there is a book that explains exactly why this is a scientifically ignorant view, called the blind watchmaker, by richard dawkins. its terrific, you should take a look at it. it explains in depth how evolution creates complexity. it isnt a coincidence at all. it is the result of thousands and thousands and generations of refinements. i used to have a computer program called darwin pond. the program was an evolution simulator. it would create a vitual environment with X attributes. then you would introduce simple creatures into the environment and set the program for them to reproduce rapidly. the creatures would have random attributes. almost all of them would die. then you could induce random mutations into them. almost all the mutations made the creatures worse, and they died. but the ones that were better, even slightly, would survive and reproduce. then you turn up the speed and make a thousand generations of the creatures happen every few seconds. pretty soon they would be more advanced and more effective at existing in the virtual environment. now the key here is that they were not designed by anyone to improve, they evolved. when you look at the final product, it appears obvious they were designed for existing in the particular environment, but thats the thing, they were not. they changed on their own, through natural selection. their complexity appears obviously designed, but it wasnt. there was no higher being, there was adaptation to the environment. so the argument "order does not come from chaos" is incorrect. complexity positively does come from chaos in evolutionary systems. natural selection happens, god doesnt need to change organisms, they improve themselves. one of the main arguments christians use is the eye. they say it is far too complicated to have not been a product of intelligent design. but these people do not understand evolutionary biology. keep in mind how many generations there have been over the millions of years of evolution. the jurassic period was 195 million years ago. the time that creatures have to evolve to their current level of complexity is basically incomprehensible to us. imagine if there are millions of stupid blind creatures, and one of them has a genetic mutation that develops a couple cells that are photosensitive. it has a huge genetic advantage over the others. give it a million years, the others have no evolutionary chance against a creature that senses light. now one of these has a mutation that can differentiate between bright lights and dim, and another million years. then one that has a mutation that senses the light with more accuracy. another million years, we are well on our way to developing an eye. it happens incredibly slowly. baby steps. and then we finally have something that appears to have been designed by an intelligent outsider, but isnt. incredible complexity will always develop to survive in any given environment. evolution works so well that it tricks people into thinking an outsider must have done it. but evolutionary biology demonstrates this is is not true. i find the "god made it" theory alot harder to believe than evolution.
Martin...Tell us...Who introduced the creatures into the environment? Who set the program to rapidly produce? You are obviously an intelligent person...The dumbest one I've ever met, as a matter of fact...
i dont think the world's best physicists would give you a certain answer on the origin of matter. thats is why the big bang theory is a theory, and not a fact. many people can accept ignorance and not make things up. i was only addressing the specific question of how intricately complex things can develop independent of an intelligent designer. i don't claim to know where the universe came from. if you want to believe the magic wizard created everything, thats ok. and if you also want to believe that he is all-powerful and created everyone as sinners but hatched a plan whereby the murder of his son would inexplicably forgive his creations for their sins, then go ahead and believe that too. if you choose to be christian or any other religion i think is stupid, i will not hold it against you. many people wildly superior to me are christian. hey, thanks! D'OH!, i spoke too soon!
I DO believe it. I also happen to believe that I'm just a human being, and not omniscient...therefore, it's not my place to question His motives or actions.
My question to Martin and other non-believers is if you don't believe in God or an all powerful Creator of some kind, then where did the universe come from? I am no physicist but to my small store of knowledge I know of nothing that just pops up from nowhere. If that were the case, would we not see things do that to this day? If I remember my high school science, only energy is nondestructible, right? Everything else lives and dies so to speak. When I look at how things work, like the human body or a tree or the natural succession of the seasons and all of the intricate complexities of the universe, I'm sorry but my feeble mind MUST give credit for it to have come from somewhere and that something greater than mankind keeps it in its proper order. And I don't think any of it is as a result of chaos. Chaos is NOT order!!! And the universe is orderly, is it not? Think for instance of the distance from the Earth to the Sun. A few hundred or thousand miles difference and we would be toast or ice. Something had to place us in just the right spot for it work. But according to you that was just chance, right? We got lucky, right? And everything since the beginning of time that 's happened on Earth was just as a result of that luck, right? You may buy that but I don't. And if you do, like you agree to let us believe in "The Magic Wizard" as you put it, I'll agree to let you believe what you want. And btw, He didn't create everyone as sinners, He created everyone with free will. Man chose just as he chooses today to sin. Fortunately for those of us who believe, He foresaw this and gave us a plan for redemption by the death and Resurrection of His Son, who in fact was He Himself made man. But than that's something that's already been discussed on another thread.
