Feedback for March 2006

"We now know that if Darwin could have foreseen coming scientific developments, he would have had good reason to be concerned that his theory might one day be proved wrong...James Joule, R.J.E. Clausius, and Lord Kelvin were only just developing the concepts of thermodynamics, the first law of which states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed (so the present universe could not have created itself)".

I'm sure Darwin stuck to biology alone but I don't have the time to find out for sure. Thought you would probably know. I think if these websites had the killer evidence to fell evolution they claim they do they'd be shouting it from the rooftops, yet on their sites you have to dig. Even then they seem to spend time attacking Darwins beliefs or Hitlers god-rejection, surely none of this affects the truth!

Thanks

That is my viewpoint as a "Darwinist", "Atomist", "Plate Tectonicist", "Big Bangist", "Relativist", "Quantumist", and every other "-ist" that IDiots can condemn.

I was spending some time browsing the creationist wiki response. I'm not sure why, but I can only assume masochistic reasons. It is the same ignorant, unsupported, misquoted, out-of-context, dark ages nonsense that I've come to expect from any creationist trying to defend an indefensible belief.

Quite often they answer questions with questions, fail to site sources, fail to quote the talkorigins.org remark they are trying to refute, or use bad science. My favorite though, and you'll love this, is when they accuse talkorigins.org of citing a source that has been outdated by a few years, when most sources they site...are...from...the...BIBLE...

An example that really drove me over the edge is when they claim that since C14 dating methods may be off because of "an highly increased ratio of C14 saturation in the atmosphere after the flood". Care to hazard a guess as to why that might happen? Or just end the thing with a question mark, as per usual? Maybe site some journals?

Keep up the excellent work.

Dacotah.

It was then I decided to look back at the evidence for all watches. I took an old pockwatch I had had for many years and pried the back off it and was absolutely stunned to find it was filled with springs and gears. I compared that to my digital watch and found no comparison between the two. I wondered how could this one thing filled with springs and gears and this thing called electronics both be called a watch? What sort of classication process placed them in the same genre?

I was stymied. Did not content dictate function? How could a watch filled with springs and gears make that jump to a watch filled with electronics? What mechanism in our natural world could cause such a drastic change from one to the other?

What about water clocks that had neither of these mechanisms? Could all three then be truly labled as watches? How could any reasoning person make that assumption, since you can't turn water into springs and gears, nor springs and gears into electonics with a piece of vibrating quartz? What observations have been made to determine that the leap from one to the other was made, or was even possible? None, I assume, so it is with unreasonable arrogance that such a conclusion can be made by those that call themselves watch makers. How dare they call themselves makers anyway. Don't they know the great timekeeper will be sorely peeved at their so called expert pronouncements and will more than likely exile them to a place of eternal noon?

Thus I have reached the only conclusion a logically thinking person can make. There is no such thing as time.

write me back and tell me this isn't ture.

GLC

First of all, I am a devout Christian, and a believer in God-given wisdom, which allows us to investigate the earth and the processes by which He created it. And it is quite obvious that the earth is billions of years old, and that natural selection and a common ancestor are part of it. To deny this is to misuse our brains.

I also want to comment on the use of the word "supernatural". I don't quite agree with this word, as I believe that all that exists (including God Himself) are part of "nature". What we view as supernatural is merely that which cannot be observed by humans, because we lack the means. Just as the flight of an airplane doesn't defy the laws of gravity, but override them with "higher" laws, so miracles don't defy the laws of nature but appeal to higher laws and forces which humans can't observe or manipulate. (Of course, the fact that we can't means that I rely on faith to believe in them, so they are outside the realm of science.)

On the use of the word "myth" - it is generally believed to mean "a false religious story". But it really means (to me at least) "a non-historically verified story that reveals deeper principles or truths". Thus I refer to the Resurrection of Christ as a "myth" because it is not historically verified (despite what some think) and because it reveals the truth that Christ atoned for us. I also accept its historical truth, but that is a matter of faith.

And a personal anecdote - I wavered between accepting evolution and thinking that it contradicted my beliefs, throughout my youth. It was a happy moment for me to realize that I can accept both without compromise, and hold onto both faith and reason.

