19 Feb 09
Originally posted by KellyJayYes, I was mixing replying to your post with the promised comments about abiogenesis - it ended up kind of long, I should have numbered it.
No, I discount it because to many things have to be just right, through long periods of time, across a vast array of variables for the amount of diversity of life we see today to simply appear over time with nothing but random chance and laws of the universe at play. As you agreed to earlier it is quite easy to miss design even if it is right in front of us ...[text shortened]... m shortly.
Kelly
Just for you the format I normally use I'll stop. 🙂 Don't get use to it.
A difficulty is that it is not quite clear to me whether you dispute the evidence about recent evolution - by recent I mean say the last 65 million years or so - in which case you are disputing evidence which is fairly good - or stuff which happened a lot longer ago, for example the evidence gets quite sketchy before the Cambrian (550 MYA),
I think an important issue is speciation. Are you stating that evolution by natural selection is incapable of generating two different species from a common ancestor? There are two possibilities: one is a strong objection the other a weak objection.
The strong objection is that it is impossible, even by forced breeding in laboratory conditions, to start out with one species and produce two types of decendents where individuals of one type cannot produce viable offspring when paired with one of the other types - in other words speciation is not possible due to artificial selection never mind the natural variety. Clearly this is essential for the theory of evolution by natural selection - the entire edifice of evolution collapses if this is not possible.
The weak objection is then that this can happen, but natural selection is too weak a force to cause this to happen in more than a few isolated cases. Natural selection can then cause a species to change, but not to the extent that a new species is likely to emerge.
The strong objection is testable - you just do the experiment - as far as I am aware though this has not been done in a laboratory. The weak objection is more robust, in the sense that it can´t be disproved so easily.
One problem with your scrabble analogy is that you have assigned equal probabilities to each outcome. Essentially to reflect the natural selection theory you´d have to have some configurations more likely to stick together and resist the randomisation. You could run some sort of computer model where words in the dictionary or syllables are more likely to survive,
Then you might be able to distinguish design from natural selection in this model since you would expect long words with a single syllable to be less likely, as you need 5 or more single letters to get randomly placed together rather than 3 for a short syllable. Once a short syllable has formed it has a survival advantage relative to single letters and it´s easy for two or three short syllables to merge to form a multi-syllable word. So then you can distinguish design provided the designer lets you by throwing in too many long single syllable words.
The other problem is that while I think this might be relevant to abiogenesis, it´s clearly inadequate by the time you have complex multicellular organisms - since there is no inheritence of characteristics from one generation to the next in the model.
19 Feb 09
1 edit
I´ve just thought of something. Suppose you do have a designer. The modus operandi is a well aimed asteroid or some other sequence of natural disasters every now and again. This wipes out the undesired species and opens up their ecological niches to the chosen ones.
Until the end of the Permian synapsid reptiles (our ancestors) were the dominant land species. The Permian-Triassic event about 250 million years ago caused the extinction of something like 96% of all marine species, and 70% of land species. The result was that the dinosaurs took over. Later still the K-T event, probably a large asteroid, saw off the dinosaurs allowing the next generation to take over.
The problem is what if God is looking at us thinking: ¨I thought I´d got rid of the synapsids 250 million years ago, I´d better send in another asteroid. I didn´t design the birds in my own image just to have some monkeys rule the world I created for them.¨
20 Feb 09
Originally posted by KellyJaySo we have:
I acknowledged him; any way you get life or improve life is a right
way, period! The ways that do not as I pointed out lead to dead ends.
I simply defined dead ends; I did not suggest there was only one
way to do any of this, the point of many of the beliefs surrounding
evolution is that random mutations occur so vast arrays of ways are
explored so to ...[text shortened]... nique spin on so we get a
variety of life that would eventually arise from the various changes.
X many right ways. (mutations or other events leading to a life form surviving)
Y many wrong ways. (mutations or other events leading to a life form dying out)
Now taking your previous statement:
given the enormous amount of variables to just occur not only in the right sequence, but at the right time and so on, should stagers the imagination in my opinion.
It appears that you believe X is significantly smaller than Y to the point that it stagers your imagination.
Do you have any good reasons for this belief?
Have you factored in the fact that natural selection significantly increases the odds of X ways surviving and Y ways being insignificant.
Let us take a specific example of mutations.
Lets suppose that there are 100 ways that a gene can mutate and result in a 'wrong' way.
Lets suppose that there is only 1 way that the same gene can mutate and result in a 'right' way.
At first sight you might think the odds of the 'right' way occurring are 1 in 100.
Lets also suppose that we have a population of 1000 rats in which a mutation in the gene occurs 10% of the time a rat conceives.
Do you realize that the probability that the 'right' mutation will occur and spread through the population is very close to 1? A near certainty.
20 Feb 09
2 edits
Originally posted by DeepThought….The strong objection is that it is impossible, even by forced breeding in laboratory conditions, to start out with one species and produce two types of decedents where individuals of one type cannot produce viable offspring when paired with one of the other types - in other words speciation is not possible due to artificial selection never mind the natural variety.
