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Author | Topic: Proof of evolution!!! | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Ooook! Member (Idle past 5815 days) Posts: 340 From: London, UK Joined: |
Guidosoft,
The reactions to your OP are a direct result of you using an incredibly poor analolgy for the development of the theory of evolution. In fact, one of the reasons it is so bad it is completely back-to-front! People started out with the assumption that life on earth was a direct result of special intervention by an omnipotent being, in a similar way to your alien assuming that computers couldn't have been designed. But anyone willing to examine things objectively was forced to reassess this position as direct result of the evidence. Your alien and his biased archeology are therefore not analogous with the progress of science but compare quite well to the unmoving dogma of creationism. The other major fault that people quickly picked up on was the lack of any coherant mechanism for change. Evolution has an observable mechanism for change: an imperfect self replication system combined with natural selection. How on earth can a stone knife turn into a computer given enough time? This makes your mistake about organelles even more telling:
Guidosoft writes: Oh I'm sorry, I thought organelles were an assembly of protiens. ... and lipids and sugars and metal and water. But what's your point? If you look at it this way all living things are just an assembly of these chemicals, but they don't need the intervention of a designer to replicate. Mitochondria divide quite happily on their own. Stick an E. coli on an agar plate and it will replicate itself without intervention. And a man and a woman who love each other very much ... Stone knifes, aeroplanes, computers or blocks of flats don't have this capability: they can't evolve! The alien is invoking an untestable magical event - ring any bells?
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
No, computers have not evolved. You might get away with that on semantics, but computer technology has certainly evolved. Evolved meaning 'changed over time', or implying 'progress'. It is nothing to do with anthropomorphic tendencies though. It isn't just life that evolves, and it isn't just humans. Stars evolve, companies evolve, music evolves.
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Phat Member Posts: 18262 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.1 |
Modulous writes: Stars evolve, companies evolve, music evolves. Ideas evolve. There is no such thing as an original thought, some believe. God has already thought of everything. As you and I grow, our beliefs evolve. They may not change, per se, because either we is or we is not certain in our hearts about certain things. Our minds and our perceptions, however, continue to grow. Marshall MacLuhan, that great Canadian publishing maverick of the late 20th century, wrote a book called Understanding Media:The Extensions of Man.
Understanding Media writes: Just because people have been creative does not make them cognizant or capable of understanding the impact of the things that they are creating, be they computers or calculators. Pope Pius XII was deeply concerned that there be serious study of the media today. On February 17, 1950, he said:It is not an exaggeration to say that the future of modern society and the stability of its inner life depend in large part on the maintenance of an equilibrium between the strength of the techniques of communication and the capacity of the individual's own reaction. Failure in this respect has for centuries been typical and total for mankind. Subliminal and docile acceptance of media impact has made them prisons without walls for their human users. As A. J. Liebling remarked in his book The Press, a man is not free if he cannot see where he is going, even if he has a gun to help him get there. For each of the media is also a powerful weapon with which to clobber other media and other groups. The result is that the present age has been one of multiple civil wars that are not limited to the world of art and entertainment. In War and Human Progress, Professor J. U. Nef declared: "The total wars of our time have been the result of a series of intellectual mistakes . . ." The printing press revolutionized society, yet the impact of that change did not immediately show itself in the ideas of the culture of that time. Several hundred years later, however, the impact had snowballed!
