A Mathematician's View of Evolution

The Mathematical Intelligencer ^ | Granville Sewell

[Dimensio]

Random - proceeding, made, or occurring without definite aim, reason, or pattern: the random selection of numbers.

So if Natural Selection is not random, as you claim, what is the aim, reason, or pattern of Natural Selection?

The pattern is in the ratio of surviving alelles versus alelles that do not survive.

[Dimensio]

Spontaneous generation is thus essential for the evolutionist.

This is false.

I submit five hypothesis regarding the origin of the first life forms.

a) Natural processes occuring entirely upon earth resulted in chains of self-replicating molecular strands that eventually became the first life forms.

b) Aliens from another planet and/or dimension travelled to this planet and -- deliberately or accidentally -- seeded the planet with the first life forms.

c) In the future, humans will develop a means to travel back in time. They will use this technology to plant the first life forms in Earth's past, making the existence of life a causality loop.

d) A divine agent of unspecified nature zap-poofed the first life forms into existence.

e) Any method other than the four described above led to the existence of the first life forms.

If, as you claim, spontaneous generation is "vital" to the theory of evolution then only the first of the above hypothesis can be true for common descent to have occured. Please explain why any two of the other options would prevent common descent from occuring.

[Dimensio]

You appear to be confusing acceptance of the theory of evolution with atheism. You are incorrect in that equivocation. You also seem to believe that asserting that the theory of evolution is false demonstrates that the theory of evolution is false. You are also incorrect in that assumption.

[Dimensio]

If the brain has been programmed only by chance, by random nature, why trust it?

Composition fallacy.

[Tax-chick]

... demolishes the Darwinian fantasy and pretenses quite effectively but has an economy of prose which I find hard to match.

Thank you, BlackElk - that made my day!

New pictures of Vlad on my profile page :-).

[Dimensio]

Thank you, BlackElk - that made my day!

How does a reference to a book written by a woman who makes a large number of incorrect claims on the theory of evolution "make your day"?

[Tax-chick]

You're on my blackout list, but I will respond simply to clarify your misunderstanding of my post.

What "made my day," was BlackElk's reference to Ann Coulter's "economy of prose," in contrast to his own vivid verbosity. I was not, in this case, expressing an opinion on Ms. Coulter's book.

[BlackElk]

Marx, Engels, Hitler, Ugo Chavez, Mao Tse-Tung, Danny Ortega, Margaret Sanger, and (with a certain sense of imminent discovery) Fidel Castro, would certainly agree or have agreed with you. Just because they or their ideas were guilty of mass murder of the innocent, among a near infinity of either things, why should THEY suffer eternally.

A firm belief in God and submission to Him: Don't leave earth without it!

[BlackElk]

Dichotomy: Dimensio's childlike faith in Darwinian fable

............................OR............................... Ann Coulter's mature belief in God as the uncaused cause (particularly coupled with the belief structure of Aquinas's Summa Theologica)????

Hmmmm?????? I'm going with Annie and God and Aquinas. Dimensio has Darwin and is welcome to him.

My ancestors were exclusively human. I gotta believe that Tax-chick's were all human too. Likewise Annie's.

Dimensio: There are some nice trees out back to play in. Have a few bananas but try not to scratch your ribs in public.

[FreedomProtector]

a) Natural processes occurring entirely upon earth resulted in chains of self-replicating molecular strands that eventually became the first life forms.

This sounds exactly like Carl Sagan or Issac Asimov describing the myth of spontaneous generation.

b) Aliens from another planet and/or dimension travelled to this planet and -- deliberately or accidentally -- seeded the planet with the first life forms.

This sounds like Fred Hoyle. Where did the aliens come from? Did the aliens spontaneously generate?


c) In the future, humans will develop a means to travel back in time. They will use this technology to plant the first life forms in Earth's past, making the existence of life a causality loop.

What started the causality loop? Did the starter of the loop spontaneously generate?

d) A divine agent of unspecified nature zap-poofed the first life forms into existence.

Isn't a divine agent the same as an intelligent designer?

e) Any method other than the four described above led to the existence of the first life forms.

??? is this a fifth or just BS

[Dimensio]

Dichotomy: Dimensio's childlike faith in Darwinian fable

Please demonstrate that the theory of evolution is a "fable" and that my acceptance of the theory as valid science is "childlike".

............................OR............................... Ann Coulter's mature belief in God as the uncaused cause (particularly coupled with the belief structure of Aquinas's Summa Theologica)????

This has no relevance to the theory of evolution. Your "dichotomy" is meaningless and false.

My ancestors were exclusively human. I gotta believe that Tax-chick's were all human too. Likewise Annie's.

Please provide evidence to support this claim.

Dimensio: There are some nice trees out back to play in. Have a few bananas but try not to scratch your ribs in public.

Insulting me demonstrates neither that you are correct nor that the theory of evolution is false.

[Dimensio]

This sounds exactly like Carl Sagan or Issac Asimov describing the myth of spontaneous generation.

Please demonstrate that this is a myth.

This sounds like Fred Hoyle. Where did the aliens come from? Did the aliens spontaneously generate?

Explain how the origin of the hypothetical aliens is relevant to the process of evolution.

What started the causality loop? Did the starter of the loop spontaneously generate?

A causality loop has no "start". It is not "created", it is a self-sustaining event.

Isn't a divine agent the same as an intelligent designer?

No. An intelligent designer is an entinty -- not necessarily divine -- that intervenes in the process of evolution to "design" physical features that are allegedly not possible to emerge through mutation. I suggested no such action by the hypothetical divine agent.

