Purposeful Design or Chanced Processes?

[theStudent]

Evidence of God is everywhere.
The Bible states that truth clearly, when it tells us, "The hearing ear and the seeing eye — Jehovah has made both of them."

The ear consists of three parts: the outer ear, the middle ear, and the inner ear.
The middle ear is a small chamber that begins with the eardrum and leads to the maze of passageways that constitute the inner ear.
Besides its function in connection with hearing, the inner ear also possesses organs having to do with balance and motion.
The use of two ears greatly helps a person to locate the source and direction of sounds.

The human ear detects sounds within the range of about 20 to 20,000 cycles per second.
The ears of many animals are sensitive to tones of higher pitch that are inaudible to the human ear. The range of sound energy perceived by the human ear is remarkable. The loudest sound that the ear can tolerate without danger is two million million times as powerful as the least perceptible sound. The human ear has the maximum sensitivity that it is practical to possess, for if the ears were any keener they would respond to the unceasing molecular motions of the air particles themselves.

The outer ear is precisely designed with a specially designed structure of curves, and an opening designed to catch and channel sound waves into the inner ear.

How the ear works


How the hearing works
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How your ear works - Inside the Human Body: Building Your Brain - BBC One
[youtube][/youtube]

The eye is a highly efficient, self-adjusting “camera� that transmits impulses to the brain, where the object focused on the eye’s retina is interpreted as sight.
The possession of two eyes, as in the human body, provides stereoscopic vision. Sight is probably the most important channel of communication to the mind.

How the Eye Works Animation - How Do We See Video - Nearsighted & Farsighted Human Eye Anatomy


Anatomy and Function of the Eye
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A Journey Through the Human Eye: How We See


Eye Animation
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If the male and the female reproductive organs evolved, how had life been proceeding before the complete formation of both?

An egg from a woman’s ovaries cannot produce life on its own. For this to happen, a sperm cell from the male reproductive system must combine with the nucleus of the egg.
What does the sperm do to make the egg develop?

Differently shaped cells begin to form - nerve cells, muscle cells, skin cells, and all the other types that make up the human body.
Science Digest

No one knows for sure, why certain cells aggregate to form a kidney while others join to form a liver, and so on.

Eventually, the human body reaches full growth, being made up of some 100,000,000,000,000 cells.
What causes the cells to stop dividing at just the right time and why?

How Sperm Meets Egg | Parents
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The Masterpiece of Nature, by Professor Graham Bell

Sex is the queen of problems in evolutionary biology. . . . It seems that some of the most fundamental questions in evolutionary biology have scarcely ever been asked . . . The largest and least ignorable and most obdurate of these questions is, why sex?

Imo, it is truly mind-boggling how one can say they have no evidence of God.

Do you agree these give evidence of design and purpose?
Is there any chance that these came about through the process described by evolution theorist?
Evidence for arguments required.

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 225 by William]

I am not entirely sure what you are trying to say.

I was making an observation re what you had posted. The observation does not appear to so be complicated that it needs further clarification. I kept it as simple as possible to avoid that.

I also have no idea what you are talking about.
We can't read your mind.

[H.sapiens]

[Replying to post 235 by William]

In every instance of creativity which can be observed, intelligence and consciousness is seen to be involved.

To say that it does NOT is to deny the evidence.
[/quote]
Quite the opposite. Clearly nonhuman species are not conscious or intelligent yet I can give you numerous examples of complex problem solving and even the invention (and teaching later generations the use of) tool based solutions to problems.

The reality is that making conscious and intelligence pro forma requirements for creativity is a demonstrable crock.

[TheBeardedDude]

[Replying to post 240 by Blastcat]

They appear to assign consciousness and intelligence to processes devoid of such things. Now bacteria are conscious and intelligent as is natural selection. Somehow it's an intelligent and conscious process when a species adapts as a consequence of a genetic bottleneck or temporal/physical isolation.

