Vatican comes out in support of Darwin?

[Peter Ahlstrom]

That quote doesn't convince me of anything. You are an open system. When you eat food, your entropy decreases. When you cook an open system of pancake batter, its entropy decreases since it goes to a more ordered state. Entropy decreases in open systems all the time all around us.

[Faster Master St. Pastor]

That quote doesn't convince me of anything. You are an open system. When you eat food, your entropy decreases. When you cook an open system of pancake batter, its entropy decreases since it goes to a more ordered state. Entropy decreases in open systems all the time all around us.

We should stop talking about Entropy. He's getting arrogant.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

If he's decreasing, how can he get arrogant?  

[Faster Master St. Pastor]

Maybe his volume is decreasing but his density is increasing, then he could become super dense like a diamond. Then he would be able to do lots of...stuff. That would be cause for arrogance. Change two letters in dense and it becomes an insult, which ones are they?  

[Entsuropi]

[size=8]ARROGANCE :)[/size]

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Change two letters in dense and it becomes an insult, which ones are they?  

Or you could just change 0 letters...

[Faster Master St. Pastor]

Yes, but the point wasn't to insult, it was simply an observation that I made after writing dense so many times (I had to edit a lot).

[The Jade Knight]

That quote doesn't convince me of anything. You are an open system. When you eat food, your entropy decreases. When you cook an open system of pancake batter, its entropy decreases since it goes to a more ordered state. Entropy decreases in open systems all the time all around us.

Let me guess - you didn't read the article I linked to which the quote was excerpted from?

[Entsuropi]

Jade, your unlikely to ever convince someone if all you do is thrust URLs around. Try presenting the arguements yourself.

[Faster Master St. Pastor]

Like mine about Entropy's arrogance.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Let me guess - you didn't read the article I linked to which the quote was excerpted from?

When your summary appeared to be a summary of something that was totally inadequate to present your arguments, why should you expect me to look at the orginal?

In any case, I don't find it completely convincing. I'm more willing to accept the life origin part of the article, but less so the post-origin development part. It does not even mention mutation, which is something shown to exist in our current world (mutations which are NOT expressions of genes that were there before, but spontaneous new things due to radiation or faults in the DNA replication process, etc.). Anyway, some scientists like Crick believe that conditions on Earth were not suitable for life to arise, but that life arose somewhere else that WAS more suitable, and then traveled here via comets and whatnot.

Anyway, as I said before, I don't believe evolution happened (on Earth) simply because Adam fell only 7,000 years ago or so, not giving enough time for it to occur. But I've got no problem with the idea that God ran some kind of evolution-based (heavenly computer or other) simulation during the spiritual creation phase to handle speciation and stuff like that; that seems much easier than consciously piecing together each T C A G base...

[The Jade Knight]

The reason I don't rehash the same arguments here is because they've all been hashed out elsewhere.  In addition, I expect that part of the reason is that I'm apathetic - I don't care enough to convince you in which regards evolution is scientifically untenable when it doesn't affect your belief to begin with.  And specifically entering into and addressing scientific arguments in excruciating detail here just wouldn't be worth it, especially considering that.

And the quote wasn't intended as a summary, but rather as an excerpt showing one facet of the argument, and why it might be helpful to read.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

We should stop talking about Entropy. He's getting arrogant.

"Getting?"

[Skar]

That quote doesn't convince me of anything. You are an open system. When you eat food, your entropy decreases. When you cook an open system of pancake batter, its entropy decreases since it goes to a more ordered state. Entropy decreases in open systems all the time all around us.

Exactly.  And both those activities require some form of intelligence to perform them.  Pancakes don't cook themselves and nutrients don't spontaneously organize themselves into bones muscle or leaves. Some sort of higher being, whether it's a plant sucking stuff up from the soil or Ookla flipping a pancake, is required to put matter into a more organized state.  Thus we arrive at the idea that in order for our organized selves to exist there must be a higher "intelligence" to have done the organizing.

It does not even mention mutation, which is something shown to exist in our current world (mutations which are NOT expressions of genes that were there before, but spontaneous new things due to radiation or faults in the DNA replication process, etc.)

Given that this is not germaine to the life origin  portion of the argument... I'd very much like to see an example of random mutations that provided evolutionary advantage to the organism involved.  Like I said, I've looked and haven't found any so... Where did I miss?

Anyway, some scientists like Crick believe that conditions on Earth were not suitable for life to arise, but that life arose somewhere else that WAS more suitable, and then traveled here via comets and whatnot.

So "I admit that evolution could not have happened here but somewhere it might have therefore believe." Is a viable argument?  I don't buy it.

But I've got no problem with the idea that God ran some kind of evolution-based (heavenly computer or other) simulation during the spiritual creation phase to handle speciation and stuff like that; that seems much easier than consciously piecing together each T C A G base...      

Thus we see that you do believe in Intelligent Design after all.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Um...I will thank you to not put words into my mouth. I have already plainly said that I believe God created the universe. Did you read this thread? But I do not claim any belief in "Intelligent Design Theory," so don't tell me I believe something I haven't said I believe.

Plus why would the idea of mine that you quoted, about God making use of simulated evolution to do speciation, when Intelligent Designists specifically do not believe speciation can arise from evolution, lend any support for your claim that I believe as Intelligent Design advocates do? Quite the opposite!

I think I take an entirely different tack on the issue than Intelligent Designists. They specifically avoid mentioning God, but attempt to reason out the need for an Intelligent Designer. On the contrary, I accept God from the start and have no interest in trying to prove a need for his existence due to gaps, real or imagined, in any current human theories. Now, I am all in favor of discussing the weaknesses of any theory when that theory is taught in the science classroom--a huge proportion of scientific advancement in the recent centuries comes from exploring the weaknesses in the prevailing theories, so ceasing to do so would quite hinder advancement. However, I don't see that any scientific advancement has ever come from saying "we can't explain this, so God must have done it." Anyway, the whole issue wouldn't have come up if religion and science were allowed to be taught side by side--neither one in place of the other, but coexisting. But Supreme Court decisions have hampered that; thus this contrived ID debate.

Back to your post--I must say I think the origin of life issue is muddying this up far too much. Darwinian evolution does not attempt to explain the origin of life from nonlife. How life got to this planet in the first place is a related area of inquiry for the scientists involved, but it is not the same area of inquiry. So the 2nd law of thermodynamics arguments against the spontaneous origin of life are not arguments against evolution.

...also, I don't want to put words into your mouth, but it seems like you just said that plants are a form of intelligent life...

Before this instant I had no idea that there were people out there attempting to prove that no mutations are ever beneficial and that they are always harmful. But a google search reveals plenty such people.