Re: religion

Judson McClendon wrote:
> Well, I have already logically proven that, if Biblical Creation is correc
t,
> then any possible physical evidence is useless as a proof.
>
> After that, then a good description of how things like a human eye or
> bisexual reproduction could evolve would be necessary.

Not at all difficult, especially as complex eyes have evolved at least
four times already.

> The problem is not
> simply the complexity of those things,

No, they are really very simple and are a long series of simple
enhancements (much like a spaghetti programme) building up over the
aeons. Look at cellular automata; their behaviour and patterns can be
truly mind boggling but they obey only simple rules.

> it is the fact that they would have
> no survival value (perhaps even the reverse) until virtually complete,

Actually, each tiny step in evolution has a survival value. That is why
they get retained.


> Then, as a final touch, explain how love and art and beauty (or sense of
> these things) could evolve.

What is beauty? Can you define it? As for love and lust: lust started
in order to ensure procreation. Love is the mechanism which ensures
that the male hangs around long enough afterwards to ensure that the
osspsring survives to adulthood.

An evolutionary process might come up with lust,
> but why love? Why artistic sense? Why musical sense?

Art and music? It seems that virtually every artistic or musical genius
these days can be diagnosed as showing serious mental flaws
(schizophrenia, autism to name two). These clearly are not good
survival traits but they do ensure the survival of traits within a gene
pool which could possibly contribute to the future survival of the
group.

In a purely
> evolutionary context, these things make no sense at all. Even if having th
em
> could be shown to have survival value, they would only work *after* they
> were completely evolved and functional,

Not true, their advantage is confered as the traits evolve. Even a
single celled eye (known as ocelli in the insect world) confers
advantage to an individual over a blind member of the same species.