That doesn't really answer my question. I did start to slog through Dawkins quotes, but then I remembered I wasn't the one who made the assertion. To convince me, you'd have to come up with a quote that shows (preferably in full context) that he began with the idea that God doesn't exist, and ended with something like "so therefore, evolution must be true."
From what I've read of his writings, he appears to have decided God doesn't exist based on the scientific priciple. While it's impossible to prove something doesn't exist, it's easy to decide what you want to believe based on the available evidence. My view is that we don't *need* a god to explain the universe, and Dawkins' writings indicate that's his view as well.
"Theory: All life on earth has evolved from a single spontaneously generated cell over the course of billions of years."
Please cite the page number of the textbook which states this. As a scientist, I would like to write to the author(s) to correct this mistake, as no honest scientist anywhere would ever spout such drivel.
Don't feel bad if you can't produce a page number. I know you're just pulling these ideas out of your ass. It's OK, really.
Evolutionary biology is not concerned with how the first cell came into being. It makes predictions (very accurate ones, at that) about evolving species, and doesn't pretend to explain the origin of life.
I haven't asked any scientists in the field about it, but I don't suspect they're too worried about it either. See my earlier post on self-organizing systems.
"Crying 'time can produce anything!' is not scientific"
Please cite your scientific source for this quote. Or any scientific source that comes anywhere NEAR it. Thanks in advance.
Spontaneous self-organization can be seen by anyone with a few basic, non-living elements, and you can see it on a timescale of days. It's a very basic process. It's not a great stretch of the imagination to see how life could have self-organized from non-living elements. Take a look at the contents of your salt shaker sometime.
"Take a look at the discovery channel. Is it really logical that random mutations will make a spider look EXACTLY like a species of ants, use EXACTLY the same pheromones to hunt them? Or how about this little worm which produces some kind of food that ants like? Or how about the orchid Mantis?"
So either you have a lazy God who plagiarized his own work multiple times, or you have natural processes which tend to conserve energy (and we can show this very simply in the lab) and use the same (successful) blueprints multiple times. Which is more plausible?
"Random" mutations have very little to do with natural selection, except in the sense that a successful organism that happens to have a mutated gene is more liekly to pass that gene on.
So a kook philosopher who wrote at least one book on "paraphysical" events came to the conclusion that god exists because he (Flew) can't comprehend the complexity of DNA? Stop the presses!
This is the only "scientific evidence" presented in the several google links I followed.
The ski resort was interesting, but it was hard to look around with other people controlling it at the same...gimme that...fucker./me grabs the Outer Limits tape from Acid Burn's robotic grasp [dramatization]
When I went to Greenwich 6 years or so back, I saw three high-end car dealerships. Something like Jaguar, Porsche and Ferrari. At the time, Greenwich was the second most expensive place to live in America, the first being Beverly Hills. Any thief who felt like burgling a house could hit any one in town at random and come out nicely. It's not hard to figure out where the rich people live in Greenwich...you can't swing a stick without mugging one.
No, no, it's just when I see two people pulling each others' dicks in an unrelated public forum, I tend to have the knee-jerk habit of telling them to get a room. Sorry if you took it the wrong way.:(
Slashdot Mirror
I accidentally set Firefox to reload their page every 30 seconds. Damn this confusing technology! :(
On slow news days it's pretty much traditional to just run a fluff story on firemen rescuing kittens from trees.
"cause they're involved in what could be considered an act of international terrorism, and I'm not being sarcastic."
Maybe not, but you're sure diluting the living fuck out of the word "terrorism."
That doesn't really answer my question. I did start to slog through Dawkins quotes, but then I remembered I wasn't the one who made the assertion. To convince me, you'd have to come up with a quote that shows (preferably in full context) that he began with the idea that God doesn't exist, and ended with something like "so therefore, evolution must be true."
