shadowind

i bet the gophers would be

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remember "for mere impulse of appetite is slavery, while obedience to a law which we prescirbe to oursleves is liberty"-rousseau: the concept of the general will "if we can not reconcile all opions, then let us endeavour to unite all hearts."-?"to be is to be perceived"-? "‘We can be as honest as we are ignorant. If we are, when asked what is beyond the horizon of the known, we must say that we do not know’-Robert G. Ingersoll

Og

I'm not implying any morality about interacting with said illusory objects.

You act however you want to a cat. Personally, instead of thinking about devaluing life (i.e. taking a sledge hammer to a cat), I think of this perspective as increasing the value of all things. Seeing my identity in rocks, trees, nebulae, and the wind as well as in the cats and gophers and you and your parents (see yoda's description of the force).

This wouldn't keep me from smashing a rock if I wanted to. I also probably wouldn't smash a cat because of a fear of slippery slope down into cruelty to other beings like me and my desire for a reciprocal morality (i.e. "do unto others" which I think makes a lot of sense).

The way you respond to life is up to you and quite useful for the construct called society that we live in.

My point was just that life is a concept that applies to all things in some degree. The notion that we won't create life in a lab is hogwash. That's exactly what silicon based electronics are. It's our success at creating life. It's not nearly as complex as we are, yet, but it's quite a bit more complex and functional than many things we'd classically call life.

__________________
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are

romansh

This is a bit I'm having a problem with. Why, in what way are they illusory?

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There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened. ........... Douglas Adams

Og

I'm mainly referring to the distinction between life and non life and the notion of a distinct boundary between some object and it's environment. There is no such real distinct boundary. All objects are entirely defined by their environment and vice versa.

That's all I mean by illusion.

__________________
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are

romansh

All objects are entirely defined by their environment and vice versa.

please can you explain further.. I'm OK with the first bit
thanks

__________________
There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened. ........... Douglas Adams

GI

>>>>Can you explain how a cell phone arose? I think that process is intimately intertwined with how human beings arose, since human beings created cell phones.


Oh please!!! Yes, we can explain how a cell phone arose from constituent parts put together with intelligence and design. It is a man made product, regardless of how man originated it is not a wonder, its designer is a wonder yes.

I think you'll find that the subject here is 'origin of life' and whilst I listed seemingly irreducibly complex structures as examples of the weakness of Darwinism in general, I don't really anticipate the discussion of the evolution of the eye to answer all questions. But yes, ok, you are right, this notion that improvements of only one percent each could lead, in only some 400,000 generations, to the eye of a fish seems plausible - until you study/consider the mechanism by which these changes are supposed to have occurred. Yes, there is a plausible series of intermediate eye-designs among living animals. Some single-celled animals have a light-sensitive spot with a little pigment screen behind it, and in some many-celled animals a similar arrangement is set in a cup, which gives improved direction-finding capability. The ancient nautilus has a pinhole eye with no lens, the squid's eye adds the lens, and so on. None of these different types of eyes are thought to have evolved from any of the others, however, because they involve different types of structures rather than a series of similar structures growing in complexity. But when then why did the many primitive eye forms that are still with us never evolve into more advanced forms? Dawkins admits to being baffled by the nautilus, which in its hundreds of millions of years of existence has never evolved a lens for its eye despite having a retina that is practically crying out for (this) particular simple change. If eyes have evolved as Dawkins describes, by chance, then the genetic program to coordinate all the embryological steps in the growth of an eye (of each type) would evolve only after the genes for the steps themselves had evolved. Yet recently, scientists learned that the same gene coordinating the embryological steps in eye-making works in wasps and mice! The coordinating gene must have come first. "The observation that mammals and insects, which have evolved separately for more than 500 million years, share the same master control gene for eye morphogenesis indicates that the genetic control mechanisms for development are much more universal than anticipated". In March, 1997, a group of scientists at the National Eye Institute in Bethesda, Maryland and the University of Basil in Switzerland reported that a gene controlling eye development is shared by fruit flies, mice, and squid. These startling developments have made theorists reconsider how eyes evolved.

