Super Genius Thread- Evolution Connection

[David Sklansky]

I just wanted to share what I think is an ironic twist regarding my stance about the top scientists. My contention is that these scintists are so much better at thinking than most people, that to disagree with them about almost anything they have deeply thought about is a recipe for being wrong. And that observers on the sideline should bet on the scientists especially if they are not themselves expert in the subject.

Some philospher types disagree which I find funny because my point is the strongest argument for not teaching creationism in the schools. (I'm not saying it is the strongest argument against creationism. I'm saying it is the strongest argument to be used on an uneducated board of education member to stop it from being taught.)

But the real irony involves the religious types who also disagree with my assessmnt of the great mental superiority the best scientists posess. Because I try to prove that contention with the statement that I believe that we would never achieve anything like we have today, at least technologically speaking, if it wasn't for these few great minds. And they come back with the comment that all our advances would eventually occur anyway as we muddle along improving things.

See the irony? They are arguing FOR evolution and I am arguing AGAINST it. Its related to a different subject but the principle is the same. Ipods I believe just couln't happen unless there was a brilliant intelligent designer (or a series of them). Mediocrities could never (more precisely there is a miniscule probability) come up with it. There is a limit to how complex something can become just because of a natural progression to improve. Exactly the argument creationists use.

Not trying to prove anything here. Just food for thought.

[Exsubmariner]

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But the real irony involves the religious types who also disagree with my assessmnt of the great mental superiority the best scientists posess. Because I try to prove that contention with the statement that I believe that we would never achieve anything like we have today, at least technologically speaking, if it wasn't for these few great minds. And they come back with the comment that all our advances would eventually occur anyway as we muddle along improving things.

See the irony? They are arguing FOR evolution and I am arguing AGAINST it. Its related to a different subject but the principle is the same. Ipods I believe just couln't happen unless there was a brilliant intelligent designer (or a series of them). Mediocrities could never (more precisely there is a miniscule probability) come up with it. There is a limit to how complex something can become just because of a natural progression to improve. Exactly the argument creationists use.



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So are you saying the universe got where it is because of a few great Gods pushing things within it to ever more complicated and higher forms? That's not an arguement for evolution, that's an arguement for polytheism.

[img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[Utah]

[ QUOTE ]
See the irony? They are arguing FOR evolution and I am arguing AGAINST it. Its related to a different subject but the principle is the same. Ipods I believe just couln't happen unless there was a brilliant intelligent designer (or a series of them). Mediocrities could never (more precisely there is a miniscule probability) come up with it. There is a limit to how complex something can become just because of a natural progression to improve. Exactly the argument creationists use.

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You cant have brilliant intelligent designers of an ipod without a brilliant intelligent designer of the brillian intelligent designers. For, if the brilliant intelligent designers were created by chance that the ipod is created by chance as well.

Before I ever looked at the subject, I always thought the strongest probability for a God was simply, "because I have heard Beethoven". Randomness and chance could never create something of such beauty.

I highly recommend <u>God and the New Physics</u> by Paul Davies who discusses this exact issue in chapter 12 - "Accident or design". This is the only book I have ever read that does a good job of tying together religon and physics. It is also a great book for a general overview before delving off into more detailed reading elsewhere.

The chapter starts out {slightly updated}:

"In his book Natural Theology William Paley (1743-1805) articulated one of the most powerful arguments for the existence of God:

In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there : I might possibly answer, that, for anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever; nor would it, perhaps, be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I found an ipod upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the ipod happened to be in that place. I should hardly think of the answer I had given before - that, for anything I knew, the watch might always have been there. Yet, why should not the answer serve for the watch as for the stone?"

I dont have time to write much about the books covering of this topic. However, the chapter above very briefly touches on:
Teleology
Darwin
Swinburne
Thermodynamics
Boltzmann
Poincare cycle
Brandon Carter, strong anthropic principle
Logical positivism
many-universes theory
Order out of chaos

To quickly touch on the chance of randomness - the chapter states that the random chance a liter of air will order itself to one side of a box is absurdly small - 10^10^20, which is 1 followed by 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 zeros.

