How can evolution explain body symmetry?

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Can a closed group of people get it very badly wrong?

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Yes. They are called Creationists, among other things.My first impulse was to dissect your post, supposition by supposition, unsupported premise by unsupported premise, beginning with the notion that Creationists in general have the "education, intellect and experience" to contend with scientists who have devoted their lives to a field, moving through the bizarre notion that "evolutionists" are nurtured in some sort of artificial dork-womb room...It made me feel so tired.Then I read your opening comment again...

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I'm not a scientist so there is little point in attempting to plough into this in a evidential way.

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...and I felt so free.Now, what did you have to offer about body symmetry?You know, in a nonevidential sort of way.This message has been edited by Omnivorous, 07-27-2005 09:29 PM

Religious indoctrination begins at the earliest possible age. Kids are asked to believe the most amazing stories, and encouraged to think that accepting those tales without any evidence is a virtue called faith. Similarly, many children are indoctrinated in the cult of Santa and Fairy, beliefs strongly reinforced with material rewards.Nonetheless, with predictable regularity and at early ages, children see through the Santa/Fairy fictions, despite the positive reinforcements, and realize there is a real world truth to where those presents came from and why their tooth under the pillow was replaced with a quarter. They reach those conclusions by critically assessing the evidence. Our brains are pretty good at that.Despite religious indoctrination during their most formative years, millions of folks abandon the tenets of their parents' faith to become agnostics, atheists, or adherents of a radically different faith.I was raised in a Southern Baptist household and believed the Bible narrative fiercely. At about the age of 8, I began having reservations about the savagery of the Old Testament, and by age 10 I had decided that evolution made more sense than Poof the Magic Creator.Rest assured that no teachers or TV shows urged me to believe in evolution; in the Bible Belt in those days we were excused from public school to attend Bible classes twice weekly. I endured much abuse from both school authorities and peers, and church authorities and peers, because I began asking questions about the rightness of, say, god slaughtering 40 children via a she-bear because they teased a prophet about his bald head, etc. I was banned from my parents' church because I refused to stop asking critical questions.My point? The most common forms of indoctrination are religious and folk myth, yet many children reject them at an early age and always have, long before mass media. The children who reject them soonest are in general precocious and the most disposed--not by indoctrination but by capability--to pursue careers in science.Social and religious opposition to the theory of evolution has always been fierce, and it is prima facie absurd to suggest that anyone has been indoctrinated into blind acceptance of it. The argument being made to that effect in this thread is self-contradictory, made in bad faith, way off topic, and a waste of time.EDIT: IMHOThis message has been edited by Omnivorous, 07-29-2005 11:03 AM

Topic: How can evolution explain body symmetry?

PurpleYouko asked:

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Is that really supposed to be the topic here?
We have got so far away from it that I had forgotten.

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Yes.This thread was hijacked ~75 posts ago by a non sequiturish poster who ignored invitations to submit a Proposed New Topic concerning his own, unrelated assertions.Up to that point, the discussion had focused on the topic; it has not addressed it since. I thought the body symmetry discussion was productive and interesting.That poster has had the effrontery recently to demand that others limit their responses to his off-topic topic.Enough.

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Off to New Posts it is with me then

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Thank you.I look forward to a full and frank exchange of views.

Brad, thank you for refocusing us all on the topic at hand: Entropy, eat your heart out.It seems to me that CrackerJack challenged the evolutionists to give a ToE accounting of bilateral symmetry, and that challenge was admirably met. I don't claim that any Creationist or IDer has conceded that point, but there has certainly been no persuasive rebuttal.Now I am curious about the flip side of CrackerJack's assertion, summarized from his final post in this thread:

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The symmetrical life forms we do see are consistent with what an intelligent designer could produce...

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I would like to ask two questions of Intelligent Design proponents:1) Does symmetry suggest an intelligent designer?2) "could produce" seems so boundary-free as to be meaningless: Do IDers generally embrace that "could produce" test of criteria that support Intelligent Design, or, alternatively, can they justify the stronger "would produce"?

Peter writes:

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Anyway, all I said was: How to deal with a person like Iano, who thinks God is a reality. Is that such a difficult remark/question?

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Peter, I think that would make a wonderful topic: How do we deal with someone who asserts privileged communication with the divine? I suppose the spectrum would run from the person who hears God give instructions to blow people up to the person who hears God give instructions for contemplative solitude or good works.Another way to ask the question: Should we treat any behavior differently because the actor claims divine guidance, or should we act strictly on the basis of the behavior itself?Should someone like you, or Iano, who insists on violating the topic guidelines in a public forum, be given greater leeway because the transgression is claimed to be divinely inspired, or should they just be suspended?How do we discern the mischievous from the mad, the saint from the psychopath?If you propose that topic, I assure you of my participation.