randomness

[lucaspa]

Originally posted by auswiq Okey doke; then from whence in terms of origin, did this linear process of  computing and arranging design from order come about, I then wonder?

Algorithms - a mathematical process -  hmm... wonder where the logical principles inherent in mathematical processes originally came from then?

Well, if you believe as Darwin and his contemporaries did, then you believe God is responsible. If you believe as Provine and Atkins do, then you believe that the processes exist on their own.

What you are arguing is not science and creationism, but theism vs atheism and trying to find a way to insert God in there.  There is nothing in science to forbid you from believing God created the logical principles, but there is nothing in science saying that happened, either.

"But with regard to the material world, we can at least go so far as this -- we can perceive that events are brought about not by insulated interpositions of Divine power, exerted in each particular case, but by the establishment of general laws"  Whewell:  Bridgewater Treatise.  (Fontispiece of Origin)

Hmmm... chaos (Gk. xaos - Der. xainein to  gape; a yawning gulf) - I'd be real intrigued as to how a yawning chasm (a portrayal of Nothingness) can organize itself ultimately into intelligent beings, capable of contemplating such tantalizingly deep issues, which ultimately, will affect how we view ourselves and the way we run this world, for each other.  

You want the material processes? First, the 2nd Law of thermodynamics. Having all the matter/energy/spacetime in one space is minimum entropy. As the entropy of the whole universe increases, tapping into that causes the local decreases in entropy that we know as life. Gibb's free energy is a good place to start.

Now, is it all by "itself"? That science does not know. What science does know is that another material process -- God directly manufacturing amino acids or biological organisms -- is not necessary.

You see, creationism is a rival material method to evolution.  Instead of the material processes associated with "evolution", creationism involves other material processes:  direct manufacture.

 

 

[lucaspa]

Originally posted by Micaiah
Sulphur,
I find biology fascinating, though my knowledge of the subject is limited. I see in biology the hand of a Creator. I know this isn't scientific, bu I saw the birth of three children. Each to me was a fantastic miracle, again the product of a Creator.

While you may do this for the birth of individuals, the danger of this For Christianity is when you apply it to biological designs. Take, for instance, the digger wasp. It lays its eggs in grasshoppers, the lavae hatch, and then the larval wasp eats the grasshopper out from the inside just as portrayed by the aliens in the movie Alien.  Now, if this is directly the 'hand of a Creator', is this "perfect" or sadistic?  Do you accept a sadistic Creator?

Or, take the vertebrate eye.  Wired backwards.  Yet the octopus eye, otherwise very similar to the vertebrate eye, is wired correctly. Do you see 'the hand of a Creator' in this too? Did the Creator directly make the vertebrate eye? If so, the Creator is either very, very stupid or suffering from Alzheimer's.

So, if you really see a Creator directly responsible for what is in biological organisms, you come up with a Creator that is sadistic, stupid, and suffering from Alzheimer's.  While science can stand such a Creator, can Christianity?

 

[Jerry Smith]

Originally posted by lucaspa
Start with 2^100 people and use a single elimination tournament.  Pair them up and have each pair toss a coin.  The ones that call heads stay (selected) and the ones that call heads are eliminated. Take the winners and do this again.  And again.  100 times. Absolutely guanteed that you get a person that called heads 100 times in a row. Now, you don't know which person ahead of time, but you absolutely know, by this algorithm, that one of them will. So, in 100 "generations" you have beat the odds.

That doesn't give you someone who tossed 100 heads in a row, it gives you someone who won 100 coin-tosses in a row. Essentially the same idea, but no algorithm can guarantee 100 tosses of heads in a row...

Probability arguments are meaningless to the evolution debate anyway, so I guess all of this is academic.

 

[Micaiah]

Probability arguments are meaningless to the evolution debate anyway, so I guess all of this is academic.

The point I make is that if the probability of an event is low enough, then intuitively we say it is impossible. If you played a game of cards and your opponent was dealt a run of 13 clubs from the ace to the king you would conclude someone had sabotaged the pack. We know it is practically impossible for this to happen, though theoretically it is possible.

If 100 people tossed 100 coins at a rate of five tosses per minute, then they would do a total of 262 980 000 000 ie. 262.9 billion tosses in 1000 years. That is a long way of the number needed.

 

[Micaiah]

While you may do this for the birth of individuals, the danger of this For Christianity is when you apply it to biological designs. Take, for instance, the digger wasp. It lays its eggs in grasshoppers, the lavae hatch, and then the larval wasp eats the grasshopper out from the inside just as portrayed by the aliens in the movie Alien. Now, if this is directly the 'hand of a Creator', is this "perfect" or sadistic? Do you accept a sadistic Creator?

I'm not sure how to answer your objections. But I think creation is amazing.

