Evolution impossible as cannot apply meaning to code

In your opening message, you wrote: When challenged to name a few of those books, you replied: I've read that book. No, Dawkins doesn't say what you claim.On pages 46 and 47 (1st ed., Norton, 1987), Dawkins does examine the typing-monkey analogy and simplifies its task immensely to simply producing a 28-letter sentence, a single line from Shakespeare, "METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL". He starts that section stating:

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I don't know who it was first pointed out that, given enough time, a monkey bashing away at random on a typewriter could produce all the works of Shakespeare.

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Then he calculates the probability of producing such a sentence and concludes:

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..., i.e. (1/27) multiplied by itself 28 times. These are very small odds, about 1 in 10,000 million million million million million million. To put it mildly, the phrase we seek would be a long time coming, so say nothing of the complete works of Shakespeare.

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In my own research, in which I worked with a much more probably example of a 26-letter sequence, I calculated that for just one chance in a million of succeeding, we have to make something to the order of 10 to the 27th attempts! To put this into some perspective, assume we have a computer that can make one million attempts per second (a very generous assumption at the time, in 1989). That translates to 31,556,926 million attempts per year. At this rate, it would take about 195 trillion years to earn that one-in-a-million chance -- nearly 10,000 times longer than the universe's estimated age of 20 billion years!So we see that, rather than promoting the idea of producing a book through random typing,
Dawkins had merely cited that analogy, which originated with somebody else, so that he could put it to the test and show that it fails that test. He engaged in that discussion to illustrate "single-step selection" in which (from page 45) "the entities selected or sorted ... are sorted once and for all". Each attempt is an all-or-nothing roll which starts from scratch each and every time.In that same paragraph on page 45, he describes "cumulative selection" in which:

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The entities are subjected to selection of [sic] sorting over many 'generations' in succession. The end-product of one generation of selection is that starting point for the next generation of selection, and so on for many generations. It is natural to borrow such words as 'reproduce' and 'generation', which have associations with living things, because living things are the main examples we know of things that participate in cumulative selection.

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In other words, cumulative selection is descriptive of how life does it, whereas single-step selection is not. And if single-step selection is not descriptive of how life does it, then what possible relevance could it have for evolution?Back on page 47, after completing his discussion of the probabilities of single-step selection, Dawkins then examines the performance of cumulative selection through a BASIC program, which completes the job while he was out having lunch. He rewrote it in Pascal, which ran much faster (BASIC was an interpretive language back in those days). Because he had never published his code, many of his readers wrote their own programs to test his claims; that class of program became known as "Weasels", because of Dawkins' target string. I had written my own, which I called MONKEY (see below).Dawkins was clearly promoting the idea of cumulative selection, not single-step selection as you so falsely claim he was. Since you are claiming to be familiar with that book, you should have already known at the time of making your claim that he doesn't say what you claim. So why are you making a false claim? Why are you lying to us?And you still need to tell us what some of those books are that "state you could type on a keyboard randomly for eternity and eventually write a book." You claim that there are "Alot [sic]", which means many more than just one. Name them! The one that you did name turns out to not state what you claimed; you had lied about that. So when you name the others, please don't lie this time.As I said, when I wrote my own weasel program, which I called MONKEY, I was so impressed with and skeptical of its amazing performance that I performed a mathematical analysis of the probabilities involved; it turns out that cumulative selection makes success nearly inevitable. I had originally posted it on CompuServe back in 1989 and have since then HTML'ized it and posted it at No webpage found at provided URL: http://members.aol.com/dwise1/cre_ev/mprobs.html. Since you are so familiar with quantum mechanics, the math on that page should be very simple for you to follow. Also, my page on MONKEY is at No webpage found at provided URL: http://members.aol.com/dwise1/cre_ev/monkey.html, which also links you to my source code as well as to a page listing several other weasel programs.-----------------OK, let's cut the bull and drop the pretenses. You never read "Blind Watchmaker", did you? You have no idea what you're talking about, do you? You read some creationist or "intelligent design" malarcky and that's all you "know", isn't it?OK, then, what's your source? Where did you get that claim of "Alot of evolution books state you could type on a keyboard randomly for eternity and eventually write a book." from? Obviously, that source named "Blind Watchmaker" -- you probably had never even heard of it before, right? -- as one of these "a lot of evolution books". What did your source tell you that Dawkins had stated? Seriously, state your creationist/ID source and quote from it regarding "The Blind Watchmaker".Now, what that means is that you were not deliberately lying to us, but rather you were using a source that had lied to you.If you want to fight against evolution, then you need to learn what evolution is and what the associated sciences are. You can't trust creationist and ID materials, because they are lying to you, as you have just discovered.-------------------------BTW, you should read the Wikipedia article, "Infinite monkey theorem", at Infinite monkey theorem - Wikipedia. Despite its long history, the modern usage was to statistical mechanics, not to evolution. It was a mistaken attribution of the idea in 1931 to Thomas Huxley, "Darwin's Bulldog", that connected it to evolution, even though it does not apply.

