Sunday, March 28, 2021

Foresight

How the chemistry of life reveals planning and purpose
by Marcos Eberlin
2019 / 147 pages 

Back in 1996 "Irreducible complexity" was Michael Behe's contribution to the origins debate: he argued that some biological structures couldn't possibly have evolved because there is no way they could have come about by evolution's stepwise-process – the complexity of micro-machines like a bacteria's flagellum motor was irreducible.

Now Marcos Eberlin is making a similar point, but bringing a new piece of rhetorical ammunition to the fight with Foresight in which he argues the deeper we delve into the biological world the more we discover "artful solutions to major engineering challenges." These solutions, he explains, look to "require something that matter alone lacks.... – foresight."

With this term "foresight," Eberlin is arguing some biological abilities couldn't have come about as a response, but had to be the result of anticipation. So, for example, cells, right from the beginning, had to anticipate the problems that would come with using oxygen:

The oxygen (O2) molecule is essential to life, but only a life form that can efficiently wrap and transport the devil O2 exactly to a place where it can be used as an energy source would benefit from its angel side. Otherwise, O2 becomes life’s greatest enemy. 

Rupture the membrane of a living cell, exposing it to the air, and you will see the great damage O2 and a myriad of other chemical invaders can do to a perforated cell. Death would be swift and sure. From an engineering standpoint, then, it was essential that a way is found to protect the cell, life’s most basic unit. The solution was clever: The cell was surrounded by a strong chemical shield, from the very beginning. 

It is often said that a solution always brings with it two additional problems, and a cellular membrane shield is no exception. A simple shield could indeed protect the cell interior from deadly invaders, but such a barrier would also prevent cell nutrients from reaching the inside of the cell, and it would trap cellular waste within. Small neutral molecules could pass through the membrane, but not larger and normally electrically charged biomolecules. A simple shield would be a recipe for swift, sure death. For early cells to survive and reproduce, something more sophisticated was needed. Selective channels through these early cell membranes had to be in place right from the start. Cells today come with just such doorways...

.....a gradual step-by-step evolutionary process over many generations seems to have no chance of building such wonders since there apparently can’t be many generations of a cell, or even one generation until these channels are up and running. No channels, no cellular life. So then, the key question is: How could the first cells acquire proper membranes and co-evolve the protein channels needed to overcome the permeability problem? Even some committed evolutionists have confessed the great difficulty here. As Sheref Mansy and his colleagues put it in the journal Nature, “The strong barrier function of membranes has made it difficult to understand the origin of cellular life.”

So Eberlin concludes: "There would be no hope for a cell to become viable if it had to tinker around with mutations over thousands of generations in search of a functional membrane. It's anticipate or die."

This is but his first example – Eberlin is arguing that wherever we look at life, "the evidence of foresight is abundant." That's true in the fine tuning of the universe, where gravity had to be just so, Earth had to be just the right distance from the Sun, and had to have enough water, and water needed to have certain specific properties. Oh, and the planet needed to have just the right amount of lightning too. 

That foresight is also evident in the structure of our DNA - which has to be stable – and RNA - which has to be malleable. 

He goes on and on, diving into these examples, and showing how brilliantly problems have been anticipated and solved. But by who? Well, Eberlin doesn't really get into that until the final chapter, and it is in the book's very last line that he gives credit where it is due:  "Great are the works of the Lord."

I loved this whole book, but will confess to only understanding about two thirds of it clearly. But even when it got more technical, the gist I did catch was still utterly fascinating. I'd recommend it for anyone with an interest and at least some high school science.

Monday, March 22, 2021

Echoes of Ararat: a collection of over 300 Flood legends from North and South America

by Nick Liguori 
2021 / 300 pages 

Why are there Flood myths all over the world? Christians can explain it by pointing back to Noah: these myths are so widespread because they find their origin in a real event, common to all mankind – every last tribe and nation can trace their origin back to the small family that lived through this cataclysmic worldwide deluge. 

But how can skeptics explain it? If it was just one or two stories, maybe they could attribute it to coincidence. But confronted with these 300-some accounts – and that's just from North and South America – the case for coincidence just isn't plausible. 

What Nick Liguori has done here is collect the oldest known written accounts of these indigenous tales, dating back a hundred to two hundred years or even more. While they were originally a part of native oral tradition, these accounts were written down after they were told to European explorers, missionaries, and settlers. So, for example, this is from the Caddo tribe, told to a group of explorers who were mapping the Arkansas/Texas Red River in 1806: 

They say that long since, a civil war broke out among them, which so displeased Enicco, the Supreme Being, that he caused a great flood, which destroyed all but one family; consisting of four persons, the father, mother, and children. This family was saved by flying to a knoll at the upper end of the prairie, which was the only spot uncovered by the water. In this knoll was a cave where the male and female of all the kinds of animals were preserved. After the flood has continued one moon, they set a bird, called the O-Wah, at liberty, which returned in a short time with a straw. The family then set out on a raft in search of the place from whence this straw was brought, and pursuing a west course for two leagues they came to land.

