Evolution, as many percieve it, is wrong.

[Anti-World]

I know you probably came here thinking I was going to give the same evidences that many before me have given and you'll just laugh and walk away.

However, the basis for this argument is *not* belief (I dislike belief) but rather a novel by the name of "The God experiments." I'm going by memory here so I can't remember the authors name, though I don't mean to plagerize.

The idea is quite simply this:
Chance can not answer the question of creation because chance is replicable and homogenous. His favorite experiment, though rudimentary, is to take a small container and make a sand painting, doesn't matter what it is, then pick up the container and shake it around. After the first shake, what do you notice? The second shake? Each successive random jumbling of the sand particles doesn't create a more complicated sand painting. It homogenizes. Walking on the beach no one is going to see a perfect sand painting of, say, a turtle, completely by chance.
Granted, that's not my favorite experiment. Mine was the one with the computer. In that experiment he had a computer randomly generate numbers (1-100) a hundred times then take the average of all the numbers. The average of the numbers (No matter how many times he did it.) was *always* around 50. **And got closer to 50 the more times the computer randomly generated numbers.** If randomization is trully random than why don't we ever get averages of 1? (meaning that 1 was randomly picked a hundred times.) According to chance, this is possible.

*yet every time this experiment is reproduced no strange averages occur*

His proposition, albeit you should probably read the book, was that the universe was ran by a Guiding Organizing Designing process or G.O.D process based on the fact that nothing can be created randomly.

It's completely illogical to say that sand paintings *could* be created if we waited a million years. There's no way to prove that statement and it's a painfully annoying escape route of evolutionists.

I think, based on this book, that some sort of G.O.D. process, as he calls it, made everything through a kind of evolution simply because, like he said, it is the most probable explanation.

 

[Prometheus]

Well comparing genetics and reproduction to sand isn't a very apt analogy to me, unless you can explain why they have correlations.

However, evolution does have a guiding force. It's not God, but natural selection. Evolution doesn't happen by "chance" in the sense that most people understand the word.

 

[Rolling_Stone]

You sound like a theist.

To say that Reality is quite beyond thought, and therefore cannot be designated by such small, human terms as "conscious" and "intelligent" is only to say that God is immeasurably greater than man. And the theist will agree that he is infinitely greater. To argue that Reality is not a blind energy but a "living principle," an "impersonal super-consciousness," or an "imperson mind" is merely to play with words and indulge in terminological contradictions. A "living principle" means about as much as a black whiteness, and to speak ofan "impersonal mind" is like talking about a circular square. (Alan Watts)

What you say here is also consistent, if not identical, with what I and Runlikethewind said in another thread: God is not a being but Being itself.

Congratulations! You are now a "believer."

 

[camanintx]

His proposition, albeit you should probably read the book, was that the universe was ran by a Guiding Organizing Designing process or G.O.D process based on the fact that nothing can be created randomly.

When you toss a ball in the air, does it ever keep going up or fly off in some other direction (unless it is a windy day)? No, it always falls back to the ground because natural forces like gravity are not random. Even complex systems with numerous variables, like weather, are consistent enough that we can make predictions about how they will respond to different conditions.

Evolution does not attempt to explain the genetic mutations which produce change. Evolution simply states that if a given mutation is beneficial to the organism, that organism will tend to reproduce more, spreading the mutation through the gene pool. Comparing evolution to games of chance only demonstrates how little the author understands the fundamental concept.

 

[Scuba Pete]

Comparing evolution to games of chance only demonstrates how little the author understands the fundamental concept.

Funny that, almost every introductory text on genetics, uses the coin toss to explain the concept. Surely without a comprehension of "chance" in all of this, there can be no understanding of genetics.

But hey, condescension is a good ploy when you just want to dis the person you are talking with. It's a rude but effective way to shut down communication.

 

[Wandered Off]

"Natural Selection" is not driven by random chance. The fact that a pattern can be detected (advantageous traits tend to be passed on) is evidence against its being random chance.

