As a product of a liberal public education, I've always pretty much accepted evolution as the means for man's ascent from the primordial slime; but as a confirmed iconoclast, I periodically question one or another of my established, preconceived notions, and this time a large programming project got me thinking.

Programs are mightily complex and monolithic. They depend on many, many small incremental steps to accumulate into their overall function. Program interdependencies are famous for having a change here affect a feature there. These and a plethora more similarities exist between program operation and life: researchers even explain how DNA "programs" a living
creature's development.

Now, we are all told that life evolved over many hundreds of millions of years, perhaps as long as a billion years. The mechanism of evolution is random mutation coupled with statistical survival rates that somehow make each succeeding generation of life slightly more complex than the previous. The excuse given us by scientists for why all of man's intellect today cannot systematically recreate even the vestiges of life, while random chance supposedly can, is somehow related to the vast number of years and organisms involved.

A billion years is a "1" with nine zeroes (1,000,000,000). I program on a 3 gigahertz laptop; which means every second that goes by gives my program the same amount of zeroes to work with. That means in every second I get as many zeroes as mother nature did to produce life. I want you to know that great amounts of seconds have passed under my programming fingertips and I've never once had a random mutation, (otherwise known as a "bug"), improve the operation of my software. In fact, bugs tend to devolve a program's operation. Apparently, evolutionists have the luxury of wishful thinking: unfortunately, I've actually got to code, and so, apparently did God.

I don't know if we're supposed to post to these or not, so you can delete this post if it's not supposed to be here. I was just considering similar lines myself recently. It's interesting to note that evolutionary theory, though it itself has evolved quite a lot since it's conception, was created at a time when life itself was understood to be very simple. We now have untold annals of information on the complexity of life now, yet it is still taught as the reason for it, even in the light of unimaginable preciseness, and accuracy throughout nature. Life is so complex that intelligent man still does not understand what he says nature managed accidentally. Which either doesn't say much for our intelligence, or doesn't hold to the creation of ever increasing amounts of information, which have to be added to a given system for evolution to work. This doesn't quite compute as you've stated. It's hard to increase the information positively to a working system, even with a lot of hard work and intelligent effort on our part, much less on accident.

I watched King Kong the other day... I must admit the name was a turn off, I’d never go see a movie called "King Kong" regardles of it's historical merrit. But it had lots of effects, and was worth the watch from the CG standpoint. The island world decribed in the film was painted full of creatures that almost made me chuckle. What struck me hard is, THAT is the way our world should be as a result of survival of the fittest, and brutal selection. Every creature should have huge fangs, claws, spines, and acid. Fuzzy bunnies wouldn't stand a chance. And furthermore, each planet in our solar system should have creatures adapted to life in those environments. Instead we find nothing.

Obviously, the connotations of evolution not working allow for much controversy, and I’m certainly not going into that, that isn't the point of your thread. But your right Martin, it boggles the mind how complex our world is. Even with 6 billion years to do it.

-Ethan

uh..ohhhh...Martin must be really really bored. Or pissed?

Stirring the pot once more for old times sake ?...

Who needs trolls when ya got Martin. (love ya)

I wrote that more than a decade ago, (just changed the numbers to reflect modern processors).

Well,

I'm just glad Microsoft didn't "program life".

50% of everybody would be sick with a virus and we would randomly drop dead in the street for no reason.
There would be walking dead zombies robbing banks and breaking into houses with no memory of it the next day.
Strange people with broken English would be knocking on our doors every few minutes trying to sell us porn and cheap mortagages.

Yeah, if I had a choice I would go with the purely random evolution process. I couldn't imagine paying an update fee every few years just to stay alive... or to keep my legs or something.

Also there are computer scientists who DO use "random" evolution to develop software. Once the rules are in place it actually works. In your case Martin the "bugs" are... er... human error. As HAL says, "these things are almost always due to human error."

Steven Hawking actually considers computer viruses to be a form of life. They developed in just a few years. With some help of course.



-vern

Most code (especially 10 year old code) is sorta black & white linear - one solution, precise paths

Life, evolution, genetics are sorta like neural networks - many solutions, many paths, lotsa gray, filled with fuzzy-wuzzy logic, learning based on acquired knowledge from feedback.

Yeah - but what about those 'bugs' that we often refer to as 'features' - those happy accidents that actually enhance functionality?

Cheers

My arguments against evolution run much deeper than this humorous little ditty. I was simply making the case that an arm-waving "scientist" who exclaims that my tiny little brain simply can't comprehend the numbers involved - that "scientist" is condescending beyond measure, and I'd like to get him/them into a private room and see who "evolves" their way out.

oh. ok.

that answers one of my questions.

