This article was written nearly over a year ago. I just discovered it, and decided to post it. Please ignore the time frames referred to. Any quote taken from the internet which you doubt, just Google a line or two of it and you are likely to find it.

On atheism, morality, and the rest......
Recently a professional counselor (a lady) was describing to me how it has been established by science that a person’s inclination to morality has nothing to do with whether that person is a theist or an atheist. I thought I knew a bit about how science is supposed to ‘progress’ by thesis, antithesis and synthesis. Thus I looked up the internet about this matter. I am dutifully, documenting what little I could discover on this topic. Every now and then I comment a bit about what I’ve documented.  But before that I would like to narrate the kind of turn the conversation with the lady counselor took. The lady acknowledged that God could be considered to be a father and we his sons. However, somehow (I do not know how) God is indifferent to the fact whether his son acknowledges his divine Father ( His Grace, His Bounty and feels love and gratitude for Him) or whether another son, just ignores Him, says He has no existence and often even insults Him. She tried to convince me with great fervor that the destiny of a person is not affected whether he adores his Creator or just ignores His existence.  I tried to explain how every single theistic religion affirms that God’s love is extended to the surrendered soul and His displeasure is, meted out to those otherwise inclined. This time she couldn’t come up with yet another scientific claim, and just pointed out how that is another question indicating maybe that God’s bounty or His displeasure are debatable points. What I did not manage to tell her, I would like to point out now.  If there is God, and if there are laws of karma (as you sow so you reap) then they will be there whether we accept them or not.  So if God does exercise love and wrath then we could become affected by such things irrespective of our scientific pedigrees.  So maybe it makes sense to dissect religion a bit just like one would dissect a dead frog to understand the details. Even more so because people like Newton, Maxwell, Einstein, Pasteur, Kelvin etc all believed in the glory of God.  It’s true that it appears great to party with meat, sex and alcohol. Yet frequent party goers complain of PPS (post party syndrome). So juuuuust maybe, it could make sense to try out our ancient knowledge which claims to be able to confer peace on the sincere enquirer. Now, over to the internet.

I’m starting with a quote by a famous person, Stephen Jay Gould. This is what I found on him:
Stephen Jay Gould (/ɡuːld/; September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist and historian of science. He was also one of the most influential and widely read writers of popular science of his generation. Gould spent most of his career teaching at Harvard University and working at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. In the later years of his life, Gould also taught biology and evolution at New York University.
This is what he said:
Harvard University's staunch evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould stated, "Biological arguments for racism may have been common before 1859, but they increased by orders of magnitude following the acceptance of evolutionary theory." 
    Stephen Gould also admitted the following about the atheist Ernst Haeckel:
Haeckel was the chief apostle of evolution in Germany.... His evolutionary racism; his call to the German people for racial purity and unflinching devotion to a "just" state; his belief that harsh, inexorable laws of evolution ruled human civilization and nature alike, conferring upon favored races the right to dominate others; the irrational mysticism that had always stood in strange communion with his brave words about objective science - all contributed to the rise of Nazism. - Stephen J. Gould, "Ontogeny and Phylogeny," Belknap Press: Cambridge MA, 1977, pp.77-78). 

Leading Nazis, and early 1900 influential German biologists, revealed in their writings that Darwin’s theory and publications had a major influence upon Nazi race policies. Hitler believed that the human gene pool could be improved by using selective breeding similar to how farmers breed superior cattle strains. In the formulation of their racial policies, Hitler’s government relied heavily upon Darwinism, especially the elaborations by Spencer and Haeckel. As a result, a central policy of Hitler’s administration was the development and implementation of policies designed to protect the ‘superior race’. This required at the very least preventing the ‘inferior races’ from mixing with those judged superior, in order to reduce contamination of the latter’s gene pool. The ‘superior race’ belief was based on the theory of group inequality within each species, a major presumption and requirement of Darwin’s original ‘survival of the fittest’ theory. This philosophy culminated in the ‘final solution’, the extermination of approximately six million Jews and four million other people who belonged to what German scientists judged as ‘inferior races’.

