Saturday, April 21, 2007

The Paley Watchmaker

Are you tired of people like us always trying to throw cold water on Darwinian explanations of the origin of life? Are you weary of anti-Darwinians always quoting British astronomer and atheist Fred Hoyle as acknowledging that the chances of blind, mechanical forces producing a living cell are about the same as a tornado sweeping through a junkyard and leaving in its wake a fully assembled, fully functional 747 jet airplane? Do you warm to anti-theistic philosopher Daniel Dennett's description of those who accept the Darwinian paradigm and reject theism as "Brites"?

If so, then this site, called The BRITES (Biological Research Institute for Theoretical Evolutionary Studies), is for you.

If you visit you might note that the Brites have come up with a machine that simulates the origin of life through purely natural processes and it should shut up for good those, like us, who doubt that unguided physical mechanisms could have ever produced a living cell.

Here's a picture of their machine:

You just add the parts of the watch, shake vigorously, and, after enough time has passed for the laws of nature to work their magic, a watch is assembled and ticking. It's scientific.

RLC