McLuhan writes: McLuhan makes a profound distinction between percept and concept, assigning their difference to human understanding. We say one is perceptive when some thing is penetrated, extracting uncommon insight. Perception is enhanced when attuned to the 'secondary' senses, the tactile, olfactory, and acoustic. Only when all the senses are at work, can the eye see. Percepts function via the sensory world, not by concept. Percepts are participatory, involved. Percepts feel. The tribal mask for instance is sensory, and transmits subliminal energy. Concepts in contrast are detached systems that neutralize participation by explaining the world. Concepts distance us from objects by relying on the passivity of the eye. The visual unlike the tactile tends to stand back and inventory the situation from a safe distance. Concepts lead one to viewing life as the eye surveys the terrain, without involvement. To explain we generate concept after concept, and then more concepts, as we get further away from our powers of perception. These powers diminished at every step, surrendering common sense, instinct, intuition and free thinking. We become literal, deprived of participation and insight. Perception is mercurial, comes out of nowhere suddenly. It is instantaneous, boundless, and involving. Conceptualization is static, repetitive, detached, and self-enveloping. Inside the system, we are unaware of their blinding properties. Percept advances and recedes like a gestalt, with a foreground and background, attuned to depth. Concept traps meaning by concentrating only on the surface, the foreground, while substituting itself for the missing ground. Concept preempts the gestalt. It is an invisible arbiter of all things in the absence of true ground. As a kind of bogus background that fixes everything in an illusory pseudo-context, concept ultimately tricks the perceiver out of his senses. The 'play' in figure and ground is McLuhan's strategy for reversing the order of premise and conclusion, cause and effect, content and medium. We go from effect to cause, and not the other way around, by proceeding from a preconceived notion (conclusion), to get to a premise that is embedded, putting the cart before the horse. We concoct a premise from preconceptions. Likewise effects often precede causes because they have created the conditions for a new situation well in advance of the so-called causes, which are in fact a result of a long but undetected process. When we perceive something we grope for words. By introducing subtlety to such assumptions, by uttering something unusual yet plainly observable, preconceptions yield to perception. ''The medium is the message'' is more than an observation; it's a slogan for perception. Watch the invisible medium shaping what you say and think. Perceive the invisible ground by playing it off against the foreground. McLuhan's aphorisms, or probes, involve play as a tool for perception. It is a genre associated with the Logos tradition, the ancient school that utilized paradox, enigma and satire. Concepts evolve. Ideas evolve. IMHO, Beliefs have not evolved much, yet the way that absolutist believers relate to the society around them should evolve...for God has given us the freedom and capacity to do so.
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ramoss Member (Idle past 612 days) Posts: 3228 Joined: |
Well, it doesn't matter of ID is assumed to be wrong or right. ID does not make any predictions. It does not have any explanitory powers. It can not be tested.
So far, the only thing that the major proponents of ID have done is point to the places we are ignorant about, proclaimed "It's too complex to happened naturally", and then say 'Oh, it must be a designer'. When the I.D. proponents come up with a valid method of testing their ideas, then it can be considered. They are more interested in the politics of getting it in schools rather than the science of making it predictive and testable.
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Phat Member Posts: 18262 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.1 |
ramoss writes: When the I.D. proponents come up with a valid method of testing their ideas, then it can be considered. They are more interested in the politics of getting it in schools rather than the science of making it predictive and testable. I actually found what I considered to be a good link concerning biological evolution---and on a Christian website, nontheless!
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NosyNed Member Posts: 8996 From: Canada Joined: |
You might get away with that on semantics Many words have different meanings; sometimes very different. The context is required to determine what they mean. On this forum "evolution" is used as a short form for "biological evolution" and,specifically, the way in which they changed over time. This involves the selection of imperfect replicators. (I think it can be shown that this doesn't have to be restricted to things we call "living" but that is a detail.) Computers can not undergo biological evolution. If computers are used as an analogy to living things the analogy fails as it doesn't match the basic characteristics of interest. If you use words carelessly you fail to communicate properly. Semantics are the heart of communication. This message has been edited by NosyNed, 12-01-2005 10:58 AM
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nator Member (Idle past 2170 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: You are forgiven. Go and sin no more.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
Many words have different meanings; sometimes very different. The context is required to determine what they mean. On this forum "evolution" is used as a short form for "biological evolution" and,specifically, the way in which they changed over time. This involves the selection of imperfect replicators. (I think it can be shown that this doesn't have to be restricted to things we call "living" but that is a detail.) Granted, which is why I qualified what I meant when I said 'computers have evolved':-
quote: Though perhaps the second comma should have been a semicolon?
Computers can not undergo biological evolution Of course they can't. The central point of my original post was that first we make an observation (we find fossils, we find discarded computer components) we then make an inference (life on earth has changed over time, computer technology on earth has changed over time), then we need a theory to explain this change (there were several phases of life and several catastrophes, Noah's being the last. Life has changed through a natural process of variation, heredity, fecundity and selection. Computers were all created at the same time and a supernova magically ordered them to appear like they changed throughout time. Computers were the tools of a tool using society of organisms). There is no offspring heredity, reproductive fecundity or struggle for survival with computers, so the lampoon of the Theory of Biological Evolution fails.
