by Geronimo 91 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Greendawn
I can never see how evolution would produce brain centres that deal with spirituality and religion if there is no creator, no God.
As a thought experiment, try removing two players; creator and god. Leave the spiritual there. What is left over?
S
If what YECs claim about entropy were true, you couldn't digest your food or reproduce.
Delta G = Delta H - T delta S stated mathematically
Geronimo
Phenotype: outward form
Genotype: genetic form
Larkian: theory that would state, for example, "giraffe's necks got longer by succesive generations of giraffe streaching for plants overhead, and passing this steaching on to their offspring', as distinct from the Darwinian theory which would state 'giraffe's necks grew longer over succesive generations as those members of the originating population with longer necks than average had more offspring which survived to reproduce than average necked ones. Thus occurance of genes for longer necks increased in the population due to their higher pro-rata transmission than genes for average or shorter necks.
The point you made about the Designer needing a Designer if complexity demands a designer: That hit me really hard. Thats an excellent rebuke of the argument.
Well, it's hardly original, but is one that every Creationist or ID-ot engages in special pleading to avoid, or just ignores entirely. All these good and fine words about how design proves intelligenece and not a single theory as to the origin of the designer's designer. Oh, 'special pleading' is a term used in disucssions to describe making excuses like;
"The designer (god) didn't need a designer because the designer (god) was always there and had no begining."
.... this attempts, without a shred of proof behind it, to excuse fatal flaws in the Creationists and ID-ots argument. It is like a four-year-old child blaming the disappearence of cookies from the cookie jar on a purple kangaroo only they can see.
That it comes from all branches of science and at this point is overwellming.
Yup, and those attacking it see it as a 'if this bone isn't right the whole of evolution is wrong', or 'if this date isn't right the whole of evolution is wrong', as they are unaware of the many starnds of supporting evidence, approaching it from the angle they do. No one is saying evolution is ALL right; we discover new stuff all the time and occasionally the best guess and simingly well-supported theories of the past are replaced as bettered supported theories or new evidence comes to light. However, it is hard to think any single discovery that would disprove evolution, as mistakes are in the detail; the general idea is so well supported denying it is not really reasonable.
greendawn raises an interesting point;
I can never see how evolution would produce brain centres that deal with spirituality and religion if there is no creator, no God.
I see this as something like Sickle Cell anemia. Sickle cell disease is a hereditry genetic 'disease'. It is common in people originating from West Africa. If a person has copies of this gene from both parents they will be sickly (instead of nice round red blood cells, they have sickle-shaped ones, thus the name).
All well and good, but it isn't really a disease, it's an evolutionary response. Those with even one copy of the gene have a reduced suseptability to malaria, which is endemic in West Africa.
A randomly occuring genetic defect gave those carrying it protection from malaria which reduced mortality rates so much that even the increased mortality rates of those with two copies of the gene was less than the lives saved through extra malaria resistence.
In addition to proving evolution, this shows sometimes a trait produces a side effect.
The ability we have to believe in things, be they god or fraternity, equality and liberty, is an important social glue for human groups. Those with the ability to form string cohesive social groups would do better (have more offspring) than those that formed weak social groups. Thus this trait for 'belief' in intangibles or concepts that cannot be seen, which allowed for better survival rates due to the strong social groups it produced, was something the 'meme' (or idea) of god could infect easily. Doesn't mean there is a god or god made us with the capacity of belief.
The presence of a spot in the brain for this feeling is no more surprising than the area that deals with the sense of smell. The presence of this area no more argues for god than the presense of THC reseptors in my brain argues that Cannabis satavia designed me, or I am designed for it.
Good question greendawn, I'd like to know what you think of the reply. One thing; you say;
mankind are one bunch of lucky bastards if evolution produced so many good things for them through sheer chance involving a series of millions of fortunate coincidences
... this really marks out you have not studied evolution enough to understand it (I say this in anice way), as if you had you would not use a phrase like "sheer chance involving a series of millions of fortunate coincidences". This is a frequent mis-statement of evolutionary mechanisms by those believing in some form of designer.
