ARN | Roddy Bullock | Apr. 29, 2008
Q: How many materialists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. Given time the light bulb will change itself.
No joke. Light from darkness, life from non-life, mind from matter; it’s all a mere marvel of matter in motion. Never mind where matter came from, and no matter where mind came from, for matter-only materialists everything that is came unplanned from everything that was in a string of unguided eternal change. Magically transforming the mundane into the marvelous, it seems nothing is impossible with change–time makes light work of miracles. For the life sciences branch of materialist philosophy, Darwin’s theory mandates the same explanation for all life: unguided change over time gave us eyes to close and mouths to open in the service of a dead philosophy emanating from a brain that thinks it has a mind. Who would have thought?
“Evolution” is described by those who know better as simply “change over time”. And why not? After all, change over time is observable, and observable change over time is incontrovertible and uncontroversial. Observed change over time in biology works its magic by changing beak sizes among finch populations, changing antibacterial resistance among bacteria populations, changing virtually nothing of interest in fruit fly populations, all showcased as “evolution in action”. But is “change over time” alone really sufficient to make life, and life more abundantly? It seems not; no unguided change agent has been observed to make anything but finches from finches, bacteria from bacteria, and legions upon legions of hapless fruit flies that cannot become something more than they are already. At best the observed change over time in the unguided forces of nature due to undirected energy acting on matter always acts in one direction: toward less order and more disorder. It seems that unguided change is more bumbler than tinkerer.
“Directional” change doesn’t sound so bad. In fact it isn’t bad if you aren’t constrained by a philosophy that requires “directional” to mean unguided progression of matter to increasing (and increasingly) improbable complex specified order. But for materialists who depend on unguided, undirected change to produce massive amounts of the increasing improbable change theorized by Darwinism, the observed directional nature of change is a disaster. Because in nature the observed change of unguided, undirected matter always conforms to physical constraints. Under immutable physical laws the change is at best to simple order, as in crystal formation where matter is rigidly constrained by unguided atomic forces, or to random disorder, as in the diffusion of food coloring in water (which is nevertheless still simply obeying constraints of atomic forces). The disordering of matter in nature when left to undirected energy in time is so well understood that it’s one of the few features of nature described by a law, and not just any law–one of the most robust laws known: First Theory of Evolution meet Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Unfortunately for truth (but fortunately for those who wish to suppress it) the Second Law of Thermodynamics, while conceptually simple, is expressed in various scientific disciplines in complex-sounding language. Setting aside strange concepts like “entropy”, “Gibb’s free energy” and “closed or open systems”, the Second Law of Thermodynamics can be simply understood as the idea that left to the undirected forces of nature, undirected energy always expends to cause existing matter to go from a more ordered state to a less ordered state.
If you grasp the words of that last sentence, you will always and forever know why “evolution” is a dead-end theory when stated in its strong form, i.e., the massive ordering of increasingly complex information by unguided forces of nature to produce new and more complex features (like wings and eyes) in living organisms. Very simply, it is easier to make a mess than to clean up a mess; it is easier to destroy a house than build a house; and it is easier to corrupt computer software than to program computer software. And “easier” is not the real issue, the real issue is one of possibilities due to intelligent intervention–in every example above, the former condition can be effected by mindless activity but the latter must, in every case, involve a mind. Nature has no secret mind substitute.
Here’s the catch missed by the evolution-is-merely-change-over-time crowd: there are two kinds of scientifically observable change: intelligently manipulated change (or guided change) and unintelligently occurring change (or unguided change). On the observable effects side, scientific evidence shows two corresponding categories: guided change results in improbable complex order (e.g., computer codes or DNA) while unguided change results in probable simple order (e.g., iron filings to a magnet or crystals) or what appears to be random disorder (e.g., bits of shattered glass or pattern of fallen leaves). Unguided changes are well-studied in nature, and in complete agreement with the Second Law of Thermodynamics they always in every observed case result in systems going from a more ordered state to a less ordered state. It is the Law.