 Hickman adds that it is no coincidence that Hitler:
‘ … was a firm believer and preacher of evolution. Whatever the deeper, profound, complexities of his psychosis, it is certain that [the concept of struggle was important because] … his book, Mein Kampf, clearly set forth a number of evolutionary ideas, particularly those emphasizing struggle, survival of the fittest and the extermination of the weak to produce a better society.’

 While it is true that persecution of the Jews has a very long history in Europe, it is also true that science in the twentieth century revived and absolutized persecution by giving it a fresh rationale — Jewishness was not religious or cultural, but genetic. Therefore no appeal could be made against the brute fact of a Jewish grandparent.

As the history of eugenics proves, science at the highest levels is no reliable corrective to the influence of cultural prejudice but is in fact profoundly vulnerable to it.
“Faith is one of the world’s great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate.”
—Richard Dawkins
“What’s to prevent us from saying Hitler wasn’t right? I mean, that is a genuinely difficult question." 
-       Richard Dawkins
Just in case you still don’t have a clue who Mr. Dawkins is I will recommend that you look up the internet on him. I do apologize for being unassiduous.
Darwin himself was a racist and white supremacist. He predicted mass genocide from his theory, claiming:
At some future period not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes...will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest Allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as the baboon, instead of as now between the Negro or Australian and the gorilla. 
Likewise he compared native populations to animals:
“ The difference between a Tierra del Fuegian and a European is greater than between a Tierra del Fuegian and a beast”

To sum the above facts up I would like to say that atheism means regarding life not as something sacred but as a mere conglomerate of chemicals just driven by the urge to win and survive. This mindset has resulted in facism and other forms of cruelty.
http://fore.research.yale.edu/publications/statements/preserve/
At the above link is a beautiful statement issued by a body of scientists regarding how human beings can benefit from considering the environment, the earth and each other as sacred. While the above quotations inform us of the downside of atheistic thought and horrible culminations as their inevitable outcome, the above statement, by very good men of science lends credibility to the act of seeing through a theologically sound pair of lenses.

I will get back to the lady in a couple of weeks time armed with this article. She is trying to convince me how I cannot contribute to the spiritual upliftment of humanity without being able to earn my living. And she has succeeded. And that is another story.

The Dawkins Delusion

Reference taken from:

Book: The God Delusion

Publisher: Black Swan, paperback edition

Page number:138

"However statistically improbable the entity you seek to explain by invoking a designer, the designer himself has got to be at least as improbable." The above quotation is found in the book "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins, page no: 138.This is the first and foremost argument that Richard Dawkins gives us in chapter four entitled “why there is almost certainly no God”. His argument is (I am just rephrasing) as follows:

It is very improbable that life evolved, unassisted by God. Thus, the existence of God, must be at least as improbable as the evolution of life because life happens to be designed by God Himself. Thus the existence of God is very improbable. Thus there is almost certainly no God.

This argument has impressed a lot of people all over the world and is one of Dawkins’ most amazing arguments, going by how he has ‘freed’ people from the God ‘delusion’ with this masterstroke. However much as I would like to agree with Dawkins, (because free sex and meat become easy to enjoy…, or so it seems…) I have to raise my hand and ask a meek question.

This form of reasoning seems flawed for the following reasons:

If God is allowed to exist then it is He who is causing life to evolve the way it has (if there was any evolution).  If you see a watch and know that  the watchmaker (who can see) exists, then what is the probability that the watch was designed by the watchmaker ? At least very high. Then we do not worry about the various permutations and combinations involved in the construction of the watch.  We know with great certainty that the watch was constructed by the watchmaker and there is little doubt about it.

However, if God is NOT allowed to exist then life has evolved due to a blind, random process. If you see a watch this time and know that there exists no watchmaker it is only then that you wonder about the permutations and combinations of the various arrangements in the watch and wonder how the watch came into existence, unassisted by a watchmaker. It is only then that you wonder how the watch came into existence from clay and mud etc. It is only then that you calculate the probability of the watch coming into existence.

You cannot say there is God, yet He has nothing to do with the evolution of life, and that because life evolved by a blind process, whose probability is very low, the probability of God’s existence is also low.

Either life evolved due to the will of God or due to a blind process.  It is difficult to see, how both have simultaneously taken place and how both processes have influenced each other..

