Massachusetts Institute of Technolgy
Posted: April 18, 2013 Filed under: Evolution Hoax Leave a comment »I sent the following email to Philip Sharp on January 18, 2013
Dear Dr. Sharp,
As a director of the AAAS you should be committed to its second mission (“Promote and defend the integrity of science and its use”), and should want the American Journal of Physics (AJP) to retract an absurd article titled, “Entropy and evolution” (Am. J. Phys., Vol. 76, No. 11, November 2008). The article repeats the creationist error that evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics, and the even more nonsensical idea that evolution does not because of the sun. Unfortunately, the article goes so far as to write down an incorrect equation in thermodynamics to prove this quantitatively in units of entropy.
The AJP, the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT), and the American Institute of Physics (AIP) are resorting to trickery to avoid publishing a retraction. The following article explains why the AJP article is absurd: http://creationwiki.org/Pseudoscience_in_the_American_Journal_of_Physics.
There is a considerable amount of correspondence between me and the AJP/AAPT about this matter. I have given this information to Science, by email (science_editors@aaas.org) and fax (202-289-7562).
Very truly yours, David Roemer
I submitted the following on April 16, 2013, to the MIT Technology Review at
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/513781/moores-law-and-the-origin-of-life/#comments
The second law of thermodynamics does not apply to biological evolution and the evolution of stars. I explain this here:
http://www.creationwiki.org/Pseudoscience-in-the-American-Journal-of-Physics
It also does not apply to the origin of life, as I explain in my comments about Walter Bradley’s essay in Debating Design, edited by William Dembski and Michael Ruse. My review of this book is on Amazon.com with the title, “20 Essays and 20 Blindspots.” See: http://newevangelist.me/2013/03/25/debating-design/
The following is a quote from Bradley’s essay followed by my refutation:
The total entropy change that takes place in an open system such as a living cell must be consistent with the Second Law of Thermodynamics and can be described as follows: ∆S(cell) + ∆S(surrounding) > 0.[7904]
This is like saying ∆S(airplane in flight) + ∆S(surrounding) > 0. An airplane can be broken up into a number of thermodynamic systems, e.g., the engine, pilot’s cabin, metal wing, etc. Each thermodynamic system will have its surroundings and this law will apply. But to suggest that there is such a thing as the entropy of an airplane in flight is nonsense. A living cell has much more machinery in it than an airplane. It is like an airplane that can replace or repair a broken wing.
I explained all this to Edmund Bertschinger and Max Tegmark so they would cancel their subscriptions to the American Journal of Physics to protest the fraudulent article titled “Entropy and evolution.” They ignored my emails and faxes. More importantly, they did not refute the Creationwiki.org article. I am not a creationist, so I can’t edit the article. I’m sure the creationists in charge will correct any mistakes. In any case, I will answer any comments you have about the AJP article and my Creationwiki article.
Message sent to staff of MIT Technology Review on April 17, 2013:
I suggest that you either post my reply to Prof. Gladyshev’s comment or invite me to the the lecture of thermodynamics that I offered to give the chair of your physics department. You should also know that I have taken this matter up with the NSF and my congressman in the 9th District of Brooklyn:
http://newevangelist.me/2013/04/12/national-science-foundation/.
The head of the NSF should hate fraudulent research, as should you all.
Email message from Jason Pontin on April 27, 2013
David,
The AJP publication is *nothing* to do with MIT Technology Review, its editor David Rotman, or me. Even if I agreed that the article is fraudulent (which I do not: it sounds as if you have a difference of opinion, based on your religious views), it’s not my role to denounce every single fraudulent publication.
I don’t see how any of this has anything to do with Second World War.
If you manage to get through to my secretary you can tell her what you want. If you can find someone to listen, you can denounce us as somehow complicit in this matter. That’s free speech. But I have no interest in meeting with you. This is not my business.
Jason
Email message to Jason Pontin on April 27, 2013
Dear Jason,
Edmund Bertschinger, Max Tegmark, and David Rotman know or should know that the AJP article is based on an incorrect application of the Boltzmann equation in order to refute the religiously motivated fallacy that evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics. To this list of MIT sleaze I’m adding the biologist Philip A. Sharp, who also ignored my faxes and emails. Sharp is the president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and pays lip service to “Promote and defend the integrity of science and its use.”
What you should do is schedule an appointment to see me and invite David Rotman. At that time, I’ll explain the connection between genocide and pseudoscience and explain why Rotman should not be the editor of MIT Technology Review. This certainly is your business. The question is whether or not you have the character to carry out your responsibilities.
Very truly yours, David Roemer
Open Letter to Board of Directors of MIT Technology Review (Reid Ashe, Judith Cole, Jerome Friedman, Israel Ruiz, Megan Smith, Sheila Widnall, Ann Wolpert)
The Editor in Chief and Publisher, Jason Pontin, has not responded yet to the following message that is a response to his email refusing to meet with me:
(See above email dated April 27, 2103)
The AJP article is “Entropy and evolution” (Am. J. Phys., Vol. 76, No. 11, November 2008). MIT Technology Review is involved because it published Georgi Gladyshev’s online comments about evolution and thermodynamics, but did not publish my reply referring to http://creationwiki.org/Pseudoscience_in_the_American_Journal_of_Physics.
By deleting my reply and not deleting Gladyshev’s comment, MIT Technology Review is helping the AJP spread anti-religious propaganda. I explained the maliciousness of “Entropy and evolution” to Congressman Yvette Clarke in a 10-page indictment with 9 exhibits. I’d like to come to MIT to explain to Pontin, Rotman, Bertschinger, Gladyshev, Tegmark, and Sharp the harm that the AJP article is doing.
Very truly yours, David Roemer
Committee on Publication Ethics
Posted: April 15, 2013 Filed under: Evolution Hoax Leave a comment »Posted on LinkedIn COPE group:
I’m trying to get the American Journal of Physics to retract an absurd article titled, “Entropy and evolution.” The article uses a fake equation to prove that evolution does not violate the second law of thermodynamics. The truth is that the second law does not apply to the evolution of stars or biological evolution. I pointed out the error to the editor. Instead of giving my comments to the author, who a conscience and a reputation to protect, the editor suggested that I submit my own article. I did so, and an anonymous reviewer said I was wrong. In this way, the AJP is avoiding responsibility. I explain why the equation is wrong at
http://creationwiki.org/Pseudoscience_in_the_American_Journal_of_Physics
My correspondence with physicists about this issue is at
http://newevangelist.me/2012/02/22/physics-department-of-new-york-university/
http://newevangelist.me/2012/02/02/american-journal-of-physics/
http://newevangelist.me/2012/02/23/american-association-of-physics-teachers/
http://newevangelist.me/2012/05/06/american-institute-of-physics/
http://newevangelist.me/2011/12/07/american-scientific-affiliation/
http://newevangelist.me/2012/08/02/first-things/
Correspondence with Natalie Ridgeway starting March 28, 2013
Dear Natalie,
I submitted a post exposing unethical conduct by the editors and publishers of the American Journal of Physics (Code 1.8) in failing to correct an error in a peer-reviewed article. Why hasn’t it been posted? I could not find the FAQ you referred to. Am I following the wrong procedure? Are you deliberately helping the AJP to cover up its mistake in publishing the article? Are you assuming a peer-reviewed physics article can’t be absurd? I told the editor of the AJP (David Jackson) about the error. Instead of referring the matter to the author (Daniel Styer), he suggested I submit my own article. I did so, and an anonymous reviewer said I was wrong. In this way, the AJP is avoiding taking responsibility for the article. I also complained to the publishers of the AJP. Give me a call at 347-417-4703, if that is the easiest way for you to respond.
Very truly yours, David Roemer
Dear David,
Thank you for your email via our LinkedIn account. Having checked our membership I am afraid that the American Journal of Physics is not a member of COPE. Therefore we are unable to consider a complaint against them (see the terms & conditions for complaints on our website here: http://publicationethics.org/contact-us ).
I am sorry that we cannot be of any assistance.
Kind regards, Natalie
Dear Natalie,
Why don’t you publish my submitted post on your LinkedIn site? Lisa McLaughlin, Marc Cassar, John H., and Daniel K. are members of the American Institute of Physics and the American Physical Society, which are affiliated with the publishers of the American Journal of Physics, the American Association of Physics Teachers. They are all members of your LinkedIn group. They should know about this matter.
By not publishing my post, you are helping the American Journal of Physics perpetrate a hoax about biological evolution and religion that victimizes many people. The absurdity of the AJP article is the culmination of four pseudoscientific ideas about evolution:
- Natural selection acting upon innovations explains common descent. This is untrue. It only explains adaptation. Evolutionary biologists always speak of “adaptive evolution.” Atheists, creationists, and advocates of intelligent design are responsible for disseminating this misinformation.
- Evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics. This is an error because the second law does not apply to the evolution of stars or biological evolution.
- Evolution does not violate the second law of thermodynamics because of the sun. This idea is unintelligible.
- You can perform a thermodynamic calculation to prove # 3. This is what Eq. 4b in the AJP article does. The equation is incorrect for reasons explained in a number of publications.
Very truly yours, David Roemer
Dear David,
The COPE LinkedIn site is for members who are interested in publication ethics in scholarly journals to disseminate information and discuss items of interest, it is not intended to be used as a medium to discuss specific cases. COPE does have a formal procedure for reviewing complaints against member journals if they have not abided by COPE’s Code of Conduct for Journal Editors (all journals agree to abide by this when they join COPE, see: http://publicationethics.org/resources/code-conduct ). However, as the American Journal of Physics is not a member of COPE we are not able to follow this procedure. Even if the AJP was a member we would not use LinkedIn to discuss the case but would look at it formally via our complaints procedure.
I am sorry that we cannot be of any further assistance.
Yours sincerely
Natalie Ridgeway
Operations Manager
Dear Natalie,
What you could do is expel Lisa McLaughlin from your LinkedIn group because she is possibly following unethical orders from her bosses. The email I sent is the discussion you are refusing to post. This is the letter I wrote to her boss with a certificate of mailing:
Mr. John Haynes
AIP Publishing
Suite 1NO1
2 Huntington Quadrangle
Melville, NY 11747
Dear Mr. Haynes,
I am writing to ask for an appointment to discuss a conversation I had yesterday over the telephone with Lisa McLaughlin. I called to see if Ms. McLaughlin got the email I sent her arguing that the article “Entropy and evolution” (Am. J. Phys., Vol. 76, No. 11, November 2008) is a hoax analogous to the infamous Piltdown Man hoax. Ms. McLaughlin admitted getting the email, but said, “I cannot comment about this matter. Thank you.” I did not get the opportunity to ask why the AIP’s Director of Publication Operations and a member of the Committee of Publication Ethics LinkedIn group can’t comment on an accusation of fraud against a member organization.
At our meeting I’ll attempt to explain to you why the AJP article should be retracted. I made a similar request to Beth Cunningham of the American Association of Physics Teachers, but it was ignored.
Very truly yours, David Roemer
Dear David
I have removed your recent post from the COPE Facebook site as, as I have explained before, The AJP is not a member of COPE and this is the not the correct forum for allegations such as this. It is not appropriate for our site to be used in this way.
Kind regards
Natalie
Dear Natalie,
There is no question that the article “Entropy and evolution” is fraudulent. It is like the Piltdown Man hoax because it promotes the atheistic error that human beings evolved from apes, not just their bodies. In the case of the Piltdown man, an amateur paleontologist used human and ape bones. In the case of the two AJP articles, the authors used the Boltzmann/Plank physics equation to prove evolution does not violate the laws of physics.
You are behaving just as badly as the editors and publishers of the AJP and causing just as much harm. That the articles are not retracted sheds light on how the Nazis could kill so many civilians during WWII. No one was ever forced to kill anyone. However, there were severe penalties for telling about the murders. Collaboration took the form of censorship and keeping quiet.
Very truly yours,
David Roemer
National Science Foundation
Posted: April 12, 2013 Filed under: Evolution Hoax Leave a comment »Letter sent to director on April 6, 2013
Dr. Cora B. Marrett
National Science Foundation
4201 Wilson Blvd.
Arlington, VA 22230
Dear Dr. Marrett,
I am writing to request a personal appointment with you to discuss the importance of getting the American Journal of Physics to retract an article about biological evolution and thermodynamics (Am. J. Phys., Vol. 76, No. 11, November 2008). I’v send hundreds of faxes, emails, and letters to individuals and organizations who should be against pro-religion and anti-religion pseudoscience. I’v included a letter to the director of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and an open letter to Howard Wactlar. I contacted Mr. Wactlar because one of his consultants is a member of the AAAS. I’v also enclosed the letter to the CEO of AIP Publications, LLC.
I asked 9 presidents of universities for appointments to explain why the chairs of their physics departments either don’t understand thermodynamics or have poor character. I’v enclosed the letter to the president of New York University because that is where I got a Ph.D. in physics. The only response was from the president of City College of New York, who was under the impression that I am advocating creationism. No physicist has rebutted the article in Creationwiki.org explaining the correct connection between evolution and thermodynamics.
Very truly yours, David Roemer
Faxed to 703-292-9732
Mailed with a certificate of mailing
American Association for the Advancement of Science
Posted: April 12, 2013 Filed under: Evolution Hoax Leave a comment »Email from Science Magazine on May 23, 2012
Thank you for your note. As you might imagine, we do not get involved in these kinds of activities of other publishers.
Alan Leshner
CEO, AAAS
Executive Publisher, Science
Dr. William H. Press
University of Texas at Austin
Department of Computer Science
Dear Dr. Press,
As a director of the AAAS you should be committed to its second mission (“Promote and defend the integrity of science and its use”), and should want the American Journal of Physics (AJP) to retract an absurd article titled, “Entropy and evolution” (Am. J. Phys., Vol. 76, No. 11, November 2008). The article repeats the creationist error that evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics, and the even more nonsensical idea that evolution does not because of the sun. Unfortunately, the article goes so far as to write down an incorrect equation in thermodynamics to prove this quantitatively in units of entropy.
