Creation vs. Evolution

[Keef]

Yes, and it just happened to take place here. Jeez, I luv this arguing stuff! I understand both sides here, and it seems like they're kind of talking about different aspects of the whole evolution timeline. Yes, it was bound to happen. That's the "not an accident" part that danoff is squealing. It just happened to happen here is the "it was random" theory that Swift is slanging around. Both are true, it seems to me. It was a gloriously calculated accident.

 

[Danoff]

Yes, and it just happened to take place here.

Here is where it happened . If it had happened elsewhere , that place would be " here " and " here " would be " elsewhere ".

It was a gloriously calculated accident.

It doesn't sound like an accident to me at all.

 

[Delirious]

How does Darwin view women?

Simple question...simple answer?

 

[Touring Mars]

How does Darwin view women?

Simple question...simple answer?

I'm not sure what his views on women were... but I don't see it being overly relevant to his status historically...however, he was married in 1839, so given the context of the time in which he lived, his attitudes towards women were most likely quite different to what we'd expect today - but the fact that he and his wife had 10 children together suggests that he was doing something right... he did marry his cousin though...

There's a bit about Darwin on Wikipedia here... an interesting paragraph says:

Scientifically pondering his career and prospects he drew up a list with columns headed "Marry" and "Not Marry". Entries in the pro-marriage column included "constant companion and a friend in old age ... better than a dog anyhow," while listed among the cons were "less money for books" and "terrible loss of time." The pros won out. He discussed the prospect of marriage with his father then went to visit his cousin Emma on 29 July 1838. He did not get around to proposing, but against his father's advice he told her of his ideas on transmutation. While his thoughts and work continued in London over the autumn he suffered repeated bouts of illness. On 11 November he returned and proposed to Emma, once more telling her his ideas. She accepted, but later wrote beseeching him to read from the Gospel of St. John a section on love and following the Way which also states that "If a man abide not in me...they are burned". He sent a warm reply which eased her concern, but she would continue to worry that his lapses of faith could endanger her hope that they would meet in afterlife.

I'd imagine that being a fairly rationally minded person, Darwin was probably not the most romantic human being on Earth - drawing up a list of reasons for and against marriage for example... some people might view this as being clinical and remote, others may think it is quaint or even quite funny... either way, I think Darwin probably struggled mostly with the fact that his career as a scientist put many demands on his time (and resources)... something that women also do to you...

 

[Perfect Balance]

The way danoff is putting random, it almost makes nothing seem random, because if you literally take the meaning of random, then even picking a certain color marble out of a bag of colorfull marbles isn't random, even if there is an equal amount of each, as maybe some of them are at the bottom of the bag, so they are less likely to be picked, or maybe the persons hand is facing a certain way, that makes picking marbles in a certain place easier. You are taking "random" to such an extreme level, that nothing appears random anymore. Everything is affected by other things some way or another.

 

[Keef]

That's right, PB. Everything does effect everything else, and, if you really get down to it, nothing is random. But then why is that word in our language? I understand danoff's view, and I understand my view and Swift's view and your view, I just don't know how far to take the definition of "random". I guess, since you pointed that out with the mrarble-in-the-bag example, that I'm sticking with danoff's idea that everything is caused by something. Most likely that something is not God, but something far more rational. Doesn't that all tie in with the Chaos Theory? I believe that theory to be very true, but it's fairly impossible to test.

 

[Danoff]

The way danoff is putting random, it almost makes nothing seem random, because if you literally take the meaning of random, then even picking a certain color marble out of a bag of colorfull marbles isn't random, even if there is an equal amount of each, as maybe some of them are at the bottom of the bag, so they are less likely to be picked, or maybe the persons hand is facing a certain way, that makes picking marbles in a certain place easier. You are taking "random" to such an extreme level, that nothing appears random anymore. Everything is affected by other things some way or another.

Almost nothing is truly random. Lots of things, on the otherhand, are very well approximated as random or chaotic. Take, for example, turbulent flow over a surface - there is a reason for every little nuance that happens in turbulent flow, it's a physical process that could theoretically be modeled perfectly... or you can assume it's chaotic and go with it.

Weather patterns are what amounts to turbulent flow over the surface of the earth. Human beings spend most of their time in the turbulent boundary layer of our atmosphere as it flows over the surface of the planet. Weather occurs in that turbulent flow. We could just say weather is a chaotic event (which in some sense it really is) or we could try to predict it by very carefully modeling all of the effects. It's a tough problem, and that's why weather forecasters don't typically get it just right, and why we can't predict the weather very well too far in advance.

There are lots of things that can be modeled as perfectly random. But you have to try not to get hung up on the details in this discussion. Sure, it's random whether or not it rains on tuesday. But is it random that it rained this year? The probability that it will rain in a given year wherever you live is most likely 0.999999.