Let's say you see a building. What is the probability that the building came about as a result of a hurricane during which matter got amalgamated to produce the building ?. Very Low. What is the probability that the building was built by an engineer? Very high. Now will you say that because it is very improbable that the building was assembled during a hurricane, that the poor engineer who built the building has a similar low probability of existing?  Compare this example to an analogous setting where you can replace the engineer with God, the building with life and the hurricane with evolution and you will understand the point I am trying to make. 

If Mr Dawkins feels that the Darwinian evolution has a very low probability of happening, then he should maybe question his own understanding that life had to evolve that way, rather than catch hold of a theist's collar and insist that the theist’s Creator has a very small probability of existing. Rather it is the theist who can point out to Mr Dawkins that since it is very unlikely that life evolved, maybe it just didn't happen.

An unstoppable regression ??

This is a secret that should charmingly and explosively intimidate the atheists. If you understand what I am trying to say then take a drum, beat on it and tell people what you have understood. Its one point that is emphatic and you can drill it home convincingly. Mathematics has always revealed that there has to be a God. Why? I'll answer that question. Take any object. Think about it. Where did it originate from? Let’s call the origin A. Where did A originate from? Let’s call that  A1. Where did A1 originate from? Let’s call that A2. Similarly, keep going back in time more and more. This going back in time is called a regression or a return to a former state. Now believe it or not, the regression either terminates or it doesn't.

If the regression terminates then we arrive at a cause which has no other cause. Some call it God. You can call it Sexy but that will be unnecessarily true because God can be very sexy.  But coming to the point, when the regression terminates, you will arrive at an object which is the cause of all causes, a cause that has no other cause. Unfortunately for the atheist such an object can only be called God, a cause that has no other cause, but, is the cause of all that be. But wait, the atheist divines hope; what about the other possibility, the one that the regression never ends? Such a regression is called an infinite regression. What’s the problem with that eventuality?

This is where you can just wear a glove and start winding up your fist to punch a hole in the atheists’ balloon of hope (‘cause that’s all that it is). Here is what happens if you would like to consider that possibility.  The very word ” infinite” makes the atheist feel ungrateful because any theory that hypothesizes an infinity fails the test of a rational theory; for the very reason, that infinity, can never be approached.

Aquinas’ delight:

By the way…, a slight digression. The problem with the infinite regression was pointed put by Thomas Aquinas. I do not know when he was born, but the Wikipedia men informed me that he lived between 1225 – 7 March 1274. So since then this point had been in print as a stark reminder that our Creator could just exist. As you well know some of the best and most militant (and stupid but deceptively so) atheists have walked the earth since then and they have tried to challenge this position. And as always they have cut a sorry figure. If you do not believe me then just pick up my favorite book “The God Delusion” (pages 100 to 102 – paperback version) and read Mr. Dawkins’ refutation of that proof of the existence of God.

I haven’t read all the refutations by every single atheist, but  if any atheist can come up with a refutation of this proof of Thomas Aquinas (of the existence of God), which is appropriately consummate, then I will settle down and rest in peace for the rest of disconsolate time. Anyway, there is a saying that to test whether all the rice in the pot has been cooked, one doesn’t need to devour the entire pot of rice. He needs to just feel one or two grains, to see if they have been cooked properly. Similarly, when Mr. Dawkins cuts an extremely sorry figure trying to refute this point, you can be comfortably convinced that his predecessor atheists have failed to counter that point as well. So 1275 to 2017…, this proof of the existence of God stands unchallenged up until now.  Now you might protest, that after all Mr. Dawkins HAS come up with a refutation. So Mr. Protestor why do you not read that refutation and get back to me? Why do you not read some other refutations, bring on the brigade of scholars and we will see how far you get. It seems Monsieur Atheist, if the regression is to stop, then there has to be a creator, and if there is an infinite regression then its party time, this time only with Mr. infinity. Of course to do him ( Mr. Dawkins) justice I will have to tell you what he has put forward to try and refute Aquinas. So here goes:

" To return to the infinite regress and the futility of invoking God to terminate it, it is more parsimonious to conjure up, say, a ‘big bang singularity’, or some other physical concept as yet unknown."