Pissed. Must be pissed.

Well, I still "believe" in evolution. But that doesn't mean there isn't a God dictating it's progress.

Isn't evolution just another term for 'luck'?

Aren't we lucky that the primordial ooze suddenly appeared (perhaps by chariot - a la comets). Isn't it luck that it appeared on the 3rd planet from Sol just when that planet started to cool and just happened to be the right distance from a star that was small enough to only generate a small amount of lethal radiation but just the right amount of UV to trigger chemical changes in that ooze; that also resulted in chemical changes in the atmosphere causing the generation of copious electrical discharges triggering life in the now modified ooze.

Just the right distance so as not to leave the planet an ice block nor so hot as to generate a runaway greenhouse effect and just the right mass to have just enough gravity to keep just the right mix of life giving gases and ions from escaping into the cosmos and thus allow for the continuity of said life...........

Cheers

And there are millions of such co-dependant 'luck' combinations Pretty cool huh, to pull such a feat off requires just as much power as a '"god" could have. So depending on how you look at it, nature was the "god" or something else was.

-Ethan

Just because you don't understand how it could happen doesn't mean it can't. No one really understands life or how it really "evolved"... even the evolutionists... and the creationists aren't any more convincing.

I'll stick with the theory with the most supporting evidence until something more convincing comes along. Whether it's "believable" or not evolution seems to be the best thing going.

After seeing that "Brain Guy" on 60 minutes learn Icelandic in 7 days... recounted pi to like 20,000 decimal points in 5 hours from memory... I can't rule out anything.

There are lots of weird things we can't explain or wouldn't expect... evolution falls into that category for me ("God" requires faith not proof so I can't form a rational opinion on that subject).

There's a piece of duct tape I had randomly stuck to the wall a few months back. If I look at it from my bathroom it looks EXACTLY like a ducks head and neck. Random creation. Proves it for me.

-vern

I am glad that the ape is still there and still an ape...Although some of the human-raise tend to upgrade them learning, reading and understanding that a cow gives us a milk a way.

Niels

Brain food for thought:
Theory of evolution quick summary:

Single cell organisms evolved to multi cell
Multi cell evolved into simple animals
simple animals evolved into fish/insects
fish evolved into amphibians
amphibians evolved into reptiles
reptiles evolved into birds/mammals

They did so to survive right?
Why are there still single cell organisms, fish, amphibians & reptiles left? Why didn't they take the next step if it was needed to survive?

I have an interesting link Norwegian Puffin Dog that ties into my personal belief that animals can change to meet challenges yet stay the fundemental animal. I do not buy into the concept that amphibian life was so challenged that somehow it became a reptile. That's just me, everyone is entitled to his/her own opinions.

Some evolution I would like to see:

1. Man evolves to the degree that pedophiles, rapists, murderers & other sociopaths are not produced in our offspring. If this isn't a threat to survival of a species what is?
2. Dogs evolve to learn to speak human language so that they can tell us what the hell they mean by all that barking. Also, to ask for a butt wiping, rather than scooting on the carpet to clean crap off?
3. The average human evolves to be smart enough to understand the programming language of Ray Tracing.

Now all we need is "Seven" to chime in!

the basic argument against evolution here, is that there are too many interdependent systems that needed to arise simultaneously in order to support higher life, therefore the simplest solution is that something else put it all together and set it loose.

so.... where did that something come from?

this will always be an argument of faith versus science. you can have both, but ultimately you'll rely on one as the foundation of your beliefs.

-jon

I think one misunderstanding about evolution (it was for me a long time ago) is that evolution has some kind of purpose. The reason we still have one celled simple organisms is because they just work fine the way they are. Some of their offspring didn't get that one in a billion roll of the dice and move forward. So they are still here. The other more complex life forms branched off from those early on. They didn't just "become" more complex... the simple forms spawned more complex life and then continued on spawning the simple stuff.

Sort of like a child who achieves more than his parents. Parents could have a smart successful child, and also a child who is a deadbeat good for nothing lazy slob. (I wish they would stop calling me that.). The successful child could go on and raise other successful children... on and on till very tall smart, beautiful creatures with large brains in a distant future use deadbeat good for nothing lazy slobs as food (Solent Green is people!)... or entertainment (American Idol).