The AJP, the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT), and the American Institute of Physics (AIP) are resorting to trickery to avoid publishing a retraction. The following article explains why the AJP article is absurd: http://creationwiki.org/Pseudoscience_in_the_American_Journal_of_Physics.
Because of her leadership position in the AAPT, Jill Marshall (marshall@mail.utexas.edu) is supporting the AJP’s refusal to stop spreading misinformation about evolution. There is a considerable amount of correspondence between me and the AJP/AAPT about this matter. I have given this information to Science, by email (science_editors@aaas.org) and fax (202-289-7562).
Very truly yours, David Roemer
Open letter to Allen Goldman (American Association for the Advancement of Science, Physics Section) and Howard Wactlar (National Science Foundation, Division of Information and Intelligent Systems):
The American Journal of Physics published an article (“Entropy and evolution,” Am. J. Phys., Vol. 76, No. 11, November 2008) that begins with the statement: “The creationist argument is that advanced organisms are more orderly than primitive organisms, and hence as evolution proceeds living things become more ordered, that is less disordered, that is less entropic. Because the second law of thermodynamics prohibits a decrease in entropy, it therefore prohibits biological evolution.”
The author says, “Two anonymous referees made valuable suggestions that improved this article significantly.” This raises the possibility that the peer-reviewers were more interested in anti-creationist propaganda than in making sure the article is a contribution to scientific knowledge.
The article says evolution decreased the entropy of the biosphere and estimates the decrease in joule/degrees. The article’s statements about evolution and entropy are unintelligible.
I pointed out the errors and misinformation in the article to American Journal of Physics, the American Association of Physics Teachers, and the American Institute of Physics in a number of communications. The AJP, the AAPT, and the AIP are refusing to retract the article, which I think is the only remedy for its nonsense. I refer you to the following sources of information about evolution and thermodynamics:
- McIntosh, A.C., “Information and entropy – top -down or bottom-up development in living systems?”, Int. J. of Design & Nature and Ecodynamics. Vol. 4, No. 4 (2009), pp. 351 to 385.
- Fourth paragraph of Ilya Prigogine, Gregoire Nicolis, and Agnes Babloyantz, “Thermodynamics of evolution”, Physics Today 25(11) (1972), pp. 23 to 28. View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3071090.
- http://creationwiki.org/Pseudoscience_in_the_American_Journal_of_Physics
- My article in http://www.catholictruthscotland.com/MAYnewsletter12.pdf
- http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/10/more_philosophical_than_scient052441.html
Very truly yours, David Roemer
20 Essays and 20 Blindspots
Posted: March 25, 2013 Filed under: Book Review on Amazon Leave a comment »Debating Design edited by William A. Dembski and Michael Ruse
Chapter 1 William A. Dembski and Michael Ruse
Intelligent Design is the hypothesis that in order to explain life it is necessary to suppose the action of an unevolved intelligence. One simply cannot explain organisms, those living and those long gone, by reference to normal natural causes or material mechanisms…Although most supporters of Intelligent Design are theists of some sort…[229]
This quote is supposed to be an explanation of what Intelligent Design is, however, it modifies the word causes with the adjective natural without explaining what a supernatural cause is. It also uses the word theists without defining this concept. The entire chapter is an exercise in circular reasoning. It purports to explain Intelligent Design by using the undefined words natural and theist.
My definition of an atheist is someone who thinks believing in life after death is irrational. Defining theism is pointless because very few people understand the cosmological argument for God’s existence. Most of the contributors to this book, I don’t doubt, think the argument has to do with the Big Bang or “first causes.” The cosmological argument is based on the metaphysical principle that a finite being needs a cause.
Chapter 2 Michael Ruse
And although natural theology has recovered somewhat, there seems to be general recognition among theologians that old-fashioned approaches—supposedly proving God’s existence beyond doubt—are no longer viable enterprises.[782]
The Catholic Church teaches that you can prove God exists. According to the Baltimore Catechism, “We can know by our natural reason that there is a God, for natural reason tells us that the world we see about us could have been made only by a self-existing Being, all-wise and almighty.” Catholic theologians and philosophers explain the proof in many works, for example, The One and the Many: A Contemporary Thomistic Metaphysics by W. Norris Clark, S.J.
Chapter 3 Angus Menuge
Now suppose one thinks that there are exactly four possible explanations for the origin of life: chance, necessity, a combination of chance and necessity, and design. And suppose also that one believes on has reason to eliminate the first three candidates. However surprising or bizarre, design is then the rational inference. [1044]
This fallacy is repeated a number of times in this book because it is equivalent to John Leslie’s analogy of a condemned man not being struck by bullets from a firing squad. Leslie thinks the choice is between the squad’s deliberately missing or the misses were a matter of chance. The other possibility is that the bullets disappeared on the way to the victim.
Likewise, Menuge has a blind spot. There is a fifth answer: The universe is not intelligible. The rational answer is the one supported by the evidence. Since there is no evidence for a designer, chance, necessity, a combination of chance and necessity, the universe must not be intelligible.
Chapter 4 Francisco J. Ayala
The theory of evolution manifests chance and necessity jointly intertwined in the stuff of life; randomness and determinism interlocked in a natural process that has spurted the most complex, diverse, and beautiful entities in the universe: the organisms that populate the Earth, including humans, who think and love, who are endowed with free will.[1612] …..The creation or origin of the universe involves a transition from nothing into being. But a transition can only be scientifically investigated if we have some knowledge about the states or entities on both sides of the boundary. Nothingness, however, is not a subject for scientific investigation or understanding. Therefore, as far as science is concerned, the origin of the universe will remain forever a mystery. [1683] (emphasis added)
Ayala is saying free will is the result of chance and necessity, but we don’t know what caused the Big Bang. Hence, free will is not a mystery, but the Big Bang is a mystery.
What caused the Big Bang is a scientific question, and the scientific method has a tremendous track record of success. Free will, however, is not something we observe with our senses. We know we have free will because we can make ourselves the subject of our own knowledge. Free will raises metaphysical questions, and Catholic philosophers and theologians think that free will is a mystery and that humans are embodied spirits.
Chapter 5 Kenneth R. Miller
Anyone can state at any time that he or she cannot imagine how evolutionary mechanisms might have produced a certain species, organ, or structure. Such statements, obviously, are personal—and they say more about the limitations of those who make them than they do about the limitations of Darwinian mechanisms. [2038] … Living cells are filled, of course, with complex structures whose detailed evolutionary origins are not known. [2070]
First, Miller implies that there are no limits to the explanatory power of Darwinian mechanisms, and then he says that there are. Unfortunately, this way that Miller has of expressing himself deceives and misinforms laymen about evolutionary biology. The following quote shows that the following linguistics Ph.D. thinks the known Darwinian mechanisms explains how mammals evolved from bacteria in only a billion times as much time as it takes a fertilized human egg to generate all of the cells in an adult:
They [Pinker and Bloom] particularly emphasized that language is incredibly complex, as Chomsky had been saying for decades. Indeed, it was the enormous complexity of language that made is hard to imagine not merely how it had evolved but that it had evolved at all.
But, continued Pinker and Bloom, complexity is not a problem for evolution. Consider the eye. The little organ is composed of many specialized parts, each delicately calibrated to perform its role in conjunction with the others. It includes the cornea,…Even Darwin said that it was hard to imagine how the eye could have evolved.
And yet, he explained, it did evolve, and the only possible way is through natural selection—the inestimable back-and-forth of random genetic mutation with small effects…Over the eons, those small changes accreted and eventually resulted in the eye as we know it. “(Christine Kenneally, The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language, pp. 59–60)
Chapter 6 Elliot Sober
The design argument is one of three main arguments for the existence of God; the others are the ontological argument and the cosmological argument…And whereas the cosmological argument can focus on any present event to get the ball rolling (arguing that it must trace back to a first cause, namely God)…[2391]
In the cosmological argument, God is not the “first cause.” God is an infinite being that exists outside of any chain of causality and gives existence to all finite beings, such as human beings. Humans are finite beings because they possess a center of action (free will) that unifies them with respect to themselves and separates them from other beings. Like a being that begins to exist at some point in time, a finite being needs a cause. In the West, the infinite being is called God.
Chapter 7 Robert T. Pennock
Human beings, so far as all experience has shown, are made of ordinary natural materials, which is good evidence that natural process can produce CSI [complex specified information].[3430]
The human mind has four levels of structure: observations, inquiry, reflective judgment, and free will. All of these levels give rise to questions that there is no answer to: What the relationship is between my self and my body? What is the conscious knowledge of humans? This means humans are embodied spirits or indefinabilities that become conscious of their own existence.
Chapter 8 Stuart Kauffman
The strange thing about the theory of evolution is that everyone thinks he understands it. But we do not. A biosphere, or an econosphere, self-consistently co-constructs itself according to principles we do not yet fathom.[4007]
I agree with this statement. My criticism of Kauffman is that he does not say it often enough and loud enough. It is as if he is in a theatre with a friend and whispers, “I smell smoke. Let’s get out of here before we get trampled.”
Chapter 9 Bruce H. Weber and David J. Depew
The danger of ID, considered as a theological position rather than in the scientific light in which we have discussed it here, is that it potentially implies a limiting conception of God (while adding nothing to the pursuit of scientific exploration). These facts suggest that from a theological and well as a scientific perspective, the presumption should be in favor of methodological naturalism—the working hypothesis that a scientific explanation for a puzzling phenomenon will be found that does not invoke a source of functional design outside of nature. It is important to add, however, that it is not logically necessary that methodological naturalism must lead to metaphysical naturalism or materialism, which must deny any type of theology. [4354]
Usually, intelligence is a measure of how fast or how slow it takes someone to grasp a theory or insight. About religion, there is so much anxiety that people are inhibited from thinking intelligently. They have blind spots. The blind spot of most “materialists” is that they can grasp only two solutions to the mind-body problem: dualism and materialism. They literally cannot grasp the theory that the human mind is a mystery. Most “materialists” would agree with the following quote from a major biology textbook:
And certain properties of the human brain distinguish our species from all other animals. The human brain is, after all, the only known collection of matter that tries to understand itself. To most biologists, the brain and the mind are one and the same; understand how the brain is organized and how it works, and we’ll understand such mindful functions as abstract thought and feelings. Some philosophers are less comfortable with this mechanistic view of mind, finding Descartes’ concept of a mind-body duality more attractive. (Neil Campbell, Biology, 4th edition, p. 776 )
Chapter 10 Paul Davies
He [Hermann von Helmholtz] based his prediction on the Second Law of Thermodynamics, according to which there is a natural tendency for order to give way to chaos. It is not hard to find examples in the world about us: people grow old, snowmen melt, houses fall down, cars rust, and stars burn out. Although islands of order may appear in restricted regions (e.g., the birth of a baby, crystals emerging from a solute), the disorder of the environment will always increase by an amount sufficient to compensate. This one-way slide into disorder is measured by a quantity called entropy. [4499]
The second law of thermodynamics only applies to thermodynamic systems. It does not apply to the evolution of stars or living organisms. The idea that the growth of an embryo represents a decrease in entropy and that this decrease is compensated for by an increase in entropy in the environment is nonsense. It is not harmful nonsense because it gives rise to the fallacy that evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics. This fallacy gives rise to the absurdity that evolution does not violate the second law because of the sun. This absurdity gave rise to an article titled “Entropy and evolution,” (Am. J. Phys., Vol. 76, No. 11, November 2008) with a fake equation proving that evolution does not violate the second law.
Chapter 11 James Barham
If the functional logic of the cell is irreducible to physical law as we currently understand it, then there would appear to be only two ways to explain it naturalistically. Either the teleological design of living things is, at bottom, a matter of chance; or else there is some unknown qualitative difference inherent in the material constitution of organisms that gives them an intrinsic functional integrity. [ 5012]
This statement implies that there are supernatural explanations. According to the cosmological argument, an infinite being created the universe of finite beings because a universe with only finite beings is less intelligible than a universe with an infinite being. This raises the question of what motivated the infinite being to create finite beings. The only thing that could motivate an infinite being to do anything is self-love. Hence, finite beings exist because the infinite being loved itself as giving. But, the infinite being could just as well love itself without giving. The existence of an infinite being has no explanatory power. There is no such thing as a supernatural or a natural explanation. There are only explanations that are supported by the evidence or not.
Chapter 12 John F. Haught
For example, don’t the elements of chance, suffering, and impersonal natural selection, operative over the course of a wasteful immensity of time, entail a materialist and therefore Godless universe. Aren’t Dennett, Dawkins, Rose, Cziko, Crews and, the rest fully justified in reading evolution as the direct refutation of any plausible notion of divine Providence? [5563]
Haught never acknowledges that these are good reasons for not believing in divine Providence. Dennett, Dawkins, and others usually give bad reasons for not believing. For example, free will is an illusion and God does not exist. When they give good reasons, it should be acknowledged.
Chapter 13 John Polkinghorne
Metaphysical questions do not lend themselves to categorical knockdown answers. There will always be some room for more tacit considerations to come into play in determining a personal conclusion (room for the commitment of faith, a theologian might say.[5890]
Metaphysics is a method of inquiry that consists mostly of “knockdown answers.” For example, humans have free will and are embodied spirits, finite beings need a cause, God exists, a being that is a member of a class of beings is composed of form and matter, etc. Personal conclusions are required when trying to decide whether there is life after death. In this context, it is reasonable to ask if free will is an illusion, if a finite being is really a composition of essence and existence, etc.