So what does physical strength have to do with being "better"? For that matter, what does being "better" have to do with evolution? You're stuck on "Ladder of Life" thinking, which is a false and very mistaken view of evolution. Evolution is about adaptation, for which the criteria depend on the environment. As others have mentioned, building up muscle bulk for greater physical strength can be costly and so could be maladaptive in certain environments.Then in message 15 you stated: There's the key. "... to do alone."Two things we evolved that compensate for lesser physical strength are that we do things smarter and we do things together. And believe you me, that is the much better way to do things.I served on active duty shortly after women were integrated into the military -- "They're not WAF's; they're airmen!" Women naturally have less upper-body strength than men do. Watch a man work and watch a woman doing the same task. A lot of times, the guy will muscle his way through a task, whereas the woman will make full use of the tools at her disposal. And when they'd lift something, the guy could just muscle his way through, whereas the woman would position herself more carefully and more closely observe proper life techniques of keeping the back straight, lifting with the legs, etc. The woman, because she can't fall back on physical strength, would always work smarter; the guy would also work smart, but he didn't always have to.Another difference we would observe would be in the "two-man lifts". Some objects were designated as a "two-man lift" because they were deemed too heavy or awkward for one man to lift by himself. Some guys would do a "two-man lift" by himself because he was strong enough to get away with it. A woman would invariably get somebody to help her; ie would observe the "two-man lift" protocol.Which brings us to that key, "... to do alone." We don't work alone, do we? We work in groups, form teams. We communicate and organize and plan and tackle projects of all sizes. And we complete those projects, ranging from moving a piece of furniture to building the pyramids and beyond, because we work together.---------------------WS-JW, you obviously don't have a clue about evolution. Which is a really big problem for you, since you obviously want to oppose and fight evolution. But how can you possibly do that if you don't know anything about evolution?To quote Sun Tzu, The Art of War, Scroll III (Offensive Strategy):

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Therefore I say: "Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril.
When you are ignorant of the enemy but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal.
If ignorant both of your enemy and of yourself, you are certain in every battle to be in peril."

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WS-JW, you are ignorant of the enemy and you are ignorant of yourself. You are in certain peril.To quote Steve Rauch, a former young-earth-creationist:

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I still hold some anger because I believe the evangelical Christian community did not properly prepare me for the creation/evolution debate. They gave me a gun loaded with blanks, and sent me out. I was creamed.

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Carl Drews, an evangelical Christian who had to leave his fundamentalist church because the pastor endorse "lying for the Lord", told of the creation science class he had to attend and in which most of the others were there for ammo to use in proselytizing, not knowing that (as Steve Rauch put it) they were loading up with blanks.
No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.theistic-evolution.com/mystory.htmlEven the creationist site, Answers in Genesis, warned against using false arguments in "What about Carl Baugh?" (No webpage found at provided URL: http://paleo.cc/paluxy/whatbau.htm -- posted off-site, but I check with AiG and they did confirm the article's authenticity):

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Some Christians will try to use Baugh's 'evidences' in witnessing and get 'shot down' by someone who is scientifically literate. The ones witnessed to will thereafter be wary of all creation evidences and even more inclined to dismiss Christians as nut cases not worth listening to.

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Also, the Christian is likely to be less apt to witness, even perhaps tempted to doubt their own faith (wondering what other misinformation they have gullibly believed from Christian teachers). CSF ministers to strengthen the faith of Christians and equip them for the work of evangelism and, sadly, the long term effect of Carl Baugh's efforts will be detrimental to both.

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And then there's St. Augustine, in his "De Genese ad litteram":

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It very often happens that there is some question as to the earth or the sky, or the other elements of this world -- respecting which one who is not a Christian has knowledge derived from most certain reasoning or observation, and it is very disgraceful and mischievous and of all things to be carefully avoided, that a Christian speaking of such matters as being according to the Christian Scriptures, should be heard by an unbeliever talking such nonsense that the unbeliever perceiving him to be as wide of the mark as east from west, can hardly restrain himself from laughing.

