Posted on 03/05/2002 9:45:44 PM PST by Southack
This is part two of the famous "Million Monkeys Typing On Keyboards for a Million Years Could Produce The Works of Shakespeare" - Debunked Mathematically.
For the Thread that inadvertently kicked started these mathematical discussions, Click Here
For the Original math thread, Click Here
I've been working long hours and thus have neglected my FR responsibilities. I'll try to do better in the future.
There you go again. It has already been explained to you that 1) the assumption is false, and 2) random does not mean "without-intelligent-aid".
And yet you continue to repeat the same old things you should already know are false. What is the point of discussing anything with you? Why are you so thick-headed? Is it intentional?
Depends, is your living specimen a result of human tampering? Or is it a result of natural environmental selection pressures?
Neither provides any predictive power when human interference is involved, don't you think? Especially since ID doesn't have any predictions in any case...
Never say "can not happen." Think about it this way. If you have an apparently random strand, what are the odds that it will be arranged in a way to create exactly us? Very small. What are the odds that it will arrange in some way? 1:1 since it's obviously arranged. How many billions, or even trillions of different DNA have been in viable creatures on this earth? How many billions, trillions, quadrillions or more combinations are just as viable? That divides your odds quite a bit, not that the odds matter anyway. ID people calculate the odds for us to appear, but evolution doesn't place any bets on us having appeared in the first place, only that through the process, something will have appeared. So there are no odds to consider.
I'm sorry I don't have time to read the entire post right now. I skimmed down to your recommending Richard Dawkins and realized we aren't going to see eye-to-eye. It is my impression that Dawkins' position is full of holes that can never be plugged.
But the thing I wanted to say right now in my brief visit to FR today was that you can't possibly come to a rational opinion that G-d does not exist. G-d does exist. Any process that takes you to any other conclusion can not be rational.
No offense meant. And none taken in what I read of your post, by the way.
Shalom.
Honesty is never offensive. Arrogance is, but not honesty.
A statistical type of cost/benifit analysis of religion, or arguments along those lines are ludicrous from the start, you can never delinate what-is-what, but a type of defense of religion is made on the basis of the same type of argument: the baby and the bathwater.
I'm not sure religion is based on any cost-benefit analysis, unless it's the cost and benefit to those who use religion to control people.
Its seems only religion is allowed this type of cohesion, this all-or-nothingness where hopefully the sum result to mankind is positive -- even if not achieved in your personal lifetime.
War comes to mind.
Even now you can find people who will claim religion hasn't caused anything detrimental whatsoever -- and that all the things you show them are just "misuse" of religion or "growing pains" of mankind. To them I guess, the baby is worth whatever bathwater it requires. Bloodbaths even.
Confusion of terms. Instutional religion causes lots of problems, mostly because it is managed by people who are notorious. Religion itself - i.e. the relelation of G-d to His people about His truth - is not responsible for anything detrimental to humanity as a whole. I will admit that those sentenced to death for murder might think religion is doing something detrimental, but not everyone would agree with him. That's a matter fo perspective.
Criticism of aspects-of religion usually falls on deaf ears, the reasoning being "it is what it is" -- that religion reflects a REALITY and we must take it or leave it.
This is true, just as physics reflects reality. But I must admit that we don't always interpret the religious "data" correctly just as we don't always interpret the physics data correctly. There are two parts, the message and the receivers. The message is perfect. The receivers are not. As such, we need to be sure not to become arrogant. We may be forced to re-evaluate our understanding at any time.
Christianity is much like the ESS of those spiders. It would be 'great' and profitable if the whole world, or most of it, would adhere to its principles. But, on the other hand, taken to extreme, those ideas are much like a self-imposed communism. It is an appeasement of agressors.
If Christianity is a lifestyle then you are correct. Christianity is not a lifestyle.
I notice that you have moved from a critique of "religion" to a critique of "Christianity." This is common. Most religions don't offer enough cohesion to require a serious rebuttal. Judaism and Christianity do.
Let me break down how I see Jesus first: There is the man-Jesus, the myth-Jesus, and the man-God-Jesus.
If you remember, you wrote all of this in response to my claim that you should evaluate Jesus based on who He claims to be. I am far less interested in your claims regarding Him than His claims regarding Himself.
The first, and even the second of these I can a do respect for what they are and/or have become to a large extent.
