Prove Evolution: Win $250,000!

I still say that by definition, an evolutionary process cannot be dysfuntional.

Well, okay. I still say that once we define extinction as "bad", then things that could lead us to it are by definition, dysfunctional. So there ;)

But even if it were in some sense, the basic thrust of my argument is still that we don't regard what chimpanzees do as morally wrong, even if they were to wipe their entire species out deceiving one anaother.

And...? The point is that we construct something resembling a rational case against it. We don't have to worry about things like "morally wrong" - the whole point was that concepts like "morally wrong" are vague and squishy and based on someone's notion of what God says. The whole point is to replace "morally wrong" with some other concept of wrong that is based on things like reason and logic. Who cares if we think what they do is morally wrong? We can pretty clearly see that if they were to do that, it would be bad because it could lead to some outcome that we consider to be bad itself.

It's about something closer to obective truth than just "God says so." Sure, we can't account for it in terms of moral wrongs, but I'm bailing out of the notion of moral wrongs and searching for something better in the first place, remember?

If Eichmann was just as much a product of evolution as chimpanzees, then he was no more wrong than they in deceiving those he regarded as his opponnents.

Let's look at it from another perspective for a moment. Suppose I were able to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that God does not exist - nevermind that I can't, assume I could for a moment. And you, despite your fervent belief that God exists, had no choice but to admit to the truth of what I was saying - you accepted that there was no God, and there never was a God. Suppose that were to come to pass for a moment, even though it's pretty unlikely. In such a case, would you also change you mind about Eichmann? If I showed you that there was no God, would you also conclude that what Eichmann did was perfectly fine, and okay? Would you do it yourself? Or, if not on such a massive scale, would you take the non-existence of God as a reason to plug that neighbor kid who likes to drive past your house at 3AM with the stereo pounding?

If there were no God at all, would you suddenly think that what Eichmann did was A-OK? Would you behave that way yourself? Why or why not?

My point is that a culturaly normative moral system that evolves and changes relative to cultures does not give an adequate accounting of what we both viscerally perceive as the hideously and murderously cruel, despicable, immoral acts of Adolph Eichmann.

I tend to think they would both explain how such things arise, and how we should prevent them from arising, and how we can deal with them if they do. I suppose we'll just have to disagree. ;)

FREEP WITHDRAWAL IS FINALLY OVER! I was almost getting to the point where I was ready to kill someone. So, anyway, what were we talking about? Oh yeah, right to life. Let's see, where were we...

We don't study math because it makes us feel good - ask any third grader how he feels about fractions ;)

A good many of them aren't terribly attracted to it, but some are, and those are the ones who become mathematicians. The rest go into politics or something.

It may be true that it engenders an emotional response in us, but that's not why we do it - we do it because the doing of it brings us practical benefits.

HA! HA! HA! What "practical benefits" did it bring Galileo and Copernicus to study the planets and conclude that the Church was bass-ackwards in saying that the earth was the center of the UN*V%#$E? There are, and have been throughout history, people who've devoted their lives to learning and discerning what's around them without the least regard for how it would affect them practically. You are quite resoundingly wrong on this.

it [slaugtering mankind to end pollution] violates our axiom that a person's preference for life is paramount to someone else's desire to end it

Funny, I thought "our" axiom (according to you) was survival of the species. But now, it looks like you're making a moral assumption, doesn't it? Seems to show the hollowness of your later statement that laws based on "reason" are superior to laws based on "morality", I'd say.

All this illustrates is that we need a set of axioms with which to begin - some first principles.

Well wake up and smell the java, General! We've already had such axioms for quite some time, as Diamond and I have been trying to explain to you.

You seem to be contradicting yourself left and right. First you say that reason alone is enough, then you say that we need axioms, which by definition are things that can't be based on reason, because they exists ipso facto. When they're spoken of in regard to how humans should conduct themselves, then we have a word for it: "morality".

If you'd like, though, longshadow was my foil, and might be willing to discuss this particular aspect of the thread with you further.

I feel used....