On its face, therefore, the Second Law of Thermodynamics stands diametrically opposed to any theory, including biological evolution, that requires matter to go spontaneously unguided and undirected from a simple, random form to a more complex, specified form. The stock reply from virtually all Darwinists, invariably flashed like a fake ID to get past all but those who actually care, is that the Second Law applies only to closed systems. In our case, Darwinists say, the Second Law’s tendency to prevent the incredibly improbable creations necessary for “evolution” is circumvented by including the sun’s energy input in our local earth system. But as any free thinker knows (and even a few Darwinists), it is not the mere presence of raw, undirected energy in a system that matters. Even in an open system in the absence of energy direction (like the coded instructions used in photosynthesis), the raw energy of the sun must obey the Law, and the result of the sun’s energy on matter will be to rot, fade, decompose, decay and otherwise destroy.
. . . more
…is there a philosophy that doesn’t believe in life from non-life?
Cosmology, Rudy, not philosophy. And no, the only cosmology that believes in life from non-life is Darwinism. Judeo/Christianity believes in creatio-ex-nihilo, IOW life from nothing which of course is different than “non-life” (meaning inert matter).
“Here’s the catch missed by the evolution-is-merely-change-over-time crowd: there are two kinds of scientifically observable change: intelligently manipulated change (or guided change) and unintelligently occurring change (or unguided change).”
Question: if all observed evolutionary development is intelligently guided change, why did it take 55 million years for the intelligent designer to come up with Equus genus, including horses and zebras? Why not start out with Equus? Why go through 55 million years of development, discarding all the intermediate forms?
To use the Boeing 747 example in a different context — we start out with an intelligent designer who knows how to build a Boeing 747. But instead, the intelligent designer starts with paper airplanes. He (she? it?) spends several million years developing different kinds of paper airplanes. Then, the intelligent designer abandons that idea, turning his attention to kites. Several million more years are spent developing more elaborate kites. This project is then abandoned, and the designer starts making gliders. This process continues through primitive airplanes, biplanes, single-wing aircraft, single-wing aircraft with more advanced engines, early jets, and so on. The intelligent designer spends tens of millions of years developing all of these in many varieties, and then abandons them all.
Finally, after 55 million years, the intelligent designer comes up with the Boeing 747 — the aircraft that it was his ultimate intention to build, and that he knew how to build all along. Why is that?
The conflict supposedly being discussed here is not nor has it ever been about science. To attempt to arrive at any conclusion on the level to which the discussion has sunk is impossible. Each side is talking about two entirely different things as if they were the same.
The conflict is about two utterly opposed systems of thought and belief. One posits a moral and anthropological understanding within the context of a divine creation while the other does not. The foundational assumption of one approach is God or at least a divine, hierarchical created order. The foundational assumption of the other is not God, but a self-organizing material universe.
It would not even be worth a discussion except for the fact that the not-God clan has a moral and anthropological agenda that is simply unacceptable and they have cultural power.
The not Goders have always been about recreating the moral order (especially the sexual moral order) because they have a profoundly different anthropology than those who accept God. As Fr. Hans and others have pointed out, the NG folk really believe they can and SHOULD re-create man (an irony in itself since they profess that there is no such thing as creation in the first place) and that the re-creation (carried out in their own image) will be better than what we have now. IMO they are profoundly schizophrenic in a philosophical sense. Their language, their mode of thought, their very existence is dependent upon that which they argue against. They link material progress to spiritual progress despite the fact that they acknowledge the ultimate triumph of entropy in the physical world. We evolve until we crash. All of it due to the simple fact that they worship the created thing more than the creator; their own mind more than reality. The anthological vision presented by the evolutionists is without hope or purpose (which many freely acknowledge). They have no alternative but to arrogate sin to the pinnacle of virtue: the Nietzschean “transvaluation of all values”.
If God wills that a paper airplane or a 747 be assembled in the whirlwind, then God wills it. Probability has nothing to do with it. A mind ruled by probability is a mind that has abandoned God and His love anyway. If someone chooses to live in the kingdom of this world rather than the Kingdom of God, in rebellion rather than fealty, no amount of arguing will change their minds. So, for those of us who still harbor the hope of the Kingdom, let us not argue with those who do not. It is rather for us to live in the power of our hope, to act on that hope with the gifts we have been given.
Jim shows us how irrational materialists really are. It’s quite amusing to see the foolishness and futility of their arguments.
Unable to convince us that a mindless Nature using random actions created complex superstructures, life, and reason, Jim then goes on to use logic that he says is purely accidental (so his logic is just random/subjective and therefore no different than his preference for strawberries), to hold a God he does not believe in, to a universal standard he does not believe in, and accuse the God he doesn’t believe exists, that He took too much time to create it all.
