This July will see a unique event in the history of modern thought. It may very well prove the beginning of a true “Paradigm Shift” in biology. The Event has been labeled the “Woodstock of Evolution” and will probably mark the beginning of the end of the status of Darwin’s writings as holy writ and Darwinism’s strangle hold on freedom of thought and speech. This meeting will be attended by sixteen of the world’s leading evolutionary biologists and philosophers of science. It will take place in Altenberg, Austria at the Konrad Lorenz Institute. The reason for the meeting is the recognition by most of these scholars that Darwinism is retarding progress in biology through its insistence that biological evolution can only occur through natural selection operating on random processes.

Thought in the nineteenth century was dominated by three main figures Marx, Freud and Darwin. Freudianism has fallen into disrepute through repeated experiments showing that it does not work and in reality can be harmful to psychiatric patients. Indeed in most of its controlled tests the patients in the untreated control groups almost always do better than the patients receiving “psychoanalysis.” Marxism has also been rejected almost everywhere except on university campuses because the people living under Marxist governments eventually get tired of being poor while their neighbors prosper. Darwinism, however, has not died yet, because it is foundational to materialist philosophy, the cornerstone of which is cultural relativism, with its claim that there is no absolute right or wrong. Right and wrong to cultural relativists are just matters of taste not revelations from God.

Unfortunately, devotion to Darwinian orthodoxy also had the unintended consequence of stopping scientific progress in biology. Despite its failures, biologists were reluctant to consider the possibility of any mechanism, even other materialist mechanisms, as possible drivers of evolution. The rarely admitted reason for this strict enforcement of thought policing was the fear that any admission that Darwin could have been wrong might bring down the entire materialist edifice. However reality eventually will force the admission that the emperor has no clothes and that is where biology finds itself today. It has become painfully obvious that Darwinism, despite its claims, cannot explain “the origin of species” satisfactorily and when it comes to questions such as the origin of life, Darwinists have completely abandoned the effort, admitting that it is hopeless within their paradigm.

This is why the meeting in Altenberg is taking place. It is hoped that this meeting will find a new way forward in biology. This new way forward will be called the “Extended Evolutionary Synthesis.” However this new synthesis will not be a victory for the recognition of a role for God in the creation and evolution of life such as proposed by Intelligent Design. It will instead be an effort to rescue materialism by finding new naturalistic explanations for the origin and development of life. The areas that will be looked to are theories of self organization such as Chaos Theory, a Fourth Law of Thermodynamics, the Butterfly Effect and similar theories that exclude God from consideration.

Why This Is Important

Despite the fact that only materialist theories for evolution will be acceptable explanations in the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, it probably will still a be giant leap forward because it will undermine Darwinian orthodoxy in all areas of science, philosophy and social policy. Once Darwinism is more widely recognized as too restrictive for biologists it will also begin to decline in popularity in the social sciences and with this decline as orthodoxy new explanations will be looked at. What will be the most interesting of all will be to see what happens with the new theories of self organization. As anyone who has followed this literature knows, theories of self organization have been widely discussed for over forty years and despite repeated claims of breakthroughs they have so far proven a total failure to explain biological evolution. As these theories continue to prove fruitless in the future, it will be interesting to see what straw the materialists will grasp at next?

Source:” Mazur: Altenberg! The Woodstock of Evolution” by Suzan Mazur, March 4, 2008, www.scoop.co.nz/stories .

By: Lawrence Vescera, Ph.D.

Exobiologists study life on other planets. As of today it is a science without a subject, as the Search for Extra Terrestrial Life (SETI), despite more than fifty years of searching, has so far failed to find anything to study. Looking at Earth, however, exobiologists are in general agreement that it is difficult to see how life on Earth could be sustained for a long period of time without a moon like ours. They further agree that it is difficult to see how any multicellular life forms could have arisen or survived without such a moon. It is also reasoned that because the Earth was formed as the result of “random natural processes”, the Moon must have been formed by the same presumably ubiquitous natural processes.

Given this line of reasoning, they conclude there can be nothing special about the Earth – Moon System; therefore the Universe must be full of similar planet – moon systems harboring life. The Moon is considered critical to life, especially higher life forms for several reasons. Among these reasons is the fact that it plays a major role in plate tectonics, which in turn drives a number of geological cycles, such as the carbonate-silicate cycle, on which life is dependent. The Moon is also critical to climate stability, oceanic nutrient circulation and much, much more.