;-)

Placemarker.

Well, that last remark in #703 led me to look back on those posts where you were being used, and I saw something that I apparently didn't see before, that I'm curious about. From #503:

Well, one has to be careful to keep straight those things that a purely Mathematical abstractions and those that have some relation to physical reality. The ratio of a circle's circumference to it's diameter is a manifestation of the nature of the space in which we exist.

I seem to recall hearing somewhere that pi, or some whole-number fraction thereof, can be determined through some kind of basic infinite series, like 1+1/4-1/16+... or something (probably not that particular one). If that's the case then it would be a purely mathematical abstraction. Do you know anything about that?

I think I can help..... the thing to keep in mind is that "pi" and the ratio of circumference and diameter aren't always the same... (you might be tempted at this point to ask: "what sort of crack are you smoking, longshadow?", but bear with me). C/d = pi in a Euclidean geometry, which is the one we are most familiar with, and which also corresponds the everyday world in which we measure circles. But the C/d ratio is NOT pi in non-Euclidean geometeries, which correspond to curved (as opposed to flat) space.

Now, the number "pi" occurs in many places throughout Mathematics, not just geometry. There are series expansions such as you suggested (I can't remember the exact one, but it doesn't really matter), plus many other equations that involve the transcendental number "pi," but don't have any direct connection to geometry.

So "pi" has a direct connection to our physical reality in the sense that our physical reality happens to be for all practical purposes "flat" or Euclidean; hence C/d = pi.

"Pi" also pervades abstract Mathematics, which simply means that various branches of Mathematics are interelated to each other. In some case, we know what the interelationships are, in other case, we may not yet know or fully appreciate the interelationships, and their may yet be interelationships we don't even know about.

In as much as all of Mathematics is interelated in SOME way (it all involves logic and abstract objects, some of which we call "numbers"), it doesn't surprise me that particular numbers pop up over and over again. I see no mystical significance in that sort of thing. Some numerical values are bound to recur throughout Mathematics; that WE happen to have attached special names to them (zero, one, "e", and "pi" for example) doesn't change the fact that they are just numbers.

FREEP WITHDRAWAL IS FINALLY OVER! I was almost getting to the point where I was ready to kill someone. So, anyway, what were we talking about? Oh yeah, right to life.

"You have a right to live, so long as you don't get in between me and my FR..." ;)

A good many of them aren't terribly attracted to it, but some are, and those are the ones who become mathematicians. The rest go into politics or something.

Please. If that's the case, let's limit the study of fractions to those who like it, and might therefore be future mathematicians. My son will be happy, anyway.

HA! HA! HA! What "practical benefits" did it bring Galileo and Copernicus to study the planets and conclude that the Church was bass-ackwards in saying that the earth was the center of the UN*V%#$E? There are, and have been throughout history, people who've devoted their lives to learning and discerning what's around them without the least regard for how it would affect them practically. You are quite resoundingly wrong on this.

This is my favorite thread in a long time, because it lets me get all pedantic and logical-like. Wanna know which logical fallacy this is? ;)

Funny, I thought "our" axiom (according to you) was survival of the species. But now, it looks like you're making a moral assumption, doesn't it? Seems to show the hollowness of your later statement that laws based on "reason" are superior to laws based on "morality", I'd say.

Where did I say we had one single axiom as our principle? Heck, God supposedly gave us ten commandments, not one. The Constitution has seven articles in the body, and 27 amendments. Why would you think we would only need one axiom?

I don't claim that laws based on reason are necessarily superior to laws based on someone's notion of "morality", only that they are at least as good in most or all cases, and have some important advantages in other respects.

Well wake up and smell the java, General! We've already had such axioms for quite some time, as Diamond and I have been trying to explain to you.

And what are they? Does God say that elective abortion is wrong, or not? Jewish law says it's just fine until quickening. If you want to persuade them, you'll have to do better than "God says so," since they are quite sure that God doesn't say that at all.

You seem to be contradicting yourself left and right. First you say that reason alone is enough, then you say that we need axioms, which by definition are things that can't be based on reason, because they exists ipso facto.

