Random or designed?

[majordinkydau]

I was walking along the Humbolt river near Winnimucca Nev. and spotted a beaver damn. It was clearly put together with care and very different from a log jam formed by flood. I look at an ear of modern corn and see it is much larger than wild corn. I live in Mendocino County Ca. and have seen hemp plants much different from the hemp growing wild along creeks in the midwest. Natural selection appears to always degrade while carful breeding leads to improvements to some level. Interbreeding tends to cause unhealthy mutations. Wild plants often tend to be hardier than domestic but their fruits are always smaller.
I read in another thread about a tornado hitting a junk yard and creating a 747 as an example of the leap of faith needed to accept unaided evolution, but I would like to ask about a tornado hitting a forest and making a structure stable enough to live in for a prolonged time without much modification.
When an anthropologist finds an arrowhead he know it was made by someone, not natural erosion.
Can anyone show a repeatable example of nature producing order out of disorder. Everything I've seen so far shows a blueprint in DNA. Do you believe DNA evolved in a hostile environment by chance? Why can't we produce a simple form of DNA in a perfect lab experiment? Maybe Boeing should move their plant to tornado alley and save money.

[Boerseun]

Originally Posted by majordinkydau

I was walking along the Humbolt river near Winnimucca Nev. and spotted a beaver damn. It was clearly put together with care and very different from a log jam formed by flood. I look at an ear of modern corn and see it is much larger than wild corn. I live in Mendocino County Ca. and have seen hemp plants much different from the hemp growing wild along creeks in the midwest. Natural selection appears to always degrade while carful breeding leads to improvements to some level. Interbreeding tends to cause unhealthy mutations. Wild plants often tend to be hardier than domestic but their fruits are always smaller.
I read in another thread about a tornado hitting a junk yard and creating a 747 as an example of the leap of faith needed to accept unaided evolution, but I would like to ask about a tornado hitting a forest and making a structure stable enough to live in for a prolonged time without much modification.
When an anthropologist finds an arrowhead he know it was made by someone, not natural erosion.
Can anyone show a repeatable example of nature producing order out of disorder. Everything I've seen so far shows a blueprint in DNA. Do you believe DNA evolved in a hostile environment by chance? Why can't we produce a simple form of DNA in a perfect lab experiment? Maybe Boeing should move their plant to tornado alley and save money.

Order will always decay towards disorder. Entropy. Second Law of Thermodynamics.

However... (drumroll, please)

Any agent that can speed up this process will benefit. Humans, for instance, are using energy extrasomatically, and we are the lofty agents of entropy, although we think we're doing silly thinks like burning millions of barrels of oil per day to light streetlights and stuff for ourselves. No way. We screw up order, and the more energy we can use, the better.

DNA being created in a hostile environment might sound contradictory in terms of the Second Law, but it did speed up the rate of increase in entropy, and was therefore beneficial.

[UncleAl]

Can anyone show a repeatable example of nature producing order out of disorder.

The trivial act of crystallization. Masses of soap bubbles. Phase diagrams of diblock polymers and liquid crystal phases. All chemical oscillators in general; the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction in particular. Equilibrium thermodynamics only obtains in closed systems near equilibrium. Any system far from equilibrium with positive feedback will spontaneously order. You almost always get Ilya Prigogine and watches without watchmakers in the real world (that is an open system).

Benoit Mandelbrot and fractals. Stephen Woflram and cellular automatons (the Game of Life). Where you see God in all His Splendor, educated people see a very few very simple rules recursively applied by spontaneous random happenstance. You get on your kees and wish for the impossible. Test of faith! The rest of us go to the lab and let it happen on its own nickel, on demand, reproducibly, at our bidding, every time.

The only way to build extreme complexity across orders of magnitude in size and volume is by spontaneous self-assembly. Where you would require a Being of Infinite Intelligence and Capability, the rest of us sit back and let it happen all by itself. Kraton thermoplastic elastomers were not Handed Down By God. They were figured out by man. Have your god tell you why each huge polymer molecule contains a single silicon atom exactly at its center.

Who is more credible? Who knows how to temper chocolate (creating a non-random micro-network of triglyceride structure) so it is utterly delicious?

[majordinkydau]

Originally Posted by UncleAl

The trivial act of crystallization. Masses of soap bubbles. Phase diagrams of diblock polymers and liquid crystal phases. All chemical oscillators in general; the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction in particular. Equilibrium thermodynamics only obtains in closed systems near equilibrium. Any system far from equilibrium with positive feedback will spontaneously order. You almost always get Ilya Prigogine and watches without watchmakers in the real world (that is an open system).

Benoit Mandelbrot and fractals. Stephen Woflram and cellular automatons (the Game of Life). Where you see God in all His Splendor, educated people see a very few very simple rules recursively applied by spontaneous random happenstance. You get on your kees and wish for the impossible. Test of faith! The rest of us go to the lab and let it happen on its own nickle, on demand, reproducibly, at our bidding, every time.

The only way to build extreme complexity across orders of magnitude in size and volume is by spontaneous self-assembly. Where you would require a Being of Infinite Intelligence and Capability, the rest of us sit back and let it happen all by itself. Kraton thermoplastic elastomers were not Handed Down By God. They were figured out by man. Have your god tell you why each huge polymer molecule contains a single silicon atom exactly at its center.

