"Well, actually we *do*- the universal constants and Avogadro's Balloon. It's only been about 10 years since they were discovered, we don't know what they mean yet- but since the Big Bang was by definition a closed system, such a reversal of entropy must mean something. Also, it's incorrect, or at least premature, to assume a random universe merely because we don't have the capability to measure all the variables yet."
Look, you're not getting it. We have a universe. It looks a certain way. But given that we only have the one universe to look at, there's no way to generalize about whether our particular universe is likely, especially ordered, whatever. We have no idea, and no way to have any idea. The constants are meaningless in this endeavor: all we can do is measure them. We can't talk about exactly the "likihood" of them being that way, because have no idea what the process or constraints were.
In short, you basically doing the equivalent of insisting that we know the probability of a dice roll given that you know the value that came up after a single roll.... but without knowing anything else at all about the die. You dont' know how many other sides it has. You don't know how it is weighted. You don't even know what is on the other sides. So talking about "expecting" any sort of universe, or talking about the universe being surprisingly this or that... is all pure nonsense.
"That is incorrect- this is in fact what religion is all about and always HAS been all about."
That may or may not be, but again, it's irrelevant. Religion is not the sole source of wonder, nor is it necessary to do good science. It isn't part of the scientific process.
"Incorrect- you're quite religious or you wouldn't be arguing your beliefs in such an evangelical manner."
Characterizing me in an attempt to cover up is simply lame. If "religious" means anything at all, then I'm not religious. If I'm religious, then "religion" merely means "having opinions on stuff" which basically takes all the air out of your argument.
"We actually have at least 6.5 billion universes on this planet alone- one for each individual model of the universe that each individual human has come up with from the "facts" they know. None are complete, none are even close to the truth, but by comparing them to what is we can find the truth."
Nope. Still only the one universe. People's guesses and imaginations and even models of the universe aren't "other universes." Even if they could be called that, this would still be a dodge of the topic: we are talking about whether or not it makes sense to draw any conclusions from any general state of the the discovered physical laws of the ACTUAL univese, not some universe you invent in your mind.
"The rest may not be truth, may not be factually based, may not even be possible, but that doesn't stop us from constructing them and modeling them and comparing them to reality."
Again, that's irrelevant. In the case of what we are talking about, only the characteristics of the true factual universe is relevant.
"Why should it have to? Does your atheistic science predate the universe?"
Regular science, you mean? Nope. But then, regular science doesn't claim to make vast conclusions about things external to the universe based on the universe, as you are doing.
"Just as ad hoc as any other form of science then, since Darwin and you don't predate the universe either, by that silly rule. Got any other silly rules to redefine words for me to shoot down?"
Lol. You haven't shot anything down. Darwin's predictions pre-date the discovery and knowledge of evidence that confirmed his theory. That's not the same thing as saying "hey, look at this universe that seems to have some reliable physical laws.... JUST AS ZEUS INTENDED BWAHAHAHAAHAA!"
"And I'd say denying a developmental human's humanity just for the pragmatic reason that you want its cells is abhorrent. Both of us are applying the labels of "human" and "non-human" fairly arbitrarily."
No we aren't. I'm using the actual concept developed in ethics over centuries of development of human society. You are using a bizarre misreading of the concept by applying the word "human" to something the vast majority of people who worked out why human life is important never even knew existed in the first place.
Face it, the fact that human beings are morally important isn't something anyone just knew: it developed and became appreciated over time as more and more people became convinced that certain sorts of beings really were morally important. A zygote is about as different from that sort of being as ANY LIVING THING COULD BE. An earthworm is more like a that sort of being than a zygote for goodness sakes.
"The difference is that if I'm right, you're endorsing murder."
To even suggest that preventing a few cells from developing in a certain direction is akin "murder" (heck, those cells don't even have to die: they can all be kept alive far longer than they would have if development proceeded towards a fetus!) is belittling to the concept of murder. Stem cells do not care about things, feel pain, have friends and relations, and so on. Not one of the things that makes murder so horrible applies.
Comparing the killing of stem cells to murdering a person is as outrageously idiotic as comparing me borrowing a tool from my neighbor's toolshed to the holocaust. It just doesn't make an ounce of sense.
You keep repeating this claim that adult stem cells and cord blood show more promise. Even biologists who are opposed to embryonic stem cell research say that this is a false claim. Using adult stem cells has its place, but its no substitute for what we can potentially learn from embryonic stem cells.
There is no bright line, but at the stem cell stage, it is about as far as a living thing can get from what a human is. I can't draw a bright line on when a child becomes an mature adult... but that doesn't mean that sex with a 1 year old is ok: that's so far over the line as to be perfectly obvious.
"Because so far, answers to those questions have not been backed up with any ethical reasoning."
Ethics is supposed to be about something. Randomly calling something "human" for no reason other than genetics isn't ethics, it's just being a litteralist without any sense of why human life is important in the first place. It's nihilistic rule following without any sense of what the rules are for.
There's no reason to think those wouldn't have the same, if not worse problems. I get the feeling that most people pushing this view have as little grasp of what's so important about specifically embryonic cells as they do of ethics.
"Therefore, your form of science is useless to the question- being unable to answer it."
Well yes: which is exactly why it's ridiculous for you to claim to know any better. You don't. You have no grounds to conclude anything about something external to the universe from the nature of the universe. You don't have any facts to work with.
"Obviously you know nothing about the reason why we undertake science. There is only one rational reason: to understand the universe in it's entirety, and determine what we can of the mind of God from that. This is the science of Einstien, of Copernicus, of Galileo, of Newton. I don't know what kind of science you imagine can be separated from the religious need to know. But something tells me it has far more to do with base materialism than anything else."
Simply put, there is nothing particularly religious about a need to know and a wonder about the world around us. I'm not religious, and I have it. Other people are religious, and their religion may well undergird their motivation for doing science. But that has nothing to do with science being a particularly religious endeavor. It's no more religious than taking the dog out for a walk because you don't want him to poop on your carpet.
"We're comparing the universe to theories and models all the time, that's the meaning of the word experimentation."
??? You're. Not. Making. Sense. Again: we only have the one universe here. We cannot generalize about this universe being special or tellingly one way or the other, because we only know about the one.
There is no "theistic science." Your form of ID does not predate the universe, sorry, making its "predictions" AD HOC.
Do you realize that your responses are barely at all consistent over time or with what they are responding to?
"Science has surpassed the impossible so many times that you'd think nobody would use that word anymore. Making presumptions about the universe in a dogmatic way is in and of itself irrational."
Again, I'm not missing the point: you aren't making sense. You are the one making claims here about the universe. I'm not denying that science might not one day be able to address the question better, but as things stand now, your claims about probability, order and disorder and so forth, have no basis in anything. There's nothing to compare our universe to: there's no basis to conclude anything from it being the way it is.
"Apparently neither precise enough or well defined enough; for what they said made no sense and makes a mockery of the very *idea* of a predictable universe."
Nonsense. The universe, despite quantum weirdness, remains quite predictable. Even quantum weirdness is, itself, pretty reliably predictable, albiet in a different sense.
"It has according to me- but you seem to have the idea that science and religion are separate."
Science is a process for evaluating evidence. You can certainly be personally religious while you undertake that process, but religion is basically irrelevant to the process, and it isn't itself scientific in any way shape or form. Religion is neither a necessary nor a particularly relevant thing to science.
"Pope Benedict XVI did quite recently- and the Islamics jumped all over him for it. Don't you pay any attention to the world around you?"
You'll have to explain in what way he made any sort of useful scientific statement about anything, because I don't see any evidence that he did, and I pay pretty good attention. The Pope isn't a scientist and he isn't doing science. Which is perfectly okay: as long as it isn't claimed that he is.
"Bullshit. Without ID, evolution makes no sense- for there cannot be patterns where there is only randomness. Your "patterns" are destroyed by the idea of random mutation."
