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Garrette
SFN Regular
USA
562 Posts |
 Posted - 02/13/2002 : 05:18:01 [Permalink]
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Hi, Dinon, and a belated welcome.
There are others more technically minded here who will answer your logistical questions, but I'd like to make a few generic comments.
quote:
I am very respectful of your ideas, I obviously don't think you have received as much from others before me. I understand. I am interested in finding the truth, forgive me if I don't just roll over and die at the first rebuttle, I have an inquisitive mind.
This is great. Many or most 'believers' are not of this mindset. You will find that everyone here will enjoy an open discussion and will also enjoy the fact that you disagree. Several months ago we had a rare case in a believer who debated politely and skillfully (though I must say I believe he lost, but, hey, I'm a biased sort). I don't remember his name, but he was quite polite, fairly well informed, and always welcome. If you visit the James Randi discussion forum, you will find a believer there (PotatoStew) who is one of the more highly respected posters there, and that's a very skeptical site.
Frankly, we'd be disappointed if you rolled over and died at the first rebuttal.
quote:
And for that matter I have never been to this drdino's website and the writing I did in the original statment was not from a website but from my own questions from studying. Give me a little credit.
I recommend you try the Dr. Dino site:
http://www.drdino.com/. We get a fair number of people who buy into his stuff whole heartedly. Most of us here can empathize with the beliefs of mainstream religion, but Kent Hovind is simply a buffoon. Yes, that's ad hominem, but I'm not debating him right now, just expressing my opinion of him.
I hope you are sincere when you say that the questions are all of your own making. If so, this is amazing on two counts:
1. The list is remarkably similar--nearly identical?--to the questions most evangelist believers bring here, indicating there is a sort of predetermined trajectory of argument.
2. You have conducted all this research yourself, independent of any other religious supporters and independent of religious websites and independent of religious books. Most will list these questions. This indicates a remarkable isolation on your part as well as a fantastically broad scientific background. Impressive, indeed.
quote:
I guess the only question tonight would be this. What are your opinions on cause and effect? Does everything have a cause? If not why?
I'm not sure this is a legitimate question to ask. If you are hypothesizing that all effects must have a cause, then it is incumbent upon you to provide the proof. That's the nature of science, as you will hear us repeat often. You make the claim, you provide the proof.
Let me make an assumption, and feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken. I assume you are asking this with the ultimate goal of tying it into the need for a creator, otherwise what would be the 'cause' for the 'effect' of existence. But as has already been stated, if the universe, or existence, must have a cause, then so must any creator that you posit.
Now for my own, totally unsupported, purely hypothetical, mostly philosophical musings on the question: Yes, every effect has a cause. But you'll never find the first cause because one of two conditions pertains:
1. The chain of causes is infinite, without beginning.
2. At some point back along the chain of causes, we reach that instant where time has no meaning. Causes then become circular, or simultaneous, or irrelevant in a physic sense.
On the purely scientific questions you've posed, I may chime in a bit occassionally, but many others here are far better qualified than I to answer those, and already have in most cases.
My kids still love me. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 02/13/2002 : 06:21:05 [Permalink]
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'Mornin' Dino,
I agree that you should check out Hovind's site. This guy is really out there, far beyond most creationists. I'll not describe it, but let you form your own opinion.
I hope you're enjoying talkorigins. It's an easy place to get hooked on, whatever your beliefs might be.
luck,
f
A hundred years before the advent of Hitler, the German-Jewish poet, Heinrich Heine, had declared: "Wherever books are burned, human beings are destined to be burned too."
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Tokyodreamer
SFN Regular
USA
1447 Posts |
Posted - 02/13/2002 : 06:21:11 [Permalink]
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quote:
I can understand your frustration of having to go over information again
Oh no, it's not frustration at all (at least on my part)! It's a matter of convenience. talkorigins, for example, is much more clear and concise in dealing with some of your specific questions that I could ever be, unless I simply cut-and-pasted the info. The information is just one click away. Why would us typing it out again be advantageous to anyone?
quote:
I have not figured out how you guys place copies of previous quotes in bold or boxed, I would appreicate some help on that.