Even more important to these life-sustaining processes is the planet-forming role played by the Moon in the Earth’s history. It is now almost universally accepted by planetary scientists that the Earth took on its present form when it collided with a Mars-size body during the earliest phase of the planets formation. This collision did several things that are essential to making the Earth a habitable planet. Among the most important of these are the stripping away the Earth’s original extremely dense carbon dioxide atmosphere (such as that still retained by Venus) and the super-enriching of the planet’s core and crust with heavy metals. This collision also left behind the small low-density moon that now orbits the Earth.

Fortunately for astronomers new observational techniques and instruments allow observers to detect such collisions in other planetary systems and see if they are as common as is supposed. It is easy to imagine how much dust and debris must be left behind when an Earth-size planet collides with a Mars-size planet. This type of dust cloud is easily detectable from across the Galaxy.

To get a measure of the frequency of such collisions NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope examined 400 nearby stars that were believed to be good candidates for such a collision, based on the system’s age and other factors. It was originally assumed that about 5% to 10% of the systems would show evidence of such a collision. As it turned out only one system showed evidence of a collision event. This very low frequency indicates that life supporting planet - moon systems such as ours are probably very rare indeed.

Why This Is Important

The discovery of life on other planets is critical to the Materialist faith. The discovery of life on other planets is not central to Christian theology. Christian thinkers entertained such speculations as early as the Middle Ages. Finding extraterrestrial life would neither prove or disprove the existence of God, it would only show that God created life on planets other than just Earth. However, the discovery of extraterrestrial life is absolutely central to atheism/materialism. It is central because it would be taken as evidence for the claim that there is nothing special about the Earth or the origin of life. If life is found elsewhere, this would be taken as evidence that life is just the result of some natural process and consequently is a purposeless process devoid of meaning. As long as no evidence of extraterrestrial life has been found, the atheists/materialists realize they have no “proof” for their beliefs.

Source: “Uncommon Moon” Astronomy, March 2008, pp. 18.

Blogger: Lawrence Vescera, Ph.D., Isaac Newton Institute

“Moses was High ON Drugs,” read the headline of a story published March 2, 2008 by AFP, (Agence France-Presse) one of the three largest news agencies in the world. The story was also picked up and reported by other press agencies all over the world. The gist of the story is this: Benny Shanon, an Israeli psychologist at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, has published new “research” in the “Time and Mind Journal of Philosophy.” This research has led him to conclude that during the Exodus, Moses and the Israelites were frequently high on hallucinogenic drugs. He further argued that it was during these drugged bashes that Moses and the Israelites imagined hearing the Theophany (“God speaking”) and receiving the Ten Commandments. Dr. Shanon states that there could only be three explanations as the source of the visions and voices heard by Moses and the Israelites: they were either supernatural phenomena, myths or drug induced hallucinations. However, Shanon’s conclusion is that the explanation is it was a drug induced phenomena; therefore the Ten Commandments did not come from God but were instead the result of a high on psychedelic drugs.

These are very important claims for a variety of reasons; among them is the fact that the Ten Commandments are the foundation of Western Law and the Judeo-Christian doctrine of morality. If Dr. Shanon is correct, all of the West’s moral and legal codes are based on nothing more than a “bad trip” taken by some strung-out druggies about 3500 years ago. Given the wide ranging attention to this story by the “objective”, “mainstream media” it would be reasonable to assume that a sweeping claim with such broad implications must be founded on substantial research, especially given that the underlying story line is that: it is now time to forget the Ten Commandments and move on to a “new morality,” which will probably look a great deal like the old immorality.

So what is the evidence presented by Dr. Shanon that the media finds so compelling? Well, it is his “opinion” that is the evidence combined with his claim that when he used a South American hallucinogenic drug called Ayahusca, he had hallucinations, which had “spiritual-religious connotations.” He claims that there were plants in the Sinai, which could have produced similar hallucinations if taken by Moses and others. He further dismisses the alternative explanation that the supernatural event reported in the Bible, with the “irrefutable argument” that “I don’t believe that.” The world’s media of course does not want to question a claim supported by “research” of this quality, despite the fact that there is absolutely no textual or archaeological evidence to support the claims.