 

[Scuba Pete]

But it's filtered by genetics, which is.

 

[HopefulNikki]

"Natural Selection" is not driven by random chance. The fact that a pattern can be detected (advantageous traits tend to be passed on) is evidence against its being random chance.

I didn't start this thread so I'm not sure if this might be some part of what they're getting at, but I think the "randomness" of the evolutionary process is not in natural selection, but in the mutations themselves, and how and when they appear. We can see a pattern in natural selection, yes. However, there is no pattern to the uncontrollable appearance of a mutation in some organism.

 

[Wandered Off]

I didn't intend to imply that there is no element of chance at all, but that the process is not driven by random chance. I may well have missed the point of the OP too, Nikki.

It may be that being 'filtered by genetics' as SP suggests introduces a random element. Still, the process itself is not random.

 

[HopefulNikki]

I didn't intend to imply that there is no element of chance at all, but that the process is not driven by random chance. I may well have missed the point of the OP too, Nikki.

It may be that being 'filtered by genetics' as SP suggests introduces a random element. Still, the process itself is not random.

Agreed, natural selection is not random itself, but the components that natural selection works with are introduced to the population and the organism randomly, does that make sense?

 

[Scuba Pete]

I am certain that having six arms would be advantageous. That doesn't make it happen over time.

The initial revision of the allele is as random as they come. The selection of the mutated allele has a 50/50 chance every time the organism succeeds at achieving reproduction. The success of this organism to continue to the reproductive stage is staggeringly "iffy". Having a superior build means nothing if you are hit by lightening before you reproduce. Think about it, chance modifies the final outcome of natural selection far more than you might realize.

 

[gnomon]

Evolutionary theory is not perceived as chance. The OP makes no statement about modern evolutionary theory. Nor is evolutionary theory about more complicated species. Last I checked, bacteria still proliferate in every environmental niche on the planet. They are not terribly complicated. If any form of life can be considered succesful for its adaptability, it isn't large, "complicated" species.

 

[Halcyon]

That was a cool OP.

Although, like others have said, it can't be directly applied to evolution.
For example, mutation (although random in its form and occurrence) is not totally random in its placement. We have DNA repair proteins that selectively repair some parts of our DNA, while allowing other parts to mutate at a higher rate.

If we could take an organism and "shake it" to cause random mutations all over the place, like with the sand painting, then yes, eventually all life would be an amorphous blob called Dave. But mutation, and subsequently evolution has self-controlling mechanisms within and without the organism, like natural selection (which is not random) to stop us all becoming Dave.

 

[Prometheus]

*Warning! - Shameless Plug*

If everyone would go view my other thread called "Video for all ID proponents/Creationists", the video there would explain exactly what we are all talking about.

Oh, and Scuba Pete, having six arms is advantageous. That's probably why all insects have at least six appendages.

 

[Yerda]

Funny that, almost every introductory text on genetics, uses the coin toss to explain the concept.

Explain which concept? Genetics is a very large field of study.

 

[Scuba Pete]

Explain which concept?

The very basis of genetics.

 

[Yerda]

The very basis of genetics.

Genes?
Variation?
Heredity?
Something else?

 

[Scuba Pete]

Go ahead and try to describe any one of those without a reference to chance or statistics. It really can't be done.

 

[Yerda]

Go ahead and try to describe any one of those without a reference to chance or statistics. It really can't be done.

I only wanted to know which 'concept' it was you spoke of.

In genetics many events are termed random. Like mutations. There are causes for them however, although they can't always be predicted. Chance isn't a fair way to describe such events.

 

[Prometheus]

In genetics many events are termed random. Like mutations. There are causes for them however, although they can't always be predicted. Chance isn't a fair way to describe such events.

Agreed. There is no such thing as randomness or chance. Everything has a cause, we just use these words when something is too complex to explain.

Just as physics will dictate how dice will land every time, but so much factors into the simple throw of the dice that we just call it random.