Oolon Colluphid

I’ll take bets we just don’t hear from him again.

And yes, everyone should memorise one or two of these. They are the simplest knock-down to ID I’ve heard.

Kevin did a splendid job a while back updaing ‘my’ long list of these, with some great additions and a few corrections, but the change in software has left the copious links all screwy. Here it is nevertheless. And if it’s easier to read, here is the older version.

Cheers, DT

Starboy

Keith, please read the posts more carefully. I am not saying that. I am saying that species react to their environment. That reaction has the effect of either changing them so that that they can better survive in that environment or they become extinct. That is all I am saying. That is one of the core ideas of TOE. It is not a difficult idea to comprehend. What appears to be giving you fits it how the environment can act like a sorting mechanism without some kind of creative intelligence involved.

One more time, for what its worth, I will try to get the primary mechanism of TOE through to you by using an analogy. The primary mechanism of TOE works by filtering random variations. A random variation is a distribution around an average value. As an analogy consider a network of branches crossing a stream. Upstream from the branches the distribution of debris sizes in the stream is a random distribution around an average value. Down stream the distribution is not. The debris is reacting to the environment. This is the primary mechanism of TOE. It is well documented.

You may say that it was no accident that the branches are across the stream, but in order to show this you will have to identify a person, a motive, and an opportunity. The fact of the mechanism of how the debris is sorted by the branches is not in doubt.

So in the case of TOE the facts of the mechanism are in little doubt. If there is a creator it used TOE and it would have to do it by manipulating the environment. If you insist a creator did manipulate the environment, you must first establish the being that did it, the motive and how it was done. If you do not do this you will convince no one! Attacking TOE is just stupid and a waste of time.

Starboy

Principia

If I may... even before you do all that, you have to establish that these Creators exist with independently verifiable evidence. Otherwise, don't even bother science about your faith.

Starboy

Indeed.

Happy Wonderer

Say again? One individual bat is intelligently designed to have more kids than other intelligently designed bats?

Let's read my question again:
And your answer is that it reproduces better because it is intelligently DESIGNED to reproduce, and reproduce very well. This is unresponsive to the question. How does an individual bat crowding out its peers by monopolizing the insect supply supposedly show "purpose?"

Why not? The space shuttle took on the order of three decades to design. Echolocation in bats has been developed by trial-and-error for much longer.

HW

Ahh-choo! Snork.. (Allergic to straw.)

Keith

No, but if I noticed that most soccer players seemed focused on scoring, I would start thinking that scoring was sort of the whole point to soccer. If I observe that every living thing on earth seems to be focused on reproduction and other survival matters, it is perfectly reasonable to think that life-forms are focused on carrying on successive generations. Living things show design and purpose. As you are seeing, it is futile to say otherwise.

Keith

Keith

I have not said that. I don't need to explain why some species of bats do not echolocate. The TOE is not what I'm defending. I'm arguing that if TOE is true, then miracles happen. You can't have evolution (at least any of the current versions) without also invoking the supernatural. If evolution (and therefore nature) is telling us anything, it is telling us that nature is designed and purposeful.

Keith

Keith

If a spider catches a fly in its spider web, was it in any sense purposeful or did the fly just happen to get caught in a web that the spider just happened to build for no reason?

Keith

Principia

There was no way to mistake that, Keith. Don't worry. Unsupported assertion. Unsupported assertion. You have no logical coherent argument, Keith. That's my point. If nature is designed and purposeful, that does not require a supernatural explanation. Sorry, you have had, what, 8 pages to explain to us your point, and yet you keep repeating unsupported claims. I don't find the argument impressive.

Keith

Your analysis here is not very honest. If TOE is nothing more than the observation that life forms change and that some survive, then most books that attempt to explain TOE would be about one half of one page in length.

As you know, books on TOE make numerous speculations as to why some evolved traits facilitated the survival of a particular species. You can even learn why echolocation systems probably evolved. You will find that echolocation has a lot to do with bat survival. Yet we are supposed to believe that nature is devoid of purpose? If nature is devoid of purpose, why does anything evolve?

Keith