Evo, Creationism, I.D. - The Poll

Shouldn’t the first choice be Evolutionism?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(huskers @ Apr 21 2006, 07:27 AM) [snapback]243065[/snapback]</div>

How can the one created know about Creation unless one knows the creator?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SirGreen @ Apr 23 2006, 04:15 PM) [snapback]244065[/snapback]</div>

Who created the creator?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(IsrAmeriPrius @ Apr 23 2006, 06:08 PM) [snapback]244093[/snapback]</div>

That's easy: a Ceator-creator. And a creator-creator-creator created him. There are, of course, an infinite number of levels of creators. What I cannot say, is whether a creator-creator can create creations, or only creators. And whether a creator-creator-creator can create creators, or only creator-creators. And so on.

A Mormon once told me that anybody who lives a perfect life becomes a god and can create worlds of his own, and that our god was just some guy on another world who lived a perfect life and became a god and created our world. And that this chain of gods goes back and back through past time. But I don't remember if he said there was a first god (and where it came from) or if he said there was no beginning, sort of like the steady-state model of the universe. Is there a Mormon in the house?

 

The Church of Next Wednesday holds that the world will be created next Wednesday. All that we seem to experience and remember now is either a Divine premonition (Orthodox Wednesdayism, Church of Latter-Day Wednesdayists: The Morons) or an illusion of the Devil (Seventh-Day Wednesdayism).

See You Next Wednesday!

No, because that would imply that evolution and Creationism were on equal evidential and scientific footing.

Anyone who turns to a distortion of science in an attempt to support their faith has very little faith.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Potential Buyer @ Apr 21 2006, 02:35 PM) [snapback]243292[/snapback]</div>

White people have evolved to be so white from generations of life in less sun baked areas. They're skin needs to absorb more sun than those in Africa, being pale allows that.

Cool, huh?

This evolution stuff doesn't disprove god, it just disproves the literal interpretation of the bible. Is that really a bad thing?

 

Holding a poll, a measure of opinion, on evolution, creationism and intelligent design is defective right from the start. Evolution is based on evidence that is continually tested by multiple hypotheses, not belief. Evolution research articles are published daily - always subject to peer review. Creationism, intelligent design and other beliefs are based on faith and not subject multiple hypothese being tested.

Recent and current issues of Scientific American, Science, Skeptical Inquirer and other journals have discussed this issue to the extreme. The recent court case in Dover, PA, put this to rest. Creationism and ID are religious or faith-based, are not science, and are subject to changing opinion. Science builds upon itself, always striving to disprove the hypotheses. We only accept what we cannot disprove - and we keep testing.

These are absurd arguments, one never hears arguments against the four fources of the universe: gravity, electromagnetic, and the strong and weak forces. The christian bible, last rewritten at the Council of Nicea in 325 CE, consists of much wisdom, metaphors, history and generalizations. The conflict comes when people want to believe the christian bible is an absolute, not subject to change or falsification, then they try to apply the same belief system to science.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(richard schumacher @ Apr 24 2006, 07:48 AM) [snapback]244239[/snapback]</div>

Brilliant! Pure genius! With a bit of personal charisma, you could get rich selling memberships in that one. Gosh, I wish I had thought of it. (Not to get rich. It's just that I like to invent religions. My best so far have been the tree frog religion, the door knob religion, and Ants Are The Antser [sic.], which is a ponzie religion. There was also the Church of God Is a Duck, but the only really interesting part of that one was its name.)

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(skruse @ Apr 24 2006, 08:16 AM) [snapback]244249[/snapback]</div>

The purpose of the poll is to find out how many people believe which ideas. In that sense it serves a purpose. Obviously it does not settle the underlying issue.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Apr 23 2006, 07:12 PM) [snapback]244044[/snapback]</div>

To your first point: The law of "causality" is not a 'vision', it is a fact. An effect is caused by an action on a entity. An entiy is anything in the universe which exists (has attributes). Therefore, one's inability to measure an effect, or even know an effect exists, is not relevant. Stuff happens, and it happens in a certain way because of the action and the nature of the entity. A is A (A Robin won't lay and hatch an alligator ).