Why This is Important

The media’s uncritical reporting and support for such bogus and nonsensical stories based on nothing but one person’s opinion following his experimentation with hallucinogens have the unfortunate but not unforeseen result of granting credibility to claims that are totally unsupported by fact. Once these claims get into print they then have a tendency to become props for the received wisdom of the age. “The Di Vinci Code” is a good example: even though it was fiction and made claims that were demonstrably false, it has now become widely believe especially by young people that, “It is common knowledge that Jesus was married and had children.” The sad reality is that this “research” may now become part of the received wisdom and will be widely quoted as support for the claim that, “Moses imagined The Ten Commandments when he tripped out on drugs.”

By: Lawrence Vescera Ph. D., Iscca Newton Institute

Channel One is an advertisement based educational television network that is currently broadcast into more then 11,000 schools in the United States. In exchange for having students watch their programming and commercials, the schools receive the programming and viewing equipment such as TV monitors and VCRs for free.

Channel One has regularly run stories critical of Intelligent Design and supportive of Darwinism. The stories contained many inaccuracies, misrepresentations, errors of fact, and misleading material. These inaccuracies include using the term evolution to mean Darwinism and using the term Intelligent Design as if it included only Young Earth Creationism. This was done in an effort to portray Intelligent Design in the worst light possible. They tried their best to paint the proponents of Intelligent Design as enemies of science, truth, and fact. They conversely tried to present Darwinists in the most positive light possible, portraying them as beacons of reason, intelligence, truth, beauty, virtue, and the American Way. They stopped short of claiming that Darwinists could leap tall buildings in a single bound.

Recently, Channel One ran a poll in their “Your Turn” section under the title “Evolution or Design” to explore the reaction of the students to whom they have been broadcasting their propaganda. On February 15th an online survey of almost 1500 high school students was conducted to test the effectiveness of their crusade for Darwinism. The students were given the choice of four options regarding what should be allowed in the teaching of origins. The results must have astounded the Darwinist advocates at Channel One. The results are below.

High School Students Only
1. Evolution Only - 9%
2. Intelligent Design Only - 53%
3. Evolution and Intelligent Design - 25%
4. None of These - 13%

The poll remains open to the general public now, and as of today the results from all respondents, not just high school students, are below.

All Respondents as of 3/1/08
1. Evolution Only - 19%
2. Intelligent Design Only - 44%
3. Evolution and Intelligent Design - 24%
4. None of These - 13%

Why This is Important

Despite the enormous efforts of the media, Hollywood, and the rest of the Materialist/Darwinist Complex, they are failing miserably to convince the public that life is the result of a random, purposeless, and exclusively natural process. It is especially interesting that high school students reject the Darwinist Paradigm by an even wider majority then the public in general.

Those who are trying to get the message out that there is a God and that life has meaning and purpose should take heart from these results.

Source:
ChannelOne.com

By: Lawrence Vescera Ph. D., Isaac Newton Institute

In 1943, C.S. Lewis published “The Abolition of Man.” In it, he warned against using science to debunk natural law and objective values to the detriment of the understanding of what constitutes humanity. It is doubtful that Lewis envisioned that “man” as an objectively definable entity could cease to exist within the next sixty-five years, but that is indeed what is about to happen.

British researchers at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne have announced the development of a technique to turn female bone marrow cells (mesenchymal cells) into sperm cells. A similar technique is also expected to allow male marrow cells to be turned into egg cells. Therefore, women will soon be able to produce sperm, and men will be able to produce eggs. The projected uses of the technique are to enable infertile couples to produce children, but its most startling effect will be to allow same-sex couples to produce children that are biologically their own. In the near future, there will be children that are not born of a woman and a man. There will be children of two fathers or of two mothers.

This is no small matter. Think about this carefully. What will the status be of these entities? Are they true human beings? They will certainly appear to be fully human in every way, but what is a human being? Historically and biologically, humans have always been the offspring of a father and a mother. These beings will be persons who will either have no mother or no father. Where will this go in the future? Cloning is possible now. Even more troubling, human genes have begun to be introduced into animal and plant reproductive germ lines, and animal and plant genes will likely soon be introduced into the human germ line. Consequently, “enlightened scientists unencumbered by religious prejudices” will endeavor to produce more completely hybridized humans, finally succeeding where the Nazi’s earlier efforts had failed by producing half ape, half human creatures.