Parsimonious humor:

Please note the above statement very carefully. Mr. Dawkins does NOT prove that God cannot be the terminator of Aquinas' regression. He simply says it is more   ”parsimonious”   to conceive of something else. That something else could be a "big bang singularity".  But responsible Mr. Dawkins, how exactly is it more parsimonious to conceive of a big bang singularity as the originator of everything rather than God. Dear reader, just think on one hand you have the all powerful, all potent Almighty who can be thought of as the origin of everything, and on the other hand you have the insentient big bang singularity which is supposed to somehow be more parsimonious or efficient an origin of all that be. Please note, the singularity is an insentient object. It can’t think, it can’t manipulate, it can’t set things into motion. All the insentient things we see are themselves the effects of some other cause.  So Mr. Atheist please explain how a big bang singularity is more parsimonious than God, as the origin of everything.

If I have a billion dollars, and you happen to ask me where I got it, is it more parsimonious to claim that I got it from a cobbler or is the claim more parsimonious if I say that I  got it from a very rich man . No one complains about lack of parsimony when they receive a huge salary bonus. People all over the world thrive on the non-parsimonious contributions of religious institutes (and personalities), yet atheists want to expel the religious head, God, due to parsimony…, because He is not a penniless beggar or a potency-less, insentient singularity.

Of course Mr Atheist, I've noticed you squeal that Mr. Dawkins has pointed to some ” as yet UNKNOWN physical concept” .  Now just consider; there are so MANY physical concepts, in wave mechanics, in quantum mechanics, in classical relativity and yet, now, the militant atheists are pointing out, how, some, as yet unknown principle will come to their rescue and save them from Aquinas' regression.

Regressing with Gold:

Mr Dawkins goes on to describe how the regression of piecing Gold ends with the Gold atom. He explains that if we piece the Gold atom we will not get Gold but some other element. Thus if we keep on piecing Gold we just arrive at a “natural terminator” – the Gold atom.   

 Mr Dawkins believes that God is not an apt terminator of Aquinas’ regress, but something else could be.  All through his  arguments you would notice that he insists with determination that God shouldn’t be considered a viable option, but he doesn’t say WHY. Why can’t we consider that God fits the bill especially when our list of maxer scientists do not come up with better options.  Aquinas’ regression has to end. But science doesn’t know how that event can fortunately (or fortuitously) take place. And when someone would like to point out the God option, Dawkins gets awful fidgety for some unknown reason.  Thus rejecting God has nothing to do with science (especially because scientists like Newton, Kelvin, Pasteur, Maxwell were perfectly comfortable with accepting a Creator) , it has to do with the fidget problem of people of Dawkins’ caliber.

 Dawkins mentions how the regression of piecing gold ends with the atom.  But that regression and Aquinas’ regression are very different.  The reader already has a very good idea about Aquinas’ regression and should be, very easily, able to figure out, that the two regressions are not at all comparable.  Two phenomena can be compared in an analogous way when there are points of similarity. What is the similarity between piecing gold and finding the cause of everything? It’s a bit like saying that…, I am likely to bump into something if I walk without my eyes open. So, analogously, I am likely to bump into some star if I am launched from some launch pad blindfolded. Is that a grand possibility?  What is far more likely is I am going to come to recognize in a rather desperate way the pernicious effect of gravity.

The Singular Singularity:

Now we are left with the rather queer question as to why the atheists after so many centuries of endeavour, are, not able to come up with better analogies. The simple answer could be that there aren’t too many out there.  Just consider Dawkins’ statement regarding how the Aquinas’ regression could be terminated by a big bang singularity or some other as yet UNKNOWN physical phenomena. Let’s consider the singularity. The singularity doesn’t fit the bill, because as every theoretical physicist knows, the singularity has to BE THERE in the first place.

The following questions are unanswered:

-          why was there a big bang singularity in the first place

-           how did it develop self propelling abilities that enabled it to generate space- time and matter. Consider: there is no space-time, no matter, nothing, and suddenly there is a singularity from which come out space-time, matter, energy. How does all this happen without any cause?  Where, in any experiment has any scientist, of any caliber, actually  DEMONSTRATED that things happen without a cause.  Which mathematical theorizations worth anyone’s salt, honestly demonstrate that from nothing something can come?

-          At the time of creation, the ENTROPY or extent of disorder was far less than is the case now, because entropy can only increase (Seond law of Thermodynamics). Thus at the dawn of time the physical orientation of the Universe HAD to be very ordered or fine tuned ( as some have pointed out). So Mr Dawkins how did this extremely ordered state of things come about?

