[Bobboau]

damnit, evolution is not random chance, were the **** do you people keep hearing this from!? I realy want to know. if it was random chance we'd call it random chance, not evolution.

[Deen]

Bobboau, thank's for your detailed reply.

However, I think you misunderstood my post. I was not advocating creationism. I do not believe in it. I often find it funny.

I know what entropy is, that earth is not a closed system, there are a log of intermediate fossils, and all of that. But that is how I've read creationists present it, and I reproduced their words.

I was merely writing some examples of claims made by scientific creationism, and the general responses to them.

[Thrilla]

Typical you attack irrelevant factors of the example instead of understanding the analogy.

Yes! It IS different from life! Its sooo much simpler than life! And you think that a big bang somehow caused life to form from protiens is makes more sense?

Another thing, can you explain where life comes from? Can scientists explain what gives something life, and why it disappears when something dies? The physical form of the being is still there, why isnt it animate? Life comes from somewhere, and it is something not physical, ie. a spirit of some sort that is part of the being and separates itself from the physical when the being is no longer capable of fuctioning.

[Bobboau]

yeah, I kind of figured that after reading some of you orther posts

[Deen]

Originally posted by Bobboau
damnit, evolution is not random chance, were the **** do you people keep hearing this from!? I realy want to know. if it was random chance we'd call it random chance, not evolution.

wait, I always thought that it went something like:

random mutations produce slightly different variations of the same species, and those individuals with beneficial mutations survive more thus carrying their mutations to the next generation. The majority with negative or irrelevant mutations have less effect on the next generation.
right?

In fact, if it is not random, then something or someone must be deciding what changes should take place and which should not, and you come to creationism yourself.

Or maybe you meant that the resulting surviving changes are not random, but are determined by the enviroment in which the organism lives, in which case I agree.

[Ford Prefect]

Of course evolution is random chance. Evolution is like every other process in this universe-- it is a sequence of cause and effect. Unless you factor in divine will, there's no guiding force behind it. Population A evolves into a subspecies because a flood cuts it off from the rest of its species. The cause is the flood. Why did the flood happen? Random chance.

[Bobboau]

yesterday I drove my car to work, when I got tiered I clocked out and went home.
so there you see creationism has been proven wrong!

that is the level of haveing-nothing-to-do-with-the-subject your analogy had

big bang? that is ****ing astro-physics it's like talking about electronics to make a point about petrochemistry.


"can you explain where life comes from?"
YES!

"Can scientists explain what gives something life, and why it disappears when something dies?"
YES!

"The physical form of the being is still there, why isnt it animate?"
becase it's dead, it's metabolism has suffered such a catistofic amout of damage that it isn't capable of sustaining it'self anymore.

"Life comes from somewhere, and it is something not physical, ie. a spirit of some sort that is part of the being and separates itself from the physical when the being is no longer capable of fuctioning."
realy? show me, give me some way of testing this.

[Bobboau]

(random chance) ?= (random mutations produce slightly different variations of the same species, and those individuals with beneficial mutations survive more thus carrying their mutations to the next generation. The majority with negative or irrelevant mutations have less effect on the next generation.)

no

(random chance) ?= (a sequence of cause and effect)

no

[Bobboau]

"Why did the flood happen? Random chance."

more likely lots of rain.

[Ford Prefect]

How is that not random chance? I don't understand your reasoning. Either something is by chance or it is intentional. If you're arguing that evolution is not random chance, then you're arguing that there is some intelligent force guiding the process.

The conditions that determine which mutations are advantageous are random chance, the mutations are random chance, even simply the fact that life exists is random chance. Either it's divine will, or it's a mess of blind causality.

more likely lots of rain.

But the rain is chance! Everything is based on chance because the universe itself is governed by probability! It's all an endless, branching sequence of one chance occurrence leading to another!

[PeachE]

Originally posted by Thrilla
What takes more faith...

so.. the contractor.. built the house a thousand years ago, poured gas on it, set it on fire, drowned it, allowed infestations of every vermon known to man.. and then left it alone, so badly torn up that it's hardly recognizable as a house, never to be heard from again...

or...

there never was a contractor.. and there never was a house.. but a few thousand years later, someone found a few scorched logs in a somewhat curious arrangement and declared that at one point there must have been a house on that spot.

[Bobboau]

ford, if you drop a heavy object it falls, does this happen due to random chance, no it hapens becose of gravity.

random chance is walking out and a metior hitting you in the head, actualy random chance is only us not knowing enough to predict everything, nothing is truly random chance, it's all caused by something, we're just to stupid to know all the variables.

evolution is a system, not a bunch of unrelated coincedental events

[Bobboau]

"trees falling in the right ways, metal and ground erosion, extreme heat and pressure, lime, water, gravel, and even the weather conditions throughout millenia caused a structure to slowly form itself"
that is basicly what I would call random chance

[Thrilla]

Hmm... now you say evolution is a system. How did that system get put in place, who designed it, and what is its ultimate end?

I know gravity pulls objects toward a larger mass, and it is proven (see liberators anvil) but evolution of life from a big bang, proteins and the like has not been because A) no substantial proof has been found to say its scientific fact, B) not enough scientists are willing to make this huge act of faith to believe in it.

...and if evolution is this magnificent system that advances life then why the hell is the universe in a constant decay? I understand that certain things "evolve" if you will, develop, such as intellect, civilization, etc. Diseases mutate to overcome antidotes as they become used to them, hence the human body becoming used to diseases and is how antibodies work, but the human is still human and the bacteria is still bacteria and wont ever become a whale.

[Bobboau]

'now' when did I call it anything else? this is the first time I've done anything other than tell you what it wasn't.

look it's like the water cycle, you have water and heat and cold in diferent places and the water cycle system just happens (yeah I hate the phrease 'just happens' but you'll agnoledge that if you have something hot something cold and water you'll get something like the water cycle without you planning it out or wanting it), it isn't designed, it's a product of the environment.

ok if you don't like system how about process

evolution doesn't come from a big bang.

"...constant decay"
is it?
define decay in how you mean it here.

a bacteria wont ever become a whale, but it's offspring might become something totaly diferent than it is, maybe even something whalelike

oh and A) yes there has, and B) yes there is

[Ford Prefect]

This is my point. It's not a system because it was not "put together." Evolution as we know it is one possible course of events in a universe governed by probability. It is random chance because it could very easily have happened entirely differently. One mutation is not guaranteed to yield a certain result; there is a certain probability for each one of numerous results. It might rain, it might not. If it does, there might be flood, there might not. If there is a flood, then a certain series of mutations might result, and it might not. In this universe we can never "know," we can only predict with varying degrees of certainty. Our minds create the idea of a system because the notion of intent is the only way we can understand a universe that seems to operate in such harmony.

[Bobboau]

yeah, and?

mutation is basicly caused by random chance, random chance is not evolution in the same way that a brake pedle is not a car.

haven't I argued this with you before?

[Bobboau]

" If there is a flood, then a certain series of mutations might result"

depends on the time scale, if your talking right after than those mutations would have happened weather it rained or not, weather the animal with them survived probly would have been effected

[Ford Prefect]

That's exactly it! It depends! Evolution is nothing but stuff happening the way stuff happens in every other context. My alarm clock dies, I'm late for school, which puts me in a bad mood, which causes me to forget that I had a test to make up that day, which causes me to drop a letter grade in that class. That is all evolution is!

[Bobboau]

it's the proses by wich more adequately adapted oganisms perpetuate themselves more sucesfuly than those wich are less well endowed.

not a perfict defenition but about right.