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A very good evening to you. It is a delight for me to be here present tonight and to be introduced to you by, uh, Mr. Warnock. It sets all kinds of vibrations are going in my heart, the very cockles of my heart, and warm feelings surround me as I think that I have here a fellow East Anglian to keep me comfort in this foreign country. I knew his father. I won't say that he was a young man when I knew him, but it is many years ago that I knew him. It is a delight, therefore, to meet his son, now come to responsible and honourable position in this country of his adoption. Now, tonight, the question that has been put to me is as follows: hasn't science made God obsolete? The first thing, therefore, I ought to say in all honesty to you is to remind you that I am not a scientist. I have, of course, a long interest in the early Greek forms of science, because I am by profession a classicist, and in the course of my duties I have taught certain Greek philosophers, and among them the Epicureans, who took over for their physical philosophy the, uh, atomic theory of Leucippus and Democritus. It fills my heart with pride as a classicist to remind you that the atomic theory that nowadays we have is a very, very ancient theory. It was the ancient Greeks who, 3 or four hundred years before Christ, uh, invented the idea that the universe was made of atoms. Of course, their version of the atomic theory was very different from our modern one, but there was the basic idea already present with those men that the world was made of tiny particles that are invisible to the naked eye and cannot be cut. They are indivisible. But that said, uh, I confess to you that I am not in the modern sense at all, a scientist, and you may well therefore ask what possible competence I should have to comment on the theories of world famous scientists and the deductions that they draw from their scientific theories. My answer, if you ask me that question, what competence have I to discuss the scientific theories of the experts, is that the scientific experts, particularly nowadays, publish many a book addressed to the thinking general public who are not experts, and therefore among that public, myself. They address their theories to me. They seek to pre- pre- persuade me that, uh, their theories are true, and that therefore, on the basis of their theories, I should accept the fact that modern science has indeed made God obsolete. Since then, the scientists address me as a layman with their theories in their popular books. It seems to me that I have a right, if not a duty, to listen to their arguments. And of course, if they address their arguments to me, how shall I do them honor if I do not proceed to think as hard as I can think about their theories, to critique them certainly, to ask upon what evidence their theories are based, and then to compare the different theories that modern scientists put forth, and thus to come to my own conclusions as to whether their arguments are indeed as cogent and valid as the scientists would have me believe. So when some scientists, not all of them, of course, assure me that, uh, science has made God. My initial layman's response is to say, how couldn't science ever possibly manage to do any such thing? Science, as far as I am aware, gives itself to study the mechanisms by which our universe works. It therefore measures all things it can measure with its tools, and therefore, and then ponders its measurements and comes up with its various theories as to how best to account for and to describe these things. But the God that I believe in is not a something that can be measured or to be observed down a microscope. God is not material. God is spirit. How, by examining this material universe, you could possibly discover that science has made God obsolete, I am not, uh, uh, at all sure. I am tempted to think that there is a basic fallacy here somewhere. Let me use an analogy, a simple analogy now at the beginning of my talk that will, uh, i- illustrate, if I may, in some fashion, the kind of fallacy I think that is before us. Suppose a Ford motor car, uh, was placed in the middle of an uncivilized and savage society, and someone set the motor car going with an endless supply of petrol, uh, and then left. Suppose also that presently the savages come to examine this phenomenon that has appeared among them. They decipher the name that is on the bonnet of the car. It's a Ford, you see. And being primitives and not used to these things, as they hear the noise coming from the inside of the engine, they decide that this Mr. Ford is in the engine somewhere. It's him that's making it go, do you see? And when the engine runs smoothly and turns the wheels as it should, they decide that Mr. Ford in the engine is, is very pleased with them. And when the engine makes objectionable noises and emits rather unpleasant smells out of the back of it, then the natives conclude that Mr. Ford inside this contraption is very angry with them. You might call it the primitive explanation of motor car mechanics, Josie. Mr. Ford is in the engine making it go. Of course, presently, uh, the savages get civilized, and they learn how to dismantle the car and examine its insides, and so they do. Now they find there isn't a Mr. Ford in the motor car at all. Now, presently, they come at their theories, what it is that makes it go. They learn how to measure the cylinders and the pistons and so forth and whatnot, and in the end they triumphantly come to the conclusion that, of course, there never was a Mr. Ford in the engine. Now they can explain down to the last bit of wire in the machine how the machine works. They don't need Mr. Ford in their theory to explain how this thing goes. They can explain it all without Mr. Ford. That is what so many, uh, scientists have concluded, haven't they? Like Laplace said to the emperor, as to explaining how the universe works or anything else, I have no need of God in my hypothesis. That wasn't meant to be an atheistic remark, of course, on Laplace's part. It is simply saying that scientists, as they apply themselves to the way the universe works, don't need to bring in God. They can understand the mechanisms, how the thing works. At that level, explaining the mechanisms, science doesn't need to think about God. Ah, but to come back to my savages, they discover that Mister- there's no Mister Ford inside the engine. Suppose they then say that their understanding of how the engine works has made Mister Ford obsolete. There never was a Mister Ford anywhere around, you see. Well, that would be stupid, wouldn't it? A fallacy. To understand h- that how the mechanisms by which the car works is one thing, but to say that that proves that there never was a Mr. Ford at all anywhere is to confuse the mechanisms with the cause