Chapter 14 Kieth Ward
It is an evaluation of personal existence that springs from a sustained attempt at reflexive understanding—an understanding not based on experimental observation and hypothesis but on the effort to understand from within, from one’s own personal experience, one’s own distinctive form of existence as a human being. If this is admitted as a source of knowledge and understanding, then it must stand alongside the experimental observations of the natural sciences as a way of providing an adequate account of human nature and the nature of the universe of which humans are an integral part. [6137]
Ward is saying we know we have free will and conscious knowledge because we can make ourselves the subject of our own knowledge, not because we can see, hear, touch, or smell free will. Ward is saying it is just as okay to ask, “Why is the sky blue?” as to ask, “What is knowing the sky is blue?” I agree that the method of inquiry called metaphysics “stands alongside” science as a source of knowledge.
Chapter 15 Michael Roberts
This opens up the question of miracles, as any creed that accepts the Virgin Birth or the Empty Tomb of the Resurrection must, in a sense, be super—or possibly supranaturalist in the eyes of through going naturalists. [6592]
The primary believe of Christians is that Jesus is alive in a new life with God, and that if you follow Jesus the same good thing can happen to you. We are not promised salvation, but we can hope for it “with fear and trembling.” The doctrine of the Virgin Birth means that we can’t assume anything natural about the birth of Jesus. The stories in the gospels about the empty tomb of Jesus constitutes just one kind of tradition about the Easter experience.
Chapter 16 Richard Swinburne, University of Oxford
In order to be a person, you need to have some power to perform intentional actions and some knowledge of how to perform them. God is supposed to have power and knowledge with zero limits.[7013]
According to Thomas Aquinas, a person is a being that has self-knowledge, self-determination, and self-expression. God has knowledge by analogy. Humans exist and humans have knowledge. Worms exist and worms have knowledge. By analogy, God has knowledge.
Chapter 17 William A. Dembski
For many natural scientists, design conceived as the action of an intelligent agent, is not a fundamental creative force in nature. Rather, material mechanisms, characterized by chance and necessity and ruled by unbroken laws, are thought to be sufficient to do all nature’s creating. But how do we know that nature requires no help from a designing intelligence? [7184]
We know because there is no evidence for an intelligent designer other than human beings. The evidence for God’s existence is that humans are embodied spirits and all the evidence that the universe is intelligible. The Big Bang, origin of life, fine-tuning, and evolution constitute evidence that the universe is not intelligible.
Chapter 18 Walter L. Bradley
The total entropy change that takes place in an open system such as a living cell must be consistent with the Second Law of Thermodynamics and can be described as follows: ∆S(cell) + ∆S(surrounding) > 0.[7904]
This is like saying ∆S(airplane in flight) + ∆S(surrounding) > 0. An airplane can be broken up into a number of thermodynamic systems, e.g., the engine, pilot’s cabin, metal wing, etc. Each thermodynamic system will have its surroundings and this law will apply. But to suggest that there is such a thing as the entropy of an airplane in flight is nonsense. A living cell has much more machinery in it than an airplane. It is like an airplane that can replace or repair a broken wing.
Chapter 19 Michael J. Behe
Many scientists of Darwin’s era took the cell to be a simple glob of protoplasm, something like microscopic piece of Jell-O. Thus the intricate molecular basis of life was utterly unknown to Darwin and his contemporaries. [8138]
Darwin knew how complex life is on a macroscopic level and understood the limited explanatory power of natural selection. His comment is well known:
To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree. (Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species)
Chapter 20 Stephen C. Meyer
Many scientists now openly acknowledge the fundamental difficulties facing chemical evolutionary theories of the origin of life, including the problem of explaining the origin of biological information from nonliving chemistry. Nevertheless, many assume that theories of biological evolution do not suffer from a similar information problem. [8576]
This may be. But it does not prove that there is a disagreement about evolutionary biologists about evolution. All biologists agree that natural selection acting upon innovations only explains adaptive evolution. There is a conflict, of course, about the theory of intelligent design. It is a conflict, not a disagreement, because neither side is able to define the word intelligence. They are fighting about something they don’t understand.
Pseudoscience in Evolution
Posted: March 4, 2013 Filed under: Book Review on Amazon Leave a comment »The End of Darwinism: And How a Flawed and Disastrous Theory Was Stolen and Sold by Eugene G. Windchy
This informative and enjoyable book tells about the Piltdown hoax and the fake drawings of Ernst Haeckel, the famous advocate of Darwinism in Germany. There is another hoax about evolution that has not yet been exposed. It is widely believed by physicists that evolution does not violate the second law of thermodynamics, according to which nature tends to go from order to disorder. In fact, the American Journal of Physics published an article (“Entropy and evolution,” Am. J. Phys., Vol. 76, No. 11, November 2008) and a note (“Evolution and the second law of thermodynamics,” Am. J. Phys., Vol. 77, No. 10, October 2009) with fake calculations proving that the second law is not violated. The truth is that the second law does not apply to biological evolution or the evolution of stars.
The idea that a living organism is a thermodynamic system is similar to the absurd idea that natural selection acting upon innovations explains how mammals evolved from bacteria in only 3.5 billion years. It takes a fertilized egg 18 years to produce all of the cells in a human. (I know because my urologist told me the prostate gland stops growing at this age and starts growing again at the age of 30, so much for intelligent design.) Not enough is known about the innovations natural selection acts upon to understand how the same thing happened with a bacterium as the starting point. Evolutionary biologists always speak of “adaptive evolution.” Darwin expressed this by saying it was “absurd in the highest degree” to think natural selection gave us the human eye.
Windchy sees in this quote from Charles Darwin some kind of self-delusion. He also misrepresents the way mainstream biologists rebut the idea of “irreducible complexity” put forth by advocates of intelligent design. It is not rebutted in peer-reviewed journals and biology textbooks, but it is ridiculed only in popular books, magazines, and lectures.
Windchy thinks the theory of intelligent design is reasonable. I think it is irrational because there is no evidence for it. But it is also dishonest not to admit that intelligent design is a better theory than natural selection, in some sense. This raises the question of why one side in this conflict about evolutionary biology is irrational and the other side is dishonest. The general answer is that evolution is related to religion, and religion causes conflict between people. Conflict causes anxiety, and inhibition is a defense mechanism for anxiety. Advocates of intelligent design and their opponents are inhibited from thinking rationally and behaving honestly.
My theory is that both sides don’t understand the cosmological argument for God’s existence. See: The One and the Many: A Contemporary Thomistic Metaphysics. They both think the argument has to do with the Big Bang and a “first cause.” The cosmological argument is based on the observation that human beings have free will. This means humans are finite beings, as well as embodied spirits. Since a finite being needs a cause, an infinite being exists if the universe is intelligible. Hindus and Buddhists have a different terminology, but in the West we call the infinite being God.
God was motivated to create finite beings because He loved Himself as giving. But He just as well could love Himself without giving. We don’t explain our existence by thinking God created us and keeps us in existence, and we can’t use God’s existence to answer scientific questions. The evidence that the universe is intelligible is the success of the scientific method and the fact that things don’t pop into or out of existence. Windchy thinks the Big Bang, the origin of life, evolution, and the fine-tuning of the coupling constants in physics is evidence that God exists. In my opinion, these phenomena are evidence God does not exist.
The Truth About the Shroud of Turin
Posted: October 2, 2012 Filed under: Correspondence 1 Comment »
Letter to the Vicar General of the Archdiocese of New York dated April 12, 2012
Dear Bishop Sullivan:
The following is a letter of complaint against the pastor of the Church of St Paul at East 117th Street in New York, Msgr. Greg Mustaciuolo, Sr. Joan Curtin, and Sr. Pauline Chirchirillo.
Sr. Maria Madre de la Sabiduria, SSVM, invited me to give a slideshow/lecture (http://www.holyshroud.info) about the Shroud of Turin on March 30, 2011, at the Church of St. Paul. On March 27 in a telephone conversation, Sr. Maria expressed some concern over the fact that I was not promoting the theory that the Shroud was authentic. I suggested that nobody in the audience would notice that nuance. We agreed that Sr.Maria would address the audience after my talk about the Shroud. The next day, Sr. Maria left a message on my answering machine cancelling the slideshow.
I didn’t check my messages and arrived at the church with my projector and slides. It was the pastor’s decision, not Sr. Maria’s, to cancel my talk. The pastor said he thought I believed the Shroud was authentic because I am on the Shroud Speakers Directory at The Shroud of Turin Website (http://www.shroud.com). He seemed to think the Catholic Church taught that the Holy Shroud was authentic. He certainly believed the image was created with a burst of radiation when Jesus rose from the dead. He mentioned how moved he was to see the Shroud up close up in Italy, but he deprived the group that night of the same experience.
The Catholic Church grants indulgences to people who pray before the Shroud itself or an image of the Shroud. I feel my slides of the Holy Shroud are just as deserving of veneration as the cloth itself. I feel that the pastor desecrated the Holy Shroud by depriving his parishioners of the experience of seeing a miraculous artifact.
I contacted the other individuals by email and telephone to tell them about my slideshow/lecture in 2011. No one gave me any help or encouragement. I was pretty much given a runaround. I feel they desecrated the Holy Shroud just as much as the pastor of The Church of St. Paul.
Very truly yours, David Roemer
Letter from Archbishop Sullivan dated May 10, 2012
Dear Mr. Roemer,
Your April 12th email to my office concerning Father Claudio Stewart outlines your complaint about him and Sister Maria Madre de la Sabiduria. I suggest that you should resolve the issue as it is personal between you and them. It is not a matter that requires my involvement on behalf of the archdiocese of New York as it is personal. I have shared your letter with Father Stewart and asked him to speak with Sister.
Sincerely yours, Bishop Dennis J. Sullivan, Vicar General
Letter to the Vicar General dated May 22, 2012
Dear Bishop Sullivan,
I got your letter of May 10, 2012, and had a lengthy conversation with Sister Maria Madre de la Sabiduria on May 17, 2012. There is no way I can resolve the issue with Fr. Stewart and Sister without the help of a third party.
What I suggest is that I give my slideshow/lecture about the history and science of the Holy Shroud to Sister and Fr. Stewart with other people in the audience, preferably Catholics knowledgeable about fundamental theology.
Religion produces conflict, conflict produces anxiety, and inhibition is a defense mechanism for anxiety. When it comes to the Holy Shroud, many people are inhibited from thinking intelligently. They have thoughts that give them some kind of personal satisfaction, but their thoughts cut them off from other people.
Fr. Stewart, for example, is personally devoted to the Holy Shroud. But he deprived his parishioners from learning about a relic about which over 1,000 books have been published.
I am a member of the Princeton Club at 15 West 43rd St., and can get a meeting room in the morning with breakfast cheap. Without breakfast it is more expensive.
Very truly yours, David Roemer
Email sent to Cardinal George on July 10, 2012, and letter to Cardinal Wuerl on July 31, 2012
Your Eminence,
I’v developed a slideshow/lecture about the Shroud of Turin that you can see at http://www.holyshroud.info. I told a number of officials in the Archdiocese of New York about my talk in 2011 with the expectation of getting support and direction. Instead, I was given a runaround.
Acting on the advice of Fr. Daniel Gatti, Alumni Chaplain of Fordham, I contacted churches directly. I was invited to give a talk at a church in Harlem on March 30. When I arrived with my projector, the pastor told me he cancelled the talk. His reason was that I was not promoting the theory that the Holy Shroud is the actual burial cloth referred to in the Gospels. I’v attached the flyer for the event.
The pastor deprived his parishioners of the experience of seeing the Holy Shroud and learning of its history and the science of the image. My presentation includes the prayer supposed to be said when looking at an image of the Holy Shroud. I feel the pastor desecrated the Holy Shroud. In my opinion, he is also deceiving himself about the history the Holy Shroud, which is part of our salvation history.
I filed a complaint against this pastor and the officials with Bishop Dennis Sullivan, the Vicar General. Bishop Sullivan’s response to my complaint and my subsequent correspondence is blameworthy in a number of different ways, so it seems to me. He is in effect supporting the actions of the pastor.
I’v already contacted Bishop David Ricken and Bishop Gregory Mansour of the Evangelization and Catechesis office of the USCCB in the hope that they would help me resolve my complaint against the pastor which has now escalated into a complaint against the Vicar General. They have not been helpful. Bishop Mansour told me in an email that he “believed in the Shroud.”
I’ll be grateful for any help or guidance you can give me.
If there is anything I can do to be of service to you or the Archdiocese of New York, please let me know.
Yours respectfully in Christ, David Roemer
Email from Catholic Answers (http://www.catholic.com) dated Aug 16, 2012
Dear David,
Thanks again for your inquiry. I forwarded your suggestion to the production team but they are not interested in another Shroud of Turin show at this time.
We discussed the Shroud of Turin with Dr. Niels Svensson just last year– If you are interested you can listen to the archived show by following this link: http://www.catholic.com/radio/shows/how-did-jesus-die-pre-recorded-5000 and selecting “Listen” or “Download” in the upper right corner of the page.
Thank you and God bless, the Radio Department
Email to Catholic Answers on Aug 18, 2012
What concerns me is that your production team believes the Holy Shroud is authentic, and doesn’t want me to explain the true history and science of the relic. The Patrick Coffin podcast discussed the Holy Shroud in a way that might cause Catholics, in this age of atheism, to lose their faith. The theory that the Shroud is authentic is farfetched.
The Holy Shroud is a sign that Jesus is alive in a new life with God, and the history and science of the relic should be publicized in an honest and rational manner. The pastor in New York City, who cancelled my slideshow/lecture, deprived his parishioners of the experience of seeing the Holy Shroud. The pastor was also unwilling to discuss the history and science of the Holy Shroud with me. I suspect that he was inhibited from such a discussion because of anxiety. Christians should not be anxious about their faith, but should give their reasons for believing and should summon everyone to believe in Jesus.
