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To: xzins; jennyp
You're right xzins. Markets, while they may "evolve" in response to economic factors, are not set up without intricate and detailed intelligent design.

The complex process for producing and distributing goods does not occur in the absence of detailed and specific planning. Logistics is an extemely complicated process and if the author is claiming that something as complicated as production and logistical delivery of products and services occurs without any intelligent design, then the author is as stupid as the amoebas the he somehow thinks are smart.

217 posted on 01/26/2006 3:32:30 PM PST by P-Marlowe
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To: P-Marlowe

I'm guessing that even our anti-design folks are gonna shy away from those market comments in this article.

They're TSFW.

:>)


221 posted on 01/26/2006 3:35:42 PM PST by xzins (Retired Army Chaplain and Proud of It!)
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To: P-Marlowe

The argument is not that market agents are not intelligent. The argument is that markets produce results that no single agent could achieve, and that this does not imply the existence of a higher intelligence.


228 posted on 01/26/2006 3:43:31 PM PST by ThinkDifferent (Chloe rocks)
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To: P-Marlowe
The complex process for producing and distributing goods does not occur in the absence of detailed and specific planning. Logistics is an extemely complicated process and if the author is claiming that something as complicated as production and logistical delivery of products and services occurs without any intelligent design, then the author is as stupid as the amoebas the he somehow thinks are smart.

It's fascinating to see how many creationists are missing the point here. With the economy, every economic actor does intelligently design their own part of the economy. I control much of my little company's actions, such as what products we develop, how we will market them, and how they're designed. Though even here, what finally gets sold often looks a lot different, and comes out on a different timetable, than what we initially planned for.

But when you look at the economy as a whole, compared to the little part of the economy that is an individual employee or entrepreneur, there's no comparison. The economy as a whole is staggeringly more complex than the individual person's economic life.

Spontaneous order describes what happens when a collection of self-interested actors get to interact according to a given set of rules. The overall order is more complex than the actors themselves are able to comprehend or control.

In abiogenesis it's the individual (totally unintelligent) biochemicals coming together in mutually-catalytic combinations to produce self-sustaining entities that can propagate themselves. In biology it's the (somewhat intelligent) individual cells & (more intelligent) organisms interacting to create species & ecosystems. In economics, it's highly intelligent employees & entrepreneurs forming companies, industries, & economies.

Each of these higher-order entities feature competition & cooperation, success & starvation, innovation & extinction - all within the context of the rules of the game and the particular circumstances they find themselves in. But in each case it's the same: The individual actors did not design the order within which they operate.

359 posted on 01/26/2006 6:32:19 PM PST by jennyp (WHAT I'M READING NOW: your mind)
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To: P-Marlowe
"The complex process for producing and distributing goods does not occur in the absence of detailed and specific planning. Logistics is an extemely complicated process and if the author is claiming that something as complicated as production and logistical delivery of products and services occurs without any intelligent design, then the author is as stupid as the amoebas the he somehow thinks are smart.

I think you are misunderstanding the author. He was referring to the world economy as a whole not to a tiny process in one factory.

430 posted on 01/26/2006 7:25:50 PM PST by b_sharp (Science adjusts theories to fit evidence, creationism distorts evidence to fit the Bible.)
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