From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Sep 9 15:35:21 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.FreeBSD.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8626637B400 for ; Mon, 9 Sep 2002 15:35:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from harrier.mail.pas.earthlink.net (harrier.mail.pas.earthlink.net [207.217.120.12]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0EF7943E4A for ; Mon, 9 Sep 2002 15:35:18 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from tlambert2@mindspring.com) Received: from pool0088.cvx21-bradley.dialup.earthlink.net ([209.179.192.88] helo=mindspring.com) by harrier.mail.pas.earthlink.net with esmtp (Exim 3.33 #1) id 17oX6z-00019u-00; Mon, 09 Sep 2002 15:34:29 -0700 Message-ID: <3D7D2193.88E5546D@mindspring.com> Date: Mon, 09 Sep 2002 15:32:51 -0700 From: Terry Lambert X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.79 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "Neal E. Westfall" Cc: Lawrence Sica , Giorgos Keramidas , chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Why did evolution fail? References: <20020909135135.V1838-100000@Tolstoy.home.lan> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org "Neal E. Westfall" wrote: > > > > > This is just what I am trying to get people to admit, that evolution > > > > > requires tremendous leaps of faith. Now if you could see that it is also > > > > > irrational, my job would be done. [...] > > Why is it "completely irrational"? All it amounts to is that we > > are willing to acknowledge that we don't know everything. > > Because no matter how well you dress it up, it amounts to the following: > > 1) Something came from nothing. We haven't gotten into the cosmological issues, so far, but if you insist, we can. > 2) Order came from disorder. Mathematically, we can prove this from the same axiomatic basis that lets other mathematical operations work. Order *does* come from disorder. At a fundamental level, the universe is quantized, and this causes certain emergenet behaviours in matter. We call the properties that cause this "universal constants", like the value of PI, the value of "e", the Planck length, etc.. We don't have to define an origin for these numbers for them to make themselves evident to us. > 3) Life came from non-life. This is actually a reasonable assumption, given empirical observations. We have a number of stories to describe the math of how this could be so. It also begs the definition of "life"; if you mean self-assembly of complex chemical compounds, we can do this in a laboratory, under controlled conditions, creating amino acids from conditions which simulate our best guesses at those present early in the life of the Earth. > 4) Intelligence came from non-intelligence. Our best theory is that intelligence is an emergent property of complex self-regulating systems over a certain threshold density. Again, it begs the definition of "intelligence"; there are many things you could mean here, and it's really hard to draw a boundary line, and say, for example, "Chimps are intelligent, but mice are not". > 5) Morality came from the non-moral. Morality is a consensus definition based on collectivist ethics; it's always externally imposed, which is how it differs from ethics. We've had this discussion already. > To believe in evolution (at least the non-theistic variety) you have to > believe that things turn into their opposites. This is quite a departure > from the notion of "rational explanation." I follow your arguments (even if I attempt to refute them); however, even if we grant your 5 points as being totally and complete irrefutably correct, they don't lead me to the conclusion that "evolution is incorrect", they merely lead me, as a collection of supporting arguuments, to a belief in a creator. Believing in a creator is not the same thing as falsifying evolutionary theory. -- Terry To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message