for solace, and sometimes inspiration comes from unexpected sources.

The point I'm trying to make is when we are in despair from very tough times or when we see other Christians who seem to lose connection, we can't judge. But I'm urging everyone to hang on and seek God for He is good, and He can keep us going on Earth until the time comes for us to meet Him in Heaven.

Joy and Love and Hope

A writer is supposed to be good at description, but I can have trouble with this on a personal level. I have a lot of science in my blog. I had learned science in school, but after college lost faith. Although scientific fact does not necessarily render a person unfeeling, there was to me a big part missing. I also had Christian training, but it was in my head and not, I think, fully in my heart. Eventually I believe the Lord Jesus Christ rescued me from despair and hopelessness. Deep down, believing in Jesus has made a true difference in the joy, love and hope I feel. I would never give Him up, I would never exchange this for anything I had before.

This does not mean I don't have problems. But believing in the Lord has given me an added dimension to my life which helps me through when I could never do that on my own.

I've never been very outgoing, and what's in my heart does not get out to others nearly as much as I'd like. I want to express the wonder and light of being Christian. I think most Christians feel that motivation.

One can accept the Lord and then go through spiritual trials. It comes from internal doubts, which can try to take away that deep hope and love and joy. Christ reassures us. He is the way, the truth and the life. He will bring us to Heaven if we believe in Him. Nothing makes me want to leave Him. Two of the reasons I feel this way are because I think He is true and because the love and joy and hope are deeper than whatever fear or doubt I have. Church teaching tells us that faith, hope and love are fruits of the Holy Spirit. They are wonderful and give me strength.

I want to tell everyone of this deep love and joy and hope. Jesus Christ can give you life and light.

I believe in Jesus Christ, the Father and the Holy Spirit. I want to be with God and His people forever. I hope you will too.

Unto Others!

I'm very excited to say my fiction mystery book, Unto Others, is available absolutely free on a Google Docs Adobe PDF file! It is a Catholic-based book which I very much hope you will enjoy. Of course, non-Catholics can read it too. I have self-published this book on a small scale and have had good feedback. Just click on the picture to get to it. The Adobe can be read on Acrobat Reader, which is available free if you don't already have it. I believe the book file can also be downloaded and saved on your own computer so you don't have to be connected to the Internet the whole time. You out there probably know more about this than I do.

The book is over 250 pages long, so the PDF format takes a few minutes to download. I have found it best to wait until it says "done" in the bottom left corner before trying to do anything with it. I hope it is worth your time, because I do think the book has important messages and yet is an intriguing mystery. In fact, I hope you will tell your friends about it, especially those who enjoy mysteries!

2019 Update: Though I accidentally erased my book files and they were gone for a time, they are now restored. I hope you will try them!

Back to Christianity

I talked in a recent post about evangelism and how I always want it to be first in my life. Somehow I got back into the subject of evolution and what different viewpoints of evolution can mean to a person's faith.

I guess I keep talking about science because I was one of the students in college, a long time ago, who got sucked into eventually believing everything is made by chance from matter and energy, and that there is no God at all needed to make our universe and everything that is in it.

Though I think that is obviously a wrong argument today, my way back did not start through reason. It was because I was emotionally miserable. I had some difficult life situations as we all do, and I saw nothing to give me hope in this life, much less in any next one.

Fortunately I had been brought up with Christian training. Then, after a long time, certain events took place in my life that showed me how rich Christian love can be. Though it seems I myself decided to try to go back to the beliefs once more, I think Christ was rescuing me. I found myself healing and renewed. And the same goes for problems since then. I can be scared from life's tribulations, but I feel the Lord will pull me through.

My beliefs also meant I could accept God as Creator of life, which made more sense than chance. It also meant that love has meaning and morals have meaning. That especially has a profound influence on our lives and uplifts our spirits when we experience it. It builds up instead of tearing down.

The more I tried to believe, the more I really believed. I believe God exists, and I believe Jesus Christ is truly the Son of God, part of the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Christian creeds proclaim that we believe God made all that is seen and unseen.

It seems that faith and reason interweave. As I've said before, if we think at all, we can't help but reason. But this reasoning may be right or it may be wrong. I believe true faith, which is a mystery, gives us the underpinning for right reason. We can stand strong in faith when others attack it because Jesus Christ provides the foundation for us.

