https://www.geekwire.com/2016/review-new-stephen-hawking-show-genius-is-a-refreshing-take-on-the-mysteries-of-the-universe/
Review: New Stephen Hawking show ‘Genius’ is a refreshing take on the mysteries of the universe
by Melanie McFarland on May 17, 2016 [several months after Hawking's demise] National Geographic co-production Director: Iain Riddick
From theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking’s viewpoint, everyone has the potential to be exceptionally intelligent.
That’s the central concept of Hawking’s six-episode series, “Genius,” premiering with back-to-back episodes on PBS stations. Hawking espouses the belief that, in the same way that history’s greatest minds were able to concoct illuminating theories about how the universe works by observing the working life around them, everyday people can answer some of the biggest questions about the universe without consulting people like him.
The series opens with two of the most common ones: “Can We Time Travel?” and “Are We Alone?” Later, “What Are We?”
JE: "Why are we here?" concludes with the silliness of multiverses; every person is in his own multiverse. Hawking essentially says that what is true for you isn't true at all for me, because we are each in a private multiverse. See below.
The Great Filter; a theory conceived by Robin Hanson in the late 1990s that suggests the conditions needed in the universe, in order for advanced extraterrestrial life to exist, are incredibly small. The Great Filter theory suggests there may be a significant number of stumbling blocks to becoming an advanced extraterrestrial civilization. It would also suggest that advanced alien life would occur so rarely and briefly that we are unlikely to make contact.
A very interesting site, with a Christian conclusion: http://thedebriefing.net/articles/natural-theology/fermis-paradox/ The rare Earth hypothesis is true, 9 requirements for life to arise. [Science-minded people can study these to be able to think critically about claims that life on earth is threatened by global climate change.]
It is important for atheists to find the existence of extraterrestrial life to confirm their world view, particularly to overcome the uniqueness of man, to affirm the mediocrity principle and to justify a naturalistic panspermic biogenetic explanation for the origin of life on earth. However, the existence of extra-terrestrial life does not undermine the Christian world-view, or prove atheism. The underlying assumption that randomness explains life is both unproven and scientifically unlikely. Christians believe that human life is created by God and special in the universe. Perhaps the earth is special too as the vehicle for this life.
Rather than accidental abiogensis as the explanation for life on earth, Christians believe in a deliberate abiogenesis by a Creator God. Discovery of extraterrestrial civilisations does not change this view. Many Christians are just as excited to find extraterrestrial civilisations as non-Christians. But the scientific evidence is that extraterrestrial civilisations don’t exist. In fact, there is no evidence for extra-terrestrial life at all at this time. Not only are humans special, but the existence of life is evidence of design.
Antony Flew, a British philosopher born in 1923, had found God after six decades of atheism. At first Flew denied the reports. But in May 2004 he told a conference in New York that he had indeed changed his mind and become a believer. There Is a God; How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind (New York, NY: HarperOne,2008) very high likelihood that mutations are likely to be harmful rather than beneficial [John E has said this for years without seeing it in print]
It is really only in the context of a multiverse that randomness can explain the anthropic principle without design. And the multiverse is an unproven and untestable product of attempts to achieve harmony between mathematical probability models and the actual apparent single set of mathematical outcomes describing the reality of our universe.
“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse” (Romans 1:20
[Search domain www.pbs.org] pbs.org/video/genius-stephen-hawking-episode-3-wh...
Why Are We Here? In this third episode of Genius by Stephen Hawking, his group of volunteers considers why they are here and whether or not there can be free will in a universe that obeys natural laws of physics. Learn how some of the leaders in physics tackled these questions including Newton, Laplace, Einstein ...
[Search domain www.pbslearningmedia.org] https://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/hawking_genius_ep03_full/why-are...
Directed by Iain Riddick. Join Stephen Hawking as he sets three ordinary people a truly mind-bending challenge: Can they work out why they exist at all?
