The greatest argument of all time... (moved from "Christians" thread)

philologos

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

Well, the development of the ear isn't that difficult to explain. There wouldn't be much point in having ears that picked up on frequencies that didn't directly affect us.

Think of it this way: an ear is better than no ear. So, an ear lends survival value. Thus, natural selection will refine it further over generations (if it still possesses the same survival value).

As for everything appearing to fit like a glove - That's because everything evolved together. Animals evolved with plants, each lends the other certain amenities - thus, they'll evolve closely linked.

That's interesting, but it doesn't quite explain what I mean. How come we fit so well with the world and it's workings, and how does evolution guarantee that we will fit to the ways of the world? It's just how can one determine if and of itself that every evolutionary move would be positive or even useful in the long run?

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

The creation of our current one, yes. But, there's nothing to say that there aren't other universes; or that this universe will end one day to give way to another.

That's an answer I can accept really given what I've heard about parallel universes, and all the other things they are looking to in physics at the minute.

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

That's because every living thing evolved together. Each played a key role in each others lives - so they appear to fit like a glove at this day. But, that took millions of years of natural selections refining powers.

So at one point the life on this planet didn't fit the world like a glove as it seems to today?

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

That's true. But, after that moment, the two became seperate issues. Many people think that the Theory of Evolution is incorrect because it doesn't explain abiogenesis.

They are interrelated to eachother though. For evolution to have taken place at all abiogenesis must have taken place. Or as I said earlier if we can determine evolution having taken place it suddenly becomes a given that abiogenesis has taken place also. This is more evidence by indication than evidence by proof. We can indicate for abiogenesis but cannot prove it. I find it interesting that this notion is used and applied in science.

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

Well we currently know that there are at least 500 billion galaxies. And there are probably far, far more - they're just outside of our scope. Now, each galaxy can contain ~500 billion stars. It's currently estimated that at an absolute least, 10% of all stars have planets. 10% of 500 billion x 500 billion is 2.5 × 10^22. And thats the lower estimate. Let me put that in perspective; that's:

250000000000000000000000 planets. And people think that Earth is completely unique?

How can we know these things without having explored though. However, to be honest with you, if one is to perceive a divine power as the creator of the universe this might raise more interest in the theist to the divine. The uniqueness of the world isn't an argument that Christians generally make, rather we see that there is a large level of sophistication in our world and we celebrate what we deem to be attributed to said creation and sophistication. It doesn't nullify what has been done on the earth, and it also causes wonder about other planets.

However, I want this to be more about your opinions rather than mine to see if I can grasp any more from you about this type of issue.

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

But, there are a lot more planets playing the life lottery.

Granted but it's still massively improbable even for the amount of planets you have listed.

Húrin

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

The creation of our current one, yes. But, there's nothing to say that there aren't other universes; or that this universe will end one day to give way to another.

Not a great argument from your POV. AFter all there's nothing to say that there is not a God, and nothing to say that he won't end the universe one day and put another in its place.

ZondaChai

This is what I believe in
At the start of time there was a being of some sort, made of energy or something else we haven't found yet. It caused the big bang or whatever started the universe. Then it moved off to make another universe or maybe have a bit of a lie down. We were left to our own devices, all the forces were created over a huge amount of time, as were galaxies, stars, planets, etc..., a comet crashed into our planet creating life or whatever the current theory is, evolution followed, we followed. I believe in all the laws of physics and logic, but I also believe in god, well maybe not god because that's a stupid Sanskrit word, but I believe in something, a creator. Now I can't prove what I believe in nor do I want to, it is a personal thing between myself and my beliefs. I think it's called blind faith, I can't explain why I believe in it, I just do. Another good thing about my personal faith is that it can't be disproven, unless you were there at the very start, you can never know.


This is what I think about religion
Organized religion is very very stupid, now don't point our my grammical errors because I know that I left out several verys. The basic principals of religion are stupid. Follow the teachings of people and books that knew less then than you do now. Christianity for example teaches that every one has a personal connection to god, yet it requires everyone to gather together for some reason, does it boost the signal?, it's like having the number for somewhere but calling up 11811 anyway, if you do it, your an idiot. If you have a personal connection to god, then you can pray to him on your own, you don't need to join other people. There wouldn't be religion fueled crimes if people kept their personal faith to themselves. If religions followers truly believed in their gods, then they would see all the bad their doing when they form their giant mobs and meet together to do something they could do at home. Most believers don't even believe anyway, they have no choice or it's been beaten into them from a young age. In my opinion the concept of religion or atheism shouldn't even be mentioned to kids until they have the mind to properly grasp it, even then all the flaws should be pointed out, they should be given a big book about what’s wrong and what’s right about religion and then let them make up their own minds. On a different point anyone who denies evolution and says that the earth is five thousand years old should be shown the meaning of everlasting life and left in the cold expanse of space, drifting around for all eternity. Basically if you want to believe in god, then just believe in him and nothing more. I'm sure he doesn't condone all the deaths and crimes that have been attributed to organized religion.

This is what I think about Atheism
This is defined as a lack of belief in a deity. From what I've read your lack of belief is because of logic and your understanding of the universe. You guys think that there can't be a god because everything in the universe can be explained in a normal, unsupernatural way. This is what I have a problem with. The sheer arrogance of atheists. I almost sure we haven't been to every corner of the universe, we haven’t seen every element or natural occurrence. We know as much about the innerworkings of the universe as a fish knows about a shoe. People can only speculate about life on other planets, this life could look very different to us. What if there are creatures that exist as energy, just because you haven't seen them doesn't mean that Bob the plasma person isn’t out their floating around. Take bob a few steps further and you have a being with an IQ higher than Stephen Hawking and JammyDodger combined, the laws of physics don't apply anymore. You can't say that deity's don’t exist, it's impossible, no matter how many times you link good grammar with pseudo scientific facts, you cannot create a strong enough argument to disprove the existence of a god. But by all means keep going, you will fail every time but keep going, just try not to be such dicks when you do.