Why This Is Important.

The physical consequences of this new technology probably will be small compared to the spiritual, psychological, social, and emotional consequences. What will it mean to be human? As this technology expands, the very concept of humanity will expand and be progressively eroded and diluted until it becomes as ill defined as the modern concepts of beauty and justice. What the fruit of this abolition of man will be is extremely difficult to predict; nonetheless, it seems probable that it will not be good. Knowing the proclivities of humanity, the extinction of “human beings,” in historical terms, is a virtual certainty.

Source:
1. “Death of the Father: British Scientists Discover How to Turn Bone Marrow into Sperm,” By Feona Macrae, Daily Mail, January 31, 2008.

By: Lawrence Vescera Ph.D., Isaac Newton Institute

The mysterious nature of intelligence has been deepened by increasing evidence that intelligence requires neither a brain nor a nervous system. This is abundantly displayed in the animal kingdom where all sorts of organisms with no brain, and in some cases no nervous system, carry out tasks that require intelligence. Colonies of social insects such as bees, ants, termites, and social spiders display an amazing degree of intelligence building hives, engaging in agriculture, trading symbiotically, enslaving other insects, herding, and engaging in other specialized activities. In some cases, as with certain species of spiders, even isolated individuals perform extremely complex tasks with only the most rudimentary ganglia and primitive nervous systems.

Going even further, it was reported by this Blog on September 15, 2007 in “Microbes Have Consciousness” that even bacteria can display what certainly appears to be intelligence and self-awareness. Not only was the shocking behavior of slime molds discussed but also the even more stunning discovery that some microorganisms actually carry out “genetic engineering.”

As mind-boggling as these discoveries are, it appears that they have been surpassed by the new discovery of “molecular telepathy.” A team of researchers at the Division of Molecular Bioscience of the Imperial College, London has discovered that subunits of DNA molecules have the ability to recognize similar units in other DNA molecules and then congregate together. This is done without intervening proteins and over considerable distance (1 nanometer). The mechanism by which this is preformed is unknown.

Why This Is Important

Despite monumental failures, materialists continue to claim that they know that intelligence and consciousness are simply the by-product of the electro-chemical activities of the brain. It is too early to explain this amazing behavior by segments of DNA molecules. Chemistry and physics may be able to account for molecular telepathy; however, it may turn out to be one more inexplicable discovery that is set aside because it does not fit the expectations of materialist philosophers. This would be a shame for many reasons not the least of which is knowing the truth of reality.

Source:

1. Geoff Baldwin, et. al. “DNA Double Helices Recognize Mutual Sequence Homology in a Protein Free Environment,” Journal of Physical Chemistry, January 31, 2008, Volume 112, No. 4, pp 1060-1064.

2. www.physorg.com/news120735315.html, Jan. 28, 2008.

By: Lawrence Vescera, Ph.D.

When I took Evolutionary Biology, even considering the possibility of direction in evolution was a Class I “thought crime” and so was Lamarckian Evolution. Lamarck’s evolutionary theory argued that acquired characteristics could be transmitted to offspring. Suggesting that either of these conjectures could be a valid idea was punishable by an F in the class and a strong recommendation that you change your major to Physical Education. These “thought crimes” could only be absolved if you recanted your heresy by placing your hand on a copy of Darwin’s “Origin of the Species” and swearing fealty to the true Darwinian faith in Evolution by means of Undirected Natural Selection alone as the only route to true “evolutionary understanding.” Therefore I was astonished to learn that “Current Biology” has just published an article authored by an international team of biologists that argues for “Directed Evolution” through a Lamarckian mechanism.

These scientists have been studying the shape of the female genitals in flat worms. While studying this glamorous topic they discovered that the evolution of these organs was displaying “direction.” This directionality of a process that was supposedly random forced an about-face and the resurrection of Lamarck’s long despised theory in a desperate attempt to avoid an even more unacceptable possibility. Lamarck had to be resurrected because the other major explanatory theory that this finding could be pointing to is some type of supernatural design and this of course is an even greater anathema than Lamarckianism.

