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Harvey ,
I enjoyed your response to Eva. It was on point, specific, refreshing, and without rancor.
Allow me to throw my own two cents into the pot:
There were a some assumptions made and terms that lacked proper definition in her original posting.
The last I heard it was Einstein's General THEORY of Relativity, not a Law. A theory is a hypothetical explanation of some observed set of circumstances, or a postulated effect of something not yet observed or observable, whereas a Law has been (usually) thoroughly tested in a large number of different conditions, and has proven to be universally valid.
On the microscopic level, but more on the atomic level and sub-atomic level, the very act of observing the item can change the action of that item, since some form of energy (light, electrons, etc.) must be introduced for us to be able to see the item. The smaller and more sensitive the item, the more it is affected by the introduction of an outside force. There was a great article on Quantum Mechanics regarding this topic in Scientific American around spring or summer of 2002.
Her assertion that identical conditions should produce identical results is fine as far as it goes, however obtaining truly identical conditions is problematical. The number of variables is enormous.
Finally the concept that gods (i.e. mythological constructs created to personify human character traits) much less God, could be learning from us is hubris in the highest degree. At best we know only enough of the true nature of the universe to be very dangerous. Much of what we think we know is close to being pure guesswork, based upon incomplete, inconclusive and/or inaccurate observations.
Another presumption of the whole concept of intelligent design is that we are somehow able to understand the concept behind the design, when we are just barely able to read some of the blueprints themselves (e.g. the human genome which was just mapped). It's like (simplistically) taking a set of blueprints for a building and trying to infer the stress analysis calculations required from looking at just the parts list!
Something that I have marvelled at is that some people (although apparently not Eva ) who acknowledge the existence of God, have a very hard time accepting the concept that an omnipotent God would be able to communicate to us what his plans were and what he expects from us. This he has done via the Bible. Anyone who really studies the Bible with an open mind and has looked into archeological research will discover that the Bible has never been proven wrong! Whereas (for instance) "Lucy", neanderthal man, and other fragmentary fossils purportedly of missing links have been proven to be either based upon unfounded assumptions or elaborate fakes, although they are perpetuated as true by the established educational authorities.
I suppose that I have just violated some sort of unspoken taboo by mentioning the Bible (Christian instead of theist) as opposed to a non threatening intelligent design by a benign being or force, but hey, this is a discussion forum, right?
Things are both more complex and more simple than we often realize.
For more information on intelligent design, with extensive factual scientific data (including footnotes), I suggest an objective visit to the Institute for Creation Research web site at http://www.icr.org.
Best Regards,
John |