I think I agree with you. Are you saying that the foundational assumption of the approach of Intelligent Design adherents is God?
Phil, I have no idea what the ID folk believe. I can only speak for myself.
Michael writes: “The foundational assumption of the other is not God, but a self-organizing material universe.”
But according to the proponents of intellegent design, the foundational assumption isn’t God. Rather, the existence of a “designer” is inferred from the study of nature, in particular the structures and processes that exhibit “irreducible complexity.”
I don’t see that the idea of a self-organizing material universe rules out the existence of God. I don’t see the two as contradictory.
I see the whole enterprise of trying to infer something about God through scientific study of the physical world to be quite beside the point, bordering on ridiculous. It is said that when theologians asked the scientist J. Haldane what one could learn about the Creator from a study of nature, he is reported to have said that “the Creator, if he exists, has an inordinate fondness for beetles” — since there are over 300,000 species of them.
And frankly, from a scientific point of view, that’s a completely reasonable conclusion. From my example of the evolutionary descent of the genus Equus, it would be completely reasonable to infer that the Designer didn’t know what he wanted, and had to spend 55 million years trying out different prototypes.
In other words, if someone wants to infer the nature of a “designer” from the scientific study of nature, great, go for it, but then don’t be disturbed when that program generates ludicrous conclusions. OR — if someone wants to infer the nature of God from revealed religion, that’s great too, but then don’t look to science as a source of information about God.
Chris B. writes: “Jim shows us how irrational materialists really are. It’s quite amusing to see the foolishness and futility of their arguments.”
Yes, let’s talk about irrationality. If the concept of evolution is so foolish, then why is it that it is virtually universally accepted by scientists? The only ones who don’t accept it are a handful of fundamentalist scientists who are “creationists,” and small number who believe in “intelligent design.” To say that there is a scientific “consensus” in favor of evolution is like saying that there is a scientific consensus that the earth is not flat. There are even a number of Christian scientists who also believe in evolution.
In an earlier post, I asked if there was even one single paper in favor of intelligent design that had ever been published in a respected peer-reviewed scientific journal. As far as I understand there has not. Again, if evolution is so irrational, and intelligent design so briliant and wise, and so true that its proponents want it taught in public schools, how is it that no scientist has even published a peer-reviewed paper in its behalf?
During the trial in Dover Michael Behe, one of the main proponents of intelligent design admitted that “there are no peer reviewed articles by anyone advocating for intelligent design supported by pertinent experiments or calculations which provide detailed rigorous accounts of how intelligent design of any biological system occurred,” and that the definition of ‘theory’ as he applied it to intelligent design was so loose that astrology would qualify as a theory by definition as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Behe
So there you have it. That’s from Michael Behe, one of the leading scientists in favor of intelligent design. So I guess we should start teaching astrology in schools too. No doubt those materialist astronomers will object, but that’s just because they are irrational and foolish.
Yes Jim, I get it now. Nothing is true in the Universe unless it’s “been published in a respected peer-reviewed scientific journal“. According to your Darwinistic-Materialistic Cultist views all the universal laws (that chaos created) were not valid until human reason (created by random particles moving in random patterns) discovered them using logic (that was created by a mindless nature and pure chance).
According to your logic (and I use that term very liberally) all of physics, chemistry, biology, the Strong nuclear force, the Electromagnetic, the Weak nuclear force, and the Gravitational force were not true and did not exist until a glorified monkey (who itself evolved from a basic biological soup), used a brain created by chance, to apply reason and logic created by random acts, to observe a Nature constructed by chaos, to draw purely subjective opinions about a random reality, to publish an article using a language created by chance, and prove to other glorified monkeys that some things exist and are universally true.
Thanks again for the great laugh! Again and again you prove to us the idiocy and futility of the arguments and objections raised by the Chaos-Caused-Reason-and-Order Cult Followers. It’s becoming clearer and clearer that the real religious fanatics in the world are not most of the Christians and conservatives, but the Darwinists, Evolutionists, Materialists, Marxists, Atheists, Leftists, etc.. who demand unquestioning belief based on theories and arguments that are billions of times more unlikely and illogical than the reality of God’s Logos and the self-evident truths of His creation.
Note 7. Michael writes:
I can tell you what they believe. They argue that the Darwinian hypothesis is not science, but philosophy. The Darwinian hypothesis exceeds the bounds of science (which is concerned with the operation of material processes), particularly through cosmological claims (a random universe, etc.). In practical terms, this means that Darwinism functions as an epistemological principle, a paradigm of sorts by which the data obtained through observation and experimentation is arranged.