What is also remarkable about this new finding is the reaction of the scientific community and the media to this about face. Somehow they have twisted this finding around to be a proof of Darwinism, rather than a refutation. For example on January 18, “sciencedaily.com” carried the astonishing claim that “According to Darwin’s theory of evolution, individuals in a species pass successful traits onto their offspring through a process called ‘deterministic inheritance.’” “Deterministic inheritance”? Are my eyes deceiving me? Have not random mutation and natural selection been the cornerstones of Darwinism, while Intelligent Design advocated a “directed process” of some type?

In using the term “Deterministic inheritance”, what the Darwinists are referring to is one of the “dirty little secrets of Darwinism”; this is the fact that it was Darwin’s disciples, not Darwin, who completely rejected Lamarck or the possibility of evolution through a supernaturally directed process.

Why This Is Interesting

What is most remarkable about this whole affair is the ease with which Darwinists manage to interpret or misinterpret any finding so that it supports their assumptions. Even though this research is in total disagreement with the cornerstone of Darwinian orthodoxy, the Darwinists pretend that there is no problem at all. This should cause them to open their minds to the possibility that some of their previous ideas have been based on faulty assumptions, but such an idea is beyond unthinkable and would result in career-ending excommunication by their colleagues in academia.

So no matter what the research shows, Darwinism is not questioned. This hypocritical pattern is also seen in other areas, such as “global warming” where above average temperatures are embraced as proof of global warming. But in places where temperature averages are below normal, the cause is also attributed to global warming. This is reminiscent of the Freudian tactic of claiming proof for his theories such as his theory of “latent homosexuality”. Freud claimed that, like him, we are all supposed to have such feelings. The proof of this was twofold. If you admitted to having such feelings, it proved how correct he was. If you rejected the claim, however, that also proved how correct he was by virtue of the “fact” that you were too threatened by the feeling to admit the truth.

Sources:
1. “Trends, Stasis and Drift in the Evolution of Nematode Vulua Development” Current Biology, Karen Kiontke et al, Nov. 2008, Volume 17, pp. 1925-1937.

2. “New Findings Confirm Darwin’s Theory: Evolution Not Random”, sciencedaily.com, Jan. 18, 2008

By: Lawrence Vescera, Ph.D.

On November 9, 2007, this Blog reported on the discovery that the CMB (Cosmic Microwave Background) that permeates the Universe shows clear evidence of the Earth having been placed at a special location in the Universe. Scientists discovered that the major temperature lobes left over from the Big Bang appear to be centered on our Solar System. This discovery is strong evidence for the Anthropic Principle: the belief that the Universe was designed to allow the existence of life. It also lends support to many physicists who have begun questioning String Theory and its speculation that our Universe is just one of an infinite or near infinite number of other Universes.

Of course, this affirmation of the Anthropic Principle is anathema to the atheist’s belief that there is no God, that humans are not special, and that our location in the Universe is not favored in any unique way. Consequently, materialists dubbed this discovery, “The Axis of Evil” because it presents a huge problem for their belief system.

Subsequently, materialist scientists have begun a desperate search to find some way to explain the structure of the CMB without recognizing God’s hand in it. A number of theories have been put forward to this end, including some interpretations of the recent discovery of a 900-million light year void in the Universe.

The Standard Model of the Universe, the one most widely accepted by scientists, and String Theory call for galaxies to be arranged in bubble-like structures. The surface of the bubbles consists of sheets of galaxies while the interiors are largely near-empty voids. However, neither of these theories predicts that any of the voids would be as large as 900 million light years. There are a number of explanations for this larger than expected void within the Standard Model. Of these, the most widely discussed is the “Topological Defect” model, which predicted this type of anomaly. However, Laura Mersini-Houghton of the University of North Carolina has offered a new theory. She argues that the larger than expected void is evidence that our Universe is being squeezed in one direction by another Universe, and this squeezing effect is causing the “Axis of Evil” anomaly observed in the CMB.