And a little hope for the future: my mother, a "creationist" Catholic (who could accept evolution without compromising her beliefs, but doesn't for some reason) homeschools my younger sisters, and teaches them creationism. But one day my sister asked my dad, an "evolutionist" Mormon (the LDS Church makes no claim either way on the issue; those with an understanding of science in the church generally accept evolution, while those who don't tend to think that evolution means rejection of faith) a question about the behavior of dogs. I forget the details, but the answer my father gave had to do with how dogs evolved from wolves as they were domesticated. My sister is a smart young girl, and I think that she will figure it out some day.

1. Hereby a note praising the hard work done by the authors of the various articles in the archive.

2. 1 is the primary issue; feel it incumbent to contribute, but belong to humanities, not nat. sciences. Token musings under 4.

3. Since they are more anti-religious than pro-evolution, they may not be fitting for inclusion on site. Perhaps they would serve in controversy.

4. a) re ca001, ethics in general (debate point): Many ethical theories require that the proponent adhere to his or her own ethical precepts. One such precept is "love your enemies". Certain well-known deities are known to condemn opponents to eternal torment in hell, a place specially designed for this purpose; one notable opponent was even condemned to be the Devil. Since this at best is _very_ tough love, one could question the lovingness of the deity in question; the coherence of the ethical position in question; and the legitimacy of criticism by adherents to that position.

b) re ethics ca009, behaving like animals (debate point): "Behaving like animals" is only bad if animal behaviour is bad. According to creationist sources, animals were created by a deity; the same deity remarked, upon examining his handiwork: "And he saw that it was good". This implies that animal behaviour is just fine, and hence this observation cannot really form the basis of any accusation.

Gambatte.

T

Now comes the rant:

I'm constantly disappointed by people who claim to be for science but who actually seem to be against religion. I think this is counterproductive. It is possible that someday everyone will accept the theory of evolution (just as almost everyone now accepts the heliocentric theory of the solar system), but the way to get to this day is not through attempts to attack Christianity or religion in general. In martial arts we are taught to avoid putting ourselves in direct conflict with our opponent's forces, but rather to move perpendicularly. If the goal of the scientific community is really to advance science, the best way to move is orthogonally to the force of religious faith. As a believer in God and (in an entirely different sense) a believer in evolution, I don't see religion and science as incompatible. Generally the objection to evolution is merely a knee-jerk reaction against anything new. If the creationist can be involved in a reasonable discussion, he or she can realize that evolution in no way prevents Jesus from being our saviour, or God from having created the world. This is the orthogonal direction, and the direction we really care about (or say that we care about) anyway.

Too often, I hear people who mean to convince a creationist that evolution is legitimate instead attacking that person's religious faith. Needless to say, this never works. It evokes a massive defensive reaction and only convinces the creationist that evolution is the tool of the devil, etc. The best way to deal with the bible thumpers (who usually don't understand the passages they're quoting anyway) is to quietly agree that that's what it says in the Bible, but that it has nothing to do with evolution or science. Try to keep the two ideas separate.

That said, I think you all do a good job at this. Please continue trying not to offend the fundamentalists.

However, when one does a little research on gene sizes, one finds that depending upon the report, the size of the chimp genome is between 4% and 10% BIGGER than that of human beings (Souce:www.genomesize.com et al). The average size discrepancy of all studies is 7%.

My question: How can the chimp genome and the human genome be 96% similar if the chimp genome is 7% BIGGER than that of humans?

Regards

My question is whether you have ever heard this argument before, and if so have any idea how it got started.

But National Geographic says:

There are believed to be ten million mammoths buried in permanently frozen soil in Siberia. Because of the sparse human population in the region, though, only about a hundred specimens have been discovered . . . .

ttp://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/04/0408_050408_woollymammoth_2.html

In complexity mathematics, complexity is ultimately a measure of magnitude. A problem is P or NP if the quantity of steps to its solution(s) is bounded by some order of magnitude of the problem’s size. Complexity, then, for that most militaristic of disciplines, answers the question ‘how much?’ and specifically, answers the question ‘how much work is required to produce a solution (set)?’ In pure mathematics, the ‘steps toward solution(s)’ are work performed by a human. In applied mathematics, the ‘steps’ may represent a natural process, in which case the ‘steps” complexity is a measure of work expressible in ergs. Either way, the word ‘complexity’ is a pseudonym for ‘quantity.’

