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The "Threat" of Creationism, by Isaac Asimov
Internet ^ | 1984 | Isaac Asimov

Posted on 02/15/2003 4:18:25 PM PST by PatrickHenry

Scientists thought it was settled. The universe, they had decided, is about 20 billion years old, and Earth itself is 4.5 billion years old. Simple forms of life came into being more than three billion years ago, having formed spontaneously from nonliving matter. They grew more complex through slow evolutionary processes and the first hominid ancestors of humanity appeared more than four million years ago. Homo sapians itself—the present human species, people like you and me—has walked the earth for at least 50,000 years.

But apparently it isn't settled. There are Americans who believe that the earth is only about 6,000 years old; that human beings and all other species were brought into existence by a divine Creator as eternally separate variations of beings; and that there has been no evolutionary process.

They are creationists—they call themselves "scientific" creationists—and they are a growing power in the land, demanding that schools be forced to teach their views. State legislatures, mindful of the votes, are beginning to succumb to the pressure. In perhaps 15 states, bills have been introduced, putting forth the creationist point of view, and in others, strong movements are gaining momentum. In Arkansas, a law requiring that the teaching of creationism receive equal time was passed this spring and is scheduled to go into effect in September 1982, though the American Civil Liberties Union has filed suit on behalf of a group of clergymen, teachers, and parents to overturn it. And a California father named Kelly Segraves, the director of the Creation-Science Research Center, sued to have public-school science classes taught that there are other theories of creation besides evolution, and that one of them was the Biblical version. The suit came to trial in March, and the judge ruled that educators must distribute a policy statement to schools and textbook publishers explaining that the theory of evolution should not be seen as "the ultimate cause of origins." Even in New York, the Board of Education has delayed since January in making a final decision, expected this month [June 1981], on whether schools will be required to include the teaching of creationism in their curriculums.

The Rev. Jerry Fallwell, the head of the Moral Majority, who supports the creationist view from his television pulpit, claims that he has 17 million to 25 million viewers (though Arbitron places the figure at a much more modest 1.6 million). But there are 66 electronic ministries which have a total audience of about 20 million. And in parts of the country where the Fundamentalists predominate—the so called Bible Belt— creationists are in the majority.

They make up a fervid and dedicated group, convinced beyond argument of both their rightness and their righteousness. Faced with an apathetic and falsely secure majority, smaller groups have used intense pressure and forceful campaigning—as the creationists do—and have succeeded in disrupting and taking over whole societies.

Yet, though creationists seem to accept the literal truth of the Biblical story of creation, this does not mean that all religious people are creationists. There are millions of Catholics, Protestants, and Jews who think of the Bible as a source of spiritual truth and accept much of it as symbolically rather than literally true. They do not consider the Bible to be a textbook of science, even in intent, and have no problem teaching evolution in their secular institutions.

To those who are trained in science, creationism seems like a bad dream, a sudden reveling of a nightmare, a renewed march of an army of the night risen to challenge free thought and enlightenment.

The scientific evidence for the age of the earth and for the evolutionary development of life seems overwhelming to scientists. How can anyone question it? What are the arguments the creationists use? What is the "science" that makes their views "scientific"? Here are some of them:

• The argument from analogy.

A watch implies a watchmaker, say the creationists. If you were to find a beautifully intricate watch in the desert, from habitation, you would be sure that it had been fashioned by human hands and somehow left it there. It would pass the bounds of credibility that it had simply formed, spontaneously, from the sands of the desert.

By analogy, then, if you consider humanity, life, Earth, and the universe, all infinitely more intricate than a watch, you can believe far less easily that it "just happened." It, too, like the watch, must have been fashioned, but by more-than-human hands—in short by a divine Creator.

This argument seems unanswerable, and it has been used (even though not often explicitly expressed) ever since the dawn of consciousness. To have explained to prescientific human beings that the wind and the rain and the sun follow the laws of nature and do so blindly and without a guiding would have been utterly unconvincing to them. In fact, it might have well gotten you stoned to death as a blasphemer.

There are many aspects of the universe that still cannot be explained satisfactorily by science; but ignorance only implies ignorance that may someday be conquered. To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today.