I just don't see your argument here. Random mutation is not the only element relevant to evolution. Pretending that it is is simply nonsense. Pretending, likewise, that a universe in which some order exists proves that there is an ID simply begs the question. There's barely even any argument there for me to refute!
"And without intelligence, those specific patterns could not exist, because there would be no physical laws to determine the pattern."
This is simply your personal opinion. It's first of all completely irrelevant to evolution, because evolution does not purport to explain physical laws or regularities, it simply works off what's there. It's second of all simply begging that universe question we discussed before. You cannot conclude that physical laws or fine tuning or anything else demand intelligence, because there is nothing to compare the universe too. For all we know, the universe we live in could be remarkable for it's degree of chaos and lack of order rather than remarkable for what little there is.
"Yes it does- it predicts that there will be patterns, that those patterns will be rational AND UNCHANGING. As opposed to random and unpredictable."
Again, as far as I can tell, you are talking about physical laws again. I've already dealt with most of this argument. The prediction angle is not a prediction: it's ad hoc. Worse, if it WERE different, nothing prevents you from simply ad hocing another reason why the ID would want changing patterns or occasional irrationality. In short, nothing about the "theory" is really committed to anything in a way that future evidence would impact its truth. If we suddenly discovered that the universe is really actually totally irrational and random after all, and our belief that it wasn't was an illusion, I have a feeling you'd still find some way to insist that the ID wanted it that way for whatever reason you can think up for it.
"Nope, my involvement in ID predates the creationist involvement by a good number of decades.
"Just because we have no capacity to do so now does not mean we will never have the capacity. Just because we can't measure something now doesn't make the measurement irrelevant to a more complete model."
You seem to have a hard time following the argument. This response doesn't really address what I said. What I said was that it is impossible to make judgements about things like chance and likihood about "the universe" given that we have no idea and no capability to have any idea, what "universes" in general are like or how characteristic of universes ours is, or even whether it is the only one.
"I'm not the one who introduced it into science- Heisenberg was."
Well, no, he wasn't, again you're confusing things, but when people like Heisenberg used those terms, they used them in a precise and well-defined manner. You are just throwing them all over the place willy nilly.
"Neither does science, for that matter"
Of course science can tell us the how. Indeed, that's been the triumph of science over and over and over.
"by limiting evidence to only that which can be tested, the scientific method has a fatal flaw."
No: it's a limitation that prevents its scope from shooting out into the mere speculation and fantasy.
"We can, but that would be the irrational, anthromorphic way to look at it, placing our desires upon God. It should be the other way around."
Again, this response seems to have missed the line of discussion it's jumping into. I'm not sure you're really understanding what we're talking about.
"Once again, you're looking at a small sample of irrational American Christians as if they are the whole- which is about as stupid as judging all of Islam based on the 10 million or so who subscribe to convert or die theologies. Your view of ID, and of religion in general, is strangely narrowminded. Are you sure you aren't a Biblical atheist fundamentalist, so poisoned by the ridiculous assertions of American Christianity that atheism seems to become the only sane option?"
Nope. But please, name me any ID theorist who has made a specific scientific prediction about physical evidence based on their claimed understanding of God.
"Yes it does, as does ID. In fact, those particular patterns are one and the same for theistic evolution- they have to be, because the physical evidence about life on earth is how we know more about God than our ancestors did."
No, ID does not. ID contributed nothing to ferreting out those patterns or pointing anyone in their direction.
"If evolution predicts the universe that already exists, so does ID- for the simple reason that ID is the search of the "scripture" written in our DNA (which is another reason why the Biblical Creationists won't find their God there- for they don't worship a God, but rather a book)."
Evolution predicts specific patterns in the evidence. ID does not predict anything in particular. All your claimed knowledge about ID is ad hoc: you are speculating about the motives of the ID after the fact. That's fine if you enjoy doing so, but it's not science.
"Also, those whose blood pressure boiled off the charts also demonstrated a conflict with their own beliefs, as in their evolutionary world, such stupidity, as you seem to view me having, shouldn't be offensive at all. I should rather be viewed as a weaker organism, less able to survive, which the powers of time and chance will relegate to extinction; I have a sense though, that deep down not even you believe that."
Of course none of us believe that, because, again, you are claiming that we hold evolution as a normative worldview, and you're simply wrong, we don't. Nothing about evolution as a physical fact of biological life insists that anyone care, anymore than the germ theory of disease implies that we should just let all diseases run their course.
There is no conflict with their beliefs, because you are the only one claiming that anyone believes that.
I'm sorry that people have modded you down or spoken rudely to you. Unfortunately, such treatment has little bearing on whether your arguments make sense or not.
"But while I may state my own views, my general purpose in these posts hasn't been to persuade, but to merely discuss the logical consequences of any belief or opinion someone holds. "
The problem is that you haven't demonstrated logical consequences: there are gaping holes in the connections you are drawing: often SEVERAL leaps of flawed logic. Things you assert are facts are 180 wrong or misrepresentations, and so on.
Your account of science, for instance, bears little relation to actual science or the philosophy of empiricism that undergirds it. The origin of life is 100% within the realm of science: you seem to be confusing several different senses of the word "origin." The only things that are not are those which are beyond the realm of physical evidence to point one way or the other: the origin of the universe may be one such thing, since there appears to be no way to get any data prior a certain point in time. What science requires is not faith, but an appreciation of the natural principles that appear to operate in our universe, making it explorable by logic and evidence. This principle is not taken on faith, but rather because the alternative is not God, but rather simple incoherency: the inability to say anything about anything.
You've also failed completely to demonstrate that evolution is a worldview that has any of the implications you claim. You've tried unsuccessfully to change the subject when its pointed out that the majority of people who consider evolution to be sound science are religious believers. You've tried instead to claim that they are not what you specifically define as Christian. But even if that definition weren't so strained, it wouldn't matter: that's irrelevant. You claimed that evolution is a worldview that denies one the ability to have a moral system based onGod's commands, and that claim is clearly false even if you think people pray to the wrong God (and they can say the same about you anyway: so what even on that?)
In science, there is no belief in "eternal matter" as you claim. Again: science is not a grand philosophy of everything but rather a pragmatic tool for understanding based on the only common element to all people: physical evidence. Science is not the be all and end all of Truth, capital T, but it is the one domain we know of in which we focus on what we could objectively know, as opposed to merely warring with our subjective beliefs without any hope of reconciliation.
"Without this, evolutionary theory cannot even begin to be considered as an option. This is not subject to opinion -- its a fact."
No, it isn't. Science doesn't start from saying anything about the Biblical story: you are simply so obsessed with it that you cannot imagine anything as being either decidedly for it or against it from the start. But science does have any interest in it or any other body of claims at all: that's not how science works. Science, instead, starts with natural regularities and knowledge about the world around us and applies these to the world to learn more about it. Again, just because you are so wrapped up in the idea of faith over everything does not mean that everything else is as well. That's simply not how science works. Even the basic axioms of rational existence need not be believed as aspects of faith: it's perfectly reasonable to treat them as provisional.
Your grasp of morality is similarly flawed. The existence or directions of God are, as we've known since Plato pointed it out, irrelevant to the question of what is moral. Either rape is wrong or it isn't: it can't be wrong only if a God exists and says so, because that would make the morality of rape depedent rather than necessary, which removes all force from it. If the definition of "right" is simply "what God commands" then the concept of right has no indepedent meaning from "somethi
What you're saying has almost nothing to do with what the ID movement has argued, except slightly the cosmological portion. Whether the universe is random or ordered is basically irrelevant: it is what it is, and we have no capacity to draw conclusions from one example when we don't know what the alternatives are, how they are determined, or whether there even are any alternatives. You are also, of course, using terms like "ordered" and "disordered" in vague and bizarre ways. It's really sort of worthless to try and introduce woo like that into science.