Future conscious:

The tedious part is that Mr Dawkins cannot present us with a terminator of Aquinas’ regression because if he could, he would have done so by now. But , the future,  my friend, is something we can all look forward to.  In the future, we will over-  come , old age, disease, death,  unemployment, radioactive waste, AIDS, cancer,  war, Aquinas’ regression etc etc etc.

Can’t it stop?

Now of course the question arises, what if there IS an infinite regression. What is the problem with that scenario.  Then, senorita, we are faced with some other problems. As I have mentioned, hypothesizing infinity is problematic. If there is an infinite regression, then

-           we are faced with the extremely difficult situation regarding how to accommodate the fact that time has flowed for an infinite span of time, because it just can’t…

(Law of science – nothing reaches Infinity, even time…sorry – time may be free but cannot equal to infinity. You see,… if time has reached infinity and keeps flowing ON and ON or transgressing the funny barrier of infinity, our conceptions about reality get really absorbingly astonishing J).

-           How do we accommodate infinite amount of matter which has been generated for infinite amount of time.

-          and infinite amount of space-time.

-          This of course generates the question, from where this infinite supply comes.

Mr Dawkins can balk rigorously at how theists can conceive of flying unicorns, but HEY – infinite amount of fine tuned matter, space, time, energy – all from NOWHERE… talking of balking….?

In short Aquinas’ regression has ended, but the atheists’ worries are beginning, because rhetoric and hyperbole fool some of the people some of the time, not all the people all the time.

Verses in the rain

The other misty day

You were staring at me

My lady fair

Wit is my legacy

Excuse me oh lonely one

For lying with dis – ease

Can you explain to me

Why it’s so tough to please

What does it matter

If he can’t glance with ease

The lady kept insisting

That life is a lease

They tried in their honeymoon

To grope the other black and blue

The sweet stench of sickening fluids

Cock – a – doodle doo

A little difficult to put forward

The thesis of the soul

For creation looks so forward to

The hope of an ugly hole

I longed to wonder

Why it wouldn’t ring

If pigs could really fly

Couldn’t telephones sing

If Freud is to be believed

I lack a sense of humour

The death of my only father

Won’t stop being a rumour

There is something about pain

Illustrations of reality

Trying hard and harder still

To be a little witty

Did you know I have to ride

Steadily up the hill

Maybe you can slowly touch me

And then try to foot my bill

The lady was making the point

That she liked my innerwear

She chose to flatly ignore

My unusual lack of flair

There was a choice to sing

About a wolf and a talking bird

I let the food fall to the floor

It was bread  and staling curd

I’m not thinking of the wind

Nor is sex on my mind

Years wasted in lethargy

Seems no way to rewind

Just black paint on the canvas

And red paint on the floor

It may not mean anything

She insisted on closing the door

The trees waving in the wind

The insistent sun turning shy

When was the last moment?

A lass wished me high

The field was complete with green

My heart was a twitching grey

The wind longed to be tender

Silent with something to say

What is sweeter than sweet

What is mightier than might

Say Oh Father say

Give me leave tonight

If I could pluck out my pride

Yet and maybe I would

Thouest clad in white

Dreaming that I could

Knowing the abyss of pain

I’ve strode desperately so

Holding Thy hand in mine

Thought I ought to let Thee know

As I take my final leave

May I pray to Thee so

That my heart may be tender

May love trespass my ego

the delusion of a tea pot

Here I discuss a point raised on Page 74 of the book “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins. He says, “

The fact that I cannot know whether your red is the same as my green doesn’t make the probability 50 percent.  The proposition on offer is too meaningless to be dignified with a probability.”

Dawkins makes two points:

1)      It is not for atheists to establish that there is no God, but for theists that there is

2)      There may not be enough evidence to establish the non-existence of God, yet since He most likely doesn’t exist, we can confidently feel that He doesn’t.

I’ll take up point 2) first.