Open to Comments

For a while I closed my blog to comments because I took some time off from it. I like to keep track of them if I have any comments in order to answer back. I have made some comments on other blogs, but these have not generated comments here. I know I have focused a great deal on a subject which has not been of general interest, namely biological Creationism. (I think its potential is much greater than realized and could be a great evangelization tool.)

I have opened the blog to comments now, but will probably not have many new posts. I think I may be entering a new phase of life where I will be working outside the house, so I will not have the time as I did the past few years to enter posts. If you are interested, please look at past posts and topics. This blog has been helpful to me, among other things, in learning and expressing the amazing Creation we have from the Lord, and for that it has been good.

Evangelism First

My husband and I had a nice vacation to visit relatives and now that I'm back I want to put together a positive-minded post.

I have been writing regularly in my blog for several years, and wrote a mystery book and several booklets. However, I had been feeling frustrated and at a stand-still with the resistance of persons against the idea of direct supernatural creation of life by God. I don't want my writing to be all about the negative interactions I have had. I truly admire Creation and enjoy learning about it. I've written about it in those terms, not just in antagonism to those who don't agree. I had given some talks and debated with persons on the Internet (on a small scale). Some of this activity has been positive and successful. But then I got into negative debate, enough to discourage me about future success. So I took some time off and do feel better about things in general.

I hope to always serve the Lord as the priority of my life. We all have various gifts and can serve in different ways. I'm not very outgoing, yet I'd like to evangelize. I think of what I can do to tell someone about Christ by something I do or write. This includes prayer for those who are out in the field, doing the living work of telling the Good News.

I think those of us who talk about Creation care about how God is perceived. Those who insist on theistic evolution (indirect creation and evolution of life) worry that atheists will reject what they think is ignorant (even if this perception is incorrect). Those who believe in direct supernatural creation believe the discussion of it in the classroom will bring students' imaginations closer to the possibilities of God's touch and then God Himself. Young-Earth Creationists are concerned about Scriptural Truth and that people will not be turned away from it.

The theistic evolutionists also are afraid that science will suffer if we say about unknown aspects of life that "God did it." Yet we can keep on discovering life as it is, and seek knowledge for medicine and the like under the auspices of systems biology. This is what many researchers are already doing with their computer analyses of genes, proteins and other cell processes. They don't have to know how or whether something evolved to see how it works now. In fact, wrong speculation about evolution can mislead theory, such as the case of thinking that all non-coding DNA was "junk DNA." This has proven false and slowed down research in this area for many years. We need the clear theory-neutral facts, and if researchers want to speculate on theory such as evolution, they should do so in clearly marked separate sections of their paper.

Christians should want to put our solidarity in Christ at the forefront, then work out our other concerns with each other. Though science is important, evangelism for Jesus Christ is much more so. The body lasts only so long in this world, no matter how well our medicine works. The everlasting life of the soul is our more important concern. Consider the thought of Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:2 (NABRE) when he says about our bodies (tents), "For in this tent we groan, longing to be furthered clothed with our heavenly habitation." Now, I very well know we want to treat children for cancer and have them live to their full earthly life-span, but Paul appreciated the greater power of God. Paul said in v. 4, "we do not wish to be unclothed but to be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life."

I want to serve the Lord in the forefront in my life.

Creation Science for Biology

I'm very pleased to announce that my new booklet, Creation Biology, is now on my blog. It is similar in some ways to my previous booklet, Faith, Science and Intelligent Design. But I found my theology was too different from the Intelligent Design Advocates who repeated that the Designer of life "could be anybody." Though I know they have their reasons for putting their description of design in nature this way, some of them are Christian. I feel the Christian should not equivocate about design and creation, and state openly and clearly about the Creator. There is only One choice for us, and that is God. We state this in our creeds, such as you can see written out in the booklet.

I hope you will make use of this booklet and learn from it, as from another one called Heaven's Passport. This has factual information about Jesus Christ with references. This booklet also can be easily read online or printed out.

The links in the titles lead to the pages that contain more information and direct links to the files. You can also click their images in the right column.

Just the Facts

I remember watching Dragnet as a kid. I loved Jack Webb, and of course Harry Morgan is one of Muskegon's own. The famous line "Just the Facts, Ma'am" came from the the way witnesses and other involved persons would get off the track, wasting the time of investigators.

There are many researchers, scientists and teachers who are brilliant and have done a great deal for the world by their discoveries in medicine and the like. This is certainly not to be taken for granted.

But, however important scientific progress is in this life, there is another life to come that is even more important. This is because it lasts longer, has to do with the state that our souls will be in, and relates to the God who made us in the first place. We just can't forget about that in our fear of disease or hunger in this world.