Click on the FAQ above. You can use the word "quote" within brackets to start a block quote, then close it with "/quote" inclosed in brackets. Slater uses the quotes inclosed in b and /b (for BOLD). As with the word "quote", inclose the b and /b in brackets.
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Sum Ergo Cogito |
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Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
Posted - 02/13/2002 : 10:25:37 [Permalink]
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SFN is set up with pretty basic html commands. Just before what you want to customize type [b ] without the space after the b (I put that there because the program won't know that I'm only explaining now) this will make everything that follows bold until you type [/b ] and that will tell it to stop and go back to normal. If you want italic type an I instead of a b. Quotes type the word quote, red type red. But remember to always do a slash close.
If you realize that you've made a mistake after you've posted click the icon at the top of the box with your piece that looks like a notepad and pencil. That'll allow you to make corrections.
What are your opinions on cause and effect?
Causes and effects are a great deal of what Skeptics deal with.
The question to ask is "is the stated cause appropriate to the effect that is observed?"
Example: a stage Magician waves a magic wand and says the magic words "Presto Chango!" and in his hand magically appears a bouquet of artificial flowers.
So you are lead to believe that the cause of the flowers suddenly appearing out of nothing is the focusing of some sort of unknown energy through the wand by the use of secret words of power.
This is where Skepticism comes in. The Skeptic must ask themselves if the stated causes are appropriate to the observed effect and if not, what causes are.
Is the magic wand actually magic or is it a painted dowel?
Do spoken words even cause material objects to come into existence?
Is there any detectable "energy"?
Are all the laws of physics that we know wrong?
Is there such a thing as magic?
The answer to all of these questions is no.
That being the case one is forced to look for a naturalistic cause to this startling effect and not the offered cause.
One finds an ordinary spring hidden in the Magicians sleeve.
You can be assured that effects always have appropriate causes. There is no such thing as "magic words." If you hear about wonderful things happening because someone said "Presto Changeo", or "Abracadabra", or "Let There Be Light," you can be sure that you are being misdirected from seeing a perfectly natural explanation. You can also be pretty certain that the person who is misdirecting you is profiting by doing so.
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The brain that was stolen from my laboratory was a criminal brain. Only evil will come from it.
Edited by - slater on 02/13/2002 15:14:51 |
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Archistrategos
New Member
28 Posts |
Posted - 02/13/2002 : 12:40:21 [Permalink]
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Hello again dinon, don't excuse your self its all right, I forgive ya! 
No, really, when talking about this matters some times I can't hold my tongue,or in this case my hands. I was careless and rude, hope
I didn't offend you with my words.
Now for that cause and effect concept, once I was obligate to talk about that chain and we ended in a world of dizziness and a great redundancy, I ended up asking what was the cause of the cause of the cause of God? (so in other words the classic, who or what created God?) The answer that I got was another classic, God created him self! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!! 
But wait a minute, all that we do here is you ask, the SFN answers. This is getting to
tedious for me. I will like you answer some of my silly questions, I'm sure that you will answer them right away. If ya can.
1. Can you explain me your idea of hell?
2. Why there are no more super duper great miracles now days? Ya know, oceans
opening in half angry gods taking down most of the living things?
3. How can you belive that one pair of each animal in the world could possibly fit in a single ship? If you do please explain.
4. What is the difference between God and Odin? (discarding Odin's bad habit of hanging himself from trees.) 
5. In the end, what will be the difference between believers, believers, taos, mormons bla bla blala?
6. Some people mention that humans are not perfect, God is perfection, then how come that God often in the past has expressed emotions like anger and repent?
I'll be waiting for the answers.
But of course if you want to live down an heretic soul in distress, it's all right.
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Trish
SFN Addict
USA
2102 Posts |
Posted - 02/13/2002 : 13:39:32 [Permalink]
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quote:
I am doing some investigating on the replies many of you had. Just give me a little time, I'm not going anywhere. I guess the only question tonight would be this. What are your opinions on cause and effect? Does everything have a cause? If not why? (I'm sure you've answered this a million times before if you don't want to respond that's ok I'm sure someone out of the group will.) Thanks guys. Talk to you tomorrow hopefully. And someone please help me with the bold thing I tried highlighting and clicking the bold button, that didn't work.
