META-NOTE: This is the first "nitpick guide" I ever did (originally for a friend), and is consequently in a different format from the rest. I welcome comments, corrections, and amplifications, but please read the notes/disclaimers carefully before writing.
Refutation of Specific Arguments Supporting the Bible
(by Sarang Gupta)
NOTE: The following is a refutation of many of the arguments made by Chuck Missler on the tape "Genesis and the Big Bang". This work is limited to refuting the specific arguments made on the aforementioned tape, and does not list additional arguments invalidating the Bible.
NOTE: The general format of this document is a statement by Mr. Missler, followed by my response to his claim. Statements by Mr. Missler are not quoted directly, but are instead rephrased slightly for simplicity and clarification.
GENERAL COMMENT: Many of Missler's logical arguments are of the form "X implies Y", where there is no connection between X and Y. I have tried to find something useful to say in these cases, I am sometimes unable to find an appropriate analogy for Missler's error. In these cases, I will generally state that Missler has made a logical error, but will not be more specific.
GENERAL COMMENT: Missler's tape attempts to support Creationism by attacking Evolution. It is logical error to assume that disproving Evolution (which Missler does not succeed in doing) would have any effect on the validity of Creationism.
GENERAL COMMENT: In some cases, I offer more than one critique of Missler's statement. In general, each new argument should be read with the mental prefix "But even if you don't like THIS argument, ...". That is, the 3rd critique of a particular statement does not generally rely on the 2nd critique, for example.
GENERAL COMMENT: Missler occasionally uses the "no counterexamples" argument, which is invalid logically. That is, he claims something is universally true because he can find no counterexamples. The non-existence of counterexamples, would, of course, validate an argument. However, the inability to FIND counterexamples does not. Additionally, the inability to FIND counterexamples does not make an argument any more valid. It can be shown statistically that an argument with no demonstrable counterexamples can still be arbitrarily inaccurate (up to 100% inaccurate, in fact).
DISCLAIMER: I have not checked the accuracy of quoted facts, although I believe them to be correct. I view this paper as an entertaining project, and not as a serious endeavor.
[Actual document begins below this line]
Missler: The universe is now known to be finite
FACTUAL ERROR: Cosmologists do not agree on the finiteness or infiniteness of the universe.
Missler: All scientific theories involving the Big Bang assume an infinite universe.
FACTUAL ERROR: Big Bang models vary considerably from those that assume an infinite universe to those than assume a finite, expanding universe to those that assume a finite, shrinking universe.
Missler: Cosmologists have measured the universe and found it to be finite.
FACTUAL ERROR: Cosmologists don't even agree the universe is finite, much less of its size.
Missler: If the universe is finite, it has a beginning.
LOGICAL ERROR: The finiteness of the universe in no way implies it had a beginning.
Missler: If the universe has a beginning, it must have a beginner.
LOGICAL ERROR: Not everything that begins has a beginner.
Missler: Space and time had a beginning.
SEMANTIC ERROR: Space and time are not well-defined concepts, so this statement has no meaning.
Missler: A Hebrew sage in the 12th century studied Genesis and concluded that space and time had a beginning. This is a fascinating insight.
OPINION: The concept that space and time had a beginning is a very natural thought, and is not remarkable.
Missler: Philosophers had always assumed time was linear and absolute.
FACTUAL ERROR: Philosophers had given consideration to alternate analogies of time.
Missler: Memodetes concluded from Genesis that there are 10 dimensions, 4 measurable, 6 non-measurable.... which has been confirmed by science today.
INDIRECT ARGUMENT ERROR: If this can be shown from Genesis directly, we do not have to rely on Memodetes' claim. If it cannot be shown from Genesis directly, Memodetes misinterpreted the Bible, and his argument is invalid.
FACTUAL ERROR: 10-dimensional string theory has not been confirmed, and there are various competing string theories with different numbers of dimensions.
FACTUAL ERROR: Not all 4 dimensions are measurable. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle states that only at most 3 dimensions can be measured at once.
MATHEMATICAL ERROR: There are an infinite number of measurable qualities, and, therefore, an infinite number of dimensions. Any statement of the form "there are 'n' dimensions", where n is finite, must be qualified or is automatically false.
COMMENT: Memodetes lived in a time when science was shunned-- even if he arrived at his conclusion scientifically, he would have to pretend his inspiration was religious to avoid persecution.
Missler: The anthropic principle (that conditions on Earth are well-balanced for life and even a slight change [as little as 1 in 10000 parts] would make Earth un-inhabitable) scientifically proves that we are here by design.
LOGICAL ERROR: If the Earth were un-inhabitable, we would not be here to observe it. Therefore, the fact that the Earth is habitable is a consequence of our observing it.