It is not just that one pastor whose behavior was fearful. All the cardinals, bishops, and monsignors that I have contacted about my slideshow/lecture have reacted in a way that shows the Holy Shroud causes them anxiety.
The disingenuousness of your response is another instance of fearful behavior. Catholic Answers never acknowledged receipt of my correspondence with the Archdiocese of New York about the Holy Shroud. The proposed radio show is not just about the Holy Shroud, it is about the existing conflict I am having with the Archdiocese of New York. Did you really expect me to believe you were not interested because you just did a show on the Holy Shroud last year?
Email from Jeff Mirus of Trinity Communications dated August 24, 2012
David–
The shroud is not an important point of salvation history, and the Church has never pronounced on its authenticity, leaving that entirely to the scientific community.
However, I can understand why a pastor would not want to sponsor a program debunking the shroud, as he probably believes (as I do) that the evidence is far stronger pro than con– and–more important– he is aware as a pastor how easily people can be upset in their faith on an issue which should not affect their faith at all.
Jeff Mirus, Trinity Communications
Letter to Cardinal Dolan dated August 28, 2012
Your Eminence:
I developed a slideshow/lecture about the Shroud of Turin (http://www.holyshroud.info, attached transcript) and think you should know about the negative reaction of Catholics to my analysis of the science, history, and theology of the Holy Shroud. After sending emails to Newman clubs, Catholic colleges, and Catholic churches in Brooklyn and Manhattan, I got only one invitation to speak. To my chagrin, the pastor cancelled the talk at the last minute on the grounds that I was not promoting the authenticity of the relic. I am the only one on the Shroud Speakers Directory of The Shroud of Turin Website (www.shroud.com) who does not think the Holy Shroud is authentic.
My impression is that the question of the authenticity of this precious relic causes anxiety. Inhibition is a defense mechanism for anxiety, and everyone I have contacted seems to be afraid of even discussing the matter. Bishop Dennis Sullivan, for example, did not respond to my invitation of May 22, 2012 to attend a proposed lecture at the Princeton Club. My invitation was a response to his letter to me dated May 10, 2012 in answer to my letter of complaint against certain clerics in the Archdiocese of New York of April 12, 2012.
I’v included my email correspondence with Catholic Answers (http://www.catholic.com). There has been no response from Catholic Answers to my criticism of a radio show they produced about the Holy Shroud last year.
I also sent an email to Cardinal George that was not acknowledged. Cardinal Wuerl responded with the enclosed letter. I have also contacted Bishop David Ricken and Bishop Gregory Mansour. All are members of the Office of Evangelization and Catechesis of the USCCB.
The science and history of the Holy Shroud is part of our salvation history. The Catholic Church in America should broadcast our salvation history to everyone. No part of our salvation history should be obscured and covered up with half-truths and misrepresentations.
Yours respectfully in Christ, David Roemer
Enclosures:
Announcement
Transcript
Letters dated April 12, May 10, May 22
Email to Cardinal George dated July 10
Emails to and from Catholic Answers dated August 16 and August 18.
Letter from Cardinal Wuerl
Emails to and from Catholic Culture
Letter from Cardinal Dolan dated September 5, 2012
Dear Dr. Roemer
Thank you most sincerely for your letter of August 28, 2012, together with the enclosures. Your thoughtfulness is deeply appreciated.
To begin, Dr. Roemer, I don’t think that you should equate a lack of interest in your slideshow/lecture, with the Church’s unwillingness to determine the authenticity of the Shroud. Through the centuries, the Holy See has permitted the shroud to be scientifically tested, and there have been countless articles, books, and documentaries in this regard.
While I do no know Mr. Jeff Mirus, of Trinity Communications, I think the reasons he gives for the decision of the Harlem pastors to cancel your slideshow/lecture make perfect sense. Until the Church has made a final pronouncement on the authenticity of the shroud, with more pros than cons at this time, why would a pastor want to sponsor an event that debunks the shroud.
With prayerful best wishes for a blessed fall, I am
Faithfully in Christ, Timothy Michael Cardinal Dolan, Archbishop of New York
Letter to Cardinal Dolan dated September 17, 2012
Your Eminence:
Thank you for your letter concerning the cancellation of my advertised (“Conference About the Shroud of Turin”) slideshow/lecture five minutes before I was to begin. The pastor in charge thought my slideshow was “debunking” the Holy Shroud because it gives an unbiased account of the history and science of this important relic.
The human mind is structured like the scientific method. The lowest level is observation, which requires paying attention. At the level of inquiry, humans ask questions about what they observe. This requires intelligence, and extremely intelligent humans invent theories or hypotheses to answer the questions. At the level of reflective judgment, humans marshal the evidence and decide whether a theory is true or just probable. This level requires being rational. The next level is deciding what to do with our bodies, which requires being responsible.
Intelligence is usually a measure of how fast or how slow it takes someone to grasp a theory or insight. In the case of religion, there is so much conflict and anxiety that people are inhibited from thinking intelligently and rationally. Humans have blind spots and are biased.
According to John Paul II (Slide #6), the Holy Shroud is a sign or a reason to believe in revelation because “no one at present can explain” the image. A related sign is the Resurrection of Jesus, which is an historical event that can’t be explained in terms of any other historical event. Whereas the Shroud is a miraculous artifact that everyone can see, the Resurrection is a miraculous event that cannot be seen. The Holy Shroud is part of the historical Jesus, and I consider its mysteriousness just as persuasive a reason to believe in Jesus as the Resurrection.
According to Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan (The First Christmas: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus’ Birth), the Resurrection can be traced to within a few years of Jesus’ death. Since Borg and Crossan do not have the gift of faith, this admission, and others like it by nonbelievers, proves Jesus appeared to his followers after he died. Crossan and Borg deny, however, that Jesus was buried in a tomb. On this matter, I side with Raymond Brown who said Jesus’ burial in a tomb is historically certain (The Death of the Messiah: From Gethsemane to the Grave: Commentary on the Passion Narrative in the Four Gospels).
The Holy Shroud is a reason to believe Jesus is alive in a new life with God not just because the image is inexplicable (Slides #7, #11 to #23, and #30). It is a sign because the Catholic Church believes in Jesus and the Catholic Church teaches that the Holy Shroud and images of the Holy Shroud should be venerated (Slides #6, #8, and #10). As with all relics, it is not the physical object that deserves to be honored, but the person the relic represents.
A similar sign, as I explain in Slide #6, is the discovery in the 1960s that the universe began to exist 13.7 billion years ago. The Big Bang, as this phenomena is called, is a reason to believe God inspired the human authors of the Bible because John says that God created the universe from nothing (“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God …”).
I don’t consider the Big Bang evidence of God’s existence. The evidence of God’s existence is the spirituality of the human soul and the intelligibility of the universe. The lack of any theory of the Big Bang is evidence the universe is not intelligible, so I consider the Big Bang evidence that God does not exist.
The question of what caused the Big Bang brings up the much-discussed conflict between science and religion. One supposed instance of this conflict was the disagreement between the Catholic Church and Galileo over the Copernican system. I think the Church exercised better judgment than Galileo because the stars were fixed in space. The shift in the position of stars during Earth’s rotation around the Sun was not observed until a century later with the improvement of telescopes. This was not a conflict, but a disagreement between rational and intelligent people about evidence.
In my opinion, the controversy over whether the Holy Shroud is the actual linen cloth referred to in the Gospels is indeed a conflict—not a disagreement about evidence. The question of the Holy Shroud’s authenticity is related to the question of what caused the Big Bang because of the scientific question of what caused the bloody image of a crucified man. Fr. Manuel Carriera, a physicist and member of the Vatican Astronomical Observatory, thinks that the Holy Shroud is authentic and the image is an epiphenomenon of the Resurrection. He also thinks God caused the Big Bang.
Thinking God caused the Big Bang is just speculating about the content of revelation. Likewise, there is very little evidence supporting the authenticity of the Holy Shroud. These two theories are anti-evangelical because we live in an age where there are many people who think believing in God is irrational. Preaching the gospel means preaching to nonbelievers and preventing believers from becoming nonbelievers. This requires understanding nonbelievers and following Matthew’s advice to present Christian doctrine judiciously (“…neither cast ye your pearls before swine…”)
Many nonbelievers have a blind spot about the mind-body problem. They grasp only two solutions to the question of what the relationship is between ourselves and our bodies: dualism and materialism. They don’t understand the insight that the human mind is a mystery and humans are embodied spirits. It is a failure at the level of inquiry, not a failure at the level reflective judgment.
However, these same nonbelievers are intelligent and rational about the cause of the Big Bang. They realize there is no evidence that God or an angel caused the Big Bang. They reject the idea that the universe is unintelligible, and hope that science will someday understand the cause of the Big Bang.
Many nonbelievers will admit that the human mind is a mystery, but they consider the Big Bang a mystery too. This means they don’t know what a mystery is. They don’t grasp the difference between these two questions: 1) Why is the sky blue? 2) What is knowing the sky is blue? Christians have a duty to explain the difference between these two questions so that nonbelievers can understand why humans are embodied spirits and why God exists. We should build upon what people already know and understand. Telling stories about the laws of physics being violated only confirms the assumption that believing in God is irrational.
On March 30, 2012, the pastor’s congregation was five minutes away from seeing the Holy Shroud and being moved by the image. How would the parishioners have reacted to the theory (Slide #30) that the blood stains and body image on the 14-foot by 3-foot piece of linen were somehow created by heretics in the 1st or 2nd century after torturing and crucifying a volunteer or victim?
There is a 2002 movie titled Signs about a married Catholic priest (Mel Gibson) who lost his faith because his wife died in a freak accident. The priest regained his faith when his son survived an attack by an alien from another planet. The weapon the alien used was a dose of poison gas injected into the child’s nostrils. By coincidence, the child had an asthma attack and was unable to breath in the poison. The Mel Gibson character interpreted the coincidence to be a sign from God and regained his faith. My hope is that the parishioners would have thought it is quite a coincidence that there exists a two-thousand-year-old image—not a painting or a photograph—of the man who is believed to have saved mankind two thousand years ago.
My metaphysics teacher in college was Fr. Norris Clark who told us that finding oneself in error is wonderful experience because it helps us understand how other people can be in error. I’m praying the pastor sees that he made a mistake.
Yours respectfully in Christ,
David Roemer
Enclosures
Script of slide show
DVD of Signs
Email to Cardinal Gomez of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles dated 10/1/2012
Your Excellency,
I have a slideshow/lecture about the Shroud of Turin (http://www.holyshroud.info), and have gotten into a conflict with Cardinal Timothy Dolan about it. The attached letter to His Eminence tells the story. The letter does not say so, but Cardinal Dolan indicated that he thought I was “debunking” the Holy Shroud. I’m hoping you will bring the matter up with the synode on the New Evangelization. My letter to the Archbishop and a transcript of the lecture is attached.
Sr. Paula Jean Miller, Sr. Sara Butler, and Fr. Ralph Martin have gotten this email, but they don’t seem interested in the subject of the Holy Shroud.
Asking Your Excellency’s blessing, I am, yours respectfully in Christ, David Roemer
Email to Sister Mary Lou Wirtz dated 10/4/12. Subject: Re:Re Letter
Dear Sister,
I hope you agree that Cardinal Dolan and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which I have also contacted, is harming the new evangelization by suppressing my lecture/slideshow (http://www.holyshroud.info). All of my correspondence is at http://newevangelist.me/2012/10/02/the-truth-about-the-shroud-of-turin/. A related controversy is over the theory of intelligent design (ID).
I don’t have any ideas about how these two topics (Holy Shroud and ID) can be brought up at the Synod. But I can tell you about the conflict I am having with the Academy of Catholic Theology and First Things about evolution.
Evolution is the theory that life evolved from bacteria to mammals in a period of 3.5 billion years. There is a lot of evidence for it, and scientists judge the theory to be true. Creationists are including evidence from the Bible, which makes their point of view a matter of faith.
The only theory that even attempts to explain evolution is the theory of intelligent design, but there is no evidence for this bright idea. The theory of natural selection only explains the adaptation of species to the environment. Natural selection explains why giraffes have long necks, but now how giraffes evolved from bacteria in only 3.5 billion years. Biologists always speak of “adaptive evolution.” The old model for evolution was a tornado hitting a junkyard and producing a Boeing 747 in flight. The new model is a computer generating an English sonnet by the random selection of letters. The advantage of the new model is that you can calculate how long it will take a computer to do such a thing.
Advocates of ID compare ID with natural selection to make ID look better. Atheists go along with the scam because they don’t want to admit that ID is a better theory than natural selection, in some sense.
The second law of thermodynamics is that nature tends towards a state of disorder. This is why a gas will fill up the entire container it is in. The second law does not apply to biological evolution or the evolution of stars. Nevertheless, the American Journal of Physics published an article with an absurd equation proving that evolution did not violate the second law. The Catholic Truth of Scotland newsletter published my explanation of why the AJP should retract the article.
Stephen Barr is a prominent physicist who writes about evolution on the pages of First Things. He is also a member of the Academy of Catholic Theology. He told me in an email that I was wrong and the AJP article was right, and that I was harming the Catholic Church. In my opinion, Barr is harming the Catholic Church. Barr does not go so far as to advocate ID, but he doesn’t say there is no evidence for ID. His argument is that ID is not science. In my opinion, Barr is helping atheists propagate misinformation about evolutionary biology. Barr should be expelled from the Academy of Catholic Theology because he is lying about science (http://newevangelist.me/2012/08/02/first-things/).