In short, the complexity of the universe—and one's inability to explain it in full—is not in itself an argument for a Creator.

• The argument from general consent.

Some creationists point at that belief in a Creator is general among all peoples and all cultures. Surly this unanimous craving hints at a greater truth. There would be no unanimous belief in a lie.

General belief, however, is not really surprising. Nearly every people on earth that considers the existence of the world assumes it to have been created by a god or gods. And each group invents full details for the story. No two creation tales are alike. The Greeks, the Norsemen, the Japanese, the Hindus, the American Indians, and so on and so on all have their own creation myths, and all of these are recognized by Americans of Judeo-Christian heritage as "just myths."

The ancient Hebrews also had a creation tale—two of them, in fact. There is a primitive Adam-and-Eve-in-Paradise story, with man created first, then animals, then women. There is also a poetic tale of God fashioning the universe in six days, with animals preceding man, and man and woman created together.

These Hebrew myths are not inherently more credible than any of the others, but they are our myths. General consent, of course, proves nothing: There can be a unanimous belief in something that isn't so. The universal opinion over thousands of years that the earth was flat never flattened its spherical shape by one inch.

• The argument of belittlement.

Creationists frequently stress the fact that evolution is "only a theory," giving the impression that a theory is an idle guess. A scientist, one gathers, arising one morning with nothing particular to do, decided that perhaps the moon is made of Roquefort cheese and instantly advances the Roquefort-cheese theory.

A theory (as the word is used by scientists) is a detailed description of some facet of the universe's workings that is based on long observation and, where possible, experiment. It is the result of careful reasoning from these observations and experiments that has survived the critical study of scientists generally.

For example, we have the description of the cellular nature of living organisms (the "cell theory"); of objects attracting each other according to fixed rule (the "theory of gravitation"); of energy behaving in discrete bits (the "quantum theory"); of light traveling through a vacuum at a fixed measurable velocity (the "theory of relativity"), and so on.

All are theories; all are firmly founded; all are accepted as valid descriptions of this or that aspect of the universe. They are neither guesses nor speculations. And no theory is better founded, more closely examined, more critically argued and more thoroughly accepted, than the theory of evolution. If it is "only" a theory, that is all it has to be.

Creationism, on the other hand, is not a theory. There is no evidence, in the scientific sense, that supports it. Creationism, or at least the particular variety accepted by many Americans, is an expression of early Middle Eastern legend. It is fairly described as "only a myth."

• The argument of imperfection.

Creationists, in recent years, have stressed the "scientific" background of their beliefs. They point out that there are scientists who base their creationists beliefs on a careful study of geology, paleontology, and biology and produce "textbooks" that embody those beliefs.

Virtually the whole scientific corpus of creationism, however, consists of the pointing out of imperfections in the evolutionary view. The creationists insists, for example, that evolutionists cannot true transition states between species in the fossil evidence; that age determinations through radioactive breakdown are uncertain; that alternative interpretations of this or that piece of evidence are possible and so on.

Because the evolutionary view is not perfect and is not agreed upon by all scientists, creationists argue that evolution is false and that scientists, in supporting evolution, are basing their views on blind faith and dogmatism.

To an extent, the creationists are right here: The details of evolution are not perfectly known. Scientists have been adjusting and modifying Charles Darwin's suggestions since he advanced his theory of the origin of species through natural selection back in 1859. After all, much has been learned about the fossil record and physiology, microbiology, biochemistry, ethology, and various other branches of life science in the last 125 years, and it was to be expected that we can improve on Darwin. In fact, we have improved on him. Nor is the process finished. it can never be, as long as human beings continue to question and to strive for better answers.

The details of evolutionary theory are in dispute precisely because scientists are not devotees of blind faith and dogmatism. They do not accept even as great thinker as Darwin without question, nor do they accept any idea, new or old, without thorough argument. Even after accepting an idea, they stand ready to overrule it, if appropriate new evidence arrives. If, however, we grant that a theory is imperfect and details remain in dispute, does that disprove the theory as a whole?