In conclusion, Religion is stupid, Atheism is stupid, and all of the arguing you guys do here is pointless, timewasting and eventually irrelevant

Jakkass

Jakkass wrote: »

That's interesting, but it doesn't quite explain what I mean. How come we fit so well with the world and it's workings, and how does evolution guarantee that we will fit to the ways of the world? It's just how can one determine if and of itself that every evolutionary move would be positive or even useful in the long run?

It doesn't guarantee anything. Natural selection merely "picks" the genetic mutations which aid in survival at that present time - if the environment changes, then the animal will need to adapt. What helps you survive today might not help you survive in 10,000 years time - and evolution doesn't claim that it does. But natural selection is a dynamic process - it can continue to "meet" new survival challenges: all by variation and mutation.

So at one point the life on this planet didn't fit the world like a glove as it seems to today?

But, it mighn't even fit that well today - it may just appear to. Evolution and natural selection are extremely dynamic processes. Life might have fitted just as well one hundred million years ago - but the Earth would have been vastly different. The life of that time, no doubt, adapted just as well to its environment as we do today.

Another thing to remember is that the environment isn't static. While animals may have adapted perfectly to the Earth of 100 million years ago, they probably wouldn't survive in todays world. The fact of the matter is that both evolution and the environment are dynamic - so there truely is no "golden age" of adaptation: that is to say that there is nothing special about how everything appears to fit like a glove today.

They are interrelated to eachother though. For evolution to have taken place at all abiogenesis must have taken place. Or as I said earlier if we can determine evolution having taken place it suddenly becomes a given that abiogenesis has taken place also. This is more evidence by indication than evidence by proof. We can indicate for abiogenesis but cannot prove it. I find it interesting that this notion is used and applied in science.

Oh I don't disagree with you - they're very closely related. But, many people fail to see that the Theory of Evolution doesn't concern itself with abiogenesis.

How can we know these things without having explored though.

Well, we certainly know about the numbers of galaxies and stars. The 10% figure is just an estimate, from what we know today. We currently know of roughly 330 extrasolar planets: and all found in the last two decades or less. From how frequently distributed these extrasolar stars are, scientists can estimate how frequent stars with planets really are.

And, for ~Sun sized stars - 10% is at the absolute low side of the estimate. Most scientists would guess that it's closer to 50%.

However, to be honest with you, if one is to perceive a divine power as the creator of the universe this might raise more interest in the theist to the divine. The uniqueness of the world isn't an argument that Christians generally make, rather we see that there is a large level of sophistication in our world and we celebrate what we deem to be attributed to said creation and sophistication. It doesn't nullify what has been done on the earth, and it also causes wonder about other planets.

I'm sure it does - I've no doubt about that. But, it also gives both atheists and scientists a lot more to wonder about. For me, it would make a theistic, personal god far less likely (this was the theme of the thread I started in the Christianity forum a few weeks ago).

Granted but it's still massively improbable even for the amount of planets you have listed.

That's true. But that number might be a hundred trillion times bigger. Perhaps there have been 100 trillion universes before us, each with 2.5x10^22 or more stars. We just don't know. But, we shouldn't think that because we're here, it makes life impossible. Even if the odds were almost infinitely high, there may be an almost infinite number of possibilities for life to emerge: we just don't know.

Goduznt Xzst

Jakkass wrote: »

I haven't watched the video yet, I'm looking for more a dialogue rather than a monologue.

Yes, but it will help the dialogue if you at least have a grasp of the basics of evolution and how we know exactly how humans evolved.

Jakkass wrote: »

we seemed to fit the world like a glove if you will.

We don't though, far from it. Humans can't survive at altitude or in water, which covers 70% of the earth. Modern technology and innovation due to our sentiencem has allowed us to live in inhospitable environments, but left to merely our wits we would perish. We fit the environments we evolved into.

Jakkass wrote: »

it would take 30 years to read the human genome day and night, and if published it would be as high as the Washington Monument, I just think things like this are so incredible.

But is the way we understand the human genome indicative of its overwhelming complexity? Or is it due to the limits of the human cognitive abilities? We can create computers that are far more efficient at understanding this data than the human mind will ever be. I'm sure the kerb on the side of the street looks overwhelming and incredible to an ant, but to us, knowing its size relative to us, find it common place. It is not uncommon to find something incredible because it exceeds the limits of our evolved abilities.

Jakkass wrote: »

This world is something to be looked at with wonder and with fascination. Irrespective of what you say, I think we are incredibly lucky to be able to live the life we live, and that the world is something that is incredible to have even come into existence. This probability makes winning the lottery look like an every-hour occurrence basically.

It is, and what's more amazing is that we are among a lucky few on this planet that are privileged enough to go to bed warm, not worry about where food will be coming tomorrow and ponder our existence. Many of the people in the world right now are living right on the edge of existence, like many of the other species on this planet struggling, daily, for survival.

Jakkass wrote: »

how this along with all the other factors could have fallen into place without the guidance of a divine creator?

Baby steps basically. Where you to witness every stage of this Universes development you would see its simplicity. Men looked at stonehenge or the Pyramids and wondered how man, in those ages, could of ever done such a thing, because they, without research, only could see the end result which is overwhelming. But if you had been there to see each step in the process, each rock moved or carved and put into place the end result would not be as spectacular.

Jakkass wrote: »

The creation of the cosmos can only happen once though? We aren't going to get a redo on the Big Bang?

We simply don't have enough data to know that. Their are hypothesises such as The Big Bounce or Quantum Foam that may help in our understanding. But as it stands, we know very little about the fate of the universe.

Jakkass wrote: »

Just look what the concept of God has done to it's inhabitants.

I'm not really following you. Are you using the ontological argument for Gods existence? Such as the one put forward by Descartes?
Can I ask you, without the concept of God, how do you imagine this world would be different?

Jakkass wrote: »

That's a rather big if however. How can we know if the universe has an infinite number of planets, or rather how can we determine if there are not a finite amount of planets if space research technology currently holds us back in doing so.

Well we do know that some of the closer stars have planets orbiting them. I also think the use of "infinite" was hyperbole for an amount that no human could count in their lifetime. imo there is a finite number of planets in the universe. It is not unreasonable to assume that many billions, if not trillions of planets exist. If you stood under a sycamore tree and looked at its seeds on the ground, it is not unreasonable to assume that the sycamore you see in the distance would also have seeds at its base. Planets are the natural result from the formation of a star, they are not a requisite, but all the conditions are there for them to form.

