Happy New Years!

[oDDity]

Galaxies are even more sparesly dispersed than stars, yet there are numerous Galaxys colliding, or about to collide - collisions, intersections, captures happen a lot more than you seem to think.

That's naturally how galaxies are formed though, our Galaxy is gravataitonally bound to the Andromeda galaxy and we will merge with it in 6 billion years, and eventually merge with the dozens of galaxy in our local group and become a super galaxy, and likewise, our galaxy is made from even smaller galaxies.

 

That is just ridiculous. You are defining things by where they are, not what they are. That is like saying a dolphin found in a tree due to a freak cyclone was now a monkey. A dolphin is still a dolphin, even when out of water, just as a planet is still a planet even when out of a regular orbit and drifting through interstellar space.

No, that analogy is flawed.

Whether a dolphin remains in the water or ends up in a tree, it doesn't remain a dolphin for long, it soon becomes a dead dolphin, then if becomes a rotting dolphin carcass, then it becomes a dolphin skeleton, then it beomes various scattered bones. The terms you use for it change as its circumstances change, particualrly when it dies, and the same should be true for bodies in space. When a planet breaks loose from its star, it is in effect, dead, an ex-planet (fill in the rest of the dead parrot sketch yourself)

So now a planet is only a planet if it has oceans and life as well? Oh dear, now there is only one planet in the Solar system...

You were trying to use the example of the current earth floating through space as the prime example of a planet in order to emphasise your point, and I was correctly pointing out that it wouldn't be like earth for long, and therefore your point had no extra emphasis.

Any planet which breaks away from its star and wanders through space is no longer a planet, no matter what its properties were before.

 

You have arbitrarily decided that Pluto isn't a planet, and then you have fabricated a convoluted definiton of what a planet is in an attempt to reinforce your assertion. Again, changing the definition of a planet on the basis of its orbit is just silly. The solar system clearly has hundreds of planets, some with regular orbits, some without.

Its not designed to exclude pluto, it actually excludes everyting so far discovered except the 8 planets. The fact that pluto gets excluded is simply because pluto isn't a planet.

You didn't really have to - Mercury and the numerous larger planets recently discovered in the Kupier belt are so similar that if you scrap Pluto, you need to scrap Mercury and conversely, keeping Mercury dictates that you include all of the other objects, as they do pass the Majority of your tests. I am not even considering your orbit thing as a valid point, it is just ludicrous to have such a classification system where objects are primarily categorised on their current location.

If the threshold of mass is set at mercury, then my 8 planet system holds perfectly well.

 

THe problem with your system is, that it has no meaning, and is, in fact, an utterly pointless suffix.

You want everything to have a 'and a planet' suffix added to it for no reason other than because it happens to be massive enough to be round. How does that benefit anything?

it's an asteroid...and a planet

it's a comet...and a planet,

it's a brown dwarf...and a planet

it's a moon...and a planet

etc..

What a complete waste or time.

[John D.]

I did mention the Cephalopod eye as an example of a superior eye design to the human eye. And yes, as oDDiys link points out, eyes have evolved independently so many times in so many different forms that it would seem that the intelligent designer was having a real battle getting one right. And still failed with humans....

Perhaps God was having fun trying different designs? As for human eyes, they seem to work well enough for most people-using apparent 'flaws' in their design to throw out the idea that they were designed doesnt quite hold water. The Dromed Editor is a horribly constructed piece of crap but it was made by 'I.D.' by people who made some of the greatest FPS games of all time. Perhaps if humans were created by God, it's possible that we've degenerated over time, looking at our technology that pollutes as much as it gives us in material things and the diet most of us eat no wonder why our minds and bodies look like crap.

 

I actually like Intelligent Design, not the actual theory, but how it will determine for me whether a person is a complete idiot by believing in it one iota. Good 'judge of character' topic

I.D. is a good judge of whether I want to waste any time talking with an individual. Its similar to when someone asks if you've read any good books lately, then recommends the Chicken Soup for the Souls of Sad Ass Motherfuckers series or something. Satan save us from American self help culture as well as I.D.

Really? So if I'm a person that believes in Creation I'm an idiot by default? Do most of you agree with that assumption? If so perhaps I should reconsider my participation in your project, after all you wouldnt want stupid people on the team right?