How can you respect them? Either one would be a lie.
But here is what I think happened to the Church, the initial story-of Jesus was an inspiring one, it had marketing-potential in the religious context, but -- just as it is detrimental in the end to use steroids, the Church has a price to pay. That price is that it is now effectively rotten at its core because it is founded on an idea that is good for PR but makes for a weak religion.
The reason that seems plausible to you is because today people make money by inventing religion. In the first century AD people who invented religion only made fertilizer (out of their own corpses). Yours is a very old theory that doesn't hold water in light of the facts of Church history.
Christianity, (as well as other religions), are infected with death worship and fatalism. This is illustrated by the heaven-and-hell obsession, the end-times fatalism, and makes Christianity a dead-guy-on-a-stick religion.
You are right. Many Christians have not understood how the Gospel is a Gospel of life. However, most of us now understand this. You are not only working with secondary data (how Christians behave vs. what Christ taught) but old secondary data at that.
It's like a fish trying to 'discover' the ocean. It's like before there was no environmental movement, we weren't concious of a thing called 'the environment'.
Christians were, because G-d told them about it. Of course, there were times in history when Christians forgot.
Fortunately, I do not need the consent of my fellows before I formulate my beliefs, and more importantly I am not obligated to accept beliefs they wish upon me.
This is true, but I recommend you take your beliefs from source documents and truth, not erronious assumptions based on secondary sources. You aren't obligated to do this, of course, but life is much easer to take when based on truth rather than falsehood.
There is a saying -- "Everything is true in a sense, false in a sense, and meaningless in a sense".
That saying is meaningless in every sense.
I have no expectation that the things I say will be heard in any particular one of those senses. It is dependent on the listener and where they are standing.
Translation: I don't have to actually review what I have said in light of any response you may write. I can blame you for standing in the wrong place while listening. The truth won't hurt you. If you have it, you shouldn't be afraid of any challenge you receive. If you don't have it, you should want it.
"Art is what happens in the space between the painting and the viewer" -- and TRUTH is not a location, it is a direction, it is a mind in motion, without fear, eternally.
Truth is what conforms to reality. Everything else is delusional thinking.
Shalom.
I have the results. I have some paragraphs of talk about finer points of the tendency of DNA to self-assemble, and to automaticlly self-assemble into very complex forms, some math, etc. Honestly, much was over my head as I don't think he has quite mastered the ability to talk much below Ph.D. level on this subject.
But the end result was the quote "...their argument is scientific balony."
From what I gather, the author here may also be shooting at the wrong target. My friend said getting good DNA is the easy part; it's getting it wrapped in a membrane that's a bit more complicated ("But there are other theories about that."). I think that might be more vulnerable to an actual scientific attack than the fuzzy math statistics.
That has been apparent all along.
Oh please. You've just lowered yourself to claiming that arguing semantics will show to the core of an argument's misapplication.
That goes beyond sad...
You friend has NEVER gotten "good DNA" from a chaotic environment. In fact, no one has been able to perform that feat. That's also what the math in this thread shows (that it's impossible to get good DNA sequenced in a chaotic environment).
So your poor friend is maintaining a position that he/she can't support with either evidence (e.g., good DNA self-forming in a chaotic environment) or with math (as this thread demonstrates).
Sadly, many such Darwinian diehards fall into that same state of denial. They can't produce the evidence to support their claims (ala "good DNA" above), and they can't refute the math in this thread, yet they still cling to their outdated beliefs...
No, I'm not.
What chaotic environment are you talking about? Why don't you address the points you've been asked to address before? Why is it you keep ignoring the solid refutations you've been given?
The math HAS been refuted. It is a mathematical excercise with no real relationship to the actual arguments of DNA formation. DNA formation was not random, it was a self-organizing process. Nobody argues that a bunch of molecules just happened to stick together to form the first DNA, and that simple fact means this math has no relevance. Deal with it.
1. The math hasn't been refuted.
2. No one has ever documented a single case of DNA self-organizing without the aid of intelligence (or existing life).
3. Lot's of athiests and agnostics argue that random molecules just happened to stick together to form the first DNA chain.
Contrary to your absurd claims, the math in this thread is relevant because it factually calculates the odds of DNA self-organizing without any form of Intelligent Intervention (i.e., in a chaotic environment).
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