A may be easier to explain this to you via this link: http://www.asa3.org/archive/evolution/199802/0053.html

I'll talk about the heart later if I must, but how about taking the living cell as an example of irreducible complexity? Tell me how that evolved in detail rather than just 'this step to that step’ explanation without explaining just how one step could happen. Suddenly the a membrane forms around this DNA molecule, the DNA molecule arose from an RNA molecule that arose from……………………erm, well, we don’t know…but it just must be……mustn’t it?

If you saw 'SOS' written in the sand, would you really believe that it was a one in a trillion chance of the wind, OR would you think that somebody had written it? Genetic pre-programming is pretty evident in nature and natural selection selects and doesn’t create. Please think this through, we need to think this Darwinism through, it doesn’t NOT add up at all and we all know it!

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The more you know, the more you realize you don't know, the less you know the more you THINK you know.

GI

>>>Man will create cellular life in the lab soon and eventually we will understand what it took to make the first species, if we are around long enough.

If I can just create life in this petra dish then I will prove that it took no intelligence to do it eh?????? <-- joke!

Seriously, will he really? Is that another 'fact' you want to give us? And why would that prove evolution by natural selection? What's going to happen? Is he going to demonstrate how self replicating molecules arose and developed into a living cell by accidental chemical fusion? Can't wait for that day, would love to see this Darwinism demonstrate something other than an extremely minor modification on a an organism, structure!

Evolution may well have happened but not by the Darwin model of evolution - no way!!

>>>The original took a billion years before it formed. Yes, we don't quite yet understand the exact nature of this, but we will, have faith .

You Darwinists never do know the exact nature of how things came about but just tell us it is fact! Then say 'have faith'?? Exactly, HAVE FAITH in your THEORY!!!!

RNA was there!
How?
Dunno, but it was!
But how?

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The more you know, the more you realize you don't know, the less you know the more you THINK you know.

Og

Hrm. This seems to be the crux of your argument. It's also wrong. No one is asking you to have faith in evolution nor are we claiming to know everything.

Your argument is an argument from ignorance. Irreducible complexity says that since you can't figure it out, it must be designed, the end... Seems fairly arrogant of you. On the other hand, if we don't know how it came about, we (scientists) reserve judgment and say "we don't know... yet." (Hence evolution forever and always being "a theory")

We say "have faith in reason" not in evolution. There's a world of difference.

This seems to be the new tactic of the creationists. Assault what we DONT KNOW and point at the ignorance and say that that is where God is. It's a pitiful approach. You ignore the vast volumes of fossil and genetic and microevolutionary data in support of the current theory of evolution.

You twist the "valuable uncertainty and doubt" in science into something you want people to perceive as a weakness for your causes.

You say it's designed? Where's the evidence for this? Simply "not understanding how it was formed" is not evidence for anything other than our own ignorance. This is why ID is an ideology versus a science. You teach some perceived controversy and ignore the need for evidence for your claims.

Certainly all scientific theories are open to discussion. But you've gotta do the leg work if you want to partake in that discussion. Simply saying "I don't get it" isn't enough.

__________________
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are

WilliamBlue

Nooo, it wouldn't take magic to do it, geez. If we can do it in 2000 years (or 10,000) I think it could of happened by accident once or maybe twice in a billion years.

I never said I knew the 'exact' nature of how things came about, but I believe the evidence that backs evolution and I am willing to wait for more.

The 'have faith' part was a joke, notice smiley face you edited out, but I guessed you wouldn't get it... my mistake.

This makes you sound like a spoiled brat, you ever heard of patience.

Yeah, I give up, magic did it, that is what you are claiming right? Your whole argument is based on this right?<---sarcasm in case you didn't know

Again, you are like our ancestors whom could not wait for all the answers, so instead invented their own.

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When you dance with an elephant it's up to you to not get stepped on.
How can we be so arrogant and egotistical to believe that the whole Universe was created just for us?

AB517

Stating a cell phone seeks out towers is a total misrepresentation of what is going on.

Start there, when you understand that, you will be one step further along.

Og, did you ever build these types of things?
There are a every simple thing.
A cell phone will not change ... ever ... DNA will.