Apes and man aren't really related the way everyone thinks. Apes and man (in theory mind you) came from different branches. Apes today DID evolve. They came from a different branch than we did. We didn't evolve from "gorillas" or "chimps" that exist today, those evolved on their own from an earlier version of primate.

Evolution has no purpose. It is like a waterfall. The water doesn't have a goal. It doesn't search for the best way to fall over a cliff with intelligent intent, it just follows the path of least resistance. For life, the path of least resistance is SURVIVAL and reproduction. Do you really think porcupines wanted those quills? Yeah it helps them survive but what about the reproduction part of the equation?

In Martin's example he speaks of code in similar terms as evolution... but leaves out the fact that A:M doesn't go extinct during the Alpha phase. Those bugs are intentionally removed. That is a completely different process. If A:M were permitted to evolve on it's own it might become a word processor, or a web browser. More users of those, more chance to survive and reproduce.

On that same note, how many applications with a feature designed specifically to do ONE THING often ends up being used for other totally different things and is AMAZING and powerful? Like those "hair paintings" a while back. Or the bug in Netscape years ago that displayed animated GIFs... BY MISTAKE!

Those types of things "evolve" in a way, but are guided. You could think on the surface from our lowly, unable to comprehend eternity, view point that life HAD to be guided... but in reality we can't assume that from the view point of a creature that has a life span of less than 100 years. We can't really understand how things happen when there is billions of years to play around in. (I can't discuss the creationist young earth concepts. Thier "explanations" on the speed of light, the distance of galaxies, and the age of the universe seem less believable theories than evolution.)

-vern

My goodness, Vern, are you one of those "just can't comprehend the big numbers involved" guys? Let me tell you about big numbers: I hardly write a number without an exponent. Barely a day goes by that I'm not involved in statistics. I look at the odds that human beings developed "randomly" (and all the zeroes that would involve - as explained by David Higgins) and compare those to a measly 1 billion years, and I gotta say, man, "sheesh, no way." If it's all "chance," then stray cosmic rays gotta come in somewhere, otherwise where do the 3-eyeball guys come from (BTW, where are the 3-eyeball guys?) How come we can't smell as well as dogs, or see as well as eagles? It seems like those would be naturals for natural selection. And where are all the truly odd-looking people (I don't mean the ones you see in Walmart - I mean the people with 4 fingers, and the people with 6 fingers, and all the other bizarre configurations that would need to exist at any instant in time - some winning the race, some losing) because natural selection should be happening right now, and to get to the next state of evolution (this isn't the top is it?) we need some choices.

The next "Classic Minute" I post will be the "Alternative Possibilities" - of which I list 8 - and not one is "god."

So... where are all the 3 eyed guys?

p.s. I do smell like a dog. I haven't showered in a few days.

-vern

Because we don't need to. It was not necessary for the survival of the species. Or if we had needed to at some point because the environment changed locally - and humans didn't gain the super smell gene - then that version of human would have gone extinct in that locale. But not necessarily world wide.

If you change the environment - the species either evolves to adapt to the new environment - or dies off. And only in that locale.

That is probably why we don't see evidence of human evolution from a common primate ancestor worldwide - it is isolated to only those environments where the species had to change - and only those individuals with the right genetic stuff with the adaptability to new digs endured, and or took to wandering to where the food source was.

Humans are amazingly adaptable because of being able to consume a wide variety of food sources, and being able to exist in zillions of different social systems - They are not like a giant panda. Yet.




Again - there doesn't seem to be evidence that those traits are a benefit to ensuring survival based on current enviromental conditions. If at some point - that might prove to be true. We will need the extra or less toes.

And I certainly don't ascribe to the notion that humans in our present form won't also go extinct. They will. We are not going to be top of the food chain forever. We will go extinct, probably mainly due to our own lethal stupidity, not because of evolution.

We are not that necessary. We are a hindrance to the balance of the earth's survival. And there's nothing that says the earth has to live forever - it too will die someday. Just as the sun will. The solar system, etc...

BUT...A:M is Eternal. That is still true.

Evolution is a model for understanding a phenomenon that clearly takes place before our eyes. Darwin hypothesized his model a century before DNA was associated with heredity. All of our understanding of how DNA works and its place in evolution have been divined in your lifetime. I think evolution and molecular biology are at the level of understanding that cosmology was using Copernicus and maybe Newton. Figuring out that the earth and planets revolve around the sun was a great intellectual leap forward in understanding the universe, just like DNA defines the biology of all species on earth is a great leap forward (and you were there). There were four centuries between Copernicus and Einstein. I think what we call evolution is still waiting for it’s intellectual equivalent of Einstein’s Relativity to bring our level of understanding to the next level. We may even be waiting for a Newtonian level of understanding. I don’t think we know what we don’t know.

