"random facts"

[bornl33t]

well fact: If you believe evolution then you got more faith then I do that God created it. Cause a human EYE is soo complicated I have a hard time believing is accidentally happened... much less the whole human body, the whole circle of life, the way that the tide works, how our world is not independant.. everything works with or off something else. The ecosystem is too complicated of me to thing.. it just accidentally happened.

just my 2 cent

[pbstu]

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992673

if robots can learn to fly then i think its safe to say evolution works.



stu.

[FactsOfLife]

Yes I do believe in evolution. I happen to ascribe it to His starting it all and letting it go without further tweaking.

Yes there are a tremendous amount of interactions in the world. It's mind boggling sometimes to think about it.

And to Stu, I've been giving some thought to your asking of "proof" to justify my faith in Him.

I'll ask you this, do you have someone you love?

Prove it.

[pbstu]

"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel."
-Ambrose Bierce, The Devils Dictionary

i am just to skeptical to trust spending my life a certain way based on faith.

and as for someone i love? i asked you first

[FactsOfLife]

Originally posted by pbstu
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel."
-Ambrose Bierce, The Devils Dictionary

i am just to skeptical to trust spending my life a certain way based on faith.

and as for someone i love? i asked you first

I don't have to prove I believe in Him, it's enough for both of us that I do. That's kind of the whole point of Faith.

[bornl33t]

Anything can learn new stuff... but take a robot and give it AI... you think it will learn to fly? grow wings? And fly.... that's nutz.. unless those are set perameters in it's original program, there will never be a robot to think " oh, i'd like to fly!" and then weld wings to itself.

Evolution and a robot flying aren't even apples and oranged I'ts more like an IBM and a cocnut

[pbstu]

no your missing the point, the experiment was like evolution contained within that robot, it was survival of the fittest, or in the robots case, the best way to fly. it determined, by trial and error, the best way to fly, which is pretty much what evolution is based on.



stu.

[beam]

The robot thing is interesting....however they say right in the article that the thing will never actually fly! hahaha kinda funny.

But about that robot....it was A) created B) created with a purpose C) told that it had to fulfill that purpose.

The only thing that was actually left up to it was how it was going to accomplish it. But even then, the program was given random instructions and then decided which movements created the most lift. How did it know what lift is? And how did it know that one movement was creating more lift than another? It's kind of like putting a robot into a maze and not telling it how to get out, but telling it how to determine what to do at a dead end and then rejoicing when it makes it out! (you know...i've got a screen saver that does this! )

I actually think it could be a greater case for Intelligent Design than evolution.

See....if it was going to support evolution...the scientists would have needed to throw a bunch of metal into a room and then the robot would need to magically appear and then for some reason decide on its own that it needed to fly. And then it would start trying to fly, but the way it evolved wouldn't allow it to fly at first so then it would evolve again and it would maybe be able to glide and then it would evolve again and then it would be able to fly a short distance and finally after another evolution and 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years, it would be able to fly.

Yeah...i think my math is correct on that one.

Faith is the substance (realization) of things hoped for, the evidence (confidence) of things not seen. -- Hebrews 11:1

[pbstu]

well if you read it better you would have seen that it couldnt actually fly because it was attached to its frame, not because it couldnt.

"without any pre-programmed data on what flapping is or how to do it."

so it was fed random instructions and it had to discover for itself A) what flapping was B) how to do it. i would says thats pretty impressive. it may not be a perfect example of evolution at work, and with a robot your obviously not going to get that, but it does show that evoluion works.

http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/ai/droidforall.jsp

is that more to your liking?
it makes itself



stu.

[beam]

I agree...it is impressive, but I think it supports AI more than evolution.

The second article, again, speaks more to AI than anything else. Very cool stuff!

One thing I got to thinking about when reading that second article is this...If an organism, in its process of evolution, determines for itself that something is or isn't working and changes its technique, it isn't evolving....it's learning. Furthermore, if it changes itself (as in the case with the second article) it still isn't evloving, it's just enhancing itself. Humans enhance ourselves all the time...transplants, prosthetics, parkas (hahaha). Seriously though, if evolution is truly going to happen, then it needs to happen naturally.