Cause and effect. Most things have a cause, the problem lies in determining the cause, as Garrette pointed out. Is the supposed cause really the cause or simply a corallary. Here's one for you taken from a real statistics some 8-10 years ago. The number of rapes in a city rose in direct relation to the number of ice cream sales. Now, this can either be a causal situation, i.e., rapists eat ice cream or corallary, temperatures rose, hence more people ate ice cream and more people out presented more opportunity for rapists. There is no relationship between the rapes and ice cream sales. Rather the numbers only appear to have a cause/effect relationship. This is where the methodology of logic or rationality have their part.
To god and the existence of the universe: does the universe require the existence of a god as it's cause? This is the question you're trully asking. The answer is no. Does science have an explaination for the begining of the universe, no. Does science have a general idea of the possiblity of the begining: yes. It's called the big bang theory (at this time the best explaination we have). As to what was before the big bang or what started the science doesn't know, may never know, or may never be able to answer that question. Why? Our 'laws' of physics may not have existed in their present state prior to the big bang.
Accepting that uncertainty and looking for the truth of the concept is what science attempts. But it doesn't do it by claiming something beyond that which can be studied. I'll of course, be better prepared for this line of reasoning following the Stenger Seminars I'm sure.
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There is no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our world. It underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've known. Sagan |
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Xev
Skeptic Friend
USA
329 Posts |
Posted - 02/13/2002 : 15:23:00 [Permalink]
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Hey hey hey, hold off on him, guys!
Let's give Dinon a day or two to do his research before asking him more questions!
Xev -Ad astra!- Bellringer |
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dinon74
New Member
8 Posts |
Posted - 02/14/2002 : 01:06:35 [Permalink]
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Hey guys how's everyone tonight.
This really stinks I just got back from a 14 hour day but I couldn't let a day go by without checking in with everyone. So as one might expect today wasn't a good day for research. But to the cause and effect question I was thinking of those with a more direct correlation I understand the comments many of you made. What would you say was the cause that produced the first bacteria. Or would you say one was even needed. Not even talking about God here and not going there don't worry. Everything I learned in science growing up taught me that for every cause there is an effect like for every action there is a reaction. Correct me if I'm wrong maybe I just had some bad teachers
Also off the path I was just wondering, what set the atmosphere of the earth. Ok, living organisms have systems that could change or adapt. How does a nonliving system attain the right conditions to support life much less sustain it by not changing. If it kept changing until it became favorable for life then what made it stop and stay favorable? We have heard about what a delicate balance our ecosystem maintains. The effect of our ozone layer is seen on global warming. How does a non-living system get so balanced? and with other systems. Maybe I'm crazy, the thought just popped into my head time to go to bed I guess. Ok you guys take it easy I'll check in tomorrow.
Hey Archistrategos no harm no foul. I appreicate you addressing it though. I have some feedback for you on those questions. Just let me get back to normal here my job is killing me. I work as a manager at a new health club so these first couple months are really important to the corporate guys. Take care everyone. Later.
Dino
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Xev
Skeptic Friend
USA
329 Posts |
Posted - 02/14/2002 : 02:04:12 [Permalink]
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quote:
This really stinks I just got back from a 14 hour day but I couldn't let a day go by without checking in with everyone.
You know you love us...
quote:
The effect of our ozone layer is seen on global warming. How does a non-living system get so balanced?
Well, the atmosphere is affected by living organisms. Plants convert CO2 to O2. So that's part of it.
And plenty of non-living systems are balanced. My computer, for example. (Except when it fails to go to standby properly and locks up so I have to lose all my work....)
Thought constitutes the greatness of man -Pascal |
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Garrette
SFN Regular
USA
562 Posts |
Posted - 02/14/2002 : 05:50:12 [Permalink]
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Not much time, so a very short comment.
quote:
Originally posted by dinon74:
What would you say was the cause that produced the first bacteria.
Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I think this question demonstrates a fundamental difference in thought.
By asking for the 'cause' of the first bacteria, you are implying that the bacteria had a purpose, or at least that something prior to the bacteria identified a function for it and so formed it.
But that is not necessary and is not so.
The universe is simply 'stuff.' 'Stuff' is unstable. Because it's unstable, it changes. Some changes result in a better efficiency, better propogation, better stability (long term for the 'stuff' itself; short term for the universe).
No cause, no purpose, no meaning.
Others here can say it better or even point out where I'm wrong, as they have more education in this matter, but I think the implication of the question is significant.
My kids still love me. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 02/14/2002 : 05:56:15 [Permalink]
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Hi Dino,
Earth's atmosphere has always been in a state of fulx, as has been shown in glacial ice core samples.
Supposing that there was an organism came into being (exactly how hasn't been discovered. Yet) that a certain atmosphere suited perfectly. This organism would thrive, producing uncounted off-spring. It would also produce waste products. The waste products, like oxygen from plants, might of great benefit to other, younger organisms. As time went by, the waste product might build to the point where the original organism might find it's self in the uncomfortable position where it must adapt or die. In adapting, it might become an entirely different organism.
The atmosphere is changing radicly today, in large part due to our waste products. And other organisms are suffering for it. Amphibians and many species of fish are in decline world wide.
"Save a frog, save your children!"
filthy, the Environazi
A hundred years before the advent of Hitler, the German-Jewish poet, Heinrich Heine, had declared: "Wherever books are burned, human beings are destined to be burned too."
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Lars_H
SFN Regular
Germany
630 Posts |
Posted - 02/14/2002 : 06:32:45 [Permalink]
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quote:
Hey guys how's everyone tonight.
This really stinks I just got back from a 14 hour day but I couldn't let a day go by without checking in with everyone. So as one might expect today wasn't a good day for research. But to the cause and effect question I was thinking of those with a more direct correlation I understand the comments many of you made. What would you say was the cause that produced the first bacteria.
The first bacteria was probably caused by somthing a lot like a bacteria mutating a bit into something that was a little bit better suited to the environment it was living in.
The actual 'cause' in this case would be the environmental factors that favored the new organism and whatevere caused the mutation in the first place.
quote:
Or would you say one was even needed. Not even talking about God here and not going there don't worry. Everything I learned in science growing up taught me that for every cause there is an effect like for every action there is a reaction. Correct me if I'm wrong maybe I just had some bad teachers
You always have a cause for an effect. Even things we attribute to random chance have a cause that caused them to happen exactly the way they happen. The trick is to find them. It is like the often invocted butterfly that causes a hurricane or the horeshoe nail that lost the war.
quote:
Also off the path I was just wondering, what set the atmosphere of the earth. Ok, living organisms have systems that could change or adapt. How does a nonliving system attain the right conditions to support life much less sustain it by not changing.
What you are describing actually goes much deeper then just the conditions on our planet. There are milions of factors and natural constants that are exactly as they would have to be to allow live as we know it develop. Any factor a tiny bit off and no haumanity would have been able to velove.
The two explanations for it are known as the weak and the strong antrophic principle.
The weak Antrophic principle observes that all values appear as so it has been 'made' for us the strong one even holds that only a universe that allows the existence of intelligent observers is possible.
quote:
If it kept changing until it became favorable for life then what made it stop and stay favorable? We have heard about what a delicate balance our ecosystem maintains. The effect of our ozone layer is seen on global warming. How does a non-living system get so balanced? and with other systems.
The problem here is the point of view the atmosphere did not adapt to allow biological lifeforms to exists, life adapted to the atmospehere.
It is now thought that in the beginnig Earth had an atmosphere that would be quite toxic to almost anything living today. The whole oxygene stuff that we all depend on was toxic for our distant ancestores. When they polluted the atmosphere with it, almost all of them died as a result. Those who could adapt to the new situation survived.
It is not the nonliving system that got balanced. You got to balance something against somthing else to have a balance.