They are matters of definition. For example, we would accept most people's preference for being alive as a priori valid. These may be assumptions, but your "morality" is also predicated on a pile of assumptions, not least of which is the assumption of a God that you can't prove actually exists. In this respect, laws based on reason are hardly inferior to laws based one someone's notion of "morality".

When they're spoken of in regard to how humans should conduct themselves, then we have a word for it: "morality".

And why should they conduct themselves in such a way? Because God says so?

I feel used....

That's okay. If it helps, I feel kind of dirty, pimping you out like that :^)

This is my favorite thread in a long time, because it lets me get all pedantic and logical-like. Wanna know which logical fallacy this is? ;)

Ooh! Ooh! Don't tell me! Let me guess: veritas ad errorem?

I now give you a certain spattering of quotes from your last:

Does God say that elective abortion is wrong, or not? Jewish law says it's just fine until quickening. If you want to persuade them, you'll have to do better than "God says so," since they are quite sure that God doesn't say that at all.

your "morality" is also predicated on a pile of assumptions, not least of which is the assumption of a God that you can't prove actually exists.

And why should they conduct themselves in such a way? Because God says so?

These quotes illustrate that you're missing the whole point. Nowhere was I citing God as a reason why morality is real, because it would be useless to do so with someone who doesn't believe in Him. My initial dispute with you was over you saying that we could "bootstrap" moral laws for ourselves. If that simply means that we can determine moral laws for ourselves, in the general sense that a mathematician determines formulae, then I'd agree with you. But if you're saying that we can decide them for ourselves, then that's where I'm disagreeing.

...If this god had revealed himself enough to me then I'd believe in his existence. But the evidence I've been presented so far does not convince me.

....Then, please tell me, what should be my position? When is doubting OK? (and please remember that I'm not convinced of the claim that your or any other god exists)

That is a very serious question. I take it so seriously that I have been pondering the best way to answer for quite some time. I will say this; It is your allegiance that determines your present position. In the context of our overall discussion, in recognition of someone who has gone before, perhaps it might be best if I quote a few excerpts from Cornelius Van Til;

[snip] "...You may think I have exposed myself terribly. Instead of talking about God as something vague and indefinite, after the fashion of the modernist, the Barthian, and the mystic, a god so empty of content and remote from experience as to make no demands upon men, I have loaded down the idea of God with “antiquated” science and “contradictory” logic. It seems as though I have heaped insult upon injury by presenting the most objectionable sort of God I could find. It ought to be very easy for you to prick my bubble. You may be ready to pile over my head bushels of facts taken from the standard college texts on physics, biology, anthropology, and psychology, or crush me with sixty-ton tanks taken from Kant’s famous book The Critique of Pure Reason. But I have been under these hot showers now a good many times. Before you take the trouble to open the faucet again there is a preliminary point I want to bring up. I have already referred to it when we were discussing the matter of test or standard. The point is this. Not believing in God, you do not think yourself to be God’s creature. And not believing in God you do not think the universe has been created by God. That is to say, you think of yourself and the world as just being there. Now if you actually are God’s creature, then your present attitude is very unfair to Him. In that case it is even an insult to Him. And since you have insulted God, His displeasure rests upon you. God and you are not on “speaking terms.” And you have very good reasons for trying to prove that He does not exist. If He does exist, He will punish you for your disregard of Him. You are therefore wearing colored glasses. And this determines everything you say about the facts and reasons for not believing in Him. You have, as it were, entered upon God’s estate and have had your picnics and hunting parties there without asking His permission. You have taken the grapes of God’s vineyard without paying Him any rent, and you have insulted His representatives who asked you for it.

