Chapter 4
Trimmings
and Trappings
for the
Pot-Pourri
The essence of this pot is that different ingredients can create a delicious stew. It is here convenient to provide them in a sequence which is somewhat sporadic, yet decidedly directed to the taste of the whole.
1.
FROM PAGES
208-210 ,The Shadow of a Mighty Rock (SMR). This is the book unless otherwise
specified. 'Supra' and 'infra' here refer to this trilogy. Very minor changes
may appear
in THAT MAGNIFICENT ROCK:
22 EXTENSION H:
ON FOSTERING FRIENDSHIP WITH FACTS.
Exactly the same is said,
in the 1984 edition of Encyclopedia Americana, by Pulgrum of the
First, notice that these are observational areas, traditionally and properly a domain for science and scientific method, applied with the appropriate restraints and constraints. To these areas, add the force of Professor Thompson's note on the relevant observational facts of palaeontology (p. 199 infra), to the point that: "If we found in the geological strata a series of fossils showing a gradual transition from simple to complex forms, and could be sure that they correspond in a true time-sequence... well: but This is certainly what Darwin would have liked to report but of course he was unable to do so. What the available data indicated was a remarkable absence of the many intermediate forms required by the theory... The position is not notably different today." (Cf. S.J. Gould, 234-235 infra.)
The abrupt and sophisticated contrivances of cells, of language, of arrivals without notice in the macro-level, likewise find fitting company in the similar observational fact of mutations. Of these, we find (p. 202 infra) Pierre-Paul Grassé, past-President of the French Academy of Sciences, states: "No matter how numerous they be, mutations do not produce any kind of evolution'' (cited from Evolution in Living Organisms, p. 88).
S. J. Gould, page l03, in Evolution of Living Organisms, declares that gradualism demands that 'miracles would become the rule'; and that of course, is precisely what creation constitutes, if miracle be defined as the explicit work of the supernatural; and this, as has been demonstrated in Ch.l (supra) is comprised by one God, and His agents.
One is tempted to replace 'numerous' in the quotation, with 'humorous': either way, the observational fact, relative to schematic, design-complexity-upgrade in mutations, the relevant fact, is negative like all the rest have observed. The fallen imagination - the model of magical, mutational, metamorphosis - is dead.
Thus we have the cells, the languages (of them and of ourselves), the arrivals palaeontological and cybernetic, the means of arrival in chorus, saying, No! to the desire for the non-predictive theory of organic evolution, in its varied implicatory supports. It is de-confirmed with the rigour of a government which cannot attain a vote of confidence from its members; friends desert it and only fever remains.
Spiritually as observationally, that fever is not mere neutral withholding of support, but rank rebellion in the arena of observation and logical method.
At further levels of implication, Denton and Schützenberger (cf. Sir Fred Hoyle, infra pp. 224-225) consider the criteria of mathematics and methodology in the fields of artificial intelligence and creative systems of thought, with a similarly resounding negative (see supra, EXTENSION ON INTELLIGENCE. - pp. 128 ff.; also *43, *46 infra); while Professor Murray Eden of M.I.T., at an international symposium along with Schützenberger, finds intolerable strains for any such theory, this time in the field of language and its power to survive chance 'mutations'. A fortiori, if it cannot manage survival, it is further subjected to fiasco in the problems of arrival (p. 132 infra)!
Both Professors just noted focus and feature observational data, as we see in situ. Neither hold to creation; both are constrained by evidence in these points.
All of these observational data are not only alike, but virtually identical in this: they contradict the only dimension of verification available to the theory of organic evolution, a non-predictive theory: that of implication, generic expectation and method. In collision with known laws, in its uncongenial emplacement in the marginal field of metaphysics to which it must be consigned, it rests on irrationality, even for hope (see pp. 211 ff. infra).
Let us recapitulate (cf. pp. 252H, 1028, 1031C infra). Neither is there suitable transition in language complexity, going up over time, on a graded fluid basis; nor is it the case in cell technology; nor in palaeontology, nor in the mathematical correlatives of the cell: nor is there anything in kind different to be said re observed mutational advance (even when, as in the case of the fruitfly Drosophila, the generations and the mutations were both numerous, and the latter large and varied).
Language, though it varies, no more presents a primitive-to-superior gradation correlative with the idea of tribes-to-modern-man, than does cell technology in minor organisms to major ones; mutations do not exhibit, but rather obstruct any living sight of the flow to the watchful eye, as does palaeontology to the retrospective onlooker. The failures of flow on the one hand, a procedural rebuff, and the fact of language and cell initial and pervasive sophistication on the other, a generic contradiction, are merely two of the total non-verifications of organic evolution. The mathematical minutiae of cells, their administrative 'genius' and magnificent miniaturisation, similarly attest that we are dealing with a prodigious mind in its deployment of words and works - the language of cells being reflective, our own introspective: not with some self-developmental sequence where that-which-is-not invents itself from non-existence by clever contrivings.
