Using Google Translate, you are more likely to insult his ancestry than to say hello. Don't use machine translation, it's a crime against the very concept of human communication.
Awake February 2013: Where do they find these people?
by bats in the belfry 24 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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problemaddict
Well he may be a convert, and his field is in engeneering, not biology.
Its like my mechanic saying that I wrote a pretty nice thesis no?
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ldrnomo
WT.... Has your study of science weakened your faith?
The Prof...On the contrary, science has strengthened my faith.
So this is telling me that the bORG should encourage their youth to go to universities and study science.
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enigma1863
I got an email back from him today this is what he said:
Dear Mr ,
thank you for your mail dated February 6th 2013. As I understand your question, you want to know what is
my professional activity and what convinced me that life was created.
I’m a researcher and full professor in Computer Science. My main research field is Computer Vision,
targeting several application domains. For this reason I’ve been working for many years on visual sensing
for mobile and humanized robots. For example, I designed artificial systems, based on cameras and
computing devices, to allow an autonomous vehicle to visually find a path to follow or for a robot arm to
visually manipulate objects. I know it may be hard to understand exactly, but it is mainly the same research
performed at the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute, where I know some people well.
Concerning your second question, there are many publications speculating on the origin of life. The truth is
that no scientist today has a clear understanding of how life originated and how it happens that so many life
forms came into existence on the earth. The theory of “random events” is not supported by any evidence.
Even the “law of large numbers” can not cope with the extremely low probability (1 over millions of
billions) that the elementary bricks of life, such as enzymes, proteins and RNA, were casually self-assembled
over a extremely long period of time. This without considering the additional problem of how these “bricks”
could then be self-combined, again, to produce a life form. The final conditional probability is so low that is
statistically impossible.
It is true that there is an overwhelming fossil evidence. What is mostly obscured is the kind of evidence
coming from the fossil remains themselves. For example, if you consider the reconstruction of ancient men
bodies, often proposed in the literature, most of the time it is based only on a few bone pieces 1 . The way you
complete the “missing information” is somehow arbitrary and conditioned by any preconception of the
archeologist. In mathematics this problem is called “interpolation”. If you have a number of random points
on a Cartesian plane and you want to fit a line passing through the points, you need to find a proper
interpolating function. The choice of the function, a Spline, a polynomial of some order or any other kind,
strongly affects the final shape of the line. The less points you have, the more the shape is influenced by the
choice of the interpolating function. This is what happens with the fossil remains: most of the time they are
too few or too scattered to be able to properly reconstruct a body. After this, telling if a body belongs to an
ancient ape or a human being is another story…
You are right that the origin of life and the theory of evolution are two different fields. Yet, these are the two
issues to be considered whenever you face the problem of how life come into existence. Therefore, even
being different fields of science, there is a strong relation between the two. To better clarify, the meaning of
the term "life" in the statement "life originated by means of evolutions", is the differentiation of life as we
can appreciate it now, with the complexity of organisms living in our planet. The statement was not referring
to the beginning of life itself. Of course, a brief interview article can just report a general idea rather than a
detailed discussion on these matters.
In the book of Ecclesiastes chapter 12, verse 12, the Bible tells that “To the making of many books there is
no end, and much devotion [to them] is wearisome to the flesh”. So, there are so many books reporting
contradictory theories. Personally, I found two books edited by Jehovah’s Witnesses very interesting and
accurate: “Life: How did it get here? By evolution or by creation?” and “Is there a Creator who cares about
you”. You can ask for a copy to the local congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
I thank you again for the opportunity to "talk" to you on this fascinating subject. I don't know what is your
religious stand, but I hope you will have a chance, as I had, to carefully consider the evidence of an
intelligent Creator in the universe and to get to know him better through a study of His book, the Bible.
With best regards,
Massimo Tistarelli
1 see for example, Science and Justice , Vol. 43, No. 4, (2003) section, Forensic Anthropology, “Anthropological Facial
‘Reconstruction’— Recognizing the Fallacies, ‘Unembracing’ the Errors, and Realizing Method Limits,” by C. N.
Stephan, p. 195. Acta Biologica Szegediensis , Volume 46(1-2), “New Findings—New Problems in Classification of
Hominids,” by Gyula Gyenis, 2002, pp. 57, 59.
He also attached the Origin of Life brochure in the email.
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Pistoff
And now you know that when it comes to evolution, he has suspended his critical scientific analytical skills.
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BluesBrother
I have no problem with anyone deciding that life is more likely the product of creation, we need not be dogmatic about something that happened before anyone was here . It is more surprising what he goes on to say in the Awake article
[of Jehovah's Witnesses] "I liked their thorough study methods, I was especially impressed with the research that goes into their publications. Solid research appeals to people like me, who want to probe into the details of things. For example I became deeply interested in the many prophecies or predictions in The Bible. My study of those convinced me that The Bible really is from God"
Again, I have no disrespect toward a God fearing Bible believer,and he is a darn sight smarter than me, but for such an an eminent man to be convinced by the shallow and contradictory information from the WTS. really makes me wonder????
He has been a dub for twenty years. Was his conversion before the availability of internet research?
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AnnOMaly
Sorta what BluesBrother said.
The part that alarmed me was this,
'Personally, I found two books edited by Jehovah’s Witnesses very interesting and accurate: “Life: How did it get here? By evolution or by creation?” ...'
I bet he never checked the accuracy.
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redvip2000
I take confort in the fact that the Watchtower society had to resort to a robotics expert in order to get support from someone in the field of science.
Certainly, this person is no dummy, but likely he knows as much about biology as i know about robotics.
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enigma1863
Im working on my reply. I want to mention that theory of gravity gravity doesnt have to explain the origin of the universe, cell theory doesnt have to explain where cells came from and the atomic theory doesnt need to explain how atoms were made.
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problemaddict
I think the most alarming part is that he declares to find some books interesting published by JW's, but not to tell the person he is a JW.