I must make an apology to you at this point. We who believe in God have not always made this position plain. Often enough we have talked with you about facts and sound reasons as though we agreed with you on what these really are. In our arguments for the existence of God we have frequently assumed that you and we together have an area of knowledge on which we agree. But we really do not grant that you see any fact in any dimension of life truly. We really think you have colored glasses on your nose when you talk about chickens and cows, as well as when you talk about the life hereafter. We should have told you this more plainly than we did. But we were really a little ashamed of what would appear to you as a very odd or extreme position. We were so anxious not to offend you that we offended our own God. But we dare no longer present our God to you as smaller or less exacting than He really is. He wants to be presented as the All-Conditioner, as the emplacement on which even those who deny Him must stand.

Now in presenting all your reasons to me, you have assumed that such a God does not exist. You have taken for granted that you need no emplacement of any sort outside of yourself. You have assumed the autonomy of your own experience. Consequently you are unable—that is, unwilling—to accept as a fact any fact that would challenge your self-sufficiency. And you are bound to call that contradictory which does not fit into the reach of your intellectual powers. You remember what old Procrustus did, using his bed as a measure. If his visitors were too long, he cut off a few slices at each end; if they were too short, he used the curtain stretcher on them. It is that sort of thing that I feel you have done with every fact of human experience. And I am asking you to be critical of this your own most basic assumption. Will you not go into the basement of your own experience to see what has been gathering there while you were busy here and there with the surface inspection of life? You may be greatly surprised at what you find.

[snip] If I have offended you it has been because I dare not, even in the interest of winning you, offend my God. And if I have not offended you I have not spoken of my God. For what you have really done in your handling of the evidence for belief in God is to set yourself up as God. You have made the reach of your intellect the standard of what is possible or not possible. You have thereby virtually determined that you intend never to meet a fact that points to God. Facts, to be facts at all—facts, that is, with decent scientific and philosophic standing—must have your stamp instead of that of God upon them as their virtual creator.

Of course I realize full well that you do not pretend to create redwood trees and elephants. But you do virtually assert that redwood trees and elephants cannot be created by God. You have heard of the man who never wanted to see or be a purple cow. Well, you have virtually determined that you never will see or be a created fact. With Sir Arthur Eddington you say, as it were, “What my net can’t catch isn’t fish.” Nor do I pretend, of course, that once you have been brought face to face with this condition, you can change your attitude. No more than the Ethiopian can change his skin or the leopard his spots can you change your attitude. You have cemented your colored glasses to your face so firmly that you cannot take them off even when you sleep. Freud has not had even a glimpse of the sinfulness of sin as it controls the human heart. Only the great Physician through His blood atonement on the cross and by the gift of His Spirit can take those colored glasses off and make you see facts as they are, facts as evidence, as inherently compelling evidence, for the existence of God.

[snip] It ought to be pretty plain now what sort of God I believe in. It is God, the All-Conditioner. It is the God who created all things, who by His providence conditioned my youth, making me believe in Him, and who in my later life by His grace still makes me want to believe in Him. It is the God who also controlled your youth and so far has apparently not given you His grace that you might believe in Him.

You may reply to this: “Then what’s the use of arguing and reasoning with me?” Well, there is a great deal of use in it. You see, if you are really a creature of God, you are always accessible to Him. When Lazarus was in the tomb he was still accessible to Christ who called him back to life. It is this on which true preachers depend. The prodigal thought he had clean escaped from the father’s influence. In reality the father controlled the “far country” to which the prodigal had gone. So it is in reasoning. True reasoning about God is such as stands upon God as upon the emplacement that alone gives meaning to any sort of human argument. And such reasoning, we have a right to expect, will be used of God to break down the one-horse chaise of human autonomy.

[snip] I know that it is not in my power to convert you at the end of my argument. I think the argument is sound. I hold that belief in God is not merely as reasonable as other belief; it is not a little more probable, or infinitely more probable, than unbelief. I hold rather that unless you believe in God you can logically believe in nothing else. I know that you can to your own satisfaction, by the help of the biologists, the psychologists, the logicians, and the Bible critics, reduce everything I have said to the circular meanderings of a hopeless authoritarian. Well, my meanderings have, to be sure, been circular; they have made everything turn on God. So now I shall leave you with Him, and with His mercy."