??? is this a fifth or just BS

It is a catch-all for any hypothetical explanations that I have not included.

Why did you not explain why evolution cannot occur if any of the hypothetical events other than the first listed are true?

[ml1954]

A firm belief in God and submission to Him: Don't leave earth without it!

Just make sure you pick the right one, the right channeler of whatever he tried to tell us all, and the right translations and interpretations of it. Think of what's at stake and what will happen if you make a mistake. And be advised, mistake are no excuse.

[BlackElk]

Not only have I chosen the right One, I have chosen the ONLY One. As to your other concerns, I am covered there also as a Roman Catholic. Thanks for asking!

I do thank God that my imagination has never been so limited as to choose Darwinian anything over God.

[Dimensio]

Not only have I chosen the right One, I have chosen the ONLY One.

Please demonstrate that your choice is the correct one.

As to your other concerns, I am covered there also as a Roman Catholic. Thanks for asking!

Curious. Are you aware that the Roman Catholic Church does not consider the theory of evolution to be contradictory to Catholic faith?

I do thank God that my imagination has never been so limited as to choose Darwinian anything over God.

Why do you believe that this is a dichotomy of one or the other? Many Catholics believe in God and also accept evolution as valid science.

[BlackElk]

Don't you swing in tree branches, munch bananas and scratch your ribs??? Was I wrong in conceding to you arguendo that you were probably right in feeling that you personally were descended from apes or chimpanzees or whatever and, of course, missing links (Is that which is nonexistent describable as "missing links") ????

You seem to imagine that the pseudoscientific speculations of a third-rate failed Anglican theology dilletante, crammed down the unsuspecting throats of the intellectually hapless victims of gummint skewels is somehow the standard and that the central beliefs of Western Civilization are a deviation which must prove anything whatsoever in response to faux intellectual heathenism. Aquinas or Darwin???? Aquinas.

We are all familiar with Annie's photos which resemble neither those of chimpanzees nor those of apes. Tax-chick's kids' pictures are on her homepage. My pictures are nunya bidness but sittnick can confirm that I am exclusively human.

You may be right as to childlike. Belief in the ongoing Darwinian fraud is much worse than childlike. My apologies to children. Substitute "gullible."

You may not have noticed but your opinion, as a professed simian, of the truth or falsity of Roman Catholicism is not of, well, critical importance. If you believe that you are descended from monkeys, apes, or chimpanzees and worship Darwin, the great "god" of pseudoscience, why do you expect to be taken seriously?

What on God's green Earth has this middlebrow lowlife sideshow carny Darwin got to do with conservatism???? This IS a conservative website, dontcha know?

There is absolutely no reason to take Darwin seriously. He is dead proof that affluent birth and genius are clean different things. Why do you fantasize that anyone has an obligation to satisfy Darwin's sycophants and gulls with demonstrations of anything. As a Darwinian mind slave, do you really suppose that you are entitled to be taken seriously???

BTW, if the answer is Darwin's Theory of Evolution or Darwin's Greatest Show on Earth or whatever, it was probably an exceptionally silly question.

[Quark2005]

There is absolutely no reason to take Darwin seriously.

Not too up on the accomplishments of modern biological science, are ya?

[BlackElk]

Many Catholic parents are foolish enough and negligent enough to expose their children to Darwinian BS at gummint skewels or other synthetic educational institutions.

God COULD have designed evolution as Darwin fantasized it. God COULD have made the moon of green cheese. God COULD have made objects fall up. God COULD have run time backward. But in all those cases He did not. That God COULD have done something (since He is omnipotent) does not demonstrate that He did whatever. The immortal soul did not evolve.

There are Catholics who would like to compromise with enemies of Catholicism. (Think of Noam Chomsky or Howard Zinn as alleged spokesmen for Jews or Garry Wills as a pseudo-Catholic quisling compromising Catholicism wherever possible as he genuflects before the false gods of modernism). From time to time it has even been a tactic.

If you fantasize that a Catholic has, somehow, the obligation to prove that the One True God is the One True God, you can imagine the low regard I have for your other speculations on Catholicism. If you REALLY want scholarly explanations, I have already referenced Summa Theologica by St. Thomas Aquinas. If you want your Darwin subjected to a verbal daisycutter see Coulter's Godless.

Darwinian euphoria is the notion that somehow we all emerged from the primordial soup, that a non-existent God was irrelevant to the process (come, come, Catfish, you don't think that Darwin is defended in a vacuum, do you? The enthusiasm stems from the idiot savant belief that evolution disproves God and is therefore a Promethean gift freeing man fron enslavement to mere reality.) If evolution disproves God, voila!!!! Kill whom you will and mistreat the rest all in the name of the "greatest good for the greatest number."

There are probably curial cardinals who do not believe in God. Don't mistake them for the Church itself much less than for the Teaching Magisterium. If you want to know what the Church teaches, read Pope St. Pius X's 1907 encyclical Pascendi Domenici Gregis and its accompanying Syllabus of Errors: Lamentabile Sane which is, ummmm, not very respectful of Darwin.

[BlackElk]

Read Godless by Coulter or Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas and get back to me.

Principles:

1. Do not worship science. Worship God.

2. If you think that "modern biological science" is right and God is wrong, go back to Principle #1.

[Dimensio]

Please justify your claim that the theory of evolution is "BS". Asserting that the theory is false does not actually demonstrate that the theory is false.

If you want your Darwin subjected to a verbal daisycutter see Coulter's Godless.

You are incorrect if you believe that Coulter's demonstratably false claims in any way show that the theory of evolution is false.