and designer of the mechanism. And when scientists tell me that they so understand the mechanisms by which our universe works, and have discovered they don't need God in their theories to describe and explain the mechanisms, I say, yes, very good. But when they go further and say their understanding of the mechanisms has made the idea of God and a designer unnecessary and obsolete, then I'm tempted to reply that they have committed this same fallacy to confuse mechanisms with causes. Causes. Guns Guns. don't shoot anybody, do they? You can understand all the mechanisms by which a gun works, but guns don't shoot anybody. It's people that shoot people using guns. Somebody has to pull the trigger. You can understand all the mechanisms of the universe. You will be left with the question about the original cause. Unless science can show to me that it explains not merely the mechanisms, but can prove there was no cause that designed the mechanisms in the first place, I shall resist their suggestion that science has made belief in God obsolete, if not impossible. But now to come to what some scientists indeed say. A number, a whole succession of scientists from the past and now in the present do claim, do they not, that science has made belief in God unnecessary. In fact, some of them would say impossible. Let us go back in history a moment, for instance, to see what the learned and famous Julian Huxley said at the Conference of Evolutionists in Chicago in nineteen fifty nine, launching the neo-Darwinian theories of evolution, as you see in his first paragraph. His second paragraph says, this is one of the first public occasions on which it has been frankly faced that all aspects of reality are subject to evolution, from atoms and stars to fish and flowers, from fish and flowers to human societies and values, values have evolved, he means, indeed that all reality is a single process of evolution. In the evolutionary pattern of thought, there is no longer either need or room for the supernatural. The earth was not created, it evolved. So did all the animals and plants that inhabit it, including our human cells, mind and soul, as well as brain and body. So did religion. He says, finally, the evolutionary vision is enabling us to discern, however incompletely, the lineaments of a new religion that we can be sure will arise to serve the needs of the coming era. And what he had in mind by that last remark is that the old religion that believed in God the Creator is dead and now fit to be buried, but now as responsible human beings, we shall have to learn to play God ourselves and invent a new religion that is based on mere materialism and evolution. That, of course, is a long while ago now, that's nineteen fifty nine. Let's look at a more modern version of the same thing, this time from Professor Futuma. Futuma says, in his work Science on Trial, The Case for Evolution, nineteen eighty three. Anyone who believes in Genesis, and there you must count me in, anyone who believes in Genesis as a literal description of history must hold a worldview that is entirely incompatible with the idea of evolution, not to speak of science itself. Where science insists on material mechanistic causes that can be understood by physics and chemistry. The literal believer in Genesis invokes unknowable supernatural forces. Perhaps more importantly, if the world and its creatures developed purely by material physical forces, it could not have been designed and has no purpose or goal. Let me pause there to remind you of what we were saying last night. If evolution be true, then of course the whole universe and we ourselves are the product of mindless forces. Therefore, by definition, there could have been no purpose, no design, no goal. Life is ultimately a goalless phenomenon. It's brought about by accident, by mindless matter, and that same mindless matter will eventually destroy it. You can invent what religion after that you like, but your religion will only be a short-term thing. It will have to be based on the pre- presupposition that life had no purpose ever, and it has no ultimate goal. And that is what Futuma is saying, as you see. The fundamentalist, in contrast, believes that everything in the world, every species and every characteristic of every species, was designed by an intelligent, purposeful artificer, and that it made for a purpose. Nowhere does this contrast apply with more force than to the human species. Some shrink from the conclusion that the human species was not designed, has no purpose, and is the produce of mere mechanical mechanisms. But this seems to be the message of evolution. No God then, no purpose, no design behind our universe or behind us either, and there is therefore no meaningful goal. So far then for Futuma and his observations. Let's take one more scientist to show that I am not, uh, misrepresenting them. Let me read you a passage from, uh, Professor Monod. It is, uh, here taken from an article by my friend and colleague, uh, in the Medical Fe- Fellowship Journal, student journal for April nineteen eighty eight. And he is cont- uh, commenting on the Nobel Prize winner Jacques Monod, who writes, um, pure chance, absolutely free but blind, is at the very root of the stupendous edifice of evolution, with the result that man at last knows that he is alone in the unfeeling immensity of the universe. Neither his destiny nor his duty have been written down. And you will see that if that be true, Professor Monod has banished God from the universe and denies, in consequence, any concept of an absolute morality. So that is what some of the sciences say. But has evolution been proved as a fact? Let me quote you some words of a modern scientist, Professor Lewontin. He says as follows. Richard Lewontin of the States. It is time, says he, to state clearly that evolution is a fact, not a theory. Birds arose from non-birds, and humans from non-humans. No person who pretends to any understanding of the natural world can deny these facts any more than she or he can deny that the Earth is round, rotates on its axis, and revolves around the sun. According to Professor Lewontin, evolution has been proved. It's an absolute fact. It is no longer just a theory. It is as proved as the fact that the Earth encircles, goes round the Sun and rotates on its axis. Professor Dawkins is professor of a special, uh, professorship at the University of Oxford in England. Its aim is for the propagation and the publication to the public of the latest in scientific thinking. And he writes, it is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid, or insane, or, says he in brackets, or wicked. But I'd rather not consider that. No, I thank him for his suggestion. But I have to confess myself now, uh, according to Dawkins' characterizations in the category of persons ignorant, stupid, and