ID is untestible because it doesn't explain the how of anything (not even anything you've been talking about) in anything other than an ad hoc manner. No matter what conditions or things we find in the world, we can ALWAYS invent some motive for why the ID wanted it that way. We aren't committed to _anything_, especially if we don't commit to a very specific ID (which most ID people won't do, because that would mean admitting that they think it's their particular God)
Evolution predicts very particular patterns that must hold up in the physical evidence about life on earth. ID offers none of this, for anything. Saying that ID "predicts" the universe that already exists is nonsense.
Exactly. We start talking about Darwin, and somehow people come up with spinning atoms and computer programs writing themselves. It's a complete dodge: changing the whole scope of the discussion to avoid having to concede that, within it's specifically defined scope, biological evolution both works and makes sense.
"You had repeated this to me twice, but yet no clear conception I heard from you."
Buddy, I ain't the one for whom English is a second language. Complaining about no clear conceptions is pretty lame coming from you.
"We all "know" that life on Earth started from an Explosion, which produced random movenet of atoms"
See, you don't get it. The formation of Earth from interstallar dust was not something that happened because of random movement of atoms. What occured on the surface of earth was not simply random movement either. If you are conceptualizing things that way, then of course you are confused, because your imagination makes no sense.
"which randomly created molecules, then bacteria, then Infuzoria, then monkey, and finally Slashdot.:-) Isn't this an Evolution concept? Or now evolutionists believe into something else?"
Evolution has ALWAYS meant descent with modification, from Darwin on.
Of course, you seem to think that evolution includes things prior to life, which is yet again, you being wrong.
"Absolutely agree. Evolution is a theory (yet not proven though) about an algorithm, based on a thought that "primitive produces complex"."
No, not really. It can, and sometimes does, but that sort of directionality is irrelevant.
"IOW, more stupid produce more smart."
Er, no. What does that even mean?
"Though you still didn't explained me where is a start point of Evolution: where is the beginning and who or what gave it a kick to evolute?"
What? That doesn't even make sense.
"IOW, who made that "ratchet algoritm"? If you at least know how to write "Hello World!" program in any program language, you must understand, that any algoritm is previously designed stuff, which supposed to do something in a future. Therefore even your Evolution you believe -- might be a product of somebody, who well designed stuff around, where each element may evolute."
No, and evolute isn't a word. You are taking algoritmn too literally. It isn't lines of code, but rather simply the natural laws. If you want to believe that god created those natural laws, nothing internal to evolution contradicts you: that's outside of the scope of the theory.
"It proves nothing, since code is supposed do make a shapes."
Nice try, but no. The code simply sets up the situation in which the genetic algorithm plays out, thus refuting your claim that design is necessary. That the program was designed is completely irrelevant.
Ah, you aren't. But then, you are making the exact same stupid argument, so it really comes to no matter.
"If you want to argue with me, and not the other guy, please point out which step of logic you disagree with: 1) Darwin developed the TOE. 2) The TOE inspired Social Darwinism 3) Social Darwinism inspired Eugenics 4) Eugenics inspired the actions of the Nazis."
For me to point out an error in logic, you need to first supply some logic. All you've supplied is a chain of events, and not a particularly direct or sensible one either. Yes, some people played a game of telephone with Darwin
"The Nazis were occultist syncretists, and used a wide variety of things in developing their "philosophy". Eugenics was just one of their influences, but certainly an important one."
Sure, so... what happened to your point? What happened to all the other things you claimed? Have you really retreated down to: "well, the Nazis developed a warped philosophy based in part on their poor understanding of evolution and their eugenic beliefs." What exactly is the point of that again? They did the same, arguably with a lot more emphasis and cultural resonance, with Christianity. So?
If Darwin's ideas were so toxic, how come the British didn't join up with the Nazis, given that Darwin was English and his theories had war wider berth there?
And regardless, what does any of this, this entire discussion, have to do with whether or not Darwin's actual theories, his actual work, was on point or not?
"Funny story. A bunch of people used the TOE to go from a description of how the world is, to how the world should be."
One can say the same for any knowledge about the world. However, that doesn't make the connection legitimate, inevitable, nor the fault of the fact.
"This isn't uncommon. When you reject all metaphysics and allow only science and math as "meaningful" (which is the central thesis of positive materialism, the dominant philosophy of the 20th Century), then when making normative statements they can't allow God, or any metaphysical ethics, so they often turn to science."
As you keep failing to understand, being a scientist doesn't preclude being religious. It might preclude your brand of fanaticism, but it certainly hasn't prevented the majority of scientists from believing in God. Your grasp of the 20th century and its dominant philosophy is just as silly as your claims about evolution.
"For example, "The human colon length ratio is in between that of carnivores and vegitarian animals, therefore we *should* be omnivores." Or (staying on topic) "Animals prey on weaker animals, therefore it is *right* for humans to prey on weaker humans, and for the weaker humans to die off to strengten the herd.""
Ok... so? These inferences are all leaps of illogic. The fact that one can make such leaps does not demonstrate anything.
"This is one of the fundamental problems with a positive materialist outlook. When you deny everything else, only science can provide normative values, and science is horrendous at providing normative values."
Science doesn't try to provide normative values in the first place. People have normative values. Science merely tells them what the situations they are in are like. It's up to people to decide and judge what's right and wrong. You can blather on about the 20th century, but the fact is that 20th century normative values are by far superior to those of any century before. 20th century values for the first time in human history consider racism, sexism, and other such things to be unjustified (in no small part to science, and biology in specific, demonstrating that they are false). We put real value in fairness and justice in our systems of due process. We don't consider some people lords and other serfs. And so on. Face it: the liberal enlightenment is progress that even the most 20th century-hating fundamentalist would never want to go back on.
"To stay on target, it's pretty much indisputable the line of thought went: Darwin -> TOE -> Social Darwinism (which Darwin was sort of a supporter of) -> Eugenics -> Nazi-Eugenics."
Darwin wasn't much of a supporter of social darwinism: he was one of the most progressive people of his age in terms of racial treatment. I could draw a similar link from Christ to Hitler's anti-semetic holocaust. It's no more and no less accurate than your silly "line of thought." In fact, Hitler far far more often referenced Christ and Martin Luther than he ever made mention of Darwin. I have a feeling that both you and Hitler had an about equal amount of knowledge about Darwin and the theory of evolution in general, which is to say, not very much.
"So it's wrong to say that Darwin would have supported the gas chambers, but he's a definite influence in the lineage of thought."
He's also a definate influence in the lineage of thought that finally put an end to racism as an acceptable belief about human beings by demonstrating that they all came from a very recent common ancestor and are so genetically intermingled as to no matter.
Well, I don't think evolution predicts "half-chickens" which certainly makes me better informed than yourself.
"But let me know how you became a Homosapiens, being a crocodile->monkey->IT-programmer "millions of years" ago?"
It's called descent with modification: sub groups within groups. Your conception: of one thing turning into another, is generally a mistaken way to think of it, which is perhaps why you find the idea so confusing.
"You know, even when dried bacteria delivered to the Earth constituted a full explanation for the origin of all life on Earth, the origin of those bacteria is still not solved..."
Perhaps. But that's not really the concern of evolution as a scientific theory. I'm not really sure what you are talking about here other than that.
"Ah well, you push me to forget physics, spit on all science laws and starting to believe that chaos can produce order or any ultra-primitive thing can produce complex, well-designed systems?"
I haven't suggested anything of the sort. There are no "physics laws" that preclude evolution, nor order from chaos. Calling things designed sort of begs the question, doesn't it?
"Remember Fred Hoyle's Boeing story? -- a great argument that uses logic and probability: A junkyard contains all the bits and pieces of a Boeing-747, dismembered and in disarray. A whirlwind happens to blow through the yard. What is the chance that after its passage a fully assembled 747, ready to fly, will be found standing there?"