Some of the elements from the Genesis account include: God is displeased with the world, a great flood, one family saved, a bird sent out and coming back with something, two of each kind of animals saved, and a boat of sorts. 

Other stories have only a glimmering of the original remaining. Moravian missionaries arrived on Greenland in 1733 and the following is an account David Cranzz (1723-1777) included in his History of Greenland: 

Almost all heathen nations know something of Noah's Flood, and the first missionaries found also some pretty plain traditions among the Greenlanders; namely that the world once overset, and all mankind, except one, were drowned; but some were turned into fiery spirits. The only man that escaped alive, afterward smote the ground with his stick, and out sprung a woman, and these two re-peopled the world. As a proof that the deluge once overflowed the whole earth, they say that many shells, and relics of fishes have been found far within the land where man could never have lived, yea that bones of whales have been found upon a high mountain. 

In story after story, we see echoes, not just of the Flood account, but also of the events of the Tower of Babel. This is a fascinating book! 

So, again, how do the skeptics explain it? The best secular explanation is that these myths and legends are of a recent origin, only coming to be after natives first heard the story of the Flood from missionaries spreading the Bible. But that supposes that native oral tradition could change that fast, and that easily. And why would they adapt their traditions to incorporate part of the Bible account while ignoring the rest of it? Doubters will doubt, but they really have to work at it to dismiss all the stories collected here. 

While the bulk of the book is stories, one of the appendices contrasts and compares these American myths with both the biblical Flood account and the one depicted in the Epic of Gilgamesh. This epic is probably the second most famous flood account of all, and skeptics will say that the Bible's version was inspired by it. But as Liguori shows, that idea is preposterous (you can also learn why that's so here). 

If you enjoy Echoes of Ararat, you'll also appreciate Charles Martin's Flood Legends: Global Clues of a Common Event which is a much shorter (just 150 pages) overview of Flood legends, this time from around the whole world. Echoes of Ararat is far more weighty, but consequently is a book you're more likely to just dip into. Meanwhile, Flood Legends is something you'll read all the way through. Both would be fantastic resources for your church or school libraries, and also good gifts for Christian school history teachers.

Sunday, March 14, 2021

On Asking God Why

 And Other Reflections on Trusting God in a Twisted World


by Elizabeth Elliot

176 pages / 2006 (originally published in 1989)

Elizabeth Elliot knew why we want to ask God why, from experience, but what makes this collection of essays so valuable is that she also knew why we should ask God why. Elliot is also the author of Through Gates of Splendour (reviewed in this blog last month), a book which reveals how, already in early adulthood, she began to ask God why He brought her into situations that deeply tested her faith in Him.

Christian authors are often described as inspiring, but a better word for Elliot's work would be bracing, like the splash of cold water on your face that wakes you up in the morning. She never promises false hope or easy solutions. Instead, knowing from her own hard life how much our suffering can shake us, or even shake our faith in God, she points us to Christ and the way of suffering He trod to save us. Confronting numerous issues, such as divorce, abortion, women's place in the home, and courtship, Elliot calls us to be willing to suffer ourselves as part of our path to spiritual maturity.

Jordan Peterson tells us that if we want to solve the problems of the world, we should start by making our bed. Similarly, Elliot tells us that we need to grow up, but unlike Peterson, she knows that growing up means trusting more in our Father in heaven than ourselves.

Some minor cautions (along with my assessment of why they are not as serious as they might seem):

  • Some of the references in the book are dated (and therefore, historically interesting).
  • One of the essays attacking abortion refers to a fetus "becoming a person," but it is clear later in the essay that she sees the unborn child as worthy of protection.
  • She refers to animals having "souls" (but vertebrate animals do share nephesh (the Hebrew word for life in the Bible that does not apply to "the creeping things) with human beings, and creation will also be redeeemed, along with humans).
  • There is one quotation from Karl Barth, who is called a "great theologian" (but the quotation itself is probably the truest thing he ever said).
Other than that, Elliot admirably brings the type of Christian common sense that C.S. Lewis was known for into contact with her own daily life - even taking us back, years later, with the benefit of insight and Christian maturity, to the scenes of some of the most difficult parts of her life.

If you want to see how to ask God why for all the right reasons, you can get Elliot's book here, and here in Canada.