insane, and possibly wicked as well. But there is a view that is greatly popularized in Britain that evolution has been proved. On what basis has it been proved? One of the main, uh, pieces of evidence that is offered to the general public concerns certain moths. They are called in popular language the Cattleworth moths, after the name of the theorist. Kenilworth then. Let me explain to you about these moths. Perhaps you haven't heard of them, never mind. Your children, if they go to schools where evolution is taught, will have heard of these moths, because these moths are constantly, over and over again, quoted to school children and to students in their biology lessons as evidence for evolution. The facts about these moths are these. These deer moths are a kind of a s- what predominantly white or grayish speckled moths, you see. In the old days before the industrial revolution in Britain, these moths used to alight on the barks of trees, uh, do you see? Silver birches in particular, and their tree trunks were nicely silvery and a little bit speckled, and the dear moths, with the wisdom given to them, used to alight on these barks, you see, and they themselves, being sort of whitish and peppered, they had a very marvelous camouflage, you see, and the birds couldn't get at. Well, if any of these moths were a bit darker and stood out against the white bark of the tree, then of course the birds came and gobbled them up, with the result, of course, that there was a great majority of whitish bur- uh, moths in the collection. Then they point out the Industrial Revolution happened, and the soot out of the chimneys of the Black Country in England descended upon the tree trunks and turned them black, alas. Now the moths that were whitish were at a distinct disadvantage because they stood out against the black, and the birds came, the birds of the heaven, and gobbled them up, you'll see. Those that were blackish had now the advantage because the birds couldn't pick them out so well, so they didn't get bob- um, gobbled up, and as you might expect, now the majority of these moths in Britain were blackish. There you are, has said thousands of school teachers to thousands of pupils. There you are is evolution proved. See how these moths have d- uh, uh, developed according to their surrounding. Tiny little changes in their DNA inside them, mutations turn them from being whitish to getting black. And the more black they became, there was no purpose behind these mutations, the mutations were all together accidental, but uh, these mutations having happened and produced a moth that was a little bit blacker than the others, uh, then the birds didn't gobble it up. So it married with another moth, you see, that was of that sort, uh, and, uh, natural selection picked out the black moths. So descent by accidental mutation of the genes inside and natural selection outside, the birds picking the ones they saw, uh, served the purpose of evolution. Here is a tremendous example of actual evolution taking place. And teachers have said, and I'm afraid professors have said also, that here's an example how that is how the whole of the universe has worked from start to finish, by a chance mutation of the genes, um, and natural selection outside. That whole theory is quite false. Now I want to to give you not my opinion, uh, but the opinion of, uh, some experts in these matters. Here is a publication in nineteen ninety of the science framework published by the California State Board of Education in the United States. Students should understand that this is not an example of evolutionary change, from light colored to dark colored to light colored moss. That is not an example of evolution, because in the first place, both kinds were already in the population. This is an example of natural selection, but in two senses. First, temporary conditions in the environment encourage selection against dark colored moths, and then later on encourage selection against light colored moths. But second, and just as important, is the selection to maintain, now listen to it, a balance of both black and white forms which are adaptable to a variety of environmental circumstances. This balanced selection increases the chance of survival of the species. This is in many ways the most interesting feature of the evolution of the peppered moth, but one that is often misrepresented in the textbooks, in the school. And so were much were the, uh, California State Board- Board of Education concerned about the misrepresentation that they put out this special publication. This thing about the peppered moths is not evolution in the normal sense. We can call it microevolution, if you like. All it is that in the moths, as in any living form, the genes have the possibility of variety. The Bible believes that and teaches it. The Bible claims that God made human beings of one man, Adam, and his wife Eve. Were they black, white, yellow, pink, red? What were they? Who knows what they were? But the original gene pool had enough potential in it over the centuries by, uh, mating and the natural mutations to produce human beings of every kind of facial, uh, uh, configurment and every kind of color. That is what we would better call microevolution. But the fact that the human gene pool allows for that diversity does not explain how men started, how men happened to become men. It shows how the human species can, um, change within limits, but whether they're black, white, yellow, red, or whatever they are, they remain human beings. They do not evolve by that technique into something else. This is microevolution. It has its limits. It is not macroevolution. All the changes in the kettleworth moths doesn't explain how they came to be moths in the first place. Another scientist has pointed out to us, you'll see, that, uh, uh, the fruit fly, it breeds very rapidly, and therefore scientists have taken the fruit fly and they have bombarded it with all kinds of rays and what have you to see if they could change its genes and make its genes mutate, and they have produced, uh, fruit flies of all kinds of, uh, looks and perversities and strange forms. One of the leading French, uh, experts on the field reminds his fellow scientists that, of course, the fruit fly, after all these changes, remains a fruit pie and hasn't changed into a moth, let alone into an animal of any kind. Just remains a fruit pie. We should therefore, at this moment, just, uh, uh, mark our own, uh, brain's notebook to be careful when we read the kind of propaganda that is put out, at least in our schools and very often in our universities, seeking on the one hand to advance the theory of what is called better macro evolution, how, uh, moths came to be moths, how fruit flies came to be fruit flies, how human beings came to be human beings, supposedly saying it was by this little