Intelligent Design, pt. 1

The days of apathy are over. I officially have way too much free time at work that can be spent neither reading nor doing anything genuinely productive, so I am forced to reinstill the glory of activity to this blog. Just kidding. I've missed reading and writing on this blog and the time for repentance is nigh.

<----- This is my current read. I'm not done with it yet (it is fairly long, especially for a book on DNA), but I intend to give you a basic summary of what I've read so far as well as a finisher once the book's done.

It's written by Stephen C. Meyer (DOESN"T THAT SOUND AN AWFUL LOT LIKE STEPHAN I MEYER?!), a smart guy with good credentials.

It's basic premise is that the DNA molecule is too complicated to have arisen by any origin-of-life model currently employed, and that all sound science can be seen to point to an intelligent Creator as the architect of the cell's complexity and life's capacity for adaptation and progression.

A short background: Until the 19th century (with a few notable exceptions) the majority of the science community tended to support the idea that all nature and especially that of living nature tended to support the inference that some grand and brilliant Designer had created all things and guided their development in order to help them to adapt to their various environments.

The advent of the theory of natural selection changed all this.

While Darwin certainly didn't begin the natural selection movement, in so many ways he has generally come to personify it. His On the Origin of Species is considered a foundational work in the science of natural selection, and if not scientifically at least ecclesiastically seems to stand as the bible of evolutionists. However, lest the faithful tremble, they can rest confident in the knowledge that Darwin's book and the subsequent movement of evolutionary design are not all power/rational/knowledgeable. Darwin himself admitted that his theory did not account for the actual origin of life, but only served to show that once initiated species could adapt to their environment through the process of natural selection that we're all familiar with. He trusted to future science to establish that the beginning of life could in fact have happened without divine intervention.

It hasn't.

This book attacks several of the main theories proposed to justify a naturalistic solution to the origin of life. I've read about the impossibility of chance resulting in life, natural laws predestinating molecules to combine in such a way as to form life, and that RNA molecules came first and prefaced the development of later, more mature DNA molecules. Stephen has various darts that seem to take these fanciful creatures down, but the most prevalent and significant are the absolutely minute chances of random events creating the condition necessary for life (Appx. 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000, or one in a trillion trillion), and the necessity for preexisting information to fill on all the gaps of the inevitable combination theory and RNA first, as well as the sheer complexity of the DNA molecule.

I'm not done with it yet, but I think it's going to go down as one of the most influential books I've ever read, and thus will surely gain my recommendation for you to read it at one time. While complex it is also well written and accessible (as is told by the fact that I, the most unscientific and biology-hating person on the planet can read it), and well worth any time invested.

SO THERE! A POST FROM ME! AND MORE TO FOLLOW!