unworthyone

It's okay I'm not offended. He need not waste his breathe on me. But what is a "randman"?

Quetzal

You probably don't want to know. Suffice that the randman was an unusually unpleasant sort. The term is almost a byword around here. If you're dying to know, use the "search" function at the top of the page and type "randman" into the poster criteria for the E/C forum.

Synaesthesia

Morris' argument is simply a more limited formulation of the classic creationist fallacy. He is claiming that thermodynamics suggest that the growth of non-intentional functional complexity cannot occur. To put it simply, he's saying "If someone doesn't INTEND a system to develop a functional capacity, the 2nd law of thermodynamics suggests that it cannot."

Although his claim is weaker, we do indeed see the growth of information without the posulated requirement of "A program (to “direct” the growth in complexity)"

We observe animals evolving novel immune mechanisms, we observe the unintended emergence of functional organization in neural networks (both artifical and natural networks-there is not difference in principle). These examples constitute a direct falsification of his claim, just as the snowflake example falsifies the more traditional (but commonly used!) creationist thermofallacy.

The point of the theory of evolution is just to explain how such growth can occur without anyone meaning it to. Improvements to gene's and organism's ability to proliferate themselves tend to be preserved, whereas degradations tend to be weeded out.


Hey unworthyone,

The fossil data (even erronious data) is not a source of embarassment to evolution, it is an indication of the strength of the scientific method in general and the theory of evolution in particular. You must understand that evolution is not based upon a few scattered fossils but upon the systematic accumulation of tens of millions of fossils and upon discerning patterns and relationships amongst them. Evolution is not hanging on a thread of proof, it is deeply embedded in a whole web of evidence and independant verification of each and every one of it's principles.

The exposure of the piltdown hoax occured because it seemed inconsistent with the fossil record of human evolution. Of course, one piece of evidence going totally against the grain is worth a second look, so scientists re-evaluated that evidence and found it, in fact, to be a hoax.

Without a systematic and evolutionary interpretation of the fossil record, there is no way that the hoax would have been exposed so quickly. This is yet anothe illustration of the importance, in science, of basing theories not on a few dozen rhetorical arguments, but millions of pieces of evidence woven into rich tapestry of theory.

GPLindsey

Has anyone seen any Creationist discussion of why God "wrote the 2nd Law" and introduced entropy into his universe to begin with, if his objective was to create order and Life? How do they reconcile the Argument from Design with the argument that the Universe is a slow motion explosion expanding into nothingness, so the few examples of order we find prove God exists?

I find it facinating that, up until the 1700's, the universe appeared to humans to be a very ordered,unchanging canopy, leading many to push the "existence of a watch proves the existence of a watchmaker" argument. In the 19th and 20th centuries we discovered galaxies, the expansion of the universe, the cosmic background radiation, and so forth. The universe doesn't look like a watch anymore. When and how did creationists change their line of argument from one of Design to one of exceptions-to-entropy prove God exists? Or do they make both arguments and ignore the contradiction?

Coragyps

I have seen it claimed, and I'll try to find a quote, that the 2LoT wasn't "activated" until Eve bit that apple. So entropy wasn't there "in the beginning", but only due to "sin."

GPLindsey

Thanks, Coragyps! If you find a quote I'd appreciate it, but I should have realized it would have been something along that line. Of course the Universe started expanding when Eve ate the Apple! If one applies basic logic, the conclusion in inescapable. Ain't that right Unworthyone?

Of course, since Adam and Eve were only humans with no supernatural powers, any bad things that happened as a result of Original Sin--creation of entropy, creating defense-attack structures in animals to start the food chain, etc.--which were outside their powers would have required an all powerful agent to bring them about, i.e. God. Man sinned, but it was God's choice to start entropy and other terrible things because of it.

Coragyps

Nothing is ever lost, only misplaced. The last post on <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=58&t=000453" target="_blank">this thread</a> refers to AiG's statement of the Fall allowing entropy to start acting.