To all this the noted Professor A.E. Wilder Smith adds a fascinating datum: the cell not only has its molecular system (the materials on site in right proportions), and the apt spatial arrangement of the same, such as isomers exhibit (this is a variable); but on this basis there is to be "superimposed" a "sequential code" in living genes and derived proteins. This super-imposition of conceptual considerations, as a constraint on prior or more basic concepts, this infusion, enforcement, emplacement of code is:
l) A conceptual work.
2) Exactly the function of mind.
3)
Facilitated exactly in proportion as all the concepts can proceed from
the resources of the one mind, being congenial to the style, system, parameters
or powers of its thought (as words to paper, thoughts into words, vision into
thoughts).
4) The definitional
heart of what we call "design". (Cf. pp. 114-116
supra,
211,
252E-J infra.) That it has here an
invisible agent is scarcely surprising, when it is considered that, as shown in
Ch.l supra, matter is a design, of necessity a product of a law-maker who is
necessarily not material.
To revert: Wilder Smith (p. 53 cf. p. 82 in his work: Creation of Life) emphasises at the technical level that in his experience, a true biological cell is virtually one great code, a code complex, a collation of codes, a code matrix. In terms of this magnificent furniture, made resident like a star boarder in the cell, or "superimposed" on its apt and ready structures: energy becomes "converted" (p. 122 op. cit.) into idea-exhibits. We of course do this with a system of thought on other systems, all the time, having the ability to think, of which this is the specific outcome.
What then ? Observationally, the evidence caresses creation and rebuffs any alternative option, with single-minded intensity denying gradualism. It negates it for language, for cells and for relic transitions, whilst exhibiting the paraphernalia of mind with that exuberance in the living methodology of cybernetics, that we mini-creators with teeming cells at our disposal, habitually deploy in our own language gifts.
The positive and negative criteria, alike, act in symphonic unison to acclaim creation in any contest (cf. Image, and p. 1031C); while the systematic, and sudden methods found in language and gene alike, correlate with the legal force of intransigent matter, to make a concept of mindlessness, a mindless one, ridiculing the facts.
THAT-WHICH-IS-NOT never was nor could be; it is I-AM-WHO-I-AM who both is, must be, and always must have been; and here we see the thoroughly consistent, co-ordinate and correlative working of His mind.
23 EXTENSION ON INTELLIGENCE, pp. 128-140 infra.
24 EXTENSION ON LIFE, pp. 140-145 infra.
25 It is necessary to point out that it matters not at all where the information input - the directions for operation, the practical provisions for implementation of the directions (plans do not create factories: you need both, and a mind for either in this world), the data banks, the codes, the linguistic provisions for intelligible computation, interaction between parts and hence the intelligence - where, and indeed when this is inserted.
You can build as you will, put down your money when it is acceptable to the builders, have the machinations at will: but it is all to be done.
If it is done in miniature (as in the cell codes in the human body), then this takes more input, it is harder. If it is done in spectacular and unexampled miniaturisation, as in the cells of this same body, that takes the more. If moreover, it is done embryonically, no matter: it is merely the more intensive that the application of intelligence must be. Commanding, symbolic control is not meaningless motion. A coherent, managing code in a cohesive managed circuit in an integrated, collaborative whole of billions of parts (each cell), multiplied by billions (each body) - is not the easiest to manage, as it is forming itself and containing the lively data for growth, the while.
None of us can manage it. Its technology leaves us for dead, as Dr Denton points out, by orders of magnitude that seem astronomical. Thus while its manner of the introduction of this prodigy is of much interest, and the point is clearly addressed, yet it is the fact of its introduction, like a payment into a schoolboy's bank account, which should not be forgotten, with concern about the method, however legitimate this subsidiary question may be.
As also shown in this chapter, the implications of the startling method of introduction of this machination, and origination of this equipment are of such a character - that this element also is of prodigious importance.
Let us however, not forget the fact of the amount deposited. We have nothing which by observation can match for intelligence, by results can equal for its manifestation, the equipment with which on earth we think, and move and have our being. If the source were not intelligent, contrary as we see and shall see, to all reason, then our greatest works should be denied the attribute of intelligence. However, we experience the intelligence as we proceed in our works; and perceive it is profoundly surpassed in the works which make our working possible: the construction of our bodies, minds and spirits, and of the world which is their visible habitat.
