Intelligent Design or Evolution? Why the Origin of Life and the Evolution of Molecular Knowledge Imply Design [Paperback]

Stuart W Pullen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2005

Intelligent Design or Evolution? examines many unresolved issues associated with chemical evolution, the origin of life, and the evolution of molecular knowledge. With the help of information theory, this book develops statistical models to describe the evolution of the first genes and proteins. It also investigates the chemistry required for the prebiotic synthesis of biological molecules on the primitive earth. The evidence presented will show that naturalistic laws fail to explain the synthesis of RNA, DNA and proteins in the primordial soup. These same laws also fail to explain the origin of life and the evolution of the first genes and proteins. Taken together, these failures imply that life was created.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

The origin of life is perhaps the most perplexing problem facing science today. Despite an intense 50 year search , no solution is yet evident.
If naturalistic laws do not explain life's origin, then life must have been created. This theory is called intelligent design. This book explores the intelligent design paradigm from three different perspectives. Chapter 9 discusses many of the problems associated with creating the required biological molecules on the primitive earth. Chapters 6, 7 and 10 show that life did not start as a simple self replicating molecule. The rest of the book uses information theory to calculate the molecular knowledge in genes and proteins. This knowledge is then related to a probability of evolution. All three approaches support the design inference.
Because information theory is not an easy concept, this book confines the math to simple algebra. It also includes several chapters of introductory material to gradually introduce readers to molecular biology, computational biochemistry, and chemical thermodynamics.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction:

This book will show that naturalistic laws do not explain the origin of life and then suggest that this failure implies that life was created. The logic behind this conclusion is known as intelligent design.

The Philosophy of Science
Science by definition attempts to explain everything in terms of naturalistic laws. So before analyzing any data, science rules out the possibility that life was created. While this philosophy has served science well, it is somewhat problematic if a creator exists.
Intelligent design differs from science in that it does not make any assumptions about creation. Instead intelligent design allows the evidence to lead where it may. If the scientific evidence suggests that naturalistic laws do not fully explain the origin of life, then intelligent design infers that a designer exists and was responsible.
Intelligent design cannot prove that a creator exists. Rather it uses indirect logic to infer that such a being exists. Scientific experiments test how evolution happens. Experiments designed to test if evolution is possible are not considered good science, and this philosophy has trapped science. To better understand the trap, suppose tomorrow that a thousand fossils are found that document how T. Rex evolved from another dinosaur. Science will assert that these fossils prove that T. Rex evolved from another ancient dinosaur. Further, it will assert that naturalistic laws fully explain the transition. Science does not have to justify the second assertion because it simply assumes that it is true. Furthermore, most scientists would consider any experiment designed to test the probabilities associated with this particular evolutionary transition as unnecessary. This philosophy does not allow science much freedom. No matter what the evidence shows, the assumptions on which science is based ensure that science will always support the theory of evolution. Thus, science is trapped.
The failure of science to ask is evolution possible...

Product Details

• Paperback: 300 pages
• Publisher: Intelligent Design Books; 1 edition (February 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0976639408
• ISBN-13: 978-0976639404
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #913,112 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good chemical considerations, February 26, 2006

By 

Robert A. Boudreau - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Intelligent Design or Evolution? Why the Origin of Life and the Evolution of Molecular Knowledge Imply Design (Paperback)

This book is exactly what I was looking for. It is a book that looks at the chemistry that would be involved to initiate life, and what the probabilities of evolution might be, based on statistics. The arguments are very conservative, yet still show that the chance of life forming is very small indeed. This book is one of a number of books that provide support to Intelligent Design, but the book focuses entirely on the science, which is what I wanted. As a chemist, myself, I can say the chemistry presented is correct as far as it conservatively goes. My only critism is that the figures in the book could be made more attractive.