[OrbWeaver]

Perhaps God was having fun trying different designs?

 

Perhaps. Perhaps we are all in the Matrix and nothing really exists anyway.

 

As for human eyes, they seem to work well enough for most people-using apparent 'flaws' in their design to throw out the idea that they were designed doesnt quite hold water.

 

It throws out the idea that they were designed by a "perfect" designer, which is what God is assumed to be. It is possible that they could have been designed by a less-than-perfect designer, such as a junior member of an alien master race, but there is no reason to believe such without any evidence.

 

The Dromed Editor is a horribly constructed piece of crap but it was made by 'I.D.' by people who made some of the greatest FPS games of all time.

 

Irrelevant, the designers of Dromed were never held to be perfect or omnipotent.

 

Perhaps if humans were created by God, it's possible that we've degenerated over time, looking at our technology that pollutes as much as it gives us in material things and the diet most of us eat no wonder why our minds and bodies look like crap.

 

If humans can devolve over time, why can they not evolve overtime? Creationism maintains that humans have not changed since they were created, not that they can change but only in one direction.

 

Really? So if I'm a person that believes in Creation I'm an idiot by default? Do most of you agree with that assumption? If so perhaps I should reconsider my participation in your project, after all you wouldnt want stupid people on the team right?

 

That is a very emotional reaction. If your beliefs are sound it does not matter whether other people agree with them or not. If you refuse to work with people who don't share your beliefs, then that suggests that the beliefs are not all that secure in the first place.

[oDDity]

Just to be the devils (or god's ) advocate...

It throws out the idea that they were designed by a "perfect" designer, which is what God is assumed to be. It is possible that they could have been designed by a less-than-perfect designer, such as a junior member of an alien master race, but there is no reason to believe such without any evidence.

Not really.

There is no reason to assume a perfect designer would have designed perfect beings. A perfect designer can do anything it wants, which includes creating flawed creatures for reasons only known to itself.

YOu sinply can't win when it comes to the idea of an invisible entity which can't be dected in any way and can do anything.

 

Also, the idea that people who beleive in creationism are idiots is going too far.

Issac Newton, who is arguably the greatest scientific, analytical and dediuctive genius of all time was devoutly religious, and spent more of his time devoted to theology than to science.

Of course, in his day it was literally illegal not to beleive in god, and you could be killed or thrown in prison for heresay, though a lot of his work which he keep secret was in fact heretical, and disparaged the trinity, so privately going against the chuch didn't bother him.

Had he been party to the knowlege we have today. his view may have changed, but that's a pointless thing to consider.

[OrbWeaver]

Also, the idea that people who beleive in creationism are idiots is going too far.

Issac Newton, who is arguably the greatest scientific, analytical and dediuctive genius of all time was devoutly religious, and spent more of his time devoted to theology than to science.

 

I agree, there are plenty of very intelligent people who hold religious beliefs, including Creationism. They don't become idiots until they start ramming their beliefs down other people's throats, through legislation, war or other efforts.

[Maximius]

Really? So if I'm a person that believes in Creation I'm an idiot by default? Do most of you agree with that assumption? If so perhaps I should reconsider my participation in your project, after all you wouldnt want stupid people on the team right?

 

Maybe not. Defend your belief in Creation, if you can provide a reasoned argument for your beliefs Ill be happy to at least listen to it. Because the problem is the majority of individuals whom I have met who believe in a Creation account have no real basis for their beliefs other than thats what they were raised to believe with some vague references to this thing called "faith." That is a level of analysis suitable for children, not for adults with minds and eyes to see the world. Im sorry if my attitude seems harsh but Ive lived my entire life surrounded by people who believe in invisible winged angels that fly next to their cars to insure their safety and who say things like God put oil in the ground for people to burn in automobiles. I stopped believing in such things, including God, when I was around eight years old and I am heartily sick of listening to their quivering lipped bleatings about such things.

 

I also know a few Christians who, although I do not believe in what they believe in, take a much more critical look at their beliefs and who struggle with their faith. One of my colleagues is such a person, and I have a lot of respect for thinkers like Thomas Merton and the Berrigan brothers.