PS. How is one Pentium machine cycle in any way equivalent to a year in evolution other that some sort of numerology coincidence? Are you going New Age on us?

Let's not get too serious here... My arguments are intended to be clever, ingenious, and non sequitur.

six-fingeredness is genetically dominant, so if either parent has the trait, the child will have the trait.

six fingered people were kinda weird looking, so i suspect they got stoned, shunned or otherwise taken out of the gene pool, till the trait was largely bred out.

i imagine that all kinds of really cool traits were developed and lost simply because they didn't increase the odds of their possessor making and raising babies.

someone should write a story or somethin'....

-jon

ps: 29jan07: does evolution select for faster evolvers?

Yep.

Or all are...

Niels

i believe in god. i believe in the easter bunny. i believe in trickle-down i believe in everything, 'cuz....

"everything you can think of is true"
-tom waits

I think Vern put his finger on it. Most people have a conception of Evolution as purposeful (teleology). But evolution is merely descriptive of the observed changes over time. Darwin's theory was that evolution was a result of natural selection.
Natural Selection doesn't mean "choice" by an entity named "nature" (or god). It just means that whatever fails to have offspring, fails.

Another thing to consider: "species" is a man-made classification. the reality is that we are each (all living creatures) descended from our parents, and they from theirs. We have similar morphology because we have common ancestors (though distant). the more different we look, the more distant our ancestors....

A computer program evolving? I guess you can make that comparison...Not through random mutation, since it is designed. However in a sense the software and operating systems that are around now are descended from common ancestors. But if you want to go down this analogy further, aren't competing softwares fighting for markets (life?)?.... What are the evolutionary odds against the survival of an odd species of software, living in isolation for so long that it cannot breed with it's distant relations????

That's why someOne made a stand.

Niels

ps.
A zillion zero's or one's or the combination of those are meaningless without the proper configuration, the sender does know the right interpretation.

I am not real familiar with Darwin and what people made out of it but I do recall it being reason based not randomly and the better way is not always the easiest way so the process would be a concious one.



Having no offspring is no failure, teaching the environment is worth many parents.



No matter how match hands I shake, it stays my hand.




You should see this more in a 3D way, where expressions live in an made environment.

Niels

I think a lot of misconceptions about evolution are due to TV and movies.

I have a bunch of the old TV series "Space 1999" on DVD. One episode referred to a single individual "adapting" to a planets environment. The only argument against this, was that it would take millions of years to adapt and this guy was only on the planet for a few years. He didn't have time to adapt... wow... rocket scientists those guys. No wonder their moon flew out of orbit.

Don't even get me started on that Raquel Welch movie...

I seriously doubt our ancestors wore animal skin bikinis... it was cold back then (global warming). I suppose if someone like Raquel Welch had "evolved" in one of those tribes they would have made it a community project to devlop one of course (Obviously that movie was produced by creationists which explains the dinosaur attacks).

And what about 2001:A Space Odyssey? Lots of evolution inaccuracies in that movie.

As far as I know, Pan Am went extinct years ago (I believe they were stoned as freaks by the 5 fingered people). They wouldn't be around to make space ships yet we see the logo all over the place. George Lucas should fix that in the next DVD special edition.

All in all, the entertainment industry is responsible for many false assumptions about evolution.

-vern

um.. your saying these evolutionary innacuracies are responisible for supposed chinks in evolutionary theory? There are plenty of chinks without hollywood's misrepresentations.

-Ethan

William has a point! umm.. and Vern has a point! those are the only threads I've really read much of so there may be other points to. Who's keeping score again?

These threads remind me of a tennis match with 700 people playing at the same time. Lots of ball whacking and one big pain in the neck.

I am just trying to keep things light. This topic ALWAYS ends up in "flames".

This whole debate about the viability of evolution is just silly. It doesn't matter how many zeros you put after a number there is no way we can understand in our minds the scope of things that lead to the evolution of life today.

Martin can work with huge numbers. Mathematicians can understand those huge numbers and work with them. It doesn't mean someone can look at a time span of billions of years and say "that could never happen" because I know there isn't enough years. There is no definitive answer. Evolution theory is the best bet and makes sense. If some radical discovery throws it out the window sometime down the road... fine with me. I won't trash it now just because that MIGHT happen.