It is live on earth that influences it's environment and adapts to the changes it causes that has achieved a balance not with non living things but with it's own effects on the world.
Also almost all sorts of things that somwhere get feedback tend to stabilize in a balance. Look at the reaction going on in our sun. Look at how beatiful balanced the orbital mechanics of the planets in our solar system are. When you look around you will find almost only balanced systems for the simple reason that unbalanced ones don't stay around long enough to be observed.
quote:
Maybe I'm crazy, the thought just popped into my head time to go to bed I guess. Ok you guys take it easy I'll check in tomorrow.
Hey Archistrategos no harm no foul. I appreicate you addressing it though. I have some feedback for you on those questions. Just let me get back to normal here my job is killing me. I work as a manager at a new health club so these first couple months are really important to the corporate guys. Take care everyone. Later.
Dino
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DVF
Skeptic Friend
USA
96 Posts |
Posted - 02/14/2002 : 10:33:39 [Permalink]
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Hi Dinon,
How does a nonliving system attain the right conditions to support life much less sustain it by not changing. If it kept changing until it became favorable for life then what made it stop and stay favorable?
Seems to me there are some fundamental problems with your question.
As to how a non-living system attains the right conditions to support life, we really can't yet define what those conditions even are. Discoveries of living systems in environments once though unable to sustain life are continually redefining those criteria.
What you need here is an overview of current research in biogenesis. While I am familiar with some of the work being done an adequate summary is beyond me, so I'll leave the bait out in the hope that some more knowledgeable forum member might provide some background.
In answer to the second part of your question, how a system stops changing to sustain life, the answer is simple. It doesn't. The system went through plenty of changes before life, and plenty of changes since. Oxygen in the atmosphere was created as a byproduct of early life, and then caused the extinction of almost all of it, leaving behind only the relatively few oxygen-tolerating organisms. Other changes have challenged life over time and will continue to do so into the future. Sooner or later the earth will change to the point where it won't support life as we currently define it, and that's the ballgame.
You seem to make the assumption that the phenomenon of life is somehow stable and permanent, or at least persistent. The truth is that while there is certainly some self stabilization inherent in the system, it is only on a very small scale and will only last for a short time. In the bigger picture the whole show is a quick cosmic blink on a small planet circling a fairly unremarkable star. We go ooo and aaa over the fact that life can adapt to a climate shift or a change in the composition of the atmosphere, and it is pretty remarkable on the local scale. But sooner or later there will be a change that life as we define it cannot adapt to.
Luckily by that point we probably won't be here anyway. It will take a far smaller change to wipe out humanity than to end life entirely. Of course, we might be able to extend our time a bit if we understood enough about what is necessary for life to exist, but that's not going to happen as long as most of our population is content to think that an invisible man in the sky created the universe as a hobby.
Um... Is that my beer? |
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Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
Posted - 02/14/2002 : 11:05:51 [Permalink]
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You work at a health club? I see, so when you told us that your training had been in engineering you were telling us that your manner of thinking was that of an engineer. Nuts and bolts, cause and effect, analytic kind of thinking. That's excellent.
Let me give you a simple, probably simplistic-so you'll have to forgive me-explanation of evolution. You'll notice that it is completely "nuts and bolts" with no reference to extra-natural uncheckable sources.
Did you happen to catch any of the Westminster Dog Show on TV this week? They had hundreds of different breeds of dogs there. Some of them weighed hundreds of pounds like the St Bernards. While the "toy" breeds were small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. Yet even though they look nothing like one another they are all dogs. Their vastly different morphologies were due to the whims of their breeders selecting traits that they liked and only allowing the dogs that had those traits to mate.
People do that all the time. In Roman days European cows were about the same size as Great Danes. Now there are many huge breeds of cows. All sorts of livestock and pets have been breed into distinct "breeds." Same hold true for the vegetables that we eat. The broccoli is named for it's inventor (who was the grand father of the Mr Broccoli who produces the James Bond movies) it was originally a cabbage.
