When I witness the precision of mathematics, the reliability of physics, the symmetries of the cosmos, I don’t feel like I’m observing cold science I feel as if I’m seeing a living footprint…the shadow of some greater force that is just beyond our grasp.īut this, all of it, is exactly something that proponents of intelligent design say. Langdon: “Easy, tiger!…You’re treading on dangerous ground.” She sure is. That’s the paradox.”Īmbra: “You think DNA was created by an intelligence!” Codes don’t appear organically they must be created.” Codes are the deliberate inventions of intelligent consciousness.Īmbra answers, “So codes always have an intention or awareness behind them.” Musical notation does not sprout from trees, and symbols do not draw themselves in the sand. Odes do not occur naturally in the world. They must do more than simply form a pattern - codes must transmit data and convey meaning.” The kicker: On the other hand, “Codes are special….Codes, by definition, must carry information. Patterns occur everywhere in nature - the spiraling seeds of a sunflower, the hexagonal cells of a honeycomb, the circular ripples on a pond when a fish jumps, et cetera. She asks: “re the laws of physics enough?” Do “laws spontaneously create life”? Langdon answers with a discussion of patterns versus codes.Ī pattern is any distinctly organized sequence. Once almost all the action is over, Ambra Vidal puts this question to Langdon directly. What about Langdon, hero of Brown’s series of bestselling novels? Kirsch thinks computer simulations have demonstrated that the seeming designs of biology are entirely explained in materialist terms, a play of entropy and order. A hero of the story is Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí (1852-1926), his work infused with “biological design” and “biomimetic design.” While Brown never writes about ID by name, the debate about so-called “creationism” is on his mind, with mentions of Michael Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box, two titles by Phillip Johnson ( Darwin on Trial, Defeating Darwinism), atheists Stephen Hawking and Neil deGrasse Tyson, and invoking Daniel Dennett on how “complex biological designs” could arise unguided through natural selection. Meanwhile, Winston, Langdon, and Ambra seek a code that will allow the world to view the amazing, transformative atheist video. Several further murders occur across Europe and the Middle East. He’s accompanied by the disembodied voice of Kirsch’s computer assistant, Winston, an unprecedented wonder of AI, and Ambra Vidal, beautiful and brilliant fiancée of the Prince of Spain, soon to be King when his ailing father dies. Langdon embarks on a rapid journey across Spain, with many lessons about the history of art, politics, and religion sprinkled along his path. At the swank event at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Kirsch is assassinated by a mysterious admiral retired from the Spanish Armada. Kirsch, an eccentric billionaire, calls Langdon to Spain for the world premiere of the video proving how life originated on Earth without design, or God, through physical laws. Computer genius Edmond Kirsch is semiotician Robert Langdon’s former Harvard student. Here is the story in a nutshell, and again be warned of spoilers. Yes, it’s “only vaguely described,” as England says of his own work as touted in the book. The argument is made in various forms by Stephen Meyer, William Dembski, Phillip Johnson, and others. That’s all fine, but in a book pushing atheism, with a warm nod to assisted suicide as an added bonus, I was startled to find the protagonist, Langdon, endorsing a familiar argument for intelligent design. England made by some journalists, which we’ve addressed before.Įngland himself protested last week in a well-timed Wall Street Journal article, pointing out that he himself is a religious believer, an Orthodox Jew, and that the physics of life’s origin presented in Brown’s book is a vacant space: “There’s no real science in the book to argue over.” What follows is a spoiler, so be warned: At the climax, Brown recounts the contents of a splashy video by atheist computer savant and “futurist” Edmond Kirsch, supposedly demonstrating that England in his research has explained how life originated through the laws of physics alone. You could attack him, too, for using, or abusing, the research of MIT physicist Jeremy England. You try it! He’s the #7 bestseller on Amazon at the moment. Yet generating plots for novels like this one, or his best-known book, The Da Vinci Code, generously sprinkled with intriguing intellectual tidbits, is no unimpressive feat. And it’s true that he reaches hungrily for clichés. Not exactly George Eliot, a friend sniffs. In fact, my reading speed slowed at the somewhat talky climax. At no point did I feel compelled to stay up all night to finish it. I’ve finished Dan Brown’s new Robert Langdon thriller, Origin, and I suppose it’s significant that it took me more than a week.
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