Evolution is a very tricky subject. Though we look for patterns in biology to learn how to manipulate problems, these patterns are present whether they came from evolution or elsewhere. The idea of evolution as something that helps find the patterns is not necessarily true. In fact, it has delayed some progress in the past because things that are present were not expected. We need a proper analysis of what we find in DNA, protein and other parts of the cell at the present time instead of insisting on evolution as past, present and future answers to all our questions.

There is a great paper in the first issue of BIO-Complexity about the "Search Problem" also known as "Sparse Search." It is by Douglas Axe, "The Case Against a Darwinian Origin of Protein Folds," BIO-Complexity, (2010). This shows the vast number of amino acid combinations that do not have function as compared to those which do. Axe is a researcher who has devoted his time to studying proteins, the cell machinery that take on specific shapes for specific jobs. This is a great article to read about facts of biology. You can get the full PDF article from the link in the article title above. There is no answer for this problem of how the cell formed with so many non-functional proteins around to get in the way of working ones (or, in the case of DNA, nonfunctional sequences of codes). Some proteins are nearly the same, but many are very different. Axe answers the challenges I've heard to this problem.

Scientists are frustrated when some of us say there may never be an answer as to how life began. They say just because we don't know now doesn't mean we'll never know. That could be true, but it is time for them to admit that we don't know the whole story of evolution at present. That is the proper analysis for now. Evolution, along with origin of life, is in the same state. You can't insist that something is a fact, when the facts, even though they may answer a few things, do not answer all the questions.

While we are on facts, many philosophers are telling us that we can know God by facts. This is an accepted argument made by Aquinas, but we have only to look around us and see many thinking people who do not believe in God. The problem is that facts in this world are very complicated things. In the Bible, Paul said that we can know God through the things which are made (cf. Rom 1:20 NABRE). But, did Paul know the composition of rocks? Did he understand electromagnetic radiation? He was awed by the stars, but did not understand what made them glow. I don't think raw facts were his point.

There is something that is deeper going on here. I think God made us to understand creation and design, and we can acknowledge it to Him or not. Paul also said that men did not glorify God but their hearts were darkened (cf. Rom. 1:21). This is where today's philosophy is falling short in insisting on philosophical materialism alone. Philosophers cling to materialism because that is what seems most "logical" to them. They can't let go because it threatens their conception of facts. But God can do as He sees fit, and if He made life directly by Supernatural means, the facts will point in that direction. This is the logic they are missing and unfortunately it leads to keeping out those who see it from being able to join in the discussion (at least the classroom discussion). As to Christians who insist on theological evolution, where God makes everything indirectly, they may be misled by these materialists. At least they see the design of the universe and magnify the Lord.

Facts, as we see, can be very helpful, but our minds are affected by attitudes and misconceptions. It may be impossible for individuals to start with "just the facts," which is why fair discourse is so important.

Our Great Hope

In this blog I had given an emphasis to Intelligent Design Theory (ID). But mostly the point from those is that you can see design from nature. What I have repeated in the blog and a booklet about ID that I had written was that for Christians, not just anyone can be the designer, as the ID people often say. For a Christian, the logical conclusion is that God was the designer.

I don't know if the term "design" really helps the situation. Creation Science advocates have said all along that God supernaturally created the creatures, including humans. So, I feel I want to change my viewpoint to Creation Science, oriented to biology. Now, Creation Scientists often believe that the Earth is only thousands of years old, instead of the billions that most scientists advocate. They are known as Young Earth Creationists. I don't know how old the Earth is and, though I think there can be much research done there, I find enough to do with trying to keep up with biology.

There are many people who are already involved with Creation Science, so I don't know how much I'll take up the struggle for understanding this aspect of God's work from now on. This re-orientation will take a little time to get used to. I want to see what is out there in the way of books from the Creation Science rather than Intelligent Design point of view. Often writers start out on one project and end up on another. I don't know where I will go from here.

Last winter, I had wanted to write a book about proteins for the layperson in order to give them some idea of the amazing world inside our bodies. I know it is being studied in science classes, but a lot of adults have missed out on the explosion of new discoveries in the last few decades.