It may use logic, and it may well make sense on its own terms, but it doesn't describe a situation relevant to the evolutionary process. Evolution is not simply random assemblage. It's a ratchet algorithm, not a whirlwind in anything. The analogy simply fails.
"Simply buy a LEGO constructor for kids, put it into a plastic bag an shake. Only once you get a fully featured toy assembled, please reply here again."
Actually, I have a screensaver on my computer that is somewhat like this situation except for one crucial difference: it actually models all the aspects of evolution instead of JUST random events, which is all your example describes. My screensaver essentially performs random variations on geometrical shapes joined by moving joints, again, all random. It then selects and descends those variations which end up physically moving the farthest in a coordinate plane. For most of the first series of generations, these little machines were lucky to thrash their way even one unit away from their starting point. But now, after roughly a thousand generations, they are nearly maxing out the distance they can travel in the time they are given: 60 units. Instead of random assemblages, they look like complex almost scorpion-like tripods that "walk" pretty convincingly. None of this "walking" was built into the program: all the program did was establish heredity with minor mutation and then select for distance. If I hadn't told you about how these walking machines came to be, you'd insist that they were designed. But they weren't. They were evolved.
That's what's known as a genetic algorithm program, and it is a simple demonstration of why your intuitions about design are incorrect.
"But you know what? You will have a complete fiasco due to lack of knowledge of termodinamics"
termodinamics? Does that involve termites of some sort?:) Seriously though, thermodynamics does not preclude evolution in the slightest. Chances are, you probably misunderstand it just as you misundertand evolution. I would suggest reading up on the concept in a reliable scientific resource or encyclopedia instead of just trusting what some babbling creationist claims about it.
"So you want to wow me by the fact you're frequently eating chicken with clear differences in color and mass? Better show me a creature which is half crocodile, half human, half monkey, half pig and half an idiot."
I don't think you understand how evolution works. It doesn't require, predict, or imply half-anythings.
"Ever heard something about amino acids, proteins? It is such a chemical stuff, you know... If you are so great in mind (if not, online Darwin will probably assist you), show to the World how you reproduce homochilarity by random process with L-molecules-only in proteins and billions R-molecules-only in DNA in your chemical lab and you will get a Nobel Prize"
There are any number of reasons for homochilarity: the difficulty is in figuring out which among many possibilities, not that it happened at all.
"Well, the real problem is how the very World First DNA, (made by random explosion of random chemical reaction of random... blah-blah-blah) suddenly "knew" of such mechanism is actually required."
Your problem is that you concieve of a modern, highly complex thing and imagine taking huge chunks away from that existing system. Evolution doesn't work like that. Depedancy of two different things can evolve over time, with one becoming steadily more depedent on the other.
"Evolution is founded upon a preconceived world view. Forget the scientific pontificating for a moment. Science is not the foundation of the theory. In order to believe evolution, you first have to start with an article of fatih. IN THE BEGINNING, __________. Even evolution must have that."
Sometimes you get the sense that a person is so wrapped up in their own worldview that they have no capacity to even imagine anything outside of that.
Yes, science is the basic method used to develop a theory of evolution. No, there isn't an "IN THE BEGINNING." Science is not an ultimate ontology.
"Ah...but there you are. It *isn't* bad. And it *isn't* good. And it has everything to do with evolution, because in an evolutionary world, there is no basis for right and wrong. If someone deems murder right, then its no more right or wrong than charity, kindness, or cruelty."
Simply put, you've played a dishonest game here. You've set evolution in constrast to YOUR very particular religious beliefs. But then you go and try to make an argument that evolution contradicts ALL religious beliefs. There are countless religious believers who have no problem with evolution or a religious view on morality. You can run around and claim that these people aren't the true believers, but whatever, they can say the same about you. Meanwhile, their very existence exposes the false dichotomy you created between evolution and religious belief and evolution and religious morality.
"All along my point has been the consequences of a particular belief system. Someone who believes something, like evolution, ought to be honest about what the ramifications of accepting that belief system are."
Okay. But I'll pick someone else to conduct that honest appraisal, because I don't think you are qualified either intellectually or in honesty.
"Even the Pope admitted that evolution happens, unless you want to say the Pope isn't Christian?"
Dude, you've read this guy's posts. Of COURSE he's going to say that only those who narrowly views Christianity in exactly the way he does is a Christian.
Re:If giving credit, give credit accurately
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Charles Darwin Online
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· Score: 3, Interesting
"Darwin was not a Christian. That claim demonstrates a lack of understanding of what a Christian is. Now I understand the reasons why someone might think that, as people generally broadly classify anyone associated with a Church that involves the Bible as being Christian, which isn't so. Society doesn't define what "Christian" is. Christ defined what Christian is. And one cannot reject the Word of God, and claim to be Christian. While it may seem uninstinctive or untraditional to do so, instinct and tradition don't define truth. According to the Bible, Catholocism isn't Christian either. You cannot reject the Bible, or any portion of it, and claim to be Christian. That isn't my opinion or religious belief -- its merely an accounting of the definition of what Christianity is and what it is not. "
Did you think this through at all? The Bible didn't EXIST during the time of Christ: how could Christ have endorsed a full literal reading of the Bible, including the NT, when it didn't even exist yet? How can Catholicism not be Christian according to the Bible when it was Catholicism that compiled the Bible in the first place? Good grief. Most of the traditions that Catholics hold that are extra-Biblical existed even before the Bible existed.
The view of of the Bible you are pushing didn't even emerge until just a few hundred years ago, and you want to pretend that it's the Original Gangsta Christian view? Come on: that's ridiculous.
Of course that's your opinion and religious belief. You don't get to personally define what Christianity is.
"I was saying that for those who have already accepted Darwinism, then they ought to examine the consequences of those beliefs and their contemporaries, and that is that regardless of their perceived (or hoped for) differences, Darwinianism puts them in the same philosophical category as those who committed those atrocities.":rolleyes: Again, you could apply the same to Martin Luther and Hitler and Christianity. Ever heard of "On the Jews and their Lies"? It's virtually the blueprint for the holocaust... and the final major work of the founder of the school of Biblical exegesis that you hold to.
"It is unimportant whether Hitler and Stalin professed Darwiniianism, as their actions were consistent with the consequential philosophy, which is "whatever goes"."
Look, I really hope this gets through to you somehow: evolution is not a philosophy of "Darwinism." By and large, the only people who ever talk about Darwinism are creationists trying to make evolution sound big and bad. But evolution is NOT A PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. It's a scientific description of how life developed on this planet.
"My interest is in intellectual honesty"
Well, you aren't doing a very good job of it, I'm afraid.
"That's just the logical ramification of subscribing to the "Preservation of Favored Races" which is basically a racist view of the living."
Lol. It's obvious you haven't actually read it, because the word "races" has nothing to do with human races. Origin only even mentions human beings in passing at the end.
"Those murderous dictators were perfect Darwinians. Its also perfect justification for the destruction of the environment, endangered species, and various ecosystems, which apparently deserve to be destroyed if natural selection dictates that they do not maintain the ability to preserve themselves in their present state. "
lol again. Evolution is descriptive, not normative. None of the views you refer to are necessary or even logical outgrowths of evolution. By your logic, since Hitler used Christianity to rationalize what he did, Christianity is evil. But that argument is just as dumb as the one you used.
Funny story on that is some skeptic who went to Lourdes or one of those other of those "miracle" sites where everyone is supposed to get healed. Characteristic of the site are lots of crutches thrown away by lame people who supposedly were cured and could walk without the crutches (who no doubt collapsed again from the special exertion an hour later)
Anyway, on being told that the site was one of healing and miracles and shown all the crutches as proof, the skeptic remarked "what, no wooden legs?"
Historically, that's note quite right. Darwin does mention a Creator here and there in his books as something possibly starting life. It wasn't really a part of his theory as much as it was just the parlance of his times, but I thought it was a nitpick worth noting.
