From: shafto@ils.nwu.edu (Eric Shafto)
Newsgroups: talk.origins,talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Does theory of evolution affect belief in God?
Date: 17 Apr 92 03:48:14 GMT
Organization: The Institute for the Learning Sciences

muehlhau@en.ecn.purdue.edu (John Muehlhausen) writes:

> Indeed, without His existence we would not exist.  Independantly of how you
> want to define "shapeless void", we know that such was once the state of our
> universe before life on earth.  All that we know was swirling superheated
> matter that _somehow_ came to be as it is today.  There is a _BIG_ problem
> with this happening by chance: 1) the universe naturally tends to disorder
> (increasing entropy) and there would therefore be a near infinitely small
> chance that, say, a protein would "happen". 

Hmm, interesting point.  I believe it has been days since I have seen
it refuted here.

> 2) Even if it did, the
> probability that it would survive, and in fact flourish in seeming mockery of
> chaos theory, approaches NULL.  

Chaos theory does not say what you think it does.  It says absolutely
nothing about the likelihood of ordered states or systems.  It talks
about the predictability of the behavior of certain classes of
systems.  The theory you are looking for is the second law of
thermodynamics, which also doesn't say what you think it does, but at
least concerns the right subject matter.


> Therefore I am very, very confident

So it would seem.

> in saying
> that, at the very least, some outside ordering energy must be responsible for
> the amazing diversity and complexity, and yet unity of everything we know.

This argument could benefit from examples so that it can be more
effectively refuted.

> "Ordering" is the key... Energy of itself does not tend to get put to good
> work - the natural tendency is to dissipate in the least interesting fashion
> possible.  

Like forming amino acids from inorganic minerals, as any high-school
biology class demonstrates?

> "Ordering" implies - even demands - intelligence, so all of a
> sudden you have God in the picture.  Especially when one considers the
> immensity of what science has discovered, and has yet to discover, about how
> it all works.

On the contrary, the more science has discovered, the more clearly
mechanistic are the explanations for the behavior and origins of the
world.

> Another interesting twist is that there does not seem to be enough matter in
> the universe (dark or otherwise) for the universe to be cyclic.  Thus what
> happened the split second before the "big bang" is still a mystery.  Of
> course I think God did it, so I don't really have a problem with it :-)

I am not a physicist, but I am not sure that there has to be a second
"before" the big bang.  If I am wrong, you should also note that
science also does not really have a problem with a mystery.

Also, whether the universe is closed or open is still quite up in the
air at this point.  I also remember reading a couple of years ago
about a researcher who proposed a mechanism whereby, under certain
extremely rare condition, some small amount of matter (say 40Kg) could
become separated from the universe it is in, and form its own, new,
universe.  There is no reason to assume our universe could not have
been formed in this way.

Be careful, too, that you do not fall into the trap of using God to
explain the origin of the universe, but then not explaining the origin
of God.  If you can say that God always existed, then I can say the
same about the universe.  If you can say that God created Himself,
then I can say the same about the universe.

> 
> More to come, for sure....

I am sorry if this response seems caustic, but it appears to me that
you could not have really read this group for as long as a week before
deciding you were ready to post your wonderful proofs of creation.
This is a common mistake, and it is one of the reasons that people get
so many extremely caustic responses.

I would suggest very strongly that the first thing you should do is
start asking for the FAQ's.  There is one FAQ that is sort of an index
to all the other FAQ's, what they are about, whom to ask for them,
etc.  I would first post, asking for the list of FAQ's, and then
request by email any that have to do with the areas that interest you.
I would imagine that you would want to start by asking for all those
that have to do with entropy, order and disorder.  Find your
objections in those FAQ's, and read and understand their refutations.
Then post your objections to the refutations.  By doing so, you will
advance the entire discussion one phase, elevate the quality of
discussion on the newsgroup, and maybe even learn something.

The most important thing to keep in mind about avoiding flames here on
t.o is that evolution has been explored for over 100 years by smart,
dedicated researchers -- people who understand thermodynamics,
chemistry, anthropology, ecology, comparative anatomy, geology,
nuclear physics, and so on, and so on.  It is very unlikely that you
are going to come up with some refutation off the top of your head
that is going to topple the idea of evolution.  In most cases, these
objections are a half-century or more old, and have been well-refuted
for most of that time.

I guess what I am saying is that you need to give people a little
credit.  For example, if evolution *did* violate the laws of
thermodynamics, researchers wouldn't be ignoring that fact, they'd be
investigating it.  Assume that some of the people working in the field
are smarter than you are (statistically very likely) and that every
one of them knows more about it than you do (they do study it for a
living, after all).  To do otherwise is to be arrogant, and I don't
think I need to remind you about the importance of humility in
Christianity.

Having said all that, and, assuming that you heed at least some of the
advice that I offer in good faith, I look forward to your future posts.
Welcome to talk.origins.
-- 
*Eric Shafto             * The longer I live the more I see I am never    *
*Institute for the       * wrong about anything, and that all the pains I *
*    Learning Sciences   * have so humbly taken to verify my notions have *
*Northwestern University * only wasted my time.          --G. B. Shaw     *
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