Húrin

Húrin wrote: »

Not a great argument from your POV. AFter all there's nothing to say that there is not a God, and nothing to say that he won't end the universe one day and put another in its place.

I know that. But, we're not arguing about God.

AtomicHorror

My two cents on couple of the points raised...

Jakkass wrote: »

That's interesting, but it doesn't quite explain what I mean. How come we fit so well with the world and it's workings, and how does evolution guarantee that we will fit to the ways of the world?

Natural selection. The "wrong move" does not survive (or is less likely to), but because of reproduction, chances are good that for any given generation the "right move" will be there and will survive.

Jakkass wrote: »

It's just how can one determine if and of itself that every evolutionary move would be positive or even useful in the long run?

They're not. Evolution is blind. It's not pro-active, but reactive. That which is beneficial is more likely to survive, but the beneficial traits were not planned in any way.

Jakkass wrote: »

So at one point the life on this planet didn't fit the world like a glove as it seems to today?

But it doesn't, when you look at it. Species were going extinct due to other species long before man and his tendency to over-hunt, over-fish and generally pollute the place. Balance, where it exists, is very much temporary.

ZondaChai

ZondaChai wrote: »

This is what I have a problem with. The sheer arrogance of atheists.

You know very little about atheism so. Atheists aren't the ones who claim to have all of the answers.

You can't say that deity's don’t exist, it's impossible, no matter how many times you link good grammar with pseudo scientific facts, you cannot create a strong enough argument to disprove the existence of a god. But by all means keep going, you will fail every time but keep going, just try not to be such dicks when you do.

Can you provide us with a good enough argument to prove that there isn't a green and blue gremlin (green and blue at the same time, no doubt) latched onto your back, eating rice krispies and making square circles? You can't.

ZondaChai

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

Can you provide us with a good enough argument to prove that there isn't a green and blue gremlin (green and blue at the same time, no doubt) latched onto your back, eating rice krispies and making square circles? You can't.

What does that mean, I could take a picture, I'm sure that would prove that there is nothing on my back eating cereal of any kind.
What you can't take a picture of is God, another thing you can't take a picture of is the intellectual arrogance at the soul of every athiest.

JimiTime

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

You know very little about atheism so. Atheists aren't the ones who claim to have all of the answers.

Yeah, they just 'know' that everyone else has the wrong answers:D

Zombrex

Jakkass wrote: »

1. How does Darwinian evolution give lend to the design and the structure of all living things from the trees we see around us to the sophistication of the human being?

That basically is Darwinian evolution.

Life, all life, is basically a self-replicating chemical reaction. Any self-replicating system that has the ability to produce copies that are not identical to the original (mutations) and which faces struggle with the environment can and will evolve due to Darwinian evolution. On Earth with life this takes place in the form of chemistry, but you can model this on a computer using anything you like, and the process of Darwinian evolution does not just apply to biological life but to a range of other things.

Any change will be tested against the environment. If the change increases the likelihood that the replication will continue (the fitness) this will be "selected" by the environment. Replicating units with a greater likelihood of replicating will gradually out number those with a less fitness.

Jakkass wrote: »

2. How does one explain life coming from non-life?

"Life" is simply a human term for what is basically a complex series of chemical reaction.

It is a chemical reaction that meets certain criteria that we classify biological life with, such as self replication, growth, consuming, production of energy etc.

We don't know exactly how the first self-replicating molecules appears and we may never know as it is doubtful there is much evidence that has survived (though there are a number of plausible theories), but it would be wrong to think that there is some magic dividing line between life and non-life.

A self replicating system becomes "life" as soon as it evolves the necessary criteria for us to call it "life". It is really that simple. It is like a snow ball rolling down a hill. At some point that snow ball becomes an avalanche, but really when that happens is up to us and how we classify an avalanche. As far as the snow ball is concerned he is just rolling down a hill getting bigger and bigger.

Jakkass wrote: »

3. How does one explain things such as a) the placement of the earth in a position which is in the correct distance from the sun, and b) the exact chemical composition being present to sustain life?

There are approx 100 billion billion stars in the observable universe. The observable universe may in fact be but a tiny fraction of the size of the actual universe (if various inflation models are correct), so the there could be trillions more.

When you look at it this way the odds that out of all the billions of solar systems in the universe one would have a planet that has the necessary conditions for biological life as we know it are not that unbelievable.

In fact, given that we know conditions would be right if the Earth as quite a bit closer or further away, or a bit bigger, or a bit smaller, it is actually harder to imagine that life as we know it has not developed on other planets in other solar systems.

And that is before you consider that there very well may be other forms life unlike life on Earth.

Jakkass wrote: »

4. How does one defend that the creation of the earth and what is contained in it (this given the assumption that the earth was indeed created) was a natural process when mathematicians and physicists give the figure in the millions of billions of zeroes which is commonly regarded as mathematical impossibility.

They don't, that is a creationist myth.

The wild probabilities of say a protein forming randomly are correct but they ignore that evolution doesn't actually say structures such as proteins formed randomly. In fact we know that proteins don't form randomly.

So when Creationists pull out these figures they are engaging in misdirection. The odds of life as we see it in modern age (complex proteins, cells, structures etc) appearing randomly from nothing but atoms are ridiculously large, and the people in Darwin's time understood that which is why Darwinian evolution was so powerful because it explains how complex structure can arise without it all just randomly slotting together.

Jakkass wrote: »

How can evolution have guaranteed us to be so well matched or so well connected to the universe.

Because if we weren't we would have died out a long time ago.

The vast majority of all species that at one time existed are now extinct. Out of each species it is only a few life forms that survive and they survive by evolving. The Earth is constantly changing and constantly trying to kill life. And who knows perhaps we (homo sapiens) won't last that long in evolutionary terms (we have nearly gone extinct a few times already)

Evolution is about adaptation. Your species adapts or it dies out.

Jakkass wrote: »

How did the evolutionary process reach such a point that we seemed to fit the world like a glove if you will.

That is actually a pretty bad example because our ears are in fact far from efficient.