Why I Believe In God
Cornelius Van Til

Cordially

Or, if not on such a massive scale, would you take the non-existence of God as a reason to plug that neighbor kid who likes to drive past your house at 3AM with the stereo pounding?

Don't give me any ideas. Does that same kid drive by your house, too?

Cordially,

That's okay. If it helps, I feel kind of dirty, pimping you out like that :^)

No problem, as long as you don't take too much of my gross profit every night!

And when it's messy and incomprehensible, why that's evidence of design, too.

Messy and incomprehensible are your words....absolutely not mine! My words were ....which boggles the human mind, and only a pitiful fraction of which the human mind has yet to discover, let alone comprehend. Simply because something boggles the human mind, and because the human mind cannot (yet) comprehend it, it hardly justifies the leap to describe it as 'messy' (unless one arrogantly assumes that everything incomprehensible to him deserves such a label). Should the average ten year old, when confronted with the theories of Isaac Newton, or the written choral music of Bach, feel justified in calling such works of genius 'messy', rather than simply acknowledging that they are 'incomprehensible' to him (yet)?

(I'm not one to proffer ultimatums, but, should you say 'yes,' I'm about to give up on you.... :)

And I must point out that the fact that something has significance to us is not itself evidence of intelligence behind that thing....

As I must point out that the fact that something can be traced back to an origin which is either readily visible, or comprehensible, to the human mind should not be one of the prerequisites for acknowledging its existence. How arrogant we are as a species when we require our own intelligence/senses/cognition to be the determining factor as to the very existence of something -- especially when (speculation has it, in many circles that) that Something may even be responsible for the fact that we possess intelligence/senses/cognition at all.

What generated that fern - a simple process consisting of a few simple rules, or a vast and omnipotent deity who personally reached down to arrange the very atoms into that particular pattern.

Even though I am not particularly impressed by the Barnsley fern itself, I am in awe of the development of the mathematics that made its representation possible. And no, it was not generated by a 'simple process' consisting of a few 'simple rules'. Its creation would not have been possible just a few years ago, simply because the theory/technology/programming techniques did not exist. That so-called 'simple process' was centuries in the making.

Your labeling the fern as 'simple' would be analogous to someone saying that turning on a light fixture and lighting up a room is 'simple'. A few centuries ago, such an event would have been considered impossible. But today, because we have unearthed (not created) the necessary technology, the turning on of the light and the creation of the virtual fern, appear simple, yet they are anything but. And it all goes back to the fact that (as you yourself say) appearances are deceiving. We tend to take for granted all of the intelligence/inventiveness/'progress' that had to take place in order for the flicking of a light switch (or the viewing of your fern) to occur. And, even more importantly, we tend to overlook that which made the intelligence/inventiveness/'progress' possible.

Of course God didn't arrange the very atoms into that particular pattern. Even though we seem to vehemently disagree on the core of this argument, you surely know that that is not what I am saying. Let me explain further after I (*cough*) refer to another of your statements:

....the blueprint [for the Barnsley fern] is simple enough that we can reproduce it on a $100 programmable pocket calculator. This hardly smacks of omniscience and omnipotence.

I had to pick myself up off the floor before even attempting to respond to this one. (Excuse me for a moment. I need to brush the rug lint off of my skirt)....

So you're saying (please tell me you're not) that, because man can so easily program a $100 pocket calculator to design the image of a virtual fern, all of the wonderful and miraculous designs of (non-virtual) 'nature' are, similarly, easily accomplished/understandable/reproduce-able? Or (my second guess) are you saying that I was somehow foolish to trace the genesis of the Barnsley fern back to God (in that He provided man with the mind/tools/formulae with which to design it)?

