10/8/2019

1

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2019

Outline of Next 2 Weeks

THIS WEEKWhat is Life

Origin of Life & ManGenesis ⇐// Bio-Chemistry

NEXT WEEK– No Class –

Question solicitation for written Q&A document

10/8/2019

2

Tonight•Recap:• Interpretation idea to help align of science and Bible• Good alignment on “what” happened (not “how”)

• The Universe and primitive Solar system exist • The Earth as a planet is geologically formed

• Life on Earth arises step-by-step

•Next:• Focus on Life & Man

• Seeking alignable interpretations• Transhumanism

Life• What is Life?

• Is a kangaroo more like a lotus plant or a ballet dancer?

? ?≈ ≈

10/8/2019

3

SESSION 3Aligning: Rise of Life & Man

Interpretation• “Appearance of design = design” and

“Statistically extremely unlikely events = fine tuning”• Especially if effects accumulate toward an identified purpose

• Day/Age:• Scientific progression of physical systems and life align well with

God’s creative acts as described in Bible• Even if non-believers disagree with “How?”• Allows for the possible outworking of God’s created processes

•Why does the conflict seem so much worse with LIFE?

10/8/2019

4

History of Creation of LifeBIBLE (Genesis 1)

1:2 – First life (“hovering”)1:11 – Vegetation1:20 – Sea Animals and Birds1:24 – Land Mammals1:27 – ManGod’s work described:

Bara – create new (universe, soulish animals, man)Asa – form from somethingHaya – cause to become or happen (“Let…”)Dasha/Yasa – be brought forth

Possibility of outworking of created natural processes

SCIENCE• First life appears (3.8 ~ 3.5 BYA)

• (No viable chem-bio model of abiogenesis)• Last Universal Common Ancestor (~3.6 BYA)

• All life descended via macroevolution from LUCA• First plant life on dry land (~½ BYA)• “Cambrian Explosion” (~540 MYA)

• Nearly all phyla (body plans) emerged suddenly• (No viable evolutionary model)

• Insect (400 MYA), Reptiles (300 MYA)• First mammals (~65 MYA)• First primates (~30 MYA)• Homo sapiens (~150 TYA)

History of Earth – Step 6BBIBLE

• Genesis 1:27 – 28God created man[kind] in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

• Other verses reinforcing “image of God”:Gen 5:1, 9:6; 1 Cor 11:7; Col 3:10; Jam 3:9

SCIENCE• Hominids split off from primates 6 MYA• Homo sapiens became the dominant

hominin on earth ~150 TYA• All other hominins became extinct

• Neanderthals ~40 TYA

10/8/2019

5

Imago Dei – Human ExceptionalismBIBLE

• Formed (asa) and Created (bara) by God• “Image of God” interpreted as:

• Resemblance• Special qualities, characteristics, endowments

• Relational• Representative

• Special attributes of humans:• Moral, Spiritual , Rational, Relational• Volitional, Immortal, Powerful, Ruling

• All humans have this gift from God• Nothing else in creation

SCIENCE• Humans are most recently evolved hominins• Humans are only animals, but have unique and

superior capabilities due primarily to the evolution of the human brain• Symbolic thought/communication

• Literature, art, music, religion, …• Open-ended generative capacity

• Recursive definitional forms in language• Science, math

• Theory of mind – “me”, “you”, “us”• Complex social networks

• Societies, governments

• Attempts to give human traits to Neanderthals• Careful follow-up proves false• Now recognized that humans not from Neanderthal

Worldview “Line of Scrimmage”1. The physical world is literally not a spiritual concern in Christianity

• Even we say that’s all “natural” (even plants and animals to some degree)

2. Christianity is built on the assumption of a special and supernatural (spiritual) relationship of Man and God• Believers and non-believers feel if we are purely naturalistic objects, then

Christianity is wrong and our hope is lost

Creation vs. Evolution is the battle ground• Evolution is seen as a scientific “war machine”• It better resembles another religious position

10/8/2019

6

Life•We have to understand Life to even talk about Evolution• Then we can deconstruct “Evolution” into its scientific

aspects so we can find where the real issues are:• Definition of Life • DNA• Origin of Life• Micro-evolution• Macro-evolution

What is Life?• No consensus definition, but typically:• Systems exhibiting life (“organisms”)…

• Maintain homeostasis, are composed of cell(s)• Have a life cycle, undergo metabolism, can grow, • Adapt to their environment, respond to stimuli, reproduce, evolve, die