Who is more credible? Who knows how to temper chocolate (creating a non-random micro-network of triglyceride structure) so it is utterly delicious?

Major Dinkydau asks? crystals form in a pattern that is never reproduced exacly the same. Every snowflake is different. Rock crystals are beautiful but imperfect. I've never heard of a flawless diamond being found in raw form, it must be cut by an expert. Crystals are similar to DNA in that they have a code written into them to become ordered. Where did this code originate? Ask these questions with an open mind and not rule out any possibility because it might offend your sensibilities. some of the greatest discoveries in science came when someone ignored what popular opinion claimed and looked for answers with out prejudice.
If you are convinced there is no creator or designer to the universe based on emotional or instructed evidence instead of what you can observe with your own eyes you are qualified for an all white jury in Mississippi back in 1964 and truth will get lynched.
A lawyer can produce a 100 page document to convince us that "freedom of religion" really means freedom from religion with lots of legal terms most people can't understand. When science uses the same methods they enter the realm of the old church that said, people can't understand the bible and need (us) to interpret it for them. so science say's" we have the answers to life and you've got to trust our integrety" They become our priests
Bob Dylan said "You gotta serve somebody"

[Fishteacher73]

We may all have to serve somebody, but why should you or anyone else dictate what or whom that should be?

[Skippy]

Originally Posted by Fishteacher73

We may all have to serve somebody, but why should you or anyone else dictate what or whom that should be?

Why is it you get offended so easily... and then avoid the questions MajorD poses ? Nothing MajorD wrote dictated what or whome you should serve. I think you realize the truth of what MajorD says, but a supposed quote/unquote intellectual ideal scares you away from admitting the truth in public.

[majordinkydau]

Originally Posted by Fishteacher73

We may all have to serve somebody, but why should you or anyone else dictate what or whom that should be?

Major Dinkydau says. I'm not telling anyone what they should believe, I'm saying just the opposite. Don't let someone else form your opinions for you, make those choices on you own experience. Closing your mind to any possibility will forbid you from seeing it.

[Skippy]

Originally Posted by UncleAl

The trivial act of crystallization. Masses of soap bubbles. Phase diagrams of diblock polymers and liquid crystal phases. All chemical oscillators in general; the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction in particular. Equilibrium thermodynamics only obtains in closed systems near equilibrium. Any system far from equilibrium with positive feedback will spontaneously order. You almost always get Ilya Prigogine and watches without watchmakers in the real world (that is an open system).
Benoit Mandelbrot and fractals. Stephen Woflram and cellular automatons (the Game of Life). Where you see God in all His Splendor, educated people see a very few very simple rules recursively applied by spontaneous random happenstance. You get on your kees and wish for the impossible. Test of faith! The rest of us go to the lab and let it happen on its own nickle, on demand, reproducibly, at our bidding, every time.
The only way to build extreme complexity across orders of magnitude in size and volume is by spontaneous self-assembly. Where you would require a Being of Infinite Intelligence and Capability, the rest of us sit back and let it happen all by itself. Kraton thermoplastic elastomers were not Handed Down By God. They were figured out by man. Have your god tell you why each huge polymer molecule contains a single silicon atom exactly at its center.
Who is more credible? Who knows how to temper chocolate (creating a non-random micro-network of triglyceride structure) so it is utterly delicious?

Sit back, re-read your post and see how ridiculous it looks to everyone on both sides of the evolution debate.

Originally Posted by UncleAl

Have your god tell you why each huge polymer molecule contains a single silicon atom exactly at its center.

Because that is the way He wanted it.

[infamous]

Originally Posted by majordinkydau

Ask these questions with an open mind and not rule out any possibility because it might offend your sensibilities. some of the greatest discoveries in science came when someone ignored what popular opinion claimed and looked for answers with out prejudice.
"

I agree completely with this point of view majordinkydau, a true thinker will always find time to think out-of-the-box. I get really tired of hearing "Einstein said" or "this scientific law says", not that I disagree with Einstein or with any particular scientific law. I just wish people would justify their positions because of their own understanding and not just because they've seen it written down in a science book somewhere. Please don't misunderstand my point here, I have used, and will continue to use reference material of all sorts to gain understanding about all kinds of questions. There is an amazing amount of material created by many very intelligent people available for every interest imaginable. Just remember that truely new ideas are formed in the minds of those that have chosen the freedom to think at an alternative level. Let's be careful to never discourage this approach, we may miss something very important.

[Fishteacher73]

One reason that I tend to oppose the judeo-chistian model is that same closed mindedness that you seem to think I suffer from is rampant in many of the sects and followers, not that all are, but a vocal slice of this ideology continually tries to inforce its views. I take any religion or scientific theory with a grain of salt unless it has some validity to it. Most religions fall way short in this field. I have no problems with anyones ideology as long as part of it is not to impose it upon others. (which both islam and christianity feel is their duty). Just as one does not study shakespear in geometry, theology does not belong in the science room. Theology does not belong on the law book either.