CREATION VERSUS EVOLUTION

[tomday]

I apologise if this topic has been covered by a previous thread, but, being new to this forum, I would like to get non-religious responses to my views and ideas.

I have often had it told to me by theists that life has to have been created by some form of superior intelligence because it is so complex.  Now that has to be nonsense because, by their definition, the creator has to be more intelligent, therefore more complex, therefore the creator has to have been created by an even more intelligent, therefore more complex entity which has to have been created by an even more intelligent, therefore more complex entity etc. etc. etc. ……………………..

If you accept that we just happen to be the result of millions of years of a mind-boggling succession of evolutionary developments, it follows that we are only as complex as our current state of human evolution allows us to appreciate.  In fact, we may be relatively simple organisms in the grand scheme of things (whatever that might be) â€" who knows how much more complex the descendents of human beings will be in another million years (if we all survive on this or some other planet for that long).

Human beings are too arrogant for their own good, believing themselves to have the mental capability to understand everything about life. We are only able to perceive to a point of depth and complexity that our current brain size and power will allow.  Proof of this is simple:  look out into the sky at night and wonder at its scale, but then, we are told that space is infinite â€" it has no end â€" it goes on and on forever.  I challenge any human being to be able to rationalise that something that we know to exist could possibly have no ending/ edge /boundary.  We know that space has no boundary because there would have to be something on the other side of that boundary, i.e. ‘nothingness’, but what is ‘nothingness’ if not space?  Therefore there could not be a boundary â€" but the longer you think about that fact, the more your brain would become confused because we humans are limited in our intellectual thought processes to visualisation rather than to utilise mathematical equations or some other tool of abstract science.  

The infinity of space is an imponderable fact that we just have to accept and we don’t need a fairy story explanation.  Look where the fairy story (for ‘fairy’ read ‘angel’) supposedly concocted by an unmarried woman to explain away her condition, has now led to, over 2000 years later!

[pjkeeley]

we are told that space is infinite – it has no end – it goes on and on forever. I challenge any human being to be able to rationalise that something that we know to exist could possibly have no ending/ edge /boundary. We know that space has no boundary because there would have to be something on the other side of that boundary, i.e. 'nothingness', but what is 'nothingness' if not space? Therefore there could not be a boundary – but the longer you think about that fact, the more your brain would become confused

I do think you are confused, this is not what scientists are saying about how the universe works.

I hate when people are so quick to exclaim something like "humans are so limited, we don't really know anything!" about a particular subject, usually the nature of the universe, when really that person hasn't even bothered to read up on what scientists and others are saying. Just because you don't know what you're talking about doesn't mean others don't have a pretty good idea.

[tomday]

pjkeeley - Sorry to hear that you hate people that are so quick to exclaim something like "humans are so limited, we really don't know anything" (etc).  I actually suggested that humans are arrogant and think that they should be able to understand everything when in actual fact the human brain does not yet have that capability.
 I wonder who is confused? seems to me this is a forum for normal, well-adjusted humans who do not just accept something because some 'expert' or another says so.  The Mormon church is full of 'scientists' and they will tell you that the earth was created just a few thousand years ago (complete with a history including fossils)!  Many of the world's most influential scientists are religious and believe in God, Allah or however they choose to personify as the ultimate deity.  Surely, by being members of this forum should we not retain an open mind until we have at least read, and understood , compared and analysed ALL of the current scientific literature on any topic. Scientists will never all agree on anything - if they did, they would have little opportunity to make a name for themselves.  With respect, let me say that the acerbic tone of your reply to my post would do credit to a born-again Christian!

[donkeyhoty]

Human beings are too arrogant for their own good, believing themselves to have the mental capability to understand everything about life.

Read this again, and apply it to positing "God" as an answer to things that are, as of yet, not fully understood.

In other words, just because something has yet to be fully understood doesn't mean it can't be understood.

[shoruke]

Well if the odds against a planet evolving life the way ours has without the help of a diety are CRAZY stacked, consider how many planets HAVEN'T evolved like ours. There are billions and billions of planets, but as far as we know, ours is the only one with life.

[Tom62]

Since planet Earth is so insignificantly small on the universal scale, I've always wondered why any god would pay it any attention. I'm pretty sure that there are many other lifeforms out there in the immense universe, but I think that the chances are pretty low that the would have a christian, moslim, jewish or hindu religion on their planets.