SEMANTIC ERROR: The anthropic principle, in fact, refers to the statement immediately above this one. Missler's definition misses the point.
FACTUAL ERROR: Most conditions on Earth can and do change considerably. There are only very few conditions whose change would make human life impossible.
SUPPORTS OPPOSING THEORY: Conditions on Earth are acceptable for human life, since we evolved to benefit from the conditions that were already there.
COMMENTS/MINOR ERRORS: Not all of Earth is habitable. A change of 1 in 10000 parts is not necessarily a small change. Science does not seek to prove, but to describe.
Missler: If any parameter is changed in the mathematical model of the universe, life becomes impossible.
FACTUAL ERROR: This only applies to a very small number of parameters.
MATHEMATICAL ERROR: Since a change in one parameter may offset a change in another parameter, it is inaccurate to state that no parameters may be changed-- they must just be changed in groups.
Missler: If the Earth was a little closer to the Sun, it would be too warm.
FACTUAL ERROR: No. We would merely inhabit the polar regions and the tropical regions would be deserts.
FACTUAL ERROR: The Earth is not at a constant distance from the Sun-- every year it DOES get closer and further away.
Missler: If the rotation of the Earth is slower or faster, life becomes impossible.
FACTUAL ERROR: The Earth's rotation is slowing down and used to be faster. Life has still evolved.
Missler: The anthropic principle shows that the entire universe was tuned to make man possible.
FACTUAL ERROR: The anthropic principle extends only to our solar system. The parameters of objects outside our solar system do not affect us in any serious way.
Missler: The ecologists claim that if the ozone layer changes more than a fraction of 1%, life will become impossible.
FACTUAL ERROR: These ecologists' claims are scientifically un-substantiated.
Missler: If the ozone layer is so delicately adjusted, how did it get there?
ANSWER: Before the invention of modern spray bottles, there was no way to convert large scale quantities of ozone to another chemical.
Missler: Why is the ozone layer the perfect thickness for life?
ANSWER: Life has evolved to be compatible with the thickness of the ozone layer. The human body produces melanin, which would be unnecessary if the ozone layer were thicker. Thus, we have adapted to the ozone layer, not vica versa.
Missler: Entropy is a fancy term for randomness.
SEMANTIC ERROR: Entropy refers to the ability of heat to do work at a certain temperature. While it is sometimes compared to randomness, the two concepts are not equivalent.
Missler: Everywhere in the universe, there is a tendency for things to go from order to disorder.
SEMANTIC ERROR: The terms 'order' and 'disorder' mean different things when used with the term 'entropy' than they do when used in normal speech.
FACTUAL AMBIGUITY: The 'order' in an open system may increase, so, while the universe as a whole may lose 'order', certain parts of it may gain order.
Missler: Cleaning your closet and having it become messy again is analogous to entropy.
COMMENT: I'm hoping this is a joke, but am responding in case it is not.
INCONSISTENT: By cleaning a closet, you INCREASE its order. This would suggest order can be increased, which contradicts an earlier statement.
SCIENTIFIC ERROR: A closet is not a closed system.
COMMENT: Closets only become messy because of use... left alone, they do not become disordered. Thus, this is a bad example of entropy.
Missler: The 1st Law of Thermodynamics states that you cannot create or destroy matter/energy.
COMMENT: There is certainly a statement to this effect in science, but I don't think it's the 1st Law of Thermodynamics.
Missler: The 3rd Law of Thermodynamics says you "can't get out of the game"
COMMENT: Probably a joke, but, for the record, the 3rd Law states that it is impossible to reach a temperature of absolute zero.
Missler: Time is a "half-dimension", since we can only go forward, not backwards.
COMMENT: In fact, we cannot even control the SPEED at which we go forward in time, so time isn't EVEN a half-dimension.
Missler: If you shuffled a deck of cards and they came out in bridge order, you'd have gone backwards in time.
SYMMETRY ERROR: Since this argument can be applied to ANY arrangement of cards (not just bridge order), this would indicate every card shuffle is accompanied by a reversal in time.
MATHEMATICAL ERROR: A deck of cards in bridge order is no more ordered than a deck of cards in any other specific order.
Missler: Going from disorder to order by some random process is a time reversal.
SEMANTIC ERROR: The terms 'order' and 'disorder' are improperly defined. The scientific definition is different from the everyday use.
Missler: If all processes tend to create disorder, why is there any order in the universe at all?
SEMANTIC ERROR: As noted above, Missler is not using the scientific definitions of order and disorder.
INCONSISTENT ERROR: What would be the state of a universe without order? If the universe can't exist without order, the existence of the universe creates order.