 

And if you can provide a reasoned argument, be prepared to defend it against other arguments. That is where Truth lies, in the give and take of debate. So no, no one is saying you are an idiot, but now you have to explain why you believe what you do. Cause faith dont fly here, bro.

[Maximius]

BTW the example of the ass-backwards engineering of the human eye is not only that it is far from perfect, which would seem to argue againts an omnipotent Creator to some degree, but more importantly that the design of our eyes reveals its structural relation to simpler designs that arose before it. This is the keystone of evolutionary science, inheritence with modification.

 

The fact that we have a blind spot due to a poorly placed optic nerve is an artifact of developmental requirements, essentially our ancestors had an eye with a particular configuration but environmental pressures selected for a different configuration. Our evolutionary development had to work with the structures that were in place, so it found a way to fudge around and give us our modern eye built on the foundations of an older design.

 

Evolutionary sciense is filled with examples like these, I spoke with a botanist from Princeton who said his colleauges believe that originally plant life got its energy solely from the sun and that root structures were merely anchors to hold the plants in the ground. (This was during a much earlier stage of Earths life, when the Sun was in its T-Tauri phase, essentially adolesence, much much more energetic than today.) As time passed, some variations in the genes of these early plants gave rise to a few individuals that found they could absorb some water and nutrient through their roots and this gave them an advantage over their peers. (There is a lot more to this but you see my point.)

 

So you could say "Well maybe God was being capricious, He didnt want to start over or He felt like making it that way to fool us or tempt us or whatever." Thats one argument, not scientific since God is an untestable factor, but its an argument. Then we have to take that argument and hold it up againts the massively complex bundle of scientific fact and theory that supports the case for evolution and provides nothing for intelligent design. See which way the scales tip, and the set aside the argument that cannot hold water, or at least enough water to warrent keeping it under consideration. I.D. has failed to meet any such criteria, and furthermore it has failed to make any successful scientific predictions, another requirement of a scientific theory since then predictions can be tested. It must be set aside.

[sparhawk]

As for human eyes, they seem to work well enough for most people-using apparent 'flaws' in their design to throw out the idea that they were designed doesnt quite hold water.

 

Of course they work well enough, otherwise we wouldn't use them and they would be differently designed. That's how natural selection works. If something doesn't work well enough, then it will be replaced with something that does. Of course you should not think that this works on a per object level. Natural selection works on the whole, not in indvidual parts.

 

Really? So if I'm a person that believes in Creation I'm an idiot by default? Do most of you agree with that assumption? If so perhaps I should reconsider my participation in your project, after all you wouldnt want stupid people on the team right?

 

You are jumping to conclusions here. And even if that were the case, what does your believe have to do with our project? Nothing. Just because you may be stupid in one area (your words) doesn't neccessarily mean that you have to be stupid in all areas. Mozart was an undeniable master at music but he sucked big time when it came to money. Does that mean he shouldn't have touched music either, because he couldn't 'properly' spend the money he earned with it? If Einstein was a bad gardener, would it have anything to do with his physics knowledge? Apple and Oranges....

[oDDity]

You're confusing knowledge and intelligence.

Anyone gain learn knowledge of gardening, but you can't gain intelligence, you have to make do with whatever you're born with., and some get a hell of a lot more than others.

People with great musical talent for example, have brains that are physically different from the average person in certain areas.

There is no way I could learn to wirte music as well as Bach or Mozart, no matter which teachers I had or how much effort I put into it, my brain isn't physically capable of it.

[John D.]

That is a very emotional reaction. If your beliefs are sound it does not matter whether other people agree with them or not. If you refuse to work with people who don't share your beliefs, then that suggests that the beliefs are not all that secure in the first place.

It has nothing to do with being insecure, I just despise people who will belittle my intelligence because I dont buy into evolution and imply that I have some kind of character flaw because of it. You dont see me posting 'evolution is for monkeys!' do you? It's a nice sci -fi idea, Darwin was pretty creative but I suspect if he had the data availble today about human cells and DNA it's quite possible he would have come to a completely different conclusion on how things came to be. Now while I havent paid much attention to the court case involving I.D. I have read the book Darwins Black Box. Now if any of you have read it, the guy never claims to be a creationist or argues that all structures in a cell look like they have been designed, he just points to a group of examples and demonstrates that there is no way under current theroy that they could have evolved. I.D. really has nothing to do with Creation ideas-it just shows some data that says Darwin may not be the 100% truth that guys like Dawkins make him out to be. Someone who belives that I.D. is correct could attribute it to any god they believe in or even space aliens.

