Where Did Life Come From?

#1 Question in the History of the Universe

Engineer offers $5 Million Prize

Perry Marshall at Penn State University’s Department of Electrical Engineering

Monday November 12, Room 233AB Hub Building, 1PM

What does Electrical Engineering tell us about life’s origin? A lot! On Monday November 12, Entrepreneur, Author and EE Perry Marshall presents: DNA and the Genetic Code through the eyes of a communication engineer.

Perry grew up in a conservative Christian community; he was taught Young Earth Creationism in church. But when a crisis forced him to question everything, he applied Electrical Engineering to the problem.

This revealed a world of discoveries he couldn’t have imagined… and engineering served him well. Cells employ digital code, error correction, information processing and control systems.

These parallel and supersede human-engineered systems. One blade of grass is 10,000 years ahead of human technology.

This led him to organize a $5 million technology prize for Origin of Life and Artificial Intelligence, with judges from Harvard, Oxford and MIT. The prize was featured in IEEE Spectrum and is based on the discoveries of Claude Shannon, the legendary EE from Bell Labs who pioneered Information Theory.

Perry’s bestseller Evolution 2.0: Breaking the Deadlock Between Darwin and Design brings fresh eyes to the 150-year old evolution debate. Bill Gates and the founders of Google revolutionized software and the web through their status as outsiders; similarly, Perry harnesses a communication engineer’s outsider’s point of view to reveal a century of unrecognized research and discoveries.

At Penn State, Perry will explore new frontiers of science research. He raises new questions that confront us in Artificial Intelligence and Genetic Engineering today.

Where did life come from? What happens if we crack the code? Find out at Penn State November 12.

Penn State University

Department of Electrical Engineering

Monday November 12, 1PM

Room 233AB Hub Building

I’ve been conversing with folks on Peaceful Science about randomness in evolution. I asked them to define randomness.

“T_aquaticus” replied:

If you purposefully shuffle a deck of cards the result is Read more »

Joshua Swamidass from Washington University invited me to respond to conversations on his blog about Evolution 2.0. I wrote two blog posts in response.

We are asking: Are the mutations that produce useful changes in evolution random? Or not?

Joshua says they’re random. I (along with scientists like Nobel Prize winner Barbara McClintock) insist Read more »

Below is an email I just received from a reader of Evolution 2.0. I loved the insights in his email and at the end of it, he asked a great question about unchanged organisms and Evolutionary Creation.

So instead of responding privately, I thought I’d make this a public conversation for the rest of the community to enjoy.

Here’s the Letter:

Read more »

Read more »

In my blog post It’s Time to Tighten the Definition of “Random” I said it makes no sense to say “There is a pattern to a mutation’s randomness.” Joshua Swamidass (Washington University) and friends challenged me on this.

Before I respond, let’s understand why anyone should care.

I first tumbled into Read more »

S. Joshua Swamidass is an associate professor in the Laboratory and Genomic Medicine Division at Washington University in St Louis. His research uses computational methods solve problems at the intersection of medicine, chemistry and biology.

Joshua and I have met at several conferences and had long discussions. He, like myself, is very interested in ending the war Read more »

Steve Huffey is a residential real estate investor, specializing in multi-units. His interest in the ‘crossroad of science and faith’ has led him to focus on philology of the era during which transition from Egyptian hieroglyphs to Proto-Sinaitic script and associated Paleo-Hebrew took place. Better clarity of this era and scripts give added meaning to Biblical creation texts.

Guest Post by Steve Huffey

The last sentence of “On the Origin of Species ….” reveals a struggle.

In his book, “On the Origin of Species ….”, Darwin wrote “Creator” nine times, “God” once, and quoted a statement including “God”; all put in a positive light. But in the topic and public debate of evolution, the design of God has suffered loss. Design was honored by Darwin, but dishonored by Read more »

Today Perry reveals his true intentions with the Evolution 2.0 initiative. He tells us that his goal is NOT to prove God exists. Rather it’s to heal the rift between science and religion. To create a “Demilitarized Zone” where people from “both sides” lay their weapons down and work together to find the truth about the origins of life.

As you’ll discover in this video and previous installments, science and religion ARE NOT at odds with each other. In fact, they’re symbiotic. Unable to be separated.

You don’t want to miss a second of this, as towards the end of the video, Perry reveals how he reads and interprets Genesis and the creation of our universe. So dive in and get ready to feel a range of emotions.

Click here to listen to the audio only:

Click here to download this episode’s transcription