Posted on 12/02/2005 8:35:59 AM PST by ckilmer
Nifty and humorous idea.
However if it were so liberal - why do so many of the 'Religious Right' fall over themselves to embrace it? Also going to the extreme of raping science textbooks and classrooms with the ID attack...
Possibly for the same reason many so-called conservatives promote economic intervention schemes.
There is a component of conservatism that believes in minimal government and one that favors the use of government to promote conservative values.
The dims are not the only political party with warring factions.
I am suggesting that while the organic compounds may have had to follow specific laws in order to form DNA/RNA, the events themselves during which those laws were followed with those results were random.
NEW SETI and Intelligent Design . SETI research offers no support for Intelligent Design.
But, but, but
"Complexity with order" occurs consistently in the natural world and not due to "random chance." Snow drifts and sand dunes form mathematically complex forms, weather is a wide ranging complex systems, molecular structures are ordered and complex. None of these form from random chance. When a protein forms, it follows very exact rules that govern the relationship of atoms, molecular orbital mechanics, etc. - primary, secondary, and tertiary structures follow precise mechanisms and form very complex, ordered structures.
No outside planned design but internal physical laws govern. Yet, ID states that it is soooo complex that it must be designed (no evidence whatsoever, no experimentation, nothing to support it) because it is sooo complex.
You mean simplicity and efficiency like that found in our own DNA?
DNA is far from simple - and is used as a complexity argument for ID - it is a huge conglomeration of physical interactions producing a complex order.
DNA is also far from efficient. It consists of mostly wasted space. Introns, 'dead' spots, repetitive stop and start codons (some stop codons don't even stop anything - it's like part of the programming was damaged but never thrown away)fill DNA. Every transcription has errors - so much so that a separate mechanism for fixing errors exists (like producing Yugos that have to go to the Goodwrench repair shop before they can be sold) and multiple errors occur in replication.
Any worthwhile engineer could design a better system.
SETI is looking for narrow, high energy signals without cross-frequency turbulence. No known natural source produces this.
At least we agree that it isn't a theory, but I also wouldn't call that a hypothesis, more like a speculation. If it were a hypothesis, you'd be able to at see, at least vaguely, some way toward falsification.
I remember seeing a man's head and it looked like a potato that I'd seen.
The man's head was incredibly complex. The potato was also undeniably complex. The complexity of the head and that of the potato combined to make me wonder at the order of complexity that exists in this world.
Both proved to me that something bigger than random atomic dodgeball was going on.
You really need to stop playing with Mr. Potato Head.
If he was a real scientist he wouldn't say "a real scientist." His tagline might read "a real physicist" or "a real chemist." The only folks who I've ever encountered using the generic "scientist" to describe themselves have been diploma mill scientist wannabes and actors in television comedy skits.
Well, if you consider the large amounts of the various elements in a high energy environment such as when the Earth was forming, great number of organic compounds would form with increasing complexity.
Dr. Stanley L. Miller performed a classic series of experiments using water, hydrogen, methane, and ammonia (present in Earth's early atmosphere) in which an electric current was introduced briefly (such as from lightning in early Earth) and he collected the resulting compounds. He found amino acids, building blocks of proteins and DNA, among the compounds.
If it can be reproduced, it becomes difficult to fit into my definition of random.
A falsification?
We might be talking semantics. To me "random" is anything that is unplanned. So my usage of the word "random" could include events that are extremely specific and which follow strict guidelines and physical laws, as long as they happen without purposeful planning and direction.
Just because an event happened randomly doesn't mean it couldn't be reproduced arbitrarily later? Or that it would result in specific consequences, some of which would be predictable.
I see that this line of thought leads to an entirely different philosophical can of worms than the one under discussion, if taken much further.
If SETI ever gets a supposed artificial signal, they will being making the same assumed assertions. Just like the evolutionists have been doing for years.
SETI = waste of money.
I agree.
I see that this line of thought leads to an entirely different philosophical can of worms than the one under discussion, if taken much further.
Very true - that could overwhelm its own thread. :-)
"Random" and "un-planned" are two different concepts. An avalanche may be unplanned, but it is definitely not random -- the debris heads in pretty much the same direction. Throwing a die generates a random number, but the act of throwing it makes it "planned."
Ah yes, all those assumptions that have been supported by over 100 years of observation and experimentation. It sure beats the hand waving and over-pious gesticulating from 'those anti-science, anti-education and knowledge' people. SETI = waste of money.
SETI is privately funded. I guess people can "waste" their money on anything they choose....even if it does further that nasty science thing that scares zealots.
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