Posted on 11/20/2007 10:27:07 AM PST by CottShop
No, not the microwave. That’s irreducibly complex.
You miss my meaning. The cosmological argument is points to the rarity of places in the known universe where life, as we know it, can exist. Our own solar system is an example of this. But it is also postulated that only in cerrtain sections of our galaxy are such planets as earth possible. In the Star Trek universe, they are as common as rocks in Arizona. It other words, it takes a remarkable confluence of events to produce the life that we know.
Conditions are great for life here on earth, now that we have adapted to direct sunlight and oxygen, but what does the scarcity or abundance of extraterrestrial life have to do with the study of terrestrial life? Is it another, it was difficult so “Goddidit” type of thing?
Well, it does have to do with the preconditions for the development of life. It is the basis for any notion of macroevolution. But my point is that non-biologists see evidence of order in the universe that does benefit us, and so the question arises: is there a benefactor behind it all? IAC, our science presupposes a discernible order, of meaningful patterns. It is said that Newton, even as a children, weas enchanted by patterns, and after he acquired the mathematical tools to work with, and sufficient knowledge of the physics and astronomy of the day, was moved to create a system that has served us to this day, much as Euclid’s geometry still does. Kant’s epistomology has infected out thinking, and so we tend to think that we are just projecting our meaning on things, much as discern animal shapes in the clouds, on Madonnas on pie crusts. I don’t necessarily agree with Behe and the rest, but don’t they have the right to suggest that maybe, just maybe Darwin and his followers might be doing a little projecting of their own? For example, we have the capitulation scheme cooked upby Haeckel(?) in the 19th Century, which proposed that the shapes of developing fetuses show all the stages of human evolution, from single-cell to human? Later observers decided that this was a little too clever by half. Scientists are not unlike the rest of us: they leap to conclusions, because they wish things to be just so.
Once again why Scientists are not doing apologetics. If we were we would be embracing Haeckel as dogma and like Creationists would be denying that the evidence was there, decrying the motivations of those who discovered the contradictory information, or coming up with a convoluted explanation why those were not contrary examples. Instead Biologists went where the data lead them, and supported only what the data would support. Not many proponents of a Lamarkianism or Geocentricism around in the Scientific community anymore.
As far as Molecular Evolution, the pattern is there, and it is there every time one looks, and in predictable amounts of difference or similarity depending upon the type of sequence and the evolutionary similarity of the two species. The significance of the data can be calculated, and the idea that all our similarity to chimps at the Molecular level are the result of common design is ludicrous considering the similarity of our nonfunctional elements, and our similarity in redundant codons.
One is right to suggest that Darwin or any other Scientist might have been off base; but one must do so with data and measurable and predictable forces, not appeals to ‘it seems frighteningly difficult and complex so GODDIDIT wherever there was a hurdle we find difficult to explain’, that is if you wish to mount a SCIENTIFIC challenge to a theory. If all you want to do is sell books to credulous creationists well not much more is required.
Amen to that. I am a deeply religious man who thinks ID should not be portrayed as "science". It is just silly. I also think Darwinists who deny God are just as silly. Their theories cannot explain the creation of the universe. I see evolution as the Lord's very own "intelligent design" at work. God & Evolution, perfect together.
One example, if when H2O (water) freezes it expands and floats. If it didn’t life would not exist on earth.
ID is a non starter. Should be called SD (stupid Design). I mean how come we have an appendix, or guys go bald at 50, or Autism, you name it. I could have done a better job. Probably mankind will be re engineered by the science developing in genetics. Now thats scary.
You could say that evolution was designed by the Creator.
Scarier than we can imagine.
Thanks for your comments. It is nice to see an atheiest and one with faith agreeing to agree on this subject. "ID" has no place in schools.
Mainly his disregard of heredity as a cauative factor. He was largely dependent on Lamarcks’s notion of the inheritance of acquired characteristics. He rejected Weisman’s work on cells, and of course was ignorant of Mendel’s work. His followers accepted this as dogma, and forty years after Origin of Species , Haeckel set the whole theory in concrete in his Die Weltraetzel. As I said, scholars who have become convinced of a master theory are unlikely to deviate from or accept anything different.
The scary thing is to shape men by mechanical means. Darwin was a total enviromentalist, and his theory was used to give sanction to external force, man being no more than an object. Some geneticists have no more respect for man, regarding him as no different in kind from a dog. Only sentiment stands in the way of their doing what the heck they want to do with him.
Beg Pardon? His theory was based on his observations while on the Beagle, and he assumed that the changes her observed were based on enviromental factors. I agree that he was studying populations,and the very title is misleading, but once one gets beyond what he actually said and into the uses made of his conclusions, natural selection was treated as a cause by his followers. He himself was caught up in this. His book the Descent of Man, is based on what? Wholly speculative.
For a whole generation his followers did accept Lamarck. It wasn’t until the turn of the century that they took Weisman seriously and then because they had to deal with Mendel’s findings. My point again: scholars can be as dogmatic as anyone else. Like the rest of us, they die in their sins.
You wrote:”I think they’re afraid to invoke the Flying Spaghetti Monster (blessed be his tentacles).”
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I hope you are not another one of those Pastafarians... Didn’t you lose the Great Battle for the Universe with the one true god, the Invisible Pink Unicorn? I should have written “I*visi*le P*nk Unic*rn,” sorry, Pinkie, please forgive my blasphemy for I know you hate it when one spells out your complete name, you little creator, you.
You wrote: “I think a certain type of mentallity is attracted to ID and creationism and it involves the left side of the bell curve, regardless of profession.”
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My response: The nail head has now been hit almost perfectly, and most of the ID proponents are a good two standard deviations to the left.
Descent of mans speculations paid off in spades with fossils of Australopithecus and molecular genetic data. The evidence of our common ancestry is right down to the molecular level.
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