[stevevw]

It is a false dichotomy to present these two options ("purposeful design or chanced purposeless")

The theory of evolution does NOT posit that the adaptations of life are a consequence of "chance" nor that they are without purpose. Evolution demonstrates that there are mechanisms that do indeed generate genetic and morphological change in a population (natural selection, sexual selection, etc), so it is not "chance" in that it is random. Nor are adaptations without purpose ("purposeless" as the OP put it). Organisms adapt the structures that they have specific purposes. For instance, your fingers weren't made for typing nor did they evolve for typing, you adapted them for typing.

So if a creature adapts a feature like your example of fingers being adapted for typing then that change in function may become a benefit. But that change in function is not evolutionary. It is a change in use of an existing feature and was not produced by natural selection.

The adaptation of a new function for an existing structure is also natural selection. This is how something like a photosensitive cell for detecting light above (which is useful for predator detection) can be continually adapted generation after generation until it is useful for vision, the proto-eye.

The feature itself is also a product of natural selection.

The hand and fingers do a certain job. The particular tasks that a person teaches themselves to do with the fingers in this example such as typing are not the result of natural selection. They are new abilities that have to be taught over and over again.

[stevevw]

[Replying to post 232 by William]

There could be another option. Becuase we are discovering how incredibly complex and designed life is natural selection has been given more and more capabilities to account for this. It could be that natural selection is being assumed to be responsible for complexity in life. Afterall selection refines what is already existing. As the saying goes natural selection is good at accounting for the survival of the fittest but not the arrival of the fittest. Though some examples are given for natural selection to explain and account for how complex features came about such as the light sensitive eye patch this does not explain a lot of what has to happen in between that and a more complex eye. As selection is a blind process, ie (does not know what is needed to build a complex network or structure bit by bit) and mutations are random it seems impossible for evolution to build these complex features that require many mutations working together.

So what is being attributed to natural selection for building complex structures may actually be the result of other non-adaptive mechanisms. These non-adaptive processes can tap into existing genetic info and perhaps switch on or off genes that allow living things to change. This means rather than rely on adaptations which require incredible circumstances to all fall into place life may follow preset development pathways. In this sense, it does make it seem like life is more pre-programed and the result of design and intelligence.

The frailty of adaptive hypotheses for the origins of organismal complexity
What is in question is whether natural selection is a necessary or sufficient force to explain the emergence of the genomic and cellular features central to the building of complex organisms.
http://www.pnas.org/content/104/suppl_1/8597.full

Darwinian evolution in the light of genomics
There is no consistent tendency of evolution towards increased genomic complexity, and when complexity increases, this appears to be a non-adaptive consequence of evolution under weak purifying selection rather than an adaptation ie (natural selection, my emphasis).
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2651812/

Another interesting article I found seems to show that the universe is based on information as well. You would think something so full of information and similar to a giant computer program but only much bigger would not stem from some sort of intelligence.

The theory of everything: The universe is 'like a COMPUTER underlined by information'
http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/7 ... everything

And here is a little more food for thought. Scientists believe that our universe is a giant hologram. This theory is being proposed as opposed to the big bang theory for how out universe came about and exists now. The hologram theory fits the evidence better than the Big Bang theory and is something that is seriously being considered by a lot of scientists. Yet the idea of a hologram universe shows that we as humans are the observers and what we see may not be reality but a giant 3D picture. Isn't this support that our conscious may be something that stands independent for what we see in the material or not so material world.

REVEALED: How the universe is a HOLOGRAM and we’re living in a real life 3D MOVIE
http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/7 ... M-3D-MOVIE

[TheBeardedDude]

[Replying to post 242 by stevevw]

Your hand and fingers have no individual specific job. Their purpose is defined by how YOU use them. Which means that adapting them for new functions is still natural selection. I can't think of any feature I have that serves only a singular purpose. My eyes don't only form images, they detect light and motion and I can even use them to determine where the wind is blowing from. Skin is for protection from bacteria and other single-celled organisms, but also protection from physical harm and it provides some structural support.