From what I've read of his writings, he appears to have decided God doesn't exist based on the scientific priciple. While it's impossible to prove something doesn't exist, it's easy to decide what you want to believe based on the available evidence. My view is that we don't *need* a god to explain the universe, and Dawkins' writings indicate that's his view as well.
Citations, please. Because I've read Dawkins, and I don't think he said what you said he said. :)
"I could not see how the required complexity could possibly be achieved without a guiding intelligence."
The wonderful thing about science is that its validity isn't affected one bit by what anyone believes.
"Theory: All life on earth has evolved from a single spontaneously generated cell over the course of billions of years."
Please cite the page number of the textbook which states this. As a scientist, I would like to write to the author(s) to correct this mistake, as no honest scientist anywhere would ever spout such drivel.
Don't feel bad if you can't produce a page number. I know you're just pulling these ideas out of your ass. It's OK, really.
Evolutionary biology is not concerned with how the first cell came into being. It makes predictions (very accurate ones, at that) about evolving species, and doesn't pretend to explain the origin of life.
I haven't asked any scientists in the field about it, but I don't suspect they're too worried about it either. See my earlier post on self-organizing systems.
"Crying 'time can produce anything!' is not scientific"
Please cite your scientific source for this quote. Or any scientific source that comes anywhere NEAR it. Thanks in advance.
Spontaneous self-organization can be seen by anyone with a few basic, non-living elements, and you can see it on a timescale of days. It's a very basic process. It's not a great stretch of the imagination to see how life could have self-organized from non-living elements. Take a look at the contents of your salt shaker sometime.
And another question for the grandparent: is your faith really so weak that you have to turn to science in an attempt to prove it's right?
"Take a look at the discovery channel. Is it really logical that random mutations will make a spider look EXACTLY like a species of ants, use EXACTLY the same pheromones to hunt them? Or how about this little worm which produces some kind of food that ants like? Or how about the orchid Mantis?"
So either you have a lazy God who plagiarized his own work multiple times, or you have natural processes which tend to conserve energy (and we can show this very simply in the lab) and use the same (successful) blueprints multiple times. Which is more plausible?
"Random" mutations have very little to do with natural selection, except in the sense that a successful organism that happens to have a mutated gene is more liekly to pass that gene on.
So a kook philosopher who wrote at least one book on "paraphysical" events came to the conclusion that god exists because he (Flew) can't comprehend the complexity of DNA? Stop the presses!
This is the only "scientific evidence" presented in the several google links I followed.
If every active slashdotter chipped in a quarter, we could have him display "WHORE" for a month. Or maybe the Tubgirl URL.
I know it's not the first one. That's why I said "in the archive" there, Poindexter. Oh, what's the fucking use? *PLONK* :)
First *plonk* in archive
here.
Look, he's showing her his hose!
"Not entirely sure what this is"
/me grabs the Outer Limits tape from Acid Burn's robotic grasp [dramatization]
The ski resort was interesting, but it was hard to look around with other people controlling it at the same...gimme that...fucker.
Oh my God! Terrists! The sky is falling!
Osama's next insidious plot: surf construction site webcams and watch datacenter workers picking their noses. News at 11.
When I went to Greenwich 6 years or so back, I saw three high-end car dealerships. Something like Jaguar, Porsche and Ferrari. At the time, Greenwich was the second most expensive place to live in America, the first being Beverly Hills. Any thief who felt like burgling a house could hit any one in town at random and come out nicely. It's not hard to figure out where the rich people live in Greenwich...you can't swing a stick without mugging one.
No, no, it's just when I see two people pulling each others' dicks in an unrelated public forum, I tend to have the knee-jerk habit of telling them to get a room. Sorry if you took it the wrong way. :(
Last time I checked, corporations weren't cops. Although to be fair, it has been a couple of days since I checked.
Get a room.
"Almostas" retarded as someone who doesn't understand how quotation marks work.
Remember that video that was floating around of Win98 blue-screening during a presentation? Good times.