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And the real evil is not that a man is subjected to derision because of his error, but it is that to profane eyes, our authors (that is to say, the sacred authors) are regarded as having had such thoughts; and are also exposed to blame and scorn upon the score of ignorance, to the greatest possible misfortune of people whom we wish to save. For, in fine, these profane people happen upon a Christian busy in making mistakes on a subject which they know perfectly well; how, then, will they believe these holy books? How will they believe in the resurrection of the dead and in the hope of life eternal, and in the kingdom of heaven, when, according to an erroneous assumption, these books seem to them to have as their object those very things which they, the profane, by their direct experience or by calculation which admits of no doubt? It is impossible to say what vexation and sorrow prudent Christians meet with through these presumptuous and bold spirits who, taken to task one day for their silly and false opinion, and realizing themselves on the point of being convicted by men who are not obedient to the authority of our holy books, wish to defend their assertions so thoughtless, so bold, and so manifestly false. For they then commence to bring forward as a proof precisely our holy books, or again they attribute to them from memory that which seems to support their opinion, and they quote numerous passages, understanding neither the texts they quote, nor the subject about which they are making statement.

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WS-JW, if you really want to fight against evolution, then you need to learn what evolution is. You need to study it and understand it. Thoroughly. And you need to learn the associated science as thoroughly as you can.You cannot do this from creationist or ID sources, because they lie to you about evolution and about science.Until you have done this, all that your efforts can accomplish would be to do further damage to your cause. Is that really what you want to do?

I do believe that you are quite correct that we will never again hear from WS-JW ("Jehovah's Witnesses"?). Did he learn anything from this experience? Doubtful, but perhaps a seed has been planted. And even though we won't hear from him, I suspect that he might be back in lurk mode and so may still have a chance to read the truth.In the meantime, I had also rediscovered my quoting of Dr Jonathan Sarfati of Answers In Genesis in his feedback article (my quote at No webpage found at provided URL: http://members.aol.com/dwise1/cre_ev/quotes.html#AiG; I provide a link to the original, "AiG Negative Feedback, 02 December 2002", but just now it wouldn't connect so I don't know if it mightn't be broken) responding to Kent Hovind's attack against them for their earlier article warning against certain arguments that creationists should not use (and which Hovind over-uses -- er, used, since he's now in the slammer). Part of my quoting:

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But more and more over the last few years, we have noticed tens of thousands of Christians excitedly using arguments over the Web, for instance, that are a plain embarrassment to those with scientific training. It was like watching your brother enter the ring thinking he had a killer punch, and watching him get cut to ribbons. Further, and most importantly, it had escalated to the point where it was a hindrance to soul winning, since it gave the hearers a ”legitimate’ excuse to reject Christ. And all we did at that point was to publish an ”advice’ article. The only time it became relevant to a specific creationist was when Kent [Hovind] himself decided to align himself publicly with a justification of false arguments. If it had been one or two minor points of disagreement, OK, but when it reinforces some of the most blatant fallacies, and even defends fraud, at what point does one NOT face one's responsibilities to the innocents being ”slaughtered’ in the belief that they are getting sound ammunition?

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We know of many people, outside and inside of the church, who will no longer even look at or consider the authority of the Bible in Genesis, in its history, cosmology, etc. because of bad experiences with blatant pseudo-arguments applied by enthusiasts who had been fed creationist non-arguments.

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Here we have a leading creationist saying the exact same things I've been warning creationists about for over a decade and for which I have been repeatedly viciously [verbally] attacked with the accusation that I was "attacking Christianity" (in one such case, all I did was to demonstrate that a Hovind claim was wrong and why).Despite the other goals that have developed over the years, the primary goal of "creation science" has been to stop the teaching of evolution in the public schools, something that the "monkey laws" had done for four decades but are no longer allowed to do (Epperson vs Arkansas, 1968). I believe that it is the worst folly for them to have that goal, just as it is the worst folly for them to rely on strawman attacks -- and not for the reasons mentioned above, but for the reason that I gave WS-JW.If they really and truly want to oppose evolution and to disprove evolution, then they must know everything they can about evolution. They need to promote the truthful study of evolution and the truthful study of science among their children. That way, their children will be able to directly address the real problems with evolution and direct their attack based on truth and knowledge, instead of basing their attacks solely on lies and deceptions and ignorance.Edited by dwise1, : No reason given.

