Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site psivax.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!harvard!talcott!panda!genrad!decvax!ittvax!dcdwest!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!psivax!friesen
From: friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: Response to flames
Message-ID: <449@psivax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 13-May-85 16:35:11 EDT
Article-I.D.: psivax.449
Posted: Mon May 13 16:35:11 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 16-May-85 20:20:20 EDT
References: <253@cmu-cs-edu1.ARPA> <303@scgvaxd.UUCP> <1518@hao.UUCP> <310@scgvaxd.UUCP> <311@scgvaxd.UUCP>
Reply-To: friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley friesen)
Organization: Pacesetter Systems Inc., Sylmar, CA
Lines: 117

In article <311@scgvaxd.UUCP> dan@scgvaxd.UUCP (Dan Boskovich) writes:
>FLAME!
>  Why do you say that ice is more ordered than liquid water?
>
>				      Dan
>
>Because it is less random; the molecules are not free to wander around
>to the same extent that they can in a liquid.
>DAN:
>
> In other words, water, when acted upon by an external energy source,
> (electricity), with a driving mechanism and a program for specific
> work, (refrigeration), is transformed to a state of higher order.
> But when left to its own devices reverts back to a lower order or
> random state.
>
	I can't let this pass, it is absurd. Just go look at a pond
coverd with ice next winter! Where is the "driving mechanism and
PROGRAM" that produced *that* ice! It isn't there, the ice formed
spontaneously, without any help from man. Of course there *was*
energy from outside, but that is just the definition of an *open*
system, which is what is required for increase order.
>
>FLAME:
> Darwinism is on its way out! If you don't think so, you are not up
> on current Evolution theory. Punctuationism is whats happening and this
> is just as much magic as you say Creation is. What is the difference
> between God creating Adam, and a reptile giving birth to a bird?
>
>Come on!  No punctuated equilibriumist will tell you that a reptile ever
>gave birth to a bird!  Quit misrepresenting things which you obviously
>know little about!
>
>DAN:
>See "The Wonderful Egg", IPCAR, 1958. Specific recommendation from the
>American Association For The Advancement of Science and the American
>Council on Education.

	What does IPCAR stand for, just who are these people?

>FLAME:
> "Design" is evidence of a "Designer"!
>
>Fool!  You people never give up, do you?!  Would you care to explain
>how one defines "design"?  (I warn you, I will nail you to the wall
>if you even try 'cause I know you will have to strain logic beyond
>its limits to do this.)
>DAN:
> Design - Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary - verb. To conceive and plan
> out in the mind. To have as a purpose. To devise as for a specific
> function or end. To conceive or execute a plan.
> noun. A mental project or scheme in which means to an end are laid down.
> A particular purpose held in view by an individual or group.
> Deliberate purposive planning!
>
> Design can be described as that which has irreducible properties of
> organization.

	How do you get this from the Webster definitions? They *all*
*presuppose* the existance of a designer, thus by according to
Webster you cannot recognize design without *first* recognizing the
designer. Thus, there is no basis in the Webster definitions to
support reasoning from *purported* design to a designer!

>FLAME:
> Before you say there is no evidence of design, first read what
> Darwin himself had to say concerning the "eye"!
>
>Why don't you present us with the quote(s)?  (Same warning as above.)
>DAN:
>"Darwin Life and Letters", Vol 2, page 67, "The eye to this day gives me
>cold shudders".
>"The Origin of Species", page 160, "To suppose that the eye, with all of
>its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances,
>for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of
>spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural
>selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree."
>
	Of course this is a *very* old quote, there has been a *lot*
of research since then, and we have *much* evidence that was not
available to Darwin. I do not think Darwin would have said this if he
had all of the data we have today. This is why I keep saying that
*old* scientific papers are primarily of historical interest and
provide no real evidence one way or the other.

>FLAME:
>Dan, are you try to give us a good laugh or what?  I guess it would
>take some beating to convince you that you don't even understand the
>surface of the second law of thermodynamics and that there is much
>more than just "a running down universe".  The design argument is
>bogus.  How do you perceive design?  What "designed" things are you
>using to compare?  What "non-designed" things are you using to compare?
>If, as creationists claim, God designed everything, how do you perceive
>design when you can't tell the difference between a "designed" article
>and a "non-designed" article (because you can't)?  I am interested as
>to what you will propose to get out of this bind.
>
> The difference between a tumbled pebble and an arrowhead, an automobile
> and a junkyard, a statue and a mountain, a human being and a pile of
> chemicals is that one is a result of time, chance, and inherent properties
> of matter, and the other has irreducible properties of organization that
> were produced by design and creation.

	Try giving us *objective* criteria for recognizing something
is designed, and then show that said criteria necessarily imply the
existance of a designer. So far all you have done is use subjective
comparisons between various things, and have *not* shown how the
differences imply a designer. BTW do not refer to the definition of
design to justify concluding a designer, I want you to justify
applying a word which implies a designer to the natural phenonoma
you claim show design.
-- 

				Sarima (Stanley Friesen)

{trwrb|allegra|cbosgd|hplabs|ihnp4|aero!uscvax!akgua}!sdcrdcf!psivax!friesen
or {ttdica|quad1|bellcore|scgvaxd}!psivax!friesen