If you use words carelessly you fail to communicate properly. Semantics are the heart of communication. Agreed, which is why I conceded the term 'computers evolve' (since individual computers don't do much evolution) with 'computer technology evolves'. Still, the point remains, we cannot draw a comparison with Bio Evolution since the aliens don't have the same information that Darwin did.
If you use words carelessly you fail to communicate properly. Semantics are the heart of communication. Its such a great point I'm repeating it. The OP was equivocating. He was trying to say that the observation of an event (the change of life on earth over time, or Evolution) is the same as the theory as to how that change occurred (or the Theory of Evolution). My post was a polite method of illustrating this equivocation.
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ramoss Member (Idle past 612 days) Posts: 3228 Joined: |
I am not surprised. There are certainly many devote christians that do not reject evolution, since they accept that Genesis was meant as an allegory.
Evolution, as a scientific theory , says nothing one way or another about a deity. The religious people who study it might take as a matter of faith that God has something to do with it, but the honest ones know it is a faith issue, not a science one.
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Christian7 Member (Idle past 248 days) Posts: 628 From: n/a Joined: |
My anology was intended to be poor.
but they don't need the intervention of a designer to replicate I never said that they did.
Stone knifes, aeroplanes, computers or blocks of flats don't have this capability: they can't evolve! The alien is invoking an untestable magical event - ring any bells? Yep evolution.
an imperfect self replication system combined with natural selection Natural selection alone is not a mechanism by whitch an animal can obtain eyes over time. This message has been edited by Guidosoft, 12-01-2005 05:15 PM
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Christian7 Member (Idle past 248 days) Posts: 628 From: n/a Joined: |
lol.
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Christian7 Member (Idle past 248 days) Posts: 628 From: n/a Joined: |
Well, it doesn't matter of ID is assumed to be wrong or right. ID does not make any predictions. It does not have any explanitory powers. It can not be tested. What? Are you serious? You say that we don't know much about evolution but you basically know nothing about Intellegent Design. This is all like freeken politics. The two theory peoples are just mudslinging each other. There are predictions made by intellegent design. Such predictions are: Junk DNA will be found to have a purpose.Organs that seem to be useless will be found to have a purpose. "It's too complex to happened naturally" Because it is.
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Christian7 Member (Idle past 248 days) Posts: 628 From: n/a Joined: |
If jar could do that, it would provide evidence that a cell could arise by design. Since you apparently believe that jar could not do that, then you have evidence against the design hypothesis. Granted, the evidence at this stage is too weak to settle the issue. I'm just pointing out that your argument does not in any way support your claim. That's not a reasoned statement. Anything composition of elements that exist in the natural world can be designed. It would simply require a being high enough to do so, far beyond humans. Not being able to design something is not evidence against design. I can't assemble a television set. Does that means I have evidence that the television was not designed?
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bkelly Inactive Member |
Hello Phat,
Your reply is honest and straightforward. While there might be a few minor points to quibble, the essence of your response is so overwhelmingly in the positive any quibbling would just detract. The only point I would like to refrhesh is: How is this communication between the design and you implemented? I am certain you will address that in your reply. I fully respect your answer and will paitently wait for your response. I am interested in an honest thought on these topics. In my not so humble opinion, if this thread has run its course when you are ready to answer, your position on this is well worth a coffee house (or some other) topic. Just toss it out and say here is what I think. (as if I have any business advising you on that) Since you are an admin, can you find a way to email me in case I miss that topic?Until then, Bkelly
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bkelly Inactive Member |
Guidosoft quoting a mesg writes: Stone knifes, aeroplanes, computers or blocks of flats don't have this capability: they can't evolve! The alien is invoking an untestable magical event - ring any bells?
Guidosoft writes:
Yep evolution. As I read that you are saying the evolution is an untestable magical event. If so, you are very wrong indeed. The concept of evolution has been shown to be factual and emminantly testable. For example, all modern dogs are decended from wolves. Humans have created what might be called an artificial environment and those that best fit that environment survived and evolved. Honeybees and african bees together evolved into a new race of what we call killer bees. New species of orchids are being created in multiple places in the world. Evolution is indeed much more than a theory, it is indeed factual.
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