That is of course the definitional dilemma always faced by unbelief:
if you are going to be consistent, and define what it is that intelligence is by what it does,
then the essential characteristics and criteria are surpassed in what we are,
as evidence of its working, relative to anything we do.
Yet intelligence is by definition attributed to us in terms of performance. Alas for the atheist, we are monumentally outperformed. See further: Chapter 3, esp. pp. 262-263, 290 infra.
FROM p. 234
36 Of recent
interest on this ancient topic, is Stephen Jay Gould's book, Wonderful Life. In this, he investigates the
'Burgess Shale' in
In 'checking out' the facts, he gathers data for the interesting declaration that diversity, "disparity in anatomical design'' of life in these Cambrian rocks exceeds what is in our contemporary oceans. Of gradualistic concepts in the face of this vital profusion of multiply-modelled, hi-tech abounding life, Gould attests this: "literally incomprehensible''! (Op.cit., pp. 208, 260; cf. p. 160 supra.)
Not merely, then, is there a substantial contribution to currently known life immediately in this first basic 'geological age', as the theory has it: it exceeds what we now have in the oceans. A more delightfully sharp rebuke to the evolutionary notion of gradual arrivals could scarcely be constructed by Lewis Carroll, even with all his gifts, even if he set his mind to parody evolutionary pretensions. Here, however, the 'parody' is found... in the facts. Evolution is a parody of a scientific theory, one so gross, that if it were instead a scientific theory, those who hold it could be appalled by the gall of the maker of the parody.
Put more specifically, in terms of form: the theory of gradualism is a parody of the facts; a rejection of the evidence; is falsified as a scientific theory by continual confirmation of this contradiction of what it would predict; and its formally defunct character is re-asserted with the progress of knowledge, with increasing and now mortifying force and firmness. That is its logical character. It is like the corpse of Lenin: very dead, but surprising kept on view. In this case, however, wanton devotee work is not interested in acknowledging that the corpse is (scientifically) dead.
With this, let us take an extract from p. 32, That Magnificent Rock:
· Gould, SMR p. 217: THE ABSENCE OF FOSSIL EVIDENCE OF INTERMEDIARY STAGES
BETWEEN MAJOR TRANSITIONS IN ORGANIC DESIGN, INDEED OUR INABILITY, EVEN IN
IMAGINATION, TO CONSTRUCT FUNCTIONAL INTERMEDIATES IN MANY CASES, HAS BEEN A
PERSISTENT AND NAGGING PROBLEM FOR GRADUALISTIC ACCOUNTS OF EVOLUTION.
· In terms of scientific method, for this we can read:
· The present system displays no evidence of basic design-
alteration activity. It also
shows no indication of functionality
for basic transitional forms
to an imposing degree.
FROM P. 34, Lectures in Creation, THAT MAGNIFICENT ROCK:
· Gould, SMR p. 234, indicates
that in the face of his BURGESS
SHALE in BRITISH COLUMBIA, and
the "disparity in anatomical design", profusion and characterisable
"leaps" in types found in the fossil evidence, as well as the sheer
exuberance of the data in all its complexity RIGHT AT THE NEAR BEGINNINGS OF
THINGS (Cambrian rock - on geological theory usually conceived), there are
theoretical results. Thus evolutionary gradualism is 'LITERALLY
INCOMPREHENSIBLE". He declares that the "disparity in anatomical
design" of life displayed in the Cambrian rocks exceeds that in our
current oceans!
· In terms of scientific method, something literally incomprehensible would not normally be taken as factually indicated.
FROM PAGES 32FF. in What is an Original? In QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS: THE WORD THAT SPEAKS
End-Notes -
The
Conventions of the Unconventional
and the Criteria
of Creativity
*1 That of course is something Stephen Jay Gould, for all his comparative conventionality of thought, has done. He has broken loose in one aspect.
Looking at the Burgess
deposits of Cambrian rock in
The biological evidence, on currently popular geological theory, proceeds from the large base of the cone with life abounding, to the relatively pointed (truncated) top! By then, much has been lost of all this outpouring of life, so nearly comprehensive from the first. Indeed, as Dr Evan Shute in Flaws in the Theory of Evolution (p. 188) puts it:, with reference to animal phyla: "all of which appear in the Cambrian and Ordovician as far as they have fossil records". These two adjoining "exceedingly early" phases in the rocks, contain this "all". That is rather ambitious for a grouping, ungraced process bent on inventing itself without base, laws or cause!
Indeed, Dr Gary Parker in
his Creation: The Facts of Life, p. 91, notes that in the
Cambrian System, the "
Small wonder, and not entirely ineptly, Stephen Jay Gould asks this question of the Cambrian "explosion" (op.cit., p. 227):
HOW... COULD
SUCH DISPARITY ARISE SO QUICKLY...
