Adam Rutherford on Evolution and Creationism

It was a shame that the children thought that Darwin's ideas were "against God and the Bible" as if believing in Darwin was in some way anti-God. The creation stories (there are two different ones!) are found in the first two chapters of the book of Genesis at the start of the bible. There is nothing wrong with seeing the creation stories as a way of explaining how the world began. Many civilisations have similar stories which outline how the world came into being - it is what people at that time THOUGHT had happened (in the same way that humans thought for many centuries that the Earth was the centre of the universe).
I am not sure why the science teacher said that it was unfortunate that he was religious and a science teacher. Again it seems that if you are "religious" you can't believe in evolution and the science that goes with it. I know a lot of religious people who have no problem believing in evolution.
By the way.
Whatever you believe in, Darwin and the Big Bang Theory doesnt actually explain who created the big bang or how life on earth began!

that's totally wrong!!! reread that again but slower this time. the first chapter tells God's point of view of the creation of everything. the second chapter is really the 7th day first then the telling of the garden of Eden by Adams point of view. first it tells us how explicitly how woman was created on the 6th day. on that day Adam also named all the animals. when he was naming the animals God was creating them in front of him so that he new who God was because God new that the devil would lie to them. SEE IT'S A BIG DIFFERENCE IF YOU WERE TO SEE YOURSELF GOD CREATED THE ANIMALS IN FRONT OF YOU VS. JUST TELLING YOU TO NAME THEM. the devil could just say im god and you are to obey me. see what i can do. God did give you a brain. use it for once. it does not tell us when man had fallen from the garden. they could have been living in it for at least 100 years before they sinned. it doesn't tell us when Cain and Seth was born. it also doesn't say Cain had to find his wife. it says that he new his wife.

Evolution is not science but a religion. your religion believes everything was created by nothing(BigBang). the big bang created water. it rained on the planet millions of years before any plants or trees ever evolved. and we all evolved from rocks (the chemical soup). there had to have oxygen and hydrogen to be there first before you can create water. thats not even evolution in the first place. thats backwards having there to be first water then it split apart to become something else. the molecules had to be first before you could create water. none of you ever read the bible so you don't even know what it says at all. in Job they tell you of the springs of the ocean. science just figured this out to be true in 77 with a submarine. before you guys use to teach that the oceans came from rain water and the rivers. i was taught that in school in the early 90's even. there is a lot of real science in Job.

Maybe it isn't allowed to be taught as science - but interesting points can still be made in mathematics, when teaching probability or powers.



Water Surface Area 361126400 km2
Suppose top 10m contains organic matter -> 3611264km3
(typical cell size is 0.00001m)
Suppose it takes the organic matter in 0.000000000000001m3 to form a cell ->
3611264000000000000000000000000 places for it to happen
Suppose lightning strikes on average all over the earth every minute ->
4745200896000000000000000000000000000 opportunities per year.

Probability in any one opportunity:
Species with simplest known genome has 580070 nucleotide pairs (even though this is a parasistic organism that gets many of it's small molecules ready made) making 477 genes
average pairs per gene -> 1216.0797
In most widely separated branches of tree of life, 200 genes are common - reasonable to assume that these genes are necessary for all life
Necessary number of nucleotide pairs for life -> 243216

Probability of correctly encoding an average gene in one try -> 7.8532702927845576766658274566936e-733

Probability of doing this in a year -> 3.7265345229851465422278362740084e-701
(This is an overestimate - numbers were simply multiplied since nothing available had the computational power to calculate the standard distribution for it)

Age of earth 4.57 billion years
Probability of doing this during the time the earth is thought to have existed->
1.7030262770042119697981211772218e-691

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/jupiter_typical_020128.html
Estimates billions of planets in our galaxy. Suppose there are 100 billion, with an average age the same as our earth:
Probability of a gene occurring by chance in our galaxy ->
1.7030262770042119697981211772218e-680
Estimated number of galaxies in our universe 100 billion
Probability of a gene occurring by chance in the universe ->
1.7030262770042119697981211772218e-669

To put it another way, there is a 1 in 5.8719000023833852650133674436062e+668 chance, or 1 in 587190000238338526501336744360600000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 that a single gene could have occurred anywhere in the universe by chance, according to evolutionist assumptions.

By comparison, the number of atoms thought to exist in our universe is about 1.7e+77, or 170000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Admittedly, this was the probability of encoding a /particular/ gene, though the number of them that can be encoded and be useful to a primitive lifeform, even if it is in the millions (though hundreds is more likely, according to the evidence above), will make a negligible difference to the probability. Further, if this gene came into existence, it still would not have the facilities surrounding it to make use of the information encoded, such as ribosomes. Also, any advantage given by the proteins manufactured would be minimal unless they were kept close by means of some form of cell membrane. All this also assumes that exactly the right materials - nucleotides - were all around to make the DNA in the first place, instead of just random amino acids. All of this would make things even more improbable, but beyond what could be simply estimated.