But, there are several things which have happened to change my mind about doing a book, at least in the way I had planned. One is that I had met great resistance to the idea that completely materialistic, naturalistic evolution of species may not be providing the answers we have expected ever since Charles Darwin's theory became so widely accepted. I not only wanted to write about proteins but teach students from the angle of direct supernatural design/creation. I contacted many schools and groups, but was mostly turned down, even though I have degrees in animal science and veterinary medicine. For many years religious people resisted Darwin's idea of slight changes and natural selection for the differences we see in animals. Now the extreme is at the other end, where any ideas of direct supernatural creation are resisted very strongly (though they say it is OK to believe God made creation if He designed it all to happen before the Big Bang). I have been disappointed in the lack of fairness I expected from people to be willing to hear the other points of view.

But I found another problem coming from a fault of my own. I admit not only disappointment but anger at them for making the culture so inhospitable for the Christian message for the next generation, which I believe is related to how we think of God's creativity. I think it is very important to at least have an open mind as to how God may have touched His creation after the formation of the Earth. Though I tried not to show my anger to others, I know how I have felt.

It is humbling to know our own faults. The effort we take to look at them helps us realize how unpleasing we ourselves sometimes are. I was actually feeling a hopelessness in my life from these events. Yet I went through reflection and prayer and know there are some things that always bring me back to hope. One of the greatest is the fact that Jesus Christ, God's own Son, came to Earth, lived a perfect life, and died for my sins. He rose on the third day and ascended to Heaven. He told us that if we believe in Him, we will have everlasting life and love with Him.

That gives me hope indeed.

Protein Wonders

The only problem with showing people the wonders of proteins is to know where to start. There is such a variety of amazing molecules, it boggles the mind. These pictures are seen in magazines and on the Internet, but some places are especially good, I think, for learning about them. I'll assume I'm speaking to a beginner, but this applies for anyone.

When I was in college, I learned about physiology, but a lot of it had to do with which hormone was floating to which organ. In vet school, we were concerned about disease and medicine. There was not the access to microbiological structures as there is now. But, one of the things they taught us there was how to teach ourselves. They knew science and medicine would keep changing and we had to be able to keep up. In my case, it was "catch up," since I had been away from practicing for a while.


But now I enjoy looking at the proteins and reading about their structures and functions. The proteins form parts of larger structures. Sometimes there are many duplicates of the same protein within the whole mechanism.

There are many links and one database can lead to another. I have spent a few years on this blog, learning about them and putting together different descriptions. I invite you to look around. I try to have certain basic links. Some are inside my own website and some connect to others.

The "cell" is the basic unit of our bodies. Humans have about 100 trillion cells. Proteins are one of the working components of our cells. The pictures here are of one amazing set of proteins, ATP Synthase and the machinery that copies the DNA code to make proteins, RNA Polymerase. You can go to the links and read my description. ATP Synthase is an energy-storing machine. Don't worry if you can't understand all the terms or what I've said. Enjoy the wonders of them. Eventually, if you are interested and keep working on it, you'll understand more. You can also click on the pictures here to get a better look.

One of my favorite sites to learn about proteins is the Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics Protein Data. That is a mouthful, but it is abbreviated RCSB PDB and the home page is HERE.  They have a sub-section called PDB-101 which features "Molecule of the Month" by David Goodsell. The descriptions and pictures in Molecule of the Month are meant for a general audience. You can go there to get a good idea of the amazing variety of proteins and how they work. There is a selection in the top ribbon for Molecule of the Month along with other features of the web page. There are other protein websites, but this is a good place for a beginner.

Design v. Non-design

Most people are familiar with atoms. They have a center made of positive and neutral particles, called the nucleus, with a cloud of negative electrons encircling it. It is amazing to me that the number of these particles make such a big difference in the way the atoms combine with each other to make the huge variety of things we see in the world, including the world itself. These atoms move in a zigzag way which we call "random" and they combine with each other depending on their qualities, but also where they happen to be near each other "by chance."

Many people assume that randomness is the same as non-design, and order is the same as design. I do not believe this is correct, and I think it causes some confusion when we talk about design in nature, especially what we see in biological systems. Yet chemistry does have a predictable behavior, under what is called the Law of Mass Action (Wikipedia description HERE). Even so, an underlying characteristic in this physical law is probabilistic behaviors of atoms and molecules. So we are not getting away from randomness when we move from individual atoms and molecules to groups of them.

As I said before, the random movement of atoms is important for certain things. It helps mix the molecules in our atmosphere so we can breathe. Imagine walking into a pocket of air that has no oxygen. Where would we run to find it? Without random movements, we couldn't have mixtures of liquids with two or more things. They would otherwise stay separated, like water and oil but worse.