The human ear is often used as an example of why any designer must have been drunk. We have a load of bones in them that would function if designed better, but they are there because our ears evolved from similar systems and these bones carried over from that. We did the best we could with what we had. Our ears are good enough, as anyone who has been mugged by someone sneaking up behind them can testify to. In animals that face greater anger from predators their environment has forced the evolution of much better ears. You could never sneak up behind my dog.

Jakkass wrote: »

This is what I have a lot of difficulty with in understanding a purely naturalistic explanation of evolution.

Equally I think a lot of atheists have a hard time understanding intelligent designers when they look at how many systems of course are just at the good enough level. Why would a god give us not particularly great ears?

When you see things like the human ear, which have bits that appear to have been left over from something else and have been bent and bashed into doing something new, it is hard to imagine any process other than evolution producing this.

It is like those TV programs that take old junk from say a scrap yard and try and make something new out of it. You end up with something that works but that is hobbled together from older bits that were not designed for the function they are now being used for. If they were starting over they would be designed better, but because the Scrap Heap challenge contestants have to use the scrap heap they have to make do with what they have.

That is what life looks like, and it fits evolution perfectly because bits evolve and then slow evolve into other bits, but they do not start a new each time. Evolution makes do with what it has.

Jakkass wrote: »

I think I've mentioned this before, but Francis Collins in discussing the Human Genome said that it would take 30 years to read the human genome day and night, and if published it would be as high as the Washington Monument, I just think things like this are so incredible.

Yes but what is more incredible is that it took life billions of years to evolve this.

I often think that one of the problems with people accepting evolution is actually that the time scales are too large. The vast majority of people, including myself, can't really comprehend a billion years in any serious sense. We some how loop back around and think that isn't actually that long, because our brains just cannot imagine something going on for a billion years.

When you look at what happens across the globe every single second, literally trillions upon trillions of life forms multiple (you have 100 trillion to 200 trillion individual microbes living inside you alone, not counting the 20 trillion cells you have that divide and multiple), and then multiple this by a billion years! The numbers we are talking about are just crazy! And this would have been what early Earth would have been like. Trillions upon trillions of micro-organisms multiplying every second, spread over billions of years.

With these types of numbers it is hard to imagine some form of complex life not evolving from all that.

Jakkass wrote: »

I wasn't rather looking for a refutation of the probability, but more a suggestion of how this along with all the other factors could have fallen into place without the guidance of a divine creator?

The size of the universe.

The universe is big. A bit like with the billions of years, billions upon billions of stars is really too much for a human mind to properly grasp. The best we can do is look at it on paper, but to try and visualise 100 billion billion stars (possibly much more) is just not possible.

Think of it this way. If the odds of a planet forming in the universe around a star in the right area to allow for liquid chemicals (too close they turn to gas, to far away they freeze) were 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 to 1 (the odds of you winning the Lottery every week for a year are more likely), it is still guaranteed 100 times in the observable universe.

This is before we consider that the 100 billion billion stars are the stars that exist right now (well at least appear to exist at our point in time).

If we factor in the 13 billion years the universe has been around, and the trillions it has left to go, the odds that a some point in space, at some time in the universe life space, a planet with Earth's properties would form are so likely that it would be hard to imagine it not happening.

But another thing to consider is that even if life is really really unlikely to every appear in the universe at any point in time throughout the trillions of planets and the trillions of years, it could just have been a fluke.

After all the odds of me winning the lottery are 1 in 5 million. But I could still win the lottery. And if I did I wouldn't be looking for a supernatural explanation. Fluke sometimes just happen.

Jakkass wrote: »

The creation of the cosmos can only happen once though? We aren't going to get a redo on the Big Bang?

There are a number of theories in theoretical physics that suggest just that, that the big bang may be something that happens repeatably every few billion trillion years or so.

Now there is little to no observation evidence supporting these, so take all of them with a pinch of salt, but scientists are certainly not ruling out that the big bang may be something that happens more than once.

So say the universe has been expanding and contracting for an infinite amount of time, every few billion trillion years causing a new big bang. You have to multiple the 100 billion billion stars by a trillion years and then by an infinite amount. The odds of life appearing in one of the universes at one point in time around one star, well it becomes guaranteed to happen.

Don't get me wrong, we don't know if the big bang has happened before. Biut if it has and it keeps happening then life becomes even less of an unlikely event.

Jakkass wrote: »

Yes fair enough, I have a basic idea of natural selection, but see my previous point to MatthewVII concerning how life seems to fit like a glove to the world it lives in, it almost seems like there is an intelligence behind it.

The problem is that is doesn't fit well enough for their to be intelligence behind it, at least not in my opinion. Or the intelligence was doing a bit of a hack job at it, and that would certainly rule out God.

Darwinian evolution adapts replicating units to their environment. We know this, you can run a computer program on your PC that will show you this. We know it does this in life also, dogs are a good example.

Evolution makes a "good enough" stab at this, a bit like the Scap Heap Challenge car or rocket or what ever they are building that day. They can't redesign something from scratch, they make the best stab at it and it either works or it doesn't. It doesn't matter if they make a car with a toilet as an engine cover so long as the car moves.

Evolution is a lot like this. It doesn't matter if you have a load of small bones in your ear if you can hear ok enough to survive. You could certainly have a much better designed ear, but you don't need to.

On the other hand if something was designed from scratch to perform a certain function it really shouldn't look like this. Why would a designer of a car use a toilet as an engine cover if he didn't have to. It shouldn't look like something that used to do something else but has now been adapted to do something different.

Jakkass wrote: »

I'm not quite well versed on the anthropic principle.

It basically says that it shouldn't be surprising that you are a human living on Earth, because Earth is a planet where humans evolved, so where else would you be.

It is like pondering how odd it is that I support Dublin in the GAA. Why not Cork, or Kerry, or Wexford. The answer of course is that I was born in Dublin. If I had been born in Wexford I would support them. There is no mystery here, unless some supposes that I had to support Dublin no matter what.

Another example is the question why was I born in 1979 rather than 1978 or 1980, or 1329?

But if I had been born in those years I would be wondering why was I born then and not now.

The idea that life ended up on Earth is not a mystery. We ended up on Earth because that is where our form of life could develop.

