Common Creationist Arguments - Morality

http://www.stardestroyer.net/Creationism/Arguments/Morality.shtml ^

[gore3000]

Granted it's not exactly Christian, but doesn't Darwin lead us to the conclusion that we're related to **ALL OTHER LIVING THINGS**. I personally find this awe-inspiring and highly spiritual.

No, that's not correct. In Christianity, all living things are related through God the Creator. In evolution, in materialism, living things are just part of chemical process. Let's remember that according to materialists we are just a fortuitous conjunction of chemicals. In a way therefore we are not only related to living things but also to rocks, to gases, to water, to minerals and even to pond scum. I do not see anything very spiritual in that.

I would like to hear from you what spirituality there is in the following from Darwin's "On the Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life":

a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows.

[gore3000]

And that *identical* mutation that prevents us and chimps from making vitamin C?

It is interesting that you should post the above as proof of evolution. How can something that makes an individual less fit be proof of evolution? How can "natural selection", Darwin's deux ex machina have selected for the destruction of a beneficial trait?

[Kyrie]

Actually, I think my neighborhood basis does have a privileged position: it is the maximal neighborhood basis of +infinity consisting of connected opens.

In that case, are you not (as I suggested earlier) in essence building your case on connectedness?

Your knowledge of math is...substantial. I work with several people who have master's degrees (math) who have nearly no knowledge of set theory, model theory, etc. Unfortunately, my own knowledge is now out of date and out of practice...execpt for the basics :-(

But one more. Did you remember which "paradox" involving volumes arises from AC?

It's been fun!

[Virginia-American]

How can something that makes an individual less fit be proof of evolution?

I will answer your rhetorical question. The answer is that it demonstrates common descent: the odds of the same point mutation occuring in two species is approx. one over the square of the number of base pairs, whereas the odds of inheriting it is either one or one-half.

The reason that the mutation wasn't fatal (to our common ancestor) should also be obvious: we and chimps eat lots of fruit, so infact the mutation didn't make us less fit.

[Virginia-American]

Did you remember which "paradox" involving volumes arises from AC?

Banach-Tarski - you can divide a solid sphere into five non-measurable sets and reassemble them as two spheres.

[Kyrie]

Bingo!

So...do you believe in AC?

[Virginia-American]

Yeah, the Constructivists always left me cold. Now answer me, what's your take on the Riemann Hypothesis? I find some of this stuff fascinating.

Is it possisble for the RH to be Godel-undecidable? Eg, the AC is needed to construct the Hilbert-Polya operator or something?

Have you seen the 'proof' that the RH is true with probability one?

[Kyrie]

Is it possisble for the RH to be Godel-undecidable? Eg, the AC is needed to construct the Hilbert-Polya operator or something?

I confess to more ignorance on the Riemann Hypothesis than on the previous topics we were discussing. I am flagging The_Reader_David for this also; I suspect that his opionions would be better informed than mine. However...even if AC is not involved, it would be possible for the Riemann Hypothesis to be formally undecidable in PA or even ZF. I don't know of anything that would prevent the RH from being undecidable, but my knowledge of undecidability is about twenty years old. I don't believe that any of the "forcing" methods that I had seen could prove its undecidability—if indeed it is undecidable—since it is (I think) first order. OTOH, when I left that field, they were looking for a method that would be to number theory as forcing was to set theory. If such a method has been found, I'm sure someone is trying to use it on RH.

Have you seen the 'proof' that the RH is true with probability one?

In other words, the relative density of possible counterexamples must be zero? No, is there a link? Thanks for the link you provided for that number theory/physics page.

Here's an idea for getting the RH proved. Find a brilliant young mathematician who owns a book that mentions the RH. Arrange an "accident" so that he dies in his early twenties. Forge a note that appears to be his handwriting in the margin of the book that says, "I have found a truly marvelous proof of this hypothesis..." etc. and arrange for the book to be found in his belongings.

Just kidding.

[Virginia-American]

Denjoy's probabalistic interpretation of the RH

Here's an idea for getting the RH proved

Whenever G H Hardy took a journey he would always send Littlewood a postcard that was too small to contain the proof. Since God wouldn't let him get posthumous credit for the proof, He would insure that Hardy would get back OK. (or somehting like that)

[Kyrie]

The "probabilistic interpretation" link was good. I would question both of the main assumptions, however. They smack of common fallacies in probability, such as "if we can't see why one outcome should be more likely than another, they ought to have equal probability" and "if we can't see any connection between events, they ought to be independent."

Still, the assumptions are not unreasonable. But then, neither is the RH.

[farmer18th]

Believers of ..Christianity ... bristle at any suggestion that their religions may justify or encourage violence

False premise. I didn't get much further than this absurd notion. Violence is part of life--whether the civil "violence" of the executioner or the justified violance of the patriarch defending his home.