Why This Is Important

Mersini-Houghton’s theory was recently discussed in an article published in The NewScientist entitled, “Into The Void.” What was amazing about this article was not its presentation of new scientific findings (which it did not contain) but rather its open admission that this new “highly speculative” theory might provide the materialists with a way to rescue their atheistic belief system. The author actually openly states of her theory, “And it would do away with the anthropic arguments that have plagued string theorists in recent years…” Mersini-Houghton admits that the philosophical/theological reasons for developing her theory were to resolve the dilemma recent discoveries had created for String Theorists. “String theorists, who had so hoped to avoid the anthropic principle, have now been forced to invoke it to explain why our vacuum was selected out from the 10 to the 500th other string vacuums.” The main advantage of her theory is that it might allow these String Theorists to once again abandon the Anthropic Principle and return to a purely materialistic worldview because “Anthropic arguments leave many physicists queasy.” “It’s a much more scientific and legitimate way of picking out a universe like ours than the anthropic principle.”

In other words, the belief that God created the Universe is illegitimate. The claim that the Universe just happened as the result of a cosmic accident is the only “legitimate” type of explanation.

Mersini-Houghton’s theory has yet to be put to the test. It is, of course, possible that experimental results will be found that can be interpreted as support for her theory. However, it is disheartening to see science driven by atheistic fundamentalism instead of by an objective search for the truth.

Source: “Into The Void” by Marcus Chown, The NewScientist, November 24, 2007, pp 34-37.

By:  Lawrence Vescera, Ph.D.

The Earth’s Moon is most unusual, it is very large, yet its mass is very low, but this is exactly what is needed for life on Earth. How the Moon originated was a profound mystery until the Apollo Astronauts brought back lunar rock samples; these showed that the Moon was formed in a huge collision with a planet about the size and mass of Mars early in Earth’s history.

Almost all collisions between planet-sized bodies leave behind nothing but a lot of debris, as in the asteroid belt. However, the angle and speed of this collision were exactly right to permit the two planets to just barely disintegrate and to allow the more massive Earth to extract the core and heavy elements from the smaller planet before recollecting into their present forms. This process super-enriched the Earth with metals and left behind a moon with the characteristics needed by advanced life.

Our Moon does three things that are absolutely essential for advanced life. The first and most important of these is the stabilization of the Earth’s axial tilt. The equator is tilted approximately 23.5 degrees to the plane of its orbit around the sun. This permits the Earth to enjoy a stable climate and maintain liquid oceans over vast periods of time. Without a massive moon like ours, the gravitational tug-of-war between the Sun and Jupiter would cause the Earth’s axial spin to gyrate wildly. This would be disastrous for life.

Second, the Moon also regulates the oceans’ tides. The tides play a number of important roles in the maintenance of life, including the Carobonate/Silciate Cycle and Plate Tectonics.

Third, the Moon acts as a break on the Earth’s rotation rate. It has slowed the planet’s spin at exactly the rate needed to maintain the necessary temperature, wind velocity, and other factors required to properly regulate the greenhouse gas environment without triggering a runaway greenhouse effect. This is part of the phenomenon known as the “Solar Luminosity Paradox” which is far too complex to be dealt with here but is also an inexplicable miracle.

SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence)

This most unusual collision event created a profound question for those searching for extraterrestrial intelligence. How common are such collisions? If higher life forms require a moon like ours, what are the chances of a collision like the one that formed the Moon happening again?

To answer these questions researchers at the University of Florida, the Seward Observatory in Tucson, and at the European Southern Observatory in Santiago, Chile conducted an examination of a star cluster known as NGC 2547. Collisions of the type that formed the Moon leave behind a gigantic dust cloud and are detected easily. The purpose of the examination was to look for the dust cloud left behind by such a collision. NGC 2547 holds about 400 stars and is the right age for the desired stage of planet formation. Of the 400 star systems examined, only one showed evidence of having once had a planetary collision event. This led the researchers to conclude that any type of planetary collision is very rare, especially one that is just right to leave behind an object like our Moon.

Why This Is Significant

The presence or absence of life on other planets is not a theological problem for Christians. If God created life here, He can certainly do it elsewhere. But to those who believe that life originated solely thought a natural process, with out the need of God, the discovery of extraterrestrial life is an essential element of their faith. They theorize that the natural processes that brought about life on Earth should produce life on other planets when the conditions are the same. They believe that the Earth is not special, and there is no God; therefore, life should be common in the Universe. This claim was famously repeated ad nausium by Carl Sagan. This idea drives SETI and its ancillary programs such as the desperate search for evidence of large amounts of liquid water once having been on Mars.

