Technology and Evolution

[David Blacklock]

Canuck says: It can not prove or disprove intelligent design or guidance external to the process itself.

DB: You're right

Canuck asks: Do you recognize lines between philosophy and science in this regard?

DB: Philosophy has declined significantly in influence in the last two centuries as Science has filled gaps in knowledge. It's whole history is one of splitting hairs about concepts that can't be proven, but can be speculated upon endlessly.

[Canuckster1127]

Canuck says: It can not prove or disprove intelligent design or guidance external to the process itself.

DB: You're right

Canuck asks: Do you recognize lines between philosophy and science in this regard?

DB: Philosophy has declined significantly in influence in the last two centuries as Science has filled gaps in knowledge. It's whole history is one of splitting hairs about concepts that can't be proven, but can be speculated upon endlessly.

Philosophy has not declined. It has changed however. Increased knowledge hasn't answered the primary questions of mankind. Understanding How rarely answers the question of why that appears unique in the world to man (and is a reflection of the image of God, in my opinion) In fact, increased knowledge often leads to more unanswered questions framed differently.

[David Blacklock]

Gman says: David, if you can explain (or prove) to me how a mixture of non-living chemicals can transform itself into a living cell via natural selection I'm all ears...

DB: There is no accepted scientific explanation for how life began. It's all speculation. Natural selection is not a factor in the first appearance of a living thing.

[sandy_mcd]

Snowflakes are crystals. Crystals are ordered three-dimensional arrays. The structure of a crystal can be built up by simple rules:
1) Take the smallest subunit, usually one molecule.
2) Apply 1 of 230 sets of symmetry operations to generate additional subunits.
3) Take the resulting block and translate in all three dimensions to produce the crystal.
Because of varying local conditions, the crystal may not grow evenly in all directions. Snowflakes are perhaps the most spectacular example of this, achieving a myriad of different complex forms.
While the internal structure is dictated by the rules above, the final appearance of a snowflake varies tremendously from specimen to specimen.
Which aspect of snowflakes are you guys talking about?

[Just released.]
http://www.usps.com/communications/news ... 05_054.htm

Holiday Snowflakes (4)

Snowflakes generally take one of seven basic forms. For example, stellar, or starlike, snowflakes usually grow six primary branches that support arms, which often develop thin plates of ice at the ends. Bitter-cold conditions create crystals with more facets. The most symmetrical snowflakes occur during light snowfalls when there is cold weather and little wind. If the air is warmer, crystals tend to stick together to form less symmetrical snowflakes, or they can take on a needlelike shape. In higher humidity, snowflakes may branch more, making them dendritic, or plantlike, in appearance.

The Holiday Snowflakes stamps are photographs of two basic snowflake patterns by physicist Kenneth Libbrecht. They are stellar dendrites, which form branching treelike arms, and sectored plates, which as their name suggests, form platelike arms. Because fallen snowflakes start to melt and lose their shape in mere minutes, Libbrecht quickly transferred the snowflakes from cardboard to a glass slide using a paintbrush. He then snapped the photos inside a temperature-regulated enclosure using a digital camera attached to a high-resolution microscope.

Falling from thousands of feet, these intricate ice crystals commonly begin as a piece of dust tumbling through the clouds. Gathering water molecules, they blossom into crystal forms in endlessly different patterns because of the constantly changing conditions of the atmosphere.

[Gman]

Gman says: David, if you can explain (or prove) to me how a mixture of non-living chemicals can transform itself into a living cell via natural selection I'm all ears...

DB: There is no accepted scientific explanation for how life began. It's all speculation. Natural selection is not a factor in the first appearance of a living thing.

Thank you David for being fair and true in your explanation... As a creationist, I can't show you my (solid) proof either....

Only what I know in my heart...

[Gman]

Hey nice snowflakes there Sandy... But I don't want to talk about winter now..