Slashdot Mirror
"Well, actually we *do*- the universal constants and Avogadro's Balloon. It's only been about 10 years since they were discovered, we don't know what they mean yet- but since the Big Bang was by definition a closed system, such a reversal of entropy must mean something. Also, it's incorrect, or at least premature, to assume a random universe merely because we don't have the capability to measure all the variables yet."
Look, you're not getting it. We have a universe. It looks a certain way. But given that we only have the one universe to look at, there's no way to generalize about whether our particular universe is likely, especially ordered, whatever. We have no idea, and no way to have any idea. The constants are meaningless in this endeavor: all we can do is measure them. We can't talk about exactly the "likihood" of them being that way, because have no idea what the process or constraints were.
In short, you basically doing the equivalent of insisting that we know the probability of a dice roll given that you know the value that came up after a single roll.... but without knowing anything else at all about the die. You dont' know how many other sides it has. You don't know how it is weighted. You don't even know what is on the other sides. So talking about "expecting" any sort of universe, or talking about the universe being surprisingly this or that... is all pure nonsense.
"That is incorrect- this is in fact what religion is all about and always HAS been all about."
That may or may not be, but again, it's irrelevant. Religion is not the sole source of wonder, nor is it necessary to do good science. It isn't part of the scientific process.
"Incorrect- you're quite religious or you wouldn't be arguing your beliefs in such an evangelical manner."
Characterizing me in an attempt to cover up is simply lame. If "religious" means anything at all, then I'm not religious. If I'm religious, then "religion" merely means "having opinions on stuff" which basically takes all the air out of your argument.
"We actually have at least 6.5 billion universes on this planet alone- one for each individual model of the universe that each individual human has come up with from the "facts" they know. None are complete, none are even close to the truth, but by comparing them to what is we can find the truth."
Nope. Still only the one universe. People's guesses and imaginations and even models of the universe aren't "other universes." Even if they could be called that, this would still be a dodge of the topic: we are talking about whether or not it makes sense to draw any conclusions from any general state of the the discovered physical laws of the ACTUAL univese, not some universe you invent in your mind.
"The rest may not be truth, may not be factually based, may not even be possible, but that doesn't stop us from constructing them and modeling them and comparing them to reality."
Again, that's irrelevant. In the case of what we are talking about, only the characteristics of the true factual universe is relevant.
"Why should it have to? Does your atheistic science predate the universe?"
Regular science, you mean? Nope. But then, regular science doesn't claim to make vast conclusions about things external to the universe based on the universe, as you are doing.
"Just as ad hoc as any other form of science then, since Darwin and you don't predate the universe either, by that silly rule. Got any other silly rules to redefine words for me to shoot down?"
Lol. You haven't shot anything down. Darwin's predictions pre-date the discovery and knowledge of evidence that confirmed his theory. That's not the same thing as saying "hey, look at this universe that seems to have some reliable physical laws.... JUST AS ZEUS INTENDED BWAHAHAHAAHAA!"
"And I'd say denying a developmental human's humanity just for the pragmatic reason that you want its cells is abhorrent. Both of us are applying the labels of "human" and "non-human" fairly arbitrarily."
No we aren't. I'm using the actual concept developed in ethics over centuries of development of human society. You are using a bizarre misreading of the concept by applying the word "human" to something the vast majority of people who worked out why human life is important never even knew existed in the first place.
Face it, the fact that human beings are morally important isn't something anyone just knew: it developed and became appreciated over time as more and more people became convinced that certain sorts of beings really were morally important. A zygote is about as different from that sort of being as ANY LIVING THING COULD BE. An earthworm is more like a that sort of being than a zygote for goodness sakes.
"The difference is that if I'm right, you're endorsing murder."
To even suggest that preventing a few cells from developing in a certain direction is akin "murder" (heck, those cells don't even have to die: they can all be kept alive far longer than they would have if development proceeded towards a fetus!) is belittling to the concept of murder. Stem cells do not care about things, feel pain, have friends and relations, and so on. Not one of the things that makes murder so horrible applies.
Comparing the killing of stem cells to murdering a person is as outrageously idiotic as comparing me borrowing a tool from my neighbor's toolshed to the holocaust. It just doesn't make an ounce of sense.
You keep repeating this claim that adult stem cells and cord blood show more promise. Even biologists who are opposed to embryonic stem cell research say that this is a false claim. Using adult stem cells has its place, but its no substitute for what we can potentially learn from embryonic stem cells.
"When does an embryo become human?"
There is no bright line, but at the stem cell stage, it is about as far as a living thing can get from what a human is. I can't draw a bright line on when a child becomes an mature adult... but that doesn't mean that sex with a 1 year old is ok: that's so far over the line as to be perfectly obvious.
"Because so far, answers to those questions have not been backed up with any ethical reasoning."
Ethics is supposed to be about something. Randomly calling something "human" for no reason other than genetics isn't ethics, it's just being a litteralist without any sense of why human life is important in the first place. It's nihilistic rule following without any sense of what the rules are for.
There's no reason to think those wouldn't have the same, if not worse problems. I get the feeling that most people pushing this view have as little grasp of what's so important about specifically embryonic cells as they do of ethics.
"Therefore, your form of science is useless to the question- being unable to answer it."
Well yes: which is exactly why it's ridiculous for you to claim to know any better. You don't. You have no grounds to conclude anything about something external to the universe from the nature of the universe. You don't have any facts to work with.
"Obviously you know nothing about the reason why we undertake science. There is only one rational reason: to understand the universe in it's entirety, and determine what we can of the mind of God from that. This is the science of Einstien, of Copernicus, of Galileo, of Newton. I don't know what kind of science you imagine can be separated from the religious need to know. But something tells me it has far more to do with base materialism than anything else."
Simply put, there is nothing particularly religious about a need to know and a wonder about the world around us. I'm not religious, and I have it. Other people are religious, and their religion may well undergird their motivation for doing science. But that has nothing to do with science being a particularly religious endeavor. It's no more religious than taking the dog out for a walk because you don't want him to poop on your carpet.
"We're comparing the universe to theories and models all the time, that's the meaning of the word experimentation."
??? You're. Not. Making. Sense. Again: we only have the one universe here. We cannot generalize about this universe being special or tellingly one way or the other, because we only know about the one.
There is no "theistic science." Your form of ID does not predate the universe, sorry, making its "predictions" AD HOC.
Do you realize that your responses are barely at all consistent over time or with what they are responding to?
"Science has surpassed the impossible so many times that you'd think nobody would use that word anymore. Making presumptions about the universe in a dogmatic way is in and of itself irrational."
Again, I'm not missing the point: you aren't making sense. You are the one making claims here about the universe. I'm not denying that science might not one day be able to address the question better, but as things stand now, your claims about probability, order and disorder and so forth, have no basis in anything. There's nothing to compare our universe to: there's no basis to conclude anything from it being the way it is.
"Apparently neither precise enough or well defined enough; for what they said made no sense and makes a mockery of the very *idea* of a predictable universe."
Nonsense. The universe, despite quantum weirdness, remains quite predictable. Even quantum weirdness is, itself, pretty reliably predictable, albiet in a different sense.
"It has according to me- but you seem to have the idea that science and religion are separate."
Science is a process for evaluating evidence. You can certainly be personally religious while you undertake that process, but religion is basically irrelevant to the process, and it isn't itself scientific in any way shape or form. Religion is neither a necessary nor a particularly relevant thing to science.
"Pope Benedict XVI did quite recently- and the Islamics jumped all over him for it. Don't you pay any attention to the world around you?"
You'll have to explain in what way he made any sort of useful scientific statement about anything, because I don't see any evidence that he did, and I pay pretty good attention. The Pope isn't a scientist and he isn't doing science. Which is perfectly okay: as long as it isn't claimed that he is.
"Bullshit. Without ID, evolution makes no sense- for there cannot be patterns where there is only randomness. Your "patterns" are destroyed by the idea of random mutation."
