Keith

I'm not specifically arguing either FOR creation, or AGAINST the TOE. All I'm saying is that it is self defeating to claim that evolution occurs for no reason, and that no purposeful designer was involved.

To believe that nature designs and builds things that are more complex than a space shuttle, intricately provides for their survival, and gives them the ability to reproduce, all for no reason or purpose is foolishness.

I have successfully demonstrated that it isn't even possible to describe and explain any of the current versions of evolution without invoking design, function, and purpose. My job is done! I've succeeded in proving what I set out to prove.

I've shown that:

1. Producing life-forms and promoting their survival is the obvious goal of evolution.

2. Nature shows intricate and miraculous planning and consistent purpose, especially in living things.

3. No one can explain or describe evolution without invoking design, function, goals, and purpose. God exists whether you want to admit it or not. There is no escape from this self evident set of circumstances.

I'd say case closed! I've done my job.

Keith

Keith

Quite the contrary. It was by watching nature programs on PBS, reading NG magazine, and so on, that I realized that nature cannot be explained--even by the TOE, without invoking a purposeful cause.

Keith

Godless Dave

No you haven't.

No you haven't.

No you haven't.

Principia

What is "dispersion in complexity of parts?" How do you measure it? False. I am plugging in my computer into an AC socket of a house whose electrical wiring was built before the 90s. The QWERTY keyboard layout has been around since the typewriters. My speakers are still based on pretty much the same design that were in early radios. The electron gun in my monitor hasn't altered its design since the early TVs. Frankly, Keith, I am no longer interested in answering your rhetorical questions, unless you tell us how you would research them yourself.

Principia

False. That it is "obvious" to Keith suggests that it is his subjective interpretation at work, absent any objective data.

Once again, a subjective assessment, loaded with ambiguous words like "miraculous' "planning" and "consistent."

Non sequitur. I hearing people say "holy fvcking God" quite often in my line of work. Doesn't mean that it follows that God exists, nor that they actually believe in Jesus.

Of course you'd say it. But, what matters to intelligent people is whether or not you can convince them. Your crowing about phantom victories won't accomplish that, Keith.

Principia

If evolution is false, it implies a supernatural being. If evolution is true, it implies a supernatural being. Seems to me and any logical person, that evolution's truth has no objective bearing at all on your God's existence.

Happy Wonderer

"If my goal is to score lots of points at soccer, does that become a goal of Evolution as well?"

So why is playing soccer any different than reproduction? Even if organisms have a "goal" of reproducing (which is a pretty doubtful proposition for most of them) how does that become a "goal" of evolution? Sure, lots of humans reproduce. Many of them play soccer, too. What is the difference -- why is one activity the goal of the process called "evolution" and another not? Not all humans play soccer, neither do all reproduce...

How can a process have goals, anyway? (As has been asked elsewhere.)


HW

Starboy

Naaah. Is just means that the religious see god everywhere, whether it is there or not.

Keith

No, you can't just arbitrarily say that some feature of design on a particular animal is poorly designed. Pooly designed for what? If all automobiles were designed for the most rapid acceleration possible, then 99 percent of cars on the road are poorly designed. In most cases design engineers consider a large number of priorities, many of which are bound to conflict with each other. The bottom line is that unless you already know what the designer's priorities were, you are not a good judge of whether some particular feature is poorly designed or not.

Your argument can be reversed into a fairly clear proof that nature does display intricate design. The fact that you think you have found sub-optimal design means you think optimal design exists somewhere, and we could recognize optimal design if we saw it. If nature is devoid of purpose, it is completely meaningless to speak of sub-optimally designed features found in nature. Sub-optimal design implies that optimal design exists.

Keith

Salmon of Doubt

The vertebrate eye has cells in it that face the wrong way entirely, so the light has to pass past the nerve endings before it reaches the region of the cell that actually detects the light. Would it not be more efficient to put the receptive part in front of the rest of the cell so less light is lost?

Other eyes, like the eyes of octopi, have cells that face the right way, but since both the eyes evolved after the two lineages split, they eyes arose independently, and are different.

Given that the sole function of eyes is to detect light, wouldn't an intelligent designer make the cells face the right way for maximum light gathering efficiency?