Jonesy

I think it's obvious the Earth is billions of years old.

I think it's a fact that there is strong evidence about many of the things that evolutionists talk about (eg. things mutating and adapting to new environments over long time). So, it is then a fact that the PROCESSES that evolution describes actually DO take place.

So, I think that people should not be debating the fact that evolution, if we consider JUST the processes and mechanisms in the theory, occurred.

What people should be considering is the WHY of this 'evolution process' (which I now think is a fact).

The reason for considering the "WHY" of the evolution process is because evolution leads to apparently complicated things that 'display' design characteristics. And anything that we know is designed always has an initial "WHY"; the difference with evolution is that since the 'process' takes billions of years to produce 'apparentlly designed' things, then there is no way to know WHY this evolution occurred - we weren't there when it started.

And this should be the main question. Even if it's a random process, it's still 'a process' and as such a reason for it exists by definition of the term 'process' - any process has a reason - so does evolution. And a reason implies that evolution was designed. Please read what I have written from the start, because I think I'm onto something here. Perhaps we can even debate whether 'a process, any process' needs to have a WHY as one of its properties?

What we need to start thinking about on Earth, and this goes out to any pure-evolutionists, half-creationists theologians, design theorists, etc. - to everybody, is about the answer to the question: WHY is evolution occurring? And when we accept that a reason MUST exist (as for any process), then we have to ask ourselves: "What would be the magnitude of any 'inteligence' that would act to 'design' evolution and why would this 'intelligence' do this? Note that I accept evolutionary PROCESSES (ok, these occur), but, hey, it really seems to me that we are just not advanced enough at the moment to fully understand why the mutations in nature happen. People will say that they happen since 'natural selection' etc., but WHY does natural selection happen in the first place? Where does the instinct to 'survive' come from? Something has to be intelligent to survive doesn't it? Even the very first atoms, it would seem. And since even the very first atoms that evolutionists say started the process that led to life and 'the rest' (eg. humans) need to be intelligent (otherwise how would they know that they need to survive and/or combine into anything in particular??!?!), then this follows that even the first atoms in existence must have 'had some intellectual properties as part of them'.

People have to realise that evolutionary processes are a fact but also that the way evolution works CANNOT be meaningless. If it was, it would be the most complicated and at the same time, the most meaningless process EVER. This would not make sense. Any complicated process has a reason for existing. Or does it? (Think about it before jumping to "Post a reply")

( I officially say hereby (my post above says this) that I agree with the process of evolution 100 % - and disagree 100% with the fact that it was meaningless - we must discuss WHY evolution happens, WHY were the first atoms already intelligent enough to make decisions to associate, mutate, naturally select, etc... )

Or would a 'designed evolution' concept be simply too extraordinary for people on Earth (=anyone) to even 'ponder and discuss' without outright ridicule?

Oolon Colluphid

Designed evolution? Oh do elaborate...

Oolon

Jonesy

I said my bit, maybe you would like to present
some discussion instead of saying 'do elaborate'?
What I simply think is that we need to ask ourselves what the reason for evolution was. And if there was a reason, then it was designed. I know, this may be a very difficult topic for years to come, but then again, can you PROVE that evolution did NOT have a reason? Even the evolution that DARWIN HIMSELF talked about? He may have described 'what happens', but did he think WHY all this happens?

Kevin Dorner

Why not? I didn't see any examples. If you would like to demonstrate them, then there is a discussion. Until then, it appears that what is being said is that "I think the evolutionary processes are designed because I think so." and little else unfortunately.

The reason? DNA replication isn't perfectly accurate, and introduces variations that affect an organism's ability to survive until propagation and the number and survivability of its offspring.

Nah... one sentence summed it up.

No. Neither can I prove there is no Zeus or Baal, but evolution works properly as a scientific explanation without a "reason" so it becomes superfluous.

Probably, but given that discovery of the structure and function of DNA was just under a hundred years in the future, he couldn't have come up with a nice one-sentence snippet as I did with my 20/20 hindsight of years of others' research.

[ August 07, 2002: Message edited by: Kevin Dorner ]</p>

Jonesy

OK, then WHY does DNA work the way that it does?

KC

It is a molecule that obeys the laws of physics and chemistry. That's WHY.

Cheers,

KC

Mad Kally

Hows does this relate to your Thiaoouba Prophecy?

[edited for advertizing link]

[ August 07, 2002: Message edited by: Vorkosigan ]</p>

Jonesy

Who and how designed the laws of physics and chemistry? He/it/they/(whatever) must be pretty smart, eh?

Jonesy

My post is not about the book, you failed to grasp that my post infact has nothing to do with the book you mentioned. How about focusing on the post and trying to think?

[ August 07, 2002: Message edited by: Vorkosigan ]</p>

Autonemesis

I don't think it's obvious at all. It took hundreds of years of research in a wide variety of fields of study, to come to this conclusion.

Suppose it is not today, but 10 million years prior to today. Homo sapiens sapiens has not yet emerged from the primates living at that time. Can you say that at that time in history, evolution had a meaning? No one who could conceive of "evolution" or "meaning" had been born yet. Put another way, at that time evolution had not produced a being capable of assigning or perceiving meaning.

Put another way, is meaning inherent in an object or process, or is meaning a product of the human mind? This is a very old question. Another way of asking it is "Do ideas exist independent of the minds that contemplate them?"