Originally posted by KellyJay
A lot of credit for natural selection is given when in my opinion it really
resembles more beliefs surrounding that one than facts. The credit it seems
flows to it by giving it credit for the paths evolution supposedly took in getting
all life to where we see it today. Chance supposedly gave life all its
evolutionary path choices promoting healthier, st ...[text shortened]... ch is there is
a reason for life has to do with something or someone other than nothing.
Kelly
Your post clearly shows that you do not actually understand what evidence actually
exist for evolution, or how it works, and thus your opinion is wrong.
That's ok as long as you are prepared to actually rectify that.
If your not then you will just remain in ignorance and remain wrong.
This website ...
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evo_01 ... is a great
source for learning the basics of evolution and shows a tiny portion of the mass of
evidence there is for it.
The basic mistake you are making (it seems to me) is that you are making the false
assumption that us humans (and presumably everything else currently alive) were
intended to exist from the beginning. Which is a very biblical/Christian/theist attitude
and mistake because the people who wrote the holy books thought that the whole
universe was created for us by a god or gods.
WE were the POINT of the universe.
If you have this view evolution is troubling because it doesn't take long to realise that the
odds
(at the start of evolution billions of years ago) of US appearing are so astronomically
small that it beggars belief that we ever formed.
However that's only a problem IF you think we were destined to be formed in the first place.
The classic example is tossing a coin.
The odds of any sequence of coin throws is 1 in 2^n where n is the number of coin throws.
as you can readily see the odds rapidly become enormous. (odds become approximate above
50 throws)
for 000
5 throws the odds are 1 in 32
for 00
10 throws the odds are 1 in 1,024
for 00
50 throws the odds are 1 in 1,125,899,906,842,620
for 0
100 throws the odds are 1 in 1.26765E+30
for
1000 throws the odds are 1 in 1.07151E+301
And beyond that Excel can't cope with numbers that large.
So the odds of getting any sequence of heads and tails from tossing a coin 1000 times is the
astronomically small 1 in 1.07E+301
If you were to write down a sequence of H and T 1000 characters long and then start tossing one
coin per second and you started at the beginning of the universe you probably would not have
had that sequence you wrote down today, 13 billion years later.
However you can pick up a coin right now and throw it 1000 times and generate a sequence.
And the odds of you getting A sequence are 1... certainty in other words.
The mistake you make (and most theists make) is assuming that we were intended.
That life could only be like it is and has been and could not be anything else.
This is wrong.
And also arrogant.
Assuming that the entire universe was made for our benefit, and that we are the point of it all.
or even assuming that there IS a point to it all.
Robbie is excessively fond of these "life is too improbably to form by chance" arguments and
all of them fail for the same reasons.
First he assumes that the result that actually happened is the intended result and thus starts out
by trying to work out the odds of that event happening.
And then he screws that up by knowing nothing about biology chemistry and physics and basing his
calculations on atoms randomly throwing themselves together like a reverse explosion rather than
how chemical reactions actually happen and how organic molecules actually work.
If you are
not prepared to accept anything that contradicts what you think the bible says then you
are being intellectually dishonest. It doesn't matter what the evidence is you will dismiss it out of
hand if it contradicts your pre-held view.
If you
are prepared to accept evidence and reason then I suggest you read the site I linked at
the top of the page.