The problem is that science itself is proving the Darwinian hypothesis woefully insufficient — particularly the claim that structures came into being through random processes. This precept is key of course, because if randomness is discarded, then the entire Darwinian structure falls.
ID proponents argue that the Darwinian hypothesis actually hinders scientific inquiry. They argue that the material order is too complex to have emerged randomly (through a linear process of simple to complex ordering). Science, they say, proves Darwinism is untenable.
Your argument above concerns Darwinism, but in a broader sense. It actually deals with philosophical materialism, the philosophy that gave birth to Darwin, Marx, etc, which asserts the only reality is material reality. You are quite correct in asserting that once this precept is accepted as true, culture loses its moorings. ID proponents, while very aware of the cultural ramifications of a belief in only material reality, don’t address the cultural side of this question.
The truth is that true Darwinians, just like true Marxists, must ultimately deny the existence of reason. They don’t really believe intelligibility exists within the universe. Shifting back to culture, that’s why some scientists, in one of the more shameful periods of American history, backed eugenics (War Against the Weak), why concentration camps and Gulags came into being (even why “doctors” perform abortions or kill the infirm today), etc. Remember, this dark insanity was perceived at the time to be the forefront of cultural thinking and progress.
Phil asks:
No. ID proponents argue that the Darwinian hypothesis cannot explain the complexity of the universe. Darwin posits two dynamics: matter and energy. ID proponents posit a third alongside the two: design, order, logos, hierarchy, information, whatever you want to call it.
Design of course implies a designer, just as randomness implies an empty universe (a universe bereft of reason, order, and meaning) — both assertions about a higher being, intelligence, again, whatever you want to call it. But these are cosmological claims, and of the two, only ID recognizes the limits of science regarding cosmology. Darwinism, OTOH, starts with the cosmological assumption.
Note 8. Jim writes:
Jim, a while back I told you about a shift occurring in politics. You didn’t see it at the time. Sure enough it happened. Here too you have blinders. You don’t perceive the cultural ground shifting under you feet.
Ideas move culture Jim. A “consensus” is only a static measurement — a snapshot. It can’t measure motion.
Marx has fallen, Freud has fallen — you really want to bet Darwin won’t fall? They all came out of the same pot you know.
Note 8. Jim writes:
Not really. Rewrite it this way: from a theological point of view…(whether it’s a reasonable conclusion is another question). Science can’t speak to cosmology, although philosophers/theologians/cosmologists can draw on science to advance their hypothesis if they so choose. But if they imply that science proves their hypothetical assertions, then they clearly do not understand the limits of science.
Read the article the footnote to the paragraph above references. By their logic, evolution does not qualify as a “theory” either. (BTW, this Wikipedia article is so tendentious it qualifies as an editorial.)
#8
I utterly fail to see what is so clever or revealing about this comment, although it would no doubt elicit titters from an audience of atheists. How exactly does anyone know whether a few species of beetles or 300,000 would be expected from the existence of God? Since there is only one species of human, but 300,000 of beetles, does that mean that beetles are more significant? What shallow and vulgar reasoning.
Similarly with questions of time and space. If you won’t believe in God because the universe is old, how young should it be before you will? Carl Sagan thought that the “billions and billions” of stars clinched an atheistic worldview. Why? Why does the size of the universe or the number of stars matter? Since humans cannot conceive of a limit to 3-dimensional space, nor time, for that matter, I would think the only reasonable thing to do is to humbly admit that there is mystery in these things.
Jim, Here’s another whopper of a point you and all the Darwinist Cult Followers completely overlook. The burden of proof rests completely on the shoulders of the Darwinist/Macro-Evolutionists myth proponents. It is you folks who have failed miserably to prove any of the claims and beliefs you hold.
Logic and the scientific process REQUIRE that once a Theory is developed by investigation and inferred from the existing evidence, that Theory MUST be PROVED via experimentation that confirms the theory. That experimentation must be ultimately solidified by conclusive proof, it must be consistent, repeatable, and universal. The experiments must support and re-inforce the theory and the final theory must predict the future results of similar experimentation conclusively.
