Posted on 07/24/2003 1:55:39 PM PDT by Mr.Atos
I was just lisening to Medved debating Creationism with Athiests on the air. I found it interesting that while Medved argued his side quite effectively from the standpoint of faith, his opponents resorted to condescension and beliitled him with statements like, "when it rains, is that God crying?" I was reminded of the best (at least most amusing)debate that I have ever heard on the subject of Creationism vs Evolution, albeit a fictional setting. It occurred on the show, Friends of all places between the characters Pheobe (The Hippy) and Ross (The Paleontologist). It went like this...
Pheebs: Okay...it's very faint, but I can still sense him in the building...GO INTO THE LIGHT MR. HECKLES!!
Ross: Whoa, whoa, whoa. What, uh, you don't believe in evolution? Pheebs: Nah. Not really. Ross: You don't believe in evolution? Pheebs: I don't know. It's just, ya know, monkeys, Darwin, ya know, it's a, it's a nice story. I just think it's a little too easy.
Ross: Uh, excuse me. Evolution is not for you to buy, Phoebe. Evolution is scientific fact. Like, like, the air we breathe, like gravity... Pheebs: Uh, okay, don't get me started on gravity.
Ross: You uh, you don't believe in gravity? Pheebs: Well, it's not so much that ya know, like I don't *believe* in it, ya know. It's just...I don't know. Lately I get the feeling that I'm not so much being pulled down, as I am being pushed.
Ross: How can you NOT BELIEVE in evolution? Pheebs: [shrugs] I unh-huh...Look at this funky shirt!!
Ross: Well, there ya go. Pheebs: Huh. So now, the REAL question is: who put those fossils there, and why...?
Ross: OPPOSABLE THUMBS!! Without evolution, how do YOU explain OPPOSABLE THUMBS?!? Pheebs: Maybe the overlords needed them to steer their spacecrafts!
Pheebs: Uh-oh! Scary Scientist Man!
Pheebs: Okay, Ross? Could you just open your mind like, *this* much?? Okay? Now wasn't there a time when the brightest minds in the world believed that the Earth was flat? And up until what, like, fifty years ago, you all thought the atom was the smallest thing, until you split it open, and this like, whole mess o' crap came out! Now, are you telling me that you are so unbelievably arrogant that you can't admit that there's a teeny, tiny possibility that you could be wrong about this?!?
Pheebs: I can't believe you caved. Ross: What? Pheebs: You just ABANDONED your whole belief system! I mean, before, I didn't agree with you, but at least I respected you. Ross: But uh.. Pheebs: Yeah...how...how are you gonna go in to work tomorrow? How...how are you gonna face the other science guys? How...how are you gonna face yourself? Oh! [Ross runs away dejected] Pheebs: That was fun. So who's hungry?
Unfortunately "natural law" is a phrase that sounds good, but no one can nail it down. You might as well substitute "elves" for "natural law" and come to the same result. Heh heh. Saying "natural law" sounds more scientific but that don't make it so.
Software and DNA are both information.
This I have to strongly disagree with. Natural law - according to forces of natural world. Mutations have been observed to be caused by phenomena of the natural world - UV, cosmic rays, chemicals etc.
The "spaghetti code" (like that phrase) as you say, appears to be the result of well understood natural phenomena.
Examples: in the case of the defunct Vitamin C gene, there is a one base pair deletion found in primates. Deletions such as this have been shown to be caused by certain mutagens in the lab. Gene duplication is caused by unequal crossing over events during cell division - and it looks like this happened a whole bunch of times in human ancestors.
Why bring extraneous stuff like "elves" or "sub-sub contractors" into the mix?
Still had a tail, did he? Tails disappeared in my family about the time we got our coat of arms. (A lizard and salamander rampant supporting a shield with an amoeba. Motto: "Always selected, never culled.")
But in fact we suffer little damage from this in "the natural world". Very few cosmic ray strikes hit germ plasm subject to being inherited, and almost all mutations are damaging. UV? May cause the occasional skin cancer but I don't think anyone has pointed out how UV is going to cause inherited changes. Chemicals? Other than naturally occuring plant generated chemicals which appear to be designed to inhibit insect predation, animals suffer very little chemically induced mutation in the wild.
Examples: in the case of the defunct Vitamin C gene, there is a one base pair deletion found in primates. Deletions such as this have been shown to be caused by certain mutagens in the lab.
Yep. But just because we can cause mutations with mutagens in the lab, does not imply the concept that "some mutations provide survival advantage" as in enabling an animal to have more offspring or enabling its offspring to survive better. Again, this is an identification of a possible cause, however this has not been observed to spontaneously happen in the wild, it is merely inferred.
Regarding mutation as a cause of evolutionary chain, I quote Ernest Chain, one of the team that discovered penicillin: "To postulate that the development and survival of the fittest is entirely a consequence of chance mutation seems to me a hypothesis based on no evidence and irreconcilable with the facts. These classical evolutionary theories are a gross over-simplification of an immensely complex and intricate mass of facts, and it amazes me that they are swallowed so uncritically and readily, and for such a long time, by so many scientists without a murmur of protest."
Why bring extraneous stuff like "elves" or "sub-sub contractors" into the mix?
Why are they "extraneous"? I assert that it is no more unlikely that extra-dimensional agents are applying genetic manipulation deliberately than that it occurs purely by happenstance (given enough time, etc.) After all, there is no more or less observed evidence for one as for the other. And both are theoretically possible. Once one realizes the number of physics papers arguing for extra dimensions for the totality of reality (see string theory, M and P brane theory), there is no longer a reason to reject such concepts as supernatural. So -- if one is to reject hypotheses on "nature spirits" for example, one must apply precisely the same criteria to the concept of "natural law". And since all one can use for evidence is effects....I assert that TOE is equally weak.
Sorry, he was just neutered at the vet. I figured id let him run around outside for a bit.
Doobie-doobie-doo.
If you are not happy with the examples I gave you of external mutagens, mutations can occur spontaneously through errors in the replication process.
the concept that "some mutations provide survival advantage"
You are jumping all over the place here. Remember you stated earlier that the evidence is no better for natural law than for "elves". My response was that the observations are in fact in strong agreement with natural law (mutations). At the very least the evidence favors something "unintelligent" doing the design work.
Now you asking how these mutations increase fitness (a seperate question entirely). In plenty of cases it is known why an apparent mutation (i.e. a difference between chimps and man) would be advantageous. In other cases it is not so clear. Nonetheless, there is strong evidence in favor of random mutation.
Nah, just grab the rifle and take it out to the shed.
Well of those extra-dimensional agents are using EMS and ionizing radiation for their genetic manipulations, you might have a theory to fit the data. Youll have to consult a physicist for the rest.
Then we must be cousins!
I've had just about enough of your ooze-snobbery! My ancestral ooze was every bit as good as yours. Let's have no more ooze-ism! You ooze-ists make me sick!
Maybe you just need your gall bladder out.
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