Summations Only

It strikes me that the creationist phrase "irreducible complexity", carries with it a huge amount of irony - in that what they are seeking to do is to reduce the enormous, amazing and wonderful complexity of the universe - a complexity which the most intelligent of our minds are only really starting to get to grips with - to stories written down in the bronze age.Evolution is not incompatible with belief - you just have to believe that your God is so much more awesome than folks used to believe.

DB - you are conflating function and purpose (as has been pointed out before).To help, consider a lock on a door. Its function is to prevent the door being opened without a key. Its purpose, however, differs, dependent upon whether the door in question is to a safe or a prison cell.In both situations, its function remains constant, regardless of its purpose.If you conflate function and purpose, all you do is to beg your own question, through imprecise language and concepts.Edited by vimesey, : Autocorrect inserting bloody apostrophes !

Dr A has already shown you a lock factory. We can show actual evidence for the proposition that much of what humans produce is designed by humans.It is a logical fallacy to say that because much of what humans produce is designed by humans, therefore must much of what is not produced by humans be designed by someone else.You are attributing aspects of the sub-set to the whole.You need evidence - in the absence of evidence, me saying "that's just the way it is" is equally valid.

Within reason, yes.But when experts in the field say that your particular limited point is wrong - and moreover give detailed reasons for saying so - then most non-experts would reassess their position.

Your problem with this is that you have no way of differentiating "true scientific work" from those things you don't want to be science (other than saying it contradicts the Bible).And there is an awful lot of science which contradicts the Bible - evolution, just about the whole of geology, vast amounts of physics (including the speed of light, radiometric dating, carbon dating etc).Your position is that expert scientists are superb at following the scientific model, and developing our scientific understanding, in every field other than those which contradict the Bible, when all of a sudden their expertise abandons them, and what they are doing ceases to be science.What I said earlier sounds reasonable because it is reasonable. The expertise of experts remains expert, even when that expertise contradicts what you believe.

Couple of issues in relation to this.First off, in your own case, what you are seeking to establish is a scientifically valid explanation for past events, which will gel with the biblical account. So you're looking to do exactly what you reckon science can't do - ie extrapolate validly into the past.That's more of an aside though. The more fundamental point is what the scientific side is claiming (not just in relation to the past, but in relation to all of science). We aren't claiming proof of anything. We're simply saying that our theories represent the best explanations we currently have, based on the evidence we see and the hypotheses we can test. When you remind yourself of this, there can be no objections to scientific theories which relate to past events - they're the experts' best explanations as to what happened.True, they may be wrong - new science may come along and modify or displace them. But for the time being, they are supported by all of the evidence we have been able to find, have led to predictions which has have subsequently been verified, and are consilient with everything else in science.So whilst they may be wrong (a cornerstone acknowledgment of the scientific method), you cannot dismiss currently accepted scientific theories based simply upon the fact that they may be wrong. You have to beat the evidence with evidence of your own. And yes, in relation to theories which relate to past events, you can use your own indirect evidence to do that - you just need to come up with some.(And saying something looks designed is simply a fair reason to look for evidence of a designer - it is not evidence of one. I have seen someone who looks the spitting image of Jack Nicholson - but he failed miserably to get me into any showbiz parties, when I dug for some evidence of his identity).

Crikey Dawn - you're really not doing your position any favours at all with this one.Beauty quite clearly can only exist as a perception. There are no features or elements of beauty which do not rely upon the object being perceived by someone.Not only that, but concepts of beauty vary - from person to person, from age to age. Personally, I'm not a fan of Julia Roberts - I don't see the beauty which a lot of people do. (Give me Emmanuelle Beart every day of the week). This alone should give pause to your notion that beauty exists outside of the eye of the beholder.And to suggest that there can be no beauty in deformity is ludicrous. Picasso would have been out of a job; people with physical disabilities would never be desired; and Keith Richards would never have gotten as much action as he has !And as well, you can take the most perfect, un-deformed example of a spider, and there's just no way that I am going to find it beautiful. I'll acknowledge it's a fabulous specimen, but I ain't kissing it !You're equating purpose with beauty, to try to demonstrate that they can both exist independently of human perception. You've chosen a bad comparison for that purpose.

Rubbish. What I find beautiful is not measured against some standard - it's entirely down to my perceptions. No doubt I will share some views as to beauty with other people, but I will differ from them too. There is no absolute standard of beauty. And may I add, that for you to try to define beauty by reference to "normality" smacks of some extremely distasteful views as to the value of those people in our society, who you might see as "not normal".

In the context in which you are using the phrase "real thing", you believe incorrectly.Beauty is not a "real thing", in the sense of an independent, objective feature. This is because (a) it is a subjective perception, an interpretation, of an object's features; and (b) because different people think different things are beautiful.It is a "real thing", in the sense that it is a generally shared concept amongst sentient humans, which we can describe to and recognise with each other. But it is not an aspect of an object which exists outside of our perceptions.And to steer back to topic, this is where we are with function and purpose. An eye has a function - it focuses and differentiates certain wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum, and reacts in ways which our brain interprets to build a picture of our surroundings. It has evolved to have that function, because it's a rather useful survival trait. If we use the word "purpose", that presupposes an intelligent intent, and we have no evidence for such an intent - we just have evidence of function.

Hi Tangle.I don't think that anyone here has much of an objection to someone believing that goddidit.But the OP claimed creationism is science - and for that, we need to get all semantic on their ass !