This easily demonstrable fact that life to changes its shape, and that these changes can be controlled through selective breeding, is the bases of evolution.
However all of these pugs and Dalmatians look the way they do because of the guiding hand of the breeder. If they get puppies that are "off standard" they cull them or spay them. But they never allow them to breed. In doing so they guide the attributes that the next generation of dogs will have.
This was the brilliant epiphany of Darwin. It was he who realized who the "breeder" was that formed and shaped all living things. It wasn't some invisible superman sitting on a golden throne in the clouds, it was the environment itself.
You hear about the religious outcry over his Theory of Natural Selection. But you don't hear about the outcry from the Scientific Community. There were a lot of scientists slapping themselves on the forehead and saying, "of course, it's as obvious as the nose on your face. I should have thought of that, it's so simple."
Natural selection culls any morphic change that doesn't fit the environment. Example: a polar bear that is born in the frozen Arctic with hardly any fur will not survive the cold to pass on this furless trait to the next generation.
The environmental conditions culled it from the breeding process as assuredly as a basset hound breeder culls short-eared puppies.
That is why the environment seems so perfectly suited for life on Earth. Any life that doesn't fit its specifications it kills.
99 point-some-thing-or-other % of all life forms that ever existed are extinct so you can hardly say that the Earth is hospitable to life. But that tiny fraction of life that can survive these harsh conditions is getting along just fine, though it is walking around on the corpses of the majority who couldn't cut the mustard.
The Earth was not made as a home for man. Man was breed to live on the Earth by the Earth itself.
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The brain that was stolen from my laboratory was a criminal brain. Only evil will come from it. |
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Espritch
Skeptic Friend
USA
284 Posts |
Posted - 02/14/2002 : 21:21:29 [Permalink]
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quote:
What would you say was the cause that produced the first bacteria.
If what you mean by this question is "what chemical and physical processes produced the first living organisms from non-living matter?", I would say it is a pretty good question and one that science has not yet answered. I suspect a solution to this puzzle will not be found any time soon. Even the simplest living things are quite complex (the end product of billions of years of evolution). I certainly can not claim to be able to answer it myself.
The question I would like to pose it this: when faced with a difficult question such as "how can natural processes create living matter from non-living matter?" or "how can natural processes evolve an eyeball?", what do you do? The difference in the way scientists and creationists answer this question underscores the basic difference between these two philosophies and explains why creationism can never be taken seriously as a scientific theory.
The creationist sees the complexity of the human eye and says "How could evolution ever produced that?" Indeed, creationist have been tossing this question out almost from the day Darwin first published his "Origin of Species" over a hundred years ago. Curiously, when a scientist sees the complexity of the human eye, he asks the exact same question.
The real scientist, having asked the question, rolls up his sleeves, goes to work, and starts looking for the answer. What kind of data can we find on which to base a hypothesis? Does the fossil record provide clues? Unfortunately, eyes are soft tissue and tend not to fossilize. How about comparative anatomy? Better. As is turns out, the natural world is just full of eyes of many different designs: patch eyes that consist of nothing more than a collection of light sensitive cells, cup eyes that are just concave patch eyes, eyes that function as pin hole cameras (think cup eye curved to the point of being a sphere with a small opening), etc. Using this data, it becomes fairly easy to construct an incremental evolutionary path from the simplest of eyes all the way up to the most complex with improvement in design at each incremental step (if you really want to know more about this subject, I highly recommend "Climbing Mount Improbable" by Richard Dawkins).
Meanwhile, our creationist has done no work at all, and not surprisingly, still doesn't have a clue. He asks the question, decides that it is too hard for him to answer, and declares that it can not be answered except by invoking some nebulous supernatural designer with powers far beyond those of mere natural processes.
Creationists will no doubt continue to ask how life could have come from non-life. So will scientists. And if an answer to this question is found (and I feel confident that it will), you can bet it won't be any member of the Creation Science Institute (or any other creationist organization) that finds it. It will be a real scientist, the kind that not only asks the question, but then does the basic scientific research that answering such a question requires.
Edited by - espritch on 02/14/2002 22:02:59 |
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