Therefore, if God made everything, the random movements of the atoms were also part of the design. Randomness is not opposite design. Genesis 1:2 tells us (NABRE): "the earth was a formless wasteland, and darkness covered the abyss, while a mighty wind swept over the waters." Leaving aside the word "waters," the opposite of design seems to be a dark abyss--nothingness or the void. Perhaps "waters" is metaphorical. That goes along with our Nicene Creed in which we say we believe God is the Creator of all things seen and unseen.

It is a feature of Intelligent Design Theory to see design in the workings of DNA and proteins in the cell. The trouble is, ID proponents compare it to randomness, when this is also design. So they are not proving design, just the discrepancy between biological and non-biological formations. Now this discrepancy is important, but it does not define design.

That is why faith is really more important than science. If you believe, it sets the groundwork for studying the rest of God's creation. All things are designed, and science is the study of created physical objects.

Random Cont.

The fact that atoms and molecules make random movements in gas and liquid affects how they interact. There is a theory called "Collision Theory" (Wikipedia entry HERE) which describes the interaction of molecules to form various substances. It is not hard to visualize, as shown in the picture. The random movements are accounted for in the calculations, related to the Maxwell-Boltzmann statistics as discussed in the previous post. It's not necessary to know all the mathematics to understand that atom and molecule interaction is random in nature. And, as the caption of the picture notes, the concentrations of the atoms can affect how much they interact. A higher temperature can affect the movements so that more particles collide when they are hotter, but higher temperature does not give more order to the movements. The properties of the atoms and molecules can affect how they interact, but as we proceed we can see how we can narrow down our focus so that we can eliminate some of the factors which would make it impossible to figure.

For example, the pre-life ocean and atmosphere may have changed from their compositions at the very start of things to what they are now. We may never know what the beginning concentrations of various atoms and molecules were. This limits our knowledge in certain ways. We don't know how many carbon atoms were available to interact with hydrogen atoms. But there are ways to theorize about these things, and many scientists for years have been trying to figure out how molecules could form into life.

Just recently a new paper came out saying that it doesn't look good for pre-life replication and biological-type behavior of atoms and molecules. This is what I've been saying--that chemistry rules at this level, while biologists were trying to impose biological laws on chemistry. They are not the same. The new research is Vasas et al., "Lack of evolvability in self-sustaining autocatalytic networks contraints metabolism-first scenarios for the origin of life," PNAS 107, 4 (Jan. 26, 2010): 1470-1475.

The randomness we are talking about is what we usually mean with the term "chance." We are talking about nature and not the supernatural. Now there are laws that govern the planets, such as gravity, but gravity is not going to make atoms form into proteins. Atoms of different elements have different chemical properties, such as charges and types of bonds between them. I will get into that more next time.

And, we can still apply probabilities in some cases. We know what the cell has now, so we can look at what needed to take place to get us to the present composition. No one has a realistic scenario of how that could have taken place.

Randomness

I am working on a book about evolution and Creation. I'd like to coordinate my blog posts with the book and I am just starting. I may find eventually I want to change things, but I hope to at least make some progress this way.

It might seem strange to start a book about evolution with Brownian (random) motion of atoms, but that is what I am thinking of doing. A major problem we face in understanding evolution is in the concepts of chance and randomness, design and non-design, and agency and non-agency. We can add to the problem when philosophy becomes involved, because this discipline uses the terms "necessity" and "contingency." These terms are sometimes used in place of non-random and random. I think it is important to stay as simple as we can, which is hard enough. I'd like to talk about the physical description of random. If you think in the way of philosophical terms, I'd like you to drop that for a while.

In 1827, the botanist Robert Brown noticed pollen particles floating in water under a microscope, or so the story goes. They showed a jiggling type of motion, neither sitting still nor moving in a smooth path (something like the blue line in the picture here).

At the time, scientists did not even know if separate atoms existed. Some thought they did, but others didn't, and they were not proven.

Scientists came to speculate that we could use these random movements to understand physical phenomena. Though we could not see the atoms, we could guess that they were each separate and had movement in various directions. This is what Albert Einstein did in a famous 1905 paper, later published in book form, Investigations on the Theory of the Brownian Movement, (Dover Publications, Inc., 1926), to prove the existence of atoms. Then, to complete the cycle, we could take all of the atoms as a whole, using the probabilities of each of them put together to even better understand their movements. Ludwig Boltzmann and James Clerk Maxwell worked out what is called the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution (Wikipedia entry HERE), which describes velocity of gas atoms or molecules in terms of statistical, probabilistic distributions."