Consider. I drive a car, and you drive a car. I do not know exactly how an engine works. Perhaps you do not either. And it may be that our hazy and approximate ideas of the workings of an automobile are in conflict. Must we then conclude from this disagreement that an automobile does not run, or that it does not exist? Or, if our senses force us to conclude that an automobile does exist and run, does that mean it is pulled by an invisible horses, since our engine theory is imperfect?

However much scientists argue their differing beliefs in details of evolutionary theory, or in the interpretation of the necessarily imperfect fossil record, they firmly accept the evolutionary process itself.

• The argument from distorted science.

Creationists have learned enough scientific terminology to use it in their attempts to disprove evolution. They do this in numerous ways, but the most common example, at least in the mail I receive is the repeated assertion that the second law of thermodynamics demonstrates the evolutionary process to be impossible.

In kindergarten terms, the second law of thermodynamics says that all spontaneous change is in the direction of increasing disorder—that is, in a "downhill" direction. There can be no spontaneous buildup of the complex from the simple, therefore, because that would be moving "uphill." According to the creationists argument, since, by the evolutionary process, complex forms of life evolve from simple forms, that process defies the second law, so creationism must be true.

Such an argument implies that this clearly visible fallacy is somehow invisible to scientists, who must therefore be flying in the face of the second law through sheer perversity. Scientists, however, do know about the second law and they are not blind. It's just that an argument based on kindergarten terms is suitable only for kindergartens.

To lift the argument a notch above the kindergarten level, the second law of thermodynamics applies to a "closed system"—that is, to a system that does not gain energy from without, or lose energy to the outside. The only truly closed system we know of is the universe as a whole.

Within a closed system, there are subsystems that can gain complexity spontaneously, provided there is a greater loss of complexity in another interlocking subsystem. The overall change then is a complexity loss in a line with the dictates of the second law.

Evolution can proceed and build up the complex from the simple, thus moving uphill, without violating the second law, as long as another interlocking part of the system — the sun, which delivers energy to the earth continually — moves downhill (as it does) at a much faster rate than evolution moves uphill. If the sun were to cease shining, evolution would stop and so, eventually, would life.

Unfortunately, the second law is a subtle concept which most people are not accustomed to dealing with, and it is not easy to see the fallacy in the creationists distortion.

There are many other "scientific" arguments used by creationists, some taking quite cleaver advantage of present areas of dispute in evolutionary theory, but every one of then is as disingenuous as the second-law argument.

The "scientific" arguments are organized into special creationist textbooks, which have all the surface appearance of the real thing, and which school systems are being heavily pressured to accept. They are written by people who have not made any mark as scientists, and, while they discuss geology, paleontology and biology with correct scientific terminology, they are devoted almost entirely to raising doubts over the legitimacy of the evidence and reasoning underlying evolutionary thinking on the assumption that this leaves creationism as the only possible alternative.

Evidence actually in favor of creationism is not presented, of course, because none exist other than the word of the Bible, which it is current creationist strategy not to use.

• The argument from irrelevance.

Some creationists putt all matters of scientific evidence to one side and consider all such things irrelevant. The Creator, they say, brought life and the earth and the entire universe into being 6,000 years ago or so, complete with all the evidence for eons-long evolutionary development. The fossil record, the decaying radio activity, the receding galaxies were all created as they are, and the evidence they present is an illusion.

Of course, this argument is itself irrelevant, for it can be neither proved nor disproved. it is not an argument, actually, but a statement. I can say that the entire universe was created two minutes age, complete with all its history books describing a nonexistent past in detail, and with every living person equipped with a full memory; you, for instance, in the process of reading this article in midstream with a memory of what you had read in the beginning—which you had not really read.

What kind of Creator would produce a universe containing so intricate an illusion? It would mean that the Creator formed a universe that contained human beings whom He had endowed with the faculty of curiosity and the ability to reason. He supplied those human beings with an enormous amount of subtle and cleverly consistent evidence designed to mislead them and cause them to be convinced that the universe was created 20 billion years ago and developed by evolutionary processes that include the creation and the development of life on Earth. Why?

Does the Creator take pleasure in fooling us? Does it amuse Him to watch us go wrong? Is it part of a test to see if human beings will deny their senses and their reason in order to cling to myth? Can it be that the Creator is a cruel and malicious prankster, with a vicious and adolescent sense of humor?