I’v attached the AJP article and a version of the article published in the Catholic Truth of Scotland. These are some links to more information about my conflict with the AJP, First Things, and the Academy of Catholic Theology:
http://www.catholictruthscotland.com/MAYnewsletter12.pdf
http://newevangelist.me/2012/02/22/physics-department-of-new-york-university/
http://newevangelist.me/2012/02/02/american-journal-of-physics/
http://newevangelist.me/2012/02/23/american-association-of-physics-teachers/
http://newevangelist.me/2012/05/06/american-institute-of-physics/
http://newevangelist.me/2011/12/07/american-scientific-affiliation-2/
My YouTube video titled “The Truth About Evolution and Religion” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKaF8vX6HXQ) also sheds light on this issue.
Email sent to Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, Apostolic Nuncio to the United States on Nov. 13, 2012
Your Excellency,
Cardinal Dolan is suppressing my slideshow/lecture on the history, theology, and science of the Shroud of Turin (www.holyshroud.info), and I am hoping you can help us resolve this conflict. My correspondence with the Archdiocese of New York is on my blog at
http://newevangelist.me/2012/10/02/the-truth-about-the-shroud-of-turin/
Cardinal Dolan did not answer my rebuttal to his letter of September 5, 2012.
I’v attached a transcript of the slideshow.
Yours respectfully in Christ, David Roemer
Letter sent to Vatican on 11/19/12
Archbishop Salvatore Fisichella
Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelization
Via della Conciliazione 5
00120 Vatican City State
Your Excellency,
I sent the following message on the contact page of http://www.annusfidei.va on November 18, 2012:
On March 30, 2012, I arrived at a church in New York City to give a slideshow/lecture (“The Truth About the Shroud of Turin”; http://www.holyshroud.info). To my dismay and chagrin, the pastor cancelled my presentation because it does not promote the authenticity of this important relic. After explaining the science, history, and theology of the Holy Shroud, the slideshow gives evidence that Gnostics created the artifact in the 1st or 2nd century with methods that have been lost to history.
I complained to Bishop Denis Sullivan, Vicar General, to no avail. My invitation to attend a proposed my slideshow/lecture was ignored. Timothy Cardinal Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, sent me a letter saying I was “debunking” the Holy Shroud. He did not respond to my answer of this criticism, which is at http://newevangelist.me/shroud-of-turin/.
The Cardinal Archbishops of Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington D.C. all ignored my requests for support, as did Bishops David Ricken and Gregory Mansour of the Office of Evangelization and Catechesis of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and Archbishop Vignanò, papal nuncio to the United States. Most of my correspondence is at http://newevangelist.me/2012/10/02/the-truth-about-the-shroud-of-turin/.
The science and history of the Holy Shroud is part of our salvation history. The Catholic Church in America should broadcast our salvation history to everyone. No part of our salvation history should be obscured and covered up with half-truths and misrepresentations.
Respectfully yours in Christ, David Roemer
Messiah College and Calvin College
Posted: August 28, 2012 Filed under: Evolution Hoax 3 Comments »email to Ted Davis on 8/27/2012
Dear Dr. Ted Davis,
I think you should know that if you don’t take any action at all, I’ll be bringing the matter to the attention of Dr. Phipps.
Dear Dr Roemer,
This is simply a threat. Shame on you—is this how you respond to people who don’t do your bidding? You dragged me into this entirely on your own, Dr Roemer. I don’t encourage you to contact President Phipps, not because I fear any action she might take—she fully supports my involvement with BioLogos, and she understands that you are simply on a crusade to cause trouble for me (and others), because we won’t help you fight your own battles—but because it will simple waste some of her very valuable time. I needn’t add, that you are doing that already with my time. If you raise this issue with me again, I will have no choice but to block your messages. I have classes to teach, and students to meet with, and your concerns are not high on the agenda.
Since you did not send me information about any articles you’ve written for “First Things,” I gather that you actually are not a writer for that magazine, as you claimed. At least, I can find no evidence of such activity.
Edward B. Davis
Professor of the History of Science
Messiah College
One College Avenue Suite 3030
Mechanicsburg PA 17055
tdavis@messiah.edu
Voice: 717-766-2511, ext 6840
Fax: 717-691-6046
Dear Dr. Phipps,
I think you should be aware of the conflict I’m having with a number of physicists and scientists about an absurd article published by the American Journal of Physics (Entropy and evolution, Nov. 2008). One of them is Ted Davis, who you are trusting to teach Christian students. His behavior is no worse or better than the behavior of a number of other scientists that I have confronted about this article.
- The theory of natural selection only explains the adaptation of animals to the environment, not common descent. Not enough is known about the innovations natural selection acts upon to understand how bacteria evolved into mammals in only 3.5 billion years.
- The only theory that explains common descent is intelligent design, but there is no evidence for ID. Many scholars think that what is wrong with ID is that it is “not science.”
- The second law of thermodynamics (entropy or disorder increases in an open system of non-interacting particles) does not apply to evolution. Some scholars think evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics and others think it does not. The second law also does not apply to the evolution of stars from hydrogen gas.
- The sun increases disorder in the biosphere because it heats things up. Some scholars think that evolution does not violate the second law because the earth is exposed to energy from the sun.
- The entropy of the biosphere cannot be calculated using the Boltzmann constant and an estimate of the thermodynamic probability of living organisms. An article published by the American Journal of Physics (Vol. 76, No. 11, November 2008) performs such a calculation. You can download this article at https://docs.google.com/open?id=0Bw0xQqr5YbtJQ09ybDR0ejd2TTA
Email to Clarence Menniga and Provost of Calvin College on 10/11/12. Subject: American Scientific Affiliation
Dear Clarence,
Why haven’t you responded to my review of your book on Amazon.com and the Open Forum of the American Scientific Affiliation? It indicates that you know the attached American Journal of Physics article (“Entropy and evolution”) should be retracted. Your comments about entropy and evolution are just a mindless repetition of the errors in the AJP article.
Your silence raises questions about your integrity. Your book criticizes creationists for distorting science. You and the AJP are lying about science, as I explained to the AJP. The AJP should have given my critique to the author of the article. If the author said I was wrong, I would have written to his college and told them he wasn’t qualified to teach physics.
I posted my explanation of why the article should be retracted in the Open Forum of the ASA. Randy Isaac replied with nonsense and Robert Kaita is letting him get away with it. The ASA is effect is helping the AJP cover up its error.
If the AJP retracts the article it will be very embarrassing for atheists. Atheists promote the scam that natural selection explains the complexity of life and that evolution does not violate the second law of thermodynamics. The truth is that natural selection only explains the adaptation of species to the environment, though there is no way to draw a hard line between adaptation and common descent. The truth is that the second law of thermodynamics does not apply to evolution, just as it does not apply to the evolution of stars.
My correspondence with physicists about this issue is at
http://newevangelist.me/2012/02/22/physics-department-of-new-york-university/
http://newevangelist.me/2012/02/02/american-journal-of-physics/
http://newevangelist.me/2012/02/23/american-association-of-physics-teachers/
http://newevangelist.me/2012/05/06/american-institute-of-physics/
http://newevangelist.me/2011/12/07/american-scientific-affiliation-2/
http://newevangelist.me/2012/08/02/first-things/
A version of my attached article was published by the Catholic Truth of Scotland:
http://www.catholictruthscotland.com/MAYnewsletter12.pdf
My YouTube video titled “The Truth About Evolution and Religion” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKaF8vX6HXQ) also sheds light on this issue.
What you and all the members of the ASA, especially those who profess to be Christians, is resign from the ASA.
Email sent on 10/18/12
Dear Clarence,
2. Natural selection means natural selection acting upon innovations. According to James Shapiro (University of Chicago), the old paradigm for innovations was random mutations and the new paradigm is genetic engineering. Natural selection only explains the adaptation of species to the environment. It does not explain how bacteria evolved into mammals in only 3.5 billion years. The only theory that explains this is intelligent design, but there is no evidence for intelligent design.
3 and 4. All you need to know about the evolution of stars is that the hydrogen atoms in outer space go from a large volume to a small volume. This is the exact opposite of what happens in the free expansion of a gas. The second law is not universal. The second law is absolutely true because a system of non-interacting molecules will always fill up the entire container it is in. I understand that the second law can account for and include chemical reactions. The second law does not apply to the evolution of stars or the evolution of life.
5. A living organism is not a sum of chemical reactions. A chemical reaction can be described with a balanced equation. A living organism engages in genetic engineering. If you place a single bacterium in a solution of sucrose, a set of proteins will ingest the sucrose and another set will transform the sucrose into new cellular matter. The number of bacteria will increase until the sucrose runs out. If you place the bacterium in a solution of sucrose and fructose, the bacteria will ingest the sucrose, but not the fructose, until the sucrose is gone. The bacteria will stop reproducing for a time. During this time, the bacteria create a new set of proteins that enable it to ingest and synthesize the fructose. This is called genetic engineering.
6. All substances, like an object made from FeO, have a temperature because it can be measured with a thermometer. A Boeing 747 in flight does not have a temperature. Since the concept of entropy is derived from the concept of temperature and heat, a Boeing 747 does not have entropy. Likewise, a living organism does not have entropy. The science articles that discuss the entropy of an organism are breaking the organism down into the parts that can be described with chemical reactions.
7. I noticed with interest your insight that the term complexity is not easy to define. Nevertheless, biologists consider a mammal to be more complex than a bacterium. Since we agree that the second law does not apply to evolution, what is it that we disagree about? Why don’t you agree that the AJP article is absurd? The article calculates the entropy of a biological system using the Boltzmann constant and an estimate of the thermodynamic probability. The connection between evolution and the second law is this: Physicists calculate the probability that all the molecules in a gas will huddle into one corner of the container. Biologists calculate the probability of getting the primary structure of a protein with the random selection of amino acids. They do the same kind of probability calculations.
8. The growth of a tree is not the result of chemical reactions. The biological process involves cell differentiation. The tree starts as one cell and becomes two identical cells, and then four identical cells. Then the cells start to change. The next eight cells are not identical. A grown tree has a large number of different cells. Your statement that it is the result of “natural processes” is quite puzzling. Are there unnatural processes? As I understand developmental biology, there is very little known or understood about how a single cell develops into a multi-cellular organism. This is one of the complexities of life, in addition to molecular machinery, genetic engineering, and the primary structure of a protein.
9. Again we agree that evolution does not violate the second law. The second law does not apply to evolution. It applies only to non-interacting particles and chemical reactions. Evolution is not the result of chemical reactions. Why then don’t you agree that the AJP article should be retracted?
In conclusion, saying evolution violates the second law is an ignorant way of expressing the limited explanatory power of natural selection. It is just as ignorant to say evolution does not violate the second law. It is unintelligent to say evolution doesn’t violate the second law because the Earth is not a closed system. The Earth is not a closed system because it gets heat energy from the Sun. Heat tends to increase disorder and entropy. The AJP article exceeds in stupidity and ignorance these ideas because it includes an incorrect equation for entropy.
The motivation for this nonsense is clear to me. Atheists don’t like to admit that intelligent design is a better theory, in some sense, than natural selection. They don’t like to admit that the second law does not apply to evolution because that sounds like saying evolution violates the second law. Saying evolution violates the second law sounds like creationism and intelligent design. Atheists are more interested in marginalizing intelligent design and creationism than in understanding and teaching evolutionary biology.
Email received from Clarence Menninger on 28 Oct 2012
David,
1. The meaning of “genetic engineering” as you use it to describe the growth process of an oak tree, and presumably the growth process of any other living organism, is very different from the usual meaning of that term. The usual meaning is a modification of the genetic makeup of a living cell by human intention and human intervention. In whatever sense the growth of an oak tree is genetic engineering, it is self-engineering. I prefer to think of it as the product of God’s design, taking place as He intended it to.
2. By “natural processes” I mean those events that take place without human intention or intervention. Well, I guess I intend to eat, and natural processes take over from there. Certainly the growth processes that you erroneously call “genetic engineering” are included in my “natural processes.”
3. Quite a few years ago, Michael Polanyi wrote a brief piece entitled “Life is more than physics and chemistry.” I subscribe to that perspective. Nevertheless, life involves chemical processes. I don’t understand your aversion to considering chemical processes; God used/uses a lot of them in his design for living organisms.
4. With this email, my participation in this conversation is concluded. I wish you God’s abundant blessings in your outreach ministry.
First Things
Posted: August 2, 2012 Filed under: Evolution Hoax 1 Comment »Email exchanges with Stephen Barr starting on 6/4/12. Subject: Pseudoscience in the American Journal of Physics
Dear Dr. Barr,
A member of the American Scientific Affiliation (Phillip Marsdon, Washington State U.) suggested that you might have some ideas about getting the AJP to retract the attached article titled, “Entropy and evolution.” My own efforts are not meeting with any success. The article sets forth a fake equation to prove that evolution does not violate the second law of thermodynamics.
I’v attached two articles that deal with the connection between evolution and entropy in a scientifically sound way. My own analysis was published by the Catholic Truth at
http://www.catholictruthscotland.com/MAYnewsletter12.pdf
I’v kept track of my conversations with the AJP on my blog:
http://newevangelist.me/2012/02/22/physics-department-of-new-york-university/
http://newevangelist.me/2012/02/02/american-journal-of-physics/
http://newevangelist.me/2012/02/23/american-association-of-physics-teachers/
Dear Dr. Roemer,
I have read your article given in the first link. I haven’t the time to go through all the articles and letters, as I have many other things to do. I will merely say the following things.
(a) The fact that evolution produces orderly structures from more disorganized matter does not violate the second law of thermodynamics.
(b) The second law allows order to increase in one system if energy is supplied to the system. For example, the entropy of the things placed in a refrigerator decreases as they cool. But energy (e.g. electrical) must be supplied to the refrigerator.