You are jumping to conclusions here. And even if that were the case, what does your believe have to do with our project? Nothing. Just because you may be stupid in one area (your words) doesn't neccessarily mean that you have to be stupid in all areas. Mozart was an undeniable master at music but he sucked big time when it came to money. Does that mean he shouldn't have touched music either, because he couldn't 'properly' spend the money he earned with it? If Einstein was a bad gardener, would it have anything to do with his physics knowledge? Apple and Oranges....

The only area I'm 'stupid' in is that I waste insane amounts of time being involved in outside activites that bring me little or no gain. Video games, martial arts for a few years and now building levels for games-and for what? Nothing at all but a few dusty trophies and some files on a website that people download play once or twice and then forget about. I'm really dumb when it comes to hobbies.

[sparhawk]

There is no way I could learn to wirte music as well as Bach or Mozart, no matter which teachers I had or how much effort I put into it, my brain isn't physically capable of it.

 

The point was not wether you can learn something, the point was that just because you believe in some 'stupid' thing, doesn't mean that you are 'stupid' as whole, or that you need to be stupid in all other areas as well.

[sparhawk]

Now if any of you have read it, the guy never claims to be a creationist or argues that all structures in a cell look like they have been designed, he just points to a group of examples and demonstrates that there is no way under current theroy that they could have evolved.

 

He could only go by that amount of data he had access to hin his time. Obviously we knoe a few bits more than people could know a hundred years ago. Of course their hopthesis and assumptions reflect that knowledge. That's how science works. If Newton had said 'Time is equall everywhere', he would hev been correct in his time, but with the increased knowledge we have today, we can now proove him wrong. Just because Darwin didn't know everything the first time he proposed his hypothesis, or even when his life expired, doesn't mean that he has to be correct on all accounts.

 

The only area I'm 'stupid' in is that I waste insane amounts of time being involved in outside activites that bring me little or no gain. Video games, martial arts for a few years and now building levels for games-and for what? Nothing at all but a few dusty trophies and some files on a website that people download play once or twice and then forget about. I'm really dumb when it comes to hobbies.

 

At least you share the same hobby with a few people like us.

[OrbWeaver]

Now if any of you have read it, the guy never claims to be a creationist or argues that all structures in a cell look like they have been designed, he just points to a group of examples and demonstrates that there is no way under current theroy that they could have evolved.

 

He doesn't demonstrate that, because it is not true. There is nothing that couldn't have evolved, and that is a fact. Anybody claiming otherwise doesn't understand evolutionary theory.

 

That is not to say that evolution itself is a fact, obviously it is a theory and I.D. could be true. However the common assertion that evolution cannot account for certain things is just propaganda and is not supported by science.

[Zaccheus]

If you are not busy in July 2015, you might want to check this out:

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/index.php

 

They'll be launching it this month:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhoriz...main/index.html

 

---

 

Regarding creation vs evolution, just wanted to say a few things quickly:

1) Christians really should consider accepting that some evolution has taken place, because even if you believe in a literal interpretation of the bible, you have to accept that there are now far more types of animals (including different human races) than could possibly have fitted on noah's ark.

2) I agree with JohnD that devolution is quite possible and would (in principle) fit with the observation that systems tend to degenerate and fall apart rather than getting better and better.

3) If you start talking about the possibility of God/angels/demons interacting with the world, scientific certainties are pretty much out of the window. Science is to a large extent based on observable cause and effect. If you put undetectable beings into the equasion, it all becomes quite meaningless very quickly.

[SneaksieDave]

Oh goddamnit, when will there be a good space game, a good successor to Elite:Frontier...

[Zaccheus]

Erm ... now?

