Salty Booger
Royal Crown Cola (RC)
If a tornado went crashing through a junkyard and left behind a Boeing 747, fully fueled and ready to go, would that be a fluke?
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Is Mankind A Fluke?
- Thread starter Salty Booger
- Start date
Secret Chief
nirvana is samsara
Yes.
As I understand it, a tornado crashing through a junkyard, assembling a 747, is intended to be analogous to evolution. That is, the tornado represents chance, the 747 represents a life form or species -- or something along those lines. The implication I suppose is that it would be incredible for chance to 'assemble' a life form.
Quite unfortunately, like so much else these days, the analogy is a tiresome and boring bit of fluff.
That's because it is an imperfect analogy that masks the true nature of evolution. Evolution involves not only chance (the tornado), but also a selective mechanism (cunningly left out of the analogy). Without including something representing the selective mechanism(s) of evolution, the analogy is merely deceitful, rather than illuminating.
I'm getting awfully tired with our Age of Lies. Is it asking too much for folks to critique evolution on honest grounds, for once? Would it kill them to do that?
Sheesh!
Quite unfortunately, like so much else these days, the analogy is a tiresome and boring bit of fluff.
That's because it is an imperfect analogy that masks the true nature of evolution. Evolution involves not only chance (the tornado), but also a selective mechanism (cunningly left out of the analogy). Without including something representing the selective mechanism(s) of evolution, the analogy is merely deceitful, rather than illuminating.
I'm getting awfully tired with our Age of Lies. Is it asking too much for folks to critique evolution on honest grounds, for once? Would it kill them to do that?
Sheesh!
RabbiO
הרב יונה בן זכריה
Given that a fluke is a type of flounder the answer to both the thread’s question and the question contained in your post, is a resounding “No!”
Thief
Rogue Theologian
no.....a fluke would have some function in reality
some play in the scheme of chemistry
Man is a form of complex chemistry
it took millions of years for this form to gel
millions of other forms had to gel simultaneously
I lean to say....too many 'flukes' to say Man is a fluke
Salty Booger
Royal Crown Cola (RC)
If a tornado set down on a junkyard for millions of years, then?
In biological/evolutionary terms, intelligence would normally be prohibitively expensive to select for. It costs way more calories to maintain and operae a pound of muscle than it does to maintain and operate a pound of brain. So, when given the 'choice', so to speak, between making a species stronger in order for it to survive, and making it brainier, evolution has almost always favored stronger.
However, there do seem to be ample circumstances in which evolution will favor brainier. Homo sapiens is not the only intelligent species the earth has ever seen. There are, after all, both our direct ancestors like Homo erectus, and our cousins, like the Neanderthals. Beyond that, we now know that some species of crows are most likely as smart as gorillas. And so forth.
So, while the general rule is 'brawn over brains', there are quite a few times the rule has been reversed to become 'brains over brawn'.
The big question is, "Why?"
exchemist
Veteran Member
This is one of the most tedious and hackneyed misrepresentations of the theory of evolution that creationists use.
It seems to be a positive article of faith, among creationists, to ignore the essence of Darwin's idea, which is natural selection, cf. post 4. The tornado-in-the-junkyard is thus a particularly stupid non-analogy.
exchemist
Veteran Member
That's interesting. I always thought a fluke was either the tail of a whale or a particularly nasty liver parasite.
It might not kill them, but it might make continuing the fantasy of a special creation a little harder to hold onto -- and there's no way they're going to risk that.
No doubt you're right. But I bet you I myself -- if given sufficient time -- could find an honest way to attack evolution on one set of grounds or another. Not that I would bother (because I'm guessing it would not be a strong enough critique to more than qualify evolution at best), but if I can do it, why can't they?
Cooky
Veteran Member
A few million years is very close to the *blink-of-an-eye*, in the grand scheme of the universe.
...After the last white dwarf dwindles into darkness, and the age of suns comes to an end, then the age of black holes will begin, only to fizzle out themselves. And it will be the year 589 million, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion... The time it took the first living thing to evolve into a human, suddenly looks like nothing.
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Could you please just try to learn a tiny bit about now evolution works, before you continue with this nonsense? It's actually not hard at all -- you can do it with under half an hour of reading.
Evolution has not just time and change -- and has as mechanism for selection of beneficial change and rejection of non-beneficial change. Your silly hurricane has nothing of the sort at all.
One of the most ordered structures in the world, diamonds, are arise through destructively explosive forces. Because the universe is an open, not a closed system, order rises from disorder as entropy shifts from one place to another all the time.
But the tornado in an alley question is a begging the question. It's asking 'if you can conceive a tornado leaving a thing we recognize as human artifice does that mean that any other ordered thing that arises naturally is actually created through intelligent artifice?' The answer is clearly no.
Modern life isn't the result of a tornado like effect, anyway. There are selective forces that are not randomized including environmental and sexual selection which impact form and function.
But the tornado in an alley question is a begging the question. It's asking 'if you can conceive a tornado leaving a thing we recognize as human artifice does that mean that any other ordered thing that arises naturally is actually created through intelligent artifice?' The answer is clearly no.
Modern life isn't the result of a tornado like effect, anyway. There are selective forces that are not randomized including environmental and sexual selection which impact form and function.
As far as i am aware there are no scientific laws that forbid such an event, its just highly (very highly) unlikely
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Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Can't be worse than a tree impaled with a straw.
No. With a tornado here is no mechanism that would, inevitably, lead to complex organization. A tornado-assembled 747 would be a chance event, a fluke.
In biology there is a clear, step-by-step mechanism that accounts for the evolution of simple compounds into comlplex organisms.
Anyone seeing these as comparable simply doesn't understand the ToE; but, of course, when has ignorance of the topic ever stopped creationists from voicing strong opinions on it?
Cooky
Veteran Member
If there is no scientific law that states it's impossible for a tornado to produce a fully fueled 747, then it's obvious that science cannot be the sole arbitrator of knowledge.
...There quite clearly needs to be some use of common sense.
Salty Booger
Royal Crown Cola (RC)
I'm trying to make it as complex as is any conscious person. I think a 747 is a bit simplistic in comparison.