I heard how a baby undergoes a sudden transformation at the time of birth as it prepares to breath. The lungs and heart undergo major changes as the child prepares to take its first breath instead of getting oxygen from the mother's blood supply. That is a fantastic miracle.

 

[Micaiah]

Start with 2^100 people and use a single elimination tournament. Pair them up and have each pair toss a coin. The ones that call heads stay (selected) and the ones that call heads are eliminated. Take the winners and do this again. And again. 100 times. Absolutely guanteed that you get a person that called heads 100 times in a row. Now, you don't know which person ahead of time, but you absolutely know, by this algorithm, that one of them will. So, in 100 "generations" you have beat the odds.

Are you suggesting this is how evolution works? I understand there are major differences. I think someone with a knowledge of population genetics would be able to paint a more accurate picture of the way genetic change becomes a part of a population, and the chances of that occuring.

 

[Micaiah]

What are the odds of my being here at this moment in time and posting this message at this very second? Probably small enough that it may be considered an impossible event.

If you played a game of cards as suggested above, would you think that your opponent was dealt the cards by chance, or would you think that the pack was rigged?

 

[Pete Harcoff]

Originally posted by Micaiah
If you played a game of cards as suggested above, would you think that your opponent was dealt the cards by chance, or would you think that the pack was rigged?

Rather than answer this obviously loaded and somewhat rhetorical question (since I think we both know what the answer would be), may I just ask instead what point you are driving at?

 

[chickenman]

The point I make is that if the probability of an event is low enough, then intuitively we say it is impossible. If you played a game of cards and your opponent was dealt a run of 13 clubs from the ace to the king you would conclude someone had sabotaged the pack. We know it is practically impossible for this to happen, though theoretically it is possible.

every single hand in a game of cards has equal odds of occuring

the odds of getting a **** hand are exactly the same odds as getting a royal flush

 

[Micaiah]

I'm not really sure yet but it seemed a good response.

 

[troodon]

Yet the octopus eye, otherwise very similar to the vertebrate eye, is wired correctly

I never knew that. Awesome, I love octopi even more now

 

[Gracchus]

Originally posted by Micaiah
The point I make is that if the probability of an event is low enough, then intuitively we say it is impossible. 

That's why science is not done by relying on intuition.  Your intuition in this case is wrong. 

 

[Micaiah]

Gracchus,

G'day and welcome to the forum. Intuition is an important part of scientific research. Our judgements and new hypotheses are formed with the help of intuition. Intuition may be misleading, but it can also be helpful. Many new discoveries have been the result of a hunch. I believe in this case, God has created man with the ability to look at His creation and intuitively understand there is a Creator. Some evolutionist say evolution is counter intuitive.

 

[Gracchus]

 Posted by Micaiah:

"Intuition is an important part of scientific research. Our judgements and new hypotheses are formed with the help of intuition. Intuition may be misleading, but it can also be helpful. Many new discoveries have been the result of a hunch."

But no hunch is accepted until tested.  There must be evidence to support the hunch.  Until evidence is accumulated, a hunch is just a daydream.  I have had plenty of hunches that did not stand up under scrutiny, and a few that did.  

By your criterion, the universe is full of impossible things.

Thank you for the welcome. 

 

[sulphur]

again go back to a die.why is possible for 6 to turn up 100 timesin a row?

 

[auswiq]

20.  Breaker RR, Joyce GF.A DNA enzyme that cleaves RNA. Chem Biol  1994 Dec;1(4):223-9
21.  Ronald R Breaker, Gerald FA Joyce DNA enzyme with Mg2+-dependent RNA phosphoesterase activity   Chemistry & Biology 1995, 2:655-660.

Joyce started with 50 random nucleotide sequences of DNA and then tested them in an environment to act as an enzyme.  The sequences that showed even the tiniest activity were kept and the others discarded. Then Joyce used chemical reactions to randomly modify the DNA.  Then he tested the second generation, keeping the variations that showed even the tiniest increase in enzyme activity. Back to the random modification again, and then back to testing.  Keep that up for 250 generations or so and he had a DNA enzyme that was as active as any ribozyme out there. Only then did Joyce sequence the DNA enzyme in order to try to figure out how it works.

Joyce did nothing but serve as the environment.  For him to exercise the "careful thought and directed activity" that you say, Joyce would have had to put each nucleotide onto the DNA, knowing or guessing in advance how it would help the ultimate purpose.  But he didn't do that, because Joyce had no idea how to get what he wanted.

There are even more extreme examples in the area of chip design and computer programs.  Joyce at least was able to figure out how the DNA enzyme worked.  When Darwinian selection has been used to make computer chips or write computer programs (such as one that beat the human checkers champ), the result was a chip or program that worked great but that the humans could not figure out how it worked.

Now, in all your experience, have you ever run across a human designer making an artifact (such as a watch) that didn't know how it worked when he was done? 

Wonderful, even though Dr Joyce started with something already there to experiment with, now didnt he.

