Posted on 09/16/2009 3:29:20 AM PDT by Ethan Clive Osgoode
Steve: You're doing really interesting work. You've decoupled sort of, "Is evolution true?", you know, "What are problems with evolution?", from people's interpretations of whether or not they accept evolution. Regardless of evolution itself, we're just talking about the psychological profiles of how you come to either accept or not accept evolution. Some of that work is yours and some of it you're very well familiar with from other people; so let's talk about some of the basics and some of the surprises about the people who accept and don't accept evolution and their reasons for it.
Lombrozo: Sure. So I think one of the most surprising findings has to do with the relationship between understanding the basics of evolutionary theory and accepting it as our best account of the origins of human life. So most people, I think, [or] in particular scientists, tend to think that if people reject evolution and in particular evolution by natural selection, it's because they don't understand it very well; they don't really understand what the theory is telling us. But in fact, if you look at the data from psychology and education, what you find is either no correlation between accepting evolution and understanding it or very, very small correlation between those two factors, and I think that's surprising to a lot of people and in particular to educators and scientists.
Steve: Yeah, it was surprising to me when your data were presented. So what [does] that mean for, you know, education in the country? What should people be thinking about if they have a desire to have evolutionary theory be more accepted by more people?
(Excerpt) Read more at scientificamerican.com ...
Parrots don’t talk. They imitate sounds. Do you still think that snakes (a synonym for serpent) can probably talk?
A crystal could be described as an ordered system. Do you believe that some form a deity is involved in their creation?
And people call it what?
Do you still think that snakes (a synonym for serpent) can probably talk?
If a parrot can imitate sounds that can be considered *talking*, for lack of a better word, how do you know that some species of reptile could not have possessed the same ability?
FWIW, serpent and snake are not necessarily synonymous, otherwise the curse to crawl on its belly would be not only redundant, but useless.
Sheesh, anything but admit that creationists might have a valid point.
Look beyond the crystal to the atomic level.
If the atoms were designed to behave in a particular way at certain temperatures, it in no way disallows a creative intelligence behind the formation of the crystal.
Besides, the crystal is magnitudes of order simpler than DNA and does not contain information.
And still the precedent is intelligence, in that when we see ordered systems and know the cause for sure, it’s intelligent. Otherwise, the best we can say is that we don’t know if there was intelligence involved.
There’s no way to say definitively that there wasn’t intelligence involved, because we’ve found no way of determining that. It’s merely a philosophical conclusion that is assuming the conclusion.
Only if you're resistent to the obvious, for whatever reason.
Randomness does not beget ordered systems. Ever.
Randomness is not one of the forces of nature that results in bonding, or other associations. Intelligence relies on some machinery, or system, which of necessity can not have been generated by that which the machinery gives rise to.
LOL!
Nice piece of gobbledygook there, FRiend.
Intelligence does NOT "rely on some machinery".
If you say so.
If intelligence comes from machinery, where did the machinery come from? Other machines? Self-assemble? Or is it machines all the way down?
Thanks for the ping!
“And people call it what?”
People call the dawn sun-rise but that doesn’t make it an accurate refelction of what’s really happening.
“If a parrot can imitate sounds that can be considered *talking*, for lack of a better word,....”
There isn’t a lack of a better word, imitate is much more appropriate. The parrot doesn’t talk, it imitates sounds. Parrots can imitate a clock chime or a phone ring. Is it talking to the things in your house?
“...how do you know that some species of reptile could not have possessed the same ability?”
Well, no snakes identified by science to date show any anatomical features that would allow speech (or accurate imitation of sound) nor do any remains of earlier snakes. So if you’re going to make extraordinary claims, it is you that needs to provide some evidence to support them. Merely pointing out that another species can do so is like saying that because some animals have wings and can fly, there is a good case to support the existance Pegasus.
“There’s no way to say definitively that there wasn’t intelligence involved, because we’ve found no way of determining that. It’s merely a philosophical conclusion that is assuming the conclusion.”
Or to put it another way, there is no way to say that definitively that there was intelligence involved, because we’ve found no way of determining that. It is merely a philosophical conclusion that is assuming the conclusion?
The machinery that gives rise to the intelligence is inherent in the physics an intellegence exists in. That means, given some particular physics, the machinery that supports the functions of intelligence will arise by self assembly.
Also, an intellegnece that exists as a result of self assembly, ie. a human, could create machinery that supports intelligence that is different from that which arises as a self assembly from the physics itself. An example of that would be an artificial intelligence program running on electronic, or optical hardware.
intelligence...
Whenever a poster wants to know who created or caused God, I love to point out that there are no natural laws without space/time and physical causality. And further that inflationary theory is not creation ex nihilo.
Mathematically, the dimension of a space is the minimum number of coordinates (axes) necessary to identify a point within the space.
A space of zero dimensions is a point; one dimension, a line, two dimensions, a plane; three, a cube, etc. A sphere such as the earth requires two coordinates, longitude and latitude.
That is the geometry of it. In zero dimensions, the mathematical point is indivisible.
It is not nothing. It is a spatial point.
In ex nihilo Creation, the dimensions are not merely zero, they are null, dimensions do not exist at all. There is no space and no time. Period.
There is no mathematical point, no volume, no content, no scalar quantities. Ex nihilo doesn’t exist in relationship to anything else; there is nothing.
In an existing physical space, each point (e.g. particle) can be parameterized by a quantity such as mass. The parameter (e.g. a specific quantity within the range of possible quantities) is in effect another descriptor or quasi-dimension that uniquely identifies the point within the space.
Moreover, if the quantity of the parameter changes for a point, then a time dimension is invoked. For example, at one moment the point value is “0” and the next it is “1”.
Wave propagation cannot occur in null dimensions nor can it occur in zero spatial dimensions, a mathematical point; a dimension of time is required for any fluctuation in a parameter value at a point.
But there’s more. Wave propagation must also have a spatial/temporal relation from cause point to effect point, i.e. physical causation.
For instance “0” at point nt causes “1” at point n+1t+1 and “1” at point nt etc..
Obviously, physical wave propagation cannot precede space/time and physical causality.
In the absence of time, events cannot occur.
Both space and time are required for physical causation.
There is no ex nihilo explanation for the beginning of real space and real time and therefore physical causality.
And because, since the 1960’s forward, measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation consistently agree that the universe is expanding – that there was a beginning of real space and real time – we know that there was creation ex nihilo.
Only God can be the uncaused cause, The Creator.
Space, time and causation are not properties of God the Creator.
They are properties of the Creation.
God is uncaused, timeless and spaceless. He created causation, time and space.
Indeed, it is so obvious that God is the Creator ex nihilo that everyone will be held accountable for noticing.
His Name is I AM.
Oops, I meant to ping y’all to 57.
What you said.....
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