SC PIE - Feature Article

The book included in this mailing of the SCPIE newsletter, Probability’s Nature & Nature’s Probability (PN&NP), is not a textbook, but rather a concise reference book that advocates intelligent design (ID) as a superior scientific explanation over evolution. For this reason it is not recommend for inclusion in a public school curriculum. However, PN&NP would be an excellent addition to high school libraries, and would also be a great resource to use in your (and your children's) own personal investigations of evolution and intelligent design. Over 350 references in the book should provide ample resources for supporting arguments against undirected naturalism.

PN&NP reviews the many prevalent scenarios that are widely accepted but need closer examination of their scientific validity. It also examines the scientific validity of ID as a model that can be empirically detected and examined. One chapter is devoted to exposing fallacies, presuppositions, and beliefs that attempt to prevent acceptance of ID as “science.” The book contains many more references than should be necessary. Quotes by many scientists verifying the lack of scientific basis for undirected naturalism are needed to counteract false statements like “Darwin's theory is now supported by all the available relevant evidence, and its truth is not doubted by any serious modern biologist.” [Daw82] (Note: quotes are italicized so the reader can quickly identify them as quotes.)

There are many subjects that a casual reader would find difficult (since it is a multi-disciplinary science book), but most of those (e.g. – origin of mass/energy in chapter 3) can be skipped without missing the basics of the book and gaining an appreciation of the complexities involved, as well as the lack of scientific evidence for many speculations purported to be science. The technical details are included so that a science-minded person can verify the results presented.

Chapters 1-2 are numerically technical, but need to be at least somewhat understood for probability use and how very large or small numbers are expressed.

Chapter 3's origin of mass and energy scenarios may be skipped if not interested in unsubstantiated speculation that is too often asserted as "possible." The Fine-tuning (page 21) overview is important to understand ID.

Chapter 4 has critical terms, that are used in the rest of the book, including amino acid, protein, enzyme, DNA, RNA, gene, genome, nucleotide/base, codon, chirality (L/R), and cell.

Chapter 5's unsubstantiated speculations concerning life from non-life may be useful when evaluating scenarios purported to be science.

Chapter 6 must be understood through mid-p55 for an understanding of information and its importance to life. While the probability of forming life’s components by chemical and physics properties is extremely low, the information content of life reduces the probability of undirected formation to zero. The last part of this chapter includes technical details of that proof, but requires considerable knowledge of information theory to understand (most people will skip this part).

Chapter 7 (biological evolution) is important to comprehend. Neo-Darwinian evolution is shown to "inhibit," rather than "enlighten" scientific understanding. The formation of "irreducibly complex" systems, systems, in which removal of a single component results in complete loss of functionality, are shown to have no feasible undirected natural mechanisms. Since no mutation has ever been shown to produce an information increase (all cause a loss of information), there is no undirected natural mechanism for increasing complexity of organisms through time. The fossil record demonstrates "immediate" formation of new body structures, which then persist.

Chapters 8-9 are least technical and are useful to clarify the debate between ID and undirected naturalism.

Chapter 8 is probably the most important chapter for SCPIE readers to understand. It is extremely important to stick strictly to scientific considerations in the public school systems. Anything "supernatural" can easily be prohibited as promoting a religion.

As is shown, the religions of Atheism, Secular Humanism, and Evolution are currently outside the prohibition of religious teaching within public schools.

The book included with this mailing is a result of a generous contribution by someone who sees the need to use science to counteract the pseudoscience of unsubstantiated claims of undirected naturalism. Note that the author has opted to receive no royalties for such books that are distributed free for educational purposes by qualifying organizations such as SCPIE. People from other states are also invited to check out www.scienceintegrity.net for excerpts and reviews of PN&NP.

(Dr. Johnson has Ph.D.s in both Computer & Information Sciences and Chemistry. See "scienceintegrity.net,” which is dedicated to exposing unsubstantiated “scientific” claims, for more detailed descriptions of Dr. Johnson, PN&NP, along with other services.)