Giving Satan Too Much Credit

Absolutely correct. I think we totally underestimate the power of sin. We’re flawed, our environment is flawed, our desires are flawed. Certainly the devil’s at work … but frankly, my job should be so easy. I think he simply exploits weaknesses … sometimes latent, sometimes not so latent … and our naturally perverseness takes over from there.

Giving the devi credit not only gives him undue worship and glory, it futher stokes our Pharisaical pride allowing us to think we’d never be so sinful without outside influence.

Right on Nathan!

Paul

I can’t believe anyone believes in Satan. I find it hard to take someone who is concerned with the devil’s influence on the world seriously.

“I’m not saying Satan isn’t influential, but come one … let’s not go overboard. Sometimes, there is a better, more reasonable explanation for something.”

Nathan, sounds eerily like your stance on life on Earth.

So far, everyone I’ve heard express doubts about natural selection does not understand it. Is that because once you understand it it seems obvious not only that it works but it fits with the facts? I don’t know.

Artificial selection works, as does natural selection applied to technology. In fact, a computer simulation using natural selection effectively redesigned a real artery system: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ex4O5z_ig2g

The mutations are random — is there weren’t random variations evolution wouldn’t be possible — but natural selection is utterly nonrandom.

I’m note sure how keen you are to read a book about the philosophy behind evolution, but so far I’ve found Daniel Dennett to be a fantastic thinker and explainer in his book Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life (here’s the first chapter: http://tinyurl.com/2t3svk). Here’s a short video of Dennett talking about Darwinism: http://youtube.com/watch?v=f3OS9Yy9vqM

Did the comment I wrote here get removed or did it just not show up?

Oh, I see. That explains it! Thanks, Nate.

I told those guys to take those 5 nukes and drop them on Geor…I mean Satan’s house, but they chickened out…pussies.

We’ve discussed the subject in depth, Trent, and I can say that Nate has at least a decent understanding of the mechanism.

But, one thing is really confusing me. I was under the impression that I had won the point that natural selection is in fact not random, by the only criterion that is relevant. Your last post in that discussion still showed some conclusion, but I was under the impression that Matt accepted my point, as I was able to take him much farther along my line of reasoning. I had thought you might have been following the rest of the discussion and gotten the full of my point. Here’s your last comment:

BTW, George,
I understand what you’re saying about the non-random selection within a random environment.

I would still say, as Matthew did, that both the selection criteria (the things being selected for) and the objects doing the selecting (environment, predators, etc.) are all random. I still wonder whether or not you can call something “non-random” if it is based fundamentally on random data. Oh well.

I don’t think I ever fully addressed this last bit of confusion, so allow me to do so here.

Yes, both selection criteria and selection mechanism are random from an absolute, outside view. But from that same view, organisms cannot be said to be specifically complex; they are not functional with regard to some objective plane. Taken out of the context of their environment, organisms are also random. If an alien from a world with a biological history radically different from our own came across a chicken floating in space, would not the chicken appear to be a nonsensical, random clump of organic material? Our alien would only be able to make sense of the chicken, to understand its functionality, if it were to see chickens in their natural habitat on Earth, competing for resources, reproducing with differential rates of survival. A chicken is only functional with regard to its random environment. The same goes for all life, or for that matter, any object that reproduces with heritable variation and which must compete in some sense for resources. Natural selection is not random with regard to the random environment, and therefore is not random with regard to biological fitness.

So yes, natural selection is random if you can somehow find an absolute reference frame to view it from (you can’t really). But to talk about natural selection, or anything to do with evolution, from such a frame is meaningless. The only way to address selection, and to say anything useful or relevant about it, is to consider it relative to the environment- this includes both active and inactive, biotic and non-biotic elements- that causes the selection.

I don’t think this is a terribly hard concept to grasp…

Evolutionary images….care of SonnyC

This is a pic of me and George….after I kicked his butt in debate last week. He’s the dejected one.

http://williamcalvin.com/portraits/slide0129_image026.jpg

This is George, gloating after he thought he he said something rather intelligent….

http://williamcalvin.com/portraits/bonobo/2005SDZ%20200adj.jpg

This is a map of where anthropologists found George’s ancestors…..

http://williamcalvin.com/portraits/UNEP%20African%20Ape%20map.gif

This is George getting gay with one of his atheist buddies….

http://williamcalvin.com/portraits/Chimp/Arnhem%20360adj.JPG

And finnaly, Nathan and his pastor on the front cover of The New Progressivist Theology magazine….

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/1879557495/ref=dp_image_0/105-3203529-3744410?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books

JK fellas…..Hey, if I can’t be any good for discussion, at least a few laughs won’t hurt

Touche Trent … however, some of us find it far more unreasonable to believe in the random generation of ever increasing gene specificity and complexity, than to believe that such generation was at the hand of a higher being than humans.

It certainly sounds to me like you’re talking about selection there, as well. Mutation is, in a very loose sense, the ‘generation of traits’, and that is random, but selection, which is not random, ’selects’ those traits that are more specific (i.e., conform more closely to the independently given ‘pattern’ required by CSI, i.e., are more functional).

Ooo….ooo…..ah..ah! you’re talking about selection there, as well. Mutation….Ooo, ooo, ahh, ahhh!!!!! the ‘generation of traits’, and that is random, but selection, which is not random, ’selects’ those traits ..AHHH!!!! AHHHHH!!!!the independently given ‘pattern’ required by CSI, i.e., are more functional).OOOOO!!!! OOOOO!!!!! AHHHHHH!!!! AHHHHHHH!!!!

Monkeys having a discussion about their own evolution….

http://www.boreme.com/media/yr2005/nipple-pull.jpg

“Dammit George,” Nathan screamed, “Don’t pinch you when you twist, just twist!!!!”

Nathan-

If random traits are being generated all the time (even if they more often than not are fatal), is it not guarenteed that *eventually* one will come along that’s useful?

If useful traits spread throughout the population, isn’t that the trait we’re going to see when we look at organisms, with inferior traits becoming rare or extinct?

If you accept random mutation, competition, and systematic natural selection, don’t you think evolution, by sheer principle, should follow?