From: David Springer <sprin...@matrix.eden.com>
Subject: Re: Will Darwin wipe out Windows?
Date: 1997/11/28
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Russ Williams <r...@algorithm.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> You wouldn't be a Creationist, would you? That's the sort of lame
> argument that's often bandied about. Evolution *is* a fact. The
> exact mechanisms and subtleties are changable, but the basic
> premise isn't. Newtonian mechanics is provably false (mainly
> by GR), but that doesn't mean that it can't accurately model
> planetary motions or falling objects (at least as a good
> approximation...)

I hate to get off on such a totally unrelated tangent but
evolution is *still* a theory.  It's a strong theory in the
realm of micro-evolution but has huge gaping holes in macro
evolution for anyone willing to set aside their aetheistic
bigotry long enough to evaluate it.

For instances:

1) there are several proteins in human hemoglobin that must 
   cooperate in gas transport.  The proteins differ in types
   A, B, AB, O, rh+ and rh- blood types.  Assuming that humans
   started with a common blood type, and diverged at some 
   point into the types common today, how did this happen ?
   A single protein mutation that doesn't kill the host has
   pretty long odds.  However, the several proteins that 
   must mutate -simultaneously- when going from any human
   blood type to another is impossibly long odds, even given
   billions of years.

2) An arm to a wing.  A wing is pretty useless as an arm and
   an arm is pretty useless as wing.  According to the theory
   of evolution an arm must have gradually turned into a wing
   and at each point micro-mutation conferred some additional survivial
   advantage.  Describe the series of beneficial micro-evolutionary
   mutations that transformed an arm into a wing.  Do this for
   any number of complex anatomical structures.  It doesn't wash.
   The intermediate anatomy is useless and thus according to
   Darwin would not survive.  The chances of some animal with
   arms bearing offspring with functional wings is ridiculous so
   there must have been millions of years where there are animals
   with half-wings-half-arms appendages.  How did they survive ?

3) Lack of transitory species in the fossil record.  We should
   see a smooth progression of transitory species but in fact
   we don't.  We see the immediate emergence of extremely 
   complex species.

4) No intermediate organs.  If humans (or other animals) are
   constantly evolving why don't we have any partially formed
   organs.  Surely what we have aren't perfect.  In fact we have
   no examples of transitory organs.  We have only examples of
   degenerative organs - for instance the human appendix.

5) Lastly, there's a resurgence of creationism among scientists
   everywhere.  As we delve deeper into the extreme regions of
   physics in the large and small (realms where gravity and quantum
   mechanics rule, respectively) it becomes increasingly apparent
   the universe is so fine tuned that it could not possibly have
   come about by chance.  The ratio of the weight of the proton
   to the electron, if it differed by an infinitesimally small
   amount, would stop stars from shining.  When the universe
   was 1 second old, if the rate of expansion differed by 1 part
   in 10^30 the universe would not be able to support life.  There
   are so many finely tuned things like this that it becomes
   apparent it could not have been an accident.

Only a closed mind, and closed minds exist in both creationist
and aetheistic camps, will fail to think through new data and
modify their beliefs accordingly.

The most believable theory of how the universe got the way it
is was through engineering on a cosmic scale.  We especially
as engineers should recognize the work of another engineer.
Somebody, somewhere, made the universe.  Probably.

David Springer
-- 

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