HOW IN HEAVEN'S NAME COULD SUCH DISPARITY
HAVE ARISEN IN THE FIRST PLACE, WHATEVER THE FORTUNES OF ITS EXEMPLARS ?
Well said. "Heaven's name" is the only one which is even relevant, when you contradict expectations, exhibit a spree of creativity of the most intense character, and find not creative laws and principles backed by the necessary intelligence or extant re-programming matrices, but the Second Law of Thermodynamics happily operating to confine, restrict, diminish... and with this, the actual evidence that this, diminution, is precisely what has occurred on a grand scale. What is the testimony be being presented to us ? preservation of much by amazing means of DNA editing, complex and ingenious; decimation of original abundance, in accord with the law.
As elsewhere noted, this is the creative norm in this world all around: You INPUT with much substance, and create; then you preserve if you can, and over time, things tend to reduce their specifications. Neither money nor intelligence grow on trees.
The answer then, to Gould's query in which he invokes "heaven's name" is quite close really to the question which he asks: "By heaven's action."
How else would you EXPECT creativity to come, but from Creator? ALL that creation is, is exemplified: its style, its unconstraint, its exuberance, its adaptations without constriction, its constrictions at useful points while extravaganzas of variety live on such standardised structural bases (like the DNA code *2 - so Shakespeare might use blank verse, because this constant rhythmic restriction helped the variety he had desired to express in other ways). Where creativity is displayed, however, because of the blinding eyeglass of human oblivion, it is a certain shame-faced non-original slummocking into conformity of incoherent unfaith that leads on to desires to give it a reductionist paradigm instead. (See SMR pp. 241, 439-445.)
Teachers however know, or should, at least in English, that creativity is about as easy to counterfeit as the complexity of operational programs without a programmer. Strictly, it is a simple matter of contradiction in terms. What each is, is defined by its products. What products arise determine the resource used. Here, the evidence is for immaterial creativity, better called in a positive sense, spiritual creativity, which is no more a 'principle' than is poetry. It is WORK WITH PRINCIPLES but which transcends them in the precise fact that it is CREATIVE.
Do principles conceive, do they think, construe, imagine! It is time we faced quite honestly and simply that GOD is the spiritual dynamic, person and Being who has engaged in an excursion of His creative power in creating both us and our world (see SMR Ch.1 for more detail).
We might reply then, to this apostrophe to heaven by the Harvard professor: In science's name, that it is time 'science' reverted, Mr Gould, to being scientific! Scientific method REQUIRES God as the ONLY operationally adequate concept; and it CONFIRMS His presence in the way shown in SMR CHs.3,5,8-9. For all that, Gould's insistences on some things do him much credit. On p. 227 (op.cit.), for example, he asks this of the vast DIMINUTION of created things from the Burgess shale days, till now:
My key experiment in replaying the tape of life begins with the Burgess fauna intact and asks whether an independent act of decimation from the same starting point would yield anything like the same groups and same history that our planet has witnessed since the Burgess maximum in organic disparity.
First, he notes (p.36):
But if we face the Burgess fauna honestly, we must admit that we have no evidence whatsoever - not a shred - that losers in the great decimation were systematically inferior in adaptive design to those that survived.
Secondly: this points the related question. Does what happened since Burgess days suggest what caused this profusion in explosive dynamics of creativity ? Quite the contrary, it shows that earth, qua earth KNOWS WELL HOW TO REDUCE, but no evidence, not a shred, is there of the productive facilities which PLACED the Burgess shale in its staccato suddenness, in the field! Let alone presented them with such lack of unfinished symphonies of creations, of inept, half-baked productions.
After all, REDUCTION is rather different from CONSTRUCTION, and what we find is CONSTRUCTION subject to REDUCTION, hardly a good account of the construction arriving, the thrust of vital dynamics into such exuberance, or indeed of anything in the line of current biological science, that still has the modesty to be evidentially sensitive at all!
For more detail on these
aspects, and related themes, see SMR pp.140-161,
234, 208 ff., 260, 226ff., 251
fff., 329 ff.. Pp. 311-313 op.cit.
provides a good example of using words to 'explain' the inexplicable. On creation
further, see That Magnificent Rock, Ch.1, pp. 185-192 and The
Kingdom of Heaven pp. 169-171, 10-16. and
65 ff.. See also *2 below.
*2
A) basic cell design is basically the same in all living systems
B) in all organisms, the role of DNA, MRNA and protein are identical.
C) The MEANING of the genetic code is virtually identical in all cells.
D) The "size, structure and component design of all protein synthetic machinery" is close to identical in all cells.
