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"To say that God is wrong, a liar or unimportant, or to be disrespectful to His office might offend Him just as if I said you are unimportant, incorrect or a liar may insult you."
Kyle's point (I think, at least) was to argue that this is a very selfish anthropomorphized version of God. To suggest that God is capable of being offended by honest, thoughtful questioning is to lower him to our level, so to speak. Don't tell me that we were made in God's image: I know you believe that. The point, though, is that in my opinion a conscious entity responsible for the creation of all the wonders in the universe would not have much in common with us, including a capacity to feel jealousy, love, wrath, etc. To suggest that this God is that similar to us is really engaging in self-congratulatory backpatting, and has less to do with a reverence of God than a self-important reverence of Man.
"Snowflakes, crystals, tornadoes, and lightning do not progressively get more complicated with each cycle."
This doesn't matter, the point was that creationists misunderstand entropy and that in an open system the process can go backwards.
"The system is closed if I include the sun and what ever else you may wish in the control volume."
Right.... the *universe* is a closed system. However, the system we call biological life does not include the sun. If you include the sun, geothermal activity, etc., then you've changed the question and you're no longer asking if the entropy of life can decrease. You're just playing with words here, or you don't understand the science: in either case, you're wrong.
"Sun light does not carry genetic code information."
No, but it carries with it energy into the open system of life, which allows for order to develop. Please, please stop making thermodynamic arguments regarding evolution. I promise you, absolutely promise, that you can't make a coherent argument with it. It's a symptom of bad science.
"The second law of thermodynamics does not say all process will proceed to disorder but that the trend will be toward disorder."
It says that a closed system, statistically speaking, will proceed to disorder. I say statistically speaking because there is always a chance that it won't, similarly there is a chance that if I flip 10 pennies they will all land on heads. However, the numbers we're talking about here are so gigantic, that we can safely say that in a large closed system entropy will increase.
"Survival of the fittest taken to its logical conclusion would create a life form with does not depend on others in its species or other species to exist. It would not provide support for an ‘enemy’ life form. It would mutate quickly and multiple forms of reproduction would be expected."
Again, you misunderstand evolutionary biology. There is no evidence at all to back up what you just said. Explain how this life form would not rely on other creatures to exist. What would it eat? Moreover, why do you think that "survival of the fittest" (again, a term that you mischaracterize) would create such a creature? The term doesn't mean that animals will grow more and more developed until finally you have a beast with the head of a lion, the body of Arnold Schwartzenegger, 8 arms, and 2 belt-fed machine guns in each hand. All that it means, basically, is that creatures will adapt and evolve to fill ecological niches. Honeybees will never develop high intelligence, because there is no evolutionary drive for them to do so. They're not dying out because of their lack of intelligence, thusly there is no reason for it to develop. Along the same line of thought, there's no reason for sharks to grow wings or wolves to grow fins, simply because they are well-adapted to their ecosystem and the equilibrium is maintained.
"The development of a peaceful, mutually helpful, and stable coexistence would not be a logical conclusion to this system."
Well, nature isn't peaceful. There is some mutual help, because there is a tangible benefit to a group's survival and continuation (wolf packs, whale pods, lichen, etc.)
"Based on this if evolution crossovers between species did not occur I would expect “unique possible links” to be found, but no redundant progressive fossil record."
I fear that you don't fully appreciate the difficulty in finding fossils, and the relative rarity of well-preserved specimens. Take a look at a list of transitional fossils. When they find an animal with characteristics of amphibians and reptiles, they didn't simply find an old salamander with a missing leg. Also, feel free anytime to deal with the issue of fossils being striated under the earth, with the more developed ones on top and the less developed ones below. Why aren't there human bones among tyrannosaur and precambrian fossils?
"99.4 identical and the same species with a different number of chromosomes?
You are not trying to feed me a line are you?"
He's not. Look it up.
Duane, the problem that I have with this kind of discussion, and the problem that I have with creationism in general, is that you enter an issue (evolution, age of universe, etc.) with a conclusion already developed in your mind, and then attempt to use scientific tidbits to justify that conclusion. This isn't science, and it gives the impression that you're open minded when in fact all the evidence in the world for evolution wouldn't change your mind. On the other hand, if you could provide scientists with rigorous evidence for creationism surpassing current evidence for evolution, you'd change a lot of minds. Like Harv said, you guys are *not* interested in uncovering truth. You've already made up your mind, and damned if things like logic or evidence stand in your way. If you're going to try to use science to justify your beliefs, at least be intellectually honest about it and don't use science to trick and decieve. So-called "creation scientists" use science as a kind of sleight-of-hand, distracting you with flowery, impressive language while they reach for your wallet. It's degrading to the scientific method, and it's disingenuous. It's going into the future kicking and screaming. If you're going to reject science, at least be honest about it. |