changes over years, mutations in the genes leading to different forms that they when selected naturally, and then seeking to prove that theory. How did moths become moths? How did human beings become human beings? By quoting things like the kettleworth moths, which are not instances of evolution whatsoever. That is an important thing to note. And that is why I said at the beginning, when scientists come to me and say that by s- their scientific theories they've made God obsolete, I beg leave to be allowed to question the logic and the facts behind their theories. Let's come, if you like, then, to the question of, uh, has evolution been proved? Let's take one or two more, uh, expert opinion of it. You won't need me, will you, to, here in New Zealand, to quote the work of Michael Denton. I put it up simply to remind you of what he has written in nineteen eighty six in his book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis. And talking about our English author, uh, uh, Professor Richard Dawkins, author of The Self- Selfish Gene, who says emphatically, the theory of evolution is about as much in doubt as the Earth goes round the sun. Michael Denton, with that frankness that is given more often to the New Zealanders than to the English, he says, do you see, uh, in his frank way, now, of course, such claims are simply nonsense. Darwin's model of evolution is still very much a theory and still very much in doubt when it comes to macro evolutionary phenomena. Furthermore, being basically a theory of historical reconstruction, it is impossible to verify the theory by experiment or direct observation, as is normal in science. There, Michael Denton is saying something in addition, isn't he? Something very important. When people like Lewontin and Dawkins say that evolution as a theory has been proved to be true, as true as the fact that the Earth goes round the sun. One would hope that they know what they're saying, because the parallel is, is not true. Anybody can, can find out by measurements, as we all know, that the Earth rotates on its axis and that the Earth goes round the sun. You can prove it by observation. Darwinian evolution cannot be observed, never has been observed. And what is more, you cannot prove it by experiment, for by definition, Darwinian evolution is a matter of history. Uh, uh, tries to tell you, it sets out to tell you their theory as to how things have happened all down the centuries. Indeed, some of them would claim to explain how the universe came to be, but by definition, you can't experiment on it. Dealing with history. You can't put the universe through your laboratory and test it. You can't test your theory in a laboratory. And that is the point that Michael Denton is making, and it's a very, uh, serious and important point that we shall come to, uh, presently. One more statement, lest you think that, uh, I am being very arbitrary in quoting just one or two scientists that happened to bat on my side i- in the test match. Uh, you'll say, look at what, um, the British Museum put out. Report in Nature, the scientific, uh, journal Nature, one of the leading scientific journals in the world, gave a report on one, uh, of what one of the museum's senior scientists was telling the public in a film lecture. The museum is the British Museum in London, and this was one of their senior scientists, Duse. And he says in his, uh, lecture, the survival of the fittest is an empty phrase. It is a play on words. For this reason, many critics feel that not only is the idea of evolution unscientific, but the idea of natural selection also. There's no point in asking whether or not we should believe in the idea of natural selection, because it is the inevitable logical consequence of a set of premises. What does he mean by that? Well, here the ca- the scientist, he says, he's starting from some premises. This he assumes. And having assumed these premises, then if they are right, you'll see he can show you how he deduces this result from his premises. But if you don't accept his premises, then of course he is stuck. It depends, therefore, on his prior presuppositions. And that is the point, isn't it? It is not demonstrated science, it is a theory based on presupposition. That is a very important point to get hold of, and this is what one of the chief scientists in the British Museum in London is trying to point out to those who read his book. But it is a popular idea, isn't it, that, um, the fossils in the rocks have proved the case for evolution. The idea is that these rocks took millions of years to create through sediment and so forth, and that the, uh, remains of birds and animals and fish are to be found in them as fossils. That is perfectly true. The next theory is that if you look at these fossils in all the different, uh, levels of, uh, of rocks, you'll find evidence for evolution. Or in the early rocks, they are very primitive, uh, uh, affairs, and they gradually get more complicated as you come up. Well, so large they do, I suppose. Now, Darwin's theory, eh, eh, said that not only would there be distinct animals, birds, and things, distinct, distinct kinds coming up, but there must be, by definition of the theory, thousands of intermediate forms with little changes and still more little changes and still more little changes intervening between the main species, you'll see. And for Darwin, that was a, a, a very, very important part of his thesis. Let me remind you of what we will know already, of course, what Darwin said upon the evidence of fossils. He was in his day concerned about the absence of these transitional forms in the fossil record. And he wrote, the number of intermediate varieties which have formerly existed on the earth should be, that is according to his theory, should be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links. Geology assuredly does not reveal any such graduated organic chain, is what, uh, Darwin was saying, wrote it. And this perhaps is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory. Thus spake Darwin. The absence of these intermediate forms, that was the biggest, um, objection to his theory. Well, of course, in those days, the rocks hadn't been systematically explored, so there was hope that with intense industry, the rocks being explored in detail all around the Earth, transitional forms would eventually come to light. So let's look forthwith at a modern report on these transitional forms. And let us not take it from people like me who don't believe evolution. Let's take this one from David Raut at the University of Chicago and the Field Museum, one of the world's most respected paleontologists, that's the people who study the rocks. Let's hear what Professor Rupp has to say. A large number, he says, of well-trained scientists outside of evolutionary biology and paleontology have unfortunately