I'll go further in talking about atoms and the categories of design I mentioned above next time, but I want to make the point about physical "randomness" here. Atoms have internal thermal energies that make them move in these zigzag patterns which we can't even theoretically predict. These are inherently random. What's more, we have found with quantum physics that particles within atoms, such as electrons, are not determined to exact positions and momentums by measurements, but have probabilities of being at certain places.

I believe we have built false equivalencies or false associations, or whatever the fallacy may be, with the word "random" and need to be very careful to think about the concept, and that of others, clearly.

Catholic Creationism

Many cringe when the word "Creationism" comes in the same sentence as science. We have learned to separate the two, but the separation is uneasy, and underlying problems are coming to the surface.

When I started thinking about writing a book about evolution, I considered myself an advocate of Intelligent Design Theory. I still admire the efforts the advocates have made on behalf of science. They have pointed out deficiencies in mainstream biology, especially concerning the theory of evolution. I will describe Intelligent Design Theory in the book and use many of the same arguments they do.

But there are some significant differences between my own point of view and that of Intelligent Design Theory. The ID advocates seem to assume they compare design and non-design in science. When you believe God made everything, that does not work. Many people confuse complexity vs. randomness with design vs. non-design, but randomness has its own design and purpose. That is one idea that will be difficult to understand, but worth the trouble it takes.

To start, Genesis says there was a void before God created anything. So the void is opposite design, not randomness.

The atmosphere is filled with different atoms and light molecules, such as N2 (dinitrogen, two nitrogen atoms bonded together). These light molecules move around and knock into each other in the form of gasses. Also, in liquids, water molecules move around and allow other elements to move around in them. We have all seen dye dropped into water and break apart to diffuse through the water.

If there was not random movement of molecules, many things wouldn't work. Early scientists realized that gasses move through space and containers in a way that pressure, temperature and volume could be affected. The gasses could do work such as movement of a steam engine when they were heated sufficiently. And in liquids, we can wash dishes because dish-washing liquid does not stay in one place in the water.

If we believe that God made everything, we can accept that random movement of molecules is one part of the whole design. The question is, then, how do we tell biological systems are also designed? The answer lies at least partly in the fact that the physical and chemical laws that work with random molecules and the way they interact do not put biological systems together by themselves.

I cannot keep up with all the specific arguments which evolutionists and IDists continue to wrangle about. There are experts in specific fields from both sides, and all you have to do is follow a few of the ID websites to learn of the battles. I am trying to keep my own book as straightforward and simple as I can, yet try to show the remarkable world of cell biology. Throughout all, the focus is on Creationism and how Catholics as well as other Christians can best deal with the scientific and religious tensions now arising.

We may ask, why bother? There are many reasons. If parents teach their children God made the world, yet teachers and professors constantly push total materialistic evolution instead of creation, the child will tend to choose one over the other instead of integrating. I think this is what has happened in our country over the last century, to the point where life is not seriously viewed as sacred. It may be one of the main contributions to the mindset which allows for abortion and illicit behavior. Even worse, some have a deep-seated distrust of whether there even is a God. If nature can do the work, why is God necessary?

Unfortunately, the secular message comes from many former or so-called Christian Institutions. We must think about our beliefs and stand where we must.

One Person's Evolution

I am starting to work on my book. I'm not working with an editor yet. I'm just gathering information and ideas. I am thinking my introduction may include something about myself. Since I wrote something out, I'll put it here:

When I read Michael Behe's first book, Darwin's Black Box (Touchstone, 1996), it was my introduction into Intelligent Design Theory. I was immediately taken by the fresh look at biology, and it made much sense. He talked about the concept of Irreducible Complexity to describe microbiological systems that all interact with each other. Without each part, the system loses its function. Then he asked how these complicated systems could evolve by the small steps that Darwinian evolution predicted. Charles Darwin had introduced that concept many years ago (in 1859) in his famous book, The Origin of Species. Starting with something very simple, Darwin said, the animal kingdom developed over time and became more complex.

After that, I gathered and read all I could about Intelligent Design Theory (ID). I have a science background (BS in animal science from Penn State and veterinary medicine degree from University of Penna.). I also earned a certificate in theology (Aquinas College, Grand Rapids). I had thought of applying for a master's degree in theology, but the programs I looked at had nothing to say about ID, and so I continued to study on my own. I remembered one professor at vet school had said their main focus was to teach us to teach ourselves. They figured they couldn't cover everything in four years, and they inspired us for life-long learning.

