Study Demonstrates Babies Reason Logically Before They Can Even Speak

by Brian Thomas, M.S. *


Among living creatures, only humans can think about thinking. Researchers recently performed a new set of cognitive tests on one-year-olds to discover how soon humans develop the ability to reason. Their findings surprised them.


The investigators showed the babies short videos of virtual objects bouncing around randomly inside a round "container" that had an opening at the bottom. The contents were then blocked from view, after which one of the objects was seen exiting the container. The researchers measured any surprise in the babies' reactions to the object that escaped through the opening—a choice of one that had been heading toward the opening just before the picture was covered, one that was not near the opening, or one that was actually moving in the wrong direction.


The babies seemed perplexed when the wrong object appeared to escape the container, indicating that even at 12 months they could predict the trajectories the objects should have taken. They were able to combine abstract knowledge with perceptual data in an exercise of "pure reasoning" in the form of Bayesian analyses.1 Bayesian logic is used in predictive modeling, which attempts to calculate the likelihood of a given future event based on prior events. The authors matched the babies' behavior to this formula, which expresses Bayesian predictive logic:

In their article published in the journal Science, the authors wrote that the infants can "integrate multiple information sources and abstract knowledge in reasoning about future outcomes." They concluded, "Preverbal infants' ability to reason about complex unseen events is surprisingly sophisticated."1


These scientists might not have expected this level of sophistication in infant reasoning abilities, but for those who understand that God made humans in His image—an image that includes the capacity for reason2—it is not so surprising to discover that babies who cannot yet talk nevertheless use Bayesian-like logic in their thought processes.


References


1. Teglas, E. et al. 2011. Pure Reasoning in 12-Month-Old Infants as Probabilistic Inference. Science. 332 (6033): 1054-1059.
2. God appeals to mankind's reasoning in Isaiah 1:18: "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."

* Mr. Thomas is Science Writer at the Institute for Creation Research.

Article posted on June 21, 2011.

Journal Censors 'Second Law' Paper Refuting Evolution

 by Brian Thomas, M.S. *

For life to have evolved from non-life, atoms and molecules would have had to move from a state of lower to greater organization and self-assemble into precise arrangements. But the second law of thermodynamics demonstrates that without intelligent outside influence, molecules are always in the process of breaking down.

A new technical paper on this fundamental law of nature completely undermines a naturalistic origins perspective. And this explains why the paper, after first having been approved, was withdrawn from publication.

The second law is a description of nature's universal tendency to lose orderliness over time. It describes how heat flows toward cooler areas so that temperature evens out, as well as how particles tend to distance themselves from one another, always decreasing in structured arrangement if left alone.

In a paper titled "A second look at the second law," math professor Granville Sewell of the University of Texas, El Paso showed that notions of nature alone building the complex structures of DNA are as unlikely as nature building a computer.1 Either event would violate the second law.

After the paper was accepted for publication in Applied Mathematics Letters, an anti-design blogger wrote to the editor, warning that the journal's reputation would be tarnished if the paper was printed. So, the journal's editor withdrew it.2 Sewell, who has authored at least 39 other technical papers,3 then took legal action. Since the journal's own policy states that withdrawing a reviewed and accepted paper "can only occur under exceptional circumstances" such as plagiarism or fraudulent data,4 and since Sewell's article does not contain any known errors or technical problems, he was given an apology as well as permission to post the pre-publication version of his paper on his university faculty web page—although Applied Mathematics Letters still has no plans to publish it.2

The editor's fear of printing the paper is perhaps not surprising, considering the virulent opposition exercised by many evolutionists when their scientific beliefs are academically challenged.5 And as the rejected paper indicates, since the second law states that the orderliness present in matter or energy always tends to decrease, it negates evolution's historical perspective of a massive order increase from hydrogen to humans. However, informed Darwinists argue that order can increase in one place (e.g., on earth) as long as there is a compensating decrease in order elsewhere.

But Sewell's paper shows in succinct mathematical formulae that this argument has no merit. The increase in order in one place would have to be directly linked to a decrease in another place, and such a link remains to be established.6 He wrote:

The fact that order is disappearing in the next room does not make it any easier for computers to appear in our room—unless this order is disappearing into our room, and then only if it is a type of order that makes the appearance of computers not extremely improbable, for example, computers.1

In other words, the probability is overwhelming that the atoms that comprise computers (and, by the same logic, DNA) naturally diffuse rather than assemble—let alone assemble into such information-rich patterns. The key formula, which is an expression of the rate of entropic change, is contained in standard thermodynamics texts, but its implications are seldom discussed. The upshot is that the only way to get a computer into a room is not by transferring material or energy, like light photons, from one room to another, but by someone building a computer and putting it there.