got the idea that the fossil record is far more Darwinian than it is. This probably comes from the oversimplification inevitable in secondary sources, low level textbooks, semi-popular articles, and so on. Also, there is probably some wishful thinking involved. In the years after Darwin, his advocates hope to find predictable progression. In general, these have not been found. Yet the optimism, optimism has died hard, and some pure fantasy has crept into the textbooks. Let's hear what another one has got to say. Stephen Jay Gould of America is a paleontologist from Harvard University, one of the most famous, perhaps, of all of them nowadays because of his endless stream of popular and highly entertaining books. He says the extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontologists. That is, the paleontologists all know that there aren't these transitional forms. They've kept the information to themselves. It is a trade secret. They don't normally tell the public, but that is the fact. The absence of these intermediate forms. Uh, Niles Eldridge, just to quote one more, of the American Museum of National History Ad- Natural History Ads. Now listen to this bit. We paleontologists have said that the history of life supports the story of gradual adaptive change, knowing all the while that it does not. That's not me. That's a famous evolutionist, Niles Eldridge of the American Museum of Natural History. So let's come to the next business thing, the next step in the theory. That is, that not only different, um, uh, uh, different animals and things, birds and whatnot, evolve from one species to another by tiny changes, but that life arose out of non-living substances by minute changes in the chemical structure. How likely is that? Well, here I quote to you the famous words of, uh, uh, Sir Frederick Hoyle, astronomer actually, not much interested in the theory of evolution. Fred Hoyle is not a believer in God, never was as far as I was aware, and he points out you needn't need all that, um, uh, read all the stuff that I have quoted there for you on that page. One remark perhaps is enough. A simple calculation then shows that the chance of obtaining the necessary total of two thousand enzymes by randomly assembling amino acid chains is exceedingly minute. The random chance is not a million to one against, or a billion to one, or even to a trillion to one against, but P to one against, with P minimally an enormous super astronomical number and degree to the power that is one followed by forty thousand zeros. One with forty thousand zeros after it, that's an astronomical number. That number to one against the possibility that life could have arisen by, uh, accident out of, uh, lifeless matter. That is Sir Fred Hoyle. Is the man said that you might as well suppose that a whirlwind blowing through a junkyard would produce a jumbo jet, as to suppose that, um, life could have come out of non-life by accidental mutation of the chemicals. So, let's come on to another now. Let's come to, uh, the positive side of things. The idea that life could have come by accident is challenged these days by a growing number of biochemists. In particular, Professor Behe of the United States, a biochemist, has recently put forward, put out a book. It is entitled Darwin's Black Box. He points out that in Darwin's days, one hundred years and more ago, people knew very little about the inside of a cell. They thought it was like a blob of jello. It was easy to think, therefore, that little changes in the cell could easily cause, uh, developments that eventually would turn non-life into life. Nowadays, microbiologists, uh, a- a- and biochemists like Behe are discovering, of course, that far from being a mere blob of jello, the, the cell is a vast factory with many subdivisions, all kinds of operations going on in a fantastically complicated way. And they have come up with the expression that the cell shows, forgive the term, irreducible, irreducible complexity. What does he mean? Well, Professor Beattie is a genius, at least at this, in explaining things for the general public. And to show what he means by irreducible complexity, he uses the illustration and object lesson of a simple mousetrap. I brought along one with me by favor of my host and hostess that loaned me this on the condition I strictly gave it back after this lecture, you'll see, to carry on with its practical purpose. But, uh, Professor Behe points out that a mousetrap, though a very simple device, of course, is an irreducibly complex mechanism. What does he mean? Well, it has various parts. There's the base, yeah, we all know about the base, and there's the hammer that comes over and smites the incautious mouse, do we? There is, when you're setting it, the little thing that comes up and catches the old, um, uh, hammer, uh, the and so on. Eh, and uh, there's the thing here upon which you put the cheese for the unsuspecting mouse, mouse to devour. But as Behe points out, you've got to have all those parts present at once before the thing works, before you catch any mice. You can't start off with a baseboard, just a bit of wood, and catch a few mice on it. And then one day a little change comes, and a bit of iron happens accidentally to fall on top of this bit of wood, because it hasn't got a spring yet, but it falls on top of the wood, and you happen to catch a few more mice. And then after a million years or so, somehow somebody's clock goes thud, and the main string falls out, spring falls out and happens to light upon the baseboard, and somehow, mustn't ask too much how, it, uh, it gets itself coiled around the hammer, and now you catch a remarkable amount of mice. And some million years later, somebody adds this cat thing here and has the idea of putting another thing on here, uh, uh, for the cheese to go on, you'll see. Uh, and you catch a lot more mice. No, that's a nonsense story. Who would begin to believe it? Why wouldn't you believe it? Well, common sense shows you that for a mousetrap to work, all the parts have got to be there simultaneously. And what is more, they've all got to be in the same proportion. If the spring is too weak, it won't do anything but tickle the mouse. And if the spring is too strong, you'll see, uh, i- i- i- i- it probably won't go off, and so forth and so on. The hammer, uh, it's no good the hammer sticking out a foot above the, beyond the board. It's got to be the right length to catch the aforesaid mouse. And all told, the whole thing has got to be there. All the parts organized together and working together. Else nothing works. That is his example of irreducible complexity. And he points out how that in the human body and in the cell of the human body, there are many such mechanisms that, according to him, are irreducibly complex. They are such a conglomeration of actions and