God didn't place the prerequisite matter/mathematical formulae/intelligence here so that man could specifically design such fractals. He provided the tools and the raw materials. What we do with them is a product of our own free will. Whether we choose to occupy ourselves with frivolous pursuits (such as the creation of virtual whatevers), self-defeating inventions (such as weapons of mass destruction), or aesthetically uplifting creations (such as the works of Rembrandt or Beethoven) is the ongoing product of man's free will. I am in awe of the tools we have been given with which to work (more and more of which we 'discover' every day). I am often in dismay regarding the ways in which we choose to use them, or the way we (1) so frivolously take them for granted, or (2) choose to pat ourselves on the back, not for our (sometimes justified) wise and judicious use of them, but rather for our 'creation' of them. Man has 'created' nothing. He has merely used (sometimes wisely, inventively, and intelligently....sometimes foolishly, unimaginatively, and stupidly) that which was created for him.

The wise, humble and judicious man takes credit for unearthing buried treasure. The foolish, arrogant and careless man claims that it is, and always has been, his.

My senators are senators Schumer and Clinton, but I defy you to discover any rational intelligence that could produce such a perverse outcome.

The search for consistency is one of the most valuable endeavors in the examination of anything. If nothing else, the state of New York exhibited that attribute to a remarkable degree by electing the two you mentioned above. At least you can reliably count on the (sad, but no less consistent) fact that your senatorial representation is bent on destroying our republic. I live in the state just to the south of yours. Our senators are the honorable Rick Santorum and the less-than-honorable (I am nothing if not delicate, n'est-ce pas?) Arlan Specter. Consistency appears to be an alien concept to the schizophrenic voters of the state of Pennsylvania. Count your (mixed) blessings.

On my way to a late supper. (Yes, I do believe that whatever I will order was placed there, indirectly, by the grace of God. No, He didn’t catch the fish or grow the beans, or bake the potato. But He had a hand in providing men the wherewithal to do all three….:)

Boost to the top of my self-search list.

Ooh! Ooh! Don't tell me! Let me guess: veritas ad errorem?

LOL - not quite. The fallacy of converse accident, which is a fallacy of extrapolation, or presuming that what is true of a few individual cases is also true of the majority of cases. We don't require doctors and engineers to study calculus because they're all budding little Galileo-wannabes. We make them study mathematics because the studying of mathematics makes them competent (not great - just competent) doctors and engineers. It's good for them because it's good for us - medicinal overdoses and collapsing bridges are the exception these days, not the rule. And I suspect that there are more doctors and engineers than there are Galileos ;)

These quotes illustrate that you're missing the whole point. Nowhere was I citing God as a reason why morality is real, because it would be useless to do so with someone who doesn't believe in Him. My initial dispute with you was over you saying that we could "bootstrap" moral laws for ourselves. If that simply means that we can determine moral laws for ourselves, in the general sense that a mathematician determines formulae, then I'd agree with you. But if you're saying that we can decide them for ourselves, then that's where I'm disagreeing.

Okay, I think I'm with you then. So what you're suggesting is that morality is a matter of fundamental and universal truth, that we discover as part of the universe around us. The two problems I see are, how do you answer when someone asks you where that truth comes from? And second, how do we know when some proposed moral principle is really a matter of universal truth, and not just someone's opinion?

Don't give me any ideas. Does that same kid drive by your house, too?

He lives a few houses down from me. Although I may be slow to sign up for the God of the Bible, I'm prepared to accept the validity of karma, and the notion that what goes around comes around - I used to be that kid. I now understand how wrong I was to behave so, and I am being punished for it ;)

Simply because something boggles the human mind, and because the human mind cannot (yet) comprehend it, it hardly justifies the leap to describe it as 'messy' (unless one arrogantly assumes that everything incomprehensible to him deserves such a label).

Fair enough. I'm even willing to go one step farther and say that simply because something boggles the human mind, and because the human mind cannot (yet) comprehend it, it hardly justifies the leap to describe it as "divinely created or inspired" (unless one arrogantly assumes that everything incomprehensible to him deserves such a label).

I like it. Mind if I borrow that? ;)

As I must point out that the fact that something can be traced back to an origin which is either readily visible, or comprehensible, to the human mind should not be one of the prerequisites for acknowledging its existence.