Dawkins quotes Betrand Russell where Russell narrates, how ought we react, if he claimed that there is a tea pot orbiting around the Sun somewhere between the Earth and Mars. The tea pot, is too small to be detected by a telescope. Russell goes so far as to say that we ought to be able to doubt the existence of such a phenomena. However Dawkins says “… if pressed, we would not hesitate to declare our strong belief that there is positively no orbiting tea pot. Yet strictly we should all be teapot agnostics:  we cannot prove for sure, that there is no celestial teapot.”  The point Dawkins is trying to make is as follows:

It is very unlikely that there is an orbiting tea pot, although it cannot be proven to be definitely so.  Thus although we cannot really establish that there is no orbiting tea pot, the probability of such an event taking place is so low, that we can more or less claim the orbiting tea pot to be another delusion.  This is similar to the theist’s claim that there is a God.  Although it cannot be definitely proven that there is no God, the existence of God (like the orbiting tea pot) is very unlikely.

So what? So, a lesson in epistemology; how could the teapot have gotten where it had? How indeed.

I would like to ask Mr Dawkins that do we all have to believe that reality can only consist of what  we can easily perceive it to consist of? Can reality not consist of events beyond our experience? Hasn’t science again and again established that reality can be very different than what we originally thought it to be?  For example Newton said space and time were two different entities and so it was thus proven to be again and again by empirical evidence for about two hundred years. However Einstein proposed that space and time are just different threads of the same fabric, known as space-time, which moved and morphed unlike the space of Newton, which was static and absolute. Sometimes reality could consist of experiences which need us to stretch our imagination, possibly because He who begot reality is far more imaginative than us. Why is Dawkins upset about the orbiting tea pot; because it becomes difficult to account for how the tea pot got there in the first place. Or is it so; lets just stretch our imagination a little bit; what if there is a civilization more ancient than ours, who sent a rocket into space. What if the rocket met with an accident and the wreckage started orbiting the sun. What if the wreckage included a tea pot? Is this scenario that difficult to conceive.  Just because everything that God does isn’t understood by us need He cease to exist?

Now I’ll consider case 1)

On who’s shoulder is the responsibility of establishing the truth? This is just a commonsense question. If a theist was trying to convince an atheist that there is God the onus might be on the former to establish his claim. If the situation was the other way round, then maybe it would be the responsibility of the atheist to establish, that there is no God. Since Dawkins is the author, it seems to be that it is his responsibility to establish his case. But then he prefers to be humorous and shirks his responsibility.

The very fact that he does so indicates that he does not have much genuine evidence about the non – existence of a Creator.

When Stephen Hawking asked Mr. Dawkins why he is so concerned about God, he answered it was because it is the responsibility of science to provide answers to various questions. Men of science should not say “because God so desired” in reply to every question. This seems an attractive reply but if you investigate further, you will realize how shallow this approach is. It is a bit like, just because the obedient sons depend on the father much to the dissatisfaction of the disobedient ones, the latter simply claim that the father is dead and can never intervene in the fortunes of anyone.  Many men of science (like Newton, Maxwell, Pasteur) pursued scientific careers with great zeal just to understand the glories of their Maker.  Thus this claim is unscientific that a theist doesn’t make a good scientist.  

The baby talk of Richard Dawkins

Here I contest the seemingly plausible argument that by taking small probable (baby) steps we can understand how a single celled primeval organism changed into a tyrannosaurus rex, by the process of evolution. I debate Richard Dawkins’ arguments as put forward in “The God Delusion”. If you get the book, you will notice how two NOBEL LAUREATES (Steven Weinberg and James D. Watson), have found the above-mentioned book quite charming. What I have to say will thus contest their praise of “the God Delusion”. Of course, Richard Dawkins is very famous on a personal level also. Thus you might just want to go through what I have to say, in case you are curious whether atheistic propaganda can be contested. So here goes.

One intelligently designed wall that Darwinists have a very difficult time breaking down is the extremely low probability of complex organs ( like the eye) being arrived at, by the process of evolution. However, the prophets of atheistic device don’t rest on their laurels too easy. Enter Richard Dawkins and how he attempts to describe breaking down this wall as climbing a mountain (Mount Improbable ), with a benign and gentle slope.

As Dawkins puts it, climbing Mount Improbable becomes probable because he chooses to break up the evolution of the eye into minute steps,... each very probable. So step one is highly probable, step two is highly probable, … step one billionth is very probable. So step one to step one billion......, how improbable can the entire process be? The gentleman seems to want to compare the process to climbing a huge mountain, which might be difficult to climb if we try to do so too hastily, but which can be done if we try in small but assuredly safe steps.

