Evolution versus Creationism

[AngryZealot]

That's an interesting philosophy, but I have some problems with it.

Most of these comprehensive theories are no more than stories that fail to take into account one crucial factor: we are creating them. It is the biological creature that makes observations, names what it observes, and creates stories.

We take the observations, but we do not create them. Our subjective theories do not change the fact that there are fundamental laws of the universe. These laws exist regardless of life.

Science has not succeeded in confronting the element of existence that is at once most familiar and most mysterious—conscious experience.

This is my biggest problem with biocentrism as Lanza describes. There is no evidence to suggest that consciousness is a result of anything other than physical laws and the chemical signaling between neurons. There might be, but there is no evidence for it. For the same reason that we must reject the Flying Spaghetti Monster, we must reject this notion in the absence of evidence. Like Intelligent Design, this theory by definition is an untestable hypothesis -- if all reality is subjective to biology, then biology cannot probe reality. However, given the tangible benefits the scientific method has brought to humanity as measured through biology (increased life span, decreased suffering, etc), there has to be something external and fundamental, separate from the biological realm; otherwise, we would not expect to see this correlation. It only works if biology is a reflection of reality, not the other way around.

 

[Perfection]

See, this is why I don't subscribe to “Discover Magazine”.

EDIT: COULDN'T YOU WAIT, LIKE 30 DAMN SECONDS, YOU CROSSPOSTING RYTHYM-KILLING TEMPO- MURDERER?

 

[AngryZealot]

I'm sorry .

 

[Simple Simon]

I don't see why the two can't go together; if you're a Christian you could belive that God created goo which could evolve and the biblical account was somebody's way of explaining it

The problem is not that a deist god can't co-exist with science. The problem rather is that 99.9% of all Christians (and Jews, and Muslims, and so on) believe in a theist god. And that does not work with science, but only in open contradiction to it.

 

[Simple Simon]

Just to clear the entire matter up a bit:



What is science?
If two guys in a totally blackened-out room go looking for a black cat.
What is philosophy?
If two guys in a totally blackened-out room go looking for a black cat that isn't there.
and what is religion?
When one of them calls out: "I got it!"

 

[BasketCase]

In the life's fine tune argument it's more like tossing 4 quarters in the middle of the room and all of them stands vertically on top of each other.

Well, now, if that's what I meant, I would have used that ridiculous analogy, wouldn't I?

It's more like dropping ONE coin on the floor and being amazed at where it lands. Now knock it off.

 

[uppi]

You're still getting it backwards. The universe is not designed to support life. In fact, no universe anywhere is designed to support life. It is LIFE that is designed for the UNIVERSE.

Life is certainly adapted to our universe, there is no denying that. However the universe has to be able to support life at all.

Side note: your proposal is unprovable because there's no way to test it. We can't ever know if there's a "better" universe out there, because the minute we crossed into it, our ship would explode and our bodies would vaporize into subatomic particles as the laws of physics changed around us.

No need to experimentally test it. For the argument the better universe could be entirely theoretical. Until then, the argument that the universe supports life so badly is crap. Because for all we know, there might not be a better way.

Only in order to create a universe LIKE OURS. If the mathematical constants were different, something else would exist--a different universe, in a different form. And life would exist in a different form as well. Maybe instead we would exist as clouds of cohesive energy--and we would be wondering, in the same way, how the universe around us could be so perfectly arranged that we can exist.

That's only true for an unknown subset of universes. Most variations of the constants would lead to a universe that cannot support life at all. Nuclei for example are very fragile constructs. If there were slight variations, deuterium might not be stable, leading to a universe consisting only of protons. A very dead universe. If on the other hand it was too stable, there might be no way to form helium. That would lead to a universe consisting only of hydrogen. Again a very dead universe.

The first five dimensions--space, time, and probability (the set of all possible histories)--are infinite. From the moment of the Big Bang, there are an infinite number of ways the Universe can be arranged. But we can only have one past and one future; we only occupy one line in space-time (each of us has ONE future) and we occupy only one point in the dimension of probability. Only one of our many possible futures (of which there are an infinite number) can happen at once. The real truth is that no matter which line we follow in probability, the chance of us following that one particular line is infinitely small.

Huh? "First five dimensions"? What kind of unproven hypothesis is that?

And what is your point? Sure the probability of recreating our exact timleline is infinitely small, but I fail to see how this is relevant to our discussion.

It's meaningless to marvel at how unlikely human evolution is. It's like tossing a quarter into the middle of the room and being amazed at how it managed to land in THAT particular spot on the carpet. No matter where the quarter lands, its chances of landing there were infinitely small. But it MUST land somewhere, so one of those infinitely many possibilities WILL happen.

And a lot of those spots have no life at all. So you can indeed wonder why it landed on one of the spots supporting life.