The sun supplies energy to the biosphere, some of this energy can be turned into work. This work can be used to decrease the entropy of some systems on earth. Consider the following set-up, as an illustration. The sun heats ocean water and makes clouds form. The clouds produce rain, which then fills a lake and drives a hydro-electric power plant. That plant produces electricity, which then powers a refrigerator in my home. That refrigerator decreases the entropy of the water I place in the freezer and makes its randomly moving water molecules form into highly structured ice crystals, which have lower entropy than the water did. The decrease in entropy of the water as it froze, could only happen because energy (work) was supplied. That energy ultimately came from the sun. There are several Carnot cycles going on in this illustration. One can think of the sun, ocean, clouds as a Carnot cycle. Energy is going from a hotter reservoir (the sun) to a cooler one (the ocean). This allows some of the sun’s heat to be converted into work — this work lifts the water from the ocean to the clouds. That work is converted by the hydro-electric plant into electrical energy. That electrical energy then drives another Carnot cycle in my refrigerator. That electrical energy (work) allows heat to be pumped from a colder reservoir (the contents of my refrigerator) into a hotter reservoir (my kitchen). All this obeys the second law.
(c) You are also wrong that entropy can only be defined for a system that has a uniform temperature.
I don’t have the time to get involved in controversy with you. I think you are on the wrong side of this argument. I don’t think it helps the Church to make bad arguments.
The Catholic Church has never condemned the idea of the natural evolution of plants and animals from simpler forms. Using bad science to support bad theology is a profound mistake. Leave that to the fundamentalist Protestants.
Dear Dr. Barr,
With all due respect, there is nothing in your email that shows you read my article. My guess is that you are a victim of the scam perpetrated by Protestants and atheists about evolution.
Scientists invented the theory of evolution to explain the existence of fossils, and a considerable amount of evidence supports this theory. This gives rise to the question of what caused life to evolve from bacteria to mammals in 3 billion years. The only theory that explains this is intelligent design (ID), but there is no evidence for ID. To make this theory look better, advocates of ID compare it with the theory of natural selection. Natural selection is supported by the evidence, but only explains the adaptation of species to the environment, not the increase in the complexity of life. Atheists go along with this misinformation because they don’t want to admit that there is no scientific explanation for evolution at the present time.
Saying evolution does not violate the second law of thermodynamics is way of promoting this scam. The article you are approving of goes so far as to give a phony equation proving that evolution does not violate the second law.
The connection between evolution and the second law is not the drivel you repeated in you email. The connection is that the model biologists use for the primary structure of a protein is an English sonnet, just as physicists use a deck of playing cards as the model for a gas. Physicists and biologists do the same kind of probability calculations, just like in statistical mechanics.
I think you owe me an apology. You can apologize by giving my email to someone who has the time to reconsider whether or not they understand biological evolution and thermodynamics. As a starter, watch my youtube video titled, ”The Truth About Evolution and Religion,” at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKaF8vX6HXQ.
Emails starting on 7/12/12 to First Things. Subject: Evolution and the culture war.
I thought you might be interested in the attached essay which concerns an absurd article titled “Entropy and evolution” published by the American Journal of Physics.
Don’t show it to Stephen Barr, who is a Catholic physicists known to First Things I believe. I sent Dr. Barr a version of this article that was published in the Catholic Truth of Scotland newsletter (http://www.catholictruthscotland.com/MAYnewsletter12.pdf). He could not wrap his head around the idea that a peer-reviewed physics journal could be in error.
Dear Mr. Roemer,
Thank you for your interest in First Things! And for your submission, which has been forwarded to our editorial staff. They will be in touch with you in two to four weeks. Should you have any questions, feel free to send them to this address. Thanks again.
All the best, Anna Williams, Junior Fellow
Dear Mr. Roemer,
Just to follow up on the email I sent earlier — I see that your piece already appears on your personal website, and we generally do not reprint pieces that have already been published elsewhere. If you’re interested in submitting other pieces in the future, our full guidelines can be found here.
Thanks again for your submission,
Anna Williams
Junior Fellow
Email to First Things, James Peterson, and Robert Kaita on 7/16/12.
Dear Anna,
I’m not really interested in getting “Evolution and the culture war” published. My goal is to get the American Journal of Physics to retract the article I attached for the reasons I give. My explanation of why the article is absurd was already published in the Catholic Truth of Scotland newsletter. The editor of AJP, David Jackson, is not taking responsibility for misinformation that undermines a reason to believe in the Bible. Jackson is shifting the responsibility to an anonymous reviewer of a version of my article I submitted to the AJP. An anonymous reviewer has no reputation to protect and cannot take responsibility for anything.
I submitted my essay to James C. Peterson, editor of the peer-reviewed Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, published by the American Scientific Affiliation. Peterson rejected my article for reasons that I consider disingenuous. My essay is not publishable in a peer-reviewed journal because PSCF’s readers would have wondered: Why doesn’t the AJP correct its mistake?
On the Open Forum of the ASA, I explained why the article is nonsense, but Randy Isaac, the Executive Director of the ASA, squelched me. Isaac posted comments saying that I didn’t understand the second law of thermodynamics. In effect, Isaac is doing Jackson’s dirty work, and Peterson is backing him up. Robert Kaita is the Vice President of the ASA.
The person at First Things who needs to be educated about evolutionary biology and the second law of thermodynamics is Stephen M. Barr. In a private email, Barr claimed to have read the Catholic Truth of Scotland article and told me I was wrong. He just repeated the nonsense in the AJP article and similar articles.
What the editors of First Things and PSCF should do is explain to Jackson what his responsibilities are and that his behavior is putting them in a difficult position. Barr and Isaac made fools of themselves because they assume peer-reviewed physics articles have no egregious errors and because they swallow the hogwash advocates of ID and mainstream biologists spew when discussing evolution on TV and other popular media. I learn about evolution by reading textbooks, scholarly works, and peer-reviewed articles.
Email sent on 7/23/12 to Robert Louis Wilken and First Things. Subject: Stephen Barr
Dear Dr. Wilken,
I’m writing to you about Stephen M. Barr who is a member of the Academy of Catholic Theology and on the Advisory Council of First Things. I submitted the attached article to First Things, a version of which was published in the Catholic Truth of Scotland newsletter (http://www.catholictruthscotland.com/MAYnewsletter12.pdf).
My article (“Evolution and the culture war”) explains why the attached peer-reviewed article published by the American Journal of Physics (“Entropy and evolution”) contains such an absurd equation in thermodynamics that the entire article should be retracted.
Dr. Barr, who is a physicists and should understand the second law of thermodynamics, told me that I was wrong in an email. He declined to answer my demand for an apology and my implication that he did not read slowly enough the Catholic Truth of Scotland article. I’m holding Dr. Barr responsible for the editorial decision of First Things to not publish my article.
I’d appreciate your asking Dr. Barr to reconsider his hasty judgement which has the effect of allowing the American Journal of Physics to continue to propagate false information. I am more than willing to walk Dr. Barr and the editors at First Things through the second law of thermodynamics and its relationship to biological evolution. If he does not apologize and remedy his mistake, I can make a good case for expelling him from the Academy of Catholic Theology.
Email sent to George Weigel and First Things on 7/24/12
Dear Mr. Weigel ,
I submitted the attached essay (“Evolution and the culture war”) to First Things. The essay explains why the attached peer-reviewed article published by the American Journal of Physics (“Entropy and evolution”) should be retracted. A version of the essay was published in the Catholic Truth of Scotland newsletter (http://www.catholictruthscotland.com/MAYnewsletter12.pdf). The scientific misinformation in the article supports atheistic propaganda.
I sent the Catholic Truth version to Dr. Stephen Barr, who is a physicist and on the Advisory Council of First Things. Dr. Barr writes books about science and religion, and should understands entropy, which is a concept in thermodynamics. Dr. Barr told me that I was wrong. Since his comments just repeated the nonsense in the AJP article and similar articles, I did not tell the editor of the Catholic Truth of Scotland.
Dr. Barr declined to answer my demand for an apology and my suggestion that he re-read the essay. I’m advising you that there is a trembling and fearful conflict between the Catholic Truth of Scotland and First Things.
Email recieved on 7/24/12
Dear Dr. Roemer,
Thank you for your interest in First Things! And for your submission, which has been forwarded to our editorial staff. They will be in touch with you in four to six weeks. Should you have any questions, feel free to send them to this address. Thanks again.
All the best,Mark Misulia, Junior Fellow
Email received on 7/31/12
Dear Mr. Roemer,
Thank you for your concern. I don’t think meeting would accomplish anything substantive, especially when we are busy working on the October issue and don’t have much time to spare. Dr. Barr is a physicist of distinction and a member of our Advisory Council and we aren’t inclined to question his judgment in these matters. In any case, it’s a controversy to be waged in the journals involved.
Faithfully, David Mills
Executive Editor
First Things
Email sent to First Things on 7/31/12
Dear Mr. Mills,
I complained about First Thing’s handling of the situation with George Weigel and Robert Wilken, but I don’t know if they got my emails. In any case, I’ll be taking the matter up with them. You might consider that they are probably just as busy as you, and will appreciate the Executive Editor handling responsibly the morally perilous situation Stephen Barr has put you in.
Understanding evolutionary biology and the second law of thermodynamics doesn’t require judgment, as you seem to think. It requires knowledge and intelligence. In addition to the email he sent me in what must have been a fit of anger, I’v read a number of things by Stephen Barr about evolution. He subscribes to the errors I describe and explicate in my submitted essay. Barr should have either explained to me why I was wrong, or tell the Catholic Truth of Scotland newsletter about my error.
I’v done everything I can to persuade the American Journal of Physics to retract the article. David Jackson, the editor of the AJP, should have forwarded my critique to Daniel Styer, the author. If Styer said I was wrong, I would have told his employer that he is not qualified to teach physics.
Instead, Jackson told me to submit my own article to the AJP. I did so, and an anonymous reviewer said that I did not know what I was talking about. Jackson is using this anonymous review to justify not printing a retraction. I accused Jackson of dishonesty and told his boss at the American Physics Teachers Association that he should be fired. In effect, Stephen Barr is doing the AJP’s dirty work. He is publically saying that the AJP article is okay and is preventing First Things from publishing my essay.
My essay was written in order to explain the absurdity of the AJP article to everyone. I’m repeating my offer to explain the matter to you, Anna, and Mark step-by-step, and why Stephen Barr owes me an apology.
Email sent on 8/1/12 to First Things
Dear Anna and Mark,
I want to explain what is motivating David Mill’s irresponsible behavior. First Things and Stephen Barr stand behind the atheistic propaganda that “the theory of intelligent design is not science.” If Stephen Barr is wrong about evolution, then First Things is wrong about evolution. Just as the American Journal of Physics erred in publishing the Styer article, First Things erred in publishing Stephen Barr’s superficial and ignorant musings about evolutionary biology. As someone who had a short business career, I know how important it is to be a company man.
ID is irrational because there is no evidence supporting this theory. Anxiety about religion inhibits ID advocates from thinking rationally. They consider, as do atheists, the Big Bang, the origin of life, and evolution evidence of God’s existence. My metaphysics teacher at Fordham was Norris Clarke, S. J., and he said the success of the scientific method is evidence of God’s existence because it supports the hope that the universe is intelligible. I consider the Big Bang, etc., evidence that the universe is not intelligible and that God does not exist. The Big Bang, etc., however, is evidence that God has communicated Himself to mankind because the Bible says God created the universe from nothing and that God cares about our welfare.That there is no evidence for ID raises the question of what evidence there is for the theory of natural selection. There is plenty of evidence that natural selection explains adaptation, but there is no evidence it explains genetic engineering, molecular machinery, cell differentiation, and animal instincts. Biologists understand this, but dilettantes like Barr do not. First Things has been helping atheists suppress one of the reasons to believe in the Bible. This is not something First Things wants to think about.Fortunately, First Things has to think about it because the American Journal of Physics published an incorrect equation for entropy and is refusing to correct its error.
Email to First Things on 8/1/12
Dear Mark,
Intelligence is usually a measure of how fast or slow it takes someone to grasp a theory or insight. In the case of religion, there is so much anxiety that people are inhibited from thinking intelligently. Because of blind spots, they can’t even grasp a theory.
I went to a Catholic college and am intelligent enough to grasp and formulate four solutions to the mind-body problem and four answers to the question of what caused the Big Bang. I give myself an IQ of 100: 20 points for understanding the mind-body problem and 10 points for each theory. My guess is that your IQ is no higher than Stephen Barr’s, which I estimate to be 50 points. Atheists have an IQ of 20, and Protestants usually have IQs of around 40 points.
I challenge you to take the test. You can consult with Anna, do Google searches, and take as much time as you want. If you know someone I can trust not to help you, I’ll explain how I will grade your test ahead of time.
What do you say?
Email to Mary Ann Glendon on 8/1/12
Dear Prof. Glendon,
I’m writing to complain about David Mills in connection with the attached essay (“Evolution and the culture war”) and a peer-reviewed article (“Entropy and evolution”) published by the American Journal of Physics. My essay explains why the AJP article should be retracted. It contains, believe it or not, an erroneous equation purporting to show that evolution does not violate the law that entropy (disorder) always increases. A version of my essay was published in the Catholic Truth of Scotland newsletter at
http://www.catholictruthscotland.com/MAYnewsletter12.pdf
I think both of my versions explain, in a way anyone can understand, how absurd the AJP article is. In an email Mr. Mills told me, “Dr. [Steven] Barr is a physicist of distinction and a member of our Advisory Council and we aren’t inclined to question his judgment in these matters.” I doubt very much that Mills contacted Barr about my submission. He got the idea that Barr thinks the AJP article is okay because I told First Things about an absurd email, no doubt written in anger, I got from Barr.