Symbolic,
architectural, standardising, executive, linguistic, structural, constructive,
directive, duplicative, conservationist and semantic near identity bespeak
normative forces set to build in a domain at once mental, physical, technical
and ideational. The conformity is not what chance produces, but the product of
mind - at least; and mind, vested with personal power and projective capacity -
what we call personality. Not only so: it attests endurance of purpose,
cohesion of thought and capacity for the utmost intricacy in all areas.
It is not only a case of a watch on the beach; it is a case of billions of cases of virtually identical watch components, set up into all sorts of time-pieces, from micro-spots to grand-father clocks. There has been a manufacturing enterprise, but the term -manu- which refers to hands, is for our analytical purpose inappropriate when hands are one of the products!
Rather there is here attested with the severest clarity, an immaterial production extravanganza - of which matter is merely one product. Signified and logically essential is an entrepreneur, brilliant, uncontained and sui generis, non-material - for matter has limits and commands within, with no liberty to create them, no power, nor category to command itself, being merely a repository. A logical requisite accordingly is a Creator, free of the constraints of "kind", indeed the source of all that is called kind.
In definitional terms, He is "spiritual" - not dependent on matter, inherently related to it only as Creator, producer of such limits, commands and cohesion as it comprises, and in which it works, sufficient for its insufficiency.
In logical terms, He is self-sufficient, having nothing which is of this produced character, commanded, demanded, to which He is liable. Autonomous, self-existent, He has no need, is "conquered" by no system, for there is neither limit nor command: HE depends on nothing; but all depends on Him. Such a Being is not a contradiction in terms, as matter is, when its inherent requirements and commands are regarded as needing no cause but itself, that it might be; but on the contrary, His existence and operation is a simple necessity. Always desiring to be what He is, He is what He desires, and knowing all, never changes.
His free spirit is absolute, independent and uncontainable; but He is what He is, and changeless, with neither more perfection to acquire, systems pressuring Him, nor advice to ascertain. If it were not so, HE would require a cause.
In fact, temporariness is not a logical category of necessity, as if it MUST be; but a function of productive system, person or both. What causes it must be, that this temporariness might be. It may come or go at the will of what remains, from which it derives, to which it relates. On the other hand, self-sufficient permanence is far easier to consider; just as it is necessary to be, that anything might ever be and become; and having all that is required for what is to come, and to produce it, while needing nothing in which to inhere or to stir: it simply is a minimal datum readily resting in logical felicity, required by its stringencies.
For a universe such as this, with form and law, procedure and fashion imparted, supplied and observably operative, logic requires that there be a cause. Inadequate, it yet possesses; incapable, it yet contains the product. Beyond it, is the Producer.
The non-material (non-directed, non-imparted, non-commanded), that is, the invisible whose power is beyond such trifles, HE provides the cause, and so at least what is required by these evidences, He must be, to explain all things, Himself in no need of explanation, merely self-existent without contradiction, and necessary without reprieve.
Author of all systems, programs and presentations, buttress and origin of their requirements and controlling specifications, with whatever degree of spontaneity humans are specified to have, without Himself being either controlled or specified in any way, self-existent and abortive of every intrusion, He ALONE does not
- contradict logic,
- defile reason or
- constitute irrationality to conceive;
and His conceptions ?
Look about you: they are everywhere, even that of freedom, both to deny the indefeasible certainties of His truth and to rejoice in His friendship, infinitely precious as it is, because of the being He Himself is. (Cf. SMR pp. 18-25, 71-75, 80-84, 85-88, 131, 138, 168, 172, 200, 268-269, 289-290, 305-307, 312, 316Dff., 329-332H, 998-1000C, 1014-15, 1018.)
He requires nothing, supplies everything, including the logic of systematics, an offspring of His intelligence, imagination and power(See SMR pp. 24, 112-113, 80-81, 87-88, 101, 159, 212-213, 217-218, 263, 290.)
The physical is His product, and the rest, mental, moral, spiritual, components of His creation are fashioned into person, moulded into unity and composed into the realm of the visible, as eminently and immanently dependent as a babe. Man however, that person in matter's dress, with analytical mind, flowing imagination and supple but strong spirit supplied, does not have infantile excuse for his common oblivion of the "arms" that hold Him. (Cf. Hebrews 1:1-3, 11:1-3.)
Grown to maturity, the human race yet can act as if mind and imagination deserted them, in the follies of self-will, both corporately and individually.
· So great however is the sovereign God who made him, that man may even relate to the unspecified, to the sovereign in His splendour who declares Himself, to the One without controlling designations, who is what He is.