ANSWER: Using the entropy definition of order, matter at a temperature has some order... therefore, the existence of any matter gives the universe 'order'.
Missler: The whole proposition of evolution is that matter and energy can, occasionally, through randomness, create life.
MINOR ERROR: This is not the WHOLE proposition of evolution, but, rather, a small part.
Missler: Matter and energy together in a jar of food do not create new life in 1 billion cases per year. Thus, matter and energy cannot create life.
LOGICAL ERROR: False inductive argument. Similarly, all the numbers less than 1 billion are less than 2 billion. This does not mean that ALL numbers are less than 2 billion.
SCIENTIFIC ERROR: Food in jars does not have the same composition as the 'protoplasmic soup'.
SCIENTIFIC ERROR: The energy jars are subjected to does not compare to the energy on pre-life Earth.
LINGUISTIC ERROR: The correct evolutionary statement is "Some types of matter combined with some types of energy may produce life". Food industry "experiments" do not use these kinds of matter or energy. Therefore, there are 0 experiments performed per year, not 1 billion.
STATISTICAL ERROR: Protoplasmic soup may have been non-living for millions of years before coming to life. Therefore, even 1 billion experiments a year would not be sufficient to disprove this theory.
SEMANTIC ERROR: Life is not well-defined.
SCIENTIFIC ERROR: Missler asks how often we open a jar of peanut butter and see life. This incorrectly assumes that primitive forms of life are visible or detectable.
SCIENTIFIC ERROR: Missler claims the food industry conducts experiments proving evolution is impossible. Experiments give supportive evidence, not conclusive proofs.
INCONSISTENT ERROR: Jars of food *are* found contaminated sometimes. By Missler's own argument, this could be proof of evolution. This is not intended as a proof to evolution, but rather to point out an inconsistency in Missler's argument.
FACTUAL ERROR: Scientists have used INORGANIC matter and energy to create protein chains, and it is biologically known that protein chains can combine to form primitive forms of life.
COMMENT: Missler uses his audience's approval as evidence. Even leaving aside the question of bias, his audience is most likely not familiar enough with statistics or biology to provide any useful confirmation.
Missler: It takes matter, energy and information to create life.. not matter, energy and randomness.
SEMANTIC ERROR: Randomness is a form of information.
Missler: Evolution violates entropy.
SCIENTIFIC ERROR: Evolution increases the 'order' in life forms, while decreasing the 'order' of the planet Earth as a whole. Evolution demonstrates entropy.
Missler: If amino acids happen by chance, half of them would be left-handed and half would be right-handed.
STATISTICAL ERROR: Falsely assumes that 'random' and 'equal chance' mean the same thing. As an analogy, note that rolling 2 dice gives you a number between 2 and 12, but not all numbers are equally likely.
Missler: All amino acids in life are left-handed... right-handed amino acids are poisonous... this is strange.
LOGICAL ERROR: Falsely assumes that symmetrical objects have similar properties. As an analogy, the mirror images of two objects that fit together will not necessarily fit together.
Missler: The story that a roomful of monkeys typing long enough would eventually come up with Shakespeare is absurd for lots of reasons.
MATHEMATICAL ERROR: The statement about the monkeys is true.
Missler: How far would the monkeys get [in the above story] if every other key was fatal to the monkey?
ANSWER: It wouldn't effect the speed of production if there were an infinite number of monkeys.
Missler: If every other amino acid is fatal, proteins couldn't form.
LOGICAL ERROR: Falsely assumes that right-handed and left-handed amino acids can connect with each other. As an analogy, consider 50 square pegs and 100 holes; 50 square holes and 50 round holes. There is nothing remarkable of eventually getting the 50 square pegs into the square holes by chance, since trying to fit a square peg into a round hole wouldn't work.
Missler: Amino acids + Amino acids -> Peptide + Water is a fraudulent equation, since the equation is reversible.
CHEMISTRY ERROR: If A + B -> C + D is a reversible chemical equation, and we start with A + B, the result will be a mixture of A, B, C and D. The quantities of these components will be determined by an equilibrium equation. Thus, amino acids CAN combine to form peptides and water, although the conversion will not be complete.
CHEMISTRY ERROR: The specified equation may not be reversible under normal conditions.
Missler: There is no such thing as a simple cell. All cells contain DNA.
BIOLOGICAL ERROR: Amoebas, bacteria, viruses, and plants are all life forms with cell(s) that do not contain DNA.
Missler: DNA is a digital code, a language. Machinery must be designed before a language can be run on it.
COMPUTER_SCIENCE ERROR: A computer science machine is nothing more than digital code itself. Data and machine design are indistinguishable.