• The argument from authority.

The Bible says that God created the world in six days, and the Bible is the inspired word of God. To the average creationist this is all that counts. All other arguments are merely a tedious way of countering the propaganda of all those wicked humanists, agnostics, an atheists who are not satisfied with the clear word of the Lord.

The creationist leaders do not actually use that argument because that would make their argument a religious one, and they would not be able to use it in fighting a secular school system. They have to borrow the clothing of science, no matter how badly it fits, and call themselves "scientific" creationists. They also speak only of the "Creator," and never mentioned that this Creator is the God of the Bible.

We cannot, however, take this sheep's clothing seriously. However much the creationist leaders might hammer away at in their "scientific" and "philosophical" points, they would be helpless and a laughing-stock if that were all they had.

It is religion that recruits their squadrons. Tens of millions of Americans, who neither know nor understand the actual arguments for or even against evolution, march in the army of the night with their Bibles held high. And they are a strong and frightening force, impervious to, and immunized against, the feeble lance of mere reason.

Even if I am right and the evolutionists' case is very strong, have not creationists, whatever the emptiness of their case, a right to be heard? if their case is empty, isn't it perfectly safe to discuss it since the emptiness would then be apparent? Why, then are evolutionists so reluctant to have creationism taught in the public schools on an equal basis with evolutionary theory? can it be that the evolutionists are not as confident of their case as they pretend. Are they afraid to allow youngsters a clear choice?

First, the creationists are somewhat less than honest in their demand for equal time. It is not their views that are repressed: schools are by no means the only place in which the dispute between creationism and evolutionary theory is played out. There are churches, for instance, which are a much more serious influence on most Americans than the schools are. To be sure, many churches are quite liberal, have made their peace with science and find it easy to live with scientific advance — even with evolution. But many of the less modish and citified churches are bastions of creationism.

The influence of the church is naturally felt in the home, in the newspapers, and in all of surrounding society. It makes itself felt in the nation as a whole, even in religiously liberal areas, in thousands of subtle ways: in the nature of holiday observance, in expressions of patriotic fervor, even in total irrelevancies. In 1968, for example, a team of astronomers circling the moon were instructed to read the first few verses of Genesis as though NASA felt it had to placate the public lest they rage against the violation of the firmament. At the present time, even the current President of the United States has expressed his creationist sympathies.

It is only in school that American youngsters in general are ever likely to hear any reasoned exposition of the evolutionary viewpiont. They might find such a viewpoint in books, magazines, newspapers, or even, on occasion, on television. But church and family can easily censor printed matter or television. Only the school is beyond their control.

But only just barely beyond. Even though schools are now allowed to teach evolution, teachers are beginning to be apologetic about it, knowing full well their jobs are at the mercy of school boards upon which creationists are a stronger and stronger influence.

Then, too, in schools, students are not required to believe what they learn about evolution—merely to parrot it back on test. If they fail to do so, their punishment is nothing more than the loss of a few points on a test or two.

In the creationist churches, however, the congregation is required to believe. Impressionable youngsters, taught that they will go to hell if they listen to the evolutionary doctrine, are not likely to listen in comfort or to believe if they do. Therefore, creationists, who control the church and the society they live in and to face the public-school as the only place where evolution is even briefly mentioned in a possible favorable way, find they cannot stand even so minuscule a competition and demand "equal time."

Do you suppose their devotion to "fairness" is such that they will give equal time to evolution in their churches?

Second, the real danger is the manner in which creationists want threir "equal time." In the scientific world, there is free and open competition of ideas, and even a scientist whose suggestions are not accepted is nevertheless free to continue to argue his case. In this free and open competition of ideas, creationism has clearly lost. It has been losing, in fact, since the time of Copernicus four and a half centuries ago. But creationism, placing myth above reason, refused to accept the decision and are now calling on the government to force their views on the schools in lieu of the free expression of ideas. Teachers must be forced to present creationism as though it had equal intellectual respectability with evolutionary doctrine.

What a precedent this sets.