· So concerned is He, that man may so relate to Him without withering through the excess and extremity of light in such a Being as this;
· so loving and merciful that man may come to Him through a prepared way;
· so liberal, that that way was costly enough to require the incarnation, once for all of the living Word of God, God as man, definitively and decisively in history;
· so reliable, that this Word, even in the death of the cross, apt for the evacuation both of controlling sin and lethal penalty from man, completed His mission, saying from that Cross, "It is finished!"
As with the plan of creation, so the plan of salvation is as God has made it, and as the former comes unasked, so the latter comes without cost to man; but COME HE MUST, if to that exalted and perfect Being, any human being would relate - as friend, Father, Saviour and fountain of life that extends passed this limited horizons.
A covered way is provided, gained through the flesh of Christ, and there is no other way. The marvel is this: that way there is at all to the brilliance of His purity and the wonder of His being, for such as we are, not one without sin.
In theological terms: God says - I am that I am - Exodus 3:14, John 8:58. (Cf. SMR pp. 22-43, 422E-W, 424-431, 329-332H, 999ff., Ch.3, A Question of Gifts pp. 55ff. and Predestination and Freewill, Appendix.)
5.
FROM pp. 251-252C ...
42 DISCIPLINED, DEVIOUS AND DELINQUENT IMAGINATION
'Imagined' is the point in science. Anyone can imagine, given normal intellect and human nature. It can be great material, in the line of poetry, novels, cartoons, certain types of political commentary - really great or merely sardonically called 'great'. Children may imagine; and their imaginations may be poignantly appealing, or rambunctiously amusing; and so on. But when it comes to a special phenomenon called science, one no greater but specific and distinct, then we need to beware of special pleading in endeavouring to make definitions which in the manner of a propaganda ploy, give the name and type of dignity of science, to the performance antics of what is in fact merely meretricious metaphysics. It is fatally easy to re-define science so that its verifiability and impersonality become lost, but the kudos relating to these things, is far from lost. In that case, a slide, a name misapplied, some illusionism with words, and plausible propaganda replaces hard thought. It is easy; but illicit.
Now to be sure, metaphysics is not all bad; not by any means. It is just that it often takes off from a plane of imagination and lands on a moonbeam. Science, by distinction, often takes off from what is indisputable - at its best - and lands on what is a clever, comprehensive and formulated presentation of what is going on. Not, incidentally, of what is not evidenced.
On the way, it is publicly testable, demonstrably verifiable, and even then not too thrilled with itself, as to detail, lest more data humble its proud suppositions, making it relent, if not repent, and try again. (Cf. pp. 145-174, esp. 154-5 ff. supra, and 931 ff. infra.) Science per se is disciplined. (Cf. pp. 330, 332E-G.)
It is because of these criteria that it has a measure of reliability and a measure of dignity, and that the term 'scientific' is not readily held in disgrace; though of course scientists when, like many others, becoming bumptious or bustling with their own importance or ideological preferences, may be digraced, as Lord Zuckerman seems to have felt with no little sorrow, by non-scientific errors. As he showed, this they may freely do as if it were science, facts being disregarded for the love of theory.
- Imagination which does not have such criteria of
test, purging, refinement, collaboration with other verified hypotheses
and so on, may be just a marvellous exhibition of the lust for wonder, for
new worlds or fabrications of pert fantasy. It is indeed not to be
disregarded just because it may become the intellectual parallel of a
moral libertine, in such a case. This creativity ideally, this facility
is part of the wonder of the creation called man. It does not really
matter if this or that pedant, scholar or sophisticate happens to prefer
to call that 'science' which is mere merriment with the imagination.
It is stringently necessary however that a word-game be avoided, in which the manipulation of terms obscures realities of fact. This becomes a logical slide through ambiguity. Hence it has neither logical validity nor scientific merit.
- Thus the use of the term 'scientific' for the
febrile and more rollicking gestures of the human fancy is not
recommended. It is not just a question of terminological abuse: it can
readily become a source of profound confusion. Thus the type of
attention given to testable, verifiable, carefully constructed, rigorously
formulated, precisely probed work called science, can then
be switched to the type of situation appropriate to children's fantasies.
Then by verbal molestation, the spurts of fancy are suddenly acccorded the
toga of truth, or at the least, the pullover of perspirational,
intellectual work, as if toiling with and on what is to be found by
inspection... careful inspection, not mere insurrection against the facts,
or riot against logic.
It is for this reason that W.R. Bird's attempt to bring in a sort of pseudo-sociological survey of who says what about science, does not affect the issue. Whoever says whatever, it will always be error to bring the well-grounded kudos of one thing, earned in one way, to the name of another. Perhaps two definitions of science would help: one for work and one for play, word-play. (See also Ch. 3, esp. pp. 311-316.)
