Posted on 12/22/2005 8:44:09 AM PST by Sweetjustusnow
Thanks--I looked up hermeneutics, but still couldn't figure it out--although I think I *used* to know what it meant when I was editing.
From what you write and the way you write, I think you might enjoy "I Am Charlotte Simmons"--T. Wolfe, and a movie called "Great Water" filmed in Macedonia.
To tell the truth, I have enjoyed all of Tom Wolfe's earlier work, way back to The Candy Colored Tangerine Striped Baby and Maumauing the Flak Catchers, but I don't know if I have the heart to read "I Am Charlotte Simmons." I've seen enough of it first hand, and it's very sad.
I think the human existence is pretty miraculous considering there is this law of entropy that says things left unattended will progress to a state of chaos. If we are mere beasts, programed by genes...we should have just evolved into masses of jelly by now after all of these millions of years.
Isn't that even less likely that the environment and the system would both change, keeping the system changes always beneficial? More variables required to change.
Since the eye is soft tissue, the short answer is "gone to dust millenia ago."
I'm actually referring to evidence of things evolving right now, or at least during recorded human history.
It seems to me that there would be a multitude of wrong turns that would be observable at any moment, if random changes are driving things.
The roomful of monkeys trying to type out that line of Shakespeare would generate a lot of nonsensical text in the meantime.
Yeah.
If we are mere beasts
You sell them short. They're pretty miraculous too...and most of them clearly can learn and feel.
OK. Just for grins. I followed some of the links.
It's not so hard, but tedious and more of the same. Stilted language. Lots of references. "Everyone knows" statements
Circular reasoning. Since we think evolution occurred from A to B, then evolution could have occurred from X to Z.
Extrapolating a huge, complex, meandering change from a tiny change.
Concluding that since it could have happened, it did happen, no matter how improbable.
Well the F student has a question professor. If evolution does not exist, where did bears come from? Are you saying they could only evolve with the influence of a supernatural being? Sounds suspiciously religious, not scientific.
That's as good as it gets. Sorry. It's tough to understand the world and it often takes a genius to correctly leap from small clues to large generalizations.
"Isn't that even less likely that the environment and the system would both change, keeping the system changes always beneficial? More variables required to change."
Why am I screaming "YOU F***ING DOLT!" at my computer?
The changes are NOT always beneficial! That's why species go extinct, you idiot!
"I'm actually referring to evidence of things evolving right now, or at least during recorded human history."
OK, I'm going to go on one of my patented rants:
LEARN HOW TO COUNT, YOU IMBECILE! IF YOU CANNOT UNDERSTAND THAT HUMAN LIFESPAN IS APPROXIMATELY 75 YEARS, AND EVOLUTION HAPPENS ACROSS MILLIONS OF YEARS, THERE IS NO F***ING POINT IN HAVING THIS CONVERSATION!
"It seems to me that there would be a multitude of wrong turns that would be observable at any moment, if random changes are driving things."
Yes, they're called extinctions.
Actually you sound more like the classic bigot who evaluates anyone else as defective who can't see things your way
The changes are NOT always beneficial!
If you read back in the thread, liberallarry suggested that environment changes to provide an "always beneficial" path of change for what would seem a complex evolutionary path to end up at what some would call an irreducibly complex system
...recorded human history
recorded human history > 75 years
So where are the extinctions? It seems to me that to construct a complex system without guidance there would have to be an immense amount of trial and error, if all these life forms were created in just a few million years. It seems to me that across a few thousand years of recorded human history, or a few hundred years of the scientific age, some of this trial and error would be recorded
Millions, or even billions, of years isn't really that long, especially if the evolutionary rate of change is such that humans haven't recorded it.
Seems to me that every living creature at birth would need to be trying a lot of new appendages, sensors, skeletal coverings, etc if nature was constructing these things by trial and error
So I just come to these threads for the insults, really! Glutton for punishment I guess. Insults to me, my profession (whatever that is), my alma mater (where ever that was). Not to mention the reading assignments and list after list of links.
After BeHoldAPaleHorse's reply, I need to add screaming to the list of predictable responses : )
...large generalizations
Actually I think the large generalizations are part of the problem for me. Extrapolating a long, meandering, complex change from a tiny observed change is problematic for me.
I've assumed that you do.
Actually I think the large generalizations are part of the problem for me
Too bad.
Even Einstein could not understand quantum theory or reconcile it with relativity...and string theory is so tenuously connected to reality that even its adherants are not sure it's anything more than a mathematical construct.
I'm assuming you find religious explanations more satisfying. But do you subject them to the same critical standards? Do you, for example, find the story of Noah's ark believable?
"recorded human history > 75 years "
Yes, it's greater than 75 years.
About 6,000-7,000, absolute tops. That's still an extremely short period of time.
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