wow...this thread is getting a little hostile it seems. religion vs evolution will do that. i am sure you can go online or talk to someone with NASA, and they could give you hundreds of reasons why the Earth orbits the sun perfectly enough to allow life to flourish. i am sure the earth's mass and composition and core have a lot to do with that. as for the seasons, that is orbital in nature too for the most part, dealing with the equator, axis of the earth, and distance from the sun at the time. the universe is chaotic except for the planets large enough and comprised just right to orbit the sun. there are astroids and meteors out there just floating around hitting things in their ways...look at the moon....remember the dinosaurs. scientist say one day our sun will die or explode, that will suck. so, to answer your question, who are we to decide if Martin is right or wrong in his belief on God? He might be right, he may be wrong...there is no definitive answer. does he deserve to be hounded about his decision and belief....no. i believe in God, and i sure as hell hope heaven awaits me when i pass on, but the ultimate answer is nobody knows. is the bible a tue account of the days of Moses and Jesus, or is it stories that are made up to give faith and hope....nobody knows. you can argue either way...yes because there are the Dead Sea Scrolls....no because the people who wrote about Jesus did see after his life, based off what was told to them by others, adn we have 4 accounts of his life written one after the other. Why did only the mormons get to have Jesus an extended period of time after his return, did he not like the catholics and protestants? where is this arc with the commandments, and the holy grail? see what i am saying...there is no definitive answer on this subject. believe what you want and respect others beliefs. God would want it that way...peace, harmony, love for your fellow man. :grin: :wink:
first, let me say i can be an ass about ridiculing people's beliefs.. i know i teeter on the edge of being a complete jackass about that alot, so for that i apologize. i need to do a better job of ridiculing people's beliefs, and not the people themselves. i do not think my lack of answer to this question makes your answer any more right. that whole concept is self contradictory. if you are all-powerful and created everything, everything is necessarily a result of how you made it. if i created a robot with free will, and it came over to your house and stole your bicycle, wouldnt you blame me? i made it to my specifications. i couldnt just blame the robot, and say "he decided to steal". i made him. everything about him is a result of my doing. yes we are particularly well suited to our environment. maybe life exists on other planets that has adapted to live on a hot or cold planet. we have adapted to the conditions here, and could not live elsewhere. maybe we could if we had evolved there. what you are saying is reverse logic. it is like seeing a basketball team and then being impressed with how well suited the sport is to their skills. they are specifically designed for the game, not vice-versa. we are well-suited for the temperature and conditions of earth, just like animals that live in the desert are well-suited for the desert, and not the arctic. look at it this way: take every animal in the world, and put them in a box, then dump every kind of animal out in all the places in the world. pretty soon polar bears would be living only in the cold again, and alligators are back in the swamps. even though nobody placed them in the environments that they belong in. for any creature x that lives in environment Y, it is there because it can survive. different environment, different creature. earth has humans. maybe a frozen planet has some other thing. we are a result of adaptation to this environment on earth. earth was here before us. we didnt just conveniently happen upon a place that is acceptable for us. from there it is a huge logical leap to believing in the specific christian dogma of the bible. i think most physicists would tell you that all matter in the universe was all there for the big bang, hypercompressed. where that came from, i dunno if they would answer that one. i know i do not know the answer to that one. "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." - philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein
Hey, at least you admit it...and that makes you a little bit less of a jackass right there. :grin: :grin: :grin:
Martin, I have to say it constantly amazes me how much I agree with you on most issues when I disagree with you so much on this one. And I'll read your book if you read this one: "The Science of God." It goes into may things, among them being the extremely slim odds of an environment that can support life even existing. My favorite, though, is the section that reconciles Genesis with the scientific explanation of the creation of the universe. Essentially, if one looks at the history of the universe from the (temporal) point of view of the Big Bang into the future, using that clock and taking into account the effects of time dilation, all 40 billion years (or whatever) condense quite nicely into 7 days on the schedule as laid out in Genesis. It's really a good read. So if you add that one to your list, I'll add yours to mine. I'll even move it up to the front, and I'll read it as soon as I finish my current one.
