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Basic
Worldview:
102
Atheism vs. Theism
Empirical Evidence
Prelude:
"Atheism/Theism" vs. "Science, the Bible, & Creation"
Atheism:
Introduction and Charges
Charge
1, Deduction and Induction
Charge
2, Question 1
Charge
2, Questions 2 and 3
Charge
2, Summary and Question 4
Charges
3 and 4, Definitions
Empirical
Evidence
Scientists
Acting as Mechanisms, Article 1
Scientists
Acting as Mechanisms, Article 2
Scientists
Acting as Mechanisms, Article 3
Occam's
Razor and Conclusions
Footnote
1
Footnote
2 and 3
Proof
of Life
Not
Theories, Unsubstantiated Hypotheses 1
Not
Theories, Unsubstantiated Hypotheses 2
Not
Theories, Unsubstantiated Hypotheses 3
Not
Theories, Unsubstantiated Hypotheses 4
Scientists:
Life on Earth Imported from Outer Space
Atheisms
Circle of Reasons
Is
God a White Crow?
Now we will turn our attention to an examination of the available
empirical evidence to see if it necessitates the conclusion
that the First Cause was intelligent in order to explain the
universe (including its content, and specifically, the content
of life in the universe.)
What options do we have for explaining the origin of life?
Atheists and Agnostics suggest that some natural law or perhaps
a universal algorithm caused life to come into existence.
However, as stated in the beginning, this is a matter of induction.
We have no direct access to natural laws. We derive truths
about general laws based upon specific instances of those
laws at work or specific instances of observed effects. In
order to suggest that life came about as the effect of a natural
law, one would have to observe a natural law producing life.
No empirical evidence exists of a natural law producing
life.
It is an absolute and undeniable fact that no human was around
to observe the origination of amino acids, proteins, DNA,
RNA, the cell membrane, cell energy utilization, or the replication
processes involved in life. No one was around to observe the
environment that these things originated in. Therefore, it
is also an absolute and undeniable fact that no humans have
observed a natural law or algorithm bringing these things
about originally on earth.
Since no one has ever observed the origin of these things
on earth, how do we know that they were produced by natural
laws or algorithms? What empirical evidence then do Atheists
and Agnostics offer in order to suggest that life can be produced
by unintelligent causes such as a natural law or algorithm?
As evidence that life can be produced by unintelligent causes
Atheists and Agnostics rely upon previous and ongoing scientific
experimentation. Specifically they point to laboratory experiments
in which scientists attempt to produce life from non-living
material.
In their labs, scientists construct environments (even on
a microscopic level) designed to study the possibility of
generating cell components and living cells (or their precursors)
from basic molecular elements. These environments can include
fluid motion (to simulate possible waves and currents in pools
of water), electronic charges (to simulate natural electrical
occurrences such as lightning), and ultraviolet heat lamps
(to simulate solar radiation.) Now, these environments the
scientists construct are necessarily conducive (or at least
permissive) to producing results that correspond with the
scientists' hypothesis that life could evolve from simple
molecular and atomic particles. It is these experiments that
Atheists and Agnostics rely upon to demonstrate their claim
that life can result from unintelligent causes.
Enter the Question: What exactly have such scientists
proven?
Do these experiments prove that life can arise from natural
laws? Do these experiments demonstrate that life can be produced
by algorithms? In short, do these experiments demonstrate
that life can result from unintelligent causes?
No, absolutely not. But why not?
As we will show using specific examples, the available experimentation
to date relies upon scientists, who are themselves intelligent
agents, acting as the mechanisms creating either the environments
or the proto-cell components that natural forces do not produce
by themselves. Or in other words, in these experiments, which
scientists hail as proof of life from unintelligent processes,
it is not some hypothetical natural force, which causes the
proto-cell's assembly, but instead it is the intelligent intervention
of the scientists. (For a series of quotations exemplifying
how modern scientists assert these experiments as proof of
life coming from unintelligent forces, please visit our follow-up
article entitled, "Proof of Life.")
The unintelligent natural forces that scientists hypothesize
could produce a living cell are completely absent leaving
scientists to fill in the gaps themselves where nature leaves
off. Thus, these experiments have produced no empirical evidence
indicating these hypothetical cell-producing natural forces
actually exist. But to the contrary, since the relative success
of these experiments relies wholly on the intelligent intervention
of the scientists to do things nature isn't doing, these experiments,
therefore, actually provide empirical evidence that intelligent
agency is necessary to produce life.
That bears repeating. As we will demonstrate, these experiments,
which scientists and Atheists hail as evidence that life can
arise through unintelligent natural forces actually demonstrate
the opposite, that an intelligent agent must have been directing
the assembly of the cell.
Think about it. Atheists and Agnostics must uphold that a
living cell could have been formed without the involvement
of an intelligent agent. How do they prove this empirically?
As our examination of the experiments will show, they have
intelligent agents (scientists) either create environments,
which don't exist in nature, or engineer cell components themselves
when nature fails to do so under experimental conditions.
Such empirical evidence can never prove a living cell could
come about without an intelligent cause because the experiments
themselves employ intelligent agents acting as the mechanisms
necessary to create living cells. Far from suggesting that
unintelligent causes can produce life, such empirical evidence
only proves that intelligent agents can create such
environments and, in turn, a living cell.
It seems unavoidable and obvious, you cannot prove life can
come from unintelligent agency while using an intelligent
agent to bring about life in a laboratory environment. And
it is perhaps one of the more ironic truths in life that intelligent
agents work in laboratories creating life, not from the natural
forces they hypothesize, but through their own intelligent
ingenuity and intervention, all the while thinking that somehow
they are proving life can evolve without intelligent
agency.
Or in other words, since these types of experiments constitute
the only empirical evidence available for how life originates
in general, then no empirical evidence is available, which
is capable of supporting the atheistic/agnostic theory that
life can originate from unintelligent causes. All such experiments
by their very nature only demonstrate that an intelligent
agent can produce life and the environment necessary to facilitate
the development of a living cell.
Now, we've just said a mouthful. And we need to back it up
with real data.
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