Got a suggestion for a man of his obvious expertise.  I for one, would like him now, to do another wonderful experiment. I would suggest he start with Nothing - yes, nothing; no air; no gas; no dirt; no plasma; no - thats right, literally Nothing, and to take this Nothing (bit of an oxymoron, I know, but never mind for now) and to bring into being some fundamental particles; the nature of which I am happy to entrust to his discretional expertise, and to construct some matter; so far so good, and then to formulate Life - uh uh - No! not to be taken from anything already living - instead, to generate life from this original nothing and then to insert this Life essence into this so far, inert matter he has so far brought into being there in the lab; yes, genes and all, the configuration of which I again entrust to his expertise and to cream the cake so to speak, this lifeform to finally be endowed with at least, the capability to sustain and maintain its own existence. Now that would be - ah look, believe me; that would be the day I would at long last, be thoroughly won over and then - well- it would be ' Guess its cheerio God; nice knowing You" -" Hey, Huxley; Lamark; Darwin - put 'er there!! ( hearty handshake) and a ringing -EVOLUTION IS IT!!!  - Well -  I'm waiting....in anticipation....

 

 

 

[Freodin]

Now where did I read that before - needing the recreation of "everything" as a proof for evolution.

It does not work that way, auswiq, for two reasons.

First, evolution does not deal with "life from nothing" - it is based on "something that was there".
Second, if you would be able to provide the exact conditions that were present at the time of the Big Bang, this proposed experiment could be done - but else, there is a universe interfering.

If you keep claiming "it could not have been different", you have to provide reasons why.

 

[auswiq]

Got a suggestion for a man of his obvious expertise.  I for one, would like him now, to do another wonderful experiment.......

A big ask.... righto - I'll be a little less demanding.... another scenario.. this time, and this to be WITHOUT  any human intervention whatsoever, ok? That includes NO mucking around with genetic engineering; DNA insertion or any such caper, or else be lined up against the wall and ______ .

Ok, now I would really love to witness the sprouting of wings on the backs of - mmm - what..ok, - pigs, say. Now as to the form and configuration of said wings; feathers; bat-like membrane; I couldnt give a continental, sufficient that they enable said pigs to - wow - fly! Well, dinos evolve into birds - yes? - Ok, why not pigs? After all, evolution is free to do whatever it jolly well likes, seeing randomness; non-design et al provides such wondrous freedom to go anywhere but loose. My, wouldnt it be something and knowing it's no hallucination - an actual winged pig - right there - can smell its breath; it's poop <ugh le peeww> so its there alright and - hoho there it goes! up n' away; just barely clipping the top o' that tree as it squeals and flaps in to the distance.  - again, I'd be convinced - won over. Until then, whether we love or lump it - God is on the Throne!! before Whom every cotton-pickin one of us - yes, me included, WILL be one day, summonsed to appear.

 

 

[auswiq]

First, evolution does not deal with "life from nothing" - it is based on "something that was there".
Second, if you would be able to provide the exact conditions that were present at the time of the Big Bang, this proposed experiment could be done - but else, there is a universe interfering.

uh huh, well - my current knowledge is that ' something that was there' is made up of well, you know, quarks, gluons et al. Ok, now, I'm curious to know if these said constituents of the 'something that was there' possesses the essence called 'Life'. After all, as you said, life according to evolution is not from nothing....

 

[kaotic]

Originally posted by auswiq
A big ask.... righto - I'll be a little less demanding.... another scenario.. this time, and this to be WITHOUT  any human intervention whatsoever, ok? That includes NO mucking around with genetic engineering; DNA insertion or any such caper, or else be lined up against the wall and ______ .

Ok, now I would really love to witness the sprouting of wings on the backs of - mmm - what..ok, - pigs, say. Now as to the form and configuration of said wings; feathers; bat-like membrane; I couldnt give a continental, sufficient that they enable said pigs to - wow - fly! Well, dinos evolve into birds - yes? - Ok, why not pigs? After all, evolution is free to do whatever it jolly well likes, seeing randomness; non-design et al provides such wondrous freedom to go anywhere but loose. My, wouldnt it be something and knowing it's no hallucination - an actual winged pig - right there - can smell its breath; it's poop <ugh le peeww> so its there alright and - hoho there it goes! up n' away; just barely clipping the top o' that tree as it squeals and flaps in to the distance.  - again, I'd be convinced - won over. Until then, whether we love or lump it - God is on the Throne!! before Whom every cotton-pickin one of us - yes, me included, WILL be one day, summonsed to appear.

 

First of all don't confuse evolution with atheism/atheist. And second, evolution isn't really random. The mutations are random, but evolution it's self isn't random. And you might want to look at this site.

http://users.capu.net/~kwelch/pp/evolution/reptiles-to-birds.html


Edited for spelling errors.