Astral travel [AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is another favorite piece from my days as the Atlanta Creationism Examiner. Had to put it together rather quickly this morning because a link to it was embedded in the next article in the ongoing series on evolution.] Astral travel (or astral projection) is supposedly the ability for a person to enter into a trance so deep they are able to travel great distances without their physical body. Sounds impossible to believe, doesn't it? This writer has to admit to a fair amount of skepticism about this ability, having never experienced it personally. Does that mean the ability doesn't exist, or does it only mean that this one particular individual has not personally experienced it? What evidence (if any) exists to support such an outlandish claim? Psychic Rose Kopp lives in Honolulu, Hawaii. She claims to have an ability to leave her body and visit remote locations, which she does occasionally to assist the police in solving a crime. After a grisly murder was committed in Gonzales, Louisiana, a childhood friend of Police Chief Bill Landry suggested that he ask Kopp for help obtaining information about the robbery and murder of elderly Lillian Phillipe, the third in a series of similar crimes. The serial killer left no fingerprints or DNA, making the police very frustrated with the lack of progress in the case. Kopp agreed to help. She asked Landry to send a picture of the victim and one personal item the victim had touched. Three more homicides were committed in Landry's jurisdiction before Kopp received the package from … [Read more...]
Iterative creation
[AUTHOR'S NOTE: Fourth installment in the series of articles originally published as the Atlanta Creationism Examiner about existential questions and the theory of evolution.] Iterative creation A new Facebook friend sent me a link to an article by a scientist advocating his version of Divine Evolution, another reason I now think iterative creation might have been a better name for my own personal philosophical beliefs. Stuart Kauffman wrote in the Edmonton Journal, I believe that we no longer need a Creator God, we need God's creativity. In other words, Kauffman believes in a form of theistic evolution ala Francis Collins, where we have a creator God who doesn’t really do anything but get the ball of evolution rolling, more deist than theist. Creation theory is concerned about the origin of things. If there is reason to believe that a supernatural entity of extraordinary intellect caused our universe to happen, why not believe that same Creator is directly responsible for the origin of life? Why would God put in all the work to set up the universe for life but lose interest before creating it? What exactly are we saying here? Do "we" believe that God suffers from some sort of Attention Deficit Disorder, or what? The so-called facts of evolution and the scientific evidence used to support my hypothesis of iterative creation are one and the same. The conjecture about evolution is where the theories significantly differ. Iterative creation begins with a bang. Actually, it begins with the Big Bang. The Big Bang Theory makes sense, mostly because scientific … [Read more...]
DNA, the ultimate source code
[AUTHOR'S NOTE: Another in the series of articles explaining how evolution theory requires luck or intent in order to be reconciled with existential science knowledge and current understanding. The original content has been reformatted and lightly edited to make it easier to read.] DNA: the ultimate source code In my writings as Atlanta Creationism Examiner, I have never pretended to be a scientist. On the other hand, for two decades I wrote computer software for a living, so I am considered an expert by many in the field of software development and application programming. In college I was taught “Computer Science”, called Management Information Systems in Business school, but I never really considered programming software a “science.” Science seems to take place most often in an ivory tower paid for by government grant. By the same token, I saw very little management of information systems in the real world. Our code more behaved like electronic assistants to help do a job as opposed to decision makers who told you how. If there's any one thing that I know about computer software that will always be true, it's that you cannot guess what will happen inside the machine simply be reading its source code. If something is in code, it is a form of software. That means it has been designed. Look, I know how software works; I have created applications that remains in use today, years after leaving the business. I know the computer is no smarter than its programmer. I wrote banking software, translation tools, financial applications, email service providers … [Read more...]
The conjecture of evolution theory
[AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is the second installment of the series of articles originally published at Examiner.com while I was writing as the Atlanta Creationism Examiner. Lightly edited and re-formatted from the original version.] The conjecture of evolution theory Change occurs constantly. It’s impossible to deny. However, the word “evolution” is often used analogous with virtually all “change”. That definition is much too ambiguous. The philosophical theory called evolution describes an ambiguous process by which new life forms allegedly are created if given enough time. I will repeat the question I have invited my biologist friends to answer: Assuming “evolution” is true, how does sexual reproduction create a new genome that alters a creature’s morphology to be different enough from its parents to be called a new animal (or plant)? What magic elixir or ingredient besides time causes or allows for this sort of change (I have somewhat mockingly referred to as shape shifting) to occur? Surely we can all agree that for Archaeopteryx to evolve into another creature or vice versa, there has to be some point in time where the “base” parent animal (stealing terminology from my objected-oriented past) can be differentiated from the “derived” child animal as a fundamentally different organism, correct? Surely some explanation other than sexual reproduction can account for different morphologies in variant organisms derived from DNA? In layman’s terms -- at some point in time, my zoologist friends have got to be able to say the offspring of an Archaeopteryx is … [Read more...]
The “facts” of evolution theory
[AUTHOR'S NOTE: This was another article originally published as the Atlanta Creationism Examiner, the first in a short series written shortly before the publication of my book Counterargument for God. The purpose of the series was to explain my alternative to Darwin's theory of natural selection as the best potential explanation for the origin of new species, based on the existing evidence. Although my alternate hypothesis involves a supernatural intelligence capable of designing the universe and life within, it is called iterative creation. Other articles in this series include The conjecture of evolution, Compounded improbabilities, and Iterative creation. This morning an atheist acquaintance on the internet inspired publication of this piece (originally written in 2012) by accusing me of advocating intelligent design as a scientific theory. The reality is that my argument is almost the polar opposite extreme -- iterative creation is a philosophical hypothesis that competes with the philosophy known as "macro" evolution to explain the existing scientific evidence, which consists of DNA analysis, the known fossil record, and comparative anatomy.] The "facts" of evolution This might take a while. The argument from authority, which could also be called the argument of superior intellect, gets old after a while. You don’t have to convince me that you’re smart. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. You only need to convince me that you’re right. Then I'll actually believe what you tell me. A new Facebook friend tried to help me, sending a link to … [Read more...]