Yes, I was mixing replying to your post with the promised comments about abiogenesis - it ended up kind of long, I should have numbered it.
A difficulty is that it is not quite clear to me whether you dispute the evidence about recent evolution - by recent I mean say the last 65 million years or so - in which case you are disputing evidence which is f ...[text shortened]... - since there is no inheritence of characteristics from one generation to the next in the model.
..…
But what would be stopping it from being possible?
After all, selective breeding of dogs has already produced this result thus proving it IS possible!!!!
Clearly if a member of the very largest breed of artificially breed dog was paired with a member of the very smallest breed of artificially breed dog, the two would NOT be able to produce viable offspring.
So I wouldn’t call that a “strong objection” but rather a “flawed objection”.
….The weak objection is then that this can happen, but natural selection is too weak a force to cause this to happen in more than a few isolated cases. ..…
The mere fact that artificial selection that has lead to many breeds of dogs and cats etc is good reason by itself to believe that selection in general, whether artificial or natural, can produce changes in most species.
…Natural selection can then cause a species to change, but not to the extent that a new species is likely to emerge. ..…
Again -what would be stopping it?
If evolution can produce a small change in a short period of time then what is stopping it then producing another small change on top of that first small change in the next short period of time then producing another small change on top of that second small change in the next short period of time and….so on so that eventually over a LONG period of time a very big change occurs that is sufficient in magnitude to be considered to be a species change?
I think extreme critical thinking of a scientific theory is always a good thing but, at the same time, I think it is possible to become TOO sceptical and cautious of a theory if there is a great deal of evidence supporting it.
20 Feb 09
Originally posted by KellyJayAt the risk of inflating a side issue, there is a problem with you not being able to answer the question "who designed the designer?".
Again, as I pointed out before my point is about design and common
ancestor. Taking that to the Divine is another subject altogether, and
one as has been pointed out here, not the topic of discussion on this
board. So why do people who profess to want nothing to do with that
topic, always bringing it up? If you want to worry about who designed
the designer, I suggest you start up another thread.
Kelly
Your objection to evolution and abiogenesis is that you consider the existence and variation of life to be too improbable to be explained by those theories. However, using your own line of reasoning, I think you'd have to agree the sudden appearance ex nihilo of a fully formed intelligence capable of designing and directing all life on Earth (the designer) is far more improbable than that. So by attempting to explain what you believe to be a vastly improbable event with an astronomically improbable event really begs the question "who designed the designer?".
20 Feb 09
Originally posted by PBE6I have not defined the designer in this discussion, so why in the world
At the risk of inflating a side issue, there is a problem with you not being able to answer the question "who designed the designer?".
Your objection to evolution and abiogenesis is that you consider the existence and variation of life to be too improbable to be explained by those theories. However, using your own line of reasoning, I think you'd have to ag ...[text shortened]... h an astronomically improbable event really begs the question "who designed the designer?".
would there be an issue in "who designed the designer?" You are just
like the people who saw the word design and jumped straight into the
Spiritual, Noah’s ark, and Devine Intervention. You cannot just talk
about this subject without looking for an out by attempting to turn it
into a science against religion issue. For me that is a real issue here,
it is amazing that people who cry about spiritual topics in the Science
Forums bend over back wards to keep it there.
Kelly
20 Feb 09
Originally posted by KellyJayI don't understand. If you say there can be design without divine intervention, then how do you measure design?
I have not defined the designer in this discussion, so why in the world
would there be an issue in "who designed the designer?" You are just
like the people who saw the word design and jumped straight into the
Spiritual, Noah’s ark, and Devine Intervention. You cannot just talk
about this subject without looking for an out by attempting to turn it
into ...[text shortened]... ry about spiritual topics in the Science
Forums bend over back wards to keep it there.
Kelly
20 Feb 09
Originally posted by KellyJayReligion has nothing at all to do with my objection to your line of reasoning.
I have not defined the designer in this discussion, so why in the world
would there be an issue in "who designed the designer?" You are just
like the people who saw the word design and jumped straight into the
Spiritual, Noah’s ark, and Devine Intervention. You cannot just talk
about this subject without looking for an out by attempting to turn it
into ...[text shortened]... ry about spiritual topics in the Science
Forums bend over back wards to keep it there.
Kelly
You disagree that evolution could have been responsible for something as complex as the human eye, because you can't see how it could have come about as the result of evolutionary processes - as you have stated many times, you don't believe the probabilities would allow it. However, your explanation for the existence of something as complex at the human eye involves the direct intervention of a designer (any designer, any divine or non-divine being at all with the power to effect the changes necessary to create a human eye as we see it today...let's assume this designer is non-divine and call him "Bob" for short). Do you not see the problem here? In order for a designer to engineer a complex human eye, the designer himself would require a degree of complexity greater than the human eye, at least in so far as that complexity is required to conceive of the eye in its entirety, a necessary requirement of design! This begs the question, "who designed the designer?". If the answer is "no one", what kind of probability would you assign to the sudden appearance of this designer, necessarily more complex than the human eye?