[sandy_mcd]

David, if you can explain (or prove) to me how a mixture of non-living chemicals can transform itself into a living cell via natural selection I'm all ears...

Perhaps that's the problem, all input devices and no cpu.
Gman's implied argument seems to be: We don't know how something happened, therefore it couldn't have happened. [A more appropriate statement would be: We don't know how something could have happened, therefore it may not have happened.]The story of science is full of explanations of previously unexplained phenomena. Wegener in the 1930's(?) proposed that continents moved but there was no known possible mechanism until the late 1950's or early 1960's. There are many such examples.
We don't know how to cure many diseases. Should we just assume they are impossible to cure and give up?

[godslanguage]

The Big Bang seemed to have happened, but we should assume multiple parallel universes.

[David Blacklock]

sandy mcd says: "Which aspect of snowflakes are you guys talking about?"

DB: my take on what we were talking about - that snowflakes are complex enough to appear to be designed by an intelligence of some sort, yet their formation simply follows rules of physics.

Great post on the snowflakes, btw.

[sandy_mcd]

The Big Bang seemed to have happened, but we should assume multiple parallel universes.

This column discusses your point in somewhat greater depth.

Reference Frame
Theory in particle physics: Theological speculation versus practical knowledge
Burton Richter
October 2006, page 8

Burton Richter
To me, some of what passes for the most advanced theory in particle physics these days is not really science. When I found myself on a panel recently with three distinguished theorists, I could not resist the opportunity to discuss what I see as major problems in the philosophy behind theory, which seems to have gone off into a kind of metaphysical wonderland. Simply put, much of what currently passes as the most advanced theory looks to be more theological speculation, the development of models with no testable consequences, than it is the development of practical knowledge, the development of models with testable and falsifiable consequences (Karl Popper's definition of science). You don't need to be a practicing theorist to discuss what physics means, what it has been doing, and what it should be doing.

When I began graduate school, I tried both theory and experiment and found experiment to be more fun. I also concluded that first-rate experimenters must understand theory, for if they do not they can only be technicians for the theorists. Although that will probably get their proposals past funding agencies and program committees, they won't be much help in advancing the understanding of how the universe works, which is the goal of all of us.

I like to think that progress in physics comes from changing "why" questions into "how" questions. Why is the sky blue? For thousands of years, the answer was that it was an innate property of "sky" or that the gods made it so. Now we know that the sky is blue because of the mechanism that preferentially scatters short-wavelength light.
...

[David Blacklock]

What a good article - among other things, pointing out:

>> a large number of very good people are trying to make something more than philosophy out of string theory.

>>progress in physics comes from changing "why" questions into "how" questions.

>> The general trend of the path to understanding has always been reductionist—understanding complexity in terms of an underlying simplicity.

[David Blacklock]

Canuck: Philosophy has not declined.

DB: The sources I read would disagree.

Canuck: Increased knowledge hasn't answered the primary questions of mankind.

DB: Depends on what a person considers primary.

Canuck: Understanding How rarely answers the question of why that appears unique in the world to man.

DB: That is true

Canuck: Increased knowledge often leads to more unanswered questions.

DB: That is true, too

[godslanguage]

So which is the more "theological speculation", the big bang or multiple parallel universes?

[godslanguage]

"A better argument would be to give the reasons why a car must have a designer."

If God created us in his image, we must possess some of Gods traits, in the sense. Since we are created by God, we will inhibit traits of his design that would also show or express his creativeness, his gift of creativenesss. His creative Gift is therefore natural, so a car therefore must have a designer, it is inevitable, because since we acquire some of God's amazing foundations, we must also inevitably "create". It is the symbol of his design.... that we design. It is part of our natural and spiritual being that we possess this gift given to us by God.

If God didn't create us in his image, we would not be creative beings.

[sandy_mcd]

So which is the more "theological speculation", the big bang or multiple parallel universes?

Read the article referenced above: http://www.physicstoday.org/vol-59/iss-10/p8.html.