At first I thought of myself as an ID proponent, but started seeing their approach as different from my own. I recently realized that my stance does not quite fit into their movement, although I still truly admire some of the breakthroughs they have made and keep making. They are second to none when it comes to pointing out certain faulty thinking in today's biology scene. My blog reflects my enthusiasm for ID. But I think the Intelligent Design approach also has its faults, which I hope to clarify as I go along.

When I was in veterinary school, I liked physiology better than medicine but didn't want to work in a laboratory. I practiced for a while in various aspects of the field, but was discontent to the point where I stopped. I worked and volunteered in social justice concerns for our church and community for quite a few years. I joined a writing group with my husband and wrote a few fiction books (self-published on a very small scale). And then I started blogging.

I have written about various subjects, but I keep coming back to the issue of biological evolution and whether or where it truly has scientific evidence. I've actually written quite a bit already about that in my blog. I work to inform people of the complexity of life. I'm pretty slow but I'm persistent.

I've wondered many times in the past what my life plan actually is, but for some of us it doesn't fall into place so easily. Though plans can change over the years, I always ask God to guide mine as much as He will. It's been a very interesting journey.

Comparitive Genetics

There have been several long comment lists to posts about evolution and Intelligent Design at the First Thoughts blog of the magazine, First Things. I was happy to be able to contribute some comments. The first post is Joe Carter, "A Walk to the Moon," First Thoughts (Jan. 5, 2010). Then more opinion and comments were presented in a subsequent post by Dr. Stephen Barr, "Re: A Walk to the Moon," First Thoughts (Jan. 7, 2010). Many have been related to the new discoveries being found in comparative genomics.

I had followed many of the "design of nature" arguments in the pages of First Things when Christoph Cardinal Schönborn and Dr. Stephen Barr were exchanging their thoughts. A partial summary and rebuttal is in one of the articles, Christoph Cardinal Schönborn, "The Designs of Science," First Things (Jan. 2006) with a link to another Barr commentary.

The exciting part about the new genomics is that it allows us to compare organisms at the level of the gene. Eugene Koonin, director of the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) has been writing for the past few years about the discoveries being made. One of the most startling discoveries is this, from an article by Koonin, "The Biological Big Bang Model for the major transitions in evolution," Biology Direct 2, 21 (2007):

Major transitions in biological evolution show the same pattern of sudden emergence of diverse forms at a new level of complexity. The relationships between major groups within an emergent new class of biological entities are hard to decipher and do not seem to fit the tree pattern that, following Darwin's original proposal, remains the dominant description of biological evolution. The cases in point include the origin of complex RNA molecules and protein folds; major groups of viruses; archaea and bacteria, and the principal lineages within each of these prokaryotic domains; eukaryotic supergroups; and animal phyla. In each of these pivotal nexuses in life's history, the principal "types" seem to appear rapidly and fully equipped with the signature features of the respective new level of biological organization. No intermediate "grades" or intermediate forms between different types are detectable.

Why has this discovery not been heralded from the rooftops? With any transition of understanding, it takes time. It took hundreds of years for the whole of humanity to assimilate and accept the change of view that Copernicus brought about. The switch from an Earth-centered solar system to sun-centered involved religious as well as scientific understandings. Also, science is complicated and not everyone can or will take the time to study the specific underlying mechanisms. On the other hand, today we have almost instantaneous communication and educational systems in place. I hope people will soon realize the implications.

Koonin himself is oriented toward describing all phenomena in terms of scientific materialism. Therefore he proposes a "Big Bang" model for these unexplained transitions in life. It includes very fast evolution mechanisms. However, slow evolution is hard enough to explain, much less fast evolution. He says it all when he starts his speculations with "I propose..."

Since one lifetime does not last hundreds of years, we can't wait that long to make our own decisions about whether we think science shows us there is a God. Scientific knowledge changes, but God has given us other ways to know about Himself. He has revealed Himself through His Word. The majesty of the universe suggests there is much more going on than just ourselves and our own accomplishments.

Yet sometimes we discover things that really do point the way to Him. When we see these things, it is nice to share them with others and help them understand. I hope I have been doing that here and that I can continue. After all, He is a Master beyond any master craftsman.