If the government can mobilize its policemen and its prisons to make certain that teachers give creationism equal time, they can next use force to make sure that teachers declare creationism the victor so that evolution will be evicted from the classroom altogether. We will have established ground work, in other words, for legally enforced ignorance and for totalitarian thought control. And what if the creationists win? They might, you know, for there are millions who, faced with a choice between science and their interpretation of the Bible, will choose the Bible and reject science, regardless of the evidence.

This is not entirely because of the traditional and unthinking reverence for the literal words of the Bible; there is also a pervasive uneasiness—even an actual fear—of science that will drive even those who care little for fundamentalism into the arms of the creationists. For one thing, science is uncertain. Theories are subject to revision; observations are open to a variety of interpretations, and scientists quarrel among themselves. This is disillusioning for those untrained in the scientific method, who thus turn to the rigid certainty of the Bible instead. There is something comfortable about a view that allows for no deviation and that spares you the painful necessity of having to think.

Second, science is complex and chilling. The mathematical language of science is understood by very few. The vistas it presents are scary—an enormous universe ruled by chance and impersonal rules, empty and uncaring, ungraspable and vertiginous. How comfortable to turn instead to a small world, only a few thousand years old, and under God's personal and immediate care; a world in which you are his particular concern and where He will not consign you to hell if you are careful to follow every word of the Bible as interpreted for you by your television preacher.

Third, science is dangerous. There is no question but that poison gas, genetic engineering, and nuclear weapons and power stations are terrifying. It may be that civilization is falling apart and the world we know is coming to an end. In that case, why not turn to religion and look forward to the Day of Judgment, in which you and your fellow believers will be lifted into eternal bliss and have the added joy of watching the scoffers and disbelievers writhe forever in torment.

So why might they not win?

There are numerous cases of societies in which the armies of the night have ridden triumphantly over minorities in order to establish a powerful orthodoxy which dictates official thought. Invariably, the triumphant ride is toward long-range disaster. Spain dominated Europe and the world in the 16th century, but in Spain orthodoxy came first, and all divergence of opinion was ruthlessly suppressed. The result was that Spain settled back into blankness and did not share in the scientific, technological and commercial ferment that bubbled up in other nations of Western Europe. Spain remained an intellectual backwater for centuries. In the late 17th century, France in the name of orthodoxy revoked the Edict of Nantes and drove out many thousands of Huguenots, who added their intellectual vigor to lands of refuge such as Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Prussia, while France was permanently weakened.

In more recent times, Germany hounded out the Jewish scientists of Europe. They arrived in the United States and contributed immeasurably to scientific advancement here, while Germany lost so heavily that there is no telling how long it will take it to regain its former scientific eminence. The Soviet Union, in its fascination with Lysenko, destroyed its geneticists, and set back its biological sciences for decades. China, during the Cultural Revolution, turned against Western science and is still laboring to overcome the devastation that resulted.

As we now, with all these examples before us, to ride backward into the past under the same tattered banner of orthodoxy? With creationism in the saddle, American science will wither. We will raise a generation of ignoramuses ill-equipped to run the industry of tomorrow, much less to generate the new advances of the days after tomorrow.

We will inevitably recede into the backwater of civilization, and those nations that retain opened scientific thought will take over the leadership of the world and the cutting edge of human advancement. I don't suppose that the creationists really plan the decline of the United States, but their loudly expressed patriotism is as simpleminded as their "science." If they succeed, they will, in their folly, achieve the opposite of what they say they wish.

( Isaac Asimov, "The 'Threat' of Creationism," New York Times Magazine, June 14, 1981; from Science and Creationism, Ashley Montagu, ed., New York: Oxford University Press, 1984, pp. 182-193. )


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Miscellaneous; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: creation; creationism; crevolist; darwin; evolution; evolutionism; intelligentdesign
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To: PatrickHenry
Education should be voluntary.

Ouch! Take this to its logical conclusion, and you wouldn't want to live there!

201 posted on 02/16/2003 9:45:19 AM PST by forsnax5 (WARNING! Do not look into laser with remaining eye!)
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To: forsnax5
Ouch! Take this [voluntary education] to its logical conclusion, and you wouldn't want to live there!