 

http://www.egosoft.com/games/x3/screenshots_en.php

[SneaksieDave]

Well, they'll have to do a demo first (there still isn't one, right?) and it's got a pretty hefty order to meet up to what I'm hoping for. (see Parkan II thread)

 

I'm willing to bet 10 whole bucks it doesn't even come close. Otherwise, every time someone in forum threads shouted for "Elite 4!" someone in the know would have countered with, "X3!"

 

 

Edit: WTF is a "rolling demo"? At 232 Mb, I can't use a modem to just give it a try on a whim.

 

Edit 2: Damn, after looking at the shots, I admit to being drawn in by the imagery. How's the planetfall? Open ended play, or do I have to follow some contrived plot? Fully realized ship interiors? Ability to walk around on planet surfaces? Quasi-newtonian flight physics or watered down arcade motion? Continuous space, or crappy loading zones?

[Maximius]

It has nothing to do with being insecure, I just despise people who will belittle my intelligence because I dont buy into evolution and imply that I have some kind of character flaw because of it. You dont see me posting 'evolution is for monkeys!' do you? It's a nice sci -fi idea, Darwin was pretty creative but I suspect if he had the data availble today about human cells and DNA it's quite possible he would have come to a completely different conclusion on how things came to be. Now while I havent paid much attention to the court case involving I.D. I have read the book Darwins Black Box. Now if any of you have read it, the guy never claims to be a creationist or argues that all structures in a cell look like they have been designed, he just points to a group of examples and demonstrates that there is no way under current theroy that they could have evolved. I.D. really has nothing to do with Creation ideas-it just shows some data that says Darwin may not be the 100% truth that guys like Dawkins make him out to be. Someone who belives that I.D. is correct could attribute it to any god they believe in or even space aliens.

The only area I'm 'stupid' in is that I waste insane amounts of time being involved in outside activites that bring me little or no gain. Video games, martial arts for a few years and now building levels for games-and for what? Nothing at all but a few dusty trophies and some files on a website that people download play once or twice and then forget about. I'm really dumb when it comes to hobbies.

 

 

No, its very unlikely that Darwin would have come to a radically different position. Of course he would have to update a lot, but since so much of what has transpired since he wrote the Origin happened because he wrote it, I dont think he would have much trouble seeing the linkages that have been developed since.

 

His science is central to our understanding of the biological world, its the cornerstone. DNA research only +confirms+ his ideas, with modifications of course due to expanded knowledge and technology. The Black Box, which I have not read, is completely dismissed by every single academic, professional, and informed layperson I have ever met. I may read it now, just to see what it says, but I dont really believe it has a lot of value. The examples I have heard discussed are just wrong, enormous complexity of organs can arise over time, which its had plenty of , and it leaps and jerks, when circumstances are right for it. I would seriously recommend you read the works of Richard Dawkins, Steven J. Gould, and I could dig up some others. But you would have to be prepared to seriously challenge your beliefs.

 

The book is not explicitly creationist, but its been taken up by politically active ones to champion their goofball campaigns. I followed what happened in Dover, Pa., the local residents voted the I.D. school board onto the unemployment lines. WHich is good.

[Zaccheus]

Edit 2: Damn, after looking at the shots, I admit to being drawn in by the imagery. How's the planetfall? Open ended play, or do I have to follow some contrived plot? Fully realized ship interiors? Ability to walk around on planet surfaces? Quasi-newtonian flight physics or watered down arcade motion? Continuous space, or crappy loading zones?

 

First the bad news: No landing on planets at all, except a few cut-scenes, and the physics are not very realistic - so in that respect no improvement in two decades, it's the same as the original Elite game.

 

Apart from that, I'm really surprised that you hadn't heard of it. In fact I was surprised that I hadn't heard of it when someone at TTLG was talking about X2.

 

 

 

Quick history:

X was released years ago, then followed X2 and now X3 was released a few months ago.

 

Gameplay:

Same as Elite, free play as you fly around in first person perspective and dock at various space stations in various systems, trading goods and buying better equipemnt and better ships. Two big differences between Elite and X are that in X you can own more than one ship at the same time, and you can even buy space stations (factories) and start making serious money, if you can deal with the supply problems and such. Of course there are pirates etc and first-person space battles galore.

 

In X2 you could fly around inside the space stations, but the trips from the station entrance to the docking bays became tiresome and so in X3 you always dock externally at space stations.