Set aside the tracing back to origins for a moment. If we're expected to believe in the thing itself, why should its existence not be somehow verifiable? By way of analogy, nobody disputes the reality of dining-room tables. What I dispute is the acorn, so to speak. Unlike a real acorn, this acorn is not so readily verifiable, and it's the thing we're interested in in the first place, not the furniture that comes from it ;)

How arrogant we are as a species when we require our own intelligence/senses/cognition to be the determining factor as to the very existence of something -- especially when (speculation has it, in many circles that) that Something may even be responsible for the fact that we possess intelligence/senses/cognition at all.

Maybe. Or maybe not. Would you buy a used car on those terms? "Of course there's an engine in there - don't be so arrogant as to think that your own senses are the determining factor regarding the existence of an engine! Who're you gonna believe - me, or your own lying eyes?" ;)

Even though I am not particularly impressed by the Barnsley fern itself, I am in awe of the development of the mathematics that made its representation possible. And no, it was not generated by a 'simple process' consisting of a few 'simple rules'. Its creation would not have been possible just a few years ago, simply because the theory/technology/programming techniques did not exist. That so-called 'simple process' was centuries in the making.

Don't confuse the process with the product. The algorithm to generate such a thing is quite simple, as you well know. The fact that the product of the development of mathematics was this simple algorithm has nothing to do with my argument. The encoding to form the shape of a fern is simple, and there's no reason to ascribe its development to some superbeing. Something that simple could have readily developed without any such influence - the complex shape has a simple method for making it. And since we know that ferns were among the earliest of the land plants...draw your own conclusions.

Your labeling the fern as 'simple' would be analogous to someone saying that turning on a light fixture and lighting up a room is 'simple'. A few centuries ago, such an event would have been considered impossible. But today, because we have unearthed (not created ) the necessary technology, the turning on of the light and the creation of the virtual fern, appear simple, yet they are anything but.

I'll skip quoting much of the rest of your post, since it seems to be targeted at this same point - that I am somehow enamored of the fact that we can create virtual ferns, and using that as an argument that, since we can design a fern, it doesn't require divine design. So let me try to re-word what I want to say.

It's not about generating virtual ferns, for crying out loud. I don't care about that. What I am trying to get across is that the mathematics of making fern shapes is simple. It doesn't require computers or anything else. It is a simple algorithm that could have easily evolved without some divine guidance. Ferns don't require uber-beings to create fern shapes. I don't care about the fact that we can make pretend ferns on a computer screen - the point is that real ferns don't need divine guidance to make themselves. The fern shape doesn't need God to come about. That's the point - forget about what we do with the math and look at the fern itself. Making a fern shape is a matter of a few very simple rules - it doesn't require some master designer toiling away to produce these wonderfully complex fern shapes.

That's what I want to get across. ;)

I'm wavin' the white flag, g_r. Not because either one of us has convinced the other of the validity of his/her (note I gave you top billing) viewpoint, but because if we continue this debate (at least the one taking place between you and me) much longer, I believe it runs the risk of devolving from the sublime (slight overstatement, perhaps :) to the ridiculous (slight understatement, perhaps). This topic is so important to me (and, apparently, to you as well) that I would rather not risk allowing that to happen (I have a feeling that is the one idea on which we can agree).

It's been a pleasure debating with you (truth be told). I admire your impassioned arguments, even if I don't agree with them. If we bump into each other on another thread, maybe we can see eye-to-eye on a more light-hearted topic....like the deterioration/betrayal of our republic, or the crisis in the Middle East.... (*sigh*)

........~ joanie

p.s. Had some great brook trout, honey glazed carrots, and wild rice for dinner tonight. God sure did know what He was doing when he designed all three of those delicacies. (Yep, forgive me. I had to have the last word. :)

Well and fairly said. We'll call pax here - surely as deeply as we disagree here, there are many other things we agree on as well. I, for one, am glad that such a pleasing dinner evolved for you to enjoy...

(Yep, forgive me. I had to have the last word. :)

That's what you think ;)

I'm sorry I missed your ping on this, Joanie. I've been out of the country for more than a two weeks.

You have mail.