Posted on 09/29/2005 3:36:00 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
Though, I don't share your optimism - I sure appreciate your mind expanding terminology. What might these other "non-terran" environments be?...space?...gaseous planets or some such?
"non-terran" simply means "not (of) Earth"
"non-terrestrial" means "not LIKE Earth"
I seriously doubt that we'd be able to recognize life which developed on a non-terrestrial world, even assuming we ever manage the trick of expanding out of this puny little system.
Was this taken from Augustine's review of Origin of Species?
Also, how can you accuse "Christianity" of resisting lightning rods - that's like saying that "Evolution" promoted Piltdown man.
1. he got the definition of "irreducible complexity(sic)" correct. the proper term is "irreducible simplicity" but I suppose that didn't sound grandiose and arcane enough for IDiots, so they goosed it for mass appeal.
2. so it takes 11 steps for one form of blood clotting. there are other forms of blood clotting, are there not? there are less efficient but similar forms of blood clotting, are there not? do any of the chemicals in the clotting cascade have any other biological function (implying they might have been adapted from one function to another)? etc...
3. evolution does not require completely unguided processes.
inherent properties of matter and energy provide some factors which favor some outcomes over others - that is a form of organizing principle or "guidance".
there are other basic, unavoidable, highly organized factors - orbital mechanics for example - which render the Earth-life system other than "completely random".
Climate factors generally change gradually, rather than suddenly. Such cliomate factors as temperature and average rainfall, atmospheric composition, etc... provide relatively stable selective pressures on populations of organisms, and thus effectively "guide" selection towards advantageous mutations surviving and reproducing more successfully than climatologically disadvantageous mutations. etc...
More developed life forms also "guide" selection through various forms of breeding preference paradigms. These seem to tend to accentuate speciation.
None of these factors requires the organism to "know" diddly-squat about "good" and "bad" or "useful" and "unuseful" adaptations.
None of these factors requires an intelligent designer, either.
It's good to know that you're not a raving tyrannical evolutionist.
Well, if we can get rid of the public schools we can clear up this mess, yes? Seriously, anatomy and physiology are worthwhile, practical areas of scientific study that could be pursued without regard to evolution - do you agree?
Thanks, RunningWolf, I was beginning to question my ability to synthesize everything I'm learning on these threads.
I sure wish Nathan had been around then, it would have made my chores much easier if I had only known there was no fossil record.
Wolf
Heh, and the ATF is a convenience store in Texas ;)
(Sorry, I just couldn't resist.)
Thank you; I tend to try not to rave too much. I'm getting older, and it's hard on my back.
Well, if we can get rid of the public schools we can clear up this mess, yes?
I am a strong supporter of a private school system.
Seriously, anatomy and physiology are worthwhile, practical areas of scientific study that could be pursued without regard to evolution - do you agree?
For most practical purposes I agree. There are a few areas of study that do directly need knowledge and data acquired through the ToE, and several that benefit from at least a grasp of the evolutionary process (what you would probably consider 'micro-evolution'), but someone ignorant of evolutionary instruction would probably still do okay in most fields that require no more than a layman's understanding of genetic biology. Whatever tools and knowledge their jobs used that would be developed through continued work involving evolution could be provided and used without them actually having to formulate them personally, or even understand how they work.
Not everyone has to be a genetic biologist. The world needs ditch diggers, too.
Foolish man of flesh! How can you correct your diabolical equipment for the flaws built in because of the Fall? There are things you were not meant to know.
How so?
Those three aren't the basis of the scientific method?
Or should we add a fourth, the evolutionist's method of making up imaginary scenerio's, the Sci-Fi, method.
Hmm. I thought green was ground? At least, when I'm changing out a light switch, the bare copper wire (isn't that the ground?) gets attached to the green screw. Oh, well. As long as everything is color coded, I'm fine.
If God created the world and all life upon it exactly the way it is today, then He put a lot of effort into making all the evidence point to evolution. If God went to such trouble to make it look like we evolved, but we didn't, then God is a liar. I, for one, do not believe that God put together such an elaborate lie. The reason for all the evidence of evolution is because we evolved.
It IS a sign of weak faith when you have to disbelieve the mountain of multidisciplinary evidence supporting evolution (may I suggest you try searching "evolution" on the PubMed database and see how many hits you return) in order to maintain your belief in God. Personally, being a scientist who sees the evidence of evolution every day, I do not find my faith in God in the least bit challenged. That's because my faith is strong.
As long as they're color-coded, I think me and my family are safe! ;)
You have this backward in that ID posits that that irreducibly complex organisms cannot be the product of gradual development over a long period of time.
In regard what particular element of concern is VadeRetro's statement "backward" to yours?
All of the parts must be present from the beginning, not that it will stop working if parts are taken away. It is the origin of the parts and the controlling instructions that are in question.
VadeRetro's statement of the thesis of "irreducible complexity" comes a good deal closer the Behe's formulations, and the explanations in his book than yours does.
We're fairly used to creationists preening and crowing and unilaterally declaring victory with a bust hand, so this is nothing new.
Hence "evolution cannot explain" its existence? Did I fail to anticipate your exact favored wording? Who cares what your exact favored wording is?
ID is not about change, it is about origin.
Actually, no. It refuses to address that directly. "It might have been the Raelians, but that would be stupid. It might have been Brahma, but that's bull. We know what it was, but WE'RE NOT SAYING because that would be ... something ... mumble mumble ... It's not that kind of theory."
It's not about origin. It's about what evolution cannot explain because evolution posits no Designer.
That said ...
Evolution says that all of that came about over a long period of time, by random chance, unguided and without purpose. It would also lead us to believe that somehow all of this randomness can account for a highly sophisticated, complex system coming into existence - natural selection assessing each mutation, keeping "useful" changes, rejecting each "un-useful" change.
I hope the above isn't your answer to the counter-challenge, to state the theory of evolution and give a quick summary of the lines of evidence for same. Because if it is, you have failed to distinguish yourself from your YEC/ID brethren in any way.
Do the proofs of YECism include when someone signs off and someone else refuses to see?
"The Literature" wow, makes it sound like an impressively vast field of scientific study, doesn't it? Like something that couldn't be digested in about a week of bedtime reading. Of what does the literature consist, that actually even gives the appearance of being scientific? Basically, Behe and Dembski (who is a mathematician, by the way), who have been taken apart inch by inch and thrashed by far more serious and competent scientists and mathematicians more times than you can shake a stick at.
Filling your books with nice looking engineering drawings, or vast piles of indigestible formulas, does not necessaily mean you have automatically earned your spurs in science.
If you want to see what serious mainstream science has to say about the literature you are touting, a good start would be "Finding Darwin's God", by Miller, an actual mainstream scientist with a serious reputation, and a strong commitment to christian teachings, or you could find several summaries of the counter-arguments in PH's list of links. Broken down, Behe and Dempski's arguments amount to saying "Because my giant brain can't imagine how something could have happened, it must be a miracle". Now, this is an opinion, and anyone is entitled to have an opinion, and even to dress up their opinions in fancy sunday-go-to-meeting clothes, but they aren't entitled to claim that throwing up their hands in dispair and giving up, even if you do it with fancy diagrams and formulas, is a scientific achievement.
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