[tomday]

Well if the odds against a planet evolving life the way ours has without the help of a diety are CRAZY stacked, consider how many planets HAVEN'T evolved like ours. There are billions and billions of planets, but as far as we know, ours is the only one with life.

Hi shoruke, I think that the significant words in your reply are “as far as we know”

As a student you will be familiar with experimentation, so how’s this as a fanciful project:    
Finish dinner tonight and put one of the dirty dishes away in a warm and damp place without first washing it.  Put another unwashed dish away in a different place that has a significantly different environment.  Leave them there for 18 months then check them out.  What you will find would probably be two whole worlds of moulds, bacteria and other microscopic life-forms that just happen to have developed together because of the specific mix of the environment plus the chemicals, proteins etc. left on the plate.  
Will the life-forms be the same on the two dishes?  Probably not, but hey, if you were one of those microscopic life-forms and it so happened that you had developed the power of reasoning, you could well be looking out into your ‘night sky’ and wondering whether you were alone in the universe.  You might even be searching for the truth about the all powerful, super-intelligent being that created you and all that was around you?

[tomday]

For all I know you may all be familiar with the Skeptic Report web site, but if not check out the 'Things that Creationists Hate' section -  loads of interesting stuff here that we could happily chat about and, maybe, add to out intellectual arsenal!

www.skepticreport.com/creationism/thing ... tshate.htm

[SteveS]

Hi tomday - initially, I also found myself reacting very negatively to the way this statement was phrased:

Human beings are too arrogant for their own good, believing themselves to have the mental capability to understand everything about life.

My knee-jerk reaction was: Isn't this the same argument applied by the religious?  "You are flawed, you are imperfect, you are weak - your only hope is to trust in god!  You will never understand - so just accept this and place your faith in god!  It will never make sense to you because you're too dumb to make sense of god - so just believe!".

Anyway - is it arrogance, or is it hope born of observation?  Since the ancient Greeks men of intelligence have examined the world and attempted to make logical sense out of it --- and they were successful.  Obviously, we still don't understand everything completely, but look how this attitude has functioned over the centuries: continual new developments, new insights, new understanding.  What was once inexplicable is now precisely predictable due to increased scientific understanding gained through long, hard experimentation and thought.  Ultimately, I don't think its fair to say we arrogantly believe we can understand all there is to know --- I think it is fair to say that we believe the world makes sense, and we might as well try to understand as much about it as we can.  I see this as a both rational and intelligent way to behave - hardly arrogant.

we humans are limited in our intellectual thought processes to visualisation rather than to utilise mathematical equations or some other tool of abstract science.

Forgive me for being flip, but "mathematical equations" and/or "some other tool of abstract science" seem to me like the methods our "intellectual thought processes" use to understand that which we cannot visualize.  Just because we cannot visualize something - does that mean we cannot understand it?  Seems to me it just means our understanding of it does not include an ability to visualize it.  In other words, there's more than just visualization to understanding - right?

If we are doomed to have a limit in our understanding, then what should we do instead of trying to understand that would not be considered by you to be arrogant?  In other words, if what we're doing now is arrogant - what should we be doing instead?  I guess I'm just a little confused by your perspective is all....

Oh - and thanks for posting the skeptic's report url - I liked that!

[tomday]

Hi Steve,  thanks for your response to my opening post - great to have intelligent, reasoned debate.  I can now see that my post was a little disjointed and could have given some wrong impressions.  

If we are doomed to have a limit in our understanding, then what should we do instead of trying to understand that would not be considered by you to be arrogant? In other words, if what we're doing now is arrogant - what should we be doing instead?

I feel that if human beings, generally, were to accept the limitations of their current capabilities to comprehend the imponderables of life and the universe and were to strive to discover more rather than needing to be spoon-fed the easy answers that religions have to offer, the world might just be a more peaceful and fulfilling place to be a part of.  I
 don't necessary think that the human race is "doomed" to have a limit to its understanding, but if it is, humility (rather than arrogance) could replace the word "doomed" with "bound".  I, personally, would rather live in awe of something that be worried that I am not able to understand it!

there's more than just visualization to understanding - right?

