Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Jonesy · 03-26-2002, 06:28 AM

Here's a quote from a respected MIT professor, taken from the following article:

Can Evolution Produce an Eye? Not a Chance!
by Dr. David N. Menton, Ph.D.

<a href="http://www.redbay.com/org/creation/eye.txt" target="_blank">http://www.redbay.com/org/creation/eye.txt</a>

Murray Eden, Professor of Engineering at
M.I.T. said:

"The chance emergence of man is like the probability of typing at
random a meaningful library of one thousand volumes using the
following procedure: Begin with a meaningful phrase, retype it
with a few mistakes, make it longer by adding letters; then
examine the result to see if the new phrase is meaningful.
Repeat this process until the library is complete."

Now, I ask, why do evolutionists stick to the theory that "evolution is random"???

I propose that "evolution is an ongoing design process" - that is, "there was an intelligent designer who DESIGNED EVOLUTION and put it into practice along with everything else".

The argumentative evidence does not rule out the possibility of whether man developed over billions of years from simple cells (although even this should be disproved in the future), BUT IT DOES RULE OUT the notion that this evolution process was 'a random process'.

To conclude, "evolution, if true, is a very intelligently DESIGNED process that we at the moment consider random, due to our incomplete comprehension of this process".

There is a saying: "Chaos is the prevailing form of order".

It should be: "Order is the prevailing form of chaos".

We don't see order in nature because it is still too complex for our current understanding.

nogods4me · 03-26-2002, 06:31 AM

Sorry, but I would just as soon let an engineer explain the intricacies of evolutionary biology to me, as I would drive over a bridge built by Stephen Gould.

nogods4me · 03-26-2002, 06:33 AM

Oh yeah and one last time for those of you who were not listening:

EVOLUTION IS NOT A RANDOM PROCESS

and the probability that man evolved is 100%

Kevin Dorner · 03-26-2002, 06:33 AM

(FYI: This thread had been double-posted; I checked that both posts were the same and deleted the one without any replies.)

Jonesy · 03-26-2002, 06:35 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by nogods4me:
Oh yeah and one last time for those of you who were not listening:

EVOLUTION IS NOT A RANDOM PROCESS

and the probability that man evolved is 100%

if evolution is not a random process, then it is a design process, isn't it? And a design process implies a designer...

nogods4me · 03-26-2002, 06:39 AM

here is another of Dr. Eden's quotes (emphasis mine)

Quote:

For example, one of the mathematicians, *Murray Eden of MIT, explained that life could not begin by the "random selection," which is the basic pillar of evolutionary teaching. Yet he said that if randomness is set aside, then only "design" would remain�and that would require purposive planning by an Intelligence

anyone hear ever heard the term "Random selection" before? I always thought it was "Random Mutation and Natural Selection" buy I gues the mathematician knows better than we.

[ March 26, 2002: Message edited by: nogods4me ]

Radcliffe Emerson · 03-26-2002, 06:40 AM

I don't think a design process indicates an intelligent designer at all. It's known that the earth was originally gaseous, and that single cells were the first life on the planet.
It's also known several species of humans were on the planet at the same time, and homosapiens ended up surviving.
I think that's natural process, I don't think there's a conscious being behind it at all.

phlebas · 03-26-2002, 06:40 AM

It looks to me like the chances that it happened at least once is 100%.

If you start tabula rasa with billions of galaxies each with billions of stars with an average of who knows how many planets and 15 billion years to work with, I would think that what is highly improbable on a given planet becomes extremely likely when looking at the big picture.

If you get your biology lessons from engineers, what do biologists teach you? French?

Kevin Dorner · 03-26-2002, 06:40 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Thiaoouba:
Now, I ask, why do evolutionists stick to the theory that "evolution is random"???

Thiaoouba, I don't know if you are deliberately trolling us or what... but no one proposes this. The random component of evolution is mutation, but the very non-random component is natural selection, that if a mutation is a bad one, it will cause the recipient to not survive to propagate the mutation, so harmful mutations are weeded out.

Now, this concept is usually introduced 5 minutes into any introduction of evolution in high school where students first encounter it... it might be hard to take one seriously who shows so little initiative for learning evolutionary mechanisms before coming up with unsubstantiated ideas, which attempt to explain something that has already been explained perfectly well (and in a way that has been shown to be correct thousands of times.)

nogods4me · 03-26-2002, 06:41 AM

Quote:

if evolution is not a random process, then it is a design process, isn't it? And a design process implies a designer...

Nope, those are not the only 2 choices. the formation of a snowflake, and of a hurricane are neither random, nor designed.

03-26-2002, 06:28 AM	#1
Jonesy Regular Member Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Melbourne Posts: 121	How PROBABLE is the evolution of Man? Here's a quote from a respected MIT professor, taken from the following article: Can Evolution Produce an Eye? Not a Chance! by Dr. David N. Menton, Ph.D. <a href="http://www.redbay.com/org/creation/eye.txt" target="_blank">http://www.redbay.com/org/creation/eye.txt</a> Murray Eden, Professor of Engineering at M.I.T. said: "The chance emergence of man is like the probability of typing at random a meaningful library of one thousand volumes using the following procedure: Begin with a meaningful phrase, retype it with a few mistakes, make it longer by adding letters; then examine the result to see if the new phrase is meaningful. Repeat this process until the library is complete." Now, I ask, why do evolutionists stick to the theory that "evolution is random"??? I propose that "evolution is an ongoing design process" - that is, "there was an intelligent designer who DESIGNED EVOLUTION and put it into practice along with everything else". The argumentative evidence does not rule out the possibility of whether man developed over billions of years from simple cells (although even this should be disproved in the future), BUT IT DOES RULE OUT the notion that this evolution process was 'a random process'. To conclude, "evolution, if true, is a very intelligently DESIGNED process that we at the moment consider random, due to our incomplete comprehension of this process". There is a saying: "Chaos is the prevailing form of order". It should be: "Order is the prevailing form of chaos". We don't see order in nature because it is still too complex for our current understanding.

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03-26-2002, 06:31 AM	#2
nogods4me Contributor Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: Baltimore, MD USA Posts: 17,432	Sorry, but I would just as soon let an engineer explain the intricacies of evolutionary biology to me, as I would drive over a bridge built by Stephen Gould.

03-26-2002, 06:33 AM	#3
nogods4me Contributor Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: Baltimore, MD USA Posts: 17,432	Oh yeah and one last time for those of you who were not listening: EVOLUTION IS NOT A RANDOM PROCESS and the probability that man evolved is 100%

03-26-2002, 06:33 AM	#4
Kevin Dorner Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada Posts: 762	(FYI: This thread had been double-posted; I checked that both posts were the same and deleted the one without any replies.)

03-26-2002, 06:40 AM	#7
Radcliffe Emerson Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: the dark side of Mars Posts: 1,309	I don't think a design process indicates an intelligent designer at all. It's known that the earth was originally gaseous, and that single cells were the first life on the planet. It's also known several species of humans were on the planet at the same time, and homosapiens ended up surviving. I think that's natural process, I don't think there's a conscious being behind it at all.

03-26-2002, 06:40 AM	#8
phlebas Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2000 Location: Metropolis Posts: 916	It looks to me like the chances that it happened at least once is 100%. If you start tabula rasa with billions of galaxies each with billions of stars with an average of who knows how many planets and 15 billion years to work with, I would think that what is highly improbable on a given planet becomes extremely likely when looking at the big picture. If you get your biology lessons from engineers, what do biologists teach you? French?

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