From: corey@sdf.lonestar.org (Corey Carroll)
Subject: More JW Dishonesty in _Life:_
Organization: sdf Public Access UNIX, Dallas--unrestricted free shell access
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1992 05:49:38 GMT

Here is another example of an obvious error in _Life:_

_Life:_, page 44, paragraph 18 states:

"The proteins needed for life have very complex molecules.  What
is the chance of even a simple protein molecule forming at random
in an organic soup?  Evolutionists acknowledge it to be only one
in 10^113 (1 followed by 113 zeros).  But any event that has one
chance in 10^50 is dismissed by mathematicians as never happening."

This is misleading for different reasons.  First of all, no *direct*
reference is given showing where they got this number, who said it,
what the conditions were, how long the time period was, etc, etc.
After careful research, however, I came upon an interesting page
in the book _The Neck of the Giraffe_.  Pages 70-71 of that book
contain a "Panel" with a heading of "Can life form by chance?" 

After reading that panel, it was obvious to me where the JW's got
the number 10^-113.  The panel quotes Dr. Jean Sloat Morton,
apparently a *CREATIONIST*, in _Impact_ (an ICR publication),
December 1980, number 90.  Here is the relevant paragraph:

"... let us consider a simple protein containing only 100 amino
acids.  There are 20 different kinds of L-amino acids in proteins,
and each can be used repeatedly in chains of 100.  Therefore,
they could be arranged in 20^100 or 10^130 different ways [*note:
these numbers are equal.  I checked it out myself].  Even if a
hundred million billion (10^17) of these combinations could function
for a given purpose, there is only one chance in 10^113 of getting
one of these required amino acid sequences in a small protein
consisting of 100 amino acids."

Now, note that _Life_ is basically plagairizing the work of a
creationist in the ICR pamphlet _Impact_.  Note, however, that
in the aforementioned _Life_ paragraph, the claim is made that
"Evolutionists acknowledge the chances to be 1 in 10^113."
That is an outright lie.  It is not an evolutionist who is making
this claim, it is a creationist, and if you read talk.origins,
you will see that such "probability games" are based on incorrect
assumptions (that being that life must have originated completely
in a form that we recognize today with DNA, RNA, enzymes, etc).

This is not uncommon in the _Life_ book, as I have scanned the
book _The Neck of the Giraffe_ recently.  It looks like half of
the information in _Life_ that went towards debunking evolution
came from Francis Hitching's book.  Not only are the JW's bad
scholars, but they are too lazy to do their own research.  They
even quote from the same articles that Hitching quotes from in
his book.

As a side point, the book _The Neck of the Giraffe_ doesn't seem
to be a very accurate book either.  In fact, page 84 of that book
misquotes Richard Lewontin.  It says :

"Richard Lewontin of Harvard again ... many organisms 'appear to
have been carefully and artfully designed.'

It is, he says, both a challenge to Darwinism and 'the chief
evidence of a Supreme Designer.'"

This book was published around 1982.  _Life_ was published in
1985.  It appears that the Jehovah's Witnesses got much of
their "research" from this book.  In fact, they duplicated
the misquote that Francis Hitching made with respect to
Richard Lewontin on page 143, paragraph 5 of _Life_!  It appears
that they basically plagiarized much of Hitching's work, sometimes
rewording sections in his book to make it look as if it were
of their own original research.


-- 
"All religions make me wanna throw up!"
"All religions make me sick!" - Dead Kennedys, Religious Vomit

corey@sdf.lonestar.org                       ..!uunet!convex!egsner!sdf!corey