Evolution for Dummies...Edit.....is for Dummies

POSTED BY: kaneman
UPDATED: Saturday, March 10, 2007 06:19
VIEWED: 23475
PAGE 6 of 12

PREV PAGE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 NEXT PAGE

HEB

Thursday, October 12, 2006 10:41 PM

The anthropic principle does at least fit in with mathematical theories like String theory which proposes a large number of universes. I wasn't saying that the anthropic principle was the answer but that it is an answer to that problem that is equally (if not more) valid an answer to that question than God. I would also argue that since we know that this universe exists, it takes less faith to believe that there are more universes out there than it does to believe that there is a creator out there.

Well if the Creator has always existed then why can't the universe have always existed? Perhaps bouncing back and forth in a infinite number of different forms, in which case we could just happen to be in the one correctly fine tuned for life to exist.

...................
Well, my sister's a ship... we had a
complicated childhood
.................
I wear the cheese. It does not wear me.

AURAPTOR

Thursday, October 12, 2006 11:04 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by kaneman:
The fossil record. Wow now talk about being misnamed. As if it is a liner record of life. Or branched record of life. Yah right. Not one species can ever be shown to split, never mind change all together. The missing link, what a joke. Stop looking for it. Try looking for any of the billions of missing links..Billions. When one is found let me know Don't waste my time. An alien once landed in Roswell. Don't look I think there is a monster in the closet.

Right. There are no missing links. That's because the term is a misnomer. Life is NOT linear, but then no one ever said it was.(Despite what some lame a$$ H.S. biology books tout. ) Life evolves more in a tree like fashion, with many branches sprouting off of one. Many branches come to dead ends, but not all. The fossil record is a history of those items which have become fossilized. There are gaps simply because not everything that has ever lived dies in a fossil friendly enviroment. Since kaneman can't explain why there are no dinosaurs ever found in strata which is younger than 67 million yrs, or why no dinosaur fossils have ever been found in the same strata as say.... any contemporary animals, any further discussion is pointless.

Learn some paleontology before you make any more idiotic comments.

People love a happy ending. So every episode, I will explain once again that I don't like people. And then Mal will shoot someone. Someone we like. And their puppy. - Joss

" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "

REAVERMAN

Thursday, October 12, 2006 11:06 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by cartoon:

Yes, I've heard of that. But certainly, you aren't proposing there's any "evidence" for any such theory. It takes a far greater degree of faith to believe in the occurrence of an infinite number of alternate universes than it does to believe that an infinite God exists who made everything "just right" to sustain life.

Actually there is more evidence for that than for creationism. I am not familiar with the mathmatics involved, but there is mathematical evidence for it. Just ask a theoretical physicist and they'll tell you all about it.

You're welcome on my boat. God ain't.

SIMONWHO

Thursday, October 12, 2006 11:32 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by cartoon:
It takes a far greater degree of faith to believe in the occurrence of an infinite number of alternate universes than it does to believe that an infinite God exists who made everything "just right" to sustain life.

It doesn't have to be an infinite number. That's just a concept but the only universe in which a lifeform can think "How did this universe end up so?" is one where life can be produced.

Now explain to me why that requires more faith than imagining a magical being with omnipotent powers came into being (in a manner beyond our comprehension) and set up our universe.

RUE

Thursday, October 12, 2006 11:54 PM

"Actually there is more evidence for that than for creationism. I am not familiar with the mathmatics involved, but there is mathematical evidence for it. Just ask a theoretical physicist and they'll tell you all about it."

I can't remember the name of the book - it came out about 2yrs ago I think. It was written by a mathemetician.

In it he shows how simple rules, with repetition, generate complex, non-repeating, asymmetrical patterns that 'evolve'. And there are 'evolutionary' mathematical models that demonstrate survival and reproduction using simple random changes and 'fitness' rules.

Generation of complex creations and survival of the fittest are completely mathematically proven as inevitable outcomes of simple rules applied over time.

SIGNYM

Friday, October 13, 2006 12:47 AM

Yeah, Stephen Wolfram. I skimmed thru his book when it came out... I think its a good point (kind of like how fractals create very recognizable "natural" forms).

www.wolframscience.com/nksonline/page-52?firstview=1

---------------------------------
Reality sucks. Especially when it contradicts our cherished ideas.

YINYANG

Friday, October 13, 2006 2:30 AM

Quote:
such pride coming from the athiest camp; you guys really are the supreme intellects of space and time

who are we to argue with such omniscient beings as yourselves, knowing both the seen and unseen forces of the universe

i now bow to man, god of his own conscience

That's a pretty broad brush you're painting with, antimason. It's like me calling you a selfish right-wing Republican fundamentalist, or dismissing you as someone who can't even be bothered to read the book their entire religion revolves around. I think I'm correct when I say neither is true...