From pp. 252A-C ... 43 EXTENSION M: ON WITNESS TO WONDER
Professor Søren Løvtrup of the University of Umea, Sweden, gives some useful summary, relative to his own review of the evidence. Thus he declares in his Darwinism:theRefutationof a Myth (p. 352): "I have already shown... that there are now considerable numbers of empirical facts which do not fit the theory."
Professor Nilsson, somewhat
earlier, demonstrated much the same: Gould, Hoyle, Grassé,
Again, p. 351, Løvtrup relays the design point that "neither in Nature nor under experimental conditions have any substantial effects ever been obtained through systematic accumulation of micromutations." Even man-the-manipulator seems significantly harassed in the mere task of engineering from pre-made vital parts! Lfvtrup is constrained to conclude that (p. 352) "only one possibility remains: the Darwinian theory of natural selection, whether or not coupled with Mendelism, is false." These statements may with advantage be compared with pp. 145-162, 82-88, 109-110 supra, and in particular with Popper's acknowledgement (p. 145; cf. pp. 150 supra, 199-232, 311-312 infra).
Indeed Cambridge physicist, Professor Fred Hoyle (q.v. and cf. *46), observing an "intelligent universe'', inveighs against theories not reckoning with the inability of "natural processes'' to "generate'' the vast "information content of even the simplest living systems'' ... which the data show; and sometimes uses a form of academic mockery to match the fantasy he deplores in gradualism, and impersonalism. (The Intelligent Universe is in fact a title of his.)
Hoyle, like many before him, stresses the total integrative, mutually meaningful, separately ludicrous character of many "all or nothing" components in highly specialised living equipment, without which items, effectiveness as well as functionality itself, alike are missing.
In fact, systems - not least living ones - are operative integrally, and man has yet to make more fascinatingly brilliant ones than he carries with him from birth. They so operate in unity, unison, character: whether in symbolic logic in cell language, correlation of parts in mechanical system, formation of parts in cell construction sites, information cohesion in language style, member-units and controlling operational concepts, execution of administrative control direction, co-operation of parts so gained, storage of information, duplication of information, re-creation of control-executive agents and agencies, co-ordination of specialised cell types, as of organic structure specialities, or adaptation of the whole to coherent total meaning or unitary performance in varying test situations.
Further the semantics as well as the structure of the language are both operational realities necessary as precursors to effective "speech", and so action.
It is then that the meanings which sound semantics, inbuilt into the cell, transmitted, can reveal themselves. It is then that this meaning can be set forth, live and act; it is then it may demonstrate no hidden plan or project, but rather one which is visible in its performance criteria. It is not suppositious or surreptitious, but in action - as one brilliantly dazzling whole. Layer on layer, cell components, molecular sub-units, atomic sub-units, fragmentary sub-units of these; and going upwards, organic components; organic correlations; overseeing control in nervous systems; overseeing thought using the same; and on and on it arises till man in his own conscious cognitive capacity, and arbitrary potential, albeit one that is self-disciplinary in scope, may be seen. Then spirit surveys the operations of Spirit, and with the glorious freedom given, may do so with asinine oblivion or with contemplative enthralment at the constructive powers shown: powers so great, that in the case of man, even wilful misconstruction is made a meaningful outcome, code-named rebellion.
In another perspective,
nearly half a century ago, Professor R.B. Goldschmidt, who served as a
Professor at the
The facts of greatest general importance are the following. When a new phylum, class, or order appears, there follows a quick, explosive (*48) (in terms of geological time) diversification so that practically all orders or families known appear (*49) suddenly and without any apparent transitions ... American Scientist, 40:97 (1952).
Indeed, in
a growing swathe of scientists now, with famous examples, he was weary of
pretence, exposing those: "who claim that the facts found on the
subspecific level must apply also to the higher categories''. He pursued the point
in a way many have yet to heed:
Incessant repetition of this unproved claim, glossing lightly over the difficulties, and the assumption of an arrogant attitude towards those who are not so easily swayed by fashions in science, are considered to afford scientific proof of the doctrine. It is true that nobody thus far has produced a new species or genus, etc., by macromutation. It is equally true that nobody has produced even a species by the selection of micromutations ... American Scientist, 40:94 (1952) (*50).
And as to the selector, man, he ... is intelligent (*46).
Whether therefore it be in the mathematical- technical texture of life, its logical-linguistic expressions, or in its abrupt appearance, the former in the least of it, the last in its dispensations: or rather in the stultifying refusal of the laboratory to co-operate in any rational test, either biological or in computing schematisation, as noted at the Wistar Symposium ... what do we find? It is this: a highly justified near delirium of dismay is besetting leaders in thought who face data and not God.