Barr’s anger is understandable. He saw at once that the AJP article is consistent with his superficial understanding of evolutionary biology and misunderstanding of the theory of intelligent design (ID).
Barr’s criticism of ID is that is not science. A more rational criticism is that there is no evidence for ID. The scientific criticism raises the question of what evidence there is for natural selection? There is a lot of evidence, but natural selection only explains the adaptation of species to the environment. Biologists in peer-reviewed articles and scholarly works always refer to “adaptive evolution.” No biologist thinks natural selection explains the complexity of living organism, notwithstanding the propaganda of atheists and ID people.
The American Journal of Physics is using trickery to avoid publishing a rebuttal. They are getting away with this because First Things and Barr and his like are letting them.
My correspondence with physicists about this issue is at
http://newevangelist.me/2012/02/22/physics-department-of-new-york-university/
http://newevangelist.me/2012/02/02/american-journal-of-physics/
http://newevangelist.me/2012/02/23/american-association-of-physics-teachers/
http://newevangelist.me/2012/05/06/american-institute-of-physics/
http://newevangelist.me/2011/12/07/american-scientific-affiliation-2/
My YouTube video titled “The Truth About Evolution and Religion” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKaF8vX6HXQ) also sheds light on this issue.
I’v offered to meet with the editors of First Things to explain the situation and answer any questions they may have. My offer has been refused.
Email to Matthew Levering and Robert Kaita sent on 9/27/12
Dear Matthew,
I’m in the same kind of conflict about science and religion with Cardinal Dolan about the Shroud of Turin as I am with Dr. Barr about evolutionary biology. Whereas His Eminence, in my opinion, is unwittingly promoting atheism by saying my slideshow/lecture debunks the relic (http://www.holyshroud.info), Barr’s behavior is morally questionable. I’v attached my letter to Dolan because there is connection between the Big Bang and evolutionary biology. Both phenomena are part of our salvation history because there is no rational explanation for them.
The theory of intelligent design explains how bacteria evolved into mammals in only 3.5 billion years, but there is no evidence for ID. Barr is against ID because it is “not science.” This serves to promote the atheistic idea that the theory of natural selection explains evolution, not just the adaptation of species to the environment. Biologists always speak of “adaptive evolution.” Biologists understand that not enough is known about the innovations natural selection acts upon to understand the complexity of living organisms.
Our lack of understanding of evolution means that the second law of thermodynamics (a gas will fill up the entire container it is in) does not apply to evolution, just as it does not apply to the evolution of stars. The second law only applies to a system of noninteracting entities. Saying that evolution does not violate the second law is a minor error because there are those who say it does violate the second law.
The American Journal of Physics article (“Entropy and evolution”) uses a fake equation to prove evolution does not violate the second law. I explain this in an article published in the Catholic Truth of Scotland newsletter. A similar analysis is in a peer-reviewed journal, which I can send you along with some other articles in peer-reviewed journals about this issue. Granville Sewell, a mathematics professor, also explains this in an article published in Evolution News.
Barr’s response to the Catholic Truth of Scotland article was inane because he simply repeated the drivel in the AJP article, adding “I don’t think it helps the Church to make bad arguments.” If Barr had integrity, he would have sent his email to the editor of the Catholic Truth of Scotland. If he was honorable, he would spare his admirers and colleagues from having to answer for his misbehavior.
Barr is not the only physicist that is refusing to admit the AJP article should be retracted. Randy Isaac, Executive Director of the American Scientific Affiliation, a self-proclaimed Christian organization, corresponded with me on the organization’s Open Forum. His statements were so ignorant and nonsensical that I appealed to Robert Kaita (Vice President of the ASA) to assign a moderator to our discussion. Kaita did not do so. I believe that most of the members of the ASA are liberal Christians and are just as emotionally wrapped up in the idea that natural selection explains evolution as Barr. The AJP is using trickery to avoid taking responsibility for the article.
The member of the Academy of Catholic Theology who should address this matter is Robert Louis Wilkens because he is also on the Institute Board of First Things. First Things should either publish the article I submitted (“Evolution and the culture war”), or get the AJP to retract its article. So long as the article exists, everyone who knows or should know that the article is absurd has a guilty conscience.
Email exchanges with Ephraim Radner dated September 29, 2012. Subject: First Things and Stephen Barr
Dear Mr. Roemer,
Thanks for writing. The debate is fascinating (even though I am not qualified to judge its details). I read your own piece with interest.
I am not sure, however, what you are asking of me, or of e.g. Prof. Novak. To get get Stephen Barr to engage you somehow? To get First Things to publish an article of yours? On the latter side of things, I have no role; that is an editorial issue and, as I said, I dont’ know anything about this topic, and am not therefore in any position to offer “advice” (I do that about other areas I know something about). On the first issue, I don’t know Dr. Barr either, and in fact have never met him (he was not at our last meeting). Certainly, it is not up to me to tell him whom he should talk to! I do know that, should Barr write an article for First Things, a letter from you about it is likely to be published, and that is probably the main way this publication can be a vehicle for such engagement, given that your concern is about something published somewhere else altogether.
Your idea that I should “resign” from the Advisory Board if I can’t “talk sense” into Dr. Barr, from your perspective, does seem a bit over the top! And it is hardly a good way to elicit my sympathies for your perspective.
Good luck.
Dear Mr. Radner,
What First Things should do is show the American Journal of Physics my article in the Catholic Truth of Scotland newsletter and a similar article in Evolution News by a professor of mathematics and ask why the “Entropy and evolution” article has not been retracted. If the AJP retracts the article, their gross lie about evolution not violating the laws of physics will stop deceiving people like Stephen Barr who propagates misinformation about evolutionary biology in the pages on First Things.
What you should do is examine your conscience. I see an analogy between the conduct of the AJP and the many other people I have advised about the erroneous equation in the article, and the murder of noncombatants by Germans in World War II. No one was ever forced to commit murder, however, there were severe penalties for telling about the killings.
You should read my email exchanges with Dr. Richardson of New York University, where I got a Ph.D. in physics. Dr. Richardson was recommended to me by a colleague of his that I am friends with. Richardson initially supported my view about the absurdity of the equation in the article. But when he realized what he was getting involved in he became hostile and insulting. I am being punished for not remaining silent.
Dear Mr. Roemer,
I hear your frustration at not being listened to at this time in an important debate.
However, neither I nor Mr. Mills have any knowledge about the e.g. mathematical equations involved in calculating entropic forces etc. from which to offer persuasive advice to the AJP! Nor would First Things as a journal in their view! You need to get physicists on your side, not ignorant theologians! I already believe in a Creator God, without this set of questions being resolved. (Which isn’t to say that the questions should not be be debated and resolved; only that that is not my purview of inquiry, and that it does not affect my fundamental views personally.)
As I said, when Dr. Barr publishes in First Things, it would be more than appropriate for you to write a letter to the Editor equitably challenging that which you believe needs challenging in this writing. And, because published in First Things, Barr’s writing would deserve such a letter of challenge and it would most likely be published.
You want to draw us into your debate with AJP, another journal in another discipline. Your moral analogy may or may not be accurate in this case. I happen not to think that it is. Waiting for the right venue to engage this particular argument is not a matter of allowing mortally criminal behavior to escape scrutiny and responsible adjudication. It is a matter of respecting the parameters in which persuasive argument can rightly be had. As I said, you are pushing the envelope on this score, and I don’t think it is helping the argument itself.
This, I’m afraid, is the best response I can offer.
Dear Mr. Radner,
In physics, the parameters of a debate about peer-reviewed articles are well established. I told the editor of the AJP about the erroneous equation. The editor should have forwarded my comment to the author (Daniel Styer) for rebuttal. If Styer said I was wrong, my recourse would have been to write to his college and say he shouldn’t be teaching thermodynamics. Instead the editor used trickery to avoid taking responsibility for the mistake, and Stephen Barr and David Mills are helping them with their deception. Your unwillingness to get involved by telling First Things to take your name off its masthead makes you a collaborator.
Email sent to Institute Board and Advisory Council of First Things on October 2, 2012. Subject: First Things Masthead
I finished sending emails to all or most of the advisors and board members of First Things criticizing the journal and especially Stephen Barr for collaborating with the refusal of the American Journal of Physics to retract an absurd article titled “Entropy and evolution.”
I explained in a way that anybody can understand that the concept of entropy does not apply to evolutionary biology (and the evolution of stars), and that the equation in the article purporting to prove that evolution does not violate the laws of physics is absurd.
I use the word collaborate because I see an analogy between a gross error in a peer-reviewed physics article and the murder of noncombatants by Germans in World War II. No one was ever forced to kill noncombatants, however, there were severe penalties for telling about the killings. Collaboration took the form of being silent.
As long as you allow your name to remain on the Masthead of First Things you are guilty of collaborating with wrongdoing. For the sake of your conscience, you should read and digest the information at http://newevangelist.me/2012/08/02/first-things.
Email to Peter J. Leithart sent on Oct. 2.
I am very much obliged. I’v attached three more articles that support what I am saying.
Unfortunately this principle cannot explain the formation of biological structures.The probability that at ordinary temperatures a macroscopic number of molecules is assembled to give rise to the highly ordered structures and to the coordinated functions characterizing living organisms is vanishingly small.
Email sent to Fr. Austriaco, Fr. Fields, and Dr. Barr on 12/3/12
Dear Fr. Austriaco,
I don’t understand why you don’t feel qualified to determine whether the AJP article is absurd. I think the following eight steps make it very clear. What part don’t you understand? Maybe Stephen Barr, who has a Ph.D. in physics, will help you out. You will certainly be able to help out Dr. Barr because I don’t think he understands # 1. My guess is that Dr. Barr learned about evolutionary biology by reading magazine articles by Protestants and atheists. Fr. Fields is also a member of the Academy of Catholic Theology.
- Natural selection explains why giraffes have long necks, but now how bacteria evolved into giraffes in only 3.5 billion years. Evolutionary biologists always speak of adaptive evolution. The old model for evolution was a tornado hitting a junkyard and producing a Boeing 747 in flight. The new model is a computer generating a Shakespearean sonnet by the random selection of letters.
- Thermodynamics and statistical mechanics are connected branches of physics. The key variable in thermodynamics is temperature, which is the sensation of hot and cold. It is measured with a thermometer in units called degrees. The second law of thermodynamics states that a gas will fill up the entire container it is in. The second law does not apply to the evolution of stars or biological evolution.
- Statistical mechanics is related to thermodynamics. For example, the average kinetic energy of a gas molecule is directly proportional to the temperature of the gas. The constant of proportionality is the Boltzmann constant and is a decimal with 23 zeros.
- There is a very loose connection between evolutionary biology and statistical mechanics. In statistical mechanics, physicists calculate the number of ways of arranging N objects: N X (N-1) X (N-2)…. Biologists calculate the number of proteins that can be formed with N amino acids: 20 to the Nth power.
- Because of #4, some non-physicists mistakenly say that evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics.
- Many scholarly works erroneously try to refute # 5 by giving an expanded explanation of the second law. They incorrectly describe the second law as stating that nature goes from order to disorder, thus supporting the idea the evolution violates the second law. But they point out that this principle only applies to closed systems. Since the biosphere was bathed in sunlight, the biosphere is not a closed system.
- The idea that evolution does not violate the second law because of the sun is absurd because the photons from the sun tend to cause disorder not order.
- The AJP article is even more absurd than this. It is based a fake equation connecting the statistical concept of the “thermodynamic probability” of the biosphere with the thermodynamic concept of entropy using the Boltzmann constant. It thus produces an equation showing that evolution does not violate the second law of thermodynamics.
Letter sent to Russell Reno on December 10, 2012
Dear Mr. Reno,
I am writing to ask for an interview with you to explain why you should publish my essay, “Evolution and the culture war.” I have already had considerable correspondence about this matter with your office and individuals associated with First Things and the Academy of Catholic Theology.
My essay explains why an article (“Entropy and evolution”) published by the American Journal of Physics should be retracted. By not publishing my essay, you are collaborating with the American Journal of Physics and the American Association of Physics Teachers in covering up the mistake of publishing this absurd article.
Very truly yours, David Roemer
Email to the president of Providence College on December 11, 2012
Dear Fr. Shanley,
I’v asked Nicano Austiraco, Gary Culpepper, Paul Gondreau, James Keating, Sandra Keating, and Tomas Petri to resign from the Academy of Catholic Theology to protest the actions of fellow members Stephen Barr, who writes about evolutionary biology on the pages of First Things, and Russell Reno, who is the editor.
Russell and Barr are helping the American Journal of Physics and the American Association of Physics Teachers cover up the mistake of publishing an absurd article (Daniel F. Styer, “Entropy and evolution,” Am. J. Phys., Vol. 76, No. 11, November 2008). I explain why the article should be retracted in an essay published by the newsletter of the Catholic Truth of Scotland (http://www.catholictruthscotland.com/MAYnewsletter12.pdf).
In an email to me, Stephen Barr said the AJP article was okay and that I was harming the Catholic Church. This is like mathematicians arguing about whether 2 +2 = 4 because the AJP article is based on an erroneous equation in physics and we both have PhDs in physics. Also, you don’t need to be a physicist to see why the article is anti-creationist propaganda with no scientific value. This is why I expect the above faculty members of Providence College to respond to my request in a more reasonable way than they have.
I asked Russell Reno for a personal interview so that I could explain why Barr and the editor and publisher of the American Journal of Physics are violating accepted procedures for peer-reviewed journals. Reno’s negative response to my request for an interview is similar to the response of many members of the Academy of Catholic Theology.