(/random comment)

---
"What the world needs now is love, sweet love - it's the only thing that there's just too little of. What the world needs now is love, sweet love. No, not just for some, but for everyone."

Trouble-Maker in the House!

http://richlabonte.net/tvvote

RUE

Friday, October 13, 2006 2:44 AM

SignyM

THANK YOU. It was driving me crazy* ! For the life of me I couldn't remember either the title or the author.

* Some might say it's a short trip.

SIGMANUNKI

Friday, October 13, 2006 4:11 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by cartoon:

Quote:
Originally posted by Sigmanunki:

Also, we science minded people are not "supreme intellects of space and time" etc etc etc. We do the work, publish, reproduce (verify) results, and default to a greater authority when one exists.

Would "default(ing) to a greater authority when one exists" include the current Nobel Prize winner for physics, George Smoot (who, clearly doesn't believe that the universe evolved)?

Don't cherry pick your examples and expect someone not to point it out. So, with that in mind, I call bullshit on this so called example as he is just one voice against... well... couldn't count them all. Not to mention that evolution isn't exactly his field. So, this guy isn't even a "greater authority".

Quote:
Originally posted by cartoon:

And unless anyone thinks Smoot was a "fringe lunatic" who just happened to slip past the Nobel committee... Stephen Hawking called Smoot’s 1992 discovery of small ripples in the fabric of the early universe as "the discovery of the century, if not of all time." So, apparently, Hawking doesn't think Smoot's an "idiot", either.

Just b/c someone isn't a idiot in his own feild does NOT mean that they aren't an idiot in another.

Nice try, but again, bullshit.

Care to take another try?

Quote:
Originally posted by antimason:

if youll notice, i said "athiest" not evolutionist. i dont dispute that a degree of evolution does occur, i just dont think it is the sole mechanism of creation in the universe. an athiest does not subscribe to any omnipresent being.. that is what im talking about

Please re-read my post. You clearly haven't understood it.

Quote:
Originally posted by cartoon:

Seriously. How many "believers" have come out of Berkeley?!?!?

Assloads! The problem with you, is that you equate "believer" with exactly what you believe.

Quote:
Originally posted by cartoon:

Hi, Heb. No. I can understand you're saying this, and you are correct -- if indeed, Smoot was endorsing a book about "biology". He wasn't. Heeren's book ("Show Me God") is not about the origin of "life", but is about the origins of the cosmos, its make-up, and fine-tuning (something about which Mr. Smoot is eminently qualified to comment). (BTW, Heeren's second volume is going to be about the origin of life.)

Yay, well, how about giving us the title of that book. Or better yet the ISBN or a link to somewhere that we can actually look at it?

Quote:
Originally posted by cartoon:

Yes, I've heard of that. But certainly, you aren't proposing there's any "evidence" for any such theory. It takes a far greater degree of faith to believe in the occurrence of an infinite number of alternate universes than it does to believe that an infinite God exists who made everything "just right" to sustain life.

Actually, from the wife (phd in theoretical physics) the many worlds theory is a well worked out mathematical theory. So...

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:

Yeah, Stephen Wolfram. I skimmed thru his book when it came out... I think its a good point (kind of like how fractals create very recognizable "natural" forms).

There's actually significant problems with that book. The main one being that it was self-published. Wolfram himself isn't exactly the most stable person in the world either.

EDIT: It's not the fractal thing that I disagree w/. It's just that Wolfram has seemed to take the approach that everything comes from celluar autommata, which IMO is rather... um... yay.

Sorry about the spelling, it's a late night.

----
I am on The List. We are The Forsaken and we aim to burn!
"We don't fear the reaper"

CARTOON

Friday, October 13, 2006 2:50 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SigmaNunki:
Not to mention that evolution isn't exactly his field. So, this guy isn't even a "greater authority".

You obviously failed to read my previous post. Heeren's book is about cosmology, and that is Smoot's field of expertise. Of course, I don't know how seriously I can take the comments of someone who claims to respect science, yet refuses to believe what Stephen Hawking says about Smoot (also mentioned above) -- not to mention the Nobel committee -- and recognize him as a "greater authority".

Quote:
Originally posted by SigmaNunki:
Just b/c someone isn't a idiot in his own feild does NOT mean that they aren't an idiot in another.

Again, I refer to the comments made about Smoot by Stephen Hawking and his recent Nobel prize. What praise has Hawking brandished about anyone in this forum?

And again---Smoot was commenting about a book precisely within his field of expertise -- cosmology. Maybe large segments of my posts have become invisible, that I have to keep repeating myself.

Quote:
Originally posted by SigmaNunki:
Nice try, but again, bullshit.

Easily, a well-thought, scientific response. Clearly more superior to my inane ramblings. (And certain people wonder why I ignore things posted by them.)

PREV PAGE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 NEXT PAGE

Evolution for Dummies...*Edit*.....is for Dummies

Evolution for Dummies...Edit.....is for Dummies