Nice evolution controversy article

[herenorthere]

Here's an interesting (and long) article from our Sunday paper - http://www.courant.com/news....rtheast - which'll probably be available free online for a couple more days.

We don't need yet another hastily typed, poorly spelled debate here.  The article gives a nice overview and says where to read more.  None of us have anything worth adding.

 

[endparenthesis]

Your link got screwed up.

 

[herenorthere]

Thanks - it should work now.

 

[endparenthesis]

The other day I read a chapter from Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene (the chapter "Selfish Genes and Selfish Memes"... I was reading a different book that had it as an excerpt), and it had a really interesting, elemental perspective on evolution that I hadn't been exposed to before. Great read.

Still reading the article, but I don't want a debate to start up either. Doing one big comprehensive one is nice... but after that it's just going in circles. I should exercise self-restraint and not contribute, but when someone has a blatantly inaccurate concept of the science they're arguing against (you know, so wrong that it sounds like their school never even taught them about it, hmm), I feel like I'm doing something wrong by holding back information.

 

[jimscott]

It still boils down to whom or what initiated all this: God or randomness. I say skip the how to's and how long's and get to the bottom line. We weren't there for the details.

 

[TheAlphaWolf]

Quote[/b] ]the incredibly slow, chance processes of evolution cannot have led to such evidently engineered structures as the biochemical machinery of the living cell

Quote[/b] ]God or randomness. I say skip the how to's and how long's and get to the bottom line. We weren't there for the details.

wrong. There's nothing random about evolution, as it is natural SELECTION. If they/you were reffering to abiogenesis, then that doesn't involve evolution, and it's not random either. The laws of nature aren't random. this will bond with that, etc. You can't say snowflakes, with their incredible complexity, formed from anything random.

Quote[/b] ]leading intelligent design theorists Phillip Johnson and Michael Behe (bee-hee).

but of course intelligent design is not a theory, or even a hypothesis.

Quote[/b] ] A 2004 Gallup poll that asked their views on human origins found only a small fraction (13 percent) believe life arose strictly from the natural processes of evolution

argh! evolution does not say anything about the origins of life darnit!
well, I haven't finished reading it but i'm tired.

 

[TheAlphaWolf]

Quote[/b] ] but evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense - an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection - is not. Any system of thought that denies or seeks to explain away the overwhelming evidence for design in biology is ideology, not science," the cardinal wrote.

that's driving me nuts. he obviously doesn't know a thing about evolution, science, or the evidence. I'll reply by saying that evolution isn't random (as i said already), and they're the ones ignoring the evidence against design... or at least about bad design. http://www.freewebs.com/oolon/SMOGGM.htm
How can a perfect being create such unperfect things? and why?

Quote[/b] ]he argues that only in a world where the laws of nature are not absolute can free will and miracles (which by definition are outside nature) be possible

if you want to say that quantum mechanics are because of free will, then you would have to say that the piece of paper to my right also has free will because the same things that atoms do in my body are also happening in that piece of paper.
besides, you can predict what atoms will do. I'm not saying I know much about quantum mechanics, but in chemistry we were taught about how the negative and positive charges and blah blah. Even if i'm wrong, I KNOW you can predict things in the "big" scheme of things. like radioactive dating, etc. It's not about how predictable single atoms are, but about what most atoms do, etc.
besides (like I said I don't really know about quantum mechanics... i'm sure plenty of you know more than I do so please correct me), The way I understand it, we don't understand exactly what goes on inside atoms. We can't even see single atoms, and we only know that gluons, quarks, etc. exist because we smash subatomic particles together and they come out. That's like smashing a computer and seeing it's components to see how it works.
one cannot say a computer is random because we don't know what goes on inside it.

*trying hard not to give links about intelligent falling*

 

[herenorthere]

To quote the title of the current road rage topic; "it doesn't pay to get all worked up."

 

[JBL]

Quote[/b] (herenorthere @ Aug. 31 2005,9:21)]To quote the title of the current road rage topic; "it doesn't pay to get all worked up."

LOL Bruce. To steal and modify another quote: 'If you post it, they will come...'

 

[TheAlphaWolf]

LOL! you think THAT'S being worked up?
I even tried reading it as objectively as I could (without remembering what I was actually thinking) and it doesn't really look like I was worked up.

 

[SarraceniaScott]

Quote[/b] (herenorthere @ Aug. 31 2005,3:50)]We don't need yet another hastily typed, poorly spelled debate here.  The article gives a nice overview and says where to read more.  None of us have anything worth adding.