18 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book will challenge Darwinists, January 14, 2006

By 

The Professor - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Intelligent Design or Evolution? Why the Origin of Life and the Evolution of Molecular Knowledge Imply Design (Paperback)

I cannot in a paragraph do justice to this excellent book. I will thus cover one simple point it discusses. This book shows why the science community must accept ID as a viable hypothesis. This book is not an`argument from ignorance'; but from evidence. This work also is a positive argument for design because it shows that ID is testable. I find it interesting that critics first claim that ID is not falsifiable, then try to argue that it has been falsified! Which is it? It is clearly falsifiable because, if Neo-Darwinism is proven true by research (molecules to man by purely natural means) ID would be shown false. ID has identified many`irreducible (specified) complexity' biological pathways and structures. This is one of many predictions of ID theory, and if one system is shown not to be irreducible, this prediction of ID has been falsified. Thus ID is science as per Popper. ID proponents define a structure as `Irreducibly complex' when it requires a certain minimum number of components in order to function. If you take one component away below this number, the system will fail to work (see page 200 to 201 in Pullen for an interesting discussion of this idea). As Pullen shows, the view that such systems could not have been formed through natural mechanisms (mutation and natural selection) clearly can be falsified. These are the types of predictions and testable experimentations that would falsify ID. ID does not claim that all biological systems are irreducible complex, only that many are (I believe that most all are). To falsify ID one would have to prove that no biological structures are irreducible complex, not that a few or certain ones are not. Pullen comes to an interesting conclusion, namely that ID is falsifiable but neo-Darwinism is not! Thus ID is science but Darwinism is not! Of course, one can falsify many ideas related to Darwinism ideas, such as the development of antibiotic resistance, but this will not falsify Neo-Darwinism, only the question if bacteria can develop resistance to an antibiotic under certain conditions, a very limited question. Proving that antibiotics can develop resistance does not prove that time, mutations, natural selection and natural law can, or did, evolve molecules into humans. Actually antibiotic resistance is fairly well understood now, and neither creationists nor ID advocates have any concerns about this reality (and many actually use it to prove their view).

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Intelligently refutes Darwinism, December 9, 2007

By 

M. A. ZAIDI "Ali Zaidi" (Karachi; Pakistan) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Intelligent Design or Evolution? Why the Origin of Life and the Evolution of Molecular Knowledge Imply Design (Paperback)

When Darwin proposed the theory of evolution, he envisioned that the process was continuous. He believed that the complexity and diversity of life could be explained by numerous slight modifications to existing species. His whole theory hinges on the idea that nature will preserve beneficial variations or natural selection and thereby guide evolution creating new and more complex animals and plants. Over a century later science has yet to show that complex organs can be formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications.

One of the first experiments concerning the origins of life was conducted in 1953 by Stanley Miller. Miller created several amino acids, the building blocks that life uses to make proteins in an electrostatic discharge chamber. The experiment conducted since Miller, have demonstrated how difficult it is to create the biological precursors required for life. While several amino acids can be created under plausible conditions, proteins cannot be. Furthermore, DNA is much more problematic because its building blocks are difficult to create. Many of these building blocks are unstable and decay rapidly. Science has yet to offer a plausible explanation for how these hard to make and easy to destroy chemicals accumulated in the primordial soup. Surprisingly, all difficulties are often overlooked; as a result, many biologists mistakenly believe that it is quite easy to synthesize all of the required biological molecules. For example to synthesize adenine [chemical found in DNA and RNA], chemists start with a concentration solution of hydrogen cyanide and ammonia. Concentrating ammonia is not easy task since it is a gas that boils at sub-freezing temperatures, and it decays rapidly in the presence of sunlight. Furthermore concentrating hydrogen cyanide in the presence of water is impossible because it reacts with water quite readily and yielding formic acid. Scientists tend to focus on the fact that the conditions required for its synthesis did not exist in primitive earth.

Investigators have also overlooked a third critical function required for life, the need to tap an energy source to drive replication. Without this function, self replicating molecules become a special type of perpetual motion machine. A perpetual machine is a machine runs forever with no energy input. Perpetual machines do not exist. They may run for a short time, but without a continuous input of energy, they eventually stop.

This book is an interesting read strongly refuting the possibility of evolution.