Back to hands, they didn't evolve in our tetrapod ancestor for walking or grasping or grabbing or holding. In ancient lobe-finned fish, they appear to have evolved sturdy bones for supporting their weight in shallow water. Over time, their descendants adapted the use of their newfound limbs to support more of their weight and slowly moved from aquatic to terrestrial habitats. As a consequence of this gradual transition onto land, the limbs gradually changed to accommodate the new adapted purposes.

[TheBeardedDude]

[Replying to post 239 by William]

"In every instance of creativity which can be observed, intelligence and consciousness is seen to be involved. "

That is circular reasoning. Is a dendritic mineral growth pattern creative? I'd say so. Is there anything other than unconscious chemistry behind it? No.



"To say that it does NOT is to deny the evidence."

To deny what you interpret as intelligence and consciousness as evidence, when it is devoid of any logical connection to your conclusion, isn't denying evidence.

I believe you believe it. I believe you have presented evidence of what you believe to be true, but what you present as evidence is not evidence that it actually is true.

"Not at all. I look at the evidence and I see the process as a mindful thing. I accept that the earth is a living, thinking entity, self conscious and purposeful and that this explains life on earth."

Okay. I don't care. What you believe is on you. What I believe is what I can verify as possible, plausible, and probable, so as to make a determination about whether or not it is objectively true. So, I don't care what you believe, I care about what evidence you have to substantiate your beliefs.

"Bacteria seem to know what they are about. That is intelligence."

Perhaps you should back up then and define what you mean by "intelligence." Bacteria react to their environment, but you seem to be implying that simply being alive means something is intelligent and conscious. That is grossly erroneous.

"How would we know if they are self conscious? Well we would look for signs. They would find ways of trying to survive. "

Surviving is one thing, assuming that surviving is a conscious act by an organism that lacks the faculties to think, is asinine.

"I tend to look at it all as a whole process altogether - a living BEING. "

And yet in doing so, you ignore the organisms abilities and faculties.

"You and your science don't. You get so focused upon the parts that you are distracted from the whole. "

You don't think scientists study the whole organism? Have you ever taken a biology course?

"You are welcome to your science and what it shows you for it shows you what you want to see, and that is all."

I am so glad I have your permission to use science. What a relief. /sarcasm[/img]

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 243 by stevevw]



[center]


Wrong about the theory of evolution, just very wrong.[/center]

Becuase we are discovering how incredibly complex and designed life is natural selection has been given more and more capabilities to account for this.

Yes, biology is stunningly complex and varied.
The theory of evolution explains why and how.

But you are WRONG to assume "design" if your goal is to show that it exists.

It could be that natural selection is being assumed to be responsible for complexity in life.

WRONG

Science, including all the sciences that are supported by the theory of evolution does NOT work by assumptions.

Afterall selection refines what is already existing.

WRONG

Selection means that organisms better suited to their environment will have better chances of surviving. The "refining" you are seeing is due to the fact that you believe in a designer. Designers "refine" their designs. But you have not demonstrated that there is a designer out there.

As the saying goes natural selection is good at accounting for the survival of the fittest but not the arrival of the fittest.

WRONG

The theory of evolution isn't about how life BEGAN. The theory of evolution is about how organisms that are ALREADY alive CHANGE over time.

We keep repeating this.. seemingly, to no avail.

Your stuck on thinking that the theory of evolution ( THE WORD MEANS CHANGE ) is the theory of GENESIS ( which means START )

You could not be more wrong about what the theory of evolution is.

I suggest learning about it from a reputable source.
You should START by looking elsewhere than the creationist propaganda about it.

[DanieltheDragon]

[Replying to post 245 by TheBeardedDude]

I would not call dendritic pattern growth creative. Pretty sure, but not creative. Spiral galaxies are another pretty non creative pattern, as well as snowflakes, and butterfly wings.

Why confuse pretty with creative?

[TheBeardedDude]

[Replying to post 247 by DanieltheDragon]

That is my point in part, an assumption is made that because something looks complex that it must be "creative." This is an error on the part of the observer