Take any event with a mathematically established probability which is quite low. Did you know that you could do a Dawkins division of the event into smaller events, and lo and behold you could establish that, that very event which is having a very low probability of happening, now has a very appreciable probability of happening. In other words, the mathematically calculated improbability has changed to probability by the simple technique of divide and fool.

If I am not making sense then that is precisely what my unkempt self is trying to establish. Look hard into the world of events. Take any event with any calculated probability of it happening. Whatever technique you may wish to use to calculate the probability, you can try and use, (provided its mathematically tenable). Once the probability is calculated using reliable mathematical techniques, then that is the mathematically established probability that you have. It is a mathematically established fact. A fact which Mr. Dawkins feels ought to change if you decide to approach the calculation in a different way.... namely by dividing the process of evolution, which is evidently a huge transformation, into small steps which took place over a huge span of time. 

My thesis is that, that just doesn’t happen. Once I calculate the probability of an event occuring, using reliable mathematical techniques..., you can repeat a similar calculation by making as many divisions of the same event as you may like, but the previous  mathematically arrived at figure, is still valid because I evaluated it using rules of mathematics. Believe you me, you can take any improbable event, break it up into as many pieces as you would like to and then re-calculate the probability of the same event occuring. The calculated figure will still be the same, because..., if the figure you have arrived at is using reliable mathematical techniques, the prior process has the same claim to fame.

How is that? First of all it has to be so. Otherwise, any event which is calculated to be having a low probability of occurring will suddenly have a different probability of occurring simply because my technique of evaluation has changed. 

If Dawkins feels that the creationists have come up with a nasty or incorrect way of evaluating the probability of an event then he should be able to find a flaw with the technique of evaluation. He can’t say that the technique is quite correct and so is the evaluation and yet the answer is incorrect. If he would like to say that the understanding of the event is incorrect then where the mistake was made in the understanding should be pointed out. Point is that, however probable your infinitesimal step may be, if my technique of evaluating the overall probability of the event has been correct, in the end you will end up with the same unfortunate probability as me, provided we both are obeying the laws of mathematics and applying them.

Lets take a case. Say lets toss a coin. Whats the probability that it will be ‘heads’? Easy - 50 per cent. Lets now allow Mr Dawkins the opportunity to break up the event into minute steps. If I toss the coin eight feet into the air then lets break the ascent of the coin into a billion steps. Then lets divide the descent of the coin into another billion steps and assure Mr Dawkins that he ought to be happy with two billion steps. Now if I calculate the probability of the final event by calculating the individual probabilities of each step will I arrive at a different answer? Will my mathematically evaluated answer of 50 per cent have the probability of changing because I took a history course and tried to accompany the coin during its rise and decline? The answer will be a simple NO. Here is a very good example of the overall probability of an event remaining unchanged despite the division of the one single event into two billion steps.

Somewhere I read on the internet that the low probability calculated, of the evolution of complex organs such as the eye is found to be so wanting in attitude, is because the calculators have done the calculation for a one step phenomena ......i.e. the probability that the eye evolved in a single moment and in a single step from the primordial soup has been unfortunately calculated to be very low. Let me assure you that if a mathematician tried to find out how improbable the event would have been that the eye just popped out of the primordial soup he wouldn’t have arrived at a very low value......, he would have simply arrived at no value at all......., in other words zero probability would have been the answer and no credible scientist ever strained his brains to evaluate that probability. Then what does the evaluated probability represent?

Let’s say I toss a coin and someone asks what is the probability of ‘heads’, I’ll easily reply 50 percent.

Now let’s suppose that someone really high up in space drops a coin and it takes 20 years for the coin to land on the surface of the earth. When the coin was being released if someone asked, what’s the probability of ‘heads’, one could still do a simple probabilistic calculation and say 50 percent. Now the coin doesn’t land for 20 years. The value 50 percent doesn’t represent the probability of a momentary or one step phenomena taking place. As the coin zips through the stratosphere it endures so many trials for so many years ....... and the final state when it finally lands isn’t arrived at in ‘one step’ or in a moment. Yet we can calculate the probability of the end state of a lengthy process by a simple one step calculation.

