Re: CONTRARY EVIDENCE (WASRe: Evide)nce!

[Crosspost to uk.comp.sys.mac removed. I'll remove alt.computer.workshop in my next reply, if any.]
 On 3/12/24 9:01 PM, Ron Dean wrote:

Mark Isaak wrote:

On 3/8/24 7:59 AM, Ron Dean wrote:

Mark Isaak wrote:

[...]
What Ron neglects in his analysis is, first, that evolution is a designer -- not as efficient as human designers, but a designer nonetheless; and second, that where humans and evolution differ regarding their being designers, life unquestionably looks like it is not the result of intelligent design.

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Of course life looks designed. There is nothing else on the planet with the capacity to replace or reproduce itself with the same level of complexity and organization as does life.  Life alone has the capability and the information  to obtain needed raw materials, modify and order these materials into the highly organized entities called living organisms. Secondly, one of the fact that's  of the essentials of all is the question of origins. Darwin himself acknowledged that the key to the past is the present.

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If one accepts this truism, then to our present knowledge the _only_source of highly complex information is mind.

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That is a huge non sequitur, and it is not true. We know from physics (and astronomy and geology and meteorology) that complexity forms spontaneously in a wide variety of circumstances.

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Complex forms do no constitute highly complex information which in this case infers knowledge, know-how or instructions. Crystals can form complex strictures so can bubbles in water, star formations, but there is nothing pertaining to information.

 That's because you define information away in those cases. By most definitions of information, information forms, or at least gets localized, in stars, hurricanes, cave formations, river systems, etc.
 

Information is key,

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No, energy flow is key.

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I agree, energy is key, but energy without information that's controlling energy, energy can be and usually is destructive. A tornado is not controlled by intelligence energy.  But a tractor with a controlling factor (a man) is controlled energy, if the man has a heart attack and dies, the throtle remains open, now the tractors energy is uncontrolled. The barn, stables and building can be destroyed.

 You miss the reality. Energy flow *without controlling information* can and does, observably and repeatably, produce complex, information-dense formations. Yes, energy can be destructive. So can intelligence; homicide kills a lot more people than tornadoes do. But flowing energy has a tendency to produce order. If the principle could be quantified, it would probably be a fourth law of thermodynamics.
 

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Darwin observed pigeons and finches that were varying sizes shapes and differing beaks and he concluded that change was unlimited. This proved false, unknown to Darwin was the information contained in DNA. We observe dogs and hogs of differing sizes and shapes, but there is a limit to the change possible which is determined by information.

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That doesn't even make sense. If change is limited by information, then a change to the information eliminates those limits.

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True, but cave fish went blind, some birds lost their ability to fly. Dogs can  vary in size and shape, but they cannot grow new organs. Because the information in DNA to express new organs don't exist. But it's possible to lose information and fail to survive. We once owed a dog that gave birth to
pups that were blind on two different occasions. So, the information required for functioning eyes was lost.

 Yeah, so? I have lost money on more than one occasion, and I know the same is true of most people. If I were to go by your logic, everybody is losing money, and nobody is making any.
 Don't forget also to look at such things as the adaptions to high altitude, evolved separately in the Andes and Tibet, and tetrachromacy.
 

Also, I don't believe Darwin ever supported the idea that change was unlimited. Change is still limited by constraints imposed by physics and resources,

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I agree, also absent in DNA.
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and there appear to be some possibilities (large wheels is

the only example I know) that cannot evolve from existing forms.
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There is no information (DNA) which expresses for wings on a hog. But there can be a loss of information, birds that lost the ability to fly. The origin of life itself: since the present is key to the past, the Pasteur experiment that life comes only from life has never been falsified. Life must have been created billion years ago. And until a better explanation is discovered. In science the origin of life remains unresolved,  there is no more logical  or rational conclusion available than what we observe in the present. We do not observe new non carbon life or other substances forming a unique type of life at present, again verifying the fact that life comes from life. "And God breathed the breath of life into man and man became a living soul". Man as the only concern of the writer of the statement, but also life was breathed into other life forms. \

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Unfortunately for your position, the constraints to change do not include one's choice of religion or lack of ability to conceive of alternatives.
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At the present there is no better explanation.

 There is no better explanation for biological change of populations over extended time than evolution. I know of only one other explanation -- tampering by super-high-tech extraterrestrials --, and nobody takes it seriously. Creationism, aka magic, is not an explanation; it is a word to use in place of one.
 

Don't get my wrong I am against organized religion. But this is a religious dogma which comes from religious sources. But the only argument against this dogma is atheism - there is a God or there is no God, either of which is in reality, just a philosophy.
But my bet would be on the positive.

 None of which has any relevance to the issue of evolution.