Yes, it may have been unlikely that lightning would hit a sea of amino acids on a particular day, or even a particular planet. But as the number of planets in the universe goes to infinity, the probability that it will occur somewhere goes to 1. Just like rain (which can be seen as random) is a natural consequence of our planet's composition and is guaranteed to happen, life is a natural consequence of our universe's compisition and it appears was guaranteed to happen. The probability of life, and of intelligent life occuring is something we still don't have a good handle on (can't get a good probability density function when you only have one data point). But what I said earlier still stands, as planets-> infinity, probability of life -> 1.

 

[Perfect Balance]

When you say the probability of life is 1, do you mean out of an infinite amount of planets?



( I was thinking, you said rain can be viewed as random, but then again, your argument could also apply to rain too, as it isn't random, because maybe geographical features keep rain from reaching a place as easily, so the chances are not the same. Yes, it is going to happen, but the place isn't random.) In fact, I can't think of anything in the world that is truly random.

 

[Keef]

Yes, he means that there are so many planets out there, it is absolutely inevitable that life will be on at least one of them. There are trillions of planet, I'm sure, in our universe, and we can't see 99% of them. There is so many that there is a 100% chance it will happen somewhere. The chances are just overwhelming.

 

[Niels]

Yes, he means that there are so many planets out there, it is absolutely inevitable that life will be on at least one of them. There are trillions of planet, I'm sure, in our universe, and we can't see 99% of them. There is so many that there is a 100% chance it will happen somewhere. The chances are just overwhelming.

You cant say 100%.

It might be very stupid to say, but remember that if you dont know it, nothing is certain, we could as well be totally alone but with our knowledge there's one HUGE possibility that there's life on another planet.

It is 99,99999999999999% sure maybe, or with even more 9's behind it, but the fun part of this is that you cant just assume it. We havent discovered everything yet, and dont know everything yet. I think it's very fun that some things are still out there to be discovered, such as alien life, and to make it more fun I will not draw conclusions too fast.

We could as well discover something tomorow wich makes alien life IMPOSSIBLE. You NEVER NEVER NEVER know, untill there's undoubtable proof that aliens excist.

Edit: I hope there's a chance I will see this thread get locked, because there's official proof that aliens arrived on earth Imagine THAT!

 

[Famine]

He wasn't talking about alien life. He was talking about life. The probability of it happening somewhere IS 1 (100%), because it has happened.

 

[Niels]

He was talking about "life on one of them" refering to other planets and moons and stuff. Wich can only mean alien life.

 

[Danoff]

He was talking about "life on one of them" refering to other planets and moons and stuff. Wich can only mean alien life.

No, he was talking about the probability of any life occuring anywhere in the universe once. It did happen (here).

As the number of planets/moons/asteroids/comets -> infinity in the universe, the probability of life occuring in at least one place -> 1.

 

[Keef]

Danoff, what do you mean "he". We were talking about you, because you're the one who said the probability of life is 1, or 100%. Or did you forget? Or am I now mixed up? I'm as sure as life that you said it, though.

EDIT: Does your little "->" mean "approaches" or "equals"?

 

[Danoff]

Danoff, what do you mean "he".

I meant me, it was supposed to be funny.

EDIT: Does your little "->" mean "approaches" or "equals"?

Approaches

 

[Keef]

I understand thae fact that the probability of life is 100% since it has happened. In your example are you incuding the fact that it has happened, or are you assuming it hasen't, because infinity is an asymptote, which means 1, 100% probability, is also an asymptote. You say "approaches" which implies that the probability will never equal 1, but will get infinitely closer. So I assume that this is the scenario that says life hasen't occured yet, because that would be true. Even if it hadn't occured yet, I'd just round the probability up to 1 because Famine's numbers are so huge it's fairly impossible for life to not happen.
But if we are the only life left in the universe, which I don't believe, I would feel pretty obligated to get this life thing right the first time and insure that humans and bunny rabbits are always present in the universe.

 

[Danoff]

I'm speaking about the probability of life forming the universe (which has happened). Specifically, I'm trying to figure out what the odds are that we'd be here - the odds that life would exist in the universe. I'm trying to address the question of whether we're a scientific fluke of randomness, or a highly probable result of the composition of the universe. Which is why I said the almost useless phrase "as the number of planets approaches infinity, the probability of life occuring approaches 1".

In other words,

If one believes there is an infinte number of planets in the universe, one can assume that life would necessarily exist. Which would prove that we are, in fact, a necessary outcome of our universe.

 

[Keef]

Gotcha. Now that I see that paragraph 1 and paragraph 2 are two seperate ideas I understand both. I thought before that they were both the same idea, and that just didn't make sense.
And your phrase wasn't useless, it's pretty much the answer to the question of the probability of life. That's about as far as you can narrow it down.