interactions that all have to happen together, that if one or two are missing, a thing doesn't work at all. And of course, he argues from that, that such things must have been designed for the job and could not have come together by accident. As one example, he quotes the question of blood clotting. All of us, I am sure, know exactly what blood clotting is and how vastly important it is, you'll see. Let's think for a moment of blood clotting, what happens when you cut your finger, you'll see. When you cut your finger and make a hole in the skin and the veins, out comes the blood, and at first it comes out quite quickly and drips around the place, but obviously if it went on dripping, you would eventually die. The marvelous thing you discover when you cut your finger is that there is a mechanism inside your body, you may not have been aware of it, that when you cut your finger presently, the mechanism turns on, and the blood, when it gets down to your cut in the finger, begins to clot. That has the effect of plugging the wound, doesn't it? Yes? So no more blood can come. That, uh, saves your life, of course. And we know then how other things come into action, uh, the blood supply increases, the finger gets swollen and a little bit inactive, then come the old white cells and they eat up the poison and kill themselves in the process, and so forth and so on. And when they got rid of the poison, other cells come and provide new material, flesh and stuff to make up the flesh and put a permanent bit of flesh in place. And when they've done that, uh, the old scab, uh, uh, falls off, and hey, press to your back. But consider that a moment. That stuff in your bloodstream that causes your blood to, um, uh, co- co- co- coagulate, you'll see, uh, to clot, and so plug your finger. That can't exist in the blood all the time, can it? Causing the blood to clot, so you'll be dead in few s- a few seconds when the first clot reached your brain. So it's got to be there in a form where it can't clot. So, how do you, when you cut your finger, how does it know how to start clotting? Difficulty, isn't it? You're a bit of blood stuff. How does it know how to clot? And the second thing is, of course, how does it manage to to clot at the right moment? Because if traveling down your arm, it clotted before it got to the, uh, to the the spot, you might have a blood clot and again pass out. How does it know how to clot? And what is necessary to make the blood clot? And once it's clotted, why doesn't it go on clotting? How does it know when to leave off clotting? Go back to where it was before. That is a problem. And you can see if anything went wrong in it, you'd be dead before you were alive, if you're now an Irishman to speak. Well, I don't expect you to follow all this, and I'm sorry the thing is so faint. But there's the diagram of what has to happen inside your cells when the blood clots. You don't need to know the tremendous words, prekelicrine and Hegeman and HMK and PTA and convertin and preconvertin and Christmas, whatever that is, and and antihemophilic and anti-hemophilic and tissue factor and Stewart and antithrombrium and proaxelurin and axelurin and all, all those kind of things. You don't need to bother your heads about that. Just to observe what an enormous scheme has to come into place within the cells of different chemicals in order to turn the fibrinogen in the blood into, uh, uh, the stuff that clots, to turn it from potential to actuality, all those things have to take place, and then for it to eventually unclot. There are about twenty different processes on that chart. They are all necessary. If one or two were missing, it would lead to very serious disease in the body. It is what is called technically a cascade effect. And it is Professor Behe's argument that there is one instance, or many, many such, of irreducible complexity. It's got to be all there, or else it doesn't work. And if it doesn't work, it's fatal. It's got to be all there at the right time, at the same time. And for that reason, be he will say that there are many such systems in, in, in, in biochemistry, of course, and they must have been designed as complete systems. They cannot have come into being by tiny little changes accidentally coming about, a mutation in the genes, because you'd have been dead before they got to the last one that was necessary. Interesting, isn't it? He also points out that, uh, some cells in the body, some bacteria in- bacteria, in fact, are required within the cell to propel themselves around. Some of them, of course, carry vital substances for various purpose, the cell being like a great factory with different factory sheds and uh uh uh laboratories doing different things in the cell, and material having to be transported from one to the other. And uh the question is, how do these bacteria get themselves around? Now, what you see in front of you is not a picture of a bacterium doing it, it is a stylized, in engineering terms, account of the kind of a me- mechanism with which certain bacterium, uh, bacteria are provided. The thing you see there at the top, so to speak, eh, is a propeller, the fa- flagellum it's called, and it propels the bacterium by going round and round and round and round, you'll see, and thus pushing the old cell through the liquid, the the bacterium through the liquid of the cell. And any engineer will know that if you're going to get a thing like that, you've got to have a certain stabilizers so that when the old propeller goes round, the whole thing doesn't go round. That w- wouldn't get you anywhere. And you have to have bushes and goodness knows what. The bacterium has the equivalent of all these. This is an engineering picture, but it has the equivalent of these. Then what makes the thing go round? Well, there are certain, uh, uh, things here that, uh, cells that produce electricity chemically that make the old fa- flagellum go round and round and round. According to Professor Behe, this is another example of what he calls irreducible complexity. It could not have come into existence and functioned little by little. The whole machinery had to be there, else nothing worked. And if that part of the cell system didn't work, you'll see, uh, then our health would suffer. So there is, on the positive side, scientists now talking about this kind of thing in the cell. And recently a Professor Shapiro, who, as far as I know, is not a believer in God. He doesn't like altogether like be he, though he applauds his work. It doesn't necessarily agree with him. He hopes that one day we can come to an explanation of these things without, uh, supposing there is a creator. But Professor Shapiro, in his most recent work, has pointed to the bacterium he's been studying and pointed that this bacterium, you'll see, it has to know, uh, uh, when it comes across anything, whether