The Intelligent Design Controversy

Yes, I am tackling this subject. At its heart, the arguments of both sides are not very sophisticated, but the issue is muddied by lack of decent explanation and strong convictions that it may take years before it is clear. I aim to clarify the matter somewhat.

The premise of Intelligent Design is that evolution cannot explain certain natural phenomena, with the conclusion being that an intelligence had a hand in the design of life. It's not a bad argument, so far as these things go, because while it relies on the lack of scientific evidence explaining those phenomena, it does not exclude evidence being found. It's not science, though, as that requires evidence and falsifiability. Finally, it's easily resolved: it's false. There are no phenomena that seemingly defy evolution that scientists have not resolved.

Evolution has mountains of evidence supporting its operation since the earliest life we have found. Claims saying that the fossil record does not exist, that carbon and other dating techniques are false, or that we have never come across new species coming into existence are wrong. The evidence disproves such claims- there's no scientific conspiracy trying to cover it up, or anything remotely like that. There are areas where the specific operation of evolution is not well understood, due to gaps in the fossil record or that the area has not been fully investigated, but there is no evidence contradicting evolution. Supporters of intelligent design jumped on the concept of irreducible complexity, which postulates that certain biological mechanisms do not work if a single piece is missing, but all the examples presented for this hypothesis have been shown to be false. That yeah, actually, look that bacterium has a simpler version of that mechanism.

One thing that evolution does not explain, and does not claim to explain, is the origin of life. Scientists have a hypothesis for the origin of life, but obviously the environmental conditions of the early earth, given millions of years (about a billion in total) with which to work, make it hard to test any hypothesis. The current line of thinking is that organic molecules were spontaneously synthesized (shown experimentally,) including possibly RNA as a carrier of information, that replication and synthesis of enzymes occurred (also shown experimentally), and that membranes formed. In combination, given a huge time period to work with, membrane-enclosed replication with DNA and protein synthesis, i.e. life, could be possible. However, a lack of evidence for this hypothesis does not mean that life was engineered intelligently. Maybe a hole to another universe formed, accidentally spilling some life into ours. That's about as likely as an external creator.

The question that remains in my mind is- why are we having this debate? There's no evidence that evolution doesn't work- if some were found, and scientists were genuinely stumped, then this debate would have a valid reason. But there is none. So no, intelligent design should not be taught in classrooms, and it should not claim to disprove evolution. Believe in a creator if you will- you will not be contradicting science until you start to make claims that the Earth is carried on the back of a turtle, that two homo sapiens are the ancestors of every human alive, or that evolution is false. You will have to resolve such quandaries yourself, along with quandary that the universe is terribly unkind to life, and that nature also fucks us up a lot.

Why I write

Judging by the fact that I have written four posts and received zero comments in 2007, one might conclude that no one reads this blog. In actuality, I think I have had one reader that didn't comment. One might conclude that writing the blog is a silly endeavor if hardly anyone reads it. One is stupid. Fuck you, one.

If anything, I write this more for myself than for anyone else. Most of my friends find it too troublesome to read regularly; others will occasionally visit and read all the posts that I've written since they last visited. Importantly, it has occurred to me that if you want to know who I really am- what I believe, what I think about, what I feel strongly about- you have to either read this blog or have extended conversations with me. My parents, for instance, don't know much about what I write about. I don't hide my convictions, it's just not something that comes up often when I'm living with them.

Writing in this blog has several advantages, I find. For one thing, it documents my thoughts over time- like a journal, only I never kept a journal and find a blog better. For another, writing so that others will read means I have to organize my thoughts more clearly. Finally, it means you can read it. Yes, you.

Independent World Television

Indepedent World Television is an organisation that aims to create independent, investigative, and fair journalism. Rather than being owned by a corporation, it is funded by donations. It has no ads, and is beholden to no larger entity. It aims to create real journalism, that is unafraid to ask the important questions and that will look at the important issues. Actually, there are a lot of videos on the website that explain the need for such an organization. Go check them out.

I, frankly, love this idea. There are no good major news networks. FoxNews spews its fair and balanced conservative bullshit, CNN reports on exactly how many soldiers died in that helicopter crash, and not one of them asks the important questions or reports on any issue for reasons other than sensationalism. Yellow journalism has become the de facto standard, but IWT seems set to change that. The videos they have so far are really interesting, and I eagerly await the launch of their Beta (i.e. online) news channel.

Another thing that IWT aims to do that current news stations do not is provide an international perspective- Indians reporting on Indian news, Columbians explaining what's really going on, maybe even Iraqis given their own voice. To put this in perspective, before I met Isabel I thought kidnappings and violence was common throughout Columbia, which is not the case.

Long live independent everything! Down with the corporation! But really, long live independent journalism.

The Price of Everything

Economists have this concept that they quite like called "opportunity cost." Only an economist could love such an unwieldy term. Most definitions textbooks give are rather complicated, so I'll provide the simplest one I can think of: the (non-monetary) cost of making a choice. It's the reason some asshole coined "Time is money," namely that his time is valuable because he could be making money at that very second if he wasn't talking to you. By choosing to converse rather than say, calling his broker, he has lost whatever benefit he might have gotten from that call.

