The "Threat" of Creationism, by Isaac Asimov

Internet ^ | 1984 | Isaac Asimov

[Cedric]

To: PatrickHenry

Despite {or, perhaps, through} your manifest arrogance and vitriol, it is apparent that you are clinging to the preposterous, threadbare creed of Evolution with the ferocious fervor of a fanatical, yet uncertain, religious zealot. Rant on at the altar of Darwin!

BrokenLogicWings,
Now you're responding to replies not directed to you. You should consider quitting while you're behind.

[Lev]

My point is that NEITHER Base 2 nor Base 4 software programs have ever been shown to have been formed by natural, unintelligent processes.

How can anything be formed by an unintelligent process? Didn't Creator create everything?

[Aracelis]

Piltdown Man- Declared to be 500,000 years old and the missing link. Turned out to be a orangutan jaw with the teeth filed placed with a human skull bone that had been doctored to make it look old.

Careful there...you are speaking of a relative.

[Jeff Gordon]

I guess I must plead to having a sub-Kindergarden level of intelligence...

Your ignorance is does not necessarily indicate a lack of intelligence. It does, however, clearly indicate a lack of knowledge. Many real sub-Kindergarten children are very intelligent but their lack of learning makes them ignorant. Time and the application of their intelligence in a genuine quest for knowledge will make them less ignorant. The same principles could apply to you - God willing.

[Southack]

"How can anything be formed by an unintelligent process?"

Caves are formed sometimes from natural, unintelligent processes such as streams carving out a hole in rocks, and at other times by more intelligent processes such as Man digging or dynamiting said hole in rocks.

So some things can be created by either natural or by guided processes.

[geopyg]

On one of the other posts it was mentioned that "day" is Hebrew for was "time" - so not a "day" like we think of it (needing the sun). I've come to think that the first Light that God created was pure energy - the "Big Bang". The energy later became the sun and the moon and everything else (e=mc2). Who knows? But, the "something out of nothing" discussed it the Bible sounds a lot like the "Big Bang" theory. (Beats the sun riding on the back of a turtle!)

[Lev]

Caves are formed sometimes from natural, unintelligent processes such as streams carving out a hole in rocks

Streams were created by Creator, how can they be considered unguided?

[Southack]

"Streams were created by Creator, how can they be considered unguided?"

Even if what you claim is true, "creating" something does not imply infinite "control" over something.

You might build a car, for instance, but that doesn't mean that you (if even anyone) will be the one guiding it in 1,000 years.

So unless factually demonstrated otherwise, streams can be considered to be unguided.

[captain11]

While I'm sure that you mean well, Base 4 IS literally an order of magnitude greater in complexity than Base 2.

Make that statement to a mathematician and best case, you'll get a puzzled look and a request to define complexity. Apparently you define it according to the number of values per digit.

In Binary you'd represent Base 2 as 10, while Base 4 would be 100.

You're confusing values represented in a base with the base itself. Stated precisely, this much is true:

• the decimal value 2 is represented in base 2 (binary) as "10".
• the decimal value 4 is represented in base 2 (binary) as "100"
• the decimal value 2 is represented in base 4 (quaternary) as "2"
• the decimal value 4 is represented in base 4 (quaternary) as "10"

100 is a single order of magnitude larger than 10, FYI...

Yes, it is. In any base, FYI.

[Southack]

"Make that statement to a mathematician and best case, you'll get a puzzled look and a request to define complexity. Apparently you define it according to the number of values per digit."

Design an experiment in which random, agitated matter inside a container is observed over time.

Now ask yourself, for this experiment, is it equally likely, more likely, or less likely that I witness "order" spontaneously (and without intelligent intervention of any sort) form from this chaos in which a two item pattern (e.g. 0,1) emerges in contrast to a four item pattern (e.g. 0,1,2,3) emerging?

I think that you'll eventually agree that the two-item pattern is an order of magnitude more likely to form.

[Southack]

100 is a single order of magnitude larger than 10, FYI.

"Yes, it is. In any base, FYI."

Surely you realize that was my intial claim...

[jennyp]

You were right the first time. While there are certainly worse philosophies than objectivism, a philosophy that holds self-interest as a (perhaps the) key ethical tenet has the evil built in.

PLEASE tell us exactly what is this "evil" that's "built in" to Objectivism!

[jennyp]

Certainly concluding that both cars and skeletons "evolved" would be erroneous, as at the very least we know full well that it was the intelligent designers of the cars who improved each model, not the cars themselves "evolving"...

Really? These intelligently designed objects improved from their earlier, inferior models? What kind of designer has to improve on her earlier designs? An omniscient one? Or is having to improve on a design evidence of some lesser level of competence?

[Southack]

"Really? These intelligently designed objects improved from their earlier, inferior models? What kind of designer has to improve on her earlier designs? An omniscient one? Or is having to improve on a design evidence of some lesser level of competence?"

I think that one can safely say that the designers of cars have managed to increase their knowlege over time, allowing them to improve their designs over time.

[jennyp]

I think that one can safely say that the designers of cars have managed to increase their knowlege over time, allowing them to improve their designs over time.

Good. Now, would you say that Homo sapiens sapiens was an improvement over Australopithecus afarensis?

[Southack]

"Good. Now, would you say that Homo sapiens sapiens was an improvement over Australopithecus afarensis?"

Of course.

[Southack]

And say hello to Lucy for me!

[captain11]

I think that you'll eventually agree that the two-item pattern is an order of magnitude more likely to form.

The number base used for DNA computation, while extremely interesting, is not crucial to the issue of intelligent creation, although base 4 computation does have some advantages for a biological organism; it combines flexibility with relative simplicity. It would be no less amazing if there had been two or eight DNA bases instead of four. The issue is not the number base (not to be confused with DNA base ;), but that such sophisticated computation occurs at all.

The real complexity lies in the software, not the number base in which it is represented. One can write both extremely complex and extremely trivial programs, regardless of the base used to represent the instructions and data. Fruit flies share the same four DNA bases with humans, and have many similarities at the protein level.

If long-term survival is the metric, it's not even clear that humans have better software than fruit flies, taken as a species. If we continue down the path we're on, we might soon face the evolutionary equivalent of the Blue Screen of Death.

Without God, that is exactly what will happen.

[Southack]

"The real complexity lies in the software, not the number base in which it is represented. One can write both extremely complex and extremely trivial programs, regardless of the base used to represent the instructions and data."

At the core processing level, Base 4 requires an order of magnitude more processing complexity/acumen than does Base 2.

That being said, one could program the identical functionality in either Base...just don't confuse that ability with an equivilence of complexity.

[LiteKeeper]

When the creationist 'scientists' have as many tons of fossil evidence for their view as REAL scientists have for evolution, then and only then will I give them a respectful hearing.

Surprise...we all use the same evidence. It is the a priori assumptions that each side holds that lead to different conclusions. Evolutionists don't "own" certain fossils, and creationists don't. All are looking at the same information!