Evolution doesn't even attempt to explain or justify how life STARTED, it can evaluate the fossil record and reach conclusions based on what is there as far as life evolving into what we see today. It may be "chance" or there may have been other influences such as an already existing form of simple life from a comet or asteroid. Maybe an Albetononian from Queltzabaar sneezed while visiting the volcanoes here a long time ago... who knows? The fossil record describes a process of the development of life forms in existence today. Evolution tries to describe that process. It doesn't have to describe exactly how that process takes place on a cellular level. Things mutate... changes happen.

We are now discovering that evolution may actually happen FASTER than just random numbers pulled from a hat. Even random events create interesting results. Like potato chips shaped like Yogi Bear. Tortilla chips with an image of the virgin Mary. Those are random events and yet I see potato chips shaped like familiar things all the time!

We don't know nothing. Evolution looks pretty good to me. When the Albetononians come back to see how things are going we can ask them... or when I die and they are about to throw me into eternal Hell fire... I will know for sure. Or maybe if I come back as toad or a goat... well... I probably won't care...

-vern

I would be more worried about not having an open debate about things. I don't have any children, and yet I wonder what are they learning? evolution/creationist? I do know that viril entity are constantly evolving, and we are always developing new vaccine of whatever new challenges we face.

I be more worried that they also not get a barrage of many ideas and challenge them all on it's merit.

BTW I know a guy with 4 kidneys, and my brother in-law was born with 6 fingers in each hands as his great grandfather. I have a friend who's dad has a 5 chamber heart and is in great condition. My brother in law had an operation to correct his hands, but makes me wonder should it be corrected, or could he be an evolutionary upgrade?

It is curious to note that his son won't be born with 4 kidneys...despite the obvious possible benifit.

Martin, you have some (unfortunately common) misunderstandings about how evolution works. Chiefly, you're neglecting heredity and sexual reproduction. The random shuffling of the genotypes that happens everytime egg meets sperm is a MUCH more powerful engine of evolution than is random mutation (at least when you're talking about multicellular organisms). Mutation contributes positively once in perhaps a million generations (not that long for bacteria, but ages for us vertebrates). Sexual recombination can start radically shaping a species in a few thousand, given sufficient selection pressure. When you have a lack of selection pressure, speciation slows to a crawl. Sharks have existed mostly unchanged for half a billion years because they work well enough in their biological niche that rival forms can't gain a foothold (finhold?).

DNA is also not anything like consciously-written computer code. True, the "code" itself (DNA, the molecule) is basically digital, based as it is on four-bit chemical units, but its execution is very much analog. In code running on digital hardware, operations either pass or fail, but in the analog execution of a recipe, there is room for variation without catastrophe. Even non-optimal genes will "compile".

Mutations are seldom useful, but they are also seldom fatal.

There is a great book on the topic of gene expression during devlopment called "Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo-Devo". I highly recommend it. They have a number of photos of developing embryos, dyed with flourescent materials that light up when certain genes are expressed. Reading them sequentially, you can actually see when each gene turns on and off.

I also recommend "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" by Dennett. It's the best philosophy-of-science book I've ever read. Martin, this book directly addresses the points you raise much more thoroughly (and cogently) than I'm able to. I can't recommend it enough. You will be likely put off by Dennett's praise for Darwin's idea at first, but I guarantee that you will find the nitty gritty of natural selection and algorithmic progression through potential design space interesting.

That evolution happens is an absolute fact. That's not propaganda, it's observable reality, and it takes deliberate denial or unintentional ignorance of the evidence to hold a contrarian view. As sure as night turns to day, man evolved from ape-like primates, and what makes us human constitues a fractional percentage point of our total genotype. Even our morality comes from evolution, as an extension of the empathy that exists in varying degrees in all social mammals.

There are no competing theories that are testable, or that aren't immediately contradicted by genetics, biology, and the fossil record. Speciation has been observed dozens, if not hundreds of times, both in controlled conditions and in the wild. To see how random mutation can "improve" a simple organism, one need look no further than our ongoing war against drug-resistant bacteria. Also of note (at least, I found it interesting) is the species of bacteria which consumes, and in fact can survive on nothing but, nylon.

Nylon didn't exist until the 1930s.

Nobody wanted evolution by natural selection to be true. It is the most contested, most brutalized, most scrutinized theory in all of science, and yet it stands stronger than ever. It fights all comers. So far it's undefeated.

I know you like to be the underdog, but you're using arguments that withered on the vine decades ago. Consider the actual evidence for evolution (not the condensed encyclopedia stuff, I mean the heavy, unfiltered shit), if only to know your enemy. Maybe you will come up with something that can put a dent in Darwin's dome.