Yet to date, the key element of the Darwinist-Evolutionist-Secularist dogma that: “Random Actions Result in Progressively Complex Structures” has never been shown to occur in any experiment or research anywhere, in any way, shape, or form, on any scale.
All we are left with is what Darwin observed and wrote about and scientists, biologists, and geologists have since confirmed via experiments, research, and the geological record, that: “Originally designed creatures with complex biological structures when subjected to different environmental factors over long periods of time tend to change within a certain prescribed range of biological modifications that either enhance certain beneficial traits or de-emphasize some mutations that are not crucial to survival.” This is simply known as Adaptation to the Environment, a far cry and a universe away from the “universal evolution, random action creates life from non-life and man evolved from amoebas by chance” fantasy that was invented by some and since raised to the level of dogma by those who ignore the very scientific principles and laws that govern all of creation.
Jacobse, I want to ask you directly: what is the Darwinian hypothesis, and how does it differ from the theory of evolution by natural selection?
Note 13: Though I am strongly inclined towards a belief in a Creator and a First Cause, it’s actually the study of nature that leads me to wonder about the nature of that Creator. In one sense, yes, the order and majesty of the created world point to a higher intelligence. At the same time, there is an awfulness in the cycle of life. Especially in the lower animals, existence frequently depends on the extinguishing of other life, often after a painful end. Unlike humans, animals cannot benefit or learn from suffering, so what is the purpose?
Some say this is a result of the Fall, but this isn’t a satisfactory answer for me. How would animals who cannot “sin” have inherited from Adam a sinful or fallen nature? One may as well suggest that every region of the universe was affected by Adam’s fall, and every created intelligence was likewise impacted.
Also problematic is the destructive element of nature. The earth shakes and thousands are injured or die. Tsunamis kill thousands. What does this say about the creator of these elements? I’m not certain. The idea that even the ground was tainted by Adam can only lead to some sort of pantheistic idea of God and what constitutes the spirit (e.g., God is “everywhere” and “in all things”). Despite the appearance of a finely tuned atmosphere (and I understand that life here would not exists with only a minor deviation in its form), things often appear chaotic.
Tom C writes: “I utterly fail to see what is so clever or revealing about this comment, although it would no doubt elicit titters from an audience of atheists.”
What I’m trying to do is to approach the issue from the point of view of the proponents of intelligent design. Standard ID makes no claim that the designer is a god, or even a supernatural being of any kind:
“Intelligent design starts with the empirical evidence of nature and seeks to ascertain what inferences can be drawn from that evidence. Unlike creationism, the scientific theory of intelligent design does not claim that modern biology can identify whether the intelligent cause detected through science is supernatural.”
http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php
With ID the designer could have been technically advanced space aliens. I’m not trying to ridicule the theory here, I’m just pointing out the limitations that many of the proponents of ID also note. In ID there’s no reason why the designer should be the Christian God, though some may hold that as a personal belief. In fact, that has been one of the legal “selling points” of ID — that it’s not a religious theory, though it may have religious implications — or not.
Tom C: “Similarly with questions of time and space. If you won’t believe in God because the universe is old, how young should it be before you will?”
Sure, I don’t have a problem with that, though certainly an old and infinite universe requires a different, non-literal, view of the book of Genesis.
Tom C: “…I would think the only reasonable thing to do is to humbly admit that there is mystery in these things.”
Again, I have no problem with that at all. That said, scientific theories do not exist as abstract entities. They are not created with the purpose of proving or disproving theology. They are not created merely in order to be shown in glass display cases on university campuses.
Scientific theories are valuable because they actually guide the research of working scientists. In that sense, evolution works. If evolution didn’t work, there would be no need for a Discovery Institute or “intelligent design,” because evolution would already have been abandoned by scientists. It would have no value.
For example, it is often claimed that the theory of evolution has no predictive value. This is not true. The following site explains a number of things that were correctly predicted by scientists using evolution:
http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/evo_science.html
I won’t quote all the predictions; you can read those for yourself. But I will quote the final comment: “The point is not that these prove evolution right. The point is that these were predictions that could have turned out to be wrong predictions. So, the people who made the predictions were doing science. The Theory of Evolution was also useful, in the sense that it suggested what evidence to look for, and where.”
In contrast, intelligent design is not useful. Thus, working scientists do not use it to guide their research. In comparison with the literally hundreds of thousands of research papers dealing with evolutionary biology, not one paper based on intelligent design has been published in a peer-reviewed journal, not even by its leading proponents.
