Evolution is a basic, biological process

Hi Soplar,Your opening statements touch on many issues.One of them seems minor, but, since you mentioned it, I wanted to examine it briefly. Your reasoning seems to be as follows: Have I correctly summarized your reasoning on this matter?

I was hoping to engage Soplar on this issue. Oh well.A few points:1) If there is an Intelligent Designer, then we are the things designed. Wouldn't that make it difficult for us to figure out what the Intelligent Designer's motives for various aspects of His design are?2) The God of the Bible seems very aware of infectious diseases and various maladies (like blindness) and takes credit for them and uses them for HIS purposes (which might be vastly different from OUR purposes).3) The Bible also indicates that we live in a wrecked version of the original creation (wrecked via the Flood). If it's wrecked, I would naturally expect things to work imperfectly.The point is, that if Soplar is aiming this particular comment at the God of the Bible, this line of reasoning (even if Quetzal's reasoning is a more accurate representation) has no real substance, imo.

Hi Soplar,I worried that you left because your topic sat there so long without responses. That's all. You don't need to be more attentive. You see others filed right in to argue for you, so to speak. However, it IS better to engage the original poster; so I'm glad you came back. What I meant was that since you devote only one small paragraph to this issue, I didn't figure you wanted 200 back-and-forth posts about THIS issue while we never get to the OTHER issues you bring up. That's all. Sure. I wanted to go into the other issues (not the Darwin thing in particular...some of the evos might want to do that, tho).The next issue I wanted to explore was your assertion that: I was wondering if you could share with us exactly which parts of modern biology are "unintelligible without an understanding of the evolutionary process."

Quetzal, No. Not at all. I just prefer that the original poster be engaged as well; since he is the one who makes the assertions that are to be examined.I didn't mean to imply others' comments were unimportant.

Soplar, Please don't feel rushed.

Guys,Having fun without me? Is that allowed?If I'm not mistaken, robinrohan is an atheist who enjoys arguing with atheists about stuff like "What is the mind?"I enjoy many of his posts. He has an interesting angle on issues and sometimes does a fair job of challenging others' atheistic assumptions.Anyway, as far as I can tell this is a bunch of evolutionists discussing stuff, which is interesting in its own right--sort of like EvE...heh.

Hi Soplar, It sounds like stuff is being determined--i.e., the necessity of reproduction and methods of reproduction. Who does the determining? Who decided that anything needed to survive? So you recognize that the genetic CODE is SEQUENCED and that it requires a corporation, experts and machines to even attempt to poorly DECIPHER it. Besides the genetic CODE, what other CODES do you consider not to have required intelligence to formulate? Here you recognize that cells have complex machinery that can handle copying errors during DNA replication. Excluding life forms, what other complex machines have you encountered that did not require intelligent effort to engineer and fabricate?Now, about mutations... In your opening statements you provide aging and cancer as two results of accumulated copying errors. These are NOT the same thing as making new life forms or life forms with greater survival ability.Do bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics due to copying errors? I don't think they do, but can you see, that even IF they do, it is still a bacteria...even the same general kind of bacteria. So, while it MIGHT demonstrate greater survivability, it does NOT demonstrate that copying errors make new life forms. (I would like to go into antibiotic resistant bacteria in some depth after we settle why, or even whether, modern biology is unintelligible without an understanding of the evolutionary process. I have some specific questions about antibiotic-resistant bacteria for which I've never recieved good answers.)Furthermore, so far as I know, copying errors provide unnecessary duplication of present information, deletion of present information, or mixing-up of present information. Doesn't the development of new life forms require the addition of NEW information?I can see how accumulations of copying errors could lead to an organism that doesn't work as well (aging and cancer, for instance). Does duplicated, mixed-up, or deleted versions of old information equal new information? I really fail to see how it does. Can copying errors provide NEW information in the genome? If they can, how do they do so?Perhaps this is really the heart of the matter for you. Do you believe that the commonality of many traits among the diverse life forms is the reason that modern biology is unintelligible to those without an understanding of the evolutionary process?Many of my questions in this post are rhetorical and deal with the Intelligent Designer issue. You may answer those if you wish, but, in my opinion, answers to the last four questions, which I have highlighted in yellow, will do more to help us reach a conclusion about whether modern biology is unintelligible without an understanding of the evolution process.Regards,--TheLiteralist

How have I been doing so far? This message has been edited by TheLiteralist, 01-04-2005 23:33 AM

robinrohan, Glad to hear it.