Another thing that gets me thinking about evolution is the fact that within a given organism...multiple systems need to evolve at the same pace. In a human for instance...the brain would have needed to evolve at the same pace as the heart, lungs, eye, ear, etc. I'm not saying look at Neandrethal and see how dumb he is and look at how smart we are. But rather, how did Neandrethal's brain know how to operate his lungs, heart, eyes, ears....when did that evolution take place? And how long did THAT take...my goodness if the only thing that has happened since Neandrethal is that we've gotten smarter and walk taller, then how long did it take for his systems to evolve. And the biggest leap to consider is that from Pre-Cambrian goo to a human. That there requires some faith.

Sorry for my rantings.

[ShooterJM]

"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel."
-Ambrose Bierce, The Devils Dictionary

The Unabridged Devils Dictionary. A pretty witty and, although extremely cynical, humorous book. Other then "An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge" (haven't gotten a copy of it yet) that's pretty much all he's known for.

Actually there are generally three accepted definations of the word faith. 1) Allegiance to duty or a person (ie loyalty) 2) Firm belief in something for which there is no proof, complete trust 3) Something that is believed especially with strong conviction

In this discussion 2 and 3 are generally used. And when using these definations, any belief on the creation of existance requires faith.


However, to get back on the thread's topic: Reconciliation of conflicting ideas.

I personally feel that Boeing as a company is the epitome of buracracy and uselessness. Boeing feels the same way about Congress and Congress feels the same about boeing. (Granted these are gross generalizations, I'm sure there is SOMEONE in boeing who knows what they're doing and I'm sure there are congressional memebers who like boeing). While reading a letter from Boeing yesterday I had an epiphany. Boeing wouldn't be quite as useless if it weren't Congress and vice versa. They actually work together to form a greater mass of uselessness and buracracy!

[Cristobal]

Originally posted by FactsOfLife

yes, it IS expanding. But, the rate of expansion is slowing down.

The impetus given during the big bada bang, isn't enough to overcome one simple physical law: Gravity.

I think you'd better check your astrophysics on this one. See here or here for articles on the acceleration of universal expansion.

In any case, I find it interesting that people find the big bang theory incompatible with theological explanations of the origin of the universe. In fact, (IMHO) the big bang is the best scientific explanation for what we would expect if a deity had suddenly "spoken" the universe into existence. Its certainly much more theologically friendly than say the (now discounted) gaseous formation theory.

Also, about the human eye: its actually a quite fascinating subject because the human eye is essentially "wired" backwards from what would seem be the logical. The blood vessels in the eye run along the inside -- in front of the rods and cones -- and have to have a hole we call the "blind spot" in order to get out. In contrast, the eye of the octopus (which is similar to the human eye) doesn't have this problem because its vessels run behind the rods and cones.

[FactsOfLife]

Originally posted by Cristobal


I think you'd better check your astrophysics on this one. See here or here for articles on the acceleration of universal expansion.

In any case, I find it interesting that people find the big bang theory incompatible with theological explanations of the origin of the universe. In fact, (IMHO) the big bang is the best scientific explanation for what we would expect if a deity had suddenly "spoken" the universe into existence. Its certainly much more theologically friendly than say the (now discounted) gaseous formation theory.

Also, about the human eye: its actually a quite fascinating subject because the human eye is essentially "wired" backwards from what would seem be the logical. The blood vessels in the eye run along the inside -- in front of the rods and cones -- and have to have a hole we call the "blind spot" in order to get out. In contrast, the eye of the octopus (which is similar to the human eye) doesn't have this problem because its vessels run behind the rods and cones.

I've already read both of them and agree with neither. As far as I'm concerned it's about the same class of theories as Cold Fusion.

When and IF some independant source corroborates this "theory" then maybe I'll stray from the widely accepted view of the expansion and slowing down of the universe.

It is howeer an interesting hypothesis. Anti gravity? I'm definately going to need to see some hard empirical data on that one.