My money's on Chuck though.

For whatever can be said about evolution it certainly has one benefit, it brings A:M users back to the forum.

Great to see you posting Brian.

It's that dang puny brain of mine. The A:M forums are full of people smarter than me. I wish I could comprehend evolution too. 20 years of post-graduate education, wasted.

There's an irony in throwing a temper tantrum while appealing to one's own seniority and erudition.

We should totally do away with critique in science and just adopt the views of whoever nurses the biggest persecuted genius complex.

Oh my goodness! Are we here already? That didn't take long.

argumentum ad verecundiam.... You always seem to fall back on that appeal to authority in your arguments, when you are unable to persuade others.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_authority

Rather than letting yourself get bogged down with trying to persuade the person offering the opposing viewpoint--remember that your goal in debate is persuade the LISTENERS to your views by facts, analogy, and logical arguments.

Don't mistake 'Appeal to Authority' for credentials.

If you follow the logic, Martin is not responding to the debated topic but the Appeal to Authority (in negative terms) in Brian's dismissal of Martin's argument. This is an Appeal To Authority on Brian's part and (if counting) would lose points for Brian.

Can you spot at least two other logical fallacies in Brian's post?
Hint: Always look at any sentence where absolutes are used.

As Rodney pointed out, I "won" this debate when the arguments became absolute, condescending, and ultimately a personal attack, (weren't any of you guys on "Debate Team" in school?) However, there's a continuation of this evolution theme in the topic above this one. Give it another whirl up there. (This time, read some debating rules, or ask someone with formal debating experience.)

when the owner of the forum declares himself the 'winner' of a thread, i guess that's that.

we better get started on revising all those reference books....

-jon

No. Brian's argument isn't an appeal to authority fallacy, because the experts cited are experts in the field of knowledge being discussed. Please read the article, so that you will understand the terms...

The fallacy is where you use your credentials in one field to argue that your opinions in another field are valid. That is the fallacy that Martin makes when he throws down his phd's like a gauntlet....

I remember when 'we' had no ZOO's() and I had seen some elephants in India, it was hard to explain back home, at the end it is how you tell it and how it really is but faith and trust do count as fact and logical argument. Yes, ZOO's came, people went to India themselves or more truth were told...

Niels

I. Complex Question: the fallacy of phrasing a question that, by the way it is worded, assumes something not contextually granted, assumes something not true, or assumes a false dichotomy. To be a fallacy, and not just a rhetorical technique, the conclusion (usually the answer to the question) must be present either implicitly or explicitly.

Rodney, can you spot your own logic fallacy of "begging the question"?

Okay, I'll give you guys some hints on how to combat an argument like mine:

First, recognize the non sequitur (that means illogical inference) of equating clock cycles to years. (It was clever, and one of the things that made the MM funny.) A couple of you got that.

Second, respond to the example. I think Nancy zeroed in right away.

Three, don't recite your grade school evolution dogma as an absolute, and don't deify dead people... Geesh, guys, I thought you were against religion.

Forth, overtly condescending replies lose points (you have to be subtle), and NEVER personal insults - game over.

Now, the "Evolution Redux" thread is a better crafted debate, and it's going well... Give that one a try.

I remember you calling me dweeb... My father taught me well.

Niels

"Dogma."

That's a convenient way of dismissing anything you don't want to hear, dude. Do you want to address any of the facts you keep dodging?

Fact: mutation is a rare, bit player in the evolution of multi-cellular organisms. Most evolution is driven by sexual recombination. Your model utterly fails to account for sexual reproduction. Evolution is not one program that is slowly being written by one programmer, it is a trillion programs being coded simultaneously and crossbred with one another millions of times. The number of distinct "programs" written by natural selection is equal to the the sum total of all the individual organisms that have ever lived.

Fact: the expression of genes is not digital, and cannot be directly compared to the pass/fail compilation of computer code.

Fact: speciation has been objectively observed many times. If you want a list of verified speciation events I can point you to one.

I state these as absolutes because they have been proven with evidence and withstand tests of reason, not because my ego demands that they be true.

Advocates of intelligent design have yet to present any compelling evidence for their hypothesis. The argument from irreducible complexity is especially limp, because it has been show time and time again that even the most rudimentary structures can still benefit an organism. A single light sensitive cell can't form an image, but it can tell an organism whether or not it's exposed to predators. Michael Behe's argument for the irreducible complexity of the flagellum has also been proven faulty.