I just don't see your argument here. Random mutation is not the only element relevant to evolution. Pretending that it is is simply nonsense. Pretending, likewise, that a universe in which some order exists proves that there is an ID simply begs the question. There's barely even any argument there for me to refute!
"And without intelligence, those specific patterns could not exist, because there would be no physical laws to determine the pattern."
This is simply your personal opinion. It's first of all completely irrelevant to evolution, because evolution does not purport to explain physical laws or regularities, it simply works off what's there. It's second of all simply begging that universe question we discussed before. You cannot conclude that physical laws or fine tuning or anything else demand intelligence, because there is nothing to compare the universe too. For all we know, the universe we live in could be remarkable for it's degree of chaos and lack of order rather than remarkable for what little there is.
"Yes it does- it predicts that there will be patterns, that those patterns will be rational AND UNCHANGING. As opposed to random and unpredictable."
Again, as far as I can tell, you are talking about physical laws again. I've already dealt with most of this argument. The prediction angle is not a prediction: it's ad hoc. Worse, if it WERE different, nothing prevents you from simply ad hocing another reason why the ID would want changing patterns or occasional irrationality. In short, nothing about the "theory" is really committed to anything in a way that future evidence would impact its truth. If we suddenly discovered that the universe is really actually totally irrational and random after all, and our belief that it wasn't was an illusion, I have a feeling you'd still find some way to insist that the ID wanted it that way for whatever reason you can think up for it.
"Nope, my involvement in ID predates the creationist involvement by a good number of decades.
"Just because we have no capacity to do so now does not mean we will never have the capacity. Just because we can't measure something now doesn't make the measurement irrelevant to a more complete model."
You seem to have a hard time following the argument. This response doesn't really address what I said. What I said was that it is impossible to make judgements about things like chance and likihood about "the universe" given that we have no idea and no capability to have any idea, what "universes" in general are like or how characteristic of universes ours is, or even whether it is the only one.
"I'm not the one who introduced it into science- Heisenberg was."
Well, no, he wasn't, again you're confusing things, but when people like Heisenberg used those terms, they used them in a precise and well-defined manner. You are just throwing them all over the place willy nilly.
"Neither does science, for that matter"
Of course science can tell us the how. Indeed, that's been the triumph of science over and over and over.
"by limiting evidence to only that which can be tested, the scientific method has a fatal flaw."
No: it's a limitation that prevents its scope from shooting out into the mere speculation and fantasy.
"We can, but that would be the irrational, anthromorphic way to look at it, placing our desires upon God. It should be the other way around."
Again, this response seems to have missed the line of discussion it's jumping into. I'm not sure you're really understanding what we're talking about.
"Once again, you're looking at a small sample of irrational American Christians as if they are the whole- which is about as stupid as judging all of Islam based on the 10 million or so who subscribe to convert or die theologies. Your view of ID, and of religion in general, is strangely narrowminded. Are you sure you aren't a Biblical atheist fundamentalist, so poisoned by the ridiculous assertions of American Christianity that atheism seems to become the only sane option?"
Nope. But please, name me any ID theorist who has made a specific scientific prediction about physical evidence based on their claimed understanding of God.
"Yes it does, as does ID. In fact, those particular patterns are one and the same for theistic evolution- they have to be, because the physical evidence about life on earth is how we know more about God than our ancestors did."
No, ID does not. ID contributed nothing to ferreting out those patterns or pointing anyone in their direction.
"If evolution predicts the universe that already exists, so does ID- for the simple reason that ID is the search of the "scripture" written in our DNA (which is another reason why the Biblical Creationists won't find their God there- for they don't worship a God, but rather a book)."
Evolution predicts specific patterns in the evidence. ID does not predict anything in particular. All your claimed knowledge about ID is ad hoc: you are speculating about the motives of the ID after the fact. That's fine if you enjoy doing so, but it's not science.
"Also, those whose blood pressure boiled off the charts also demonstrated a conflict with their own beliefs, as in their evolutionary world, such stupidity, as you seem to view me having, shouldn't be offensive at all. I should rather be viewed as a weaker organism, less able to survive, which the powers of time and chance will relegate to extinction; I have a sense though, that deep down not even you believe that."
Of course none of us believe that, because, again, you are claiming that we hold evolution as a normative worldview, and you're simply wrong, we don't. Nothing about evolution as a physical fact of biological life insists that anyone care, anymore than the germ theory of disease implies that we should just let all diseases run their course.
There is no conflict with their beliefs, because you are the only one claiming that anyone believes that.
I'm sorry that people have modded you down or spoken rudely to you. Unfortunately, such treatment has little bearing on whether your arguments make sense or not.
"But while I may state my own views, my general purpose in these posts hasn't been to persuade, but to merely discuss the logical consequences of any belief or opinion someone holds. "
The problem is that you haven't demonstrated logical consequences: there are gaping holes in the connections you are drawing: often SEVERAL leaps of flawed logic. Things you assert are facts are 180 wrong or misrepresentations, and so on.
Your account of science, for instance, bears little relation to actual science or the philosophy of empiricism that undergirds it. The origin of life is 100% within the realm of science: you seem to be confusing several different senses of the word "origin." The only things that are not are those which are beyond the realm of physical evidence to point one way or the other: the origin of the universe may be one such thing, since there appears to be no way to get any data prior a certain point in time. What science requires is not faith, but an appreciation of the natural principles that appear to operate in our universe, making it explorable by logic and evidence. This principle is not taken on faith, but rather because the alternative is not God, but rather simple incoherency: the inability to say anything about anything.
You've also failed completely to demonstrate that evolution is a worldview that has any of the implications you claim. You've tried unsuccessfully to change the subject when its pointed out that the majority of people who consider evolution to be sound science are religious believers. You've tried instead to claim that they are not what you specifically define as Christian. But even if that definition weren't so strained, it wouldn't matter: that's irrelevant. You claimed that evolution is a worldview that denies one the ability to have a moral system based onGod's commands, and that claim is clearly false even if you think people pray to the wrong God (and they can say the same about you anyway: so what even on that?)
In science, there is no belief in "eternal matter" as you claim. Again: science is not a grand philosophy of everything but rather a pragmatic tool for understanding based on the only common element to all people: physical evidence. Science is not the be all and end all of Truth, capital T, but it is the one domain we know of in which we focus on what we could objectively know, as opposed to merely warring with our subjective beliefs without any hope of reconciliation.
"Without this, evolutionary theory cannot even begin to be considered as an option. This is not subject to opinion -- its a fact."
No, it isn't. Science doesn't start from saying anything about the Biblical story: you are simply so obsessed with it that you cannot imagine anything as being either decidedly for it or against it from the start. But science does have any interest in it or any other body of claims at all: that's not how science works. Science, instead, starts with natural regularities and knowledge about the world around us and applies these to the world to learn more about it. Again, just because you are so wrapped up in the idea of faith over everything does not mean that everything else is as well. That's simply not how science works. Even the basic axioms of rational existence need not be believed as aspects of faith: it's perfectly reasonable to treat them as provisional.
Your grasp of morality is similarly flawed. The existence or directions of God are, as we've known since Plato pointed it out, irrelevant to the question of what is moral. Either rape is wrong or it isn't: it can't be wrong only if a God exists and says so, because that would make the morality of rape depedent rather than necessary, which removes all force from it. If the definition of "right" is simply "what God commands" then the concept of right has no indepedent meaning from "somethi
What you're saying has almost nothing to do with what the ID movement has argued, except slightly the cosmological portion. Whether the universe is random or ordered is basically irrelevant: it is what it is, and we have no capacity to draw conclusions from one example when we don't know what the alternatives are, how they are determined, or whether there even are any alternatives. You are also, of course, using terms like "ordered" and "disordered" in vague and bizarre ways. It's really sort of worthless to try and introduce woo like that into science.