Maybe I am odd, but my experience is that there is some sort of visualization in everything we think about - if you were to think about someone you know, you would obviously have an image of that person in your mind, but now, if you consider the following: '2+2=5'  What goes on in your mind? I doubt very much that images of those numbers were not present when your brain considered the logic.  (aside: hopefully, as an open-minded individual, your thought response was not to immediately reject it as being mathematically incorrect, but also to have recognized it as a statement often used to describe synergy- I would suggest that such open-minded thinking tends to be one common trait of non-deists that is not so often displayed by deists).
I find it difficult to think of something that does not display itself to me in my mind in a visual way - when you read a novel, do you not develop images of all the characters and locations to allow you to follow the story?  I believe that visualization is the basis of memory, logical thought and reasoning.
I would be fascinated to know if others do not experience the same as I do; maybe a person who had been totally blind from birth would have very different thinking processes to mine? Could you suggest something to think about for which there could be no visualization at all?

[SteveS]

I feel that if human beings, generally, were to accept the limitations of their current capabilities to comprehend the imponderables of life and the universe and were to strive to discover more rather than needing to be spoon-fed the easy answers that religions have to offer, the world might just be a more peaceful and fulfilling place to be a part of.

I certainly agree with this sentiment: whole-heartedly!

I may have misinterpreted your original post - if you're saying that striving for scientific discovery while understanding that there are current unknowns is good - then I'm your man.

I, personally, would rather live in awe of something that be worried that I am not able to understand it!

Eh - personal differences.  I experience awe and I don't find it unpleasant, but if I had my choice I'd rather be in aesthetic awe of something that I understand!

About visualization - I hear you, but I don't think visualization is always necessary or good, even though it might be inevitable to the way our minds work.  Here's an example:

Could you suggest something to think about for which there could be no visualization at all?

The only thing I can come up with off-hand is infinite.  How can something infinite be visualized?  But - there's plenty of things that I think can't be visualized correctly: think about an atom.  What did you visualize?  A tiny little "ball"?  I have a tendency to do this - but this isn't really correct, right?  Or, did you envision a tiny little solar system reminiscent of the Bohr model?  But - this isn't really correct either.

For that matter - how do you visualize an electron, or a photon, or a region of vacuum?  I don't deny that we visualize, or attempt to visualize, things we think about.  I'm just not sure that these visualizations actually help us understand - sometimes they can lead us wrong.

The fact that mathematical equations describe reality better than our human visualization is interesting - it points out that our "default" manner of thinking about things can be wrong and/or useless - and it is why so many people find it difficult to work with advanced mathematics and physics (myself certainly included!).  We term the math "abstract" because, I think, we can't visualize it accurately.

I can visualize a tennis ball bouncing off of a brick wall - and my visualization will conform nicely with the reality of me actually bouncing a tennis ball off a brick wall.  But - I can't seem to find an accurate way to visualize a photon striking an atom and causing an electron to migrate to a higher-energy valence shell.  Sure - I get some funky picture in my head - but is it even remotely accurate to what's "really" happening?

[tomday]

Cheers Steve, obviously a man after my own heart!

The only thing I can come up with off-hand is infinite. How can something infinite be visualized?

Couldn't agree more! that is precisely the point I was trying to make in the final paragraph of my opening post:  

The infinity of space is an imponderable fact that we just have to accept and we don’t need a fairy story explanation. Look where the fairy story (for ‘fairy’ read ‘angel’) supposedly concocted by an unmarried woman to explain away her condition, has now led to, over 2000 years later!

[SteveS]

Yup - infinite = hard to imagine.  We can understand infinite and work with it as a concept - but its hard to imagine visualizing it in any meaningful way.

[doggone]

Hello tomday:  Are you open to a discussion with a scientist/evolutionist..?  I’m not into the ‘holy roller’ or ‘monkey roller’ emotionalisms.. I talk ‘scientific principle’ but I do tend to step on the toes of both the theists and the atheists…

[doggone]

Hello tomday:  Are you open to a discussion with a scientist/evolutionist..?  I’m not into the ‘holy roller’ or ‘monkey roller’ emotionalisms.. I talk ‘scientific principle’ but I do tend to step on the toes of both the theists and the atheists…