[Borodog]

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Before I ever looked at the subject, I always thought the strongest probability for a God was simply, "because I have heard Beethoven". Randomness and chance could never create something of such beauty.

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Randomness and chance didn't. Beethoven did.

Nor did randomness and chance create Beethoven.

Evolution is about very non-random selection. The randomization of things like mutation simply provides the variation that non-random selection acts on.

This point is so simple and so fundamental to evolution that I have to believe that the people who refuse to understand it, and go about saying things like "randomness and chance could never create Beethoven", are being deliberately obtuse.

[Utah]

[ QUOTE ]
Evolution is about very non-random selection. The randomization of things like mutation simply provides the variation that non-random selection acts on.

This point is so simple and so fundamental to evolution that I have to believe that the people who refuse to understand it, and go about saying things like "randomness and chance could never create Beethoven", are being deliberately obtuse.

[/ QUOTE ]My apologies. I stated that poorly. I meant to say that non-random selection through evolution could never create Beethoven - ie, the chain of evolution would never get there. Note that I qualified my statement in the way I phrased it. It was purely and emotional argument with little validity in discussing evolution.

[Borodog]

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Evolution is about very non-random selection. The randomization of things like mutation simply provides the variation that non-random selection acts on.

This point is so simple and so fundamental to evolution that I have to believe that the people who refuse to understand it, and go about saying things like "randomness and chance could never create Beethoven", are being deliberately obtuse.

[/ QUOTE ]My apologies. I stated that poorly. I meant to say that non-random selection through evolution could never create Beethoven - ie, the chain of evolution would never get there.

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Argumentum ad ignorantium.

Can you imagine a composer just slightly less skilled than Beethoven that you would still enjoy?

If you can, then you must admit that the mechanisms of evolution clearly work. If you claim you can't, I will again accuse you of intellectual dishonesty. Not to be blunt or rude, but this is a critically fundamental point.

[Utah]

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Argumentum ad ignorantium.

Can you imagine a composer just slightly less skilled than Beethoven that you would still enjoy?

If you can, then you must admit that the mechanisms of evolution clearly work. If you claim you can't, I will again accuse you of intellectual dishonesty. Not to be blunt or rude, but this is a critically fundamental point.

[/ QUOTE ]Hold on cowboy. I am not arguing against evolution at all and you are reading WAY too much into that comment. I am a strong proponent of evolution and sexual selection.

[Borodog]

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Argumentum ad ignorantium.

Can you imagine a composer just slightly less skilled than Beethoven that you would still enjoy?

If you can, then you must admit that the mechanisms of evolution clearly work. If you claim you can't, I will again accuse you of intellectual dishonesty. Not to be blunt or rude, but this is a critically fundamental point.

[/ QUOTE ]Hold on cowboy. I am not arguing against evolution at all and you are reading WAY too much into that comment. I am a strong proponent of evolution and sexual selection.

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Ok. I'm not sure how this jibes with your earlier statements, though.

[vhawk01]

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For, if the brilliant intelligent designers were created by chance that the ipod is created by chance as well.



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This statement was almost self-evidently true for thousands of years. Right up until Darwin entirely destroyed it. Evolution is the only method (that I've ever seen) whereby complexity can be derived from simplicity. It is the ONLY answer to the 'turtles all the way down' problem.

[Borodog]

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For, if the brilliant intelligent designers were created by chance that the ipod is created by chance as well.



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This statement was almost self-evidently true for thousands of years. Right up until Darwin entirely destroyed it. Evolution is the only method (that I've ever seen) whereby complexity can be derived from simplicity. It is the ONLY answer to the 'turtles all the way down' problem.

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And it's such a profoundly simple, elegant, and powerful answer. Truly beautiful.