The discovery that the Moon is indeed a very rare and perhaps unique object in the Universe does not support the expectations of the SETI theorists and their assumption of “a Universe loaded with intelligent life.” The Earth – Moon system is finely tuned to a stunning level of specificity. A billion things had to go just right at the right instant for the Moon to have come into existence. The chance of this happening even once as the result of a random natural event is so vanishingly small as to be in effect Zero.

Sources:
1. “A Moon Like Ours Is Rarely Formed”, The American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Physics News: Phillip Schewe and Jason Bardi, Dec 5, 2007, No.

2. “Debris Disks in NGC 2547”, The Astrophysical Journal: Nadya Gorlova, et al., Nov.

By: Lawrence Vescera, Ph. D.

For materialists, human consciousness is simply a matter of physics and chemistry. In their worldview, God is not needed to produce self-aware beings. They claim that if enough hydrogen atoms bang into each other for a long enough time, they eventually will produce an atheist. The above statement may seem facetious, but it is literally a correct conclusion from materialist reasoning.

In August, Discover Magazine ran a most intriguing article entitled, “10 Unsolved Mysteries of the Brain.” If you stop to ponder any of these mysteries deeply, it should give you goose bumps. The authors of the article observe that “Of all the objects in the universe, the human brain is the most complex.” They go on to enumerate the ten deep mysteries listed below that have confounded researchers about the three pounds of mostly fat that sit inside our skulls.

1. How is information coded in neural activity? We know that brain cells produce brief electrical discharges. These discharges appear to carry information, but as of yet no one has been able to determine if this information is digital or analog or how it is coded; nor is it certain that these voltage spikes carry information.

2. How are memories stored and retrieved? Memory storage is bizarre enough, but how it is retrieved is even more mysterious. Everyone has had the experience of being unable to remember something, and after giving up searching our memory, the information will later just pop up as if an unidentified file clerk had been sent out to the archives to look up the information and has finally come back with it. How does that work? What is doing that search?

3. What does the baseline activity in the brain represent? At rest, the brain, which only constitutes about 2% of the body’s mass, uses 20% of all the oxygen. This causes it to put out huge amounts of heat, but what is it doing with all of this energy when it is at rest? No one knows.

4. How do brains simulate the future? How is it that the human brain can play chess as well as the world’s best super computers? These computers can consider the outcomes of millions of moves per second, yet the human brain is just as capable of projecting the possible outcomes?

5. What are emotions? Feelings are a total mystery. They are so powerful that occasionally they can even kill the body, yet we have no clue as to what they are or how they are formed.

6. What is intelligence? This has proven a particularly intractable mystery, especially when the phenomenon of “idiot savants” is considered. The field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has come to a complete halt. The optimistic prediction of the 1960s that robots would soon be doing all the work for us has given way to the reality we all face of having to spend lots of time on the keyboard doing even the simplest of tasks because computers are exactly as smart as door stops.

7. How is time represented in the brain? This is a multifaceted mystery. The brain seems to have many different clocks that enable it to do many different things. For example, the brain synchronizes the perception of external events such as vision and hearing so that we experience them simultaneously even though they are not perceived simultaneously. It is a nice little trick the brain plays on us to make reality seem more coherent.

8. Why do brains sleep and dream? While it is known that sleep deprivation can cause insanity and even death, we still have no clue what the brain is really doing during those hours when the body is mostly off line.

9. How do the specialized systems of the brain integrate with one another? Signal transmission in the brain’s axons is painfully slow at 1 foot per second. This is only one hundred millionth the speed at which your computer transmits signals, yet the brain coordinates the vast array of sensory inputs and outputs such as sight, memory, and body movement almost instantaneously. How in the world is this being done? Just think about that the next time you try to get your computer to multitask.

10. What is consciousness? This is truly the biggest question of all. How can three pounds of fatty meat be self-aware?

Why This Is Important
Despite the author’s optimistic expectations about the future of brain research, the ten unsolved mysteries listed above are just as mysterious today as they were 2000 years ago, 100 years ago, 50 years ago, and 10 years ago. Materialism makes a profound philosophical error in concluding that consciousness comes from the physics of the brain. As Sir John Eccles, a Nobel Lauriat in Medicine and Physiology, once put it, “Looking for consciousness inside the brain is like looking for the actors inside of your TV set.”

By: Lawrence Vescera, Ph. D.