• On Earth• Cells are complex “sacks” of water, minerals, inorganic molecules, small-to-large

biomolecules, including peptides, proteins, antibodies, RNA, and DNACells…• Process input materials to create output materials, actions, and responses

• DNA contains the information code for producing all output materials (mostly proteins)• Have internal structures (membranes and organelles)• Replicate copies of themselves• May bind together to form complex organisms• In an organism, cells have same DNA but differentiate to perform diverse functions

10/8/2019

7

DNA – Deoxyribonucleic Acid (Molecule)• About 1 meter long (humans):

• 3.1 billion base pairs; ~20K protein coding “genes”; ~44K other regions• 10 ~ 100 chromosomes (humans = 22 x 2 parents + sex pair)

• DNA replication and protein formation is amazingly robust• Seconds-to-minutes per protein• Multiple error correction schemes, but not perfect

• Defects, cancer, genetic diversity; cell death if severe errors

• All DNA contains identifiable anomalies• Missing and duplicated segments are most common

• “Junk DNA” is a misnomer• Doesn’t encode a protein; many control, regulatory, and structural functions• Most of a DNA strand is non-coding (meaning biologists don’t know what it’s for)

10/8/2019

8

Sherilyn Primrose Brown on SlidePlayer.com

DNA “Similarity”• DNA of each organism is unique (2 parents)• DNA defines essentially everything about the structure of an organism• Basic cellular processes (replication and transcription)• Basic “plant” or “animal” structures processes

• Body plan (skeleton, muscles); organs, tissues, skin• Circulation and nervous/sensing systems; chemical systems

• Differences between most higher animals don’t need much DNA Human DNA is similar to other living things

Humans Apes Cats Dogs Cows Mice Chickens Flies Bananas99.8% 97% 90% 84% 80% 75% 60% 60% 50%

(BUT NOTE: This is usually given as only the coding part of DNA)

10/8/2019

9

Origin of Life• No models exist that meet the most basic conditions for abiogenesis• Life originated in full complexity in a window of less that 50 million years• No formation of basic biomolecules (amino acids, simple sugars, etc.)

• There was no viable “primordial soup”• There are no viable chemical pathways to form these molecules• No explanation of why they are all “handed” (amino acids = left ; sugars = right )

• No process for the encoding needed to produce biomolecules• Probability of randomly making 1 protein in a “perfect soup” is 1 in 1075

• None of the processes that might produce a cell wall are viable in early earth milieu and/or conditions

• Irreducible complexity / “chicken or egg” • Simple life might someday be made in a lab proves Intelligent Design

Microevolution• Small changes in genome of an organism’s DNA that can be

passed on• Well observed and documented• Often driven by stress-induced selection; often very quick• Limited in scope to 1 (or a few) species in a genus• Examples:

• Moths that micro-evolve to change color when trees change color• Legs that atrophy (snakes) or become flippers (seals)• Skin color and minor facial feature differences of humans• Microorganism evolution

• Issue: Do enough microevolutions make a macroevolution? Hint: No

10/8/2019

10

Macroevolution – History • In 1859, Darwin hypothesized that natural selection (reproductive

advantage) working on random variations over eons would create all known life forms • Starting from an initial simple life form• An extension of his observations of microevolution and plant/animal breeding• Merged with genetics late 1800’s Neo-Darwinism

• With microbiology discoveries (mid-1900’s), Modern Synthesis arose, based on observations of DNA similarities, differences, and mutations

• Human and other life genomes mapped and compared• Overwhelming complexity science seeks simplifying models

Macroevolution – Technical

• A theory of history of life; not directly observed but mapped against the (sparse) fossil record

• Incremental, cumulative, and significant changes in genome of a taxonomic group that slowly lead to distinctive subgroups• Not predictive (based on random changes) not treated as falsifiable

• Changes must be slow there should be transitional forms in the fossil record• Very few candidates (~0)• Fossil record yields “punctuated equilibrium”• Generally, new organisms appear suddenly and survive without much change

until now (or go extinct)

10/8/2019

11

Interpretive PrinciplesBIBLE

Progressive Creation (Day/Age)

• Similarities (appearance, behavior, DNA) shared by 2 organisms are due to common design • Designed by God according to His will

and purpose

• God controls all:• Direct intervention (supernatural)• Indirect intervention (hypernatural)• Physical laws (apparent natural)

