slevesque writes:
Sometimes, hearing some evolutionists, it seems as though Neo-Darwinism has no limits in its capacity to create, but I do think that there is a limit, an edge, to the powers of Neo-Darwinism. Even on a theoretical level. (considering a finite amount of time of course)
Relative to the 6,000 year time limit insisted upon by the most geology, physics, chemistry, and biology-denying fanatics, which would be closer to infinity? Indeed if treated as a mathematical series which number would be closer to approximating infinity, 6,000 years or 3.8 billion?
It appears to me you have a problem with deep time which may influence your rejection of Neo-Darwinism. There is a potential cure, although it does not work on all who suffer from this disability.
This would be the Sagan cure. Here is a mildly amusing variant you may want to consider:
http://www.worsleyschool.net/...les/toiletpaper/history.html
The concept of deep time is as necessary to understanding gradual descent with modification as the ability to visualize both deep time and three dimensions is in geology (and in the case of 3D, organic chemistry). You either have it or you don't.
The same applies to deep space. I remember reading as a child in the old 1964 World Book Encyclopedia that if the sun was the size of a dime the nearest equivalent neighbor, Alpha Centauri, would be a dime 10 miles away.
The great short film by the Eames' brothers,
Powers of Ten, attempts to show what is meant by distance on the macro and micro levels. Naturally it requires an understanding of logarithmic expansion/contaction and magnification of viewpoint, another challenge for one who may be clueless about deep time or, indeed, space or even logarithms. Had they made an equivalent film concerning the history of life on Earth, it would come across as an
Ozu film with the payoff of some supposed ultimate purpose a loooooong time coming. Of course for those who accept the current enlightened human understanding, namely those who question and think about any declarations of fact concerning the universe (aka the works of God as opposed to the words of men) as opposed to declaring perfect (pseudo-god) absolute knowledge of the universe without evidence, such a film would be more a
Kieslowski, a gradual unfolding of eternal truth without any final solution.
Sorry about the multidisciplinary stuff, but sometimes the beauty of creation and the best of human understanding overwhelms me and I wax philosophic.
OK, so where is that 'limit' to evolution at anyway? Is it in just a simple misunderstanding of one book?
Evidence?
The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas - uncertainty, progress, change - into crimes.
Salman Rushdie
This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us. - the character Rorschach in Watchmen