The "Evolution is a fact" argument started by JanH seems to have found
overwhelming support. I have not read about many arguments for or against
evolution except for JW stuff so you will know my alreay biased view:-)
My understanding of his basic premise is that "common DNA" and "useless DNA"
should not result from an act of creation but evolution. Hence he asserts:
<i>
" as times goes by and evolution changes species considerably, this
means a lot of junk accumulates in the DNA. In fact, most of the DNA we have
in us -- and this is true about every other organism -- is useless junk code,
so-called pseudocode. Some of it contains copies of code used elsewhere
(reduplications). Lots of it is code that was used by some of our ancestors.
And, when we see that we share these meaningless sequences with chimps and
other species as well, it is direct evidence to the fact of evolution."
</i>
(Would you agree that the above already indicates an evolutionist's bias in
the argument? Note the use of ancestors! )
and he concludes:
<i>
"No creationist should be allowed to repeat their silly assertions without
being called to task to reply to this question: If we and other species were
created directly, how come we have genes for tails, birds have genes for teeth
and whales have genes for legs, genes that are sometimes actived today? In the
creationist world, such a thing would be impossible. In the real world, one
where all species is the result of evolution -- descent with modification --
such throwbacks are both possible and exactly what we should expect.
This is just one reason we know that evolution is a fact"
</i>
Does this not presume to know by what means a creator would proceed to make
living things? From the point of view of the thing evolved or created
something embedded may be junk but how do we know that this would be so for a
creator?
Consider another posible viewpoint. It's interesting that JanH should menton
pseudocode. Perhaps he has been exposed to some programming languages. I
myself have basic familiarity with just one or two. Much of the foll. is
taken from a primer that has nothing to do with evolution/creation debate.
I just thought it would represent an alternative viewpoint that could refute
the argument mentioned by JanH.
The key is inheritance, please read through to the explanation of what that
is.
Please bear with me, I wish I could make this shorter:
======================================
In creating new applications a very common approach
taken by developers is object-oriented programming. This relatively modern
approach is considered to be far more efficient than earlier methods of
programming (i.e. creating :-)).
In this approach, code and data are embedded in
"black-box" objects derived from blueprints called "Classes".
How are objects defined? An object is defined via its class, which determines
everything about an object. Objects are individual instances of a class. For
example, you may create an object call Spot from class Dog. The Dog class
defines what it is to be a Dog object, and all the "dog-related" messages a
Dog object can act upon. All object-oriented languages have some means,
usually called a factory, to "manufacture" object instances from a class
definition. You can make more than one object of this class, and call
them Spot, Fido, Rover, etc. The Dog class defines messages that the Dog
objects understand, such as "bark", "fetch", and "roll-over".
<b>
INHERITANCE IS THE KEY--
This is the key for someone with no bias toward evolution. Could it be that
there is a creator who used an analog of inheritance? In fact if he were
efficient, it would probably make far more sense for him to use this approach
than any other!
</b>
Inheritance: What is it?
If there is already a class which can respond to a bunch of
different messages, what if you wanted to make a new, similar class which adds
just a couple of more messages? Why have to re-write the entire class?
Of course, in any good object-oriented language, you don't. All you need to do
is create a subclass (or derived class, in C++ terminology) of the original
class. This new class inherits all the existing messages, and therefore, all
the behavior of the original class. The original class is called the parent
class, or superclass, of the new class. Some more jargon -- a subclass is said
to be a specialization of its superclass, and the conversely a superclass a
generalization of its subclasses.
Inheritance also promotes reuse. You don't have to start from scratch when you
write a new program. You can simply reuse an existing repertoire of classes
that have behaviors similar to what you need in the new program.
For example, after creating the class Dog, you might make a subclass called
Wolf, which defines some wolf-specific messages, such as hunt. Or it might
make more sense to define a common class called Canis, of which both Dog and
Wolf are subclasses.
Much of the art of o-o programming is determining the best way to divide a
program into an economical set of classes. In addition to speeding development
time, proper class construction and reuse results in far fewer lines of code,
which translates to less bugs and lower maintenance costs.
===================
Junk or Subclassed data? Depends on your bias, doesn't it!!
Decidedly_Unsure
BTW an eg of much subclassing/inheritance occurs in many languages for MS
Windows, where most classes are derived from the superclass called Window.
For eg. a pushbutton may have available to it all the methods of a window
including resizing, minimizing etc even though not surfaced to the user.
A pushbutton could well ask: why do I need all these methods? I just need to
be clicked!! From the programmers viewpoint it just happens to be a more
efficient way to do things.
Guess man was really made in God's image after all. He's even beginning to
learn how to create efficiently!!