Chris B. writes: “Yet to date, the key element of the Darwinist-Evolutionist-Secularist dogma that: “Random Actions Result in Progressively Complex Structures” has never been shown to occur in any experiment or research anywhere, in any way, shape, or form, on any scale.”
First, I don’t think that’s even the dogma. Evolution has no particular “goal.” It does not aim for progressively complex structures. In fact, sometimes simpler structures result (e.g., the fusion of a number of small bones into a single larger bone.) As mentioned in the link above, populations of birds on living islands without predators eventually lose the ability to fly. This has been observed on a number of islands and across different species of birds. There’s nothing inherently more complex about not flying.
As far as experiments, yes there are experiments that confirm evolution, but these typically in the form of predictions that prove to be correct. For example, the following article describes an experiment in interbreeding through artificial insemination of fish species that diverged through evolution around 10,000 years ago:
http://www.hhmi.org/genesweshare/e120.html
If you want to talk about experiment and predictions, let’s talk about them also with respect to intelligent design. As far as I know, there aren’t any. In fact, ID hasn’t generated any wrong predictions because it hasn’t generated any predictions at all. In other words, with respect to science, ID doesn’t “do” anything. It serves no useful purpose. It guides no research. If you have other information, I’m all ears.
JamesK, you have presented the perfect Pashcal question. Your confusion comes from your fundamentally egalitarian approach to being. Since you tend to look at human beings as just another creature among many creatures, our uniqueness as the only creature with a living soul is ignored. Egalitarianism also leads to a dismissal of the horrible effect of sin and consequently the need for redemption.
1 Cor. 15:21: “Since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die even so in Christ shall all be made alive.”
All of the things you decry are the result of man’s sin. God gave us the command to dress and keep the earth, to return it to Him perfected in glory as our communion with Him deepened (“thine own of thine owe we offer unto thee on behalf of all and for all”). Our abject failure to do God’s will is evident.
Because there is a hierarchy of created being, the effects of our sin are not limited to us individually. The effects are not just limited to humanity. We have dominion. In our falleness, disorder, death and destruction are more prevalent that order, harmony and beauty. Death more evident than Life.
Pantheism is not “God everywhere present, filling all things”. Pantheism is a refusal to make the distinction between God and things (the ultimate egalitarianism). The divine is the things and the things divine. There is no personal understanding of God as other, a distinct inter-personal being who chooses to reveal Himself in and through His creation.
Only a Christian can pray “God everywhere present, filling all things”, because only Christians acknowledge both the complete otherness of God and His total immanence (in Him we live and move and have our being). Only a Christian acknowledges the Incarnation that leads to both a cosmic and a personal healing from sin and the overcoming of Death.
That is why we cry out with such joy: CHRIST IS RISEN, TRAMPLING DOWN DEATH BY DEATH AND UPON THOSE IN THE TOMBS BESTOWING LIFE!
From another Paschal Hymn: “….WITH HIMSELF HE HAS RAISED ALL THE EARTH, REJOICE ALL YE PEOPLE!”
Jim, You’re not really listening to what we’re all saying. We keep asking for “X” and you keep responding with “Y.” Again, the experiment you bring up simply proves Adaptation to the Environment, NOT “Random Actions Cause Structures” (Grand Darwinism).
None of us here have EVER disputed that: “Originally designed creatures with complex biological structures when subjected to different environmental factors over long periods of time tend to change within a certain prescribed range of biological modifications that either enhance certain beneficial traits or de-emphasize some mutations that are not crucial to survival.” That’s not the gist of the debate.
Jim, You’re saying there’s no proof that ID exists. What? Reason and Logic dictate that order and purposeful structures are the result of intelligence. All of what we call Science and all of human reasoning PROVE that. Random actions by themselves create nothing, only modify EXISTING structures and cause deviations from EXISTING patterns. That’s why we keep asking for proof of your theories and all we get back is gobbledegook.
Show us one scientific experiment that demonstrates and explains how chaos creates order and then we can begin to have a real debate. For now all you’ve given us are dogma and fiction.
WHO created the DNA, the super-complex patterns, life from non-life, the LAWS of the Universe, and Reason itself? You keep saying “Chaos created order”, that’s completely illogical and wrong on its face. The ID proponents in this conversation keep saying that all of Creation PROVES that an Itelligent Designer is responsible. The evidence is irrefutable.
