Where my world view diverges from most

Depends on who you ask. I would argue that souls, volition/emotion/intellect, "free will", the mind, etc are at most patterns or processes of mundane matter. From that point of view, the results of evolution is only a recombination of the existing, so I don't think there is anything about evolution as a concept that relies on creating something "truly unique", whatever that might mean. Then again, it's details like this that makes me ask you to clarify exactly what creation you claim takes place and by which processes.

Why couldn't it? If I kept randomising a set of characters like "gwkvslfu", but kept constant all the ones that matched the name "swensson", like "gwkvslfu"->"uwfqsyod"->"iwdqspon"->"wwelsson"->"sweusson"->"swezsson"->"swensson" (I chose less-than-random characters in the interest of time, but the point works with random too) you would generate my name, which is (in this context) complex.

Now, I'm not certain whether you would say that it was the randomness or the selection that "caused" the complexity. If you removed either, the complexity of my name would not arise. However, it is clear that with only randomness and a selection, complexity can arise.

Would you say that the complexity in this example is due to the randomness or the selection?

 

Even if you already had all of the letters in your above post on a surface, you could shake that surface for a trillion years and those letters will never compose your above post.

 

I agree, and I don't think that has any bearing on any of the arguments I made.

My first paragraph has to do with whether it can happen at all (whether our human traits are even subject to randomisable materials), not whether it is very likely. The rest of my post has to do with showing that complexity can arise in the combination of randomness and selection (and in particular that it happens in a way that can't easily be ascribed to either randomness or selection on their own).

Neither of my points pertain to the likelihood of any of the random events, but if you want to make quantitative arguments about evolution, you will have to include some aspect of selection to not be misleading.

 

For the sake of argument, I wrote a script which shuffled my previous post character by character, and then shuffled all the letters that were wrong randomly, until the text was completely restored. It takes mostly about 140 tries to reconstruct the string, compared to what would be 1282!/2 without selection, so clearly, the selection step has a huge importance, and leaving it out of a discussion of timescales of evolution is misleading.

 

Randomness is not a creative force, no matter how much of it you have.

 

Only those that were wrong is hardly random.

 

In the Creator, of course.

If that's supposed to mean the universe is devoid of any other sapient species, I doubt you could even find support for that idea in the Bible.

If indeed humans are the crown jewels of all creation, why would acknowledging that necessitate any hubris at all?

Sure, that's why, among innumerable other things, particle spin is quantized, bound electrons in the same orbital have opposite spins, and positively charged protons can get jammed together to form a nucleus.

 

Most everything happens statistically.
Just about everything happens. Just a matter of how often.

 

And you will agree and disagree the same amount.
No chance involved. Just stats.

 

The creator is physics.

 

If that were true, 50% of casinos would fail all the time.
You know, every game in the casino has the odds stacked in favor of the house?

 

If you're referring to the biblical God, good and evil would not exist, but for said God.

According to the bible, that God created all things. Good and Evil.

 

If what were true? Specifically what claim that I made did you refute here?

 

Randomness exists at casinos.
Casinos especially are all about odds and statistics. It's the basis of their business model.

 

Evil is the absence of God. You'd be complaining just as much if God eliminated every entity who chose to leave him. There's no winning with you.

 

Doesn't that give you a hint?

 

Having thus far read only the OP and clearly understanding it, I agree. I offer the explanation of GOD that one must study the entire complex universe. Try to evade using the animal eyes and look harder for the patterns. As animals we are atheists. As thinkers we know of GOD.

 

I have given you an example of that there is a "creative force" in the combination of randomness and selection. I've asked you before, where in the "swensson" example did the creative force lie?

I do not know what the answer is (because I'm not sure what you mean by creative force), but the example mimics the way in which evolution generates complexity, so if you can point out where the creative force is in this example, it will be in the same "place" within evolution.

I agree, holding the ones constant that are right is a feature of selection. Evolution is random mutations and non-random selection. The example you gave had no selection, and thus was a worse approximation of the process of evolution than the one I provided.

 

I recommend atheists and others question things upon studying the many many people who tell us they died and doctors examining them confirm this. Then the person is revived with no assistance from Doctors and then tells us what they experienced. We all listened to teachers during our life. So listen to those who had the experience. After that, if you care to mock them, then proceed. But at least see what they have to say.

 

OK, I can tackle that. Have you recalled how different various radioactive elements are in the half lives? How one has a shorter half life than one other element? This shows that the various half lives are not all the same in duration. If you understand Chemistry, i believe you can grasp this as well.

To evade a lot of questions, let me try a different approach.

I am telling you that things that are created should be a lot more similar than they are if it is just dumb luck. That the vast differences even in the Elements is a hint that there is a design.

Take space elements that fly into Earth. They tend to have a lot of iron in them. So why is that? Why not some other elements?

 

You're the product of chance, just like the rest of us. Had that twinkle in Daddy's eye happened a day earlier, or later. or even hours from the time it did, a different genetic deal would have been the result.

 

Look up the meaning of rhetorical question.

 

Electrons do not orbit. Electrons do not spin. We know not where they're going. We know not where they've been.

 

That's not what I, or many others, infer from the bible. I infer that good is what God is, and that evil is what God is not.
The God of the bible reveals both good and evil because anything, even God, is revealed just as much by what it is not as it is by what it is.

 

I am left to believe that 'evolution' is based upon chance (random) mutations accumulating into ever increasing functional complexity. That cannot be because chance is not a creative force. The sort of complexity that defines life cannot come about by chance.

You and I diverge very early on in our beliefs. I do not believe that something can come from nothing or that chance can be a creative force. After that, we tend to agree about things like natural selection. It's where the complexity that natural selection chooses from comes from that we disagree on.

Something cannot come from nothing, and chance is not a creative force, no matter how much time you a lot them.