Creation vs. Evolution

[Rick Murchison]

A great speech by Dr. Eric Cornell, Nobel Prize winner in Physics, 2001.


What Was God Thinking? Science Can't Tell
...
But as exciting as intelligent design is in theology, it is a boring idea in science.

Here I take issue with the good doctor Cornell. I find scientific experiment, research, discovery and thought within the context of a created and directed universe extremely exciting, filled with wonder and delight, brimming over with unanswered questions, yet without conflict. His contention that an acknowledgement of "intelligent design" would somehow stifle motivation or quell the burning desire to know more about things and the nature of things I find wholly without merit.
"The higher you climb,
The more that you see.
The more that you see,
The less that you know.
The less that you know,
The more that you yearn.
The more that you yearn,
The higher you climb."
(Dan Fogelberg)
Rick

 

[Thalassamania]

Here I take issue with the good doctor Cornell. I find scientific experiment, research, discovery and thought within the context of a created and directed universe extremely exciting, filled with wonder and delight, brimming over with unanswered questions, yet without conflict. His contention that an acknowledgement of "intelligent design" would somehow stifle motivation or quell the burning desire to know more about things and the nature of things I find wholly without merit.

I expect that you are referring to:

But as exciting as intelligent design is in theology, it is a boring idea in science. Science isn't about knowing the mind of God; it's about understanding nature and the reasons for things. The thrill is that our ignorance exceeds our knowledge; the exciting part is what we don't understand yet. If you want to recruit the future generation of scientists, you don't draw a box around all our scientific understanding to date and say, "Everything outside this box we can explain only by invoking God's will." Back in 1855, no one told the future Lord Rayleigh that the scientific reason for the sky's blueness is that God wants it that way. Or if someone did tell him that, we can all be happy that the youth was plucky enough to ignore them. For science, intelligent design is a dead-end idea.

I think what he is getting at is that opening the door on supernatural explanations is the death of scientific progress. If everything and anything can be dealt with Deus ex machina then there’s no reason to do science at all.

 

[fairybasslet]

Rick, I agree with you. God created life. God is in control of what life does and when it does it. How he has chosen to make life work is beyond my meager grasping abilities. I'll ask him when I see him. Until then, I'll just be thankful he thought to include me.

Ah, but suppose His name is Mohammed or Abraham or Vishnu or Buddha? What will you do then?

 

[jonix]

can't believe i read this whole thread! :shakehead






i'm sleepy now. thanks guys.

 

[fairybasslet]

You make a very good point, but you know how God made man; from dirt and a rib.

I thought Eve came from the rib. And BTW, dirt sounds a lot like a gob of goop to me.

 

[Rick Murchison]

I think what he is getting at is that opening the door on supernatural explanations is the death of scientific progress. If everything and anything can be dealt with Deus ex machina then there’s no reason to do science at all.

Yes, that's what he's saying, and I say that is an erroneous conclusion. There is no reason in the world (or elsewhere, for that matter) to conclude that an acknowledgement that at the beginning and the end of time and space and infinity there is God would or should affect the pursuit of science. Indeed, I see it as the greatest motivator of all.
Rick

 

[RV]

 

[Jamdiver]

A mutation is a change in the genetic code caused by errors during replication. We're talking about changes in allele frequency - how often certain parts of the code recur in a population.

One analogy I like is imagining a bottle full of marbles. Let's say there are 200 marbles in the bottle. 90 are blue, 90 are red and 20 are yellow. Each marble would correlate a section of the genetic code that represents a trait. For example, blue marbles could be sheep with a normal amount of wool. Red marbles could be sheep with only a small amount of wool while yellow marbles could be sheep with a lot of wool. Now imagine shaking up the bottle and pouring out some marbles. Chances are you will have mostly blue or red with few, if any yellow. What we end up with is called genetic drift (albeit a drasticly simplified analogy). Based on simple probability, these population will shift towards having shorter, on average, wool than most other sheep. It not that all the sheep decided it was too warm and it was a good idea to get rid of some wool. The concept isn't hard to apply to other traits. Eventually, what you may end up with isn't even a sheep at all. The tough part is drawing the line.

Oh I remember doing that experiment over a couple generations :14:.

 

[Rick Murchison]

blah blah blah

Then again, maybe there's a kink in the intelligent design theory after all...
Rick

 

[Thalassamania]

It's sort of like the Calvanist doctrine of predestination where the eternal destiny of some to salvation, and (by inference) the rest to H*E*L*L. If that were true, what would be the point?