Similarly, the way to arrive at DNA is not to transfer sunlight's energy onto earth's chemicals, but for someone to build DNA and place it in living creatures on the planet. And that scenario may sound familiar to those who have read Exodus 20:11. "For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is."

References

1. Sewell, G. 2011. A second look at the second law. Applied Mathematics Letters. Article in press.
2. A more thorough description of these events can be found in West, J. G. Journal Apologizes and Pays $10,000 After Censoring Article. Evolution News and Views. Posted on evolutionnews.org June 7, 2011, accessed June 9, 2011.
3. Sewell's publications are listed on his Curriculum Vitae, available at his University of Texas, El Paso faculty web page.
4. Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal. Posted on elsevier.com, accessed June 17, 2011.
5. For further examples of such opposition in the academic world, see Stein, B. 2008. Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. DVD. Directed by Nathan Frankowski. Premise Media Corporation, L.P.; and Bergman, J. 2008. Slaughter of the Dissidents: The Shocking Truth about killing the Careers of Darwin Doubters. Southworth, WA: Leafcutter Press.
6. Sewell refutes the notion that the second law can be circumvented as long as the order increase/decrease occurs in an open system. In an online lecture video explaining his "second law" paper, Sewell said, "Suppose you and your wife go for a vacation, leaving a dog, a cat and a parakeet loose in the house (I put the animals there to cause the entropy to increase more rapidly, otherwise you might have to take a much longer vacation to see the same effect). When you come back you will not be surprised to see chaos in the house. But tell her some scientists say, 'but if you leave the door open while on vacation, your house becomes an open system, and the second law does not apply to open systems…you may find everything in better condition than when you left.' I'll bet she will say, 'if a maid enters through the door and cleans the house, maybe, but if all that enters is sunlight, wind and other animals, probably not.'" Sewell, G. A second look at the second law. Online video. Posted on math.utep.edu, accessed June 9, 2011.

* Mr. Thomas is Science Writer at the Institute for Creation Research.

Article posted on June 20, 2011.

New Sky Map Shows Big Bang Even More Unlikely

by Brian Thomas, M.S. *

Few questions hold more intrigue than that of how the universe began. Although the Bible provides a written account of this obviously miraculous event, some reject it and try to explain the origin of the universe without either miracles or miracle Maker. But the evidence is against a naturalistic cause for the cosmos, and a newly unveiled 3-D map of the sky offers yet more signs of its supernatural source.

The most popular nature-only explanation of the origin of the universe is the Big Bang, which proposes that all space, time, and matter were once densely packed into a tiny volume. For some unknown reason, this nugget exploded, yielding elements in ever-expanding space that eventually self-organized into such structures as stars, galaxies, and clusters of galaxies.
But the contradictions between this scenario and real observations are so numerous and severe that a supernatural origin for the universe is demanded.¹ For example, the First Law of Thermodynamics states that matter and energy can be neither created nor destroyed. Big Bang beliefs violate this law by positing the appearance of matter from no prior material. The Big Bang also violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics—which states that some orderliness is always lost when energy or matter are converted to other forms—by positing the creation of orderliness in the form of stars, galaxies, and galactic clusters, all with insufficient cause.
The closer that telescopes zoom in on the stars, the more obvious it is that they are out of step with Big Bang ideas. About 20 years ago, the first results from three-dimensional maps of sections of the sky showed unforeseen mega-structures. In stark contrast to the random and even distribution of stars that a Big Bang would have produced, galaxies are instead grouped into clusters and superstructures.² And the galactic clusters, tendrils, and voids exhibited in the new 3-D map serve as a blatant reminder that this universe is not random.
The new sky map, dubbed the 2MASS Redshift Survey (or 2MRS), also confirms that a Creator was needed. The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics released images of the sky within a radius of some 380 million light-years from earth, using redshifted light to calculate distances.³ Astronomers were able to map stars closer to the Milky Way, which forms a dark band across the middle of the map, than previous studies. Like prior star maps, this one shows huge, intricate structures in space that simply should not exist unless they were put there on purpose.
These supergalactic structures provide yet more evidence that the cosmos is not a product of nature, but of "he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth…that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in."⁴

References

1. Another problem with the Big Bang is the horizon problem, which is the question of why temperature is so remarkably uniform throughout the universe when light has not had enough time since the Big Bang to travel throughout space and evenly distribute radiation. Also, the Big Bang should have resulted in equal amounts of matter and antimatter, but the real universe is dominated by matter.
2. Gish, D. 1991. The Big Bang Theory Collapses. Acts & Facts. 20 (6).
3. Astronomers Unveil Most Complete 3-D Map of Local Universe. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics press release, May 25, 2011.
4. Isaiah 40:22.

Image credit: T. H. Jarrett (IPAC/SSC). This image is used for nonprofit educational presentation purposes only.

* Mr. Thomas is Science Writer at the Institute for Creation Research.

Article posted on June 10, 2011.