If the "intelligent design" (ID) community were actually and earnestly "investigating to detect evidence of life by design", then there could be a chance for their efforts to be considered science. But they're not. They're not ever attempting it. ID is not science. It's politics, and PR, and swaying public opinion, and battling against a strawman philosophical foe (ie, falsely accusing science of depending on philosophical materialism, whereas science actually employs methodological materialism). And, although its founders probably did not intend it this way, it's a smokescreen for creationists to use now that their own brand of nonsense has been exposed and so is useless outside of their own churches.But that's only the least of ID's problems. Far worse is that it is firmly based on the false theology of "The God of the Gaps" (GOTG). GOTG tries to protect God from the advance of science by saying that God exists within the gaps of our knowledge; ie, even though science can explain how natural processes do most of the things that the gods used to get credit for (lightening, rain, etc), God still does the things that we cannot explain. So in that scheme of things, if we encounter something that we cannot explain, then goddidit. Which is precisely the basis of ID, isn't it? Find things that you believe that science cannot fully explain and claim that that's proof of an "intelligent designer" (gotta be careful, for legalistic and judicial purposes, to avoid capitalizing it, right?). That is GOTG, pure and simple. What really alerted me to the GOTG basis of ID was an article by co-founder Phillip Johnson (the lawyer who wrote "Darwin on Trial"), in which he explicitly gave his reason for opposing evolution as being because "it leaves God with nothing to do". And so they're fighting to make science include God as an explanation.Why would that be such a bad thing? Think about it for a moment. We're scientists and we encounter something that we cannot explain, a mystery. You, as an ID scientist, would throw up your hands and proclaim "goddidit!" and walk away thinking that that's yet another mystery solved. But that mystery wasn't solved. "goddidit" doesn't explain anything at all. Nothing was discovered or learned that could raise more questions and foster further research -- the best answers in science are the ones that raise more questions, because those new questions show us where we need to look next. goddidit does the exact opposite; it raises no further questions and stifles any further research. goddidit is the antithesis of scientific inquiry.Let's apply that to the forensics analogy to a case in which the cause of death is not immediately apparent, let alone whether it was due to foul play let alone whodonit. Traditionally, the forensics team would continue their investigation until they did finally find the cause of death -- they saw a mystery and they endeavored to solved it. The ID forensics team would conclude that death was due to supernatural causes and break for lunch early. If they ever came out with a new spin-off TV show, CSI: ID, they would be unable to produce any show longer than 5 or 10 minutes.Furthermore, once goddidit has been invoked, the ID scientist has very strong motivation to prevent any further research. As Wakefield expressed so well at the end of his article on his field investigation of Robert Gentry's polonium halo claims: when a scientist sees a mystery, he wants to solve that mystery; when someone who equates mystery with God sees a mystery, he wants it to remain a mystery. In CSI terms, if any new evidence were to come to light, it would be ignored and suppressed.ID is not science; it is anti-science.But that's not the worst thing about GOTG. Even though it purports to protect God from science, it actually creates the means to use science to disprove the existence of God -- remember, it is a false theology. Because even though it "safely" hides God within the gaps of our knowledge, science does continue to advance and to narrow and even close up those gaps. And so the GOTG just becomes ever smaller and ever more frightened of the advance of science. A puny, insignificant god.Now comes the disproof of God. GOTG is based on the premise that natural causes of phenomena is disproof of God. That is to say, if something is found to be caused by natural forces or processes, then that proves that God didn't do it, didn't have anything to do with it. Therefore GOTG theology sets up tests by which science (ie, providing a naturalistic explanation for things) is used to disprove God's involvement and ultimately, once that final gap in our knowledge is closed, to disprove God altogether. And even though it is not humanly possible for us to close that final gap in our knowledge, believers in the GOTG must still view science as the enemy of God and of religion, even though it is not. Furthermore, as nonbelievers hear the believers make their GOTG pronouncements, they too come to believe that science opposes religion and that science disproves God, just as those who hear young-earth creationists proclaim that if the earth is older than 10,000 years then their religion is false and God doesn't exist take those claims seriously and conclude that God obviously doesn't exist.Allan H. Harvey is a practicing scientist and a practicing Christian who has written a number of essays. His essays are at No webpage found at provided URL: http://members.aol.com/steamdoc/writings.htm. In particular, read his discussion of GOTG in "Science and Christian Apologetics" at No webpage found at provided URL: http://members.aol.com/steamdoc/writings/apologetics.html. The God of the Gaps is a false god. Rather the Christian god is supposed to be Sovereign over Nature and be able to use the natural forces and processes that He had created in the first place. Just because we can identify the natural forces and processes that cause a particular phenomenon doesn't mean that God wasn't involved. For a believer in God, the Sovereign over Nature, goddidit is a given for everything and so has no special significance as an explanation. How goddidit is the real question to which they will seek real answers, not GOTG excuses to give up the search.Science cannot possibly disprove God nor does it even want to try. goddidit is utterly useless and counterproductive in science, and so it is not used. That is why supernaturalistic explanations have no place in science.

