Downtown Los Angeles with the San Gabriel Mountains in the background.\u00a0 Making our approach to Los Angeles International Airport last night, we flew from right to left (in terms of this photograph) right over the U. S. Bank Building (which was the tallest structure in the city when this Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph was taken).\u00a0 I had been confused a bit, coming in at night, and was trying to figure out where we were.\u00a0 But then I recognized its cylindrical top.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
On the flight yesterday, I watched the three-part Hulu series McCartney 3, 2, 1<\/em>, which I really, really enjoyed.\u00a0 The Beatles were, in my judgment, unambiguously the greatest rock band in history.\u00a0 By light years.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u2019m still slowly going through past blog entries in order to extract things from them that I want to use in future (non-blog) writing.\u00a0 I\u2019m roughly half-way through a first quick pass.\u00a0 Here are three quotations that I thought some readers might find interesting.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
The first two of them come from Douglas Axe, about whom I found the following current online biographical sketch:\u00a0 \u201cDouglas Axe is the Maxwell Professor of Molecular Biology at Biola University, the founding Director of Biologic Institute, the founding Editor of\u00a0BIO-Complexity<\/em>, and the author of\u00a0Undeniable: How Biology Confirms Our Intuition That Life Is Designed<\/em>. After completing his PhD at Caltech, he held postdoctoral and research scientist positions at the University of Cambridge and the Cambridge Medical Research Council Centre. His research, which examines the functional and structural constraints on the evolution of proteins and protein systems, has been featured in many scientific journals, including the\u00a0Journal of Molecular Biology<\/em>, the\u00a0Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences<\/em>,\u00a0BIO-Complexity<\/em>, and\u00a0Nature<\/em>, and in such books as\u00a0Signature in the Cell<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Darwin\u2019s Doubt<\/em>\u00a0by Stephen Meyer and\u00a0Life\u2019s Solution<\/em> by Simon Conway Morris.\u201d<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m reminded of the [Richard] Dawkins-sponsored ads that appeared on the sides of London buses, declaring in bright colors, \u2018There\u2019s probably no God. \u00a0Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.\u2019 \u00a0Interesting logic. \u00a0You are a meaningless by-product of the circulating ooze in some ancient pond, soon to return to the dead chemicals that burped your ancestors out, sooo . . . go enjoy your life. . . . \u00a0Life is meaningless. \u00a0Isn\u2019t it beautiful?\u201d<\/b><\/span><\/p>\nDouglas Axe,\u00a0Undeniable: How Biology Confirms Our Intuition That Life Is Designed<\/i>\u00a0(New York: HarperOne, 2016),\u00a0263, 264.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cPerhaps this tendency to idolize the legends of science is connected to a skewed view of the whole scientific enterprise. \u00a0Many of us, including me, have bought into the idea that science, though practiced by humans, has managed to rid itself of the human flaws that leave their mark on every other human undertaking. \u00a0The purity of science is guaranteed by the rigor of \u2018the scientific method,\u2019 we think.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n\u201cAstrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson described this utopian view as follows in the first episode of the Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey <\/i>television series:<\/b><\/span><\/p>\nThis adventure is made possible by generations of searchers strictly adhering to a simple set of rules: test ideas by experiment and observation; build on those ideas that pass the test; reject the ones that fail; follow the evidence wherever it leads; and question everything. \u00a0Accept these terms, and the cosmos is yours.<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cThat all sounds very nice. \u00a0And if ideas could be tested with a meter, the way batteries and fuses can, then Tyson\u2019s simple rules would work. \u00a0But if we intend to question everything, perhaps we should begin by questioning whether the human testing of human ideas can really be so simple, considering how complicated humans are.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n\u201cNowhere are these complications more evident than in the discussion of big ideas that touch the way we live, because here we find that everyone<\/i> \u2014 scientists included \u2014 has a strongly held view. \u00a0And the very biggest ideas are those that offer answers to the all-important question of how we got here. \u00a0We should by all means trust the scientific community to tell us how many moons orbit Neptune or how many protons are packed into the nucleus of a cobalt atom. \u00a0Why would anyone distort facts of that kind? \u00a0Matters where everyone wants to see things a certain way, however, are a completely different story. \u00a0With those<\/i> we should always apply a healthy dose of skepticism.\u201d<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0Douglas Axe, Undeniable: How Biology Confirms Our Intuition That Life Is Designed<\/em> (New York: HarperOne, 2016), 37-38<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
The third quotation comes from Brian Schmidt, a<\/span> Montana-born astrophysicist who holds dual Australian and American citizenship and who currently serves as Vice-Chancellor of the Australian National University (ANU).\u00a0 He shared both the 2006 Shaw Prize\u00a0in Astronomy and the\u00a02011 Nobel Prize in Physics\u00a0with\u00a0Saul Perlmutter\u00a0and\u00a0Adam Riess\u00a0for providing evidence that the\u00a0expansion of the universe is accelerating.\u00a0 According to his Wikipedia entry, \u201cHe is not religious, being described as a \u201cmilitant agnostic\u201d with his tagline, \u201cI don\u2019t know, and neither do you!\u201d\u00a0 And yet here\u2019s the quotation:<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cLike a Bach fugue, the Universe has a beautiful elegance about it, governed by laws whose mathematical precision is meted out to the metronome of time. \u00a0These equations of physics are finely balanced, with the constants of nature that underpin the equations tuned to values that allow our remarkable Universe to exist in a form where we, humanity, can study it. \u00a0A slight change to these constants, and poof, in a puff of gedanken experimentation, we have a cosmos where atoms cease to be, or where planets are unable to form. \u00a0We seem to truly be fortunate to be part of Our Universe.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n\u201cA seemingly perfectly rational argument to come to terms with this streak of good luck is that, since we exist, we must therefore live in a Universe where we can exist. \u00a0But this idea has at its heart the notion that ours is selected from a multitude of universes \u2014 and there is no evidence for, or against, such a construct of nature. . . .<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n\u201c[H]umanity appears to be part of a remarkable set of circumstances involving a special time around a special planet, which orbits a special star, all within a specially constructed Universe.\u201d<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Posted from Los Angeles, California<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 *** \u00a0 On the flight yesterday, I watched the three-part Hulu series McCartney 3, 2, 1, which I really, really enjoyed.\u00a0 The Beatles were, in my judgment, unambiguously the greatest rock band in history.\u00a0 By light years. \u00a0 *** \u00a0 I\u2019m still slowly going through past blog entries in order to extract things […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[9409,551,1014,27926,6234,6994,572,16193,16403,18125,16406,2601,123,27935,27929,27932,177,243,401,27938,16424],"class_list":["post-94148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-appearance-of-design","tag-argument-from-design","tag-atheism","tag-brian-schmidt","tag-cosmic-design","tag-dawkins","tag-design-argument","tag-design-inference","tag-designed","tag-designer","tag-douglas-axe","tag-god","tag-intelligent-design","tag-neil-d-tyson","tag-neil-degrasse-tyson","tag-neil-tyson","tag-richard-dawkins","tag-science","tag-theism","tag-undeniable","tag-universal-design-intuition"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>