ID is untestible because it doesn't explain the how of anything (not even anything you've been talking about) in anything other than an ad hoc manner. No matter what conditions or things we find in the world, we can ALWAYS invent some motive for why the ID wanted it that way. We aren't committed to _anything_, especially if we don't commit to a very specific ID (which most ID people won't do, because that would mean admitting that they think it's their particular God)
Evolution predicts very particular patterns that must hold up in the physical evidence about life on earth. ID offers none of this, for anything. Saying that ID "predicts" the universe that already exists is nonsense.
Exactly. We start talking about Darwin, and somehow people come up with spinning atoms and computer programs writing themselves. It's a complete dodge: changing the whole scope of the discussion to avoid having to concede that, within it's specifically defined scope, biological evolution both works and makes sense.
"You had repeated this to me twice, but yet no clear conception I heard from you."
:-) Isn't this an Evolution concept? Or now evolutionists believe into something else?"
Buddy, I ain't the one for whom English is a second language. Complaining about no clear conceptions is pretty lame coming from you.
"We all "know" that life on Earth started from an Explosion, which produced random movenet of atoms"
See, you don't get it. The formation of Earth from interstallar dust was not something that happened because of random movement of atoms. What occured on the surface of earth was not simply random movement either. If you are conceptualizing things that way, then of course you are confused, because your imagination makes no sense.
"which randomly created molecules, then bacteria, then Infuzoria, then monkey, and finally Slashdot.
Evolution has ALWAYS meant descent with modification, from Darwin on.
Of course, you seem to think that evolution includes things prior to life, which is yet again, you being wrong.
"Absolutely agree. Evolution is a theory (yet not proven though) about an algorithm, based on a thought that "primitive produces complex"."
No, not really. It can, and sometimes does, but that sort of directionality is irrelevant.
"IOW, more stupid produce more smart."
Er, no. What does that even mean?
"Though you still didn't explained me where is a start point of Evolution: where is the beginning and who or what gave it a kick to evolute?"
What? That doesn't even make sense.
"IOW, who made that "ratchet algoritm"? If you at least know how to write "Hello World!" program in any program language, you must understand, that any algoritm is previously designed stuff, which supposed to do something in a future. Therefore even your Evolution you believe -- might be a product of somebody, who well designed stuff around, where each element may evolute."
No, and evolute isn't a word. You are taking algoritmn too literally. It isn't lines of code, but rather simply the natural laws. If you want to believe that god created those natural laws, nothing internal to evolution contradicts you: that's outside of the scope of the theory.
"It proves nothing, since code is supposed do make a shapes."
Nice try, but no. The code simply sets up the situation in which the genetic algorithm plays out, thus refuting your claim that design is necessary. That the program was designed is completely irrelevant.
Ah, you aren't. But then, you are making the exact same stupid argument, so it really comes to no matter.
"If you want to argue with me, and not the other guy, please point out which step of logic you disagree with:
1) Darwin developed the TOE.
2) The TOE inspired Social Darwinism
3) Social Darwinism inspired Eugenics
4) Eugenics inspired the actions of the Nazis."
For me to point out an error in logic, you need to first supply some logic. All you've supplied is a chain of events, and not a particularly direct or sensible one either. Yes, some people played a game of telephone with Darwin
"The Nazis were occultist syncretists, and used a wide variety of things in developing their "philosophy". Eugenics was just one of their influences, but certainly an important one."
Sure, so... what happened to your point? What happened to all the other things you claimed? Have you really retreated down to: "well, the Nazis developed a warped philosophy based in part on their poor understanding of evolution and their eugenic beliefs." What exactly is the point of that again? They did the same, arguably with a lot more emphasis and cultural resonance, with Christianity. So?
If Darwin's ideas were so toxic, how come the British didn't join up with the Nazis, given that Darwin was English and his theories had war wider berth there?
And regardless, what does any of this, this entire discussion, have to do with whether or not Darwin's actual theories, his actual work, was on point or not?
"Funny story. A bunch of people used the TOE to go from a description of how the world is, to how the world should be."
One can say the same for any knowledge about the world. However, that doesn't make the connection legitimate, inevitable, nor the fault of the fact.
"This isn't uncommon. When you reject all metaphysics and allow only science and math as "meaningful" (which is the central thesis of positive materialism, the dominant philosophy of the 20th Century), then when making normative statements they can't allow God, or any metaphysical ethics, so they often turn to science."
As you keep failing to understand, being a scientist doesn't preclude being religious. It might preclude your brand of fanaticism, but it certainly hasn't prevented the majority of scientists from believing in God. Your grasp of the 20th century and its dominant philosophy is just as silly as your claims about evolution.
"For example, "The human colon length ratio is in between that of carnivores and vegitarian animals, therefore we *should* be omnivores." Or (staying on topic) "Animals prey on weaker animals, therefore it is *right* for humans to prey on weaker humans, and for the weaker humans to die off to strengten the herd.""
Ok... so? These inferences are all leaps of illogic. The fact that one can make such leaps does not demonstrate anything.
"This is one of the fundamental problems with a positive materialist outlook. When you deny everything else, only science can provide normative values, and science is horrendous at providing normative values."
Science doesn't try to provide normative values in the first place. People have normative values. Science merely tells them what the situations they are in are like. It's up to people to decide and judge what's right and wrong. You can blather on about the 20th century, but the fact is that 20th century normative values are by far superior to those of any century before. 20th century values for the first time in human history consider racism, sexism, and other such things to be unjustified (in no small part to science, and biology in specific, demonstrating that they are false). We put real value in fairness and justice in our systems of due process. We don't consider some people lords and other serfs. And so on. Face it: the liberal enlightenment is progress that even the most 20th century-hating fundamentalist would never want to go back on.
"To stay on target, it's pretty much indisputable the line of thought went:
Darwin -> TOE -> Social Darwinism (which Darwin was sort of a supporter of) -> Eugenics -> Nazi-Eugenics."
Darwin wasn't much of a supporter of social darwinism: he was one of the most progressive people of his age in terms of racial treatment. I could draw a similar link from Christ to Hitler's anti-semetic holocaust. It's no more and no less accurate than your silly "line of thought." In fact, Hitler far far more often referenced Christ and Martin Luther than he ever made mention of Darwin. I have a feeling that both you and Hitler had an about equal amount of knowledge about Darwin and the theory of evolution in general, which is to say, not very much.
"So it's wrong to say that Darwin would have supported the gas chambers, but he's a definite influence in the lineage of thought."
He's also a definate influence in the lineage of thought that finally put an end to racism as an acceptable belief about human beings by demonstrating that they all came from a very recent common ancestor and are so genetically intermingled as to no matter.
"Oh, I am sure you know better, young man."
:) Seriously though, thermodynamics does not preclude evolution in the slightest. Chances are, you probably misunderstand it just as you misundertand evolution. I would suggest reading up on the concept in a reliable scientific resource or encyclopedia instead of just trusting what some babbling creationist claims about it.
Well, I don't think evolution predicts "half-chickens" which certainly makes me better informed than yourself.
"But let me know how you became a Homosapiens, being a crocodile->monkey->IT-programmer "millions of years" ago?"
It's called descent with modification: sub groups within groups. Your conception: of one thing turning into another, is generally a mistaken way to think of it, which is perhaps why you find the idea so confusing.
"You know, even when dried bacteria delivered to the Earth constituted a full explanation for the origin of all life on Earth, the origin of those bacteria is still not solved..."
Perhaps. But that's not really the concern of evolution as a scientific theory. I'm not really sure what you are talking about here other than that.
"Ah well, you push me to forget physics, spit on all science laws and starting to believe that chaos can produce order or any ultra-primitive thing can produce complex, well-designed systems?"
I haven't suggested anything of the sort. There are no "physics laws" that preclude evolution, nor order from chaos. Calling things designed sort of begs the question, doesn't it?