As I wrote in my review of Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing
http://www.orthodoxnet.com/articles/Banescu/Review_Uncommon_Dissent_2004.php
Banescu,
Actually, pretty much everyone involved in the debate–Intelligent Design proponents, young Earth creationists, evolutionists, and others–believe in design without a designer, in some form or another.
Even Orthodox Christians believe in a God who is supremely complex, omnipotent and omniscient. If your logic tells you that something complex can’t exist unless some outside force designed it, the first thing you should do is convert.
On the other hand, maybe the flaw is in your logic, and not in the undesigned Designer?
Phil writes:
Phil, evolution is not design. Evolution requires a random universe. You don’t seem to understand this. There are no laws governing evolution. Everything is chance.
You seem to think that evolution is an orderly process, but the theory precludes any notion of a preexisting order. There can be no order in a random universe. That’s why placing Aristotle above Darwin is philosophically incoherent (as is the appeal to the omnipotence and omniscience of God above).*
Understand this, and you will understand the cosmological assumptions informing the theory. Once you understand the assumptions, then you will understand the philosophical ground that spawned them.
*What you do (I’ve gleaned this from your posts), is take the design in the existing order you see around you everyday and read it back into the theory. That’s why you frame your defense as “facts in history” — as if evolution is the orderly unfolding of increasingly complex and coherent structures through time. Again, the theory itself does not support this reading. You need to grasp what “random” really means. (In actual fact you hold to design, but argue that evolution is the design. This shows that you don’t really understand the theory.)
Chris B. writes: “None of us here have EVER disputed that: “Originally designed creatures with complex biological structures when subjected to different environmental factors over long periods of time tend to change within a certain prescribed range of biological modifications that either enhance certain beneficial traits or de-emphasize some mutations that are not crucial to survival.”
In what way are the changes “prescribed?” Why is it that changes can occur only within a species, but cannot, for some reason, evolve into a new species over time? To “prescribe” is to “establish rules, laws, or directions.” Are you suggesting a new scientific law, or suggesting a theological law? In either case, what is the justification for the law?
Prescribed Jim, by their DNA. So you can start with wolves and by selective breeding you wind up with dozens of breeds of dogs over time. You take wild cows and over time, by selective breeding you get a variety of cow breeds. You take a Megalodon (giant shark) from 2 to 18 million years ago and over time you wind up with the Great White shark (who looks just like his ancestor only smaller). You take bacteria and by exposing them to multiple antibiotics you wind up with some bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics.
But in EACH and every case these organisms were modified within a PRESCRIBED range of changes dictated by their original DNA. So wolves are still wolves but domesticated (now dogs) and with traits that make them more trainable and amenable to humans. Cows are still cows. A shark is still a shark 18 million years later. A bacteria is still a bacteria…. You get the point, I think (maybe I’m being overly optimistic). Wolves could not be changed into cats, or raccoons, or mountain lions. Cows could not be made to “evolve” into horses, zebras, or hypos. Sharks did not “evolve” into tunas or swordfish or something else. Bacteria did not “evolve” into amoebas, or worms, or mosquitoes.
BTW, Why do we still have bacteria in the world, and mosquitoes, cockroaches, worms, ants, coelacanths, amoebas, flies, fish, frogs, the horseshoe crab (why hasn’t it changed in 350 to 500 million years?), sharks, the nautilus, salamanders, and …. drum roll …. “Living Fossils”? How can a “living fossil” even be possible in a Darwinian universe where constant “progress”, “random changes”, and “evolution” are the law (I know there can’t be any laws in the purely materialist and random universe the secular-Darwinists propose, but I’m trying to make a point here)?
Here’s another fun fact for you. The latest fossil records also show that Penguins, “evolved” (ID translation = adapted to its environment, within a prescribed range of changes) from bigger penguins. The whole “established science” about how penguins “evolved” is now completely up in the air. Big ooops there…. So much for “peer-review” on that one hugh….
A Giant Among Penguins
Reconstructions of the first Paleogene penguins from equatorial regions, illustrate the diversity and size range in the penguins. The late Eocene giant penguin Icadyptes salasi (right) and the middle Eocene Perudyptes devriesi (left) are shown to scale with the only living penguin inhabiting Peru, Spheniscus humbolti (center). Icadyptes salasi is the first giant penguin known from a complete skull and had an estimated standing height of 5 feet.