Google| Subject | Re: Queen mother (of Britain) has died |
| From | Thomas Brenndorfer |
| Date | 2002-04-10 06:06 (2002-04-10 06:06) |
| Message-ID | <4TOs8.32204$cN1.1086@news01.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com> |
| Client | |
| Newsgroups | alt.fan.tolkien |
| Follows | AC |
| Followups | Graeme (27m) AC (11h & 47m) |
"AC" <spam@nospam.com>wrote in message news:3cb353d8.499703@news2.randori.com...
ACI agree with this. It is sad that so many people cling to what are little more than shabby rhetorical constructions like "straw man" arguments when they trot out creationist points.
On 9 Apr 2002 11:02:19 -0700, queen_yoj@hotmail.com (Joy) wrote:JoyAC
Anyhow, middle school mathematics teaches that if the probability of one thing occuring is slim, then the probability of it *not* happening is high. And the chance that the functions of the human body just came together and *happened* is, as George Gallup so nicely said, a statistical monstrosity. So probability-wise, a Creator has a fairly good chance of existing.
It is a gross distortion of statistical mathematics to use it as an argument against biological evolution. The functions of the human body did not "just come together". That is classic strawman, since it is not actually refuting any rational notion of evolution at all. No biologist believes things just happened. There is always cause and effect.
Arguments from mathematical probability is one example, since creationists always point to the impossibility of one complex individual suddenly coming together. No one disputes this. However, evolution refers to a "reproducing population" not an individual, or a specific sequence of ancestors. While one beneficial evolutionary change may be unlikely to occur in one individual, the odds increase dramatically when one looks at the whole population of a species -- there is a very high likelihood that a given population will have the necessary ingredients or beneficial mutations "coming together" for the population to evolve (cf. pesticide-resistant insects and antibiotic-resistant bacteria). It's the population, stupid! Basic Darwinism is simply that a population will produce more offspring than can survive, and that the survivors are not just randomly chosen, but "selected" by environmental factors as most fit for the particular environment at the time. Evolution is neither random nor designed.
Although Tolkien may have been a devoutly religious man, he was also a scholar, and his understanding of linguistics shows this. A recent documentary on Tolkien's work (Discovery Channel no less) showed how he constructed the Elf languages of Sindarin and Quenya as being evolutionary cousins, with Quenya being the older one, but also the one less subject to change because of the differences in how time is perceived by the elves who spoke the language. Sindarin changed the most because of environmental factors. Strikingly, this is the same idea as man and chimps existing at the same time, even though they had a common ancestor.
2002-03-30-
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