Let us however return to
Professor Løvtrup. Continuing in lament, he asks of the theory, "so
why has it not been abandoned?" ... noting they "follow
Assuredly
evolutionism, the dream-time of much of the Western world - in whatever organic
model - has a lavish share of what myths require. (Thus its construction is not
buttressed by any observed operational data and it is
contrary to all known operational laws for its
support.) As roué and habitué of thousands of Classrooms, mythicised and
mystified, it has served its generation with the required... delusion (II
Thessalonians
44 See *43, *36 supra; also pp. 149-151, 160-162, and compare pp. 204-207 all supra.
Professor
A.E. Wilder-Smith in his Man's Origin, Man's Destiny (pp. 300, and 139-140) notes tracks showing "five
toes and an arch which is unquestionably human" (it. added), in
Carboniferous formations. The maker of these imprints - their setting
marvellous indeed - W.G. Burroughs, Professor of Geology at
Professor C.W. Gilmore of
the Smithsonian Institute collaborated in the work. Photographs were published
in Antiquities (May 10, 1938), which magazine indicated that
similar tracks had been also found, in Carboniferous formations in
Wilder-Smith notes Albert C. Ingalls (Scientific American, Jan. 1940 - The Carboniferous Mystery - also with photographs), who gave citation of extensive findings of such arresting footprints, ones which repeatedly appear, in half a dozen U.S. States. (Relevant dates cited around 300 million years. Marvellous endurance!)
What repeatedly disappears are facts congenial to the fantasy of evolution, which domineers in their absence, as luxuriantly attested as waterfalls in the desert.
PAGE 126, Models and Marvels, in THAT MAGNIFICENT ROCK:
Nor did the
phrase-mongering substitutes for logical necessities cease with
Such verbal substitutes for the power of wit and performance are a delusive and anti-scientific confusion of plans for performance, when even the plans for institution are neither available, nor seen, nor even observed in operation; while even if they were, they would require the input source for genesis. These leisurely but impotent verbalisms are a procedural hazard for those who wish to develop from an extant system, its own grounds of genesis; and this, when no evidence of any naturalistic kind is kind enough to validate any such process; and when indeed, all evidence is unkind enough to require the mind that has the capacities to do the job. To that mind, for execution, power must be supplied, and what the Bible aptly calls the function of -
'finding out knowledge by witty inventions' (Proverbs 8).
PAGES 12-13, in Lectures on Creation, in THAT MAGNIFICENT ROCK:
· Not at all! In terms of ancient fossils, the area of paleontology, we
find Commonwealth Biological Research Institute Director, Dr W.R. Thompson
F.R.S. who wrote a forward to a centennial edition of
· Indeed, Professor Stephen Jay Gould of Harvard, a leading biologist of today, has long challenged the academic world, stating that it is NOT a question of gradual change, but of STASIS (a static continuance) which is the thing OBSERVED to a marvel, impactive to the eye where life forms are concerned.
· Gould did personal research in the Burgess shale deposits in Canada, confirming in detail the ENORMOUS BIOTA (living elements) , the amazing coverage of phyla, of life forms near the earliest basic level of rock (by current theory): the Cambrian. Gould and Eldredge have written voluminously on these things on the topic of continuity with CONSTANCY. They have set forth the new theory of punctuated equilibrium, to stress that the EQUILIBRIUM is the main thing found. They theorised that VAST and SUDDEN change is SHOWN by the rocks, not slow and gradual. As to the method, they vary and remain obscure. There is no clear dynamo to do the job; but at LEAST they are improving things, by sticking to facts in terms of observations. The FACTS, DATA, Gould asserted, MOCKED all gradualism.
A similar
startling impact is noted by Dr Gish of
FROM PAGES 252E-N
EXTENSION N - THE QUALITY OF INTELLIGENCE: CODES, CONCEPTS AND CHAOS
i) The Quality of Intelligence
Intelligence must not be confused with wisdom, or even rationality when it comes to man's ascertaining and verifying his own source, his own life. Even on the visible side, life in fact - as is the case with many complex, semi-automated, man-made designs - though wonderfully responsive to demands, is active on a rigorous, conceptual, logical and linguistic foundation.
Many thinkers - wilfully without such a base when they direct their normally rational thoughts to this area, in their own voided thought world - idly fantasise life, like little children looking at the work of their parents, yet without understanding. Not in innocence, however, does such ignorance persist to adulthood: casuistry replacing causality, and magic, the work of mind. (Cf. pp. 88, 112-113, 117-169 - esp. pp. 138-141, 202-203, 208-214; 621; Ch. 1 supra; Ch. 3 infra.) It is still logically insufferable to estrange the necessary and sufficient criteria of intelligence from the arena for the play of the word; and vice versa. (Cf. pp. 113-116, 141, 210-211, 251-252G, this work.)