Robinrohan, Evolution doesn't exactly keep assumptions to a minimum...heh. But perhaps you mean when examining specific assertions...something I'm just learning to do. And you try not to keep bring more and more assertions into the argument (because, then you have to defend those, too). I actually went to some atheist website and learned some neat stuff about logic and logical fallacies as used in debates.I have debated Baptists often about their theology (with which I severely disagree on important topics such as what is required to be saved)...for all my disagreement with them Baptists do some awesome, in-depth Bible studies as well as studies of creationists' arguments; so I have taken to saying, "You can learn a lot from a Baptist"--meaning even though I disagree with them severely, I can learn much from them in the areas in which we do not disagree.Now that atheists are teaching me about good argumentation (and I don't disagree with atheists about good argumentation), well, I have to say, "You can learn a lot from an Atheist." I still severely disagree with them, of course. The nice thing about debating Baptists is that we both start from the assumption that the Bible is 100% true, and if we disagree, we need merely find a verse that supports our position more strongly or refutes the other's position. But, when discussing things with evolutionists, I find, that I must go learn this or that about biology or geology or chemistry....ugh.(and biology is REAL hard to understand for some unknown reason...heh heh...just kidding ). Yes, whenever I see the opportunity to take advantage of the weakness inherent in abiogenesis, I intend to at least try.The mind? Yes, I think that is extremely interesting. I disagree with 1.whatever. I rather see the brain as an interface between the mind and the body and the body as an interface between the brain and the environment. But that is a personal belief, for which I have no evidence. One curious thing is the paramecium I saw in tenth grade biology...it seemed to be making several decisions and some of them at once (which way to go?, how fast to go?, etc.). Mind you, the paramecium wasn't putting the finishing touches on quantum theory, but still, since it had no brain at all, I thought it was interacting with it's environment fairly efficiently. But that's just some cool musings of mine...not really debate material for this thread.

1.61803,No disrespect intended by shortening it to 1.whatever. Not only was I not responding to your post (so, your screen name was not handy for reference, and it is difficult for me to remember), but also I was joining in the fun you and robinrohan were having...1.etc and ro.etc. or whatever.Sorry, if it sounded like I was trying to take my contempt for atheism out on your screen name. I have found belittling people to be of little use in winning arguments of any sort...even if I am well-versed in the subject being discussed and the other person isn't (though it can be hard to restrain oneself in that case, eh?). It would be even less practical when I am the one less well versed in the subject being discussed--which, painfully, here at EvC includes nearly all scientific subjects being discussed.

1.61803,It's understandable that my comment could appear as slander...that's why I wanted to clear it up.By the way, I have often heard of the Golden Ratio, but never really understood it. So I went to the site...I'll have to peruse it later, but what I've seen so far looks very interesting (I loved Geometry...but have forgotten most of it).I am particularly intrigued by the fact that ¹/_Phi = Phi - 1, I wish all reciprocals were that easy.

Ned,Thanks for the compliment.

Hi Soplar,Now it is I who must apologize about taking so long to respond. So, it sounds like you are saying that HOW the code came to be is NOT important to understanding the code itself or the mistakes that can occur in it. Is that your position?

Hi Soplar, Well, not being able to comprehend biology and interfering with current biological education are two different issues. Well, I believe the origin of the code is VERY important. What I meant was that one does not need to understand the origin of the code in order to understand the code itself or how it works. Genetics is a fairly good part of modern biology; if one can understand genetics without understanding evolutionary ideas, then what part of modern biology can that person NOT comprehend?I think that understanding ideas about origins and understanding the facts of the physical world are independent of each other. I can't think of any biological processes or biological structures that cannot be comprehended without first comprehending evolutionary concepts. The one is about how things came to be, the other about how things are now.Do you still think modern biology is unintelligible without an understanding of the evolutionary process?Regards,
--TheLiteralist