Random chance IS involved in evoution, but the determining of who survives and breeds is very non-random. For example; white rabbits occur randomly in a wild population, but as they normally get eaten before they breed, the trait doesn't spread through the population. Even if some random variation only gives an organism a 5% greater reproductive success, that extra succes can dominate an entire population within 160 generations.
You can do a simple experiment; say your phone number is (using only digits of 1-6 for the sake of six-sided die);
426 531 5241
This number represents an "ideal design" of organism that would suit a certain environment; obviously organisms are complex, but evolution has LOTS of dice and LOTS of time to throw them in. We need to simplify it.
Now, let's 'create' an organism previously resident in a different environemt introduced to the new one. Throw a die 10 time. You will not get the above number (well, you might 1 in 60,466,176 times). Write down the number, but if you don;t roll the 'correct' number for a certain digit of the 'phone number' just write in 'x' instead.
Then let that number 'breed'; say you have;
4xx 53x x2xx
Now, the rules of breeding are you can keep the right digits, so you roll (in the above example) the die 6 times instead of 10. and get;
42x 53x x24x
Now, there are LOADS of other offspring that we are not 'rolling'; we're concetrating on the succesful line, which is exactly what evolution does. Lets go through a few more generations;
42x 53x x24x no improvement there
42x 53x x24x still the same
42x 53x x241 that's better
42x 53x 5241 so's that
42x 53x 5241 nope
42x 531 5241 almost there
42x 531 5241 nope
42x 531 5241 nope
426 531 5241 Yay!
Can you see how easy it is for a random process to result, with a selection process over generations, in an "ideal design"?
This process is remarkably powerful; if selection is very harsh so that only very few organisms survive to breed (with the characteristics that allowed them to survive to breed being passed on), then the process can become runaway. Imagine fish in a drought-prone area. If 1 in 1,000 could survive twice the air exposure of the average fish, and there was a severe drought each five years which mean ONLY these survived, then ALL the next generation would have that trait. Do that for a few hundred thousand drought cycles and you get lung fish, for example.
I hope this helps your understanding; evolution can use random processes to introduce new genetic coding but the selection process means the genetic codes that survive are the ones that fit the environment best, so evolution in itself is not a random process, and you should realise anyone calling it such really doesn't know what they are talking about.
Hi Geronimo,
I don't have a problem with evolution or creation.
When Henry Ford produced his first car it wasn't a supercharged V8 with traction control, ABS braking, etc. The Ford you see today has evolved from that first crude vehicle.
What makes you think that creation wouldn't be the same?
Cheers
Chris.
Abaddon: very informative post - thanks!
I didn't know the sickle cell anemia/malaria connection, and I loved the example of the phone number. Does that mean I don't have to read Dawkins now ?
What makes you think that creation wouldn't be the same?
Because there is evidence that Henry Ford existed, as well as the Ford motor company. There is no evidence for creationism or ID, only conjecture and negative arguments from ignorance.
Evolution evidence: DNA, fossils, chemical reactions, common ancestors
ID "evidence": statements such as "gosh, it doesn't seem like x could happen," or "the probably of evolution is too small." No facts, only arguments against, without regard to the facts.
There isn't a shred of evidence in favor of ID.
The thing that interests me is why we can't create life. With all the examples to study, our advanced science, etc. we can't even create a simple single cell organism.
Any one have a good reason why we can't create a living organism? Which I understand isn't evolution but origin of life but what the heck, that's what baffles me, if nature did it, why can't we replicate it?
Nice examples, Abadon. Mind if a steal some?
The thing that interests me is why we can't create life. ; With all the examples to study, our advanced science, etc. we can't even create a simple single cell organism.
It's just a matter of time. The process of manipulating things one molecule at a time isn't simple.
Check out an article on the Miller-Uray experiment, which did produce the basics of life from an early earth-like atmosphere in the laboratory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller-Urey_experiment
Interesting article J, it will be interesting to see how long it takes to crack that nut. Think it will happen in our life time?
