To: the_Watchman
OK, I was confused by your first post.
No, tho... lol
What you say makes sense except that I don't see the conflict with evolution.
If you are not suggesting that each individual toss of any given coin is guided by God, but instead by the laws of physics, then how does this example contradict evolution?
If you were to record for observation and analysis the tosses of a thousand coins, there would be an awesome variation in the per second freeze-frames. You concede that God isn't designing those variations of each, or the influencing variables (wind, etc)... but the laws of physics are.
To me, it seems that in evolution, the variation in species is more parallel to those freeze-framed moments. They are results of the laws of biology combined with outside variables. (mutations/selection)
I think the "heads or tails" result is an artificial limitation and unfitting in the analogy.
Regarding the lack of variation in complex organs such as the eye, I would assume it is a result of common ancestry in those (now) totally species.
(But I'm still learning, so I could be totally wrong.)
41 posted on
05/05/2004 7:00:58 PM PDT by
Trinity_Tx
(Most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believin as we already do)
err.. make the above "totally different species"...
I shouldn't try to post while herding kiddoes to showers & bed. ~8|
42 posted on
05/05/2004 7:17:58 PM PDT by
Trinity_Tx
(Most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believin as we already do)
To: Trinity_Tx
The toss of a coin is quite determined, but we don't have the information to make accurate predictions. If we did, then we could. I'm not certain, but I think the results of a precisely designed mechanical coin-tossing machine would be easily determined.
I suspect the mechanisms that cause mutations are also determined (being physical and chemical) but it's all to complicated for us to predict which cell will mutate. In principle, however, if we had enough information, we could make good predictions. Or so it seems to me. Natural selection is also predictable, if you know exactly what's in the environment and what the living creatures are capable of. We can demonstrate this to a limited extent with bacteria in petri dishes. In the wild, of course, there are too many variables for us to handle. But in principle I think determinism rules the whole show, until you get to creatures like us with complex brains and free will.
Eyes all seem to rely on photo-sensitivity, but there is a great variety in such structures. Some simple creatures have only photosensitive spots. Complexity goes from there, all the way to us. And our eyes aren't that great. We're quite blind to most of the electro-magnetic spectrum. And we can't see at the micro-scopic level. Our eyes are just good enough to allow us to gather food, find mates, and survive. To do more we need to build instruments.
45 posted on
05/05/2004 7:58:43 PM PDT by
PatrickHenry
(A compassionate evolutionist!)
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