Problems with evolution?

[Reginald Gillette]

Flagellum motor... would be too difficult to come into existence by natural selection, considering its compexity.

That's related to a common, flawed argument for God: "I can't comprehend/understand this, so it must've been done by an intentional God." 

well, a mutation gets passed on IF it has an evolutionary advantage.

Not exactly; my mutation gets passed on IF I reproduce!  That particular mutation may or may not have made me more fit.

Proof: Absolutely none. If this were true then there would be countless millions of fossils from mammils, insects and so on of an in-between specie.

Also incorrect.  There is proof, and there are millions of fossils of  "in-between" species.
You could read about these here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transitional_fossil#Common_creationist_arguments

Fuck--am I debating creationists?!

[Veritas]

Fuck--am I debating creationists?!

Have faith, my friend.

[Conservationist]

Creationism strikes me as weird, so I treat it as metaphorical.

I don't think anyone understands intelligent design. Intelligent design can imply a self-evolving design or a dumb but consistent designer... the main point is that it says that something smart set up the universe as it is, and it evolved on its own.

That beats the idea of Jesus hand-painting the dinosaurs and individually raping children in the womb so they turn out queer and go to hell.

[Veritas]

Creationism strikes me as weird, so I treat it as metaphorical.

I don't think anyone understands intelligent design. Intelligent design can imply a self-evolving design or a dumb but consistent designer... the main point is that it says that something smart set up the universe as it is, and it evolved on its own.

I agree with the first interpretation. Intelligent design implies that intelligence is an innate property of the universe itself, and that evolution into increasingly complex forms is a product of this intelligece, not as a result of random objective interactions as science-folk tend to believe. However, science-folk can't comprehend the concept of intelligence being an inherent property of matter and so resort to strawmanning, similar to the second interpretation.

[Von List]

i haven't done much research about this side of the coin, although i know there's a TON of secular scientists who have chosen to reject Darwin.

Flagellum motor is one if i remember right. Such a thing would be too difficult to come into existence by natural selection, considering its compexity.

The irreducible complexity argument? Really?

[indjaseemun]

i haven't done much research about this side of the coin, although i know there's a TON of secular scientists who have chosen to reject Darwin.

Flagellum motor is one if i remember right. Such a thing would be too difficult to come into existence by natural selection, considering its compexity.

The irreducible complexity argument? Really?

Yeah, stop this crap: Before us there was nothing, no creation, no thinking, no planning, no emotion, no love. That all came to be (through natural selection) and did not exist latent in the "implicate order" before.

[Eleison]

i haven't done much research about this side of the coin, although i know there's a TON of secular scientists who have chosen to reject Darwin.

Flagellum motor is one if i remember right. Such a thing would be too difficult to come into existence by natural selection, considering its compexity.

The irreducible complexity argument? Really?

Yeah, stop this crap: Before us there was nothing, no creation, no thinking, no planning, no emotion, no love. That all came to be (through natural selection) and did not exist latent in the "implicate order" before.

May I ask where you acquired this knowledge?

[Athanasius contra mundum]

Being intimately familiar with theology, every aspect of the creationist debate has as much to do with religion as computers have to do with the door-stops. Pragmatically the ultimate value of an idea is the implication of it, and this is the value of philosophy in a really tiny nutshell.

Anyway, the only 'problem' I see with the idea of natural selection is that it sort of leaves out the infinite amount of variables that play into adaptation; in other words, it isn't syncretic. If the theory of evolution does account for these variables, then I guess it's a valuable... explanation? of things. I think the root of the conflict between evolutionary and creationist theories is the conflict between nominalism and realism.

There's a little more info on the idea here, but it's only the beginning of a very long process of education: http://www.gornahoor.net/?p=2377

[▓]

the only 'problem' I see with the idea of natural selection is that it sort of leaves out the infinite amount of variables that play into adaptation

Why do you think it leaves these out?


I found an amusing quotation earlier that relates to a few of the posts earlier in this thread:

"Philosophy is to science as pornography is to sex: it is cheaper, easier and some people prefer it."

[Cargést]

Saying that Philosophy is "easier" is like saying that walking is easier than running.

[indjaseemun]

i haven't done much research about this side of the coin, although i know there's a TON of secular scientists who have chosen to reject Darwin.

Flagellum motor is one if i remember right. Such a thing would be too difficult to come into existence by natural selection, considering its compexity.

The irreducible complexity argument? Really?

Yeah, stop this crap: Before us there was nothing, no creation, no thinking, no planning, no emotion, no love. That all came to be (through natural selection) and did not exist latent in the "implicate order" before.

May I ask where you acquired this knowledge?

Sorry bro. I know irony sucks, but i can't resist it sometimes. I am a firm believer in the "implicate order" as exposed by bohm

[▓]

Saying that Philosophy is "easier" is like saying that walking is easier than running.

You mean 'demonstrably true'?

[Cargést]

You mean 'demonstrably true'?

I run a fuckload faster than I walk, but can walk a fuckload further than I run.  Neither is particularly "easy" compared to the other, because I'm not retarded.

[reasonable]

I found an amusing quotation earlier that relates to a few of the posts earlier in this thread:

"Philosophy is to science as pornography is to sex: it is cheaper, easier and some people prefer it."

That's snarky and slightly amusing, but not terribly informative. Quite apart from the question of whether philosophy really is easier than science (quite a broad term there) in some respect, what exactly is the quote supposed to imply? Is it implying that science and philosophy have the same goal, namely to answer questions x, y, and z or something along those lines? That is to say, is the implication that in one case you have a goal (getting off) and various means of pursuing it (masturbation and sex), and that the case of science and philosophy is analogous? I think this is a confused view of what philosophers are doing, especially from the 20th century and onward.

[▓]

You mean 'demonstrably true'?

I run a fuckload faster than I walk, but can walk a fuckload further than I run.  Neither is particularly "easy" compared to the other, because I'm not retarded.

No, but you are Irish. Did you ever hear the truism "don't try to run before you can walk"?