[Search domain www.imdb.com] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5621922/
JE: The next episode, What Are We?, is about evolution, the only explanation of human complexity that is acceptable to committed atheists. It shows Miller's red amino-acid "soup" with oily globules as if it is on the way to producing life, not the dead end it actually was. (Miller and Urey assumed a reducing environment, but oxidizing is more likely.) What Are We? leaps from amino acids to single-celled, DNA-bearing life forms as if that is a trifle. In reality, a single-celled living cell has to have a lot of biochemistry going for it, with no fatal flaws.
http://www.askabiologist.org.uk/answers/viewtopic.php?id=7421
David Wynick, Professor of Molecular Medicine
The smallest genome thus far described is the symbiotic bacterium called Carsonella ruddii which is 160,000 base pairs and codes for 182 proteins.
That said, I am sure you are correct there must have been earlier or transitional genomes that were smaller and less complex. There will of course have to have been a finite minimum that coded for a small but sufficient number of proteins to generate an organism that was "alive". The issue therefore is do we have evidence for these simplest organisms and the answer unsurprisingly is no - why would we? They existed billions of years ago and as tiny microscopic organisms would not have left a fossil record. Further, as transitional organisms they would have been superseded billions of years ago by more complex organisms and thus would not still be in existence today.
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/jpgpz8/craig-venter-created-the-simplest-living-organism-possible-in-a-laboratory
Craig Venter and his team say they've created one of the simplest, though reproducing, organisms theoretically possible. It has 437 genes. (A gene "codes" for a protein and is roughly, generally 1000 base pairs long.) It is based on more complex, natural organisms, but the team's genetic creation can live only in a lab, in mild conditions and with appropriate nutrition. (437 genes in a super-simple organism seems to conflict with 182 protein-producing genes in Carsonella ruddii, above, but I am just quoting what the Internet turns up.--JE) E. Coli and other well-understood cells have roughly 5,000 genes. JE's point is merely that randomness doesn't get you 160,000 or 437,000 base pairs in just the right order, especially since there would have been no test tubes shielding the "growing" chemicals.
http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=2623 by Luke Muehlhauser on August 9, 2009
[JE Muehlhauser spouts sentences that look ridiculous:] The universe is so old and vast that it was actually inevitable it would produce something like us. Simple chemicals capable of reproduction formed. I’m betting on the horse that always wins: naturalism.
[JE Wynick and Venter, quoted here, show that reproduction requires very large molecules with just the right ordering of atoms. Muehlhauser is caught up in fantasies common to atheists. I have read that evolutionists no longer try to prove evolution, they consider it to have been proved decades ago, and they ridicule doubters and have them fired from colleges or removed from responsibility. They move on to other issues, and the geneticists are indeed coming up with amazing findings. Their findings are so complex that people outside the specialties have no way to judge the validity of what they do and whether it supports evolution.]
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128251-300-first-life-the-search-for-the-first-replicator/
Life may have started with RNA, not DNA.
Cross Referencing a theme, complexity of simplest, self-reproducing life gives doubt of random mutation causation
Find on this page evoxcross
Time Line 1900-1990
1966 genetic code, evolution is concerted
Time Line 1990-present
2007 Shkedi. Flew becomes believer in God and ID.
2010 Oct Margulis, no simple branching, 17 steps of photosynthesis, concerted process indoctrination.
2015 Oct 30 Margulis lack of evidence. LCMA already complex. Data is destroying evolution.
2018 Gene Machine
2021 Jan 3 RNA by randomness is improbable. Lucky Planet.
Essay: When God Painted Himself Into a Corner
Footnote 9 even simplest cell is complex, 482 genes
Essay: Creation-Evolution Personal Blog
80% down the page even microevolution by mutation is in doubt by The Third Way
Near the bottom, failed to get from simple...tar, entropy. All critical questions are open. No branching tree of life.
Essay: Genius, Hawking, and Creation of Life
437 genes in super-simple organism
75% down the page smallest genome 160,000 base pairs