You travel from star-system to star-system via 'star-gates', although later in the game you can get a jump-engine.

 

There is an optional plot where you can accept a string of missions for the terra-corp company which make the game a bit more personal.

[SneaksieDave]

Interesting. Thanks for the info. Too bad about the lack of planets, but I might one day look for it in a bargain bin (assuming oh heavenly holy grail Elite 4 is not out yet ). It sure does look nice - the sense of scale in the images shows it's got that going for it. Also, I'm sure X1/2/Gold is available for bargain bin prices and I might do so.

[obscurus]

There is no way I could learn to wirte music as well as Bach or Mozart, no matter which teachers I had or how much effort I put into it, my brain isn't physically capable of it.

 

 

Perhaps not now as an adult, but the virtuoso talet exhibited by Mozart et al is largely attributable to the fact that such people were exposed to music at a very early age, and were rigorously instructed in it on a full time basis. Sure there is a degree of natural ability in there, but you can take any 3 year old child of normal intelligence and aptitude and mould them into a virtuoso through constant childhood practise. A good example perhaps is the number of Chinese kids who are educated in this way: a child taught Wu Shu from the age of three will be a master at the age of twenty. A child taught music as soon as they can speak will be a virtuoso by the time they are a teenager. It is a matter of moulding the brain when it is at its most plastic.

 

In general, while natural talent is certainly important, your ability to perform some task at a virtuoso level will for the most part simply be a function of how much time and effort you put into it. It takes about 15 years to cultivate a virtuoso musician (or indeed, mastery of most arts) longer if they take up the art later in life, as the brain is not as plastic as that of a child.

 

A true natural genius is someone who reaches a higher level of ability with less training and less effort than the average person, and in that respect, a lot of musical historians now regard the abilities of Mozart and Bach as somewhat overhyped - Mozart didn't do anything that several thousand rich Chinese kids haven't done with the same level of training.

 

You might surprise yourself oDDity, you might well be able to write music better than you think, even if your talent doesn't flower until you are in your sixties, or you don't quite meet the arbitrary standards of what you consider to be musical virtuosity. You certainly demonstrate a great deal of virtuosity when it comes to digital sculpture, and creative ability in one area often carries across to other areas. Have a go.

 

Personally, I am not all that impressed by people who are exceptionally good at just one thing, I find polymaths who are brilliant at nearly everything they try their hand at much more interesting.

[obscurus]

It has nothing to do with being insecure, I just despise people who will belittle my intelligence because I dont buy into evolution and imply that I have some kind of character flaw because of it.

 

 

It is not because you don't 'buy into evolution' that I think people who believe in creation are fools, it is the fact that you mindlessly believe the written words of people whom you have never met, or have any verifyable knowledge of, who claim to have spoken with some mysterious invisible being that claims to have created the universe. Creationists always make the assumption that their story of intelligent creation is correct, and that evolution is incorrect, when there are numerous other possibilities which are equally probable (though none as probable as evolution based on the evidence).

 

Creationism (specifically the Judeo-Christian version) entails so many leaps of faith that it is difficult for me to see how a sane person could even contemplate something like Christianity being at all worthwhile.

 

Put aside the question of evolution, pretend the theory doesn't exist for a moment. Let us look at Christianity instead:

 

So, we have a religion based on the writings of various individuals, who claim at some point to have spoken with God, or to have been spoken to by God. This God is not visible or detectable to normal people, so to be a christian, you have to assume that these various people weren't lying, delusional, schizophrenic, under the influence of drugs, mentally ill, confused, or decieved. Assuming that for example, Moses wasn't a delusinal schizophrenic or hallucinating in the hot desert sun due to a lack of food and water, you must then assume that the being or entity that he supposedly communicated with wasn't lying, delusional, exaggerating etc. You have to make this leap of faith for every single book of the Bible. You have to make this leap of faith when considering the early Church including some books in the official Bible, while excluding dozens of other books. Did God really tell them, or did tehy just make it up?

 

What if the Gnostics are right, and the universe was created by an evil God, and the good guy is really Satan?

 

If you heard a voice coming from nowhere, would you automatically assume that it was God? If it told you it was, why would you believe it just on its say-so? When a supposed being supposedly claims that it created the world in seven days, and is all-powerful and all knowing etc, why would you assume it is telling the truth?

