Mofo: I got another dumb question anti-evolutionist ask, that I've encountered frequently, from rather intelligent people:

"If I leave fish in a barrel, why don't they evolve into something else?"

Mofo: I got another dumb question anti-evolutionist ask, that I've encountered frequently, from rather intelligent people:

"If I leave fish in a barrel, why don't they evolve into something else?"

HOBO: I work with a guy who believes the Whole Noahs Ark thing really happened about 5000 years ago.

Metatron:
I do somewhat subscribe to the intelligent design notion of evolution.The processes and context in which life began and got to where it is today is a truly amazing thing. The human genome has reached a point of such efficient regulation and activity that there must be something we will never truly understand guiding it. Mother Nature? God? Chaos? THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH? I don't know and probably never will.

Now I can't respect people that say, "Just look at how COMPLEX everything is! It must be JESUS MAGIC! [which is just an appeal to ignorance]", but I can respect where you're coming from.

I actually don't think that evolution and religion need to be separate. I don't see any contradiction in believing that God facilitates evolution. For all I know, he is sitting in a big chair, directing every step of it. BUT that doesn't mean that evolution isn't happening.

However I sometimes have a problem with people that argue this "Intelligent Design" point. Reason being is: we're complex, sure. But to believe someone / something intelligent designed us?

Example: religious types will say, "Look at the human eye! It's so complex!" Which is sort of true, it's pretty complex. However, our eyes have a blind spot, and our field of vision overlaps considerably in order to functionally eliminate it. Not very intelligent, lord!

Of course, like I said, I can't argue that there is no God, and I certainly am able to respect that particular opinion.

HOBO: I work with a guy who believes the Whole Noahs Ark thing really happened about 5000 years ago.

vasudeva: I love when someone starts a thread like this.

The original rant, professionaled up a bit, could be a good Megarad article.




Another guy you and tank and loki know spent 45 minutes in a bar about a month ago explaining that since I run a website, it was very, very important that I keep my eyes open and not let my skepticism unfairly discount any potential signs of The Apocalypse I might see, because I had a responsibility to get the word out if indeed The End Times were upon us.

Kahuna was there and can attest I am not bullshitting anyone. I half-suspect the dude was bullshitting me in a super stealth manner, because he's a cool guy and not a holy roller as far as I've ever been able to tell.

nocal: We are not the pinnacle. That picture, where the monkey is hunched over, and gradually turns into a human? FORGET IT.

nocal: sharks are more evolutionarily successful than we are, because they have been around for a lot longer.

wolfer:
Because the enviroment doesnt change.

metatron: I see "god" as nature, really. Call it a mnemonic. A word used to capture our quantum existence. We should get high and talk about this, it'd be easier.

vasudeva: I love when someone starts a thread like this.

dent: I don't think anyone here, or anywhere else on earth can do anything more than take wild stabs at how life works.

there have been some notable examples of sudden changes,

have you read 'ishmael' by daniel quinn?

Please don't mistake me explaining the wonders of existence as a virtuous gift from the big guy in the sky. I too have grappled with the "line" between creationism and intelligent design.

I see "god" as nature, really.

if everything progresses toward entropy, then how is anything possible?

I don't think anyone here, or anywhere else on earth can do anything more than take wild stabs at how life works.

Pandas and People - A Brief Critique is worth a read.

If all organisms are intelligently designed, what are the forces that seem always to intervene and drive these organisms to extinction?

dent: Nocal, the more I read your threads/posts, the more you impress me.

nocal:

No, but from the rest of your post, I should check it out, because you pretty much said exactly what I was trying to get across.

metatron: I see "god" as nature, really. Call it a mnemonic. A word used to capture our quantum existence. We should get high and talk about this, it'd be easier.

word. i've always thought of things this way: if everything progresses toward entropy, then how is anything possible? if anything, i like to think of it as the spark of order in chaos (unwotakified, of course). i think the eastern religions are interesting as they are far ahead of western religion with respect to this paradox.

There was some link on here not that long ago, can't recall what exactly it was and I'm definitely struggling to try and paraphrase here, so don't necessarily trust what comes next in this paragraph. Wasn't there a recent experiment where they found that the more variance they put into a system, the closer it got to reaching order? And the more order they introduced, the more it swung back into chaos? That, to me, suggests that the universe is so very disordered as to facilitate order. Counter intuitive, I know, but if that experiment could be generalized, then I like the idea.

According to a computational study conducted by a group of physicists at Washington University in St. Louis, one may create order by introducing disorder.

While working on their model — a network of interconnected pendulums, or "oscillators" — the researchers noticed that when driven by ordered forces the various pendulums behaved chaotically and swung out of sync like a group of intoxicated synchronized swimmers. This was unexpected — shouldn't synchronized forces yield synchronized pendulums?

But then came the real surprise: When they introduced disorder — forces were applied at random to each oscillator — the system became ordered and synchronized.

"The thing that is counterintuitive is that when you introduce disorder into the system — when the [forces on the pendulums] act at random — the chaos that was present before disappears and there is order," said Sebastian F. Brandt, Washington University physics graduate student in Arts & Sciences and lead author of the study, which appeared in the January 2006 edition of Physical Review Letters.