FALSE ANALOGY: It is absurd to think biological examples must behave the same way as desktop computers... although they may behave like theoretical computer models.
Missler: The computer and the language don't just happen.. they have to be carefully designed and married.
COMPUTER_SCIENCE ERROR: Random strings of digits are machines, and random collections of strings of digits are languages. Thus, computers and languages do occur randomly.
FALSE ANALOGY: Computer engineering does not necessarily apply to the field of biology.
Missler: The DNA code has a 3-out-of-4 code that's error-correcting and can sustain as many as one error in 100.
MATHEMATICAL ERROR: A 3-out-of-4 code does not have an error correction rate of 1 in 100.
BIOLOGICAL ERROR: DNA cannot sustain a mutation rate of 1 in 100.
Missler: Random cosmic ray bombardment on the planet Earth causes a DNA mutation rate of 1 in 100.
SCIENTIFIC ERROR: No, it's far lower.
Missler: It would take 10^157 tries to get a DNA molecule by chance.
CHEMISTRY ERROR: Neglects forces between molecules, which increase this chance.
Missler: If we assume a generation is 1 second, it would take 10^157 seconds to generate a DNA molecule at random.
MATHEMATICAL ERROR: Assume a creature that divides every 1 second. After 1 second, there would be 2 creatures... after 2 seconds, 4 creatures, and so forth. At this rate, there would be 10^157 creatures in less than 600 seconds. Thus, it would take less than 10 minutes to randomly generate a DNA molecule, not 10^157 seconds.
Missler: If we randomly tried to generate DNA with atoms, there would only be 10^66 tries, which is insufficient for the 10^157 tries needed.
BIOLOGICAL ERROR: Falsely assumes DNA is randomly generated. DNA is generated from simpler code, such as RNA, which is generated from simpler cells, and so forth. An analogy would be to claim that sodium and chlorine could not possibly combine to make salt, since creating a salt molecule at random is nearly impossible. Of course, in neither case is the creation random... DNA evolved from simpler molecules.
COSMOLOGICAL ERROR: There is no general agreement that the universe has a finite number of atoms.
Missler: The DNA molecule contains enough information to build a human life, and the DNA molecule is in each cell. Thus, all cells should be identical, and there should be no cell differentiation.
LOGICAL ERROR: False symmetry. Cells can keep track of their position via relative pressure, amount of time they've been alive, and the amounts of various chemicals they contain. The DNA in the cells is identical, but the cells are not.
Missler: A zygote splits into two identical cells.
BIOLOGICAL ERROR: The cells are similar, but not identical.
Missler: Who decides what a specific cell will do?
LINGUISTIC ERROR: This question is answered above, but Missler's use of the word 'who' is invalid. A more correct pronoun would be 'what', but the most correct formation of this sentence would be "What procedure, if any, decides what a specific cell will do?". Missler's use of the pronoun 'who' implies there is a sentient decider, which is what he's trying to prove. Assuming the statement you are trying to prove is logically invalid.
Missler: One problem is communication between cells...
BIOLOGICAL ERROR: Cells communicate via chemical exchanges.
Missler: Cells need a form of conflict resolution logic that must reside outside any given cell.
COMPUTER_SCIENCE ERROR: Networked computer systems are collections of 'cells' which resolve conflicts as a whole with no outside supervision.
MATHEMATICAL ERROR: John Conway showed that there are very simple logical systems of 'cells' that can resolve conflicts among themselves.
Missler: Life cannot take place without the infusion of information, based on the entropy principle.
MATHEMATICAL ERROR: The information transferred to life is taken from the environment.
SCIENTIFIC ERROR: Human life is not a closed system, so entropy does not apply to a single life.
Missler: We now know that time is a physical property.. time has to do with mass and gravity.
SEMANTIC ERROR: Time is not a well-defined concept.
Missler: If you accelerate at significant fractions of the speed of light...
MATHEMATICAL ERROR: Acceleration is measured in units of length per units of time SQUARED. Speed is measured in units of length per units of time. The two are not comparable.
PHYSICS ERROR: There is no such thing as a fraction of the speed of light, since all speed is relative.
Missler: 13 billion years on the edge of the universe equates to 6 days on the perimeter of the Earth, via relativity.
GEOCENTRIC ERROR: Argument assumes Earth is the center of the universe.
PHYSICS ERROR: Time is only different for accelerating objects, not for those at a constant speed.
INCONSISTENT ERROR: This argument would show the universe is getting bigger, violating the 'finite universe' theory used earlier.
STATISTICAL ERROR: The ratio of 6 days to 13 billion years is so small, even a small error in the parameters could lead to a large error in the calculation. The margin of error is very large.