Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Observations and Collectables -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (269)	9/13/2006 3:30:19 PM
From: skinowski	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17059

Thanks... nice collection. Below is a(n edited) note which I sent to the author... actually, excerpts from 2 notes - the second one I sent after he dismissed the first... but indeed, in the end both sides will continue to stick to their beliefs... ;) One problem I have with your card analogy is that there is no reason to believe that ANY OTHER shuffle different from the one which actually was "dealt" would be compatible with the final product, which is - life. And this leads one to think that the argument of the creationists is correct - namely, that the physico-chemical arrangement known to us as life more likely than not came about NOT as a result of purely random events. ........ In [your card] analogy life as we know it IS the shuffle. Are we aware of any other life forms, NOT based on carbon in this specific particular configuration with which we are familiar? The possibility of any other form of life is purely hypothetical - and no other form may actually exist in the Universe. Moreover, if MANY "random" shuffles could lead to appearance of life, then there must exist a practically infinite abundance of different forms of life - including on our planet. This is not the case, which indicates that the "shuffle" most likely was NOT random, but rather directed. To me personally this is a curious, but not an extremely important issue. .... The entire argument is just a modern incarnation of the attempts to use reason in order to prove the existence - or, non-existence - of God. Won't happen, I think. Both sides will continue to persevere in their current faith..... ;)

To: TimF who wrote (269)	9/13/2006 7:04:23 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17059

I'll comment on only one of the links now due to time: millerandlevine.com Claiming the flagellar motor developed from another structure, the type 3 secretory system, doesn't address the issue of irreducible complexity IMO. It is a surmise that the flagellar motor developed from the TTSS. It could just as easily be surmised (and has been) that the TTSS developed from the flagellar motor. It might be that neither developed from the other. But either way, both are arguably irreducibly complex, so what is gained by arguing one is derived from the other. You are still left with an irreducibly complex structure. Also, I'll add that Miller seems to want to have it both ways. Biological life just happened without design per mainstream Darwinism, yet he agrees that we're in a world of meaning and purpose consistent with an overarching, possibly Divine intelligence... Life is either one or the other - accident or design. Of the two, design is far easier to believe.