But that's where you're wrong. We have indeed looked at "creation theory". That's why we're well aware of what's wrong with it. Rather, what I've found is that advocates of and adherents to "creation theory" have themselves not really looked at, nor do they examine it, nor will they. Over the past two decades, I have tried to engage creationists in discussion of their claims and examination of their claims and, with extremely rare exceptions, they have all adamantly and vehemently refused to discuss or support their own claims in any manner and they have steadfastly refused to allow their claims to be examined.Back in the mid-80's, Dr. Duane Gish of the ICR would often quote from an article by a philosopher of science, Larry Laudan. He even sent me a xerox copy of that article. What Gish neglected to mention was Laudan's assessment of "creation science": that the claims of "creation science" are testable, they have been tested, and they have been proved to be wrong.Yes, we have indeed examined "creation theory", so we know for a fact that it's wrong.As is your "tornado in a junkyard" analogy.

Answers in Genesis carried an interview with creationist Dr Kurt Wise (no relation), who had earned his PhD Paleontology under SJ Gould. Wise had been raised a fundamentalist and has pretty much been a life-long creationist. He also has a reputation for being devoted to the truth and so is that rarity of rarities, an honest creationist.In that interview, he states that if you only had the evidence to go by, then overwhelmingly evolution would be the most obvious explanation. The only reason why he does not accept evolution is because of his belief in the Bible and his understanding of what he'd have to stop believing should he accept evolution; he stated that explicitly.And then we also have a string of arguments from the ICR trying to provide alternative creationist arguments and claims to explain away all the evidence that makes it clearly appear that evolution has happened and that the world is much older than 10,000 years.

As Dr. Adequate has pointed out, Chiro's message that you are objecting to was not in reply to the message containing the question you cite. In fact, that message (#99) has not even been replied to yet. Nor, as NosyNed pointed out, is it the topic of this thread.Do please start a thread on the topic of what causes creationists to become atheists.From most of the testimonials of ex-Christians that I have read or heard, the vast majority of the cases involved either betrayal by their religious leaders or their discovery that their religion and religious leaders had been lying to them. They were raised believing these things to be true and then they discovered that it was all just a lie.The evidence is overwhelming for evolution and an old earth and a long and complex geological history (ie, no world-wide single-year flood that created all the fossils and most of the strata). Creationists' response to this evidence has typically and persistently been to lie about it. To deny its existence, to misrepresent it in every way imaginable, to fabricate their own "evidences". And, when confronted with their lies, to lie repeatedly about that too. And, even after repeated public refutation of their lies, to persist in repeating those lies along with the lie that they have never been answered, let alone refuted. And on top of all that, religious leaders teach their congregations that the creationists' lies must be believed and must be true or else their religion is false.When believers actually examine the evidence and learn what evolution really is, not only do they discover, as chiro described, how much sense it makes, but they also discover that their religion (as represented by their religious leaders and the creationists endorsed by their religious leaders) had been lying to them about everything that could be checked -- so how then could they believe what those same liars tell them about things that they cannot check.Please, whaler, do please start a thread on this topic. But please also be sure to read the responses this time.PS
Before you tell me what I believe and what my position is, without having any idea what it is, let me tell you what it is.If you reject evolution, then fine. I would prefer that you have not based that rejection on the wrong reasons. Either way, your personal beliefs are your own.But if you speak out against evolution (or any subject, for that matter) and you use lies and deception to do so (whether or not you personally realize that they are lies and deceptions), then it that is wrong. And if you try to persuade others based on those lies and deceptions, then I must speak out.If you are going to oppose evolution based on evidence, then I must insist that you handle that evidence truthfully and honestly.PPS
We really do need to get this off-topic subthread off to its own thread. Each thread here is limited in size, so going off-topic is a serious offense here.Edited by dwise1, : Added PPS