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From: friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: Handwaving
Message-ID: <678@psivax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 26-Aug-85 19:34:57 EDT
Article-I.D.: psivax.678
Posted: Mon Aug 26 19:34:57 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 31-Aug-85 04:46:32 EDT
References: <14600042@hpfcrs.UUCP>
Reply-To: friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: Pacesetter Systems Inc., Sylmar, CA
Lines: 43
Summary: 

In article <14600042@hpfcrs.UUCP> lief@hpfcla.UUCP writes:
>
>  The only thing is, I don't find that to be
>the case at all.  If by handwaving you mean he calls into play the power of
>God, then I can understand where you are coming from, even if I don't agree
>with you.
>
	Well, as far as *science* is concerned that *is* handwaving,
since by definition God can do anything, you can explain everything
that way. In order to make Creationism a *science*, he must
demonstrate at least a partial, demonstrable mechanism for producing
the observed geologic column from a flood. This is vital because the
bulk of sedimentary rocks show sedimentation structures totally
inconsistant with flood physics.

>     By the way, could you give me the calculations and physics involved
>in explaining to me why the bumble-bee can fly?  Or why man uses less than
>1/6 th of his brain?  Or perhaps share with us the chemical formula and
>the synthetic equations needed to produce life from non life?  Perhaps
>give us the calculations that tell us why this planet has an atmosphere
>of Nitrogen and Oxygen and the others don't.  How about using the "TOOLS
>OF PHYSICS" to tell me why I am writing this?
>
	On some of these we do not have the answer *now*, but then
science never claims to have *all* the answers.  The Bumblebee
miscalculation has been long since overturned. There was a good
article on insect flight in Scientific American recently that addressed
the issue(in fact I believe there were two in the last couple of
years).  I am very skeptical of the 1/6 figure, but there *is* a lot
of redundancy in the design of the brain(ever hear of fault-tolerant
computing? - a very important trait for a complex organism like a
human).  The Nitrogen/Oxygen question is also easily answered, it is
called photosynthesis, that is it is the plants that have converted
all the Carbon Dioxide into other stuff and given us our oxidizing
atmosphere.  The details of this have been quite thoroughly calculated
and the existing amount of green plant on Earth is quite sufficient to
accomplish this.
-- 

				Sarima (Stanley Friesen)

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