ZondaChai

ZondaChai wrote: »

What does that mean, I could take a picture, I'm sure that would prove that there is nothing on my back eating cereal of any kind.
What you can't take a picture of is God, another thing you can't take a picture of is the intellectual arrogance at the soul of every athiest.

What if cameras didn't pick him up? I'm sure some forms of brain scans might have a chance of picking up arrogance - you should look into it.

Zombrex

ZondaChai wrote: »

Another good thing about my personal faith is that it can't be disproven, unless you were there at the very start, you can never know

One assumes you weren't at the very start, so how do you know?

Or is that one of my stupid atheist questions

kiffer

Right, it's late at night and I didn't read any thing after Jakkass's question post, I wanted to answer without worrying about what others are saying... just to see how we compare... also it's largely stream of consciousness, and likely riddled with typos, repetitions, errors of memory and so on.

Take from it what you will.

Jakkass wrote: »

So, I assume that this is based on the Argument from Design then?
I could see the argument going this way if we didn't want to leave it to a ridiculing of Christians. I personally would love if atheists could answer me these things:

1. How does Darwinian evolution give lend to the design and the structure of all living things from the trees we see around us to the sophistication of the human being?

This would require a very long answer in order to be satisfactory I would imagine...
Assuming you actually want to know how modern models would handle it and not how Darwin himself would have handled it.
Keeping it simple, as I am not a biologist...
Natural Selection over time selects for different traits depending on circumstance.
Speciation occurs either because one branch of a species gets isolated from another for long enough that they end up physically/genetically incompatible or through sudden speciation due to chromosomal reversal or other such process... (Ref needed, Wallabies!)
Some mutations are neutral in terms of survival, some are detrimental to the individual or the species, some are beneficial.
In times of plenty and easy stability neutral mutations can build up, often along with less damaging of the negative mutations...
When stress returns to the system you can see rapid changes as many mutations which for sometime were neutral now become more polarized...
This allows for the arrival of mutations which on their first appearance might be minor disadvantages ... but when later combined with other mutations may actually become advantageous when combined with other mutations ...
or they might end up worse... and then get cleared out when the stress levels in the system go up again.
These stable periods during which even weaker, disadvantaged creatures can reproduce with out to much trouble could allow for diversity to increase... by allowing a broad range of a type of creature to survive... I think I'm in danger of repeatedly repeating myself here but there is more that can be said to clear this up...
As I said I'm not a biologist but most of what I've said I've pulled together in vague terms from various sources.
I should ideally have references for most of this, and I'm sure I've read articles generally supporting the Safe Stable Period thing.

2. How does one explain life coming from non-life?

Well... this the point at which scientists often are very willing to say... we don't know... yet.
There are a number of theories but my favorite idea involves feldspar crystals...
Feldspar weathers on contact with water forming various forms of clay... ( )
Clay is a very interesting. It could act as a sort of scaffolding and as catalysts for interesting reactions...

http://www.pnas.org/content/95/26/15173.full

This is a very interesting paper on the topic.
The tiny pits in the weathered feldspar protect and isolate small amounts of basic simple organic (meaning carbon chains not living) molecules...

There are lots of pits...

Parsons et al. 1998 wrote:

...On every mm^2 of weathered feldspar surface, there would have been 10^6 catalytic micro-reactors, open by diffusion to the dynamic reservoir of organic molecules in the primordial soups but protected from the dispersive effects of flow and convection in a fully open system and from ultraviolet radiation. ... Perhaps, in the protected, self-organized environment of the honeycomb, in a few cross-connected reactors out of the 10^18 or so which would occur on a 2.5-km^2 granite outcrop, the complex molecules necessary for the first self-replicating polymer would have assembled.

1000 Billion little chambers acting like proto-cell catalyst/scaffolding on every square metre of shore line.
If the useful zone of this feature was only a metre that straddled the tide line of a 100km long coast.... then there would be 10^17 little proto-cells with lipids and simple organic molecules washing in and out every time the tide turned ... the tide turns twice a day... 365 days a year... for a few million years... in and out of these little cells, with their self organizing crystalline structures acting as a scaffolding and as a catalyst...
100km of coast is nothing, and the tide could easily cover more than a 1 metre range... And of course this may only be one stage or one processing a massive number of different stages and processes, boot strapping life out simple molecules, once you have basic cells or proto-cells, natural selection can come into play more and more...

I don't want to dwell on this too long... it's an area that has lots of interesting ideas but still needs work and I can't give a definitive answer.
Science is not religion ... I can't make up an answer and claim I'm right, answers take time and evidence, and are often not complete.
And there are other hypotheses which may be better... after all that paper is 11 years old...

3. How does one explain things such as a) the placement of the earth in a position which is in the correct distance from the sun, and b) the exact chemical composition being present to sustain life?

This one is both very easy and very hard to answer...
We are only here because the Earth is the right distance from the Sol.
If the solar system had formed differently, with no planet in the habitable zone then we wouldn't be here (I guess you could cram a god in here)... however there are many many stars, so many many chances for planets to form in the habitable zone of some stars.


The exact chemical composition for life?
How do you mean?
That's a very broad question...
I think in order to answer it I'd have to touch off an huge swath of things...
I'm not sure how to handle the question...
How detailed an answer would you like?

Also... the overall chemical composition of earth could have been different and still supported life...

4. How does one defend that the creation of the earth and what is contained in it (this given the assumption that the earth was indeed created) was a natural process when mathematicians and physicists give the figure in the millions of billions of zeroes which is commonly regarded as mathematical impossibility. The assumption I am making in this is that natural is frequently observable, and the creation quite obviously was not observable nor is it frequently.

What? Creationist assume it was created (assuming you mean created as a whole planet instantaneously)...
I'm of the understanding that it formed from the accretion disc around the recently formed Sun... which in turn formed from a collapsing gas cloud made up of the gasses and other material ejected from a number of supernova. (Sounds crazy I know, but there is evidence of about 40 different stellar sources of material found in asteroids)

The odds of a planet forming from a rotating cloud of debris around a star are so good that we have 8 of the blighters in the Solar system (the odds of one appearing fully formed in space are insanely high, no scientist thinks this happened)... electrostatic forces pull small clumps of matter together, until those clumps become large enough for gravity to take over and increase the rate at which the protoplanets grow. Once they are large enough the gravity of these weakly bound clumps will pull them into rough spheres...

