Posted on 03/09/2006 6:55:14 PM PST by Greg o the Navy
I probably miss more than I hit, but I keep shooting....
False.
Evolution itself (a process in which we play a part) has no purpose, because purpose implies intelligence, which is a no-no because it points in the general direction of ID/Creationism.
Humans and to a lesser extent other animal have intelligence. To state otherwise is ridiculous; we coined the word 'intelligence' to describe ourselves.What you're trying to do here is put words to an argument from incredulity; you can't believe our intelligence came from a natural process, and so you're trying to find a philosophical or scientific basis for your incredulity. There is none.
. There's a counterargument, in fact, under your nose. When a baby is conceived, it is a single-celled creature, with a comparatively big genome, but not overwhelmingly bigger than an amoeba. We have watched the process of a baby's in utero development closely, hundreds of time, and we can find no introduction of other, extraneous information to the developing child, less yet any supernatural process intervening, yet it grows from a single cell to an intelligent creature. Is that 'intelligence' packed into the sperm and egg? Hardly. So where did it come from?
There's a difference in mocking and familiarity.
And you seem very sensitive to the former. You dish mockery out frequently, yet it seems to outrage you that some people find you worthy of mockery yourself.
Hey dude, I compile those quotes and move on. I don't dwell on it or keep them stored somewhere until I judge the time ripe to take it back out and shoot it at someone.
That's funny. You don't consider what's on your home page stored somewhere?
For someone whose prime directive is supposed to be the Golden Rule, you don't seem to have grasped basic reciprocity, which Dennett has argued, BTW, is a selected trait. Insult people, and they'll insult you back. Post or keep long dead quotes from them, and they will do the same to you. Quote others out of context to invert their meaning, and people will find it hilarious when you rage at the slightest negative connotation put on your own words.
(Quoting Paul Davies) Unfortunately, “meaning” sounds perilously close to purpose, an utterly taboo subject in biology.
It's not utterly taboo; that's hyperbole. When you say the purpose of the blind gut of the rabbit is to provide an environment for bacteria to digest cellulose, it's pedantry to quibble about using the word 'purpose' rather than 'function' or 'role'.
But isn't it circular reasoning to say we're intelligent because we thought to call ourselves intelligent?
No, it's just a definition of intelligence. It would be circular to treat it as a deduction.
. You don't get order out of non-order without the addition of intelligence. It's just simple fact.
No, it's completely false. What about snowflakes? What about crystals? One of my research areas in the recent past has been the development of order from disorder in ionic crystals, experimentally and by random Monte-Carlo simulations. It happens, and we understand why it happens. There is no thermodynamic objection to a local decrease in entropy, as long as the overall entropy increases.
How does evolution account for the adding of memory and intelligence in an infant?
It doesn't. Babies don't evolve from single cells, they develop from single cells. The memory and intelligence develop as a result of deterministic physical processes from a complex of biomolecules in a simple system.
There's a big difference in looking at a quote, thinking "that will be useful to lob back at him someday!" and tucking it away in your quiver for future use, versus me taking one quote off a post, thumb-tacking it to a board amongst dozens of other similar quotes, and then walking away.
It's quite clear to me you see a distinction. I don't see the distinction, and given our past interactions, I don't really understand why you think your taking offense should be anything that particularly perturbs me. Clearly, if we share any common ground, it's mostly a mutual dislike.
However, if your 'board' is something you've walked away from, demonstrate that by taking down any quotes from me on it. I will then be happy to reciprocate by giving weight to your improved recent behavior.
The horror! It's the end of the (naturalistic, materialistic, atheistic) world as we know it!
Not to mention a backlash against their politicization of "science." Isn't it interesting that, generally speaking, the most ardent defenders of Darwinism are leftists, socialists, moral relativists, and atheists.
No. KingProut, whose opinions I respect, seemed to think you'd changed or at least moderated your hitherto unsavory posting style. You have some material from me on your home page, quoted out of its context to the original discussion. One of my major problems with your posts in the past has been your repeated quote mining. In the case to which I was responding, you had quoted Alan Feduccia, a distinguished biologist and scientific colleague whose work I have followed and greatly admired over a period of over a decade, in such a way as to completely misrepresent him, and in fact to make him look stupid. No doubt it's incomprehensible to you why I would harshly excoriate you for doing this, but that's as may be; honor is something we all have to discover for ourselves. Previously, you had posted that 'you and I', referring to fellow posters, were meant to abuse little children (if evolutionists had their way), a false and malicious misrepresentation of some groundbreaking work in evolutionary psychology, made in order to attack people who disagree with your religious beliefs. You have not in any way apologized for or withdrawn that statement; in fact, all you've done is babbled incoherently about what you meant. Let the record show I have given you the opportunity to show your good faith, and you have declined it.
It is a characteristic of narcissistic personalities that they are incapable of seeing the world through others' eyes. Thus, they act with hostility to others, yet feel profoundly hurt when others reciprocate in kind. I really do feel sorry for such people.
As for the rest; it would be possible to have a good discussion on evolution and atheism. There is a whole spectrum of views, from Provine at one extreme, who thinks evolution requires atheism; to Miller on the other, who thinks evolution is the way his god accomplished the act of creation. I fall in the middle. It would not be possible to have a good discussion with you , however, because your purpose is not to explore the issue, but to grab some sound-bites you can recycle, later, to further the completely antiscientific dogma of your own sect.
I think it's your loss.
As O'Reilly would say, you can have the last word.
for the record: humans are only slightly intelligent and slightly deliberate, and that only among the best of us and only some of the time.
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