"Remember Fred Hoyle's Boeing story? -- a great argument that uses logic and probability: A junkyard contains all the bits and pieces of a Boeing-747, dismembered and in disarray. A whirlwind happens to blow through the yard. What is the chance that after its passage a fully assembled 747, ready to fly, will be found standing there?"
It may use logic, and it may well make sense on its own terms, but it doesn't describe a situation relevant to the evolutionary process. Evolution is not simply random assemblage. It's a ratchet algorithm, not a whirlwind in anything. The analogy simply fails.
"Simply buy a LEGO constructor for kids, put it into a plastic bag an shake. Only once you get a fully featured toy assembled, please reply here again."
Actually, I have a screensaver on my computer that is somewhat like this situation except for one crucial difference: it actually models all the aspects of evolution instead of JUST random events, which is all your example describes. My screensaver essentially performs random variations on geometrical shapes joined by moving joints, again, all random. It then selects and descends those variations which end up physically moving the farthest in a coordinate plane. For most of the first series of generations, these little machines were lucky to thrash their way even one unit away from their starting point. But now, after roughly a thousand generations, they are nearly maxing out the distance they can travel in the time they are given: 60 units. Instead of random assemblages, they look like complex almost scorpion-like tripods that "walk" pretty convincingly. None of this "walking" was built into the program: all the program did was establish heredity with minor mutation and then select for distance. If I hadn't told you about how these walking machines came to be, you'd insist that they were designed. But they weren't. They were evolved.
That's what's known as a genetic algorithm program, and it is a simple demonstration of why your intuitions about design are incorrect.
"But you know what? You will have a complete fiasco due to lack of knowledge of termodinamics"
termodinamics? Does that involve termites of some sort?
"So you want to wow me by the fact you're frequently eating chicken with clear differences in color and mass? Better show me a creature which is half crocodile, half human, half monkey, half pig and half an idiot."
I don't think you understand how evolution works. It doesn't require, predict, or imply half-anythings.
"Ever heard something about amino acids, proteins? It is such a chemical stuff, you know... If you are so great in mind (if not, online Darwin will probably assist you), show to the World how you reproduce homochilarity by random process with L-molecules-only in proteins and billions R-molecules-only in DNA in your chemical lab and you will get a Nobel Prize"
There are any number of reasons for homochilarity: the difficulty is in figuring out which among many possibilities, not that it happened at all.
"Well, the real problem is how the very World First DNA, (made by random explosion of random chemical reaction of random... blah-blah-blah) suddenly "knew" of such mechanism is actually required."
Your problem is that you concieve of a modern, highly complex thing and imagine taking huge chunks away from that existing system. Evolution doesn't work like that. Depedancy of two different things can evolve over time, with one becoming steadily more depedent on the other.
"Evolution is founded upon a preconceived world view. Forget the scientific pontificating for a moment. Science is not the foundation of the theory. In order to believe evolution, you first have to start with an article of fatih. IN THE BEGINNING, __________. Even evolution must have that."
Sometimes you get the sense that a person is so wrapped up in their own worldview that they have no capacity to even imagine anything outside of that.
Yes, science is the basic method used to develop a theory of evolution. No, there isn't an "IN THE BEGINNING." Science is not an ultimate ontology.
"Ah...but there you are. It *isn't* bad. And it *isn't* good. And it has everything to do with evolution, because in an evolutionary world, there is no basis for right and wrong. If someone deems murder right, then its no more right or wrong than charity, kindness, or cruelty."
Simply put, you've played a dishonest game here. You've set evolution in constrast to YOUR very particular religious beliefs. But then you go and try to make an argument that evolution contradicts ALL religious beliefs. There are countless religious believers who have no problem with evolution or a religious view on morality. You can run around and claim that these people aren't the true believers, but whatever, they can say the same about you. Meanwhile, their very existence exposes the false dichotomy you created between evolution and religious belief and evolution and religious morality.
"All along my point has been the consequences of a particular belief system. Someone who believes something, like evolution, ought to be honest about what the ramifications of accepting that belief system are."
Okay. But I'll pick someone else to conduct that honest appraisal, because I don't think you are qualified either intellectually or in honesty.
"Even the Pope admitted that evolution happens, unless you want to say the Pope isn't Christian?"
Dude, you've read this guy's posts. Of COURSE he's going to say that only those who narrowly views Christianity in exactly the way he does is a Christian.
"Darwin was not a Christian. That claim demonstrates a lack of understanding of what a Christian is. Now I understand the reasons why someone might think that, as people generally broadly classify anyone associated with a Church that involves the Bible as being Christian, which isn't so. Society doesn't define what "Christian" is. Christ defined what Christian is. And one cannot reject the Word of God, and claim to be Christian. While it may seem uninstinctive or untraditional to do so, instinct and tradition don't define truth. According to the Bible, Catholocism isn't Christian either. You cannot reject the Bible, or any portion of it, and claim to be Christian. That isn't my opinion or religious belief -- its merely an accounting of the definition of what Christianity is and what it is not. "
:rolleyes: Again, you could apply the same to Martin Luther and Hitler and Christianity. Ever heard of "On the Jews and their Lies"? It's virtually the blueprint for the holocaust... and the final major work of the founder of the school of Biblical exegesis that you hold to.
Did you think this through at all? The Bible didn't EXIST during the time of Christ: how could Christ have endorsed a full literal reading of the Bible, including the NT, when it didn't even exist yet? How can Catholicism not be Christian according to the Bible when it was Catholicism that compiled the Bible in the first place? Good grief. Most of the traditions that Catholics hold that are extra-Biblical existed even before the Bible existed.
The view of of the Bible you are pushing didn't even emerge until just a few hundred years ago, and you want to pretend that it's the Original Gangsta Christian view? Come on: that's ridiculous.
Of course that's your opinion and religious belief. You don't get to personally define what Christianity is.
"I was saying that for those who have already accepted Darwinism, then they ought to examine the consequences of those beliefs and their contemporaries, and that is that regardless of their perceived (or hoped for) differences, Darwinianism puts them in the same philosophical category as those who committed those atrocities."
"It is unimportant whether Hitler and Stalin professed Darwiniianism, as their actions were consistent with the consequential philosophy, which is "whatever goes"."
Look, I really hope this gets through to you somehow: evolution is not a philosophy of "Darwinism." By and large, the only people who ever talk about Darwinism are creationists trying to make evolution sound big and bad. But evolution is NOT A PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. It's a scientific description of how life developed on this planet.
"My interest is in intellectual honesty"
Well, you aren't doing a very good job of it, I'm afraid.
"That's just the logical ramification of subscribing to the "Preservation of Favored Races" which is basically a racist view of the living."
Lol. It's obvious you haven't actually read it, because the word "races" has nothing to do with human races. Origin only even mentions human beings in passing at the end.
"Those murderous dictators were perfect Darwinians. Its also perfect justification for the destruction of the environment, endangered species, and various ecosystems, which apparently deserve to be destroyed if natural selection dictates that they do not maintain the ability to preserve themselves in their present state. "
lol again. Evolution is descriptive, not normative. None of the views you refer to are necessary or even logical outgrowths of evolution. By your logic, since Hitler used Christianity to rationalize what he did, Christianity is evil. But that argument is just as dumb as the one you used.
Funny story on that is some skeptic who went to Lourdes or one of those other of those "miracle" sites where everyone is supposed to get healed. Characteristic of the site are lots of crutches thrown away by lame people who supposedly were cured and could walk without the crutches (who no doubt collapsed again from the special exertion an hour later)
Anyway, on being told that the site was one of healing and miracles and shown all the crutches as proof, the skeptic remarked "what, no wooden legs?"
Actually, ironically, there is some evidence that Darwin actually had a copy of Mendel's work, but never got around to reading it in his lifetime.
You shut up, his work on barnacles is the best!
Historically, that's note quite right. Darwin does mention a Creator here and there in his books as something possibly starting life. It wasn't really a part of his theory as much as it was just the parlance of his times, but I thought it was a nitpick worth noting.