"In 150 years, nobody has been able to undermine his theory using science rather than religion."
I've heard many people do so. No doubt Adam was closing his eyes and sticking his fingers in his ears at the time.

He says, "so with all the evidence around us to support evolution" at a point at which he hasn't presented a single piece of evidence for common descent - only for wide variation and similarity between kinds, predictions which were obviously made thousands of years after the observations.

I find it very interesting that documentaries etc. usually dismiss intelligent design arguments as being unscientific, but do not discuss what those arguments are. It seems like a way of avoiding their mention, as is backed up by the fact that Reiss was kicked out for suggesting that teachers engage in discussion. What have evolutionists got to hide? To call it unscientific on the grounds of repeatability is understandable, but then you could level the same charge against common descent.

"until he grasped what he called the vastness of past ages"?
Just how vast are these past ages supposed to have been?
If they are about 10^100000 years, then maybe evolution has a slight chance. But the last time I checked, they were only a meagre 20,000,000,000, or 2.0*10^10 years.

Consider the possibility of some beneficial protein randomly evolving out of a population of all the earth's bacteria - just how vast would the ages have to be for just the one protein (several of which are necessary just for a light-sensitive cell, let alone an eye):
http://www.detectingdesign.com/flagellum.html#Calculation

Doesnt it make you feel just a little uneasy to deny, reject and refute the creator of you and everything about you? Do you really sit well with believing you and absolutely everything around you is an accident? Thats a pretty amazing accident does chaos really create and maintain all this? Just take a long hard look at yourself, outside and in your amazing functioning body and beyond that to your personality and innermost thoughts and dreams are you really re-jigged primordial slime?
And to all those Christians who believe the Big Bang theory where do you start believing the bible is telling you the truth? Check out AiG.

This was a useful addition to the discussion. It raises a number of important points. The science teachers who refuse to ever discuss religious theories within their lessons (that is a different situation to having religion on the science curriculum, which should never be the case)are wrong. In my RE lessons when covering design theory, I happily allow pupils to raise scientific points in the discussion and don't complain about the intrusion of science in my curriculum.
The contribution by Prof Reiss that many pupils find science boring is correct, so if science teachers stifle discussion what do they expect? Just watch the film with the pupils at the Natural History Museum and in the science lesson in Lancashire, the element of God had them so much more involved and interested.
Matthew Wilson, science-tolerant Head of RE at Royston High School, a Specialist Science College.

Matt Wilson says: "that is a different situation to having religion on the science curriculum, which should never be the case".

Never? That's a strong word and a rather black and white stance for someone who claims to be 'science-tolerant'. It could legitimately be included in psychology, sociology, anthropology, anatomy, and geography to name a few.

A teacher who introduces the history of science could easily embrace religion when looking at alchemistry, and are we to deny that Darwin studied medicine at Edinburgh and then theology at Cambridge before he formulated his theory of evolution? His commitment to a Faith diminished in his grief at the loss of his daughter, and in later life he described himself as personally being a sceptic rather than as an atheist.

Are you suggesting that we should exclude religious perspectives from a discussion on the ethics of experimentation and the application of science and technology?

And wasn't most of modern mathematics derived from a desire to understand the universe whether to find a "God" or to prove the lack of necessity for one?

Hopefully you have read the recent perspective from the Church of England on Science - http://www.cofe.anglican.org/darwin/malcolmbrown.html

Regards, Graham.

The philosophy that lies behind evolution is naturalism, and that by definition denighs God any place in it. Consider the following quotation by Professor Provine - belief in modern evolution makes atheists of people. One can have a religious view that is compatible with evolution only if the religious view is indistinguishable from atheism.- Anyone who believes in both God and that we have come about through a process of evolution understands neither concept.

thetruerobo says: "Anyone who believes in both God and that we have come about through a process of evolution understands neither concept."

This is a rather fundamentalist view. Frstly, you are equating evolution with creation, and secondly you are projecting onto everyone who believes in a God a secondary belief that this God was responsible for the origin of Man.

Regards, Graham.

I'm glad that this programme has put in clear place the views of Prof. Reiss and not the lies that were put out by the media when he made his comment. He is absolutely right that when children ask questions they should be encouraged and taken seriously - which is not the same as taking all opinions or ideas as equally valid. There are good reasons why creationism and ID are invalid scientific theories (repeatability, evidence, testability etc..) but to just dismiss the debate is the wrong approach.

Why not have a look at http://www.teachers.tv/video/2845 which is one approach based on open-minded dialogue to the Science / Religion debate. You could also visit www.srsp.net

Paul Hopkins
www.mmiweb.org.uk