Over time these rough planetesimals ram in to each other and build up larger and large bodies... bodies in stable orbit positions survive and sweep up the materials around them... close to the sun the sun has pulled in pretty much everything...

Right... so after a while we have a nice little planet; Earth... a ball of random crud... how does this get from a ball of random elements and crud into the differentiated rocks and layers of this planet?
This answer swings back to some of the stuff I would have used in the answer about the chemistry supporting life thing in the last question...

If you grind up loads of rock of different types and mix them together until you have a mix with the average over all composition of the whole Earth (which interestingly is pretty similar to the average composition of asteroids) and then melt it completely and then let it cool slowly (experiments have been carried out, repeatedly) you find that some minerals form first... using up elements which they contain...
This changes the mix of elements remaining.
As the mix changes and the temperature drops different minerals begin to form... using up different elements.

Generally speaking; First to form is Olivine and Feldspar (depending on the amount of Calcium)... last to form is quartz.
In between are a run of different minerals.
Different minerals have different physical properties, feldspar weathers faster than quartz, producing clay for example.

So on Earth we have a big ball of hot molten rock (hot from heat trapped during collisions and from the decay of radioactive elements), it's pumping out gases including water vapour, but mostly Carbon dioxide and sulpher and such... (I'm working off the top of my head here so I'm not sure of the generally accepted gasses and amounts... pretty sure CO2 is at the top of the list)
As the Earth cools it reaches a point where you've got cooling rocks (probably basalt at this stage) moving around on top of the more molten rocks below and then the temp of the atmosphere drops low enough for the water vapor to condense and fall as rain... Rain lands on the hot rock, cooling more rock, thickening the basaltic layer... which probably still looks like the thin layers floating and convecting on lava flows and lakes (as seen on a small scale in modern volcanic situations)... there are a number of processes going on at this stage (and I'm getting lost with out looking things up as much as I should... plus it's like 01:30 and I want to stop...) so I'm just really waffling on abit...
The water weathers and erosion of the rock occurs, different minerals weather/erode at different rates, remelting the weathered rocks produce rocks of different compositions.
Once life is in place it's pretty self sustaining in terms of chemistry,
the mineral aspects of soil come easily from the weathering of rock, feldspars for clays, quartz for sands and so on.

There are a fair few holes in this post, as I said it's largely off the top of my head...
I'd have to read up on fractional crystallization and various processes of igneous differentiation and a few other topics to even begin to make sense...

Right I've spent too long writing this... and I don't really want to spend any time agonizing over what I've written so I'm dumping it into the thread...

Few requests I have for the people answering these questions:
Do not use a get out clause to get out of the question by answering a counter question, if you have any questions for me leave them at the end so that I can address them if I look at the thread later.
I'm seriously interested in the atheist answers to these questions, so please don't dissapoint and give it your best shot

I might read up some stuff on the Argument From Design (teleological) by both theists and atheists and give some thoughts from their writings. When I studied this last semester I focused on the cosmological argument. If we run out of stuff from the Argument from Design, I'd be interested to discuss other arguments such as the ontological (perhaps the poorest argument for God's existence), cosmological and axiological (from morality, already done to death here) arguments.

I think I may have asked a question in the middle somewhere... it's late and I'm wrecked.

Dades

Man, will the OP be suprised if they ever come back!
This was always going to be a good thread.

ZondaChai

Wicknight wrote: »

One assumes you weren't at the very start, so how do you know?

Or is that one of my stupid atheist questions

Are you asking me that, because the answer was in the sentance right before the one you quoted. I said that nobody can know because nobody was there. I don't have a logical reason for my beliefs, and to be clear there is no logical reasons for my beliefs, but I still believe in them.

Zombrex

ZondaChai wrote: »

Are you asking me that, because the answer was in the sentance right before the one you quoted. I said that nobody can know because nobody was there.

I'm wondering because for someone who wasn't there and doesn't know anything about what the creation of the universe was like you appear to be making some pretty definitive statements about what the creation of the universe was like.

ZondaChai wrote: »

I don't have a logical reason for my beliefs, and to be clear there is no logical reasons for my beliefs, but I still believe in them.

Wonderful. I'm a big supporter of people who choose to believe things that apparently just popped into their head, for no apparent reason. Big up to you man.

Perhaps though it would be wiser to not brandish words such as "stupidity" and "arrogance" towards other people when you yourself hold a belief that you admit you have no reason for holding.

MatthewVII

Jakkass wrote: »

That's interesting, but it doesn't quite explain what I mean. How come we fit so well with the world and it's workings, and how does evolution guarantee that we will fit to the ways of the world? It's just how can one determine if and of itself that every evolutionary move would be positive or even useful in the long run?

Jakkass, you seriously need to learn how evolution works or just stop stubbornly refusing to believe it holds any power if you want to really engage in this argument.

The whole point of evolution is that we develop to better suit our environment (or fit the ways of the world, as you put it). Traits which didn't fit didn't survive.

Things which are positive and useful get selected out and survive longer to pass on to the next generation. This happens ad infinitum over a massive amount of time and leads to highly refined creatures we see today.

If you continue to refuse to accept that this is an extremely robust and logical explanation then this argument is ultimately pointless and proves that the religious can not be swayed even by frank explanations.

robindch

Jakkass wrote: »

How come we fit so well with the world and it's workings, and how does evolution guarantee that we will fit to the ways of the world?

Life fits well because some organisms fit better than others owing to random variation, and the ones that fit better tend to have more offspring which themselves fit better than the offspring of organisms that don't fit quite so well. Over time, organisms will come to fit their environments extremely well.

Jakkass wrote: »

It's just how can one determine if and of itself that every evolutionary move would be positive or even useful in the long run?

Evolution doesn't. That's why there's such a lot of badly-designed stuff out there.

pH

robindch wrote: »

Over time, organisms will come to fit their environments extremely well.Evolution doesn't. That's why there's such a lot of badly-designed stuff out there.