 

[warpus]

We take the observations, but we do not create them. Our subjective theories do not change the fact that there are fundamental laws of the universe. These laws exist regardless of life.

Whenever we observe stuff, probability waves collapse and particular particle states emerge.. so maybe this guy is onto something..

 

[Flying Pig]

The problem is not that a deist god can't co-exist with science. The problem rather is that 99.9% of all Christians (and Jews, and Muslims, and so on) believe in a theist god. And that does not work with science, but only in open contradiction to it.

I don't think that's right; 40% of Americans believe in the seven-day theory; which means that at least half of christians (and probably more, because we're using the American figures) believe in evolution

 

[Perfection]

I don't think that's right; 40% of Americans believe in the seven-day theory; which means that at least half of christians (and probably more, because we're using the American figures) believe in evolution

7-day Creationism is not the only bread of antievolutionary Creationism, and antievolutionary Creationism is not the only antiscientific Christian belief.

 

[Murky]

How do you explain an ordered universe without God? I don't mean the theistic God. Without everything falling into place, in what appears to be perfectly ordered, we would not exist.

 

[Simple Simon]

I don't think that's right; 40% of Americans believe in the seven-day theory; which means that at least half of christians (and probably more, because we're using the American figures) believe in evolution

first, as perfection pointed out there are other anti-scientific opinions.
Also, beliefs do not need to be coherent. For example, I know a lot of people who accept evolution as fact, but still claim special creation of man - doh! These people actually 'believe in' evolution, as if it were a religion, and pick and choose what they like

 

[suiraclaw]

Some philosophy: if there is a supreme, everything controlling being, where does he come from? If God created everything else, what caused the creation of a God?

God has the same problem as the big bang.

How do you explain an ordered universe without God? I don't mean the theistic God. Without everything falling into place, in what appears to be perfectly ordered, we would not exist.

The universe perfectly ordered? What?

Here is the theory (second law):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy

The whole theory is interesting, but you might be most interested about the part about "entropy and cosmology".

 

[Flying Pig]

first, as perfection pointed out there are other anti-scientific opinions.
Also, beliefs do not need to be coherent. For example, I know a lot of people who accept evolution as fact, but still claim special creation of man - doh! These people actually 'believe in' evolution, as if it were a religion, and pick and choose what they like

You could argue that God created the different species of Homo in order; so it looks to the untrained eye like evolution. That said, 58% believe in evolution and 55% believe in creationism or something, so 13% are a bit mixed up, by the look of things.

 

[Murky]

The universe perfectly ordered? What?

Here is the theory (second law):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy

The whole theory is interesting, but you might be most interested about the part about "entropy and cosmology".

I don't get what this has to do with having an ordered universe without God.

 

[Flying Pig]

The universe is not perfectly ordered; almost all of it is random and xists by chance.

 

[Murky]

The universe is not perfectly ordered; almost all of it is random and xists by chance.

How can this be and yet there are ordered processes like star formation and evolution?

 

[Simple Simon]

You could argue that God created the different species of Homo in order;

unnecessary ad hoc hypothesis, no evidence at all. Disprove the invisible, mass-less, energy-free teapot on your left shoulder

As I said earlier:
science and theistic god does not work
science and deistic god does work, but where is the consequence of the existence of (a) deistic god(s)?

ergo, god does not exist in any form that is relevant to science.

 

[Flying Pig]

What ordered processes? Evolution, to use one example goes thus

• Organisms have different genes inside them
• When two organisms meet, their genes get mixed up AT RANDOM and put in the offspring
• If these genes in this combination make the offspring more likely to have babies than its competitors, they have a greater chance of being passed on (because each gene has a 1 in x chance, more babies means more chance that the gene will be passed on)
• Over time this means that bad genes get edited out as those without the 'big teeth gene' get eaten by sabre-toothed tigers and die before they can have kids

At no point is there any order whatsoever. Ditto for star formation (as far as I'm aware).

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unnecessary ad hoc hypothesis, no evidence at all. Disprove the invisible, mass-less, energy-free teapot on your left shoulder

As I said earlier:
science and theistic god does not work
science and deistic god does work, but where is the consequence of the existence of (a) deistic god(s)?

ergo, god does not exist in any form that is relevant to science.

I've argued your point before on this forum; but what it comes down to is that if you have some reason to believe that God exists, then 'theistic evolution' becomes a reasonable hypotesis; or even better the idea that God created organisms with the ability to evolve, and so you have 'God created the world' and ''Organisms evolve' in the same sentance.

 

[Simple Simon]

How can this be and yet there are ordered processes like star formation and evolution?

You are arguing from ignorance: because YOU can't understand how order can (locally) come from disorder, you assume that it is not possible unless god did it. Not a valid argument, otherwise particle physics would be an act of god for me, but not for my neighbour who works in that field

Also, if God is what creates order, then god is ordered. And who created THAT order?