But complex things, whatever they are, have qualities in addition to “muchness.” They also have transformational properties–high quantities of dependence, interdependence, interaction, or interrelation. Again, without reference to concrete instances, ‘complexity’ in all these abstract aspects is reducible to quantity. A single IF→THEN relationship is not complex, by itself. Is it?

‘Complexity’ is a term which includes in its semantic foundations the presumption of agential limitation. A process, like reading, which is complex to a five year old, is not complex to an adult. Nor are cellular functions, which I find dauntingly complex, at all so to practicing cellular biologists.

Whenever I think of something as complex, I can’t also but help think of it as possessing my candidate replacement term, contingency. What I like about this alternative word is that it contains no reference to any agential bias. If humidity and temperature combine with pressure, in certain further contingent ways, it will rain. Otherwise not. Fluid dynamicists are tempted to call a thunderstorm a ‘complex’ dynamical system. Isn’t a thunderstorm more virtuously described as a ‘contingent’ dynamical system?

I think that what really happens in public dialogue is that when the quantity of contingent processes that make a thing a thing exceed our brains’ well-known chunking capacity, we bail out to the emotional appeal of calling it ‘complex.’ This term has no materialistically rigorous definition, as far as I know. The term always includes an acknowledgment, however tacit, of insufficiency. ‘Complex’ relative to what? is the form of the logical pass/fail question. To be rigorous scientists, as well as rigorous debaters, we should eschew our emotional fascinations with the grandeur or challenge of our respective fields which lead us to use the term ‘complex’ at all.

The reason I am submitting this is because after the Black Box debate, an astonishing number of scientists still use this term as a saltire to ward off the blows of attack, or as a signal word to indicate what great minds they must have to deal with such labyrinthine mysteries. Even the much-maligned Gould uses it in his morphospace diagram, with ‘complexity’ increasing to the right side. What is really increasing, that can be measured, is contingency.

If I don’t list every example of complexity I can think of, someone will likely be able to think of a counter-example, and I would welcome that. I would like to see a closely-reasoned example of when the term ‘complex’ can be applied in a formally operant way that makes no appeal to agential relativity. Otherwise, if we borrow ‘contingency’ from the philosophers, or ‘conditionality’ from the technologists, I think we would save ourselves quite a bit of wasted finger-effort, typing away at terministic mercury.

1) Rather than 'Index to Creationist Claims' it should say 'Index to Creationist Claims and Outrageous Bare-faced Lies', because that's what many are. But I guess we should try to be diplomatic.

2) I have noticed at least once in the responses to claims that you used the phrase 'believe in evolution'. Actually, I doubt that any of you 'believe in' evolution. Evolution is a scientific theory, and as such it is dependant upon evidence, and independant of belief. We do not 'believe in evolution', we 'accept the evidence for evolution'. If someone can provide better evidence for another theory then we may accept that. The point may seem subtle, but I think the distinction is important when discussing the issue.

3) Transitional fossils - perhaps the smelliest red herring dredged up by creationists. Every species that exists, or has ever existed, is a transitional species, between what it was, and what it may become if evolution keeps working on it. What the creationists want are chimeras. Are they trying to prise the bill off a platypus?

Keep up the fight!