What amazes me is that the opposite is also often true. Even in Ireland recently we've seen grey squirrels pretty much replacing reds, and zebra mussels showing there was a large 'hole' in the ecology just waiting to be filled. What I'm saying is that (on a evolutionary timescale) the environment is in constant change, and when you add to it the parallel evolution of predator species and diseases/parasites there is always plenty of opportunity for change.

robindch

pH wrote: »

What amazes me is that the opposite is also often true.

In an unstable environment, yes it is and you tend to end up with r/K selection and all of the merry messing associated with that.

When things aren't changing so much -- let's keep it easy! -- things generally evolve to an environmentally stable genotypic solution even if the phenotypic populations themselves can go up and down in the standard foxes'n'rabbits style.

5uspect

Jakkass wrote: »

I personally lean to theistic evolution

Weren't you a Creationist?
http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=52973920&postcount=5093

What has changed in two years?

Hivemind187

Goduznt Xzst wrote: »

If you stood under a sycamore tree and looked at its seeds on the ground, it is not unreasonable to assume that the sycamore you see in the distance would also have seeds at its base. Planets are the natural result from the formation of a star, they are not a requisite, but all the conditions are there for them to form.

Rather beautifully put.

2can

I dont know too much about science but if I'm correct the Big Bang Theory has something to do with gases coming together and creating and explosion here we are. Well how did the gases get there? You have to look deep into this arguement and ask what is it all about? Why are we here?

Nobody seems to be able too come up with any explanations as to why we have conscience and emotions.

philologos

Just before I start, I'd like to thank most of you for this being probably one of the best discussions that we have had here for a long time. Particularly what Wicknight, AtomicHorror, -JammyDodger-, and Godunzt Xzst have brought to the table. Some of you haven't been as receptive to the questions, but that's life.

5uspect wrote: »

Weren't you a Creationist?
http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=52973920&postcount=5093

What has changed in two years?

I've evidently changed in two years, and a lot of my views have probably changed in that time. I'm only human. I entertained the idea because a friend of mine who was also a Christian is very much a YEC. However, I don't see any reason now to reject what science is telling us about the world we live in, and I don't see how the science isn't as telling about God and the wonders of the universe than the Bible can be.

JimiTime wrote: »

Yeah, they just 'know' that everyone else has the wrong answers:D

It's what I've found sometimes too. You're not alone

MatthewVII wrote: »

Jakkass, you seriously need to learn how evolution works or just stop stubbornly refusing to believe it holds any power if you want to really engage in this argument.

How am I being stubborn in asking questions? I'm here because I want to learn something new for a change instead of being told that I'm delusional amongst other things. Perhaps it's time to give this forum a real purpose to seek understanding with eachother, and the Christianity forum likewise. Too many people and myself included come in here and it's basically a "you're right" and "you're wrong" answer. Why can't we just try and learn from eachother for a change?

MatthewVII wrote: »

The whole point of evolution is that we develop to better suit our environment (or fit the ways of the world, as you put it). Traits which didn't fit didn't survive.

Yes fair enough, but this survival instinct doesn't answer one of my biggest curiosities about unguided evolution. Why do we evolve to suit our world rather than evolve not to? Or is the idea that we mutate in both positive and negative ways, but through trial and error it eventually evolves in the correct manner? Also, why doesn't something that doesn't fit not survive? It seems almost as if there is some form of intelligence behind it or that there is an intelligence behind the evolutionary process.

MatthewVII wrote: »

Things which are positive and useful get selected out and survive longer to pass on to the next generation. This happens ad infinitum over a massive amount of time and leads to highly refined creatures we see today.

Yes, but why is this the case? Why don't the negative and unuseful continue to develop?

MatthewVII wrote: »

If you continue to refuse to accept that this is an extremely robust and logical explanation then this argument is ultimately pointless and proves that the religious can not be swayed even by frank explanations.

Where in my discussion so far have I refused to accept this? I'm merely trying to find out more information from you about it so that I might be able to understand it on a better level in the future. See this is my problem with the A&A forum, why does everything have to be considered an attack against atheism even when it blatently isn't? Just makes me not want to bother trying to get into meaningful discussion with you.

5uspect

Jakkass wrote: »

I've evidently changed in two years, and a lot of my views have probably changed in that time. I'm only human. I entertained the idea because a friend of mine who was also a Christian is very much a YEC.

Fair enough, you're quite young thats to be expected.

Jakkass wrote: »

However, I don't see any reason now to reject what science is telling us about the world we live in

Indeed.

Jakkass wrote: »

and I don't see how the science isn't as telling about God and the wonders of the universe than the Bible can be.

And you were doing so well!

2can wrote:

Nobody seems to be able too come up with any explanations as to why we have conscience and emotions.

You have a lot to read about Neo-Darwinian Evolution and Cognitive Psychology. May I suggest a helping of The Selfish Gene by Dawkins and How the Mind Works (or the Blank Slate) by Pinker. These go a long way to expounding the sciene you seem to think doesn't exist.

Jakkass

Jakkass wrote: »

Yes fair enough, but this survival instinct doesn't answer one of my biggest curiosities about unguided evolution. Why do we evolve to suit our world rather than evolve not to? Or is the idea that we mutate in both positive and negative ways, but through trial and error it eventually evolves in the correct manner? Also, why doesn't something that doesn't fit not survive? It seems almost as if there is some form of intelligence behind it or that there is an intelligence behind the evolutionary process.

<snip>

Yes, but why is this the case? Why don't the negative and unuseful continue to develop?

This has a simple answer, really.

The random mutations which give the host animal a very very slightly better chance of survival do just that - they help that animal to survive. Just say the mutation led to larger and sharper claws. This animal has a greater chance of killing its prey, and thus, surviving, than any other of its pack, or whatever (all other things being equal, of course). So now, since this animal has a greater chance of surviving, it has a greater chance of having offspring, and thus, passing on its genes - including the one that mutated, which gave it a better chance of survival. This means that this animals offsping have a better chance of populating their local environment with that particular gene.

Now where does the adaptation come in? Since the animal had a greater chance of surviving with larger and sharper claws, that's the one that natural selection "picked" (it didn't really pick, that animal just had a greater chance of surviving). Now, natural selection is a function of the environment which the animal lives in - so if natural selection "picked" that particular trait of have greater survival value (the claws), and since natural selection is a function of the environment, that animal is better adapted to that particular environment.