The behavior of mobs is part of the history of the 19th and 20th centuries. The Academy of Catholic Theology has become a mob that lies about science, not the kind that breaks glass windows.
The following are links to my conversations with physicists about the AJP article. (see above)
Very truly yours, David Roemer
Email sent to Russell Reno, Robert Kaita, and Beth Cunningham on December 19, 2012
Dear Mr. Reno,
I got your letter saying you wouldn’t meet with me. The purpose of such a meeting would be for me to explain to you why Stephen Barr is lying about evolution. I’m not referring to his atheistic/positivist idea that the theory of intelligent design is not science. I’m referring to his email to me saying the absurd equation the attached article is based upon is correct.
You are in the same position as Robert Kaita is with respect to Randy Isaac, who are in positions of leadership in the American Scientific Affiliation. On the Open Forum of the ASA, Randy Isaac answered my explanation of why the AJP article should be retracted with nonsense. I asked Kaita to assign a moderator for our discussion. Kaita is refusing to do this, I assume, because he knows Isaac is lying through his teeth.
What I suggest you do is schedule a meeting with me and tell Stephen Barr about it. He may apologize for the email he sent me in what was obviously a fit of anger. If Barr was a rational and honest person about evolution and a good Catholic, he would have written to the Catholic Truth of Scotland about my published letter. If Stephen Barr admits that the AJP article should be retracted, then I no longer have any grounds for denigrating the character of the people affiliated with First Thingsand the Academy of Catholic Theology. I can direct my efforts towards the members of the ASA and the American Association of Physics Teachers.
Very truly yours, David Roemer
Email from Robert Louis Wilkin to Russell Reno on December 20, 2012
Dear Rusty,
I hope that you are ignoring this fellow.
Spoke with STanley this morning and he had high praise for FT under your editorship. He particularly liked the Leithart article (which came out of the PC conference I organized last year at which Stanley was to speak but could not be bothered) and David Hart’s piece.
Robert
Letter sent to Fr. Joseph Daoust of “Domus Interprovinciales Romanae”on January 17, 2013
Dear Fr. Daoust,
I am writing to complain about the 10 Jesuits who are members of the Academy of Catholic Theology (http://www.academyofcatholictheology.org/) and four Provincials. One such Provincial is Father Provincial David S. Ciancimino of New York who refused my request for a personal interview. I’v asked the 10 Jesuits to resign from the Academy of Catholic Theology to protest the conduct of three other members: Stephen M. Barr, R. R. Reno, and Robert Louis Wilken who are affiliated with the journal First Things. My complaint against First Things is that it is refusing to republish my letter in the Catholic Truth of Scotland (http://www.catholictruthscotland.com/MAYnewsletter12.pdf).
The Catholic Truth of Scotland explains why an article titled, “Entropy and evolution,” (Am. J. Phys., Vol. 76, No. 11, November 2008, https://docs.google.com/open?id=0Bw0xQqr5YbtJQ09ybDR0ejd2TTA), should be retracted. My reasons for recommending such a drastic remedy are here:
http://creationwiki.org/Pseudoscience_in_the_American_Journal_of_Physics
Dr. Barr, who received the Benemerenti medal from Pope Benedict, said I was mistaken about evolution and was harming the Catholic Church. First Things is helping the American Journal of Physics and its publishers (American Association of Physics Teachers and the American Institute of Physics) cover up its mistake. The phenomena of the Big Bang, the origin of life, and evolution are reasons to believe in the Bible because the Bible says God created the universe from nothing for the sake of mankind. For a peer-reviewed journal to disseminate misinformation about evolution is outrageous.
My correspondence with physicists about this issue is here:
http://newevangelist.me/2012/02/22/physics-department-of-new-york-university/
http://newevangelist.me/2012/02/02/american-journal-of-physics/
http://newevangelist.me/2012/02/23/american-association-of-physics-teachers/
http://newevangelist.me/2012/05/06/american-institute-of-physics/
http://newevangelist.me/2011/12/07/american-scientific-affiliation/
http://newevangelist.me/2012/08/02/first-things/
My YouTube video titled “The Truth About Evolution and Religion” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKaF8vX6HXQ) also sheds light on this issue.This is a link to my submission to First Things: http://newevangelist.me/evolution-and-the-culture-war/.
I’m willing to drop my complaint against Fr. Ciancimino if he sends someone to attend a lecture I am giving in New York City on March 15, 2013. There is no cost for the lecture and no ticket, but to obtain a reservation and the exact location and time click on the following link:
<A HREF=”http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/316545″>Reservation for “Pseudoscience in the American Journal of Physics”</A>
Very truly yours, David Roemer
Email from Peter Leithart on February 16, 2013
I’ve read through some of the material you send me. Can you clarify the following statement?
“My metaphysics teacher at Fordham was Norris Clarke, S. J., and he said the success of the scientific method is evidence of God’s existence because it supports the hope that the universe is intelligible. I consider the Big Bang, etc., evidence that the universe is not intelligible and that God does not exist. The Big Bang, etc., however, is evidence that God has communicated Himself to mankind because the Bible says God created the universe from nothing and that God cares about our welfare.”
The last two sentences contradict each other.
Thanks,
Peter Leithart
Dear Peter,
Good to hear from you. At the end of my answer, I’v pasted an open letter I’v been broadcasting. I’v also attached an essay that supports some of the things I say in my answer.
Humans decide whether a theory or insight is true or just probable by marshaling the evidence for and against and exercising their judgment. We know that God exists from the cosmological argument, which is the crowning achievement of the method of inquiry called metaphysics. The reason that it is an argument, and not a proof, is that God’s existence gives rise to the question of whether or not God has communicated Himself to mankind through the Western prophets and Eastern mystics. This question requires marshaling the evidence for and against the fundamental assumptions of metaphysics and deciding whether these assumptions are true. One of the basic assumptions is that the universe is intelligible. Evidence for this intelligibility is the success of the scientific method and the fact that things don’t pop into or out of existence for no reason at all. Evidence against intelligibility is the Big Bang, the origin of life, and the evolution of bacteria into mammals in only 3.5 billion years. I believe in revelation, nevertheless, because there is much more evidence in favor of revelation than against it. One bit of evidence is John 1:1 because this verse says God created the universe from nothing even though John did not know anything about the Big Bang.
There is a conflict between creationists and advocates of intelligent design (ID) on one side and their opponents. Conflict causes anxiety, and inhibition is a defense mechanism against anxiety. On the subject of evolution, both sides are inhibited from thinking intelligently and rationally and behaving honestly. Both sides agree that the Big Bang, etc., is evidence of God’s existence and not of God’s nonexistence. Of course, they have different judgments about the weight that should be given to the Big Bang. They resolve this disagreement to their own neurotic satisfaction by accusing one another of bad judgment.
This neuroticism reached a pinnacle in July, 2008, when the American Journal of Physics published “Entropy and evolution” and a further pinnacle in refusing to retract the article when I confronted them with its errors in February, 2012, not that I was the first to see the errors and write about it. The top of this mountain was reached in four stages.
Stage 1: It is widely believed that natural selection acting upon innovations explains how mammals evolved from bacteria in only 3.5 billion years. In fact, evolutionary biologists always speak of “adaptive evolution” because natural selection only explains the adaptation of species to its environment. Since there is no evidence for the theory of intelligent design, this theory is irrational.
Stage 2: Creationists have stated that evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics. In fact, the second law does not apply to the evolution of stars or biological evolution.
Stage 3: Many anti-creationists and anti-ID people say that evolution does not violate the second law of thermodynamics and give reasons that are unintelligible.
Stage 4: This is a logical consequence of Stage 3. If evolution does not violate the second law, it should be possible to do a calculation that proves it. This is just what the AJP article did. The article uses the Boltzmann equation for entropy, which is a state variable in thermodynamics. It is as stupid as attempting to measure the temperature of a Boeing 747 in flight. A Boeing 747 and a mammal does not have a temperature.
Evolution, Intelligence, and Rationality
Posted: June 25, 2012 Filed under: Book Review on Amazon Leave a comment »Biology’s First Law: The Tendency for Diversity and Complexity to Increase in Evolutionary Systems by Daniel W. McShae and Robert N. Brandon
When animals have nothing to do they go to sleep. But humans have a drive to know and understand everything. Attentive humans noticed fossils and asked where they came from. Very intelligent humans invented the theory that life evolved over a period of 3.5 billion years. Marshaling the evidence, rational humans judge the theory to be true. Humans then ask: What caused evolution?
Creationists and advocates of intelligent design think that God did it. While there is evidence that God exists (free will, finite beings), there is little evidence supporting this theory. There is no evidence for the theory of natural selection. This theory only explains how giraffes got long necks, not how giraffes evolved from bacteria. The reason is that a giraffe is so much more complex than a bacterium and 3.5 billion years is only about a hundred thousand trillion seconds (17 zeros). Not enough is known about the innovations natural selection acts upon for humans to understand how evolution occurred in so short a time. Evolutionary biologists generally speak of “adaptive evolution” in connection with natural selection.
Atheists, creationists, and advocates of intelligent design are responsible for the misinformation that natural selection is intended to be an explanation for the complexity of life. The author of the following quote has a Ph.D. in linguistics, not biology. Pinker is Steve Pinker (Ph.D. in linguistics), and Bloom is Paul Bloom (Ph.D. in psychology). Notice that Charles Darwin (Ph.D. in biology) doesn’t think natural selection explains the complexity of the human eye:
They [Pinker and Bloom] particularly emphasized that language is incredibly complex, as Chomsky had been saying for decades. Indeed, it was the enormous complexity of language that made is hard to imagine not merely how it had evolved but that it had evolved at all.
But, continued Pinker and Bloom, complexity is not a problem for evolution. Consider the eye. The little organ is composed of many specialized parts, each delicately calibrated to perform its role in conjunction with the others. It includes the cornea,…Even Darwin said that it was hard to imagine how the eye could have evolved.
And yet, he explained, it did evolve, and the only possible way is through natural selection—the inestimable back-and-forth of random genetic mutation with small effects…Over the eons, those small changes accreted and eventually resulted in the eye as we know it. (Christine Kenneally, The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language, pp. 59–60)
McShae and Brandon state the limitations of natural selection explicitly:
The history of life presents three great sources of wonder. One is adaptation, the marvelous fit between organism and environment. The other two are diversity and complexity, the huge variety of living forms today and the enormous complexity of their internal structure. Natural selection explains adaptation. But what explains diversity and complexity?” (location 78, Kindle)
The second bit of nonsense this book by mainstream biologists refutes is the idea that evolution obeys the second law of thermodynamics. In November, 2008, the American Journal of Physics published an article “Entropy and evolution” that includes an absurd equation combining thermodynamics and probability theory to prove that evolution does NOT violate the second law of thermodynamics. The article was probably written in good faith because there are a lot of books and articles about evolution and the second law of thermodynamics.
According to the second law of thermodynamics, a gas will fill up the entire container it is in because this is the most probable distribution of non-interacting molecules. In other words, nature goes from knowledge to lack of knowledge about the location of molecules, order to disorder, complexity to simplicity, or low entropy to high entropy. When shuffling a deck of playing cards the chance of the deck getting back into its original factory order is about one in 10, 000 vigintillion (67 zeros). I mention cards because physicists label the molecules in a gas No. 1, No. 2, etc. and a deck of playing cards comes automatically labeled. Notice that there are almost four times as many zeros in this number as in the time for evolution.
In trying to understand evolution, biologists use as a model for a protein, not a deck of playing cards, but the English sonnet. A protein has four levels of complexity, but the primary structure has hundreds of amino acids and each amino acid has to be in exactly the right location for the protein to work. As there are 20 amino acids and 26 letters, biologists calculate how long it would take a computer to generate a sonnet by the random selection of letters. (Marc Kirschner and John Gerhart, The Plausibility of Life: Resolving Darwin’s Dilemma, pages 32).
Kirschner and Gerhart only report a calculation simulating natural selection for a the phrase “to be or not to be.” My guess is that nobody did the calculation for a sonnet because nobody cares. The primary structure of a protein doesn’t even begin to describe the complexity of life. The dozens of proteins that make the flagellum of a bacterium rotate is a static kind of complexity, like the primary structure of a protein. By contrast, genetic engineering is the ability of cells to detect changes in the environment and create new proteins in response to the change. The ability of a fertilized animal egg to develop into a multicellular animal is another example of complexity. The instinctual behavior of animals and the knowledge of grammar that human infants are born with are other “sources of wonder,” as the authors express it.
The only connection between evolution and the second law of thermodynamics is that evolutionary biologists and physicists both perform probability calculations. The AJP article singles out for criticism the creationist Henry Morris for saying evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics. The article argues that the second law only applies to closed systems without mentioning the criterion that it only applies to non-interacting particles.
The second law of thermodynamics does not apply to very large numbers of hydrogen atoms in outer space because the force of gravity causes stars to be formed from these atoms. A living organism is anything but a system of non-interacting particles. This is the real reason evolution does not violate the second law. With the goal of understanding evolution, the earth is a closed system. It is true that the sun bathes the earth with its energy. But energy from the sun generally heats things up and makes them more disordered, not less disordered.This is the way the authors explain that the complexity of life has nothing to do with the second law of thermodynamics:
Based on what we have said so far, some will be poised and ready to make a leap, from the notion of accumulation of accidents to the second law of thermodynamics…. We advise readers against this, for their own safety. We are concerned that on the other side of that leap there may be no firm footing. Indeed, there may be an abyss. First, we think the foundation of the ZFEL [zero-force evolutionary law] lies in probability theory, not in the second law or any other law of physics. And second, our notions of diversity and complexity differ fundamentally from entropy, in that entropy, unlike diversity and complexity is not a level-related concept. (location 220 on Kindle)