it is a, a poison that if the bacterium ingests it, it will kill it, or whether it's safe for it to ingest. And he has found that at the tip of the bacterium there is a nose mechanism, which he says can only be likened to an analytic computer that analyzes the stub- the, the stuff that the bacterium comes across as to whether it is fit for ingestion or not. And says, Professor Shapiro, evolution cannot possibly account for it. And he, as I say, as far as I know, is not a believer in God. He's just saying that current evolutionary theory cannot really explain it or account for it. Another positive area, and with this I shall, uh, uh, cease, or nearly, uh, uh, uh, another positive area nowadays among the scientists, let me just mention it to you, is the insights given by information theory. It was the engineers who first called our attention to this, information theory. What do they mean by that? Well, in engineering terms, uh, if you ha- want something to lock a door or unlock, you design a key, don't you? Now, on that key, you've got to design the shape of the metal to do various things inside the lock. And people are inclined to call that information to be put on the key. That is, you have to think through these things, uh, that have to be put on the key so that it fits the lock. A better example, I'm sure, would for the older ones of you, or I doubt whether any of you are old enough to remember, but uh, when I was a youth, washing machines, I mean clothes washing machines, were new, do you see, on the markets, and proud women would demonstrate to you what marvelous things these washing machines were, do you see? A little sort of tub thing with water in it and a motor somewhere down below and a thing that went round. And it was so designed that the dear lady could choose which program, do you see? If she was doing linens, well, she had one program. If she was doing woolens, she had another program, as all sensible ladies do, do you see? How was the machine persuaded to do this program or the other program? Well, at the top of the machine, there was a little slit, you'll see. And then the lady had a bit of square plastic. That's all it was, plastic. But when you looked at the plastic, the edge had all sorts of notches in it, apparently random notches for what you could see, all spaced differently. There was one lot of notches this side, another lot of notches that side, you see. If the lady wanted the linens, she got it with certain notches one side, she put that in the machine, and the old machine, so to speak, uh, read this, these notches somehow, I don't know how, and it did the program the lady wanted. If next she wanted the woolens, she took the old bit of plastic out, turned it round and upside down the other way round, and put a different side to it with different notches, and those notches controlled the machine and made it do something else. Now I put to you a question. Suppose, um, I got a bit of plastic like that, or the housewife did, and put it to you and said, now sir, you're a bright, you're a wise man, aren't you? What is this thing I've got in my hand? What is the substance? You would have said, plastic. And you would have been right, wouldn't you? There was nothing but plastic, just a bit of stuff. But would there have been a right description to say that plastic was just plastic? That wouldn't, would it? What were those notches on it? They were just plastic. That's what the information scientists would have called information. They were put there by the designer to, well, I have to use a metaphor, to tell the machine what to do, to instruct the machine, to set things going. And he knew the designer, because he knew the inside of the machine, he knew what notches to put where. They were his way of communicating with the old machine and making it do what he wanted it to do. So it wasn't just plastic then, it was information. And would you believe me if I tried to persuade you that the notches came there by accidental mutation? That's absurd, you say, of course not. Information of that kind is put there by a designer. Of course it is. Good stuff. And now once more, the old biochemists and the microbiologists come at us, don't us, don't they? And they say that inside your cell there's thing- a stuff called DNA in its double helix form, you see. Immensely complicated and full of information, isn't it? For starting with the zygote, the two cells, one from mother and one from father, that come together as a zygote. That zygote contains not just chemical stuff. To say it's just chemical would be laughable. Well, it is just chemical, you say. But it, it's like that plastic, well, it's chemical, but it's carrying information, isn't it? And that information is there that will control the development of the fetus, the embryo, the fetus, in all its development in the womb, the timing of the development. It's no good having eyes if you haven't got a head to put them in. Hm. It will control the time of gestation, the time of the birth. It will control the baby's development, right up to the time when it becomes ninety nine and a half and goes home, we hope, to heaven, does it? Marvelous lot of information. Where's the information come from? To say it's just chemicals would be nonsense, wouldn't it? Information comes, in that sense, from a brain, a mind, a designer. Let me take another illustration, uh, much more to our heart. Suppose you pick up a piece of paper, and on this piece of paper it says, my dear Rosie, I love you with all my heart, John, you'll see. You take it to a chemist and you say, analyze this for me, and he tells you what the paper is made of and the ink, and he says, that's all it is, piece of paper and ink. No, you say, no, no, that's more, that's more than that. What is it? He says information from the apostate John to his beloved Rosie. What is information? You say the letter's on the page. No, it's not. He could have said the same thing to Rosie by Morse code from one bedroom room window to the other, you'll see. Yes? Or he could have done it with flags. He could have done it in English letters or Russian letters. Doesn't matter what form he gets to convey the information. The information itself didn't exist as letters to start with, did it? Where's it come from? You say it comes from somewhere inside his brain. It is invisible. It is mental. Perhaps also spirit. But he conveys the information from his brain to her brain on these carriers, the letters on the page and a bit of paper. And the information on the DNA that controls the development in the womb and thereafter. It's not the chemistry, is it? The original zygote from the parents had the information, then it was copied by other DNA stuff, RNA. The original material is gone years ago, hasn't it? The information survives. It'll be passed on to their son and their son and