Any other random mutations that led to a better chance of survival will have a greater chance of being "naturally selected" - thus, over millions of years, that animal will adapt to that particular environment.

To answer your other question, any mutation which has a negative effect on the animal gives it a lower chance of survival, thus, over a long period, that mutation will probably die out: as that animal won't have a high oppertunity of passing on its genes to its offsping.

Any mutation which has a neutral affect on the animal doesn't add any survival value - so it doesn't appeal to natural selection to "pick" it to survive. So, that gene has an average chance of being passed onto offsping and to become abundant in the population.

kiffer

It's worth noting at this point (before some wit asks why we don't have creatures as tough as Rhinos, as fast as cheetahs, with the claws of a massive bear and with gills and wings why not...) that what might be a positive trait today might be a liability tomorrow... and vice verse.

Big claws might help a creature hunt medium sized tough prey, only to find (generations later) that the only thing they have available to eat are insects or other small prey (having run out of larger tough prey), at which point growing large claws is a waste of energy, although it might not be a disadvantage and so isn't selected against... but they are also no longer selected FOR,
Unless of course they slow down the creature, or cause it to grow slower... or prove to be a big enough liability to damage the creatures reproductive chances...
Or are useful for other reasons... claws can help in climbing as well as rending your delicious delicious prey limb from limb... and the ability to climb might be an advantage, helps finding food or avoiding predators thus adds to the chances of reproduction.


EDIT: use of today and tomorrow in the above post should really be something like "at one point" and "in the future, long after that point"...

MatthewVII

Jakkass wrote: »

Again I really don't understand what you mean. I don't agree with the premise that God hasn't had an appreciable impact on the earth. Just look what the concept of God has done to it's inhabitants.

There has been an effect of religion on the earth, religion which is man-made and all of its effects have been mediated by men. God has never made a single clearly identifiable mark on the world.

As for your miscomprehensions of evolution, JammyDodger's post is a good rundown of the basics.

Zombrex

Jakkass wrote: »

Yes fair enough, but this survival instinct doesn't answer one of my biggest curiosities about unguided evolution. Why do we evolve to suit our world rather than evolve not to?

A species can't do anything but evolve to fit the environment.

Mutations are (mostly) random. But natural selection isn't. If a life form or group of life forms have mutated in various ways that they fit better in the environment then natural selection "selects" them by the fact that they breed better or faster than those members of the species that don't have this mutation or set of mutations.

In the great race for resources (food, shelter, protection, mates) if the random mutations are a better fit to the environment then the ones with the new mutation (or set of mutations) are more successful at staying a live and replicating than those without it. They eventually out breed those without the mutation until all that is left are those with the mutation.

And the process repeats ad nausea.

In general mutations that better adapt the species to the environment are the only ones that will last the test of time.

It is a bit more complicated than this in practice, because the environment is constantly changing, and because evolution works in a "good enough" process (mutations that do very little can hang around for a long time so long as they don't decrease the fitness of the species), but in general that is how it works.

It is not that evolution some how knows which mutations to keep and which to not. It is that all mutations arise and it is only the ones that adapt the species that stick around long enough because the others that don't adapt the life form hinder the life forms ability to compete with those than adapt it.

Jakkass wrote: »

Also, why doesn't something that doesn't fit not survive?

Because of finite resource pools. This can be food, this can be safety, this can be a mate.

Say a mutation produces a wolf that has shorter back legs. He cannot run as fast as the rest of the pack he belongs in. He probably won't survive very long because it is not like the pack can look after him by shopping in Tescos. There is a finite amount of food and resources available for the wolves. If the mutated wolf cannot catch his own food because he can't run fast enough he will most likely die off, and relatively quickly. Even if he survives long enough to mate, and his child inheriet his genetic material, they will be at the same disadvantage. It is not hard to see the genetic mutation of "short-back-legs" not lasting very long

On the other hand say the mutation increased the length of the legs so the wolf runs faster than a non-mutated wolf. It doesn't have to be a huge increase, even a small one will give this wolf a strong advantage over the rest of the pack. He is almost guaranteed to always get food, guaranteed to find a mate, guaranteed to pass on is genetic material. And his children if they inherit the mutation will have the same advantage. If there are 10 in the pack and only enough food for 6 wolves, you can be pretty sure that the children will be in the 6 that survive that winter. The children run faster than all the other wolves in the pack. So they survive to mate, where as some of the non-mutated wolves don't. So now you are in the 3rd generation and the mutation that started with the single wolf a while back is present in a large percentage of the pack. And again food is short, only some of the pack will survive the winter and mate. Who do you think it will be? The ones with the faster legs obviously. Over a few generates any of the lineages without the speed mutation have died of. Now all the pack has the speed mutation. Spread this out over a few hundred years and all the wolves in the area will have the speed mutation. Spread this out over a few thousand years and all the wolves on the continent will have the speed mutation.

The mutation that adapted the wolf better than the other wolves survives and spreads. The mutation that hindered the wolf worse than the other wolves didn't. That is natural selection.

I should point out it is natural selection in a bit of a dumbed down form because in real life there would be lots of other mutations happening as well all at the same time, and the environment would be changing as well. It is like tracking a person in a crowd. It is easy to visualize a single person walking through an empty square. It gets more complicated when you try to track 1,000 people walking through a square, as they all interact with each other. But the underlying principle is the same.

Jakkass wrote: »

Yes, but why is this the case? Why don't the negative and unuseful continue to develop?

10 wolves, only enough food for 6. Those with the unhelpful mutations simply won't "beat" the other wolves to the food. They will die without reproducing and as such the mutations in their genetic material will die off as well.

BTW I don't mean to imply that that is the only way it works (hunting food). Anything that decreases the odds a life form surviving until they reproduce is a decrease in "fitness" and anything that increases the changes a life form will live long enough to reproduce is an increase in "fitness". This can be the ability to run faster to get food, but it could also be a slight change in ear shape in a rabbit that allows it to hear the predator a split second before everyone else, or a slight change to the size of a whale's lungs that allows it to say under water for a few minutes more than all the other whales.