Oh, it wasn't so bad. We didn't have state-financed compulsory education in the US until the 1840s. Massachusetts was the first, and they started it around the same time they dropped their state church (they were the last state to do so). If we returned to voluntary education, most bright people would see its value, and would provide it for their kids. As for those who choose not to go to school ... well, would things be any worse than what we've got today?

202 posted on 02/16/2003 9:51:05 AM PST by PatrickHenry (Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas)
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To: balrog666
I find it amusing that all these people who hold existence as proof of "EVOLUTION" always assume that "Evolution happens" = "my-cult-is-the-One-True-Religion".

203 posted on 02/16/2003 10:28:33 AM PST by f.Christian (caught up in a sorrow, lost in the song,)
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To: jennyp
"OK, now I'm curious: Please tell me the nature of the Designer. Is this designing entity infinitely intelligent?"

I'm unaware of enough evidence being available to even make that question legitimate.

204 posted on 02/16/2003 10:37:00 AM PST by Southack (Media bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
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To: Sentis
"Math is what man created to explain Nature. Math is an abstract not a concrete and as such merely describes natural processes. It is not a proof of God rather a proof that man can create system by which he explains his universe."

Well, that's neat and profound and all, but tell me, when mathematical instruction sets are physically processed in the real world, is that abstract or concrete?

205 posted on 02/16/2003 10:39:00 AM PST by Southack (Media bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
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To: PatrickHenry
THIS JUST IN: "Educators reveal that, because of racial sensitivities, Ebonics could not be dropped out of the public school curriculum . . . so it had to be (( link )) - - - laughed out."
206 posted on 02/16/2003 10:43:29 AM PST by f.Christian (caught up in a sorrow, lost in the song,)
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To: PatrickHenry
As for those who choose not to go to school ... well, would things be any worse than what we've got today?

I think that things would rapidly get worse.

I'm not crazy about state supported schools (with state supported curricula), but I think society has a legitimate interest in educating the populace, and I think you do too. You wouldn't be doing what you're doing if you didn't believe that education had societal implications.

And the country before 1840 was a different world, so I don't think it's reasonable to say that what worked then would work now...

207 posted on 02/16/2003 10:46:02 AM PST by forsnax5 (WARNING! Do not look into laser with remaining eye!)
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To: LogicWings
"anybody who asserts that reifying is never sufficient evidence of a logical fallacy isn't someone logical enough to argue with in the first place. This means you can blast through fallacies anytime you wish and simply ignore them, because for you they don't exist. No logic, no reason, no discussion."

That's incorrect.

First, a lesson: "reifying" means treating an abstract construction as if it was a concrete, material entity/construction.

Now, with that understood, does "Reifying" imply that EVERY time you treat an abstract construct as material that you have created a logical error?

Of course not!

If every time one "reifies" one is logically in error, then no one could ever honestly use so much as an analogy in communication!

Your initial logical error was that you viewed ANY instance of reifying as being ipso facto evidence of a logical error.

That's simply ludicrous. Sure, reifying can be misused or abused, but that doesn't mean that EVERY instance of reifying is bad.

Your next error was that you viewed any mention of mathematical programming instructions as an instance of reifying, even though those abstract mathematical instruction sets are being physically processed in the material world. That's quite a stretch.

Moreover, you seem to have continued to compound those and other errors as you have gone forward in time (if not in logic).

Ergo, you appear to be in over your head in this discussion.

208 posted on 02/16/2003 10:47:23 AM PST by Southack (Media bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
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To: LogicWings
"DNA is not a 'program' and you cannot prove it is without assuming a 'programmer'."

What?! Have you not even studied basic biology?

What do you think that genes are, if not genetic subroutines?! What are base pairs, if not genetic instruction sets?!

Good Lord, man, you've backed yourself into such a tiny intellectual corner that you are now denying the very proven essence of scientifically accepted DNA!

DNA isn't genetic algorithyms?! You are truly funny, even if it is in a completely inadvertant manner!

What pray tell, is the DIFFERENCE between the genetic processing of/in DNA versus that of a software program?

Please, this "explanation" of yours ought to be worth several more seconds of laughter!