Dont prezoom too speek four me I have lots werth ading and i spel gud

 

[SarraceniaScott]

Quote[/b] (jimscott @ Aug. 31 2005,5:05)]It still boils down to whom or what initiated all this: God or randomness.

Can you say with certainty the two are mutually exclusive?

 

[Est]

Quote[/b] ]besides, you can predict what atoms will do.

Try telling that one to Heisenberg.

Quote[/b] ]That's like smashing a computer and seeing it's components to see how it works.
one cannot say a computer is random because we don't know what goes on inside it.

But... But I created my computer.

Quote[/b] ]wrong. There's nothing random about evolution, as it is natural SELECTION

Just FYI, there is. There is a degree of randomness in everything, Mendelian principles, evolution, the works (I realize this could qualify as a nitpick, but that's not the intent...)

Quote[/b] ]Can you say with certainty the two are mutually exclusive?

Thank you for bringing up this often ignored point. Some people go "Science science science," some other people go "Jesus Jesus Jesus," when did we eliminate the posability of things not being so cut and dry (gasp! can you imagine?!)

(Ok, most of this is for joke purposes, I don't need some random person going on to wikipedia and trying to make any statements more valid [it's a joke, you get to bend things], or someone going ape over the computer comment. Man I hate having to do disclaimers.)

 

[Outsiders71]

The bottom line is: darwin/evolution is a man-made theory and nothing more. No one will ever be able to explain the way of God's will, for he works in ways we cannot understand.

 

[tink]

Debating is good for the soul.

 

[endparenthesis]

Quote[/b] (Outsiders71 @ Aug. 31 2005,11:57)]No one will ever be able to explain the way of God's will, for he works in ways we cannot understand.

Please explain that to the people who keep telling me how God works.

 

[fatboy]

Quote[/b] ]The bottom line is: darwin/evolution is a man-made theory and nothing more.  No one will ever be able to explain the way of God's will, for he works in ways we cannot understand.

Unless you have conclusive proof otherwise, god is a man made theory too.

 

[jimscott]

Luis: Although I didn't call it natural selection, that's what I intended.

JBL: Well I was going to say something about cornfields to be funny, but then I realized that there was something useful from that movie. Remember how the family members thought that the father was nuts at first? They didn't see the ballfield and the players if they didn't believe / have faith. It was sheer nonsense to them. Only when they exercised a smidgeon of "want to" within themselves, did they see the field and ballplayers.

Scott: There are those who feel that the 6 consecutive 24 hour periods was the way things happened and therefore evolution could not have occurred. But things don't have to be interpreted that way. Could God have done things that way? Yes? Did He? I can't say for certain, but I kinda doubt it. Is it wrong to think that He chose to use what we understand to be and call evolution as His way of doing things? No. Can I prove one way or the other? No. I don't think that God & evolution is mutually exclusive at all.

Troy, et al: There is nothing out there associated with God, the Bible, etc.... that can be deemed proof, that an atheist or "devil's advocate" can't rationalize away. I know, because I was and atheist before I became a Christian. I wanted proof and didn't get any. All one could do is point to evidences, many of them. Taken together, they still won't convince a person who has made up their mind that it is all garbage. But to a person who has a want to attitude, who is expressing some amount of faith, it makes sense - a lot of sense. And that urges that kind of person to dig deeper and look for more. That further allows their faith to grow. Can a person of strong faith convince an atheist or devil's advocate of truth? For the most part - no. But I am proof that it isn't impossible.

 

[StifflerMichael]

I really hate how the general public does not know the difference between a theory and fact. From wikipedia: "people use the word "theory" to signify "conjecture", "speculation", or "opinion". In contrast, a scientific theory is a model of the world (or some portion of it) from which falsifiable hypotheses can be generated and be verified through empirical observation. In this sense, "theory" and "fact" do not stand in opposition, but rather exist in a reciprocal relationship — for example, it is a "fact" that an apple dropped on earth will fall towards the center of the planet in a straight line, and the "theory" which explains it is the current theory of gravitation. Currently, the modern synthesis is the most powerful theory explaining variation and speciation, and within the science of biology, it has completely replaced earlier accepted explanations for the origin of species, including creationism and Lamarckism."

 

[StifflerMichael]

...and evolution has nothing to do with the origins of life!! Every time the 'evolution debate' come up, so does the origins of life debate.