The reason that the economists who deal with opportunity cost love it so much is because it is a very powerful explanatory tool. It explains price, for instance. If we could have whatever we wanted, what we wanted would far exceed what there is to go around (another beloved economic concept known as scarcity,) so we have to make decisions about what we actually want. Those who control the resources ration assign a price based on how much people value that resource.

Opportunity cost explains more than just price, though, which is why it's not a number. If it only explained price, you could say "Well I can have coke for $1.00 or water for $0.50, so the opportunity cost of drinking coke is $0.50." If it worked like that, you could also say "Well I can have water for $0.50, or nothing for free, so if I drink nothing I'll save $0.50." True, but you'll also die. Which leads me to my next point, that life is finite. We have a limited time on this planet, so every waking second is spent making decisions. Opportunity cost provides a rudimentary model for the choices we make, namely that we minimize the cost. This often fails in the short term when we do something like drink until we vomit, or in the extreme case that someone drinks until they die, but generally we choose the option that is the best for us.

The First Cause

The First Cause refers to the fact that due to cause and effect, there must have been an initial cause that had the effect of creating the universe. I once had a lengthy and convoluted but interesting argument about the First Cause with some friends of mine that began at one in the morning and carried on into the night. I can't even remember when exactly I had it, but I think it was at my 18th birthday party.

As early as we can tell, the creation of our universe began with a sudden explosion. Not in the sense that there's this cubic bomb of matter that created everything, but that there was an insanely large expansion. Before said explosion, time and space did not exist, so it's not like there's this ball chilling and waiting to explode. If all matter was compressed into a point (or whatever), it would have to explode. That's all it could do, because an action requires time to happen.

Now, this doesn't seem to make very much sense. It's much nicer to have a big bearded guy or whatever creation myth you want pop into existence, create the universe, and do whatever. This agrees with our concepts of creation and of cause and effect. You have a cause, the deity, that exists outside of time and thus can create universes and bend rules.

Now, that's the first solution. The second solution is to sort of say, there is no first cause, there's a first effect. Boom, universe created. It either causes itself or has no cause. No creator necessary. This is the one I agree with. I do not feel that something so astounding as the creation of the universe requires anything besides itself. One theory (that seems to disagree with the evidence) is that the universe expands and compresses. Once it's compressed, time disappears, so we can't see the next explosion, but it would undergo another explosion. So the universe was always there and always will be there. However, you can imagine what you will, but with the second solution you don't have to assume anything.

My problem with the first solution is that anything is possible. We're no longer in the universe, so the cube can will itself into existence, the creator can will itself and a cube into existence, or a University of Worldbuilders can will itself and a creator and a cube into existence. You could even have a whole other universe will itself and a university and a creator and a cube into existence, but at this point you've snorted enough coke. Rather than going down this path, I'll just say there's no need for a first cause. You can have your God if you wish, but you have as much reason for your God as you would for that University, and you're still making things infinitely more complicated.

(Post partially inspired by Richard Dawkins. If you don't know the name, look him up. He's a fairly important scientist.)

MMVI in Review

Yesterday was the first day of a new year, according to the Gregorian calendar and our planetary-based concepts of "days" and "years." This is my eighteenth such "New Year." One might think that after eighteen of such years, this would be an event of little significance. But as those who I celebrated with can attest, I love New Years. It's not hard to: New Years implies friends, fireworks, possibly fire, and alcohol. And that is a fun if a little volatile mixture. However, as time passes from one year to the next, we waltz (possible drunkenly) from and old chapter of our lives to a new one.

The previous chapter is a rather interesting one. I turned eighteen, graduated high school, and entered university, all rather significant milestones. I moved to a new city in an old country, left behind old friends and gained new ones, stayed on a ship for nine days, and biked for two days straight (circumstances dictated it could not be more.) In the world, the ice caps melted a little, Iraq become more of a mess, Bush became even more unpopular (and the US Congress performed a changing of the guard,) the world cleaned up after the tsunami, Katrina devastated New Orleans, and I became slightly more passionate about my beliefs. For me, 2006 was a good year, and I've matured since the last New Year.

Now, I can't reasonably predict that the next chapter will be as interesting as the last, seeing as how it's been 2007 for about thirty and a half hours. I think that it will be, though, and here's why. University will become more serious next semester. Global politics will become more serious as more shit hits the fan, but hopefully real progress will be made addressing those problems. And I'm going to become more serious about several things in my life. In response to the two things I just named, I will become more studious (almost automatically, as more challenge means more interest,) and more open about my political and environmental concerns. Hopefully without irritating anyone. I'm also going to try to gain (back?) weight, as I do not want to be skinny, and definitely do not want to be skinnier, and become more active (for instance, I'm going to start climbing regularly.)

Here's to a good MMVII.