Negative Attitude

My previous post featured a review by David B. Hart in First Things magazine. He criticized Intelligent Design Theory (ID) as something that "can never be logically demonstrated." ID states that life is too complex to have happened by the physical and chemical laws alone. It may be that one experiment does not disprove total materialistic evolution of life. But when one after another yield negative results, one must put together the pieces.

In an example of a pre-life experiment, the scientist David Deamer dumped pre-biotic molecules into hot volcanic pools which were supposed to form higher and more plentiful molecules of life. His experiment showed that they did not only fail for form more, but disappeared themselves. This is from Chandra Shekhar,  "Chemist explores the membranous origins of the first living cell," UC Santa Cruz Currents 10, 31 (April 3-9, 2006) about his findings:

In June 2005, he [Deamer] led a team of scientists, including Russian geologist Vladimir Kompanichenko, to the Kamchatka region in eastern Russia, an area abounding in pools of water heated and sterilized by constant volcanic activity. Deamer carried with him a version of the "primordial soup"--a mixture of compounds like those a meteorite could have delivered to the early Earth, including a fatty acid, amino acids, phosphate, glycerol, and the building blocks of nucleic acids. Finding a promising-looking boiling pool on the flanks of an active volcano, he poured the mixture in and then took samples from the pool at various intervals for analysis back in the lab at UCSC.

The results were strikingly negative: life did not emerge, no membranes assembled themselves, and no amino acids combined into proteins. Instead, the added chemicals quickly vanished, mostly absorbed by clay particles in the pool. Instead of supporting life, the bubbling pool had snuffed it out before it began. Later, Deamer repeated the same experiment at Lassen Volcanic National Park in northern California, with the same negative result.

Now, would Hart say that this is not science, since the results were negative? How would you disprove anything if negative findings did not count?

To disprove (total materialistic) evolution is to prove something else is going on. There are discussions about Hart's review at Joe Carter, "A Walk to the Moon." First Things (Jan. 5, 2010) and Stephen Barr, "Re: A Walk to the Moon," First Things (Jan. 7, 2010).

First Things of 2010

Denyse O'Leary is a Catholic, Canadian writer who supports Intelligent Design Theory. She posts on William Dembski's blog, Uncommon Descent, and has lately been posing questions for commenters in contest form. In Contest 19, O'Leary has described a book review by David B. Hart in the magazine First Things. It is in the Jan. 2010 issue (no. 199) which I think will not be online for a few weeks until the Feb. issue comes out (I haven't followed FT lately but that's the way it sounds on the home page). The review is of Richard Dawkins, The Greatest Show on Earth (Free Press, 2009) about nature and evolution. This is the section of the review she quotes:

The best argument against ID theory, when all is said and done, is that it rests on a premise – irreducible complexity” – that may seem compelling at the purely intuitive level but that can never logically be demonstrated. At the end of the day, it is – as Francis Collins rightly remarks – an argument from personal incredulity. While it is true that very suggestive metaphysical arguments can be drawn from the reality of form, the intelligibility of the universe, consciousness, the laws of physics, or (most importantly) ontological contingency, the mere biological complexity of this or that organism can never amount to an irrefutable proof of anything other than the incalculable complexity of that organism’s phylogenic antecedents.

The reviewer apparently has not considered mathematical probabilities, chemical laws and physical distributions of random atoms and molecules. He has taken the word of two major biology scientists. However, we have seen an inkling from the Climategate hacking incident (Wikipedia description HERE) that scientists have their own agendas and can (allegedly) bend the facts their way, helped especially by computer-shuffled statistics. One of the problems in evolutionary biology is that scientists for years have ignored these mathematical probabilities and physical and chemical laws when it comes to origin and evolution of life. They live in an insular world where there is the assumption, not the proof, of evolution. That is why the word "evolution" constantly appears in the journals. It is time for them to answer to this non-scientific behavior.

An important article by David Abel, "The Universal Plausibility Metric (UPM) & Principle (UPP)," Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling  6, 27 (2009) says that scientific journals should no longer publish articles that propose speculations that are exceedingly implausible. If the chance of random formation of biologically sufficient molecules for a working system (like the bacterial flagellum) is less than one in all the quantum transitions a 14-year-old universe has ever experienced, any speculation that does not seriously answer that improbability should not be published. People usually accept the conclusions of scientists. What if they are false?

I hope in my posts to come, as in past ones, to help people understand. If we are not educated by others, we must educate ourselves. When scientists work harder at keeping facts from us than supplying them, we must ask why. This is especially sad when educators are involved, as in our public and university systems.