Archive for May, 2009

Designer Junk

Sunday, May 31st, 2009

RNA excerpt. Courtesy of Wikipedia.

RNA excerpt. Courtesy of Wikipedia.

If life arose by chance, one would expect to find lots of “mistakes” in organisms— vestigal organs and junk DNA, for example. Prominent atheists have made just this case.

However, greater knowledge of the cell’s workings has shown that much that was once considered junk DNA is absolutely essential to the function of the cell. Such was the case with microRNAs, short snippets of RNA that not long ago were thought to be garbage, but recently found to regulate genes.

Now this “junk” holds out the long-term prospect of cancer treatment. Just a few weeks ago Johns Hopkins researchers published a paper showing that microRNAs are set into production by cell density, although somehow this function breaks down in cancers. The hope is that research will show how to repair, restore or replicate the crucial function of microRNAs in the fight against cancers.

The more that so-called junk DNA and RNA are found to be intricately involved in cell function and regulation, the weaker the atheist argument grows and the stronger the case for a designer becomes.

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Human Embryonic Stem Cells

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

Human embryonic stem cell colony. Courtesy of Wikipedia.

Human embryonic stem cell colony. Courtesy of Wikipedia.

Recent political campaigns in the United States have presented embryonic stem cell research in frenzied terms. TV ads presented emotional appeals based on sad cases of individuals suffering incurable diseases. Anyone who opposed such research was made to look like an uncaring villain or troglodyte. Never mind the religious and moral arguments against destroying human embryos to sustain the research. Never mind the real alternatives.

The importance of stem cells lies in their ability to morph into other cells; the hope is to develop healthy strains of cells that can replace faulty in humans. Generally, the major media said little about alternatives.

Yet all along, real advances were being made in adult stem cell research, and such research did not require the destruction of an unborn child. Children have been treated for leukemia, blood and bone diseases using “adult” and placental cells. Doctors in Spain recently grew a replacement trachea for a woman using her own cells. In fact, the success rate for adult and placental cells seems to be far better than that for embryonic stem cells.

The main drawback of using adult cells was that viruses had to be used to create induced pluripotent stem cells—essentially adult cells reprogrammed to behave like other types of cells. Since such cells were not considered completely safe for use in humans, a better method was desired. Now both U.S. and Canadian researchers have succeeded in producing induced pluripotent stem cells using virus-free techniques. This is good news, and holds out the potential for adult cells to completely displace embryonic stem cells.

In contending for embryonic stem cell research, the media would do a real service by being honest about the alternatives and showing respect for the moral and ethical concerns which arise out of the destruction of embryos.

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Seen and Unseen Part 2

Sunday, May 17th, 2009

The complex plane includes imaginary numbers, necessary to understand the full range of physical reality.

The complex plane includes imaginary numbers, necessary to understand the full range of physical reality.

If you have seen the movie The Final Season, you know that it is based on the true story of the Norway, Iowa baseball team. This little town of 500 consistently produced champions who defeated far larger schools. History is replete with examples of underlings whose invisible, immeasurable determination beat the odds to triumph over foes far superior on paper. The spiritual trumps the physical; the unseen trumps the seen.

In an earlier post, titled Seen and Unseen, I promised to develop a second line of evidence that the universe was created out of nothing we can see—but not out of nothing altogether. I argued that it was made out of the spiritual.

Team spirit, such as that of Norway, Iowa, makes my point. Something which cannot be seen or measured proves more important to victory than size or numbers.

We see an analogy to this in mathematics. Imaginary numbers are a relatively late development. They do not represent physical items such as stones or loaves of bread that we can actually pick up and handle, add to or take away from. Nonetheless, these “imaginary” entities prove to be absolutely crucial to representing the full range of physical reality.

Let us move beyond mathematics to the greatest figure in history. Jesus is an example of a man who possessed none of the visible trappings which are generally considered requisites for success, and yet on the strength of invisible characteristics, such as love, faith, determination and bravery he made an impact which has steadily widened over two thousand years.

Likewise, the history of Joan of Arc absolutely defies any literally materialistic explanation.

If the Bible’s thesis is correct, the master/servant relationship between spiritual and physical is not surprising, for those things which can be seen were made out of those which cannot be seen: the physical out of the spiritual. Because it is more ultimate, the spiritual can trump the physical.

It seems that the things that cannot be seen are sometimes more real than those that can.

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Posted in Anthropology, Physics | No Comments »

God’s Recorders

Sunday, May 10th, 2009

With camera phones and other technology, privacy is fast becoming a thing of the past.

With camera phones and other technology, privacy is fast becoming a thing of the past.

What is the one thing you have done in secret that you would be most ashamed to find splashed across the internet?

Just one hundred years ago, such a question would have been meaningless. Today, with cameras in watches and cellphones, private remarks and momentary indiscretions caught on video or voice recorder, flash around the world instantaneously.

If, in less than a hundred years, we have come so far in our ability to recover what is said and done, think what a civilization 1,000 years in advance of us might be able to do. It could well be that in such a civilization no word, or deed could escape investigation. For all we know, the inhabitants of such a civilization may have learned to extract subtle imprints from the very brick of houses or the stones in the fields.

In point of fact, we have good reason to believe that an infinitely advanced civilization exists. Whoever designed the universe and its life had immense technical skill and finesse.

As a Christian, I believe that designer was God. I believe also that he issued the following warning against hypocrisy: “There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed or hidden that will not be made known. What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs” (Luke 12:1-3).

When I think of this warning, I tremble. Believing that God has infinitely advanced recording capabilities, I have sought to live my life as an open book; and yet I know I have gossiped, expressed half-truths, misjudged peoples’ motives aloud and stumbled in other ways that I wish could remain permanently hidden. They won’t be—although God promises me that at some point my record will be permanently expunged and He will remember my sins no more.

But what about hypocrites who lie, cheat, impose on others and deliberately do wrong while cunningly pretending it is all for good? God’s hidden recorders are taping them now and the recordings will be played on the day of judgment.

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Religion: Evolving or Devolving?

Sunday, May 3rd, 2009

New Hebrides idol.

New Hebrides idol.

How did people come to worship the earth, make sexually promiscuous acts into religious obligations, sacrifice infants for advantage, assign kings divine rights, impose irrational taboos, bow to idols, and so forth? According to dominant social theory, these things were the normal response of primitive peoples to a world they did not understand. As knowledge increased, primitive religions became more rational, evolving into higher religions, and becoming monotheist in their highest forms.

According to the Bible, just the opposite happened. Mankind abandoned an original, pure knowledge of God and adopted vile and destructive religious caricatures in its place. In the Bible view, primitive religions are actually decadent religions.

Which view does the evidence support?

This year’s growing hype over Earth Day festivities, verging at times on Earth-worship, are but one piece of evidence suggesting that the Judeo-Christian consensus which dominated the western world for centuries is fast eroding. Not only is the Earth being elevated to goddess status in the popular imagination, but there has been a growing veneration and protection of pornographic expression and a tendency to vilify anyone who does not embrace sexual promiscuity as a socio-religious obligation. To sacrifice the infant in the womb for convenience is treated as the epitome of civility. Civil rights gained at great cost in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by religious dissenters such as Quakers and Baptists, are coming under constriction by modern governments.

In short, as Western knowledge of God has declined, a replay of the scenario described by the Bible is unfolding. Our culture is fast embracing nature worship, government as god, and other beliefs common to decadent religions.

Those who believe in following the evidence (the scientific approach), rather than a-priorism can hardly help admitting that the unfolding tendencies support the Christian view. Religious understanding in the west is not evolving but devolving.

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Posted in Anthropology | No Comments »