209 posted on 02/16/2003 10:52:36 AM PST by Southack (Media bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
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To: LogicWings
"Once again, like most of your ilk, you've got it backwards. I don't have to 'know' evolution is true, there is simply no evidence that there is anything else taking place. The issue is still open, someone may find little crosses stamped upon each DNA molecule but until that happens there is no evidence other than the evidence that exists, that DNA exists as it is, and it was created by a natural process. There is no tautology if one doesn't fallaciously apply the concept of 'programming' to something that wasn't programmed, that you have no evidence was programmed, and which you reify as a program in order to make a point that cannot otherwise be made."

Is it that you aren't paying attention, or that you aren't capable of comprehending what has already been shown to you that is at issue?

DNA is genetic programming. This is a scientific fact. DNA can be altered to change the final output. Genes inside DNA can be copied, altered, or moved from one DNA strand over to a completely different lifeform in the same manner that any programming subroutine can be moved from one piece of software to another.

In fact, Man is already doing BOTH of those things in the lab today (e.g. producing human substances inside pigs, modifying computer software with old code, etc.).

That you deny those widely accepted facts is laughable, and moreover, isn't even the issue.

The real issue is whether or not said genetic programming evolved naturally (i.e. without intelligent intervention) or whether it formed analagously to known human computer programming (i.e. with Intelligent Intervention).

Furthermore, your "tautology" error was that you first presumed that Evolution was already proven true, ergo the genetic programming in DNA MUST have been a natural process. One "proves" the other, an ipso facto tautology of the first order, yet you can't even see or admit that such a misuse of logic is even your own tautology in the first place! Sad. Very sad.

Genetic programming has been "proven" in your opinion to be from natural processes? Where is the proof?

There is your challenge. Show where Science has demonstrated that purely natural, unaided processes have ever programmed/formed a single viable strand of DNA.

It should be child's play for you, since you have already stated (above) that such natural processes have been proven!

Good luck on that challenge (you'll need it)!

210 posted on 02/16/2003 11:09:37 AM PST by Southack (Media bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
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To: Southack
abstract as math is a created concept nature knows no math. Your logical disconnect is that you think math is some sort of universal code rather than a system Humans created to explain how the universe works. This is why as with science Mathematical expressions which explain natural process change as our understanding of those processes increase. As such Math is a explanatory abstract. Nature doesnt process information mathematically we as humans explain these processes in mathematical terms.
211 posted on 02/16/2003 11:10:22 AM PST by Sentis
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To: Capitalism2003
I always thought of the big band as God's hands, holding everything in the universe

So God has two hands? With 5 fingers each? Is there skin on those fingers? Muscles and tendons in those hands? A circulation to nourish the skin and muscles? A nervous system to stimulate the muscles? A brain to exert conscious will over the nervous system? And all of this "outside" of the universe?

Asimov is right. Your mind is stuck in ancient Middle Eastern mythology.

212 posted on 02/16/2003 11:14:04 AM PST by beavus
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To: Sentis
"Nature doesnt process information mathematically we as humans explain these processes in mathematical terms."

Math per se is an abstract construction, you are correct, but what we see in real life is that concrete, physical and/or electrical substances can be arranged in deliberate, mathematical ways.

Human software does this with highly organized Base 2 (i.e. Binary) instruction sets that our CPU's process. DNA does likewise with Base 4 base pairs (A, C, G, T).

213 posted on 02/16/2003 11:20:09 AM PST by Southack (Media bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
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To: LogicWings
"DNA is not a 'program' and you cannot prove it is without assuming a 'programmer'. " - LogicWings
 

Oh, that's just too rich!  You are good for a few laughs!

 
DNA computer
Last modified: Monday, December 17, 2001 

A nanocomputer that uses DNA (deoxyribonucleic acids) to store information and perform complex calculations.

In 1994, University of Southern California computer scientist Leonard Adelman suggested that DNA could be used to solve complex mathematical problems. Adelman found a way to harness the power of DNA to solve the Hamiltonian path problem (the traveling salesman problem), whose solution required finding a path from start to end going through all the points (cities) only once.

Each city was encoded as its own DNA sequence (DNA sequence consists of a series of nucleotides represented by the letters A, T, G, C).