To your bold point: your use of "randomness" seems to be a substitute for "chance". Those who argue FOR ID often say life could not have occurred by chance (or randomly). My position is that neither ID nor chance is relevant. "Existence exists" is an (the) irreducible primary axiom. That is, all existents in the universe have attributes, as opposed to an Inteligent designer who is all "consciousness without attributes" (not existent in nature). The mutations you site may seem random, but they are not. Man's knowledge is limited. Although knowledge increases over time, man will likely not ever understand, or be able to measure everything. Again, one's inability to predict or measure an effect (result) which occurs has no bearing on the whether the effect should have or could have occurred.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Denny_A @ Apr 24 2006, 09:16 PM) [snapback]244694[/snapback]</div>

If you don't like the word "vision" substitute the word theory. Your theory (determinism) has been discarded in favor of chaos theory. The universe is not deterministic. Newton thought it was. And Newtonian physics is deterministic, and works very well for certain kinds of systems. But on the sub-atomic level (which applies when we are looking at a cosmic ray striking a strand of DNA) then quantum mechanics replaces newtonian physics, and chaos theory replaces determinism.

Creationists prefer a deterministic universe, of course, because they want to believe in an all-powerful god who set everything in motion and determined from the moment of creation which cosmic ray would strike exactly what atom in a strand of DNA in a particular cell. Einstein, who believed in god, rejected quantum mechanics at first, saying that "god does not play dice." Later, he retracted this view, and accepted quantum mechanics. It turns out that god, if there is a god, does indeed play dice with the universe.

But if you like the word chance better than random, I won't quibble.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Apr 24 2006, 10:32 PM) [snapback]244700[/snapback]</div>

Why would he/she/it want it any other way? A deterministic universe is SO boring and really, pretty pointless. Besides, if free will truely exists then the universe can't be deterministic.

To restate what daniel said earlier... Heisenburg's priniciple states that the lack of knowledge is fundamental, not the result of ignorance. That's the most important thing to take away from it. It's not that we just don't have the right tools to measure both the position and velocity of an electron with high degrees of certainty simultaneously. It's that it's fundamentally not possible to do so. Any yeah, that flies in the face of Newtonian philosophy. Leibnitz always argued against Newton's view and it's possible that Newton himself didn't really believe it, but that he felt that his view was the only one that would work given the limitations of the day.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Apr 25 2006, 01:32 AM) [snapback]244700[/snapback]</div>

Maybe we’ll just have to agree to disagree. But, I’ll give it one more shot.

Re: “your theory (determinism) has been discarded”…

Which determinism do you mean? A. Do you mean classical models where everything is ‘determined’ by initial conditions and boundary values, or B., do you mean everything that happened in the universe is necessitated by previous factors, so that nothing could ever have happened differently from the way it did, and everything in the future is already predetermined and inevitable (Calvinism)?

If the former, A. , then Chaos theory (order out of chaos), deals with non-linearity. “John Hubbard, exploring iterated functions and the infinite fractal wilderness of the Mandelbrot set, considered chaos a ‘poor' name for his work, because it ‘implied randomness'. To him the overriding message was that simple processes in nature could produce magnificent edifices of complexity 'without randomness’.” (Chaos: Making a New Science; pg 306, James Gleick, 1987: from my personal library). I studied Chaos in the late 80’s, but not since then, so I’m not back up to speed. I did use my old 80’s PC to run fractal and Mandelbrot sets – like one per 12-18 hrs of computation time. So, I’m not rookie to chaos, just a cobweb covered dilettante.

Anyway, if the latter, B. , then you are inferring something which I never wrote nor implied. The law of causality is the law of identity applied to action. Insentient existents have no volition. They respond to action based on their nature, and only act according to their nature. Volitional entities, such as humans and animals select from 2 or more alternatives, and therefore intended outcomes are selected.

All effects have a cause. If your position is (as it seems to me) that some effects are ‘causeless’ (random), that constitutes a miraculous effect that defies nature (identity – having attributes).

Re: your Creationist comment; being a non-theist, I have no interest, nor truck with the determinism of position B, and would never pose it as possible.

Re: Einstein; Joseph Ford (physicist, GA Institute of Technology) said “God plays dice with the universe, …but they’re loaded dice. And the main objective of physics is now to find out by what rules were they loaded and how can we use them for our own ends.” (Ibid; Chaos, pg 314)

 

Yes, everything has a cause. But while there are dice (the probability factor in quantum mechanics) there is an element of randomness. (Or chance.)

And gene mutations are purely chance, within the laws of chemistry, which govern what changes are possible.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Apr 26 2006, 04:10 PM) [snapback]245639[/snapback]</div>

Well, we agree - to disagree. It's the definition of "chance vs. cause" that is the hangup.

Chance: "Since things are what they are, since everything that exists possesses a specific identity, nothing in REALITY can occur carelessly or by chance." [Leonard Peikoff, "The Analytic-Synyhetic Dichotomy," Introduction to Objectivist Epistomology, 1979].

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Thanks for the civil debate.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Denny_A @ Apr 26 2006, 02:41 PM) [snapback]245740[/snapback]</div>

You're welcome.