their grandson and their grandson all down the centuries. The information goes on, being carried by a different lot of chemical, same structure, but fresh chemical, like the paper upon which John wrote his message. But the message itself, the information was invisible and not material, but spiritual, mental at any rate. And the engi- uh, the engineers with their information theory and the microbiologists faced with DNA are coming more and more to say, but here is a supreme example of information. The physical material is carrying information. That has enormous implications, doesn't it? Where does the information come from? In all our experience, information has to come from a mind, a personal mind. It is invisible. It is not material. It comes from God, of course. Listen to the Bible talk. In the beginning, God created, and how did he create? Oh, and God. Genesis repeats it many times. The New Testament says, in the beginning was the Word, that is information. By him all things were made. By faith, we believe that the universe was made by the Word of God. It's not merely that God commanded and it stood fast. It was that in commanding, God implanted the information from the divine mind onto material. That is the source of the information that keeps our universe going, and us human beings in particular. Science has made belief in God obsolete. How has it? Science is coming around slowly to seeing that the evolutionary theory is inadequate. Other scientists are beginning to point the way to the positive evidence. That there is a God, there is a designer. The Bible, of course, has been saying it a long while. There's not a logical, mathematical proof that God exists, but Romans chapter one tells us in the New Testament that we can see things about the Creator by looking at the universe, just as you can look at at a tulip and you can see it is beautiful. If I tried to prove it to you logically, you would think I'm absurd. I prove you a tulip is beautiful. Well, if you can't see it, you can't see it, but most people can see it. And the Bible says you can see it if you look at the universe. Behind it is God's vast power and his godhood. And therefore, the Bible says that those that reject God will be held responsible and without excuse because they have shut their eyes to the obvious evidence that the universe presents. Perhaps that sounds to you a very hard judgment, that the Bible says that men, if they reject the evidence of, uh, uh, of, um, uh, creation around them, that the creation comes from the hand of God, they will be without excuse and incur the judgment and displeasure of God. Because they do not like to retain God in their knowledge, they prefer not to acknowledge God. You think that's a hard judgment? I finish, and with this I do promise to let you go. This is a quotation from a recent book review article by Professor Lewontin. I quoted him earlier in this lecture as one who said that, uh, evolution had been proved. Now I quote you from another work of his. He was reviewing a book by his late colleague Carl Sagan, the man who used to listen to outer space to see if there were other intelligent beings around. Great scientist, Sagan, an atheist, of course, and Lewontin is an atheist. Now listen carefully, if you can still manage to keep awake, and then I'll reward you by sending you home to bed. Uh, you'll see. And Lewontin writes as follows, eminent scientist, of course he is. We're not taking anything away from his science, but this is what he says. Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. What does he mean? Well, he's inviting you to observe that scientists like him come up with in- eh eh explanations that, as he says, are contrary to common sense. Why do we do it? It's the key to our struggle. Your struggle? What struggle? The struggle between science on the one side and the supernatural on the other. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs. In spite of the tolerance of the scientific society for just so stories. You say, what are just so stories? Well, they're stories that Africans used to tell to their children. How did the elephant got its trunk? Well, an old monkey got on the end of its nose once, and the elephant pulled and pulled, and the monkey pulled and pulled and pulled, and the nose got longer. A just so story. It doesn't pretend to be scientific. And says Lewontin, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just so stories. Why do we do that? Because we have a prior commitment to materialism. It doesn't mean consumerism. He means we have a prior commitment to the philosophy that there is nothing in the universe except material. We will not admit that there is a God. We are committed to the view that there's nothing but matter, and because we're committed to that view, we, uh, evolve our theories, even though they're against common sense. They're a kind of a just so story. So he says. I didn't write this. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but on the contrary, we are forced by our pri- our priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. It is our prior commitment. That's what we believe. That's our philosophy. We're committed to it. There is no God. There is only matter in the universe, and because we are committed to that, we are obliged to frame our in scientific investigations in such a fashion as they come up with the results that seem to prove that our materialism is correct. In other words, with him, sci- science is not really science, it's based on a prior philosophy. Now listen to what he says at last. Moreover, that materialism that we believe in is absolute, for we cannot allow a divine foot in the door. As Professor Lewontin. We are determined not to allow God to put his foot in, not to recognize the foot if it is there. We're determined to keep the supernatural out. Because we are, we base our science and its investigations on that hypothesis. We construct our experiments so that they come up with the results, that there is no God. Not all atheists would agree with Lewontin. I do not pretend that all scientists who believe in atheistic evolution adopt that same attitude. I'm simply saying that that is the attitude expressed by one leading scientist, and it agrees with the Bible. There's evidence that some people do not like to retain God in their knowledge. So their presupposed philosophy eliminates God because they are determined to keep the divine foot out of the door. My question, ladies and gentlemen, at the beginning, has has science, hasn't science made belief in God obsolete? My answer is that in face of the evidence put before me, my answer is an unqualified no. It hasn't. Thank you for your immense patience. I don't come to to New Zealand very often to torment you, and if I have tormented you, then I will show due penance and promise never to come again.