Jul 30, 2011 19:31
(Short version - read only until dashed line)
Bill: "Imagine you have severe pneumonia. You will die, unless you get the right medication quickly. A pharmacist escorts you to a room where base chemicals sit on shelves, clearly divided into types, but unlabled as to what they are. There are 60 different chemicals in the room, and you are assured that the correct chemicals to save your life are included. You must choose the right combination that will create the medicine that will save your life. Incorrect combinations create poisons that will kill you except for a few neutral combinations that won't hurt you (but you will still die of the pneumonia). Only one creates the drug needed to save your life. Remember, you don't even know the number of chemicals included in the lifesaving formula - you must guess that too. How likely are you to be right?"
Pete: "I am going to die."
Bill: "Now, let's say that the entire world's population has this severe pneumonia. Each one of them gets to try to create the formula that will save their life. We now have 6 billion attempts, instead of just one. How many people are going to survive?
Pete: "Well, I suppose a few would. Maybe a couple hundred?"
Bill: "Actually, as best as we can tell, the chance of anyone out of the 6 billion people getting the right combination is 1 out of 8 followed by 96 zeros. That's nearly a googol against any of the 6 billion surviving. But ... for the sake of argument, let's take your number. 200 people managed to guess correctly somehow and survived.
Now here comes the tricky part. How many of them could remember which chemicals they chose?"
Pete: "Oh dear - probably only 1 or 2."
Bill: "So how is the next generation (if there is one) going to survive the next pneumonia epidemic?"
Pete: "Well that's simple. The two that survived will write down or tell in detail the location and order of the chemicals they chose to their children."
Bill: "And here is the inherent problem with evolution, Pete. You see, in order for good mutations or accidents to be passed on to the next generation . . . you have to require intelligence. It's one thing to argue that chance processes can happen, but why can we simply assume that they're just 'passed on to the next generation'? You see, there has to already be an order, a system, an intelligence in place in order for those genes to be passed on. Where did THAT come from?
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Pete: "But early cells simply grew and divided - they didn't have to procreate,"
Bill: "They grew and divided? Why? Where did the information for growing and dividing come from? Do you see how this doesn't make sense? If a cell somehow did manage to come into existence, where did it get all that information that we just assume it had? We consider it simply inherent to cells -- simply inherent to life. Maybe it is exactly that - simply inherent."
Pete: "You're arguing for a creator?"
Bill: "Why not? I believe that Z-pak you're taking for your pneumonia was specifically designed and created by a drug company. It's not even living, and I don't think it's any more than 13 chemicals in combination. Why wouldn't I believe that our bodies, which are living and so very much more complex, were created also?"
Pete: "But science says--"
Bill: "Science says that the z-pak was created, yes. And it also says that the human body is much more complex. Science does NOT say that man evolved. Science is study involving the observable and repeatable. That's why we know the z-pak was created -- by observation and repetition. But science cannot claim evolution. Individual scientists can claim it, for they are men and women with beliefs and faith, just like us. And so many scientists have claimed it. And many scientists have also claimed that God created the world, humans, and everything else. Neither of those is science. That's faith."
You see, it is complete foolishness to believe that Zithromax was designed by a drug company and at the same time to believe that your body was just a random happening.
thought,
evolution