Monthly Archives: August 2011

More multiverse maths

One can easily work out just how many universes like ours Eugene Kooning would need to produce his 10^-1018 molecule. Taking the number of possible events in each universe as 10^150, the minimum number of universes you’d need would be 10^868. Which as you’ll see is many orders of magnitude greater than the total number of events in our universe since it began. That, of course, is just to produce the one molecule. You’d need many orders of magnitude more to string several of these astronomical improbabilities together.  And that in itself causes a problem for the theory.

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The arithmetic of multiverses

I came across a comment on this 2007 article on Uncommon Descent. It is a peer-reviewed piece in the online magazine Biology Direct (of which the author, evolutionary biologist Eugene Koonin, is also by chance an editor). Its premise, basically, is that the huge statistical improbability of the earliest life arising by chance can be solved at a stroke by adopting an infinite multiverse cosmology. Koonin specifically points out that this obviates the need for any intelligent design. It is hard to exaggerate what an affront this is to science, and even common sense.

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Only eternal vigilance can prevent evolution

Avian pox virus is on the rampage in the UK. A new strain of a bug that affects a number of small birds mildly is now causing severe problems for great tits, which are one of my favourite birds even though prone to be the punchline of dubious jokes. Conservationists, the article says, are urging the public to track the disease. Becki Lawson, of the Zoological Society of London, said:   “We can’t give medicine to free-ranging birds. We’d always recommend that people give particular attention to good hygiene at feeding stations to prevent the cycle of transmission of any particular disease agent that could occur there.” People in Britain love … Continue reading

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Evolution – a View from the 21st Century

I’m surprised the new book from James Shapiro has not received more attention that it has so far. After all, as Archaea discoverer Carl Woese says on the cover, “the book is a game changer.” Evolution – a View is basically a general primer of the discoveries about cell and genome structure of the last few decades, and their connection with newly understood mechanisms for evolution. It’s by a leading bacterial geneticist, himself the discoverer of mobile genetic elements in bacteria, and it is grounded in the research literature and extensively referenced.

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John Stott

Sad to hear that John has died, aged 90. It’s hard to overestimate his improtance to Evangelical Christianity in Britain. Almost singelehandedly, at first, he preached a robust and intelligent gospel with its roots in the Reformation and the Puritans, bypassing the anti-intellectual pietistic backwater into which it had declined during the 20th century.  He also has a big hand in restating the vital importance of a faith that interected with the big issues of society as well as the big issues in Scripture. Stott made you think, but he made you think about things that matter.  When I was at Cambridge around 1970-73 he seemed to be an almost permanent fixture … Continue reading

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