Evolution and Creationism (Page 6)

wabash - 2010-10-13 10:23 AM 

is that a belief or fact?
where did the energy for a big bang come from?

AndrewMT - 2010-10-13 11:19 AM

Indeed.  The Big Bang being the initiator for an environement that eventually allowed a process to developed that turned into love that over time developed more complexity all of which happened over billions of years.  That's very different than an weak explosion in a junk yard spontaneously creating a very complex airplane.  Can you really not see the differences there?

TriRSquared - 2010-10-13 10:30 AM
I believe his analogy was meant to demonstrate the degree of complexity involved in creating the natural forces of our universe.  These forces did not "evolve"  One instant they did not exist and the next they did.

A similar analogy would be for me to throw a million blocks into the air and they would form a model of the Empire State Building.  Possible? Sure.  Nothing in physics says no.  Likely?  No so much...

TriRSquared - 2010-10-13 10:30 AM

I believe his analogy was meant to demonstrate the degree of complexity involved in creating the natural forces of our universe.  These forces did not "evolve"  One instant they did not exist and the next they did.

A similar analogy would be for me to count how many times I could throw a million blocks into the air and they would form a model of the Empire State Building.  Possible? Sure.  Nothing in physics says no.  Likely?  No so much...

AndrewMT - 2010-10-13 11:28 AM

It's a Scientific Theory, based on obervable facts.

But your second question is a good one.  There are no good answers to that, and I stated before, the answer could very well be a god or other supreme outside force.  If that were the case I would believe that that moment was the last time that diety chose to interfere with our universe.

mfoutz - 2010-10-13 11:36 AM

The standard answer for the problem of the Fine-Tuned Universe problem (aka the anthropic principle) is simple and good:  We can only exist to marvel at having the correct physical laws in a universe because we were born into that kind of universe.  In another universe that does not support life we could not have existed to ponder that question.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle

AndrewMT - 2010-10-13 11:36 AM
The problem I have is that your examples require instant order to be created out of chaos.  A very clear violation of the third law of thermodymics. 

The big bang theory is actually an increase in disorder.  There was very long period of time after the initial expansion before life was created, so you had billions of year of chaos before the moment that those first very simple lifelike forms were developed.  The mechanism on how that moment is unknown, but there are many possible explanations.  Since that time life has evolved into the complex forms we see today, but that process took hundreds of millions of years and did not need to violate any clear established laws of science. 

TriRSquared - 2010-10-13 10:43 AM

Rather convenient isn't it.  - "It has to be, because it is."  Too bad it explains nothing.

This is similar to the multiverse theory, which for me, takes a much larger leap of faith than belief in a higher being.

TriRSquared - 2010-10-13 10:46 AM

But instant order was created.  The natural forces were instantly created.  Yes it tooks billions of years for planets to form and then life to appear.  However these natural forces were not there and then instantly there.

The 3rd law of thermodynamics does not apply becuase before the creation of these forces the laws did not exist.  If you want to hold the big bang to our current laws of physics it could never have happened.

Spleen - 2010-10-13 11:03 AM This discussion reminds me of the "extra credit" question at the end of my freshman-year History of Philosophy final:

Why is there anything rather than nothing at all? 

jgaither - 2010-10-13 11:13 AM I have been scanning through and so could have easily missed it, but has anyone touched on the social aspects of creating a deity in the absence of explanations in order to make sense of previously unexplained phenomenon?  At one time it was known "fact" there was sun god and a moon god, know "fact" that there was a god civilization (romans/greeks), known "fact" that the earth was flat, and myths and folklore were believed to be true.  All of these were fabricated as explanations for the previously unexplainable until a better "truth" came along and during their transitions were worked into the new information.

gearboy - 2010-10-13 6:47 AM If this is indeed what you were taught, then you were taught poorly by someone with little understanding of evolution.  And if that is the state of education in America, no wonder people are so willing to dismiss evolution, or call for ID as an equally viable alternative.  The "holes" are more in specific species and not in the general principles of how species evolve or transmute over time.  If anything, the discovery of genes and DNA has narrowed, not widened the gaps in knowledge since the theories were first proposed over 100 years ago.

As for the need for a "spark" - for now, that may be the "black box" in the starting point, although we are tantalizingly close to closing the gap.  Even if there is a "prime mover" that starts the Big Bang, or originates life, once those things are set in motion, there is no need for intervention.  That is actually what made mrs gearboy become an atheist from a devout catholic (even if she did marry a heathen agnostic jew-bu) - the idea that God does not need to be personally involved in our lives.  To her, that means God is irrelevant, and if that is the case, there really is no god at all. 

UWMadTri - 2010-10-13 12:58 PM

You make a good point, however one cannot argue against the current "fact."

The way I see it, as someone who has been on both sides of the coin (I used to claim that dinosaur bones were big chickens) you simply have two camps of people. One has faith in science, the other has faith in a God. Science has better explanations, God has more emotional pull. Science is something that we learn about later in life, God is something that typically becomes indoctrinated in us from a very early age.

At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter much. There either is a God or there isn't and if it turns out that he's the God of the Jewish people, most of us are completely screwed (only for 12 months though...no one spends more time in hell than that, according to the tradition). If he's one of those benevolent types, there might be some hope for us in the atheist/agnostic camps.

dontracy - 2010-10-13 8:52 AM

That's simply not true.

It was the Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas who in the 13th century in a sense baptized Aristotle, showed that the Christian God is a God who made an orderly universe, and showed that in turn he gave humans the capacity to reason and to come to understand the workings of that universe.

Aquinas' work was foundational in the development of the scientific method in Western culture.  

wabash - 2010-10-12 11:05 AM how many bombs would have to explode in a junk yard until we got a fully functioning 747 airliner?

moondawg14 - 2010-10-13 1:27 PM

 In theory, one. (assuming we can build a bomb with enough energy to assemble a 747 airliner.)

Of course, we already have a theory that a "bomb went off" ~12 billion and now we have many, many fully functioning 747 airliners.  

TriRSquared - 2010-10-13 12:21 PM

Why does it have to one or the other?  I have faith and am a believer in science.  They don't compete IMO.

wabash - 2010-10-13 12:42 PM

not sure i'm following you.....

mfoutz - 2010-10-13 12:47 PM

The point I was trying to make is that they do compete at a certain point.

With religion, the chain of why-questions about life, the universe, and everything ultimately comes to an end with the answer "God did it"  somewhere down the line.  How far depends on your beliefs.  Could be at evolution, could be as early as the manifestation of this reality.

With science, the why-questions always lead to more why-questions.



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mfoutz - 2010-10-13 1:47 PM

The point I was trying to make is that they do compete at a certain point.

With religion, the chain of why-questions about life, the universe, and everything ultimately comes to an end with the answer "God did it"  somewhere down the line.  How far depends on your beliefs.  Could be at evolution, could be as early as the manifestation of this reality.

With science, the why-questions always lead to more why-questions.



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AndrewMT - 2010-10-12 1:57 PM

I think he's saying that we already have shown that an "explosion" went off (the big bang) and now we have quite a few fully functional 747's!