As Roger Penrose mentions in Pg 762 of “The Road to Reality”:

“Let us return to extraordinary degree of precision (or fine – tuning) that seems to be required for a big bang of the nature that we appear to observe. As was argued in 27.13 the required precision… is one part in (10^(10^123))at least. ". 

That means one divided by (10 to the power of (1 followed by 123 zeroes)). Pretty tough odds isn't it?

This tiny figure is arrived at by Mr Penrose not because he felt that the universe evolved in one step or in a moment to its present day state. The universe took its natural time scale to evolve, just as the coin took 20 years to fall on the ground, just as the eye would have evolved over the eons of time (ie if it did at all) that it did. The calculation being questioned does not represent what is the probability of an event taking place in one step or one mutation (if that is what it means). The low probability is arrived at, because the eye is so complex, the information content is so great both in terms of content and arrangement, that the probability that this highly complex structure came about by a random, un-directed process is very low. It's a bit like finding a very elaborate piece of architecture and thinking that it came about by the random action of thunderstorms acting on cliffs. 

Finally some mathematics.

Let’s consider the evolution of the eye . Let’s assume, that the probability that any infinitesimal step will take place, will range from 85 percent to 95 percent. For ease of calculation we can consider 90 percent as the approximate probability in each case. In other words we can assume that the probability of each individual small step actually occurring is around 0.9. In the world of probability, it is said that the probability that an event will happen, ranges from zero to one. The probability is one when the event is definitely going to take place and the probability is zero when the event is not possible at all. So 0.9 can be called a high probability (of the event happening). So we now have that each small step involved in the evolution of the eye is quite probable, approximating to 0.9.

When Mr. Dawkins talks of small steps then lets give him a billion small steps. Because there is a series of events happening and they are all necessary to occur, then by the laws of probability, we have to use the law of multiplication. In other words if A is an event and B is another event then let p(A) and p(B) be the respective probabilities of A and B happening. According to laws of probabilities the probability that event A and event B happened is obtained by multiplying the respective probabilities.In other words , p(A and B happens) is = p(A) * p(B). The probability that p(A and B and C happen) = p(A)*p(B) *p(C). The probability that p(A and B and C and D happen) = p(A) * p(B) *p(C) * p(D). So getting back to Mr. Dawkins we can see that if we want to calculate the probability of all those billion steps happening then we have to multiply the probabilities of all the billion steps. That is 0.9 * 0.9 *0.9 *… a billion times. Notice that 0.9*0.9 = 0.81. 0.9*0.9*0.9= 0.729. 0.9*0.9*0.9*0.9 = 0.6561. If you notice carefully you will see that as 0.9 gets mulitplied to itself over and over, the product obtained reduces (0.6561<0.729<0.81). As 0.9 is multiplied to itself more and more the product obtained begins to get closer and closer to zero. So when 0.9 is multiplied to itself a billion times we get the following expression: (( 0.9) to the power( 1000000000)). Which is quite close to zero. This value which is very close to zero is the net probability that the eye evolved in a billion steps. In other words, the mathematical probability that the event under consideration ( the evolution of the eye) will actually occur is still quite low, even if I grant that each individual small step had a high probability of happening.

Of course a billion steps was being very kind to Mr Dawkins. If each reproductory move is considered to be a step then the number of steps the eye took to become what it now has come to be is far larger. And since the number of steps are larger, the final probability comes even closer to zero (the decimal point keeps shifting to the left as the value of the exponent becomes larger) . Another point to consider is that Mr Dawkins hasn’t established that each mutation is very likely to have a high probability of aiding survival, or in other words 0.9 may well be a very exaggerated value.

A mountain with a benign structure may be easy to climb. But that does not mean that the eye evolving gradually has the same gentle slope to cope with.

Thy will be done

Hello. My name is Jashodev. I have something to say. There could be a Creator and it might just be worth your while (and wile) to check Him out. If you are already a theist, my site will bolster your faith, and give you fresh ammo to spread the word. If you are not, I will try to request you, to at least lend me an ear and see whether what I have to say makes any sense. If I do not, you can always choose to go away and never come back.

I have just started blogging. Thus I am just feeling my way around. I will try to deliver as I have promised above, as soon as I can.