From: Glenn Morton (glennmorton@entouch.net)
Date: Sat Jul 26 2003 - 23:10:20 EDT
>-----Original Message-----
>From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu]On
>Behalf Of Richard McGough
>Sent: Saturday, July 26, 2003 8:09 PM
>I'm right with you on this point Glen. I am really not very
>interested in ID and fine tuning as apologies for theism because
>I'm not interested in merely proving theism. For me, it is a
>colossal waste of time to argue for something 90% of the
>population already believes while making little if any progress in
>the proclamation of the Gospel. But I fell into this line of
>argument because of what appeared to me to be a "huge
>inconsistency" in your statement that the "evolution" of elements
>should be treated as essentially identical to the evolution of
>life. I still think my original argument is correct, viz darwinian
>evolution is largely speculative whereas we have precise
>*equations* to describe chemical evolution. Do you agree that this
>is a significant difference?
No. Nonlinear equations are precise but they are not predictable. I think
what you like about the evolution of elements is that the equations give
prediction. But nonlinear equations are no less exact, they are however much
less predictable. I suspect what you are looking for is predictability. We
have exact equations for the weather system but they aren't predictable.
>
>But concerning the little green men - my point was that if ID were
>established, I think we could easily marshal a huge array of
>aesthetic, philosophic, logical, historical and theological
>arguments for a universal God and against the little green men who
>themselves are creatures and could not have created themselves or
>effected fine tuning of the universe.
Hey, one could always say that our universe was designed in the laboratory
of an alien who lives in a parallel universe. The alien scientist was
studying finely tuned universes and accidentally created ours. You simply
can't rule that out or rule God in.
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