The DNA sequences were set to replicate and create trillions of new sequences based on the initial input sequences in a matter of seconds (called DNA hybridization). The theory holds that the solution to the problem was one of the new sequence strands. By process of elimination, the correct solution would be obtained.

Adelman's experiment is regarded as the first example of true nanotechnology.

The main benefit of using DNA computers to solve complex problems is that different possible solutions are created all at once. This is known as parallel processing. Humans and most electronic computers must attempt to solve the problem one process at a time (linear processing). DNA itself provides the added benefits of being a cheap, energy-efficient resource.

In a different perspective, more than 10 trillion DNA molecules can fit into an area no larger than 1 cubic centimeter. With this, a DNA computer could hold 10 terabytes of data and perform 10 trillion calculations at a time.



214 posted on 02/16/2003 11:26:20 AM PST by Southack (Media bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
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To: captain11
"Guess again. And again. At root, that's precisely what DNA encodes...a program. A stunningly complex program that controls how a fairly undifferentiated handful of cells grows into a manta ray, or a zebra, or a human.

How that program came to be is obvious to some of us, but Southack doesn't need to prove there is a programmer. A program it is."

Thanks. I'm always amazed when the Evolutionists start denying basic proven, scientifically accepted facts.

Of course DNA is a program. Why must Darwinists deny that fact?

Nice links above, by the way.

215 posted on 02/16/2003 11:33:02 AM PST by Southack (Media bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
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To: Southack
You are still describing a natural process using mathematical notation and in such it is not a mathematical process but a natural one. Math is not absolute in fact our math would be radically different if we lived in a universe with slightly different physical laws.

Base four base ten etc mathematical process are merely expressions we create to describe these processes and nothing more. DNA is complex and there is no doubt but there are many complex interaction in nature which rely on differing mathematical concepts to describe them.

I dont see how your argument proves the existence of God?
216 posted on 02/16/2003 11:34:54 AM PST by Sentis
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To: Southack

"OK, now I'm curious: Please tell me the nature of the Designer. Is this designing entity infinitely intelligent?"

I'm unaware of enough evidence being available to even make that question legitimate.

We just agreed that successive improvements to earlier designs is a sign that an object was designed by an imperfect designer (otherwise they wouldn't have to improve the design in the first place). But you're afraid to use this understanding when looking at the evolution of Man (whether by RM&NS or by successive tinkering by the Intelligent Designer).

Does a design which has so obviously been tinkered with constantly throughout its history shout out "I was designed by a perfect designer!", or "I was designed by an imperfect designer!"?

217 posted on 02/16/2003 11:37:33 AM PST by jennyp (http://crevo.bestmessageboard.com)
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To: captain11
Ayn Rand was a fine writer, if only a passable philosopher.

Man have you got that backwards. Her writings were like bad Harlequin romances, obviously influenced by the overly dramatic Hollywood era she immersed herself in.

Her philosophy on the other hand is the clearest and most down-to-earth you will find. From first principles to derived concepts she lays out her reasons step by step with an obvious disgust for the obfuscations and fantasies given by most philosophers.

THAT's where she deserves the most credit. Deliberate clarity. A few philosophers have the same virtue, e.g. Popper, but without the same scope. She belongs to that small band of thinkers who have tried to take the SCIENCE of philosophy back from the bu!!shit artists (like Schopenhauer and Berkley) and mystics (so many new agers and theologians).

As such she lays her ideas wide open for you to identify any fallacies. You may be able do so, but not until you learn her philosophy--which you obviously haven't.

BTW, "objectivism" (with a small "o") bears only the most superficial comparison with her philosophy. "Objectivism" (capitalized) is the term she coined for herself.

218 posted on 02/16/2003 11:37:33 AM PST by beavus
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To: PatrickHenry
You seem to like baiting these Creationists. Have you ever found one to break from the cult?
219 posted on 02/16/2003 11:41:57 AM PST by beavus
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To: PatrickHenry
Education is a commodity like any other. Its virtues are best nourished and exploited by a capitalist system. It, like medicine or cable TV, cannot be a moral right and shouldn't be a legal one either.

I agree with you. It should neither be state-controlled nor required.

220 posted on 02/16/2003 11:45:49 AM PST by beavus
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