 

If the Christians are correct, then God is a malevolent, conceited, vain and immature being with the mentality of a spoilt toddler, and mood swings that suggest that God must be a she with permanent PMS. Not something I would have anything to do with, assuming I thought it was likely it existed in the first place.

 

As far as I am concerned, anyone who does anything, or believes anything purely on the basis of faith is a misguided fool. I do not take evolution on faith (I don't have faith, period): it is an observable phenomena that happens in both real time and geologic time. Evolution can most probably explained by the theory of Natural selection, as well as a variety of other mechanisms that have been identified that drive evolution (Creationists always conveniently ignore all of the other processes besides natural selection to make it look like the theory has big gaps in it that don't really exist, eg sexual selection, kin selection, genetic drift etc etc) - it is a falsifiable theory that can be disproved. Even if it doesn't explain it, that is no reason to insert any old fantasy in its place as a substitute for science.

 

 

The other mistake the faithful make is thinking that just because there are gaps in our knowledge, that it is an excuse to insert their divine being of choice into that gap as an explanation. Unfortunately, as the gaps in our knowledge get smaller and smaller, so does God. I think oDDity had a quote a while back that summed it up nicely: "Ignorance of nature created the gods, knowledge of nature will destroy them".

 

Creationism explains nothing, predicts nothing, all it does is create a fairy story where anything can happen, and everything is at the mercy of God. It is not a theory, it is not based on rational thought, it is solely based on the idea that if you believe in something enough it will be true. Pure fantasy and fairy tales trying to disguise itself to poison the minds of the ignorant.

[sparhawk]

Perhaps not now as an adult, but the virtuoso talet exhibited by Mozart et al is largely attributable to the fact that such people were exposed to music at a very early age, and were rigorously instructed in it on a full time basis. Sure there is a degree of natural ability in there, but you can take any 3 year old child of normal intelligence and aptitude and mould them into a virtuoso through constant childhood practise.

 

Sorry, but I seriously doubt that. This would mean that all humans are kind of empty shells when born, and are just needed to be filled with the proper content. I guess you don't have kids. Babays exhibit already individual interests at an VERY early age, and there is no way you could take a normal baby, expose it to music and 'make' a virtouso out of him just by training. Of course such a a kid might be better at it, then a kid with no exposure, but it's not a sure bet. I have three kids, and even within our own family they are quite different. Two of them are more like each other, while the third is totally different.

 

A good example perhaps is the number of Chinese kids who are educated in this way: a child taught Wu Shu from the age of three will be a master at the age of twenty. A child taught music as soon as they can speak will be a virtuoso by the time they are a teenager. It is a matter of moulding the brain when it is at its most plastic.

 

Of ocurse it helps, and sure you can do a lot with training, but that's it. You can't 'make' it just by training.

[oDDity]

You're definitely wrong this time Obscurus, biologist or not.

Everyone is phyiscally different, we're don't all look identical, and likewise our brians are different and not all identical.

You know that there are certain areas of the brain which focus on certain behaviours, so it's obvious that if someone had a ridiculosly high number of synapses or neurons in an area of the brain dealing with being good at maths, or languages or music (Mozart was also good at all of these things) then you're goign to be able to do it better than the average person.

None of us know exactly how the brain works, or exactly what areas are used for musical creativity. It's more than the sum of its parts.

Countless thousands of kids were taught music at an ealy age in Mozart's day. Sure, some of them when on to be great pianists, some wrote a few decent tunes, but none of them did what Mozart did.

You can't tell me that the only difference is that Mozart put in a few extra hours piano practice than the next guy, and anyone can do it given enough effort, otherwsie the list of really great composers woudn't be so small.

[Domarius]

Well from what I've seen, humans certainly aren't empty shells when they're born, totally at the mercy of their environment. Siblings exhibit unique personalities at early ages before they could have really been affected by anything.

 

One of my friends family is a good example. They are always saying how the first daughter was an angel, and the 2nd was a self important brat, even though they brougth them both up the same way. Right down as early as being babies in the crib - the first was quite tame, the 2nd was a terror, crying all night.