SCIENCETheory of Evolution

• Similarities (appearance, behavior, DNA) shared by 2 organisms are due to common decent • Evolved from a shared ancestor• Recursively back to first life form

• Nothing controls all:• Random mutations via undirected

natural selection (survive to reproduce)

Difficulties with Macroevolution - Scientific• Can’t reasonably account for: origin of life, phyla (body plans), or human

exceptionalism• Suffers from many failed predictions, e.g., transitional forms

• Very rare (~0) in the fossil record (not even recent mammals)• “Cambrian Explosion” – All animal phyla today appeared suddenly

• No solid explanation for regulatory genes that can turn on/off major changes • Evolution can “think ahead” under stresses an organism never experienced?

• No coherent explanation for complex behaviors: altruism, beauty• Generally, macroevolution is just “patched” to accommodate

everything that doesn’t fit “Tree of Life” is just roots and leaves (no trunks/branches) The “tree” of life looks more like a complex network

10/8/2019

12

Difficulties with Macroevolution - Philosophical• Evolutionary paradigm is based on methodological naturalism

• Intelligent agency is forbidden regardless of evidence• Evolution is true by definition – there can be no alternative• Evolution can’t be abandoned because no other option is permitted

• Evolution is the creation myth of atheists• Atheists < 10% of the American population, but they have powerful influence

in public policy and academia• Anything against evolution is met with ferocious opposition

• Alternative to the creation myth of evolution is a creator-God, which unmakes atheism

IRONY: The random / intelligent “seeding” of life from elsewhere in the universe is recurringly discussed as a viable origin

What Does Scientism Say?Evolution explains everything about all life on Earth

• Response: Acknowledged that there’s no viable model for the origin of life• No “natural selection” before life• Very first life appeared already complex

• Response: What is the detailed technical response to the Cambrian Explosion?Undirected natural (random) processes account for all Life

• Response: Implies statistical probability of claimed processes is a fair test• Lifetime of universe insufficient for simplest random “good” mutations / assemblages

Man is not special or preferred over animalsHuman behaviors are arbitrary – no “good” and “evil” (relativism)

• Response: How did integrated human mind arise? Origin of consciousness?• Response: Does absence of good/evil apply to what happens to you?

10/8/2019

13

Putting It All Together• The scientific perspective on Life is that random naturalistic

evolution is responsible for all living things, including Man• Humans are merely the best hominins so far

• The Bible says that God originated and formed all life and created (bara) animals and humans• Humans are deemed exceptional by God

This week we’ll put Faith & Science in “red-orange check” alignment

Putting It All Together• Talking to believers – tolerance, grace, humility, self-control

• Bashing evolution leads to erroneous “throwing the baby out with the bath water”• Use the Golden Rule

• Modern “medical miracles” are based on God-created cell microbiology

• Talking to non-believers – love, respect, sensitivity, humility• Actual biologists are generally not demonically set out to destroy Christianity

• They are trying to understand life and disease and find new cures, drugs, vaccines, devices, and therapies to make human life better

• Often under severe career pressure regarding evolution stance (“heads down”)• Characterize the Bible and yourself as not antagonistic to microbiology

• You believe the Bible answers the BIG questions regarding origins and evolution of life• Bible is also supportive of intensely studying nature to understand it better leads to Creator

10/8/2019

14

Transhumanism

• Escaping the judgement of death• This movement now above ground will be a social force in your lifetime

• Integrates “good” things: medicine, computers/AI, bio/chem-physics• Will begin to define “rights”• But will it be a good thing or an evil thing?

• Can there be a Biblical Christian position on this?• There is already a Christian Transhumanism Association• Imago Dei can be a basis for Christian bio-ethics

?

What Convergences = Transhumanism?• Gene Editing Cures for hereditary disease Human enhancement• Neuroprosthetics Brain-Computer interface Cybernetics

• Mental enhancement; Shared mentality; “Self storage”• Anti-Aging Living 120+ years (almost) forever• Artificial Intelligence Rights for “machine life”• Artificial Womb Ultimate gender equality?• Key Challenges:

• Myth of “Progress”• Fast technology deployment can bring negative side-effects often exceeding

our ability to coherently cope ethically, socially, politically, spiritually• Transhumanism has no collective ethic – it is intensely “self” focused• Dissatisfaction / greed – what does “equitable distribution” look like?

10/8/2019

15

Q&A