reply to post by Avenginggecko
The funny thing about natural selection is that the reason most people are not satisfied with the idea is that it involves too much dying. Limiting
your thoughts on natural selection to a single mode of operation, you quickly realize how ridiculous that becomes. Ask yourself a simple question,
"Why do I have oh so many hairs in my nose?" Well, self, millions of generations of your closest ancestors got mauled by sabretooth tigers because
their nose hairs were ever so slightly long, and they often got caught sneezing at the most inopportune of moments...
The biggest problem with understanding evolution is that it we don't really know what it is. There are no universal laws of evolution, just as there
are no truly universal, reducible social laws, such as, for instance, supply and demand. Likewise, the theory of natural selection can not ultimately
be reduced to the axioms of scarcity, and rational-self interest, contrary to what many economists would like to believe. The natural scientists are
trying to subsume what is obviously a much more complicated social science in evolution. Electrons and protons that stay still and don't do anything
can be subject to universal, reducible laws. Electrons and protons that make choices and have feelings and preferences can never be reduced to pure
mathematics.
There is no reason that even a single fossil should have at all ever been preserved. The veracity of an evolutionary theory is not ultimately
contingent on that famous statement, which questioned the clear deficiency in the fossil record; that was merely humbling rhetoric, a courtesy if you
will, not an ultimatum (for that a mere student of nature could account for all of creation was surely a presumptuous claim, especially in that most
political of times when science was not nearly as respected as it is today). All the proof you should ever need lies in the existence of one fossil in
time some millions of years ago and the existence of any other in the present, and a mind that is capable of wondering what allowed that first
creature to supply for the creation of its eventual predecessor.
Sure, some benevolent creator, who cares for you very deeply and who will ultimately extract your soul at the time of your death so that you may live
with him for an eternity of service, could have put it all into motion...
But why does "Darwin's version of evolution" strike such a belligerent chord in the minds of creationists? It's "random"? It's "purposeless"?
What does "random" actually mean? Some very simple, "random" mathematical functions are capable of producing incredibly "complex" objects. But
then ask yourself, what does "complex" mean? "Complexity" might just be a set, which is defined as all the possible objects and their patterns
imaginable in the human mind in some sensible form, or those that we have merely evolved to understand. If that isn't convincing enough, I would go
on to conjecture that we were destined to fall within this "design set" because of the way the universe operates at its most fundamental level. We
interpret reality as designed because the probability of life ever existing in a state, which is not subject to the fractal nature of the universe
would be exceedingly low.
Creationists employ a wide variety of logical arguments but their best one by far is the transcendental dialectic. It is the perfect example of how
pure reason can be employed to the greatest of extremes, and how the delusional immaturity of the ego and its relation to self often infiltrates
sensible thinking.
[edit on 19-5-2009 by cognoscente]
