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To: jennyp
Oh, so you're claiming that all experiments prove that "natural phenomena" happen by design! I thought you were only saying that experiments cannot disprove ID (or IIF). Wow, that is a much worse argument than I thought you were making.

Name me one experiment that hasn't been designed.  I am stating that such experiments do not disprove that "natural phenomena" occur through ID.  To extrapolate such experiments to "natural phenoma" and equate them to random chance is a stretch not born out by the actual experiment.

What such experiments do prove is that we can create certain conditions and get certain results by applying ID.

I'm still waiting for you to give me an example of a non-designed version of my experiment in #1001.


Why?  It's not me who is arguing for non-designed experiments.  Rather, I'm saying that all experimentation is ID.

And now you're trying to grab onto the "no really random numbers" argument? That is a very desperate move, IMO. It may be true that all random sequences are really psuedorandom in some sense, in that if you know the algorithm used to generate it + the seed value then you can recreate the sequence. But in the real world, contingent occurrences are, um, contingent on a vast number of starting variables & non-linear interacting "algorithms". It's theoretically intractable to exactly recreate the starting conditions for a specific biological event. If you went back in time to a month before my conception & merely brushed my mother as you walked along the sidewalk, I doubt very much that I'd be here today. How would you make sure, this second time around, that the same sperm as before would join the egg before all the others, just for starters? Nope, the "no real random numbers" shield is paper-thin, at best.


Firstly, you don't necessarily need to know the seed or algorithm used to generate a psuedo-random sequence.  All you need is the pattern.

Secondly, what you are saying about multiple variables is correct (I believe that Chaos theory makes use of this).  However, it still doesn't affect the randomness or non-randomness of something.  The more key variables that we know, the more accurate our answers are.  None of the variables themselves are random.  Just because the totality is complex doesn't make it random.  Just because we can't understand it currently doesn't make it random.  As an example of complexity, I remember reading about a professor who spent 30 years calculating the orbits of the planets by hand.  ENIAC did it (and verified the accuracy of the hand-calculations) in 6 months.  Nowadays a slow computer can do it in 6 minutes or less.  My point being that as we get better tools, we can handle greater complexity in problems.

So please don't dismiss my views on randomness by giving me an argument in complexity.
1,187 posted on 06/19/2002 7:22:51 AM PDT by Frumious Bandersnatch
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To: Frumious Bandersnatch
What such experiments do prove is that we can create certain conditions and get certain results by applying ID.

The only thing that this proves is that under certain conditions you get certain results. So it doesn't matter how these conditions came to be. That means you should get the same results whether the conditions were created or whether they occurred naturally.
So just because you carry a rock up a hill and it rolls down if you release it doesn't meant that this could only happen if some intelligent agent carried it to the top of the hill.

1,194 posted on 06/19/2002 8:33:30 AM PDT by BMCDA
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To: Frumious Bandersnatch
Just because the totality is complex doesn't make it random.

A very important point which is completely ignored by the evolutionists. They also seem quite bent on this discussion in saying that because we do not know all the variables of certain events the events are random. This is really an argument from ignorance - the kind of argument they accuse their opponents of making!

1,372 posted on 06/19/2002 9:28:54 PM PDT by gore3000
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