 

[Sage]

Seems like last time I checked in on this conversation several weeks ago, ya’ll were discussing the exact same thing – come’n guys, progress!

I still think the thread title is misleading though.

 

[Touring Mars]

Seems like last time I checked in on this conversation several weeks ago, ya’ll were discussing the exact same thing – come’n guys, progress!

I still think the thread title is misleading though.

Unfortunately that is the way the Creator made it... the thread has evolved to look like something quite different to what it started out like though... Some people feel like this thread has been going for millions of years, but infact it has only really been going for a few thousand posts... (of course, ours is surely not the only thread out there?... the internet is a vast place with billions of computers, each one with the potential to spawn a thread of its own... ok, I'm taking this too far now, aren't I? )

But seriously....I think the thread title is a little bit misleading too, but it's probably preferable to something like 'The Creation v Evolution Debate and the Origins of Life' - maybe just the 'Origins of Life', or 'Life, The Universe and Everything' (perhaps a fitting homage to Douglas Adams - not that this would be biased in any way whatsoever )

 

[DQuaN]

Well, we have the Archbishop of Canterbury on the side of the evolutionists.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,1735730,00.html

 

[Touring Mars]

Well, we have the Archbishop of Canterbury on the side of the evolutionists.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,1735730,00.html

Hallelujah... Nice find Dunc,... remind me to pop into the Cathedral the weekend after next when I'll be in Canterbury...

Archbishop of Canterbury:- " My worry is creationism can end up reducing the doctrine of creation rather than enhancing it,".

This is something I particularly agree with - and I'm glad to see someone in a position of religious authority having the guts to say it... also, he has to sense to make the distinction between 'creation' (the actual event) and 'creationism', the mumbo-jumbo pseudoscience that is used to attempt to explain it.

 

[Swift]

This is something I particularly agree with - and I'm glad to see someone in a position of religious authority having the guts to say it... also, he has to sense to make the distinction between 'creation' (the actual event) and 'creationism', the mumbo-jumbo pseudoscience that is used to attempt to explain it.

Anyone that tries to explain creation with science is just plain dumb. Certainly there are aspects that can be explained, but just like the creation of the universe, there is NO concrete scientific evidence for creation.

So while I can see where the Archbishop is coming from, also, he didn't say he didn't believe it, just that it isn't for schools to teach it. And that makes this article the most relevant to the thread title in a few pages.

 

[DQuaN]

And that makes this article the most relevant to the thread title in a few pages.

Glad to do my bit.

I'll leave you all to it now.

 

[Pako]

In regards to the origin of life, the universe and all that we know; teach all that is possible without exclusion or don't teach any uncertainties at all. Once you start excluding possible answers to life's questions then the education process is limited by our own preconceived outcomes.

 

[Danoff]

In regards to the origin of life, the universe and all that we know; teach all that is possible without exclusion or don't teach any uncertainties at all. Once you start excluding possible answers to life's questions then the education process is limited by our own preconceived outcomes.

That's simply not possible Pako. Literally teaching every possible scenario for the origin of life would take an infinite amount of time because there are an infinite number of possibilities.

You'd have to teach the amino acid business, God, the flying spaghetti monster, the matrix, the stay puffed marshmellow man theory, the aboriginal kangaroo creator, as well as complete discussion of greek mythology.

They'd also have to teach the possibility that you are a supreme being and created the universe. Same thing for each individual in the class and in the world.

 

[Pako]

That's simply not possible Pako. Literally teaching every possible scenario for the origin of life would take an infinite amount of time because there are an infinite number of possibilities.

You'd have to teach the amino acid business, God, the flying spaghetti monster, the matrix, the stay puffed marshmellow man theory, the aboriginal kangaroo creator, as well as complete discussion of greek mythology.

They'd also have to teach the possibility that you are a supreme being and created the universe. Same thing for each individual in the class and in the world.

Then how about teaching just the most commonly accepted possibilities?

 

[Danoff]

Then how about teaching just the most commonly accepted possibilities?

Right now or anytime in history? By Americans or the world? Can you explain your choices in both cases? (think taxpayers)

 

[Pako]

Exactly, so who decides what our children are taught and what is excluded from being taught in the school system? The board of education? Parents? Religious leaders? The Government? Until we know for sure about our origins, it's unjust to just teach one theory as fact in the school systems world wide.

 

[Danoff]

Exactly, so who decides what our children are taught and what is excluded from being taught in the school system? The board of education? Parents? Religious leaders? The Government? Until we know for sure about our origins, it's unjust to just teach one theory as fact in the school systems world wide.

Like I said, that's an impossible feat. There have been too many commonly accepted myths throughout history for them all to be taught. Hell even if you just restrict it to "right now" there are probably thousands of "commonly accepted" creation myths.