In short, I feel like there are two reasons why one cannot say that God cannot exist or cannot be the christian God because there is suffering in the world. First, indeed christians claim God to be all-knowing and loving--but we also acknowledge that an all-good God must be a JUST God. The basic problem is that, if God is perfect and we are sinful, we cannot exist together (aka, go to heaven). Now, what your argument says is this: even if the claim in the previous sentence is true, and all-loving and all-powerful God should just let us into heaven anyways. However, this does not work because God is also just--there must be a punishment for our sinfulness. Crimes cannot simply go unpunished--that would lead to chaos. I dont think anybody would say that we should just "be loving" and quit putting sex-offenders, murderers, or even shop-lifters in jail (or whatever the sentence is for shop-lifting). In the same way, there must be punishment for our sins. The beautiful thing about God is that he found a way to make this requirement for atonement and his perfect love for us work together. He made the perfect solution--the sacrifice of Jesus, the only perfect sacrifice, to take on our sins and our punishment (death being the punishment for sin). This allows both of these laws to work together. However, this still doesnt quite explain why some people could still not go to heaven. The other amazing thing about God is that he gave us the power to make our own decisions. Which is better--to force somebody to choose you, or to lay the options out before them and allow them to choose you on their own accord? I think the answer is obvious to all. This is beautiful, indeed. My last point relates to this freedom to choose. I think many of us need to re-work the way we think about things. We get mad at God for allowing suffering (which is crazy to me, considering the fact that he went through more suffering than any man could ever imagine when he came down as Jesus). However, the simple fact is that we are the ones who brought on any evil in this world. Adam and Eve brought sin into this world, consequently bringing suffering. One might say "if God knew we would mess up then why did he even create us?" Once again, i think the answer is found in freedom to choose. Is it better for a parent to hide the cookie jar so the child never learns whether or not its okay to go in it? Or is it better to leave the cookie jar on the counter so that the child can make his/her own choice and LEARN? While parents should always guide their children, we all hate the parents that dont ever let their child make their own decisions. God gave us the ultimate honor by allowing us to choose what to do. However, once again, we have chosen sin. WE ARE THE ONES THAT SIN, SO WE ARE THE ONES THAT HAVE ALLOWED SUFFERING. And, once again, God is perfect in love and has provided a way out for us through the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus. To understand this more, i challenge whoever reads this to read the excerpt found in the following link:

http://jtothesstaff.blogspot.com/2005/03/understanding-salvation.html#comments.

Thank you for reading this response!!! I know that this does not explain everything. However, i would also say that for us to understand anything we must get revelation from God. Any response would be appreciated, as we are all constantly learning and must be sharpened by one another. I pray blessings over whoever reads this and the peace of Jesus Christ!

--Luke Oltmans

I'm curious about something, purely hypothetical of course but, what difference would it make to an evolutionist if it could be demonstrated that existing ideas, facts, and theories regarding evolution are incorrect? I mean, is there a plan of action that the evolutionist imagines him/her self implementing in the event of a catastrophic failure of an evolutuionary worldview?

1) Abiogenesis - literally: without a living beginning. Therefore, not created by a living Being but spontaneously arose from inanimate matter eons ago... or might have come from space aliens. The source of the inanimate matter is not exactly known but is theorized to have come from zero matter occupying zero volume. The zero matter spontaneously exploded to form everything we see.

2) Aliens - beings from another part of space who may have seeded life onto earth. Source of the aliens is unknown, perhaps aliens who seeded them, who seeded them, who seeded them... Sorry, no ultimate origins available.

3) Science - the only reliable source of truth.

4) Evolution - the foundation for all other forms of science, without which no other forms of science would make sense. Also, a critical subject matter for high school students to study. Life in the real world would be impossible without the study of evolution.

4) History - we don't know, but it has nothing to do with truth. Science holds that ground.

5) Punctuated Equilibrium - a Latin term that literally means, "we can't explain the Cambrian explosion so we'll have to invent a $20 term to hoodwink people into believing we know what we're talking about".

6) Morality - Undefined

7) Creationist - an uneducated buffoon, one who denies truth (see also "science"); one who hates science for whatever reason; one who believes a Supreme Being, rather than blind chance is responsible not only for life but for everything mankind knows to exist. But mainly, a buffoon.

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB620.html

The argument is basically correct, but not part 2. You say "the population growth from 1900 to 2000 has been closer to 0.132 percent per year". No, you've slipped a decimal place. You must mean 1.32 percent per year. 0.132 percent means a population doubling in 525 years; that's way too small!

Integrity is expected, but, unfortunately, would appear to be in short supply with the talkorigins staff.

C'mon guys...

Thank you.